PIRATES

I. ENLISTMENT

The Sixties were definitely over. Tomorrow would be the last day of 1970 and I was ready to party. I had a date lined up with a girl I'd just met while failing to sell encyclopedias throughout the entire length of Pacific Beach. I was young, healthy, unattached, and unemployed - just the way I wanted it.

It was a warm sunny San Diego morning. I rose late and spent a lazy hour trying to decide how I should spend the day. My roommate Bruce and his girlfriend Martha were in the other bedroom, audibly in no hurry to be up and about. I was sitting at the kitchen table having a first joint when the phone rang.

"Hi, honey, listen to this."

"Hi, Mom. What is it?"

"An ad in the paper."

"Another job, I'll bet." She was always trying to find me gainful employment, but I knew she just wanted me to find something I'd enjoy. She'd had five years to get used to my hippie lifestyle and didn't try to talk me back into college or a career anymore. I think she envied me the freedom she'd never had in her youth in the depression.

"Well, it is in the help wanted column," she replied, "but I think you'll be interested in this one."

"Okay, shoot."

"Listen to this: 'Caribbean Sailing Adventure. Treasure-diving cooperative seeks volunteers to crew a sailing ship to the Caribbean to search for sunken treasure. No experience necessary. Call Quest International.' And it gives a local phone number."

I let the joint go out. "Well, I'll be damned," I said.

I'd always wanted to go to sea. Growing up in Ohio had given me a fascination with the sea and ships. I'd tried to get a job on a freighter, but they wouldn't talk to you if you weren't in the Seamen's Union and you couldn't get in the union without sea experience - the famous Catch-22. A job like this could be my way to break in.

"No experience necessary?" I asked. "They'll take anybody?"

"That's what it says."

"Something's fishy. It must be some kind of come-on. It'll probably end up 'involving some sales.'"

She laughed. I'd always balked at any ad with that phrase. The only one I'd tried had been the abortive encyclopedia episode, and that only because it said "Long hair no problem." The Britannica people had realized that straight Willie Loman-type salesmen didn't have a chance in the young hip communities, so they tried training hippies to sell to hippies. The problem was that hippies had no money for encyclopedias and were too mobile to want anything so bulky. Ever try to hitch-hike coast to coast with a set of the Great Books of the Western World? It was a short-lived and totally unsuccessful experiment, but I had met some cute chicks.

"It's hard to see what it could be a come-on for," she said. "It seems clear enough; it's certainly not one of those 'make a fortune in your spare time' things. In fact, it uses the word volunteer. I suppose that means you don't get paid."

"To sail a square-rigger in the tropics?" I laughed. "What do I care?"

"That's what I thought you'd say. Oh, Brian, it sounds like just what you've been looking for. I think you should give them a call."

"I sure will. I'll call them first thing Monday."

I heard her hesitate, weighing her words carefully. "You know I don't like to push you, honey, but maybe you should call today. I'll bet a lot of young people would jump at a chance like this, and there can't be that many openings on a ship like this. What if they fill the job today?"

"But I've got a date tonight."

"It's only noon. You can at least call them and get some information."

"You're right. I'll call them right now."

She read me the number and I jotted it down on a rolling paper.

"Call me after you talk to them."

"Okay, Mom. Thanks a lot. Bye."

I hung up and lit the joint again, looking at the phone number. It seemed too good to be true. Why would they even have to advertise a free cruise? Surely thousands of people would jump at a chance like that. And why wouldn't they want people with experience? Who would want an untrained crew on a sailing ship? It just didn't add up. On the other hand, it would be stupid to not even call and find out what it was about. I'd formed one guiding principle in my years of wandering: when faced with a decision about what direction to take, always take the one that's more adventurous. You can go wrong either way, of course, but at least you won't grow old wondering what would have happened if you'd taken the chance. The rule was clear on this issue. I dialed the number. A deep, growling voice answered.

"Quest International Film Guild." Film guild? First I'd heard of that.

"Uh... yes. I'm calling about an ad in the paper? Can you tell me someth..."

"You'll have to come to our office. 5250 El Cajon Boulevard, suite 252."

I jotted down the address. "It's a little difficult for me to get away right now. Could I make an appointment for Monday?"

"I'm sorry. The offer is only open today. No applications will be taken after eighteen hundred hours today."

"But can you tell me about..."

"Not over the phone. We're very busy. Everything will be explained to you at our office." They hung up.

Now I was thoroughly curious. What could it be about? I rang Mom back and told her what had happened.

"Are you going to go see them?"

"I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, sure. If it seems fishy I can always walk out, right?"

"Right. And if it is on the level, it sounds like you'd love it. It sounds very mysterious. I just want to hear what they have to say."

"Okay. I'll go out there right now. I'll let you know what happens. Bye."

"Go out where?" asked Bruce, emerging from his room as I hung up. Martha followed him, looking rumpled and sleepy.

"Morning, guys," I said, passing them the joint. "Check this out, man." I told them the story. Bruce was interested. He was a boat buff, too. He was just out of Nam, the Navy, and a marriage, and as free as I was. We'd often talked about sailing and adventuring together in the South Pacific.

"Oh, wow, that sounds great," he said. "I want to go too."

"Great. Grab something to eat and let's go."

Martha wasn't interested and begged off. Bruce and I made some toast and went out to my old battered VW bus with the stained-glass windows. Soon we were cruising down El Cajon Boulevard looking for the address. It was way out, almost to San Diego State.

"5200," said Bruce. "This is the block. Must be on the right."

"I don't see anything that looks like an office building," I said.

"There it is. Shit, it's only a motel."

I pulled into the driveway of the Aztec Motel and we entered a pink stucco faux Spanish courtyard. It was an "economy" motel, the kind you booked for your parents if they only had to spend one night and didn't care what the place looked like. Or where you took a girl if your roommate needed the apartment to himself for a special date.

"Funny place for an office," I muttered as I wheeled into a parking space. We got out and looked around. The place was nearly empty except for a half dozen ragged young people lounging on a second floor balcony. We went up. Sure enough, it was room 252. The door was open and someone was talking inside. We looked at each other, shrugged, and went in.

It was an ordinary motel room, with a pair of twin beds, an enormous swag lamp of wrought iron and thick orange glass, and a formica dresser bordered with cigarette burns. But the room had been redecorated in a nautical motif. On the wall hung a huge oil painting of a clipper ship shouldering through creaming seas. A quavering tape of sea chanteys in manly baritones emanated from the bathroom.

The furniture had been pushed up against one wall and covered with a sheet. Two folding tables had been set up. On one sat an ancient dented diving helmet of polished copper, an anchor, and a brass porthole. On the other, two large photo albums lay open. Behind this table sat three very unusual characters.

The first one reminded me of a younger Mr. Smee from Peter Pan. He was paunchy, with an acne-scarred face and a large red nose. He wore bell-bottom dungarees, a red-and-white striped tee shirt, and a red watch cap. He was talking enthusiastically with some dubious-looking hippies. The second man was also in his mid-twenties, tall and rail-thin, and wore a Navy-blue turtleneck and a Greek captain's cap. He had a dark beard, hard eyes, and a bored and superior look. But the one that caught my attention was a dapper man about forty with dark hair swept back from a pale round face, and a Hitler moustache. He was dressed, improbably enough, in a peaked cap with a gleaming black bill worn low over the eyes, a black leather aviator's jacket with the fur collar turned up dramatically around his face, a white silk cravat, black jodhpurs, and knee-high black leather boots. This strange trio were as out of place in San Diego as a snowstorm. They looked like characters from a high school melodrama about hard characters on a tramp steamer in the thirties. My heart sank. These guys looked like idiots.

Bruce and I joined the others by the table. "Mr. Smee" was flipping through one of the photo albums as he talked. The pictures all showed groups of people, mostly young guys, and all remarkably ragged and dirty. They were engaged in various activities not at all clear to me. Some were working on boats of various kinds. Others seemed to be moving wrecked cars around in a junk yard or operating heavy equipment. Others were in diving gear, floating in blue water and holding up shells. There were many shots of odd-looking characters standing grinning in front of run-down buildings. One showed a small car apparently surfing. Another showed a bright yellow amphibious military vehicle, a "duck," driving down a freeway. Nowhere did I see any square-riggers or palm trees.

"... so if you sign on with us, mates," Mr. Smee was saying, "you'll have free room and board for the rest of your life. No more living on the street. It's a rough and tumble life, but there's camaraderie and adventure and the good salt air. The food's not fancy, but good enough for a sailor man, and there's plenty of it. Nobody goes hungry, do they, Rogue?"

The thin dark one shook his head. "No." Smee shot him a look. Clearly he was hoping for a little help with his spiel, but "Rogue" wasn't about to pitch in.

"But, like, I don't get it, man," said one of the other hippies. "You say we don't get paid? Why should we work for you, then? What kind of job is that?"

"It's not a job," said Smee. "And you don't work for us. We all work together, share and share alike, just like on the old whaling ships. You'll have a share of everything we own, and any profit we make."

"But what is it you do, exactly?" asked somebody else. Clearly I wasn't the only one unclear on the concept.

"Whatever we can to make money for the trip. Right now we're mostly buying and selling military surplus."

"Like tents and canteens and stuff?"

"No. Big stuff. Trucks and bulldozers."

"Minesweepers," added Rogue finally. "PT boats. Submarines."

There was a pause as we all weighed this. This was all completely unbelievable, but I still couldn't figure out the scam.

"Submarines?" I asked with a sarcastic tone.

"Oh, diggit, man," blurted one of the dudes. "Can we go for rides?" The other kids laughed.

Rogue didn't smile. "No. We fix 'em up and sell 'em fast. We keep trading up, getting bigger and better stuff."

The third one, the one in the storm trooper costume, spoke for the first time. His voice was deep and resonant like a Shakespearean actor's. "We've been doing this for almost twenty years now," he said quietly. "At first it was little stuff. Jeeps, trucks. Then fishing boats, then yachts, then the PT boats. Bought 'em in Maine, fixed 'em up a little, sailed 'em around through the Canal. We traded them for the sub. We sold that and got enough for two minesweepers. We fixed them up and sold them and got enough to buy the Fairmorse."

"What's a Fairmorse?" I asked, that dubious tone still in my voice.

He glanced up at me, and I felt a strange shiver. His eyes were a clear blue and seemed to go right through me. There was real intelligence there, and something else I could not name - it was a look a learned man might give an ignorant savage, a perfect certainty that he was superior to all those around him. I had the impression he had sized me up in that one glance and was not impressed. I felt both repelled and strangely drawn to him. Never before had I had such a reaction to a man I knew nothing about.

"The Fairmorse is our ship," he said. "A Bluenose schooner, 147 feet overall, built for the Grand Banks."

"Where is she?"

"Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. We have a crew aboard her now, fixing her up, getting her ready. In the spring we'll send up another group. By summer she should be ready."

"Ready for what?"

"We'll take her south, to Brownsville. We're setting up a base there, with a marine railway, docks, full repair facilities, cargo handling equipment, a library, a museum."

"A museum?" asked one of the other guys. "What for?"

"The treasure."

"Treasure! What treasure?"

"Tell them about it, Don Juan."

"Spanish treasure!" said Smee, the apparently misnamed Don Juan.

"Doubloons!" exclaimed the Captain. "Pieces of eight!" I glanced over at him, half expecting to see a parrot on his shoulder. He wasn't smiling.

"Aw," said someone. "That's kid's stuff. What makes you think you can find any treasure down there?"

"Cap'n Nash knows right where it is, don't you, Cap'n?"

The older man nodded. "I've spent all my life researching the routes of the Spanish treasure fleets. I know what ships sailed when and from what port. I know exactly what they loaded, where they were bound, and the names of their officers. I've read their original letters and logs in the crypts under the Naval Library in Madrid. Spent years learning seventeenth and eighteenth century Spanish. There's some very interesting reading there. The Conquistadors shipped the gold and silver in small coasters from Peru to Panama, then across the isthmus by mule trains. They collected it there until they had enough to fill a whole fleet - six, ten, a dozen, large, heavily-armed galleons. They crammed them full of treasure, then headed for home. But not all made it. Some were hit by pirates, some sunk by hurricanes, others ran aground on unmarked reefs at night. Scores of ships lost, thousands of men. Gone, all gone. But the treasure is still there. And I know where it is. I have a map with a dozen little crosses on it. And every one is a wreck full of treasure."

"So why haven't you gone to get it?" asked one suspicious-looking kid.

The Captain looked sharply up at him, a hard disdainful light in his eye. His look said he did not talk to fools, and he's just met another one. The kid shrank back, his bravado withered. Nash turned to the rest of us.

"Because I needed a ship. You think you can go in there in a rowboat and pick up coins off the bottom? The treasure's been there four hundred years. It's buried in coral. It takes a big expedition, big money, specialized equipment, a trained crew. I could have offered my services to any of a dozen treasure salvors. But I want it to be my expedition, do it my way. I determined long ago that a cooperative was the only way I could do it. I've worked towards that gold all these years, and now we're almost there."

"We just bought the ship this year," put in Don Juan. "We've got all the diving equipment: SCUBA, hard hat, hookah rigs; and people trained to use it. We've got compressors, tanks, regulators, wetsuits, drysuits - everything we need. Most of the hard work's already done."

"So after all that hard work you're inviting us to share the treasure?" I asked. "Why? And what do the guys who've been doing all this work feel about us coming in at the end?"

Captain Nash gave me that condescending look. The corner of his mouth twitched but he said no more, as if he found me beneath his dignity.

"We need more people," said Don Juan. "We won't try to fool you. It's a hard life. We work from dawn to dusk every day of the year. It's hard physical labor, and there's no money to pay you until we get the treasure. There's no drugs, sex, or alcohol. A lot of guys can't stay the course. They fold up, they can't see that the reward is just around the corner. They run the road and have to be replaced. That's where you come in."

"So how do the shares get divvied up, if we do get the treasure?"

"Share and share alike, just like everything else. Join us today and you'll be part owner of a schooner tonight. Every man who's still there with us the day we find the treasure will get his fair share of it."

"What if we don't find any treasure?"

"We will," said the Captain. "Besides, we have other options. We have underwater cameras, lights, miles of 16 millimeter color film, editing machines. We can make a movie about the search, or do underwater nature documentaries."

"Hey," said one of the guys. "Just like Jacques Cousteau!"

"Of course," said Don Juan. "How do you think he got started? And if that fails, we still have the Fairmorse. If worse comes to worst, we can always charter it and take passengers. Lots of people would pay big money to sail the Caribbean in a classic old schooner."

Several of the kids had wandered out after the mention of working from dawn to dusk. That rattled me too, but it also had a strange appeal. I'd been reading sea stories all my life, about the constant hard work and short rations that were a sailor's lot. I had always admired those hard-as-iron oldtime sailors, and had wondered if I could have done it. Now these guys were offering me a chance to find out, and I didn't want to wimp out before I'd even tried it.

The reference to Cousteau had touched a nerve as well. I'd loved his movies and had always thought how much fun it would be to sail around like that, dreaming up adventures and then just going and doing them. Maybe this really was how he'd gotten started. I saw myself as the new Falco, the expert diver, pilot, and constant companion to Captain Cousteau. What young adventure-loving boy wouldn't jump at the chance?

Bruce and I looked at each other. I could see he was tempted, too. But we had to know a lot more first.

"You say there's a crew at the ship in Nova Scotia?" I asked. "Is that where we would be working?"

"Not at first," said Don Juan. "Some of you would go to the main base in Summerland, near Santa Barbara. Others would be at the southern base in Lemon Grove."

"Lemon Grove?" said Bruce. "That's inland from here. You have boats there?"

"No, we keep most of the military vehicles there. The boats are at anchor off Summerland. Plus we have a boatyard in Santa Barbara."

"I want to work on the ship," I said.

The third guy, Rogue, spoke up at last. "People work where they're needed. There's lots of us would rather be on the ship. But people move around a lot, too. You'll get a chance."

"I don't know anything about fixing army trucks," I complained.

"We'll train you. You'll learn mechanics, carpentry, painting, welding, shipfitting, navigation, sail handling, seamanship. We've got all the equipment and we've got people to train you. And we've got a whole library of books and manuals. You'll learn a dozen trades."

"I still want to be on the boats," I persisted.

"This isn't a democracy," said the Captain. "You'll take orders like everyone else."

I didn't like the sound of that. "Hey, wait a minute. Is this a slave labor camp or something? How do we know you'll let us go if we don't like it?"

"There are no gates and no locks. No one is under any obligation. Any time you decide you're not happy with the way things are going, you're free to leave. No questions asked."

"But," said Rogue, raising a long finger ominously, "once you leave there's no coming back. Everyone's free to run the road any time they want, but it's a one way road. No exceptions."

"So as I see it," said Bruce, "we're free to work for you seven days a week with no pay as long as we can take it, and then we're free to quit? Some deal."

"It's the same deal we all got," said Rogue. "From the Cap'n on down. If you follow orders and work hard, you're one of us - for the rest of your life if you want. No one ever gets kicked out as long as they do their job. You share in all our adventures and any profits when they come. If you leave, you take nothing away but the experience and the skills you gained."

"It's not a bad life," added Don Juan. "You'll have no worries, no problems, no decisions. No hassles with bosses, landlords, cops, or your old lady. All your room and board and clothes are supplied. You won't need anything from the outside world. And it won't need anything from you."

"And you'll feel proud of yourself," said Rogue. "Especially once you learn some trades, start developing your leadership, leading your own crew. You'll find we can do anything we put our minds to. And you won't be cooking fries in McDonald's or selling Fuller brushes door-to-door. You'll be a sailor, an adventurer, a treasure hunter."

There was a silence as we took that in. That crack about door-to-door salesmen hit home.

"What happens if we decide to do it?" I asked, "When would we start?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow?" Bruce exclaimed. "Hey, we can't just up and leave like that. We've got an apartment."

"I've got a date tomorrow night," I added. It's New Year's Eve, for chrissake."

"Okay," said Rogue with a careless gesture. "So don't show up. We won't miss you. There'll be plenty of others to take your place. Just don't come back looking for us, cause we'll be gone."

"Why does it have to be tomorrow?"

"Because that's the way we do things," said the Captain in some irritation. He had clearly had enough questions. "Here's the situation: we need some more troops. We put an ad in the paper, we rent a room for two days. People talk to us, hear our story. If they want to sign on, fine. If not, fuck 'em."

"Fuck 'em," agreed Rogue.

"So will you recruit again?"

"Can't say. If we need to. But we do it in a different city each time. Could be Seattle, could be Boston. No way for you to find out. We're not in the phonebook. Sign up tomorrow, or forget it." He sat back, clearly finished with us.

"So what happens if we do show up tomorrow?" I asked.

Don Juan spoke up again, trying to bring it back to an upbeat sales pitch. "You don't need to bring anything. You sign our crew list and go to work. That's all there is to it. It doesn't even have to be your real name. Most of the guys pick a nickname when they sign on. We're like the Foreign Legion. We don't ask questions. We don't care about your past, or who might be looking for you. We ask you to pay twenty-five bucks to cover our costs in recruiting you. Then we'll take you to one of our bases and put you to work. The first thirty days you're on probation. No shore leave, no visitors, no phone calls in or out. Oh, and one more thing," he added, eyeing my waist-length hair. "New guys get their hair cut."

"What?" I gasped. "What the hell for?"

"To demonstrate to us that you have a commitment to the group," said the Captain. "We're sick and tired of all these hippies signing on and running the road the next day. It's not worth our time and trouble. We thought it might make people think a little more before they sign on."

"What about him?" I asked, pointing at Rogue. His hair was pulled back tight and gathered into a strange, stiff-looking tail that hung down to his shoulder blades. I learned later that he rubbed tar into it, like the old sailors did, to keep it from blowing around.

"The Rogue's my first officer," said the Captain. "He's been with me for years. If you stay with us for thirty days you can grow your hair down to your toes and paint it pink for all I care. But when you sign on with us, your hair goes."

"That's not fair," I protested.

He gave me a withering look. "There's no such thing as 'fair,' boy. Fair is an idea made up by weaklings to keep stronger men from pushing them around. You don't see animals talking about fair. There's just eaters and eatees. There's no fair in nature, and there's no fair in the Pirates. If you can't live with that, don't join."

"The pirates?"

Don Juan broke in quickly with a nervous laugh. "That's what we used to call ourselves, in the old days. Now we're the Quest International Film Guild."

"Classy name," I said. "You sound more like pirates."

"We are more like pirates," said 'the Rogue' with an evil grin. We smiled uncertainly back, not sure how to take any of this. We asked a few more questions, flipped through the photo albums.

One picture struck me. It showed a massive wooden longboat coming in through a heavy surf. Six figures in peacoats and watch caps bent to their oars in unison as the bow was tilted sharply downward, thrown forward by a steaming breaker. In the sternsheets a man was, incredibly, standing up, the tiller in his hand, his eyes coolly scanning the beach ahead. Nothing in the picture was of this century. It could have been a woodcut of Captain Cook landing in Kealakekua. But it wasn't Captain Cook. It was Captain Nash. I think I knew then that I was going to do it.

Another group of guys wandered in and the trio started their spiel again. Bruce and I slipped out. As we drove home we talked about it.

"That's the damnedest job interview I've ever had," I said. "Pretty strange dudes. But it sure sounds interesting."

"Yeah. But I wonder why there's that probation period. No visitors or phone calls for a month. That seems kind of sinister. Sounds like a slave labor camp or something. And what about the hair thing? Would you cut your hair?"

"I don't know. I've gone through all sorts of shit for my hair. I've been beaten up, busted, even disowned by my father because of it. But you know, in all those arguments I was the one who kept saying that it was only a symbol, that it shouldn't matter, that it was my own personal decision."

"So you would cut it?"

"I think maybe I would. This time it would be my decision. I finally have a reason to cut it, other than just conforming."

"Man, I never thought I'd hear you say that. Your hair's like your trademark. Your folks will flip out." We drove along a few more minutes, both of us thinking about it. The more I thought about it, the more sure I was.

"What about the twenty-five bucks?" he went on. "I didn't like the sound of that, either. The whole setup could be just a scam. They could make life really tough, drive you off, and keep your money."

"Yeah, I thought of that. But frankly, I think that's what convinced me they were telling the truth. Con men would ask for more; it wouldn't be worth their trouble for twenty-five bucks. And they'd paint a rosier picture of the group. It would cost a grand at least and look like a holiday resort, not like Stalag 17."

"Maybe you're right."

"But what about the apartment? If we break the lease now we'll lose the last month's rent."

"I can't go now, man," he said. "This thing with Martha is getting hot now. It could really be a good thing. I can't just take off now. But we were thinking of talking to you today about her coming in with us on the apartment. She and I can just take the place now, so it works out okay all around. But maybe later, after things settle down a little, I'll look you up and try to join you."

"Sure, man. I'll put in a good word for you."

"Wouldn't it be great to crew on the ship together?"

"I'll say. Can you dig it, man? Sailing at night in tropical seas, the moon slanting down through the rigging of a tall ship?"

We went on fantasizing about it all the way home. I called Mom and told her all about it. She was very uneasy about the isolation of the probation period, but she agreed I didn't have much to lose by giving it a shot. I think she was impressed by my willingness to cut my hair for it. I promised to stop by and visit that evening. Then I had to call my new girlfriend and cancel our date. She was pissed, and she didn't understand when I tried to explain. I started to sound like one of those "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" westerns. I promised I would call her as soon as my probation period was over.

I spent the rest of the day organizing my affairs. There wasn't much to do. I'd only been in San Diego a few months and had few friends to say goodbye to. Since Bruce and Martha were keeping the apartment, I left most of my stuff stored there. Some of the stuff I loaded in a couple of boxes and hauled over to my parents' apartment. We had a nice dinner and evening together and they wished me luck. We exchanged our New Year's wishes.

"Well," said Mom. "This is the end of 1970. I wonder what we'll know next year at this time?" She said the same thing every year, but it struck me more this time. Where would I be at the end of 1971? On a ship in the Caribbean?

I went home late and had another little party with Bruce and Martha. We did a lot of drugs, figuring it would be at least a month before I could indulge again. Not knowing what the security would be, I had decided against trying to take any with me. Bruce promised to bring me a stash after my probation was over. We crashed late after a lot of good talk and musings about the future.

II. THE RANCH

I was up at the crack of nine, then Bruce and Martha drove me back to the motel. A motley crew of about twenty people milled around in the parking lot. We got out and joined the others. There was no sign of Don Juan, the Rogue, or Captain Nash. Room 252 was locked and empty. A bad desert landscape had replaced the nautical painting.

Most of the people were other young hippie guys, but there were one or two older men and two girls. We stood around and talked about the chances of this all being a scam. A half hour passed. Two guys walked off and left.

Finally two trucks pulled into the parking lot. The first, driven by the Rogue, was a big army stake bed, still in camouflage colors. The second was a very battered bright blue pickup with no driver's door. Don Juan got out of it, and I noticed it had no seat either. He was sitting on an orange crate.

"Right," said the Rogue, without any greeting or preamble. "You, you, you, you, and you. Throw your gear in the pickup and sit on it. You girls in the cab. All you other recruits, in the stake truck."

I was in the larger group. I hugged Bruce and Martha goodbye, threw my duffel in, and scrambled in after it. Everyone made a place for themselves on the bags. Rogue and Don Juan talked for a few minutes out of our hearing, then Don Juan came back and got in the cab. The truck started with a cloud of blue smoke, and we were off. We waved at the recruits in the pickup as it turned the other way and disappeared. Passersby stared in wonder at the sight of a bunch of hippies in the back of an army truck.

We sat in silence as we moved through the city and onto a freeway I'd never seen before.

"Anybody know where we're going?" I asked.

"We're going east," said a little guy with a big bush of curly red hair. "That's not Santa Barbara. I'll bet we're going to Lemon Grove."

"Shit. Won't be any boats there."

We rode the rest of the way in silence. Soon we were winding our way through the back streets of a dry dusty little town. We entered a canyon with high mesquite-covered hills on all sides. We bumped along on a rutted road, then pulled up to a big gate covered in barbed wire. Don Juan beeped the horn. A minute later a Mexican guy in unlaced combat boots and greasy shorts came running down to open the gate, and we drove into a compound.

There was a modest house tucked into the shade under a huge drooping pepper tree. Beyond was a large shed or barn with a corrugated iron roof. Several other outbuildings stood scattered around the compound. Most of the rest of the steep lot was covered with vehicles of every imaginable kind: cars, trucks, tow trucks, cranes, bulldozers, a couple of those huge tractors they use to push out airliners. Most of the vehicles were of makes unknown to me: a rounded little Italian Tiempo, a Russian car, an Amphicar with propellers protruding underneath. The steep hill going up behind the house had been cut into numerous terraces, each crammed with yet more vehicles. An immense pile of assorted car parts reared beside the barn, and nearly as tall.

"This is the Caribbean?" someone asked as we piled out of the truck.

Several guys appeared out of this junk yard and came down to look us over. They were a dirty, ragged bunch, dressed in tattered, grease-stained clothes. One said hi, then showed us to the bunkhouse. It was a dark plywood shack, lit by a single bare bulb hanging from the sloping ceiling. Four-high wooden bunks lined the walls, some with smelly sleeping bags, others with only thin army mattresses. There was no other furniture, unless you included a large pile of clothes piled in one corner. We looked around dubiously, threw our gear on the unoccupied bunks, and wandered out into the light. We were directed back to the main house.

It was cool and dark inside, cluttered, but not dirty. The living room was lined with books, all nautical. Signal flags hung along the walls. Several more huge photo albums were in a big bookcase. The kitchen was large but Spartan. A big screened-in verandah served as a dining room. Three bedrooms opened off the living room, but each bore a sign saying "Officers' Quarters. Off Limits."

At Don Juan's direction, we all took seats on one of the worn sofas or chairs in the living room. Don Juan stood in the center to address us. He put his hands behind his back and beamed at us, his homely face split in a wide smile.

"My name is Don Juan," he said, "but most people call me D.J. Congratulations. You're Pirates now."

"Pirates?" asked one of the guys. "What do you mean? I thought this was Quest International."

"The Group has existed for many years, with lots of different names. We call ourselves the Pirates. Hundreds of people have been members over that time. We have a long and proud history. Some of it is recorded in those albums. Up at the Base in Summerland, we have the group's archives. If you're interested, you can read some of it when you get up there. This place is called The Ranch. Mostly we work on the vehicles you see in the yard. We fix 'em up good enough to sell, then buy more. Nothing fancy. But you'll learn a lot of mechanics, body work, welding, electrical, whatever you need.

"We get up at six. Breakfast is at 0630. If you miss it, you don't eat. We work from seven till noon, have lunch, then work from one until six. We've got one hour to get everything cleaned up and put away all shipshape, then dinner is at seven. We'll have classes most evenings: seamanship, piloting, navigation, nautical terminology.

"We run our bases like ships, because we want everybody to be ready for life on the ship when we get there. That means we do things differently than you would at home. Notice that all the doors have eye hooks on them. At sea a door left unsecured can kill a man or sink a ship. Every time you go through a door, make sure it's secured, either latched closed, or hooked open. If you lave a door adrift, it's two hours of extra duty.

"The same goes for personal items. Keep your gear in your berth. Any personal stuff found lying around unattended is considered Pirate property. On the other hand, taking anything from someone else's berth is theft. Theft, going AWOL, or striking an officer will result in immediate dismissal.

"You'll each be issued a coffee cup. They're hanging on hooks in the galley. And it's a galley, not a kitchen. Pick one without a name on it. That cup is yours as long as you're a Pirate. Paint your name on it and don't lose it or break it or you'll be drinking coffee out of your hands. Your cup will be in your hand or on its hook at all times. If you left it unattended on a ship, it can come adrift, spill, and burn somebody. If your cup is found adrift, two hours extra duty.

"Now, tools. You'll find we have every kind of tool you'll need, from screwdrivers to bulldozers. Every one has its proper place to be stowed. If you take it out, it's your job to see that it's returned. If a tool is missing when we clean up at night, no one eats until it's found, even if it takes all night. Everyone will be hungry and tired and no one will be happy with the guy that kept them up all night looking for a pair of pliers. When it is found, the guy that lost it gets eight hours of extra duty."

"What if you never find it?" asked a wide-eyed kid who looked about fourteen.

"We always find it," said D.J. He held up a thick wire-bound notebook. "This is the crew list. Everybody signs it. We don't care what name you use, but whatever you write will be your name as long as you're a Pirate, so don't pick anything too stupid. Once you're signed on, you're a Seaman Recruit, with all the rights and privileges accruing thereto."

"Which are?" asked the red-headed guy.

"Absolutely none. A 'cruit is lower than whale shit. If you survive the month's probation, you'll be promoted to Seaman First Class. After that, based on how fast you learn and how hard you work, you could become a Bos'n and be put in charge of a team of 'cruits. If you do a good job and stay with it long enough, you could make Second Officer. There are eight of us Seconds in the Group right now. The Rogue is the only First officer and he runs the Summerland Base. Then there's the Chief that runs this Ranch; you'll meet him soon, and the Captain runs everything. Everybody else here right now is an officer. If they tell you to do something, say 'Aye-aye, sir,' and do it. Insubordination to an officer is twelve hours extra duty the first time, twenty-four the next."

"Then what?" asked a Japanese kid with a smile. "Twenty lashes?"

Some of the guys chuckled, but Don Juan took the question seriously. "No, we never hit a recruit. If a guy is goofing off - we call it perrodiddling, that's Spanish for fucking the dog - well, suffice it to say that we know how to make a guy feel unwelcome. If you're not cutting it here, you'll find that you really want to leave." The smiles disappeared.

"The head, that's the bathroom to you 'cruits, is off the galley where you came in. There's an outhouse up near the top of the yard, and another in those bushes by the lower bunkhouse. We've got a phone for emergencies only, but it's padlocked. Unauthorized use of the phone is twenty-four hours of extra duty. So is passing a message to someone outside. Anyone leaving the compound without permission at any time for any reason is considered to have run the road. All rights are forfeit, and he can never come back. Any Pirate who communicates with a roadrunner gets twenty-four hours extra duty. If you want to run the road, tell one of the officers. We'll escort you through the gate. It's a two mile walk to a bus stop. Any questions?"

We all looked at each other. No one said anything else.

"Right. So everybody sign the crew list, then go out in the yard and report to Jack. He'll cut your hair and assign you to a work party."

We lined up to sign the notebook. When I got there, I saw that everybody had used a pseudonym: Red Baron, Cowboy, Angel, Sansei. I thought for a minute, but couldn't think of a name I wanted to be stuck with, so I just wrote Brian. I followed Sansei, the Japanese guy, out to the yard.

They had some chairs set up in the dirt under the pepper tree and the red-headed guy, the Red Baron I assumed, was already sitting in one. A tall, hard-faced guy with bad acne scars stood behind him. I assumed this was Jack. He was bald on top, but had long stringy white-blond hair around the sides, making him look like a ghoul. He set to work on the Red Baron with a pair of scissors, and soon a pile of flaming red hair was piled around the chair. I tried not to think about it as we waited.

I looked at the Japanese guy. "I see you wrote Sansei. Is that really your name?"

He smiled. "No. It means third generation. My parents were Nisei - born here, but their parents came from Japan."

"Hi, Sansei. I'm Brian."

"Hi. That's a lot of hair you've got there. Been growing it long?"

"All my life. But it's been a while since I've cut it."

Red Baron was done. He ran his hand ruefully over his orange stubble. He looked about ten years old. Sansei was done in another minute, then I sat down, trying not to look as reluctant as I felt.

"Shit, man," growled Jack. "What a mop. I'm going to enjoy this."

I remained stoic during the operation, and in only a minute or two I had a Marine haircut. My head felt lighter and cooler.

"Okay," said Jack. "You three go on up by that dozer on the hill. Carlos is up there. See what he needs."

We wandered up a dirt road to the highest terrace. A rusty yellow bulldozer stood among a mass of wrecked trucks and other equipment. The Mexican guy who let us in was working on it.

"Uh, Seaman Recruits Red Baron, Sansei, and Brian reporting for duty," I said. He looked us over with a grin.

"Man, do you guys look different. I'm Carlos, I'm a Bos'n. This old cat blew one of its hoses. You, Red Baron, take this hose and go down to the shop. Along this side you'll find a bin full of hydraulic hoses. See if you can find one the same diameter and length as this one. You other guys, take the blade off."

"The blade? What do you mean?"

"The blade. This thing." He slapped the pusher blade on the front of the dozer. "We're going to put on the wide blade."

We stared at the immense piece of cast iron dubiously. "How?"

"Oh, man, you guys are harmless. Here, look at it. See these cotter pins here? Take them out. Then get a wrench from the shed and take those nuts off. Knock the bolts out. Do all four of them. When you've got that done, give me a yell and I'll help you change the blades." He walked off to take charge of the next shorn recruits straggling up the hill.

"Some training," I said. "But I guess we can give it a shot."

"Okay." It must have taken us an hour with hammers and visegrips to get those cotter pins out. Then we went to the shop and found a wrench big enough to fit on the nut. It was five feet long and took both of us to carry it.

We worked on those nuts the rest of the day. Carlos stopped by now and then to give us tips. We sprayed Liquid Wrench on the nuts. He showed us how to put a cheater pipe over the wrench handle to increase the torque. Then both of us climbed up on the pipe and bounced on it until the nut broke.

It was slow work, but I found it kind of fun. Each step was a new problem. Carlos knew what he was doing and could help us when we got stuck. It didn't seem to matter that it took us all day to take off four bolts. They weren't paying us, so it didn't matter how long it took.

All around us, other completely unskilled laborers were working away on various tasks. Butts were sticking out of hoods all over the compound. Four guys were dismantling an ancient fire truck for parts, then cutting up the frame with a torch. Two guys were working with Jack in the paint shed, painting some pickup trucks. It was not quality work. They masked the lights, gauges, windows, and tires, then sprayed everything else inside and out, seats and all. The only paint they had was bright royal blue in big military canisters. Carlos told me the Captain had gotten a great deal on four pallets of the paint at an auction in Port Hueneme, so for that year every vehicle we sold was bright blue.

As we worked and talked with the officers, we learned how the Pirates functioned. The Captain had over the years made himself an expert at evaluating the usefulness and value of thousands of different arcane materials, vehicles, tools, and equipment used by the military. Every month or so the government held auctions of unneeded equipment and sent notices to registered buyers. He'd wander around the equipment and submit sealed bids. Much of the stuff was going for ridiculously low prices: a pickup truck for a hundred dollars, a five-foot machine lathe for sixty. These things had cost the taxpayers thousands, of course, but the military wanted them sold quickly. Everything had to go, no matter what the loss to the government. A knowledgeable buyer could make a killing.

The rub was that the government assembled the stuff into lots which could not be broken down. If they had something they knew no one would want, they put it in a lot with something they knew would sell. This, plus the fact that the lots were made quite large, discouraged most individuals from bidding. Lots of people would like to buy a hundred dollar Jeep in good condition, but not if you had to take sixteen broken Jeeps and the left wing of a jet with it.

The Pirates' niche in this market was that their labor was free and they had lots of room to store junk. Also, time did not matter. If it took five years to turn a profit, who cared? Carlos told me of some of their more successful coups. Once a semi-trailer load of grease was offered, nine hundred ten-gallon drums. You had to buy the grease and the old beat-up trailer it was in. The Captain realized it was no ordinary grease, but was Cosmoline, a thick, exceptionally stable olive drab grease looking like military Vaseline and used to pack machinery for long storage. It was rare and very expensive. Not many people ever used it, but when someone needed it they had a hard time finding it and would happily pay $75 dollars a can for it. The Captain bought the lot for a thousand dollars, hauled the trailer out to his mother's ranch in Arizona, dug a huge hole with a bulldozer, and buried the trailer until a buyer came along. Five years later he sold it for $65,000.

Another time eleven International pickups were offered by the Air Force, most in sorry condition. The Captain got them all for five hundred and hauled them to Lemon Grove. By swapping parts from the worst trucks into the best, they eventually got eight of them fixed up enough and sold them for $1000 each. They got another running and used it themselves and sold the other two for $200 as scrap.

So it went. With each profit they were able to buy larger lots and turn them into larger profits. Now the Pirates' inventory of rolling and floating stock was impressive. They had an ad running constantly in the papers and it was a rare week when they didn't sell at least two or three vehicles from each base.

The technical expertise of the officers was impressive. Most of them knew mechanics, welding, painting, electrical work. Some had brought their skills with them, but most had picked it up since becoming Pirates. I learned that, with a few exceptions, most had been members less than a year. The principle was simple. They recruited people in large groups and put them to work at no wages. Some left as soon as they saw the work or the living conditions. Others wandered off after a few days or weeks. Maybe a third stayed at least the first month. Those that kept at it more than a few months often lasted years. The Pirates were never sorry to see someone run the road. It just meant that they had extracted that much free labor. When they needed more troops they ran an ad, rented a room, and brought in another batch. It was an ongoing process. By now thousands of people had come and gone, each contributing days or weeks or months of work.

At noon they rang a triangle and we all trooped back to the galley for lunch. The food was plain but filling, almost exclusively beans and rice. They were bought in huge hundred-pound bags in Tijuana, a truckload at a time, and one of the cook's duties was to separate out the occasional rocks, sticks, and cucarachas that found their way into the bags. The cook, as untrained as the rest of us, quickly learned the six dishes one can concoct out of rice and pinto beans. They can be served separately or together, with or without ketchup.

These uninteresting meals were eagerly awaited by the "troops" as we were called. We all seemed to be perpetually hungry, and as the meals were always "all you can eat," the quantities consumed were enormous.

At lunch we met the Chief, a tall, thin, fortyish Chicano named Art Jiminez. He'd been with the Captain since the beginning. He was a friendly, affable man, totally different from the dictatorial and humorless Captain Nash. I spent many evenings those first few weeks listening to his stories about the Pirates' history.

As I pieced it together, he and Jim Nash had been penniless friends on the waterfront of Long Beach after the war. They took any kind of work they could find, gradually picking up the skills and knowledge they would later use to train the troops. Both were determined to make a living on the sea. Eventually they saved enough to buy an old boat and set up one of the first abalone fisheries on the West Coast. At that time no Americans were eating abalone but the Japanese craved it and were paying top dollar. The two friends took their boat out to the Channel Islands and used primitive hard hat diving gear to bring up the succulent mollusks. The Chief said that in the fifties two men could bring up six to eight hundred eight-inch abs a day from the rich beds around Anacapa.

I think Chief would have been happy to spend the rest of his life as an ab diver. They owned their own boat, they were independent, they were making good money, and they were living an adventurous, open-air life with few problems. To his mind, they had made it.

Jim Nash, however, was consumed by ambition. He was a voracious reader and had a nearly photographic memory. He was a military enthusiast and had enormously detailed knowledge of the history of war. He was particularly fascinated by those few individuals who by the force of their will had dominated their ages and drawn history along in their wakes. He could tell you the minutest detail about the lives of Alexander, Napoleon, and Hitler. He particularly admired Hitler for his ability to compel obedience, though he thought him a fool as a military strategist.

Jim Nash felt himself superior to other men and he had neither interest nor patience in them. He admired leaders who could whip these sorry creatures into a nation or an army, all fanatically dedicated to working the will of their leader. He saw people as a resource to be exploited, a tool to be used by a strong and determined leader.

He didn't display the racial bigotry of a Hitler, though. There were Pirates of every race, color, and national origin. The Captain assumed all to be equally spineless until proved otherwise. He despised any liberal or humanitarian views as simply unrealistic. The world belonged to the bold, the determined, the ruthless. Democracy and justice were imaginary concepts proposed by the helpless to protect themselves from the strong, completely unworkable in the real world. He had no sympathy for weakness or indecision. I believe he never experienced a moment of doubt in his life.

Fortunately for the world, Jim Nash didn't try to form a political party or establish his own religion. But he was a naval and marine fanatic. I once heard him describe the battle of Midway, complete with its historical context and the personalities involved on both sides, and declare convincingly that that day was the pivot of the twentieth century and the direct cause of all that has followed.

His intellect and his knowledge were impressive. But that was not the source of his power. I have since read accounts by people who knew Hitler personally, and they all attempt in vain to describe the overwhelming personal aura of the man. The sheer force of his personality overwhelmed everyone who met him. Most people find that inconceivable. How could a short, unimpressive, poorly educated, rather comical-looking little man bend to his will experienced generals and political leaders, indeed an entire nation? I don't wonder at it, for I knew Jim Nash.

Whenever he and Art came in from a day of ab diving, there would always be a group of boys and young men hanging around on the docks. They were always eager to take the lines tossed to them. They would watch the unloading of the catch, admiring the diving gear, the boat, the men who led this adventurous life. I think Art and Jim loved this fawning admiration and began allowing some of the more persistent boys to help with the unloading and weighing. Some would be allowed to come aboard to rinse and clean the gear for the next day, happy to be on a boat even at this menial task.

By the late fifties, the partners were taking some of the more promising lads out to the islands with them. They taught them diving, navigation, boat handling. The boys were happy to learn and never asked for pay. They felt lucky to be so selected, and swaggered ashore, greatly admired and envied by their friends. Gradually the Pirates grew out of this strange relationship.

The phenomenon was unique to its time. The country's economy was strong. Jobs were plentiful. Large numbers of young people had the leisure to grow dissatisfied with humdrum existence. They had the time and money to hang around at the docks and watch the working men who made their living miles out at sea and well below its surface.

As the sixties began, their numbers increased. Jim and Art had regular crews they took out every day, boys who worked hard and never asked for any reward but the adventure. Jim Nash knew he had discovered a great resource to be exploited for his own ends, and the Pirates were born.

What his ends truly were I have never known. I'm not sure he knew. I think he saw himself like Captain Nemo, unquestioned lord of a secret domain, immune from the laws of nations. Above all else, he wanted to be free of the laws and bureaucracies of the little men he so despised. Working always vaguely toward that end, the Pirates entered one business after another: diving, marine salvage, military surplus, even tomato farming at one time. It didn't matter. Always there were eager volunteers ready to work for free. And always the group's resources grew. Now they owned a classic Grand Banks fishing schooner, along with two houses, a half dozen vessels, and uncounted vehicles. Jim Nash's nation was growing. And I was one of its citizens.

January passed quickly for me. The work was hard and challenging, but I found it fascinating. I knew nothing of mechanics, but every day I was learning more. I did things I never thought possible. I fixed that bulldozer and a dozen other vehicles besides. I lived in a bunkhouse with twenty other recruits and ate nothing but beans and rice. In spite of the Spartan conditions, I felt strong and healthy. So did everyone else. I can't remember any Pirate ever getting sick in the nearly two years I spent with them. For the first time in my life I felt physically competent.

Part of it was the officers' assumption that I could do something. One day Jack tossed me a set of keys and told me to go get the little bulldozer we kept up at the top of the hill. Now I hadn't a clue how to drive a bulldozer, of course. I thought he must be kidding, and said so.

"It's easy. The levers at your right hand work the blade. Try them until you see how they work. The big levers in front of you are the clutches for the tracks. The gearshift is on the left. The brakes are on the floor. The blade is the emergency brake. Raise it when you're ready to go. If it starts to get away from you, drop the blade down hard and it'll stop eventually. Try not to hit anything important."

It took me nearly thirty minutes to get that dozer down the four switchback turns to the shed, but I made it. My heart was pounding and I was shaking with fear, but I was terribly proud of myself. I felt strong and capable. For the next week or two I drove the dozer every chance I could, smoothing the roads, cutting two new terraces for more vehicles. Where else could I have gotten such an experience? A week later another green recruit got the same opportunity and he pushed the upper bunkhouse off its foundations. He washed dishes for a month but no one was very upset. Thirty of us went up there after dinner and lifted the house back onto its blocks.

The Pirates exuded confidence that they could do anything. They had a unique approach to every job. One morning we were told to move a huge winch from a marine railway, weighing several tons, up the winding dirt road to the second terrace. We tried levering it up between a forklift and the small dozer, but couldn't manage to drive up a narrow dirt road that way. So all hands were called, we lined up as close as we could all around the winch, lifted it, and simply carried it fifty yards up the road. I am no longer puzzled about how the pyramids could have been built.

At the end of my month's probation, I was promoted to Seaman First Class and allowed to make a phone call. I called my parents and asked them to come out and see the place. The next day they arrived with Bruce. They were all most amazed at my shorn head, now grown out to a good half-inch. As they went on about my changed appearance, I realized I hadn't given my hair a thought in weeks. All of us recruits looked the same, so no one made fun of me or even commented on it after the first day. Now it seemed normal. How could you work under the hood of a car with waist-length hair, anyway?

My guests also seemed taken aback at the appearance of the Ranch. "Wow, man," said Bruce. "It's like a junk yard." My mother shuddered when she saw my bunk in the squalid lower bunkhouse.

I saw the place with their eyes. Ragged, dirty boys working on broken-down vehicles; a huge dusty oil-stained yard full of wrecked trucks; a cluster of ramshackle sheds; a clapboard house. But to my eye it was all neat and orderly. My clothes were neatly folded in my berth. Every tool was in its proper place on the pegboards in the shed. The bins of car parts were all neatly sorted and labeled, everything easy to find. Every coffee mug was on its hook, every door latched back. Nothing was adrift anywhere. The Pirates were not clean, but they were orderly.

When Mom and Dad saw how happy I was, and how confident and capable I felt, they warmed to the Pirates. The troops were all friendly and polite. I was obviously accepted and well-liked, and everyone was pleased to have someone from Outside to talk to. They stayed for lunch (beans and rice with ketchup and even onions for the special occasion), and were utterly charmed by the witty and talkative Chief.

After that first visit, they came by every week or so, each time with a bag of fresh fruit or potatoes or a collection of used paperbacks. They became great favorites with the troops and my mother was nominated an Honorary Pirate.

The weeks passed. Recruits came and went, though a higher-than-usual percentage of my "class" stayed on. My closest friends were all of that same group: Red Baron, usually known as "Baron", Sansei, and a Chicano guy, Juan. Usually a class would be twenty-five to thirty guys. One or two would refuse to get on the truck, five or six more would leave when they heard the "articles," as the rules were known. One or two would leave every day for the first week or two. Perhaps eight would survive the probation period. Then the rate would go down to one roadrunner every other week. Most classes would have one or two who went on to stay a year or more, but there were many classes with no survivors after two months.

They Pirates didn't care when someone ran the road. They kept their fees and the fruits of their labors. It cost next to nothing to bring in the next bunch. The usual comment as they watched some dejected or angry figure disappear down the road toward civilization was, "There's always more 'cruits." As I came to identify with the Pirates and their ends, I saw the very hardships and discomforts of Pirate life as a necessary winnowing, the only way to find the few people who would be right for the Pirates.

By March I had been promoted to Bos'n and was well used to the Pirate lifestyle. Recruits continued to come and go, but Red Baron and Sansei and Juan were still there from my class and we were all good friends. We were each leading work gangs, showing the 'cruits what to do. I found I enjoyed leadership, and especially training the new recruits. I read hundreds of books from the Pirate library and became steeped in nautical lore. I started giving evening classes in nautical terminology and the parts of a ship.

In April Rogue came down from Summerland with a half dozen troops. One of the guys had been in the same recruiting class with Baron, Sansei, Juan, and me. We pumped him about what it was like at the Base. We learned it was very different from the Ranch. For one thing, the Base was a big three-story house with an ocean view, and the Captain, Rogue, and the Captain's girlfriend lived on the top floor. For another, experienced troops sometimes got permission to go into town in the evenings, something that never happened at the Ranch. And they had boats. There were three Pirate vessels more or less permanently moored off the Summerland Base, plus several more in a boatyard in Santa Barbara. Clearly, the Base was closer to the center of things. I determined to try to get myself transferred up there.

After dinner, Rogue told us about happenings up north. Two of the larger boats had recently been sold, and together with a few good months of sales from the Ranch, the cash flow had improved. The Captain had bought a large bus and the northern troops had just about finished fixing it up. It was basically a travelling Pirate base, with eighteen bunks, a galley and head, and a huge amount of cargo space. I was trying to visualize how a bus so fitted out could still carry cargo, but I knew better than to doubt. When ready, this bus and another would be used to begin ferrying the troops and the tons of supplies and equipment to the ship in Nova Scotia.

The new directive was to begin consolidating the California holdings preparatory to moving the whole operation to the new base in Brownsville where the ship would be based. The Chief was to make every effort to sell off everything he could. All new recruits from now on would be shipped to the Ranch to help with the work. By summer they hoped to clear the place out and sell the land. By next year they'd sell the Summerland base and we'd be in the Caribbean.

This was heady stuff. We certainly hadn't forgotten the Fairmorse up there in Nova Scotia, but it had seemed impossibly distant and unattainable. Now spring was coming and soon troops would be heading out to ready the ship for sailing. The best news for me was yet to come. Rogue said that the more experienced troops would be transferred to Summerland to sell the remaining boats and ready the buses. All of us from my class would be leaving in the morning! There were high fives all around. The younger troops looked on enviously.

The next day we piled in the back of the stake truck along with our gear and a ton or so of rice and beans, and several crates of Alas cigarettes, the appropriately-named Mexican cigarettes the Pirates supplied to the troops. We said farewell to the Chief and headed north.

We got many startled stares from the "civilians" on the road - fifteen ragged hard-looking young men in the back of a stake truck still in its camouflage colors. I'm sure we looked like revolutionaries on the way to some terrorist action. We were Pirates enough by now to enjoy the effect. We were off on a new adventure, and felt ready for anything.

III. THE BASE

The trip was long and windy, but exhilarating. For most of us it was the first time out of the compound for three months. The world seemed immense after all that time hemmed between the hills in Lemon Grove. We rolled along I-5, the blue expanse of the Pacific on our left. We waved and whistled like idiots at the girls in the passing cars. These were the heydays of miniskirts and a glorious era for men in high trucks.

Four hours later we rolled into the outskirts of Summerland and turned off highway 101 onto a suburban street climbing steeply above the sea. It was a pretty area of nice homes set among large trees. Nothing could be less like dusty run-down Lemon Grove. Soon we pulled in at a house shielded by huge eucalyptus trees. The yard was clearly Piratical. A large school bus was set into the hillside, buried nearly to the windows on the uphill side. Several other vehicles rusted in the yard amid piles of engine parts. Parked on the street below the house was a huge Greyhound bus. Everything in the yard, including the house and all the vehicles, was covered in the detritus from the gum trees - a blanket of leaves, gum nuts, and dried flowers in a soft blanket half a foot thick, softening all angles and giving it an aura of benign neglect, like a Mayan city disappearing back into the jungle.

We clambered out and entered the house on the uphill side, on the second floor. Like the house at The Ranch, its interior was painted bilious green with maroon trim. I learned later that these colors, known as Pirate Red and Dysentery Green, were specified by the Captain himself for all Pirate houses. He had gotten a lot of this paint cheap. But while the colors were familiar, the atmosphere was very different.

The third floor, known as the Quarterdeck, was off limits to everyone except the Rogue, the Captain, and his very pretty Chicana girlfriend Vera. Even the Second Officers never went up there to my knowledge. In the six months I lived at that house, I never set foot in the Quarterdeck.

The main floor consisted of the galley with its long dining table, the head, a library/archives room lined with a wonderful nautical book collection, and the common room. The walls of the common room were hung with a formidable array of weapons, from cutlasses to some very modern and scary-looking automatic weapons. Pictures and memorabilia of past adventures filled the room. A TV was in one corner, an unheard-of luxury at the Ranch.

The ground floor consisted of the yard head (a small toilet for use by those working in the yard), a garage containing all the tools and power equipment, and two tiny bedrooms for officers. The crew's quarters were in the buried bus, which incredibly enough contained twenty-eight bunks stacked four-high.

We moved our gear in and went up for dinner. The food was definitely better here. There was powdered milk, butter, and even canned fruit cocktail, all labeled as U.S. Government Commodities. I assumed it was military surplus, like everything else. The Captain never ate with the troops, but dined upstairs with Vera - on lobster and champagne, we imagined, though we never saw any evidence of it. Indeed we saw little of the Captain at all, and his orders were always relayed to us by Rogue.

The rules and routine were much the same as at the Ranch, though Rogue ran a tighter ship than the Chief. Rogue was a sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued man of about twenty-five. He had been in the group more than two years and had risen to his position by his iron will and his loyalty. He had taken the Captain's teachings to heart and believed that the way to train recruits and to achieve our goals was to drive the men to their limits, physically and psychologically. Those who couldn't take it would leave, and the ones that survived would be the stronger for it. He had no sympathy for slackers or whiners, both of which we saw a lot of as eighteen-year-old hippies, fresh from dropping out of school, encountered hard work and strict discipline for the first time in their lives.

Rogue was a great believer in discipline. I never saw him (or any other Pirate) strike one of the troops, but I winced many times as I watched him reduce some poor terrified kid to tears with a verbal dressing down. Contempt dripped from his barbed sarcasms, and when truly angry he could be terrifying. He also handed out onerous extra duty hours with a casual wave. Still, if you worked hard and followed orders without complaining, he treated you with some respect. I came to like and trust him. I believe he liked me, though he would never have said anything about it. Still, I tried hard to avoid his displeasure.

But as careful as I was, like everyone else I occasionally made some mistake and incurred extra duty hours. These extra hours could be a real burden. When you rise at six and work until after dark, then have an hour or two of required classes in the evening, it is disheartening in the extreme to have to spend two more hours washing floors, sweeping the yard, or scrubbing the heads. I know, I worked enough of them myself. If I had a lot of hours, I would try to work them off as quickly as I could, though it often meant working eighteen or more hours every day of the week.

One of the major differences about Summerland was that shore leave was occasionally permitted. No one ever left the Ranch, perhaps because it was a long walk to town and who wanted to go to Lemon Grove anyway? But we privileged few who were no longer recruits could now apply, at Rogue's discretion, for shore leave. I well remember the exhilaration of walking down the hill to the freeway one night, a free man for the first time in six months, free to do whatever I wanted until reveille the next morning.

The problem of course, was that I had no clothes but my grubby work clothes and had not a dollar to my name. Nevertheless, with dreams of love, or at least cheeseburgers, I hitch-hiked the three miles into Santa Barbara to see the bright lights. Santa Barbara was not famed for its night life, especially its free night life. I ended up spending the night folk-dancing at a local junior college. It wasn't thrill-packed adventure, but I was talking to, and even occasionally touching, live women. I would leave the wild sexual adventures to be related when I got back.

These outings became the highlights of my life at Summerland. Once when I was hitch-hiking into Santa Barbara I was picked up by a beautiful girl in skin-tight jeans and an American flag tee-shirt over no bra. Fantasies flying, I jumped in with her. We struck up a friendly conversation. She said she was going to a party at UCSB, and invited me to come along. She drove through Santa Barbara and miles beyond, to a large mansion full of students. I took it to be a fraternity house, though I never learned any more about it. The drinks were free, so I partook heavily and it went straight to my head after so many months of abstinence.

I thought I was being perfectly charming, but my goddess clearly thought otherwise and took up with a beefy, no-neck, Rugby type. I was as out of place at this fashionable party as a fart in church, and after an hour or two I found the girl and asked her when she planned to leave. She said she'd decided to go off with no-neck and I'd have to find my own way home. This at one AM and at least ten miles from Summerland. I thanked her profusely for her kindness and set out walking. I have a clear image of her standing in the brightly lit doorway, screaming "I'm sorry" while the Neanderthal stood there with his sweaty arm around her lovely waist.

It was a good thing I was so drunk, because it took me five hours to walk home along unknown streets. The trip remains hazy, but I do remember walking along a pipe suspended high above the beach somewhere in Santa Barbara. I stumbled into the yard just as the speakers mounted in the trees started blaring out our traditional wake-up music: Burl Ives droning out sea chanteys. I went straight in to breakfast and work.

Other outings were more successful. One time Bruce and Martha drove up in my old VW bus and we went out for a night on the town. We had a very heavy smoke and lay in the car and talked all night. They were solidly together now and seemed very happy. But I found I wasn't very interested in the usual talk of drug deals and Vietnam, new records and new bands, and who was sleeping with whom. I rattled on about the Pirates until Martha fell asleep. I could see that Bruce was still intrigued, but he wasn't ready. He'd gotten a job on a fishing boat and wanted to see where that would lead. We ended up all sleeping in the bus outside the Pirate compound.

Work at Summerland was much the same as it had been at the Ranch, although the ocean views and air were infinitely more pleasant than the dry dust of Lemon Grove. Then, too, there were the boats. The small fleet that had been moored off Summerland for so long were now reduced to two. One, a forty-foot albacore boat called the Sea Witch, we soon moved to the boatyard in Santa Barbara.

The remaining boat was a Marine surplus landing craft known as the R-boat (for ramp boat). It was about thirty feet long, shaped like a shoe box, and had a large square bow ramp that could be lowered to a few inches above the water. It had been decked over and had a small cabin. It was not lovely, but it made a superb dive boat. The compressors and tanks were kept inside the bow. When the ramp was lowered, divers could step right from a level platform into the sea. The Captain often talked of taking the crew out to the Channel Islands to show us how to dive for abalone, but it never happened. The closest I ever came to diving was being the demo dummy in one of the evening classes on diving gear.

One of our regular duties was to go out to the R-boat every day, pump her bilges, top up the batteries, start the engines, and scrub off the sea gull poop that had accumulated. This involved loading a very heavy twelve-foot dory on a flatbed truck, driving down to the beach, launching the boat, and rowing out through the sometimes heavy surf with the boat full of boxes of tools and spare parts.

My first time out I went with Jack, the Second Officer I had worked with at the Ranch. He and I didn't like each other. He was a skilled mechanic and carpenter, but a stupid and cruel man, an officious martinet. He enjoyed harassing those under him, and had taken a particular dislike to me. I think he sensed my lack of respect for him. I knew better than to talk back to him directly, but on several occasions uncomplimentary things I had said about him had reached his ears. Now he directed most of his petty hostility toward me, and he found every possible opportunity to do me dirt and assign me extra hours. I hate to think how many weeks of useless, menial tasks I did simply because that jerk loved to piss me off.

That first trip out to the R-boat, Jack rowed. When we reached the boat he clambered aboard and I heaved up the huge tool box. While he was down below working on the engine, I pumped the bilges and checked the anchor rode. Then it was time to wash the boat. He passed up a bucket on a rope, and I began dipping up seawater and scrubbing off the guano with a broom. The whole time Jack kept up a tirade about my personality, skills, intelligence, and ancestry. Each time I threw a bucket of water I imagined dumping it on his shiny bald head.

Still grinding my teeth in angry silence, I dipped up another bucket of water and started forward along the port side, on the narrow deck beside the cabin. Then a larger-than-usual sea tilted the boat to port. Walking as I was with a full bucket in my left hand, I listed slowly to port, toward the sea. I reached out to grab hold of something, but there were no grab rails along the edge of the cabin, just a smooth rounded wooden surface. I scrabbled wildly at it, but there was nothing to grab. For at least a half a minute I stood balanced on the edge of the boat, knowing that I was about to fall. I could have dropped the bucket and thrown myself across the cabin, but I was well aware that losing Pirate property was an offense punishable by at least a month's extra duty, and Jack would love nothing better than the excuse. Determined not to give him that pleasure, I ever-so-slowly toppled over the side.

The water in the Santa Barbara Channel is never warm, and in March is positively frigid. It felt like fire all over my skin, but I didn't cry out - nor did I let go of the bucket. Jack was working aft, so I swam around to the anchor chain and shinnied up it, the bucket painter in my teeth. If you've never tried climbing an anchor chain, you won't know what I mean. Suffice it to say it's harder than it looks, and it looks hard.

I dragged myself aboard, stripped, dried myself off, wrung out my clothes as best I could, put them on again, and continued scrubbing the boat, my teeth chattering like castanets. I hoped Jack would be busy long enough for my clothes to dry. An hour later he came out on deck and looked at me.

"You're all wet."

"Yessir," I said. "I got a little sloppy with the bucket."

"You asshole. Eight hours extra duty for being such a clumsy bastard."

In spite of this initial visit, I liked the R-boat. Not everyone was anxious to do R-boat duty, but I volunteered every chance I could. At least I was outside the compound and on the water, messing around with boats. This was why I had joined the Pirates in the first place. I also figured that the handier I was with boats, the more likely I would be chosen to be sent to the ship.

So every other day or so I found myself in a huge heavy wooden boat, pulling madly at oars longer than I, trying desperately to keep the bow into the waves before the next breaker capsized me. I knew nothing about rowing, but it was the Pirate way to let a man learn by trying, no matter how long it took.

As often as not, I arrived at the R-boat half-submerged and spent twenty minutes bailing out the dory, but gradually I got the hang of handling it and could take it out alone in all but the worst conditions. The winter storms that rip through the Santa Barbara channel occasionally throw up some awe-inspiring surf on the south-facing coast.

One such day Rogue stood at the galley window after breakfast, gazing out at the whitecaps stretching away to the line of oil rigs on the horizon, like giants slowly emigrating to Japan. I had become accepted as the best at getting the dory out in rough conditions, and I swelled with pride when Rogue asked me if I thought I could take it out that day. I wasn't about to be cautious when I had such a chance of proving my Piratical bravado and skills.

"I wouldn't want to see anyone else try it, but I could do it," I heard myself saying with considerably more confidence than I felt.

"Right. We have the new cylinder head back from the shop and I want it on by tomorrow. Take four of the 'cruits and load the dory."

I hurried down to the yard. I soon had a work party together, the dory loaded onto the flatbed, and I drove us down under the railroad trestle to the beach.

It was late in the spring now, and there were people strolling on the beach. I enjoyed the sensation we made as we drove our noisy little utility vehicle out onto the sand. The Piratical way to do things in public was to ignore the stares of the yokels and just do our job with confidence and aplomb as if the staring crowds didn't exist. I always tried to give the impression that it really was the nineteenth century and that the startled observers were the anachronism, not us. It was great fun.

On this trip I had taken four new recruits just arrived the day before, so they had never seen a surf launch. I directed them in unloading the dory and carrying it down to the surf. They looked startled and reluctant when I told them to wade out into the water, but they followed orders. They stood there chest deep, holding the dory while I loaded it with the two huge rubber bags containing the mechanics tools and the new cylinder head for the engine. I threw in the oars and clambered in.

"Take the flatbed back to Base and wait for my signal," I told the oldest-looking recruit as I shipped the oars. I trusted that he would eventually figure out the tricks of driving the little truck, with its six straight-cut gears and rear-wheel steering.

Leaving them staring after me in wonder, I leaned on the oars and drove the dory as hard as I could straight into the first breaker. The bow flew skyward as white water enveloped me. I was just thinking what a heroic figure I must make to the admiring eyes ashore, when I realized the bow wasn't plummeting down the back of the wave. In fact it was still going up. I realized that I had caught the wave perfectly for surfing and was now hurtling back toward the beach. The bow continued to rise until it was nearly vertical. I found myself staring straight down past the transom at hard dry sand. Then things rapidly became confusing. I was flying, then swimming, then bouncing on the sand in swirling sandy water.

The wave left me lying on the sand, but everything was dark. At first I thought I was either unconscious or dead. Then I realized I was under the capsized dory. Its bow and stern were driven into the sand and I was in some danger of drowning as the surf slammed me back and forth inside the swamped boat.

"Get me out of here, you damned fools," I roared, and saw the legs of the recruits gather around the boat. It's difficult to direct a rescue such as this from under a boat, especially with each wave washing all the rescuers away, but eventually I managed to get all of them lifting on the same side and I crawled out from beneath the dory. We dragged it unceremoniously to shore and righted it.

The waterproof bags were of course missing. Knowing that losing so much as a socket wrench could cost me eight hours, I could see every free hour for the rest of my life floating away with the outgoing tide. I shouted to the recruits to find the bags and plunged back into the surf.

Not quite as motivated as I, they wandered along in knee-deep water, idly scanning the sand as I plunged and blew like a dolphin out in the deeper water. Eventually, however, both bags were located further down the beach, stranded by the tide. In true Piratical spirit, I did manage to get out to the R-boat that day and installed the new head.

I was the butt of many jokes about that venture, but I think my stock went up in the officers' eyes because I got the job done anyway. Not long after that, I was promoted to Second Officer, ending for a time the constant harassment by my nemesis, Jack, who was also a Number Two.

One of the attractions of being at Summerland was that there were women there. Besides Vera, the Captain's unthinkably off-limits squeeze, there were two Seapersons First Class. They were as different in appearance as possible. Tokay was a short brunette with an innocent little-girl look and a shy manner. She had what the lingerie ads call a "full figure," quite round and busty. The other, Gina, was tall, blonde, and as thin and flat-chested as an ironing board. In spite of her androgynous figure, she was blessed with a dirty mind and the sex drive of, well, of a male Pirate. She was always teasing and flirting and telling dirty jokes.

As different as these two were, they became good friends, which was lucky as they shared one tiny room in the house. They were both assigned domestic duties - cooking, laundry, and cleaning - and complained bitterly about unfair sexist role-typing. Their complaints elicited the usual response: there's no such thing as fair.

Having the girls in the house all day made it a place of intrigue and mystery. The house was off limits during working hours, but the guys in the yard would dream up any excuse to have to go inside. The only good excuse I could ever come up with was to go in to consult the immense collection of Chilton's auto manuals in the library. These could not be taken into the yard, so as Second Officer, I made it my special responsibility to consult the manuals whenever required.

Gina would give me a wicked grin when I came up the stairs. Tokay would stand guard while Gina and I consulted the manuals together. Whatever else went on, of course, I had to return with the correct answers from the manuals, so we usually did it standing up while I read the manual over her shoulder. Fortunately, Gina was a primal woman, not needing the romantic preliminaries. It was great fun, but I still get aroused when I see an exploded diagram of a slant-six engine.

One of the jobs I liked least at Summerland was the putt-putt detail. Putt-putt was the Pirates' catch-all term for any small internal combustion engine, and they had hundreds of them - everything from lawn-mowers to cement mixers. One area of the yard was a huge heap of broken engines and assorted parts, and if nothing more pressing was required, we were detailed off to try to get a few working. I found it frustrating work, but some of the guys became experts at cannibalizing parts and getting them running. Most of the more colorful swearing could usually be heard from the putt-putt pile, but also many a cheer when some long-dead machine roared back to life.

The putt-putt pile was taller than a man and wide and heavy to match; a particularly dreaded punishment was to be ordered to sweep under it. It took a full day.

The other unpleasant job was boatyard duty. The boatyard was little more than a crowded marine junkyard in a tough warehouse district in Santa Barbara. The front gate of the boatyard was marked only by a hand-lettered sign reading "Caribbean." I assumed that some long-gone recruit had done it, figuring it was the closest he was ever going to get to the Caribbean with this outfit.

By the Captain's orders, the boatyard was never to be unguarded day or night; so someone had to be there, chipping paint all day and serving as unarmed night watchman all night. The facilities were primitive even by Pirate standards: a four-by-six plywood shack for a house and a post-hole digger in the yard for a bathroom. The food was even worse. The Pirates had a long-standing contract with an industrial catering company. We steam-cleaned their trucks and in return every morning they dropped off a box of day-old packaged burritos at the boatyard. These stale and rubbery items, eaten cold, were the entire diet of the lucky man on boatyard duty.

Unable to stand the smells and vermin in the shack, I spent many of my nights high up on the flying bridge of the forty-foot albacore boat Sea Witch, imagining myself at the helm of a ship at sea.

Our enforced celibacy was a constant source of frustration and the most often cited reason for guys running the road. It did provide one amusing episode, however. One night as I slept in the buried school bus with twenty other guys, I was awakened by a gentle shaking of my bunk. I assumed that one of the other guys in the bunk was relieving his sexual tensions. We had all become adepts at doing this in the dark without disturbing the others. I figured this guy was just getting a little carried away. I lay there, politely waiting for him to finish so I could go back to sleep. But he went on and on, until the whole bus was rocking. Still no one else seemed to be awake or to have noticed the commotion. Finally there came a voice from the dark: "Is one of you guys jerking off, or is this an earthquake?" It turned out to be a heavily damaging temblor in San Sylmar. We must have been the only people in central California who were awakened by it and pretended to be asleep through the whole thing.

As rough and ramshackle as nearly all Pirate property was, they did have an excellent set of tools. Everything you could possibly need was available; tools for mechanics, carpentry, welding, and painting. The tools were kept in the shop under the house, and each one had a specific place. Every hand tool, down to the smallest screwdriver, had a labeled spot on the peg board that lined three walls. Each power tool was numbered and had to be checked out and returned through an officer.

At quitting time in the evening, every tool had to be cleaned, oiled, and returned to its proper place before anyone could go in to dinner. Paint brushes were carefully examined by one of the officers, and if he could tell what color paint had been used, the recruit had to clean it again.

One night when all the tools had been returned, a 12mm socket was missing from the board. Now this is a very small tool, worth about twenty cents in a second-hand store. But no one was allowed to go up to dinner until it was located. Grumbling, all thirty of us were turned back out into the yard to find that socket.

Twilight was falling, and everyone was tired and hungry after ten hours of hard work. The yard was a big place filled with a dozen vehicles, several outbuildings, and numerous miscellaneous heaps such as the putt-putt pile, the tire pile, the battery pile, and so on. The ground had been worn by so many feet for so many years that it was covered with two inches of flour-like dust that could swallow a wrench without a trace.

We checked all the obvious places first, then the unlikely places, then the impossible places. Some of the guys rigged a strainer box and started sifting all the yard dirt. By now it was fully dark. Gasoline-powered construction lights were set up in the corners of the yard. Four 'cruits sat at the putt-putt pile, picking up each engine, shaking it upside down, and placing it in a new pile. Feet were sticking out from under every vehicle, as guys ran their hands along each piece of the undercarriages. We went through that place as if we had lost the Hope diamond.

Finally at midnight, Rogue called off the search. The assumption was that one of the guys had long since discovered where he had left the socket and, unwilling to take the heat, had thrown it as far out of the yard as he could. The issue was resolved by assigning twelve hours of extra duty to every man jack there. We sat down to congealed beans and rice at one AM, and staggered off to bed at two, dreading the rousing choruses of Burl Ives bellowing Blow the Man Down at six. As far as I know, this was the only time one of these searches was ever abandoned.

One day at breakfast it was announced that we were going on a field trip. This was great. Not only a break in the monotony of seven-day weeks, but a chance to go somewhere. The Captain had often said someday we'd take one of the boats out to the Channel Islands for some abalone diving. Was this it?

Our hopes were soon crushed. It turned out that the "commodities" we were eating were not surplus, but were welfare allotments. When supplies ran low, all hands turned out and did the tour of all the regional welfare offices. We were to present ourselves one at a time and ask for food for our large families.

I and several others objected immediately. The Pirates bent every paragraph in the statutory codes every day, but this was outright fraud. Who would believe us? What would happen if we were caught?

We were assured by the Captain and the older hands that there was nothing to fear. They'd been doing it for years. This was the era of Johnson's Great Society - everyone was on welfare. It was surplus food, overproduced by subsidized grain and dairy industries. The government wanted you to take it.

Many of the troops had been more or less living on welfare commodities in the outside world, and everyone said it was as easy as could be. We'd be in and out of the office in five minutes. They never checked on your statements. Then you picked up your food and left.

It sounded easy enough, and I was Pirate enough by now to be up for a shady adventure. Besides, we were given no choice. So we all piled into the back of the biggest stake truck and drove off to the Santa Maria Welfare Office. The place looked like a DMV office, with lots of windows and hundreds of people in long motionless lines. We joined them, and after a wait I was ushered into an office to be interviewed. The clerk was a young woman not much older than I, and I was wracked with guilt as I poured out my false name, address, and the names of my six lovely kids. She looked mildly dubious, but was tediously bureaucratic as we filled out the forms together. She told me I could pick up the food out back.

Easy as that! Elated at my success, I rejoined the guys. Not one had been hassled. We drove the truck around to the loading dock and loaded the food for our hundred kids, and were on our way in an hour. We drove to Oxnard and did the same thing. If the guys on the loading dock thought it strange that the truck was already half full of commodities when they started loading, they didn't say anything. We got back to the Base in late afternoon with enough food for all of us for six months.

My assignment for a month or two was to get the Great White working. This was a huge forty-four passenger city bus built by the White Motor Company, intended to accompany the Pirate bus on trips to Nova Scotia. It was powered by an immense "pancake 12" gasoline engine under the floorboards. It leaked oil, gas, water, and compression and could never get more than 1 mile per gallon. It had no gas tank - legend said that it had been blown over the house by a troop attempting to weld a leak. To work on the engine I had to take up the floorboards, remove fifty-six extremely tight bolts, and rig a rolling crane and a chain hoist to lift off the eight-foot-long intake manifold. I gave it a valve job and replaced the rings and bearings, which required spending many days crawling in the gravel underneath the bus. All this without a shred of knowledge or experience except what I could pick up from the other guys.

Each time I put the thing together I would invariably shear off one or two of the head bolts, requiring long hours of drilling out the bolts, pulling them with the mis-named EZ-Outs, and re-tapping the holes, working with a heavy electric drill directly over my face. Every week or so I would put it together and take it out for a spin. Two or three of us would thunder down highway 101 followed by an immense cloud of blue smoke and many puzzled stares. We had a five-gallon can rigged up like an IV to drip fuel into the carb, but we never made it further than the next exit before we had to come back and wheeze up the hill to the house. Then I'd strip it all down and start over again.

The only thing I did like about the "Fucking White," as it was known, was that occasionally Gina would slip away from the kitchen and we'd spend an uncomfortable fifteen minutes screwing in the gravel under the bus. I was unchivalrous enough to let her be on the bottom in the gravel, but she never complained. She was just as horny as I, and seemed to delight in doing it right in the yard, directly under the Captain's window. Sometimes Tokay came down to watch us and stand guard.

One morning as I was pulling the manifold for about the sixth time, a suit I didn't know climbed into the bus. He was as clean and un-Piratical as anybody I'd seen in a long time. I figured he was a customer here to buy a vehicle. I got up and smiled at him, ready to direct him up to the house. He didn't smile back. I saw his eyes flick to the electric drill in my hand, like he thought I was about to draw on him. His hand went to his coat. He whipped out a wallet and flipped it open, showing me a badge.

"Sheriff's Office." he said. "You're under arrest. Come with me."

"Okay, but I have to put this drill away first."

"Leave it."

"Are you kidding? If I leave this drill adrift the Captain will have my hide."

"I'll put it away for you, kid. Move it." Against every Piratical instinct, I put down the drill and was led up to the house.

The place was crawling with cops. The troops were milling around in confusion, surrounded by at least a dozen armed guards. Scores more were examining every item in the place. Four guys were loading the commodities food onto a truck. A line of cops was carrying out boxes of files and documents from the house. The Captain, Rogue, and Vera were being questioned in the driveway.

We had become so accustomed to our life there that nothing seemed unusual. But as we watched these strangers going through the place, we started to see it though their eyes. Just why did we have all those automatic weapons? Why did we need an armored halftrack? Why did twenty-four men live in a buried school bus? And why were we all so damned dirty?

I watched the Captain. He looked so out of place standing in the hot sun, surrounded by cops and suits. He didn't even have on his peaked cap. He had always seemed so aloof and superior, sneering and disdainful of anyone lesser than he. I wondered how he was going to deal with these jerks.

In the end of course, he did what sensible people do when faced with large numbers of armed men - whatever they told him to do. He and Rogue and Vera were put into a car and driven off. The rest of us were loaded into a couple of Black Mariahs and whisked off to Ventura County Jail.

At the jail the girls were led away. We were booked, stripped and bathed, issued bright orange jail coveralls, and admitted to a single large holding tank. I figured we were goners. It would be hard to deny a semi-truckload of food at the house, and equally hard to produce the two hundred kids we'd claimed - certainly not in the time provided. What to do? I did what I always did when confronted with serious trouble. I called on a higher authority. I used my government-issued dime to call Mom.

My parents drove up the next day. Mom was by now the unofficial den mother for the Pirates, renowned at both bases for her frequent deliveries of goodies and her friendly acceptance of our strange ways. In the nearly two years I was with the Pirates, I don't believe another parent ever visited anybody else, let alone have lunch and swap stories with the troops. I think even the Captain looked forward to her visits. Now she was here to see that the authorities didn't mess with her Pirates.

There was nothing anyone could do until we were arraigned the next day. That was a show. They apparently thought we were lunatic terrorists or something, because we were put in leg irons and handcuffs and were chained together to be taken into court. We looked ridiculous, of course, and no one can walk around in leg irons without stumbling, shuffling, and looking like a very dangerous character. Mom and Dad sat in the court. I'm sure they were shocked as we were led in, but they waved bravely. Half a dozen of the guys yelled, "Hi, Mom."

Then the girls were led in. They looked scrubbed and shapeless in their baggy jail dresses, but they waved cheerily when they saw us. Gina gave me a lecherous wink and flashed me some leg. Then the judge came in and we all sat down.

They started by reading the names of the accused with the charges against each one. This took a long time, because there were a lot of us and we had a lot of names. As each name was read we all looked around to see who they might be talking about. None of us knew each other's real names, of course.

"Michael Craig Jennings, also known as The Rogue," droned the clerk. "Presenting a fraudulent claim, unlawfully taking county property, receiving stolen goods, and conspiracy. James Adelburt Hauser, also known as Fidel, presenting a fraudulent..." Fidel hung his head in shame to a few low whistles. I mean, Adelburt? The names droned on.

"Gerald Alan Jackson, also known as Jack. Gary Arthur Niwa, also known as Sansei. Josephine Tait, also known as Tokay..."

I'd never realized how suspicious and silly our Pirate names would sound when read in court. Surely anyone with an alias must be guilty of something. I was suddenly glad I'd never taken a Pirate name.

"Brian Kenneth Crawford, also known as Brian." Hey, could they do that? I'm not also known as Brian. I am Brian. Perhaps I could file for a mistrial?

The facts were soon told and we were promptly arraigned. Trial was to be in two days. Bail was set and my parents agreed to bail me out, but I decided to wait in jail with the others. Not one of them could post bail, and it seemed disloyal to stay in a motel while they were all in the slammer.

The jail stay was interesting and educational, as always. For one thing, it gave me a chance to talk with the Captain. He was having trouble trying to maintain his dignity and his distance in jail. There's nothing better for taking a guy down a peg than dressing him up in silly orange coveralls and making him take his dumps in front of twenty other guys.

By the second day he had recovered his aplomb. If he had to be stuck in the tank with us mere troops, he could at least set himself apart by telling the best stories, and he did that. I heard dozens of wildly improbable stories about the early days of the Pirates. In each story he'd drop a reference or two to something even more incredible, tossed off with "But that's another story."

In answer to someone's question about where the Pirates lived before they got the Summerland house, for example, he launched off on a four-hour story about how the Pirates had been hired by a European Count to guard him against his Mafia creditors. He'd invited the whole Group to live in his fortress-like villa on the cliffs at Montecito, where he and his lovely but debauched countess gave lavish perverted parties. The house was surrounded by a high wall and various electronic defenses, so the Pirates just had to keep a guard posted in the tower over the front gate.

"God damn!" Fidel exclaimed. "Did the Mafia try to get in?"

"Oh, once or twice," said the Captain airily, "but they were quickly sent packing by the twenty-millimeter air cannon in the tower."

"Air cannon? What's that, some kind of compressed air thing?"

"No, the cannon from a jet fighter. Awesome thing, eighteen feet long. The whole tower had to have steel reinforcing so the cannon didn't knock it down when it was fired."

"Jesus! Where'd you get something like that?"

"Well, for a while we had a few military planes out at the ranch in Nevada, but that's another story." What ranch in Nevada, I thought, but that was only one of the questions that was never answered.

"Did you ever have to use it?" asked Sansei.

"Well, one night the guard saw a rubber boat landing on the beach and figured it was the boys from the Family."

"What did he do?"

"He squeezed off a warning shot, but he didn't hit anybody. They left in a hurry."

"Was it the Mafia?"

"No, just some surfers sneaking onto the private beach for a party. Lucky for them they were spotted before they got up to the mines."

"Mines? You had the beach mined?"

"Tricky things to work with. Damn deer kept setting them off. Shrapnel ruined the meat. But that's another story."

"What did the surfers do?"

"Damned fools called in the sheriff. Of course by that time we'd buried the cannon in the courtyard and put down a new layer of blacktop. Still there, as far as I know. Soon after that the Count and Countess took a bunk to South America and we had to move out of the house. They hadn't paid us yet, so I had to send some of the troops to The Argentine to find them. But that's another story."

I assumed most of this was crap, of course, but it sure kept the troops entertained. Only later, when I became the Pirates' archivist, did I see the actual newspaper clippings of the "unexplained explosions" and pictures of the Count and Countess with the Captain at the Villa.

It quickly became clear that the welfare charges were merely an excuse to raid the Pirate house. The Summerland Pirates had been a thorn in the side of the authorities for decades, and they finally had us in their clutches. As we sat there listening to the Captain's stories the house was being strip-searched for anything illegal. Fortunately the Captain had long anticipated a raid, and every one of those terrifying-looking automatic weapons was legally documented. He had a government bill of sale for every boat and vehicle in the yards.

"We have nothing to fear," the Captain assured us. "We have done nothing except break one of their petty rules. But the rule of law is contrary to the evolutionary process. Laws are made to protect weak and stupid people, and such people do not deserve protection. The Eskimos put such people out on the ice. Americans abandoned that sensible practice, and now all those worthless people have become lawyers and seized power. But their rules do not apply to us. One day soon we will be free of them all."

He turned out to be largely right. For all their searches and investigations, no further charges were brought against us. At the trial everyone but the Captain got a suspended sentence on the grounds that we were under his Svengalian influence when we committed the crimes. As the mastermind, Captain Nash was sentenced to a month in county jail. The rest of us got our clothes back and drove home in the commodities truck. When I finally got back to the house, I found the drill right where I'd put it down in the Great White. I'd always known the cops couldn't be trusted.

Surprisingly, none of the troops who had been busted ran the road. It seemed that the experience had bound us together even more. The Captain's absence didn't have much effect on our daily lives. Rogue gave us our orders as always. With no more commodities food, we were back to the huge sacks of pinto beans and rice that Chief drove up from Mexico every few months. Other than that, life went on as before.

In the spring there was a revolution of sorts among the troops at the ship. I never got the whole story, but apparently the guys who had spent the winter fixing up the Fairmorse had decided they didn't need the Captain any more. The ringleader was a former Hell's Angel named Red who bore a disturbing resemblance to Charles Manson. One of their troops got scared by some of their wilder plans (such as taking over a small Central American country), fled the ship and hitchhiked back to Summerland to spill the beans.

Rogue and three of the senior officers left at once for Nova Scotia. Rogue returned two weeks later to report the revolution crushed. The rumor was that Red and at least one other rebel had been thrown overboard into the freezing water. Rogue was tough, determined, and unwaveringly loyal to the Captain. I would hate to see him coming after me in cold fury. His abusive and sarcastic dressings-down of his officers made me work hard to avoid them and I usually succeeded. But one time it was not possible, as I had committed the unforgivable sin - I had gone AWOL.

The Chicano family which had the misfortune to live next door to the Summerland Base included two well-developed and precocious girls of fourteen and fifteen. There was a picture of these girls in the dictionary under "nubile." They spent many an afternoon staring and giggling at all the dirty gringos working next door. With remarkable feminine intuition, the girls somehow knew we were celibate and in continual heat. They delighted in sunbathing in miniscule bikinis on their back deck, rubbing lotion on their golden skin in full view of the tormented eyes of the Pirates working in the yard. Sometimes they came down to the fence and flirted with the guys. They were only a pleasant diversion until my good buddy the Red Baron one night told me he had arranged an assignation with one of the girls. They had arranged a signal - a piece of white paper tucked into the fence meant their parents were away for the evening. I elicited his promise to take me along if the signal were given.

A few days later he came to me after dinner and showed me a slip of paper with the word 'Tonight' on it. We waited impatiently for lights out, then the two of us slipped out of the bus. We crept into the girls' yard and tapped at the door. After a few anxious minutes, the door was opened a crack and we stepped into a pitch dark house.

Oh, the joy and terror of that moment. Those young girls had been magnified in our minds, transmuted into goddesses of desire, guardians of delights we had almost forgotten. I was nervous about the meeting, as it had actually been made between the older girl and the Red Baron. I had no idea if the younger girl even knew I was coming. My fears were soon put to rest. A soft young body pressed against mine and our lips fumbled together. She led me to her room in the back of the house.

We had a delightful hour or so of petting and playing, accompanied by storms of stifled giggles and sighs. Then we were naked. It was a hot night, and our sweaty bodies slid together like wet silk. After being deprived so long and being deliberately teased and tormented by these accomplished flirts, it was heaven to actually have her perfect firm little body in my hands. Any qualms I might have felt about her age were quickly dispelled by her expert ministrations. I longed to have the lights on so I could see her.

Then the lights were on, at least in the front room. She sat up, her face white with horror. "Papa!" she hissed.

As often as we encounter the situation in travelling salesmen jokes, this was my first and only encounter with the enraged husband/father/brother. I did what so many of my forefathers have done before me. I grabbed my clothes and leaped out the window, crashing through the shrubbery to the ground. A minute later Baron was beside me. Above us we could hear angry Spanish shouting. Pants flapping over our shoulders, we ran down several blocks and threw ourselves down breathless in the high weeds of a vacant lot.

How we cursed our fortune. We were both bleeding from a hundred cuts. On comparing notes, we found that neither of us had actually consummated the act, as they say in the old books. Baron thought the girls had just been teasing us all along. My opinion was that we were victims of our generation. We had been taught that a gentleman concentrates first on the lady's pleasure. Alas, the evening was all foreplay that never did become fiveplay, for the paper never again appeared in the fence.

To make matters worse, we found when we got back that our absence had been discovered. We were brought up before a court martial the next day. We told the truth and were shown mercy for carrying out a truly Piratical raid. Nevertheless, we lost all our privileges and were assigned months of the most odious extra duties. Worse, we were busted back to Seaman Recruits. This was a particular blow to me, as it meant that Jack resumed tormenting me.

I volunteered for more-or-less permanent boatyard duty to get away from his constant petty indignities. But my plan didn't work. Activity at the boatyard was now at a high pitch and Jack was frequently in charge there.The Captain wanted both the Sea Witch and the R-boat sold by the time he got out of the slammer.

The R-boat was finally hauled out and trucked to the boatyard. Jack assigned me and some of the new recruits to clean her bottom. As she had been moored for several years, the marine growth on her bottom was several feet thick. Jack told us the stuff was easier to get off when it was fresh, so we spent twenty-four hours crawling around underneath that slimy, dripping mess, hacking at it with scrapers, hoes, and rakes. The dying mussels, barnacles, and weed dripped down over us as we worked. Soon we and the whole boatyard stank as only rotting sea creatures can stink. We buried two truckloads of the stuff. Then we scraped the R-boat down to the bare wood, primed her, and gave her two coats of bottom paint, a toxic and noxious substance that made for another nasty job.

Jack did all the interior carpentry on the boats, and I had to admit he was a wizard with wood. Boat carpentry is entirely different from land carpentry (levels and straightedges are useless, for example), and he could make the most complex three-dimensional curves with nothing but an adze and an expert eye. Soon both boats were sold, along with various whaleboats, lifeboats, buoys, anchors, and marine hardware.

The big push now was to get the Pirate bus and the big six-by-six truck ready for another trip to Nova Scotia. Work on the Great White and many other borderline vehicles was stopped. Orders at both bases were to sell as many vehicles as possible so we'd have the cash to leave as soon as the Captain got out. Every effort was made to get the ship under way during the summer. Apparently no one wanted to spend another winter in Nova Scotia. I had great hopes I would be included in this next contingent.

We were working even harder than usual, but there were fewer troops running the road. There was an air of excitement - we were finally going to be going out of the junk business and into the adventure business. The Pirate bus was finished and it looked beautiful. A bulkhead had been built right across it about halfway back. Aft of the bulkhead a half-deck or orlop had been built. Beneath were fifty-five gallon drums of fuel, oil, paint, and so forth. On top were cases of food, clothes, blocks and tackle, diving gear, and film equipment. The forward compartment had twelve very tight berths stacked four high. A galley and head behind the driver isolated the fo'c's'l, as we called the little dinette area, and made it rather snug and comfy. The bus was painted a metallic sky blue, with Quest International Film Guild painted in ornate gilt letters across the stern. We dubbed it 'Ol Blue.

Finally the long-awaited day came. The second expeditionary force was named and I was included, along with Baron and Sansei, my best friends in the Group. The down side was that Jack was to be in charge. I had worked my way back up to Bos'n now, but he continued to torment me in small aggravating ways. I was determined to get back to Second Officer and achieve immunity to his hazing.

Unlike our arrest which had made headlines all over central California, the Captain was released without fanfare or publicity. He resumed command as before. I don't know if the experience had changed him or if it was only my perception that had changed, but he never seemed to regain that air of arrogant superiority which had so struck me at first.

The last few weeks were a flurry of activity. I was constantly on the road, ferrying vehicles, troops, and supplies between Summerland and Lemon Grove. Most of the vehicles at the Ranch had been sold, with only patches of oil-stained sand to mark their passage. I brought back with me the last few members of the party that would be going to Nova Scotia.

After some creative packing, the bus was finally loaded. I think no one could have fitted so much as a playing card into the hold of that bus, so wedged was it with nautical bric-a-brac. We put aboard our ragged bedrolls and duffel bags and our grungy old coffee cups. Then we rolled down the steep hill for the last time, our comrades giving us three hearty cheers as we disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke.

IV. BOUND FOR NOVA SCOTIA

We intended to drive non-stop, taking the southern route through Arizona and Texas. We cooked and ate aboard, stopping only for fuel. The bus was overloaded and it lugged appallingly when climbing hills, so we often drove on the shoulder to allow even the slowest big rigs to pass us. We covered only six hundred miles in the first twenty-four hours. At this rate it would take another week to get there.

In the afternoon of the second day the engine started to make a nasty rumbling sound. We checked what we could, but couldn't confirm what it was. Some thought it might be the transmission, others said it was the bearings. The noise continued to increase until it was a roar, then the engine coughed, jerked, and died, just outside the tiny town of Two Guns, Arizona.

There was nothing to do but pull the oil pan. When we did it was full of melted and twisted bits of metal. All the bearings were completely gone. Two of the guys walked into town to try to find some bearings and to call the Captain. The rest of us pulled the crank and cleaned it up. It didn't seem to be damaged. Jack said he'd heard that in an emergency you could use leather for bearings. We spent a day cutting up our belts, marinating them in oil, and fitting them into place. We put it all back together and started slowly.

Jack was right about one thing - leather bearings would work for a while. About one mile. Then they disintegrated, getting into the oil and plugging everything up. Now we didn't need new bearings, we needed a new engine. We spent two days at a Navajo gas station, waiting for reinforcements. Finally help arrived in the shape of Rogue and Chief, driving the Pirate Six-by-six.

The Six-by was a huge six-wheel-drive military truck with those big square fenders and the lowest gears known to man. The low end was unstoppable. In granny gear with three axles driving ten huge knobby tires, it could nearly climb a telephone pole. The high end, on the other hand, didn't exist. Fully wound out in eighteenth gear, it could barely do forty. It had formerly been a radar truck - stationary, I can only assume, and carried a big square metal box on the back with walls like a safe. Since it could carry less than half of the bus' contents, it was towing a huge green military trailer with a canvas top. It looked exactly like one of those vehicles you see grunts pushing through the mud in Burma in old war newsreels. Perhaps it was, it was certainly the right vintage.

It took fourteen men a full day to unload the bus and load the Six-by and trailer. We had no equipment at all and had to muscle the heavy stuff like fifty-five-gallon drums of fuel up over our heads into the trailer. Finally everything was stowed and secured and we were off again, leaving Rogue to wait for one of the tow trucks to come haul the bus back.

We were off again, but the days of comfort in Ol' Blue were over. The truck box was completely full and had more gear lashed on top. Four guys squeezed into the cab and six more sprawled on top of the junk in the trailer, right out in the weather. No more head or galley, either. From now on it was gas station restrooms and vending machines all the way.

We travelled like that for five more days, non-stop. We crossed the country in a long diagonal, attracting alarmed stares the whole way. It seemed that we attracted more attention the further east we got. What had been a curiosity in California became a terrorist invasion by Michigan. We intended to cross into Canada in Detroit, but the Canadian authorities didn't like the looks of us at all. To our unbounded vexation, they made us unload every item out of the truck and the trailer and open every case. We explained over and over that we were going to Nova Scotia to pick up the ship we'd bought, but it clearly made no sense to the customs men. After a day of unloading, arguing, and loading, they flatly refused to let us into the country. We packed everything back up again and returned to Detroit. This was our first experience of the warmth of Canadian official hospitality.

We circled around the southern end of the Great Lakes to try again in Maine. When we got to New England, we resolved to avoid the main roads where the authorities would be more likely to bother us. We saw some beautiful country and some fall colors going up on small roads along the coast all the way. We drove up to a small rural border crossing, just a small shack and no other houses in sight. A customs man came out of his hut, looked at the piles of barrels and crates, and waved us through without a question. We were in Canada at last.

We thought we were nearly there, but it was a long drive from Maine through New Brunswick to the northern tip of Nova Scotia. But eventually we neared our destination. Cape Breton island is connected to the mainland by the Canso Causeway, crossing the sound of the same name. One evening, ten days after leaving Summerland, we crossed the causeway, turned east along the sound, and entered the sleepy fishing village of Port Hawkesbury just at dusk. We turned into an alley and bumped down a rutted road to the waterfront. A rickety old wooden L-dock thrust out into the sound. And there at the end of it was our ship, the Fairmorse.

I'll never forget walking out onto the dock that evening. It was late, but the long lingering twilight of the north still glowed in the sky. The Fairmorse wasn't a stately tall ship, but after all we had been through to get there, she was a beautiful sight to us. She had a definite Piratical look to her - long and low and sleek, with a high bow, a low waist, and a long overhanging counter at the stern. Her hull was flat black, with a gilt sheerline and ornamental carvings around the hawsepipes. Jack swung aboard and hammered loudly at the scuttle door.

"Roust out there, you swabs," he shouted, "and pipe us aboard."

A half-dozen scruffy men tumbled up the ladder and we all stared curiously at each other. One or two I had met, but most had been on the ship most of a year, ever since the putting down of Red's mutiny the summer before. We newcomers were physically and mentally exhausted from the long drive, and we also felt uncomfortable with these men who had been living and working on the ship all this time. Even though I'd been in the Pirates over half a year, I felt like a new 'cruit again. They welcomed us aboard civilly but not warmly. I wondered if they resented us coming aboard to sail the ship after they'd spent so long working on her.

We all went below. When we reached the foot of the wooden ladder, it took a few minutes before we could see anything in the gloom. Forward was a low, dark, smoky room, the fo'c's'l, lined with a double tier of bunks on either side of a long triangular table that occupied all the floor space. Just abaft the ladder was the galley, dominated by an immense Diesel stove. We threw our gear into unoccupied bunks and sat down at the table. We drank some scalding black coffee from a big kettle steaming on the stove. We yarned for a while, we newcomers listening avidly to these seasoned hands talking about the work they'd accomplished, and we told them of our adventures on the drive out. Finally, exhausted, we climbed into our berths and fell asleep listening to the ripples lapping at the hull. I was on the ship at last.

I was awakened by the same dolorous Burl Ives sea chanteys that had awakened me every morning for the last six months. A door banged open and a heartless voice bellowed. "Drop your cocks and grab your socks, boys, there's work to be done!" As I lay there with eyes still closed, savoring the last wisps of erotic dreams, I suddenly remembered where I was. It wasn't just another day in the yard, fixing putt-putts and changing tires. I was on the ship! I sat up, eager to get started, and thumped my head on the bunk above, only twelve inches away. I peered aft down the long dark tunnel of the fo'c's'l. A dozen men grunted and swore and clambered over each other, trying to pull on grease-stiffened jeans while standing on one foot on the glassy varnished bench. Their writhing figures were silhouetted against a ruddy glow - the massive twelve-foot long stove was glowing red as forty pancakes sizzled together. Steam and rank Diesel smoke filled the galley, twisting up the ladder to be sucked out into the square of brilliant white sun framed by the scuttle. I joined the dance and soon we were all elbow to elbow at the long triangular table. It was so narrow where I sat at the forward end that the heavy boots of the man opposite rested directly on my stocking feet. Plates heaped high with pancakes kept appearing from the clouds of steam in the galley, but too many were empty by the time they reached me. I watched my neighbors wolfing down pancakes soggy with corn syrup (Welfare commodities, I noticed with a shudder). It occurred to me that already I had learned two valuable lessons about life on the ship: always sit at the galley end of the table; and do not lie abed of a morning. One more minute with Sophia Loren cost a man a lot of pancakes.

Then we all turned in our plates to the KP detail and filed up the ladder. As I came blinking into the sun, Jack beckoned me over. I stepped forward smiling, eager to get started at last on the ship. "Brian," he said, "I talked to the Captain last night. He wants the Six-by and trailer back as soon as we can get 'em unloaded. We'll leave tomorrow."

My smile vanished. After that trip out, I had to do it all over again while everybody else got to stay on the ship? By the time I got back, they'd all be veterans and I'd be the new guy all over again. But a Pirate did not question orders, and it wouldn't have done any good anyway. So I went about organizing a crew to begin the unloading. As Bos'n, I was nominally in charge of cargo handling and stowage, but I let one of the experienced hands run the winch. I supervised the crew in the hold, stowing and lashing the gear into place.

In daylight, the Fairmorse was not quite as romantic as I'd first thought. She was rough and dirty and showed the scars of fifty years of hard use and five of total neglect. Her sides were scored and peeling and streaks of rust ran down from every metal fitting. In spite of her sailing heritage, she was now only a very small run-down wooden freighter, left from an age that had died before we were born.

But she was clearly a thoroughbred. She'd started life as a Grand Banks fishing schooner and still had the beautiful flowing lines of a working sailing ship. The original after cabin protruded only two feet above the deck to allow for the swing of the mighty eighty-foot boom, now long gone. Her immensely long foredeck swept up and up to a high prow, but the deck was crowded with huge pieces of ancient rusty machinery.

It took us the whole day to unload the truck and trailer and stow the gear. The next morning, I started back to San Diego at thirty-five miles an hour. The trip was uneventful in the extreme, and when I thankfully rolled through the gate at the Ranch, I had lived in that Six-by longer than I had in several apartments. Then we had a frantic week of shuttling back and forth to Summerland, assembling the second load of gear. 'Ol Blue had been repaired, and a crew of eager volunteers was already packing her to the gills again. Her Destroyer Escort, as it were, was to be Da Chevy, a massive '61 V-8 Impala with a serious skin condition. We loaded it up until the fenders occasionally scraped on turns, said our farewells, and headed out.

A half hour out, Da Chevy had a flat in Ventura and we had to go back to Summerland and start over. It was an inauspicious start to another ill-fated trip. That evening in El Centro 'Ol Blue went comatose when the generator blew up. We spent the night outside a junk yard, bought a roughly similar generator in the morning, and started off again. Fifty miles later it too burned up. We put in a brand new alternator system and got to the snow country near Flagstaff. Then the propane stove system started leaking and I spent several wretched hours lying in a freezing puddle under the bus, dropping crescent wrenches on my face and working on my language skills.

I was the only one aboard who had been on the Fairmorse, and they all pumped me endlessly about what she was like. I played the old salt the best I could from what I had seen in one day. My descriptions were accurate but restrained. I didn't want to discourage them, but I didn't want them all running the road as soon as they clapped eyes on her either.

The brakes ceased to exist while driving in city traffic in St. Louis, leading to a careening bus, no doubt amusing for those bystanders not leaping for their lives. We got it stopped and spent a half a day fixing the brakes. They went soft again in Columbus and we worked on them all night in a truck stop in the rain. Da Chevy's hood blew off on the Pennsy Turnpike and we secured it with a very nautical lashing of new sisal line around the front end of the car.

The season advanced rapidly as we wended north. The autumn glories of New England only reminded us that time was wasting for a passage to the Caribbean this year. Finally, seven days out on a stormy passage, we rattled down the cracked pavement to the Fairmorse, as strange a procession as Port Hawkesbury had seen. It was October 22. After a month of driving, I was aboard ship again.

V. ABOARD THE FAIRMORSE

The Motor Vessel Fairmorse was 127 feet overall, twenty feet longer when she wore a bowsprit. She was long and narrow and very deep, with a keel eighteen feet below the water. She was a sister ship of the famous Bluenose, the national symbol of Canada so proudly emblazoned on her dime. She was built in the same yard in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, by the same men who had built the Bluenose, and she was widely known among Canadian fishermen and nautical enthusiasts.

But she was never considered a real Grand Banker like her sister, who had defended the national honor in 1921 against the fastest Gloucester schooner, the Elsie, in a race still remembered on both sides of the border. Fairmorse was a mongrel, built in the painful transition period between sail and power. While still on the ways, almost as an afterthought, she'd had two immense five-cylinder Fairbanks-Morse Diesels installed where her after fish hold should have been. She'd never been designed to carry engines. The big four-bladed propellers thrust out at awkward angles to clear her massive sailing rudder. The local shipbuilders and fishermen shook their heads and grumbled that she'd been ruined. But the days of sail were ending. She was one of the last Bluenose schooners ever built. Perhaps another sign of the times, she was named not for the captain's wife or some prominent citizen of the town, but prosaically after her engines.

She had fished the Grand and Georges Banks for only a few years, then gone into hauling cargo. Her foremast was stubbed and the fore-boom cut down to a cargo boom. Her towering mainmast was removed and a two-story deckhouse was added, turning her from an awkward sailer into an ill-suited freighter, her sailing hull too narrow to carry a profitable cargo. She fell on hard times and changed hands many times. It was said she'd run dynamite to South American revolutionaries and traded rum and guns to American gangsters during Prohibition. She'd been to Havana and come back filled with contraband cigars, each one lovingly rolled on the naked thigh of a black-eyed Cuban beauty, or so the sales pitch went. She'd served as the set for the interior scenes of the schooner We're Here in the film of Captains Courageous with Spencer Tracy. In the fifties she'd served as an oceanographic research vessel in the Ministry of Fisheries. Eventually, though, she was too old and slow and difficult to operate to serve any useful purpose and she was left to lay alongside a rotting dock for five years before being spotted by Captain Nash in one of his scouting trips. He'd paid only ten thousand for her.

Since then the crew aboard had never been large enough to do more than the most critical maintenance. The hull and deck were reasonably watertight and her machinery worked, more or less, but she was still a mess. Now at last, with sixteen aboard, we could start to bring her back to life.

I was given a crew of eight and assigned to the exterior work. I decided to start at the top and work down. I put two men on the radar mast, two on the stump foremast and cargo boom, two on the smokestacks, and two on the top of the wheelhouse. All wood was scraped down to the bare wood, primed, and given three coats of hard marine enamel. The top of the wheelhouse, and later the boat deck, were stripped and airballed - covered tightly in canvas and then given many coats of non-skid paint. The iron was chipped, wirebrushed until it shone, then coated with a military surplus metal preservative. It was yellowish-green, smelly, and glutinous, and soon came to be known by all as elephant snot. It was awful to work with, but it dried hard and clung tenaciously to clean dry iron. Then we put on two coats of red lead and three of shining black enamel.

The work was agonizingly slow. It might take three days to do a surface no bigger than a double bed. But the labor was free and enthusiastic. With so many hands working on every part of the ship, she was changing before our eyes. Soon the mast was smooth and gleaming yellow, all the wire ropes and sheaves freshly greased, the blocks and fittings shining black. The wheelhouse and boat deck shone like new.

While my gang was busy on deck, Russ the chief engineer had his black gang tearing down, cleaning, oiling, and reassembling the engines. The main and auxiliary engines, generators, compressors, and pumps were chipped, snotted, and painted. Every pipe was color coded as cold water, hot water, sea water, steam, fuel, or oil, with arrows showing the direction of flow. The engine room sparkled like a surgery. Brass gleamed everywhere.

The main engines were marvels of anachronistic ingenuity. There was neither clutch nor transmission; the propellers were simply bolted to the ends of the crankshafts. To start them, the engineers first hand-cranked a big Lister Diesel auxiliary along the starboard side of the engine room. The Lister roared and banged and drove a twenty foot leather belt that in turn drove a compressor to build up pressure in two air tanks that stood on either side of the main engines.

While pressure was building, Russ would remove ten four-inch lengths of cotton clothesline that had been soaking in a mason jar of fuel oil, stuff them into the hollow glow plugs, light them, and then screw the plugs firmly into each of the ten cylinder heads. By this time the engine room was thick with oily black smoke and one could neither see nor hear.

Now Russ was ready to start the main engines. Two long levers rose from the deck between the engines. The levers controlled the order in which the air was sent to the cylinders and thus the direction the engines turned and the direction the ship moved. Finally a valve was opened and the compressed air slammed into the cylinders, starting the main engines. Now even the roar of the Lister and the compressor was drowned out by the titanic thumping of the big Fairbanks-Morse Diesels. The procedure didn't always work the first time. Then they had to pull the glow plugs and start all over. It was exciting, but labor intensive and not at all conducive to quick starts. Or stops, as we later learned.

Jack worked alone in the fo'c's'l, building a third tier of berths with beautiful flowing carved handrails. A second crew's head and shower and an additional rack of berths was built in the fiddley, the large room in the deckhouse. The original sailing cabin was cleaned and the wainscotting was oiled and hand rubbed. The steering gear was cleaned and overhauled. Fifty years of grease was scraped from the galley overhead. New shelves and storage racks were built in the hold and all the blocks, tackle, lines, and hardware were cleaned, oiled, sorted, and stowed for sea. In the evenings, extra duty was invariably chipping a quarter-inch layer of ancient paint from the fo'c's'l overhead with ballpeen hammers. It was fascinating to see each new color emerge from the grime: red, green, yellow, and a horrible mauve that must have contributed to the sea-sickness of the unfortunate early denizens of the fo'c's'l. Gradually, one massive hand-hewn oak beam at a time, the fo'c's'l was scraped clean and painted Pirate Red and Dysentery Green.

We worked like slaves all that autumn, but it was a labor of love. We were taking an old ship that had probably never had loving care and returning her to the way she must have looked when she was new. We talked of the days ahead, of sailing her down to the Caribbean. Chief called to say he had taken an option on a piece of land with a dock and marine railway somewhere on the Gulf Coast near Brownsville. Once there, we would tear off the deckhouse and re-rig her as the schooner she was originally intended to be. The rig would be old-fashioned, with deadeyes and lanyards and no winches anywhere. We'd sail her the way they did in the old days, with lots of muscle and no help asked.

I don't remember ever going ashore. Russ or Jack would make occasional runs for groceries or supplies, but none of us saw much of Canada or met many Canadians. We worked twelve to fourteen hours every day, rushing to get as much work done as possible before the Captain and the rest of the troops showed up. Every few days Russ walked up to the public phone booth at the head of the dock to call the Base, and each time he reported more delays. They were having trouble selling the last of the equipment in Lemon Grove. There were some incomprehensible legal problems that were never explained. Each week we expected to hear they were on their way, but the autumn passed with no word.

Northern winter set in with a vengeance and it was miserable to work outside. We concentrated our efforts on the interior spaces. The crew's quarters were adequate, and the nicer areas - the Captain's and the Mate's cabins in the forward part of the house, the sailing cabin aft, and the chart house/radio shack abaft the wheelhouse - were varnished and shining. I was proud of what we'd accomplished, but all too aware of the gouges and scrapes in the bulwarks and hull. We planned to do the hull after we got her to warmer water and could haul her out.

Finally in November we got word that they were ready to leave. We redoubled our efforts that last week, trying to finish up the various projects. Then one day 'Ol Blue rumbled down the hill to the dock, and there was the Captain and a load of fresh troops. They'd left only Chief at the Ranch and Rogue and a skeleton crew in Summerland. Nearly all the Pirates were together on the ship at last.

Now it was our turn to be the old salts and show the new guys around the Fairmorse. Like us, I think they saw at first only her flaws and shortcomings, not the months of hard work we'd put into her. The Captain was the only one to have seen her before, but if he approved of what we'd accomplished he never said. He always said a commander only reprimanded slackers. Everyone else was only doing their jobs and didn't need to be told about it.

Within a week, we were ready to sail. I could hardly believe it was finally going to happen. All those months on the ship and I'd never seen her move. There was some debate whether she was still capable of motion. The locals believed she was aground on her own garbage. After all, she hadn't budged in over five years.

The big morning dawned bright, cold, and still. There were thousands of last minute chores to be done. I supervised a crew securely lashing all the cargo in the hold. Every locker and cupboard was stowed and latched. The word must have gone out around town, and a number of townspeople had come down to watch. Taciturn and expressionless, they watched our every move.

When the hold was secured, I supervised my deck crew in battening down the hatches. What a marvelous expression that - battening down the hatches. I had read it a thousand times, but I had never before realized just what it entailed. First eight immense planks, twelve-foot long four-by-twelves, were laid across the opening of the hatch. Then heavy canvas was stretched over it. Long iron battens were dropped into the brackets that ringed the opening, pulling the canvas down tight. Finally wooden wedges were driven into the brackets with sledge hammers, securing the battens. It seemed very rough and nautical, but a bit excessive. Little did we know.

By midmorning each officer reported his crew ready. The air pressure was up. The Captain ordered all hands to their posts. Russ and his black gang disappeared below. Jack was in the wheelhouse, the Captain was on the flying bridge. I stood on the main hatch cover, ready to supervise my deck crew at the dock lines.

"Single up fore and aft," said the Captain above me. "Off warps and springs." I relayed the orders and my men leaped to their tasks. The heavy lines were hauled aboard and coiled.

"All astern dead slow."

"All astern dead slow," repeated Jack, and rang the order up on the telegraph. I could hear the muffled clanking of the engine room telegraph and could imagine the frenzied activity down there. There was a long few seconds of silence. Then huge gouts of black smoke poured from both stacks and the old Fairmorse shuddered to life.

"Cast off forward there," boomed the Captain.

"Cast off forward, aye," I repeated. All those months we had studied nautical terminology and drilled on lines and knots and seamanship were finally to be put to the test. My heart was in my throat. I wondered what the watching locals thought of this bunch of California hippies trying to be seamen.

Soon all the lines were cast off. A wash of water was sweeping forward along both sides. Gradually we backed away from the dock, a plume of muddy water in our wake. We gave a cheer, and to our surprise, the stolid locals on the shore took it up. We didn't wave, for that wouldn't be Piratical, but we glowed with pride. We had done it. We were under way at last. The Captain rang for all ahead half, and we glided smoothly across the still water of Canso Sound.

VI. FIRST TASTE OF SALT

The first passage was disappointingly brief, but not without adventure. We crossed the Sound to a ramshackle fuel dock at Port Mulgrave on the mainland side. The Captain brought her in close at dead slow, then rang up both astern slow to bring her to. I stood ready on the port bow, mooring line in hand. My crew held fenders and springs at the ready.

It seemed to me that we were still coming in pretty quickly. I chuckled to myself. I'd be nervous as hell if I were bringing her in, but the Captain would no doubt give the wheel a deft twist and she'd kiss the dock light as a feather. I admired the Captain's clearly superior ability to judge these things and the quiet competence he was exhibiting. It was great to have an experienced skipper on the bridge on our maiden voyage.

Suddenly the Captain's voice roared out above me. "Full speed astern!" he bellowed. "Somebody stop this thing!"

I spun around and saw Jack franticly spinning the wheel to starboard, his eyes as big as saucers as he watched the rapidly approaching dock. The Captain had his head inside one of the engine room ventilators, screaming down at Russ. I just had time to throw one of the truck tire fenders from the bow to cushion the blow before we ground into the dock. Fortunately, it was even older and softer than our hull. The dock planks buckled and snapped. Two pilings groaned like tortured beasts as they slowly bent and snapped off. I leaped ashore and took the dock lines flying at me from every side.

By the time we had the lines and springs rigged, it was all over but the shouting. There was no damage to the hull, but our pride was crushed. The problem turned out to be a broken linkage that refused to go into reverse. Russ soon had it repaired. We filled our fuel tanks, but by then it was late afternoon. We determined to stay at the fuel dock overnight, and start again early in the morning.

The fuel dock people had made something of a scene about their splintered dock, and in spite the Captain had us working all night in the dark loading thirty empty oil drums and an unused five-ton winch that had been cluttering up their dock. We were off just before dawn before anyone was up. These dawn departures were to become standard procedure on the Fairmorse.

We motored down the mirror-like Canso Sound, our wake a huge vee behind us. I stood in the bow with the breeze in my face and gazed forward eagerly, completely thrilled. Beyond those headlands silhouetted by the dawn lay the ocean. Not just any ocean, but the North Atlantic; the sea of Leif and Cabot and Hudson and Cook, of the wartime convoys hounded by the U-boats, of the Titanic and the Lusitania and the Mary Deare. After a lifetime of reading and dreaming about it, I was finally going to see it. And not merely as a passenger, but in my own ship. This is what I had come for; this was why I had worked so hard.

We churned through the brightening waters for an hour. Then, just as the sun broke the horizon directly ahead, we felt the first of the Atlantic swells passing under the keel. The ship began to lean and work, alive again at last after years of being docked. We grinned at each other like fools. We were at sea.

I strode the deck affecting a sailor's rolling gait, trying not to lurch and stumble as the ship pitched. I peered ahead at the big cold grey seas rolling toward us from the icy wastes of the north, from Labrador and Greenland beyond. We passed the last headland and swung around to the south, bound for Charleston for refueling, then on to Brownsville. The Caribbean adventure had begun.

As we came around to our new course, the old Fairmorse began to roll heavily. My exultant reverie was shattered by a splintering crash from below, followed by screams of pain. I shouted for my deck crew, threw open the scuttle, and dropped down the ladder.

It was dark in the fo'c's'l, the only light a ruddy glow from the immense stove in the galley. In the half-light I could dimly see four or five people wrestling with some huge dark cylindrical object lurching about on the deck. It was some time before I could make sense of what was happening. The big water heater had somehow come adrift and was rolling around loose. Heavy, hot, and spraying scalding water, it took many minutes and many curses to get it under control. As the ship pitched it flung itself from one end of the fo'c's'l to the other, smashing furniture, rolling over feet, and crushing fingers. Eventually we managed to get a line around it and secured it firmly to the foot of the ladder, but not before we had all suffered numerous bruises, scrapes, and burns. I determined that no one was seriously hurt and made my way up to the wheelhouse to report the accident to the Captain.

He glared at me. "Why did the tank come adrift, Bos'n?" he asked with a fierce eye.

"We had taken the straps off to paint the tank, sir. I told Seaman Chris to secure it the morning we left Port Hawkesbury."

"But he didn't, did he?"

"Apparently not, sir."

"Did you check it, Bos'n?"

"No, sir. But he told me he'd done it."

"Give Chris twenty hours of extra duty. And I'm giving you a month's head duty."

"But it wasn't my fault, sir. I told him to do it and he said he had."

"Chris is in your deck gang, isn't he?"

"Yes, sir, but..."

"You're the Bos'n, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir, but..."

"It was your job to see that the tank was secured. Simply giving orders isn't enough; you have to see that they're carried out. When any man fails in his duty, the responsibility is shared by him and his superior officer. You'll clean both heads every evening after dinner for the next thirty days."

"Aye, aye, sir." I growled, stung at the sentence. Head duty was the most onerous task aboard ship. The heads were tiny dark closets on either side of the deckhouse, and they always stank of urine. I had to scrub the sink and toilet, replenish the TP and the petrified powdered soap we used, then dip up buckets of seawater and scrub the walls and floor. It took me over an hour after dinner every night. After an exhausting twelve-hour day, it was all I could do to force myself to tackle the job. Those thirty days seemed to go on forever. But I learned my lesson about delegating responsibility.

The land fell away to the west and was soon out of sight. It became steadily rougher, with great grey seas rolling up out of the northeast. The sky clouded over and grew threatening, the air cold and wet. Sleety flurries occasionally obscured the sea. A bitter wind chilled us after only a few minutes on deck. By evening it was clear that the weather was worsening. The sea was streaked with long lines of foam ripped from the tops of the waves by the wind. The Fairmorse was rolling both rails under. It was impossible to eat at the table or to cook on the stove. A two-hour trick at the wheel left a man aching.

I worked until midnight, then turned in to try to get some sleep. Now that we were at sea, we began the traditional watches of four hours on, four off, and I had the morning watch starting at 4 AM. It wasn't my most restful night. The violent pitching was worse in the fo'c's'l. I had to wedge my legs against the upper berth to prevent being thrown out. And it was loud, too. The old journals mention the creaking of the ship and I thought it sounded romantic. But I would not describe this as creaking. A wooden ship laboring hard makes a racket like a coven of drunken witches going over Niagara in a barrel. It rumbles and groans and gives long maniacal screams punctuated by loud reports like pistol shots going off next to one's head. It sounds as if it is coming apart beneath you. It is not conducive to restful sleep.

I had just gotten to sleep when my watch was called. I pulled on my warmest clothes, buttoned up an ancient cracked sou'wester I found in the slop chest, and climbed the ladder. I huddled inside the metal fore scuttle for a moment, listening to the roar of wind and water outside. A rattle of spray like bird shot clattered against the little box. I pulled open the door and stepped out to a wild scene. The wind and seas had been rising continuously all night. It was black as new tar, but I could glimpse towering white pyramids rising and falling like ghostly alps on every side. Every few minutes the bow plunged into a sea and a creaming breaker rolled over the scuttle and thundered against the main hatch.

I went aft under the port flying bridge. This was the lowest part of the deck, and I had to time my passage carefully as the rail disappeared into the icy water with each roll to port. Then it was up the ladder to the top of the sailing cabin, forward to the ladder to the boat deck, then a squeeze between the lifeboat and the engine room ventilator to the flying bridge. The entrance to the wheelhouse had to be timed as well: opening the door on the down roll, going through in the instant the deck was level, then pulling the door closed as we rolled to starboard.

Both Jack and Joaquim were at the helm now. The Fairmorse had an immense rudder designed for sailing, connected to the wheel with long cables that snaked forward along the deck, then up through the deckhouse walls to the wheel. With a following sea, the wheel could easily lift a man right off his feet.

The other helmsman in my watch was a guy with long tangled black hair and known as Trapper John. He arrived a moment later and I announced we were relieving the wheel. Jack stepped back and I took the spokes nervously.

"South by west," said Jack. "The Cap'n wanted southwest, but she won't hold that course. Nothing to the east. Sable Island's somewhere out that way and we don't want to be anywhere near it."

"What's Sable Island?" asked Trapper.

"It's a sand island over a hundred miles long. It's so narrow and low that it's impossible to see until you're right on it. There are over four hundred known wrecks on it."

"Oh, fine. How far away is it?"

"Well, Captain said it was at least a hundred miles."

"Oh, that's okay, then," said Trapper.

"But then Joaquim said it was twenty miles."

"Great. Does that mean they don't know where we are?"

"There's a certain margin of error in navigation," said Jack.

"Yeah, and if you go outside the margins you're on the island."

"Right. So, nothing to the east."

"South by west, nothing to the east, aye."

"You have the conn, Officer of the Deck."

I nodded, and Jack and Joaquim left for bed. Trapper took first lookout, going out onto the wing bridge with binoculars and scanning what he imagined to be the horizon. Still groggy from sleep, I found myself alone at the helm of a ship. The wheel kicked in my hands, then gave a hard twist to port, toward Sable Island. Suddenly wide awake, I leaned hard against it and wrestled it back. I realized I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I'd never steered a boat of any kind, much less a ship in a storm. Typical Pirate training - learn by doing.

I quickly learned it was harder than it looked. As each crest passed under us the wheel would fall slack and useless. I would brace for the kick that came as soon as the stern bit deeply into a big sea, then lean hard against the twist to port as the bow dropped. After thirty minutes Trapper and I swapped. It was wet and freezing out there, but I was so sweaty and worn out that it felt good for the first few minutes. Then it got really cold and stayed unpleasant for a very long half hour. Thus the interminable hours passed.

It was hard just to keep our feet as the ship rolled and pitched violently. We both soon became seasick, but we couldn't leave the helm. We managed by holding the waste basket against the wheel with our chests. Every time we swapped tricks, the lookout would empty it. Finally we agreed that the lookout would stay in the house and just pop out occasionally. The extra muscle and the company made the steering much more tolerable.

"Is this a really bad storm?" asked Trapper after a while. "I've never been to sea before."

"Me, neither. The anemometer says it's about thirty knots, gusting to forty, so I guess it's a moderate gale. Seems like a hurricane to me, but I guess it's often like this."

"She sure is taking a beating, but I guess she's built to survive this stuff. I bet the old timers would be laughing at us - you know: 'You lubbers think this is a blow? Why I remember the big one off the Horn in '98.'"

"Yeah. I guess we shouldn't worry about it. Pass the waste basket, will you?"

About 0700 the Captain stepped into the wheelhouse and turned to pull the door to. Suddenly we lurched heavily to starboard. The Captain flew across the wheelhouse and slammed against the lee door. I imagined him smashing through it and disappearing into the sea. He collapsed and rolled across the wheelhouse once or twice before he could regain his feet. We stared in horror, unable to leave the wheel to help.

He silently pulled himself to his feet and peered out the windows, but there was nothing to see. The whole forward half of the ship was under water, only the foremast standing like a tree in the middle of a flood. Trapper and I wrestled with the wheel in silence, wondering what the Captain would say.

"What a shitty night," he growled. "Thirty years at sea and I've never seen anything like this." Trapper and I exchanged meaningful looks. We'd been right - this was a major storm, and the ship was in danger. We put our shoulders into the wheel, trying desperately to hold the course. Every time the compass swung a point or two to the east, the Captain clucked his tongue but said nothing. We heaved mightily, trying to keep the ship off Sable Island by the strength of our arms.

What seemed about twelve hours later, we rang eight bells and I sent Trapper to call the off watch. When they relieved us, looking little fresher than we did, we tumbled below for breakfast and straight into bed. This time the noise of the ship didn't bother me at all.

We were awakened just before noon. Under very trying conditions, the cook had managed to fix a lunch of greasy, undercooked pork chops, intended as a special treat to celebrate our first full day at sea. Most of us were too sick to eat them, and those who did soon joined the miserable mob at the lee rail. I believe the cook had discovered the one meal that would make anyone seasick. Every person aboard was soon miserably ill. There is nothing like seasickness to take the spunk out of you. As someone remarked, first you're afraid you're going to die, then you're afraid you're not.

The weather gradually cleared through that short winter day, but if anything it got colder. It was impossible to get from the deckhouse to the fo'c's'l without getting soaked. By now all our clothes were wet and we were all suffering from the cold. Due to some nincompoop's incompetence, there wasn't even hot water.

Besides the broken water heater, dozens of other things had been damaged or broken by the violent motion, the most serious being our main generator. Soon we would be without power. When the Captain heard that, he decided to put into a port to rest and assess the damage. We brought our course around to west by south to head for Halifax. This brought the waves directly on our beam and it took us another day of rolling like a log to make Halifax. Finally the low grey coast of Nova Scotia appeared through the fogs and snow flurries. We found the harbor entrance and made our first landfall in the capacious harbor of Halifax.

We poked along the south shore of the bay until we saw a dilapidated dock with a sagging rust-streaked warehouse. It looked abandoned and therefore probably free, so the Captain decided we'd dock there. After a few slow turns to reconnoiter, we came in dead slow. Several of the local wharf rats had by now gathered on the dock to watch the old ship come in. Nervous about another docking mishap and wanting to look good for once, I stood in the bow with my best hand-made monkey's fist heaving line coiled and ready. As the bow crept past the end of the dock, I threw the line ashore and was gratified when it fell at the feet of two men in pea jackets. They took it up and took our bow spring to a bollard. I leaped ashore with the after spring and threw a quick halfhitch around a piling. The engines were reversed to draw us up against the dock. It reeked of fish. Peering through the fly-specked windows, we found the warehouse was stacked to the rafters with wooden barrels of dried cod of uncertain vintage.

By the time we had the lines faked down, people were going ashore. Joaquim and Mary wished us farewell and disappeared for milder climes. Four or five of the troops took the opportunity of running the road. I decided to stick with it. Surely things would get better as soon as we got further south. We couldn't run into a violent storm every time we went out. How little I knew the North Atlantic.

VII. HALIFAX

Halifax is a busy fishing, commercial, and naval port, but it is not at its best in late November. My impressions of the city are of bitter cold, grey skies, dirty snow, and freezing rain. We saw little of the town. I'd had dreams of striding down the gangplank like the Old Spice guy and cutting a swath through the Bluenose girls, but the Captain allowed no shore leave. We were kept busy making the required repairs. Every day the Captain went ashore, trying to scrounge parts or find a cargo that would help pay our way.

The only cargo he found was a small shipment of lignum vitae. It is the world's hardest, heaviest wood, formerly treasured for the sheaves of ship's blocks. It was nautical, so he bought the lot. A truck delivered the wood late one night, and all hands were turned out to unload it. I had expected to see big piles of lumber, but it turned out to be a dozen lumpy tree trunks about eight feet long and six to eight inches in diameter. Each looked like a reasonable load for one man, so I bent to pick one up. It didn't budge. I verified that it wasn't nailed down, then got lots of help. It was like lifting a stone column. We hauled them out on the dock and used the cargo crane to load them into the hold.

As usual, the Captain knew his merchandise. A few weeks later he found a man who made custom furniture and sculpture and sold the whole lot to him for three times what he'd paid for it. The buyer had a shop in a trendy indoor shopping mall not far from the waterfront, and the Captain dreamed up a scheme to make the delivery a publicity stunt. We all dressed in our most piratical clothes: bellbottom dungarees, striped shirts, peacoats, and kerchiefs on our heads. Most of us wore our hair long and tarred now, and we were nothing if not picturesque.

One Saturday night we all trooped through fashionable downtown Halifax, each four men with a rough-looking log of lignum vitae on our shoulders. We swaggered through the shopping mall, looking as bold and unconcerned as we could. Women and children fled at our approach. We marched into the buyer's shop and set the logs down with a satisfying thud on his carpet. His customers looked stunned, but he could claim "this shipment just in from South America" and be believed. What he never knew, of course, was that these rough-looking seamen had spent a total of three days at sea and had just delivered the logs from Halifax to Halifax.

The Fairmorse quickly began to attract attention. The Bluenose II, a replica of Canada's national ship and a sister of the Fairmorse, was moored only two docks away. We all went to look her over so we'd know how to re-rig the Fairmorse when we got the chance. Reporters from the local paper and radio stations came down to interview the Captain and take pictures. The publicity brought us a few local volunteers and we put them to work chipping paint. Office workers strolled out on the docks at lunchtime to admire her. I remember two straights who picked their way out onto the rotten old dock to study us. The older one obviously fancied himself a nautical expert, and was expounding to his younger friend what a glorious and historic ship lay beneath the cracked paint and rusty topsides beside the dock. The "expert" drew a deep breath of the rank air.

"Aaah, smell that, lad," he sighed. "She still has the smell of the feesh about her, eh?" We Pirates tried not to laugh aloud. The Fairmorse only smelled of stale bilges and Diesel fuel, but we were tied up next to the acutely odoriferous mausoleum of ancient cod.

Late one snowy night as I stood night watch, two men hailed me. I wondered if the owners of the dock had finally learned of our existence and we were to be driven away.

I went down to meet them.

"We're from the refinery," they said. "We just got word that a tanker is coming in tonight and all our longshoremen have gone home. We need some men who can handle dock lines. Can you help us out?"

I woke the Captain and he gave his permission. I opened the fore scuttle and shouted, "Anyone who wants to help dock a tanker, tumble up." Soon eight of us followed the two guys back to shore and climbed on the back of a flatbed. We rumbled off through the dark city streets. It began to snow heavily, so we could see little more than shapes looming in the gloom. I thought it would be a short drive to another dock, but then I realized we were passing through long tunnels of overhanging trees. We were way out in the country. I wished I had asked more questions. Where in hell were they taking us?

We turned off and went through the gate of a big industrial facility. We rolled down a steep hill and stopped at a big concrete building. They led us around back and we found ourselves on a shore. A concrete dock stretched away into the swirling snow, lit a stark orange by a line of sodium vapor lamps. We plodded out onto the dock. It was narrow and covered with a thick blanket of new snow. There was no railing, only inky black water alongside. We passed under light after light, and still the dock headed straight out over the water. The shore disappeared behind us. Then lights appeared out of the flurries ahead. We reached the intersection of a tee dock and stopped. For the first time one of the men turned and spoke to us.

"Spread yourselves out along the dock. The tanker should be here any minute. If they throw you a heaving line, haul on it and put the dock line over the nearest bollard."

Soon I found myself standing alone under an orange street light in a blizzard in the middle of an unknown body of water. All was silent and motionless except the huge snowflakes that drifted down out of the light. I stood there for what seemed at least an hour, stomping my feet, trying to stay warm, wondering what I was doing there. Then I became aware of a deep pulsing noise in the distance, growing louder. Something large moved out there in the darkness. The regular thumping grew thunderous. Then a green light appeared, impossibly high above me. As I stared at it, a line came whistling down out of the dark and dropped across the dock about fifty yards away. I scrambled to it and began hauling it in. Soon it became very hard to pull. I twisted the wet line around my arms and hauled for all I was worth. At last a huge twelve-inch hawser appeared dripping from the icy water. I grabbed it and struggled down the dock toward the nearest bollard.

It was all I could do to keep it from dragging me into the water. My feet kept skidding on the snow-covered concrete, pulling me toward the edge. After a nightmare struggle, I finally dragged it up and dropped the bight over a huge iron bollard. I shouted and waved, hoping someone on deck could see me better than I could see them. A hollow clanking began. The line gradually rose out of the water and drew taut. As enormous force came onto it, I saw it twist, sending freezing water squirting in all directions. A moment later an immense wall of black steel appeared out of the dark and softly ground against the huge rubber fenders. I saw a face appear over the rail. I waved. "Welcome to Nova Scotia," I called. I realized the man wore a turban like a Malay. He stared down at me, then muttered something in a foreign language and disappeared. Nothing further happened. After a few minutes I walked back to the main dock. The others were already there with our guides.

"Say," I said. "Where is this ship from? And what kind of ship is it, anyway? It's huge."

"It's from Kuwait, boys," one of them replied. "It's a new kind of ship, called a supertanker. It's seventeen hundred feet. "

"Shit," said someone. "That's a third of a mile. How do they get from one end to the other?"

"They ride bicycles. The officers have motor scooters. This was the largest ship in the world when it was built two years ago, but there are several even bigger now. There's only five ports in the world deep enough to handle a ship this size, and this is one of them. We're almost a half mile from shore here, and the water's ninety feet deep."

"Ninety feet?" I said. "Why so deep?"

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the ship behind him. "She draws eighty when she's full. Come on, lads, I'll take you home. And thanks."

It was dawn by the time we got back to the Fairmorse, but I don't think any of us on that detail regretted the experience.

We had expected to be in Halifax only a week, but we ended up staying more than a month. It was another bureaucratic snafu. The Customs officials took a dim view of a bunch of Americans buying a national treasure like a Bluenose schooner and exporting it. Immigration demanded passports of every member of the crew, but none of us had any. There were investigations and delays. There was even talk of a grassroots petition campaign to ban us from taking the ship out of Canada. The Captain could feel the official wind turning against us, and he called a meeting of the troops.

"Pirates," he said. "These Canadian authorities have it in for us. We need to get the ship to the States while we still can. It's a moonless night. I intend to slip out tonight and make a run for it. We'll be going to Gloucester next. Since we're leaving without clearing Immigration, there are sure to be problems for you Canadians when we reach the States. They'll send you back. I recommend you find your own way across the border and join us in Gloucester." With very sincere regrets all around, the four Canadian troops packed their gear and wandered off into the night. At midnight we cast off and headed out of the harbor. It was a relief to be back at sea, heading for warmer weather at last. We were heartily sick of winter in Nova Scotia, with its fogs and wet cold. The next morning, when we were twenty or thirty miles offshore, a Canadian Air Force plane buzzed us a few times, waggling its wings. We turned on our radio and heard the pilot ordering us to return to Halifax to clear Customs, but we pretended our radio was out and held our course. He circled us a few times, and we could see the pilot gesturing angrily at us, but we just waved back in a friendly fashion, as if touched at this farewell from our hosts. After a while he gave up and turned back.

I had again been promoted to Second Officer soon after arriving in Halifax. I had been studying navigation and seamanship ever since I'd joined the Pirates. All those long months in Summerland I'd taught all the classes in nautical terminology and coastwise navigation, and since joining the ship I had been reading Bowditch and Cugle's every night, studying piloting and celestial navigation and learning the constellations. I gathered my nerve and asked the Captain if I could try my hand at navigating on this passage and he agreed.

We cleared the southeast tip of Nova Scotia the following morning and started across the Bay of Fundy toward Maine. We spotted a patched old rowboat floating awash and in true Piratical fashion claimed our right of salvage on it. We plucked it out of the water with the cargo boom and lashed it on deck. The foredeck was becoming crowded, with the skiff, dory, and rowboat, the big 500-gallon water tank and the gigantic rusty winch we'd liberated in Port Mulgrave.

The wind and seas started building up again and by dinner it was blowing a fresh breeze. Though the wind wasn't as high as before, the rolling was much worse. I remember one trick at the wheel when I saw the fore scuttle open and Paul the cook emerged with a big coffee pot. Coffee for the bridge crew; how thoughtful.

Before he could even get the door closed, a great green wave rolled over the ship, burying all before it. To my amazement, when the wave receded Paul was still there, clinging to one of the lifelines we had rigged across the foredeck. The coffeepot was still in his hand. He came into the wheelhouse dripping wet and was greeted with cheers for his Piratical devotion to duty. He poured us each a big steaming mug of coffee. We smiled and smacked our lips over it, but poured it out as soon as he was gone. The stuff was half seawater.

By the second day the blow moderated but the seas were still huge. The Fairmorse plowed through like a lady, renewing our confidence in her essential seaworthiness. She was sturdy, but very wet. Her long narrow hull and overbuilt superstructure gave her a nasty rolling, twisting motion. She didn't so much cut through the waves as drill through them. The passage was otherwise uneventful and I was very pleased when we made landfall at Cape Ann, about twenty miles from Gloucester. Not too bad, I thought, for my first navigation, especially considering the huge tides pouring in and out of the Bay of Fundy. We rounded the lighthouse on Eastern Point, passed Ten Pound Island, and entered the small but historic port of Gloucester just at twilight. The water was as still and calm as a pond. We rounded to a stop in front of a line of expensive homes and heaved the anchor over the bow. We were back in the States.

VIII. GLOUCESTER

Again we expected to be in port only a few days, but it dragged on and on. A few weeks after our arrival our long-lost Canadian troops straggled in. Sure enough, La Migra had hassled them in Maine and wouldn't let them in. They tried all the way to Toronto and they finally walked in through the woods in Michigan and hitch-hiked to Gloucester. The one girl in the group, Diane, a tiny, plain, but very tough and uncomplaining girl, suffered the inevitable fate of her gender in the Pirates and was promptly assigned as cook, to Paul's great relief. We returned to working on the ship's interior spaces.

As the winter dragged on with no sign of immediate departure, morale fell. Soon two of the Canadians and three of the original troops ran the road. The Captain left Russ in charge and he and Sansei and one of the Canadians drove the bus back to Summerland to try to raise some more money. By now there were only six of us left of the original complement: Russ, Jack, and me the officers; Paul, Trapper and Marc the troops.

One day we unexpectedly ran out of fresh water. Upon investigation we found that the big port water tank had sprung a leak. It was a twelve-foot-long triangular stainless steel tank beneath the floorboards in the fo'c's'l. It took some major demolition to get it out, but then we found that it was corroded and could not simply be patched. We lashed it to a shelf in the hold, intending to re-weld it when we got to Brownsville. This left the fresh water supply a problem. We lashed the two lifeboats side by side with big timbers, then tied a five-hundred-gallon water tank on the timbers. It looked like a tank car on a catamaran and was a devil to row, but we only had to do it once a month or so. I was usually in charge of the expedition and used the opportunity to try to drill some muscles and discipline into the troops, who always thought it looked very nautical and fun to row until they got out there. Few volunteered twice.

We'd row the "water cat" into the inner harbor and maneuver it under the dock of a ship chandlery cum grocery store. They had a ladder under the dock that ran up to a trapdoor in the middle of the store, and I enjoyed the impression we made when we threw up the door and clambered up out of the floor. I always took a long time buying the small quantity of hardware and groceries we needed, giving the guys in the boat enough time to fill up the tank from the hose we'd discovered under the dock.

We made a water run the day before Christmas and the wind started gusting as we were filling the tank. I anxiously watched the whitecaps rising on the harbor as the water trickled maddeningly slowly into the tank. Finally it was full and we pushed off. We wound through the trawler traffic at the narrow entrance, and pulled into the outer harbor. The full force of the wind hit us in the face. The harbor was corrugated with solid lines of white chop. The ship was plunging and rolling a mile dead upwind. There was nothing to do but pull ahead.

Freezing spray soaked us with every wave. The tank made so much wind resistance that we were barely making headway. Snow flurries began, hiding both the ship and the shore. Now we couldn't even estimate our progress. The pitching became so violent that I worried that the tank might break loose. It weighed well over two tons full. I hated to think what would happen if it rolled over onto the rowers laboring beneath it.

We couldn't rest, for a single missed stroke stopped our progress and our bow would start to swing off. I couldn't chance getting broadside to the seas; the tank wouldn't last a minute like that. When one of the rowers collapsed, I changed places with him and pulled for all I was worth. We rotated as coxswain, giving each man a few minutes of rest. Everybody maintained the effort without complaint.

Finally, after almost two hours of hard rowing, the dim outline of the ship appeared through the snow ahead, a ghostly grey shape rising and falling. Several figures stood at the taffrail, watching our slow progress. It took us nearly a half hour more before we could come alongside. Hands reached over the gunwale to take our painter. We climbed wearily aboard. My crew tumbled below to warm food, but it was my duty to see the water siphoned into our tanks. It was an awful job, trying to keep the siphon going as the water cat plunged alongside. Finally it was done. To my infinite relief, Jack agreed it would be too dangerous to try to disassemble the water cat and raise the boats under those conditions, so we let the boats trail astern. All night long as the storm raged, the water cat rose and plunged over the waves like a lifeboat going through the surf.

Christmas was the only holiday that the Pirates observed - the one day in the year we could rest. I slept in until eleven and was not the last to rise. Marc and Paul labored all day at the immense stove, turning out a very competent turkey dinner with all the fixings. It was not elegant, but we had lived on rice and beans for 364 days, and we stuffed ourselves until we could hardly move. After waiting a few hours for the turkey to be turned into fatty heart tissue, we started on the pumpkin pies. A pilot boat from Salem stopped by to wish us good cheer and gave us a bottle of Johnny Walker Red.

After they left, this bottle caused a great deal of debate. Normally alcohol was prohibited on Pirate premises with an almost Islamic fervor, but it seemed ungrateful to heave our only Christmas present overboard. The dilemma was finally resolved by pretending it was British Navy grog and issuing each man a tot. I've never been a whiskey drinker and hadn't had a drink of any kind in a year. That one ounce set my head spinning for hours. The pilots returned somewhat later and jollier and brought us a six-pack of beer and a fifth of Seagram's. We invited them aboard and we killed the drinks between us. They were friendly, chatty men, perhaps hoping for our business if we ever did leave the harbor. When they heard of our plans to head for the Caribbean, they urged us to hurry because, as one said, "Last year this time this harbor was frozen up tighter than a twelve-year-old and the Coast Guard had to bring in an icebreaker." We thanked the pilots for their gifts and advice. After seeing them off, I went forward and inspected the anchor rode. I had rigged the ground tackle and knew I was personally responsible for our safety. Would that anchor rope hold if we were locked in ice? I discussed my concern with Russ and Jack and they agreed we should replace the sisal line with chain.

I had of course never done anything like this before. Early the next morning we started the complicated maneuver, involving reeling in the line, attaching stoppers, running the massive chain out through the other hawse, hanging over the bow in a bos'n's chair in snow flurries, driving pins out of shackles and trying to control a maze of stoppers, preventers, and safeties without dropping anything that held us to the anchor. Each of six shackles had to be pinned and wired closed. Just at dark it was done and the sisal line coiled and stowed. Soon after dark, it began to snow heavily and the wind rose swiftly. Soon we were in another winter gale and I was very glad we'd changed the rode.

The blizzard lasted more than twenty-four hours, but we sustained no damage other than to have our anchor buoy carried away. Early the next morning I took the Captain's light glass-bottomed racing dory and poked among the rocks along the shore until I found it. The week before another gale had carried away our anchor ball, a big round black ball that has to be displayed in the rigging of a ship at anchor. I reasoned that the ball might be nearby, so I landed and scrambled over the rocks below a huge brick mansion, looking for the ball in the tidepools. Close up, the houses along Eastern Point were even more impressive. A man came out of a neighboring house and hailed me, asking me what I was about. His neighbor, he explained, was away, and he was keeping an eye on the place.

I explained my business, and he suggested I search some boulders below his house, as storm-wrack frequently accumulated there. He strolled along beside me as I rowed to where he indicated. He said his family had recognized the Bluenose hull and wondered about us. I explained as best as I could about the Pirates as I searched in vain for the anchor mark. He said that he did a bit of sailing himself. I gave up my search and leaned on the oars as we talked. Finally he said, "Look here, you look cold. Why don't you come up to the house for a coffee? We even have some Christmas cookies left." Far be it from me to insult so kind a gentleman. I tied the painter to an ancient iron ring in the wall of his stone pier and clambered up to join him. He gave his name as Mr. Wolf and led me up to the house.

We passed through a formal garden with topiary animals, fountains, and statues of naked nymphs looking very cold in the snow. The house was a Georgian mansion of grey stone with fifteen foot ceilings and leaded glass. He led me down a long corridor, and I glimpsed a billiards room, a library, a sun room. We went into a large open white kitchen and I sat like a greasy pimple on his clean furniture as we munched cookies and talked ships. He was very knowledgeable about the Grand Banks fishing schooners that had sailed out of Gloucester for so many years. I told him I had been reading about the old Gloucester schooners and their captains and dorymen. I said that I'd heard in Cape Breton about the famous race between the original Bluenose and the fastest Gloucesterman.

"Yes, yes," he exclaimed excitedly, "that was the Gertrude S. Thibeault, in 1928. Do you know, I just had the last two surviving crew members of that ship in this house for Christmas dinner. All the best fishing captains were aboard her that day. A handsome young foretopman so impressed the press with his acrobatics aloft that he landed a job in the movies: young Sterling Hayden. She was a beautiful schooner. Wait, I have pictures of her. Rosalie!" he shouted. "Hey, Rose!"

"Yes, Daddy?" a girl's voice echoed down the hall.

"Would you please bring us the Thibeault album, dear? And come meet our visitor. He's from that freighter we've been wondering about all month."

A moment later a beautiful young woman of about twenty-two appeared bearing a thick photo album. She took in my bedraggled appearance with a quick glance but looked at me with polite interest. Aristocratic aplomb, I decided.

"And is she a Bluenose?" she asked me. I closed my mouth with a snap and tugged off my greasy watch cap. "Yes, ma'am," I stammered. "She's the Fairmorse, out of the Smith and Rhuland yard in Lunenburg, sister to the Bluenose."

"My daughter, Rosalie," said Mr. Wolf. "This is Bos'n Brian, of the Fairmorse, and a young man with interesting tales to tell."

"Hi," she said, "I just love old schooners." And just like that I was in love, or one of those four-letter L-words. Soon we were joined by her eighteen-year-old sister Sylvia, equally lovely. I sat blissfully between them, munching cookies and talking ships.

"You sure know a lot about ships, Rosalie," I said after a lengthy discussion of the relative merits of ketch versus yawl rigs.

She laughed. "I should. I've sailed daddy's Swan 60 since I was a little girl."

A Swan! The Rolls-Royce of yachts. And she could sail it herself. I decided to tone down the nautical jargon. She no doubt knew infinitely more than I, who had never set foot on a sail boat of any size. I decided to change the subject.

"So, are you in school or what?" I asked.

"Oh sure, I'm just home for Christmas," she replied. "I'm going to Stanford."

"Very good school, I hear. What are you studying?"

"Navigation. I want to be a captain one day."

"You mean a master?"

"No. I'm in Naval ROTC. I want to be the first woman to be captain of a Navy ship."

Oh, Rosalie, you could have had me forever at that moment. I would have followed you to the ends of the earth. But she went right on, never knowing of her conquest.

"Is there anything you guys need?" she asked. "I know you can get pretty grungy after a while living on a boat. Do you think your crew would like to come up to the house for showers?"

"We sure would!" I exclaimed. "It gets really hard trying to wash with cold sea water. Are you sure?" I glanced at her father. Did they really want a bunch of dirty Pirates trashing their bathroom?

"Of course," he said. "Should have thought of it myself."

"Well, I'll ask Russ. He doesn't like to give us shore leave."

"See what you can do. We can give you lunch too. Do you get enough to eat? Have you had any fresh food lately?

"We get plenty to eat, but it hasn't been fresh since the Korean War."

"Well, ask if you can bring the crew ashore for lunch and showers. Say two o'clock?"

"I sure will, and thanks. Thanks a lot!" I made my farewells and Rosalie walked me down to their dock. I rowed back to the ship as fast as I could. Some of the guys were lining the rail to take my line. They had been watching with binoculars.

"Hey, who was that you were talking to?" Trapper yelled. "Do you have a girl in every port?"

"Of course, man. She was really nice. She's a sailor."

"We heard about you and sailors. Does she live in that big mansion?"

"Yeah. And guess what? She invited us ashore for lunch and showers."

There was a roar of approval for both. "What? All of us?"

"Yeah."

Russ looked doubtful. "I don't know. You know the Articles. Someone aboard on watch at all times."

"We could go a few at a time."

But no one wanted to be the one left aboard. Faces fell. Were we going to have to pass up this great invitation? But then Jack surprised everyone.

"Ah, what the hell," he growled in his usual disgusted tone. "I haven't had a shower in a year and haven't missed it. Why ruin a nice warm coat of dirt now?"

We all looked at him in surprise. I had never known him to do anything nice for anyone. I decided that he was so violently antisocial that he didn't want to put himself in a situation where he'd have to watch his manners and language. Perhaps he wasn't capable of it. No one tried to talk him out of it.

At 1345 we loaded everybody into the longboat and rowed for shore. Jack watched sourly and spat from the flying bridge as we moved off. The men rowed sharply, and they tossed oars in the best Royal Navy fashion as we glided up to the moss-covered old jetty. Rosalie and her parents were there to meet us.

I thought we looked very nautical. We were all in bellbottoms, striped shirts, peacoats, and watch caps. Rose came down on the rocks to take our painter.

"I'm Rosalie Wolf," she said, "you can call me Rose. And these are my parents, Arnold and Eileen."

"This is Second Officer Russ," I said. "He's also the Chief Engineer. That's Paul, Marc, and Trapper." Everyone shook hands a bit awkwardly, then the Wolfs led us up through the garden and a set of French doors into a large elegant room with one wall all glass.

"I'm afraid there are only two showers," said Mrs. Wolf, "so you'll have to take turns. Perhaps you'd like something to snack on while you wait. Sylvia has laid out a few cold things for you."

The younger sister was just putting the finishing touches to a long table along the wall. "A few cold things" turned out to be eight or ten different kinds of sliced meats and cheeses, six different salads, hot apple cider, and dozens of wonderful condiments in little crystal bowls - gherkins and capers, pickled mushrooms and onions, and candied crabapples. After a year of beans and rice, we fell on that table like a pride of lions on a wildebeest.

When I went in for my shower, I found a large mirrored room almost completely opaque with steam. On one side was a stack of thick fluffy white towels on a marble bench. On the other lay a soggy heap of wet towels, grey from doing battle with filthy Pirates. One has to go without a hot shower for a year to truly know what joy it is to stand under a scalding spray. I was torn between luxuriating in the steaming hot water and getting back to the food table. Finally the additional attraction of female company won me over and I hurried back, pinker and probably a few pounds lighter.

It was an elegant and delicious luncheon. We talked and laughed and regaled the family with our many adventures. The Wolfs were an old sailing family, veterans of many summer cruises along the coast and to the Bahamas. Rosalie even told us of racing ice-boats on the ponds in the winter when the Swan was hauled out. I don't remember what all we talked about, but the whole day is a golden blur in my memory. It had now been almost a full year since I had been "ashore," as the Pirates called everything outside their walls. I was dizzy with the joy of again dining well and having an intelligent discussion with friendly social people - not to mention just being around women again.

After lunch they showed us around a dozen or so of the rooms on the first floor of the house. We wandered among the paintings and antiques and books, the art brought back from exotic trips. Finally, as the early dusk drew down, they walked us back down to the dock. As we stood on the jetty, loaded down with bags of food, I thought sadly that there was no way we could repay their kindness - nor would I ever see the lovely Rosalie again. Russ shook hands with Mr. Wolf.

"Thank you so much for your kindness, sir," he said. "It is much appreciated. Would you like to come out to see the Fairmorse sometime? I'm sorry we can't return your hospitality, but our resources are very limited, to say the least."

"That's very kind of you, Russ," said Mrs. Wolf. "We'd love to see your ship. But I have an idea. How about if the girls and I fix dinner and we can bring it with us? What about New Year's Day? You have to have a celebration for New Year's."

Russ' acceptance speech was drowned out by a chorus of cheers. We thanked them again, then cast off and rowed back to the ship. For the next few days we labored like demons, scrubbing, swabbing, wiping, painting. I even had a crew in the longboat, scraping the grunge out of the bilges and making sure the thwarts were scrubbed clean and white. We worked late on New Year's Eve and could hear the sounds of merriment from shore as everyone else partied while we scraped and painted. We collapsed into bed in the wee hours and were up before dawn doing laundry. The least ragged and holey clothes were dug out of the slop chest and passed out. Everyone braided and tarred their hair, sharpened and polished their sheath knives, and trimmed their beards. The cook had two helpers to put together a tasty dessert, and wonderful aromas were soon wafting out of "Charlie Noble," the galley stovepipe. By sundown we were ready and I had the great pleasure of taking the longboat in to pick up our guests.

Never had my boatmen looked so sharp. Never had they rowed more carefully. Never a crab was caught, never a thwart was spattered with spray, though the harbor was quite choppy. It was very cold and snow flurries were sifting down. Halfway in I saw the Wolfs waiting beneath the large ornate carriage lamp on the rocks below their house. We rounded to and tossed oars without so much as kissing the rocks. Trapper and Paul fended off while I handed Mr. and Mrs. Wolf into the boat. They had two big wicker baskets full of food and Rose was still in the house packing a third. Clearly there was not room for seven people and three baskets of food, so we left Sylvia and one of the baskets and took her parents out to the ship. Mr. Wolf took his seat beside the bowman, and we backed out into the bay. They all behaved as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world to be picked up for dinner in a longboat. We brought them neatly beside the ladder and they climbed aboard without fuss. Then I returned for the girls. By the time we got back to the shore the chop was building up. We were fending off all around as we surged against the rocks. The girls looked beautiful standing under the light, snowflakes sparkling in their hair. We managed to load them and the remaining food without mishap and headed back to the ship. The swells came looming up out of the night, threatening to come over the bow. The girls laughed and took it all in stride. Sylvia even took an oar and helped row. When we reached the ship every Pirate in reach was offering helping hands to assist the girls in climbing aboard, all totally unnecessary. We showed our guests around the Fairmorse with great pride and they asked intelligent, knowledgeable questions. Finally it was four bells and time for dinner.

All that could squeezed in around the fo'c's'l table, the rest sat on the edges of their bunks, and we had the only dinner with guests in all my time with the Pirates. The dinner was simple but excellent and hearty, a wonderful treat for us. Afterwards I taught everyone a silly card game and we laughed and talked late into the night, the fo'c's'l steamy with the food and the great glowing stove and the animated conversation. Then it was time for them to leave. They left us a basket of fruit and vegetables to stave off scurvy. When we climbed out on deck we found the air bitter cold and still, but the night had broken clear and a full moon was rising over Eastern Point. Mist drifted above the mirror of the harbor, and I steered the boat through it like Charon ferrying passengers across the Styx. We deposited the Wolfs safely on their dock and said farewell with many thanks and promises to keep in touch. Then we rowed out into the dark harbor. I think that was the best evening I ever spent as a Pirate, and for weeks my head was full of fantasies involving either and both the Wolf girls. A few days later I went ashore alone to return their basket and thank them again. Mrs. Wolf gave me a very fine etching she'd done of us rowing them out through mountainous seas. I ached to kiss Rose good-bye, but I refrained and rowed away. I never saw them again, but I have always wondered if the Navy lists carry a Captain Rosalie Wolf.

We spent nearly three months in Gloucester while troops and supplies were occasionally exchanged with the Base. On one trip the Chief and Rogue drove out in the 3CV, a tiny three-cylinder Citröen, about as small as a two-passenger car could be. The back wheels were so close together that it appeared to have only three wheels. The only door was the whole front of the car. It must have been an adventure driving it three thousand miles across the country in winter. Both Chief and Rogue were tall and long-legged, and they looked haggard and stiff when they unfolded out of the miniscule car on the dock in Gloucester. But they soon recovered and it was great fun showing them over the ship they had heard about for so long.

We used the 3CV for the rare shopping runs when we had to go further than walking distance from the waterfront. We kept it parked out on the very end of an abandoned cannery dock, but vandals soon discovered it. Each time we went ashore the poor car had suffered a further indignity. The antenna and mirrors disappeared, then the spare tire. Then the headlights were stolen, giving it a blind, maimed look; then a window was broken and the ancient radio was ripped out. The next time someone stole the wheels, and it lay forlornly on its bottom. One day I went ashore with the water cat and found the poor little 3CV rolled upside down and burned out. For all I know, its hulk is still there.

We were getting so short of both people and cash that the Captain took a drastic step. He did another recruiting session in California, but the arrangement was completely different this time. For one thing, the entry fee which had always been nominal, was increased to $325, big money for the kind of people who usually responded to the ads. For another, these recruits were to be treated differently. It was the Captain's idea that the new people, in return for their substantial fee, would not be recruits but more like working passengers. Of course we were not licensed to carry passengers, but the Captain had found a loophole in the Coast Guard regulations. He had gotten the new guys to sign a "joint venture agreement" by which all parties shared expenses, liabilities, and any profits. We were to call them "shipmates" instead of "fucking 'cruits" and could not discipline them or assign them extra duty. If they didn't want to do something they didn't have to. The Captain assured us it was only a temporary expedient to help pay our way to Texas. If they wanted to stay with us after that, they'd have to go through the usual training and work their way up through the ranks. None of us liked the idea, but you didn't try to change the Captain's mind. It turned out to be one of his worst ideas.

On the 28th of January the newly repaired Pirate bus arrived at the beach just after dark and blinked its lights. We had been watching for them and quickly lowered one of the boats and pulled strongly for the dark shore a half mile away. Soon I could see a cluster of figures standing on the beach watching us.

I thought we must have made a most piratical appearance as we loomed up out of the dark and snow flurries, the long oars rising and falling together. We were all in peacoats and watch caps against the cold. I brought the boat expertly through the gentle surf, the bowman jumped out with the painter, and the crew tossed oars together, looking very much like an eighteenth century British Navy boat's crew. I was proud of them.

There was a joyful reunion on the beach. There was the Captain, looking very dramatic in his peaked cap and long coat flapping in the wind. With him were two old friends of his, a middle-aged Chicano couple named Joaquim and Mary; and a bunch of recruits and regular troops, including Marc's best friend Lon. I'd recruited the two of them months before in San Diego and they had been "separated at birth," being assigned to different posts ever since.

Off to one side, not speaking to anyone, our five new "shipmates" stared at us as we greeted each other. They must have been wondering what they had gotten themselves into. A week ago in California they'd paid their money and signed some document called "the articles" to go on a cruise. Now they were on a dark Atlantic beach in the dead of winter and a boatload of rough-looking seamen appeared to pick them up like smugglers. I could see visions of sunny luxury cruises evaporating around us.

My first indication that the shipmates were going to change our lives came when the Captain offered to wait on the freezing beach while we rowed the shipmates to the ship. The harbor was choppy and we took spray over the bow, bringing on loud complaints. We came alongside the Fairmorse and helped them aboard. They were looking anxiously at the scarred and rust-stained topsides as their gear was handed over the rail. Jack led them forward to the fo'c's'l as I went back for the rest.

By the time we got back with the last load, three from the first load wanted to be taken ashore. One look at the Spartan living conditions had been enough. One of the shipmates demanded his money back, but the Captain pointed out that the agreements they'd signed had been very explicit that no refunds would be given. The man got belligerent about it and threatened legal action. The Captain looked at him contemptuously. He turned to me and said quietly and casually, "Take this man ashore, Number Two. If he gives you any trouble, throw him overboard."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n," I said, not cracking a smile.

All the shipmates paled at this. What manner of ship was this? Who were these people? This was 1972, for God's sake! Did they really throw people overboard these days? We stared them down, and the guy must have thought better of it, for he climbed quietly into the boat. I deposited him on the beach and left him to find his own way home. I returned to the ship to deal with a very disgruntled set of lubbers, I mean shipmates.

We had never been what I would call a happy ship - the living conditions and the discipline were too harsh to be really pleasant. I certainly didn't have warm feelings for every other Pirate - Jack, for instance, was still insufferable, and the Captain was a self-styled tyrant. But precisely because conditions were so bad and there was no pay of any kind, there was a bond between us. The only possible reason sane people would put up with all this was because they all wanted the same thing: a life of adventure, outside the mainstream of modern life. Who wanted a salary if it meant working in a fast food joint or on an assembly line? No salary meant no taxes, no government interference, no money hassles. In spite of our differences, we had always felt that we were all in it together, all working for the common cause.

The shipmates changed everything. I had a terrible time trying to assimilate them into my deck gang. One or two joined in the spirit of the thing and pitched in willingly, but the others whined and complained constantly. Some of the new 'cruits started to balk and talk back when the shipmates refused to work. It was impossible to get anything done without a lot of arguing and explaining. I never knew how many men to assign to a task because the shipmates would wander off when they got bored or tired. Morale started dropping, even among the old hands. Jack especially couldn't adjust to the shipmates. It drove him crazy to have all these ignorant novices blundering around and to not be able to abuse them. He became even more morose and mean-spirited than usual.

The Fairmorse had long since been ready for sea again. The damage from the storm had been repaired, fresh troops had arrived to replace the roadrunners, and Rogue had brought a few thousand dollars, the proceeds of selling off the vehicles at the Ranch. The problem now was the U.S. Customs. One of the reasons the Captain had decided to take the ship to Brownsville was that he had been told that there would be no import duties for bringing the ship into Texas. Now the Customs department said that we had imported the ship into Massachusetts and had to pay a duty of $20,000, roughly twice what we had paid for the ship. This was not only patently unfair but also impossible. It would take the Pirates another ten years to raise that much. The Captain made dozens of trips ashore to argue our case, but to no avail. The weeks dragged by while our funds and patience dwindled. Every week or so someone else ran the road, until we were short-handed again. Another recruiting session in Southern California replenished the people at the Base, and Ol' Blue brought us a dozen troops. But morale was still low and the atmosphere on the ship became openly hostile.

The shipmates felt they had paid a lot of good money for a cruise; as week after week passed with no sign of departure, they stopped work entirely. Why should they work on a dirty old ship that never went anywhere? And they mocked us for our efforts, accusing us of either running a scam to rip off their money, or of being mindless slaves to the Captain. Establishing discipline in the 'cruits became impossible. Because they were always free to leave, the only power we had over recruits was that we were all working just as hard and living in the same conditions. When thrust into a new situation most people will do what everyone around them is doing. But the shipmates were exempt from the discipline. When I tried to train my new crew the shipmates taunted the 'cruits into resisting. We did our best to go about our duty and ignore their jibes.

After a few weeks they refused to even eat with us. Every day they would row ashore and spend the day drinking in one of the waterfront bars, bemoaning their ill treatment to all who would listen. Every evening they would return drunk and belligerent; sneering, resentful, and condescending. The rest of us were still putting in long hard days and it rankled every time we asked a shipmate to lend a hand and they refused. Jack, especially, found it hard to be civil with them. He was by nature overbearing, intolerant, and short-tempered, and there were many ugly arguments. I was constantly afraid that a fight would break out, and as every Pirate carried a razor-sharp sheath knife at all times, there was a chance of real violence.

As Bos'n, I was in charge of maintaining the deck machinery and the exterior of the ship. The frequent winter storms made work on deck uncomfortable at best, and truly miserable much of the time. Our ragged cast-off clothing was completely inadequate for the conditions. Like the others, I wore two sets of long underwear, three or four pairs of jeans of increasing size, and every shirt and sweater I could find. We looked like Napoleon's army on the way back from Russia. Still we were constantly cold and wet. I was trying to run a crew of a dozen or so young inexperienced men, most of them now disillusioned with the whole Pirates adventure. Each time we went ashore, one or two took their bedrolls and ran the road. One shipmate ran the road, but the three worst troublemakers were determined to stay no matter how much we all hated it. They were going to get their money's worth if it killed them.

Marc's friend Lon was a strange kid and couldn't seem to get used to life on the ship. Both of them were seventeen or eighteen, with no experience of life or work. But Marc had adjusted and was well-liked and dependable. But Lon was consumed with paranoia. He was always spaced out and had to be watched and directed every minute. He couldn't handle the least criticism and accused everyone of picking on him. The shipmates thought he was funny and they taunted him that we were plotting to throw him overboard. One day he flipped out completely, becoming hysterical and screaming that we were all "out to get him." He started flailing violently and we had to restrain him, which of course set him off even worse. Marc couldn't talk him down. None of us could do anything with him. At last we had to tie him up to protect himself. Finally we loaded him into the boat, took him ashore, and drove him, still bound and raving, to the airport. Marc took him home to his family, so we lost them both.

Now we didn't have enough crew to work the ship, so the Chief did another recruiting drive in Boston and rounded up eight new guys, bringing them directly from the motel to the ship. Every evening I taught classes in nautical terminology, basic knots, seamanship, and navigation. All day I taught them chipping, scraping, and painting. For most of these street kids, it was the first physical work or discipline they'd ever encountered. It was always hard with a new batch of 'cruits, trying to teach them what was expected of them, why discipline and obedience were required, and the whole Pirate way of life. But now, with the shipmates lounging about, refusing to work and sneering at those who did, it was impossible. The recruits became stubborn and uncooperative, constantly complaining about the work, food, and classes. I hated to think of going to sea with a crew like that, where all our lives could depend on one of these sullen, spiteful kids carrying out an order.

In February we moved the Fairmorse into the inner harbor and tied up to an old dock to take on fuel. While we were there a major winter storm slammed into New England. A combination of some of the year's highest tides, a new moon, and fierce onshore winds caused record high water that flooded the waterfronts of many port cities. I had put out double springs, so we had seven stout hawsers securing us to the dock. The strain was terrific. On one of my checks of the lines, I found that they were all squeezed bone dry, though we were in a driving storm of sleet and freezing rain. The lines were holding, but as the tide continued to rise the dock became completely submerged. We were rising and falling so much that we couldn't keep the bumpers between us and the dock, and the starboard bulwarks were starting to crack where they smashed against the dock. Then the dock started to break up. Two of the pilings we were tied to came out by the roots and the planking was splintering. Suddenly both bow lines parted together like a double cannon shot. Broken pieces of the dock came flying across our deck. The Captain ordered us to cast off. Chief and I and three troops jumped onto the disintegrating dock and tried to free the lines but they were frozen fast. The Captain ordered both engines astern half to ease the strain on the lines. We hacked at them with our knives and crow bars. Suddenly one parted, then the others snapped and the ship was swept away in an instant. There was no possibility of getting aboard. We watched her beat out into the outer harbor and anchor at our old mooring.

The five of us picked our way ashore, wondering what to do. The only people we knew east of Summerland were the Wolfs, so we walked around the city and out to their house. They took us in without hesitation and we moved into their home, helping them protect their house against the battering seas. Much of their garden, including several large trees, became part of the Atlantic. Dozens of the big houses along the shore were damaged, many severely. We watched one mansion, only two houses down from the Wolfs', completely destroyed and the wreckage swept out to sea. Each day we signalled to the ship with a flashlight and they signalled back with the Aldiss lamp, but there was no hope of picking us up for two more days.

When they did risk launching the boat and came in to get us, we were struck at how full the boat appeared. We met them at the dock and soon learned the reason. Every one of the eight new recruits piled out and lugged their gear up the beach. They'd had enough. Unfortunately, the shipmates who had talked them into leaving were still there, as offensive and abusive as ever.

In fact, they had found new ways to annoy us. They all hated the ship and all of us and no longer had any desire to continue in our "joint venture," but they were determined to pay us back for their unpleasant shipboard holiday. The Captain finally gave in and offered to give them their money back, but they said they wouldn't go unless he paid them a thousand apiece for "emotional distress," so that was off. Their money was long spent anyway. Chief did another recruiting session in Providence, but we didn't get nearly enough people to pay off the shipmates.

One of them had gone ashore and talked to the Coast Guard about the joint venture agreement, asking if they could either sue us or get us thrown into jail. The Coast Guard looked into it and decided that the agreement wouldn't apply to a vessel of our size. The Captain said several vessels in California had similar arrangements, but the Coast Guard told him that they didn't care how they did it "out there"; here it was clearly illegal. If we sailed with the shipmates the ship could be seized for illegally carrying paying passengers; if we put them ashore without giving their money back we could be sued for breach of contract. We could only sail with them if they signed a release stating that they were not paying passengers. The shipmates were gleeful, thinking they had us over a barrel. They refused to sign the release unless we paid them a ridiculous sum. We considered just cutting through the red tape and making a break for the open sea, but one of the shipmates was overheard stating that if we did he'd blackmail us for kidnapping them. Now we had problems with the Coast Guard in addition to the ongoing hassles with Immigration over our undocumented aliens, with Customs over the import duty, and the state tax people over the sales tax on the ship. Bureaucracy is just not equipped to deal with Pirates. We didn't fit into any category.

For me the only bright part of the whole unpleasant winter was that Jack one day announced he was through. I took great pleasure in lowering a longboat and piping up the boat's crew to take him ashore. It was a real satisfaction to me to stand at the rail and watch Jack's sullen face glaring up at me as he was rowed off into a snow flurry. I had finally outlasted him. Aside from the Captain, Chief, Vera, Russ, and Rogue, he had been the longest surviving Pirate. Now I ascended into the inner circle. I was one of only two Second Officers, with Russ in charge of the engines and me of everything else. While at sea I was also the navigator, a responsibility that gave me great pleasure and pride. Now we just needed to get under way again.

The weeks dragged on in this miserable fashion. Every day the Captain went ashore to deal with more stubborn officials. Every day we worked in miserable conditions while the shipmates ridiculed and insulted us. We picked up two more loads of recruits to help get the ship in shape, but the shipmates soon talked every one into leaving within a few days. Rogue, the commander at the Summerland Base, left my buddy Sansei in charge there, and flew out to join us. He'd been in the group three years and had never been on a passage.

One morning in March the three remaining shipmates came up on deck with their bags packed and asked to be taken ashore. Never was a boat launched so quickly or rowed so enthusiastically; I was never so glad to see the backs of anyone in my life. That night the Captain resolved all of our bureaucratic problems in traditional Pirate fashion: in a heavy snow flurry we slipped out of the harbor. We ran past the Coast Guard station with all lights out. By daylight we were well out at sea, and our spirits immediately soared. Every face was lit by a smile, and laughter filled the fo'c's'l again.

IX. EQUINOX

We crossed the bay to Cape Cod and just after dawn entered the Cape Cod Canal. This is an immense cut, as straight as an arrow and several miles long, saving the long passage around the hook of Cape Cod. It was a strange experience to be motoring along with huge cliffs towering just a few yards away on either hand. We emerged into beautiful Buzzard's Bay with its many islands. It was a bright calm winter day, the water sparkling and the air clear, a fine day to be motoring along. We took the opportunity to give the ship a good cleaning and to put things in better order. When we raised the anchor in Gloucester we had gouged the sides getting it aboard. As the hawsepipes were surrounded by lovely gilt scrollwork, we didn't want to do that again. The problem was getting the swinging anchor under control from the time it came out of the water until we could reach it from the rail. Trapper invented a T-shaped tool for reaching over the side and holding the anchor and Rogue welded it up.

We put into Newport, Rhode Island, another famous sailing town, and again anchored in front of a row of stately mansions. Chief met us there with the bus and we tried one more recruiting session in nearby Providence. We got six more, but three ran the road as soon as they saw the ship and Chief took the other three with him to California. So for all the busloads of people we had driven across the country and the scores of new recruits that had joined us in Canada, Gloucester, and Newport, there were only nine of us left: the Captain, Joaquim and Mary as guests, Rogue and I as navigators, Russ and Paul in the engine room, Trapper as deck hand, and Diane as cook. On March 20 we set sail for Charleston.

There were the usual mishaps getting under way. The anchor had fouled on something and we had to motor around and gently tug it free. But Trapper's anchor grabber worked to perfection and we hauled it aboard without marring the side of the ship. Soon after leaving Narragansett Bay, Paul discovered engine oil in the bilge and we stopped the port engine to replace a broken dipstick tube.

As we crossed Long Island Sound, the lookout spied a strange object on the starboard bow: a tall thin black cross on the horizon, like a gigantic telephone pole rising out of the water. What's more, it was clearly moving across our bow. We all speculated about it, but no one had guessed the truth until a nuclear submarine passed close ahead of us, travelling at least thirty knots with only its black sail protruding from the sea. There was no sound of engines or rush of bow wave, only a deep menacing humming. It was very eerie to see this immense machine gliding by, and to know that it was capable of destroying a continent. The sea was so calm that we were unprepared for the large wake of the sub, and the coffeepot capsized on the stove. We always monitored the radar after that and kept our running lights burning day and night.

The Captain's friends Joaquim and Mary were an unusual addition to the crew. For one thing, they were thirty years older than the rest of us, and as the Captain's guests they had a privileged status and did not stand watches. They lived in the guest cabin beside the Captain's cabin and dined with him. I never got to know them well, but I did hear bits of their story. They had been friends of the Captain and the Chief for decades. Even the sedate and respectable-looking Mary, it turned out, had once dived for abalones in the Channel Islands with the early Pirates. They were soon swapping yarns about the time they all bought a PT boat in Maine and sailed it to California via the Panama Canal. Their stories about being caught in a hurricane in the Caribbean pushed our belief, but one night the Captain brought out a home movie they'd made on the passage. The old plywood boat was thrashing through mountainous seas so badly she was opening up. One scene was a close-up of the deck working against the house, with a crack four inches wide opening and shutting like a mouth, each time gulping down barrels of water. We watched aghast, but the Captain, Joaquim, and Mary laughed at the sight. Every time I heard a Pirate story too unlikely to be true, I later found proof that it had really happened.

The Captain used the occasion of the film to reinforce one of his tenets about being knowledgeable and wily and making your own opportunities. The Pirates had learned of four brand new PT boat hulls without engines to be auctioned in Portland, Maine. The Captain made inquiries among his cronies in the surplus business as to where he might find engines. Sure enough, another yard in Portland, Oregon, was offering four brand new, never-used PT boat engines. Some clerk had requisitioned too many boats, and to cover the error they pulled the engines out and shipped the engines and hulls to Portland and Portland, apparently hoping that the similarity in names would confuse any auditors. Since each was useless without the other, the local commanders were justified in auctioning them off. The Captain bought the engines and the hulls, had the engines shipped to Maine and installed, sold three of the boats for ten times what he'd paid for the lot, and sailed the fourth home. He got a free PT boat and enough money to buy two minesweepers and half a submarine, and the only losers were the taxpayers. It was the type of story the Captain loved to tell: how a canny operator who kept his eyes and ears open could make a fortune from the stupidity or venality of lesser men. He had hundreds of examples.

During the night we crossed the busy mouth of New York Harbor and ran down the coast of New Jersey. The sea was crowded with traffic; naval, maritime, and recreational, and it was a navigational challenge to keep track of all the other vessels as we threaded our way among them. Just before dawn a pod of porpoises played in the bow wave, looking very eerie in the half-light, only their noses and heads outlined by streaming phosphorescence.

When the sun rose to a beautiful clear day the air was noticeably warmer, either from the approaching spring or the two degrees of latitude we'd made. We didn't care which, we were just glad to be getting out of winter at last. I'd been constantly cold ever since I came aboard in October. We did not intend to stop again before Charleston, and if things went well, we might run all the way down into the Caribbean in the next week or so. After five months of icy misery, we were bound for the tropics at last.

We kept well off shore to avoid any chance of a nighttime encounter with the low offshore islands further south. The fathometer went off the scale at 390 fathoms as we passed over the Hudson Submarine Canyon. The chart showed we had over 2000 fathoms, well over two miles, of water beneath us. We had left the continental shelf and were true bluewater sailors at last. I was exhilarated. No more fixing engines in a junk yard for me. I was navigator and Second Officer on my own ship, slicing through the blue billows on my way to hunt for treasure on the Spanish Main.

The latitudes rolled by throughout the day. At ten AM we crossed the 39th parallel, the southern end of New Jersey. A pod of hundreds of porpoises crossed our bow, leaping and splashing and playing. Soon after that we passed an enormous whale, possibly a blue, lazing and blowing in the sun only fifty yards away. As we passed, he raised his head and eyes out of the water and slowly rotated to watch us go by.

At noon high clouds appeared ahead of us and we felt puffs of wind in our faces. Throughout the afternoon the south wind continued to rise; by sunset we were pitching heavily into big head seas. They got even bigger after dark, gleaming under a thinly veiled first quarter moon. By ten the sky was overcast, the night utterly black. The wind rose to thirty knots, and the steep seas from dead ahead forced us to slow down to 400 revolutions, about 2/3 speed.

All day I had been predicting that we would enter the warm Gulf Stream at any minute, but the spray coming over the bow was still cold as ice. It also burned with an eerie phosphorescence; our wake was a pale shimmering pathway in the darkness behind us. The Coast Pilot book said the Gulf Stream does not phosphoresce. I got nervous about my dead reckoning and struggled to get a bearing on the Cape Henry radio beacon at the mouth of the Chesapeake. It was at the extreme range of our RDF and we couldn't rely on it. My best guess was that it bore west-southwest. That would put us thirty miles further south than our dead reckoning. If true, it meant we had a strong southerly current helping us. I guessed that we must have been riding a cold countercurrent alongside the Stream.

While I had the Pilot out, I looked at the weather section for this area and season. What I read was not reassuring: "Some of the most severe storms along the Atlantic seaboard are known as equinoctial gales. They occur when a strong southerly wind builds up over the Gulf Stream while the surrounding waters are still very cold. The gales' sudden onset and extreme winds often whip up unusually large steep seas that have been the loss of many a sound ship over the centuries. These gales are usually accompanied by a rapidly falling glass and are most severe near the vernal equinox." I glanced up to the barometer on the charthouse wall. It had fallen half an inch in the last hour. Beside it hung the calendar - March 21, 1972, the vernal equinox. With a gulp, I read further. "These violent gales are considered one of the greatest dangers of this coast. The prudent mariner is urged to exert all precautions when these indications combine." I decided I was a prudent mariner. I returned to the bridge to warn the Captain.

I needn't have bothered. In the half hour I'd been away, the seas had risen dramatically. The wind was hard and steady, sending whitecaps the size of houses tumbling from every crest. Captain and Rogue were at the port door, peering out at the inky sky.

"I don't like the look of this, Rogue," the Captain was saying. "I don't like it at all."

"It's an equinoctial gale, Cap'n," I said. "Everything points to it - southerly wind, late in the season, high seas, rapidly falling pressure. The glass is dropping like a rock. We're in for it."

"Where's the nearest shelter?"

We bent over the chart. "The only really safe harbor along here is Norfolk," I said. Rogue stepped off the distance with the dividers. "It'll take at least 24 hours to get there, assuming we can maintain this speed." A sudden lurch sent us flying across the wheelhouse.

"This is going to get worse before it gets better," said the Captain from the corner. "Is everything secured and double lashed, Bos'n?"

I clutched at a stanchion as I lurched back. "All secure aloft and alow, Cap'n," I reported.

"It better be. I assume the water heater is secured this time?"

"Four steel straps and a safety lashing," I returned, my face red.

"Good. Well, boys, the Fairmorse was built for storms just like this, back in the days when they didn't have Loran C and radar and sonar and RDF. Hell, she probably didn't even carry a radio in those days. She's survived fifty years of nor'easters and equinoctial gales. Let's hope she can survive one more. Everybody try to get some rest. I've got a feeling we're in for a long night."

I went below to my berth, but sleep was difficult. The long low hull shape of the Fairmorse made her seaworthy but susceptible to very deep rolls, often exceeding an arc of 90 degrees. The old timbers creaked and groaned with every motion, a ground bass that underlay a symphony of noise. Above the bass was the rushing of the water eight inches away, a roaring like that of a waterfall. And above that was an irregular tintinabulation of clinks and tings and rattles and thuds as all the thousands of items in the lockers, cabinets, and shelves tumbled about. There the clanking of crockery, here the clatter of silverware, there a duffel bumping against a locker door.

It is unnerving to listen to a wooden ship working in a heavy seaway. It is not mere creaking, as the stories would have it. Some of the sounds are like unearthly banshee wails, or long rising squeals of complaint, punctuated by occasional loud bangs and cracks like gunshots, sometimes right next to your head as you lie in your berth. One can't help but think of all those cold dark miles of uncaring sea inches beyond those groaning planks, or of the forty-year-old screws that hold them on. The noise was both tremendous and disconcerting. Would we be able to tell if the old girl really were breaking up? ?

The rolling had been most extreme three decks up in the wheelhouse, but down below it was the pitching. When we rose over the biggest seas the forward forty feet of the ship hung suspended for a moment, then plunged over the crest. The result was free fall. Those in their berths in the fo'c's'l wedged their shoulders and knees against the berth above to avoid being thrown against it. When the bow struck there was a crash as if we'd hit a wall, then an ominous silence. Spray squirted down Charlie Noble to hiss on the stove, and we knew that we were completely submerged. There was a long breathless pause, as if the ship were trying to decide if it was worth the trouble to fight her way up again. We waited breathless in the stuffy, dripping darkness, counting the seconds. Then she'd give a deep despairing groan and wriggle and rise sluggishly once more, throwing off tons of water to either side. It was not conducive to falling asleep.

This restful interlude was shattered by the scuttle being thrown back and Trapper's slightly hysterical voice crying down the ladder accompanied by buckets of icy seawater. "Off watch on deck. Bos'n to the bridge!" The scuttle slammed shut, but not quite fast enough to prevent us hearing a faint "Oh, shit!" from the luckless messenger as a wave buried the foredeck. Water squirted through the cracks in the scuttle as if a fire hose were playing on it. I heard eight bells: four AM.

I struggled into my soaking sou'wester (no simple task in a heaving, nearly dark room) then climbed the ladder to huddle inside the scuttle. The fore scuttle on the Fairmorse was actually a double enclosure. The inner scuttle, a massive wooden waist-high box with doors that would stop the average compact car, was original equipment. But sometime later in her career a larger sheet metal enclosure had been built around it, rounded in front and with a full-sized door on the after side. I had installed a small round porthole in this door. I peered out at the deck. When it was visible I could see waist-deep masses of white water thundering back and forth like mad elephants, burying the main hatch and breaking against the deckhouse as if it were a seawall.

I waited until there was more air than water visible, then opened the scuttle and dove for the man-ropes. I was soaked through by the time I had crawled aft to the deckhouse. The companionway running aft under the flying bridge was rolling right under. I had to race along it on the up roll while the water was still draining. Then there was an open ladder to the top of the sailing cabin, and another ladder up to the boat deck. I squeezed between the lifeboat and the charthouse, forward to the flying bridge, and finally in the door into the wheelhouse. I stood there shivering and dripping. It was incredible what an ordeal it was just to move about. The trip from the fo'c's'l to the bridge was normally less than a hundred paces and a half minute. I felt like I'd survived a crossing of the polar cap.

The Captain was still on the bridge. Joaquim was at the wheel. Their faces were white with tension and fatigue. Trapper and Rogue arrived a minute later and Trapper took the wheel.

"If it gets any worse we'll need two men on the wheel," the Captain said. "It's nearly too much for one man already. Whatever you do, don't let the wheel get away from you. If it spins free, the spokes will snap your arms like matchsticks. That wouldn't bother you long, though, because with this sea running she'd broach to and roll over in a second. An hour ago I slowed to 275 turns to ease her a bit. I think it helped, but I suspect we're making very little headway against these seas. Bos'n, check the logline and give me our speed."

I painfully made my way aft to the taffrail where the patent log trailed astern. It was a finned brass rotator attached by a long line to a speedometer. The speedo was fluctuating wildly, and I could see why. The rotator was skipping and bouncing down the faces of the waves behind us. At other times the line was fifteen feet out of the water, stretched between two towering seas. It was useless as an indicator of speed or distance run. I returned to the bridge.

The Captain led me into the chartroom abaft the wheel. The rolling was so intense up at this level that we had to stand with our feet braced against the walls and our arms around a stanchion. The little dots on the chart that marked our progress were now depressingly close together. And if we'd entered the Gulf Stream by now, our progress south would be slowed even more. At this rate it could take another three or four days to reach Charleston.

"What about running for Norfolk, Cap'n?" I asked.

"Well, it's a lot closer than Charleston, but if we turn west now the seas will be on our beam. I'm not sure she could take much more rolling. Keep her steady as she goes. The course is south by southwest. You have the conn." He and Joaquim went below after almost eighteen hours on the bridge.

That morning watch was eventful. The seas were huge, great rolling ridges two hundred yards between crests.The rolling and especially pitching were playing hell with my carefully stowed deck cargo. The massive winch we'd liberated in Canada and lashed in the port waist now started to come adrift and skewed around sideways. Rogue took the wheel and Trapper and I got some lines and went out to secure it. It was nasty work on the exposed deck. The temperature was around 40 degrees and we were working in water up to our waists. The floodlights from the bridge gave us good light but made everything beyond invisible. It made it much harder to move about because we'd be taken unaware by sudden lurches. Sometimes a green wall would surge out of the darkness and go right over our heads, sweeping us from our feet. I was terrified I was going to lose my grip. I knew once I left that circle of light I'd be lost forever. It seemed to take hours but we finally had the winch securely lashed to big ring bolts in the deck.

Just as we finished the last corner, Rogue shouted down from the wing bridge that the massive oak box holding several tons of anchor chain was bouncing aft toward us. We had to lasso it and rig tackles to haul it back to its place by the windlass. About that time there was a huge metallic clang from the hold. We opened one corner of the hatch and went below to find that the old port water tank in the hold had broken its lashings and plunged from its shelf, smashing the shelves below and dumping their contents into the bilge. So there was that to clean up and secure, then re-batten the hatch again. By the time we finally came in two hours later, our teeth were chattering. We were soaked through, but there was no way to dry our clothes, so we just stood and dripped and steered.

At last 8 AM arrived. I rang eight bells and woke the off watch. As we met on the bridge to change watches, the door slammed open and a startling shiny black apparition burst in. It was Paul, the engineer's mate, covered with a slimy mixture of oil and water.

"Cap'n!" he shouted. "Russ reports that we're taking on water. It's already up to the floorboards in the engine room. He's afraid that if it rises another foot it'll get into the air intakes for the engines."

"God almighty!" said the Captain. "Without engines we can't steer. She wouldn't last a minute in these seas if we lost steerage. Tell Russ to start the Lister pump. And send Joaquim up here to steer." Paul disappeared and the Captain turned to me. "Bos'n! Find out what's going on down there, then stop that leak or we're all dead."

I went through the sailing cabin to the engine room. The long narrow room with its roaring monsters was even more of a hellish image than usual. It was opaque with suffocating white steam like a sauna. Oily water was welling up between the floor boards and sloshing around the bases of the engines. I felt my way forward in the eighteen-inch passage between the two thundering giants and thudded into a body. Russ's big black-bearded face materialized out of the mist. He too was covered with oily black water. "Come look at this!" he bellowed over the noise.

He led me to the forward end of the engines, where the massive flywheels rotated in wells through the floorboards. They were now partially submerged and were throwing up twin streams of water that crashed together and sprayed over the hot engines, filling the room with steam. Two of the big floorboard panels were pulled up and stuffed beside the engine. Paul was there, peering anxiously down at the black water swirling in the bilge.

"What's going on?" I shouted. "Cap'n says to start the Lister right away."

"I already did that!" he shouted back. "As soon as we saw the water was rising. But it only ran ten minutes or so and then started to lug."

"Why?"

"The pump intake was plugged. Look at this shit!" He scooped up a handful of the icy muck swirling around our feet and slapped it into my hand. It was as thick as porridge with bits of rope yarns, sawdust, soggy cardboard, and chips of paint. There was an inch of coagulating oil floating on the surface, coating everything in sight.

"Man, this stuff wouldn't go through the pump," I said, letting it ooze through my fingers,

"No. It'd clog in a second. So I don't dare take the screen off the intake. But the screen clogs up every twenty minutes or so. And it's right down on the keelson, almost eight feet under water."

"What do you do about it?"

As we spoke the big rubber belt between the Lister Diesel auxiliary and the bilge pump began to give off an unearthly shriek. The pump was clogging up again. Paul jumped to the pump and threw in the clutch.

"This," said Russ. Paul pulled a plastic bag over his head and leaped into the swirling bilge. Bracing himself against the oil-covered engine mounts to keep from being pulled into the flywheels, he took a big screwdriver Russ handed him, then gasped and dove under. For an instant his boots were kicking wildly at the surface, then he was gone. For a long minute nothing was to be seen but the swirling muck. Then his face burst through the scum and he clambered out, carefully avoiding the spinning wheels on either side. He gasped and wiped the muck from his face.

"Give 'er a go, Russ," he gasped. Russ engaged the clutch and the pump resumed its wheezing.

"We've been taking turns," he said. He kicked at a row of low red-lipped openings on the sides of the engines. "The air intakes are just above the floorboards. If it gets that high, she'll suck water and that's the end. We can't cover the ports with the engines running. The way the water's rising now, I'd say we've got eight or ten hours at the most. How far are we from shore?"

"We don't know exactly," I shouted back. "Navigation becomes a very inexact science in these conditions. We're somewhere off Cape Hatteras by now. But we're a good way off. We didn't want to get anywhere close to Hatteras. Too many wrecks there. I'd guess we're at least a hundred miles off shore. Even more to a port."

"Shit. That's thirteen, fourteen hours."

"You obviously haven't been topside in a while," I replied. "We're not making much more than five knots. I'd guess we're more like twenty-four hours from Norfolk."

Russ and I stared at each other. Brightly colored paint chips slid down his oil-blackened face.The pump rattled and choked as it gulped some especially chewy bits of flotsam. I returned to the bridge and reported to the Captain.

"That does it," he growled. "We're going in before we go down. What's the course to Norfolk, Navigator?" I took a quick look at the chart and the last few log readings. We should be right in the middle of the warm Gulf Stream, with a strong northerly current carrying us back fifty or a hundred miles a day. But the water was still cold as ice, as I well knew. My teeth were chattering. If we hadn't been in the Stream all day we must be much further south than I thought, with the long thrust of Hatteras between us and Norfolk. To be safe, I wanted to err on the side away from the Cape. But we also needed to get in as soon as we could. I chose a course that would put us less than three miles from the Cape - if I knew where we were within fifty miles. I reported the course to the Captain. He didn't hesitate; didn't second-guess me. He turned to Joaquim at the helm.

"Joaquim, we're going to come around to northwest-by-west. And mind her - she'll try to take the wheel out of your hands when she gets into the trough." He took the other side of the wheel. Peering into the darkness at the heaving horizon ahead, he waited. "Now!" he called. "Smartly now!"

They spun the wheel to starboard. The Fairmorse shook as if surprised at the sudden pressure on her rudder. Then her long bow rose into the air and swung drunkenly to starboard as she toppled over a crest. She skittered sideways down the long slope, then at the bottom she completed her turn, wallowing both rails under in the trough. We could hear things sliding and breaking somewhere.

"Now meet her, check her." cried the Captain. They spun the big wheel back, kicking the stern to stop the swing. The next swell came up under our port quarter and we could feel the acceleration as it hurled us forward. It was a great relief after twelve hours of bashing into them headfirst. The motion eased and the deck was no longer awash with each roll.

"Okay, we're about," said the Captain. "It should be easier now, and faster going, too." He rang for all ahead standard and we sliced through the water. He turned to me. "Now you've got to get all hands pumping. Take Joaquim, too. I'll take the wheel. When the water's down enough, find where it's coming in and stop it."

We went back aft and met Rogue, Trapper, and Russ coming forward. "We just noticed that there's no water coming out of the electric bilge pump," said Rogue. "It's either broken or plugged up, too."

"The intake's in the hold," I said. Trapper and I went out and opened the hatch enough to clamber down the ladder. I stepped into icy water up to my knees.

"Ow!" I complained. "There's a lot of water in here!" Trapper's flashlight swept around the hold. It was a discouraging sight. A dozen or so empty five-gallon cans and ten oil drums we'd freed in Mulgrave had come adrift. They'd been lashed very securely to the upright stanchions down the middle of the hold, but the lashings were not enough to prevent the barrels floating up out of them. They were clanging into each other and bashing the shelves to pieces. The countless cardboard boxes of ropes, tackle, spare parts, fittings, etc., had all fallen from the shelves and were now dissolving and swirling around in the water.

There was no way we could get to the pump intake in that mess. We waded in and started wrestling the barrels up the ladder and over the side. The rest we tied into a raft and moored against the after bulkhead. Then we took turns cleaning the intake, which was just deep enough that you had to put your face down into the oily swill to reach it. We took it off, cleaned it, and screwed it back on underwater. We wedged gratings around it to try to protect it from the bigger stuff, then started the pump again. It was a pleasure to lean over the rail and see the thick dark stream of water pouring out of her side. The main Lister pump was throwing water as well, but would it be enough?

"Come with me," I said. "We're going to man the emergency pumps."

These were a pair of rusty cast-iron contraptions just forward of the wheelhouse. They were the tops of twelve-inch pipes that ran all the way down to the deepest part of the bilge. With heavy iron pistons and crude leather flapper valves, they could be used to drain the ship manually in an emergency. I remembered trying them out once in Port Hawkesbury. After pouring in about fifty gallons of water to prime them and pumping like mad with heavy six-foot iron bars, we found they did eventually lift roughly five gallons of water with each stroke.

We fitted the bars in their slots and started pumping, two men to each pump. Even completely awash the starboard pump wouldn't prime, although we pumped frantically. Each stroke was an exhausting effort, starting with the bars over our heads and ending by barking our knuckles on the deck. Nevertheless, the output of the one pump was prodigious, and soon the mucky porridge was streaming over our feet. It was awkward, uncomfortable work, especially with the heaving deck and the occasional seas that came aboard. But at least the huge pistons and valves did not jam on the crud in the bilge.

Now we had three pumps going. Leaving Russ to try to figure out how to prime the starboard pump, Joaquim, Paul, and I went back to the hold. While clearing the hold, I'd noticed a small gasoline engine hooked to a water pump, both bolted to a heavy channel-iron frame like a pallet. We retrieved it from under water and wrestled it up the ladder to the deck.

"Take it aft to the sailing cabin," I shouted. "It's the only dry open space left. Take it apart, dry it out, and put it together again. We need it working. Then run hoses down into the engine room and out the after scuttle." Paul and Joaquim man-handled it into the long companionway under the boat deck.

When I returned to the sailing cabin a few minutes later, I found the putt-putt stripped down. Each part was wiped dry, coated in oil, and set aside. Paul looked up at me, his eyes wide. "When we were bringing it aft a big wave came surging along, picked up the pump and both of us, and threw us the length of the ship. I saw the taffrail coming at us fast and knew that in another second we'd be over the stern. But I managed to get one leg under the steering cable. We hung on to the pump, and the wave went over the stern without us." He went back to work blowing spark plug gaps dry.

Soon they had the thing reassembled. We filled it and gave the rope pull after pull, but it stubbornly refused to start. It was a one man job now, and we left Joaquim to it. Paul and I went down to clear the Lister intakes again. It was very claustrophobic diving headfirst into that black muck with only a plastic bag over my head. Then it was noon, and our watch again. Trapper and I went back to the bridge to relieve the Captain at the wheel. Our four hours of rest were over.

The ship was moving more easily through the waves on this course, but the steering was much harder. The seas were beyond belief, looking more like mountain valleys than waves. Sometimes one would break and send a foaming mass of water bigger than the ship hurtling down on us. Sometimes the stern would rise so high on a crest that the big props would come out of the water. The engines would race and the whole ship would shudder, then she'd squat back down with a splash and bury the stern. At other times the bow would lift so high that those on the bridge couldn't see the ocean. Then the bow would plummet into the sea and bury itself in green water all the way to the deckhouse. The quartering seas tended to kick her stern off to starboard. If we didn't lean all our strength on the wheel, she'd broach to in seconds. A moment's inattention could be fatal.

Once a particularly immense wave rolled up under our stern. Higher and higher we went, with a sensation in our stomachs like that in a fast elevator. Finally we reached the crest of the biggest wave we'd ever seen. But instead of toppling backwards over the crest, the ship shot forward. A huge bow wave flew out to either side. The hull disappeared in a white mass of foam and the wheel went limp in our hands. I couldn't imagine what was happening, but Trapper was an old California beach bum and he knew that sudden surge.

"Jesus," he screamed. "We're surfing in a 147-foot ship."

It was true. The wave had broken just under our stern and the poor old Fairmorse was surfing down the front of the enormous sea at least ten knots faster than the old girl ever thought to go.

The rolling this high up was so extreme that we both became violently seasick. Afraid to open our mouths, we developed a frantic nodding sign that meant "Take over, I'm going out to feed the fish." Trapped at the wheel beyond my endurance, I took to holding the waste basket between the wheel and my chest so I could steer while I barfed.

No one came by for hours, which I took to be a bad omen for the pumping. Finally, in mid-afternoon, an especially deep roll sent a wave of bilgewater over the intakes on the starboard engine. Before it could be shut down, it gasped and sputtered to a stop with a sickening clatter. Before we helmsmen knew what was happening, the ship suddenly veered to starboard in spite of all our efforts to hold her. We spun her hard a-port and Trapper leaped to the engine room telegraph and ordered the port engine to half-speed. We got her under control without broaching, but our speed slowed to a crawl. Then Paul appeared to report that the starboard engine was seized up and we had rolled so much we had lost much of our port engine oil into the bilge. They had used all the cans of spare oil. He estimated we would use the last of it today.

At four o'clock we were relieved again. I went below to change out of my wet clothes. Somehow Diane had managed to continue to prepare meals at the proper times through all the crises, but few of us were in any shape to eat them. I bolted down some food, then went out again to see how we were doing. Both the Lister and electric pumps were operating now, but Joaquim was still unable to start the gasoline pump. Both manual pumps were throwing huge amounts of water. The problem, Russ explained, was that the seals around the pistons had been sucked out and lost. Russ dug through the floating mess in the hold until he found some packing material and used that and it worked.

Russ and Rogue were worn out from pumping. Trapper and I relieved them and pumped non-stop for four more hours. It gave great satisfaction to see the thick streams of water shooting out of the ship, but we were cold and exhausted. How we could have used a dozen more people! We cursed the shipmates one last time for driving away so many of the recruits. Around eight PM the pumps gave gurgling wheezes and lost their primes together. Looking down into the hold, I saw that we had sucked her dry at last. She was empty, though one pump had to be kept running half of every hour. We inspected all of the hull we could reach and found no indication of a serious leak. We assumed that the water was just coming in between the planks when she was twisting so violently.

Soon after that it became clear that the wind was lessening, though the seas were as bad as ever. Now our main worry was the engine oil. Russ and Paul pumped the oil out of the starboard engine, decanted it from the seawater, and put it in the port engine. We'd have another twenty-four hours. It would have to be enough.

Around eleven PM Russ reported that the engine oil pump was clogging up from paint chips in the oil. The engine would have to be stopped, perhaps for several hours. Our only option was to rig a sea anchor, a heavy canvas parachute that would drag in the water, pulling her head into the wind. We rigged up a raft of empty five-gallon cans to keep the anchor on the surface and shackled it to the end of the spare anchor rode. We heaved it over the port bow, but by now the wind had died down so much that it wouldn't pull us around into the wind and we lay in the troughs and rolled worse than ever. In two hours Russ had the engine back together. We raised the sea anchor and found the heavy steel ring that holds it open had been bent nearly closed. We were all relieved when the engine started and we could steer for shore again. At midnight we made out a long line of lights on the port bow. The coast at last! We altered course toward the lights.

We could pick up the marine broadcasts now, and we heard an astonished British operator reporting that the Queen Elizabeth II, running toward New York not far north of us, had had a lifeboat smashed on the boat deck, sixty feet above sea level. Even with her modern computer-controlled stabilizers, many passengers had been thrown from their beds. They were saying it was one of the worst equinoctial storms in memory. We took some ironic comfort from the realization that we had made only three passages so far, and each had been into a storm worse than any in years.

That run into Norfolk turned into sixteen hours. I replaced the hundred-fathom anchor cable that had been so cut up when leaving Newport. Russ strained the used engine oil through tee shirts and poured it back in. When we eventually reached the line of lights at 5 AM, it turned out to be a fishing fleet. We chugged slowly through the fleet and crept on westward, the shore still not visible. The wind had dropped to nearly calm and the seas were finally diminishing. Dawn came, but still no sign of land. The fatho showed the bottom had shoaled to only ten fathoms so we knew we must be close, but it was not until after lunch that land was sighted on the starboard bow. We soon determined that it was near Cape Charles, the northern cape at the entrance to the Chesapeake. We held our course and speed, but we were going so slow that it was dark by the time we rounded the Cape and passed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

This was the first time we'd made a landfall and maneuvered through a bay using radar alone, but it worked fine. We ran along the shore for a few miles and found a sheltered little bay on the south side called Little Creek. There we anchored, shut off the engine, and tumbled into bed, bone-weary. It was not a good anchorage. During the night it grew gusty and very choppy. We rolled like a log, making sleep impossible even as exhausted as we were. At dawn a Coast Guard launch came and ordered us to move. We hoisted anchor and limped slowly to Norfolk. We moved out into the vast anchorage of Hampton Roads, just west of the Navy carrier docks, and anchored again. At last we could sleep. We had been up for more than forty-eight hours.

X. NORFOLK

After the storm's continuous terror and frantic activity, Norfolk was a haven of peace. The equinoctial gale turned out to be the final paroxysm of that bitter winter. The southern spring arrived soon after our arrival, with warm breezes wafting the scent of blossoms from the shore a few hundred yards away. But as relieved as we were to be out of the icy blasts, we were far from content. The starboard engine had been disassembled and the news was bad. The bearings had burned completely though; the crankshaft was beyond repair. One doesn't simply run down to the nearest auto parts store to buy a new crankshaft for a 1930's vintage Fairbanks-Morse Diesel. Even if another similar engine could be located somewhere, it would no doubt cost many thousands. The radio transmitter had died, too, but we had no need of it for a while. With the coffers drained again, our voyaging was over for an indefinite time. Paul ran the road.

Chief had driven 'Ol Blue down from Gloucester with a few more new recruits, but none of them stayed long. He and the Captain, Rogue, and Diane headed back to California to raise more money. Russ and Trapper and I remained aboard to maintain the ship. For us, life settled down to a routine. Every day was the same. Russ worked in the engine room, cleaning up the mess created in the storm. Both engines were stripped down, cleaned, oiled, and reassembled. The slime that had coated everything in the engine room had to be cleaned from a thousand surfaces. Trapper and I cleared out the hold, rebuilt the storage shelves that had been smashed, and cleaned and restowed all the supplies.

After a month, the ship was again presentable. The hold and the living spaces had been cleaned and organized. The engines were gleaming in new coats of black and red paint with shining brass and copper highlights. But as beautiful as they looked, we were very aware that the starboard engine was only a shell without a crankshaft. The tedium and the 70-hour work weeks were taking their toll. The last of the new recruits left and in late May Trapper hit the road. We parted very sadly, but I couldn't blame him. Now it was just Russ and me.

Having only two men aboard raised new difficulties. By Pirate decree, one of us had to be aboard and awake at all times. This meant that the shopping runs to Norfolk had to be solo. We could no longer row the longboat, so we hoisted it out of the water. The job of raising a 2,500 pound boat twenty feet to its cradle on the boat deck proved too much for us, so we left it hanging from its davits and lashed to the rail. We wouldn't need it until more troops arrived. For our transportation we broke out the bright yellow fiberglass skiff and the tiny seven-horse Seagull outboard.

Russ had no interest in the land at all. In nearly a year aboard the Fairmorse, I can't remember ever seeing him go ashore. So every week or so I would take the skiff two miles across Hampton Roads to a little grocery store just outside the Naval base and buy our beans and rice. These outings were one of my few pleasures of those long months in the summer of 1972. The skiff was so light that my weight in the stern caused the bow to point up at a 45 degree angle, blocking my vision and further slowing the long passage. I rigged up a set of pulleys so I could sit on the midships thwart and steer by moving a loop of line attached to the outboard. This so improved the handling and comfort that I wondered that I'd never seen anyone else do the same.

As I approached the shore I always passed two identical towering hulls at a disused dock. They were strange craft, apparently the after halves of large oil tankers, with steel bulkheads crudely welded over the cut sections. One day I went close to look at them and could make out on the stern of one the rusty letters Torrey Canyon. I realized I knew this ship. She had been the source of the world's first major oil spill, going aground off the British Isles and spilling countless barrels of crude on the beaches of England. I remembered seeing pictures of the ship lying with its back broken in a slimy black sea. So this is where she'd ended up, lying stripped and forgotten at a ramshackle old pier in Norfolk. At least she had her sister with her.

With the machinery and interior spaces put to rights, my primary task now was the restoration of the outside of the ship. Starting with the wheelhouse, I stripped the paint, caulked, filled, and sanded until it was glassy smooth, then applied four coats of white paint. When I was done, the entire wheelhouse and charthouse looked as shiny and glossy as a refrigerator. I stripped the interior walls and floor down to bare wood and applied six coats of verathane marine varnish, sanding with 600-grit wet-or-dry between each coat. It took forever and was incredibly tedious, but time was of no importance.

It was the height of southern summer now, and the heat and humidity were oppressive. Working on white paint in the glaring sun was making me snow blind. Every few hours I would step out onto the boat deck and jump into the sea. The tide often ran fast past the ship, and it was my usual practice to swim as hard as I could uptide until I was several hundred yards ahead of the bow, then let the tide carry me back to the ship. It was one of the few pleasures of those long weeks.

This was a long slow tedious spring and summer for me, and my spirits were very low. I was willing to suffer any dangers and discomforts on a sea voyage, but this was just boring. The months dragged by with no sign of departure. The Captain still hadn't located a crankshaft and the troops at the Base were still slowly fixing and selling equipment to raise money. I pined for some break from the tedium, for a social life again. But the only escape was to run the road and turn my back on eighteen months of the hardest work I'd ever done. I'd worked at the Ranch and the Base, spent a winter in Nova Scotia, and survived three storms at sea. It seemed so pointless to give up now when we were only a few days' sail from the Caribbean. I paced the deck on my night watches, trying to make up my mind. Should I give it all up and go ashore, try to find some kind of straight civilian job? Or should I stick it out a little more? What would Russ do if I ran now? How much more time should I put into this enterprise? I wrote several long rambling letters to my parents as I wrestled with the decision. They told me that my brother Gary had visited them after two stints in the Peace Corps in the island of Yap in Micronesia and was now training new volunteers in the South Pacific in a place called Tonga. The idea started to grow that with my maritime experience I might be able to get a job on a ship to Tonga and surprise him there, as our father once surprised him by arriving unannounced at Gary's thatched house in Yap.

But I enjoyed the alternative lifestyle that the Pirates offered. It was hard, thankless, unrewarding work, but to my mind infinitely better than having a straight job, punching a time clock in a store or factory. I knew that if we ever got under way again I'd be happy to stay. The problem was that I was bored with the same dull work day after day. I had signed on for adventure, and there wasn't any to be had just lying at anchor in Hampton Roads. But then all that changed, with a vengeance.

XI. HURRICANE AGNES

Wednesday, June 21, 1972: the summer solstice, the longest day of the year; and it certainly was for us. The first tropical storm of the season had rolled up out of the Caribbean, picking up power as it steamed across the Gulf of Mexico. We'd heard it was coming and had taken a few precautions, but there wasn't a lot we could do. The skiff was hauled aboard and lashed securely upside-down on deck. We put extra lashings on the lifeboat, still hanging about eight feet above the water along the starboard side. The hatch covers were battened down again, just to be safe.

The sky had been overcast since the day before and the air had a heavy thickness to it, as if we were breathing through a hot wet towel. We weren't too concerned. We knew we had four hundred and fifty pounds of anchor on the bottom, secured with a hundred-fathom anchor chain with five-inch links. The ship was massively built to survive any storms the North Atlantic might throw at her. Her frames were eight-by-eight oak timbers, covered with four-inch planks. For my part, I was looking forward to a bit of a blow to break the monotony.

The glass had been falling slowly for two days and now stood quite low, but after having seen its rapid fall in the spring gale I was unimpressed by its stately descent. Today it had been gusty and choppy on the water, but not much above twenty knots. During dinner we caught the marine forecast. They were predicting that the storm would swerve out to sea and we should only feel the tail of it. The wind was steadily rising outside, and we could hear a loud clanking as the Fairmorse tugged at her chain. At eleven Russ turned in and I went on deck to start my rounds.

It was raining hard by now and the wind had risen to a stiff twenty-five knot westerly, which gave the waves their longest fetch. It whipped up a vicious choppy sea five or six feet high. The sky was a hurrying featureless slate grey like a thick flannel blanket being pulled quickly eastward just above the masthead. I checked the anchor rode and the deck cargo, then went below to the engine room. When I came out on deck a few minutes later it was obvious that conditions were worsening fast. A very heavy rain was driving horizontally from the west-southwest, obscuring all signs of land. The wind was now over forty knots. The seas were nearly eight feet, an amazing height for an enclosed harbor like Hampton Roads. The shallow bottom was causing the waves to break constantly and randomly, so the entire bay was a surging white froth. Not far astern, I could see a line of cargo ships heading out toward the open sea. Several had their cranes still working, hurriedly stowing the last of their cargo. That didn't look normal. I went up to the bridge and turned on the radio.

"...upgraded to Hurricane Agnes, is expected to pass through the Norfolk area tonight. Hurricane warnings are flying from Texas to New York. Heavy damage in Georgia and South Carolina. Much of southern Virginia is without power. Over eight inches of rain in Richmond in the last four hours. Winds reported over seventy knots. The torrential rains are causing severe flooding. The James and many other rivers are overflowing, submerging much of Richmond and the surrounding counties."

Oh, boy. All that water would be pouring into the bay, backing up against the incoming tide. I turned the searchlight on the water. Debris was already flowing past: shrubbery, a dead cow, pieces of sheds. It was frightening watching it bear down on us. Whole trees with massive tangles of roots swirled by in the dark. I thought about the big ships all running for the sea. I shuddered to think of being out there in a hurricane, but they obviously thought it would be safer than being in port. After all, the land sinks far more ships than the sea. We didn't have that option. We'd have to ride it out where we were.

I resumed my rounds. I was climbing the ladder from the engine room when something struck the hull a terrific crashing blow just beside me, nearly throwing me to the deck. There was another crash and the sickening sound of splintering wood. My heart in my mouth, I peered out the porthole. Something big was slamming against the ship. It took a moment to realize what it was. The lifeboat was dangling from its stern davit only, the bow in the water. A jumble of oars, water casks, and boxes of emergency supplies floated nearby. I dashed on deck and rang the bell furiously. Russ, already wakened by the crash, scrambled up the ladder, his eyes white in his dark face.

"What the hell was that noise?" he shouted over the wind.

"The lifeboat's adrift," I called over my shoulder. "The forward fall's come off."

We rushed aft and peered down at the boat tugging and twisting at its last restraints. The heavy triple block on the six-part fall was flailing dangerously around, smashing against the side of the deckhouse. We jumped up on the bulwark and held onto the stanchions supporting the boat deck above. Working with one arm each, we finally managed to catch the block and lash it to the stanchion.

"The shackle's here and the pin's still wired," I said, pointing at the bottom of the block. "How the hell could it ha..." Then a huge wave rolled up alongside us and flooded over the waist-high bulwark.

"That's how," said Russ. "We're rolling so badly now that the boat dipped into the water. It just lifted itself off the fall." We both winced as the boat slammed against the hull again. The big flotation tanks under the thwarts were being torn out of her. The swamped boat must weigh tons. I heard splintering above my head and looked up to see that the after davit was being pulled out of the boat deck. It clearly wasn't going to last much longer.

I started up to the boat deck to let the stern down into the water. Suddenly another huge sea surged up, lifting the boat over our heads and unhooking the after fall. We watched helplessly as the boat and its bobbing cargo drifted a few yards away and stayed there, maddeningly beyond reach.

"I hate to think how much extra duty we're going to pull for this one," I growled. Russ was peering at the boat with a puzzled look.

"How come it's still there?" he said. "In this tide it should have been gone in seconds." I looked astern and stared in horror.

"That's why! Look at that!" A towering red buoy was rocking and bobbing violently only ten yards from our stern. I knew that buoy. It was the lighted bell buoy that marked the edge of the shipping channel, three hundred yards east of our anchorage. We were adrift!

Forgetting the boat, we clawed our way to the bow. The anchor chain now strained off directly to starboard, across the stem. Apparently the tide was turning, but the wind wouldn't let her come around. Her head was to the south, bringing her broadside to the seas and wind and greatly increasing the strain on the anchor beyond its ability to hold. It was still drawn out tight, but now it jumped and whipped like a giant's jump rope. Our huge 450-pound Danforth anchor, the biggest we had, was plowing through the soft mud bottom, unable to find purchase.

"Let's get the sheet anchor down!" I shouted. Russ began removing the lashings that secured our emergency anchor to the deck. I passed its chain through the starboard hawsepipe and shackled it securely to the end of our new hundred fathom eight-inch sisal rope. As we worked frantically on the pitching deck, the lifeboat floated by upwind. Wind-driven, we were drifting faster than the swamped boat. Working together, we then heaved the 150-pound anchor up onto the rail and toppled it over. Normally we'd set the two anchors as far apart as possible and hang back between them, but we had no options. As the line whipped out through the hawsepipe, the channel buoy moved slowly past as if steaming off into the west. Its bell was ringing a wild alarm, but we couldn't hear it over the wind. Now we were in the middle of the shipping channel. The lights of the carriers appeared through the flying murk astern. After forty fathoms of line had gone out, we snubbed it and wrapped the stiff line over the windlass drum.

Now followed several anxious moments as we waited for the anchor to bite. The wind was decapitating the waves and flinging their heads into our faces as flying spray. The chain continued to bounce and flail as the best bower skipped and dragged across the bottom. Finally the starboard rode drew tight. I stood on it, feeling the vibrations under my feet. Then it slowed and drew tight, tighter. The strain was incredible. The rope, as big around as my arm, stretched so tight its diameter was visibly shrinking. Water squirted from between the strands. But it was holding. The lifeboat swept past again and I managed to get a heaving line into the boat, but couldn't get it to catch on anything. Then it was gone into the darkness toward shore. Russ turned on the big floodlights on the bridge, lighting the whole foredeck. We didn't want to be run down by one of the big freighters dashing for the open sea. We could see waves breaking under the sterns of the carriers. Now that we were stopped the waves were breaking over the bow. I could see the spray sparkling in the floodlights as it arced over the wheelhouse roof. We heard later that it was about this time that several cars were blown off of the Bridge-Tunnel into the Chesapeake.

The wind continued to increase. Each time we thought it couldn't get any higher, it did. It was now nearly impossible to stand out on deck. We moved about by crawling. Russ went below to ensure the engine was ready if needed. I went up to the charthouse and confirmed that our radio transmitter was still not working. No chance of sending an S.O.S. Then the Fairmorse gave a violent jerk and I felt her break free again. I dashed below.

I met Russ by the windlass. But the rope cable was still solid; apparently the sheet anchor had caught again. But the rodes were now crossed, and both ran off at an angle to leeward, evidence of the strength of the flood tide. The chain was slack, but it went across the stem and lay sawing its barnacle-encrusted links across the sisal rope. We had little hope that the rope would last. We had to have a fallback plan. We retired to the deckhouse to confer. When the heavy door swung closed we realized just how loud it was outside. My ears were ringing.

"What if I start the engine?" Russ asked. "Just to take the strain off the anchors? Maybe we can at least head up into the wind."

"Okay. You go light off. I'll go up to the wheel. But stay ready to shut it down if I signal. The last thing we need to do is to run over the rodes and get 'em tangled in the prop."

He dropped into the engine room and I fought my way to the wheelhouse. I could read the name Iwo Jima on the stern of the nearest carrier, only three hundred yards astern. I could see men moving under the lights on the gangway. If this didn't work, we'd be smashing against that steel cliff soon. I glanced at the chronometer on the bulkhead. It was midnight, just thirty minutes since the boat fell.

Then the telegraph rang and the indicator moved to "engines ready." I signalled "port ahead slow" and the engine roared to life. I gripped the wheel and stared out into the inky blackness. For the first time the true situation hit me. There was no captain, no lookout, no deckhands. Except for Russ, deaf and blind in the engine room two decks below, I was alone on a ship in a hurricane.

I leaned on the wheel to bring her up into the wind. It didn't move. With a curse at my stupidity, I realized that the wheel was still lashed from when we'd anchored three months ago. I reached down to untie the lashing, but it had been pulled so tight by the jerking of the rudder that I couldn't untie it. The ship started moving ahead, across the anchor rodes. I slapped the sheath of my knife. Gone! My eye fell on my chipping hammer in the chartroom. I grabbed it and bashed at the ring bolt in the deck below the wheel, smashing holes in my newly-varnished deck. Finally the line parted and I spun the wheel wildly to starboard. Still nothing happened. Because only the port prop was turning, its wash was not striking the rudder, hard over to starboard of the keel. It was impossible to turn to starboard into a 65-knot wind. I lashed the wheel to starboard, then went and got Russ. It felt strange to leave the engine room and the bridge empty while we were under way, but we didn't seem to be moving at all. We went forward to inspect the anchors. There was no apparent change. The Iwo Jima was now only two hundred yards astern. The long stone breakwater alongside it was a mass of foam, completely submerged. That's where we would strike. No hope of fending off or catching a line to something. We'd be smashed to pieces.

"The only thing I can think of," shouted Russ, "is to raise both anchors to the hawse holes and run to the windward end of the anchorage, then anchor again properly. Think we can do that?"

"I don't see how," I said. "It normally takes one man to run the donkey engine, another to keep the chain tight around the windlass, and a third to feed the chain into the locker below. And now we have two hooks down. The chain's around one end of the drum and the rope's around the other. I can't raise two anchors at once, even if I had my full crew. And even if we could somehow manage to raise the anchors, as soon as the hooks come out we're going to be flying toward that breakwater. It'd be nice to have somebody on the bridge to drive, not to mention someone in the engine room. I figure we need at least four more men to be safe."

"Any other ideas?"

"No. Let's do it."

The windlass donkey engine was a huge one-lung gasoline engine built in Britain before World War I, and it looked it. To start it I had to get up and run on the cast-iron flywheel, then jump clear when it caught. After a few backfires threw flames (and me) across the deck, it finally thundered to life.

"Keep the tension on the chain," I shouted, "and just dump the slack on the deck. We'll stow it later, if there is a later. Hopefully the line will come in by itself." I threw the clutch and the giant drums started clanking. Dripping, weed-fouled chain started coming in the hawsepipe.

For a few fathoms it worked, but then the place where the rodes crossed came up tight against the stem. The windlass strained and creaked, but could not move another inch. I had to snub the rodes and stop the windlass. The chain continued to saw at the sisal line, the only thing keeping us off the rocks.

We had to admit defeat. We couldn't raise the anchors, we couldn't get under way, we couldn't call for help. We waited an hour, but nothing changed. We couldn't see that the engine was even lessening the strain. Russ went and shut off the engine to conserve fuel.

"We need help. How about distress flares?" Russ suggested.

"Yeah! Those parachute flares. The Coast Guard station's less than a mile from here!" We got several distress flares from a wooden box stenciled for someplace in Korea and took them to the port companionway, the most sheltered part of the deck. I held one out with some trepidation, not sure how they'd work. Russ lit it and a blinding red light illuminated our faces. A rocket went shooting up with a roar. It climbed until it came out of the shelter of the deckhouse, then the wind drove it spiralling down into the sea. It burned brightly underwater for several minutes, then sputtered out.

We went through the rest of the flares, shooting them upwind, downwind, across the wind, horizontally. It made no difference - every one dove straight into the water. It was quite pretty watching them burn underwater, but we doubted if they could be seen from the Coast Guard station. There was nothing we could do but wait to see what happened next.

With the tide holding the ship sideways to the wind and waves, the rolling was extreme. Both rails were dipping under on every roll. Everything started coming loose and turning over: the coffeepot and drainer of dishes in the galley, the washing machine in the fiddley, every waste basket and butt can aboard, and a dozen drawers and cupboards popped open and dumped their contents. Water started rising in the bilge again. Russ started the Lister pump, but it soon plugged up and broke its drive belt. While Russ was making a new one, I stayed on deck and manned the manual pumps, now and then letting out a few feet of anchor rope so the chain could start chewing on a fresh section. We were in the middle of the channel and completely helpless, but at least we weren't dragging any more.

I noticed the floodlights had faded to a dim orange color. With the engine off and the bilge pump and lights on continuously, the batteries were getting dangerously low. Russ fired up the JP3, the big Diesel generator on top of the sailing cabin, and the lights came back up. We tried to start the windlass donkey again to see if I could get any more chain in, but it refused to start. We gave it up and returned to pumping. It was three o'clock in the morning.

We realized each of us had lost one shoe in the waves coming across the deck, so we took turns going below to change and to straighten up some of the mess below. If we were going to be dashed to pieces any minute, we at least wanted everything shipshape. While below I turned on the radio and caught a Norfolk weather report: "sixty-four degrees under cloudy skies." Strange they didn't mention the hurricane, seventy knot winds, and ten inches of rain. I suspected the announcer's office didn't have windows.

Sometime during the night two big ocean-going tugs came fast up the channel and passed close by us, but did not stop. Only later did we learn that they were hurrying to catch a big unlighted barge that had come adrift earlier. It had blown all the way across the Roads and was now smashing into a Navy refueling ship a few docks away. I wondered how close it came to us in the dark.

At 0400 the Coast Guard tug Mohican appeared and hove to nearby. They called to us on a loudhailer, asking if we would accept a tow. Unfortunately they had stopped upwind of us and we had no loudhailer, so could not make ourselves heard. I went up on the flying bridge and used the Aldiss lamp to signal them that our rodes were crossed. Their searchlight moved to our bow. They were silent a long time, then asked what they could do to help. Neither of us could think of any way they could help us. With the sea that was running it was clearly impossible for them to put men aboard or to take us off, though in all truth we never considered leaving the ship in such a situation.

We assured them that we were no longer dragging. They told us the hurricane was heading out to sea and should pass by morning. Finally we told them we thought we could probably hold on until the storm passed. They stood by us the rest of the night, warning off several large ships that were bearing down on us. The ships squeezed by just upwind of us, and we wondered how close their bottoms came to our straining rode.

Just before dawn the rain stopped and the wind gradually dropped into the high fifties. By first light the awful rolling was decreasing. The scene was awe-inspiring. The huge bay was a sheet of heaving white foam and muddy, debris-filled water. Only three ship's lengths behind us a tangled mass of wreckage was surging against the breakwater, everything from trees and pieces of docks to crushed skiffs and an overturned pleasure boat. It was all too easy to imagine the Fairmorse's black timbers - and our broken bodies - bobbing there with the rest. Sailors lined the flight deck of the Iwo Jima, looking almost straight down on us. One lobbed a can of something at us, but it fell just short of the taffrail. We didn't know if he was trying to throw us something helpful or just exercising his throwing arm.

When it was clear that the worst of the storm had passed, the Mohican radioed for help and around 0600 a small patrol launch appeared, rolling and pitching like a dinghy. Several times waves rolled completely over her. After several very close calls, they managed to come up close under our stern and a young Coast Guard rating leaped aboard. We had a crew at last!

We took the rating forward and studied our crossed anchor cables. The smaller sheet anchor on the rope rode was out the starboard hawse, the big bower on chain to port. The rodes crossed just below the stem, the chain lying slackly on top of the straining rope, which stretched away right to port. We decided to try to raise the bower anchor first, as it was on top and was obviously not doing us any good. I told the Coast Guardsman to ease the rope where it went around the windlass drum so it wouldn't come in as we hauled the chain. The man gaped in astonishment as I screwed down the various grease cups and filled the oil drips, poured gas into the carburetor, and climbed up to run on top of the flywheel. After three tries it roared to life, covering the foredeck in a cloud of black smoke. I threw the clutch and started the big drum turning, the heavy iron pawls clanking. The chain was so heavy, however, that it kept pulling the rope around the stem and fouling it. After numerous tries, we decided that the only solution was to stopper the chain, take it off the windlass drum completely, and haul in the rope instead. My concern as we worked was that when the sheet anchor broke loose, the bower would not hold us. Then we wouldn't have time to raise it and get under way.

We started hauling in the rope. Russ hauled in the slack. The rating hung over the bow and signalled to me whenever the crossing of the rodes came up hard against the stem. Then I'd stop the drum, let out a few feet of chain, and we'd wait for the pitching of the ship to ease the crossing. Gradually the rope came in and soon covered the entire foredeck with its stiff mud-caked coils.

The strain was incredible. The wind was still over thirty knots. The rope was stretched so thin that the length marks we'd seized to it were falling off. The windlass strained and choked. Then, with a bang like a rifle shot, the drive chain from the donkey to the windlass broke. Caught on the gear of the donkey, it whipped and flailed wildly, smashing the engine housing, tearing pieces of wood out of the deck, and throwing links in all directions. I heard one of the heavy cast iron links go whistling past my ear. There was nothing to do but stop the donkey, fetch the box of spare links, and sit on the deck replacing the broken links. The poor rating cleared away the wreckage and stared up at the overhanging flight deck of the carrier. He must have wondered what sort of ship he'd landed on. The launch and tug kept circling us anxiously.

Soon the chain was repaired and we resumed weighing. Less than a minute later the drive chain broke again. While I sat wedged into the narrow space behind the donkey swearing at rusty cotter pins, the launch hailed us. They passed us a stout line and Russ secured it to the quarterpost on the stern. Then they began the slow process of towing the entire ship around sideways to try to untwist the rodes.

Slowly, laboriously, buried in waves half the time, the little launch hauled that awkward hull around into the wind. It took fifteen minutes to haul her stern to the wind. Thinking their work done, the launch cast off the line too early, and the stern swung back the way it had come, fouling the rodes again. It took another half hour to pass the line again and haul us all the way around. Finally the rodes uncrossed with a twang.

All the time this was going on, I was still trying to raise the sheet anchor. The chain broke a third time and I repaired it yet again. Then with the rodes clear, we resumed heaving. Just when the rope was nearly vertical and we thought the anchor would come home any second, another turn in the rodes rose dripping to the stem. The launch had to pass another line and haul us all the way around again. A crowd had by now gathered on the docks to watch the operation. They shouted advice at us, but fortunately we couldn't hear them over the wind. Only when we saw how the launch had to squeeze between our stern and the breakwater did we realize that we were dragging again. The sheet anchor broke water, a solid ball of stinking black mud. The crowd on the dock backed away, expecting us to go up on the rocks at their feet. We drifted sideways toward the rocks. The launch threw us another line to try to catch us, but the heaving line went wide and splashed into the water.

Then the ship lurched and pointed up into the wind. The port anchor, after dragging a half mile, caught the bottom only a hundred yards from shore. We took advantage of the reprieve to stow the sheet anchor in the hawsepipe and take its line off the windlass drum. Now all we had to do was raise the bower and get under way.

The plan was for Russ to go below and stand by the engines; I'd raise the anchor by myself somehow; and the Coast Guard man would steer. But there was another snag. The man was only a seaman, not licensed to steer a ship. None of us felt comfortable having him operating either the antique and temperamental donkey or the engine. So in true military fashion, in the midst of the crisis we all sat down to wait while the Mohican went back to the station to bring out a quartermaster qualified at the helm. We anxiously watched the anchor chain, waiting for it to drag again. Eventually the tug returned and in an excellent show of seamanship eased her bow right up to our stern and the quartermaster leaped to our deck. We ran a towline to our bow.

We didn't want to have the prop turning during the weighing of the anchor, for fear that we'd run over the rode and foul it. So Russ stood by his engine wicks, the QM went to the wheelhouse, the sailor manned the windlass clutch, and I watched the chain. When the rode came vertical, I ran to the deckhouse and called down the fiddley hatch.

"Light 'er off, Russ," I shouted, "We'll be under way in a minute."

When I came on deck, however, I found that we already were. The anchor had pulled out of the bottom and we were again drifting sideways toward the rocks. I looked wildly for the launch, but they had seen the danger and hurriedly cast off, leaving us to our fate.

I spun around and dove back into the fiddley. "Russ," I screamed. "Start that sucker now or we're dead: we're adrift!" I rushed back to the windlass and we raised the anchor to the waterline so it wouldn't drag and catch on something. Then I looked up to the bridge to see how our helmsman was doing. To my horror, the bridge was empty. He was coming down the ladder, either to see what was going on or to abandon ship, I never knew which. "Get back to the wheel, dammit," I roared. "We're under way!" All three of us climbed up to the bridge just as the engine roared to life. An immense cloud of oily black smoke enveloped the after part of the ship.

The QM had the wheel hard to starboard, but the bow was still sagging off to port. I rang up "port ahead full" twice, the signal for emergency speed. The engine thundered to maximum revolutions and the poor old Fairmorse shook like a rat in a terrier's mouth. The QM's eyes were wide with terror as the ship surged forward. By now she had swung her head to the south, directly toward a pier. I knew she wouldn't respond to the helm until she had some way on her, but it was maddening to be running toward destruction and to be unable to turn. I considered ordering "port astern full" to try to back out, but I knew she didn't steer at all in reverse. Our only hope was full speed toward the pier. All three of us leaned on the wheel with all our weight.

Finally the bow began to swing away from land, but was it in time? A group of men on the pier were running for their lives as the long black bow knifed toward them. The end of the pier rushed toward us. Then it was beside us. I ran to the door and saw the pier disappear under the port wing bridge. For a second I thought she would clip it with her stern as she leaned into the turn, then we were clear.

She swung her nose out toward the open bay, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We'd done it! With a little help from our friends, we'd gotten two fouled anchors up and clawed off a lee shore. Then I noticed that we were still turning. The grey wall of the Iwo Jima appeared dead ahead. The QM yelled in fear. He'd straightened the helm and she was still turning. Of course! He was used to high-powered shallow displacement vessels. He didn't know about "meeting her," or oversteering to start and stop her turns. I jumped to the wheel and threw her hard aport. Still at full speed, we careened around between two occupied piers in a ragged "S" turn and headed back out again.

Now we were crossing the shipping channel again. A big Navy ship was bearing down on us, but the Mohican signalled her to wait for us to cross. It took almost ten minutes to cross the five-hundred-yard channel. Then we were across and heading back toward our anchorage. I steadied her and rang "port ahead half," then left her to the two terrified sailors and went out on the wing bridge to watch the carriers fade astern. I couldn't see them. All I could see was a thick oily cloud of black smoke billowing from both engine room ventilators.

"We're on fire!" I shouted. "You two stay here!"

I slid down the ladder rails and dashed to the fiddley hatch. A solid black column of smoke boiled from the engine room. I shouted for Russ, but I couldn't hear myself over the engine noise. I grabbed a fire extinguisher and climbed down into the engine room. I crawled along the deck, feeling for Russ's body between all the pieces of equipment. Nothing there, neither Russ nor the fire. Still calling, I crept up into the sailing cabin and groped along until I smacked into Russ just opening the doors to the after scuttle. We staggered out on deck together, coughing and choking, our faces and clothes black with soot.

"Where is it?" I shouted. "I couldn't find the fire!" For a minute he was coughing too much to speak. Then he shook his head.

"No, it's okay," he choked out. "There's no fire. I was still screwing in the wicks when you yelled to start 'er up, and I didn't have time to tighten them down. Then when you rang for flank speed, I gave her the throttle and one of the glow plugs blew out. I heard it go by my head and ricochet around the machinery. Number three cylinder is just blowing smoke through the hole. It's not compressing, so there's no fire, just a hell of a lot of smoke.

"I tried to put in another glow plug, but it was impossible with the engine running. So I just had to live with the smoke. When you went to half speed I figured the emergency must be over and headed for air." He looked at me out of red-rimmed eyes. "Tell me," he said. "Was all that flank speed and maneuvering really necessary or were you just showing off for the Guardies?"

I looked back at the docks. The wind was blowing the smoke away now. I pointed aft. "Look. You can still see our wake."

Russ wiped his eyes and looked. The wake ran toward the rocks, veered off to just miss the pier, then circled back in toward the carriers before turning out.

"Lord almighty," he whispered. "Why didn't you just go straight?"

XII. ROADRUNNER

The Mohican led us about a mile beyond our old anchorage and signalled us to anchor. With the Guardies' help we set the bower and paid out plenty of chain. Russ stopped the engine, and it was over. It was ten-thirty in the morning, less than twelve hours since we started dragging. We thanked our helpers and sent them home. Then in true Piratical fashion, we resumed our four-hour watches as before. We soon found that we were just too exhausted to keep it up, and went to eight hour watches, which allowed us to get some sleep between shifts.

We had long been low on water, and now it ran out. We drained the water from the ancient (and broken) steam heating system and drank that. It looked like watery blood after twenty years in cast iron and had a flavor best described as "interesting." We had plenty of food, but it was all useless without water - beans, rice, oatmeal, flour, grits, cornmeal, and coffee with powdered milk.

The next day the Coast Guard ordered us to move again, and we had to raise the damned anchor one more time. They towed us a mile further out and helped us anchor again. Plus they filled our water tank, so we felt more kindly to the government. We made a pot of coffee strong enough to float a nail and ate a huge breakfast.

As we were now three miles from shore, it was a four-hour row each way. This inspired Russ to fix the Seagull outboard and a few days later he went ashore to report to the Captain. We were nervous that we'd get in hot water for losing the lifeboat, but Russ talked fast about our heroic efforts to save the ship. Finally the Captain cut him off and said we could take a week off to lounge in deck chairs once he and the troops got back - which would be any day now, he assured us yet again. We returned to our old routine and started cleaning up the mess.

Every week we called the Base and the Captain would assure us they were nearly ready to leave. But week after tedious week passed with no sign of departure any time soon. We knew that once they collected the money for the crankshaft it would be a long time before we were actually under way again. They had to arrange for the repairs, hire and train more recruits, ship them all out here, and train them in their shipboard duties. By July it was obvious that we weren't going to get away that summer, and after our adventures on the passages so far we thought it unlikely that the Captain would want to sail in the winter. That meant at least six more months at anchor. I was sick of the same horizons out the portholes every day. I'd signed on for a Caribbean cruise.

I spent all those lonely night watches wondering what I was doing there. In the early months it was all so new and I had been learning so much that I didn't mind the drudgery. But now I was just scraping, sanding, and painting twelve hours a day. Aside from my navigation studies at night, I wasn't learning anything else. Was this the best thing I could be doing with my youth, when every year seems a lifetime?

The isolation was worse than the boredom. I realized how much I missed conversation, intelligent and otherwise. Russ and I got along very well with as little friction as could be hoped for in our situation. But we had little in common except the ship, and we had nothing much to say to one another after all those months cooped up together. I realized how much I missed my friends. I'd rarely stayed in one place long enough to form large circles of friends, but there were a fair number of people around the country about whom I cared a great deal, and I missed them. I also felt cut off from "the scene." I'd always kept up on all the rock bands and their music, I read the new books and saw the films. I loved to talk music or books or politics all night long. I had followed current events. But I'd been completely cut off now for almost twenty months. I knew very little of what was happening in the rest of the world. We didn't have a TV, magazines or newspapers. We had no stereo or tape player. And the only other people we saw were the clerks at the grocery store and an occasional visit from the nice folks at Shawn's Launch Service, the local water taxi that serviced the anchorage.

Although I'd lost touch with my friends, I'd kept in touch with my parents. I wrote infrequently but at great length, relating all my adventures in elaborate detail, complete with maps and glossaries of nautical terms - this story is written largely from those letters, carefully saved by Mom. Several letters were about the past; reminiscences about my early childhood, memories of old friends, or the many people who'd flitted in and out of my life in all those years as a travelling hippie. At first the isolation of the Pirates had been welcome, filling a need I didn't know I'd had. It allowed me to break some patterns of behavior, to step aside from the path I'd been following; to take time to think - about the past, and the future. I was twenty-five years old, no longer a kid, no longer a student. I had dropped out of college years before and just hit the road, looking for adventure. I regretted none of it, but I think even then I realized that it would not be my life. The sixties were over and a new decade and generation was under way; one I knew little about. What did old hippies do? I knew I didn't want to spend all my evenings stoned on the floor of someone else's cheap apartment, swapping tired raps with groups of strangers, different every night. I had friends still doing that, and I wanted more than that.

For a while the Pirates had given me more. I was different: I was living outside the system and surviving. I had avoided the military, a straight job, parenthood, and marriage. The Pirates could still shock the citizens, as I'd loved to do for so long. No one stared anymore at a man with waist-length hair and beads. But when a longboat pulls in from a long black unmarked freighter and a dozen hard-looking men in strange clothes and tarred pigtails come scrambling up onto a dock and into their town, people notice. And of course I'd learned a lot that I never would have gotten elsewhere. I felt able and competent, and not just from the trades I'd learned. I'd navigated a ship through a North Atlantic storm, I'd taught scores of classes, I'd whipped a motley lot of misfit street kids into a ship's crew and had felt the burden of decision and responsibility. Where else could I get all that in twenty months, except in the military - and I had burned way too many bridges for that. The Pirates - it's not just a job, it's an adventure. Ordeal by water. Or tedium.

I also had to consider the investment I'd already made. Twenty months of eighty-hour weeks is nearly four years in a normal job. If I left I'd have nothing to show for all that work and sacrificed freedoms - only a bunch of stories no one would ever believe. And who knows, the Captain could show up next week and we'd be diving for treasure in the Caribbean in a month. Stranger things have happened, as I well knew. In the spring, one of the Captain's old buddies and fellow treasure enthusiast, Mel Fisher, had found the Atocha galleon and taken a million dollars in treasure from her. The Captain had torn his hair when he heard: "I knew she was on that cay - Mel and I found the same letter in the archives of the library in Madrid. That treasure could have been ours!"

But I had to weigh all those Pirates-in-the-sky possibilities against the loss of all freedom and intercourse, social and otherwise. How I missed women - the sound of their voices, the way they smell, the way they look, the silly things they make me do. Finally, driven perhaps by hormones as much as logic, I decided to run the road.

But exactly how to do it? The tradition in the Pirates had always been that the first statement of intent to leave was final. A man who said he was considering leaving was no longer a Pirate but a roadrunner, and thus an unwelcome outsider. Many left with hard feelings and hard words, and the Captain wanted to minimize the farewells, lest the discontent spread. There would be no discussion, no attempt to change his mind. An officer immediately escorted the roadrunner to his berth, watched that he packed only what was his, and saw him off the property. I had seen an officer who had been with the group for years grumble one night while washing up for dinner, "Man, maybe I should just run the road," and he was gone before the rest of us got to the table.

But this was a different situation. It was a long way to shore and Russ couldn't just see me to the rail. He'd have to take me ashore in the skiff and leave the ship unattended, normally a capital offense. And then he'd be stuck on the ship alone. I decided to wait until fresh troops arrived, which was supposed to happen in a week or so. I would train a new bos'n and navigator, then give my notice.

In mid-July a busload of ten new recruits arrived and for a while all thought of leaving was forgotten in the flurry of having all these new guys to train and get settled on the ship. But they were an unimpressive bunch, none of them showing either spirit or ability. They soon started complaining about the food and the hours and the general living conditions. I'm afraid that Russ and I were less than sympathetic - after all we'd been through, a few weeks sitting at anchor in a warm climate seemed pretty easy. The recruits started running the road and every day we took one or two ashore. Within a week it was just Russ and me and the guy who drove the bus out. It could be months before another load arrived. If I was going to have to bum my way across the country on my own, I didn't want to wait for winter.

I'd put some of my thoughts in my letters, and my parents wired me enough money to get home. Through them, I'd also found Jim Wasserman, my best college buddy. He and his wife Mary Ann were living on a yoga ashram in East Texas of all places, and invited me to come stay with them. I had places to go and the means to get there. I was as ready as I could be.

So one day in late July I broke the news to Russ. He was disappointed but not surprised. He agreed to bend the rules far enough to let me stay aboard for a few days while he called the Captain and asked for some reinforcements. To my surprise, the Captain supported his decision, and I lived and worked aboard for another week while another expedition was fitted out in Summerland. Now that the subject was broken, I could finally ask Russ why he stayed. He replied evasively, but I had the clear impression that he felt that he could never leave, that there was something ashore that he was avoiding, but whether legal, marital, financial, or political I never knew.

Finally the agreed day arrived. I put on my best "cleanies" (though lubbers would have called them rags) packed up my recorders and the notes on navigation, astronomy, nautical terminology, and sea chanteys that I'd collected, and climbed down into the skiff. Russ took the skiff slowly around the ship. We ducked under the weedy chain and I looked up at that high and noble prow with the gilt scrollwork around the hawsepipes. Then we turned and headed for Norfolk. I sat and looked back at the old ship, my home and the object of all my labors for all these long months. Her lines were still beautiful: the long sweep of her sheer; the low sides and sailing cabin to allow for the sweep of an eighty-foot boom; the long curving overhang of her transom. My heart was in my throat, wondering if I would regret this decision. Then I turned to watch the approaching shore.

Russ took us to the dock of Shawn's water taxi and I shook hands with him with a good deal of affection. I told him that if I was ever again on a ship sinking in the middle of the ocean, I'd hope that he would be down in the engine room. He laughed, saying he wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not, but he wished me luck. Then he climbed down into the old yellow skiff and putted back out into the bay. I hoisted my duffel to my shoulder and walked down the pier.

I was giddy with freedom. I was twenty-five years old, strong, healthy, and smart. I was street-wise and fearless from years of living on the road, and now I also had some trades and leadership experience. I had survived hard and frightening times without losing my head, and now I knew I wasn't the type to panic or give up. I felt capable and completely self-confident as I swung along the seedy waterfront streets in search of the bus station. I could go anywhere I wanted, do anything I wanted, be whatever I wanted. But the exhilaration of freedom was tempered with regret. There was no going back - I would never be a Pirate again. The sense of belonging, of purpose, was suddenly gone. For the first time in twenty months, I felt alone.

XIII. EPILOGUE or WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

I took the bus to Tyler, Texas, and spent some time on the ashram with Jim and Mary Ann, then they drove me to San Diego. We got jobs working on heavy equipment and I made enough to go to Tonga to see my brother Gary. There I met and fell in love with Linda Brooks, now my wife. I sailed from Tonga to Fiji and the New Hebrides, then on to Australia and down the coast to Tasmania. Eventually Linda and I returned to the States and settled down.

My parents died in the collision of two jumbo jets in the Canary Islands in 1977.

My old buddy Bruce had gone to sea on his own and was a sort of hippie Indiana Jones. For some years he had been second mate on a schooner engaged in furthering international commerce, mostly between Thailand and certain out-of-the-way coves on the California coast. He spent some time living in Tierra del Fuego, flying an ancient DC-3 to Antarctica, followed by an interesting stint in a Chilean prison ("medieval" was how he described the conditions). Now he's docking oil tankers in Long Beach.

Tokay and Gina, the Pirettes from the Summerland Base, visited me at my parents' apartment in San Diego where we had a very memorable threesome. Tokay later wrote my parents a very polite bread-and-butter thank you note for letting them both ball me in their guest room. I saw Gina at her place in Los Angeles a year or two later. I never heard from any of the other Pirates.

Many years later Linda and I passed through Long Beach and stopped in to see what remained of the Pirates. The Chief was there, supervising a gang of a dozen dirty-looking street kids working on wrecked cars, boats, and marine salvage in a sun-baked, oil-soaked lot. It looked like any of a thousand other run-down marine hardware yards along the grimy industrial streets of Long Beach. They weren't called the Pirates anymore, but Packard Enterprises (the Chief had always been partial to Packards - he loved the hood ornaments). He greeted us warmly but hurried us away from the boys in the yard. He took us into his office and closed the door before we talked. We reminisced for a while, but it was clear that he didn't want me regaling his employees with tales of the old Pirates, certainly no mention of the shadier activities. They knew nothing of the group's history.

None of the other Pirates I had known remained. Russ had stayed with the ship a long time, much of it tied up in a bayou in South Florida, but then he too had left. Rogue had taken a job in Mexico as captain of a ferry running tourists from Cozumel out to a dive resort at Glover's Reef. The Chief didn't know what had happened to all the others.

The Captain was dead, shot by an irate roadrunner on the street outside the Summerland house. The Pirates were a unique organization because Jim Nash was a unique man. Without his leadership the group had lost its driving force. I had the impression that the Chief was carrying on only because it was the only thing he knew how to do.

And the Fairmorse? They had reached the Caribbean at last and gotten her all fixed up. One clear calm day they were motoring north a mile or so off the east coast of Cozumel in Mexico. Suddenly there was a crash and the ship came to a violent stop. Everyone poured out on deck, but there was nothing to be seen. The engines were still running and the wake still boiled out astern, but there was no bow wave. She was motionless in the water, as if an invisible hand had seized the ship. Then the water in the bilge started rising. They opened the hold and found a steel mast protruding through the bottom.

She had struck at the very top of a swell and come down right over the unmarked wreck of a shrimp trawler. She was settling slowly, just faster than they could pump. They couldn't plug the leak, cut off the wreck's mast, nor run her ashore. Eventually they loaded their belongings and the electronic gear into the boats and rowed to shore. They reached the beach safely and soon struck a road. Many hours later a truck came along and offered to give them a ride into a town, and all the driver demanded in exchange was the boats and all their contents. The Pirates were forced to accept the offer.

As they piled the last of their gear into the truck, someone called out and they all turned and looked out to sea. All alone and far from her home on the Grand Banks, the impaled Fairmorse settled beneath the azure tropical sea.

The Fairmorse in her fishing days, Lunenburg, 1950 Fairmorse fishing