Caleb West, Master Diver

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

The accident to the Screamer had delayed work at the Ledge but a few days. Other men had taken the place of those injured, and renewed efforts had been made by Sanford and Captain Joe to complete to low-water mark the huge concrete disk, forming a bedstone sixty feet in diameter and twelve feet thick, on which the superstructure was to rest. This had been accomplished after three weeks of work, and the men stood in readiness to begin the masonry of the superstructure itself so soon as the four great derricks required in lifting and setting the cut stone of the masonry could be erected. They were only waiting for Mr. Carleton’s acceptance of the concrete disk, the first section of the contract. The superintendent’s certificate of approval was important, one rule of the Department being that no new section of the work should begin until the preceding section was officially approved.

Carleton, however, declined to give it. His ostensible reason was that the engineer-in-chief was expected daily at Keyport, and should therefore pass upon the work himself. His real reason was a desire to settle a score with Captain Joe by impeding the progress of the work.

This animosity to Captain Joe had been aroused by an article very flattering to the superintendent, published in the “Medford Journal,” in which great credit had been given to Carleton for his “heroism and his prompt efficiency in providing a hospital for the wounded men.” The day after its publication, the “Noank Times,” a political rival, sent to make an investigation of its own, in the course of which the reporter encountered Captain Joe. The captain had not seen the Medford article until it was shown him by the reporter. He thereupon gave the exact facts in regard to the accident and the subsequent care of the wounded men, generously exonerating the government superintendent from all responsibility for the notice; adding with decided emphasis that “Mr. Carleton couldn’t ’a’ said no such thing ’bout havin’ provided the hospital himself, ’cause he was over to Medford to a circus the night the accident happened, and didn’t git home till daylight next mornin’, when everything was over an’ the men was in their beds.” The result of this interview was a double-leaded column in the next issue of the “Noank Times,” which not only ridiculed its rival for the manufactured news, but read a lesson on veracity to Carleton himself.

The denial made by the “Times” was the thrust that had rankled deepest; for Carleton, unfortunately for himself, had inclosed the eulogistic article from the “Medford Journal” in his official report of the accident to the Department, and had become the proud possessor of a letter from the engineer-in-chief commending his “promptness and efficiency.”

So far the captain had kept his temper, ignoring both the obstacles Carleton had thrown in his way and the ill-natured speeches the superintendent was constantly making. No open rupture had taken place. Those, however, who knew the captain’s explosive temperament confidently expected that he would break out upon the superintendent, in answer to some brutal thrust, in a dialect so impregnated with fulminates that the effect on Carleton would be disastrous. But they were never gratified. “’T ain’t no use answerin’ back,” was all he said. “He don’t know no better, poor critter.”

Indeed, it was only when a great personal danger threatened his men that the captain’s every-day, conventional English seemed inadequate. On such occasions, when the slightest error on the part of his working force might result in the instant death or the maiming of one of them, certain and it is to be hoped unrecorded outbursts of profanity, soaring into crescendos and ending in fortissimos, would often escape from the captain’s lips with a vim and rush that would have raised the hair of his Puritan ancestors,—rockets of oaths, that kindled with splutters of dissatisfaction, flamed into showers of abuse, and burst into blasphemies which cleared the atmosphere like a thunderclap. For these transgressions he never made any apology. In the roar of the sea they seemed sometimes the only ammunition he could depend upon. “Somebody’ll git hurted round here, if ye ain’t careful; somehow I can’t make ye understand no other way,” he would say. This was as near as he ever came to apologizing for his sinfulness. But he never wasted any of these explosives on such men as Carleton.

As the superintendent persisted in his refusal to give the certificate of acceptance, and as each day was precious, Sanford, whose confidence in the stability and correctness of the work which he and Captain Joe had done was unshaken, determined to begin the erection of the four derricks at once. He accordingly gave orders to clear away the mixing-boards and tools; thus burning his bridges behind him, should the inspection of the engineer-in-chief necessitate any additional work on the concrete disk.

These derricks, with their winches and chain guys, were now lying on the jagged rocks of the Ledge, where they had been landed the day before by Captain Brandt with the boom of the Screamer,—now stanch and sound as ever, a new engine and boiler on her deck. They were designed to lift and set the cut-stone masonry of the superstructure,—the top course at a height of fifty-eight feet above the water-line. These stones weighed from six to thirteen tons each.

During the delay that followed the accident the weather had been unusually fine. Day after day the sun had risen on a sea of silver reflecting the blue of a cloudless sky, with wavy tidelines engraved on its polished surface. At dawn Crotch Island had been an emerald, and at sunset an amethyst.

With the beginning of the dog-days, however, the weather had changed. Dull leaden fogbanks dimming the distant horizon had blended into a pearly-white sky. Restless, wandering winds sulked in dead calms, or broke in fitful, peevish blasts. Opal-tinted clouds showed at sunrise, and prismatic rings of light surrounded the moon,—all sure signs of a coming storm.