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Of Red Lights, Dancing, and Storms At Sea

    That is, any given evening might find the Captain down below at his woodcarving save for Friday and  "Payday Nights".  Those were nights of - shall we say? - another color. 

    Red!

   The color of the lantern that Pop ran up to the masthead about sundown on those nights.  Circumstances, as related by Chuck - not Pop - were that he, Chuck, had an "Aunt" - let's call her "Aunt Polly" - up in Baltimore. Aunt Polly ran a "girl's dancing school" - and every week or so, to give the girls a breath of fresh sea-air and refresh the bloom in their young and virginal cheeks, why, Aunt Polly, out of the goodness of her heart, would pay to entrain the whole dance school for the run down to the nearest railroad station, where George and his cronies would pick them up. 

    Simultaneously across the water, or at least off in some quarter from which they could decry the masthead light, these preliminaries were equaled only by the sundown activities of the off-duty marines at Quantico Marine Base.  Here, Chuck would relate, all would be astir, and soon Marines by the dozens could be made out, in tiny rowboats, rowing rapidly toward old Dow, converging upon the old ship like bees to a tar bucket. 

    With the simultaneous arrival of the dance school girls, the evening's merriment began.  Of this, however, Chuck could report no further eyewitness account.  He was perhaps only seven or eight years old then, and his half-brother a year or so younger.  Neither of the brothers, I might add, being then or even for a very long time after enrolled in school at all - their parents preferring to educate them at home as it were (or perhaps more correctly, "at boat").  In any event, education did not extend to such social activities as the recurrent dances, for at this point, Long John Silver always emerged from the longboat's shadows to take the boys in tow and pack them into their hammocks far forward in the onetime crew's quarters of the focs'l...  

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     His boyhood memories did bracket his next morning's impressions, however, for he related that when he and Don crept first on deck with the passing of the night, there from stem to stern would always be snoring Marines and recumbent dance hall students prone upon the deck. 

     And once, a great gale blew up the Bay and storm warnings were posted on both shores.  Dow, riding to her moorings over the sunken fleet, seemed secure enough at first.  But perhaps the old gal felt again the lift and surge of the storm swells, and began to chafe against her anchor rodes.  Whatever, certain it is that soon they parted and all-too-swiftly the old 'dow-ager" spun around, was picked up by the current, and away out into the Bay she went! 

     The Ida M. Dow underway once more, though strictly speaking not under her own power - after all these many years!  But what's this?  There's no one at the wheel... there's no lookout posted either -- indeed, there's no one visible on deck at all!  After all, why should there be?  It was raining and blowing a gale topside, and there was nothing anyone could do anyway - so the various members of family and crew had repaired to various areas of the ship to follow their usual routines... 

    Chuck and Don were playing mumble-de-peg (sp?) with their pocketknives on the wood decks in the focs'l.  "Mom" (Ruthie) was hard at her books in the Purser's old office.  Long John was swigging on the cooking sherry and baking pies in the old coal stove of the galley - while the Captain - Ahh! - Now, there was a man for all seasons!  For he was on hands and knees in the Main Salon, carving nude mermaids into the cabin brightwork! 

     On down the Bay she sped - a sort of modern Flying Dutchman if you will.  From  out of the storm's wrack, a Coast Guard Cutter appeared and hailed her. 

     No response! 

     But lights shown from every porthole... 

     "Ahoy!  Ahoy, there Dow!" 

     Still no response.  No sign of life... What was this, the Coast Guard Commander wondered.  Another Marie Celeste, perhaps?  A ship abandoned by her crew in some unknown tragedy?  What could it be? 

    This he could not ascertain - but one thing was apparent: Dow rode low in the water (we know, of course, what was in her holds...), and her size and formidable bulk presented a hazard of some dimension to shipping in the lanes.  They would have to get a man aboard of her! 

    A line gun was brought into play - and a line fired aboard her.  (The occupants below heard nothing over the howling of the wind).  Breeches buoy was rigged.  Volunteers told off.  A seaman at last made his way, precariously, over to the bobbing deck of the ancient sailing vessel.  Making his way aft, he pushed open the main scuttle. 

     Imagine his surprise at beholding a barrel-chested, half-naked figure, covered with woolly gray, reddish hair back and chest - upon which a livid scar, surely  the swipe of a pirate's sword - gleamed forth, squatting before an ornately carved sideboard sporting a salacious scene of nymphs and satyrs and mermaids entwined - said figure apparently eating a black, unlit stogie and braced withal against the ship's roll. 

     This apparition looked up and roared at his startled rescuer: 

     "Well, dammit, sonny - shut the scuttle - you're letting in too much rain!" 

     Thus, the rescue of the Ida Dow's endangered complement.  Some, of course, were to argue that they posed more risk than they faced that night, but of this, I shall not judge. 

     I'm no Jack London, true, but I've done my best to relate the tale as it came down to me.  Surely,  Dow's wild midnight cruise down Chesapeake Bay at the height of a gale deserves a telling with the best of sea yarns... 

     But the longest sea tales, as even the longest sea voyages, must come at last to a close, so it remains but to record one further incident before we follow the Rhines, bag and baggage, on to their next series of adventures... 

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     One morning some time after, the Captain came on deck and sensed something awry, but could not quite place it.  Somehow the view had changed - things seemed seen from a different angle, the shore looked "higher".  The boys were swimming off the deck, and formerly where there had been a respectable drop to the water overside, they were now almost stepping off direct into it.  Otherwise, black and shiny all-but-bare 'gullahs' were swimming and diving alongside, and all seemed right with the world.  The Captain strolled to the Main Hatchway, ever a magnet for his interests.  Here he became aware of an unfamiliar gurgling noise.  Peering in, he beheld his brass pile, now grown to quite sizable proportions... awash! 

     What was happening?  Even as his alarm and recognition were all crystallizing at once, Dow gave a sort of low moan, a creak here and there, more gurglings and rushings below - then gently, ever so gently, like an old hen settling down on a new laid egg - Dow settled herself lower in the water to come to rest upon the uppermost structures of the destroyers below!  True, her decks were not finally awash, but water had poured in below and many parts of the ship were flooded. 

     Now perhaps I should have added earlier that it was "part of the deal" that periodically, government barges would lay alongside and at George's direction the contents of Nos. 1 and 3  Holds were off-loaded to the waiting barges.  (But never No. 2 Hold - which was sacrosanct and no one else's - let alone the U.S. Government's -business!).  Inevitably, physics had taken over.  There came a day, when No. 2 Hold was filled to capacity, but since George's plans for disposal of this booty had not quite materialized, it had just been left there to accumulate - kind of like money in the bank.  And so, at last, when Nos. 1 and 3 filled legitimately to their capacity, when combined with the overloaded No. 2 Hold, it simply became too much for Dow, and she sank  upon her fleet - I say, like a hen settling upon her chicks... 

    Here, as the old-time writers used to say "was a pretty fix".  An abortive attempt was made to shift diving operations aboard rather than over the side, and 'gullah' divers dove from the deck into the murk of No. 2 Hold - but for some reason this endeavor came to naught.  In the end there was nothing to do, but call for help. 

    Help soon arrived in the form of a government patrol boat, with a complement of Navy brass and other officials from various concerned agencies aboard to look into affairs.  And look they did - and what they found was that an illicit horde of prime brass hardware had been unaccountably stashed in the No. 2 Hold to the extent that the combined weight of this horde with that of Nos. 1 and 2 Holds had effectively sunk Dow upon her charges. Thus salvager and salvagee, alike, were consigned to the same ignominious and watery grave unless someone could think of something. 

    With such a brain trust at hand, someone did think of something, and soon more naval barges were laying alongside and the shuffle of  'gullah'  bare feet was replaced by the clomp of lead diver's shoes on the decks of old Dow.  But she was, at last, free of her burden and re-floated once more. 

    However, I think - notwithstanding his undoubted prowess as Master Woodcarver and general refurbisher of old Dow  - Captain Rhine was cashiered in some disgrace for this fiasco, but that it was rich in memories for all the family, of that, there can be no doubt.  But sea life had paled, and the great inland Continent of America - the Land of Opportunity - beckoned.  Believers all in the immutability of man's "nature" from the days of the Pharaohs on, the Rhines bestirred themselves, and faces to the West, decamped to seek their fortunes upon the Arkansas...

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