He glanced at the barometer. Things weren't looking good. Low clouds were churning in the sky, racing northeast. It seemed they would soon collapse to the ocean's surface, unable to bear the brunt of the July Atlantic storm. Their color shifted from gray to purple, and then to a heavy navy blue. As he stepped onto the swaying deck, a cold, damp wind lashed him in the face. He closed his eyes, studying it expertly. "The wind is my bible..." he thought, and smiled to himself. After all, these were his own words from a book written after his solo expedition across the Pacific on the "Seven Little Sisters." That was when he first decided to face the elements alone. Or perhaps with himself? He no longer remembered his own motivations very clearly. Only the sea mattered—an endless expanse, and he was at its center. Here, one had to find one's way alone, no lighthouses—only the stars on the rare cloudless Atlantic nights.
He sensed a certain nervousness in the wind. "Yes, I know," he muttered under his breath, "we have to reef while there's still time, or you won't let me later. Right?" The only answer was the groan of shrouds tortured by the tension in the mast. He heaved to the wind, allowing the mainsail to flap. He eased the halyard—the mainsail dropped about half a meter. He quickly re-cleated the halyard, preventing the sail from falling any lower. He quickly tied the reef lines around the boom, then pulled the sail back up to the stop. He glanced up once more to check the sail trim. He didn't notice the unevenness in the canvas that had appeared near the mast itself, even though the distance was no more than four meters.
William Willis turned seventy-five that year.
He returned to the cockpit. He secured all the moving parts. He briefly considered securing the radio, but decided against it after a moment. The radio hadn't worked for two weeks anyway. He glanced into the food storage compartment and cursed. The airtight containers couldn't withstand prolonged contact with moisture and salt. The biscuits, flour, and sugar he'd taken on the voyage were now a shapeless mass mixed with salty seawater and engine oil, the tank of which was located next to it, which always leaked because the lid was loose. Truth be told, he hadn't been back in here for two days; he'd simply forgotten about food—not for the first time, anyway. He looked at the remains of his supplies for a moment, smiled faintly, and gently closed the compartment. "Three or four more days and I should be in Ireland," he thought. "In the Pacific, I went without food for days at a time. I can handle it now."
He walked over to the tiny shelf that slid out of the wall and served as his desk. Here he jotted down his notes and added to his journal entries. He hadn't written poetry in years. He gathered up the loose, damp pages and tossed them into a tight drawer. He looked around carefully once more and decided that everything was as it should be.
When he stepped onto the deck, the wind had already established its direction, blowing increasingly strongly from the southwest. William estimated its speed at about thirty-five knots. "In a few hours, a good storm will catch up with us," he decided. "This whole Gulf Stream should be called 'Storm Alley.'" He checked the tension of the shrouds and stays, then returned to the cockpit, intending to lie down for an hour or an hour and a half. He knew that once the storm caught up with him, he wouldn't leave the helm for two, maybe three days. He wasn't afraid—he yearned for another try.
It was the morning of July 20th.
A dull thud woke him. Water was pouring into the cockpit, gurgling furiously. William jumped up, his head hitting the low ceiling as usual. He cursed in a nautical tone and jumped toward the entrance, wading knee-deep in icy, greenish water. One glance was enough for him to realize that a wave rolling across the deck had managed to rip the entrance lock open, and the door, under the pressure of the water, had opened, letting the ocean inside the boat. He cautiously peeked his head out, assessing the situation. Before his eyes registered the first images, he already knew. He was surrounded. Locked in a howling cage between clouds and the raging surface of the ocean. He stood for a moment, shielding his eyes from the salty spray of the waves, from the corrosive salt. His mouth, framed by gray stubble, twisted predatorily. He loved these moments when he faced the hurricane. There was fury, there were hateful demons, darkness, hurricane, lightning, and ocean. Here was a man—with gray hair plastered to his gaunt face, chained only by his own will to the rudder—an irritating speck of dust in the eye of the hurricane. St. Patrick's fires. Elma's rays streamed down from the masthead; it seemed the entire boat was washed not by waves but by their glow. William knew it, felt it. "Storms refuse to die," he thought. "If they do, they always try to take someone with them. But not me, not yet...
A statue of a man. Hands clenched on a rudder that no force should hold, invisible chains, a covenant with space and time. The ocean hurled blow after blow at the boat, hurling waves beneath which the entire deck disappeared for long moments, and when the wave receded, the ocean stared in amazement at the man who couldn't lose, who never gave up. With all the greater fury, he thrashed the tiny shell—demons howled, ropes groaned, the hull creaked, mountains shifted, ocean valleys shifted. The white peaks of these mountains, the dark green slopes—rose higher and higher, steeper and steeper, in the silence of threats. Destroy. Annihilate. Wipe away. The ocean hurled insults in his face. William Willis didn't listen. He knew that no matter what happened, he would prevail. "The measure of humanity is our ability to face the unknown, our dreams and how we pursue them, how we fight for them," he thought. "We carry within us the seeds of storms, and it is with them that we truly must contend."
The groaning sound of tortured metal tore him from his reverie. He heaved to the wind, locked the steering wheel, and lunged toward the shroud, which had been ripped from the deck along with the turnbuckle. The mistrimmed sail yanked the mast, which transferred all its force to the windward shroud. The steel cable now coiled above the deck like a viper with a broken spine, lashing haphazardly across the deck, shattering protruding hardware. He tried to grab it—it slammed into his face with tremendous force, opening a long gash. He caught it, however, and temporarily secured it to the base of the mast, hoping to avoid further damage. He fell into the cockpit with a churning wave. He rose to his knees and stood up. He went to the stowage compartment with his flare gun. He knew the journey was over, that his third solo attempt to cross the Atlantic had also failed. In this condition, the boat was unsuitable for sailing. He didn't have the proper tools to make repairs, at least not during a storm. If the radio had worked, he would have sent out an SOS signal—he was brave, but he was no fool. But the radio wasn't working—he had to hope someone would notice the signals from the flare gun. He leaned halfway out. One, two, three—orange-white fireballs lit up the black sky, the wind carried them north, extinguishing them so quickly... the end—now only the fight.
He went below deck once more, went to the shelf, and opened the logbook.
July 20th.
My ship was caught in a violent storm. I've lost most of my supplies. I have no food left, no signal flares...
He had just managed to note the longitude when suddenly there was a violent crack of tearing canvas. William threw himself on the deck, looked up, and saw the sail, freed from the forward sail track, struggling furiously, torn by the elements, delighted with this windfall.
"Is that all?! – he shouts into the sky, into space, into the darkness. – It's just this once! I'll never surrender! Do you hear?! Never!!! Even if I, even if... then more and more will come! – he grits his teeth and drawls – You won't take my will. Even if you defeat me, victory will still be mine.
A dry "splinter" of a breaking tree – the mast tilts violently, torn from its clamp. The boom, with the remnant of the sail, rises upwards at incredible speed, rips the tackle block from its mounting, and it hits William Willis in the chest. He loses his breath, falls to the deck, dazed. And then the ocean rushes at him, as if aware that only now can it defeat this man, only now he has one chance.
When the wave slowly recedes from the deck of the Little One, William Willis is no longer there.
The elements are raging.
(March 14-15, 2003)
Author's Note
Almost everything in this short story is fictional. Except for William Willis, the name of the boat, and the entry in the Logbook. The wreck of the boat was found in September 1968, four hundred nautical miles west of the coast of Ireland—two months after the last entry in the Logbook. The notes found on the wreck, which William Willis perhaps intended to use to write another book, ended with the sentence:
"The sea is the kingdom of the brave."
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