The Black Rose
By
Richard Corwin
Copyright Richard Corwin 2011
Published at Smashwords
The Black Rose
Smuggling was not just a cottage industry, but a national industry.” Art Anderson
The long flight back to the states was like standing night watch; nothing to do but relive the past. During the lonely late-night and early morning watches, he had plenty of time to remember what it was like living in the islands, his trips sailing boats back to the states years before. Reliving those days helped pass the hours. Dick remembered someone saying that your life passes before your eyes when you’re falling off a building or drowning and he always wondered how they knew that. If that was true then it was a lot like standing watch at night, all alone, in the middle of the ocean. On his return flight to Miami, he was thinking back to the time when he was a teenager in Hawaii, a beautiful schooner, smugglers and his first real sailing experience on The Black Rose.
The tropic night air was heavy with humidity that hung like thick motor oil in every breath. The dampness gave the oily shotgun Terry handed Dick, a strange slippery, clammy feeling in his sweaty hands. The thick night air, combined with the stillness and eerie darkness, set the river with a mood as if it were the end of the world. With sails furled, the Black Rose had been quietly motoring without running lights for hours through an endless ink-like blackness; the absence of horizon, stars or moon, gave the illusion there was no up or down; no forward or backward. He felt lost.
One of the two Chinese crewmen on the bow was sweeping the water ahead with a flashlight looking for obstructions but the darkness absorbed the light as if shining into an empty, bottomless well. The atmosphere was very tense despite assurances from Terry and Grif that everything was fine. Then in the distance I saw a flicker of lights, shimmering in long streaks over the ebony, calm waters, splitting the gloom that gave him a welcomed sense of balance between feelings of uncertainty and confidence but some anxieties lingered; a little disappeared with the sight of the far-away lights.
They had been at sea for almost three weeks and, as if trying to make a deadline, the boat stopped only on some small island in the Philippines for provisions. His job, because he lacked experience, was to stand watch when the weather was fair to give everyone else a break.
After reaching some nameless river on the southern coast of China, in the late afternoon, the boat was making its way slowly into one of the river’s many obscure branches that crisscrossed a nameless river. Everything was nameless to Dick. Chinese names were difficult to pronounce much less to remember and Terry hired only Chinese crewmen for the trip. The two apparently knew where they were going and took the helm of the Black Rose once they got into the narrow, dark rivers.
The tiny sparkles of light Dick had seen in the distance were bamboo torches stuck in the river’s mud to light the way along the channel to a very small unlit dock. Dick’s fingers nervously tightened around the oily gun.
The first light was a small crudely made, candle-lit, bright red lantern of paper and thin wood, hanging from a bamboo pole. When the boat passed close enough, Terry snagged it with a boat hook and quickly extinguished it.
“The red lantern lets us know the torches need to be on the port, or left side, as we go into the narrow channel so we don’t run aground,” Terry explained with a whisper. “If the lantern was green, we’d have to keep them on our right side.”
Not knowing how to respond or what to say, Dick shook his head as though he understood; there were no further explanations for the secrecy and no reason for him to ask. Dick hadn’t expected the trip to be so mysterious before leaving Honolulu but now it was too late except to remain on guard while being cautiously excited.
Grif went below and returned quickly with another well-oiled shotgun and handed it to the Chinese crewmen nearest the dock. Terry stopped the engine as a narrow dock emerged from the dark. Looking at the whole scene in the oppressive darkness seemed almost bizarre—the silhouettes of the Chinese crewmen poised to throw dock lines and several motionless figures standing on the low, wooden pier as the boat drifted slowly and noiselessly up to the pier. The stillness underscored everything, lines thrown to silent men who quickly tied them to wood pilings, securing the Black Rose tightly against the flimsy structure. Two figures dressed in white suddenly appeared, like ghosts from the shadows and jumped aboard without a word to quickly descend through the open hatch with Grif close behind.
“Stay up here and keep watch,” Terry whispered to Dick. “This shouldn’t take too long, and then we’ll be on our way. See anybody you haven’t seen before, stop them.” Then he too went below decks shutting the hatchway behind him.
The night suddenly filled with a deeper mystery and Dick found himself in the middle of some truly strange business. If he had known all this mystery was going to happen before he joined the crew, Dick thought it probably wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. This was his first long sailing trip but his enthusiasm wasn’t spoiled because it was, after all, an adventure that could have some danger and the potential intrigued him.
Alone on the deck, a long way from home with a shotgun cradled in his arms, Dick had little to do but pace back and forth in the dark with lots of time to think aimlessly. As a teenager, he had youthful urges for changes, adventures and a thirst for worldly knowledge; the results of being raised in a military family. This urge led him to many risky experiences but this one on the Black Rose was proving to be way beyond anything his wildest imagination could dream.
Dick looked at the sails hastily furled; loosely tied to their booms in case they had to leave in a hurry, he laughed when he thought back to his teenage years in Maryland camping and fishing in the backwaters of the Chesapeake Bay and his first boat; a sodden rowboat found in the swamp, awash in a shallow creek and near the spot where he fished for crabs. He found and pulled a waterlogged, mud- filled boat onto land, dried it out and patched the holes. To make it into a sail boat a friend gave him a boat cover, which he nailed to a two-by-four mast lashed tightly to the seats.
Proudly it was launched. His first sailboat. The boat cover sail performed remarkably well, although sailing a rowboat was not without its drawbacks. After sailing to one end of the cove he had to get out, turn the boat around, and drop the sail then row back. Some days the wind would shift, making for a longer voyage, but it also made for a longer row back. Dick sailed his boat, back and forth, in the safety of the cove until it sank one day when the mast plunged, like a spear, through a rotten board in its bottom.
Looking up at the tall masts of the Black Rose Dick fondly remembered his primitive sailboat with its smell of moldy wood saturated with swamp mud; it seemed like yesterday. While standing lonely night watches on the Black Rose during the long trip, seeing her full sails and feeling her roll and pitch in the sometimes stormy Pacific, caused him to also remember his favorite high school art project.
At the same time he was sailing his make-shift sail boat he was inspired to create a painting of a Spanish treasure ship. He devoted almost an entire semester with the helpful guidance of his teacher to work carefully on the fine details of the ship’s complex rigging and applying mixtures of various shades of blue to create an angry, boiling ocean capped with wind-swept white foam of an approaching squall.
Towers of sails were highlighted to give the billowing canvas distinction against a background of rain-filled ominous dark clouds. It seemed as if the sails would split at any moment as the ship sailed full force into the storm driven seas. While brushing on more paint, Dick was swept away into a daydream of a sailors’ life, almost tasting the salt air, sensing its sting on his face; hearing men loudly yell orders above the high pitch of wind and sea; the feeling of adventure carried with him on his small boat in the cove.
Then, during a semester break, the painting disappeared. He was heartbroken and insulted that someone would take it without feeling the painting’s life, unaware of the treasures and secrets hidden deep in her hold and not seeing the sailors rushing aloft and on deck preparing for the approaching storm. Nor would they ever explore the exotic islands or make new and exhilarating discoveries he painted into that ship. The painting was gone but not his imagination or enthusiasm for sailing.
Suddenly a strange clatter from the dock startled him. With quick reflexes Dick jumped, his chest pounded in fearful reflex, the shotgun shaking in his hand. He was ready to shoot anything or anyone unrecognizable that looked like a threat coming out of the darkness; everything was reduced to formless, unrecognizable shapes. He cautiously approached the place where the noise came from, then made out the dim outlines of some men in the shadows along the shoreline.
The sudden racket had come from whatever it was they unloaded out of their truck. It took a while for him to calm down enough to relax and return alone in the darkness, with only a dim glow on the deck from the covered portholes to show him the way back to the deck house. The interruption made the gloom seem more perilous. The men unloading the truck apparently saw him jump nervously. Pointing at him they were softly chattering and laughing. It made Dick very nervous not being able to understand what they were saying.
After what felt like hours, they finished unloading some equipment that looked like heavy rope and diving gear. Dick first thought how strange that they would be diving at night. As exciting as it was to be here Dick was far too tired to think about, or try to figure out, the night’s strange and mysterious happenings. Despite his nervousness his heart finally returned to a dull beat and relaxed. He hoped they would be gone soon.
Terry and Grif, although older than Dick, were not good friends, they taught him a lot about sailing when they were in Honolulu between trips. It was a great birthday gift when they allowed him to go along on the China trip. After leaving the safety of the small cove of the Chesapeake Bay of his youth behind, the open ocean made him feel like he was a real sailor and feel a real fraternal spark of achievement; a real sense of belonging. This was genuine sailing and he remembered how it all came about thanks to his sketches and persistence.
When his dad was stationed at Schofield in Hawaii, Dick’s spare time was spent exploring some of the many marinas. It was at the Keehi Harbor that he first saw the Black Rose; an impressive eighty-five foot two masted gaff-rigged schooner from California. She was tied up with her port side against a concrete and wood dock. Her black painted hull, tall varnished masts, neatly furled sails and many belayed lines created an unexpected excitement that made his heart want to leap from his chest.
After discovering the Black Rose, Dick would go to the marina as often as he could just to stand and stare at her; daydreaming about where the ship had sailed. Her decks were always clean and uncluttered; curtains always drawn over the deckhouse portholes.
He took a pad and pencil with him to sketch her from several angles; drawing and re-drawing the Black Rose under sail, at anchor or in some raging storm; all the time remembering his missing painting. He put the same depth of imagination in the drawings as pencil lines defined her shape and rigging.
On days when the ship was in port, as he walked on the dock sketching, he thought it odd not to have seen anyone leave or go aboard. A ship that size certainly required lots of attention but he never saw anyone working. The ship and marina seemed unusually quiet, lonely and, at times, deserted except for an occasional boat leaving or coming in.
One afternoon, daring to cautiously approach the seemingly empty schooner, Dick was near enough to step from the dock onto her deck when he heard muffled voices coming from below. He paced back and forth on the dock, scraping his feet loudly against the loose gravel hoping someone on the boat would hear him; ask him to come aboard. The voices continued and no one appeared. Oh well, he thought, maybe next time.
For several weeks the trips to the marina ceased because of final exams but they would soon be over and summer vacation would give him more free time to visit the marina. His fears the Black Rose would be gone, never to be seen again, haunted him during school but now with final exams over, he raced back to the marina hoping she was still there. The first thing he saw in the distance was the telltale masts standing high above all the other boats. He leaped off the bus, ran through the marina gate, up to the Black Rose but this time there were several men on her deck.
Like his other trips he carried with him his sketch book and opened it without wanting to seem too curious, wandered nonchalantly, looking over the boat as if trying to decide on a good angle, then close to where they were standing, began to scratch the pencil loudly over the course paper. He thought that seemed to be the best approach for an invitation.
The men stopped talking, turned to look at him; more of a stare he thought, and unsmilingly watched him closely; suspiciously, like mannequins. Three Chinamen, he thought were the crew, walked to the front of the boat disappearing down a hatch, and the two other men, he guessed were the owners, were leathery brown. Each was dressed in faded blue jean cut-offs and sun-bleached, flowery Hawaiian shirts, and well-worn canvas deck shoes.
Impatient for a conversation about the boat, Dick blurted out, “How you guys doin’, beautiful ship. She’s lotsa’ work I bet.”
They stared and then gave him a half nod. Dick nervously fumbled with his sketch pad and dropped it. When he stood after recovering the book, the men were gone. The bus ride home was lonely and filled with deep disappointment. He felt dejected and decided to stay away for a few days. When he finally went back the Black Rose was gone.
After a month of boring, mediocre, uninspiring summer bowling league games, Dick ventured back to the marina where the Black Rose was berthed. To his surprise, there she was. Just as beautiful as before she left and on deck one of the men in cut-offs. This time, though, he unexpectedly smiled and waved.
“Come aboard,” he said in a friendly way, “I seen you hanging around sketchin’ or somethin’. You some kind of artist, or what?”
“No, not really.” Dick was taken by surprise, answering nervously, “just like sail boats and hope to sail one some day.”
“Well come on. I’ll show you around. Just back from a business trip to China and trying to get the ‘Rose’ cleaned up before our next trip. She’s a real mess.”
Looking around it seemed to Dick that nothing was out of place; she was a beautiful, neat and tidy schooner with a few odd lines lying around. Another guy was busy coiling ropes and hanging them neatly from the pin rails.
“I’m Dick,” he said extending his hand for a shake. “My dad’s stationed at Schofield.”
“I’m Terry. Glad to meet you, “he said pumping Dick’s hand. “Let me see your sketch pad, if you don’t mind.”
Dick handed him the sketch pad filled with pencil drawings of the Black Rose; some traced with ink lines to give dimension to the drawings. Terry slowly leafed through the pages, making approving nods.
“Pretty damn good,” he said handing back the sketch pad. “Do you sell these?”
“Never thought about selling’em.”
“Tell you what,” Terry said as he reached into his front pocket and pulled out several twenty dollar bills. “I’ll give you twenty bucks for the one on the fourth page.”
Taken by surprise, Dick leafed through the pages until he got to the one Terry wanted. It was one of his favorites because it depicted the Black Rose under full sail, but he agreed to the deal and they exchanged money and drawing.
Excited by the sale of his sketch, he trailed Terry as he went below. From stateroom to galley to engine room they went; talking all the while about sailing. The focsl’, or quarters in the front of the ship where the two crewmen had their bunks, were tidy as the deck. Dick followed Terry back up on deck as he pointed out the lines – halyards for raising the sails, shrouds to support the masts, lines to trim the sails and the pin rails on which the myriad of lines were fastened to belaying pins. His joy was hard to conceal as he listened to everything Terry told him about the boat but then his luck ran out when Griff showed up and abruptly ended the visit. “Glad you could come aboard,” Terry said as he patted Dick on the shoulder while gently urging him to the gangway and onto the dock.
“Thanks,” he said, “for letting me look around.” Then Terry and his partner disappeared out of sight below.
It was during this early acquaintance with the Black Rose that Dick came to realize the schooner had become a symbol of his dreams and ambitions. She was a living, working image of adventure, exploration, and excitement. To him a mystical brotherhood of bold sailors took her into distant lands and unknown waters.
Tied to the dock, her Douglas fir masts were unmistakable as they soared above the other boats, but the real surprise for Dick came when she was hauled out to have her bottom painted. Her eighty-five foot length looked so much larger!
Dick remembered seeing her out of the water for the first time and walking around the looming whale-like hulk; staring at her recently scraped bottom. He had never seen such a ship out of the water before and was struck with an appreciation for her design. On her massive rudder a section several feet long had apparently been removed and replaced with what looked like a huge block of lead bolted in place. Dick bent down to inspect a small spot of bright metal under the reddish paint just as Griff showed up. This was the second time Dick remembered meeting Griff and his impression was the man could have a short fuse.
“Hey, you!” It was Griff walking very quickly over to Dick. “Just looking at your boat,” he replied nervously. “Terry invited me down to visit again and I was….” He didn’t have a chance to finish.
“So you’re the kid that was here a few weeks ago?” he interrupted, sounding almost apologetic. “Well Terry aint’ on board so you better get away from here before somethin’ happens and you get hurt,” he said as he grabbed him by the arm and steered him away from the Black Rose.
Griff tried to be calm telling Dick, “Terry’s got your picture hangin’ in the galley. It’s really nice.”
“Hey Grif, what’s goin’ on?” Terry’s voice was loud but firm. “That’s Dick. I told him he could come back to visit?”
Grif let go of Dick’s arm. “Sorry,” he said gruffly. Together, the three climbed up the ladder and went below. Dick sat motionless, sipping a coke as he listened in awe for hours as Terry and Griff described some of their trips to the Orient and around the islands. Their stories made the world seem a lot smaller.
A few days later, the Black Rose’s hull and bottom were painted and she returned to the dock; the odd place on the rudder was forgotten. Then she left port for a month. In her absence, time passed quickly as Dick concentrated on his school and painted, anxiously waiting for the Black Rose to return.
As the weeks turned into months, Dick visited the Black Rose whenever she was in port. The two men took a liking to Dick and began giving him dock-side sailing lessons revealing the names and parts of sails; where the lines were located to raise, lower and control them, and what to do in emergencies were some of the lessons he learned. Practical experience of actually sailing on an ocean voyage was the one thing he was missing. If Dick could get that under his belt, he’d be a true sailor.
Following a trip to California, the ‘Rose’ was again hauled out to be readied for yet another trip. Terry, Grif and Dick were sitting at the outdoor marina celebrating his eighteenth birthday. Then the birthday surprise. Terry suggested that he go along on this trip. Parental permission was reluctantly granted, and Dick was getting ready to not only have his first experience sailing on something larger than his first boat, he was going to make an ocean voyage. He remembered how excited he was then and how the anticipation of such a trip had a grip on his life. And now he was in China. Sitting in the dark with a shot gun in his hand.
Dick was suddenly awakened from the memories when another loud noise came from somewhere on shore as more equipment was unloaded and dragged to the dock. He stood up, a little shaken by the sudden racket, but all his thoughts about the past, like smoke, quickly evaporated as the activity around the ship became frantic.
Terry and Grif reappeared on deck with the two strangers in tow. Several men on the dock, who were dressed in diving gear, slipped like fat shiny eels into the water while others dropped block and tackle into the water behind them. Loud banging against the boat’s bottom followed, and then stopped as quickly as it began, the divers returned to the dock removed their gear and helped several men to pull something quite heavy from the river.
Without pausing to see what the men were dragging from the river, Terry started the engines, the crewmen untied the ship’s lines, the Black Rose was turned around and headed slowly back into the river. Dick watched as men continued their struggle to pull something from the water before the Black Rose and they were swallowed in the night’s gloom.
All was consumed in darkness broken only by a few relit torches to guide them out of the channel and into the main river not far from the ocean.
Knowing enough not to ask questions, Dick enjoyed the long sail home, tossing over in his mind the unusual events he’d witnessed. Even with a number of storms buffeting them for several days, questions never ceased to probe Dick’s imagination for answers. Despite all his snooping, he had not a clue to the meaning of what he’d seen that night on the river. Terry and Grif offered no explanations, so he had no reason to be dissatisfied with an answer and the voyage home went by quickly.
Everyone was happy to see him safely home. Not mentioning to his friends and family the mysterious events witnessed on the trip seemed best and instead he entertained them with stories of the wonderful times he had enjoyed when the Black Rose put up at several small islands in the Pacific for supplies.
Back in Honolulu, Terry and Grif again hauled the Black Rose out for routine maintenance and repairs. When she was out of the water again, Dick made a trip to the marina in an effort to settle the unanswered mystery that bothered him since their return. There he waited until Terry and Griff were away from the boat before inspecting the rudder. Instead of a lead-like patch, there was now a big cavity that gave the rudder an odd appearance. Nearby and laying on the ground were two huge bolts and a rusty iron ingot about the same size as the hole; about four feet long, several inches thick and at least two feet wide.
It was then Dick decided to leave quickly before Terry and Grif returned and caught him snooping around. Now he was afraid that he had been innocently involved in something that could lead to trouble. Dick knew his love affair with the Black Rose had to end before it became too complicated and dangerous.
Feeling it was necessary to say goodbye, Dick returned to the marina for the last time. Seeing the two men sitting at the marina bar he told them he was leaving for the States and thanked them for his unforgettable experiences. Asking no questions they shook hands, told him to come back anytime and Dick sadly took a last look at the Black Rose before leaving.
Then one day, while standing on the beach, he saw the Black Rose appear in the distance as she was leaving port under full sail. Suddenly an ache gripped his heart, like a lover saying goodbye to a sweetheart. As he watched the Black Rose slowly grow smaller, before fading away in the distance, the weather clouded over and a cool wind rose out of the west.
The Black Rose never returned to Hawaii. Always looking at boats, Dick stopped at the marina where he first saw the Black Rose. He asked the marina’s dock master if he knew anything about where the boat was and he said he heard she was forced on a reef near the Philippines during a bad storm; Terry and Grif survived and wasted little time recovering only the boat’s huge, rudder, a few personal belongings and nothing else; leaving behind the mysterious rudder with a large hole in it on the beach.
They were seen just one more time; anchored briefly where the Black Rose sank before they sailed away and that was the last anyone saw of them. No one the dock master knew had any idea where they went. But Dick knew.