A Bannockburn Night
© K.C. Ball

The Walter A. Hutchison was eleven hours out of Thunder Bay, with a cargo of iron ore, and we were racing a storm east across Lake Superior toward the Soo.

This was two years after the Big War, nineteen and forty-eight, and the winter storms, what Lake sailors call the Witch of November, had come calling early that year.

This one sucked the darkness to it, painting everything in nasty shades of gray, and gale-force winds flung thick, wet snow from every direction. Weather like that, my old man used to say, you could get in trouble just taking a leak off the back rail.

But I was settled in the captain's chair, up in the wheelhouse, nursing a mug of black coffee. I had guzzled a few gallons of the stuff since Thunder Bay, and hadn't wandered far from that chair, either; the Hutchison was my first command.

We were bantering about the World Series; Jack Mathias, who was my first mate, hailed from Boston and Rudy Sorensen, the helmsman, was a Cleveland fan. He wouldn't listen to a bad word from Jack about his Indians, in particular pitcher Bob Feller.

And then the skies cleared and our laughter died, for we spotted a triple-masted, single-stack boat, running with us in the gathering darkness, two-hundred yards off our starboard rail. Rudy, a staunch Catholic, crossed himself.

“Bannockburn!” he said.

The word seemed to suck all the air out of the wheelhouse; and then the skies and the Lake closed in again and we lost sight of her.

“Don't talk nonsense, Rudy,” Jack said. Almost stuttering.

“I swear, Mr. Mathias,” Rudy said. “I saw her markings. Wait ‘til the boys hear this!”

###

My old man used to say there's a legend for every drop of water in the Lake. I suppose the Ojibway started it. They called Superior Gitche Gumee , Big and Shining Water, and claimed even the smallest rock along its shores spoke to them. Lake sailors have passed along their tales over the years, too; Bannockburn is one of them.

She was a steel-hulled steamer, dressed out all in black with the Montreal Transportation Company logo in white on her single stack. Only ten years old that November in 1902, she took on wheat at Port Arthur and headed down-lake. At noon, the Algonquin sighted Bannockburn off Keweenaw Point. As darkness fell, the wheelhouse crew of Huronic spotted Bannockburn running east, easy as you please.

She never reached port, though. Some say she slipped off into a crack in the Lake, but over the years, she's been seen again and again, running in silence under a new moon or steaming through a winter storm. Lake sailors claim she's a bad omen.

###

Rudy had to wait to spread new tales that day. As night fell, the winds soared to seventy knots and the following sea topped twenty feet. At my call, Doc Weaver and his black gang nursed every bit of power they could manage from the Hutchison's four diesel engines, but I wondered if it would be enough.

Water was knee-deep upon the deck, as heavy seas broke over the bow, and each time the Hutchison took longer to recover. And the winds pushed her as if she were an empty balsa shell, not eight-hundred feet of steel plate filled to the load line with twenty-thousand tons of ore.

Cookie called up just after six, offering to bring us sandwiches and hot soup, but I told him to stay below with the deckhands. At my order, the five of them had gathered in the day room, with weather gear ready and ice hammers in hand.

That was my biggest worry. Ice.

The stuff is like a fungus; spreading its shining veneer everywhere, making work outside dangerous, adding weight that could destroy delicate communications gear; and without radio, radar and loran we would be sailing deaf and blind.

My old man used to say that what you pick at the most always comes unraveled. Just before seven, Andy Duncan, the radio operator, called forward.

“The signal's fading, Skipper,” he said, his voice hoarse and hollow over the phone. “I figure it's the ice.”

“Watch the shop, Jack,” I said; giving him the high sign. “I'm going aft to chat with Sparks.”

It was a ten-foot walk, but while I was in the passageway, the Hutchison rattled, like a dog shaking off a bath, and then, without pause, there was a loud brittle-bone crack.

The communications mast was down.

Seconds later, Andy and I stood in the half-light of his blank screens, wrapped in the hiss of a radio carrier wave.

“I should'a called sooner,” Andy said. He was close to tears; I put my hand on his shoulder.

“I should have seen it, too, Sparks,” I said. “Let's just figure out how to fix it.” His eyes darted about the shack, and then he squared his shoulders and gave a little grunt.

“Parts ain't a problem,” he said. “I got spares for the big stuff and can jury-rig the rest.” He rolled his shoulders and I could hear the muscles creak, as he continued.

“Installation's got me worried, though. Good weather, I'd have it up in a snap; I ain't sure I can do it now.”

“Yes, you can,” I said. “And the fellows in the day room will help.”

###

Back then, there were no long-range forecasts. No satellite links. No computers. With radar and sonar working, maintaining a course in foul weather was like feeling your way across a dark room without bumping into the furniture. Without electronics, we were running across a field of potholes wearing a blindfold.

In the wheelhouse, Rudy was gripping the wheel hard enough to leave fingerprints. Jack stood up straight and drew a breath, as I entered.

“The radio mast is down,” I said.

They didn't need to be told, but I saw both men needed to hear me say it, to make it matter of fact and manageable. If I said it would be all right, that we could do what needed to be done, then they would do their damnedest to see it through. But if I showed fear, panic would begin right there and swell until it engulfed the Hutchison and its crew.

It was at that moment that I first recognized the truth about command. Anyone can be in charge when it's all in balance; the true measure of a captain is how he handles disaster.

“Sparks is going to make repairs,” I said. “We'll hold course and speed until he done.”

“Captain—“

Jack Mathias and I had known each other for nine years and had been on a first-name basis, onboard the Hutchison, since the first day. That wouldn't do now; I interrupted him.

“You have an opinion, Mr. Mathias?”

“We have been running tight to shore,” he said. Just as formal. “In this wind, we could have drifted leeward, without electronics to show true position. We should turn north.”

Let me give you a quick sailing lesson. Position is the location of the boat at a given time. Leeward is a sideways movement caused by wind or current.

With strong winds out of the northwest, the Hutchison could be pushed south off true course and, without our electronic eyes and ears, we would never know.

Jack wanted to steer north of our compass heading, to put distance between us and the Michigan shoreline. It would avoid the possibility of running aground, but it carried dangers, too.

The maneuver would lay us sideways into the wave troughs and that could produce deep rolls, maybe so deep we would capsize. Then too, the radio mast was mounted on our forward superstructure. A breaking wave exerts enormous pressure, one ton per square foot. If I held present course, we would run with that force focused on our stern, away from the work crew.

“Your concern is noted,” I said. “We'll stay on course.”

###

We sailed for another quarter-hour before Andy called, via walkie-talkie.

“I can do this, Skipper,” he said. I could hear his grin.

But before we could say another word, a rocket exploded into the night; in its glare, we saw that the other boat was back, less than one hundred yards away and closing fast.

“Hang on!” I said. Shouting into the walkie-talkie. “It's going to be a bumpy ride.”

Rudy called upon his God, as Jack scurried from the protection of the wheelhouse to the starboard flying bridge. I dropped the radio and took two big steps, away from the chair to the starboard glass.

“Bring her to port, Rudy!” I said. Still shouting.

Rudy spun the wheel, and even as I brought my binoculars up, I felt the Hutchison begin its turn. Outside, a beam of light skewered the other boat; Jack had manned our spotlight.

The dark freighter continued to close the distance, forcing us to the north. Her ship's whistle shrilled above the whine of the wind in our rigging. Signal rockets screamed from her deck as if it was a Fourth of July fireworks show. But despite the lights and noise, I could see no sign of life.

We ran in that manner for ten minutes, the Hutchison always moving to the northeast, fighting to maintain a distance. There were moments I was certain we would capsize, but each time we rolled, Hutchison wallowed back into line.

Then, just as it appeared we would gain no breathing room, the other boat shuddered, as if a huge and unseen fist had struck it, and its forward progress slowed. The Hutchison raced away and as we gained clearance, I had Rudy bring her back to an eastward heading.

As we pulled away, the movements of the other boat became stilted. Waves hurled the little freighter sideways across the Lake.

The wind ripped at her superstructure, smashing doors and hatches and blowing away deck gear. Sweeping gray water made matchwood of her lifeboats. She was pitched about with so much force that her screw was racing in the open air one second and biting into the freezing water the next.

Then, without warning, she shuddered to a halt.

She had run aground, just as Hutchison would have, had we stayed that course. Her bow split open, much like a fresh egg tapped upon a counter top.

And she foundered and sank.

###

There's not much to tell after that. Andy's repair crew was battered but alive. They confessed later they had been too busy hanging on to see much of anything. We made the rest of the run into Sault Saint Marie without incident.

When Rudy went off duty, he was the center of attention, for the remainder of the crew had been stuck below deck for that ten-minute ride. Jack Mathias and I remained silent about the incident, even with each other, except for the few seconds after he returned from the flying bridge.

“You saw the markings on the stack, didn't you?” he asked.

He was soaked clear through and shivering; stunned surprise shone from his face with as much intensity as the spotlight he had wielded moments before. He was desperate for confirmation of his sanity, too, and so I gave it to him.

“It was Bannockburn . She was pushing us north.” He nodded, wiped at his eyes, and then we went back to work.

I swear that every word I've told you is true. You can call it superstitious claptrap, but over the years I have come to believe that not all ghostly sightings are omens of misfortune nor are all spirits malevolent.

My old man used to say that he had never known a captain who wouldn't do everything in his power to come to the aid of another boat in peril. I believe that's true.

Even if death has come on board.