The winter months passed. Spring made itself felt in the mildness of the air. Now we could throw open the windows of the drafting room, and the water in the harbor was softer to the eye. The Flying Cloud lay on her strait bed at the water’s edge, grown past all recognition of her beginnings. Nigh a million feet of splendid white oak with scantlings of southern pine had gone into her frame, and over fifty tons of copper, exclusive of sheathing. She was seasoned with salt and “tuned” like a Stradivarius. Duncan MacLane wrote in the Boston Atlas: “Hers is the sharpest bow we have ever seen on any ship.” Men were laying bets on her potential speed, investing their life savings in her cargo. A ship built by Donald McKay to better the record of the Staghound—they couldn’t lose!
Each night on my way homeward I would stop in for a chat with Messina Clarke. While the old man pretended indifference to McKay’s newfangled methods of building, he was consumed by curiosity. I know now, too, that he resented this new world of mine in which he could not wholly share.
After devious circlings, old Messina would arrive at the point he wanted to know. Clearing his throat, he would ask:
“And what might the rake of her masts be, lubber?”
“Alike they’re one-and-one-quarter inches to the foot,” I would answer.
“Humph!” came his snort. “She’ll lose her sticks in the first good blow, mark my words!”
Silence. Then: “And what might the finish of her great-cabin be?” he would question.
“She’s wainscoted with satinwood, mahogany, and rosewood, set off with enameled pilasters, and cornices of gilt work.”
“By the horns o’ Satan!” he roared. His indignation was boundless. “Plain pine with a coat o’ white lead was good enough for my day! Ships was meant to be ships, as men was meant to be men. Whoever did see a man with his hair curled and scent to his coat what was worth a chip on a millrace? Dressin’ a ship up like that! It’s—it’s indecent!”
But despite his scorn, no part of the development of the Flying Cloud escaped his attention or comment. Together we had watched her grow from a tadpole into a whale; keel and rib, floor plank and monkey rail, stem and steering post. I, from the drafting room, where I could see every stick and timber as it swung into place on the stocks, and old Messina seeing it all in my accounts of each day’s activity. For us both the Flying Cloud stood for much more than a ship: for me she was a symbol of romance and eager venture; of the mysterious lands that lay beyond the ocean’s rim; of things longed for and hopes fulfilled. For the old man she was all that the sea stood for in his salty mind; his boyhood; the vasty ventures of his middle years; sunlight and whistling gale.
It was with a feeling of sorrow that we watched each day bringing her nearer completion, as one regrets seeing a babe emerge into a child, child into man. Every handspike hammered into her hull came to echo dully in our ears. We resented the cocky air of the workmen who acted as if the Cloud were their ship when we knew her to be ours alone.
Inevitably there came a day when the last trunnel had been driven, when the whang of mallet and adze was silent, and the whir of the saws had stilled. The figurehead, wrapped about in cotton swathings, was hoisted to its mortise and bolted into place. There was a hush, like a portent. So it might be in the moment before a giant awakes. The Flying Cloud, all glistening black and copper, lay at the water’s edge, alive, eager, straining for the sea. It was her time to go. Her destiny must be fulfilled.
On April 15, 1851, she was launched. Not long ago I came across a yellowed clipping in my sea chest that will give you a better picture of the event than words of mine:
“The ceremony of introducing the noble fabric to her watery home occurred in the presence of an immense crowd of spectators, and she passed to her mission on the deep amid the roar of cannon and the cheers of the people. Visitors were in town from the back country and from along the coast to witness the launch, particularly from Cape Cod, delegations from which arrived by the morning train. The wharves on both sides the stream, where a view was attainable, were thronged with people. Men, women, and children vied with one another to get a look; and men and boys clung like spiders to the rigging of the ships and the sides and roofs of stores and houses, to get a glance at this magnificent vessel. As the hammer of the clock fell at 12, the stroke of a gun at the shipyard announced that the ship had started on her ways, and she pursued her graceful course to the arms of the loving wave that opened wide to receive her …”
The Flying Cloud, all glistening black and copper, lay at the water’s edge, alive, eager, straining for the sea. It was her time to go. Her destiny must be fulfilled.
Aye, it was a great day for us all. Donald McKay, with hollows under his sleepless eyes, watched the launch from a window in his office. As the ship slid down her tallowed ways and came to the staging’s end, the slash of a knife freed the figurehead of its cotton wrappings, and an exclamation went up from the spectators in a vast sigh. The figure of an angel seemed to float on outspread wings, rising slenderly out of the stem, while the sun struck against the gold of the trumpet at her lips like a ringing cry of triumph.
For myself, I knew only a feeling of sorrow as my ship took to water. As soon as her masts were stepped, she was to be towed away to New York. Grinnell, Minturn & Company of that city had purchased her from Enoch Train for $90,000. A sale which, be it said in passing, Enoch Train was never to cease regretting, although the croakers shook their heads in gloomy prediction that Grinnell was sailing both sheets aft for bankruptcy.
I doubted that I should ever lay eyes upon my ship again. No matter how many vessels I might see turned out of the McKay yards, no other would mean so much to me. She was my first love; puppy love, some thoughtless ones call it. No other love strikes its grappling hook so deep into the heart.
It was some weeks later, wnen the Cloud’s masts had been stepped and the riggers had done their work, that the tug Ajax nosed into the harbor. I wanted to shout out my protest! I hoped the tug might ram a rock and sink, and the Captain fall to a watery grave, and all the men be stricken with paralysis! None of these dire events came to pass. The Ajax meant business and she set about it.
As the Flying Cloud was towed out to sea, I stood on the hill behind Messina Clarke’s house, beside the towering figurehead, and wondered how the mermaid could blow her conch on such a mournful day.
“… They placed a silver coin under the heel of your mainmast step, Flying Cloud, to speed you on long voyages. Storms are waiting for you, and seas to batter you. Davy Jones will reach for you and every skeleton in his locker will rattle its bones. But there are spice islands in another sea, waiting for you, Flying Cloud. Only I won’t be there …”
And then I turned away, for I was a big lad by now, going on fifteen, and mighty near to blubbering.
“Cap’n,” I muttered, turning back to the old man, “Cap’n—” then stopped. For Messina Clarke, with the back of one hoary fist, was knuckling a tear out of his own eye!
Since that day, so long ago now, I have come to learn that there is no heart so soft as the sailorman’s, and none more filled with sentiment. Stout hearts, but never hard ones. So we stood there, under a gilded mermaid, an old man and a boy watching a ship being towed out to sea.
What was passing in the old man’s mind, I can never know. For myself, I felt that I had lost a friend.