The Call of the Conch

The call of the Conch is the sound of the sea’s sacred tones. It is vibrant and subdued a basic creation of duality and recognition of choice.

“Do you drink, boy?” the old man asked the lightly lapping beachfront.

“A little rum, a little wine, an occasional brandy; not much really.” The interviewer looked out at the same sea.

“Well, drinkin’ alcohol is a sin clearly as the day has sun and the night stars. There’s only two ways for man to go, boy… to heaven, to sing eternally the glory that is God… or to hell, to bask in the agony of hate and want.”

“Hunh?”

“You a christian man?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“What’s your callin’?”

“My what?”

“You a Baptist or Episcopalian?”

“Oh. I was baptized in a Presbyterian church.”

“Prespi… pres… what is it? Ain’t it another way of sayin’ Baptist, the church of the Gospel, the Way of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s Truth?”

“Yeah, it’s like that.” The interviewer was tracing crosses in the sand with his pencil eraser, wondering if he should start the tape again. He had to take a new approach.

“Mr., uh, Captain Snead, sir, does the church have any particular days that it blesses the fleet or anything like that?”

“Why sho, man, what do you think? Why do you think we have so few shipwrecks, so few deaths…? Why, the Lord, in His High Alter of Heaven, protects us from those demons of the Deep. The Devil’s always at hand to tempt the slovenly and those with no faith. The Devil will draw you to a watery grave, will send his chariots of storm and destruction, will render the stoutest vessel a disintegration… at the slightest slackness of pure faith.”

“What days does the church bless the fleet?”

“Why, I recall onest, when all the boats was under sail and men knew the meaning of his days on earth, when we got a call of the conch from False Light…

“Excuse me,” the interviewer interrupted, squinted over at the old man, who still looked seaward. “False Light? Where’s False Light?”

The old man spit into the sand, chewed his lips a bit. His cracked face held some stray hairs that his razor missed. The interviewer had surmised that age had impaired the old sailor’s eyesight and his dexterity to some extent. The interviewer did not know how old Captain Snead was and did not think it that important.

“Nowadays they got some other name for that point, Shipwreck I think they call it, but then we called it False Light, because that’s where we hung the false light to test the faith of those guiding some of the ships coming our way. If they had a false faith in the Lord Jehovah, then damned they be to Devil’s Reef and to Hell.”

“You mean it’s true that people used to lure ships to the reef called Devil’s Reef? And to Hell’s Reef?”

“Course, boy, why you think they called these things?”

“Of course.”

“Well, we got a call of the conch, so everybody here in Aberdeen make haste to Devil’s Reef, or Hell, or Bent Keel, in catboat or dory. There, we dive the ship, sometime helping a soul reach his destination.”

“Wait… uh, sir. You helped a soul, you mean, you killed people?”

”You want me to tell you about the old days or not?”

“Yes, sir.” The interviewer inhaled and exhaled, taking in objectivity, letting out excitement. “It’s just sometimes I need to clarify… be sure of what you mean so I can follow the story.”

The old man shifted a glance toward the interviewer. It was a millisecond of a glance but it took in the younger man strong, slender build and callused hands. He thought to himself that the kid was just a little dumb is all.

“Okay. You understand everything up to now?”

“Yessir.”

“Yes, we killed a few who would not repent. The Devil read the names on his scroll and when you sign with the Devil and he beckon, you go. So, there are few stories of us havin’ to offer redemption.”

“Offer redemption?”

“Yes. Tell the sinner to repent; to beg the Lord Jesus for forgiveness, to rejoin the flock of the Mighty Shepherd.”

“If they did you would not kill them?”

“Course. We would never let a man of true faith sink to the depths of Hades without joining shoulders in his struggles.”

“A lot of people were saved, then?”

“Naw, boy, that was surely the power and proof of the Lord. You see, the False Light was set on nights the Devil would visit his torment upon us. We set it that his ship of evil would return to Hell by following a beacon marking a path away from us believers. On those nights of storm and damnation, time to time, a ship of mortal sinners would find their way to Hell.”

A distance away toward the West the interviewer saw a tour boat, packed with sunburned people in swimsuits, leaving the protection of the harbour and going toward the other side of the island.

Captain Snead was nodding in memory, “But, we get all the belongings and cargo we could ashore, a Godsend, and divide the goods according to position and need.”

“Position and need.”

“Yes, boy, position, you know, Captain’s share, mate’s share, the likes; or if a family had no man…” the old man looked fiercely at the interviewer and with a tenderness in his voice, said, “we are Christians here in Aberdeen Town. No man Jack of us need want of sustenance and no family of a true believer ever should cower in the degradation of hunger, unless we all go hungry. The Lord has always provided. A Godsend is our reward for righteous living and dedication to the Word of the Gospel.”

“Everything is shared?”

“Down to the last nail.”

“Didn’t the law… have any say?”

“The Laws of Jehovah and the Laws of man are the same in our community, young man.”

“Did they know this in Victoria?”

“Victoria governs the Island.”

“Yes. That’s what I mean. Did they know?”

“I do not understand what you mean. Do they know what?”

“About the wrecking?”

“And why should they be told? Most of those folks ain’t even, what we would call, Christian. You are a Christian, you said?”

“Definitely. I am a Christian.”

“You see… most of them would not make a statement like you has and the others’d say it on Sunday only.”

“So, Victoria was unaware of the wrecking on Devil’s Reef?”

“I suspect they know’d. Victoria governs the Island.” The old man nodded solemnly and looked back out to sea.

“What cargo we did not need, we store in the Purser House until we had enough to take out tradin’.”

“Trading?”

“Yes, boy, to take to the outer islands, north and south, land at times with special cargoes, like onest we got a heap of fridgerators. We only have this electricity in Aberdeen for the last couple of years, so we did not need fridgerators back then, you see. You know that, don’t you? We only had electricity a couple of years?”

“A couple? About five I think.”

“Yes, a couple. When the Lord grants the years to a man like He done for me, five, ten, fifteen… those numbers do not mean a thing.”

“So, you took these fridge… refrigerators to other islands…”

“Naw, sir. We took those one hundred and forty fridgerators to Key West, up there in Florida.”

“How?”

“That’s what I been tryin’ to get through your skull, boy. I been trying to tell you about when men sailed from this Island through the depths of Hell and Torment to the Gateways of Sodom and Gomorrah. We are made of stronger stuff here in Aberdeen, the temptations of fear and sin were everywhere and at onest. Most of us made it back.”

“Most?”

“Yes,” the old man glanced at him and out again. “most. I had three of my sons with me on that perilous voyage.”

“How many were crew? What kind of vessel?”

“Oh. Counting me and Captain Jesse Jackman, we were twelve in number. The ship were a proud schooner, sixty-three foot, named, Gabriel’s Trumpet. She was shared equal by the community.”

“Excuse me, Captain, sometimes a schooner here has just one mast, what did the rig look like?”

“Well, now, they call her rig a ketch rig, but then we called a ocean going cargo vessel, a schooner, on account of the fact that she schoons a living over the sea, not in it or from it like a smack or so.”

“I see.”, the interviewer lied.

“Good. You have hope yet, boy, I have seen that from the beginning.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Captain Snead almost smiled, “It was an easy reach toward the mainland, thanks be to God. He sent a warm breath that was almost sinful in its perfection. I remember that breeze clearly as today, almost forty hours it held. We had every stitch on her and still rode as comfortably as a hot day’s dreaming. We averaged more than twelve knots, boy, imagine… We were truly on fate’s path, paved by the Almighty Hand of He Who Works in Mysterious Ways.

“The breeze almost left us on through some pretty dangerous islands and reefs up around the Bahama Chain, but the Lord sent one last cup of wind to see us safely all the way to port.

“This was the first trip to Florida for Jacob, my third son, so I told him, and reminded him of the sinful who pray on the innocent. ‘To reject sin will keep you innocent and give you wisdom’ are the words I used to consul my young Jacob.

“He had a head on his shoulders, that boy. Even when he was a little fellow he could recite scripture and verse, could add and subtract faster’n my fingers could move, and still he always did his share of chores and work. I must be forgiven for the vain gloriousness of my pride in that boy but he always made my heart feel… like it was full of sunshine when he was around, full of the Holy Spirit, you understand.

“Jacob grew to be a tall lad, slender and strong with sturdy features and his mama’s coal black eyes.”

The interviewer knew he had a story here as he rubbed his eyes driving back to Victoria. Luckily, he had brought three tapes and was able to get the whole accounting. Nagging him was the clear fact that he would not be able to put it in print on the island.

He pulled over to the curb-side and turned off the engine. The sea lapped the shore softly as the sun touched the horizon. Palms whispered. A few fish broke water dancing skyward and falling back intoxicated by the fragrance of pacific air.

Clouds puffed proudly sitting to one side of the sun’s setting soaking the colours of that passing star and the bottom, the turquoise of the still sea. The interviewer remembered somewhere there was a tale about the clouds sucking the colour from the sun..

The last ember and the sun was gone.

The clouds and sea accented the ochery lavenders of the sky. Smoothly the colours mounted and faded to an evening blue. The interviewer looked to the Southeast and saw the first star.