The legend lives on from the Chippewa on
Down to the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.
(Gordon Lightfoot – The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald)
Fifteen-year-old Jefferson Tracy turned to the book in front of him. He still had three questions to answer before he could pack up for the evening. He had stopped for five minutes so he could listen to the song. It was one of his favourites. It was pretty old – Gordon Lightfoot had been at his peak in the 1970s and 80s but what the Hell, look at how old Handel’s music was yet his high school still insisted on their choir performing Messiah every Easter.
And later that night, when his lights went out of sight,
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The Edmund Fitzgerald was a freighter, usually carrying iron ore, which plied the Great Lakes – a ‘laker’ as these boats were called. She was struck by a vicious storm on the night of 9th November 1975 and sank in Lake Superior with the loss of all hands. Twenty-eight crew and the captain who had been on one of his last runs before his retirement. Jeff suddenly felt his curiosity aroused. The ship had a ‘captain well seasoned’ according to the song. Why, then, did she break into two parts and sink just seventeen miles from the sanctuary of Whitefish Point?
Pushing the book to one side, Jeff switched on his Kindle and googled the ship’s name. There was a lot of information about her, including the National Transportation Safety Board’s report. Before he knew it, Jeff was halfway through it and his three math questions remained to be done. Hastily he switched off the Kindle and turned back to his book. But somehow what he had read so far had piqued his imagination; he knew he would not rest until he had scoured the Internet for everything he could find on the ‘Fitz’ as she was known.
“Jefferson, what are you doing?”
Elizabeth Tracy’s voice floated up the wooden staircase of the Kansas farmhouse.
“My homework Mom,” he called back.
“That’s all right then. But will you turn your music down? We can hear it above the TV.”
“Okay Mum.”
“That’s better,” Elizabeth called and returned to the living room muttering, “Why he needs that music on when he’s supposed to be working I really don’t know.”
Her husband Grant looked up as she came into the room.
“He’s doing his homework,” she said.
Grant looked at the clock.
“He’s been doing it a long while,” he remarked.
“Well maybe he has more than usual tonight. As long as he does it I don’t really care how long it takes.”
She sat in a rocking chair beside Grant and picked up her knitting.
Jeff finished his homework. He went downstairs, drank a glass of milk and said goodnight to his parents. Then he went back up to his room and switched on his Kindle.
The more he read the more convinced he was that the rescue organisations which existed in the United States were inadequate. They were probably equally inadequate everywhere else too. Now just supposing a dedicated rescue team had been able to arrive on the scene within minutes of the captain of the Arthur Anderson radioing in that he had lost contact with the Fitz and could no longer see her lights? Supposing a small sub had been able to dive down to the depths almost as soon as the ship sank? Maybe – just maybe – lives could have been saved. And that was not all. While he was googling this disaster Jeff had found websites which described others, many if not all of which he was sure could have been better handled by a dedicated team with the right equipment.
Take 9/11 for instance. He picked up a piece of paper and began to doodle. He drew a motorised vehicle with two large compressed air tanks. The air would be discharged through the nozzles at the top of each one and anyone trapped on a high floor in a blazing building could jump off and the air would catch them. They could then be safely lowered to the ground. He drew another vehicle, this time one with two magnetic restraints; that one could be used to shore up a wall threatening to collapse, which would give the team extra time to work and rescue more people. The disaster which particularly intrigued him, however, took place in Aberfan (Aberfan – where in Heaven’s name was that?) in 1966. Ah right, it was in Wales. That, Jeff knew, was attached to England. Between there and Ireland where his family origins were. Wales had been a mining area, like Nevada, Arizona and Wyoming, but on a smaller scale. One morning after heavy rain a slag heap slid down onto a school killing 144 staff and pupils. The men of the village had to dig out the bodies. Just the thought made Jeff shudder – supposing one of them had dug out his own child? To calm himself he turned back to his drawings. Now what they’d needed there was a tunnelling machine, something which could dig its way through the ground and reach anyone trapped. He worked away with his pencil for a while then sat back and looked at his efforts. He liked that one. He thought it was probably his favourite. He wrote ‘The Mole’ beneath it.
Suddenly he heard the clock in the hallway chime twelve. Midnight! And school tomorrow! Hastily Jeff switched off the Kindle pulled off his clothes and jumped into bed.
“You’re tired,” said Grant. “Did you have extra homework last night?”
“Um, no Dad,” said Jeff, pushing his hair out of his eyes, “just the usual amount. But I was reading something on my Kindle when I’d finished and I forgot about the time.” He looked appealingly at his father. He could never lie; he hoped Grant would regard this as mitigating circumstances. “It was educational,” he added hastily.
Grant smiled at his son.
“I’m sure it was. Are you going to tell us what it was?”
“Well first I was reading about this freighter, called the Edmund Fitzgerald, that sank in Lake Superior in 1975, then I started reading about 9/11 and then I found something about Aberfan – that’s a village in Wales – where a coal heap fell on a school … and I started thinking what if there was a dedicated rescue team that could just turn up when it was needed, with the best equipment they could get, and get people out of those situations? I drew some designs ….”
He was pulling a sketch pad from his school bag when Elizabeth began to chivvy him towards the stairs.
“There’s no time for that now Jefferson,” she said, “you must brush your teeth and comb your hair and get ready to leave for school – the bus will be due in ten minutes.”
“You can show us your drawings this evening,” Grant called after him as he scooted up the stairs.
“Whatever idea will that boy come up with next?” he declared to Elizabeth who was clearing the breakfast table. “I thought he was determined to be an astronaut, now he’s designing trucks to rescue people … Lizzy, just how did we manage to hatch such a dreamer? We’re both practical people – where does he get these ideas from?”
“I don’t know but I guess I can think of worse ones,” said Elizabeth with a wry smile. “He’ll be full of it for days then once he’s shown you his pictures he’ll forget all about it. You’ll see.”
She began to load the dishwasher while Grant prepared himself for another day’s work at the farm.
Written in memory of the 29 crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald, for the families who were left to mourn them and for those who did all they could to search for bodies and establish an explanation for the tragedy.