Although I didn’t always agree with his politics, although I agree with them now more than I agree with almost anyone alive and in the business, I do miss and will always miss William F. Buckley, Jr. for such writing as this:
[From the beginning of Chapter 3, Airborne: A Sentimental Journey, by William F. Buckley, Jr.]
When I first saw Cyrano I was undecided whether to let Pat [Mrs. WFB] aboard. Better to wait until after the renovations? … I knew that on examining it, she would pronounce it a lost cause, even as I might do on first seeing a room or a house before such transformations as she can visualize. But I did let her see the boat, and it was as I had thought: Cyrano would never do. I bought it anyway. Ned Killeen, the broker in the transaction, had himself once owned a shipbuilding yard and volunteered to take a leave of absence and serve as my agent for the purpose of effecting the alchemy; later he became the boat’s captain for three years. Our initial sail was memorable.
We would begin the little cruise by sailing the boat from the yard at Fort Lauderdale where it had been rebuilt, down to Miami—a four-hour sail. Pat brought along her matronly, endearing, spartan, humorous, arthritic mother, Babe Taylor. Christopher [WFB’s son] and Danny were about sixteen, and my sister Priscilla and Reggie were there, and off we went.
To reach the harbor of Fort Lauderdale from the boatyard one has to proceed along a canal about fifty feet wide for about one mile, then through the harbor, and out to sea. Mrs. Taylor was comfortably installed in a deep deck chair in the covered cockpit section, and I was at the wheel. About a quarter of a mile down the canal, suddenly the engine stopped. I roared out to Ned, and he tore down to the engine room. Two long minutes later he came up, his Douglas Fairbanks moustache twitching, and explained that the drive shaft had been frozen by the octopus action of electric wires that had wound ‘round it. Why had the wires wound ‘round it? Because they had not been properly tied down, said Ned, a little defensively—and the revolving motion of the drive shaft had caused one of those knobby protuberances on the shaft to snag a wire and, like a propeller on a fishing line, others with it, all those fine threads finally bringing the stainless steel shaft to a halt. How many of the other electrical wires? Every wire in the boat, Ned finally forced himself to say, his voice now a sort of whiskey-falsetto.
We were, then, without engine, sail or electrical power; floating without steerageway down a narrow canal with traffic of every kind barreling past us. I called Danny and told him and Christopher to jump into the whaler, which is the ship’s dinghy, start the outboard engine, and tow Cyrano back to the yard. They did so eagerly, and Christopher gave a powerful yank on the starter. So powerful that the 40-horsepower outboard, which had not been properly secured, leaped up from the transom and dove to the bottom of the canal.
At just this moment, a sight-seeing boat with about a hundred people on it trolled by. One of the tourists recognized me, and shouted my name in greeting. In the general clamor, the pilot of the boat slowed; and then reversed his engines to permit his guests to take a picture of Mr. Buckley and his friends cruising peacefully aboard his yacht. No one had any reason to suspect that Mr. Buckley and his friends and his yacht weren’t going anywhere at all for the simple reason that there was nobody around to push them. They must have thought it genial of me to stop my boat to allow the whole world all the leisure they wanted to take our picture. Noblesse oblige. Under the strain of posing unselfconsciously for a dozen cameras, it was difficult to continue with our war game. But Ned finally volunteered to row the dinghy to the far bank and then to run back to the boatyard to get the yard tender to tow us in. Don’t let that electrician go home, I growled.
A half hour later the electrician, who moonlighted for the yard—his regular job was to install navigational gear for National Airlines—not only volunteered genially to sail with us to Lauderdale, which would give him the necessary time to splice together the forty or fifty severed lines, but to lend us his own beloved 30-horsepower outboard provided we would agree to treat it as one of the family. Pat contributed the observation that unless I agreed to treat it much better than one of the family, the engine was surely doomed. He had meanwhile pulled the wires out of the way of the drive shaft, so we were at least able to start our engine, and now, as we slid down the canal, every half hour or so an additional electrical installation would begin to work as, on his back, the electrician worked chirpily away in what proved to be dreadfully uncomfortable weather with heavy swells.
We could not get stability from our sails because the wind was from the south, and Mrs. Taylor began to vomit regularly, causing Pat, who has never quite believed that I don’t secretly control a weather switch, to stride back from time to time to the wheel to accuse me of deliberately trying to kill her mother. Suddenly the wind swung right around, and we quickly lifted the mainsail. Ned proudly fastened a brake strap to the drive shaft, to prevent the propeller from turning unnecessarily while the engine was turned off. An hour or so later, Christopher and the very young first mate began to lower the dinghy, the electrician’s precious outboard attached thereto, into the water, so that it would be readily available to us on coming into the harbor in Miami. At this operation they were unskilled, with the result that the flowing water suddenly caught the edge of the dinghy, swamped it, and the second outboard flew out into the water.
Without a second’s hesitation, the young mate dove overboard. “Keep your eyes on him!” I shouted to Christopher, tossing over the life ring. I then started the motor and slipped the boat into gear. Mrs. Taylor roused herself from her comatose state to point out in a weak voice that smoke was coming up from directly under her. “Great God!” said Ned, shouting to me to put the gear back into neutral. He had forgotten to loose the strap. He disappeared below, and in due course told me I was free to engage the gear. We hauled up into the wind, dropped the sail, and in ten minutes were abeam of the mate, who said proudly that he was certain that he was still swimming directly over the outboard engine.
The electrician, smoked out from his ghetto below by the driveshaft fire, was marvelously stoical about the separated member of his family, but took careful bearings—depth of water, bearing on points of land, etc.—and said that the next day, in the daylight, he would venture out with his son and try to find the motor with a scuba outfit; and so we resumed our way, dropping anchor in Biscayne Bay forty-five minutes later, feeling as if we had crossed the ocean. Ned hung out a kerosene anchor light of which he was very proud, fastening it on the headstay, and Mrs. Taylor began to revive as her daughter and friends began to joke about our maiden voyage. She did not, however, say anything until, finally, she looked at me and said, “Bill, dear, is there supposed to be a fire up there?”—pointing to the bow of the boat.
The kerosene light, for reasons unknown, had fallen into the collapsed Genoa below, which was now beginning to light up like a bonfire. Ned Killeen rushed forward with a fire extinguisher. The electrician, who had finally emerged sweatily from his completed task, a Coke and a sandwich in his hand, continued eating. “You know,” he said, “I’ve been doing this marine electrical work for years, but this is the first trip I’ve ever taken except on my fishing dinghy. Is it always like this?”
I knew she would be the first to speak, even though I’m fast at the draw … “Yes,” said Pat, calm as Ethyl Barrymore. “Oh, yes. In fact, tonight was one of the more peaceful sails we’ve ever had.”
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How can you not love that kind of narrative excellence?
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