OCEAN
31:
of catching a glimpse of the burning luxury liner or any of its
passengers-dead or alive. While the Coast Guard combed the sea
for casualties and the merchant marine responded to the
Morro
Ca!tle's
repeated distress calls, the Governor surveyed the scene from
the cockpit of an airplane.
By three o'clock Stephen had finally convinced Mommy to let
Clarry take him down to the beach. When they reached the balustrade
of the Grand Stairway, Stephen gasped. "Look, Clarry! Look!"
The ocean was like an enormous cauldron of boiling rice: as
far as the eye could see, its surface was covered with churning
foam. Closer to shore huge walls of dirty green water rose to the
height of trees, before crashing onto the beach. The beach itself
looked brand new, swept clean, without a
sign
of human traffic;
there wasn't a footprint or a piece of paper anywhere, only the
unbroken sandcrust, looking as it must have looked before life
became amphibious.
"Mean," Clarry muttered.
"Let's go down!" Stephen urged excitedly.
"Uh-uh, sugar.
It
too dangerous down there. You get swept
away like the
Morro Castle."
"Where
is
it, Clar? Where
is
it?"
"Where's what, sugar?"
"To.morrow's Castle."
"It in someplace called Sandy Hook."
"Where is that?"
"Got me, sugar."
"But I have to see it, Claro I
have
to."
"Maybe we can see it tomorrow, sugar, when it clears. Come
on now, let's go back.
It
ain't nice down here."
. .. Stephen acquiesced reluctantly. Hand in hand they lagged the
long blocks home. On the way he confided to Clarry how the ocean
had tried to break into his room the night before.
By five o'clock the flaming
Morro Castle
had broken away
from its tow. After drifting several hours, the surf grounded it on a
sandbar off Asbury Park. When Stephen heard the news, he refused
to go to sleep until he had wrested a promise from Mommy to take
him to Asbury the very next day. "And can we play miniature golf?"
"Yes, darling, yes. Now go to sleep."
