For his own part, Leland could not have been dissuaded, because the chance to rescue Charlie Chaplin would never come again. On the porch where the launch boats hung, he slipped into his flotation vest and jumped into the rowboat behind Johnson, who always wore a cameo of the Blessed Virgin on the outside of his protective clothing. With Johnson in first position, Leland took second position in the oarlocks, and signaled to the crane house to drop them to the sea.

For long minutes, two pairs of youthful arms rowed in splendid unison, threading the boat between spires and jags until it faced the open sea. Leland spotted the skiff ahead; it was drifting toward la pared de la muerte. Many points along the coast were known as the Wall of Death; this one had reasons for the name so convincing that the antediluvian Tolowa fishermen had described it thusly, and centuries later the Russian otter-hunters had agreed—stayna greebel, of course—for, no matter the tide, a wicked current drew anything in its grip magnetically shoreward, with unexpected speed. When you were still in the swells a quarter mile away from the obvious rocks, in the sickening drop of a trough, the half-submerged wall would be thrown erect before you, and there was a vortex into which all boats would be sucked down, then spat up against it, dashing what remained into bits.

Sergeant Emily Wheeler watched with pride and fear as her boy’s rescue boat rose and fell with the ocean, oars moving it foot by foot toward Chaplin’s skiff. She was anticipating the outcome—the shoreline, sunrise, seagulls chasing the spindrift, Chaplin on a driftwood log with a blanket draped over his shoulders, sipping coffee laced with brandy, and shaking from the fear and pleasure of having been rescued.