The Missing Page of the Tide Book

The harbor's tide book had lost a page on the night the coal barge struck the wall. The missing leaf covered Tuesday. Its torn edge was fresh, and the insurer's man arrived before breakfast to ask who had been near the desk.

Only three people held keys: the harbor master, the night pilot, and Iven, the clerk who copied tide heights from the gauge. Iven had locked the office at six. The pilot claimed to have entered at eleven and found the book already damaged. The harbor master said he had been home all evening.

The barge's captain insisted that he had followed the harbor office's written permission to berth at ten. The tide, he said, should have carried him safely over the submerged stones beside the wall. Instead, his hull had touched bottom.

Iven took a pencil to the page beneath the missing leaf and rubbed it sideways. Faint impressions appeared: the column headings, the captain's name, and a short note. It was not enough to read.

The insurer's man proposed questioning the night pilot. Iven asked for the previous month's gauge sheets. Every evening reading had been copied neatly. On Tuesday, the figure was written in the harbor master's broad hand. The barge had arrived three hours later.

Iven walked to the gauge. A stone ledge protected the brass scale from passing boats. Fresh cement filled the gap behind it. The scale had been taken down during wall repairs the week before and mounted a foot higher than before. Anyone reading it would record water a foot shallower than it really was.

“That should have helped the captain,” the insurer's man said.

“Unless someone corrected the reading twice.”

In the office drawer Iven found a note from the repair foreman explaining the change. The harbor master had added a foot to Tuesday's reading before entering it. The pilot, finding the note later, had added another foot when he issued the berthing order. On paper, the water was suddenly deeper than the channel.

The harbor master admitted tearing out the page when he saw the damaged hull. He thought his own correction had caused the grounding. The pilot admitted making his addition but had not known about the missing leaf until eleven, as he had said.

The insurer's man laid both statements on the desk. “You could have told us this morning.”

The harbor master stared at the blank space in the book. Iven pasted in a new leaf and recorded the readings, the corrections, and the tear. He left room for the repair bill. That, he knew, would require a longer entry.