The Green Lights of Cape Cod

My story is true. I write these words to remind you cannot change your destiny. I made the long walk to the end of the road that goes nowhere near the southernmost tip of Cape Cod. I am the old man of Salway lore, the keeper of the coastal green lights, and once upon a time, I lived in Chatham, Mass. Since 1665, there have been men such as me who have kept the Cape Cod channel bathed in green light to signal all sailors they were safely home. Now that time has passed, and the year is 2021, I believe I am no longer needed. Technology exists onshore and on ships that allow sailors to see safe passage even when the tide is out. Why then must I continue my labor when better ways exist?

I devised my plan, and I waited until a night when the weather was clear. Why tempt fate? I looked seaward and saw the multitude of dancers as they circled the cape with their crowns of blue, red, silver, and green. I wondered to myself if all would remain safe when I doused the green lights but felt no remorse as I raised my hand and, in an instant, the darkness engulfed the cape. My maritime radio was silent and the dancers in the sea continued their dance. I stooped to retrieve my bag and turned to leave when the radio squawked, “where are the lights… the green lights?” They needed the darkness to set the radio aflame in chatter. Then I left, or so I believed. I had a strong desire to make one last walk around the gallery walkway.

I made the long walk to the end of the road that goes nowhere near the southernmost tip of Cape Cod.

I opened the thick, metal-rimmed glass door and stepped out onto the painted cast iron stoop, and stood there looking seaward one last time. I could feel the salt breeze against my face and taste the smell of Cape Cod when I began my journey around the gallery walkway. It was too dark to use my eyes, and that was okay since I had made this walk too many times in the past. Seventy-five paces would bring me back to my starting place and the safety of the lantern room. I could hear the mischievous Cape calling out to me some two hundred and twenty-five feet below as she sent her waves crashing against the tower.

When I was almost halfway around the walkway, I paused and pulled the collar of my old woolen pea coat up over my ears. They issued me my pea coat in the winter of 1972. It’s the standard U. S. Navy pea coat, made of heavy coarse dark blue wool with four large exterior pockets and two large interior pockets. The collar is a wide lapel collar and is stiff. It will hold whatever position you shape it into. The wool is a hefty 1/2” thick and impervious to the weather, regardless of whether it is wet, dry, or cold.

The weather was cold, and the Cape had a way of making it seem colder when she kissed you at night, so I was glad to have my coat. I’ve made this same walk and I’ve stopped in the same place many times over the past fifty years and always claimed I could do it in my sleep. Tonight I had to prove it because it was pitch black outside. I continued standing there with the wind against my face when I realized I wasn’t alone. I caught an odor of burning apple jack tobacco in the air that startled me. I turned my head slowly to see who had joined me; no one was there. Was my mind playing tricks on me?

The smell of burning tobacco grew stronger, and I believed my imagination was running rampant. I took out my lighter to see, but the Cape wind wasn’t having it. I retrieved my spectacles from one of the interior pockets of my pea coat and put them on. I knocked my handgun loose from the other pocket and it clanked with a loud noise onto the metal walkway. This was no ordinary handgun because it didn’t shoot bullets. Instead, it launched a single burning flare over two hundred feet into the air in the event the green lights ever stopped working. I kneeled down to retrieve my handgun and when I stood back up, there before me stood the source of the burning applejack tobacco. Or, should I say, there before me stood the twenty-five sources of the burning tobacco.

At first, I believed I was hallucinating, but I wasn’t. Standing in front of me, stood twenty-five Green Knights of Chatam, Mass. Every lighthouse keeper going all the way back to the first one, Abner Fitzwater, had gathered on the gallery walkway to bid adieu to the Cape Cod green lights. Of course, these twenty-five were all apparitions. They had all passed long ago. Some were smoking pipes, and some were smoking cigars. All wore the hat of a sailing captain and the traditional pea coat. And all had turned to stare at me.

I slowly straightened up and made eye contact with each one. I recognized them all. Their portraits hung along the tower staircase leading from the lower deck to the upper galley. We stood there in silence until a ship in the distance launched an emergency flare. As the flare arced upward toward the heavens, all of us turned to watch it descend. Then each of the prior lighthouse keepers seemed to disappear into nothingness, leaving me standing there alone, with my flare gun in my hand and fading odor of applejack tobacco.

It took a few moments before I snapped out of my self-induced trance. I could hear the marine radio squawking loudly inside the gallery. Somewhere on the Cape, a skipper was declaring an emergency. His navigation system had failed. I held my arm over my head and pointed the flare gun up and away from the lighthouse and pulled the trigger. In a second, the entire coastline was awash in bright red light from the slowly descending flare. I knew this was not enough, so I returned to the gallery and began the laborious process of reigniting the green lights of Cape Cod.

This article is a snippet from a book I'm currently writing about old lighthouses of the eastern seaboard. Many of the lighthouse keepers bean their careers as merchant marines, sailors, or ship captains. All of them have stories to tell, some more believable than others. This particular story is allegedly true. The night the Cape Cod lighthouse went dark was due to the lighthouse keeper making the decision his services were no longer needed. The lore states the deceased lighthouse keepers visited him that night and reminded him the lights must never go dark. If you enjoy this sort of story, please subscribe to my page. I will be posting up further updates and snippets to this book as it nears completion. Thank you so much!