Chain Locker (10 page)

“Can it wait 'til tomorrow?”

“No,” said Gennie. “When we first met in college, you told me you didn't intend to return and teach in Twillingate. And now, here you are teaching in Twillingate anyway, and you talk about moving away and going to the mainland or to the Boston States. You like to give the impression that you're dissatisfied with what this place has to offer and that only a big city can give you what you need to be fulfilled, but now that I know you better, I suspect you're more attached to this place than you let on, and you don't really want to go at all. I've seen the way you deal with the youngsters at school. You love teaching them—and they love you. You're bright and creative and fun to be around and you're a product of this town. You don't need to go to Montreal or Boston to have a meaningful life, or to get a good man, for that matter. There are good men here, too, and Henry Horwood is one of the best.”

Emily sat back down. “Gennie, what's this all about…and what makes you think I'm looking for a man at all?”

“Why wouldn't you be? You're a woman, aren't you? I'm just worried that you're getting swept away by the minister and his big-city ways. I find him to be just a bit too full of hisself.”

“Good grief! Himself, Gennie,
himself
!”

“Himself,” she added, waving her arm dismissively.

Pulling on her mittens and tam Emily thought for a moment. “You're right, I do love the children—I've known many of them since the day they were born—and, frankly, I'm not in any rush to move out of here. But I'm not so sure I want to spend the rest of my life here. You're not from here so you can't see how Twillingate is declining; it's not what it used to be, you know. It used to be the central place on the coast but it's nowhere near that now. Daddy blames it on the train. He says that since the railway came along, Lewisporte has been drawing more and more commerce away from Twillingate.”

“I don't think we're any worse off than a lot of places these days,” said Gennie.

“Well, that's certainly true. Apparently it's really bad in the States. Mama got a letter from Aunt Betty in Boston. She said there are people lining up to get handouts of food, they're so poor off.”

“That's my point. You saw the story in the
Sun
. There's certainly enough to eat around here and people don't have to beg—”

“For now. But who do you think will buy our fish if the people of Boston have no money? It won't be long before there's less money to pay teachers.”

“They're going to pay teachers less than they do now? Is that possible?” Gennie asked sarcastically. “What about the hospital? That must be helping to offset the effects of the train.”

“Well, it brings more sick relatives and guests here,” she replied, the memory of Randy fresh in her mind. “But I doubt that it adds much to the economy. I don't see any future in settling down here, especially if I'm going to have a family.”

“Well, you can't have a family without a man,” Gennie observed. “If you want chicks you got to send the rooster in with the hens.”

“Your knowledge of animal reproduction overwhelms me,” said Emily. “But as far as this business of Henry and Basil is concerned, I'm not sure I'm interested in either one of them.”

Gennie was not buying any of it. If Emily was cooling towards Henry then she must be falling for Basil, after all.

“Now, I have to run,” said Emily. “I'll see you tomorrow.” And she was out the door.

chapter thirteen

“Ahead one third,” the captain roared, and the ship inched her way forward to take the strain off the anchor lines. “All right, raise the anchors.”

Delighted to be observing his first departure as a member of the crew, Jackie heard the gears on the windlass rumble as he watched the familiar hairy rope wrap around the spools and run down into the chain locker. It would be even colder and damper and smellier down there now; he shuddered. A couple of minutes later the chain leader came up and the anchors clunked into place in the hawse-holes. Like insects, men moved about far above him as they set the sails. Black smoke bellowed out of the stack. Within half an hour Poole's Island was retreating astern.

“Not much ice about, Simeon,” said Darmy, “and no sign of another ship anywhere. You don't suppose they're all into the seals?”

“Not without ice, they're not. The seals can't have their pups in the water.”

“I'll betcha they're miles ahead of us and into the main patch,” Darmy whimpered with dismay.

“To tell you the truth, I don't think there's any such thing as a main patch. All my years at the ice I've seen big patches of seals and I've seen small patches, but as far as I'm concerned, all this talk about the main patch, where you got seals stretching as far as you can see, is just a myth. You can have two ships no more than a mile or so apart and one can get a load and the other not get a one.”

“You must admit, though, that not seeing another ship around is not good.”

“No, I must say I'm not too pleased about that,” said Simeon. “But, look on the bright side: if we run into some seals we'll have them all to ourselves. There's ice out there somewhere. We'll see it by and by.”

“Well, we better.”

They had travelled most of the day towards the northwest before drift ice started to appear. Finally, west-northwest of the Funks, they were skirting the area of the north Atlantic where the ice got heavier and heavier until it stretched in an almost solid mass towards the North Pole. Down in the bowels of the
Viking
there was a steady thump-thud-thump as the clumpers bounced off the greenheart-clad waterline of the old ship. The ice became more plentiful as the day progressed, and before long the ship laboured to make her way. They saw a few old seals far off but they were looking for whitecoats, the newborn seals that yielded the lightest and most valuable oil. To Darmy's relief, they also sighted another ship.

All eyes followed the scunner as he climbed up the mast and perched himself in the barrel high above the deck in preparation for entering the ice field. They placed all their hopes on this lonely man high above them. On him lay the responsibility: first to find seals, and then to get the ship to them. Looking far ahead while judging the condition of the ice, he studied the leads of open water to determine how to get the ship farthest along her journey without getting her jammed. It wasn't long before he was shouting orders to guide the helmsman through the maze.

Men stood around and stared at the heavy ice to the north, eagerly anticipating the scunner's declaration that there were seals ahead. Tension was running high and, after getting sworn at a couple of times, Jackie stayed out of the way, gazing over the port side towards the island of Newfoundland, while enjoying a welcome break from fetching flour, washing pans, mopping the floor and generally being ordered about by the cook. A voice from behind asked, “What are you seeing, young fella?”

It was only when a person appeared alongside that he realized the question had been directed at him. “Nothin',” he blurted, surprised that anybody would bother to talk to the most ignored person aboard other than to bark an order or tell him to get out of the way. The stranger was a youngish sealer of average height, with wide shoulders and a broad, friendly smile. “Just water and ice,” he smiled back shyly.

“Yep, there's certainly lots of that. There's only one other thing worth seein' out here,” the sealer replied, “what the old fellers call swiles.” The sealer stood near the rail and they both stared silently across the water for a few moments. “Well, if my calculations are correct, my home is in that direction.”

“Where's that to?”

“Cottle's Island.”

“Never heard of it.”

“That's not much of a surprise. Ever heard tell of Twillingate?”

“Sure. Everybody's heard of Twillingate.”

“Well, if you look carefully off the quarter there, you can just see some land. That's the island of Fogo. Now, the land to the right of that—that's Change Islands. Further away and to the right—you can't see it—is Twillingate. Just in from Twillingate is Cottle's Island. Well, it's not really an island at all. We just call it that. We actually live on New World Island.”

Jackie thought that this made about as much sense as most place names in Newfoundland. “Did you get on the ship in St. John's?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“That musta been a long trip. Why didn't you just have the ship pick you up in Twillingate?”

“Hah!” the sealer laughed. “A sealing ship don't come for you, my friend; you go to the ship or you don't go at all. Now, they'll go into a place like Greenspond to pick up a whole crew but they can't go ashore for one or two hands.”

“The captain threatened to go ashore just to put me off and he didn't seem to mind. I guess they're more interested in gettin' rid of guys than they are in pickin' them up.”

“Ah,” said the sealer with a chuckle, “you must be one of the gaffers who stowed away! I'm Henry Horwood,” he said as he looked up at the scunner. “I wonder if he's gonna see anything today. He's certainly high enough. C'mon, skipper, find us a few seals.”

Jackie looked up. “He must be cold up there.”

“I s'pose.”

“I watched him climb up. It took him a long time to get all the way up there to the…topgallantmast?”

“Topmast.”

“Oh, yeah. That's right. Big sails, eh?”

“Not overly. Big enough, I guess.”

“Why do we have sails up when we got an engine? They must not be much help when we're goin' into the wind.”

“They're not being used to sail the ship; they're keeping her steady. See the spanker back there on the mizzenmast? It acts like a giant rudder to keep the ship moving straight and narrow. You notice that all we got on her is a couple of staysails with the jibs up forward and the spanker back aft. If we didn't have them set, this ship would be sloppin' around like a cake of soap in a washtub.”

“She could have used some steadyin' on the way up from St. John's. Why didn't they have some up then?”

“They did when we left St. John's, but they had to take most of them in before they blew away. We almost lost a man trying to take in one of the staysails. A part of it blew free and wrapped all around him while he was trying to stow it. Everybody was waiting for him to come tumbling down out of it, but he hung on until a couple of fellers got up there and gave him a hand.”

“You don't have to tell me how wild it was. My arse is still smart-in'. I'm black and blue all over.”

“What happened to you? I suppose you were stowed away in some godawful spot, were you?”

“In the chain locker,” Jackie replied proudly, waiting for the reaction of astonishment he had seen from Reub.

Henry laughed out loud. “That's the problem with stowing away. You don't always get the best quarters. You must be a lot tougher than you look.”

Jackie smiled shyly. “You sound like you know a lot about ships. Can you teach me the names of all those lines?”

“Probably, but why would you want to know? Ships like this one are on the way out. An old ship like this probably won't be around in ten years.”

“Well, she's here now. So, what's that line called?”

“The jibstay, but why—”

Suddenly the air was filled with a glorious yell. “Swiles!” shouted the barrelman from on high, pointing over the vast, white wasteland. With a hand on the rigging, Henry leapt up onto a dory, as one by one those on deck started sighting the seals. The ship started turning and men scrambled aloft to change the set of the sails.

Sealers swarmed onto the deck with an air of expectancy, checking their towing ropes and gaffs, their knives sharp and boots oiled. Jackie could feel the excitement as the bosun's crew suspended the side sticks in preparation for a rally. Far off in the distance they could see sealers from the other ship on the ice taking seals—to the great annoyance of all aboard the
Viking.
Coal flew into the fires as the boilers delivered every pound of pressure the engineer dared force upon them, and the ship smashed her way along a narrow highway of water towards the target.

“My sonny b'y, we'll be into the fat soon,” an older sealer next to Jackie cackled, as he danced a little jig.

“So long as we can get close enough for a rally,” his worrisome friend replied. “That ice up ahead looks pretty heavy.”

“The Old Man'll get us there or he'll sink her tryin'. Fippers for supper, b'ys!”

“If we get time for supper,” a third bellowed with delight. “I hope there's enough of 'em to keep us goin' 'til breakfast.”

After a half hour of intense activity from the scunner, helmsman, and engineer as they twisted and turned the ship through the leads of open water, there came the authoritative voice of a master watch as he shepherded his men to the side of the ship. “Okay, you fellas can get down onto the side sticks. Mind yourselves there now before somebody goes overboard. You're no good to nobody soppin' wet.”

Dodging the hostile elbows of a couple of sealers, Jackie craned his neck to watch as a dozen or so men climbed over the rail and lowered themselves to wooden beams suspended against the ship's side just above the water. As the
Viking
weaved her way among the floes, each watched for an ice pan close enough to leap onto. Having seen his men safely spread along a substantial area of ice and already walking in the direction of the seals, the master watch headed down to the side stick. As he went over the gunwale, Captain Kean yelled after him, “Bring us back a feed now, boys. We'll pick youse up in three or four hours.”

“I'll bring a few hearts back to you, Skipper,” the master watch yelled as his head disappeared below the rail.