Chain Locker (12 page)

“Well, I suppose they figured somebody'd want to,” said Simeon. “The skipper told me you could hear them talkin' in the pictures, if you can believe that. I think he was havin' me on.”

“I think he was, too,” said Lije, shaking his head.

“I heard they showed it in St. John's last spring.”

“I seen it!” Jackie yelled. “It was on down to the Nickel Theatre in S'n John's.”

“The captain told me that Bob Bartlett was in it,” Simeon added.

“Bob Bartlett?” somebody interjected. “Sure his father skippered this one for years.”

“Everybody's after skipperin' this one, she been around so long,” said Lije. “My father and his father was out on 'er at different times.”

“That Bob Bartlett is a good hand to manage a ship in the ice,” said Lije, to the approving nods of those around him. “That American would never have got to the North Pole without 'im.”

“Never mind Bob Bartlett!” yelled a tall, gaunt-looking man with a chin whisker. “Finish what you was sayin' about the show, Simeon.”

“The
Ungava
got a full load and she had to go back to St. John's, so Bowring's chartered the
Viking
to them with Bartlett on the bridge to go out and pick up the Americans so they could finish the picture.”

“So, if they already made the picture last year why are they back up here now?”

“I guess the company wasn't satisfied with it,” said Simeon. “They said there wasn't enough stormy weather in it. So they're back here now to add to what they already got made. Some of you fellers might be into it.”

“Only if it pays better than this sealin' racket,” Lije laughed. “Would I get one of them fancy coats, too?”

“That tall one with the fancy coat might be a good buddy to have along with you out on the ice,” said Darmy. “He should be a good hand to work.”

“He's some tall, ain't 'e?” Lije marveled. “He's three axe handles high if he's an inch. I allow he could haul a few sculps!”

“He'd need a pretty long tow rope just to reach the ground, though,” Bot chuckled.

A dissenting voice spoke up: “A couple of fellers I know was on the
Ungava
and they said the Americans slowed them down. They had to wait for them foolin' around with their gear out on the ice, when there was seals to be chased after.”

“They couldn't have slowed them down too much,” said Simeon. “The
Ungava
got over 37,000 seals and was the high liner last year.”

“Maybe the Americans'll bring us some good luck.”

“Well, one thing is for damn sure: they won't have no problem finding stormy weather around here.”

chapter sixteen

“I got to hand it to you, Gould. I never thought you'd do it.”

“I told you I would, didn't I?” Jackie said to Ed as they leaned over the rail. “How did you get aboard?”

“I just walked on. I never figured it would be so easy,” he laughed.

“What about Mike? He was with you on Harvey's wharf, right?”

“Lost his nerve at the last minute, I guess,” said Ed, “or somebody nabbed him. I thought he was coming up the gangway right behind me, but when I got aboard there was no Mike. Ain't laid eyes on him from that day to this. Where're you sleepin?”

“Anywhere I can find a place to lie down. I spent a night on the coal but I couldn't stick it; it was too friggin' hard.”

“Don't I know it! I ended up on top o' the coal last night, too.”

“Lumpy?” Jackie asked, squelching a laugh.

“The worst of it is that as the coal is burned it gets replaced with pelts and then we got to sleep on them. The lumps are gone but, mister, what a stink! And I never seen nothin' so slimy. You been out on the ice?”

“Nah. I spend most of my time workin' in the galley,” said Jackie. “The cook's all right, I guess—cranky a lot, though—and the food is pretty bad. Same stuff over and over.”

“So I noticed.”

“Lots of it, though, so at least I'm not hungry anymore. Man, I was gutfoundered by the time they found me,” said Jackie. “I guess it'll be all seal meat from now on. What have they got ya doin'?”

“Makin' gaffs, mostly,” said Ed. “And when I'm not doin' that I'm luggin' coal to the boiler or slag from it. I thought I saw you down there movin' the coal around this evening, but I figured it must be somebody else.”

No wonder he's so dirty, Jackie thought. At least I managed to clean myself up a bit, but he's not even trying.

“I wouldn't mind havin' one of those gaffs,” Jackie said. “Can you get me one?”

“Sure, but what are you gonna do with it? Play sealer on the deck?” he mocked.

“Piss off!”

The night was peaceful as the two youths revelled in the presence of a familiar face. They were certainly not friends but, no matter: it was better than loneliness. The fire in the ship's boilers had been allowed to burn down for the night, and the old steamer was at rest, anchored to the ice field. It was as good as being tied to the dock in a safe harbour—so long as the wind didn't come up and move the ice.

“How many men you think are aboard o' this one?” Ed asked.

“About a hundred and fifty, I heard.”

“No wonder there's nowhere to bunk down.”

“What's this?” a voice came from behind. “A brace of homesick stowaways trying to figure out the way home?”

Certainly not! Homesick? Never!

For a moment Henry stared over the rail into the blackness. Straightening his arm and angling slightly towards the stern of the ship he declared wistfully, “Twillingate is right over there, seventy-eight miles away.”

“Sounds like you're the homesick one,” Ed shot back. “What makes you think it's over there, anyway? I don't see any lights.”

“You couldn't see the lights from this far away, and even if we were closer, the cliffs would block the lights from where we are,” Henry said, his eyes skimming the black horizon. “I worked it out this afternoon before we took after the seals. I been plotting our course since we left Poole's Island.”

“You know how to navigate?” Ed asked, impressed.

“That I do.”

“How did you learn?”

“When I was at sea, with the Furness Line.”

“I heard that most of the skippers of the sealing ships can't navigate. That true?”

“It's been like that for two hundred years.”

“Then how have they found their way around all these years? You never hear about them getting lost.”

“It's not like they don't know anything. Sure most of the schooners going to the Labrador are skippered by men who can't navigate properly. They always try to keep the land in sight.They would have learned all the landmarks from their fathers and they've always been good hands at dead reckoning, so they get along all right. It's when you get a long ways from land that you need your navigation.”

“But we're out of sight of land,” Ed insisted.

“True, but not far, and Newfoundland is a pretty big target, so if we headed south we would hit it somewhere. Gettin' worried, are you?”

“Just curious.”

“There's no reason to worry because now by law a sealing vessel has to carry a qualified navigator. Captain Kennedy is our navigator. He'll be joining a British freighting line when he gets back. He let me use his sextant a couple of times for practice; that's how I keep our position.”

“And you can tell where home, sweet home is,” Ed said with enough sarcasm to irritate Jackie. He didn't like Ed's making fun of Henry.

“I guess so. I've spent a lot of good times in Twillingate. I been sealin' down by Twillingate a few times, too, when I was young.”

“They got steamers in there?”

“No. There's a lot of schooners there and some go out to the Front, but sometimes you can just walk out onto the ice and get your seals. When the wind comes in from the north it pushes the ice down and there's often lots of them to be got if the wind behaves.”

“And if it don't behave, what then?” Jackie asked.

“If it blows the ice offshore and you're on it, then that's probably the end of you. I can think of better ways to go.”

“Then why do they go out if there's a chance they can be lost?” said Jackie.

“Maybe I should ask you that question,” said Henry. “Here you are, away from your family, at sea, in the company of strangers, in a wooden vessel surrounded by moving ice that could crush the ship at any time during the night. At least those men have a good reason for putting their lives in danger rather than just for the hell of it.”

Jackie shrugged, looked over at Ed, and grinned.

chapter seventeen

“Is it my imagination,” said Ed, “or is the ice movin' in around the ship?”

Henry scanned the area around the ship and realized that the ice had moved to within a few feet of the waterline. He looked behind to the side where the ship was secured to the ice. There was solid ice for as far as he could see. Behind and ahead of the ship there was ice and only ice.

“Yep, it looks like it's closing in around us,” he replied.

After a moment Jackie said, “Is that bad?”

“Well,” said Henry, “let me put it this way: when the ice closes in around your vessel I can't think of anything that's good about it. It might be nothing, but I think I'll ask my uncle and see what he's got to say about it.”

Simeon was up in the bow, looking out over the bowsprit, standing above the chain locker where Jackie had started the voyage. He walked to the stern and surveyed the ice, finally stopping where Jackie and Ed stood at the port rail.

“Well, John Gould, how are ya gettin' on now? “

“Fine, sir, thank you.”

“Now are you after having any birthdays since you come aboard this one? You must be seventeen or eighteen by now, I imagine,” Simeon chuckled. “You're not spinnin' any yarns for these fellers, are you?”

“No, sir.”

“How's Reub treatin' ya? Not lettin' you sit around on your arse too much, I suppose?”

“There's no sittin' around in Reub's galley,” Jackie replied, flattered by the attention from somebody as important as a master watch.

Simeon looked out into the night, and after a long pause he pursed his lips and concluded, “Well, I allow she's gonna get nipped a bit. I see the old man is out sizin' up the situation now.”

“That don't sound too bad,” Jackie said, “just gettin' nipped a bit. That shouldn't cause any damage, eh?”

“Simeon is a master of understatement,” said Henry. Jackie looked puzzled. “Do you know what that means?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“You've heard some of the hands say that it's blowing a nice breeze o' wind?”

“Yeah.”

“And every time you hear that, it's usually blowin' pretty hard, right?”

Jackie nodded.

“But not as hard as a good breeze o' wind. A good breeze o' wind means it's getting stormy, so it's more than just a breeze, nice or otherwise. Well, saying it's a nice breeze or a good breeze, when it's really blowing hard: that's understatement.”

“Everybody talks like that, sure,” said Jackie.

“That's right. You know more about understatement than you realize. So when Simeon says she's gonna get nipped a bit, it will probably be more than a bit.”

“Are you saying the ship might be crushed?” asked Jackie.

“I expect she'll stand it,” Simeon replied. “These old whalers and sealers were built to survive the ice. The Norwegians built this one for one of their Arctic explorers and she's been through a lot in her fifty years. She'll take it. We don't want to be stuck too long, though.”

“What happens if we get stuck and can't get out? Do we blast her out?” said Ed.

“Depends,” said Simeon. “It's bad enough being stuck in one spot and not able to get around and look for seals, but the ice is drifting so it carries the ship along with it. If it got to that point we would cut holes and put bombs into the water under the ice and blast her out.”

I was right! Jackie reflected with satisfaction; all those boxes of explosives they were lugging aboard…those nights in the chain locker would be worth it after all.

“I expect the skipper will size everything up in the morning and decide if we need to do that. Certainly, we got enough powder aboard to blow up the whole ship and then some. Besides our own stuff, those Yanks brought a schoonerload aboard. It's stashed all over the bloomin' place!”

Jackie looked at Henry. “So, a schoonerload: would that be understatement?”

“Actually, no; that would be overstatement—exaggeration,” said Henry with a wink. “Simeon does that sometimes too.”

Why don't these guys just say what they mean? thought Jackie. He leaned over to Ed. “This is like being back in school with Sister Henrietta Bonaventure talkin' about metaphors. You remember that? Calling England this precious stone set in the silver sea. What a load of malarkey, eh!”

Ed just looked at him and blinked three or four times.

“Well, I suppose I'll turn in; see you in the morning,” said Simeon, removing his cap and exposing a curly mop of black hair speckled with grey. He gave his shaggy head a good scratch as he sauntered out of sight towards the stern of the ship.

“Henry, you ever been on a ship that got blasted outa the ice?” Jackie asked.

“No, this is my first time on a sealing steamer. I been to the ice lots of times but not on anything as big as this one. When we got caught we always managed to get her out somehow; we either sawed her out or used long poles to prise the ice away if it was loose. We've even had the whole crew one time out on the ice haulin' to beat the band on a rope tied to the vessel's bow. Now, that's hellish hard work, haulin' a schooner,” he grinned.