Chain Locker (29 page)

He thought again of Simeon, leaning against the mast just before the explosion, picking the tobacco from his hand-rolled cigarette off his tongue and starting to tell him about Emily and the minister. He had barely had time to think about her over the past forty-eight hours, but now a deluge of memories flooded his mind, almost taking his breath away. She was perfect. He had never known anybody so beautiful. He pictured her long dark hair flowing over her shoulders on the one occasion she had let it down for him. He could almost feel its silkiness between his fingers; he longed to hold her slender, shapely body and to gently touch her pink cheeks with his fingertips and to see her shiny brown eyes laughing up at him. Her warm smile, her laughter, her silliness, all called to him in his extreme loneliness. How he wanted another chance to see her. Did she know he was out here and if she did, did she care?

Not only did she attract him emotionally and physically but, ironically, she was a respectable hand with a boat and knew the ways of the sea—not that this was important, but it only served to make her more appealing. Having grown up with just one brother and no sisters, Emily often helped her father and brother with all the things that a fishing family had to do. She could scull a rodney, remove the sound bone from a cod, repair a hole in a net, and she could even put a decent back splice on the end of a rope.

He doubted if she could kill a seal, though; anybody who loved children as much as she did could never harm a baby anything. That was okay; he didn't want to marry a sealer, and why in the world was he thinking of her in the context of sealing? He must be starting to lose his mind. In fact, he wanted nothing more to do with the whole sordid business of sealing. He had always loved the sea—and might still if they were rescued—but he had had enough of those disgusting old sealing ships. If he had to go back to the ice to put bread on the table, it would be with his uncle, whose vessel he knew was safe and clean when it was pulled away from the wharf.

But if he should ever manage to win Emily, she would probably not want him sealing anyway. She had told him that working on the sea was no way to earn a living, with its long, hard hours, constant danger and uncertain returns. Her family had done it for two hundred years, but she intended to break the cycle, as her brother had. That was why she had become a teacher, earning her own living. No doubt that was why she was attracted to the minister. Henry had never met him, but he was sure that Basil was many things he was not and had far more to offer her.

He wondered if she had sensed a change in him since he had come home last fall. He had hoped he appeared his normal self while he worked through his fears but maybe she saw through him and decided he was a bad risk. Maybe she thought him too ordinary for her. After all, she was an educated, intelligent woman while he was a simple man of the sea—competent, yes, he thought he was, and in a time and place where it was rare, he had completed high school with exceptional grades. He had become a crack navigator thanks to his quick grasp of the mathematical concepts, and all agreed that he would make an excellent officer. But he could not shake the feeling that in Emily's eyes he had become commonplace. Although she had seemed to care for him in the beginning, he sensed that now he was no longer special to her as she was to him.

Now, even Jackie, who had looked up to him with such admiration, was showing the symptoms of profound disappointment at his performance today. He looked at Henry differently, almost as though he was trying to comfort his little sister. And, worst of all, today's outburst had him wondering if he had lost the qualities required to be an officer. Where was the steadiness under trial, the leadership, the ability to inspire? Henry groaned to himself. Even if he got back safely, so what? Perhaps he should quietly step off the floe in the darkness and spare himself the pain.

He plodded some more around his circle, like an ox turning a millstone, going nowhere. There was not a light to be seen, just like last night and the night before. Where were the other sealing ships? Where was the
Bessie Marie
? Did anybody even know the
Viking
was gone? Perhaps none of the survivors had made it to the Horse Islands to tell the world. Perhaps there were no survivors. Perhaps the ice had opened up and the ocean had swallowed them all.

A loud snore interrupted the litany of despondent thought and he couldn't help but smile as he looked over at Jackie, who was enjoying the comfort of lying on his skimpy mattress of seal pelts. Barely more than a kid, he had borne this trial with amazing composure, proving himself to be up to every challenge they had had to face so far. What would his parents think of seeing their boy drink the warm blood of a creature that had been dead for only minutes? But, he was getting worn down, Henry thought; he had to find a way to help him bounce back. A good officer would find a way.

Eventually, long hours later, he saw the first faint trace of light in the eastern sky, signalling the end of the third night of trial. Jackie had slept through most of it and Henry had let him be. Now that he was stirring, Henry was ready to get him up and switch places with him. Exhausted, he lay down on the pelts and found relief as he fell asleep.

During the night the ice had closed up and formed a nearly solid mass stretching off towards the north, with open water a few miles to the south. As the sun rose over the horizon Jackie was greeted by a sealer's dream—seals everywhere. Within striking distance he counted four bitches and four whitecoats. He could see the harp-shaped patches of dark fur that gave them their name. They all appeared to have no obvious means of escape. He looked over at Henry, who was out cold, so he decided to let him sleep. He would try his luck and surprise him.

He walked towards the nearest pair. The wary bitch eyed him. He could feel his knees shaking. He wasn't sure he could go through with it, but this was what the real ice hunters did, so he had to do it, too. Keeping the bitch in sight, with trembling hands he brought the gaff up partway over his head, but not quite far enough, and swung it down on the pup's back, where it did no harm whatever as the thick layer of fur and fat protected it. The bitch immediately reared up and lunged at him. He sidestepped her and took to his heels, barely outrunning the ungainly seal, as she both slithered and waddled after him. She was much faster than he had expected.

The commotion woke Henry, who popped his head above the ice wall to see Jackie standing back on to him, holding the gaff in both hands and contemplating his next move. The bitch was holding her ground. Never mind that one; get the one on the right, Henry thought, as he fought the temptation to march over and take control. Jackie must have read his thoughts. Walking towards another whitecoat with no apparent protector, he wound up to try again. His arms felt mushy as he brought the gaff up; his heart pounded in his ears. He swung and hit the seal squarely on the top of the head, stunning but not killing it. He glanced around quickly. None of the other seals seemed upset at him.

“Man, at least Muffie put up a fight,” he grumbled under his breath. “Will you stop lookin' at me!” Winding up and with all his might he swung again and finished the task. He had done his duty.

“Great job, Jack, great job,” said Henry, walking over and slapping him on the back. “A bite of warm breakfast and another sculp. Now you're a proper sealer. I'll give you a hand sculping that one in a minute, but let's get a few more first. Do you want to have a go at another one?”

“You go ahead,” Jackie replied weakly as he handed Henry the gaff.

He watched as Henry danced among the bitches, evading their snapping teeth, seemingly without effort, and finished off their young. From a safe distance, he looked the adults over and said, “Now they'll put up a fight, but one of those bitches would give us a fine lot of blubber for our fire and make a fair-sized pelt to lie down on, too. If we got a couple of them we could even cover up. Think you could stand that much luxury?”

“I'll be happy to give it a try,” Jackie replied.

“I thought you might say that. Okay, then, which one of those four do you think we should go after first?”

Jackie looked from one to the other. “Come on,” said Henry gently, “we haven't got all day.”

“The smallest one, I guess. Wouldn't she be the easiest one to kill?”

“She would, but she's actually on another piece of ice. See the way the floes are jammed together? If that pan shifted before we got the sculp off her we'd never be able to move her. I think our best bet would be to go for these two on our pan.”

It took a lot of nimble footwork evading the powerful jaws, and four strikes of the gaff to club the first one to death. By the time he had finished with the second one, a hint of water had appeared between him and the two on the other pan.

“I guess we'll have to kiss those two goodbye,” he said.

“You can kiss 'em yourself—”

“There you are, girls,” he said, as the ice floes slowly parted. “Off you go now before I change my mind.”

Needing no further invitation, they slithered into the water and disappeared under the ice. “You know,” he said, “it always amazes me that those fat things can get through such a small opening.”

“Hey, what's that queer-lookin' one over there?”

“That's a bedlamer. Oops, there he goes,” said Henry. “Young and carefree. Nobody to look out for but himself.”

“So, that was just a young seal?”

“Yep, a young harp. About a year old, I would say.”

“Is that what Reub called beaters?”

“No, beaters are older whitecoats that have just started swimmin'. They're only a few weeks old. After they go into the water for the first time, the old fellers say they're after dippin'. Did Reub tell you about raggedy-jackets?”

“Don't think so.”

“That's what they call a whitecoat when he starts to lose his white fur and the darker stuff is starting to grow out, because he looks so raggedy.” Looking with satisfaction over the carcasses before them, he added, “I'd say we got some work ahead of us, eh Skipper?”

In a few minutes, looking like pagans involved in some prehistoric sacrificial rite, he and Jackie were guzzling steaming red blood from crude ice bowls, toasting one another and their good fortune.

“You up for trying your hand at sculping our little buddy here?” said Henry, smacking his lips as he plunked the empty bowl down.

“Sure. I wouldn't mind.”

“All right then, flip him over,” said Henry as he swished his knife over the steel.

“You sure sharpen that thing a lot.”

“You got to keep it sharp to do the job right. You be careful, now, and make sure you finish the job with all ten fingers. The only blood I want to see on the ice is the seal's. Okay, here's the knife; get goin'.”

By the time Jackie was finished there was blood and guts spread everywhere. “There you go, b'y; your first sculp, took off a seal that you swatted with your own hands. Now your buddies'll be lookin' up to you.”

Henry kicked and prodded the guts and scraps into the water. “Come and get it, sharks. Here's a light lunch fer ye,” Henry joked.

Jackie's eyes widened. “Sharks? You're kiddin' me, right?”

“If there's saltwater there's sharks,” said Henry, “and they love a feed of seals, just like the polar bears do. Now you take all this guts and blood spread around here. I allow if there was a bear within a hundred miles he could smell that and find his way here. In fact, if he had to he could probably swim the hundred miles.”

“Okay, shuddup about that; I don't want to hear any more of it,” said Jackie. “I got enough stuff to think about without having to worry about sharks down there and bears up here. I wish you hadn't told me that polar bear story either; I been thinkin' about it ever since.”

“Don't be such a scaredycat, b'y. If there was either bear around, he would've had us for his dinner by now.”

chapter thirty-three

On Wednesday morning Ada took her regular walk to the post office to read the daily newsbook. She usually dropped by after dinner, a leisurely undertaking to catch up with what was going on in the outside world, but today there was a heightened sense of urgency to her errand.

“Good morning, Bertha,” she said to the heavy-set woman at the desk.

“Hello Ada,” Bertha replied in a wheezy voice, looking up over her glasses. “You're here early this morning,”

“Yes, maid, I haven't slept these last few nights, worrying about those poor men that were on the sealing ship. Did anything come in about them today?”

“There's some. I'm just getting to it now. There was more news than usual today, so I'm running a bit behind.”

Bertha kept writing, transcribing the news that had come in from St. John's via the post office telegraph service that morning. While Ada waited, she sat at the reading desk, and patiently reread the old newsbook. Finally Bertha pushed herself up from the desk and waddled, puffing from the exertion, to where Ada sat. My, she sounds worse than ever, Ada thought. She must have TB, for sure. “There you are, my dear,” Bertha said, passing her the paper. “There's a letter come for Emily, if you want to take that with you.” She shuffled back to her duties.

Ada absently took the letter—probably from one of the multitude of friends Emily had made at college—as she scanned the news-book quickly, searching through the list of those accounted for and those missing from the
Viking.
Sure enough, there among the missing was Henry's name. She felt tears welling in her eyes and gave herself a moment to let it sink in, before rereading the list of those accounted for, in the hollow hope that perhaps his name might be there, too. She confirmed that Simeon and Alf and Bert were there, and then she solemnly closed the book.

She dropped in to see Sadie on the way home.