Chain Locker (36 page)

chapter forty

Henry stared at the black sky, trying to stay awake. He was afraid that if he allowed himself to fall asleep he might not wake up, but as the evening wore on he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was lonely, only now realizing how much he had depended on Jackie's company. He looked around with a sense of expectation, followed immediately by a pang of anguish.

Then he saw something move.

“Hello, little guy,” he heard himself say. “Are you as lonely as I am?” He could barely discern the shape of the pup whose mother's heat was keeping him alive. “She gave you life and now she's givin' me life,” he said apologetically.

“I guess we're at the same level now, eh? Flat on the ice lookin' up, with nobody to care for either one of us.”

How fundamental were these creatures in the lives of the coastal people, he thought. “You know, an awful lot of your crowd have had to die so our crowd could survive. Hardly seems fair, does it? There's the light in our homes, the meat on our tables, the coats and boots we wear. Now, you take this jacket I'm wearin, for example…no, never mind.” He looked up into the sky and tried to imagine how it would feel to see somebody raising a club to swat him, while he lay keenly aware that he was unable to do a thing to avoid the inevitable.

On the other hand, at least it was quick. How long would he be out here, he wondered, before he closed his eyes for the final time? And what then?

A splat, then another, broke the silence. He turned to see a couple of seals that had alighted on another floe not far away, almost flying out of the water with the agility of small birds.

“There you go, Skipper. Some company for you. Maybe one of them has a drop of milk to spare. I wish I could help you out. Honest to God, I do.”

Just two seals. He guessed it would have taken about twenty thousand of them to fill the
Viking
, which was only one of nine ships at the hunt this year, and one of the smaller ones at that. He could barely take in the enormity of the hunt, with the big steel ships like the
Beothic
, and the smaller old wooden walls like the
Viking,
the schooners like Uncle Levi's, and the hundreds of hunters who went out from the land. Yet it was a shadow of the numbers that his grandfather had told him about, when hundreds of vessels had been engaged and tens of thousands of men sometimes brought in five times as many seals as this year's hunt would yield. How many pelts had the old
Viking
brought in to enrich the Bowrings, he wondered. Let's see now, we'll say twenty-five years times twenty thousand a year. Shit, that's half a million seals for one ship. Of course, she wouldn't get a full load every year, but still…

“You know, Skipper, you probably think we're all makin' a barrel of money at this but you couldn't be more wrong. Hell, if a man makes $100 on a trip he thinks he's a millionaire. Sometimes they get ten or twenty dollars and at other times nothin' at all. Sure, if anybody from the
Viking
makes it back they won't have a thing to show. They'll be worse off than the fellers who died. Maybe I'll be among the lucky ones, eh?”

What work, what work, what work, he thought, to fill the
Viking
with sculps. One seal at a time, sometimes miles from the ship. Two or three swings of a gaff somewhere out on the ice. What was that? Fifty thousand times, maybe, a gaff would be raised and smacked down on the head of a hapless seal. Then he thought about it from the other point of view. Twenty thousand pairs of large, trusting eyes had looked up at their tormentors with no idea of what was about to happen. With death such a possibility, he was surprised at the kinship he felt for the little pup.

And then there was all the meat left on the ice, for hardly any of it was saved. Yet there were people at this time of year subsisting on bread, molasses and fat pork, while a few short miles away enough meat to feed a whole community for weeks would be left in a single day of slaughter. He abhorred the waste.

For hours he had been putting off the desire to change his position, but his need to relieve the numbness had become intolerable. He slowly pulled himself into a semi-sitting position and shifted his behind. Bending his good leg he steeled himself, reached forward and slid his broken leg sideways a few inches, causing a shot of pain to go through it as though he had just been gaffed.

“Aaagh!” he yelled in frustration, pounding both fists on the ice on either side and yelling into the darkness. “I'm fed up with this! I'm sick of being treated like a slave. I'm sick of the violence; I'm sick of the killing; I'm sick of the blood and the gore; the stink; the filth; the hauling; the seal finger; the falling into the water; the storms; this slow, damned death out here in the dark, all alone. Poor Darmy. Poor Jack. I shouldn't have let you go, Jack,” he sobbed. “At least if you had stayed behind we could have died together.”

He stopped. No, that was wrong. Just because he was going to die didn't mean Jackie would. Jackie had a chance; with luck he could make it.

He took a couple of breaths. “Sorry, Skipper; didn't mean to make you jump outa your skin there.” Even with the cold he could feel himself sweating. “It's only a dunched arse, Henry, b'y. You can stick it,” he reassured himself. “At least I warmed myself up a bit with that little fit,” he laughed ruefully in the direction of the pup. “Maybe I can manage with just a few little adjustments,” and he squirmed and moved slightly, careful not to interrupt the position of his injured leg.

Settled back again, he relived the drama of his encounter with the seal. He knew something bad had to happen—those jaws that could catch a darting mackerel would have no problem with a lumbering human being—but he had felt he had no choice. And Jackie had certainly shone in his moment of testing. He swung the gaff handle in the nick of time.

What would Simeon or Uncle Levi or his father have said about his own showing during the past five days? Would they fault him in any way? They would certainly say it was foolhardy to attack the bitch with nothing more than a gaff. In desperation, he had allowed himself to believe it could be done. And of course he had hesitated at that crucial moment when Jackie was in the water. Henry shuddered as he thought about how closely he had come to letting Jackie drown.

Oh, yes, there was much to find fault with. He thought gloomily that he would never have to answer to Simeon or Uncle Levi for his failures. His mother, bless her heart, would say, “But look at all the good things you done for him, Henry, my son. Look at how afraid he was and you were always patient and comforting to him when he was afraid, you provided him with food, and even though you had those awful fears yourself, you still managed to pull him out, and you even gave him your own socks, sure. He's alive today because of you!”

Would he ever see her again or hear that comforting voice of forgiveness?

He could still visualize Jackie's poker-faced gaze as he stepped up on the pinnacle and tried to keep the old dog occupied. He admired his confidence in setting out on his own for the long walk to shore, but Henry wondered if his young companion realized what was in store for him? He wondered if Jackie was even alive at this moment. Without a doubt, Henry's life depended on his success, but even if he succeeded in getting ashore, that survival was not guaranteed. If Jackie looked out to sea from atop a cliff on North Twillingate Island tomorrow, he would have no idea which way to point a rescue party; he would see just water and ice stretching off for hundreds of miles in all directions with not a thing to use as a reference point. How would he ever be able to hit the tiny target that Henry presented? The little stash of blubber he had saved would not make enough smoke to be of consequence.

Time passed. He might have dozed off; he couldn't be sure. He looked in the direction of the pup but it had gone and he was alone again. There was no breeze; the air was perfectly still. It was almost silent. It felt like it might be getting warm. He wondered if he was experiencing what men experienced when they died in battle. Simeon had told him about a man who died in his arms during a naval encounter speaking in his last minutes about feeling warm, even though it was freezing on the deck of the ship.

During his twenty-three years he had slept many times under the open skies, and often, as now, his mind wandered to the sad story of the last Beothuk Indians who had lived on the same islands now inhabited by his relatives and friends. He had often wondered if any of his ancestors had contributed to their demise. The last one would have been about his age. She officially died of tuberculosis but, lying alone on the ice, he wondered if she might have died from loneliness, in a city of strangers, knowing that she was the last of her people.

Thinking of the young Beothuk woman brought his thoughts, once again, to Emily. His heart had not stopped aching but he had accepted that he was not going to see her again. He would never experience the joy of sharing his life with her; of feeling her warm body next to him, lying naked in the darkness after making love; of raising a family with her. She would have such beautiful children.

No doubt, she would marry the minister. Henry didn't even know his name; she would become Mrs. something or other.

Henry still loved her, but with a less selfish love now. He had been obsessed with being in her presence, impressing her, possessing her. Now, like the courtly love that medieval knights supposedly held for ladies they would never possess, he loved her from afar, and instead of her giving him happiness he wanted only for her happiness and well-being.

When she wrote that she had some things to sort out, he was puzzled about what they might be. But he had guessed it the moment Simeon told him the minister was at her house that evening. Simeon's hesitation said it all. The pain he felt on thinking about it now was as real as it had been when he initially heard it, just before the first explosion. In the days after reading the letter he held the hope that she was still winnable; her words did not close the door, but it had been swinging in the wrong direction. Now it was shut.

He removed his bulky woolen mitt and reached into his pocket and brought out the letter. It was all he had from her. He brought it to his blistered lips and kissed it; he smelled the familiar trace of her perfume. In this place of death and desolation he found comfort in that faint hint of her lovely bouquet.

A raindrop plunked on his eyelid, startling him. Another struck his cheek. He held the letter in the palm of his hand and pulled his mitt back on. Pulling Jackie's coat up over his face, he folded his arms, and closed his eyes as the cold rain fell upon him.

chapter forty-one

Emily and Ada stood silently in the predawn darkness watching as twelve men with two boats slowly worked their way across the ice of Shoal Tickle, the narrow body of water that separates North and South Twillingate islands.

“Oh my goodness, they're working so hard. Poor Daddy,” said Emily.

In a grim voice, Ada replied, not unkindly, “He's used to it.”

“I know. He's worked so hard all his life.”

The dawn was breaking by the time the two groups got their boats past the edge of the solid ice two hundred yards offshore. Soon the oars were out and three men in each punt were working it out among the floes. The helpers slowly returned to shore, turning back often to check on the punts' progress, watching, as if reluctant to accept that their small contribution to the rescue was over.

There was no wind and it was still above freezing. Melting snow combined with the rainwater to create little rivers that coursed down the hills. Looking up at the familiar paths she had run up and down as a child, Emily said, “Let's go up the hill, Mama, where we can see better.”

“Okay, my dear. It's not too slippery, is it?”

“It should be okay. Here, take my arm.”

On the top of the hill, with their backs to the harbour, Emily and her mother had a clear view of the vast ocean.

“It's some calm, isn't it?” said Ada. “Just like oil. It's not very often you can stand up here like this. I allow there isn't enough wind to blow out a candle this morning.”

“The last time I was up here was just after school started last fall,” said Emily, remembering that it had been on an evening walk with Henry. “Every time I come up here I'm amazed at how big the ocean is.”

“Big and deadly; I hate it,” said Ada. “Not for a farm would you get me out onto it.”

“I know, Mama.”

“The hours and days I've spent worrying about your father and Billy out on that water—and you, too, sometimes,” she said, frowning at her. “It's a wonder I'm not in the grave myself, from worry.”

“I know, Mama.” Emily's voice grew desperate. “Oh Mama, how will they ever find them? There's so much area to cover.”

“There's going to be lots of boats out looking for them. There's at least two going from Crow Head and two more from Back Harbour, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a few more get out there,” said Ada. “It would certainly be nice to see a bit of smoke out there somewhere. I imagine they'll get another fire going today and the searchers will be guided right to them. You got to have hope, my dear.”

“I'm trying, Mama. Last night I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep and I was thinking of the first time I saw Henry, down in Cottle's Island when they were building the schooner. Daddy asked me if I wanted to go with him and Bill because they would be painting the name on—”

“Oh yes, I remember that day. They already had the name painted on when you got there!”

“That's right. They did it the day before because it was fine and they didn't want to wait,” said Emily. “It was so beautiful, with all the fancy scrolling around our names. We were so excited to have our names on a vessel. Henry was way up on the mast helping a man do the rigging. I was so impressed with the way he could climb up and down the cable stays just using his hands.”