The Cartographer of No Man's Land: A Novel (41 page)

Simon looked up at him. “It works now, right?” The boy nodded. “You couldn’t bend your fingers, but now you can. My dad was wounded. Can’t use his arm. Not yet, anyway. He’s in France. A bayonet got him.”

“A what?”

“Bayonet. France. You know—the
war
? Don’t you even know about the war?”

Lathen sipped thoughtfully. “Know’d some as died in it.”

They sat in silence for a time. “You should see them halibut,” Lathen said. “They put up a fight, jumping about. You might have to club them with a stick to get them into the boat.” Seeing Simon’s eyes widen, Lathen stood, and with maniacal grunting, he whacked his empty bottle through the air, clubbing every which way. “There!” he said, and sat down with a grin. He set his bottle down.

Simon shuddered and thought of the dolphins.

Lathen sighed and said, “When I got here, I figure I’ll have to find a barn or patch of a place to sleep in. And that’s where I got saved again. There was a note pinned in my jacket which said I didn’t know what. So the train man reads it and tells me when I get to town to find Mrs. Isaac Gates’s Boarding House, just down there a-ways.” He pointed toward Lincoln Street. “I’ll tell you what she done, Mrs. Isaac Gates. She hauls the note out of its envelope—I have it here.” He extracted the creased note from his pocket and handed it to Simon. “I had her read it to me a bunch of times.”

Lathen leaned in toward Simon as he read aloud,

“
My dear Mrs. Gates, this boy is from Newfoundland. He was injured on the schooner
George S. Merton
, and has been cared for at the Halifax Infirmary for three weeks where he nearly lost his life. Would you be so kind as to put him up, at my expense, until the
Merton
returns to Lunenburg a few weeks from now?
”

Lathen, looking out at the harbor, joined in on the last line. “ ‘
He is an upright lad, a long way from home. You can send the bill to me at the above address. Signed, John K. Whitford, M.D.
’ ” Lathen plucked the note from Simon’s hand and stuffed it in his pocket. “Upright. That’s me. Didn’t know that afore, and now I do.” He closed his eyes and smiled. “I been saved. Twice.”

Simon looked out at the
Elsie
, thinking how life can turn on the thinnest of threads. He sucked the last of the bubbles from the bottom of his bottle, then tossed it over his shoulder into a barrel. Lathen did the same and said, “Wanna see the schooner they’re building down at Smith and Rhuland’s?”

“Sure,” Simon agreed. Philip had said his building days were over—it was mostly repairs now—but he and Simon liked to put their feet up and talk about the ideal boat, balanced and fast, usually after Philip came back from the tavern.

They ran down the street and up to the top of the hill, where the ring of hammers, saws and axes spiked the air. Below them stretched the long red-brown sheds and empty cradles of the Smith and Rhuland yard. Simon leaned over to catch his breath, already anticipating the sweet pungent smell of pine and spruce shavings, the clutter of tools and hanks of rope spilling off shelves to the grease-and-paint-spattered floor, the carved wood molds in the sheds. When he looked up, Lathen was pointing to the water’s edge. There, balanced between the tall supports of a cradle, was the most beautiful boat he’d ever seen. And the biggest. “How long is she?” he asked.

“One hundred and sixty feet,” Lathen said, clearly pleased.

“Huge,” Simon said. Something about her lines made him want to cry. Her bow was curved like the back of a spoon, not sharp and angled like a clipper bow. Rounded, ample. Without effort, Simon imagined the masts and crosstrees, the gaff booms, the long deck, the angled stern.

“Bowsprit?” he whispered.

“Sixteen and a half feet. Main mast, one hundred and twenty feet tall, twenty–two inches round. Douglas fir. A feller from America is having her built.” Lathen was sliding down the stony grade. Simon followed. They angled around some men in dark green overalls sliding a thick plank of pine from a massive steam box and stood as near as they could to the boat. Simon tipped his head back to take her in.

“What’s her name?”

“
Repulse Bay.
”

“What? Who names a boat
Repulse Bay
?”

“The man who’s paying for her to be built. That New York feller. Wears a white hat and a polka-dot handkerchief. Asked me if I’d ever heard of Repulse Bay in Hong Kong. I said I never had and never would, with names like that. Hong Kong must be somewhere in New York, I figure.”

“
Repulse Bay
,” Simon repeated.

“Yup. Told me it was the fittingest name he could find. Said there was a story behind it not fit for telling. I asked him if he’d been saved. Told him I had.”

“And?”

“Said nope, but there were stranger things had happened to him. Said he didn’t know how to sail and didn’t care if he ever learned, but when I was older he might take me aboard. He’s hiring crew. Might go back to Repulse Bay to make things right, he said. Or just might sail her off and sell her.”

“A man who can’t sail, and doesn’t want to, builds a boat like that.” Simon spat on the ground. “I wouldn’t step foot on her.” But still he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

A couple of men up on the cradle waved at Lathen. Simon shot him a stunned look. “Here every day after chores,” Lathen grinned. “Might get work on the caulking gang or some such if the
Merton
don’t come get me. But I’m not going out with that New York feller neither, no sir.” He squinted up at the sun, then looked at Simon. “How about I never see the
Merton
come in, and you and me work every day on the caulking gang, and drink orange fizz after supper?” He flashed a smile, then said he had to be going. Had chores to do for Mrs. Gates. They wished each other luck. Lathen turned to go and never looked back.

Simon backed up to a nearby boulder and sat down in a trance, watching the
Repulse Bay
come to life, memorizing her every line, her dimensions, deck to waterline, beam to length, itching to get them down on paper, maybe build a model, show Philip. And thinking how he’d been saved once and for all from clubbing fish to death by a boy he met on a step.

D
ARK CLOUDS WERE
gathering when they met back on the
Elsie
. They suited up in oilskins. There was a heavy chop and they sloshed along out of the harbor and turned away from Cross Island on a close reach. Simon was surprised when Frank asked if he’d like to take the tiller again. He and Frank traded places.

Stevie, up at the rail with a pair of binoculars, told them that the boys on the
Runabout
had spotted a U-boat on the bay side of Ironbound.

“In Mahone Bay? And you believed them,” Wallace said.

“Maybe scouting things out. Wouldn’t call them fellers the type to lie.”

Frank squinted suspiciously at Wallace. “Sounds like Duncan’s rubbed off on you. Papers say there’s all kind of spies, foreign-born aliens, most of ’em, all along the coast, doing the Kaiser’s dirty work.”

“Talk going around says Avon Heist is building a lighthouse of his own,” Stevie chimed in. “Now you tell me, why would a man do that? To signal subs for one, and Duncan still making the case for him as schoolteacher. That right, Simon?”

Simon stared at him. The mainsail luffed heavily and the boat stalled.

“Mind the wind! Lord Jesus!” Frank barked. And then they were in irons, dead in the water, slipping back, wind on both sides of the sails. “Goddamn it!” Frank shouted. “Hand over the tiller!”

Simon slammed the tiller hard to port. The
Elsie
hesitated, then turned ever so slightly and the wind just caught the forward edge of the mainsail. They slacked the sheets until she picked up headway, then hauled the lines back in as Simon slowly eased her up again. “Now, keep her on course, boy!” Frank yelled.

The
Elsie
was lumbering. “C’mon, schoon!” Simon whispered to her. The pressure of the water against the rudder came up through the tiller into his arm. She did have a weather helm! Simon eased her up gently. Tension strained through the rigging. The
Elsie
hovered like a seabird, then found her place between wind and water and surged forward, sails filled, power released. Simon had found the slot.

“Alright then. A right good skipper we’ve got, eh, boys?” Frank said, cleating the main sheet and ducking spray. “Might be as good as his father one day if he can keep his eye on the sails.”

The clouds opened up and rain poured down in sheets, then came in sideways as the wind blew hard from the southeast. “Now we’re in it!” Stevie shouted. He and Wallace went below, and it was just Frank and Simon on deck. Frank eased the main when gusts slammed against them. Simon, standing now to counter the heel of the boat, with both hands on the tiller and his right foot against the leeward seat, headed her up and fell off in near-perfect synchrony with the roaring wind and waves. His hood flew back. Green water came over the bow. Salt spray washed down his neck. Rain stung his face. He had to tell Mr. Heist—tell him to get rid of the Fresnel light. Sink it.

“When you’re wore out, I’ll take her,” Frank yelled, ducking spray.

“Mr. Heist, he’s a good man,” Simon shouted, holding tight to the tiller.

Frank didn’t answer.

T
WENTY-TWO

July 3
^rd
, 1917

No. 18 Canadian General Hospital

Saint-Junien, France

Destiny?

I thought I had one once, says Canada.

I made a name at Vimy

Took the hill then bled to death.

Your dear one,

Smiling Jimmy

A
ngus stared at the poem, if you could call it that. Written in Jimmy’s hand and waiting now for the censor’s. Poor Jimmy—whether he’d meant that he’d bled to death or that Canada, without a plan for pursuit after Vimy, had done so, didn’t much matter. Jimmy, who had died of infection, had not bled to death. Nor had Canada. But both had bled a great deal. The numbers were mounting—Private James Perry of Winnipeg, just one more. Angus had been censoring his letter when Brimmie came with news of his death. She told him to bring the letter to her when he’d finished censoring it.

“One more death to add to the Vimy list,” she sighed. Angus knew the numbers by then—
4
,
000
Canadians killed, another
7
,
000
wounded—all for a four-mile dent in the German line that hadn’t done much but prove the Canadians a force to be reckoned with. The French had all but given up. Not long after Vimy and the Second Battle of the Aisne, some
30
,
000
of them had walked out of their trenches demanding better food and more leave, demands that were eventually granted. At the end of June, hope arrived in the form of
14
,
000
American troops on French soil. Two nurses from a hospital in Étaples said they’d never seen men so tall. They were giants, but apparently without guns or knowledge of how to fire them. America was in the war but wouldn’t be fighting it for God knew how long.

All the while, Angus remained in No.
18
Canadian General Hospital. He focused again on the letter. It was hard to tell if it was a letter because apart from the salutation, “Dear Mum and Dad,” the poem was all there was. Angus put his pen down next to the bottle of black ink on the desk. He could make black lines with his left hand if the paper was anchored, which is how he ended up censoring hospital letters. Truth, the first and great casualty of war, he thought. Who better to blot it out?

Angus had received letters of his own that day. Katz, the scribbler, had written to say the boys missed him and hoped he’d join them soon. They’d been assigned a new lieutenant, who made Keegan growl more than ever. LaPointe had met up with a lone Zouave trying to find his Algerian platoon. LaPointe traded a couple of postcards and one of his harmonicas with him for a wind-up tin monkey that performed rude tricks and gave the boys a laugh. The new lieutenant wasn’t amused and had ordered LaPointe to trash it. Now that’s just wrong, McNeil had said. Katz said they’d come across some women bathing in a river who invited them in. Kearns and Hanson had splashed on in fully clothed. They all nearly had, except Boudrey, who’d run for his life.