The Cartographer of No Man's Land: A Novel

by P. S. Duffy

  His father’s last letter lay on the table. Up and about, but still in the hospital; unable to move his arm, but “on the mend.” Simon could read between the lines. And there weren’t many lines to be read in the uneven, left-handed print. His mother had wept when the letter came, saying it was all a horrible mistake and that he was supposed to be in London drawing maps and that she never should have agreed to it, and that to have lost his right arm was to have lost too much. A few hours later, she’d pulled herself together. He had to get better. He would get better. And if he didn’t, they’d have to adjust. All of them.

  Gone were the loose threads of her, the day-dreamy drift, the pressed-flower fairies, the shells strung together to clatter in the wind. Now it was deals sealed with a handshake, purposeful trips on Rooster, and a brimmed leather hat, that his Uncle Ebbin had won off an Australian, tied under her chin. And short hair. She’d chopped it off and looked like a dandelion gone to seed. And liked it that way.

  “You just quit your moping and let her work,” Ida told him. “Better than thinking Ebbin’s alive. She may not know a lick about housekeeping—we all have our talents—but look at her now. Workmen’s boots, skirt hitched up. I’ve never seen the like. Tongues wagging, and she just sails right through it. She’s on her own path. Knows what she’s about. His Highness isn’t stopping her, you’ll notice. So don’t you think of it.”

  After the night of the struggle over the gun, a bad chest and continuous cough had kept his grandfather housebound. His mother had hitched up Rooster, headed on over to Gold River and negotiated the sawmill deal herself. Got a better price than his grandfather expected and a better price on timber transport to boot. “Should have brought you on years ago,” his grandfather hacked out on her return. She offered a shy smile of triumph and said that the mill owners knew her as Duncan’s agent anyway through all the correspondence. Surprised H. E. MacGrath was a woman, suspicious at first, but came around when she began to negotiate. And without the slightest hesitation, she added that Duncan might want to think about the Lauralee. Scrap her or get her fixed up. She wasn’t earning a dime up on the cradle. Duncan sank into his chair and refused to answer.

  When she left, he shuffled to the window, quilt around his shoulders. He’d never again mentioned the gun. Simon found it hard to look at him without seeing the parts he’d exposed, but having faced what lurked below, he felt stronger, protective almost. People were not what they seemed. It felt odd and uncomfortable, but at the same time, he felt he’d gained a bit more of a foothold in the world.

  Watching Hettie stride down the path, Duncan clapped his hand on Simon’s shoulder to steady himself. “Put a pair of trousers on that woman and she’s what her brother might have been. What I hoped your father would be. MacGrath and MacGrath. Maybe it’ll come to pass after all.”

  “But scrap the Lauralee? She’s crazy,” Simon said.

  “Ah, we won’t let her do that, now, will we?”

  “No sir.” Simon knew what they both were thinking, and in that moment understood something more than he had before.

  HE PULLED HIS oilskins off the peg, glad for the chance to be out on the water. At the foot of the hill, a cluster of spruce, silver-green ghosts at the water’s edge, signaled the end of the visible world. When he got to the town wharf, the Masons—Frank and his grown son, Stevie—were whispered shapes in oilskins on the deck of the Elsie, their forty-five-foot fishing schooner. Frank lifted a hand through a patch of mist. Wallace materialized in the companionway. The creak of block and tackle, a laugh from Stevie, and Simon’s own footsteps on the wharf were damped down and swallowed whole.

  On another day, in another time, Simon would have stepped deftly along the “duckboards” of the wharf, “rifle-oar” in hand, piercing Germans with his bayonet, never even stopping to watch them pitch to their deaths. But he was far beyond such games now. Two days before, he’d turned fourteen.

  “Simon Peter! Come aboard!” It was Frank.

  “Let’s try her now.” Stevie crouched down in the engine cuddy. The two-cylinder “make-and-break” auxiliary shuddered to life in a nerve-jangling, earsplitting put-put-put-put. Puffs of greasy smoke blew out the Elsie’s stern and the smell of gas filled the air. Stevie popped up, rubbing a rag on his hands, grinning. “She’s a-goin’!”

  “Shove us off then,” Frank shouted over the racket. Simon and Wallace hopped up on the wharf. Hands on the rigging, they walked the boat forward, keeping her clear of the pilings, then stepped lightly aboard the stern. Stevie shoved her into gear. The shuddering settled into a steady vibration. Whirlpools of slate-colored water, etched with gasoline rainbows, stretched out behind them. Simon swallowed hard to keep his oatmeal down, wishing engines had never been invented.

  “What?” Frank held his hand to his ear.

  “I say, how’s she handle with the engine in her?” Wallace shouted.

  “Well, she don’t drive the fish away, like Putnam says,” Stevie said.

  “Wouldn’t mind if she scared ’em out of the water and into the boat, but she don’t do that, neither,” Frank laughed. “Get a good five to six knots out of her. Carries us handily out beyond Tancook to Dunn’s Ridge. Good fishing out there. She’s a Canadian Standard. Got her over to Hawbolt and Evans in Chester. Had her installed at Hilchey’s. What d’ya think, Wallace?”

  “I’m thinking she’d shake the Lauralee to pieces,” Wallace said glumly, then, eyes bulging, gave a blast on the copper fog horn. “Weather helm worse than before?”

  “Bit worse, maybe. She’s always had a weather helm come any bit of wind. Bluff in the bows. Keeps us drier than some of those salt bankers, weather helm or not.”

  “Keeps us slower, too,” Stevie noted.

  “Yup, that too. We’re better off slow in this fog, though.” He had the boat moving at a snail’s pace.

  “Sweet Jesus, yes,” Wallace said. “Watch that stick now.” A black pole, tethered to a rock below, loomed up and disappeared in the fog.

  Simon hopped up on the foredeck away from the fumes. “Be our lookout there, Simon!” Frank shouted. Wallace handed him the horn and Simon wrapped himself in the blankness of the fog, leaving the conversation behind.

  A short while later, the fog vanished, the wind shifted, and the motor quit. In the sudden silence, Frank cursed. They all cursed except Simon. As Stevie and Wallace fiddled with the engine, countering each other’s advice, a pair of dolphins broke through the ruffled water off the starboard bow. Simon scrambled across the deck, and they promptly resurfaced to port. As he slid over, they dove under again and poked their bottle noses up from the bow, one on either side, smiling their happy grins. Simon inched up to the stubby bowsprit and hung his arms down. They ducked beneath and exchanged places again. He could see them under the water and he thought he heard them laugh when they surfaced. Lying on his stomach, he laughed back.

  Frank decided that with a freshening wind coming up behind them, they’d make better time under sail. The dolphins had already figured that out and surfaced twenty feet ahead of the boat, waiting.

  “Let’s go with the full set, boys,” Frank said. “Take the tiller, Simon.”

  Simon scrambled back. “Me?”

  “No one else by that name, is there?” Frank abandoned the stick, leaving Simon to hold her steady as Stevie hauled up the mainsail. Wallace readied the foresails. Frank tailed the lines. Simon tried to hold the boat steady, but a sudden gust caught him off guard. Halfway up, the wooden hoops froze to the mast with the pressure of the filled sail. Frank didn’t even look back. Simon sheepishly headed her up into the wind, easing the strain on the half-hauled main. Then up went the gaff boom and mainsail. Up went the foresail, the staysail, and jib. Expectation and readiness shot up through the hull and up through Simon in the thwack and shudder of the canvas, in the whirr of slack rope hauled fast through the blocks.

  Wallace and Stevie secured the halyards. Frank took over the helm from Simon. To cover his disappointment, Simon helped Walla
ce shove the main boom over and ease the massive sail to starboard. Stevie hauled in the main sheet.

  “She come up of a sudden, eh?” Wallace said, eyeing the wind and heaving himself up on the windward rail next to Simon.

  “We’ll make good time if she holds steady,” Frank replied, unbuttoning his oilskins. “Stevie, see what you can do with that blasted make-and-break. Wind may die as fast as she come up.” Stevie climbed down to the engine housing.

  “I’d say ‘make-and-break’ is the term alright,” Wallace said, huge grin on his face.

  Frank tipped his head back and laughed. “I’d say you’re right there.”

  Pounding along now, Simon looked ahead for the dolphins. He’d tell Mr. Heist about them. He’d been helping him fence in the garden, turn over the soil with fresh seaweed and plant vegetables. They’d hauled the Fresnel light to the center of the garden to keep the crows away, though it seemed to draw them in. Simon had also started leaving Peg in George’s care and walking the rest of the way to Mr. Heist’s cottage. George would meet him by the road. Simon would hop down, and George would put his crutch up on Peg and climb on without a word. Once, on his way back, Simon saw him, naked to the waist, long hair flowing, trotting around the field on Peg with his arms open. “How many coins today, George?” Simon asked on the way back the last time he’d been there. “Forty,” George answered. “In silver boxes. Avon Heist’s time is up.”

  “How do you mean, his time is up?”

  “Heist heart, down heart,” was all George would say.

  AS CROSS ISLAND came into view, the wind shifted. They tacked up Lunenburg Bay. Simon hooked his arm around the foremast as they passed Battery Point. Though the fleet was out and the elevated fish flakes were empty of cod, the wind bore the smell of fish, as it always did in Lunenburg. He dipped his knees as foaming water rushed past the lee rail and they swung up into the harbor, where the sun caught the reds of the shore buildings, the purples and greens and pale yellows of the gabled houses on the hills. Wallace hitched his overalls and pulled up the sleeves of his sweater to reveal the dirty cuffs of his long johns. “Them down in Gloucester think they’re the cod capital of the world. And they’re good, but they don’t stand up to our boys. Well, some do. Course, them boys is from Lunenburg anyway,” Wallace chuckled. Simon just grinned. He’d heard it all before.

  “Dropping the main!” Frank shouted. The sails flapped and cracked midships, then dropped down the mast in a rush. When the sails were stowed and the lines made fast and coiled, the four of them sat back with the pleasure that comes from a long sail over. They had a mug of cold tea and cold beans, topping them off with buttered bread from Elsie Mason. Stevie brought out a wet comb and square mirror, and they made themselves presentable and hailed a ride from a couple of boys.

  They threaded their way through double-decked rows of barrels, teams of oxen, and carts of salt and barrel staves at Zwicker’s wharf and agreed to meet on the Elsie in two hours. The others went off on their various errands and Simon was on his own. A sign in Rhuland’s Ice Cream Parlour—CALIFORNIA TANGERETTE! FIVE CENTS!—caught his eye, as did a boy who sat on the steps, his dirty hair cut every which way. He had on an oversized wool jacket and black, knee-high fishing boots. Inside, the clerk idly slapped at a fly. “I’ll take one of those,” Simon said, pointing at the sign in the window. The boy was standing now, staring through the glass. “Make it two,” Simon said.

  Outside, two cold bottles of brilliant orange fizz in hand, their thin white straws bobbing at an angle, he stopped in front of the boy. “Looks like you could use a drink,” he said, trying for a rough edge. The boy eyed the bottle suspiciously.

  Simon pursed his lips around the straw, took a tentative sip, and raised his eyebrows at the sweet mystery of it. The boy grabbed the offered bottle in his thick hand and did the same. “Aww!” he said, rubbing the end of his nose. “A trick.”

  “No sir,” Simon assured him. “Bubbles is all.” At this the boy smiled.

  Simon sat beside him on the steps. The boy said his name was Lathen Pike and he was from Reeks Cove, Newfoundland, a town of five families and no shops. And he’d been saved.

  Saved? Simon immediately imagined an itinerant preacher towering over him, hands lifted, shadows leaping in the flickering torchlight, pronouncing Lathen the Lord’s own. Zenus had been saved once at a tent meeting in Blandford.

  “Yup. Saved,” the boy repeated. By a doctor, as it turned out, not a preacher. The story came out fast. Simon struggled with the Newfoundland accent, but got the gist. Lathen had been working on a fishing schooner out on the Banks when a hook got caught in his hand. The hand got hot and red so’s he couldn’t bend his fingers. He was “hagrode and in a fever,” so the captain dropped him off in Sheet Harbor. The doctor had him in an infirmary until the hand got better, then sent him by rail to Lunenburg to wait for his boat to come in and take him back out to the Banks.

  Had been on a train? Out on the Banks? “How old are you?” Simon demanded.

  “Twelve. Two more ’n I can count and that’s a fact. Big for my age.”

  “Your parents let you go?”

  “Let me? Sent out is how it was. My uncle took me on as his dory mate.” Lathen shrugged. “T’weren’t but a bawbeen to scoop into our bowls at home.”

  “So what’s it like out there?” Simon asked.

  “Hard,” was the answer. “Plenty to eat, though, and never once got a beating.”

  “What was your job? Were you a catchie?”

  Lathen took a long sip, then laid it out. “Nope. In a dory. Yer up and out on the dories at dark, see? Me and Uncle Albert is dory number six. You skiver your caplin onto the trawl line aforehand, then drop it to the bottom. Drop a bobber at one end of it, and row a goodly ways away. I drop the line. Uncle rows. Then start hauling her in—a fish on most every hook. Do it all again. Then when yer dory’s near down to waterline with a load, you row back to the schooner. Fork the fish into her, row back and start over whilst fellers on board counts and cleans and salts ’em and stacks ’em in kenches. Don’t sleep for days if there’s a good catch going. Got to work fast to bait the trawl—as fast as the other feller’s rowing down the line. That’s how I got the hook in my hand. T’were bejesus cold. Uncle forgot my rubber nippers and mine was wool and the hook went through ’em. See?” Lathen offered his palm. He and Simon studied the stitches and the black and purple mark as if reading a message. “Swole near as big as my head. Fever so bad the doctor didn’t know if I’d live or die.”

  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,

  “M
y 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.