The Big Why

by Michael Winter

  Bartlett: That’s not the Bellaventure.

  It’s Billy Winsor, a man said. What a cunt.

  Billy Winsor had spurted past the Bellaventure portside. Billy Winsor flying all flags fast into St John’s harbour with a full load of pelts.

  Bartlett: You hear that?

  What.

  There are no cannon.

  I dont get it.

  You win the race home you get the cannon. There are no cannon for Billy Winsor.

  The men and women were fifty deep against the stageheads and finger piers. Billy Winsor tossing out a hawser, but the men at Harvey’s refused to tie him on. He slipped down the harbour apron. Past us and farther west. A couple of sealers jumped over the side to tie on to stanchions and they were pushed back aboard. They found a spot near the shipyard.

  Perhaps, Bartlett said, Billy Winsor is a man who believes that in the face of a tragedy, it is best to maintain the structure of tradition.

  The slow nose of the Bellaventure rounded Signal Hill. Arms began to point. She swung her bow towards Chain Rock and then slipped through the Narrows to Harvey’s pier. Her flag at half-mast.

  Look at her forehatch, Bartlett said.

  It was heaped with seals under a tarpaulin. I was surprised there were any seals aboard her. Why do they have seals aboard?

  Those arent seals, he said.

  Well, there’s one.

  Men were pulling at the tarpaulin, rope had iced onto the deck. They levered the stiff carcass of a big seal with blunt hatchets. They carried the frozen seal to the side as the Bellaventure moored. But the seal was not a seal. It was the pelt of a seal, and inside the pelt was a frozen man. You could see a sliver of his body through the open belly of the seal. His hands together, as if in prayer. They handled this body with no more care than if it had been a seal, for the men knew only one way to offload cargo. It frightened them to touch this half seal, half man, they were nervous around unlucky things. The hard, buckled body slid from ropes and thudded to the apron with the shock of a hollow weight. It is wrong for all the majesty to be gone from the body.

  He crawled in there, Bartlett said, to stay warm.

  The Nascopi, with Coaker aboard, docked beside the Bellaventure and the crew tumbled over the side to assist. William Coaker was a big man but not very strong. He had a cane. Constables pushed back the crowd, and I realized we were part of the push towards the harbour. I was leaning into the men in front of me. Stretcher-bearers carried off the frostbitten, but they could not get through. A pulse pushed us back and there was room. George Tuff, Bartlett said. We watched as George Tuff was helped off, determined to walk, and there were men with white bandages past their elbows and knees who were crying with pain at the thought of touching their limbs. Their arms pointing upwards, as though still in shock at the empty horizon. We pressed the crowd back.

  One survivor: I was froze for two days and now I’m on fire.

  Another: I’m so tired my eyes are falling together.

  The men were ready to talk. Their gaunt heads and white hands. They described the wind and snow lifting off the white surfaces of the ice. Two crews watching as Abram Kean’s Stephano vanished in the squall. You could still see her smoke. Then they walked away from this ship, as ordered by Kean himself. To kill seals and get back aboard the Newfoundland. But where were the seals? And where was the Newfoundland?

  The dead men were laid out in the basement of the King George Institute. The corpses were covered in sheets along theatre chairs and on the floor of an empty swimming pool. They brought bathtubs from all over St John’s. Nurses were thawing the bodies in tubs of warm water. Their knitted caps still frozen to their foreheads. In one tub they were coaxing the thawed seal pelt away from the dead man. Yes, thawing allows the human to return.

  And near them, in the seal-oil factory, men were skinning thick layers of fat from seal hide. Billy Winsor’s catch of whitecoats and older seals — the ones buttoned up the back — and large adult hood seals. The hide, Bartlett said, is sent to England to be worked up into leather. The fat ground up, steam-cooked, refined, and then sunned in glass-roofed tanks until it becomes pure, white, tasteless, and odourless: oil for soap.

  In my hotel room I read a special edition of the Telegram. Now the paper’s first few pages were no longer devoted to the advertising of Smallwood’s chrome tan wellingtons (light as a feather, tight as a cup) or Sunlight soap at T. J. Edens. The front page, under a large black headline, spoke of the Bellaventure’s arriving in St John’s with the bodies of the Newfoundland, of Arthur English’s account of his time on the ice. There was a photograph of George Tuff being helped off the Bellaventure, and there in amongst the heads of the men, my own face, mine and Bob Bartlett’s.

  55

  Bartlett was angry at Coaker. He should know better, he said. Coaker’s blaming Abram Kean. Kean could do nothing. Kean thought the men were safe. The problem was not Kean’s arrogance or his lack of thought for the men, Bartlett explained. The problem was that the ship had no wireless. Political, Coaker makes it all political.

  But isnt that an indication of the captain’s lack of concern for the men?

  Wireless is an expensive addition, Kent.

  And its main purpose, I said, is perhaps to notify other ships of the welfare and whereabouts of their men?

  This is true, Kent. But to say it the way Coaker is, it’s as though Kean meant to do harm to those men.

  Negligence is the charge, I believe.

  Then I believe Kean did what was right and is certainly following precedent. Misfortune is what it is.

  I thought Bartlett was misguided. I waved him off, though, with a feeling of loyalty and deep affection. Bartlett could delay no longer. He had his own men to rescue, and he was leaving sunken and serious. I gave him fifty dollars. It was my mother’s money. Put this towards something, I said. Youre a good man. His last words to me: Dont make a scene.

  I got my own supplies (fruit, nuts, lentils, and vegetables from T. J. Edens; photographic film from the Likeliness Shop) and headed back to the train station. I was early, so I stopped into the Anglican cathedral. Men were at work on the steps, a rope across and one red word: danger. I stepped across the rope. Inside, the organ. I’d heard the organ, it was the reason I went inside. And, regardless of the danger and the men at work, because the door was open. I like accepting unexpected invitations. Why? To avoid what I think is to happen next and to move myself into the unforeseen.

  Inside, some scaffolding and one iron ladder. The organ played “Ode to Joy.” There was a horn player. It was a strange tune in the face of mourning, but it felt oddly appropriate. There was just one man with a boy sitting in the pews, and I recognized the man’s profile. They were sitting in the front, the man’s legs out past the kneeler, his cane hooked over the pew. Leaning back and taking in the organ and the horn. It was William Coaker. I sat over to the side of them. He turned and saw me and nodded. My appearance is one of a foreigner. His shirt was undone at the neck and he was holding his brown tie folded in his hand in front of him. As if it were on a plate. It’s the horn what makes the organ beautiful, he said, turning around to face me.

  I introduced myself. Yes, he said. I’ve heard of you. The painter out in Brigus. I told him I admired him, his organizing the fishermen. That I was a socialist too, and an atheist, and believed in the struggle for labour. He was pleased to hear it, except for the atheism. A little inappropriate to say that here, he said.

  But this is not the place to discuss business either, he said. Not in front of the boy.

  I stayed on an extra day and visited Coaker at the offices of the Fisheries Protective Union. I showed him the letter of introduction from Rufus Weeks. That did not impress him. He gave me pamphlets to distribute to the men in Brigus. There are many men, he said, to form a cadre. Get Marten Edwards and George Browiny. Talk to Tony Loveys and George Clarke’s family. A grieving family is always useful. Even Patrick Fardy. A one-legged man adds depth to a movement, though I adm
it he’s pretty useless.

  A cadre. Coaker was harder than I thought, but I admired his resolve. As I took the train back to Brigus, even I felt exhilarated by this new responsibility.

  56

  I would wear red socks, if red socks were plentiful or cheap or readily available. I would buy them and wear them. I thought this as I happily pulled on my cream wool socks. I opened the door to the grey day, a man wearing nothing but a pair of socks. This is the thing about eccentrics: they do not spend time looking for red socks. They may decide to wear them, but they are absent-minded. I stretched up and stroked the wooden painted breast on my figurehead.

  57

  By the fifth of April the Southern Cross was officially given up for lost. Precisely one month before, she had left Brigus on her way to the Gulf. The harbour had been clogged with slob ice and a hawser was winched out and the men, like a tug-o’-war, heaved the ship through the ice. The men had given thanks and I remembered how I wished I could have been with them. I wanted to be with those Brigus boys. There was a good chance the Southern Cross would have been first home, and that was what had sunk them. They probably went down while George Clarke was figuring out how to fly her all flags. He gambled with the greed and pride of being first. Weighed down with seals they struck a hard storm.

  The people of Brigus grieved for their eight lost men and boys, and then they exhaled and entered the world again. They opened doors and shook one another and tried to discover what could be done now with eight of their best gone for good.

  58

  One dead man did return to Brigus — Miles Sweeney. He had died from a fall on the Nascopi. Miles had hit his head. He was put in a rough coffin made of narrow spruce boards, the seams of the box caulked with oakum and then pitched. One of the crew had prepared the body. The body was washed and clean clothes put on it. Coarse salt was packed around it. The shroud kept the salt in place. Gauze was laid on the face and a pint of rum poured over it. Then the shroud was sewn up from head to heels. The body put in the box and this placed on deck to remain there until the ship reached St John’s, when it was passed on to the undertakers.

  59

  There was an assumption that the big ships were permanent, like a hill. One man might fall off or break his leg or freeze or drown. Fishermen were used to men in dories and small boats disappearing, even a schooner. But a steamer, even a wooden wall like the Southern Cross, promised some kind of permanent rigging on the ocean. There was something urban in a steamer, something of the New World that shunned the savagery of small things run on human power.

  60

  I watched April pass in mourning. I wrote to Kathleen that the town seemed dumbfounded. The Dobie boy was treated as though it were not conceivable for him to be alive. As though people forgot momentarily that Tom had not been on the Southern Cross, that the rest werent back with him, that he had sold his berth to Rose Foley’s son. There was resentment that he had stayed to help the American, even when he gave Rose Foley back her son’s five dollars. It was unfair. The absence of the men was hard to fill in. There was no satisfying story to explain it. There were no witnesses.

  Thomas Connors, captain of the Portia, was the last to sight the Southern Cross, off Cape Pine. He came to Brigus. There was a town-hall meeting. She answered the Portia’s whistle, Captain Connors said. She answered it and he figured George Clarke would head her into St Mary’s bay. But the storm, the high bulwarks, the heavy load, and the low-mounted engine. An act of God, they called it.

  I stood up. I cannot let that remark go unchallenged. Acts of God, I said, are often an excuse to explain away human disregard.

  That made people listen. They turned to me. I stared at Captain Connors and could sense these white faces turning to see who was talking.

  It is the nature in which this hunt is run, I said. That is the problem. The priority is seals. The priority is profit for the sealing captains. George Clarke was only following orders. He was beholden to the merchants here in Brigus and in St John’s. He had to be first home. He disregarded the welfare of his men. If only there had been a telegraph system aboard the Southern Cross, but the reason is, it’s too expensive. And the only reason to have wireless is to signal the state of the crew. This tragedy would not have occurred, I said, if the fishermen were unionized. If they had a say in how the hunt was run. I have pamphlets.

  I shook my yellow leaflets.

  This caused much muttering and confusion.

  Are you calling George Clarke to blame?

  The man is dead.

  Butterfly wings, one man said. Referring to the leaflets.

  Patrick Fardy stood up on his crutches and came over to me. His bald head was sweating. He put a finger to my neck. Just watch what youre saying. He looked ready to ask me outside.

  Thomas Connors continued as though I hadnt spoken. The Kyle, the Seneca, and the Fiona, he said, were all out looking for her. The Bloodhound had spotted a mass of debris ninety miles off Cape Broyle, but all hope was not yet lost. He made it sound like this searching for evidence was an example of the care given to sealers. He wished all the grieving families his prayers and optimism. When he finished men came up to him to shake his hand.

  Nothing else was heard of the Southern Cross. Later in the summer there were reports of planks, pelts, and wreckage off the coast of Ireland. But they were just reports.

  61

  I wrote to William Coaker and told him of my mistake. He wired me back three cryptic words: CHECK AND MATE. I got the message when I went to the wireless office for news of my tools. I felt bad inquiring about them in the midst of these deaths. I felt my resistance was frivolous and yet I would wake up at night and think about that box with my father’s tools and realize it was the sole important object in my life. Kathleen had sent them steamer freight a solid two months before and now I learned from the shipping agent, George Browiny, of their demise. In the storm that had caused the deaths and disappearances of so many, the Sydney had run a reef in fog off Halifax.

  Yes, so a delay. How long a delay.

  George Browiny: I wouldnt call it a delay, sir. The freighter’s sunk.

  I understand that. I am interested only in my tool chest.

  It is completely sunk. Everything on board gone. We have nine steamers and three wooden walls gone without a trace.

  He was looking behind me at Niner Harris, next in line.

  I dont want everything on board, I said.

  All cargo is on the harbour floor, sir. It’s been some awful bad weather.

  If the cargo is on the bottom of the harbour, then it has hardly disappeared without a trace.

  Oh they know right where she’s to.

  Well then I want someone to salvage it.

  Look, Mr Kent. There are two hundred men lost at sea out there. The men and women in line here are looking for fresh word. There are small boats astray. There are cousins and uncles and children and mothers, all out of whack. Do you really want me to tie up the lines for a tool box.

  They are my father’s tools, with insurance.

  Well, sir, you’ll have to do without them I’d say.

  Cable Halifax. Put up a twenty-dollar reward.

  What a fuss for a box. Your insurance —

  Good money for a box on the bottom of the ocean. They were my father’s tools. They are of German manufacture. You dont find tools like that.

  George Browiny: A man should not travel too heavy.

  Just put up the reward and shut up about it.

  When I left the wireless office, I regretted my rudeness. I had wanted to ask George about a union. I thought a man in his position, a shipping agent, could help be a leader to fishermen. When I turned around I saw Niner Harris and Tony Loveys and George Clarke’s wife, all waiting for word on their relatives. But I had lost my tools — my father’s tools, forged in a Stuttgart foundry from the hardest steel in the world. The tennis court was there, it just meant playing with snow up to your hips. My cottage was a sieve for drafts and my coal w
as under four feet of snow. Bartlett was gone. The monthly cheque from Charles Daniel was late. The food was bad. I was alone and damp and tired of winter. I wanted my family. My wife. My children.

  MIDDLE

  EventsToo Bad Are Good

  Events too bad are good. And one may some day learn, in honoring those factors that have made us men, to put the last straw first.

  — Rockwell Kent

  N by E, 1930

  1

  They had heard of my wife and they had heard of children. There were the other stories too. I had made my stand for a union, so people, naturally, had a desire to talk. These people had long lines of communication. Stories that had come from the post office and from the railroad station. But there was anticipation about the arrival of Kathleen.

  Kathleen made my New York friends uncomfortable. She was a shy woman with a sensual presence. She looked about a room and sought out how she could help. She often did the chores she disliked doing, assuming that others disliked them as well. This is a strength of character. But in the long run, after a stay of several days, she bored my friends. Men are attracted to beauty and a sensual nature, but they do not want to be trapped by it. They appreciated her manners: she was a woman who made her bed in the morning, especially if she was a guest. Gerald said he hardly knew she’d spent the night. She left no evidence. She was an animal in that way, but out of politeness and embarrassment of her own functions. Kathleen was not a person to relax when a room was full of conversation. She seemed oblivious to silence. She was inward, but she held an enigmatic charm, an honesty that people wished to cultivate and preserve. People like the idea of the Kathleen Kents of this world existing as testaments to integrity. And there she was to answer for the greatest betrayal. I had asked her to decide for us. I had relinquished control of my future, this in the eye of a God I had rejected. But my God rested more on an ethical standard. I clung tenaciously to the desire to do good, and the only good was for Kathleen’s will to be done.