Submarine Outlaw
Page 1
SUBMARINE OUTLAW
Copyright © 2008 Philip Roy
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, or, in Canada, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency).
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Ronsdale Press wishes to thank the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council for their support of its publishing program.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Roy, Philip, 1960–
Submarine outlaw / Philip Roy.
print ISBN 978-1-55380-058-3
audio book ISBN 978-1-55380-068-2
ebook ISBN 978-1-55380-145-0
pdf ISBN 978-1-55380-195-5
I. Title.
PS8635.O91144S83 2008 jC813'.6 C2008-900529-5
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Printed in Canada by Marquis Printing, Quebec
for Thomas
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Ronald Hatch for his direction and diligence and Veronica Hatch for choosing Alfred in the first place. Many thanks also to the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, where dedicated people are gathered to help aspiring writers. Thanks to Jane Buss, who is a beacon in the Canadian writing community. And thanks in particular to my mother, Ellen Roy, for her unfailing love and support.
Table of Contents
Cover
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
About the Author
Chapter One
I never dreamed of being an outlaw.
Growing up in Dark Cove, a tiny fishing village in northern Newfoundland, I dreamed of far away places and exciting adventures. My grandfather thought differently. He told me I’d be a fisherman when I grew up, just like everybody else.
“What do you do exactly?” I asked.
“Well . . . we get up early,” he said. “That’s the first thing. And we have fish for breakfast. That’s always a good idea. Then we go down to the wharf and start the motors and check the oil and discuss the weather and decide where to fish that day.”
“And then?”
“And then we go out and fish.”
“How long do you fish?”
“All day. Then we come back, put the fish in the ice house, hang up the nets, clean up the boats and go home.”
“And then?”
“Then we have supper. Usually fish. Sometimes fish cakes. Once in a while your grandmother makes a great fish stew.”
“Then what do you do?”
“We sit around the kitchen and talk about the day.”
“Like what?”
“Oh . . . the weather, the sea, how many fish we caught that day.”
“And the next day?”
“The next day’s the same.”
“And the next?”
“The same. It’s pretty much always the same. You’ll see soon enough. Don’t worry, you’ll make a good fisherman. It’s in your blood.”
All night I tossed and turned. In the morning I went to see my grandfather.
“I don’t want to be a fisherman,” I said.
“What? Of course you do. It’s in your blood.”
“I don’t think it’s in my blood. I can’t feel it.”
My grandfather laughed.
“It’s not something you can feel. It just is.”
“But I feel something else in my blood.”
“Do you now? What’s that?”
“I think I am an explorer.”
“An explorer?”
“Yes.”
“Gee, I think everything is pretty much explored already.”
“Really?”
“I think so.”
“The whole world?”
“Yup, I think so. Except maybe the ocean.”
I went down to the beach and skipped some rocks and stared at the ocean. It didn’t make sense to be an explorer if everything had already been explored. But surely there were jungles never seen before. And deserts. Surely there were mountains no one had climbed and plains no one had crossed and islands no one had set foot upon.
Surely there were creatures no one had ever seen — like three-legged beasts and seven-legged bugs. After all, if a snake had one leg, a monkey two, a dog four, a starfish five, a ladybug six and an octopus eight, why wouldn’t there be creatures with three and seven legs? I mean, there were birds that swam under water, fish that flew, pigs that lived underground and frogs that lived in trees. Who could say that everything had been discovered? Besides, my grandfather was only a fisherman, not an explorer. Perhaps only an explorer could believe in things not yet found.
I climbed the hill, crossed the woods and passed the junkyard. It was owned by Ziegfried, an angry man, twice the size of the biggest fisherman. It was said he was so mean he couldn’t even keep a junkyard dog — they were too afraid of him. I always wondered how he stayed in business if he was so mean. But the junkyard was a treasure-hunter’s paradise. I could stare at it through a hole in the fence for hours.
I wandered over to the fence to take a peek. There, in the midst of piles of junk, I saw something that would change my life. I couldn’t see the whole of it, just one corner, but it was round, smooth, black and beautiful. A submarine! A small one. I twisted my head to get a better look. I moved to another crack in the fence but it wasn’t any better. In desperation I pulled the board back and forth, until it came away from the fence altogether. Now I could see, but there were still piles of junk in the way. I poked my head through and looked around. It was dead silent. Not a soul in sight. I squeezed through the fence and crept across the junkyard towards the submarine.
“Halt!” boomed a voice. “Or I’ll blow you to smithereens!”
I froze.
“Please don’t shoot me!”
I turned my head just enough to see that the gun Ziegfried was holding was actually a broom.
“What the heck are you doing?” he yelled. “This is private property. Get out quick or I’ll blow you
to smithereens!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just wanted to take a closer look at the submarine.”
“Submarine? What submarine? There’s no submarine here, boy. You must be dreaming. Now, hit the road!”
I started towards the fence. Turning, I pointed to the submarine.
“That submarine.” He looked over.
“What? That? That’s no submarine. That’s just an old oil tank. Boy, you’ve got some imagination. Hah!”
I stared at the tank. It had looked so much like a submarine. I climbed out through the fence, but my imagination got the better of me and I stuck my head back in.
“What would it take to turn it into a submarine?”
“What? Turn that old tank into a submarine?”
Ziegfried made the strangest face. His brow tightened, his eyes narrowed and his mouth twisted to one side as his brain went to work. He began to list off things it would take.
“Well . . . a motor, for starters. Maybe a light diesel engine.”
“Like a boat engine?”
“No . . . too noisy and heavy. A submarine has to be quiet.”
I nodded, though I really had no idea.
“Then . . . a keel, rudder, stabilizing fins, portal, propeller. Ai yi yi.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Let’s see . . . batteries, sonar system, depth gauges, insulation, air compressors, sleeping quarters, heating, air-conditioning. Heavens . . . !”
He stared at the tank feverishly while his mind continued to count what was needed.
I stepped back in.
“How long would it take?”
“What?”
The question broke his concentration, and he had to start all over again.
“Oh. Let’s see . . .”
There was a long pause. And then, “Three years. Maybe four.”
“Three years!”
My heart sank. I would be fifteen then. It seemed like a lifetime. Who could wait so long?
“Or longer,” he said. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“On many things.”
I suddenly realized how foolish I had been. I had thought an old tank was a submarine, or could become one in just a few months. It was the first time I realized I had been completely unrealistic. Nothing had ever made me feel so much like a child before. Now I had to wonder about my other beliefs. Were they unrealistic too? Should I just accept becoming a fisherman like my grandfather? Before I could think about it too much, Ziegfried said something wonderful.
“Well . . . I need to put some things down on paper. You’d better come back tomorrow.”
“Come back tomorrow?”
He nodded and walked away, deep in thought.
I couldn’t believe it. I climbed back through the fence. Suddenly something occurred to me. I stuck my head inside again.
“My name is Alfred.”
“Ziegfried.”
“I can’t pay you anything,” I yelled.
Without turning around, he yelled back, “I can’t pay you anything either.”
Chapter Two
The next day I walked through the front entrance, past the “Beware Guard Dogs” sign. I knew there were no dogs. Besides, I had been invited; there was no reason to be afraid. And yet, I was a little. Ziegfried was such a large man with such a ferocious temper. At least that’s what people said.
There was a plain house in the front. The junkyard had grown up around it. I came to the door and knocked. When Ziegfried opened the door I saw and heard birds, dozens of them, squawking and chirping and jumping around in their cages like monkeys. Ziegfried didn’t keep junkyard dogs; he kept junkyard birds.
He stood in the doorway with a puzzled look, as if he had completely forgotten why I was there. Instead of saying hello, he just blurted out, “A Beetle!”
“A Beetle?” I said. “What’s that?”
“An engine.”
He grabbed his coat and started across the junkyard without waiting for me to follow.
“A Volkswagen engine,” said Ziegfried. “That’s what we want. It’s small, efficient and easy to repair. I have lots of them.”
I caught up and walked beside him. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. We passed the oil tank and I noticed he had cleared junk away. At the far end was a row of Volkswagens, some on top of others. Some had no windshields or tires. Ziegfried went to the back of one.
“Isn’t the engine in the front?”
He looked at me strangely.
“Not in a Beetle.”
He lifted the back hood.
“It’s a tight little engine. If we pack insulation around it we can quiet it down some. But we need batteries, and another backup, for emergencies. Do you ride a bicycle?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We can rig a bicycle gear to the drive shaft . . . in case the engine breaks down or you run out of gas.”
“Oh. Is that a lot of work?”
He turned and looked right into my eyes. For the first time I saw that he was really a very different person from what his voice and size suggested. Beneath his bushy eyebrows his eyes were soft and tender.
“Everything is a lot of work. But what else are we here for, eh, if not to work?”
He made a sweeping gesture over the junkyard.
“What is the point of all of this, eh, if we don’t put it to work?”
“I guess so.”
“Good then. We will begin by pulling the engine out of this Beetle. Okay?”
“Okay!”
So we rolled a tripod to the Beetle and Ziegfried showed me how to disconnect the motor and hoist it into the air and swing it onto a trolley. We pushed the trolley across the yard into a shed and hoisted the motor onto a workbench.
“Good. Now we take apart everything that comes apart, clean it and put it back together. Got it?”
“Got it.”
I learned more about engines that day than I thought I ever would in a lifetime. But as interesting as the engine was itself, and all the tools we used, the most fascinating thing was watching Ziegfried work. In our village all the people worked with their hands, one way or another, but I had never seen anyone work like this. It was as if his hands were performing a ballet. They never moved quickly and never lingered in one place but were always in motion — smooth, steady and confident — like dancers on a stage. And they continued dancing even when his head was occupied elsewhere, as if they had a mind of their own. Ziegfried said there was nothing so smooth as a clean, well-greased motor, but I didn’t think any motor could ever match the rhythmical precision of his hands at work.
After several hours that flew by like minutes, he said it was time to feed his friends. I knew he meant the birds.
“Can you come back tomorrow?”
I nodded.
“This is my summer vacation. I can come every day.”
“Good. There is a lot of work to do.”
He turned to a sink, splashed green soap over his hands, washed them and went into his house. He never said goodbye and never looked back. I watched him go. Then I went to the sink and did exactly the same. I walked out through the gate and headed home. I was so happy I thought I could fly.
Over the summer we replaced parts in the motor and got it running so smoothly it was almost singing. We cut holes in the tank for the portal, air and water valves, drive shaft and observation window. Ziegfried cut the holes with a welding torch and I filed the edges smooth. It really was a lot of work. My arms and shoulders ached terribly and I noticed muscles developing on my arms and belly. My appetite doubled, then tripled.
Once the holes were cut I climbed inside with a flashlight. It was filthy. I felt discouraged. I couldn’t imagine it ever being clean enough to ride in. Ziegfried laughed and assured me it would be.
“Don’t worry. Once we scrub her out and line her with cedar she’ll smell like a lady in church. You’ll see. But that’s a ways off yet. There’s a lot of ground to cover first.”
>
Was there ever! In fact, the work was really endless. But it was usually interesting. I was always learning new things and getting stronger. I was often on my own, rooting through piles of scrap for a gear or a flywheel or any number of bolts. But sometimes we worked at the same table and the work was quiet and we could talk. Those were my favourite times. Then I could ask questions. And sometimes he would.
“So, what do your parents think of your coming here every day?”
“I live with my grandparents. My mother died when I was born. I never knew her.”
“And your father?”
“He left when my mother died. I guess he didn’t want to be a fisherman either.”
“You don’t want to be a fisherman?”
“No. I want to be an explorer.”
“Good for you! There are too many fishermen and not enough explorers!”
One day I asked Ziegfried if he had ever been a fisherman.
“Heavens no! I’ve got a mortal fear of the sea. I don’t care how I die; I just don’t want to drown. How about you? I presume if you’re going to ride around in a submarine you’re not afraid of the water?”
“I love the ocean, and I’m not afraid of drowning.”
“Good thing. You know, it would be a good idea to practise diving the way pearl fishers do, and build up your lung capacity. They hold onto stones that pull them down quickly, and let go when they’re deep enough. It could save your life in an emergency. Do you think you could do that?”
“I’d love to do that!”
“Good. I’d go with you but . . .”
“I’m already used to diving for shells and coins and stuff.”
“Perfect! We can rig a line with markers every five feet to tell you where you are. Then you can practise until you’re an expert. By the time the submarine is ready you’ll be a fish.”
So we went through the junkyard and found a spool of cable a hundred feet long.
“It’s plenty. If you can dive half this deep, you’re doing pretty good.”
At home I asked my grandfather how deep the water was at the wharf.
“Oh, it must be pretty near thirty feet in places. Gets deeper as you go out. Why do you ask?”
“I’m just curious. How far out do you have to go to reach fifty feet?”