The Curve of Time

by M. Wylie Blanchet

  So we sat on the beach with these friends, happy and contented, telling them all about our summer trip. Then we talked about Princess Louisa, and they said that someday they must see it. And I said, how about taking a quick trip up there now? I had only the two boys on board then, so there was plenty of room. It took them just ten minutes to decide, and by lunch time they and their two children were on board with us and we were off. Some friends are so satisfactory. You may not agree with them in everything or anything, but it doesn’t matter. You like each other just as you are. It is the contact and rubbing up against other ideas that is stimulating and rewarding.

  We had left too late in the day to get the whole way up Jervis that night. But we found a little corner in Goliath Bay, just out of Agamemnon Channel, where they could put up their tent.

  The weather was still sunny the next morning, but we could see the clouds massing round the peaks to the north-east. There was no wind, which was very nice, but the farther we pushed our way into the mountains, the lower the clouds settled.

  By the time we reached the entrance to Louisa it had begun to drizzle, and we had to tie up for a while until the tide turned to let us through.

  As we sat with the mountains all glooming round us, I told them of the effects that Louisa Inlet had on some people: such a strong feeling of claustrophobia that they would not stay in overnight. Fishermen have told me that nothing would induce them to tie up in Louisa in the winter time, on account of the rock slides and avalanches.

  One man told a tale of going through the entrance just before dark one winter’s afternoon, to get out of the wind that was blowing hard down from the head of Jervis. In the inlet you can’t anchor out in the middle, it is too deep. So you can’t avoid being near the cliffs. He had tied his boat to a snag on the shore of the rock-flat just inside the entrance. Then he put out a stern anchor to hold him off the shore.

  Around ten o’clock the wind rose to a gale—accompanied at times by thunder and lightning. He was reasonably protected from the wind where he was, until the williwaws started blowing down on him from above. These winds can blow over and down from the top of the mountains with enough force to break a deck in.

  He was settling down for a night’s watch, not attempting to go to bed, when the first avalanche came, soon followed by others. He could hear the great shock and splash of them above the roar of the wind. Then the lightning got brighter and showed up what before he had not been able to see....

  An avalanche of mixed snow and rock fell right beside him, covering the boat with salt spray and snow. Giving his boat up for lost, he turned to his own survival. Frantically, he pulled the boat closer to the shore by the bowline. He jumped...missed by a couple of feet. Waist deep in the freezing water he clawed his way up the slippery rocks, losing his flashlight somewhere in the effort.

  Now in the pitch dark, by each flash of lightning, head down into the wind, he made his way in spurts across the rock-flat to the Jervis Inlet end of the rapids, where an old German had a cabin. Finally he made his pounding heard above the noise of the storm, and stumbled into old Casper’s cabin. Old Casper stood up there holding up a candle, his hair standing straight up on end; his ten cats crowding around him—equally electrified. The candle blew out, and the fisherman said you could see the electricity playing all round them. In the morning they found the boat adrift, but still floating, with her cabin completely flat under a fall of rock and snow.

  I was eyeing the cliffs too, when I finished the story. Then the tide turned and we went through. I had wanted them to see Louisa at its best, and all I could show them was the dim outline of where the high lip of the cliffs ended and the sky began. But extra waterfalls had started up all along the mile-high cliffs, and hung like white ribbons trailing in the water.

  We rounded the overhanging cliff, and there were the big falls throwing themselves twice the distance usual in the summer. And the roar came out to meet us soon after we turned the cape.

  It was raining harder now and the whole place was closing in. Trapper’s Rock was out of the question. I didn’t know if the Man from California would still be there. But even if he weren’t, he had a big woodshed that would hold the over-flow from the boat for one night.

  He was there—and there had been no boats in for two weeks. If we waited an extra day and gave him a chance to pack up for the winter, he would go down with us. He insisted on our all staying up at the cabin with him, so we carted up our sleeping bags and our box of provisions and settled down happily in front of the big fireplace. The great fall shouted and moaned. Every now and then there would be a heavy thud, which our host said was when the waterfall threw boulders out ahead of it.

  It was the next day after lunch that John fell over the balcony that ran across in front of the upstairs bedrooms above the fireplace. We were busy washing up in the kitchen, so nobody knows just what did happen. He and the other children were playing around upstairs and generally fooling. He probably fell on the floor as someone chased him, and slid through under the one high rail down onto the floor below.

  There was that horrible soft thud, and a shout from above. We all knew exactly what it was....I suppose we all had the same desperate selfish wish, “Oh, not mine?” as we crowded into the room.

  John lay on the floor, gasping for breath....He had just missed the heavy log arm of the end of the chesterfield. A minute later, while I was still not daring to move him, he sat up and moved each arm. “Not broken,” he gasped. Then he looked up at the antlers above the fireplace, “Lucky I missed those!” Then he was violently sick...bringing up a certain amount of blood as well.

  We carried him upstairs and got him into bed. He continued to be sick every half-hour—and always there were traces of blood. Then I suddenly realized that the vomiting could very well be just from shock with a highly strung child. So I started filling him up with corn syrup. In a couple of hours that took effect and he fell asleep. I began to wonder then if he had really landed on his head and had a slight concussion....

  I tiptoed out and crept downstairs. I drank a good stiff drink, and then we discussed what it was best to do. It was pouring rain outside and blowing hard—and the falls were roaring and prophesying doom. We were sixty miles from a doctor and help, and in this wind it would be a very rough trip down.

  They said it was up to me—and I decided that it would be better just to keep him in bed for another day. If more serious symptoms appeared, and the wind did not abate, then we would have to think of fighting our way down, or one of the men might go in my boat and come back with the doctor in a bigger boat. We could always change our minds, but now we would wait and see.

  I crept up every half-hour to look at John, and still he slept—moaning a little whenever he moved. He woke up later and I gave him more syrup. One thing that worried me was the way he kept his head turned sideways, and pressed hard against his right shoulder.

  At ten o’clock he was feverish....He had a restless night, moaning and talking in his sleep. I was up every hour with him—bathing his hands and face, coaxing down a little more syrup, worrying about his head on his shoulder. Then about four in the morning he must have slept more quietly, for I fell asleep too and it was eight o’clock before we woke up. He no longer seemed to be feverish and I breathed more easily. I persuaded him to try to eat some breakfast. But he wanted very little.

  It was still blowing and raining, and I could see no reason for changing the plan of waiting until the next day. He felt better after eating some lunch, and was interested in my reading to him. Then everybody came up to see him and looked at his crooked head against his shoulder. He wouldn’t let anyone touch it, and all we could get out of him was that he liked it that way.

  We had everything packed and ready to leave the next day, though with John obviously better we decided to wait until the wind dropped. The tide at the entrance would be slack at nine.

  There was no wind in the morning, and although it was dull, the rain had stopped. John ate his break
fast, and we carried him down to the boat and rolled him up in blankets on one of the bunks. We were relieved on rounding Patrick Point to find that all was quiet in the main part of the inlet. No one was anxious to face a rough sea all day with a sick child.

  There is a little hospital at Pender Harbour, and we made straight for it as soon as we anchored, only to find that the doctor was away and would not be back for a week.

  So we parted with the Man from California and went on down to Thormanby Island, where a doctor I knew had a summer cottage. The doctor’s wife was there, but he was down in Vancouver.

  It blew again the next day and I couldn’t get my friends back to their home—twenty-five miles farther down the coast....It was hard to keep John quiet on a crowded boat, and our food was running short. The caretaker on the island said that he could flag the weekly boat, which should be in at five o’clock, though we couldn’t count on the time. Our friends decided that it would be better for them to go home by the boat and leave me free to cross the gulf as soon as the weather cleared.

  The boat didn’t whistle until after seven—we piled into the dinghy and rowed out in the dark. The great menacing steamer lurched up against the anchored float—all the bay had as a wharf. They threw a rope down to us—and a gang plank was finally fixed at a precarious angle and my friends clambered on board. It was not until the men at the boat end of the rope yelled at me two or three times that I realized I was supposed to cast off the steamer. I finally managed to free her and she faded away, leaving me alone on a spinning raft with all my sense of direction gone.

  I waited until the raft settled down in its normal position and groped my way to the dinghy. I had left my flashlight on board with the boys, in case they might be nervous alone there.

  I tried to get straight back to the boat—but it was so dark I might have been going in circles. Then I saw the blink-blink-blink of a little light off in the distance. It could be in quite the wrong direction, but I thought it was probably Peter trying to see if I were coming—so I rowed towards it. After ten minutes more rowing, I hailed...and Peter shouted in reply.

  “Did you see our S O S?” they asked when I got within talking distance. “We didn’t like being marooned.”

  It was blowing again the next day, and I felt that we were never going to get home. The day after, it was too unsettled to start in the morning. But after lunch it was quiet. I decided to start and get as far as Lasqueti Island for the night. It was a longer way, but at least we should be half-way across the gulf.

  The little hole on the south-east end of Lasqueti is very small and sometimes quite hard to find. There is a small float to tie up to, but no room to anchor. There were two fish-boats already there when we arrived. They made room for us and helped us tie up. They thought if we left at six in the morning we could get across before anything very much blew up.

  If I hadn’t been so anxious to get home to find out why John’s head was on crooked, I don’t suppose I would have left. It wasn’t actually blowing at six, but it looked as though it was going to. A west wind doesn’t usually start up until around nine or later. This one began at seven. It waited until we were half-way across. The tide was flooding, and in the stretch between the Ballenas and Lasqueti, wind against tide creates a nasty tide rip which gets worse as you near the other side. So I had to turn down the gulf with the wind more on our tail, steering for the little group of islands where the fishermen had showed us the emergency anchorage.

  A following sea is the most upsetting to be in. John was sick again, and all my fears came crowding back. I couldn’t have put his life jacket on over that head either. Peter, I could see, didn’t like it much, and I couldn’t produce a whistle to calm their fears. I couldn’t leave the wheel to help John, and it wasn’t safe to let him lean over the edge. Peter gave him a tin and he had to manage by himself.

  In about another hour we were out of the rip. It was blowing harder, but with a different kind of wave. Then down the narrow passage, and finally into that blessed little haven.

  The wind shimmered across the water in sudden sweeps, but there was no sea. We anchored and made ourselves a good breakfast, and with the heat from the stove got all warm and dry again. John felt better and the sun came out.

  It was blowing very hard now from the west, and there was no question of going on until the wind dropped. We landed on one of the low islands that compose the group—very low with such a high tide. The whole gulf was one vast expanse of white caps—racing and galloping along. We were so close to the surface that it made you feel that the island was doing the rocking.

  We got home the next day after lunch and I raced John right over to the doctor before we even changed. The doctor asked a lot of questions and looked at his head and felt around his shoulder. Then he said to John, “It’s all right, old chap, you can lift your head up now—it won’t hurt anymore.”

  John warily lifted his head up straight. “Why it’s all better,” he smiled. “It doesn’t hurt now, isn’t that good!”

  “He had a broken collar-bone,” the doctor explained, “and he has been holding himself the only way it didn’t hurt—a doctor couldn’t have done any more for him.” Then he made me feel the ridge of bone that had already built up around the fracture. No need now for even a sling. The blood, he explained, had probably been a broken blood-vessel. The vomiting, certainly shock, and I had done the right thing to stop it.

  Well...! We were not used to those kind of troubles. If we had had more of them, I suppose, I wouldn’t have been so upset.

  A WHALE...NAMED HENRY

  THE “COAST PILOT” AT TIMES EITHER TERRIFIES US OR else gets us into trouble. Quite naturally, I suppose; for they have big vessels in mind—and what does or doesn’t do for a big vessel isn’t always right for the little boat. That is where the local inhabitants are a help. One of them says to us: “Oh, you don’t have to do that—you can take a short cut. See that island? Follow it down until you come to the old sawmill. Then line the sawmill up with the three maples on the low point, about a mile down on the opposite shore. Follow that line—and it will lead you through the reefs and kelp. After you reach the maples, it’s all clear. Save you about five miles, and you won’t have to wait for slack at the narrows.”

  We follow instructions—it doesn’t look anything like a mill, but there are squared timbers on the ground and the remains of a roof. Then we look along the far shore, until off in the distance we spot the three maples. We steer across on the long angle....Someone shouts “Rocks!” but they are to one side and not on the line. If we follow instructions and don’t question them, we never get into trouble in using the local short cuts.

  The Coast Pilot, speaking of Sechelt Inlet, says: “Three miles within its entrance, it contracts to a breadth of less than one-third of a mile, and is partially choked with rocks and small islands which prevent in great measure the free ingress and egress of the tide, causing the most furious and dangerous rapids, the roar of which can be heard for several miles.” These rapids, whose maximum velocity is from ten to twelve knots, “prevent any boat from entering the inlet except for very short periods at slack water.” Then it adds that “It would be hazardous for any boat, except a very small one, to enter at any time.”

  Well, we were a very small boat, thoroughly terrified by the Pilot book, and we were creeping cautiously along on the far side—listening for the roar. When we heard it, we supposed that we should have to wait for it to stop, and then we would get through.

  “Just like Henry,” breathed Peter and John, all excited. Someone, three or four years ago, had told me a true story about a blackfish or killer whale that had gone through Skookumchuck Rapids into the inlet, and couldn’t find his way out again. He was evidently in there for a couple of years. All the tugboat men knew him. When they tooted their whistles the whale always appeared, hoping they would show him the way out.

  Only last winter Peter and John and I had been sitting in front of the big fireplace trying to think of a
book to read aloud. Books to read aloud are much harder to find than just books to read. Finally, I suggested that if the three of us put our heads together, we should be able to write one for ourselves. Peter and John took this literally and their heads came bang—against mine. Peter shouted, “Contact!” and John said, “Sparks!” and up came, of all things, a blackfish.

  I sat there holding my head. What on earth had made me think of a blackfish, which is just a local name for a killer whale? The only one I had ever given a second thought to was of course the one that had gone through the Skookumchuck and couldn’t find his way out again—it always rather intrigued me. But who would ever try to write a story about a whale!

  I had to stop thinking. Peter kept asking, “What have you got?” And John, very eagerly, “What did you see?” and I was feeling more and more reluctant to tell them. I finally suggested that we try it again, just to make sure, and then I would tell them.

  “Well, we’ll do it harder this time,” warned Peter. And they did.

  “Contact!” cried Peter, expectantly.

  “Sparks!” said John, in a very deep voice, as though he thought the stronger the sparks, the better the results.

  And there again—only worse—much more definite. In words—“Up the coast there lived a whale—named Henry.”

  So, in despair, I had to tell them. There was a pause, and John, always ready to make the best of a thing like that, cried excitedly, “And he could be sick and throw up ‘amber-grease’ and we could find it!”

  And Peter said scornfully, “Don’t be silly, he wouldn’t do that. And anyway, this is to be a story, and he’s going to have a’ventures.”

  Peter and John finally went to bed, and I sat there alone—perfectly miserable, with a whale—named Henry—on my hands. I thought of trying to get rid of him, but it was too late for that—I even knew what he looked like. Beyond that I knew nothing; and I stuck at that point for ages. Then, one night, when there was still nothing to read, John started to cry....”Well, put the period at the end,” he sobbed; “that will be something anyway.”