William saw to it that Jamie had a rope a quarter-inch in diameter and three fathoms long to tow his seals, a large sharpened knife, and a steel to sharpen it. “Keep your tools handy at all times,” he cautioned.
Jamie took a charcoal pencil and some paper scraps left from what William had used to mark out his models and pushed them inside a blue bottle. He jammed the cork tight and tested it in the water bucket in the porch. It bobbed along keeping to the surface. He made room for it beside a change of clothes and a red blanket. He hoped he wouldn’t get sealskin fingers. They’d be hard to heal and he wouldn’t be able to use his pencil and paper to sketch the Southern Cross with her pile of seal pelts.
William leaned against the door facing and looked toward his son as he pulled on a lined woollen cap and fisherman’s mitts. A cold feeling wrapped around him. Elizabeth, his only daughter, had gone far across the waters of Conception Bay. Now Jamie, his only son, was going to the danger floes. He couldn’t forget the night Mary Jane had awakened from a deep sleep calling weakly that Jamie was falling into the sea. Her strange premonition clung to him and held on. But then whenever he saw Jamie healthy and full of life, his arm slung around Maggie’s shoulder, the premonition drifted away like fog. Jamie would get married. He would farm and jig a season’s supply of fish to salt for the winter and on times he’d likely paint pictures. There’d be children.
William, now almost fifty-seven, had never been to the ice. He didn’t have the steadiness needed for sea legs. His eyes had a far-off look. “The Maleys have been here a long time, Jamie. You’re the last man in these parts to carry the name after me and me brothers. Don’t lose your life to a wooden boat or on icefields, where death always stalks a sealer’s life, lookin’ for his weakness.” He let out a heavy sigh. He didn’t let on that he was thinking about the 1898 seal hunt. Forty-eight men from the Greenland had died on the ice. Wind wraiths swept across the seascape caking the men in heavy, wet snow. The air like ice crystals stung them while their eyes under iced lashes stared into the blizzard trying to see the lights of their ship. Their warm blood chilled and their hearts stopped beating as they stood, knelt, crouched—did whatever they could to stay alive. Their faces froze in an expression of despair. Other sealers watched in horror as a relative tumbled off the ice and disappeared into the dark depths of the ocean.
Jamie drew in a deep breath as he strode up the rock path to the graveyard, pulled open the gate, and hurried to his mother’s grave covered in snow. The earth had been cut into, leaving scars the snow hid, scars grass would heal in spring. Hearts would take longer. “I’ll see you some day,” he said and felt a splash of tears on his face.
Maggie had come up the path in time to hear his last words. She felt an icy claw of apprehension down her back. Not too soon, please God.
He turned to her. “I’m packed and ready.” He squeezed her tight and she watched him hurry back to the house to claim the Labrador box.
Maggie had tried to talk Jamie out of going on the voyage. “Never mind the seal money,” she coaxed. “We’ll have love in a cottage.”
His mouth was set, determined. “Just this once.”
His father slipped a few coins into his hand. “Get the things you need. You’ve been a farmer. Now you’ll be a sealer. I’ll be home waitin’ for a flipper to grease me innards.”
They tried to make their goodbyes lighthearted. William cocked his eye and cautioned Jamie, “Mind the weather and stay with the other sealers. You don’t want to end up in England before your supper.”
Jamie laughed. “I think a few suppers would pass before I landed there.”
Jamie’s mind was on the wonderful time he would have standing on ice sparkling under the sun, thousands of crystal plates around him, many holding the coveted seals.
His father had one more caution as he clasped his son to his chest. “Watch the ship’s deck. When it’s aglitter with ice you’ll feel like you’re walkin’ on a floor of slippery eels.” His hand tightened into a fist against Jamie’s back. “Don’t be gettin’ big in your boots, me boy. You could come back with just yerself.”
Jamie pulled back and punched his father’s shoulder. “Go away with you. I’ll come back with money enough and a taste of seal meat to strengthen your blood.”
When Jamie went to say goodbye to his father’s family Joe looked at him and said, “We old fellars with our game legs would never stand up to the shifting ice, not like you young gaffers.”
Johnny threw him parting advice. “Oh, ’tis not good to be too confident, me son. Mischance can dig a hole in a full pocket.”
Maggie went with him to the end of the lane, one hand clutched in his while his other hand pulled his sea chest on its wooden wheels. She kissed him goodbye. “Come back to me,” she said.
He gave her an amused look. “And why wouldn’t I? Sure, you’re me very heart. The icefields may be a hundred miles from St. John’s but there’s no distance between our thoughts.” He teased, “You’ll be able to buy yourself a sealskin stole once I’m done on the ice.”
“The fur skins can warm the ladies in Europe,” she said. “I’ll have you to warm me.”
As soon as Jamie’s back was turned, Maggie ran after him for another hug. He dropped the strap on the Labrador box and cradled her in his arms. She drew in his scent and the feel of his face on hers. Loneliness washed over her as Jamie disappeared over the hill, distance lengthening between them. Her hand stayed lifted in goodbye after he had gone out of sight. A cold wind touched her face as she dropped her hand and turned back. Her thoughts followed Jamie. While you roam the icefields looking to have the warmth of coin in hand for our wedding you will live inside of me, in the warmth of me heart. She was suddenly reminded that March had come in like a lamb. She had heard it said that when it comes in like a lamb it goes out like a lion.
She hoped Jamie got home before the lion roared.
25
Jamie met up with several other young men going on the voyage, five of them his cousins. The Bussey boys included young Alfred, who was big for his age. From the time he could haul on a pair of rubber boots, stumbling awkwardly, he would run down on the stagehead to grab the painter of his father’s boat and try to fasten it. He was eager to grow up and be a fisherman like his big brothers Noah and Gordon. Other cousins were Joseph and Thomas. There were several Butlers, including Zachary, who appeared downhearted since Olivia Porter left to go to the Boston States without an explanation. He told Jamie that he planned on saving enough money to eventually sail to Boston, find her, and bring her home.
The Foxtrap sealers filled the air with their laughter as they trudged out Church Road to go by horse and wagon.
“A voyage you’ll never forget,” said Sam Rideout, the wagon driver, banging Jamie on the back. “It’ll be over in a few weeks and if luck will have it you’ll be foldin’ bills and twirlin’ coins. You’ll have money to put by for your wedding.”
The men didn’t mind being jarred and shaken, their tongues rattling in their heads as they sat in the wagon, some dangling their legs from the open back as they held on to the open slats on the sides. The horse half-heartedly dragged the loaded wagon, its unsteady wheels going over the rutted and muddy road to St. John’s and on down to the harbourfront.
Once the men jumped down from the wagon and waved goodbye to their driver, Jamie and his sealing buddies clicked along the cobblestones of Water Street in their sealing boots, hurrying to get the berth promised them. The sun had slipped from under a lid of cloud, a bright eye, naked and piercing, while Jamie and his cousins were on their way to St. John’s. Now it sank back, looking small and uneven in the face of a dark cloud.
Jamie’s old buddy Ted, whose family had moved to St. John’s, touched his shoulder as he unfolded his brin bag to fill it with hay stored in a shed beside the wharf. Jamie stopped at the sight of him in street clothes and carrying no bagg
age.
Noah called, “Issin you goin’ to the ice, me man?”
Ted looked toward the barque and the black smoke billowing out of its stacks into the crisp air. He shook his head. “I’ve a bad feelin’ about the Southern Cross. But don’t let it bother you.” He hurried away.
Jamie tried to convince himself that everything would be all right. The 325-ton whaling ship had handled other voyages. A dark cloud hovered and then descended over his happy mood as a memory flashed of the fortune teller’s prediction that Maggie would marry a Christopher. He shook away her words as he hurried across the wharf to the ticket office. Maybe she will marry him when I’m 100 and dead.
After waiting in line for some time Jamie stood in front of a large oak desk and took off his cap. He dipped his head toward the clerk sitting behind the desk. He cleared his throat. “I’ve been wantin’ to get a sealing ticket for a while,” he said. “Now it’s me turn. I’ve got the money right here.”
The clerk took the money, giving Jamie a scant glance. He ran an ink-stained finger down the pages of an open ledger and dipped his pen in an inkwell. He lifted it and proceeded to place a check mark beside james william maley in the large ledger. He looked up. “So yer pa’s name is William James—the reverse of yours—if there should come the need to contact him.”
Jamie shrugged. “I don’t think you’ll be doing that.”
To the question of where he lived Jamie answered, “Foxtrap, sir, and proud of it.”
The clerk rolled his eyes and scowled. “I’ve seen der place.”
When Jamie had procured his ticket and crop note marking him for a gaff he’d secure on the vessel, the clerk nodded and dismissed him. “Be along wit’ yer, then.”
Jamie stood up and put his cap back on. “Thank you, sir,” he said with another dip of his head.
A seasoned sealer from Foxtrap, waiting in line, called to Jamie, “Wet your ticket for good luck and wet the other eye. God save us from makin’ widows and orphans.”
When Jamie came outside, one man who had been unlucky in obtaining a berth tapped him on the back and remarked, “’Tis a risky business, b’y, to be goin’ on the Southern Cross to the Magdalen Islands. The ice is loose, not packed. There’s less risk on tight ice, and this year Newfoundland’s got a fleet of icebreakers, the first country in the world to have it. It’ll be safer on the SS Newfoundland.”
A sealer from Kelligrews let out a hearty laugh. “God willin’, me son, we’ll be sleeping in the fat soon and there won’t be a berth left for someone else next year, as there’s one for you because a sealer was injured on last year’s voyage.”
Jamie felt as if someone had kicked him in the stomach, but his voice was steady as he answered, “We’re sailin’ with Captain Clarke, a man who knows his business.”
Another sealer nodded. “Yeah, b’y, Captain Clarke’s been to the ice fourteen times. The Southern Cross is able to bring home bumper crops. She’s done that off and on for a good many years, so I’ve been told. Captain Clarke intends for his vessel to be the first back in port. That’s somethin’, that is.”
No one said anything about the ship having a wooden hull and that it did not have wireless, should it find itself in danger of ice and blizzards or an engine explosion.
Cold, salty sea air blew against Jamie’s face. He squared his shoulders. No matter what, the sea will not be the master of my fate.
26
The waters of St. John’s harbour were calm under sheets of ice around several sealing ships preparing to sail to the icefields. Sealers filed up the gangway of the Southern Cross. They dropped down to a deck covered with plywood that extended from stem to stern to take the marks of the sealers’ boot picks.
Crowds stood on the wharf as the barque’s lines were loosened and cast off from the dock. Women at home, who had sons and husbands on the vessel, looked out their windows and smiled as horns and whistles blew to announce the sailing. They had hopes that there would be money to buy food for their children crying for nourishment. Bedridden elders, with bellies distended for the want of a good meal, turned to the sound. They licked papery pale lips remembering the taste of fresh seal in gravy. There were blasts from muzzleloaders shooting blanks of oakum and powder.
The 140-foot-long barque carried men from St. John’s, Torbay, Conception Bay North and South, Trinity and Placentia Bays. Surnames included Butlers, Clarkes, Kennedys, Porters. . . .
The Southern Cross, its sails unfurled and engine engaged, shuddered and scrunched against ice barring its way out of the harbour. A call rang through the crisp air: “Everybody off the ship and on the tow line!”
The sealers, some wearing scotch caps with long tassels, others in canvas or sealskin caps, rushed off the ship. Jamie joined the string of men moving across the ice like a long shadow. They dug their hobnailed boots into the ice and strained on the tow line to pull the heavy vessel through the ice and out into the open sea.
“It’s cold but I’m sweating already,” Jamie grunted to the sealer behind him, who, like other sealers, was undernourished this time of the year. Still, there was strength in hope and expectation and the men pulled hard.
Seasoned sealers who had retired from going to the ice stood onshore watching the vessel break through the ice and the men swarm aboard. They pictured them finding a place to bunk, a spot they would occupy sleeping, yarning, playing cards and checkers and eating from a meagre supply while the ship steamed toward the icefields. Families and friends of the sealers from St. John’s and the surrounding area waved though they could no longer see the men. Finally they turned back to their work.
The barque passed between the frosty face of the Southside Hills and Signal Hill with Cabot Tower, a grey sentinel above the harbour, its southeast windows framing St. John’s. The ship sailed out through The Narrows past its black cliffs, out into the Atlantic Ocean on its way to the seal hunt.
Fortune teller Tuscan had pushed aside the red curtains at her window and watched the men free the Southern Cross from the ice. She shuddered as they reboarded the vessel and disappeared below deck.
“Their coffin,” she said, turning away.
27
In the early morning darkness Eddie, a stowaway, had snuck down to the wharf and made a run for it onto the steamer when the boatswain’s attention was elsewhere. His pockets were heavy with cakes of hard bread and a flask of water tucked inside a gunny sack. He knew where to go, having listened to sealers who had previously sailed on the boat. He drew a canvas over him in a far corner below deck and lay still. If sealers had known there was a stowaway aboard before the steamer weighed anchor they would have reported him and he’d have been thrown off the ship. The sea carried enough threats without the added jinx a stowaway could bring to a voyage.
Eddie had heard that a stowaway was never allowed on the ice to kill seals and claim a share. He planned on being the best lackey the captain ever set eyes on. No matter what his punishment on discovery, it wouldn’t be as severe as what he had endured from his stepfather. His face was pinched and pale as if something under his skin was sucking its goodness. His light brown eyes were wet-looking, glassy, and under his lower lids the skin looked bruised and translucent. He would never have gotten a berth. He had a crippled hand. His stepfather had held it over hot coals under the damper of the stove and had smiled during Eddie’s blood-curling screams. The burned skin had not recovered and Eddie’s fingers were drawn up against his palm. Whenever he sat in church and the minister preached on hell, waves of fear shook his body. He wanted to believe in a God who would not do worse than his stepfather. He stopped going to church. Instead he spent Sundays on the beach firing stones into the water, pretending he was hitting his stepfather.
Twenty or more men had been assigned tiered bunks in the overcrowded forecastle. Jamie and the other sealers dropped from a rope into the makeshift space in a hold below deck.
Here sealers would idle away time and sleep four to a berth when they were not on the ice. It was a confined place, dim in lamplight. Missing home already, Jamie breathed in the damp, barbed air of the ship.
Thomas took in his lonely look. “The women will be waiting,” he said, thinking of his wife, Esther, who had lost their infant son last year. It would be a long voyage.
“We’ll be the first in port,” Joseph Butler said, slapping Jamie on the back. “Then we’ll be in the money.”
Thomas Bussey stretched against a post. “The merchants would skin a man like a seal if they could get a dollar for his hide,” he said. “We won’t get much when they’ve finished our account.”
“B’y, don’t be blaming the merchants for everything,” Zachary Butler said. “Sure, we’d have neither ship to come aboard if the merchants didn’t risk their money.” He was excited to be on the Southern Cross. It would take his mind off Olivia. His boyish face clouded when he thought about her.
Both Zachary and Jamie had been fascinated with the Southern Cross ever since they’d learned that she had sailed on an Antarctic expedition in 1898, going through the Great Ice barrier to the unexplored Ross Sea.
Joseph Bussey looked at the other sealers. “In 1901 the Southern Cross was the first ship to arrive in port with a full load of more than 26,000 pelts. That can happen ag’in.”
Jamie nodded. “I hope so.”
“And she a smaller ship than others at the ice,” Joseph added.
A seasoned sealer piped up, “I hope you all got your hardtack and black tea, a bit of oats and such. We do our own cooking. There’s a man among us who cooks fresh meat, potatoes, and turnip hash for the captain and officers. He’ll be lucky to get a bit of fat for himself. Hard bread and porridge with tea and molasses is the most we’ll eat until we’re in the swiles. Then there’ll be a meal of fresh flippers in onions, pork rinds, and gravy.”
Ghost of the Southern Cross Page 14
