Chain Locker

by Bob Chaulk

  “What you’re seein’ on them fippers is pretty well all that gets sove on a vessel like this one. The meat’s not worth nothin’ compared to the sculps with the furs and the oil. Now, a lot of the St. John’s fellers will try to salt a barrel or two to take home, but most of it gets left behind on the ice.”

  “All right, there, John Gould…” Jackie turned to see Simeon bearing down on him. “Time to put you to work. Get down in the hold there and help those fellers with icing down the pelts.”

  At last, a real job! He bolted down the ladder, where two men were arranging a flat layer of sculps while another shoveled crushed ice on them. “Take that shovel there and make yourself useful,” the man next to him ordered. “A layer of sculps, a layer of ice; a layer of sculps, a layer of ice. You got to cool them down as fast as ever you can, so the fat don’t run into oil. Every drop that drips down into the bilge is money lost, my son. Bowrings’ll clean all that up after the reckonin’ and have it all to theirselves. So get a move on.”

  chapter fifteen

  Exhausted but exhilarated, Jackie crawled up out of the hold and headed to the galley, where he knew Reub would be cooking up a scoff of fipper. The stench of blood and fat and guts had long ago ceased to bother him. His arms and back ached from moving coal to make room, then filling the space with pelts and shoveling barrel after barrel of ice onto them. His growling stomach brought back memories of his hungry days in the chain locker. Several men had offered him a slice of raw seal heart but he wasn’t hungry enough for that. Slipping and sliding across the greasy deck, he arrived at the galley, where men were milling about and the jovial version of Reub—long rumoured to exist—was taking a batch of roasted flippers and hearts out of the oven. “You’re just in time there, gaffer. Have yourself a few o’ these fippers. The hearts are for the Skipper so leave them alone. There’s salt pork buns and tea there, too. You look like you’re just about ready to keel over, heh, heh.”

  “I am,” Jackie replied. ‘I’m also starved half to death. As my father likes to say, ‘“I could eat me shoes.”’

  “No need of that. Get some of this down inside your shirt collars and you’ll be number one again.”

  Reub watched with approval as Jackie downed handfuls of the hot meat. “Some good, ain’t it? You ever had seal before?”

  “Lots of times. Mom makes flipper pie.”

  “Did you try some raw?”

  “Nah. I don’t think I could ever be that hungry.”

  “I been hungry enough lots of times, but I must say I’d rather ’ave it cooked, just the same. How did you find icin’ down the pelts?”

  “Hard work.”

  “You’re damn right ’tis hard work. After that maybe you won’t whine so much about havin’ to earn your keep in the galley.”

  “Hah. I don’t complain.”

  “Hark o’ you! If I had a quarter for every time you groaned about your work, I wouldn’t be cookin’ on no greasy old sealer.”

  Like a reveler going from party to party, Jackie, well stuffed, left the galley and headed to the sealers’ quarters, the hub of activity on the ship. Contentment reigned among the ice hunters, as men crowded inside to share the heat of the coal stove. As Jackie scanned the faces in the crowd, who should he see but Eddie Carnell standing below the steps. Ever since Henry said, “So you’re one of the gaffers who stowed away!” Jackie had assumed there was at least one other stowaway aboard, but he didn’t expect it would be somebody he knew. They exchanged knowing glances and he thought he might have seen a half smile crease Eddie’s face. Jackie suppressed a grin, lest he be caught not showing appropriate reserve.

  Hands and arms, covered to the elbows with dried blood, alternated between grasping dirty mugs of tea and waving the air for emphasis as the events of the day were told and retold. With a chopping motion, Dorman was describing the slaughter of one of his victims. “I was just ready to sculp him, sir, when the old one mishes into me, takes me by the back o’ the leg and starts draggin’, see? I don’t know where she thought she was goin’!”

  “Yes, b’y, I figured that old harp was goin’ to haul the drawers right offa ya,” a man across the room roared with evident delight.

  “’Twas as good as a concert, every bit as good.”

  Another added, “Sure, Darmy, I got to say I thought you was done for. The way she had you by the leg ’tis a wonder she didn’t take your foot right off or haul ya overboard.”

  “Mister man, I’ll tell you she had a mind to, but me buddy got ’er off from me. Give ’er a good kick, he did, right about the jowls. She give me a good bite, though, just the same.”

  “’Twas nice, young fat, today,” Abner Jenkins opined, “though a couple of thousand more would have been nice.”

  “A few thousand more, closer to the vessel, maybe, but I found that to be far enough away for my likin’,” another estimation rang out. “I wouldn’t want to have to scote a tow of sculps any farther than we come this evenin’, especially if the weather was to turn.”

  A voice in the crowd changed the topic: “What was the goin’ on with that big camera they had rigged up?”

  “Movin’ picture,” somebody answered. “That’s all I knows.” Then, seeing Simeon coming down the companionway, he asked, “Simeon, what was them fellers doin’ with that big camera?”

  “That’s the Americans making a movin’ picture,” Simeon replied. “The tall one is Mr. Frissell, Varick Frissell. I ’magine you never heard a name that queer before, eh Bot?” Bot, a Nova Scotian whose full name was Naboth Outhouse, allowed that it was indeed an unusual name.

  “There was a crowd of them here last year,” Simeon continued. “They went out on the Ungava with actors that came up from the States to make a moving picture about the seal hunt.”

  “The seal hunt? I can think of more interesting things to watch than that!” Bot replied, just one in a roomful of perplexed faces.

  “Well, I suppose they figured somebody’d want to,” said Simeon. “The skipper told me you could hear them talkin’ in the pictures, if you can believe that. I think he was havin’ me on.”

  “I think he was, too,” said Lije, shaking his head.

  “I heard they showed it in St. John’s last spring.”

  “I seen it!” Jackie yelled. “It was on down to the Nickel Theatre in S’n John’s.”

  “The captain told me that Bob Bartlett was in it,” Simeon added.

  “Bob Bartlett?” somebody interjected. “Sure his father skippered this one for years.”

  “Everybody’s after skipperin’ this one, she been around so long,” said Lije. “My father and his father was out on ’er at different times.”

  “That Bob Bartlett is a good hand to manage a ship in the ice,” said Lije, to the approving nods of those around him. “That American would never have got to the North Pole without ’im.”

  “Never mind Bob Bartlett!” yelled a tall, gaunt-looking man with a chin whisker. “Finish what you was sayin’ about the show, Simeon.”

  “The Ungava got a full load and she had to go back to St. John’s, so Bowring’s chartered the Viking to them with Bartlett on the bridge to go out and pick up the Americans so they could finish the picture.”

  “So, if they already made the picture last year why are they back up here now?”

  “I guess the company wasn’t satisfied with it,” said Simeon. “They said there wasn’t enough stormy weather in it. So they’re back here now to add to what they already got made. Some of you fellers might be into it.”

  “Only if it pays better than this sealin’ racket,” Lije laughed. “Would I get one of them fancy coats, too?”

  “That tall one with the fancy coat might be a good buddy to have along with you out on the ice,” said Darmy. “He should be a good hand to work.”

  “He’s some tall, ain’t ’e?” Lije marveled. “He’s three axe handles high if he’s an inch. I allow he could haul a few sculps!”

  “He’d need a pretty long to
w rope just to reach the ground, though,” Bot chuckled.

  A dissenting voice spoke up: “A couple of fellers I know was on the Ungava and they said the Americans slowed them down. They had to wait for them foolin’ around with their gear out on the ice, when there was seals to be chased after.”

  “They couldn’t have slowed them down too much,” said Simeon. “The Ungava got over 37,000 seals and was the high liner last year.”

  “Maybe the Americans’ll bring us some good luck.”

  “Well, one thing is for damn sure: they won’t have no problem finding stormy weather around here.”

  chapter sixteen

  “I got to hand it to you, Gould. I never thought you’d do it.”

  “I told you I would, didn’t I?” Jackie said to Ed as they leaned over the rail. “How did you get aboard?”

  “I just walked on. I never figured it would be so easy,” he laughed.

  “What about Mike? He was with you on Harvey’s wharf, right?”

  “Lost his nerve at the last minute, I guess,” said Ed, “or somebody nabbed him. I thought he was coming up the gangway right behind me, but when I got aboard there was no Mike. Ain’t laid eyes on him from that day to this. Where’re you sleepin?”

  “Anywhere I can find a place to lie down. I spent a night on the coal but I couldn’t stick it; it was too friggin’ hard.”

  “Don’t I know it! I ended up on top o’ the coal last night, too.”

  “Lumpy?” Jackie asked, squelching a laugh.

  “The worst of it is that as the coal is burned it gets replaced with pelts and then we got to sleep on them. The lumps are gone but, mister, what a stink! And I never seen nothin’ so slimy. You been out on the ice?”

  “Nah. I spend most of my time workin’ in the galley,” said Jackie. “The cook’s all right, I guess—cranky a lot, though—and the food is pretty bad. Same stuff over and over.”

  “So I noticed.”

  “Lots of it, though, so at least I’m not hungry anymore. Man, I was gutfoundered by the time they found me,” said Jackie. “I guess it’ll be all seal meat from now on. What have they got ya doin’?”

  “Makin’ gaffs, mostly,” said Ed. “And when I’m not doin’ that I’m luggin’ coal to the boiler or slag from it. I thought I saw you down there movin’ the coal around this evening, but I figured it must be somebody else.”

  No wonder he’s so dirty, Jackie thought. At least I managed to clean myself up a bit, but he’s not even trying.

  “I wouldn’t mind havin’ one of those gaffs,” Jackie said. “Can you get me one?”

  “Sure, but what are you gonna do with it? Play sealer on the deck?” he mocked.

  “Piss off!”

  The night was peaceful as the two youths revelled in the presence of a familiar face. They were certainly not friends but, no matter: it was better than loneliness. The fire in the ship’s boilers had been allowed to burn down for the night, and the old steamer was at rest, anchored to the ice field. It was as good as being tied to the dock in a safe harbour—so long as the wind didn’t come up and move the ice.

  “How many men you think are aboard o’ this one?” Ed asked.

  “About a hundred and fifty, I heard.”

  “No wonder there’s nowhere to bunk down.”

  “What’s this?” a voice came from behind. “A brace of homesick stowaways trying to figure out the way home?”

  Certainly not! Homesick? Never!

  For a moment Henry stared over the rail into the blackness. Straightening his arm and angling slightly towards the stern of the ship he declared wistfully, “Twillingate is right over there, seventy-eight miles away.”

  “Sounds like you’re the homesick one,” Ed shot back. “What makes you think it’s over there, anyway? I don’t see any lights.”

  “You couldn’t see the lights from this far away, and even if we were closer, the cliffs would block the lights from where we are,” Henry said, his eyes skimming the black horizon. “I worked it out this afternoon before we took after the seals. I been plotting our course since we left Poole’s Island.”

  “You know how to navigate?” Ed asked, impressed.

  “That I do.”

  “How did you learn?”

  “When I was at sea, with the Furness Line.”

  “I heard that most of the skippers of the sealing ships can’t navigate. That true?”

  “It’s been like that for two hundred years.”

  “Then how have they found their way around all these years? You never hear about them getting lost.”

  “It’s not like they don’t know anything. Sure most of the schooners going to the Labrador are skippered by men who can’t navigate properly. They always try to keep the land in sight.They would have learned all the landmarks from their fathers and they’ve always been good hands at dead reckoning, so they get along all right. It’s when you get a long ways from land that you need your navigation.”

  “But we’re out of sight of land,” Ed insisted.

  “True, but not far, and Newfoundland is a pretty big target, so if we headed south we would hit it somewhere. Gettin’ worried, are you?”

  “Just curious.”

  “There’s no reason to worry because now by law a sealing vessel has to carry a qualified navigator. Captain Kennedy is our navigator. He’ll be joining a British freighting line when he gets back. He let me use his sextant a couple of times for practice; that’s how I keep our position.”

  “And you can tell where home, sweet home is,” Ed said with enough sarcasm to irritate Jackie. He didn’t like Ed’s making fun of Henry.

  “I guess so. I’ve spent a lot of good times in Twillingate. I been sealin’ down by Twillingate a few times, too, when I was young.”

  “They got steamers in there?”

  “No. There’s a lot of schooners there and some go out to the Front, but sometimes you can just walk out onto the ice and get your seals. When the wind comes in from the north it pushes the ice down and there’s often lots of them to be got if the wind behaves.”

  “And if it don’t behave, what then?” Jackie asked.

  “If it blows the ice offshore and you’re on it, then that’s probably the end of you. I can think of better ways to go.”

  “Then why do they go out if there’s a chance they can be lost?” said Jackie.

  “Maybe I should ask you that question,” said Henry. “Here you are, away from your family, at sea, in the company of strangers, in a wooden vessel surrounded by moving ice that could crush the ship at any time during the night. At least those men have a good reason for putting their lives in danger rather than just for the hell of it.”

  Jackie shrugged, looked over at Ed, and grinned.

  chapter seventeen

  “Is it my imagination,” said Ed, “or is the ice movin’ in around the ship?”

  Henry scanned the area around the ship and realized that the ice had moved to within a few feet of the waterline. He looked behind to the side where the ship was secured to the ice. There was solid ice for as far as he could see. Behind and ahead of the ship there was ice and only ice.

  “Yep, it looks like it’s closing in around us,” he replied.

  After a moment Jackie said, “Is that bad?”

  “Well,” said Henry, “let me put it this way: when the ice closes in around your vessel I can’t think of anything that’s good about it. It might be nothing, but I think I’ll ask my uncle and see what he’s got to say about it.”

  Simeon was up in the bow, looking out over the bowsprit, standing above the chain locker where Jackie had started the voyage. He walked to the stern and surveyed the ice, finally stopping where Jackie and Ed stood at the port rail.

  “Well, John Gould, how are ya gettin’ on now? “

  “Fine, sir, thank you.”

  “Now are you after having any birthdays since you come aboard this one? You must be seventeen or eighteen by now, I imagine,” Simeon chuckled. “You’re not
spinnin’ any yarns for these fellers, are you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How’s Reub treatin’ ya? Not lettin’ you sit around on your arse too much, I suppose?”

  “There’s no sittin’ around in Reub’s galley,” Jackie replied, flattered by the attention from somebody as important as a master watch.

  Simeon looked out into the night, and after a long pause he pursed his lips and concluded, “Well, I allow she’s gonna get nipped a bit. I see the old man is out sizin’ up the situation now.”

  “That don’t sound too bad,” Jackie said, “just gettin’ nipped a bit. That shouldn’t cause any damage, eh?”

  “Simeon is a master of understatement,” said Henry. Jackie looked puzzled. “Do you know what that means?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  “You’ve heard some of the hands say that it’s blowing a nice breeze o’ wind?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And every time you hear that, it’s usually blowin’ pretty hard, right?”

  Jackie nodded.

  “But not as hard as a good breeze o’ wind. A good breeze o’ wind means it’s getting stormy, so it’s more than just a breeze, nice or otherwise. Well, saying it’s a nice breeze or a good breeze, when it’s really blowing hard: that’s understatement.”

  “Everybody talks like that, sure,” said Jackie.

  “That’s right. You know more about understatement than you realize. So when Simeon says she’s gonna get nipped a bit, it will probably be more than a bit.”

  “Are you saying the ship might be crushed?” asked Jackie.

  “I expect she’ll stand it,” Simeon replied. “These old whalers and sealers were built to survive the ice. The Norwegians built this one for one of their Arctic explorers and she’s been through a lot in her fifty years. She’ll take it. We don’t want to be stuck too long, though.”