Chain Locker

by Bob Chaulk

  “What happens if we get stuck and can’t get out? Do we blast her out?” said Ed.

  “Depends,” said Simeon. “It’s bad enough being stuck in one spot and not able to get around and look for seals, but the ice is drifting so it carries the ship along with it. If it got to that point we would cut holes and put bombs into the water under the ice and blast her out.”

  I was right! Jackie reflected with satisfaction; all those boxes of explosives they were lugging aboard…those nights in the chain locker would be worth it after all.

  “I expect the skipper will size everything up in the morning and decide if we need to do that. Certainly, we got enough powder aboard to blow up the whole ship and then some. Besides our own stuff, those Yanks brought a schoonerload aboard. It’s stashed all over the bloomin’ place!”

  Jackie looked at Henry. “So, a schoonerload: would that be understatement?”

  “Actually, no; that would be overstatement—exaggeration,” said Henry with a wink. “Simeon does that sometimes too.”

  Why don’t these guys just say what they mean? thought Jackie. He leaned over to Ed. “This is like being back in school with Sister Henrietta Bonaventure talkin’ about metaphors. You remember that? Calling England this precious stone set in the silver sea. What a load of malarkey, eh!”

  Ed just looked at him and blinked three or four times.

  “Well, I suppose I’ll turn in; see you in the morning,” said Simeon, removing his cap and exposing a curly mop of black hair speckled with grey. He gave his shaggy head a good scratch as he sauntered out of sight towards the stern of the ship.

  “Henry, you ever been on a ship that got blasted outa the ice?” Jackie asked.

  “No, this is my first time on a sealing steamer. I been to the ice lots of times but not on anything as big as this one. When we got caught we always managed to get her out somehow; we either sawed her out or used long poles to prise the ice away if it was loose. We’ve even had the whole crew one time out on the ice haulin’ to beat the band on a rope tied to the vessel’s bow. Now, that’s hellish hard work, haulin’ a schooner,” he grinned.

  “I think I’d rather blast her out,” Ed commented, as Jackie’s head bobbed up and down in agreement.

  “You ever have any close calls?” said Jackie.

  “A few, I suppose. I was in a hurricane in the Caribbean last year. That got pretty wild, but we managed. There was a few times that day when I wondered if I would ever see Cottle’s Island again.”

  “There were a few times the other day when I thought I’d never see St. John’s again,” said Ed.

  “Yes, that was a half decent blow, I must say,” said Henry. “I remember another one coming back from Labrador when I was thirteen, my first trip down on my uncle’s schooner. We were coming back in company with another vessel, the two of us drivin’ right into the weather. The other one had a fifty-five-foot-high mainmast, and many times the ball on the top would completely disappear; that’s how big the seas were running. I’ll tell you, our little schooner didn’t amount to much that day. When we got back we learned that seven schooners in Twillingate had dragged their anchors and gone ashore.”

  “Wrecked, you mean?” asked Ed.

  “They got some damage but I think they managed to save all of them,” said Henry.

  “So, was that your closest call ever?” said Jackie.

  “No. There’s one I haven’t forgotten to this day. I was about your age—my first time sealin’—on my Uncle Levi’s’s schooner.We had no engine, only sails, rigged as a beaver hat. We sailed out of—”

  “Just a minute,” Ed snickered. “Did you say she was rigged as a beaver hat?”

  “Yeah. Sounds funny, don’t it, but she was what they call a beaver hat man—a schooner with a big square sail on the foretopmast. When you’re in the ice you need to catch every draught of wind you can, so that’s the way they rig sealing schooners. From far away it looks like the schooner is wearin’ a top hat.

  “As I was saying, we sailed out of Twillingate, and shaped a course for the Funks,” Henry continued, spicing the description with nautical terminology for his admiring audience. “There was lots of open water and the goin’ was very good. When we got to the ice field, we anchored onto it for the night, same as we’re doin’ now. We had a mug-up and everybody turned in except for one feller who stood the watch.

  “Sometime in the middle of the night there was a hellacious racket, screamin’ and yellin’ from up on the deck, like the watch was out of his mind. When I opened my eyes, Uncle Levi was just loading up the old-time sealing gun, a seven-eights bore muzzle-loader, and rammin’ down the charge. Mister, he was in some scravel! Up the scuttle and out of the foc’s’le he went. I was right behind him. He yelled something to me about staying put in the foc’s’le, but whatever was goin’ on, I wasn’t about to miss it.

  “When I stuck my head out on the deck there was three fellers with gaffs pokin’ and proddin’ over the side, just aft of the foremast. Uncle Levi yelled for them to get away. He stood about three feet from the rail and waited. In no time this big white paw comes up over the gunwale, followed by a headful of teeth. It was one of them big white bears and he was right savage! He must’ve come down on the ice from the Labrador, chasin’ after the seals. I can still see that godawful big head. Uncle Levi knew he only had one shot and he don’t get flustered too easy, so he waited until the brute got up a bit closer—and then he raises up that six-foot barrel and shoves the muzzle into buddy’s mouth and bango! No more bear. Took his head clear off. Five fingers of shot from a seven-eights bore is a lot to swallow.”

  “Geez.”

  “It was some relief seeing him go to meet his maker. For weeks afterwards I was afraid to look over the side of the schooner for fear of seeing another one down there.”

  “You think a bear like that could get aboard this one?” asked Ed.

  “I wouldn’t say,” said Henry. “These vessels are not called wooden walls for nothing. Those bears are cagey, though. He might figure out a way to get up on the bobstay and climb in over the bowsprit. I always felt safe in a biggish vessel like a schooner but that was before one of those bears just about climbed in.”

  “Did y’eat ’n?” Ed asked.

  “Nah. He stank too much. We skinned ’im, though, and took the fur back with us and cured it. Uncle Levi gave it to Simeon and that summer when he went to Labrador he got one of the Eskimo women to make up a coat out of it for him. You might see him wearing it sometime when the weather is cold.”

  Henry paused for a moment, thinking. “That fella gave me the worst nightmares,” he continued. “I’d dream he was chasing me over the ice towards the schooner and I would see her afar off getting closer and closer, and behind me buddy would also be getting bigger and bigger. Then I would get to the schooner and not be able to find a way aboard. I would have to scravel up over the mainchains, clutching at the deadeyes, and would almost make it aboard, but then he’d get me by the foot and bite it off. Funny thing was, it never hurt, just made it bloody hard to walk…”

  Ed laughed nervously, but Henry kept talking. “So then I would have to hop up the shrouds on one foot to the crosstrees, but then the thing would yop off my other foot, and I would finally have to haul myself up the ratlines with my hands. I would come to the top of the mast, and when I’d look down there he would be, right below me. Then I would wake up, sweatin’ like a son-of-a-gun.

  “The first time I had that dream, it was so real I felt to make sure my feet were still there—not a word of a lie. That damned bear haunted me for the whole trip. Even to this day he visits me every now and then.”

  “Well, it’s good to know one couldn’t get aboard this one,” said Ed, “because the ice is still moving in around us. If it keeps comin’ it will soon be right up to the side of the ship.”

  Everybody waited as the first piece of ice bumped the waterline below them.

  “I sometimes have strange dreams,” said Ed. “I have
one where I fall down, and then when I get up I just fall down all over again, and I get back up and down I go again.”

  “You sound like a clown at the circus,” laughed Jackie.

  “I have one like that,” said Henry thoughtfully. “In mine, I fall out of a boat and then when I climb in I fall back out again, over and over. I been having it for a couple of months now.”

  chapter eighteen

  The ship was at rest, since the law forbade sealing or fishing on Sunday. Not much was done on a Sunday and what was done was never done in a hurry. Even the dawn had hesitated to arrive, the sun crawling its way above the horizon, to be slowly consumed by dingy, flat clouds. The wind had trouble getting motivated, and it looked like it might snow but not just yet; maybe later. As if she knew what day it was, the Viking was also still, jammed in the ice and unable to budge. Throughout the night the ice had jostled and bumped, snuggling itself around the waterline of the ship like a python. Inside, the ship’s ribs creaked and groaned from the pressure, the way a man’s would, just before breaking, inside the snake’s death squeeze.

  Darmy was leaning against the doorway of the galley. Varick Frissell, the tall New Yorker, bent slightly and stuck his head inside. “Good morning, gentlemen!” he said with a broad smile, as he stepped inside and poured a mug of tea. “I see we’re in the embrace of the ice gods this morning. I hope it’s not a fatal embrace.”

  Darmy laughed. “What do you think, Reub? Will she stick it or are we gonna end up floating on a pile of kindling?” He cast a mischievous grin towards Jackie, who was leaning over a bucket peeling potatoes, a job he detested.

  “Ooh, she’s sufferin’! She’s punishin’; that’s for sure,” said Reub.

  “Who’s sufferin’ now?” asked Lije, breezing into the galley. “Any tea on the go?”

  “Of course there’s tea,” snapped Reub, piqued at the insinuation that there might not be.

  “The vessel is sufferin’,” said Darmy. “Sounds like a lot of pressure on ’er.” He looked gravely at Jackie.

  “She’ve seen worse than this. She’ll stick it,” said Lije confidently. “It’ll take more than this to damage her.”

  “I feel better already,” Varick said with a grin directed towards Jackie. “I think we’re all set there, sport. Don’t let this naysayer here scare you.”

  “When I wasn’t much older than the gaffer here I was in a schooner that got jammed so tight we give up on her and unloaded our belongings and grub onto the ice,” said Lije. “She groaned and moaned like a woman givin’ birth. The stays all went slack and the spars even loosened up, and she come right up out of the water and the ice went in under ’er. She stayed there all day while we waited for her to come apart, but that night the pressure slacked off and she rolled back down in the water. The starboard side was stove in a good two feet, but it came back just about into place over the next couple o’ days. She leaked a bit, but we fixed her up and finished the trip.”

  “But there must have been ships that got damaged enough to sink,” said Frissell. “I’ve heard stories about them.”

  “Oh, yes, lots of ’em,” Reub chimed in, not wanting to miss an opportunity to impress an important passenger. “I remember when I was small, hearin’ about the Greenland getting nipped in the ice and goin’ down. All hands came out of it all right but, of course, they lost their spring and had nothing to show for it. For a while there, it seems like there was one or two vessels lost every year.”

  Oh, man! Jackie groaned to himself, as something below his feet snapped with a loud crack.

  “Sure, they never tended to the vessels.” said Reub. “Half of them wasn’t fit to be out on the water,”

  “And what about the Diana?” Darmy asked, still trying to get a rise out of Jackie. “Didn’t she sink not long ago…why, when our buddy here was little?”

  “About 10 year ago,” said Reub. “It might be less. She broke her propeller shaft, and the crowd aboard mutinied and set her afire—and she with 7,000 sculps aboard!”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” said Lije. “They never mutinied because her shaft broke. They was so fed up that they just couldn’t take it any longer. It takes a lot to push a Newfoundlander over the edge but what was happening was too much even for them. No, b’y, it wasn’t breaking the shaft on the Diana that drove them; it was all those years of gettin’ shafted theirselves.”

  “I suppose you’re right; it was the final straw,” said Reub. “They were so sick of the way they were being treated that they rioted and set her ablaze.”

  “The poor buggers ended up stranded out on the ice so the Sagona picked them up and dropped them off in Conception Bay, which meant she had to knock off the hunt for a few days, too, so then her sealers got vexed and demanded to be paid for their lost time which, I mean to say now, was entirely reasonable. But, you just know what the owners said: they would do no such thing and gave ’em nothin’, so they ended up refusing to finish the hunt. So, not one but two crews lost their spring that year. And that’s typical for the sealing companies. You think Bowring’s would do anything for us if this one had to knock off the hunt? Don’t make me laugh,” said Lije sarcastically.

  The captain appeared in the doorway. “If you’re not happy with your deal, you’re welcome to leave this ship anytime. There’s plenty of men ashore who wouldn’t mind havin’ your berth.” Then he stomped off without waiting for a reply.

  “Aw, go…aagh!” Lije groaned in frustration.

  “Sure what odds if she’s nipped on a Sunday?” Jackie heard somebody ask, as two men came through the galley door. “We’ll burn less coal sittin’ here rather than steamin’ around mad crazy when we can’t kill nothin’ anyways. Any tea on the go, Reub?”

  “We got to get ’er out though,” his companion declared. “If she’s left to bide, jammed up here all day we’re likely to be worse off tomorrow. We could find ourselves standin’ out on the ice with nar ship. I think the skipper should put the bombs to her and get us outa this.”

  The churchgoers were of the opinion that the Sabbath was a day of rest, and rest they should. “Leave the vessel where she’s to and let’s have a time of church,” they argued, within earshot of the approaching captain. Ignoring them, he walked past, rubbing the stubble on his chin and looking grave. Men were milling about, each pronouncing a verdict on the situation. The water had disappeared and they were surrounded by an enormous, white wilderness.

  Jackie was getting worried that if there was blasting, he would be stuck in the galley and miss the whole show. His fingers were sore from peeling potatoes for Sunday dinner. “Have you got at least two for every man?” demanded Reub, scrutinizing the bucket’s contents like an osprey before a dive.

  “There’s three hundred. Me and Sam and Les did a hundred each.”

  Reub’s beady eyes darted from bucket to bucket. “Three hundred, eh? You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Okay, gimme a hand to get this fish off the soak.”

  “Oh, Reub!” he whined. “How about a spell?”

  “When the work is done, you can have a spell; not before.”

  “When we get the fish on, can I go then?”

  “You’re forgettin’ this is Sunday. We got duff to make and peas to cook. And we got to boil some molasses to make coady for the duff.”

  “I brought the flour up for the duff and the salt pork is cut up,” said Jackie.

  “Mmm. Good.” Reub looked at him with grudging approval as he inspected the mound of white fat cubes on the cutting board. “Well, I suppose—”

  “Hey, Jack!” Henry’s head poked into the galley. “How about a walk on the ice? I don’t s’pose you been off the vessel since you come aboard, have you?”

  “He got work to do,” Reub’s unwelcome voice pronounced loudly from the back.

  “Oh, come on, Reub,” Henry coaxed. “He hasn’t ever been onto the ice. Don’t you feel sorry for a poor gaffer got to live all his life in St. John’s? A half-hour; I
won’t keep him any longer. I promise.”

  “Did you get enough molasses from the puncheon to fill up the keg?”

  “Yep. I got everything done you told me to,” Jackie replied.

  “Okay, a half-hour. Tha’s it.”

  “Thanks, Reub,” Henry said. Then, whispering to Jackie, “A crooked old bugger, ain’t he? Is he always like that?”

  “Most of the time. He was pretty good the other night when we were loadin’ the seals. But then he expects me to be grateful to him for bein’ civil.”

  “He ever hit ya?

  “Couple of swats.”

  “The next time he does it, you let me know and I’ll teach him to pick on somebody his own size.”

  “Thanks, but I can fight my own battles.”

  “Fighting them is one thing, but are you winnin’?”

  “There’s no winnin’ with Reub.”

  “Well, if he gets out of hand, you know where to find me. Now, what have you got on your feet, there? I suppose you got no skinny-woppers, have you?”

  “I’m a stowaway, remember; I got nothin’. What’s wrong with these boots? They’re nice and warm.”

  “They might be warm but those boots’ll put you on your arse the first step you take. You can wear my spare skinny-woppers. Let’s go get you rigged out.”

  Henry handed him a pair of knee-high leather boots with thick, studded soles. “Man, I wouldn’t want somebody to tramp onto my fingers with those on,” Jackie said.

  “If they did you’d be pickin’ your fingers up with your other hand.”

  “These would be the clear thing for walkin’ to school in winter.”

  “If everybody wore those to school, you wouldn’t have much of a floor left. Those sparbles are sharp and they’re hard. They got no trouble diggin’ into the ice.”

  “These must be what Dad calls frosters.”

  “Could be. I noticed that a lot aboard this one call them frosters. Must be the St. John’s crowd. I hear the proper word is sparrowbills; I guess somebody figured they looked like a sparrow’s bill.”

  “These seem to fit pretty good,” said Jackie. “They feel nice and warm, too.”