Chain Locker

by Bob Chaulk

  “God help us. My guts are churnin’ just thinkin’ about it. You’re puttin’ me on, ain’t you?”

  “Honest to God. He calls it train oil. It takes most of the summer to get the barrel full, and then he sells it to Ashbournes. He gets a good dollar for it, too. I suppose it ends up being poured down some poor kid’s gullet; either that or it goes to a torture chamber.”

  Jackie laughed. Henry was returning to his old self.

  “You know, I miss Wilf and I never thought I’d be sayin’ this but I think I even miss Marg and Al a bit.”

  “And so you should. I know I miss my folks.”

  “What does your father do?” said Jackie.

  “He’s a boat builder.”

  “That so? Does he build big ones?”

  “So far he’s built eleven schooners and lots of punts, rodneys, motorboats, whatever somebody wants. He did good after the war when there was a shortage of vessels, but it’s pretty slow right now, I’ll tell you.”

  “So do you know how to build a schooner?”

  “I’ve certainly spent enough time cuttin’ wood for timbers and picking out trees that you could cut good knees from, and hauling them out with the old horse, and swingin’ an adze, and a lot of other things. Yes, I ’magine I could build a small schooner, but I think the days of sail are pretty well over, now. These days it’s mostly smaller boats that keep Pop busy. He hasn’t built a schooner since he built the William and Emily for Jim Osmond, what…it must be close to five years ago. I put in a lot of hours on that one. I’m sure it will be my last. If she’s to be Pop’s last one, he’ll be ending his career with a bang, ’cause she’s one pretty vessel—just like her name, or half of it, anyway.” His voice trailed off, as he reflected on the winter he and his father had built her, and the visits from her new owner to check the progress, sometimes with his daughter.

  A schooner builder, eh? Jackie looked at Henry with new respect. “I didn’t know trees had knees. Do they have ankles and elbows, too?” he grinned.

  “You saw lots of fine big knees in the Viking,” said Henry, grabbing the opportunity to get his mind back off Emily. “You just didn’t realize what you were looking at. It’s the ninety-degree piece used to connect the deck to the timbers or to strengthen any ninety-degree joint. They’re cut from a big root and they’re nice and strong so they’re used all over the place in a wooden vessel.”

  “Trees’ knees,” said Jackie with a smile. “I’ll have these trees’ knees, please.”

  Henry grinned back, as he replaced his knife in its sheath. “I guess that should be enough blubber for a small fire, although I would have preferred three or four more seals, all the same. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll get some more, maybe some old ones; their fat burns nice and smokey. I guess we should have a look around, eh?”

  They stood and did a slow 360-degree scan of the horizon, hoping to spot a rescue ship. They had done it dozens of times already today and by now it had become second nature to them. “Hey, what’s that?” Jackie yelled.

  “Where?”

  “Right over there. See it?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Smoke, I think. Right on the horizon in that direction.”

  “Hang on; let me get up higher.” Henry climbed atop a pinnacle. “Hmm, yes, it looks like it might be smoke, but it’s a long ways away.”

  “Do you think it could be a ship?”

  “I’m not sure, but I don’t know what else it could be coming from. Man, that’s a long ways south of here!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “Should we light a fire?”

  “Hard to say,” Henry replied. “If we can barely see the coal smoke from a ship’s boiler I don’t think that bit of fat we got will make enough smoke for them to see us. I think it’s too far away.”

  “Oh, come on, it’s got to be worth a try,” Jackie insisted.

  Henry looked at him. He could not refuse Jackie’s childlike expectation and pleading optimism. “Okay, let’s give it a shot,” he said.

  In a blur, he swished his knife across the sharpening steel to restore the razor edge lost in cutting up the seals. “We’ll need a few shavings to get that fat burning,” he said as he scraped small pieces from the top of the gaff handle. He cut a piece from one of the pelts and laid the shavings on top of it. “It’ll be hard enough getting a fire going without trying to do it on the bare ice,” he said, as he added the driest strips of fat after he had warmed them in his bare hands, placing the whole thing on the highest piece of ice he could find. He struck a match. In a few minutes they had a fire going, and huddled around it.

  As Henry added more blubber, Jackie looked up and frowned. “Not much smoke,” he lamented.

  “That’s why the pups are worth more; the fat burns so much cleaner than the fat from the old seals.”

  “They’ll never see that!” Jackie whined. “Can’t you do something to make it smokier?”

  Henry hesitated. “We could try burning one of the furs, I guess, but we wanted to save those to lie on.”

  “Who cares about that? Let’s get ’em over here to rescue us!”

  Henry looked at the trace of smoke on the horizon and then down at the soft sealskin and thought about how good that pelt would feel between him and the cold ice. He looked back at Jackie, who seemed baffled by his hesitation, and reluctantly cut it into four pieces and added them to the fire, one at a time. A puff of smoke poured into the sky.

  “Ah ha, ha,” Jackie laughed and danced around. “Now we’re gonna be rescued, for sure.”

  On the Sagona, the lookout called for the officer of the watch, who put his binoculars to his eyes and immediately alerted the captain. The big steel ship turned in the direction of Henry and Jackie. Half an hour later, a dory swung out on its davits and was lowered with a crew into the water. Within a few minutes they had rowed to three men huddled inside a piece of wreckage that sat atop a small pan of ice, barely big enough to hold them.

  The only one conscious identified himself as Harry Sargent, one of the three Americans who had been on the Viking. “That one is the wireless operator,” he explained. “He’s been unconscious for a long time; I think he might be dead by now. He said his leg was broken but it looks to me like both of them are frozen, too. This other one is Kennedy, the navigator. I’m pretty sure he’s dead. Is there any word on Frissel or Penrod?”

  The attention of all aboard the ship was focused on getting the three men aboard. As the lookout watched the dory being hoisted in, he was proud to have done his duty by sighting the tiny flag flying on the piece of the Viking’s wreckage. He felt sure he had contributed to saving a life, maybe two. When the captain ordered a ninety-degree turn to put the ship back on course for Horse Islands, he picked up his binoculars and went back to sweeping the horizon. He noticed a thin strand of something hanging above the northern horizon. Puzzling over it for a moment he concluded that it was just part of the wispy cloud formations in the northern sky.

  chapter thirty-one

  Sadie was sitting at the supper table with her tea, bread, and a few capelin that Simeon had dried and salted almost a year ago. The kitchen was filled with the strong odour from roasting the tiny fish. She had been alone since Wints went out to work, and had spent the afternoon praying and hoping and trying to stay busy. Now, as she sat reading her Bible by the dim light of the oil lamp, she was interrupted by a tentative rap at the door.

  “Hello, Donny,” she said.

  “Evenin’, Mrs. Gillard,” he replied, without raising his eyes from the doorstep. “Bertha Mugford said to bring this over.” He thrust an envelope into her hand.

  “What’s this, now? Come in, Donny, and I’ll see if I can find you a couple of coppers.”

  “No, I don’t want nothin’,” he insisted.

  “Oh, I’ll have to give you something, Donny. Just a minute, now.”

  “No, no. Mom won’t be pleased if I takes anything. She says you
got enough troubles. Goodnight, missus.”

  As the boy disappeared through the gate, Sadie closed the door and went back to the table. She opened the envelope and removed the small piece of paper. It contained just two lines of neat handwriting, transcribed from a wireless message received at the post office. As she held it close to the lamp, tears of relief rushed to her eyes.

  She pulled on her boots and, forgetting about her coat, she ran next door to the Osmonds, who were also in the middle of supper. Tracking briskly into the kitchen she yelled, “Ada, come ’ere ’til I tells you. I just got word from Simeon; he’s ashore and well at the Horse Islands. Praise God.”

  “Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” Ada Osmond yelled, thrusting her short arms into the air and jumping up from the table to hug Sadie. Emily threw her arms around Sadie. “Oh, that’s wonderful Aunt Sade, just wonderful. Did he say anything about anybody else?”

  “Yes, Alfred and Bertram is there with him. They’re all okay.”

  Seeing the look of expectation on Emily’s face as she named each one, Sadie was silenced by the awkwardness of the moment.

  “And what about Henry? Is there any news about him?” Ada finally asked.

  Sadie looked at Emily, who wore a diminishing half-smile topped by an increasingly furrowed brow. Taking her hand, she said quietly, “He’s after goin’ adrift on the ice, my dear; him and a young fella, a young stowaway.”

  Emily’s smile faded and the colour slowly left her cheeks. “Oh,” was all she could say as she sank back to her seat, her eyes vacant. “And that’s all he said?”

  Sadie absently handed the message to Ada. “That’s all, my child. I’m sorry.”

  “Am ashore at Horse Islands with Alf and Bert. All well.” Ada read, and then paused before continuing, “Henry cast adrift on ice with young stowaway. Condition unknown. Sim.”

  Trying her best to find something positive, Emily’s mother spoke up. “Well, it sounds like he wasn’t hurt; that’s the main thing. Did you hear anything about the other fella that went with them: a cousin, I think, from Exploits.”

  “That’d be Selb Forward,” Jim said. “I think he’s on the Neptune or the Eagle. He didn’t get on the Viking as I know for. But there was another one from Exploits with Simeon, I believe. No news of anybody else, eh Sade?”

  “No, all I got is what you just heard,” said Sadie.

  “Listen, I’m gonna dart over to Ashbourne’s and let Wints know,” said Jim. “He’ll want to tell Olive and the rest of your family. I allow they’ll be some relieved to hear the news.”

  In awkward silence they watched as Jim put on his coat and departed.

  “Well, that’s grand, just grand,” Emily’s mother said, trying to keep things upbeat. “Stay and have a cup o’ tea now, Sade. Can I get you a bit o’ supper?”

  “No, maid, I just had my supper finished when the message come, but I’ll have a cup o’ tea just the same.” Sadie sat at the table and meekly folded her hands in her lap, trying to avoid eye contact with Emily. With great effort Emily managed to maintain her composure as she remained at the table amid exclamations of “Tis shockin’, all those men!” and “Yes, girl, tsk, tsk, tsk, shockin’ but ’tis wonderful to hear of so many of them bein’ saved, all the same.”

  With the initial shock past, Emily rallied her emotions. The news about Simeon and his sons was indeed wonderful, and Sadie deserved the chance to express her joy among people who loved her. Simeon and Sadie had lived next door since Emily was little and “Aunt Sade,” even though they were unrelated, had always been kind to her.

  “I’m so happy for you, Aunt Sade, having your husband and two sons back from the unknown like this. I remember when I was little how I used to be intimidated by Uncle Sim; his voice was so loud and he was so big,” she mused, “and Olive and Wints and I used to chase Alf and Bert and tickle them when we caught them.”

  Sadie laughed warmly. “Yes, Simeon always thought the world of you and Billy.”

  “I had a lot of good times at your house, sleeping over with Olive. We would giggle for hours in bed until Uncle Sim yelled out from your room and woke up everybody else in the house.”

  “My, you and Olive was such good friends. And the two of you looked so lovely at her wedding. Poor Winston didn’t know whether to be happy or sad, seeing his twin sister go away with another man, where they was always so close, you see.”

  “He’s feeling fine about things now, though, isn’t he?” Ada asked.

  “Oh, yes, he’s the best kind of friends with Angus. ’Tis a good thing, I sez, because he’s always over there. But Olive warned Angus it would be like that, that she never wanted to be far away from Winston. It was funny, though—” Sadie stopped.

  “Go on, Aunt Sade,” said Emily. “What were you going to say?”

  “I shouldn’t be goin’ on like this,” said Sadie self-consciously, looking deeply into Emily’s eyes.

  “It’s okay,” said Emily. “Really, it is. Please continue.”

  Sadie glanced nervously around. “Well, I was going to say that after the wedding Winston couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful you looked in your bridesmaid’s dress. ‘Boy, that Emily, she’s a knockout,’ he kept saying, ‘What happened to that little kid with the plaits in her hair?’”

  “Yes,” Ada chimed in. “I remember when you and Wints were seeing one another there for that short time, a lot of people thought you would make a nice couple,”

  A faint smile touched Emily’s lips but she did not speak.

  “You used to say it was like going out with a male version of Olive,” said Ada.

  “I remember once when Olive was just a little girl,” said Sadie, “she told me that she dreamed you would marry Winston and then the three of you could live together, her and her twin brother and her best friend.”

  “I know,” Emily said quietly. “She used to say that to me, too.”

  “I always wondered about that day in the winter when youse were out for a walk and he came running into the house soakin’ wet and punishing with the cold. All he said was that he fell into the water. I tried to find out what happened but he would never tell me…”

  “Oh, that.” Emily shrugged. “Maybe you should ask Olive.”

  “I know the story,” Ada said.

  “You do not!” Emily retorted. “How would you know?”

  “I saw you come running in. When you came downstairs after drying off and changing, I thought you were going to tell me what happened, but you were so short with me when I asked you about it that I just let it go. It was somebody who saw you that came and told me.”

  “And who was that?”

  “Agnes.”

  “Agnes Tizzard? Huh, that must have delighted her to have something on me that she could tattle about. It’s a wonder she didn’t try to blackmail me.”

  “Isn’t somebody going to tell me?” Sadie practically pleaded.

  “Oh, I suppose Wints won’t mind after all this time,” said Emily. “It was on a Saturday afternoon around the end of April when we were having our little crush, a lovely sunny day—a bit cold, though—we went for a walk along the beach down towards Harts Cove. The ice was breaking up and it was perfect for copying. We couldn’t resist so off we went. All of a sudden Wints slipped and fell in.”

  “Oh, my blessed!” said Sadie.

  “I can still see his horrified eyes near bursting from their sockets as he came up the first time, his arms flailing in all directions. It was barely over his head but, of course, where he couldn’t swim he was terrified and completely disoriented. I yelled to him to kick for shore but it was no use. When he slipped under the water for what I feared was the final time, I jumped in. Well, that water was so cold, I thought I would die; it felt like the skin was being peeled off my face. I grabbed him by those long, thick curls of his and dragged him into the shallow water where he managed to stand up.

  “As soon as we got out of the water, the wind hit us and we started to stiffen
up—my hands, especially; I couldn’t move any of my fingers. ‘Come on, Wints,’ I said. ‘If we don’t get home right away, we’ll freeze to death.’ I had to do some pile of coaxing to get him moving. He was scared of what Uncle Sim would do to him for being on the ice without sparbles on his boots. But we finally managed to get in and changed, and to this day I thought nobody had seen us.”

  “Sure I was sitting in this chair right where I’m to now,” said Ada. “You looked right at me.”

  “My brain must have been frozen, too. That evening, poor Wints was beside himself. Almost drowning in the cold water was bad enough, the near miss with Uncle Sim even worse, but the indignity of having it known that a girl had to jump in among the balleycatters and rescue him from drowning was almost too much to bear. I promised him I would never tell and until now I never did. He couldn’t keep it from Olive, though; he claimed he told her because he thought I would. What nerve, eh?” She coaxed out a little smile for Sadie.

  Emily got up to answer a loud knock at the back door. She hesitated for a moment. “Why Basil. Come in. What brings you here this evening?”

  “Hello, Emily. How are you?” he smiled, as he stepped into the porch.

  “Oh…fine, I suppose. Keep your coat on until you’re into the kitchen, Basil, where it’s warm.”

  Stepping into the kitchen and seeing the dishes still on the table, he exclaimed, “Oh dear, I’m sorry; I thought you would be finished eating by now. I can come back.”

  “Oh, no, no, no! We’re through with supper and just having our tea,” Ada declared, jumping up from her chair. “I’ll get you a cup now, Reverend. Sit down, sit down. Are you hungry? There’s still a turr left if you’d like some.”

  “No!” he blurted, then, “thank you. I can just stay a minute. I’m on my way to see if Charlie Pelley is feeling any better and thought I might drop in to see if there was any news about the ship that sank.”

  “Yes, there is,” Ada replied. “Wonderful news. Sade just heard from Simeon. All the sealers from Twillingate are ashore and well.”