by Jim Newell
*
Earlier that evening, in the tiny harbor of Port Saxon, three fishing boat owners, who were also the boats’ captains, were having coffee in the kitchen of Alf Plummer’s weathered old house. The topic under discussion was the Helen of Troy’s voyage north.
“I got a phone call from Gonzalez last night,” said Alf. “He says the ship has entered Canadian waters and reckons she should be northeast of Rocky Island by the day after tomorrow. He won’t be able to tell us exactly when, so he wants us to be out there waiting for a radio call.”
“At least we won’t have Aubrey Smith out there to appear at the wrong time,” muttered Lincoln Jones. “Poor old Aub. I liked him all right, what I knew of him. Too damn bad he happened to show up at the right place at the wrong time.”
“Isn’t his daughter married to the lighthouse keeper at Rocky Island?” asked Harry Landers. “Not that that has anything to do with anything. Just wondered.”
“Yeah,” replied Alf. “That’s the one. Now look. Last time we were all three together, we wasted time finding the vessel. This time let’s spread out and the first guy to spot her radios her and confirms there’s a cargo for us, and then calls the others. That sound reasonable?”
“Guess so,” answered Jones. How far apart do we spread out from each other?”
“Ten miles ought to do it,” said Alf. “That way the one that’s furthest away can’t have more than twenty miles to travel and will get the final load.” He spread out a marine chart of the area. “I’ll volunteer to take the northern area, about here. Which one of you wants the most southern post?”
“Flip a coin,” suggested Harry.
Lincoln Jones brought out a quarter. “Call it, Alf.”
As the coin was flipped Alf said, “Heads, Linc goes south.”
The coin came up tails.
“Okay,” said Jones retrieving his quarter. I’ll stay about here just nor’east of Rocky Island. So that probably means you’ll be first to see the Troy, Harry. Use Channel eighty-eight to keep in touch.”
“We’re forgetting one thing, boys,” Harry said with a frown. “What about this damn fog? Anybody think the forecast’s right? It calls for the front to move out late tomorrow night?”
“Who knows? The forecasters get it wrong about as often as they get it right.” Alf was not thrilled with weather predictions.
“Well, it ain’t rocket science or brain surgery, that’s for sure,” put in Jones. “What time do you want to head out, Alf?”
There was no appointed leader of the three, but Alf Plummer had sort of become the chief by virtue of the fact that he had brought the three together to carry the cocaine ashore and hand it over to the man they only knew as Gonzalez. Alf then became the paymaster as the three split the money Gonzalez paid them for their work. They didn’t think they were in much danger of being discovered, Port Saxon being such a tiny place, but still, they had already been discovered at sea, a discovery which had cost three lives, and they knew they were dealing with dangerous men in a risky business.
“Let’s plan for midnight tomorrow. Get your crews together, and be careful who you talk to. We’re just going fishing, remember.”
“Yeah, yeah, Alf,” replied Harry. “You always say that. We ain’t that stupid.”
“Well,” added Lincoln. “I gotta be gettin’ along. See you guys tomorrow night.”
Port Saxon is a small place, and as Corporal Brock had mentioned in one of his meetings with his boss and the Inspector, the residents did notice anything different in the routine of the village. Three men claiming to be fishermen had moved in and rented three houses within ten miles of Port Saxon. They brought in three brand new Cape Island fishing boats, and crewed the boats with six men who came from nobody knew where whenever the boats went out on fishing trips. Eyebrows were raised and tongues wagged. Another strange thing about the so-called fishermen was that when they went fishing, which was not on an almost daily basis like the local fishermen, they always came back with no fish. They claimed they took their catch to the fish plant at Clark’s Harbor.
Corporal Brock had wandered into Port Saxon one day, driving an unmarked car and wearing civilian clothes, and stopped in at the general store where he could get a cup of coffee that he really didn’t want. He listened to the conversation among the three or four locals who were in the store and caught the drift of the strange goings on among the newcomers. He made mental notes and later, back in his car, made written notes that he communicated to Staff Sergeant Kellerman. The two decided to keep a quiet observation on the comings and goings of the three so-called fishermen. One of the things they did was check with the Clark’s Harbor fish plant and discovered that nobody there had ever heard of the so-called fishermen from Port Saxon.
*
On board the Helen of Troy things had not gone well ever since Captain Braun had taken command. He ran his ship more on naval terms than on the more laid back merchant marine ways of doing things. The ship could never be immaculate enough to please him. It was too old, too run down, too far gone in its seaworthiness ever to satisfy the man. The Chinese chief engineer and his countrymen engine room crew could never seem to please the Captain and shortly gave up trying. The deck crew, Filipinos all, felt the lash of his tongue regularly, especially the boatswain, who found the Captain’s temper particularly difficult because of the easy-going relationship he had had with the previous captain. Georgio had always dressed casually in jeans and sweater, while Rolf Braun wore a uniform with white shirt and tie. He insisted that his Mates, including the Second Mate, who was barely in his twenties, do the same. The cook, in addition to his other duties, was given the task of looking after the laundry belonging to the Captain and Mates, and Heaven help the man if things were not done to the Captain’s liking. Nor was the cook ever able to provide meals that fully suited Braun. All in all, the atmosphere on board the smuggling ship had been poisonous all the way north from Jamaica.
The young Second Mate had the duty of being the Navigator for the voyage. He was not very good at the job, but he managed to keep them on course—until the Global Positioning System quit working about the same time as the ship arrived in Canadian waters. The GPS is not particularly complicated to operate, although its system is complicated to duplicate. The things are so inexpensive to buy that when one breaks down for whatever reason, the common practice is to toss it out and buy another. That is difficult at sea so most ships carry a spare. Not so the Helen of Troy. The young Mate was forced to rely on the old-fashioned system of sextant and charts. First in the midst of the storm and then in the all-encompassing fog, use of a sextant was impossible, so the ship was travelling on dead reckoning. The dead reckoning method, however, had not begun until some unknown time after the discovery of the failure of the GPS. That meant that they started the new method of navigating from an unknown point, an impossible method of producing accuracy.
Captain Braun was actually no better at navigation than his Second Mate. Between the two of them, they really had no clear idea of exactly where they were, but the Captain stubbornly refused to change to a more northerly heading, or to slow down the speed. Not that full steam ahead was all that fast, but slowing down and using the radio to get a fix on his position through shore based direction stations would have given him a better idea of how to proceed safely in waters unknown to him. Braun was incredibly stubborn. He had a Navigator. Let him navigate. That was his job.
Therefore, about one o’clock on this particular morning, when the Helen of Troy abruptly ran aground on the southwest corner of Rocky Island, nobody had a clear idea of where they were. The helmsman on the bridge with the First Mate who rang the engine room to stop engines, went to wake the Captain who had already abruptly come awake from the unexpected crash, as had the rest of those not on watch. The Captain was livid with rage and began giving orders before he even knew what exactly had happened. Fortunately, the First Mate was a more sensible man and he had begun to have the hull checked for leaks. He di
scovered that so far the rocks on which the ship was stranded had not penetrated the rusty old hull. The Mate was experienced enough that he knew that with the grinding that was sure to come when the ship moved with the tide, there would shortly be a time when the hull would give way, unless they got off there. The electrical equipment was old and not functioning as it had in times past, so the water would soon get ahead of the old pumps if and when the hull began to leak.
Abandoning ship was not yet an order that was necessary. The crew could hear the surf on the rocks a little more than a quarter of a mile from shore—although they were not aware of the distance because of the thick fog that blocked out all visibility or what location the shore actually was situated. They were not too anxious to take to lifeboats and perhaps wind up on those same rocks.
Life aboard the old vessel quickly became even less harmonious, organised and comforting.
Ashore, hunkered down behind a large boulder, Toby heard the approach of the ship. The thump, thump of the engines grew louder as the ship approached. Sounds tend to carry well at night and even more so in fog. He couldn’t see what was happening, but he clearly heard the grinding of metal against rock when the ship ran aground and the metal crunched up on the reef. He knew that until the engines shut down, the vessel was merely grinding further onto the reef. He heard the ship’s alarm bell ring, and he could hear shouting, but he was blind as to what was actually taking place. He ran back to the house and phoned the department of Transport Duty Officer in Yarmouth, asking him to pass the word on to Corporal Brock. He woke up Allison, who had drifted off to sleep after a couple of hours of waiting for her husband’s return, told her what had happened and asked her to sit by the radio for messages while he went back to the shore to keep watch. He took his shotgun with him, and a thermos of hot coffee.
All day the fog kept everything closed in. The tide was more than half way to ebb when the vessel had run aground, so several hours passed before it turned and reached the high point again. High tide caused some action aboard The Helen of Troy. Toby couldn’t see it, but he could hear the engines start up. Then he heard the ship grinding on the rocks, but he couldn’t tell whether the vessel was moving off the reef or around on the rocks. After about twenty minutes, the engines shut down and all was silent except for the noise of the sea. He returned to the house and phoned the Transport Canada Duty Officer to see if he knew what was going on.
“I’ll call Naval Headquarters and see what the submarine is able to report from its radar observations. Call you back.”
Very shortly, the officer did call back. “The sub says the vessel tried to get off the reef, but only succeeded in turning itself sideways on the rocks. The sub is standing by on the surface while the fog is so thick. They will send a boarding party and arrest the vessel when they can see what the heck they’re doing. What are you doing?”
“Freezing my butt off sitting on the shore keeping watch and seeing nothing but fog. Allison is listening out for radio messages but hasn’t heard any. Hasn’t the vessel reported being aground yet? She hasn’t picked up any distress calls.”
“That’s because there haven’t been any. My guess is the captain wants to get off the reef and sail on his way to wherever, and doesn’t know the submarine is right on his tail. The Mounties will be there as soon as this fog lifts and they can get off the ground.”
“What’s the forecast?”
“The fog is expected to remain as it is all day and lift sometime late this evening, with clearing skies behind it.”
“Let’s hope so. Thanks, Stan. I’ll continue to keep watch.”
Toby ate a big breakfast, took some more coffee in his thermos and returned to his watch post. Allison had the radio volume turned way up so she could hear any calls no matter where she was in the house. Neither was sleepy because the adrenaline was pumping through their bodies.
*
Aboard the Helen of Troy, Captain Braun was steaming with anger. The misfired attempt to pull free of the reef had made his already hair trigger temper even more vicious. He took out his frustrations on anyone who crossed his path, so the crew and the mates stayed as far away as they could, but it was impossible to avoid him totally. The young Second Mate bore the brunt of his anger because as far as Braun was concerned, it was the Navigator’s error that had brought them into this predicament. When he wasn’t screaming at the Mate, the Captain was walking around the deck, peering over the side, attempting to see something—anything—and continually frustrated by the fog.
“Verdammen Sie diesen verwünschten Nebel!” (Damn this accursed fog!) he kept snarling over and over.
From time to time, Toby could hear the sound of the Captain’s voice because he spoke in a semi-shout, but he couldn’t translate the German, and when the man spoke English, he wished that he couldn’t understand that either, because the language the Captain used was so vile.
About mid morning, Captain Braun decided to send the First Mate and a four man crew of rowers over the side in a lifeboat to try to determine whether there was a chance of moving the ship with the next high tide and if so, how to go about it. The Mate was not really thrilled with the order and privately decided that he was not going to move out of sight of the vessel lest he not find his way back. The boatswain had an idea that helped.
“Why don’t we tie a long rope to the lifeboat and keep moving along the deck with it so that we don’t lose it in this fog?”
To everyone’s surprise, Captain Braun agreed, and that was what happened. Toby could hear the sound of the davits being swung out and the boat lowered as well as the shouted comments from the crew, but he could only imagine what was happening. He was beginning to get very tired from his long watch in the fog and the fact that something was actually happening came as a relief.
Toby couldn’t hear the report after the lifeboat was hauled back up on the ship. What the Mate told his Captain was that as near as he could see, the Helen of Troy was stuck fast sideways on the reef with rocks on all four sides. He couldn’t imagine how high tide could float the ship, no matter which way it was turned.
“I think we are here at least until the fog lifts and we can see what we are doing, and even then, I doubt that we are going to move.”
“Was fur eine verfluchte Verwirrung! Wir wissen nicht wo wiz sind und wie wiz hier herauskommen. Dies ist lächerlich!” (What a damn mess! We don’t know where we are or how to get out of here. This is ridiculous!)”
With that assessment, the entire crew had to agree.
*
Frustration was also high at the RCMP headquarters in Halifax. The Drug Squad was enlarged to include a dozen officers and an air force Search and Rescue helicopter was standing by at Shearwater Naval Air Base across the harbor to ferry them to Rocky Island when the weather would permit such a flight. The policemen were briefed on the situation, armed, and ready to board the Helen of Troy when they reached the island. They would have a Zodiac boat on the chopper with them. That would carry about half their number; Toby had agreed to have his Zodiac ready to take the rest.
Inspector McLellan had an idea he shared with his two lieutenants. “Let’s get the Barrington detachment to watch for the departure of the fishing boats from Port Saxon and maybe we can pick them up. They obviously don’t know the vessel has run aground, so they may go out expecting a rendezvous.”
“They’ll have to go very carefully so the smugglers don’t catch on to the fact that they are there,” said Brock, thoughtfully. “I think they should stay away until the fog starts to lift later tonight.”
“If it does,” grumped Staff Sergeant Kellerman.
“Well,” continued the Inspector, “if we know when they go out, we’ll have a better chance of catching them with a load of coke, if they get it, or maybe the sub can run them down before they get back to shore and arrest them for conspiracy to smuggle drugs.”
“Anything’s worth a try. I know Sergeant Harrison in charge down there,” said Kellerman. “I’ll phone him and
bring him up to date on what’s happening.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Howard Messenger, the owner of the general store at Port Saxon was surprised, to say the least, to get a call from the RCMP at Barrington asking him to allow a couple of officers to spend the evening and as much of the night as necessary at his store. He was even more surprised to be asked to keep the information to himself, but he agreed. This was high drama for the quiet little hamlet and he was right in the middle of it. About eight o’clock, an hour before his normal closing time, two officers drove up in a 4x4 van and parked behind the store. They knocked on the rear door of the building, where Messenger’s living quarters were located and were quietly admitted. When the store closed, and the lights were turned off, the two policemen moved up to where they could see the waterfront and the fishing boats tied up at the wharf. The fog had lifted and visibility was almost back to normal.
Nothing happened until about eleven o’clock. Howard Messenger had gone off to bed, leaving the police to their vigil. He had to be up early in the morning, and curious as he was, business came first. When three cars came down the road from the direction of Highway 309 and turned into an old house about a quarter mile back from the shore, the officers made a mental note to get the licence plate numbers. Shortly afterward, nine men dressed in cold weather gear walked down the road, and boarded the three newest Cape Island fishing boats, three to a boat. Almost of the stroke of midnight, the boats cast off and headed out to sea, appearing for all the world like ordinary fishermen getting a very early start on the day’s work; but ordinary fishermen would not have needed to begin work that early to reach the fishing grounds.
Constable Hamlin, the lead officer, used his cell phone to alert the Duty Officer in Barrington. “Stay put,” he was told, “and see what happens. I’ll tell Halifax. The fog has lifted enough that they’re getting ready to send the chopper to Rocky Island.”
The vigil paid off once more. About three o’clock, a cube van came down the road and the officers watched it turn off on an old road that, according to their map, ran east across the peninsula for about ten miles to a spot noted on the map as Round Bay. That old road was in terrible shape. Neither officer had ever driven it because there was nobody living in that section of the county. Round Bay was a name only, with a long disused jetty and a crumbling fishing shack. They knew about that only because somebody had once told Hamlin about it and he passed it on to his partner, a young constable named Harvey Meeker. Meeker was from the prairies and after nearly a year was still amazed to find himself stationed in a sparsely populated area on the South Shore of the province of Nova Scotia.
