Left to Die

by Gary Collins

  George Barbour headed his ship for open water, away from the ice edge, to home. She rounded Fogo Island on the northeast coast of Newfoundland and bent her way south to Cape Bonavista. For as long as he lived, George Barbour blamed Abram Kean for his men’s deaths.

  Trying to beat her way around Baccalieu Island, the Greenland was caught broadside by another storm. Barbour managed to get her into the harbour of Bay de Verde, just south of the island where he thought she would be safe. He dropped her hook well into the harbour, rowed ashore, and wired the sad news to his company in St. John’s before rowing back to his ship again. The storm raged on, and that night the Greenland’s collar chain parted. She went adrift deep into the harbour until she grounded on the rocky bottom. After the storm passed, she was refloated with help from the Bay de Verde fishermen and went on her way.

  Incredibly, the Greenland faced yet another storm and nearly foundered off Cape St. Francis. She sailed into St. John’s harbour on the evening of March 27 with her flag standing half-mast. But the polar icefields were not yet done with the Greenland. Her quest for seals ended in 1907 when she became jammed in the ice. In the end, the ice bore her under with not one splinter left to show where she had been. Fortunately, all of her crew were rescued.

  George Tuff didn’t want to believe Abe Kean had stooped to stealing pelts to be top dog. Still, Kean’s ship was the only one near enough to do the deed. He could tell her story better than anyone. There were times when he wished he could talk about it. He somehow believed the telling of it would help him, would release him from the nightmare of it.

  In his tormented dreams, sealers appeared, rising up from narrow cracks in the ice and trying to squeeze through. They never once managed to do so, but were held forever at its edge, pleading. He saw sealers carried over the surface of a huge swatch of water in the arms of a kraken-like beast, whose many outstretched arms were constructed of swirling snow. Cradled mercilessly in the snowy image, the faces of the sealers screamed without sound. Despite the great, raging blizzard, the water in his dreams appeared as a brilliant summer blue. The nightmare always ended the same way. The ice fissures closed over the men until just their naked hands showed for a minute, hanging on for life. Then that image disappeared, too. The snow-kraken released its hold and the men dropped under the surface without a sound. The lake of water remained blue except for a few calm, greasy streaks in the shapes of men.

  Now daylight was pouring in through the porthole. There didn’t appear to be much wind and the air felt warmer. The ship was not moving. The skipper would be eager to put last night’s plan into action. Tuff turned toward the door and opened it partway when he realized something was different about this dream. His legs grew weak and he trembled all over. He leaned against the door frame for support. In all of the other dreams, the faces of the dead sealers, though lustreless and without feeling, were known to him. But in this one they had no faces at all, and there were three times as many.

  15

  Tuff drank a hot cup of tea on the bridge with Wes Kean. After speaking to the captain, he left the wheelhouse without eating. He climbed the rigging without stopping and entered the barrel. Through his glasses he spotted the Stephano, still four or five miles away; the Newfoundland had not travelled far during the night. He also identified the Bonaventure and the Florizel. Although the day was dawning, he could see men killing seals between the Stephano and the Florizel. Tuff hurried down from the mast and reported his sightings to Kean, who climbed the rigging to see for himself.

  Tuff, suddenly feeling hungry, went forward and poured another cup of tea, which he drank without sugar. He smeared jam on a thick slice of bread and ate a hurried breakfast. In less than ten minutes he was back on the bridge and standing below the mainmast just as Kean was exiting the barrel. Tuff scrambled up the ratlines and met the captain at mid-mast. Below them, every sealer aboard was on deck and waiting in anticipation, sensing that something was about to happen.

  “Have you come to the same reasonin’ as me, Skipper? The Florizel and the Stephano are killin’ seals!”

  “I have, George b’y. You’ve made no mistake ’bout that. ’Tis ’ard to watch. The others in the fat and dis one stuck solid, an’ it lookin’ to be a wonderful warm day, too. The time is advancin’ fer good huntin’, as ye well know. Still, there’s nothin’ we can do about it, I s’pose.” Kean sounded wistful as he spoke to his second hand.

  “Nothin’ we can do, sir? Why, by heavens there is one t’ing that can be done! The men can walk across to the Stephano, sir, as we talked about!” Tuff looked up at his captain, but he didn’t notice the way Kean was looking at him.

  “You’re right again, of course. Still, I would want a good man to lead them.”

  “I’ll go wit’ them, sir. If you t’ink I’m the man fer ’em.”

  “You, George? You the man to lead the men? Dere’s not a man aboard o’ dis one I’d trust more’n yourself. Now, bear in mind, George, in case you get in the seals good and are panning for any length of time, you must reckon on Father’s ship for the night and not the Newfoundland. Will you go and lead them?”

  “Yes I will, Skipper.”

  George Tuff willingly volunteered, but it had little to do with his lifelong propensity for obeying the wishes of authority without question. It had more to do with him getting back on the same level as the other sealers.

  “Let’s get below,” shouted Kean. He was more than pleased with his second hand’s answer.

  The two men scrambled down the rigging, with Tuff hard-pressed to descend fast enough to prevent Kean from stepping on his fingers.

  “Master watches, ready yer men! Rally ’em! Rally ’em! Over the sides, b’ys, there’s seals fer the killin’!” Kean shouted over his shoulder before he reached the deck, his voice hoarse with excitement.

  A collective shout went up from the sealers below him. The skipper’s order electrified them.

  At 6:00 a.m. the sun was shining and the spring day was warm. A faint breeze came from the southeast, lifting the smoke straight up from the banked engine. It was a prime day for a rally at the seals.

  Now the deck of the Newfoundland was in a general state of excitement. The captain shouted directions at Tuff and to the master watches, who in turn yelled to the men. Most of the sealers had already dressed for the crossing to the Stephano. Those who were not ran below and dashed back on deck, hauling on coats and hats in a hurry. The watches were as eager to walk five miles to the seals as they would have been if the animals were only a few hundred feet from the ship. They grabbed gaffs from the racks and fetched tow ropes to drape diagonally across their shoulders. Some of them hurried to the ship’s stores and stuffed their pockets with small cakes of bread as hard as glacier ice. Big wooden spoons doled out black molasses into small thick bottles for them. With their hands they took a lumpy, gelatinous mixture of sugar, oatmeal, and raisins from a galvanized tub filled to the brim, placed it in cloth bags, and stuffed them into coat pockets. A few took clear bottles of a type of liniment filled with essence of sweet spirit of niter, commonly used to ease the pain of seal finger or seal hand, an infection that sometimes set into minor cuts after exposure to seal fat. Seal finger was known to cause tiny cuts on the skin to become tender, festering boils. Sweet spirit of niter was a nauseating yellow blend of distilled nitric acid and saltpetre, or niter, and alcohol and water. The sealers believed it could cure anything. They inhaled it for headaches, drank it for stomach aches, or applied it to their skin as their ailment required. Many of the men took nothing more than extra tobacco and matches.

  All of the pent-up frustration the sealers felt after having been confined to ship for days on end was released in a flurry of activity as they prepared to go over the side. Their master watches gave the order, “Over the side, b’ys!” No other persuasion was needed. They began scrambling down the side sticks like schoolboys leaving a one-room schoolh
ouse on the last day of school. They went like men hurrying to get their part of a great treasure. The side sticks on both sides of the Newfoundland were crowded with men shouting as they scurried to the ice. The men on the lower steps of the makeshift ladder could not hold on an instant too long, for fear of having their hands trampled on by hobnailed boots.

  “Jump wit’ the men or be left aboard wit’ the b’ys!”

  “Come on, b’ys, ’bout time fer us to get into the fat!”

  “We’ll show ol’ man Kean ’ow to kill swiles, by God!”

  “Crack on ’er, b’ys!”

  “Keep off me bloody fingers, b’y!”

  “Min’ yer bloody gaff! You damn near stabbed me!”

  In their hurry, some men got their tow ropes tangled in the ends of the side sticks. Others dropped their gaffs and struck men below, who bellowed out curses.

  “Save yer blows fer the seals! You’ve bruised me pate, b’y!”

  “You men below there! Don’t stand around bobbin’ like a bunch of twillicks on a rock! Step away afore you sinks the pan! Make room fer yer mates,” shouted Arthur Mouland of Lancaster, near Bonavista. He was one of the master watches.

  After a short period of confusion, the scaling down over the sides of the ship was going well. Some of the men were carrying tall poles with the ship’s flag fastened to their tops, giving the whole procedure a regal look. Wes Kean was watching from the bridge. The side sticks did not reach all the way to the ice and the men had to jump the last few feet. Cecil Mouland had jumped from the sticks and was sprinting away from the ship, when suddenly the captain’s voice thundered overhead.

  “You there! The young stowaway from S’n John’s! Where the ’ell do you thing you’re going?”

  John Antle was on the side sticks and he was about to jump onto the ice where Cecil Mouland and his new-found friends waited for him. Antle stopped, as did everyone else, arrested by Wes Kean’s angry voice.

  “Why—we—I—I’m goin’ a-sealin’ wit’ the b’ys, sir!”

  “Sealin’? Sealin’, sir? Wi’ the b’ys, sir? An’ that you are not, sir! Git back aboard an’ tend to your duties, sir, as is fittin’ fer a man who steals ’board my ship!”

  Antle was devastated, humiliated, and hurt beyond speech. The men allowed him room to climb back up. Some of them who had resented his presence now pitied the boy. Dejected, Antle made his way up and stood on the deck. Staring down at his friends, he looked like a boy put out of a game by his chums. The sealers started yelling again and their dismount continued.

  Antle slunk away out of Kean’s sight. Though shaken, he was still set on going, as he called it, a-sealin’. He was hoping to sneak away from the ship with the men on the other side. As if reading the boy’s mind, Wes Kean roared again.

  “Furder to my orders!”

  The sealers stopped again.

  “If the young stowaway is found in any o’ the watches, the master will answer to me!”

  Kean’s anger toward Antle was evident to all who listened.

  Jacob Dalton was standing on the ice next to Theophilus Chalk. Chalk had climbed down over the ship along with the others, and now he looked at Jake nervously, waiting for the skipper to turn his wrath upon him. But it never came. Jake, ever ready to seize an opportunity, quickly pushed Chalk ahead and away from the ship. They walked past many of the men and merged into their ranks, losing themselves in the milling crowd.

  * * * * *

  The storm is following its track up the coast of North America. Huge cold masses of air forced down from the northern plains region hold it at the outer rim of the continent. It licks at the Carolinas and the southern spit of Chesapeake Bay, tearing across the land and dropping torrents of rain. It rages northward, reaching inland to Philadelphia and through the canyons of New York City. It mixes with a plastering snow and shatters windows and strips the roofs off skyscrapers standing in its way.

  North past the divide between America and Canada, it bears for the maw of the Bay of Fundy. Here the circulation of air bearing down from the Canadian northland stops fighting with the upward-reaching wind from the south. Now it merges with the storm and adds to its terrible might. Pulling it north and east, searching, a winter gale is born.

  The storm reaches to sea hundreds of miles east of Cape Sable. It buries Nova Scotia and most of New Brunswick with heavy snow. Roaring out over Cape North, at the end of Cape Breton’s highlands, it engulfs St. Paul Island and the Îles de la Madeleine in its ferocious grip. Here, at the end of the St. Lawrence, it finds what it is looking for: the southern edge of the Great White Plain. It feeds on the cold air rising from the icefield and for a time stalls over it.

  North and east it bends its way over the frigid plain, toward the unsuspecting island of Newfoundland and the ice floes beyond. Driving ahead of the maelstrom is a deceivingly pleasant spring day. It is a warning of what is yet to come for those who know, and men ignore it at their peril.

  * * * * *

  At 7:00 a.m., George Tuff took the point position and led northwest toward the Stephano. He wore thick, round-eyed goggles to protect his eyes from snow blindness, and when he turned around to look at the sealers behind him he saw that only a few wore sunglasses. The ice was heavy and extremely rough. There were ridges to get over, and some of them were so uneven they had to be circumnavigated. Judging distance from the Newfoundland’s barrel, or even from her deck, and trying to see their goal from a man’s height on the ice surface, was entirely different. There was no way to walk in a straight line, and it was only when they topped the ice ridges that the Stephano could be seen at all. There was a low, heavy swell that lifted the ice surface like a living, breathing thing, and sometimes the Stephano’s masts could be seen against the sky. She was still hull down in the ice, but the morning was pleasant enough, the sun warmed as it rose, and the sealers were in great spirits as they started out. They were fresh and well-rested after days of inactivity. It took a while for the master watches to get their men organized, but they were soon following behind Tuff four and five abreast.

  The ice was fused together in pans of all sizes. The weight of so many men jumping and landing in the same spot often weakened the edges of the pans, and sometimes they broke and a man fell through to his knees—to the delight of the others. When this happened, the sealers behind would stop and hurriedly looked for a way around the slushy hole. Many of them, especially the young and experienced, considered their walk a lark and made fun of it. One man, who suddenly broke through a pan edge, recovered so swiftly from his fall he claimed he had not gotten wet. The others piled to a stop behind him. Scrambling to his feet and seeing the men behind him hesitate to follow, he shouted with glee, “Ah! I got yas duffed, b’ys!”

  Duff was a popular game among the boys in the outport communities on the northeast coast of Newfoundland. It was a game of challenge and could involve as many boys as were willing to play. The game was simple enough. All that was needed was for someone to claim he could leap over the highest rock, across the deepest gulch, or even from the highest outhouse roof than anyone else. But the best challenge of all was flipsying, or copying, across coves on pans of ice. The smaller ones presented the greatest challenge. A boy would run with outspread arms and, like a log driver on a river, cross dozens of ice pans too small to bear his weight, with five feet or more of icy water under the pans. If he made it across without falling through, and if the others would not try it, he had successfully duffed his opponents. However, if he fell through and had to wade ashore, his duff had failed. The innocent games of duff that boys played in sea coves choked with ice were good practice for the deadly game of hunting on the shifting ice floes.

  Soon the walk ahead of them became a hard and trying journey over miles of sea ice. The men strung out into a long, single line behind George Tuff. Wide cracks and chasms appeared between the thick pans. Small lakes of
water drew them up short, but the slob between the pans was what the sealers feared most. From a distance the ice looked to be stable and unmoving, but it was not. Aside from its constant drift, which went largely unnoticed without some landmark to judge it by, there was the constant movement of the individual pans. They rose and fell with the roll of the deep ocean swells beneath. Their serrated edges, miniature headlands, and countless pointed ends rubbed against each other, grating off tons of ice into the fissures between them. The sealers called it slob. The cold emanating from the ice surface sometimes fused the slob to the harder pans, but it was a deceptive weld that could never be trusted. It would rarely hold a man’s weight.

  Along the way, some of them fell through knee deep. A few men stopped to wring out wet stockings, but most of them carried on. The walk was now an exercise of burning muscles and dwindling energy. There were few level patches of ice. Most of their trail went over a rocky, icy plain. Men had to climb over ice formations taller than themselves. In places they squeezed through openings to save distance. They were in constant motion, leaping, jumping, climbing, and sometimes stumbling.

  George Tuff slowed the pace. Some of the older men were tired. The morning was warm and the sealers were warming up further with the exertion. The men were sweating. They sucked on handfuls of snow and clumps of ice to quench their thirst. They had breakfasted on salt codfish and carried no water with them.

  Toward the rear of the column, some stopped for a rest. They began to remove their heavy hats and coats, and a few decided to leave them behind.

  Reuben Crewe spoke to a young man who had removed his coat and placed it on a pinnacle of ice to retrieve on the way back. “Don’t be leavin’ yer coats behind, b’ys. Better on than off. Remember where yer to, b’ys.”

  “Ah, Skipper, ’tis a warm day. I’m sweatin’ like a bull. The Stephano is no more than another hour away, so I’ll pick up me coat when we comes back.”