The Boat Who Wouldn't Float

by Farley Mowat

  “St. Pierre,” I cried back. “Heading to clear Cape St. Mary’s with a five-mile offing.”

  There was a long thoughtful silence from our neighbour. And then:

  “Well, byes, I don’t see how you’re going to do it steering the course you is. Unless, that is, you plans to take her up the Branch River, carry her over the Platform Hills, and put her on a railroad train. If I was you, I’d haul off to port about nine points. Good luck to ye!”

  The diesels of the big vessel started with a roar and she pulled clear of us and disappeared.

  We altered ten points to the southward just to be sure. The lubber line on the compass now indicated we were steaming south into the open ocean on a course for Bermuda. As the hours went by we found this increasingly unsettling to the mind. Was the schooner skipper correct, or was he wrong? The compass insisted he was very wrong indeed. We stewed over the matter until mid-afternoon, by which time we had lost all confidence in compass, schooner skipper, and ourselves.

  At this juncture the bullgine took our minds off our navigational problems. It gave a tremendous belch. A huge cloud of blue smoke burst out of the companionway. I plunged below and grabbed for the fire extinguisher, expecting to find the entire engine room aflame. However all that had happened was that the exhaust stack had blown off at its junction with the engine, allowing exhaust gases and bits of white-hot carbon to fill the little cabin. The engine continued to run, if anything, a little better, since there was no back pressure from the stack.

  There was also no longer anything between the hot exhaust and the bilges of the boat in which floated a thin but ever present scum of gasoline.

  I held my breath, screwed my eyes tight shut, groped for the ignition wire, and pulled it off. Then I fled back on deck.

  The bullgine wheezed to a stop and Jack and I sat in the ensuing, overwhelming silence and discussed our situation. It was not a cheerful prospect that we faced.

  There was no way we could repair the exhaust stack without access to a welding torch. There was no wind and we could not sail, and so without the engine we would be doomed to sit where we were until something happened. That might be a long time but when something did happen we could be pretty sure it would be the wrong thing. There was apparently nothing for it but to restart the engine and hope she would not backfire and blow us all to Kingdom Come.

  Leaving me to cogitate upon the problem Jack took advantage of the silence to slip below and turn on our small battery radio in an attempt to get a weather forecast. We could not use this radio while the engine was running because it was impossible to hear the tinny, indistinct sound that came out of it. Now, by pressing his ear against the speaker. Jack could hear the strains of cowboy music from Marystown Radio across Placentia Bay. Because it served a fishing community Marystown Radio gave the weather at frequent intervals.

  Happy Adventure lay as silent as a painted ship upon a painted ocean—one painted in unrelieved tones of grey. After five or ten minutes Jack reappeared on deck.

  “Farley,” he said quietly, too quietly, “you aren’t going to want to believe this, but they’re putting out a general storm warning. There’s a tropical storm coming in from the southwest and it’s due here in ten hours, more or less. They’re predicting winds of sixty knots!”

  We got out the charts, spread them on the deck, and pored over them. First Jack would pour, then I would pour. This made us feel better, but it did not do us a great deal of practical good because we did not know exactly where we were. In truth, we didn’t have a clue as to where we were. However assuming we had cleared Cape St. Mary’s and were crossing the mouth of Placentia Bay—a fifty-mile-wide traverse—we found by the chart that we could not be less than eighty miles from St. Pierre. Under full engine power Happy Adventure could manage five knots. In ten hours’ time this would have put us thirty miles short of the haven of St. Pierre and we knew that if the tropical storm arrived on schedule, thirty miles might just as well be three hundred.

  The nearest port in which we could hope to find shelter appeared to be Placentia Harbour, twenty-five or thirty miles to the northward of Cape St. Mary’s, on the east coast of the great bay.

  I was rather afraid to suggest we try for Placentia Harbour, expecting another mutinous response from Jack. But he appeared to have had his fill of excitement, and he agreed that, yes, perhaps we should put in there for the night.

  He went below and cautiously started the bullgine. We reset the patent log to zero and put the vessel on what we trusted (trust was all we had) was the correct course for Placentia Harbour.

  It grew bitter cold and the fog began to close in tighter and tighter until it was so black that, had my watch not denied it, we could have believed night had fallen. Jack and I huddled together in the steering well, as far away from the engine room as we could get. We had also taken the precaution of hauling the dory up close under the stern so we could leap directly aboard it in an emergency; and we had stowed the dory with our last communal bottle of rum and a bag of sea biscuits. There was no room for anything else and, indeed, there was no room for us if it should come to that. We hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  Five hours later the patent log showed we had run the proper distance to Placentia. I sent Jack to stop the bullgine so we could listen for the fog-horn at the harbour mouth.

  Then a strange thing happened. The engine stopped but the roar continued. At first I thought this must be a physiological reaction of my ears and mind to the endless thunder of the bullgine which we had endured for so many hours, but suddenly the truth came clear to me.

  “Start her, jack! Start her! Oh start her, Jack!” I howled.

  Startled, Jack did as he was told and the bullgine caught on the first spin of the flywheel. I shoved the tiller over, hard. Happy Adventure picked up way and turned westward, away from the roaring surf that lay unseen but not unheard a few yards off her starboard bow.

  We ran for half an hour before I could relax my grip on the tiller, unclamp my jaws, swallow once or twice, and find my voice again.

  We had no way of knowing how close we had come to Placentia Harbour itself, but we did know we had come much too close to the east coast of the great bay. We knew we did not want to encounter it again under any conceivable circumstances. So we held on to the westward, knowing we had at least forty or fifty miles of open water ahead of us in that direction. We did not allow ourselves to think beyond those forty or fifty miles.

  As we drove away from the land a kind of peace came over us. The bullgine rumbled and the exhaust smoke rolled out of the cabin into our faces. The fog grew thicker and somewhere the sun sank below the horizon, and it was night. We did not bother lighting our oil-burning navigation lights, because they could not have been seen from more than four or five feet away. We sat in our oilskins and blundered on into an infinity of blackness; into a void that had no end. We told each other that this was how the mariners of ancient times, the Norse in their longships, the Basques in their cranky vessels, Columbus in his caravel, must have felt as they ran their westing down toward a dark unknown. Day after day, night after night, they must have learned how to live with the terrors of a long uncertainty. On that black night perhaps we shared a little of what they must have felt.

  At midnight Jack got another forecast. The spiralling storm centre had slowed down and was not expected to reach our area until just before dawn. In preparation for its arrival we double-reefed the main and foresail and felt our way over every inch of the fog-shrouded vessel putting all things in order for a blow.

  A light breeze had risen from southerly, so we hoisted sail and shut down the bullgine, which had again begun to misbehave. The new checks had not bedded properly in their seats and she had started to overheat again; thus increasing the likelihood of backfires and of even more spectacular pyrotechnics.

  We slipped along under sail in almost perfect silence in a world reduced to a diameter of not more than fifteen feet. I worked at the pump and Jack, at the helm, leaned ov
er the compass whose card was lit by the dim glow of an expiring flashlight which we had taped to the binnacle, in lieu of a proper lamp.

  The thought occurred to me that if we had to find ourselves in a situation of some jeopardy, we were better off aboard Happy Adventure than aboard a well-found, comfortable, and properly equipped yacht.

  “You have to be kidding!” Jack said when I propounded this idea.

  “Not at all. Look at it this way. If we were in a hundred-thousand-dollar yacht we’d have to worry like hell about the prospect of losing her. We don’t have that worry aboard Happy Adventure. We only have to worry about losing ourselves and she doesn’t give us any time to worry about that.” I paused to let this sink in. Then: “Would you mind unstrapping that flashlight from the binnacle and bringing it below? The main pump has jammed again.”

  By the time we had repaired the pump and regained control over the leaks the little vessel had developed a new motion. She was beginning to roll. A heavy swell was heaving in from seaward. It gradually built up until we were rolling and pitching hard enough to spill the small wind out of our sails. Booms, gaffs, and blocks charged about, banging and thumping unseen above our heads.

  The wind now failed and we lay becalmed on the black, heaving sea in an ominous silence broken only by the complaining noises of our running gear. There was nothing for it but to lower away and risk starting the bullgine once more.

  She started with extreme reluctance, but she started, and for once her horrible outcry was welcome music in our ears. We drove on into the hours of the graveyard watch, hauling the patent log every now and again, to make sure we were not closing too fast with the alien coast which lay somewhere off our bows. At 0300 hours the log showed thirty-five miles and, very mindful of our recent experience off Placentia, we decided to stop the bullgine and listen.

  At first we heard nothing—then very distant and indistinct we caught the faint moan of a diaphone. We were no longer alone in an empty world.

  Each diaphone (fog-horn) has its own signature or code by which it can be identified. One may be timed to blow three five-second blasts at three-second intervals at the beginning of every minute; its nearest neighbour may be timed to blow for ten seconds, every thirty seconds. Jack slipped below to get the official Light and Fog-horn List while I began timing the distant moans. This was difficult because fog has the ability to muffle, distort, and freakishly obliterate sounds. Furthermore the second hand on my watch had a disconcerting way of moving in swift rushes followed by intervals of extreme sluggishness. Jack’s watch was not available because some hours earlier the bullgine had struck it a smart blow with the starting handle.

  Our first identification of the horn suggested it was on Cape Ann at the entrance to Gloucester, Massachusetts. We did not believe this, so we tried again. The next identification was of Red Rock at the mouth of the Saguenay in the St. Lawrence River; we did not believe that one either. Finally by the slow process of elimination we concluded that the horn might be on Little Burin Island on the west side of Placentia Bay.

  Having perhaps located Little Burin Island, our next problem was to get into Burin harbour. The Newfoundland Pilot Book informed us that the harbour was complicated, with off-lying dangers, and that it should not be entered unless one took aboard a pilot. Furthermore it should not be entered, even in daylight, unless one possessed local knowledge. The book said nothing about what should not be done at night, in a black fog, by perfect strangers. We drew our own conclusions.

  We decided we had better stay where we were until dawn. If the storm struck before then we would have no alternative but to head out to sea and try to ride it out. If the storm held off until dawn, and if the fog lightened, there would be a chance of closing with the shore without inviting certain disaster. There was the further possibility that we might encounter a shore-based fishing boat from which we could get a little “local knowledge.”

  According to my watch dawn arrived at 0600 hours, but there was little visual evidence of its coming. True, the fog lightened enough so that we could actually see each other if we stood no farther than six feet apart. A kind of sepulchral semi-luminosity made it possible to read the compass card without the flashlight, which was just as well because the flashlight batteries had burned out and we had no replacements. At first we suspected that my watch was wrong (and we hoped it was), but when an early rising puffin suddenly whirred through the murk and just managed to avoid colliding with our mainmast, we knew that dawn had really come.

  For half an hour more we waited, hoping to hear the slow, measured throb of fishing-boat engines. During the hours of drifting the current had carried us closer to shore and the horn was now quite distinct, and it was unmistakably Little Burin. Yet the fishermen of Burin did not seem to be abroad and at their work. We cursed them for being sluggards until Jack remembered that—storm warnings aside—this was Sunday morning. We thereupon gave up hoping for salvation from the fishermen. Being good Christian men they were all ashore seeing to their own salvation.

  At seven o’clock we did hear a new noise. It was the first keening note of wind in our rigging. It was the first breath of the oncoming storm.

  The skipper of the Jeannie Barnes had given us a small-scale and much-worn chart of Placentia Bay. Although it was almost indecipherable at least it told us there were no reefs or rocks off shore from Little Burin Island itself. In our dilemma we now decided to run straight toward the horn and, when we had it close aboard, swing north and try to feel our way behind the island. We would anchor there in whatever shelter we could find until the gale was over or until the fog blew away allowing us to seek a better haven.

  The approach run was a ghastly ordeal. In order to keep track of the horn we had to stop the engine every five or ten minutes so that we could take a bearing; each time we stopped her she became more difficult to start. At eight-thirty, when we had worked our way within a quarter of a mile of the horn, the engine absolutely refused to start again. I sweated over it, exchanging igniters and frigging with wires, while the sound of the surf breaking on the two-hundred-foot-high seaward cliffs of Little Burin Island grew steadily louder as the tide carried us toward shore.

  It took almost an hour to revive the bullgine and we knew we would not be able to risk stopping her again until we had reached an anchorage. Jack went forward to the bowsprit while I steered. I could only just see him as he waved his arm to signal the direction of the horn, which he could hear even above the thunder of the engine. Suddenly he flung up both arms at once. Confused, I put the helm hard over. Happy Adventure spun on her heel and we headed back out to sea.

  Jack stumbled aft, a shaken man. He told me that as he stared into the murk the grey wall had suddenly turned pitch black, not only dead ahead, but off to port and starboard too. It took him only a fraction of an instant to realize that he was staring at the shrouded face of cliffs which loomed no more than a few yards from him. Since destruction seemed certain no matter which way we turned he tried to signal to me to stop the engine and so at least ease the final blow when Happy Adventure struck. Luck was with us. We had entered a shallow bay to the south of the fog-horn and it was just wide enough to let us turn about and make our escape.

  Our immediate reaction was to give up any further attempts to reach shelter and to decide to take our chances with the storm at sea. However a little reflection changed our minds. Happy Adventure was leaking so badly that the unreliable pump was barely able to hold its own. The engine was clearly on its last legs. The wind was rising out of the sou’east. We knew we would stand no chance of beating off shore into the teeth of mounting wind and seas. One way or another we seemed destined to go ashore; only the choice of how we did it still remained to us.

  We chose to make another pass at Little Burin Island.

  Jack went forward again. He told me afterwards that he had an almost irresistible impulse to pick up our boat-hook and to stand poised on the bow with the pole thrust out ahead of him to fend us off the cliffs. It was
not such a crazy idea as it sounds. A few days later the light-keeper told me his impressions of our tilt with Little Burin Island.

  “I heard you fellas out there fer hours and hours. Couldn’t make out what you was about. Heard your engine fer a time, then she’d shut off and I’d think you was gone away or gone ashore. Then, bang, you’d be coming at me again. Well, Sir, the last time you come in I thought you’d come right up the cliffs, gone by my door, and fair into my back yard.”

  On our final approach our course was indeed dead at the horn. I could even hear it from where I sat at the helm; a bull’s bellow above the blatting of the engine. Jack’s right arm shot out and I hauled the tiller hard to port. This time I too saw the black loom as we ran parallel to the cliff and not more than a ship’s length from it. The horn suddenly boomed, and it was straight overhead. I hauled harder on the stick and the black loom vanished and we were again lost in the world of fog.

  That was the way we navigated. I eased the stick over very slowly. As soon as the fog began to darken Jack would wave me off. As the fog lightened and we lost touch with the island, we would turn cautiously inward again until we raised its loom before hauling off once more. Despite the chill of the morning I was sweating like a pig. I was so engrossed that it was some time before I realized that the boom of the horn was now behind me. We had rounded the corner of the island and were running down its northern shore.

  I had the chart spread out on my knee and I peered at it trying to make out the water depths behind the island. Eventually I read part of a line of soundings. They showed twelve fathoms right to the foot of the cliffs—and we had just fifteen fathoms of anchor chain.

  Up forward Jack was already flaking the chain on deck, ready for my order to let go the hook. I yelled to him and he came aft. I showed him the soundings. We both knew there was no way we were going to ride out a storm with only three fathoms of scope on our chain. Then Jack grinned. A terrible grin.