The Boat Who Wouldn't Float

by Farley Mowat

  Mike and I left L’Escal very late that dark and foggy night. We had neglected to bring a flashlight with us, so our only source of illumination was the inner glow that suffused us both. We had the devil’s own time finding the harbour. When we did find it we had no idea at what point on its perimeter we had arrived. We spent an hour groping our way along the seawall, painfully locating the mooring wires of draggers with our shins.

  Of Happy Adventure we could find neither hide nor hair. I concluded we should give up the search and go back to L’Escal, wake Ella up and ask her for a bed. However Mike was in the grip of a stubborn Irish streak, than which there is no stubborner. Muttering to himself, he dragged me with him until we encountered yet another mooring wire.

  It was not Happy Adventure’s warp. It led instead to the slimy deck of a truly antediluvian schooner that, for as long as anyone could remember, had lain beside a remote portion of the harbour wall.

  Years and years earlier this schooner, the Diamant, had given up her tenuous hold on life and had partly sunk at her moorings. But down in her mildewed cabin there lived a mariner as ancient as the ship. He was only seen on rare occasions, when he popped out of the vessel’s afterhatch to scuttle rapidly across the Place to one of the more disreputable bars.

  Having found something he recognized, Mike was encouraged to crawl cautiously aboard. He was determined to wake up the old man of the Diamant and ask him if he knew anything concerning the whereabouts of our vessel.

  The hatch slid back and out popped the head of the resident gnome, his grizzled and shrunken face glowing in the light of an oil lantern. He seemed to know what we wanted. Waving the lantern he beckoned us to follow him over the outer rail on to the deck of a moribund, wooden motor launch, belonging to our good friend Paulo. Moored snuggly alongside Paulo’s boat was our missing ship.

  The arrival of two fog-belated foreign draggers at the crowded wharf had occasioned Happy Adventure’s removal to this new location, but the sailors who moved her had not felt it necessary to inform us of their action.

  Our guide departed, taking his lantern—leaving us to fumble our way aboard our ship, and to descend into the black depths of Happy Adventure’s interior without even the flare of a match to light the way.

  I was by now so well used to her and had had so many intimate contacts with deck beams, protruding engine parts, and other obstacles, that I could avoid them blindfolded. So I went below first—and immediately came to grief. I put my foot through something that crunched, went sprawling, and ended up embracing the cold torso of the engine.

  I did not swear because I was scared half out of my wits. I was not alone in the engine room. All around me was a scaly, whispering, scratching sound, and things were moving under my prone body and crawling over my spread legs. I scrabbled clear, found the lamp in the main cabin, and with trembling hands managed to light it. Mike started down the companion ladder, and stopped. In the soft lamplight both of us could see why we were not alone.

  Earlier that evening Paulo had brought us a present. It was a large cardboard carton filled to the top with crabs. Finding nobody at home he had placed the carton at the foot of the companion ladder where we would be sure to find it.

  These were not your little, insignificant, beach crabs; they were large, robust, and active deep-water crabs with a shell span of six inches or more and formidable pincers. There were dozens of them. Paulo had intended us to have a mighty feast but the crabs thought otherwise. We managed to corral a few and put them in a pail, but the rest proved too elusive, or too well-armed, for us to cope with. Most of them made it into the security of the bilges where they disappeared under the floor boards.

  Having assured each other that, unlike the palm-tree crabs of the Pacific, St. Pierre crabs could not climb, we rolled wearily into our bunks intending to take up the pursuit on the morrow; in daylight and wearing rubber boots.

  It had been a long, exhausting day.

  14. Itchy-Ass-Sally

  MIKE AND I and the crabs went to sleep at about four o’clock as a heavy rain began to hammer on the top of the cabin. We were awakened at seven by a heavy hand hammering on the top of the cabin.

  In no good humour I slid back the hatch and found that it was still raining and that the fog was as thick as ever. Standing on the deck of Paulo’s boat was a bedraggled group of people consisting of a young priest, two small boys whom I took to be his acolytes, Théophile Detcheverry, his son George, and Martin Dutin. In that eerie dawn light they looked like a Dürer print of mourners come to claim a corpse.

  In fact they had come to conduct the official baptism service over Happy Adventure; to wash away her Protestant sins as it were, and make an honest woman of her.

  As they crowded into the narrow confines of the untidy cabin Martin whispered apologies for the earliness of the visit, explaining that this was the only free time the Father had been able to find. He added that the Father had a tearing head cold, could hardly talk, and wished to get the job over in a hurry.

  I had no objections. It was distinctly chilly standing there in my underwear and I longed to be back in my warm sleeping-bag. Mike, who was not even wearing underwear, was still in his bag and showed no inclination to leave it.

  The service was mercifully simple. While the two little boys intoned a chant, the Father produced a bottle of holy water, uncorked it, and poised it directly over our saloon table.

  With the exception of Mike we all tried to stand erect, which cannot be done in Happy Adventure’s cabin. Our heads were bowed, perforce, and so were our legs and our backs. As for Mike, he squirmed about until he managed to get into a semi-kneeling position, still inside his sleeping-bag, but he did not look particularly reverent. He looked more like a dissipated camel-driver waking at dawn in the bitter cold of the desert to have a morning chat with Mohammed.

  Snuffling gently, the Father said a prayer or two and then prepared to give the little vessel her new name. At the precise moment that he pronounced it and tipped the bottle, he was convulsed by a gargantuan sneeze.

  Holy water flew everywhere. A glittering parabola curved across the table and landed on Mike’s bunk. Ricochet droplets spattered the intent faces of the rest of us. Fearfully embarrassed, the Father hurriedly mumbled the rest of the blessing and beat a hasty retreat.

  The Detcheverrys and Martin also departed and Mike and I and the crabs were left alone to meditate on what had taken place. Mike’s sympathy for the unfortunate Father was a little deeper than mine.

  “Don’t you snigger, Mowat!” he said as he wiped holy water off his sleeping-bag. “You try saying the name of this silly damn boat and see what happens!”

  I tried, and I saw what he meant. But why don’t you, dear reader, try it for yourself?

  Itchatchozale Alai.

  Although Mike and I spent some time practising the name, we did not master it successfully, then or ever. Mike eventually produced a modified version which seemed to delight him, but which I felt—on behalf of my little ship—was not really acceptable.

  Itchy-ass-sally did not seem quite the thing. Newfoundlanders have a saying that a voyage badly begun will come to a good conclusion. It was so with our christening. While we were still struggling with the new name, Théo and Martin returned aboard bearing a bottle of a peculiar green liquid.

  Heedless of the rain Théo climbed into our tiny dory and began painting the vessel’s new name in gold on both bows. Meantime, Martin proudly displayed the new flag which had been made for us—a gorgeous confection of silk embroidered with gold thread. Emblazoned on its red background was a green-and-white cross and the crest of the seven provinces; those that formed the Basque nation before the French seized four of them and the Spaniards seized the other three.

  Having formally presented me with the flag Martin opened the bottle of green liquor. “This,” he told us, “is Izaro. It is the national drink of the Basque nation. Now we will toast Itchatchozale Alai in her native brew!”

  We did so and immedi
ately thereafter the day began to brighten. Having sampled Izaro, I no longer wondered why it took the Spanish and French eight hundred years to overrun the Basques; and I understood why, to this day, they have not yet succeeded in subduing them.

  By eleven o’clock, the hour set for the public christening, the rain had stopped and the fog had thinned. A large crowd had gathered on the wharf and a number of specially invited guests had assembled on Paulo’s boat.

  The captain and crew of one Spanish Basque dragger had risked the terrors of Franco’s vengeance by resolutely dressing all of their rusty vessel with every flag and pennant they could find.

  Paulo had “borrowed” a brass cannon of ancient vintage from the front lawn of the governor’s house, and had mounted it on the bow of his old boat, where he and a chum were busy doing things with a can of black powder and wads of cotton.

  Precisely on the hour Martin, as Chef de Protocol, mounted to the top of the cabin of Paulo’s boat. The local Basque musical group, clad in traditional costumes, sounded a fanfare. Martin made a charming little speech in French and in Basque. When he finished he turned to Madame Detcheverry, who had been chosen to be godmother to the vessel, and invited her to do her duty.

  She did it with a will, swinging a ribbon-tethered bottle of Izaro with such enthusiasm that the bottle missed the vessel’s bows, snapped its ribbon, soared up over our decks, and shattered against the mainmast ten feet above our heads. Then St. Pierre paid tribute to our little ship. Vessel horns and sirens sounded and reverberated across the harbour. And, somewhat delayed because of trouble with his quickmatch, Paulo fired his cannon.

  This was a master-stroke. The heavy brass tube spouted a five-foot tongue of flame through an immense cloud of black smoke, letting loose a roar like that of worlds in collision. Luckily nobody was standing behind the gun. It snapped the ropes Paulo had used to bind it to his winch, shot backward like a rocket, smashed through the front of his wheel-house, and came out the other side, where it lay on the afterdeck, smoking gently, exhausted by its effort.

  For the balance of the day Itchatchozale Alai was hostess to innumerable well-wishers; and that evening Ella Girardin gave a gala reception in the vessel’s honour at L’Escal.

  The party had two major results. One was that we decided to sail Itchy (this diminutive was bestowed on her that night when even the Basque speakers began having trouble pronouncing her name) on a ceremonial voyage to the Basque stronghold of Miquelon. The other was the signing on of a new crew member in the person of a golden-haired young fugitive from Toronto by the name of Claire, who had come to spend a month on the islands in order to perfect her command of the French language. It was not long before I persuaded her to include in her studies a course in advanced English, with myself as her instructor.

  Resplendent in her new coat of paint; her name flashing in letters of gold; her new flag flying gaily from atop the mainmast; her compass adjusted and her engine temporarily amenable to reason, Itchy looked and acted like a new ship. I felt myself becoming discreetly proud of her and I even felt some modest confidence in her as well. It was in such a mood that we prepared to sail for Miquelon three days after the christening.

  The assembled guests for the voyage numbered fifteen people and two dogs. The guests were accompanied by an incredible assortment of paraphernalia including sporting guns, huge hampers of food and huger hampers of wine and spirits, a telescope, several deck-chairs, and a spring-operated Victrola.

  We attempted to find space for everything and everybody and we failed. There simply was not that much room. The indefatigable Martin thereupon dashed off down the harbour wall. He returned ten minutes later at the oars of a dory that was nearly as long as Itchy. We made this monster fast to our stern and filled it with “expendables,” including the dogs, the deck-chairs, and three of the less attractive ladies. None of these three unfortunates had ever been in a boat before, so they accepted my assurances that they were being allowed to occupy what amounted to deluxe accommodations, leaving the rest of us to endure steerage conditions aboard the crowded schooner.

  Our departure was not dashing. The unwieldy dory towing astern did not add to Itchy’s nimbleness. Even with the engine bellowing at full throttle and all sails set and drawing, we crawled out of the harbour at a speed of less than three knots.

  The voyage was generally uneventful, but there were some minor incidents. As we were crossing the great bight between Langlade and Miquelon the tow-line parted and the dory went adrift. Rescue operations were not undertaken immediately because some of our crew, noting how Itchy’s speed and performance were improved by the loss of the dory, concluded that the dory passengers should be left to row to Miquelon in their own time. This proposition was finally rejected on humane grounds. Most of us felt it would be unfair to expose the two dogs to the privations of having to spend a night at sea.

  There was a further incident when two of our most charming ladies went below to unpack the food hamper (the liquor hampers had already unpacked themselves). Both ladies quickly reappeared and were very, very sick, mostly overboard but quite a lot over themselves and over those who were crowded into the cockpit.

  When they had partly recovered they rebuked Mike and me with baleful words. They said the stink in the cabin was enough to make a dead horse vomit. However, being French, they were prone to overstatement. The smell was not that bad. In fact Mike and I had learned to live with it and did not really notice it any more. It came from the several dozen crabs who had crawled up under the floorboards and there, poisoned by the bilge water, had gone to their eternal rest in places from which it was quite impossible to retrieve their mortal remains.

  The presence of the crabs resulted in a piquant tableau. One of our guests was so overcome at finding himself afloat in such a small shallop on such a mighty ocean that he could not remain on deck. However, because of the crabs, he could not remain below either. He resolved this dilemma by spending the entire voyage crouched in the cabin with his head thrust out through a porthole. Seen from on deck, he looked like a stuffed moosehead that had shed its horns.

  After eight or nine hours at sea we entered the wide, shingle-rimmed expanse of Miquelon Roads just at dusk. News of our coming had gone before us and, as we rounded Chat Rock and opened the mighty sweep of the beach, a dozen big, steeply sheered, multi-coloured Miquelon dories (each with a small deckhouse amidship which gave them an oddly Venetian look) were launched from their rollers and came out to meet us.

  The settlement at Miquelon is almost wholly Basque and its people received Itchy as if she was truly one of their own, come home at last from over the shadowed seas of time. The dories formed an escort around us, and we bore down upon the attenuated little village with our Basque flag snapping proudly overhead.

  Surrounded by an ebullient mass of people we straggled up to the village—the Bourg de Miquelon—past the grey, looming church, to the sandy track that was the only street. At night this street became a dormitory for many small black ponies and many large black dogs. They sprawled every which way across the track and, being black, were not readily distinguishable one from the other.

  Later that night Mike was making his way along the track when he stumbled over a sleeping beast. Being a polite fellow he tried to make amends.

  “Good doggie. Nice doggie. Nice old chap!” he said placatingly.

  The dog replied with a shrill, vindictive whinny and Mike was so startled he stumbled backward to collide with yet another sleeping form. He was not about to make another mistake in identification.

  “Sorry, horsie!” he said hurriedly as he staggered clear.

  I met him a few minutes later and he was confused.

  “Listen!” he muttered uneasily. “I think we should get the hell out of here. It’s bad enough to be whinnied at by a goddamn dog but when the horses start growling at you it’s time to leave!”

  Basque hospitality turned out to be everything we had been led to expect. By midnight all formalities had vanishe
d in potent solvents and there was so much gaiety that the dogs and horses could no longer sleep. They went moodily off to the football field to spend the night, but I went back to my vessel.

  A little breeze had sprung up from easterly and although it wa only a zephyr I was uneasy about Itchy’s moorings. I made myself a pot of coffee and sat on deck, sniffing at the arriving fog and listening to the slow surge of the long ocean swells sucking against the pilings of the wharf. Slowly I became aware of a new noise coming off the unseen sea. It was a muffled throbbing; a slow heartbeat, which is the inimitable and unmistakable sound of a make-and-break engine. Somebody was making a belated entry into Miquelon Roads in a small boat. I hoped they knew where they were going because by then it was impossible to see more than a few yards. A few minutes later the sound of the engine died into silence. There was a swish of parting waters at a boat’s bow and something bumped gently alongside Itchy’s hull.

  “Ahoy there, throw up your painter and I’ll make you fast!” I called into the darkness.

  There was continuing silence for a moment, a silence vaguely disturbed by deep and sibilant breathing, then a hoarse voice quavered:

  “Who be ye?”

  “Itchatchozale Alai, out of St. Pierre.”

  “Lard Jasus, bye, we’s glad to hear it! We t”ought you was the cutter waitin’ to take we. We t’ought we was condemned!”

  Somebody tossed me a line. I made it fast and two oilskin-clad figures clambered onto Itchy’s deck. They introduced themselves as the Manuel brothers.

  There was Almon and there was Hondas. Almon, the elder, was in his late forties; a broad-bowed, square-built man with a seamed red face and wild blue eyes. Hondas, a year or two younger, was even more heavily built, but dark of hair and eye and skin. They were, however, alike in the way they smiled, not only at everything one said to them, but at everything they said in return. They were a merry pair.