The Gale of 1929

GARY COLLINS

Flanker Press Limited

St. John’s

Let me end my days somewhere where the tide comes in and out Leaving its tribute, its riches; taking nothing, giving all the time Pieces of wood, pieces of eight

Seaweed for the land, logs for the fire

Seashells for pleasure, skeletons for sadness.

Nicholas Monsarrat

Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.

James 3:4

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Collins, Gary, 1949-, author

The gale of 1929 / Gary Collins.

Includes bibliographical references.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77117-309-4 (pbk.).-- ISBN 978-1-77117-310-0 (epub).--

ISBN 978-1-77117-311-7 (mobi).--ISBN 978-1-77117-312-4 (pdf)

1. Shipwrecks--Newfoundland and Labrador--History--20th century.

2. Shipwreck survival--Newfoundland and Labrador--History--20th century.

3. Schooners--Newfoundland and Labrador--History--20th century.

4. Windstorms--Newfoundland and Labrador--History--20th century. I. Title.

FC2170.S5C64 2013 971.8 C2013-902906-0

C2013-902907-9

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© 2013 by Flanker Press

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.

PRINTED IN CANADA

Cover Design: Adam Freake

Illustrated by Clint Collins

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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities; the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country; the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

With deepest admiration and respect

to the women of seamen who wait on the shore

then and now

ALSO BY GARY COLLINS

Cabot Island

The Last Farewell

Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine

What Colour is the Ocean?

Where Eagles Lie Fallen

Mattie Mitchell: Newfoundland’s Greatest Frontiersman

A Day on the Ridge

Contents

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

1 Water Sprite

2 Northern Light

3 Gander Deal

4 Merry Widow

5 Catherine B.

6 Janie E. Blackwood

7 George K.

8 Effie May Petite

9 Lloyd Jack

10 Jennie Florence

11 Neptune II

AFTERWORD

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

APPENDIX: SCHOONERS CAUGHT IN THE GALE OF 1929

SOURCES

INDEX

PREFACE

When I took my first serious look at the story of the gale of 1929, the first image that entered my head was a wonderful childhood one. I quickly learned there were as many as eleven schooners involved in that famous gale. All of them were sailing schooners, all left the old port of St. John’s on the same day, and all were caught, at around the same time, in the same hurricane.

Gulliver and his adventures in Lilliput came immediately to mind. You remember the story. The intrepid adventurer Gulliver finds himself not only stranded, but also held prisoner by the nation of Lilliput. Among the six-inch-tall people, Gulliver is a giant. He is soon freed and becomes their gigantic friend. Trouble eventually brews with Lilliput’s sworn and bitter enemies, the Blefuscudians. Attack by sea is eminent. The Lilliputians, who have no sea power, are doomed.

Gulliver wades across the sea—which only reaches to his knees—and under the cloak of night steals the Blefuscudians’ empty ships away. He ties them one at a time to a string, the ends of which he slings over his massive shoulder, and tows the entire argosy—not unlike the schooners from St. John’s—down over the slope of the sea.

After I had done all the research and collected the mounds of pages needed to write this manuscript, I was taken by the number of lives affected by a single, unrelenting storm, and by the untold misery they had endured on the jealous, unforgiving sea. It reminded me of another mythical figure: Homer’s Odysseus, the wandering Greek.

For years Odysseus suffered on the sea around the storied shores of the Mediterranean. His recorded tales of the attempts to return to his beloved wife, Penelope, are among the best adventures ever written. The centre of all of his woes was the salt sea. In one particular moment of suffering at the hands of the mocking sea, Odysseus vowed that when he returned to dry land, he would place an oar on his muscled shoulder and walk inland away from the sea, until someone asked him what it was he was carrying.

I mention this to you, the reader, hoping you will find inside these salty pages another all too real Newfoundland sea adventure.

I also encountered what for me was a literary problem very early in my writing of this tale. All eleven schooners left the same harbour on the same day, and all encountered the same storm. The schooners were also, without exception, all powered by sail. My misgivings began after writing about the first couple of vessels. How was I going to tell all similar stories, yet make each of them sail under their own canvas?

I have tried my very best to make the tale of each schooner as unique as I believe they all were. I will leave the final decision as to my success in this most challenging of endeavours to the most respected judges of all: my readers.

INTRODUCTION

Red-skinned peoples had come here to this sheltered harbour ages before, paddling quietly along the seacoast, following any opportunity the hundreds of coves and inlets provided. Below the grey ramparts they slipped. Only nesting seabirds watched from the cliffs as leather-clad men, dark-eyed and ever seeking, sought safe haven from a darkening ocean. Some paddled through the narrow passage that allows the sea, and, seeing no promise, left the land undisturbed after a time, leaving behind fragments of their wonderful existence yet to be discovered.

Others came, with pale skins. Drake the Englishman passed the sheltered cove and maybe missed “the Notch,” or more likely considered such a barren land not worthy of his presence. Drake was the favourite of the British monarchs: navigator, privateer, and slaver. The Spanish called him El Draque. In Latin his name meant “dragon.” He died off the coast of the Spanish Main from nothing more glorious than dysentery.

The buccaneers sailed by this rugged land. Lawless cattle thieves, they were, from the far-off western plains, who got their name from the word boucan—a method of preserving meat by smoking with animal fat. They fortified the island of Tortuga—the turtle—and founded the brotherhood known and feared as the Brethren of the Coast. Pirates and thieves all.

They all sailed by and sometimes entered the old harbour of John the Saint. Henry Morgan the Welshman sailed here long before he had plundered Spanish ships in the Indies and had taken the “Cup of Gold,” the Spanish town of Portobello on the isthmus of Panama and the lady of legend, La Santa Roja, the red saint; long before his name was feared even by his own kind. And Pierre La Grand claimed to be first of the pirates who came seeking fortunes that were not his own, on the Spanish Main.

Others came who hadn’t honest toil in mind. They were simply masters of strange ships who sailed away again. After all, what was a respectable pirate to do with a shipload of smelly fish? They sailed south, to warmer and more prosperous climes.

Peter Easton was the exception. With as many as thirty-seven ships under his command, he was more powerful and more feared than any other pirate of his time. Using the island of Newfoundland as his base, he roamed as far to the east as the Barbary shores of West Africa as well as south to the West Indies. Easton was intelligent enough to realize that the riches to be gained from the island of Newfoundland came in countless tons from the cold sea. And to his great advantage, for the most part he was the only sea-rogue willing to ply his nefarious trade in these northern waters. Despite the British and Spanish courts’ endless pursuits, he was never captured. He spent his aging years a wealthy man in the district of Savoy in France, where he eventually became no less than the Marquis of Savoy.

Others, who had ventured far enough to come upon this green isle of mystery, found honest gains of their own. They pulled a great, shimmering wealth of food from the depths and carried it away and exchanged it for lesser values and returned to do it again and again and again, never thinking the jewelled sea would one day lose its glitter.

* * *

Our tale begins in the old seaport of St. John’s, Newfoundland, in November 1929. It is the oldest port in the western world. A fresh, clean tide-surge of ocean water enters the stinking, dirty harbour. Wooden kegs with broken heads and tilted barrels with bungs missing float around the sheltered shore. From the discarded barrels, narrow, calm streaks of everything, from pork fat to the traces of oil rendered from the livers of cod, follow in their bobbing wake.

Short ends of lumber thrown by dockside workmen bob between piers and slide along the sleek, slubby sides of black-hulled schooners. Brimming slop buckets containing everything from vegetable peels and animal fat to human waste have been dumped over the sides of wooden schooners and steel, rust-streaked ships alike.

All the discards from this busy port have ended up in the bowl of the harbour. The sea is expected to take care of it all. Every ebb tide tries its best to do so, flushing the human issue out through the narrow entrance to the open sea. The returning flood tide always brings cleansing sea water, only to be defiled again and again.

Rotting pieces of timber with protruding rusted spikes hang tenaciously to piers which jut out from the landwash, looking for all the world like a giant hand with too many fingers. Frayed rope ends dangle down from well-used wharves crowding the shoreline. Every inch of shore space on the north side of this busy seaport is in use.

Picture this: Coils of hemp and manila cordage, skeins of brown, scented oakum, opened tar buckets, leaky barrels of rendering cod livers, dripping sewer pipes, steaming mounds of horse droppings, chimneys spewing coal smoke; hundreds of peeled poles—pine for ship masts, spruce for wharf repairs and new construction; men off-loading tons of salted and sun-cured codfish; cooking aromas from harbourside restaurants, mouth-watering draughts from pot-boiling forecastles drifting aloft, as are the foul smells from open, dank bilges; harbour smells of a coastal city that could be just about anywhere in the North Atlantic.

Behold: a thriving seaport!

Ships from European and American as well as southern tropical ports are docked alongside local schooners. Looking down from the streets higher up and away from the waterfront, the collective masts of wooden schooner-rigged as well as square-rigged vessels look like naked winter trees stripped of their summer greenery. The drooping, tangled rigging between the hundreds of masts are defined like the gossamer webs of spiders in the morning sun.

Many of the ships are steel-hulled. They belch great plumes of smoke from their stacks as they make ready for sea. Most of them have long, rusty streaks oozing from their once brightly coloured walls. The North Atlantic weathers steel just as well as it does wood.

Every tongue, foreign or local, speaks fish. The Newfoundlanders are here to sell fish. The foreigners are here to buy it. Fish that came out of the shallow holds of schooners must first pass through the gaping, dock-facing doors of the brokers before being transferred to the waiting ships of the buyers. The aloof merchants of the oldest city in the Americas peer down from lofty, dust-covered windows as the hard-won cod disappears into the gaping doorways. Handsome profits derived from cod never cross the palms of the simple men of the sea who had reaped the harvest.

Traders of every type of merchandise are at work here as well. Puncheons of molasses, barrels of sweet rum, and hogsheads of sugar and exotic bolts of cloth are purchased. Fine-grained salt, spices, and dried sweet fruits. Apparel for men, women, and children. Sweet-scented soaps and heady perfumes. Baubles of cheap trinkets as well as expensive jewellery. Skeins of scented oakum, bales of hemp, bass, and manila cordage are rolled inside the gaping doors. Barrels of flour are tipped onto their wobbly sides, kicked into motion by burly stevedores, and disappear into the waiting warehouses.

Next to codfish, bread is the staple at every outport table. Butter, tea, and sugar share the same table. Expensive coffee is to be had, although it is rarely found in the cups of many hard-working fishermen. Barrels of dried beans and split peas, red apples, and sweet, dried prunes and apricots. Cases of canned foodstuffs. Clothing, dainty and simple. This seaport on the very edge of the North American continent has it all. The well-stocked stores just up from the noisy harbourfront offer an array of items that would be the envy of a busy Arabian souk.

Everything the land and sea can provide is readily available for the people who live here on the island of Newfoundland. Several species of berries are gathered in season. Deer meat and the skins of small mammals are at hand for the hunter-gatherers. Several species of seabirds, most of them by the thousands, have passed by their coastal homes and swelled their larder. Salmon and trout are in every river and stream. All of the natural resources are there for the taking.

But cod is the mainstay, the sole reason for the existence of most of the coastal villages. Still, it is not enough. The arable soil on the northeast coast of this island is sparse, to say the least. It can barely sustain subsistence farming. By the end of each long winter, most root cellars show bare boards, and long arms are needed to scoop flour from ever deeper barrels. On their kitchen tables are base food staples from countries these simple people will never see. And cod pays for it all.

Outside every headland, just beyond each sheltered community, swims the world’s richest source of protein. Schools of fish to suit any palate swim in abundance. Some live near the ocean surface, pelagic fishes that shoal in such visible abundance they are scooped from the surface, their quantity counted not by quantity but by weight, in tons. Great black whales follow them along with swift, darting mid-water fishes. Man hunts them all. But the ocean bottom–dwelling cod is the prize most sought.

Two ships, one at each end of the port, are off-loading tons of coarse salt. Every merchant who deals with the fish business buys and sells coarse salt. It is the lifeblood of the codfish industry. No salt, no cod.

Apart from winter’s natural refrigeration, there is no way to preserve the summer-harvested cod. Men wheel the white king of all spices up bending ramps into black warehouse interiors. Men wheel it back out to waiting schooners. Men work below in steel ships and shovel it out. Men below wooden decks shovel it in. This crystalline substance, which makes the world’s oceans undrinkable to humans, sustains the richest life forms on our planet. Some might think it strange that it can also preserve it in death.

It is in this busy seaport on the east coast of Newfoundland our story really begins. It is November 29, 1929. Only thirty-five days ago, on October 24, the world stock markets had fallen below recoverable levels. The excessive, opulent Roaring Twenties had come to an abrupt end. The fallout from the financial turbulence thousands of miles away had a dramatic effect on the lives of fishermen in Newfoundland, most of whom understood nothing about stock markets and foreign exchanges. They did understand falling fish prices, though. Now the merchants of St. John’s have something to blame for the unheard-of low fish prices they pay out for fish. They are vindicated.

It is out of their control, they tell the skippers, who stand cap in hand and listen in disbelief. Many of the schooner captains will barely break even. Some will not, their badly needed winter provisions stripped to the bare essentials. There will be no extras, and so the men will keep their wives’ hopeful, pencilled notes hidden inside empty pockets.

The explanations from overdressed merchants mean nothing to most of these simple fishermen. They only knew their hopes of a good year have been put aside again. The merchants, though, seem as prosperous as always. Nothing ever changes.

1 WATER SPRITE

John Bishop was feeling uneasy, or maybe it was fear. He wasn’t sure. He had never been afraid on the water before. By nighttime Saturday night he was lashed to the wheel on the open deck of the schooner Water Sprite. The only semblance of light in that terrible darkness came from the white breaking waves that swept past either side of the hapless vessel. The seas all around them were higher than the Water Sprite.

The schooner was living up to her name. Water sprites, or water fairies, were creatures of legend, human females who could breathe air or water. The decks of this very real Water Sprite went under water as much as they lifted above it tonight.

Some of the seas seemed to reach the height of her mainmast. Some broke over the tossing bow of the little schooner and flushed their divided weight along the sixty-five-foot length of her deck. At such times only the strong rope around his back kept John at his weary station. He had often heard stories about captains being tied to their helm, but he always thought they were a bit exaggerated. Swashbuckling talk. But it was neither. Here was the only way for a man to hold his footing under these conditions. It would only take one spin of a deserted wheel to heel the schooner away before the gale.

With each lifting roller, its top blowing froth before it, the Water Sprite lurched skyward. After each sudden lift she pitched violently downward again to make a jolting, wrenching contact that drove the seas apart and flung them away from her determined bows as if she were speeding ahead. In reality, the schooner was loosing ground. Each wave was bearing her backward.

Their lack of progress didn’t give John Bishop much cause for concern. As bad as it was, his schooner was weathering. This storm, like the others, couldn’t last much longer, he figured. It was the dread of having his young daughter below the storm-washed decks that filled him with fear.

He didn’t know how far they were from land. It could be as many as 100 miles, he supposed. He had no way of knowing. The binnacle light was out again. There wasn’t much point in trying to keep the oil wick going. It didn’t matter much what the compass showed, anyway. They were at the mercy of hurricane-force winds out of the northwest.

Skipper Bishop was soaked to the skin. His threadbare oilskins were only a fragile barrier between the freezing spray and his weary, soaked body. His eyes burned with the sting of cold salt water. His soggy woollen mitts only smeared his face when he tried to wipe his eyes. Added to his misery were the cold blasts of Arctic air. They froze his wet woollen cuffs and numbed his hands. The rigging was starting to ice up. The bulwarks were getting bigger. Slush was beginning to form along the decks and clog the scuppers.

No one else was on deck. Bishop had ordered all hands below to the safety of the forecastle. He thought he caught the brief smell of woodsmoke. He knew they were short on kindling, though they had a good supply of coal left. He longed for a cup of hot tea. He figured he could drink it scalding hot right now. The sudden faint smell of smoke from the forecastle funnel encouraged him just as if it had come from the warm kitchen of his home in Wesleyville.

* * *

John Bishop’s house in Wesleyville was cozy and warm, with a bright light despite the late hour. The oil lamp placed in the centre of the cleared kitchen table cast a pleasant glow. The stove pinged its heat while on the hob a full, spotless kettle faintly sang.

John’s wife walked to the black window as she had been doing for the last three nights. Spreading the white lace curtains and cupping her hands against her round face, she peered outside. The light from the window didn’t reach far. It shone on a narrow gravel path meandering close to the house. Beside the path a long, low, narrow growth of faded green bushes swayed and bent with the wind. She expected any minute to see them uprooted and torn away by the terrible gale. Only one other faint light shone from her neighbour’s upstairs window. She shifted her gaze toward the nearby ocean. She couldn’t see it, but she knew it was there, just out past the rocky landwash. It had always been there. Blue and friendly, sweet-scented and endless. Restless and ever-changing, dangerous and constantly luring men with its mystery.

She longed for a light to appear mid-window high, where she knew the sea to be. The darkness seemed to stare back at her from the interminable ocean, a mocking, all-encompassing void. She turned from the window with a sigh. She knew she wouldn’t see a light. John wouldn’t be crossing Bonavista Bay on a night such as this one. Still, she knew she would return again and again and stare till her eyes ached.

Strange, she couldn’t remember the exact date John had left. She knew it was around the first of November, and now it was early December. Her mind was frazzled with worry. Not that she hadn’t waited and worried for her John before this. It was a common thing, not only for her but for many wives around this place. Almost everyone made his living from the sea. She knew of several captains of vessels from this community as well as from the nearby settlements.

This time, though, her two children had gone along with their father. She hadn’t minded her son going so much. He was a man now—she still called him her boy—and wanted nothing more than the way of the schooners. He could have no better teacher than his own father, she knew. But her young daughter, Hazel, caused her much worry.

Hazel, who played near the sea along with the village boys. She seemed fearless when around the slippery shoreline. She was fastest at the game of daring and running away from crashing waves on the landwash. Not that Hazel was the tomboy type. She was a girl, all right, was her Hazel. She loved pretty things and did her young-girl chores without complaint, but she had a love for the ocean that set her apart from the other girls.

Hazel had pleaded with both her parents to go on this trip with her father to St. John’s. John had relented first, of course, but he could seldom deny Hazel any request. Finally, with her husband pleading almost as much as her daughter, she had reluctantly agreed.

From this same window she had watched the Water Sprite sail away till she was hull down in the blue sea. She remembered seeing the faded tips of the brown sails against a clear sky as the fish-laden schooner disappeared south.

* * *

A light from the opened forecastle companionway startled John. A shout accompanied the sudden light.

“Are you a’right, John? Do you want me to spell ya?” It was George Windsor’s voice.

“Not yet, George. ’Ow is everything below? Is Hazel a’right? Not sick, is she?” John yelled back.

“We’re doing pretty good. The kettle’s boiled again. Hazel done it. No worries about—”

Another wave crashed over the forward deck. George’s words were swept away and for a moment the welcoming light was blurred from Bishop’s sight. When he could see it clearly again, John ordered the shutter closed. He knew water had doused down the forecastle that time. There came another hasty, faint reply from Windsor that John didn’t hear and the light disappeared again. But it had cheered him. There had been no fear in Windsor’s voice. His daughter had actually made tea! A fierce pride swelled his resolve, not unlike Wordsworth’s captain of the Hesperus who had lashed his daughter to the mast hoping to save her young life. Bishop tightened the ropes that held him. His daughter, son, and crew were safe below. They would beat this storm, by God.

For two more hours John Bishop endured the onslaught of wind and wave, and then, as the wind veered farther north, the temperature dropped and it snowed. His arms ached with the strain of keeping the schooner just a point or two off the wind. It was as close as he could keep her.

The rigging thrummed and whined as the wind tore through it. From high above the deck came a banshee wail from the naked topmasts. Only the foremast carried any canvas. Bishop had ordered the mainsail down and secured to the main boom the night before. Looking at it now, he thought it looked like a long, frozen white shroud. The foresail was double-reefed, with just enough cloth remaining to keep the gale off the port bow as she was borne stern first out into the deep Atlantic.

* * *

The grey dawn came without any let-up in the wind, and what came with it was the awesome sight of its fury. When the Water Sprite rose on the immense swells, her bow lifted and almost sprang free of the water as her entire length showed through, looking as if she would break in two before she was released from the watery heights, only to wallow again in the deep troughs as she dropped behind every wave. Endless grey seas, almost all of them breaking and foaming, rolled toward the schooner. Scuds of snow sheened diagonally, pelting the tops of high waves and shallow grey valleys alike, and over it all the dirge of a storm at sea howled all the while.

Seabirds swam and battered away from the schooner as she approached them. Sweet-tasting turrs and bright-billed puffins and guillemots appeared in flocks upon the tormented waters. Twice John watched as several of them flew from a wave top and landed on the foredeck before the sluicing seas carried them over the sides. They appeared to be tired. Bishop wondered if the birds had also been driven from the land by the gale. There were a couple of guns aboard, and though the birds would provide them with a source of meat, he knew it was impossible to hunt them.

They had run a strong line the length of the schooner when the storm hit them on Friday. George Windsor made his way along the frozen line now to relieve his captain, who gave him a few shouted instructions before he left for a badly needed rest. The wind noise was a pressing thing. Shouting was the only way to be heard above it. Bishop swayed sideways all the way, straining against the life-saving rope. Several times his tired feet slipped and his knees buckled, but he hung on. When he finally opened the sliding door of the forecastle, the warmth from below rushed up to meet him.

Hazel’s bright face was looking up as he descended the ladder. Her father had been prepared to bolster her spirits, to assure her they would be all right, but it wasn’t necessary. The young girl was not afraid. More than that, she embraced her father, wet clothes and all, and with a cheery voice told him his tea was ready. It was as if he had just stepped below from a sunny summer deck.

“There’s warm, dry mitts ready fer you, Pop. Hot tea, too, though ’tis not in the cup till you’re ready. You’ll have to hold it in your hand. We can’t keep a thing on the table!”

John Bishop looked at his daughter as if he were seeing her for the first time. He hadn’t realized her strength. Except for short trips around the islands near their home, she had never been at sea before. And what a sea it was! Here below the forward deck there was a constant thrust of movement. Homemade woollen socks and mitts, shirts, and even heavy breeks were draped over a line of spun yarn fastened to the timbered ceiling, directly over the slow-burning stove. With each roll and toss of the schooner, the line of smelly woollen clothing swayed like a summer clothesline.

Hazel helped her father remove his drenched outer clothing. She took some of the dry materials from the line and replaced them with his wet ones. It wasn’t until he held his hands directly over the stove that Bishop realized how numb they were. The heat made the tips of his fingers sting.

John Bishop sat on his bunk and drank hot tea given to him by his daughter. Others of his crew sat in the swaying quarters smoking short-stemmed pipes, the smoke hanging and drifting above their heads. Two of the men hung on to the foremast, or, as they called it, the pawl post, which grew out of the floor and disappeared through the low ceiling. They talked for a while about the high seas, the snow, the cold, and the unrelenting wind. There was some concern about the lack of food in the forecastle lockers.

“Don’t worry about the grub, boys. Dere’s plenty of stores in the after hold. As soon as dere’s a lun in the wind, we’ll go below and get some. No one will go hungry aboard the Water Sprite while I’m master,” John assured everyone.

Bishop leaned back on the bunk and, ignoring the pitch and roll of his vessel, closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe they had left the safety of St. John’s harbour two full days ago.

* * *

They had had a fine time along from Wesleyville. The day they left, the wind was moderate from the north and a point or two east. It bore the loaded schooner briskly south on a mostly starboard tack. The weather being fair, Bishop decided to lay a straight course outside Cape Bonavista. By midday they had put that cape astern and passed the halfway point across the maw of Trinity Bay. His daughter spent most of the time on deck delighting in the feel of the frolicking schooner below her feet. She had heard countless stories about the island called Baccalieu and persuaded her doting father to sail close enough for a good view of the island. South past Cape St. Francis they sailed without incident, and with shortened sail they entered St. John’s harbour just as the city lights were coming on.

As long as he lived, he would not forget the look in Hazel’s eyes when they drifted silent as an evening shadow into that sheltered bowl, its rim all aglitter with light. Hazel had never seen the marvels of electricity before. She was overwhelmed by it all. Her father saw the city through his daughter’s eyes then. He had never really looked at it as she did. He shared in the child’s wonder.

Over the next few days, Bishop was busy dealing with the fish merchants. It rained one day, which delayed the off-loading of his schooner. The merchants would not take fish out of the schooner holds while it was raining.

He was disappointed with the final take-it-or-leave-it price he got, but he shook the soft white hand of the merchant to seal the deal. He didn’t understand how a stock market crash somewhere in the United States could result in low prices for fish. There had been no “money crash” last year that he knew of, but the prices had not been good then, either.

His schooner was off-loaded and provisioned with foodstuffs for some of the businesses in Wesleyville and surrounding areas. He had waited along with several other schooners for suitable weather to sail north to home. While they waited, his crew stitched sail and did minor schooner repairs where needed. Even his daughter, who was fascinated with the old city and had accompanied her father everywhere she could around the old streets, wanted to go home. She couldn’t wait to tell her friends about all she had seen.

They had been ready since Monday night. Friday morning, John Bishop slid back the overhead forecastle shutter and stepped out on deck. Dawn had not yet entered the narrow harbour entrance most seamen called “the Notch.” His weather glass had dropped just a bit when he had checked before climbing on deck. The winds were strong from the southeast, he figured as he looked at the overcast sky. It was difficult to tell, here in this rock-walled harbour, where the winds came drifting down from the cliffs seemingly without pattern. He decided to wait before sailing. A fair southeast wind would be good for sailing north, but a strong wind would make for heavy weathering.

The day progressed and the wind had not increased much. In fact, in discussing the matter with his crew, some felt it wasn’t blowing as hard as it had that morning.

Ten other schooners were ready to leave for points north that day. They were all waiting for a good time along. John Bishop knew all of them. All but two of them were from the north side of Bonavista Bay.

The Water Sprite was tied fast to the port side of the schooner Janie E. Blackwood, which was fastened to Bowring’s wharf on the north side of St. John’s harbour. Like the Water Sprite, the Janie was a two-masted schooner. Master of the Janie Blackwood was Charles Rogers, and everyone who knew him simply called him Skipper Charlie. He and John Bishop were good friends.

During the day they talked back and forth between their two vessels. By late afternoon the wind seemed to have dropped a bit and seemed to be coming more from the south than southeast. They both figured they could make safe harbour as far north as Bonavista in Bonavista Bay, or at least to Catalina in Trinity Bay, in a few hours.

And so it was that the smallest and the oldest of the schooners waiting to head north was the first schooner from Bonavista Bay to slip her lines free from the Janie Blackwood and slowly drift out into midstream. Hauling her sails aloft just ahead of the Water Sprite was the schooner Jennie Florence from Hillview, Trinity Bay. She was the first of the northern fleet of schooners to leave the harbour on November 29.

Skipper Charlie in the Janie Blackwood immediately cast off and followed his friend out the harbour. Dusk was falling down from the little castle on Signal Hill high above them. The lights had started to come on along the waterfront. Young Hazel, who was on deck of the Water Sprite, kept looking behind, never tiring of the sight of the seaport city.

Side by side, the two schooners made their way out through the Notch on the evening tide, the Water Sprite on the Fort Amherst side of the old harbour, and on her port side the bigger Janie Blackwood. The Trinity Bay schooner out in front was already away from the harbour and heading north with all her sails drawing.

By the time they had reached the first long, dark swell of the open Atlantic, both schooners had hauled their sails aloft. A watcher standing near the lighthouse on the Fort Amherst side heard a shouted, “Tighten the sheet to the clew of the fores’l!” He wasn’t sure which schooner the order came from. And then both schooners, heading north, disappeared into the hurried gloaming.

Sugar Loaf Head is just a few miles north of the entrance to St. John’s harbour. The only warning that the weather was about to change came with a sudden blast of wind down from that high headland. The mainsail fluttered a bit with the shift in wind direction when the Water Sprite was a mile or so off shore. The Janie Blackwood was astern and stood farther to sea. The Water Sprite crew could still see her masthead light.

Bishop sent his daughter below with a voice she knew not to argue against. Nathan Gaulton walked quickly astern to the wheel. He had just come from below.

“The glass jest dropped wonderful quick, Skipper. I don’t like the looks of it.” Nathan was not a man to panic, but his voice showed concern.

Bishop gave him the wheel, wended his way forward like a drunken sailor, and disappeared below. He was back on deck in a few minutes and staggered astern to commandeer the helm again.

“You’re right, Nat. The glass jest went farder down. Dere’s a storm of wind comin’. Might even be from the nar’west, be my reckonin’.”

Before the two men had finished talking, they had to shout to be heard. Another blast of wind broadsided the schooner and the wheel was almost wrenched out of John’s hands.

“Get the boys on deck,” John yelled to Nathan. “We have to reef ’er. And drop the jumbo, too.”

The wind still came from the southeast, but the sudden flaw had seemed to be backing from the west. Besides the captain and his daughter, Hazel, and his son, Nathan, there were seven others aboard. Nathan Gaulton, Norman Stockley, George Windsor, Israel Wicks, Wilfred and James Bishop, and Stanley Best made up the rest of his crew. The men were soon on deck and ready for action. By now the wind was almost a full gale. They made a reef in the foresail and the fore-staysail and lowered and secured it on deck. For the moment the schooner was still under control, but she was hard to hold. They were farther away from the land than Bishop would have liked, especially at night.

Nearly six hours later the Water Sprite was nearing Baccalieu Island on the north end of Conception Bay. The Baccalieu light, though far away, was plain to all on deck. The men had run a heavy safety line from the wheel post to the forecastle opening, a common practice aboard a schooner during rough weather. The wind was increasing at an alarming rate.

“Lower the main boom, boys, and lash the mains’l tight to ’un. An’ take another reef in the fors’l. I’m goan to come to the first chance I can get.”

To come to or heave to meant to haul the bow of the vessel directly into the wind or as near to it as was possible. While the schooner would be borne astern by the gale, it was far better than been swept away before the wind with little or no control. With nothing more than a few yards of canvas for control, it required great seamanship to accomplish. There was no sign of the Janie Blackwood’s light now.

It took several tries to get the schooner as close to the wind as he wanted. It was now nearly gale-force from the south and veering farther west and kept casting the boat off. Just when the determined crew of the Water Sprite had the vessel more or less under control, the wind would move farther around the compass.

Without any visible sign of change in wind or wave, they were suddenly enclosed within a vortex of driven cold rain and hurricane-force wind. There was nothing to do but hold her bows to the fury of the storm and pray.

All that terrible night the little schooner held her own under her handlers. The men took turns at the wheel, with Bishop standing the longest of watches. Pushing against the wind, the Water Sprite seemed to be riding at anchor. Her bows heaved aside what swells they could and severed the rest as they came at her.

Saturday morning gave them no relief. The temperature dropped and the snow came as a blinding white curtain, coming from all sides, surrounding the schooner. The weather conditions deteriorated so badly on Saturday that Bishop ordered all hands below. There was nothing anyone could do on the deck of the storm-tossed schooner. With the wheel lashed securely to its post and the sheets in the reefed foresail doubled, they abandoned the deck of the Water Sprite.

* * *

Many times during that long day, one of the men would slide the forecastle door open enough to peer out. It was not a pretty sight. The nineteen-foot-wide deck of the Water Sprite was constantly awash. Yet after each onslaught of water, she rose again and again, undefeated.

The Water Sprite was one foot shorter and two feet wider than her original construction. Her first registered displacement remained as it was, just fifty tons. She had been built for Thomas Foote of Grand Bank, Fortune Bay, Newfoundland in 1893, in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. One of the oldest boat-building towns in North America had done a good job with the schooner, whose timbers were of stout seasoned oak. The men below, who watched her wooden skeleton flex and bend, silently praised the workers at every protesting groan the schooner made.

Local craftsmen, too, had had a hand in the vessel’s strength. The Water Sprite had been rebuilt just seven years before, in 1922. Stephen Bourne had been the man in charge of making the schooner shorter as well as giving her width a two-foot increase for safety. When the schooner left the place of her reconstruction in Safe Harbour, Bonavista Bay, she looked brand new again. She was in fact thirty-six years old, the oldest of the fleet. Most of her original oak frame still kept her afloat.

Saturday night came and the fight continued. The snow had stopped, but their jumbo had vanished without a trace. The foresail had taken a couple of rents, but they could be easily mended with awl and needle when the weather proved more favourable. A three-sided box that partially enclosed the wheel had shifted sideways. The ropes around the wheel itself had saved it, and the crew were relieved to see it could be repaired. A keg of blackstrap molasses had broken free of its lashings and gone over the side. More than likely it had broken on the bulwarks, as evidenced by a couple of pieces of its staves, still sticky with the sweet sugarcane sap, laying awash on the deck as if searching for the scuppers.

Now it was Sunday morning and still the hurricane showed no sign of releasing the schooner. Down below, one of the men began singing a hymn. The young girl joined in, though she didn’t know all of the lyrics. The seaman continued until the song was finished, and after that no one said anything for a while.

“Amen,” said Hazel in an unsure voice.

“Amen,” came from one of the men deep in the shadows beyond the triangle-shaped table.

“Amen,” said each of the others.

“’Ere endeth the first lesson,” said Bishop. With that, he climbed the ladder and went out on deck.

* * *

They endured Sunday night as the night before. Amazingly, despite the terrific pounding she was taking, the Water Sprite showed no major leaks.

“When Steve Bourne carks a plank, she stays carked,” Stanley Best said to no one in particular below decks. It was a bit past midnight, the time of night seamen call the middle watch. Some of the crew slept for a spell. John Bishop sat up from his bunk, his eyes staring at the smoky lantern swaying in the gimbal above his head.

“Was the mast’ead light filled fer the night?” His voice betrayed his weariness.

“Filled it meself and ’auled ’er aloft on the gantline, Skipper,” said Israel Wicks. “Though mind ye the lantern is not so bright as it was.”

“We ’ave to keep a light out. Dere could be steamers about—starm er no starm. Dis one will only look like a turr in Bonavis’ Bay to dem ships.” Bishop looked at the bunk nearest the stove, where his daughter was silently sleeping.

A lump of emotion rose in his throat. He had heard in St. John’s that it wasn’t until last month—October 18, if he remembered right—that women were considered persons. Passed up there in Canada, it was. It was law now, they said. Women were finally persons! What were they considered before that, he wondered—animals? And what did that make his sleeping daughter then, he wondered, she not yet a woman. Did they figure children weren’t persons either? All people were persons to him, male or female. It was simple. He couldn’t understand any other way of thinking.

“You know what, b’ys? I fancy the luns’r longer than the flaws. I always heard that was a sign of a dyin’ wind.” Wilfred Bishop was usually quiet. He also always thought long before he said anything. His single statement was a wonderful hope.

James Bishop was curled in his blankets like a dead man. Everyone looked his way when he spoke.

“I bin noticin’ the same t’ing fer the last hour or so. Maybe the starm will soon be done wit’ us.”

His voice, too, sounded hopeful, unafraid, and—something more. It was as if he were saying, “We’ve come through the worst of it, b’ys. It can’t get any worse.”

John Bishop settled back onto his narrow bunk. There could never be a better crew, he thought. Through it all, not one word of complaint came from any of them. Maybe the boys were right about the wind giving out. After all, it had been blowing for days. It couldn’t last forever. And besides, all in all they were in pretty good shape—considering. He felt better.

* * *

Monday morning came up over the eastern sea reluctantly with the wind still hard out of the northwest. The gale had lost most of its might and the huge swells still marched toward them without relent, but the tops weren’t blowing off them as they had been. The cloud cover seemed thin, as if it would soon clear.

“All ’ands on deck! We’ve drifted far enough. Time to be gettin’ dis bloody vessel back to lan’.” John Bishop’s voice was loud and clear, sure of his decision. Manropes or safety lines still ran all over the deck, as the vessel was still rolling and pitching dangerously. Hazel wanted to help, but her father ordered her below. She closed the door and obeyed.

Ice was chopped and hammered and heaved over the sides, and when it fell on deck it was sluiced out the scuppers in broken pieces. The downed main boom had frozen to the deck. They tried to prise it free and—unbelievably—it broke. This was a devastating blow; they needed a mainsail. They secured a triangular jib to the fore-topmast stay and kept the foremast double-reefed. By midday the Water Sprite had turned into the wind and was beating west toward land. After nearly four days of being borne astern by a relentless wind, the feeling of actually making some headway was a jubilant one.

The men sprang to the skipper’s bidding and repaired the wheel housing. They laboriously unfurled the mainsail from its mast. The break in the huge pine spar wasn’t as bad as they thought. It could be scarved with pieces of square balk stowed below deck.

All day and into the night the valiant schooner made slow progress toward land that was still out of sight. Twice on this night they saw a faraway light. At first they thought it could be a lighthouse, but they reasoned it was impossible. They had drifted too far off shore to see land yet. They determined it was a masthead light bearing away toward the west. Maybe it was the Janie Blackwood.

Monday night saw a constant hand on the helm. The men spelled each other at regular intervals. They kept the binnacle light, and the compass guided them northwest. Despite the constant tacking and reaching across the wind, the Water Sprite gradually gained water for home.

Mid-morning Tuesday saw a major change in the Water Sprite’s chance to make land. The crafty crew had laid two heavy pieces of squared lumber against the split in the boom. The splint was fastened with a few rusty but still sound bolts they found, as well as with dozens of eight-inch nails, and finally wrapped tightly round and round with rope. When it was finished they knew that, although the boom didn’t look pretty, it would make do.

The men fastened the mainsail to the jerry-rigged boom and hauled it aloft. They reefed it by leaving several yards of the sail remaining on the boom. Bishop wouldn’t chance full sail on the repaired spar. Now they had more control of the rudder and could reach farther back and forth as they tacked west.

On Wednesday the Water Sprite was still struggling west and a bit north. She looked like a battered waif with her sails sporting several brown patches sewn in ragged patterns. She wasn’t trim and lithe-looking as she had once been and she was slow in answering her helm. The wind from the west still tried to bear her back with each burdened flaw.

But with each new tack and calculated reach, her determined crew brought her closer to the coast. Finally they saw a faint yet constant beam of light.

“A light, Skipper! From a lighthouse too, by gawd.”

“Aye. A light, sure nuff. ’Tis no ship. It must be a lighthouse. But where is it?”

“It don’t matter a damn where ’tis. Dere’s land under that light, dat’s fer sure!”

“I ’lows ’tis Fort Amherst. Wouldn’t dat be somet’ing, now, fer the skipper to bring us right back to where we started from!”

“Could be Cape Race, too. We’ve been goan astern like a bloody squid fer days.”

“The next starburd tack will bring us close nuff to make it out better.”

Skipper Bishop was silent. He knew now they would all survive their ordeal. He allowed Hazel to stand on deck, but close to the open forecastle door. The seas were still far from smooth. John was pretty sure he knew the light everyone was so joyously looking at. He would soon know for certain if he was right.

He pulled a large, silver-coloured watch from his pants pocket. It was tied to one of his trouser loops by a simple fob of spun yarn. Bishop waited for the light to flash again. When it did he glanced quickly at the watch in his hand. Again he waited for the light to flash and he counted the seconds between flashes. Forty-three, with a seventeen-second flash. Now he knew.

“’Tis the light on Cape Spear!” he said. And then, “Thank God we’re home.”

* * *

Since Friday the lighthouses all along the northeast coast had been flashing day and night without cease. A distress signal raised to the top of the foremast of the Water Sprite was immediately seen by the lightkeepers at Cape Spear. A tugboat was dispatched from the port of St. John’s. Under tow by the Hugh D., the Water Sprite was eventually towed to safety. The city’s night lights twinkled on as they were passing under the shadow of the old castle keep on the hill. Standing by his side at the easy wheel was Bishop’s daughter.

“I agree, Hazel, my love. She sure is a pretty sight.”

Looking away from the splendour of the closing land of lights, Hazel looked up into her father’s eyes before she spoke.

“It sure is, Father, but there’s a lamplight in a kitchen window far from here that I’d like to be seeing right now.”

2 NORTHERN LIGHT

The body of water the French named the Baie of Notre Dame is usually considered to begin with Cape Freels and end with Cape St. John—depending, of course, on your direction of travel. However, and it may be distinguished on a map, all sailors call the section of coast between Cape Freels and Musgrave Harbour the Straight Shore, with Notre Dame Bay really beginning—or ending—at Musgrave Harbour.

Long after the Seven Years’ War—or what was better known in North America as the French and Indian War—was over, the name meaning “Bay of our Lady” remained. Of all the bays around Newfoundland, none can boast as many sheltered coves in the lee of as many islands as this one. It is also the largest of all the province’s bays. It has enough runs, arms, tickles, bights, and narrow guts to confuse any seaman. Despite this conglomerate of reefs, rocky atolls, and wooded islands, the ocean finally gives up its ageless struggle with the land and the green island to the west of the bay really begins. The island’s greatest rivers begin from the vast forest interior beyond the sea edge, and eventually, disguising their freshwater flow among the islands, they also end.

Others had been here long before bearded men with white faces had come from over the rim of the eastern sea. Coloured, sun-browned people came to the sea edge from the fast-flowing rivers. They loved and lived on these sandy beaches and rocky, sea-smooth islands alike. They feasted on the abundance this marvellous bay provided.

They even reached off shore to the Funk Islands, thirty or so miles out to sea, in their fragile birchbark boats, and reaped the spring harvest of eggs from birds nesting there. The island’s European name, meaning “evil odour,” derived from the stench emanating from the tons of guano deposited there by millions of birds over thousands of years. So many were the seabirds, sometimes their numbers blackened the sun when they flew. The white men easily found the same island. Here the great auk flourished, as flightless as its southern cousin the penguin. These large birds were the easiest of prey. By the time the Europeans had finished, the bird colony darkened the sky no more and the great auk would never be seen again, anywhere.

Always the strange white people in their massive boats brought inevitable change to the others who already lived here. Greedy, far-seeing eyes claimed for their own all that was revealed before them. Around the shores of this bay, more than all the others around the island of Newfoundland, the native peoples fared the worst from the European intrusion. Here the true people of this new-found-land were dealt a blow from which they would never recover. Driven from the rivers they depended on for their existence, denied the sweet-tasting salmon that always came, their land and all of its wealth was taken from them. These people, who knew no boundaries but the salt sea, had nowhere else to go. They would not bend to another’s will. Leaving behind only the vaguest of legacies, the Beothuk disappeared as if they had never been.

* * *

This wonderful bay had much more to offer than the sea bounty. Everywhere the white man stepped ashore, long-barrelled muskets in hand—they always feared the native peoples as well as the animals—they found great tracts of virgin timber. In most places the green forest started from the very edge of the bays and stretched farther inland than these newcomers had yet dared. Endless softwood drokes of spruce and fir and juniper; valleys filled with hardwood stands of tall, quivering aspen and white birch; and majestic, towering pine trees rising above all the rest could be viewed while still out in the bay. Enterprising men saw the potential and quickly took advantage of it. They started small logging operations: lumber was needed to build house and stage, and there was also a ready market for lumber products in the largely treeless England. And so Notre Dame Bay was settled, its many island outports as dependent on the products from the green land as they were from the sea itself.

* * *

John Hodge lived in the small village of Seldom Come By, Notre Dame Bay. This place with the unusual name was on the south side of the isle of Fogo. The island appeared on European maps as far back as the sixteenth century as Del Fogo or Isle of Fire. Many theories have been given for the island’s origin. Maybe it was as simple as a tired, worried sailor who was far from his homeland and forever looking westward, and maybe he finally saw the sunset, like fire one evening on that wonderful isle, flaring its welcome out of the western sea.

Hodge was an enterprising man. In 1894 he decided to expand his mercantile enterprises to include his chandler business, and he also added shipowner to his many titles. He had given the idea much thought, and knowing the wood for such a project was readily available just up the bay, he decided to build a schooner of his own. Hodge built the frame and walls of his two-masted schooner from juniper.

He gave the native wood several coats of hot tar to prolong its life, and by the late spring of 1895 the skeleton of his as yet unnamed schooner was finished. Her dead-straight, nearly seventy-foot keel had been chopped and fashioned with axe and adze, her raking stem and slanted stern scarfed and married together. Even her two tall pine masts were peeled and ready to be stepped. Little work was done on the vessel during the fishing season, though; all of his crew’s energies were needed for the business of catching codfish.

The following winter was unusually mild with lots of snow. Planks procured from a sawmill in the bay had been bought in the fall. One still, starlit night in the spring, John Hodge stood by the side of his nearly completed schooner. From outside the cove came the rote of the sea, but John barely noticed it.

He turned toward the lamplit windows of his home not far away, then looked skyward. It was always his way, as is the way of all seamen, to look to the sky every night before retiring. Either bad weather or clear, it was a thing almost everyone living along this coast did. Instinctively he faced north and a broad smile seamed his face as he looked at the North Star. It never changed, the constant, true guide for seamen. It was even called the Seaman’s Star! North by the coast, he thought. North by the compass, north to the fish, north by the star. He knew what he would call his new schooner—the Northern Light.

* * *

Complete with jaunty bowsprit, she slid easily from her cod-liver-greased ways. Seventy-two feet in length, with a beam of twenty-two feet and all of nine feet deep, she was christened and given the official number 106308. Fore and aft gaff, rigged with new sails fastened to her two forest-scented poles, the Northern Light was ready for sea in 1896.

A new century came and brought new ventures. By 1909 a new master walked the deck of the Northern Light. He was also the proud owner of the well-proven schooner. Thomas Parsons lived in the central part of Bonavista Bay called Chandlers Reach. Chandlers Reach has several narrow arms and bays. One of them is called Goose Bay. At the end of this long, narrow bay is the town of Bloomfield, where the Parsons family, latterly from Pinchard’s Island, lived.

Thomas Parsons had a wide, hawklike nose above a thick moustache. He had a dimple midway between his square chin and his lower lip that gave him trouble shaving. He hated it. His face looked like old leather. Two big ears rivalled the size of his huge nose, and they almost always kept up a broad-rimmed pepper-coloured quiff hat.

He hadn’t always lived here in this sheltered place. Both he and his brother-in-law, Edgar Parsons, had moved here from Pinchard’s Island on the north side of Bonavista Bay. Just south of Cape Freels, Pinchard’s Island holds in check the might of the North Atlantic from the mainland town of Newtown, barely a mile to leeward. Compared to Pinchard’s Island, the settlement of Bloomfield perched on the shores of a pond. Unlike the windswept Pinchard’s Island, which was bereft of trees, Bloomfield had much to offer. Here in this protected bay were woods to hunt through, trees for all their building needs, and fertile land for growing. Still, the way of the sea was in the Parsons boys’ blood, and their love of living at the edge of the open sea stayed with them.

Edgar owned two schooners, the Helena and the Millie Ford. He was master of the Millie Ford well into his seventieth year.

Thomas fished the coast of Labrador with the Northern Light and followed her prow all along the northeast coast of Newfoundland, delivering freight to isolated settlements for thirteen years. On the day he entered St. John’s harbour in 1929, Thomas had with him on board the Northern Light his two sons, Rex and Peter, the latter just eighteen years old. Both were learning the sea trade from the deck of their father’s schooner and the two boys were about to have a cruel test forced upon them.

Besides Thomas and his two sons, there were Carty Halloway, Fred Wiseman, and Richard “Dick” Russell, who was first mate. All of them were from the same bay. So crowded was the pier space that Thomas swung his schooner on her hook near midstream in the harbour and rowed ashore. The talk of dropping fish prices was on the tongue of every schooner master in the harbour. It was rumoured that the prices would soon fall even further. They were already down to a barely break-even point. The fishermen knew all too well what this year’s fish prices meant. Provisions would have to be purchased on tick until next year. It was an endless, vicious financial cycle.

Two black-clad men with hands in pockets stood on the pier just above the waiting schooners. One of them spat a long, brown line of liquid that spattered between the schooner and the slimy pier. He moved a visible lump of tobacco to one side of his mouth before speaking.

“’Tis not only fish prices, $7.50 fer a quintal! Cod oil is down. I was expectin’ thirty-five or farty cents fer it. I was offered twelve cents fer the gallon! I told the bugger dat wudden even worth the smell of the bloody stuff. Dat was yesterday. This evenin’ he offered me ten cents. I took it. What else could I do?”

The other man up on the wharf joined in the talk.

“You’re right, it’s not only cod prices that are down. The merchants up there on Water Street will try to tell you that the oil isn’t worth much anyway. Did you know that this island exported more than one and a half million gallons of rendered cod oil last year?” The smooth talker had everyone’s attention now. “The oil is used for oiling the gears of fine English machinery, mostly, but they’ve got it in the schools here now in some places, I hear. It’s brought back from some other country where it’s sealed in blue bottles and served to the children by their teachers from a spoon. Only one spoon for the entire class, I was told! Not very hygienic, in my opinion. It would be nice to know how much it’s worth when it returns here in that manner. I can’t see why it isn’t manufactured here. Full of vitamins A and D. Good for you,” he finished.

Talks nice, dat feller do, thought Thomas. Makes a lot of sense, too. Never thought much about cod oil, meself. Wonder what he meant about that vitamin stuff? He knew a fellow who used to drink the stuff right out of the barrel. Thomas had ten barrels of the smelly oil lashed on the deck of his own schooner.

“The best I could get was $8.12 fer a quintal of me top cod,” said another schoonerman, changing the subject. “You’d better be on yer toes, b’ys. I ’eard one of the skippers say he was only quoted $5.12 a quintal.”

Thomas was worried about the prices, but he wasn’t about to let it show. “We were lucky nuff to ketch a big run of fish this year. We shouldn’t have much of a cut fer small stuff. ’Twas well-salted on the Labrador. Well-dried by the women and youngsters at home, too, dat’s fer sure. I’m hopin’ fer top dollar.”

“You’ll probably get top dollar, Tom, b’y. Problem is, what is dat top dollar gonna be?”

The talk went on about prices and merchants, about bank trouble over there in the States.

“If that’s the trouble, Yankee banks must be the trouble every year, then,” someone reasoned.

“I remember the last year of the war. The fall of ’18, it was. We got $14.50 fer a quintal of cod. As much as $15.20 fer prime. Kin you imagine dat!”

The well-dressed gentleman up on the wharf who talked nicely spoke again. “Do any of you gentlemen have salmon salted in those barrels I see on your vessels?”

The man next to him on the wharf answered. “I’ve only one, meself. Dere wuddent many salmon were we were. Too far north fer ’em, I figured we was. Another one of the schooners here, though, ’e’s got fifty barrels aboard, I’d say. Caught most of ’em in his cod trap, he did.”

“The United Kingdom purchased one million three hundred thousand pounds last year, give or take a few hundred pounds.” The cultured man smiled. “Some fishermen are packing it in ice. Keeps it fresh. The amazing thing is, the return to this nation was only a little over two hundred thousand dollars. Can you imagine the profits being made from these waters? It is fishermen like you who keep a steady pulse in this city. I don’t envy your trade.”

The man turned and walked away with his head down and his hands still thrust deep in his pockets.

“Who was dat feller, now?”

“Don’t know who ’e is. I’ve seen him around the schooners before, though. Sounds like dat feller from Gambo, Joey Smallwood. ’E’s small like ’im, too. ’Eard ’im on the radio one time. Never seen ’im, though.”

“Talks nice,” someone said, echoing Thomas’s thoughts.

“I seen paper and pen stickin’ out of his jacket pocket. If ’twas Joey, ’e was campaignin’ fer dat bugger Dick Squires last year, I ’ear. Dere’s a prime minister fer ya, no damn mistake!”

“Might be one of them newspaper fellers. Reporters, dey calls ’em. Joey was one of dem, too, I believe.”

“You know what, b’ys?” said Thomas, who appeared to be reflecting on the stranger. “I figure I’ve wrung more salt water out of me mitts dan dat feller ’as sailed over! Still an’ all, I ’lows ’e knows more about the fish business dan we do! Expensive-lookin’ coat ’e was wearing. Nice high collars, too.”

The men all nodded their heads in agreement.

* * *

The crew spent the next day busily off-loading the Northern Light. Everyone was right about the fish prices. There was only so much haggling to be done and there were lots of schooners with fish aboard. All were looking for the top dollar. After a while it came down to taking the price offered or making room for another vessel. The fishermen, who had no alternative, always took the price.

Setting sail with night nearly upon them and with the glass heading down for bad weather, which he ignored, Thomas Parsons ordered the Northern Light out of St. John’s harbour. He could see the masthead lights of two other schooners in the offing. Behind him, others were preparing to leave. The old Northern Light took the first of the ocean swells and seemed to gather herself for an unwanted voyage.

Before they had covered a mile into their northern passage, Parsons was sorry he had left port. The winds were strong from the southeast and already looked as though they were going to shift farther west. He thought he felt a winter nip in the air. Outside the best of natural harbours in the world, things looked and felt vastly different. He debated turning around. Glancing astern he saw another light coming out through the Notch. He would not be going back now. It was a matter of pride.

Despite his fear the next couple of hours were not too bad. The night was black with no stars showing through the lowering clouds. There was no guiding light from his schooner’s namesake to lead her north to home. They were making pretty good time along and the lights of Torbay glinted and winked at them as they passed that part of the coast. Parsons took a direct course for the light on Cape St. Francis, which was clearly visible hard on the port bow. They were about fourteen miles from St. John’s.

The lights from Torbay seemed farther away than they should be. Soon they rounded Cape St. Francis and put its bright light astern, along with any sight of land. The next compass bearing pointed them for the light on the south side of Baccalieu Island. The wind blew hard out of the blackness of Conception Bay. Southwest, Parsons figured, but it was hard to tell for sure. The always-changing winds that came at them had no pattern. He saw the lights from two schooners ahead, but they were far to the north. Behind he saw two or maybe even more. The Northern Light wasn’t the only schooner beating north tonight. It gave him some comfort.

The evening watch, usually divided into two two-hour watches among the crew, sailors called the first and last dogwatches. There were almost always two or more of the men on deck, and Parsons was always one of them.

They approached the north side of Conception Bay. They were already far enough across the bay to see lamplight from houses on the other side. The temperature had dropped and a few snow flurries had found them earlier, but they had stopped. Thomas figured he might try to get into the fishing village of Bay de Verde, situated on the northeast end of Conception Bay and south of Baccalieu Island. If they kept on past Baccalieu, there would be nowhere else to seek safety. He wasn’t even sure if he could tack into Bay de Verde in the dark with this wind. Parsons tried a starboard tack to land, which seemed like it might work at first, but he was more than a mile away when the first real blast of danger hit them. The wind, northwest, came from the headlands so suddenly it almost caught them unprepared. Such a wind on a night like this could carry them away from the land.

The Northern Light’s sails were close-hauled, a precaution that brought the sails closer to the masts so that the wind met the sail at an acute angle. The sheets were hardened in as tight as possible. The sails were as flat as they could be without fluttering. It was hell to do on a rolling and pitching deck. The schooner heeled over a long while before she came into the wind and straightened. All hands were on deck and they were all soaked and very cold. They would not make port anywhere south of Baccalieu.

* * *

There was a little relief from the heavy seas as they passed Baccalieu Island, but the wind blew stronger than before. They sailed slowly along by the light on the north end of the island. Parsons heeled her again and got around Grates Cove Point, a difficult and dangerous manoeuvre with the sails close-hauled. Then a vicious wind from the maw of the God Head Bay struck her broadside!

Trinity Bay, the early Europeans called it. They might have been from Spain. They had already named the island of Trinidad, or Trinity. Or maybe it was the English, with their penchant for Christian names, who had named the bay. It could have been the first day after Pentecost—Trinity Sunday—when they sailed here. Trinity, in the Christian belief, is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: one God. Most seamen who traversed this area must have believed the latter. They called it the God Head Bay.

Here was one of the worst of all the many bays to sail across in Newfoundland, especially with a wind from any point west. Where the long, narrow bay ends to the southwest, a mere three miles of barren land separate it from Placentia Bay, that inlet splayed landless to the open sea as far as South America.

On this night the hurricane-force winds from the northwest tore across Placentia Bay. The narrow strip of land between the two bays only heightened and modified its strength. It bore down and across Trinity Bay toward the black ocean like a thing possessed.

The Northern Light reeled like a swaying pugilist who had just received a knockout punch. The sudden blast and sheer power of the wind bore her bows over before the vessel had a chance to turn.

“My God, she’s goan to broach to,” yelled Fred Wiseman.

Parsons was fighting with the helm. “Get forward and haul the canvas off ’er,” he yelled above the sounding seas.

Both his sons joined the rest of the men. They half sprinted, half stumbled along the tilting, swaying deck. Young Peter was the quickest. He ducked under the quivering main boom and bent double, racing past the mainsail. Reaching the foresail, he started to let go the frozen sheet. He tried to untie the sheet at the clew, but try as he might, he couldn’t get it untied. He pulled a knife from his pocket. Carty Halloway came to his aid.

“We’ll ’ave to cut the sheet, Carty. The knots are all froze up.”

A freezing spray lashed up over the bulwarks and engulfed the men. By now the Northern Light was half seas over, but they stood their ground.

“I’ll ’ole a strain on the sheet while you cuts ’er, Pete.”

It was a big mistake!

The instant the knife severed the straining rope, Carty took the full weight of the foresail in his hands. Peter jumped to help him, but it was too late. The stiff, frozen rope burned through Carty’s hands like a hot poker. He yelled in pained surprise and let go the sheet. The sail swung away as if in delight at being away from its bindings. Carty looked aloft and yelled a warning to Peter, who was trying to save the renting sail.

“The gaff is broke, Pete! Get back! She’s comin’ down!”

Carty was right. The force of the wrenching wet sail had sheered the top gaff at the throat halyards. The only thing holding the foresail now were the wooden hoops at the luff of the sail, and they wouldn’t last. An inarticulate shout that sounded like Thomas came from somewhere aft. Another deadly flaw of wind, and the foresail ripped free of the hoops one by one with crackling sounds. The brown canvas fell and sprawled half across the deck, the other draped half over the starboard side of the schooner and dragging in the raging sea. The yell from aft came again, louder this time.

“Cut ’er loose from the fore boom! Let the bugger go,” Thomas yelled.

Both Peter and Carty rushed to the shouted order. Under the strain, the footropes holding the foresail to its boom snapped at the first cut. The wind and wave tore the sail free and it disappeared over the side. For just a second one of the sheets tangled among the swirling deck debris, and then all signs of the sail were gone.

Thomas had seen most of the action from his position at the wheel. His eldest son, Rex, along with the first mate had dashed toward the mainsail with Fred Wiseman in tow. He saw young Peter head forward, and even in that fearful moment he felt pride for his quick-thinking boy. The deck of his schooner was awash. If the boys didn’t get the canvas off her soon . . . Thomas’s stomach knotted at the possible outcome.

With Rex and Fred pulling against the mainsheet, Dick took the strain and managed to get it untied. The three men worked as one and soon brought the mainsail down.

Thomas saw what was happening with Peter and Carty on the foredeck. He shouted a warning about the sudden release of the foresail, but it went unheeded. Realizing they couldn’t hear above the roar of wind and slashing sails, he watched in dismay as the foresail came crashing down. He yelled again as loud as he could. They must have heard his frantic call, for he saw them cut the sail loose.

With the uncontrollable sails down, the vessel tilted back to a reasonable level. However, without sail her captain had little rudder control. Wind and wave bore the Northern Light swiftly away to leeward, away from the land and away from home, away on the heaving breast of the uncaring Atlantic.

* * *

The RMS Baltic was a passenger liner. She had been built at the Belfast shipyard of Harland and Wolff in Ireland. When she slid into the North Channel of the Irish Sea on November 21, 1903, she was the biggest vessel owned by the White Star Line. She was also the biggest ship afloat on any sea. When she made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York in 1904, she was under the command of Captain Edward Smith.

By April of 1912 the Baltic had a different captain. She was no longer the largest ship in the world. Her new captain sent warnings of ice sightings to Captain Edward Smith, who was now the proud commander of the newest and largest ship afloat—the SS Titanic. The warnings went unheeded.

The aging Baltic was taking a beating like never before on this bleak December night of 1929. She was 729 feet long, and even at seventy-five feet, six inches midships and reaching a massive 23,876 gross tons, she was still just a toy for the winds to play with. The Baltic’s master, Evan Davis, paced the width of the bridge. He had been doing this for days now with only short periods off watch to sleep.

The huge ship had been tugged out to midstream of the Mersey estuary on November 30. The city of Liverpool, England, barely noticed as the vessel made her way slowly down the channel, heading for the open sea. This was a seafaring town, the comings and goings of ships a common sight. She was passing Birkenhead before Davis rang down for “half ahead.” Twin plumes of black smoke gushed out of her stacks as the engineer five decks below obeyed. The Baltic swung out into the Irish Sea, heading west. Another belch of smoke came from above, followed by a churn of white from her stern as the black ship answered to “full ahead.” Without slowing, the ship turned south and passed Holyhead on the west coast of Wales off her port side. She steamed down the centre of St. George’s Channel, making top speed at fourteen knots. Her top speed had always been sixteen knots, but here the Baltic had slowed a bit, showing her age. Leaving Ireland’s Cape Clear behind, she altered course again and made her westing into the North Atlantic. She was bound for New York City in the United States. Ireland’s rugged green coast had barely sunk below the eastern horizon when the ship encountered the first of the heaving swells head on.

It was now the middle watch, just past midnight, on December 5. The big ship had done constant battle with a west-northwest gale for nearly five days. They had sailed directly into the path of a hurricane.

Hundreds of miles behind her troubled stern, the winds had reached England. Though weakened and bowed by the reach of the North Atlantic, the hurricane clung to its power. It pushed unseen currents up through the English Channel and along the east coast of England, bearing extraordinary tides with it. The lowlands along the Thames flooded as far as two miles in over its banks. Sea water flowed up over wharves. Small outbuildings were swept away into the brackish mix of sea and fresh water.

Aboard the Baltic, her captain ordered just enough revolutions for little more than “slow ahead.” Davis was trying to keep his passengers as comfortable as possible, but he wasn’t having much success. The steep bows of the ship rose on and above the frenzied waves. At intervals her bow was lifted so high that gravity took over. Her immense weight was sucked back down the steep sides, only to summit the same wave again. Into the deep troughs she plunged, splattering white spindrifts away from her surging stem. Snow skirled sideways across the faint beams coming from her lights. Constant sheets of spray blew up over her sides. Ice was forming on her decks, and the ice on her windows made it difficult for her handlers to see out through. She had more than 2,000 passengers aboard and half of them were seasick. Davis was glad to be aboard such a huge, secure vessel on a night like this. But the Baltic wasn’t the only vessel fighting with the North Atlantic winds on this December night.

* * *

The gale showed no signs of letting up as the new day came.

Several times during the frightening night they had just put behind them, Thomas had wished he was “hove to,” but every time he considered it, he changed his mind. It was too late for that now. In order to bring the Northern Light full into the wind, she would have to be several minutes directly broadside to the gale. The night seas had rolled by higher than the schooner, dark and menacing. He wouldn’t take a chance of broaching his vessel.

Each of the men save young Peter punched a trick at the wheel that day. He wanted to, but at each request his father said no. Not in a storm like this, Peter was told. Everyone was cold, tired, hungry, and soaked to the skin. At times the schooner went along at top speed, the force of the wind at her stern pushing her along as if she were “boom out”—the seaman’s term for running before the wind in a gaff-rigged schooner, with both mainsail and foresail leaning out on opposite sides of the vessel. It would only be attempted under fair winds. Once during the day she seemed to be racing, as if trying to get away from the following seas.

“She must be goan ten knots or more!” Thomas yelled to his son Rex. “An’ wit’ bare poles, by gawd! I’ve never seen the like!”

Rex coughed before he answered, a dry, hacking cough that came from deep within his chest. “I wouldn’t mine the speed we’re goan if we was heading fer the shore instead of away from it.”

“You’d better git below and try to warm yerself. And see if dere’s any dry clothes left to put on,” Thomas told his son. He knew Rex was sick. He also knew Rex wouldn’t shy away from his duties. That was his way.

Rex Parsons was twenty years old and a born seaman. He took to the ways of fishing and schooners like a man born to do nothing else. Quick in your mind and quick on your feet will always keep you above the deep. The old saying among schooner skippers suited him well. He had a sharp mind and never shied from decision-making. He was well-muscled and like a cat on his feet. But now he was slowed by a sickness the crew figured was the flu.

“Caught the bloody stuff in S’n John’s. Don’t want to worry about it. A man kin ketch anyt’ing in dere except fer fair prices,” Fred Wiseman had ventured.

Whatever his illness and wherever he had caught it mattered little to Rex. He just knew he was weak and not himself at all. To his father the very thought of influenza was frightening. Barely ten years before, at the closing of World War I—the Great War, they were calling it now—the flu had spread like a biblical pestilence across the face of the earth. During the two-year span of 1918-19, la grippe or Spanish flu ravaged its infectious spore into the lungs of one fifth of the world’s people, killing more than 30,000,000 of them before frantic scientists and overworked doctors finally found a vaccine. Parsons remembered it well. He also knew the virus preferred victims between twenty and forty years of age. With no medicine aboard, Rex was a prime target.

* * *

Almost every time the Northern Light rode the edge of the waves and fell over them, her bowsprit dived through the water. Always she rose and shouldered her wet load aside. Sometimes she shuddered with the weight of the full of her deck below the sea. Still she rose above her misery and continued on.

Darkness found the entire crew in the forecastle and the helm secured. Even lashed to the wheel, a man would not survive on that exposed deck.

Below, everything was in shambles and dishes were overturned on the table, sliding back and forth with the motion of the boat. A low railing surrounding the edge of the forecastle table kept them from falling onto the floor, where salt water was sloshing.

All the men were fully clothed and spare clothes were hung everywhere in an effort to dry them. There were two small stoves in the triangle-shaped cabin; one used wood, the other kerosene. Both stoves were so crowded and surrounded by wet coats, cuffs, socks, and boots that very little heat escaped from them. The clotheslines swayed with each roll and turn of the schooner. A lantern gave off just enough feeble light to cast weary shadows as it swung in its gimbal. Some of the crew sat on the bunks while others stretched full in their veed berths. With each forward pitch of the Northern Light, her timbers strained and wrenched in protest. Thomas Parsons was standing and trying to keep his balance by hanging on to the pawl post.

“Dere’s no let-up in the win’ a’tall, b’ys. Not one lun since we left,” he said. “Try to get some sleep if ya kin. We’ll need all the strength we kin muster as soon as the storm slacks.”

Rex tried to suppress a cough.

“’Ow are ya, Rex, b’y? You don’t sound very good,” his brother Peter asked him.

Rex was reaching up to his top bunk searching for dry clothes.

“The man in the top bunk always gets the flu first,” someone said from the shadows.

Before anyone could comment, the room suddenly tilted back, and back, as the schooner mounted yet another comber. Not a word was said as she lifted higher and higher. She finally crested the wave, but instead of pitching forward as expected, she slid forward like a toboggan on a snowy hill. Down she plummeted, taking everything movable in the forecastle into the messy, saturated recesses of her inner bows.

When she bottomed out, everyone was thrown forward with the impact like a hammer blow dealt directly to the aging bows of the Northern Light. There came a noise of sea water rushing past the hull and furiously flooding the deck above, then the shuddering feel of wood all around trying to rise above the weight of water. Above the dull roar of outside wind and waves came a sound like timbers stretching and straining, maybe even breaking.

Then the old schooner started to rise from her fetters. The sound of resisting wood increased. She rolled hard to starboard. The vessel seemed to shed most of her wet burden, for she steadied herself with a lurch.

“She’s leakin’, Skipper, from ’er topsides. I jest seen water peasin’ in t’rough the top strake.”

“’Ow bad is it?” asked Thomas. His voice was controlled and even.

“Oh, not dat bad, Skipper, but anudder blow like dat one will serve ’er barbarous.”

“She must ’ave beat the oakum out of ’er deck, too, Skipper. Dere’s water leaking down in a few places,” reported Dick Russell.

“B’ys, dere’s smoke comin’ from—my gawd! The two bogies are gone from der stands!” shouted young Peter.

He was right. The sudden downward rush of their vessel had dislodged the stoves from their fastenings. Both lay on their sides, one spilling hot, smouldering ashes. Someone grabbed a wet blanket, threw it under the table and over the ashes, then crawled in and quickly put the fire out. A smell of woodsmoke and burning cloth added to the odours.

Parsons jumped to the ladder and climbed the steps. He was reluctant to open the small door. If his vessel took another wave like the last one and the door was open . . .

He waited and listened. The schooner seemed to have settled. Sliding the door back, he stood on the last step and looked out. He kept peering astern over the washing deck. It was snowing. The schooner rose on another roller and for a moment her stern hung against the faint sky. He could see the wheel. Thank God, it was still secure. The lashings had held. The rudder below her stern was taking a terrible pounding, he knew. He was powerless against a storm like this. Thomas closed the door and stepped backward to the grimy floor. He had seen something else above, or rather had not seen something.

“Our punt is gone, b’ys!” he said. “Dat last great roller must ’ave took ’er. The lifeboat is still on deck, though. The wheel is still lashed, an’ she seems to be ridin’ it out a’right.”

“We can’t start a fire in ar one of the stoves, Skipper. The funnels are beyon’ repair. All squat up, dey are,” said Carty.

Thomas tried to cheer his crew. “We’ll ’ave to do wit’out the stoves, den, b’ys. Sure, ’tis no worse dan out on a gunnin’ point waitin’ fer a shot o’ ducks. We’ve all done dat. Snowin’ just right fer it, too.”

Rex was shivering and trying not to show it. His father saw it but said nothing.

“We’ve been backin’ from the lan’ like a lobster in its ’ole, Skipper. Where do you figure we are?” asked Wiseman.

“I can’t rightly say, Fred, b’y, but we must be somewhere to the suddard of Cape Race. Lets try to clear up the forecastle a bit. ’Twill warm us up.”

For the next four days, the Northern Light was carried before the storm. The winds moderated some but still came hard out of the north and west. They managed to keep watch during the day and did what they could to keep their vessel before the wind. The schooner was leaking badly now. The night the stoves had been overturned had only been the start of their trouble. The leaks had only gotten worse and the water sluiced over the cabin floor. They bored holes to allow the water to drain into the bilge to the pump. The working of the pump, on deck just aft of the mainmast, was manned every hour.

Water trickled below decks and soaked into their food supply. They were short of fresh water, short of food, and they had no way of cooking a meal. No way of keeping warm, either.

On deck everything was in shambles. Part of the jib still clung to the fore-topmast stay, hanging from the end of the bowsprit like a dismayed figurehead. One of the standing shrouds that gave the foremast its lateral support had let go. The cable had torn free from the port side, taking part of the bulwarks with it. It swung from the foremast hounds where it was fastened, and it gave off a whining sound as it flogged back and forth with the flaws. The missing section of bulwark allowed better escape for the water that rushed over her deck. Unfortunately, it also gave easier access to the seeking sea when the schooner rolled and tilted deep to port. Under these conditions the crew of the Northern Light prepared for yet another night of torment.

* * *

Captain Evan Davis of the Baltic was a lantern-jawed, always clean-shaven man. He wore the captain’s dress of the White Star Line: black, fine-creased trousers and double-breasted jacket. White collar and black tie completed his uniform. All the ship’s officers wore suits of black. Davis’s jacket sported four brass-coloured bands around each wrist and four spotless matching buttons.

He stepped from his quarters just aft of the bridge. Unusual for him, he was hatless and his tie was askew. He and his officers had spent a hard few days and nights on and off the bridge. While the ship was not in any foreseeable danger of sinking, she was in need of some repairs. The twenty-six-year-old steel-hulled ship was no stranger to these waters. She had crossed between England and America many times. Over all these years her commanders had dreaded the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Her present master, Davis, carried the same concerns on his shoulders.

Of all the hundreds of square miles of her Atlantic crossing, this section of ocean demanded his most careful attention. Winter and spring brought huge fields of floating ice, sometimes stretching the entire length of the Canadian coastline, icebergs so huge their progress could not be hurried even by the forces of wind and current combined. Davis looked at the charts laid neatly on the slightly angled chart table. An overhead light shone down on the charts and maps displayed there.

After studying them for a while, he moved forward and stopped beside the binnacle with its soft light illuminating the compass within. He seemed to be calculating the ship’s course as it rolled and yawed from starboard to port. Davis ignored the motion, having acquired a permanent set of sea legs long since. He walked back to the chart table, bent over it for a moment, and then stood erect.

“Gentlemen,” he began, “we are nearing the spot where the sister of this very ship went down so long ago.” He paused and spoke again, softer this time. “The Titanic.” He had everyone’s attention. All but the helmsman, who stared out through the black windows, looked his way.

Davis straightened his tie. “Strange sort of events, that. You all know the story, of course. However, all of you don’t know the role this ship played on that night. You are aware that it was a stark calm night. Not much like this one, eh, Number One?”

The first mate nodded toward his captain. “Hardly, sir.”

Davis addressed the bridge again. “From this very bridge a message was sent to the wireless officer on board the Titanic warning her of icebergs!” He swallowed hard. “She ignored the message.” Davis seemed to want to say something else.

Walking forward to the windows, he stretched out his arms for balance. Standing against the ledge beneath the water-streaked window, he looked out at the storm-tossed seas and said no more.

As much as winter and spring brought constant ice dangers from the north, the Grand Banks were respected and feared for other shipping extremes. Two of the world’s greatest ocean currents pour over their domain. The frigid Labrador Current collides with the warmth of the Gulf Stream here. The north current sustains the richest fishing grounds on earth. It also has the distinction of hosting the densest fog banks on the planet. The tropical stream from the Gulf of Mexico separates into two: one carries its water northwest to Europe, and the other southwest, all the way to the west coast of Africa. This warm water is also the spawning ground for hurricanes.

The morning watch had just begun with its crew shift. Davis gave detailed course instructions to the new wheelman and turned to leave the bridge.

“Pardon me, Captain, sir. I—I thought I saw something, sir,” said the new helmsman.

“Where away?” asked Davis.

“Just—just off the port bow, sir. I was sure, sir. Though I don’t see it now.” The man was nervous.

“What do you think this something you’re so sure of was?” asked the captain. Davis had patience with young recruits. He remembered all too well how afraid he had been to speak to his first captain.

His easy tone encouraged the younger man. “Well, sir—well, it looked like a small ship, sir! With bare poles . . . I mean masts, sir!”

“Bare poles is a fine nautical term, young man. I know it well.” Davis picked up the heavy binoculars and scanned the horizon for several minutes. Daylight was coming slow and grey as it had done for days. Seeing nothing but endless seas marching toward his ship, he put down the glasses.

“We are crossing the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. It could have been a fishing schooner, although she’d be hard-pressed to be here in such a storm. Nevertheless, keep a sharp eye. Keep all her lights on, aloft and a-low even after daylight.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said the man at the wheel, and Davis left the bridge.

* * *

Rex Parsons hauled himself up the stairs to the forecastle door. A wan light showed low in the sky. For a moment he wasn’t sure if it was evening or morning. He thought the wind had lulled a bit since last night—morning, then, he knew. He was feverish. He longed for a drink of fresh water. As if to mock his thirst, a cold rinse of water blew over the deck, across his face, and down into the cabin. He never bothered to wipe the salt water away. It cooled his skin.

Rex stepped outside and closed the door. They had rigged a spanline or manrope the full length of the schooner for safety. The men had to cling to it in order to get about. He would spell one of the others at the pumps. Three men were already there and he could see two more at the helm. No one had called him. He must have dozed off. They had been pumping for days trying to keep against the sea water that kept coming through opened seams. A shiver ran down his back so violently his knees buckled.

Two days ago his father and some of the others had told him to stay below and try to keep warm. They were sure he had pneumonia or the flu, but Rex kept appearing on deck and kept pulling his weight. His will and the fierce spirit born from generations of seamen kept him going.

He staggered once as he walked along the lifeline, half twisting around and almost falling to the sluicing deck. Pulling himself erect with the lifeline clenched in his hands, he looked astern of the schooner. Was that a light he had seen in the sky? He walked farther aft, clinging to the line and staring toward the steel grey skyline as he went. He saw nothing. It was his eyes, he figured. How could there be a light in the sky?

“You should ’ave stayed below, Rex,” his father said when the young man reached him.

“Dere’s other fellers aboard sick as I am, Fadder, b’y,” said Rex.

“I’ll go along wit you dere, me b’y. We’ve a sick crew, a’right. Dey’ve lost most of deir strent fer shore. Fer all dat, though, you are the worst of ’em.”

Rex pointed. “I t’ought I seen a light, Fadder. Off to the nar’wes’, seemed like. I ent seen it again, though.”

Peter stood by his father’s side. His young face was tanned and burnt with the wind. His full head of dark curls was hatless. He looked in the direction his brother had indicated but could see nothing.

Thomas turned, too, and saw nothing. “I’ve never seen the likes of this starm, b’ys. Dere’s no let-up a’tall. It just keeps on comin’. The schooner is takin’ an awful poundin’, as you can see, an’ the bite seems to be goan out of the gale, but by gawd, just look at the swells.”

The boys looked at the scene before them as if for the first time. Their father was right about the wind. It seemed to have a few luns among the gusts, so it had to give out soon. The prolonged wind had disturbed the sea surface for days. The swells humped and rose higher than the schooner, some of their tops foaming white as they passed by. At times they lifted the Northern Light to the very top of the swells as though it were weightless, and the huge seas rolled under her aged keel. And when the schooner settled down in the troughs, it seemed as though the grey canyon walls would surely fall upon her. Even if it stopped blowing now, it would take many more days for the swells to lessen. Even though there appeared to be a break in the wind, it was still blowing hard. The Northern Light had taken a ceaseless battering. The pumps had to be manned constantly now, and the schooner was settling by the stern.

“I never told anyone before about the dream I ’ad the night before we left S’n John’s,” Thomas said. His voice was lower than usual. His two sons stood closer to hear.

“You both knows I’m not a believer in dreams an’ tokens an’ such.” Thomas pulled the sogged woollen cuffs from his hands and began wringing the water out of them. “I saw everyt’ing dat’s after happenin’ to us, schooner and crew.” He pulled the mitts back onto his shaking hands and continued. “Not only dat, b’ys, I saw one of the men—”

Suddenly, an excited yell from Peter cut him off. The young man was looking astern.

“Dere’s a light, Fadder, look! Oh my God, look! ’Tis a ship. Big as Baccalieu Island, she is!”

The startled shout from young Peter had turned every head his way. Now all could see. It was a ship, indeed, and a big one, sure enough. She was still a ways off, though, and didn’t appear to have sighted the ailing schooner.

“Quick, Carty, get below an’ grab a blanket an’ the big kettle!” Thomas Parsons wasn’t about to let their one chance for rescue pass them by.

Carty Halloway was soon back on deck with a blanket and the black kettle. “What good is a blanket and kettle, Skipper? What’s it fer?”

“Tie the blanket to the gantline, the one runnin’ up the mainmas’. Tie it on like you would a flag. Tie the kettle to the middle of the blanket an’ hois’ the lot aloft!” Thomas cried. He had no time for explanations. “Fred, get a drop o’ kerosene and douse anudder blanket. Be ready to set it afire on my order!” Thomas said. He was very excited, but outwardly calm. “Get dat distress flag alof’—now!”

Within minutes the blanket and kettle were pulled to the top of the mainmast and the strange-looking flag straightened in the wind. The black kettle swung back and forth on its handle hanging from its centre.

“She’s turnin’, Skipper! The ship, she’s turnin’! She’s comin’ our way, by gawd! I can’t believe it, look at the size of ’er!” yelled Dick.

All hands gathered around the skipper.

The ship coming toward them rose and climbed the swells, huge and black with a snow-white superstructure. When she reached the pinnacle she was skylined—big as Baccalieu—only to fade away in the sea valleys, till all to be seen were her faintly twinkling top lights struggling with the coming day.

* * *

Davis needed a good long sleep, but he knew this would not be the time. He would settle for a couple of hours for the time being. High above the waterline this part of the ship rolled and swayed like a sumo wrestler stalking his adversary. Davis never noticed it. He had removed his jacket and was debating whether or not he should get out of the rest of his clothes. In heavy weather he usually slept on top of his blankets while still wearing most of his clothing. The captain leaned over and turned back the top blanket from his bed. He would try for a couple of hours of decent sleep beneath the covers for a change.

His tired head had just made contact with his pillow when the intercom above his bunk crackled to life, startling him. Davis pushed a button.

“Captain—bridge, sir. Sorry, sir.” Davis recognized the voice of his first officer.

“This had better be good, Number One.”

“Yes, sir—sorry, sir. We’ve spotted a schooner! Derelict, looks like!”

“I’m on my way.” He clicked the voice box to silence.

* * *

Back on the bridge, Davis stepped lively to the bow windows and peered out.

“About four points off the port bow, sir.” His mate had anticipated his captain’s unasked question.

At first Davis saw nothing, even with the powerful glasses. He was about to turn and demand an explanation when two naked, crazily swaying masts appeared on the horizon.

“Bare poles, indeed, young man!”

The shoulders of the young man at the wheel straightened with pride at his captain’s affirmation.

The Baltic rose to meet another oncoming sea. Her great bulk was almost tipping back down when Davis finally saw her. A small, black schooner was settled deep between two grey waves, almost broadside to the gale. She looked tattered and beaten. Remnants of brown sail fluttered from her torn rigging. The Baltic wallowed down the side of another wave and the schooner disappeared from his sight.

“You may be right, Number One! She does look like a derelict. Steady on the helm.”

Every member of the watch was at the windows now, staring to see what the captain and mate had seen. The ship took a long time cresting another wave. When she did, the young helmsman was the first to spot the schooner again.

“There she is sir, and she’s flying a funny flag, sir!”

“Nothing funny about that flag, my boy. It is a distress flag! Square, with a ball hanging from it.” He thought of reminding the young sailor that he should already know that, but now was not the time. “Skeleton she may appear, but there is life on her yet, thank God! Alter course to keep her on our lee side.”

“Aye aye, sir!”

The wheel was spun to port, and taking the brunt of the seas on her starboard side and rolling even more, the Baltic pointed her black, steel bows toward the stricken schooner.

* * *

There was jubilation aboard the Northern Light. No one ever voiced it, but within the heart of every man had been a serious doubt of surviving their ordeal. But now this big black ship was heaving into view and their joy of being rescued knew no bounds. Their bodies didn’t feel as cold and their hunger and thirst were forgotten with the sudden rush of adrenaline. The pumps were forgotten as the crew jumped and waved at the approaching ship.

Thomas Parsons was glad he hadn’t revealed all he had seen in his dream that night in St. John’s. He was about to tell his boys that, in his dream, he had seen one of his crew drown in the open sea. Thank God it had only been a foolish dream. They were all about to be rescued! He looked around his schooner, suddenly realizing he would have to desert her. She would go under in an hour or two with no one manning the pumps.

Turning his back on his prize possession was a hard thing for a man to do. Parsons couldn’t remember how much sea time he had spent aboard this vessel. He had provided for his family aboard her, had spent wondrous days and many splendid moonlit nights as master on her deck. He had loved it all. The skipper would miss this old schooner. Almost everything he owned was aboard: woodworking tools that had taken a lifetime to purchase; charts of the entire coast of Newfoundland; personal items so numerous he couldn’t even remember them all right now, but which would be missed when they didn’t come to hand later. In the main hold were supplies, many of which could probably still be salvaged given the opportunity. How would he get by without the Northern Light? What would he do next spring when it came time to go north to the fish again?

The shouts of his crew brought Thomas out of his reverie.

“Dey’re bawlin’ out to us, Skipper! Wants to know who we are.”

Thomas had not realized the ship was so close. Standing to windward in an effort to shield them from the worst of the wind, the huge ship rolled from side to side. She was less than two hundred yards away. He could see what he figured were hundreds of people lining the decks. There were several decks. A bellow came from the top one.

“What vessel are you, and where from?”

Thomas cupped his hands and yelled into the wind. “The Nordern Light, out of S’n John’s, sir!”

There was a pause, then: “Are you the captain?”

“Yes, sir, I am Thomas Parsons be name, sir!”

Another pause. The ship loomed closer. “Can you launch your lifeboat, Captain?”

“No, sir, she’s ’oled, sir!”

The Northern Light’s lifeboat had broken free of its lashings days ago and had suffered severe damage before they secured it again. They hadn’t the materials nor the opportunity to repair it since.

A longer pause this time before the voice came back. “Very well, Captain Parsons, stand by for rescue!”

The Baltic was allowed closer to the Northern Light. It wasn’t easy to manoeuvre a ship of her size so close in conditions such as these.

“Dere’s calm streaks comin’ out of dat ship, Skipper, just look,” Carty shouted.

Sure enough, patches of water free of scurrying wind stretched between the two vessels.

“’Tis oil, Skipper. Dey’re pourin’ oil out of ’er. ’Tis smoodin’ the water, by gawd. Must be cod oil,” said Dick.

Dick was right. The Baltic’s captain had ordered more than 150 gallons of cod oil thrown overboard in an effort to calm the seas, and it lessened the wind action on the water. A lifeboat was readied. Third Officer Walker and nine crewmen were hoisted over the side. A tricky operation, indeed! The ship swayed and fought the heavy swells as the ocean rose up quickly to meet the lifeboat. They were in danger of being crushed against the side of the steel ship, but, looking like a huge hanging spider whose web had just broken, they made it to the water and quickly freed themselves from their davit lines.

Walker shouted orders to his men. They came to within a few feet of the schooner, but they could get not get close enough for the men aboard the schooner to jump to the lifeboat. The seas were too rough and the lifeboat dipped rail in and rail out of the water. Only the skill of her crew kept her from being crushed against the schooner. Shouts were exchanged between the two vessels. Ideas were considered and shouted. Only one would work. The men of the Northern Light would have to jump into the terrible sea. There was no other way. But only Rex and Peter could swim.

The lifeboat swung astern of the schooner till she was no more than twenty feet away. A line was thrown connecting the two.

Passengers safe aboard the Baltic watched in fascination. Some of them shouted encouragement. Some of them took photographs. One of them actually cranked a brief movie scene of the rescue.

Young Peter was the first to go. He tied the rope around his waist, grabbed the line, stood on the taffrail, and jumped into the ocean. The sailors aboard the lifeboat hauled him alongside and over the gunnels. He was safe. They threw the line back aboard the schooner and the others followed, one by one, tying the line around their waists. All were pulled to the lifeboat.

Now only the captain and his son Rex remained on the after deck of the Northern Light. Rex grabbed the rope and stepped to the rail.

“Tie the rope round yer waist, Rex!” his father yelled to him.

Rex stood on the rail, ready to jump. He hadn’t tied the rope. His father was at the wheel, where he’d been trying to keep his schooner as stable as possible.

“Don’t be so foolish, Rex, my son! You knows you’re weak. Fer gawd’s sake, listen to me, b’y!”

Rex jumped without speaking and disappeared from his father’s view. Thomas left the helm and rushed aft. Rex was under the thrashing stern of the schooner and the rope was not in his hands. Only his head showed above the water.

“Grab the rope, Rex! Oh, sweet Jesus, grab the line, my son!” Thomas yelled in agony.

The men in the lifeboat shouted. Women from the Baltic screamed.

Finally, Rex heard and obeyed—he grabbed the thick rope! The sailors pulled and Rex was headed toward safety. Someone aboard the ship cheered.

Then, suddenly, the rope was pulled out of Rex’s weakened hands and he disappeared beneath the sea. The rescuers frantically pulled the rope back and threw it again. The schooner’s stern dipped low. Thomas peered down in disbelief, his face as white as snow.

The lifeboat rose and fell. Rex Parsons stayed below the sea.

* * *

It took twenty minutes of yelling and reasoning from the crew of the Northern Light as well as the men from the Baltic before the grief-stricken father could be persuaded to jump into the sea. He had the rope tied securely about his waist and was pulled, limp and coughing water, to the side of the rescue boat.

The survivors of the schooner were soon alongside the Baltic. The ship rose and canted above the tiny boat as if at any minute she would crush the puny object seeking her refuge. A ladder was lowered, as well as a cargo net. Men climbed the swaying, webbed steps. Clothing was torn. Bodies were scraped against her steel sides and came away bleeding, but the Baltic took the crew of the Northern Light into her warm, safe bosom.

All but one, who would forever stay at sea.

They tried to retrieve the lifeboat, but the seas were too high. After several unsuccessful attempts, Davis ordered her to be set adrift and the Baltic resumed her course for New York City. The rescued crew were warmly received aboard. Captain Davis told them their small schooner was going down just fifty miles from where the Titanic had gone under. Thomas Parsons stood high on the after deck of the Baltic. He refused to change his wet clothes. He even refused a hot cup of tea, his favourite drink. Wisely, his rescuers left him to his grieving.

There are times in a man’s life when sorrow grips his guts and pierces his very soul. At times like these even the touch of a pitying friend only increases the terrible agony. It is times like these when a man must be alone. This time had come for Thomas Parsons.

He watched until he was sure the naked masts of the Northern Light wouldn’t rise again. She had gone under. He wondered if she would settle near his son and it gave him some comfort. The Baltic’s lifeboat, which had been set adrift, seemed to be circling the spot where the Northern Light had gone under, as if the small craft was not yet done with her task. Then a huge breaking wave seemed to reach up and claim the settling life boat for its own, and bore it down to join the old Northern Light. Unexplained events like this sometimes happen and are the stuff of sea tales.

Strange thing about dreams, Thomas thought, eyeing the empty sea behind the Baltic’s thrashing stern. Some you remember, most you don’t. The vivid dream he had had that night before leaving the comfort of St. John’s harbour was still clear in his mind: the terrible gale, the days at sea, the near-wreck of his schooner. He didn’t remember a big ship in his dream. Dreams still couldn’t be believed in, he thought. In his dream he had seen one of his crew members drowned. But he had not seen the face.

* * *

For the crew of the Northern Light, the RMS Baltic was like a wonderland. The ship, though old, was still luxurious. The rescuers radioed a message to St. John’s informing officials the crew of the Northern Light were safely aboard and on their way to New York. The men were given cabins, where they slept under sweet-smelling blankets. They were served food, as much as they wanted. The passengers gave surplus clothing to fit the destitute seamen. The men from Newfoundland humbly accepted the Baltic’s hospitality. Until now they had had nothing but the clothes they stood in. All of their pockets were empty.

Surprisingly, when the ship docked in New York, many of the men from Bonavista Bay were met by relatives. The New York newspapers had told the Yanks of their rescue. Thomas was met by his brother, who lived in that city. They travelled east aboard the Baltic again after a stay of four days in the city, this time to the Canadian port of Halifax. Here the crew of the Northern Light bade an emotional farewell to the men who had dragged them out of the sea. Arrangements were made in Halifax for passage for all five men aboard the SS Silvia.

They arrived back in St. John’s harbour on December 19. The trip that had started on November 29 with only a few hours of sailing ahead of her had taken a gruelling twenty-one days. The last days of the old Northern Light had changed the lives of all who had sailed aboard her.

3 GANDER DEAL

Richard Squires was the prime minister of Newfoundland from 1919 until 1923. His party was called the Liberal Reform Party. One of his best friends and political allies was William Ford Coaker, who was also one of Squires’s cabinet ministers, and he—Coaker—carried the voice of the Newfoundland fishermen. He had formed a Fishermen’s Protective Union—the FPU—to aid the hard-working fishermen in their dealings against money-gouging merchants. Prior to Coaker’s union, fishermen were forced to live by the “truck trade.”

When their salt- and sun-cured catch of cod was taken to market in the autumn of each year, they never received one penny for their produce. Instead they were given only staple foods and necessary tools—nets, twine, sailcloth, cordage, and always salt—in exchange for their entire summer’s work. The prices paid for the goods were of course set by the merchant. Ironically, so was the price paid for the fish. The provisions and supply prices were always inflated and the price set for the catch never seemed to catch up. It was a cruel, near-indentured system. Fishermen for the most part were simply allowed a bartered advance against next year’s catch of cod.

Coaker and his union tried to change the entire system of the fishing industry. Not only did he have to battle the business people in his endeavours, but also some of the fishermen who were not sure of his ideas. Many of them were afraid to burn any bridges that linked them to the all-powerful merchants.

It wasn’t only fishermen Coaker’s union was concerned about. He was also involved in the plight of the island’s loggers. The interior of the island was rich in softwoods, wood for houses, wood for shipbuilding, wood for pulp and paper. The Exploits, Newfoundland’s largest river, had already been harnessed to provide hydroelectric power for one pulp and paper company. The Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company, commonly referred to as the A.N.D. Company, had begun shipping newsprint since 1909.

A company from England was interested in building another paper mill on the island’s west coast. World War I got in the way of their plans, but by the early 1920s they were ready. Bowaters changed the flow of Grand Lake, which is Newfoundland’s largest lake. They diverted its might into a brand new fore bay water channel at Deer Lake, produced electrical power, and sent it burning along brand new hydro lines to their mill. The power generated by the waters of the upper Humber reached the new pulp mill at the mouth of the Humber in Corner Brook long before the water did.

Richard Squires used the development as a political platform in 1923. He boldly stated that he had “put the hum on the Humber.” The project was more often referred to as the “Humber Deal.”

The government had other plans to harvest the island’s vast forest resources in different areas. Talks were under way which would involve yet another of the island’s major rivers in a timber agreement—the Gander River. It was called the “Gander Deal.”

The founder of the FPU, William Coaker, was of course not only knowledgeable in these dealings, but as cabinet minister played a vital role in them. In 1922-23 the branch of the FPU known as the Union Shipbuilding Company built in its shipyard at Port Union, Trinity Bay, two schooners. And so it was, two vessels designed for fishing were launched hailing the names of logging ventures. One was named the Humber Deal. The other was christened the Gander Deal.

The Barbours of Newtown bought them both. At first they gave some consideration to changing the names. After all, they were fishermen and knew little about the logging industry. They were strange names for fishing vessels, they thought, even given the reason for the names. Still, changing the name of a vessel after she had been launched was considered bad luck. Their names would remain.

Manuel Barbour was master of the Gander Deal. She was built of Newfoundland winter-harvested timber in Trinity Bay. The island’s best and most plentiful hardwood, white birch, made up her framing. Thick planks of black spruce and juniper, the sturdiest of softwoods, comprised the decking and cabin construction. Her two masts were pine, also selected from the hills of Trinity Bay.

The Gander Deal displaced sixty-eight tons of gross weight. She measured seventy-one feet from stem to stern and at her widest point was twenty-two feet. With her two masts fitted with fore and aft sails, the gaff-rigged schooner was ready to take her share of codfish from the waters of Labrador.

Nineteen twenty-nine had been a good year for the crew of the Gander Deal. She had sailed into Newtown early that fall with her belly filled with Labrador fish. Now the process of making the fish began. With the schooner tied securely to the wharf, the fish was winched out of her hold with squeaking windlass. The codfish, which had been buried in salt—most of it for months—was thrown into waiting puncheons filled with sea water. Next, each fish was washed with a cloth in an effort to scrub away the salt residue as well as any remaining traces of blood from its flesh. Squeaky-wheeled wooden barrows and two-man hand carts carried the dripping fish all over the Barbour rooms to waiting flakes.

Now the drying process began. Strong southwest autumn winds blowing out of the wooded bays gave the best days for drying. Women and men and even children shared in the work, spreading the fish in a heads-and-tails pattern on the flakes. A careful weather eye had to be kept as well, especially for the first couple of days. A hard scud of rain could spoil the fish before it had a chance to be cured by sun and wind. If rain threatened, the fish had to be carried into stages and sheds until the skies cleared. Fish farthest away was sometimes yaffled, or neatly stowed together on the flakes, and covered with ship canvas. This method had to be implemented quickly and done right. Fish thrown together in a lumpy pile would not do. It had to be stowed in such a manner as to allow it to breathe. It looked simple enough, but it took considerable skill to do it right.

October month had been a good month for drying, with only a few days when everyone had to scravel the fish under cover. However, November came with a change in weather.

“Dere’s nar day in dis mont’ to be trusted, b’ys,” said Manuel Barbour. “Still, we’re only needin’ another day er so fer the fish to flour and ’twill be made.”

Properly cured codfish would “flour” or take on a white, flourlike hue as the salt surfaced from the flesh. An expert yaffler could also tell when it was floured by the sound the fish made when he threw it together. This was always done at waist height. If the fish made a dry, slapping, almost clicking sound when it landed, it was just about done.

* * *

The Gander Deal left Barbour’s Tickle in Newtown for the trip to St. John’s in mid-November. The salty wet fish that had come out of her hold had been returned sun-dried and ready for market. The schooner rode higher now; the cured fish winched aboard was much lighter than when it had been winched out. Their run south with all sails drawing had been uneventful. Skipper Manuel didn’t have to wait long to get off-loaded. The Barbours did a flourishing business with many merchants in the old city. Already tied to the same pier was another Barbour schooner, the Neptune II captained by Job Barbour. They seldom waited in line. The weather was good for a day or so and the unloading of the cod went well. The Gander Deal took on supplies that would see many families through the coming winter. Then heavy northeast winds set in, bringing the taste of winter. For days the sailing vessels, all ready for home, couldn’t leave. The Barbours had to wait like everyone else.

Manuel Barbour decided to leave for home in the late evening of November 29. The Battery lighthouse had obtained a favourable forecast for the rest of the evening and night and the Cape Spear light confirmed it. Manuel had talked with his cousin Job Barbour after seeing two schooners leave the harbour. They both agreed to try for Catalina on the north side of Trinity Bay. The Gander Deal was much smaller than the Neptune II and got under way long before a tug arrived to tow the larger schooner out of the harbour.

Outside the narrow entrance to St. John’s and with her sails taking the wind, the Gander Deal swung north to home. The lights of the city suddenly vanished from astern, the huge cliffs enclosing and hiding the comfort within. Now only a thin light came from the lanterns swinging from the tilting masts of the small schooner.

Once, the crew on deck saw a light rise and fall ahead of them, then another one much farther north of their position winked and went out. The knowledge that others of their kind were afloat on this night gave them some comfort in the darkness.

The schooner fared well along the coast. On this black night Manuel kept his vessel just off the land as far as Cape St. Francis with a freshening wind from the west.

Leaving Cape St. Francis astern, Barbour took a direct course and steered farther west on a port tack to cross the bay at its narrowest point. The wind had increased, but they crossed Conception Bay and presently came under the lee of the land again. Manuel reasoned that if they could cross Trinity Bay as well as they had just made Conception Bay, they would be safely ashore in Catalina shortly before midnight. He also knew that when they had rounded Baccalieu Island there would be no turning back.

Barbour stood at the helm. The wind came in strong gusts from the high, dark land rushing past their port side. The wind felt colder as he scanned the sky. He thought it might have veered farther north, or maybe it was just the effects of the headland they were passing. Weather patterns here could be very deceiving. Garfield Boland appeared at his side.

“The glass is dropping fast, skipper. A blow, I ’lows.” Boland was a shareman aboard the schooner. He had sailed for the Labrador with Barbour in the early summer. At twenty years of age he was already a tough, well-seasoned sailor. Barbour respected Boland’s opinion.

“Could be, Gar, b’y. Dis is not a good coast fer makin’ night port, though. ’Tis Catalina I’m hopin’ fer. We’ll have Green Island light to guide us in harbour there. ’Ow much did the glass drop?”

“A few points fer sure. Look, Skipper, dere’s a light ahead of us! Dere it is again. I almos’ believes ’tis two lights. The udder scunners that left ahead of us, wit’out a doubt.” Like all seamen would be at a time like this, Boland was excited at the prospect of company headed in the same direction.

Manuel followed Boland’s outstretched arm and stared ahead. Boland was right. He waited. The light rose above the tumbled horizon again and just as quickly slid out of sight. Barbour still stared ahead, waiting. Then he saw what he was waiting for. Two lights appeared at the same time, both well ahead of his schooner. Past the Baccalieu lighthouse light, for sure. They were also far apart from each other. He thought they stood farther to sea than they should be on a night like this.

“Right you are, Gar, ’tis the vessels that left St. John’s ahead of us. Dere past Baccalieu and beatin’ into Trinity Bay. We’re going on.”

Boland knew his captain would go on. The lights ahead made the decision easier for him. He would not be outdone by anyone.

Captain Barbour had sailed north along these same shores many times before, day and night. In good weather he sometimes went through the tickle between Baccalieu Island and the mainland, but tonight he would not take the chance. He swung away from the land and headed outside the island. The schooner cleared the island of Baccalieu well enough and had put the Baccalieu north light astern when Barbour knew he had made a mistake.

The temperature dropped by several degrees and it started to snow. He altered the course to round Grates Cove Point, the south cape of Trinity Bay. Just before they reached the point, he knew the wind had changed. Northwest, he was almost sure. He could feel the hard flaws slapping at the sails. It was a warning too late to heed.

Barbour figured he would try and cross Trinity Bay as he had done Conception Bay—at its narrowest point. He decided to try for the area around Ireland’s Eye, or even the lee of Random Island.

He would not get the chance.

The wind roared out of Trinity Bay as if spat from a gigantic funnel. It hit the Gander Deal broadside like a series of one-two punches that kept on coming. Her port bow reeled with the blow and she heeled to starboard like she was trying to dodge the onslaught.

The sudden blast of cold wind caught the master of the schooner off guard and his yell to shorten sail died on his lips. He fought the wheel with all his might, trying to bring the schooner into the wind. Feeling the rudder give a little, for a moment he thought he might succeed. He heaved against the wheel again and it turned several spokes before it took the strain.

My God, he thought, there’s something wrong with the rudder.

The hurricane slammed into the schooner again till she turned away like a pony before an autumn wind. Barbour heard the sound of tearing sail overhead, followed by a great renting of cloth, a mad flapping of torn sails, the whipping sound of flayed ropes. An anguished shout escaped his own throat.

“Fetch me a rope, Lou! I got to lash the wheel. I can’t ’old ’er. Oh my God, the sails’re tearin’ away from the spars!”

The loosened sails were like a thing possessed, howling and lashing at their fetters. On that darkened, swaying deck with the hard-flung snow piercing their eyes, they couldn’t see how much cloth was left on the schooner.

Lewis Burry, first mate, fought the dreadful roll of the schooner but managed to reach Barbour with a length of rope. He shouted over the wind, “I ’lows we’re on bare poles, Skipper.”

Manuel only glanced aloft, saying nothing. For the time being he knew they were helpless. The two men, drenched to the bone, lashed the wheel secure. Water found its way inside the collars of their oilskins and trickled its icy way downward. The deck was awash, the sea a tormented roil of water.

The two entered the forecastle door, then the wind had its way with them the rest of that terrible night. It taunted and pushed the waves, increasing their might with its fetch, bearing the Gander Deal swiftly away from the precious land. And on her after deck there was no one standing before the mast.

* * *

The long night spent in the cramped, heaving cabin was not pleasant. The mate’s fifteen-year-old son, Herbert Burry, was sick and confined to a narrow, damp bunk. His father wasn’t sure if it was all seasickness or not; it wasn’t the boy’s first time on the sea. By the age of fifteen, almost all boys around Pinchard’s Island were well used to the ocean that surrounded them. However, it was Herbert’s first time in a confined space in such conditions. Lewis knew it would try the most seasoned sailor.

Manuel Barbour spent a sleepless night below the troubled deck of his vessel. Knowing he was powerless to guide her through the hurricane only increased his fears. He climbed the steps to the narrow opening next morning and peered out as dawn was trying to escape the clutch of night.

Water surged and sucked along the deck and flushed over the coamings, and before he had a chance to shut the door it splashed down over the steps to the floor below. Someone shouted a curse. Barbour stood higher on the steps, his shoulders bent. He wouldn’t take the chance in sliding back the overhead section of the door.

The deck of the Gander Deal was a mess. Ropes were twisted like felled tree branches, their frayed ends floating. The overpowering waves carried the spindrift over the bulwarks in white sheens. Only tattered remains of sail remained aloft. They beat a steady rhythm like an excited drummer trying to keep time on his snare.

The stern of the schooner lifted, her taffrail at times etching the pale morning sky as she rose and fell in that terrible wasteland of wind and water. A huge wave foamed toward him and Barbour slammed the door shut. Water poured through the door joints and flushed down over the steps. He had confirmed what the crew already suspected. They were under bare poles, all right. He had noted something else, too, just before he had closed the door, and he wasn’t looking forward to telling his men.

“The motorboat’s gone, b’ys. Seems like she broke from ’er lashin’ and got stove in be the mast. Only the kadie still screwed to ’er beddin’ left on deck. We might save the motor.”

“The engine is not much good to us wit’out the boat, Skipper,” said Boland.

Manuel was about to say that the four-horsepower one-lunger Acadia motor could be used in another boat, but he knew his men were only thinking of their present situation, not the future.

* * *

Unbelievably, the storm continued for the next several days. By Wednesday the following week, the schooner was leaking in several places, and it leaked through the opened planks of the forecastle roof. Salt water seeped up through the seams of the forecastle floor. At times it was two feet deep. Sea water was in the bilge. It got into their meagre food supply, making it unpalatable, and it soaked the clothing of the vessel’s handlers. The water that had always sustained them was now the cause of their misery.

They had to man their pump at all times, a two-man operation, one hour on and one hour off. Each crew member taking his trick at the wheel had to be tied on for fear of being swept overboard. The crew of the Gander Deal were nearly at the end of their endurance. And now, with their rudder broken, they had no control of the schooner whatsoever.

Jesse Gill was at the wheel when it happened. Gill knew that when the wheel spun over and over, either the rudder had been torn away by the force of the waves or the connection from wheel to rudder had parted. Looking back, the men saw the rudder floated astern of the schooner, ripped from its fastenings by the sheer weight of the following sea.

The Gander Deal broached to atop one mighty roller for just a moment before sliding broadside down the face of that slippery hill, only to be carried, still broadside, with a sickening gait, up the ridge of another one. Her crew had no means of any steerageway, no answer from the helm. All that day and through the slow, passing, dreadful night, the schooner suffered in the throes of roaring wind and never-ending waves that wrenched the schooner with their every whim. No one voiced it, but every man knew they would not survive much longer. They were out of fresh water. For days now they had been like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, with “Water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink.”

Very early Friday morning, still dark, found most of the crew of the Gander Deal on her deck. There wasn’t much to do except take turns at the pump. Their schooner might sink at any time. Most of them preferred to stay above deck than inside the cold, crowded forecastle.

Below, in the forecastle, young Herbert lay huddled beneath a press of damp blankets. The floor was awash with cold sea water. Articles of clothing and other debris from the cabin sloshed back and forth with the nauseating roll of the vessel. He was shivering violently. Herbert hadn’t had a decent meal since this voyage began. He didn’t vomit any more because there was nothing in his stomach to come up, but his chest still sometimes heaved in pitiful, urging spasms. He was thirsty, feverish, and weak, and his father was very worried.

Jesse Gill stood on deck with the rest, cold and wet. He was shivering and wrapping his arms around his upper body in a rapid slapping motion to keep warm. Far astern and high in the sky he watched a lone star peek through the cloud cover. They hadn’t seen the sun or any other light in the firmament for days. The star rose and fell on the seas, rising and falling like a masthead light.

Gill stopped beating his arms and gasped at what he was seeing. It wasn’t a star at all, but a light! A ship was approaching, maybe even passing them by.

“Look astern, Skipper! Dere’s a light! I bin lookin’ at it an’ t’inkin’ ’twas a star. But ’tis not a star a’tall, ’tis a ship! A big one!”

Everyone turned and looked at Jesse’s light. He was right—it was a ship, and a big one! Barbour stared astern like the rest. It was difficult to tell whether or not the ship was headed their way or if they had even been seen. Then the answer came.

The Gander Deal lifted above the torn surface of the sea on the breast of one of many rollers that kept coming at her. Far astern the lights rose as well, for there was not only one, but four of them. And underneath the four sky-lining ones were dozens of other lights. It took a while for Barbour to figure out the design.

“It’s a liner, boys. A big bugger, too. She’s broadside, though, not headin’ fer us. She’s sailin’ away. We don’t ’ave a light, fer gawd’s sake, ’er lookouts can’t see us.” Barbour looked around the dishevelled deck as if searching for something to draw attention to them. “Jim, run below an’ fetch the ’am er what’s left of it. Bill, bring the gallon can wit’ the kerosene in it. Look lively, the two of ya. We’ve not much time.”

James Perry and William Sainsbury made forward to do the captain’s bidding, splashing through deep water as they ran.

“Get a line ready to go aloft, Jesse. The rest of ya, back to the pumps, we’re not rescued yet.”

Barbour’s voice was stern and hoarse from shouting. The others thought Barbour had lost his mind. Why else would he order food be brought topside?

The two men appeared on deck again, one carrying a half-eaten salt-cured ham, the other a galvanized gallon can. They reached Barbour’s side.

“Quick, Bill, douse the ’am with the oil, an’ don’t spare it. Tie the line to it, Jesse, and get it up the spar.”

The captain’s orders were quickly carried out. A line was fastened to the ham and a match from a cupped hand put to the oil-drenched pork quarter. It flared and smoked as the meat dripping hot fat was lifted skyward on the gantline.

“Pray God the ship sees us before the line burns off,” Barbour voiced to himself.

* * *

The SS Republic was an American passenger liner plying her usual route between Liverpool, England, and New York City. She had been buffeted by headwinds for days on the worst crossing her captain had ever experienced. The storms just kept on coming. His ship had suffered cosmetic damage to her superstructure, and his passengers, many of them sailing to the United States for Christmas, had not had a pleasant sea cruise. Many aboard, especially first-timers, had suffered from seasickness since their first day out of port. Most of them were still sick. It was a memorable trip, but it was about to become even more memorable.

The Republic’s captain had changed their westerly course a few degrees to the north in order for his ship to take the brunt of the storm on her starboard bow. He understood the misery of those passengers suffering from the gut-churning nausea that came from a constantly rolling ship. His course alteration would hopefully give them some comfort. It was this change in course that brought him closer to the huge island of Newfoundland than normal.

The captain usually retired for the night by the end of middle watch, but the storm had set different rules for everyone, even him. Two of the crew on watch saw it at once.

“Over there, sir. It’s a—a fire—er—a torch, sir—a torch burning. In the sky, sir!”

The captain turned toward the starboard window of his wide bridge. He saw what his lookouts saw: a fire! As he and the others watched, the light started to fade.

“A course to intercept, quickly!”

The burning light fell a short distance and disappeared from their sight. The first officer spoke the course of the sighting and the captain ordered the course change needed to investigate. The great liner turned farther into the gale, searching for a doused light in a deadly black sea.

This wasn’t the first time the SS Republic’s history had been altered. Her course had been an ever-changing one since the day she was built. She was constructed by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, and financed by the wealthy American businessman J. P. Morgan. Before she was even completed, Morgan grew dissatisfied when the deal he had made with the Wilson and Furness-Leyland Line didn’t go as planned. He pulled his money. The ship launched February 19, 1903, and christened SS Servian spent the next four years on her hook in the Musgrave Channel of Ireland. She was one of the first ships to anchor in that channel, which had been dug the same year to allow better access into the North Channel of the Irish Sea.

She was purchased by a Hamburg-American company in 1907 and renamed the SS President Grant. She sailed the next seven years between Germany and America, until the war of 1914 saw her anchored again, this time on the other side of the ocean in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her German partners feared her destruction by their own warring nation on the high seas. When the nation who had sheltered her entered into the same war in April of 1917 and declared war on Germany, she was immediately seized and turned over to the American Navy. Her name changed again. This time she was called the USS President Grant, commanded by J.P. Morton. She safely carried 40,025 American troops to French ports to fight in deadly battles. She brought 37,025 of them home again to the docks of New York City.

In 1919 her name was changed once again, to SS Republic, under the control of the United States Army. She sailed as far north as Siberia, bringing repatriating Czechoslovakian soldiers to Trieste in 1920. Given over to the USSR by the American Army in 1921, she lay at anchor in Norfolk, Virginia, for another three years, until in 1924 she was purchased by the United States Line for work as a North Atlantic passenger ship.

* * *

As Manuel Barbour feared, the howling wind soon cut through the line holding the burning ham aloft. The line fell from the sky with a trail of flankers and hit the water-filled deck with a faint hiss, and the ham thrashed back and forth like the bloated carcass of a singed beaver.

* * *

She came out of the night sky like the top half of an apparition, her black hull invisible below her lighted superstructure. At sixty-eight feet, two inches, her deck was almost as wide as the Gander Deal was long. She powered up over the biggest waves and knifed through the lesser ones, her steep bows separating and making way for her length. Powerful beams of light searched the ocean, exposing the awesome might of wind and wave. One of the beams splayed across the Gander Deal. The huge ship slowed and settled to a wallowing hulk as she lost her way. Now that the Republic had found the source of the mysterious night light, her captain wasn’t sure how to save her.

* * *

“Sweet lovin’ lard, she’s as big as Pinchar’s Islan’,” said Garfield Boland as he stared at the liner looming out of the night.

At one foot short of 600 feet, the 33,530-ton Republic looked monstrous. She was more than eight times longer than the schooner Gander Deal, which now showed tiny and naked below her blinding lights. The great ship slowed even more as she came alongside, keeping a weather distance between her hull and the schooner in its lee.

Eight volunteers readied a lifeboat and dropped down the side of the heaving steamship. The surface of the sea seemed to reach for them and then founder away beneath them again as the vessel rose and fell on the swells. When the craft finally made the water, it was with a jolting thump that up-seated the crew and sent them frantically rushing to release the hooks that held them. Oars flashed in the light and the crew aboard the lifeboat pulled away from the ship before it could crush them.

“Who is your captain and from what port are you?” came a yell from the lifeboat when it approached. It was still some distance from the Gander Deal and the roaring wind nearly drowned out the voice. Barbour yelled back a reply, but the crew member standing in the lifeboat pointed to his ear, indicating he couldn’t hear him. Barbour ordered a gasoline funnel be had brought on the voyage, and placing the narrow end to his mouth, he shouted again.

“I’m Captain Barbour, sir! Out of the port of S’n John’s, we are! We are in distress, sir!”

“We will come alongside when the opportunity permits, Captain! You and your men must jump aboard! Be ready as we bear close!”

Barbour ordered his men to prepare themselves as he stood to the wheel and tried to steady his schooner for the dangerous rescue. The men aboard the Gander Deal viewed the roiling ocean between them and their rescuers. If they missed the boat and landed into the sea, they would be done for.

The darkly clothed men on the deck of the schooner held to the rigging, their wet clothes white with frost. The lifeboat came closer and men yelled back and forth. The seas rose and fell between them, flinging its icy spume all over. The huge steamer passed nearby in the background, her lights shining on the scene. The open sea came at the schooner and lifeboat again as the ship passed, and the lifeboat hove high and away from the schooner. They had missed their chance. The lifeboat disappeared into the troughs and the schooner bore away again before the wind.

The small boat kept after the schooner. The great Republic rolled heavily as she turned for another pass. Her searching lights faded as she turned, then brightened as she bore down on them again. She drew closer than before, as if she would squeeze her lifeboat against the Gander Deal.

James Perry beat his hands to ward off the cold. He kept looking back and forth between the approaching ship and at something toward the bow of the schooner. Then, without a word to anyone, he ran forward.

“Where the ’ell’re you goan, Jim?” someone yelled after him.

James went on unheeded. He clung to the main hatch coaming as he passed, threw back the narrow forecastle doors, and vanished below.

The forecastle floor was calf-high with water and sodden bedclothes from the bunks. The locker doors were torn open, some of them hanging by one hinge, their contents strewn about the floor. Perry staggered through the clinging debris and found his bunk. A shaft of light shone into the cabin. Perry turned toward the light, then realized the steamer had returned. Fumbling above his bunk, he found what he had come for and raced back to the deck.

Tucked and bulging inside his wet jacket was the dress he had bought his wife for Christmas. He had never given her a store-bought Christmas gift before. The dress was the prettiest one he had ever seen, hanging there in the St. John’s shop window. If he survived, the dress would be with him.

Barbour strained at the helm and the Gander Deal yawed away to starboard. The lifeboat neared her port side, with the Republic looming like a high headland beyond, sheltering, protecting, threatening.

“One more time, Captain! Have your men jump when your vessel rolls rail down toward us!” a voice shouted from the lifeboat.

Barbour was now posted to the deck, his entire weight applied against the useless helm. He could feel the schooner tremble beneath his feet, as if she just wanted to be free.

“’Ere dey comes again, b’ys! ’Tis our las’ chance, I ’low! Jump like you would panning swiles!” Barbour roared to his men.

Two men kept the lifeboat as close to parallel with the schooner as they could. The other six waited to catch the men who would jump.

Water rose to a boil between them and flushed the deck of the Gander Deal. It poured in over the gunnels of the lifeboat. Men shouted. Men cursed. Men jumped.

Barbour watched and counted the figures as they flung themselves away from his schooner. Nine figures plummeted down aboard the boat and the crew of the Republic broke their fall before he left his post. Barbour reached the bulwarks of the schooner. The lifeboat was rising and the schooner was dropping. The boat chafed once against the Gander Deal and men pushed her away. The man ahead of him jumped. Barbour thought it was James Perry, although he looked thicker around the middle than he remembered.

Barbour jumped. For one sickening moment he thought he would fall into the sea—until the Gander Deal’s fall was checked by her unmanned wheel, saving her master. Barbour landed hard across the gunnels of the lifeboat, hurting his ribs. The waiting men pulled him aboard. The Gander Deal was free, her ordeal almost done.

The crew aboard the Republic lowered the hooks and fastened them to the crowded rescue craft. Men with oars kept the small boat from smashing against the side of the ship as they were winched upward. A swaying block broke the foot of one of the Republic’s men in charge of the hoisting procedure, and the man screamed in pain. Soon all were safe aboard. Bert Burry was confined to the warmth of the ship’s sick bay. The relentless cold and constant wet had weakened the boy. The crew of the Gander Deal stood at the rail of their rescuer, staring at their schooner dying in the sea far below them.

Day had come, another morning without the rising sun. The Republic came into the wind and waited for the Gander Deal to give up the ghost. She settled low and appeared to have gone under several times, but always she rose above the next roller. For two hours the patient captain of the Republic waited. He was about to order full ahead and away from the scene when several shouts rose as one from his bridge. The schooner was finally sinking.

No sound at all came from ten of the men standing at the rail on the lower deck of the great ship. They had gathered as one to watch their schooner die. There was no warning, nothing different as she fell down over yet another wave. She just didn’t rise again. Her masts dropped from the grey morning sky and she was gone, leaving her mourning crew to stare at a suddenly empty ocean.

* * *

A wireless went out from the radio room of the Republic to Newfoundland, advising first that the crew of the Gander Deal were all safe aboard, second that the schooner had sunk, and third that her crew were continuing on to the Republic’s destination in Hoboken, New Jersey. The boys from outport Newfoundland had seen nothing like the Republic before. The ship with its opulent surroundings and unheard-of luxury was, to these simple men of the sea, miraculous.

When they entered the mouth of the Hudson River, passed downtown Manhattan, New York City, and finally tied up on the west bank of the river, they stood in awe. More than 30,000 Newfoundlanders had emigrated away from their native land in search of employment and many of them had come to America. The plight of the Gander Deal had become known to many Newfoundlanders living in New York. One of them, from Pound Cove, Bonavista Bay, waited on the waterfront when the Republic docked. He shouted from the pier.

Garfield Boland couldn’t believe his ears. Someone was actually shouting his name from the dockside of New York City! When he finally singled out the voice, he stared down at the face of Cater Hounsell. They had been best friends all during their school days!

Arrangements were made for passage to St. John’s for the entire crew aboard the SS Silvia, the same ship that brought the crew of the Northern Light home. The day after their arrival, they secured another passage to Wesleyville aboard the coastal steamer SS Home. From there the shipwrecked crew walked over the snow-packed trail to Newtown.

Several of them still hadn’t reached home. The men from Pinchard’s Island had one last stretch of water to cross before they got home that Christmas Eve. Pinchard’s Island lies on the weather side of Newtown. It appears crouched and hunkered down in the sea barely a mile from the town. The calm tickle on this night was frozen over, the frozen water behind the island standing in stark contrast to the ocean furies waiting at its front.

The men from the Gander Deal borrowed a punt from Uncle Billy Blackmore and made ready to cross the dark tickle. Heavy slob had formed and had almost solidified with the low temperature, yet it wasn’t strong enough to bear a man’s weight. The men punched and pulled and hauled until they finally made their way across in the dark to the snow-covered island. Lamplight shone from the houses there and the church windows were aglow.

The men stepped ashore from the punt. The bell rang from the lighted church, drawing its people to celebrate the birth of a child. No one knew they were home. Their feet crunched on the frozen path as they walked and the bell rang sweet and clear, its knell keening away over the winter sea. A door slammed. A dog barked. Sliding children squealed in delight somewhere above them. Flankers flew from a funnel overhead. The comforting smell of woodsmoke from every house broadcasted the warmth within.

Then a door opened, spilling its light onto the tracked snow. A woman cried aloud. Human shadows framed a doorway.

Behind another door a woman wondered at the package her husband was hiding behind his back. The men from the Gander Deal had come home for Christmas.

4 MERRY WIDOW

Under the command of one of the world’s greatest warmongers, the Roman Empire had fought its way from Anatolia, or Asia Minor, across the face of Europe. Julius Caesar had driven his fierce army of fighting men from the warm waters of the great Middle Sea in the south to the very edge of the cold North Atlantic ocean. Twenty thousand foot soldiers fought and pillaged and razed and raped their way across entire countries. In their wake lay naked fields and empty storehouses, a vast land stripped bare after the hordes of human locusts had passed.

The Gauls had fought the longest in a brutal, senseless battle that could have but one end. After the Romans put the country to fire and sword and laid waste to its resources, France was finally defeated. Encamped on the verge of the British Channel, Caesar learned that the small island nation of Briton had not only aided the French with supplies during his siege, but its army had also fought alongside the Gauls.

Caesar was a vengeful man. The thirty-four kilometres of water that he stared across would not keep him from accomplishing his mission. He would teach the English a lesson. In 55 BC he crossed the Strait of Dover and, after the worst of battles, the English were cruelly defeated. Caesar had successfully completed his most northern conquest. It would be centuries later before France and England would again be allies.

By 1805 the British nation controlled the world’s greatest navy, and France, her closest mainland neighbour, was her enemy.

The Napoleonic wars raged between the British Royal and the French and Spanish navies. On October 21 of that same year, one of the most devastating sea battles in history was fought. At Cabo de Trafalgar, off the coast of southwestern Spain, west of the Gibraltar Strait, the three mighty naval forces finally clashed.

Admiral Horatio Nelson, commander aboard the pride of the British fleet, the 100-gun HMS Victory, led his convoy of twenty-seven square-rigged, white-sailed warships against thirty-three vessels of the French and Spanish line. The British soundly defeated their enemies, sinking twenty-two ships without losing a single one of their own. Many combatants were killed on both sides.

A musket ball pierced the left shoulder of Nelson. He was a bold target dressed in his colourful admiral’s regalia. The bullet passed through his spine at the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebrae and stopped two inches below his right scapula. By 4:30 p.m., three hours after falling to the deck of his ship, mortally wounded by a French marine firing from the mizzen-mast of the ship Redoubtable, the champion of the British Navy was dead.

On the starboard side of Nelson’s ship Victory and in the thick of the fight was the British ship Eurylus. Her name was drawn from the ancient sea legend of Jason and his Argonauts. Her captain was Henry Blackwood.

“May the Great God, whom I worship, grant to my Country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious Victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may humanity after Victory be the predominant feature in the British Fleet. For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him who made me, and may his blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my Country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen. Amen. Amen.”

The above passage was the final entry in a personal diary found aboard the HMS Victory, dated Monday, October 21, 1805. It became a phrase of national importance and was required learning for English schoolchildren. Far across the ocean, to the far-flung claims of the British Empire, Nelson’s final prayer became known. Even in the small, one-room schools of Newfoundland’s outports, sternly disciplined schoolchildren stammered out the words by rote. It was supposed to improve their memory and perfect their enunciation of the mother tongue. In the religion-based schools where English royalty adorned the walls, Nelson’s prayer was as revered as if it had been taken from the Bible.

As a boy Martin Blackwood hated having to memorize the words. He never knew that one of his ancestors had heard it from its author more than a century before, and an ocean away. As a man Martin Blackwood remembered it still.

* * *

“May the great God, whom I worship,” the expletive burst from his lips. It was as close as he came to blaspheming. The blast of northwest wind and cutting snow whipped over the starboard side of his schooner the Merry Widow. He figured they were fifteen or sixteen miles north of Baccalieu Island. One minute he was fighting the helm of his schooner and beating their hard way north across Trinity Bay, and the next, with a warning howl from the night sky, he was struggling to keep the rapidly veering, hurricane-struck vessel from capsizing. His aging schooner would not get much older.

It was nearing midnight, the end of the last dogwatch, November 29, 1929. Blackwood had no way of knowing it, but he would have to draw on the strength of generations of his seagoing ancestors to see him through the next few harrowing days and furious nights. It would serve him in good stead.

The Merry Widow was built in 1909 on Exploits Island, Notre Dame Bay, the largest bay in Newfoundland reaching from Cape Freels in the south to Cape St. John in the north. Exploits Island, situated where the spew of the mighty Exploits River mixes with the salt sea, was renowned for its shipbuilding. By the mid-eighteenth century, one of the biggest builders of these Labrador fishing vessels were the Manuel brothers. Josiah Manuel was considered one of the best. He built the Merry Widow. Originally owned jointly by Jabez Manuel and Chesley Manuel, by 1929 the schooner had changed hands to Martin Blackwood of Brookfield, Bonavista Bay.

The twenty-year-old vessel had hauled thousands of quintals of heavy, salt-weighted codfish from the far north coast of Labrador, and freighted ton after ton of goods and provisions all along the northeast coast of Newfoundland. She had served her masters well, but now her spruce bones were weak and failing. The sudden blast of hurricane-force wind that heeled her away from the land on this night shook the old vessel down to her every timber, straining her native softwood construction and exposing her decrepitude.

Sitting below at the forecastle table and looking very worried were the captain’s wife, Emily, as well as Martin Blackwood, Jr. A good friend of Emily’s, looking just as frightened, was Miss Francis Kelloway.

Emily hadn’t felt good about leaving St. John’s harbour earlier that day but she had said nothing about her fears to her husband. It would not have done much good, anyway. Martin was a stubborn man and would seldom change his mind, even for her. Besides, they had been waiting for days for the weather to moderate enough to sail home. He, like most of the other skippers waiting to sail north, was very impatient. When he saw the smallest of the schooners leave, nothing would keep him in the harbour. Still, as much as she wanted to get home, with a dark night already upon them, Emily had had some reservations about their hasty departure from the safety of the port. Night didn’t delay much in these northern climes.

Emily was on deck shortly past 4:00 p.m., when they passed out through the cleft that allowed the Merry Widow onto the North Atlantic. Looking up at the mountains of rock that met the dull sky, she suddenly felt very small, aboard a frail vessel. Why were they leaving this sheltered place on such a night? The bright, twinkling lights of the city closing behind only heightened her fears and told her that she didn’t really have to leave. When the schooner mounted the first long roller of the open sea, Emily went below. She would stay below for days.

* * *

Only the quick order from Skipper Blackwood and the equally rapid response from his experienced crew saved the Merry Widow from capsizing.

“Get the sails off ’er, b’ys. If you ’ave trouble with the cleat knots, cut the bloody sheets,” Blackwood yelled to his crew. He was always a man of action, capable of snap decisions. “Leave the jumbo, an’ drop the rest.”

Blackwood knew he had to have some sail to control his schooner. The jumbo was all he would allow in a gale like this one. He couldn’t believe the ferocity of the storm, nor the suddenness of it. They had been battling a southeast gale almost as soon as they left St. John’s, but it was a mere summer breeze compared to the northwest gale that was now pushing them south and east away from their island. Where had it come from and why had there been no warning from the St. John’s weather people? He remembered the pleading eyes of his wife when he had shouted orders to cast off from the pier. She would never question his decision—at least not in front of his men. He suddenly wished she had.

For the next two days the wind continued unabated. Sunday showed some promise of relief. The wind slackened a bit and the Merry Widow made a little headway toward the land, but it was a false hope. By nightfall the storm gathered its might once more and bore them away again. They quickly lost all the ground they had covered and were carried miles farther out to sea.

* * *

Emily Blackwood and Frances Kelloway didn’t endure the fury of the storm on the pitching deck of the schooner as did the crew. They had their own hell to deal with. Not once during the several days at sea could the two women walk with a straight step or even in an upright position. Every move was a calculation, every step a stagger. They kept a fire going in the bogie during the days and most of the nights. Tea was made available to the shift changes. They did what they could to provide hot food. They hung wet clothes for the men, sewed holes in worn woollen mitts, repaired torn trousers, and darned smelly socks. Neither of the two complained.

If they were to complain, it would not be about the long, arduous days that seemed to go on without end. Nor would they complain about being tossed about the confines of a long, narrow compartment. Their lack of privacy bothered them most of all. They knew the situation could not be helped, but while the men were respectful toward them, it did little to appease their needs. The men took care of their bodily functions on deck, as seamen had always done. Both women would gladly have done the same, given the chance. But it was out of the question. The deck was a constant roil of water. Ropes were slung everywhere, the men clinging to them as they clawed their way to the helm, to the masts, to the pumps. The women’s privations among a bunch of seamen were pitiful and caused them many anxious moments.

The second day out was the worst. The women could endure the need to make their water no longer; the urgency had finally overcome their shame. A coarse, dark blanket was secured from ceiling to floor in the aft starboard section of the forecastle, and here Emily and Frances attended to their toilet. A slop pail normally used for table scraps completed the ritual. The men carried the pail up the steps and tossed it over the side of the schooner.

Aboard the Merry Widow were two more men who shared the captain’s surname and ancestry: Bert Blackwood and R. A. Blackwood. Also aboard the stricken schooner were Simon Kelloway, Samuel White, Abram Best, Jonas Hillier, James Harvey, and Ephraim Stockley. Though there was no shortage of hands to share the constant work of keeping the vessel afloat, after a week of gruelling toil day and night, they were all exhausted.

December 5 came and there was still no let-up in the storm. The crew were out of fresh water and out of fuel to heat the stove. The hold of the Merry Widow carried no luxuries, no snack foods, no tasty tidbits to sate the hungry palate. The below-deck stores that were to carry the crew and their families through the coming winter consisted of only the basics of food. All of it had to be cooked, and to make matters even more dire, salt water was leaking and gradually seeping into this precious supply.

The men and the two women were now wearing wet socks and clothing; the hems from the women’s long dresses mopped sea water from a filthy floor and soaked their legs, but they never complained. They dried the clothes on their bodies while standing near the stove. Everyone suffered from a cold day and night. Everything and everywhere about them there was a dampness. They lay down under damp, smelly blankets and sought the sweet relief of God-given sleep, their tired heads resting on damp, lumpy pillows.

* * *

Stowed below in Skipper Blackwood’s locker, and just as damp as the rest of the schooner’s trappings, was the Red Ensign. The island of Newfoundland had been given consent to fly the flag by British royalty in 1877. The purpose of this bold red-coloured cloth with the Union Jack stitched into its top left corner was to make sure the sun never set on the British flag. On the fly of the flag was the great seal of Newfoundland and the badge was topped with the words “Terra Nova.” In the centre the Greek god of merchandise and commerce—Mercury—accepted, from a kneeling fisherman, fish from the sea. Below, in Latin, were the words Haec Tibi Dona Fero: “These gifts I bring you.”

On the evening of December 5, Martin Blackwood had just poked his weary head out of the forecastle scuttle when an excited shout from the stern of his schooner startled him.

“A ship, Skipper! Comin’ right fer us, by God! We’re saved! We’re saved!”

Blackwood never even looked in the direction the man was pointing. He just swung his feet free of the ladder rungs and slid back to the bottom. The smooth wooden rails burned his hands, but he didn’t care. In two strides, his feet sloshing in water on the cabin floor as he ran, he reached the locker over his narrow bunk and pulled the Red Ensign free.

Back on deck he clung to the lifeline and staggered astern. He pushed the flag into the surprised hands of one of the men manning the squeaking pumps.

“Free the gantline and get the bloody flag aloft. Tie it bottom up,” he yelled as he passed. “Make damn sure ’tis bottom up!”

He reached the wheel and grabbed the spokes away from his crewman. Only then did Martin look away from his suffering schooner. His crewman was right. Making her ponderous way toward them, hull down, was a black ship. Martin thought she looked familiar, but he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see her full profile. It didn’t matter what ship it was, though—the approaching vessel was their salvation!

“’Ow will we get aboard dat one, Skipper? ’Tis too rough fer a lifeboat,” the man beside Blackwood said.

“Git off dis one? Are you mad? We wont be leavin’ our own vessel, sir! A tow is what I’ll be askin’ fer when she comes alongside,” yelled the indignant captain.

The ship kept to windward as she closed with the schooner. Her captain was obviously tying to shield the smaller vessel from the wind. The ship climbed a long grey swell. As her engine slowed, the smoke trailed away from her lone stack until it was little more than a puff. She turned broadside, still trying to protect the Merry Widow, then rolled toward the schooner, and when she heaved away again Blackwood saw her name.

“The Beothic. One of our own, by God! Billy Windsor is ’er master. We’re saved fer sure, b’ys. Captain Billy is from our own shore. I knows ’im well. He’ll tow us back to the land.”

* * *

It was, indeed, the Beothic. She was searching for the missing schooners that had left the port of St. John’s on November 29. Billy Windsor posted himself against the roll of his ship. The schooner he was looking at through the window of the bridge was in bad shape. He could see two men straining at her pumps aft of the mainmast. So much wave water sluiced through the scuppers, Windsor couldn’t tell if it was coming from the pump or not. This wasn’t going to be easy, he knew.

He recognized the schooner and knew the captain of the Merry Widow well. He also knew Blackwood would not consider abandoning his vessel. Not yet, anyway. Windsor had seen the flag flying on its back, the global signal for a vessel in distress.

Twice Windsor sailed his ship as close as he dared to the windward of the Merry Widow. His men threw a heaving line toward the schooner. The first time it fell into the white, surging wash between the two vessels. On the second try, he watched the line arc up and away from his ship and finally span the distance between the two yawing vessels. A scrambling crew aboard the schooner pulled the line taut and attached a heavy hawser to the heaving line. Once they hauled it aboard, they attached it to the main bow grump of the Merry Widow. Blackwood ordered the Red Ensign down and the little schooner, plucked violently after the stern of the Beothic, began her trek for land.

* * *

When the Beothic took up the slack on the tow line, the schooner shook like a hound with a new bone. Between the broad stern of the ship and the narrow bows of the Merry Widow were two hundred feet of raging wind and sea. When the Beothic was riding the top of a wave, its top frothing with spew, the schooner was bottomed out in a trough and the tow line disappeared beneath the water hillocks between them. And always the ship brought her charge to heel with a violent yank, like a running crackie on a short leash.

Sometimes the Merry Widow jerked sideways in the wake of her rescuer. Sometimes she was yanked away from her line of drift, for whenever the rope between the two vessels slacked, the wind immediately turned her bows away. The schooner was taking more of a battering than when she had been borne away before the gale, and she was still leaking badly.

Skipper Blackwood was no longer cold. He was sweating. He fought the helm at every pull from the stern of the Beothic, trying with all his might to keep a straight tow line. It was a largely useless battle in such seas. The gale increased. Night came, and aboard the schooner her crew members fought the endless fight with the pumps. The men serving their wheel tricks took comfort in the glowing stern lights from the Beothic.

The hawser, snapping and tugging at her charge, disappeared over the steamer’s taffrail. It pulled the schooner up another heaving roller, this one higher than most. The vessel reached the summit, the wind like a mighty hand against her hull. Martin prepared himself for another bone-jarring drop.

Then, the hawser pulled apart like sewing cotton! The end nearest the schooner whipped back in protest and wrapped its length in a tangled mess in the foremast rigging. The boat dropped from the wave height and in an instant turned before the wind, all in the same terrible dipping, plunging motion.

“May the great God whom I worship!” burst from Blackwood’s throat. It began as a roar of defiance from a man who had fought the sea and the worst of elements. It ended in a moan of despair.

Blackwood looked astern and caught one faint glimpse of the Beothic’s masthead lights as she climbed up over the rolling sea and yawed out of sight. And then the Merry Widow was alone and headed mercilessly away from home again.

* * *

Captain Billy Windsor spent as much time peering out the stern window of the bridge as he did the forward one. He wasn’t sure how long the tow line had separated before he noticed it hanging limply and uselessly over the stern rail. It could have been as long as several minutes. It took twenty minutes more for him to get the Beothic turned around in the mountainous seas that rolled across her bows. He ordered the helmsman to reverse their course. Windsor had another fear now. In trying to find the stricken schooner in the dark, his ship could very well cut her down. The Merry Widow carried no lights.

They spent a few minutes on a direct course before Windsor realized the schooner wouldn’t be drifting straight at all. He decided on a slow, zigzag tack and hoped they could intercept the vessel. He felt a surge of anger at Blackwood for not carrying at least one light in the masthead.

All through the night the Beothic lurched and rolled over that sea of fury, her crew staring out the salt-streaked windows with hands cupped for warmth. They saw nothing. Billy Windsor feared Blackwood’s schooner had gone under.

* * *

Aboard the drifting schooner, the men and women were in low spirits. As rough as the towing had been, it had meant rescue at last. Every wave climbed, every wrench of their tether had brought them closer to the land. But when the Merry Widow broke free and heeled away so violently, and now with no sign of the Beothic, all during that miserable night the exhausted people huddled below deck in defeat.

Blackwood had lashed the wheel to keep her stern to the wind. There was no point in fighting the gale any more. All the men’s energies went into taking turns at the pumps. The schooner was leaking worse than ever, the tow had compromised her weakened planks even further, and they had no oil for their lamps.

Blackwood approached Simon Kelloway in the darkness. “Are you sure dere’s not a drop of oil left, Sime, o’ man?”

“Nar drop dat I could find, Skipper. The drum is dry,” came the response.

Blackwood raised his voice in anger. “B’ys, you knows you should have kept a drop of oil fer the lamp. And ’tis not the lamp dere in the gimbal I’m talkin’ ’bout, either. ’Tis the one we should be swinging to the top riggin’. My God, we’re li’ble to be cut down be Billy Windsor’s ship!”

Without sound or sight his wife, Emily, was at his side. “It’s not their fault, Mart. ’Tis mine. They gave me oil whenever I wanted it fer the stove. ’Twas the only way to dry the clothes and cook a bit.”

Blackwood coughed. “B’ys, we’ve bin t’rough a rough time. Enough to take any man down. We all ’ave done what we had to do. You too, Emily, my dear. Make a butter light, Abe. ’Tis black as a lassie tub in ’ere.” Blackwood had lost his anger.

Abram Best set to work to fashion a light. He filled a bowl with hard butter and placed it on the table, holding on to it the whole time, then tied a small button inside the centre of a piece of some coarse cloth, with the cloth ends twisted to a point two inches or so long. Abe rubbed the cloth liberally in butter with his hands. Pushing the button part in the centre of the butter, he lit the twisted end. A black smoke rose and a light flared to show the dark, haggard features of overtired, unshaven men. The two women’s long hair was dishevelled and tangled. The face of the young Frances looked almost as old and drawn as Emily’s. They didn’t care any more. Someone in the shadows smoked a pipe. It glowed for a minute as the smoker puffed. The tobacco smelled stale.

The protesting wood that separated them from the tormented ocean creaked and groaned. The schooner was thrown sideways in a twisting, heaving movement and the men grabbed the pawl post for support. The butter light slid from the table and smashed to the dingy floor and the forecastle was plunged into dreary night again.

Something crashed. Someone cursed. Someone climbed the steps and stepped out on that terrible deck to take his trick at the pump. He let in a dismal cast of light and cold air as he opened the hatch to take his leave. Water spilled down the companionway. Soon the door slammed shut above and those below were silent, each with his or her own personal misery.

* * *

Miraculously, the Beothic found them again before noon the next day. This time they fastened a stronger line to the schooner before Captain Billy set a course for Cape Spear, just south of St. John’s harbour. Unbelievably, the gale increased in strength and the Merry Widow was almost torn apart by the strain of her lifeline. Her bowsprit was lost, ripped from her bow by one of the waves.

Three men made their way from the pump toward Martin Blackwood, who was at the helm. Samuel White spoke first.

“She’s leakin’ more than we kin pump out of ’er, Skipper. She’s sprung a bad leak dis toime.”

“Sam’s right, Skipper,” said Ephraim Stockley. “Accordin’ to how the water is peasin’ up from ’er bilge, I’d say she’s got a bad garbit leak. We can’t keep ’er free!”

With bowed head and heavy heart, Martin Blackwood ordered the Red Ensign aloft once more.

“Fly ’er on ’er back,” he said. He knew Billy Windsor would understand his meaning.

* * *

Aboard the Beothic, Windsor did, indeed, know the meaning of the upside down flag. It saddened him greatly. He knew the agony a captain would have had to endure to forsake his vessel. He also knew that to get the people off the schooner in such conditions would not only demand every sea skill he possessed, but tax them to the very limit.

The hawser was chopped from the bows of the Merry Widow and the vessel immediately fell away before the wind. The Beothic bore up to the windward side of the schooner. Billy Windsor stood on the port side of his ship and yelled through a loud hailer across the frothy distance to Skipper Blackwood.

“I’m watchin’ for a chance to come alongside. We can’t use the lifeboats, you’ll ’ave to jump aboard my vessel. There is no other way.”

Blackwood cupped his hands before his mouth and yelled back.

“I’ll ’old ’er as steady as I can! She’s takin’ on water bad! Our two wemmin will be took off first!”

He wasn’t sure if Windsor had heard him or not. Both captains prepared their vessels for the dangerous venture.

The Beothic hove up along the starboard side of the schooner. With her formidable height rolling and heaving, the task looked impossible. The small wooden schooner pitching and tossing in the relative lun of the huge wallowing steel ship appeared about to be crushed. The feat that both masters were about to try was extremely difficult. The master of the Beothic had engine power to his rudder. The schooner master had a single triangle sail at the bow of his stricken schooner to aid his steering. Over it all the true masters, terrible wind and high wave, would try to best them both.

On the starboard side of the schooner’s deck, ten black-clad figures clung to the naked rigging and awaited their fate. One of the women was shivering violently.

Emily Blackwood couldn’t remember the last time she had been truly warm. She wasn’t sure if she was shivering because of the terrible cold or something else. She knew the decision to abandon the Merry Widow had taken a terrible toll on her man. It was the hardest order he had ever given, as if leaving the vessel was a betrayal to a living thing. This was why she was shivering, she realized. It was her vessel, too. Though she hadn’t stood on its deck or shared its life as Martin had, the Merry Widow was as much a part of her life as his. The living earned from the sea, all dependent on the schooner, was managed by her.

Below the unsteady deck that she stood on was stored food and other basic needs that were to see them through the winter. Half of it was already ruined by sea water. Others as well depended on the precious cargo: the sharemen who stood beside her, as well as their families who waited on the land, the latter unaware that their meagre winter’s fare was about to be stolen by an unfeeling sea.

Something else was stored below that was precious to Emily. All her life she had loved the piano. She played it a bit herself and people thought she played very well. Emily was a modest woman and would never admit she was good. She even played the organ at church, but most of all she wanted a piano of her own. To have it in her own home to play whenever she wanted to, during quiet times when she was alone, anxious times—and there were many—when her husband was away to sea. Music was always an inspiration to her. Emily and Martin had shopped for a piano while in the city of St. John’s. She had saved a few dollars for it. She had knitted several items to sell, including a beautiful sweater for a woman, several pairs of socks, and two dozen pairs of Bonavista Bay mitts—the forefinger and thumb portion connected to allow duck and seal hunters the ability to shoot from their muzzleloaders without removing their mitts.

Martin had done well with this year’s fish and, despite the poor prices, had turned a small profit. With Emily’s portion to help, he had purchased not a piano but an organ. Emily was ecstatic, easily settling for the much cheaper instrument. In the store she had sat and run her fingers over its black and white keys, but hurriedly stood up when the male clerk approached. Still, she had felt guilty about spending their hard-earned money on such a luxury. Her husband assured her it gave him great pleasure to see her with the instrument. He had said, “Consider it an early Christmas gift.” He rarely told her he loved her, but she knew then.

* * *

The Beothic lumbered its way along the weather side of the Merry Widow. As she approached the schooner, her bulk warded against the might of the sea, shielding her from the brunt of it. The distance between the two vessels narrowed. Between them the protesting water rebelled, as if the sea didn’t know which way to go. It sent its fury upward as the distance shortened. Water was cast aside by the schooner and away from the steep hull of the ship. It met midway between the two vessels in a white fusion of power. It was fearful to look upon.

Closer the Beothic came. It squeezed the water between them and pressed it away. Anxious white faces aboard the Beothic looked down on the puny deck of the Merry Widow. The crew of the schooner stared up at the shifting, rolling ship, which was dangerously close. There was no way they could get aboard the Beothic. It would never work. The huge ship crept closer until no more than a few feet separated them. Still she towered above the huddled people who sought her refuge.

Then a great grey roller reached up under the Beothic, lifted her even higher, then sucked her down, down—lower than the wooden rail of the schooner. There would be no better opportunity than this one.

“Jump! Fer gawd’s sake, jump, Emily!” came the shout from Blackwood. Emily never hesitated. She jumped down onto the steel deck of the ship. Frances Kelloway followed her with a scream.

The Beothic’s crew grabbed the women as the others from the schooner scrambled aboard behind them. The steel sides rose again, scraping against the wooden rail of the schooner, leaving a gaping white wound. Then the ship passed and quickly fell away from the Merry Widow. All who had been on the weather deck of the schooner were saved. All save one lone man who still stood before the mast of his vessel. Martin Blackwood had kept his post and watched the others jump to safety. Only then did he leave the loose helm to its own devices.

He half sprinted, half staggered across the forward deck, for now the sea attacked the schooner with a renewed vengeance. He knew he had only a few minutes before the ocean would finally win the war they had fought for days. He saw the Beothic turn toward him again. Skipper Billy would make another pass for him. He knew he would.

Flinging the shutter aside, Blackwood slid down the steps, barely touching them as the schooner rolled almost onto her beam ends. Blackwood stumbled and fell against the table but made it to his locker. He pulled out a leather satchel containing money. Very little of it was his own. Most of it belonged to the fish makers. Even now, in this time of dire circumstance, Martin Blackwood put his responsibilities to the fore.

The fish that had been caught off the coast of Labrador and salted away aboard the Merry Widow had to be made before it was sold. The people who did the work of making the fish were usually called “makers.” Their job was a simple but arduous one. The fish had to be spread on the flakes and turned at regular intervals, as well as hurried inside if it rained. The makers, who could be male or female, young or old, were paid a small fee for this service. It rarely exceeded twenty-five cents per quintal and could be as little as ten cents. No matter the price, a strict account was kept of the amount of fish each maker handled. Their few dollars were kept separate when the fish was sold. It was this money for which Blackwood had risked his life.

A spray of water met him when he climbed the steps to the deck. The schooner tilted forward. At first he thought she was sliding down another wave, but when he emerged on deck he saw his schooner was settling by the head. The water was rapidly claiming the Merry Widow. Blackwood stuffed the satchel inside his soaked shirt and headed astern. The Beothic was chasing him, her blunt bows taking huge bites out of the sea. She yawed away to port and her bulwarks shipped water before she settled again in the following sea. The Merry Widow was under no human control this time, no steady hand to hold her. She tilted and leaned dramatically from side to side, her Plimsoll line lifting well above the water. It gave Blackwood one last desperate idea.

Water spilled across the empty deck of his doomed schooner, washed around his feet, and surged calf high, chilling his legs. Blackwood reached for the ratlines and half pulled, half jumped into the starboard rigging. He clawed his way upward, then stopped about ten feet above the deck, wondering if he was high enough. He heard a flapping sound above his head. Looking up, the Ensign appeared jaunty, as if relishing the wind that held it parallel with the deck below, the upside down little Jack draining its colours. Blackwood climbed higher.

A blast from the Beothic’s horn startled him. He hadn’t realized the ship was so close, her fuming bulk unsteady and frightening. His time of decision and last chance had come.

Now the scene was as that of a great play set upon an immense watery stage, the two vessels at its centre. White faces lined the single aisle, the audience staring. Watching. Waiting. Clinging to the rigging aboard the Merry Widow, her curtains long since drawn, the lone actor awaited his cue. There would be no repeat performance.

Blackwood was shivering. His body was shaking all over. His lower jaw trembled. His teeth chattered. The days of cold and misery and responsibility had caught up with the captain at a time when he needed his wits the most. The schooner leaned away to port, her helm spinning uselessly. The deck of the Merry Widow was awash and there wasn’t much time left. The schooner righted itself, slowly and reluctantly, as if the old vessel had had enough.

The Beothic rose, insurmountable above Blackwood’s perch. Faces looked down from her decks, from her rails, from her black windows. One of the faces peered through trembling fingers. Martin hoped Emily wasn’t watching. The Merry Widow was riding another wave and climbing ever higher with the force of the approaching vessel. Her masts leaned to starboard as she rose, and Blackwood could see the Beothic settling lower and lower into the trough. She still wasn’t close enough.

Then there was a plume of smoke from her stack as her engines powered up. Her bows swung rapidly away to starboard. Her broad stern swept toward the schooner as she veered away. The schooner’s masts tilted, and the figure clinging to the rigging was swung out from the mast like the fluttering flag above his head. The schooner crested the wave. She would reach no higher. The Baltic bottomed out and began to rise again.

Blackwood let go. A woman screamed and the master of the Merry Widow fell.

* * *

Emily Blackwood felt weak and joyous and sad and fearful. Their ordeal was over and her husband was safe. Their schooner was sinking and the future looked bleak. She grieved for the organ she would never play.

Martin Blackwood stood to his feet, shaking. His ankle pained from the fall. Standing at the taffrail of the Beothic, he watched his old schooner settle farther with each sea that swept over her. Deep into the gorge of the waves she sank, her hull down, and only her masts and the fluttering Red Ensign showed. She rose again with one last effort to float free, but her deck could not shed the terrible strain it bore. And then her twin masts were pulled down by the weight below. One of the lines holding the flag snapped and it twisted upright, proud, for just a moment. A bulky roller swept by, adding its might, and the flag collapsed and the bright red cloth vanished into the colourless sea.

One deck above the sorrowful captain of the Merry Widow, his wife was also staring astern. For some unexplained reason Emily Blackwood was wondering about the keys of her organ. The young clerk had told her they would last forever. She wondered if that were true even if they were at the bottom of the North Atlantic sea.

5 CATHERINE B.

It was dark by 5:00 p.m., November 18, suppertime all along the south coast of Newfoundland. Children were called from their play and tired men trudged home for the evening meal. Yellow light shone from first-storey windows. Doors opened, shedding a warm glow outside. Doors closed on a simple way of living. Soon they would open to devastation. Some of them would never open again.

More than 200 miles out to sea, south of the unsuspecting shoreline and hundreds of feet below the ocean, the earth suddenly moved. The earthquake shook the base of the Laurentian shelf for 250 miles, shaking mud and gravel loose from its high mantel. The immense landslide pushed untold volumes of water out of its way as it slid down the underwater mountainside. The water went the way of least resistance—up. Pushed by the unfathomable power below, the eruption of water found freedom on the surface of the immense ocean. A wave spread out, feeding on its own constantly tumbling might, steadily increasing in size as it raced toward land. At speeds exceeding one hundred miles per hour, it took the tsunami less than three hours to cover the distance between its caul and the south coast of Newfoundland.

The Burin Peninsula is the pride of the south coast. It is shaped like a long-legged, laced boot, its great toe plunging into the sea just a few miles short of the French-governed islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. Houses shook all along the south and east side of this huge piece of coastline. Dishes fell from cupboards and shattered on kitchen floors. Cups of tea spilled from steaming cups and stained white tablecloths. Framed looking glasses hanging from papered walls cracked and shattered, promising their owners untold years of bad luck.

Men near the shoreline taking one last look at their skiffs and schooners that evening saw the ebb tide run out the coves and harbours in a most unnatural way. Many of the coves drained, exposing the sea bottom far out from shore. Boats tied to wharves listed on their sides as the water retreated.

A strange silence permeated the coast. No sound of waves meeting the land. No rustle of night wind and no rote from the sea. It didn’t feel right. It was as if the land and the people were waiting. No one knew why. They sat in warm kitchens and discussed the strange evening in whispers, wondering what was happening. When the answer came, for many of them it was already too late.

Speeding toward them at an incredible speed was a shock wave of water, its crest a drift of white spume. The mysterious low tide was returning and it was bringing company.

The water hit the land like a mindless racing steed, its white neck stretching toward the pinpricks of light, urging the swollen black body on. As far north as Port au Bras and south around the peninsula to Point May the tsunami made land. Narrow inlets with sidelining cliffs provided channels to speed the water inland, its height rising to more than thirty-five feet in places.

It struck the low-lying harbours first. It ripped boats from their collars and carried them in over the land. It tore schooners from their hooks and smashed them to kindling on the shore. It filled schooners at anchor with its terrible wet weight, sending them to the bottom, undamaged, their mast tips pointing skyward like beckoning fingers. It reduced wharves to twisted piles of timber. Then the water rose up over the land.

The wave cast aside or flattened stages fastened to rocky beds on its headlong plunge. Nothing halted its advance. Houses close to shore were swept hundreds of feet in over the land. Most were reduced to splinters. Some were simply picked up by the waters, borne away, and deposited on new ground. The tsunami bore its destructive way inland. It had become a roaring monster whose voice reduced children to cries of terror. Women shrieked and men shivered. Glass shattered, foundering buildings were smashed and pulled away. The wave finally ended its overland rush, and for an instant it was still. Then it began its merciless retreat.

Boulders from the sea bottom rumbled back. Great avalanches of soil mixed and dirtied the backward rush of water. Some of the houses that had survived the inward surge were carried to sea by the massive undertow. People were killed, drowned in their own homes. Others, still in their beds, were carried to sea.

The huge wave returned twice more before that night of horror ended. Lives were changed forever and twenty-seven were lost.

Some of the villagers would never trust the ocean at their door again. It had betrayed them, but most would carry on as their kind had always done. Many would be startled awake in the quiet of night by the normal creaking of their homes for years to come. The night of November 18 had changed them all.

* * *

The schooner Catherine B. was making record time out of Hant’s Harbour, on the south side of Trinity Bay. Almost nine hours later, close to 9:00 p.m., the loaded vessel was already nearing the entrance to the port of St. John’s. The wind from the southwest on her starboard quarter had kept her sails full, bearing her along with unusual speed.

Her captain, Ellis Janes, was quite used to this coast. He had sailed south from his home port and from points farther north many times. Janes peered over the side of his schooner and, although he couldn’t be sure, he felt confident there was a strong underlying current running. The froth that dashed away from the Catherine B.’s hull didn’t seem to vanish astern as quickly as it should. The helm in his hands felt light, with no resistance.

They entered the bight that would lead them through the Notch, and the lights from the city of St. John’s came into view. They lowered the sails to slow the schooner as they made ready to enter the narrow channel. Still the schooner swept toward the land, so Janes ordered all sails except the jib dropped. He would need some bow control to turn the vessel inside the busy harbour.

There were other schooners laying for the Narrows. He could tell by their lights that two of them were trying to beat out to sea, but they didn’t seem to be moving. He was overtaking two others who were sailing in. All the schooners heading into the port had downed sails and all seemed to be borne along by an invisible river. There looked to be some anxious moments for the skippers, but luckily they all made it through without colliding.

Inside the harbour bowl, Janes swung his schooner to the near north side. He spun the wheel to port and yelled to lower the anchor before the Catherine B. had completed the turn. The jib was lowered and the vessel rode ahead on her anchor chain. She lost her way and settled back to take the strain of her hook. Many schooners, as well as four ships, were riding high above the wharves. Janes could see men on the vessels paying out extra line to allow for the unusually high tides. Others anchored midstream were doing the same thing, paying out their hawsers to give extra scoop to the moored schooners.

It would be three days later before the downed telegraph lines on the Burin Peninsula were finally repaired so they could carry the terrible news of eastern Canada’s first tsunami. It was all the talk around the old port. More news poured over the lines: death and destruction was reported, and a relief fund was started to aid the victims of the disaster. Poor fishermen around the docks dug into gaping pockets, found a few coins, and gladly gave to the effort. This fall had been a rough one all round.

* * *

Reaching the old seaport in good time was one thing. Getting off-loaded and refitted for the trip back home took a considerable amount of time. All the schoonermen wanted to be first and they were all in a hurry. The merchants were not. Every load of fish had to be culled, and the cullers were employed by the men who bought the product.

One culler stood on the wharf, and as the dried cod was swung ashore he went to work. He grabbed at the fish, his hands flashing like a magician’s. Small, medium, large, even extra large. Smatchy fish, maggoty fish, fish dried too hard, and fish not dried hard enough, all passed through the culler’s hands. Every group of fish fetched a different price. As the dunnage pile grew, prices dropped. The culler’s decision was law and there was nothing to be gained by arguing with him. A quintal, 112 pounds, was in fact one hundred pounds. The extra pounds were held back by merchants to allow for fish shrinkage.

Other schooners had their holds filled with “Labrador Tan.” If a schooner had a poor voyage on the Labrador and was late in the season wetting their salt, the skipper could decide to ship his fish “green.” Fearing the season might be too far along to dry the fish properly, he would ship the fish directly out of the salt. The months buried below hundreds of pounds of coarse salt gave the cod a yellowish, tan-coloured hue, hence the name.

Captain Ellis Janes had seven others aboard the Catherine B. His first mate was James Loder, a very capable and lean-muscled man. Two crew members were with him, Wilbert Short and Charlie Green. Also along for the trip and to do a little shopping in the city were Fred Short and Frank Strickland. Two younger men had gained passage with Janes at the last minute. Wesley Short and Freeman Francis had never seen a city before. The busy streets and the shop windows with their displays amazed both boys. They were especially interested in the shapely young women who sauntered along before the shop windows. Some of them actually winked at the two young men, giving them all the more reason to return again and again to the streets above the bustling waterfront.

Young Wes bought an accordion, his favourite musical instrument. Back home he was a part of the new Salvation Army band. He hoped he would be permitted to play the accordion with the group, though he doubted if it would fit in with their musical arrangements. No matter, he would have the instrument anyway.

By Friday, November 29, the Catherine B. was loaded with winter stores for many folks back home in Hant’s Harbour. Almost everyone aboard had a list of goods to fill for relatives and friends. They were ready and eager to leave by late evening, though they had to send one of the crewmen for young Freeman and Wes, who couldn’t seem to get their fill of Water Street. All three soon appeared on board and the Catherine B. made her offing into the night-gathering Atlantic. The wind was west-southwest.

The Catherine B., under all of her blankets, crept northward along the same coast they had so swiftly sailed down a few days before. Darkness had come and pasted the sea and sky with the same black brush, and no cheering stars shone as their slow wake wore on. The wind suddenly pitched around from the southeast. It came up over the unseen horizon so quickly and without warning that Janes feared it would veer just as violently again. They were already under a reefed mainsail. The weather glass hanging in the forecastle was dropping for a westerly wind, maybe even from the northwest. The schooner beat farther north. She didn’t have far to go to make it home to Hant’s Harbour. They had made the north side of Conception Bay.

Janes was debating whether or not he should go through Baccalieu Tickle or give the island lots of sea room. The lights of Bay de Verde winked through the freshening snow from their high cliff perches as the schooner weathered hard along the coast. A gust of wind howled down from the high land to port. As Janes had feared, the wind was changing again. This time it was blowing strong from the land; he would take a course outside of Baccalieu Island.

They neared the twenty-five-year-old south light of the island. Its beam cut through the driving snow and the barren island provided a measure of shelter to the Catherine B. before she passed the ninety-year-old light on the north end. Baccalieu, meaning codfish, its name buried in Portuguese and Basques history, was notorious for its winds. Jutting into the sea midway between Trinity and Conception bays, and bearing the brunt of the gales that rounded the south coast of the island—as well as lying in a convenient line for the storms bearing down along the northeast coast of Newfoundland—Baccalieu Island was feared by schoonermen on windy winter nights. To clear the island safely, Janes hauled the Catherine B. north-northeast, intending to bear farther north and round Grates Cove Point as soon as he put the north light astern. He didn’t get the chance.

* * *

It happened like nothing Ellis Janes had ever seen. A fearless fisherman and seasoned schoonerman, Skipper Janes was taken by surprise at the ferocity of the gale that attacked his boat. It bore down on the Catherine B. like a thing possessed, shrieking in defiance through the rigging, slamming a scrim of water against her port bow, and veering her away, bowing her before its terrible will. The jib was loosened, but the wind tore it from the hands of two crewmen before it could be lowered. It flew over the side and vanished.

Janes couldn’t believe his eyes. His crew were powerless against the gale. The mainsail, already reefed to little more than half its height, had to be brought down. It was a dangerous manoeuvre, but the mainsail was holding most of the wind. Janes had only two of his usual crew aboard; he had expected a short and easy return trip to St. John’s. His two passengers, as well as the two teenage boys, would have to pull their weight. Janes knew that he and all aboard were in for the fight of their lives.

As if reading Janes’s mind, sixteen-year-old Wesley Short appeared at his side. Freeman Francis, seventeen years old, was with him. Young Wesley spoke first.

“What kin I do, Skipper Janes? I’m not scared, ya know. I’m pretty good wit’ ropes an’ stuff, quick on me feet, too.” Wesley’s voice was high-pitched, partly from adolescent changes, partly from excitement.

Janes was about to answer when Freeman said, “Me too, Skipper. We knows your short-’anded. We won’t be takin’ up a bert’ wit’out pullin’ our weight.”

Janes shouted to be heard above the wind. “Don’t be worried about dat, b’ys, you’ll be pullin’ your weight, a’right! Make yer way forward now and git yer oilskins on!” Both boys were soaked to the skin. Water came in a constant icy spray across the deck of the Catherine B. It stung the face like a whip.

Wes looked at Freeman before he answered the skipper. “We—we was wonderin’ if dere was ar spare one aboard, Skipper. Free and me didn’t bring one, sir. We don’t own ar suit, sir.”

Janes glanced quickly at the two boys. They looked like young muskrats perched on a pond rock on a rainy day. He braced his feet and leaned against the helm as another huge wave caught up with the Catherine B. Part of it hove her up and another part rushed along both sides of her hull, crashing across her after deck and sending more water over the men.

“I’m right sorry, b’ys, dere’s nar one aboard that I knows fer. You’ll have to keep out of the worst of it as best ya can.”

Janes turned to his work. Looking astern he saw an unsteady glimmer of light. The north light on Baccalieu Island, he figured. It was past midnight and Ellis Janes doubted if they would ever see land again. It was also his birthday. He had just turned forty-four.

* * *

Peering out from the partly opened forecastle door, Uncle Fred Short knew they were in trouble. The deck was a chaotic mess of white water, downed sails, and tangled ropes. He heard Janes shouting. He saw men dodging as they ran. A dark figure tripped on the swaying deck and stumbled a few feet before righting itself again. It was a dangerous place to be. Slamming the door behind him, seventy-four-year-old Fredrick Short drew a Cape Ann tight over his head and made his way astern.

Janes saw Uncle Fred making his way toward him. Fred had asked S. Short and Sons, owners of the Catherine B., for passage to St. John’s and the owners left the decision to the captain of the schooner. Ellis had agreed as he had done with the two boys. Seeing Fred approach now, the oilskins he had brought aboard with him already glistening, Janes could see no sign of Uncle Fred’s advanced age. The skipper now had a full working crew.

“B’ys, the mains’l must be downed before she broaches us!” The men had burst into action to follow his orders before he finished. “’Ave an extra ’an’ on the mainsheet as ya lets ’un go!” Janes wasn’t sure if they heard his last yell or not.

Crouching under the main boom was not for the timid. The foot of the mainsail rattled in its track. The gooseneck holding the spar to the mainmast screeched in its swivel at each sideways wrench of the sail. The halyards flapped and slapped and the hemp rope stretched taut with the terrible strain. From the bottom clew to the reefed peak the mainsail luffed and roared to be free of its fetters. One man fumbled with the frozen knot on the mainsheet while another held the slack.

The others waited, ready to grab the boom and the furiously fluttering sail over their heads. The last knot was barely released before the extra slack loosed the sheet. It was the chance the wind had been waiting for. The rope ripped free from the man trying to hold the strain and he yelled a warning. A blast of wind, weighted with salt spray, slammed against the freed sail. The men below ducked to the deck just in time. If they had been in the way of the swaying main boom, they would have been killed.

The sail from leech to luff was ripped to shreds with the strain. The spar swung farther over than the gooseneck could handle. Its swivel broke, releasing the sail at the clew. The boom snapped like a frozen twig and fell to the deck in pieces. The crew were running with fright and adrenaline amid frantic yells coming from the skipper’s throat.

“Grab the bloody sails, men, ripped or no! Use yer knives to cut ’er free from the mas’! Git the sail below the main hatch before it washes over the gunnels. Fer God’s sake, b’ys, be careful!”

With the mainsail down the schooner slowed some, but she was still in grave danger. The gale, having destroyed the biggest sail so effortlessly, now attacked the smaller foresail. The Catherine B. careened far out on her port side, her weather rail dragging into the sea and shipping a torrent of water aboard. She righted with a lurch as her master spun the helm over. The foresail, attached to the foremast, took a punch from the vengeful wind. It couldn’t take the strain. The foreguy sheared away from the fore gaff and the sail was now in danger of being torn apart like the mainsail. With the exception of the bow jumbo to aid in steering, a downed foresail would leave the Catherine B. with bare poles.

“Don’t try to reef ’er, Jim! Make a sheep’s leg out of the bugger! ’Urry up, b’y, we ant got much time,” Janes shouted.

Jim Loder heard the anguished cry from his skipper at the wheel and understood. To lower the foresail and tie it off in several places, as the job of reefing required, would take time. There was a quicker way. The mutton cut, or shoulder of mutton, was a relatively quick way to shorten sail in a dangerous blow. It took its name from the way the tied sail looked like the hind leg of a sheep. Janes referred to it as a sheep’s leg. The rope that held the gaff to the forepeak was untied and rapidly tied securely to the mast as it dropped, drawing the foresail down to only half of its height.

Jim Loder finished the work and pulled his sodden cuffs over his freezing fingers. He had removed his woollen mitts to feel the ropes better and now his fingers were numb.

The wind tore through the naked rigging with a whining cry. It snapped at ragged bits of sail and carried the stricken Catherine B. away east over the sounding sea. And far below her thin, heaving keel, lay hundreds of feet of unfeeling, uncaring water.

* * *

All day Saturday and throughout the miserable night the Catherine B.’s valiant handlers kept her afloat. They had drifted steadily eastward and a bit south. The snow came on thicker, a terrible blinding snow for men peering through it to see if help was on its way.

The schooner was starting to ice up, which would add to her weight and drag her deeper into the stormy seas. Janes decided on a long shot. They had been drifting southeast for two days. He figured if he could get his vessel to veer farther south they would have a better chance of surviving. South to the Gulf Stream meant warmer waters. But it also meant busy shipping lanes, for outside the island of Newfoundland great ships travelled between America and Europe. Janes would head farther out to sea. Instead of fighting the gale, he would run with it, hoping the wind that was bearing them away would rescue them instead.

* * *

Sunday morning broke with a steely grey sky and an icy wind blowing out of Trinity Bay. The gale was keenest in the small village of Hant’s Harbour on the outer south side of the bay.

An uneasy early night had come. The wind tore around eaves and piled snow against fences. Lamplight glowed from otherwise dark houses. A lone church bell drew the faithful with its knelling. Men, women, and bundled children walked from warm houses and crunched on snowy paths along the blustery shore road. Everyone piled inside the quiet, lamplit church. The bell stopped. A child was hushed. Someone coughed. The chapel was cold, the windows frosted with its own Sistine Chapel–like designs.

The minister opened the postern door and his feet made a shuffling sound as he approached the lectern. He stared out over the crowd and saw that his flock had grown today. They had all come to pray for their own. They were seeking comfort from him. He looked at the open black book in front of him and cleared his throat. His breath drifted coldly above his head. Not a sound came from the filled pews. Everyone was waiting for this man to speak words of comfort.

“I would remind you, my friends, on this day, that Christ must have had a particular liking for fishermen, for it was those men of the sea He chose first to follow Him. There was Simon and his brother Andrew, James and his brother John. They were all fishermen. God likened them as fishers of men. One of the greatest of Christ’s miracles was the one with seven loaves of bread and fish from the sea. He calmed great waves with but an outreach of His robed arms.”

The preacher paused and looked down at the white faces staring up at him. They were hanging on to his words. Expectant. He felt inadequate and useless. He knew little about the sea, but he knew its ways and its ceaseless demands from those who wrested their existence from its depths. Now eight of their own were missing at sea.

He knew all of these people: simple, hard-working families of the sea who went about their daily tasks independently, even competitively. But when one of their own was in need, they all helped one another. When they were helpless they came together as one, and many of them prayed. It was always the way of simple people. The thought inspired him and, closing the Bible, he spoke again.

“Look at you—all of you. Without being asked, you have come as one. Therein lies the true human comfort. It is more than a gathering in the house of God to ask a favour. It is a plea from an entire community. From the weakness of one there is the strength of many. Such a supplication must surely be honoured by Him who hears all.”

The minister paused and swallowed hard. A woman sobbed quietly. Another was trembling, a lace handkerchief partly hiding her pretty face.

“I would ask you all to kneel and clasp the hand of the one next you so there can be no disturbance in our request. Pray from the silence of your collective hearts. Ask that the Catherine B. shall not succumb to the fury of the sea.”

The minister stepped away from the pulpit, turned, and bowed to the Cross hanging on the wall behind him. Walking to a woman in the first pew, he clasped her hand. He knelt down, the shepherd among the sheep. Now, hand to hand, from every silent mouth the Catherine B. was borne before the throne of grace.

“Amen,” said the preacher.

“Amen,” said his penitent flock.

Above the roof, just below the tall wooden spire, the wind moaned through the louvred bell tower vents. A sorrowing sound rose from the people as one voice and the lun of the wind carried the dirge-like tones out into the night. The song ended. The strain “For Those in Peril on the Sea” escaped upward to the steeplechase. It lingered for a moment before dying from human ears and lifting to a higher plane, over the edge of the frozen white land, away to the black, tormented sea.

Just up from the shoreline, with its painted, peeling clapboard back to the barren granite cliffs, was a house, its cold black windows staring seaward. Suddenly, a light appeared in one of the upstairs windows. The shadow of a shawled woman filled the pane, as if the lamp-bearer standing silently within was holding her own pitiful vigil for her man in peril on the sea.

* * *

Janes saw the light first. It glinted through the snow dwighs like a faint star at first. He soon realized it was a ship bearing down on them—on a collision course. They carried not one light in the rigging aboard the Catherine B. All of the storm lanterns had long since been destroyed by the gale. They had made it out to the shipping lanes only to be rammed, for surely death was riding the seething bows of the leviathan coming at them. Men shouted and waved, their voices muted in the furious wind and water.

Skipper Janes roared to his crew. “Draw a bucket of kerosene from the drum! Stuff ’un full of brin bags an’ set ’er ablaze!” His voice was hoarse with excitement: either rescue or doom was at hand. His ragtag crew holed a steel cask and splashed oil into it, followed by two brin potato sacks.

Numb fingers scraped damp lucifers across the brimstone ends of matchboxes. A match broke. A match flared and died. The thrum of the ship’s mighty engines pounded in their ears. Even the top of the Catherine B.’s masts never reached the top deck of the steamship that was lumbering toward them. Cupped hands held another match to the oil-soaked cloth. It held its flame for an instant before the cruel wind snuffed it out.

A yell of desperation burst from Janes’s mouth. “Stan’ to win’ard of me, b’ys! Break the damn win’, fer gawd’s sake! ’Tis our last chance!”

The men huddled together and, crouching down, shielded their skipper from the gale. Janes rasped the match head across the stone again. It flared as before, glowing inside Ellis’s leathery hands. He held it to the soaked brin. The flame grew and flared upward, and the wind created a roaring, torch-like beacon of light. Janes grabbed the bucket handle and kept swinging the light like a brakeman leaning out of his caboose. Pieces of burning brin flew from the bucket and glowed ever brighter, arching like big flankers before falling black on the surging deck.

The ship loomed above them and the crew yelled. Janes swung the burning bucket. Pieces of cloth blazed upward, illuminating the men, lighting the stumbling schooner. The black ship veered away, her bow wave falling and hiding under her huge forefoot. The bucket handle grew too hot to hold. Janes flung it away from him and it spread its burning contents over the deck for just a minute before a wash of sea water doused the light.

The great hulk of the steamer passed the narrow windward bows of the schooner, taking with it the shelter it had given from the wind. She bore away to leeward, turning ponderously as she went. Her lights wallowed below and above the rollers when she lurched broadside in her turn.

The crew of the Catherine B. could do nothing to aid in their own rescue. Their own lifeboat, which was lashed to the deck, was reduced to splinters of wood. The small boat that was to be their final hope had wrecked in its lashings earlier that morning. Casks of kerosene were loosed all over the deck. Janes intended to scuttle his vessel before he left her. He wouldn’t leave the Catherine B. a floating derelict adrift in these waters.

One of the discarded empty drums floated high in the water alongside the tossing schooner, driven by the fierce wind. The Catherine B.’s bowsprit had been torn out of its step by the same heavy seas that had flattened their lifeboat. The port and starboard bowsprit shrouds that held it secure, as well as the bobstay bolted to the raking stem, had been severed like cotton thread. Even the stronger forestay and the fore-topmast stay had let go from the foremast.

All of this rigging was draped and dangling over the side of the schooner, holding the downed bowsprit in a tangled mess that rose and fell with every move of the schooner. The rusty steel drum caught in the surging rigging as it rounded the bows and stayed there like a baby in a snarled steel cradle. At every downward pitch of the schooner’s bows the wrecked bowsprit fell across the drum, emitting a steady booming death knell for the Catherine B.

The big ship rounded the Catherine B.’s stern well aft, and it was only as she heaved closer that the men on the schooner noticed her name. The SS Holplein stood to the weather of the Catherine B. A tall, dark figure shouted slowly in broken English through a loudspeaker from her high bridge.

“Vee vill attempt rescue to you! A lifeboat is comink! You vill haft to chump in board! Take nothink of belonginks!”

Several of the crew on the schooner had bags and worn suitcases hanging from their hands. The stench of kerosene was everywhere and the schooner’s deck was slippery. A calm oil slick ran away from the schooner’s bows. Wesley Short had his new accordion, still in its box, tucked under his arm. It pained him to do so, but he threw it over the side, where it bobbed out of sight alongside one brown wooden suitcase. The drum boomed again, the sound deeper, duller. The barrel was leaking sea water.

In one of the recesses of the forecastle Janes had found a discarded lantern, its chimney cracked and blackened. He shook it and found its small bottom tank was dry. Back on deck he poured fuel into it from a bucket. Heading astern, he clung to the safety lines with one hand while in the other he held the short storm lantern.

* * *

The Holplein kept pace with the schooner. The captain of the lumbering ore carrier was using all of his skills to lay into the wind and stay close to the Catherine B. while at the same time avoiding collision. His ship, half loaded with iron ore from the Bell Island mine, needed a surge of power to answer her helm in such a gale. Captain Schapp knew that too much power would carry his ship ahead of the schooner. He also knew that without his ship’s bulk as a shield against the gale, his lifeboat would never get alongside the schooner.

Captain Schapp wouldn’t soon forget this trip. They had waited on Bell Island for days to be loaded. When their heavy cargo was finally brought on board and the holds of the Holplein was only half full, the loading was stopped. His order was filled, he was told. Schapp argued that he was to take a full load.

“Der must be voul-up in papervork!” he argued.

It was no use. By this time another larger ship from the British Isles was already being loaded. Another one was impatiently sounding for a pilot just off shore. The Holplein would be delayed for days. Schapp ordered his hatches bolted down and he left for his Atlantic crossing. The Holplein was out of the port of Rotterdam in Holland, where the Rhine River meets the sea. The Rhine River, which begins life with an icy drip from the Rheinewaldham Glacier in the Swiss Alps, flows through Germany’s black forest before maturing 820 miles later, blending with the delta where seagoing ships come.

Leaving Bell Island, Schapp plotted a course that would take his ship up through the English Channel and into the north sea to home. He chose the more southern crossing to avoid the winter storms prevalent in that reach of the North Atlantic north of the British Isles. Then the gale spawned from faraway warm African waters hit them.

Schapp was no stranger to Atlantic storms. He had made several difficult crossings but had never seen anything to match the hurricane that was coming at them now. He was glad his ship was only half-loaded. Schapp usually ignored the guide for safe weight painted on both sides of his ship—the Plimsoll line—and always loaded heavy. In the seas they were encountering, he was doubtful if the Holplein would rise above them if she had a full load.

His ship had already rescued the crew of the Newfoundland schooner George K. and had seen them safe aboard a tug that was searching for several schooners out of St. John’s, all believed to be adrift in the same terrible gale. Now here was another one across their pitching bows, a pitiful remnant of the flotilla that had so proudly sailed forth. Schapp was a stickler for time and schedules. He was already delayed in his Atlantic crossing, but there was no hesitation in his decision. He and his crew would do everything possible to rescue the men aboard the doomed schooner. It was the way of the sea. Men home from the sea edge and tied to dockside would leave their vessels in any foreign port and go their separate ways without talking, but away from land on the endless sea, all men were sailors who held to an invisible bond of brotherhood that knew no bounds: seamen all, adrift on the mother of tears.

A lifeboat was lowered in several stop-and-start plunges down the heaving, sea-washed side of the Holplein. The gooseneck ends of the overhead davits squealed as the rusty cable paid out. The boat slammed onto the sea surface and was quickly freed from its lines. Oarsmen stood from their thwarts with the strain of pulling and headed away from their ship.

Now began a feat of seamanship that only small boatmen knew. Afloat on a deadly sea in a thin shell of flexing wood, the lifeboat was carried along by the roaring wind and the men at the oars guiding and keeping her in check.

Men shouted from the closing lifeboat. Men shouted back from the deck of the schooner. None of them understood the other’s language. The boat neared the schooner and pitched and dipped rowlock deep. The men on the deck of the Catherine B. readied themselves for the daring jump to safety.

Then there came a throaty roar from above that wasn’t the wind. It was accompanied by a black plume of smoke from the stack of the Holplein as she pulled away. There was a garbled shout from the coxswain holding the tiller. Oars flashed and the boat turned, laying into the terrible wind and wave, and the little Catherine B. was alone again.

* * *

On the sheltered bridge of the Holplein, Captain Schapp was sweating. He had ordered the sudden burst of power from his engines reluctantly. His ship was powered down to keep abreast of the drifting schooner. He had to break the mountainous swell or his boat would never get close enough for rescue. At the same time, the dead weight of his ship could not be allowed too close. The Holplein’s hull would crush the schooner without the slightest shudder. Now he had the added worry of his own men bearing the full force of a North Atlantic Gale. As his ship bore away for one more turn, Schapp saw his lifeboat immediately turn her blunt bows into the wind. His men knew what they had to do.

* * *

Janes knew why the ship had pulled away. He also knew her captain had done the right thing. The barrier the ship had provided against the storm was necessary if rescue were to be accomplished. And now the gale was increasing.

The white lifeboat rose above the grey seas, the black-clothed men aboard displayed high for a minute like a huddled group of children waiting to slide down their favourite snow hill. Then they disappeared down the steep sides of the combers, for minutes at a time, before rising again to repeat the ride all over again.

An eternity passed before the Holplein returned, rounding abaft the taffrail of the Catherine B. as before. She came nearer this time, giving maximum shelter.

Now the lifeboat was coming at them, sliding down the sea hills like a whaleboat on a Nantucket sleigh ride. The schoonermen lined the deck of their settling schooner, as if knowing without shout or sign that this was to be their final attempt.

The lifeboat swept alongside the schooner. The near oars were shipped, allowing her closer. The Catherine B. heaved down, as if offering her handlers their last best chance. The drum at her bows beat a steady cadence. Ellis Janes held the Catherine B. in lee irons, her taffrail rising to meet the following seas. Quick as a schoolboy, Uncle Fred Short jumped down into the boat. The others followed, encouraged by the old man’s bravado.

Janes was bent double, his back to the wind. He tried to light the lantern with match after match. The wick had been burnt hard. It wasn’t absorbing the fuel and the lantern needed a new one. His men were all aboard the lifeboat screaming for him to jump. Another voice yelled in a foreign language. Janes didn’t understand the words, but he knew the meaning.

The wick flared! He tripped the lever and closed the broken chimney. He jumped into the rising lifeboat, flinging the lantern back over the deck of his schooner as he did. The chimney shattered and a shaft of fire spilled onto the deck. It licked at the film of kerosene, and for a moment it brightened—then the Catherine B.’s starboard rail shipped white water. It flushed toward the fire in great haste with a mind of its own, burying the fire before it could even begin.

The ship was very close, a dangerous wall that must be scaled to safety. A rope ladder was lowered. Sometimes its lower rungs almost touched the water’s edge and sometimes it was above the heads of the men as the great ship wallowed and listed in the waves. The lifeboat was laden deep, its human cargo staring up in fear at the precipice that bent and swayed above them.

The lifeboat scraped against the side of the ship and some of the men jumped to the ladder. Clawing their way upward, they disappeared over the side.

Fred Short stared at the men as they climbed. He had been the first to jump down into the lifeboat, but Fred knew that to pull his tired, aged body up over that undulating net would take time. There came a shout from above and a rope’s end came tumbling down. A wave sucked away from the ship’s underbelly, creating a hole. The lifeboat fell into it and the water surged back again eagerly, wrenching the lifeboat up along the steel plates just as the ship rolled down. The gunnels and top strakes of plank were sheared to pulp, taking away precious inches from the shallow freeboard of the lifeboat. Instantly, water found the new opening and at every downward plunge rushed in over the damaged side.

There were three men left aboard. They could hear the drum sounding close by. They were out of time. The ship would have to leave or it would crush them and the deck of the Catherine B.

The others tied a bowline around Uncle Fred’s waist. He reached up and half climbed and half pulled himself up over the side of the ship, bruising his aged ribs as he went. The last two men followed. The lifeboat lurched against the ship again, bulging in her damaged side. The ship pulled away, her broad stern narrowly missing the schooner’s bows where the drum continued to beat.

Both captains met as the ship left the scene. Schapp told Janes that he couldn’t return to St. John’s. The crew of the Catherine B. would have to go across the Atlantic to the Holplein’s home port in Holland. Janes and his crew were disappointed at this news, but one look back at the sinking Catherine B. showed them how lucky they were to be alive. Janes asked the captain one more favour. It took a while before Schapp understood him, but finally he nodded and walked up to his bridge. Janes and his crew stood at the constantly moving rail of the ship and stared as the Holplein turned once more and bore down on the pitiful remains of their once proud schooner.

Jane had asked the Dutch captain to give the schooner just a “pat” from his ship to hole and sink her. Schapp agreed with Janes: a vessel afloat in these shipping lanes was a danger. The problem Schapp had was dealing the schooner no more than a glancing blow. He had no intention of forcing the Holplein directly over the Catherine B. Her spars or rigging or almost any part of the schooner could become entangled in his ship’s propellers and place his own ship in grave danger.

The port bow of the Holplein hit the starboard bow of the Catherine B. like a battering ram, butchering the vessel. Schapp gave his ship hard right rudder as soon as the schooner disappeared beneath his bows and his ship heeled away at full power. The Catherine B. scraped along the hull of the lumbering ship, her tall masts tilting at a steep angle toward the rapidly turning ship. The mainmast cleared her stern but the foremast leaned farther to starboard and hooked the high stern of the freighter, tearing itself apart at the throat halyards. Then the huge ship was free from the small sinking schooner and setting a course for the Atlantic crossing.

The stern of the Holplein topped three of the larger seas, giving the black figures standing there one last look at their schooner. When she rode up and tilted the fourth grey swell there was nothing left to see. The body of the Catherine B. had gone under. The men slowly turned away and headed for the warmth of their new vessel.

6 JANIE E. BLACKWOOD

The island of Newfoundland appears like no other island on earth. It sometimes appears as a rugged triangle with torn edges, jammed at an oblique angle against the mainland of North America. At other times it appears as a snarling, mythical leviathan rising out of the sea, crouched and waiting on the very edge of the western ocean.

On closer inspection, the island’s entire jagged coastline seems to have been forever tormented by the might of the restless North Atlantic. This is especially true on its rugged northeast coast. From its northernmost tip on Quirpon Island at Cape Bauld to its most southerly point at Cape Pine, the entire coastline appears ripped and otherwise steadily worn down by our planet’s most powerful force: water.

Nowhere is this powerful force, which is constantly at work, more evident than on the north side of Bonavista Bay. It is a place spattered with hundreds of islands and treacherous offshore reefs. In the year 1929 scores of these islands were occupied by fisher families.

The fairest island of them all, as its name suggests, is Fair Island, a relatively flat island as far as the other islands that surround it go. With its south-facing front to the sea and the high islands, and an even higher mainland protecting it from the north, it was an ideal place to settle for people who depended on the sea. Just a short punt row or easy sail out of its wide, sheltered harbour were the fishing grounds. Like so many other settled islands and isolated coves around the coast of Newfoundland that relied heavily on the sea for its very existence, Fair Island was home to many schoonermen.

* * *

The late evening of Friday, November 29, 1929, was a raw, windy one on Fair Island. Several men had gathered around the wharves. Most of the boats had already been hauled out of the water, but there was one that hadn’t. Scuds of wind baffled through the tickle. Dark had come early. The lone trap skiff tied to one of the wharves was pressed solid against the wharf with the pressure of the wind, which appeared to be from the west but backing with flaws from the north. The boat was deemed to be safe enough. Two extra lines were fastened to it. The men stood in the lun of a stage and smoked tobacco and talked about the wind and the night. Backing from the north with the glass gone bottom up wasn’t a good sign. Then someone mentioned Skipper Charlie.

“Don’t s’pose Skipper Charlie in the Janie is on the water d’night.” It was more of a comment than a rhetorical question.

“Naw, Skipper Charlie is too smart fer dat, b’y. Sure, ’e got a glass aboard. Besides, I hear they got people what tells ’ee the weather long before it comes in S’n John’s.”

“Well, if the man is on the water d’nite ’e’s in fer a rough go of it, I ’lows!”

“Dere’s not much we can do fer ’im if ’e’s under canvas dis night. ’Tis a warm bed an’ me soft woman I’m headed fer!”

And with that the men walked away to their separate homes. One of them crossed the beam of lamplight soaking out into the night from a bare kitchen window. For an instant the man’s shadow blocked the warm light as he passed. Then a squeaky door was opened and closed. A curtain was drawn, dulling the lamplight. And then all was silent, save for the moan of wind from the distant islands and the rote of the sea.

* * *

Skipper Charlie Rogers was thinking about his home in Fair Island, but he was far from it now and sliding farther away by the minute. His tough schooner was in trouble and he knew it. The wind howled like a blast from hell. The sudden gale had taken him completely by surprise.

He had left St. John’s earlier that evening with several other schooners, all of them northbound. Nine of the schooners were from the north side of Bonavista Bay and the captains all knew each other. Skipper Charlie was respected by all of them, and in turn had a lot of respect for his fellow schooner captains. He hadn’t made his decision lightly, to leave the safety of St. John’s harbour with dark coming on. It was just the way of all fishermen everywhere to be competitive.

During the fishing season, on any given morning around the coast of Newfoundland, lamplight from every kitchen would spill out into the pre-dawn dark. Doubtful mornings, when the weather was bad, it would only take the sight of one boat leaving the harbour to make them all to do the same. It was like that with the schooners.

When Skipper Charlie’s good friend John Bishop slipped the lines from his schooner, the little Water Sprite, which was fastened to the outside of the Janie in St. John’s, Rogers’s mind was already made up. And following close behind his friend, the Janie E. Blackwood was the second schooner to cast her lines away from the shelter of the old harbour.

The Janie Blackwood, or Janie, as everyone called her, with a gross registered tonnage of just sixty-nine, couldn’t claim a ton for each of her seventy-two-foot length. Built by the Fishermen’s Union of Port Union, Trinity Bay, in 1924, the Janie was now owned and commanded by the intrepid Edgar Charles Rogers, or, as he was better known, Skipper Charlie of Fair island.

Standing before the mast with helm in hand, Charlie Rogers felt the first flaw of wind when the Janie fell behind the Water Sprite as they cleared the harbour and headed north for the open sea. It was not coming from the southeast, as he had thought. The bowl of the St. John’s port had been deceiving. He was sure the wind was coming out of the west, but it was difficult to tell with night already upon them under these walled headlands. Still, a west wind wasn’t a bad one for sailing north along by the land. It would simply mean a few extra starboard tacks.

Crossing Trinity Bay could be a problem if the strength of the wind increased, but they could still make the sheltered seaport at Catalina that night and make it across the outer reaches of Bonavista Bay and get home the next day. It was the first deadly flaw of wind from the northwest roaring down off Sugar Loaf Head and Flagstaff Hill, just north of the St. John’s Notch, that concerned Rogers. He was sure their night voyage for home was a mistake, but he never mentioned it to his crew. It would only worry them.

Skipper Charlie crossed the mouth of Torbay with its welcoming lights. He altered his course a bit farther to the north after he cleared Blackhead, and after passing the sleeping community of Pouch Cove he changed course again a bit east. The Cape St. Francis light, clearly visible on his port bow, warned him of the dangers of the shallow brandies under its lee, and Rogers allowed his vessel a comfortable berth around them. He had no intention of standing farther to sea than was necessary with the ever-increasing wind now hard from the northwest.

The schooner crossed the outer edges of Conception Bay with little trouble, although the wind was breezing. By midnight they were passing under the light at Baccalieu Island and Rogers was already dreading the crossing of Trinity Bay. There was no sign of the little Water Sprite. Fred Hounsell, who stood beside Rogers on the open deck, said he thought he saw what he believed to be two schooner lights astern. However, a quick glance behind showed nothing, and Rogers concentrated on the bows of his vessel and didn’t look astern again.

When he had put the Baccalieu light behind him, he glanced at the binnacle. With a firm grip he hauled the bows of the Janie around to magnetic north. This would take him across Trinity Bay and almost directly to the Green Island light guarding the south entrance to Catalina. Rogers knew that, bound north as he was, he must keep the Green Island light open with the south head of Catalina harbour until the Cape Bonavista light came into view.

Everything Charlie Rogers had experienced during many crossings of Trinity Bay, both by day and by night, did not prepare him for the onslaught of wind that bore down on his vessel as she plunged into the fury of that cruel bay. The hurricane-force winds tore the tops away from the huge grey rollers. The spewed white spindrift from their frothing tops was the only source of light in that black night of misery. A constant deluge of icy spray tore across the open deck of the Janie as she made her torturous way to safety. Charlie thought they had made it across the worst that Trinity Bay could bring, but he was wrong.

They were only what he estimated to be twenty miles from Green Island and the safety of Catalina harbour when the God Head Bay showed what it could really do. The furious wind came down out of the long bay with a blow that just kept on coming.

The first of the schooner’s sails to go was the jumbo. Skipper Charlie regretted not hauling it down before he rounded Cape St. Francis, as was his intention. He hadn’t imagined such a furious attack of wind.

Like bedsheets from a clothesline the sail shredded from its pins, and the Janie went heeling after them. Rogers ordered the other sails lowered and tied off for fear of losing them all. Away from the sheltering cove where her virgin keel had been laid, the Janie heeled before the wind. And standing before her bare poles, Charlie Rogers yelled a warning.

To be astray on the boundless sea at night, in a fierce gale that continually bears you away from the precious land, presents a frightening dilemma to any experienced seaman. It is one thing for a man of the sea to deal with a dangerous situation when he has at least some degree of control, but quite another when that same man knows he has no control. A veteran like Rogers—when his vessel answered only to the howling winds and not to his steady hand on the helm—knew he was in bad trouble.

Skipper Charlie’s yell of “All ’ands on deck” brought a sudden glimpse of light into the darkness as the forecastle door flew open. His first mate, John K. Rogers, was first to appear, and he was quickly followed by the rest of the crew. Even their passenger, Fred Cutler, was with them. He would not be a passenger for long. The last man out on the tossing, plunging deck closed the forecastle door, and the faint comfort of that glimmer of light disappeared. The men who stumbled aft on that rolling deck appeared as ghostly apparitions.

Clustered around their captain and holding on to whatever they could, some of them to each other, the men couldn’t believe what they were seeing. The Janie was just about broadside to some of the wildest seas any of them had ever seen. Her masts were bereft of all her sails. The tattered skeins of sailcloth that remained on the halyards snapped and whipped, only adding to the cruel roar of the storm. When the heaviest of seas broached over the bulwarks, her decks went awash with the white spume. Her scuppers, roughly six inches high and two feet long running horizontally directly over the deck, could not take the water away fast enough to make room for the next attack. The rushing water fumed along the bulwarks, looking for escape. The schooner was in great danger of capsizing. Rogers stood braced before the helm just astern of the captain’s cabin.

“Get a line far’d to hang on to! Be quick, by gawd, or we’re done fer!” Rogers shouted to no one in particular.

Fred Hounsell raced to the inside port rail with Aubrey Cutler on his heels and untied a long hemp rope hanging there. The two men prepared to lay a safety line from the captain’s cabin, near the helm in the stern, to the bow section of the boat. It had to be done, but it was not going to be easy to do.

“Rig a sea anchor!” Rogers roared to the other men. “Get it over ’er bows! Use whatever you can fine! Barrels and buckets, sailclot’ from the locker, anyt’ing! Tie it off and give it lots of scoop! We gotta get ’er bows to the win’ard! The scuppers’re not able to ’andle the water! The weight of it will broach ’er fer sure! Someone get a maul from below and widen the bloody scuppers!” The men half ran, half stumbled to do his bidding.

Rogers had the big wheel as far over to port as it would go. It made only a marginal difference to the deadly sideways push of his schooner, but for the moment there was nothing more he could do to ease the strain on his rolling, sideways-pitching schooner. The immense weight of the water crashing upon her deck kept the vessel tilted dangerously to leeward. An extra channel to allow the burden of water to run off the deck had to be made, and he had to get the foundering bows of the Janie into the wind before she became seas awash.

* * *

He stared ahead and saw Hounsell and Cutler were returning aft, their hands clinging to the line they had successfully tied off. “Thank God fer that much at least,” Rogers mouthed into the wind.

Now all of the men worked in desperation to fashion a crude sea anchor. At last a collection of wooden barrels, large pieces of sailcloth, galvanized buckets, and one empty puncheon were all lashed together. All of the men pulled the contraption to the weather side and, heaving as one, pushed it over the side. They paid out the line until the makeshift sea anchor had cleared the bows and floated and dragged on the boiling surface as intended. Then they tied on to the grump just ahead of the forecastle doors. At first it seemed as though their dangerous effort was all for nothing. Surely such a pile, of what now looked like no more than the tangled debris from a sunken vessel, would never work. But slowly the bows of the Janie began to turn, until in less than twenty minutes her proud bows were almost full into the tearing wind. The schooner was now “in irons.” The drag of their sea anchor was working!

“Now’s yer chance, b’ys! Beat some ’oles over the lee scuppers!”

Two men sprang to the lee bulwarks, their legs awash in the rushing white water. They hung on like men who had drunk too much and were staggering home from a time. The sound of the blows as they slammed the maul against the bulwarks again and again was lost in the howl of the wind. With a few more swinging blows, a few of the scupper holes tripled in size. In two places the bulwarks, complete with gunnels, were beaten and torn away from the schooner, and now the water eagerly gushed away from the churning deck.

The difference was dramatic. Now the vessel met the huge marching swells head-on. She parted some of them, but others were so high they came crashing down over her deck and raced toward the open bulwarks. For now the schooner at least had a fighting chance, a small means of defence against the might of an Atlantic storm.

All of the men crowded around their skipper. Some of them were clinging to the thin wooden railing that rimmed the low roof of the cabin just a few feet in front of the wheel. Rogers ordered his crew below again. There was nothing else they could do. Charlie’s first mate, John Rogers, who was also part owner of the schooner, stayed on deck with him. Both men stood beside the wheel and considered the gravity of their situation. But no matter how trying the conditions, Rogers would have a man at the wheel and a watch maintained on his vessel around the clock.

He was soaked to the skin and his body shivered against the cold. His oilskins were threadbare, especially at the elbows, knees, and shoulders. He had planned to buy a new suit when he was in St. John’s, but the low price finally offered for his summer’s voyage of cod—which he had no choice but to accept—changed his mind.

Now cold water leaked beneath his collar and trickled down his spine and chest, chilling his torso.

Sometime around 3:00 a.m. it started to snow, a wet, lashing snow that cut into the narrowed slits of a man’s eyes and stung like hell. Through the blinding snow, his sight was limited to no more than the length of his arm. Rogers figured their ordeal could only improve. However, their ordeal was only beginning and would get much worse.

* * *

On the small Fair Island, which for all who lived there was the pride of Bonavista North, the night of Friday, November 29, 1929, was dark and windy. Before dark, which had come early in that late autumn evening, the sky had seemed to press its cloud cover down among the distant mainland hills. A cold, dry west wind blew out of the bays and their forested islands. With the full spread of darkness, the wind backed from the north and increased in strength.

The fishermen as well as their wives were well aware of the adage, “The west wind that comes with the sun will die when day is done.” It was a tried and true saying, one that, although not one hundred per cent accurate, always gave hope that a gale of wind from the west—which started in the early morning—would go down with the evening sun. Equally known and more feared was another saying: “The wind that rises from the sun’s west bed will pay its debt and lace it with dread.” On this night the wild winds of early winter would, indeed, settle their debts.

The people who lived on this island at the very edge of the western ocean also knew well the wiles of sudden summer storms, and especially winter gales. Everyone on the island knew the Janie was due outbound from St. John’s any day now, and in fact many considered the schooner overdue. But the weather always played a major role in the schedule of vessels, especially the schooners under sail, which depended on the blows of unpredictable winds, and even the master of the Janie would not be bold enough to venture into the teeth of a storm.

Still, Skipper Charlie was not known for his patience while waiting in port when he wanted to be away for home. The man was a fearless, almost reckless seaman, born to stand before the mast of a free-sailing schooner. He loved nothing better than to stand with his legs braced against the roll of the deck, his eyes squinted against the spray as his vessel hissed along, her full sails as tight as the head of a new drum. He was known in every port, small and large, all along the northeast coast of Newfoundland. He often augmented his fishing earnings by coasting, the term used for the practice of freighting goods to isolated coastal communities. This activity took him far beyond the island shores of Newfoundland, to the north coast of Labrador. And in every harbour the captain of the Janie was simply referred to as Skipper Charlie.

Not only her home port of Fair Island relied on the Janie’s return. There were other isolated offshore islands in the area that eagerly awaited the jaunty schooner’s arrival. Across Fair Island’s wide tickle, on the landward side, other occupied islands with their mountain-like hills of stunted evergreens, deep-sheltered harbours, and snug houses waited for Skipper Charlie’s return. North of Fair Island, across the bight and to windward, the fishing settlement of Silver Fox Island loomed dark and solid against the lowering sky. Farther north and pocketed inside the safest of harbours was Newport, one of the few communities of the area located on the mainland. And across that wild ocean bight to seaward waited the Deer Islands, an upheaval of granite islands growing harsh and wild between the Lockers and Pitt Sound reaches.

When the schooners sailed north from St. John’s in the autumn with their holds well-burdened with commodities, and for once free of the stinking salt codfish, they were always warmly welcomed. Sailing south in the fall, the schooners laden with the summer’s voyage of fish were watched until they were hull down, but the first sighted sail of these same schooners returning back up over the rim of the autumn sea were heralded like warriors returning from a victorious battle.

It was an amazing thing! Islands separated by miles of cantankerous water, most of them with no means of communicating with each other, suddenly knew a schooner had returned from St. John’s! The word would spread from punt to punt on rolling fishing grounds. Up in the wooded bays where men chopped firewood and women picked berries, the word was carried farther.

“Seen ’er go nart’ yesterday. Long ways off, she was. But I figured ’twas the Janie, as she gen’ally sails two points off the win’. Den when she took ’er starburd tack—which as ye well knows steers ’er to port—I knowed fer sure ’twas Skipper Charlie of Vair Island.”

And: “Jest caught a glimpse of ’er last evenin’ long be dark time, it was. Seed ’er red light goin’ in under the land. Too small fer the Janie an’ she never went down ’long to the nart’. Bishop, in the Water Sprite, I ’lows.”

Men, spyglasses in hand, would stand in the high steeple of the Bragg’s Island church and, sighting across the five or so miles of water, would see the masts of several schooners tracing the sky above the barren land of Fair Island Tickle. They would identify the vessel by that distant etching alone and they were seldom wrong.

And so it would go. The schooners sailing back from St. John’s were the highlight of the season. Children would run laughing and screaming down the path to the wharf as the vessel shortened its sail, rounded the point, and crept into the harbour. Apron-clad wives would follow behind their excited children to see what, if anything, the schooner’s waist held for them. And behind all of them came the sombre, plodding inshore fisherman, who knew from experience that, save for the bare necessities, for him the schooner had brought nothing at all save for a pencilled statement that would indenture him for another year.

For not all of the outport fishermen went to the Labrador to fish for cod. This huge land north of the island of Newfoundland compared only with the far-off Grand Banks of Newfoundland, where nations from all over the North Atlantic fished for the prolific codfish. And though the Labrador fishery—like the one around the island—had provided seasons of plenty as well as a few summers of famine, it was still the most sought after. The floaters—seasonal schooners and crews fishing the Labrador Coast—could only provide so many berths. These were usually family members of the vessel owners who were not captains, or family and friends of the captains. Even then, the ones who were fortunate enough to have secured a berth aboard such a schooner were expected to work at all the preparations needed for outfitting such a voyage in the spring—for nothing. These people were known as being “in collar.”

This work would usually begin during the winter months. Sails had to be made or mended. Huge cod traps had to be crafted, their walls of twine fashioned and knitted in chilly twine loft as well as warm kitchen, by quick-handed fishermen flashing long wooden needles. Salmon and herring nets were repaired and new ones knitted. Plans were made, past seasons weighed and carefully thought out.

Spring came and the nets and traps and even some of the sails had to be barked. Huge iron cauldrons with hundreds of gallons of water in them were heated to boiling point alongside roaring fires. The new traps and nets had all been knitted with white twine and now they must be coloured. This process was as much preventive against sea rot as it was a measure to camouflage the linnet, or knitted twine, so the nets would fish better. Large chunks of bark, looking forever like the reddish-brown plugs of chewing or smoking tobacco, were thrown into the bark pots. The nets and traps were then stuffed in over the edge of the smouldering pot using gaffs and poles. The rendered bark stained the twine to its own tawny colour. After the twine had stained to the skipper’s liking, he pulled it dripping red from the bubbling water and spread it to dry on nearby wharves and smooth rocks. Small boats that would go to Labrador on the decks of schooners, and bigger ones towed behind, were caulked tight with skeins of tarry oakum and then painted. Empty wooden casks to hold cod oil were rolled aboard. Casks filled with fresh water were fastened on deck and barrels of flour stored below. Ropes and grapnels, balls of twine for the constant mending, tools to repair schooners and boats. Everything needed to maintain the boats, gear, and the men must be carefully planned. Nothing was left to chance, for once the island of Newfoundland vanished astern of a schooner heading north, all traces of assistance disappeared with it.

The fishermen who stayed behind ventured out to sea for miles in their one-masted sloops, or rowed with bent backs away from the land in small punts. They fished the inshore grounds as their kind had done for ages, and if the gods of the saltwater fishes favoured them. By late autumn they, too, had codfish ready for market.

The schooners returning from the Labrador fishery were usually well-laden. The fresh, wet cod stored below their decks, and buried with the added weight of hundreds of pounds of coarse salt to preserve it, was very heavy. The same fish weighed hundreds of pounds lighter when stored again aboard the same schooner, after being spread on willowy flakes and laid down on every available smooth rock to dry and cure and finally be made by wind and sun. This made room for the enterprising schooner captains to carry extra freight. For a price, the fish, caught around the islands and shores and skilfully cured, were weighed aboard and a tally was carefully kept. Subtracted from the tally was the list of provisions the fisherman hoped to get for his catch, either from island shopkeeper or St. John’s merchant. In either case he rarely received any hard cash for an entire summer’s work. The tally was weighed against the pencilled list of necessities, and it always seemed the list was found wanting.

The people who chose to live around the terrible coastline of Newfoundland were a hardy breed. Their roots had long since been torn from another group of Atlantic islands. From the British Isles, north to the Hebrides and south to the Scilly Isles, they had immigrated for a better way of life. And from all over Ireland, independent and fiercely proud people had left forever their native soil, only to toil and forge their determined way on a much bigger island. But here the land, though wild and rough almost beyond measure, became their own.

Out of necessity, the newcomers quickly became subsistence farmers, hunters, and gatherers, and the best fishermen afloat on any of the world’s salt seas. From out of the sea came the bulk of their existence. Cod and herring, capelin and salmon, squid, mackerel, and scavenging lobster. Migrating seals, sleek-sided dolphins, white polar bears, porpoises, and whales. And over the sea came flying great flocks of all manner of seabirds. All were harvested.

The virgin land, too, yielded up its bounty for those who foraged its sylvan depths. Firewood for heat was as important on these winter coasts as food itself. Logs for houses and boats. Logs for wharves and sheds and furniture. Logs for coffins.

Berries by the barrel. Fur-bearing foxes, muskrat, and beaver. Swift-swimming otter, rabbits, and sweet-roasting black bears. Warm-haired caribou and, later, huge moose.

They raised multicoloured hens and fattened pigs. All would fill the larders of the outport people. Out of the shallow mineral soil they coaxed precious vegetables. And beneath the sod of that same nourishing earth they cellared them away from the winter’s frost.

But there were other necessities of life that neither the rich land nor the bountiful sea could provide. Flour for their daily bread and the butter to spread on it. Tea and sugar, as well as molasses to make that brew more palatable, would come in the returning schooners. Wheels of yellow cheeses wrapped in clothlike meshes. Bolts of coarse cloth, spools of fine thread, and the silvery needles to fashion and mend clothing. Skeins of colourless wool for the knitting of warm socks and mittens. Rubber boots cherished by the fishermen, and shoes for women and children. All manner of cordage and bales of twine, buckets of tar, and barrels of nails. Even a barrel of sweet apples, and, if they were lucky, a barrel of oranges—a rarity for most of them, and only seen in the late fall—just in time for a Christmas treat at the bottom of a few carefully hung stockings, and the decorative orange peels spiralling on Christmas trees. All would come out of the bulging holds of the schooners sailing home from St. John’s, a place only a few of these isolated citizens would ever see.

Charlie Rogers was well aware of how precious the cargo so carefully stored below the heaving deck of the Janie was to his people. He knew the feeling of being the first schooner back from St. John’s. It was similar to the feeling of being the first one home from the Labrador with his schooner laden to the gunnels with its summer catch. He had been the highliner many times. But on this night Charlie secretly doubted if he would ever see his beloved Fair Island again.

He wondered if Hannah knew he was adrift on the sea on such a night. He hoped she didn’t know.

* * *

Hannah, Charlie’s good-looking woman of just thirty-seven years old, was worried, indeed. Despite the assurances of the men, as well as the women of Fair Island—that her husband was sheltered away in some safe harbour somewhere—she knew he wasn’t. Perhaps he had not left the safety of St. John’s harbour, or, if he had, he had taken shelter from the storm in Catalina, Port Union, or even around the cape to Bonavista. It was the normal thing for schooner captains to do. Rarely was their freighting as simple as sailing from one port to another. It was usually a series of well-made plans of taking advantage of favourable winds. Days were often spent in distant harbours waiting for a good time along, and it was an even more common occurrence during the stormy months preceding winter. Men who still kept their time by the turn of the tide, and who still trusted to the age-old ways of studying wind patterns and the skies, would take calculated risks.

Charlie’s wife knew all of this. This wasn’t her first time staring out to sea wondering if her man would return before the day turned black. She, too, knew the ways of wind and wave. As the wife of a schoonerman, she had spent as many hours searching for that first glimpse of a distant sail as had the man for whom she so anxiously waited.

Charlie was on the sea. If Hannah were asked how she knew this, she would not be able to answer. Nor would she share her fears with anyone. For her it was an inherent fear that is common among women the world over, an instinctive gift of feeling, a premonition of future events. Maybe the sudden viciousness of the storm had triggered it in Hannah, this trick of nature that lures knowledgeable men of the sea out onto a night ocean where they should not go. Maybe it is the bond of love that enters into the blood of the true lover; so that when one enters into a dangerous flow, the other feels the ebb. It mattered little to Hannah the reason why. She simply knew that, on this cruel night, her fearless husband was in the worst trouble of his life.

Stepping lightly up the stairs, she entered the bedroom and tucked the blankets under the chins of her three sleeping children. The two boys, Ronald at thirteen years and Lester at eight, had asked before she had sent them off to bed when she expected their father. She had told them not for a day or so yet. When she leaned in over her six-year-old daughter, Ethel, the child stirred as her mother’s warm lips gently brushed her cheek.

Hannah stood, lamp in hand. Wishing for the sweet oblivion of a child’s sleep, she walked away. The light followed her shadowy figure, never revealing the wide-open eyes of young Ronald. Back down the shadowed stairs the quiet figure crept, alone with the terrible uncertainty of a missing mate and the burden of responsibility that all women bear.

In the kitchen Hannah lifted the cover from the warm stove. Inside, on the grate, there remained only a few coals glowing with heat. Gripping the teakettle in her hand, she poured the contents on the hot coals. The water popped and steamed. Satisfied there wasn’t a trace of fire left in the stove, she replaced the cover. She was deathly afraid of fire and would never go to bed with even one spark in the stove below her sleeping children. She looked out the window again as she had been doing at regular intervals all day and night. The wind howled and tore across the island like a banshee and the house shook with the force of it. Hannah could see nothing but blackness, as she knew she would, but through the single pane of glass she could plainly hear the fearful rote of the sea. She sat for a moment on the chair next to the window. The woman who stared back at her in the glass could have been any woman. Any lover. Any mother. Any wife who will forever stare and search and faithfully wait for her man to come back over the slope of the sea.

Normally the lamp on the table next to her would give off warmth, light, and security, but Hannah didn’t know or feel any of those just now. She swallowed unexpectedly and realized she was weeping. Turning from the cheerless window, she crept back up the stairs again, taking the light with her.

* * *

Out on the roiling Atlantic Ocean, Charlie Rogers was thinking about his wife. It had been two days since they had last seen land, and Charlie knew that Hannah would know there was something terribly wrong. The small island boasted a wireless, one of just a few on the entire north side of Bonavista Bay, but even without that modern convenience she would sense his ordeal. He had long since stopped wondering how this was possible. He simply accepted it for his woman’s unique ability to know when he was in danger.

Charlie had bought the Janie E. Blackwood barely one year ago. He had not bought the vessel lightly. Rogers was not an impulsive man. The schooner had being built in Port Union of Bonavista Bay in 1925 for the explicit use of the Labrador fishery. He knew most of the men who had built her, craftsmen all and well trusted to construct a schooner worthy of the wily Atlantic. The man who had bought her and given the schooner her name was a friend of his. John Blackwood of Safe Harbour, just north of Fair Island, and a fishing captain himself, would not sell a vessel that was less than seaworthy to anyone.

Charlie doubted if the men who had constructed the schooner in Port Union had considered she would be put to such a test as she was now trying to weather. He had no regrets about his purchase. The Janie was bearing up under the most brutal of seas, most of which hammered her relentlessly. Stripped of her sails, her handlers for the most part were powerless to ease her burden.

It was now late Saturday night and none of the men aboard had had enough sleep. How far they had drifted was merely a guess. The full extent of Charlie Rogers’s schooling had been when he was six years old and his father took him aboard a schooner and sailed to the Labrador. Unbelievably, that very first year the boy was given a quarter share of the catch. Now Charlie was the oldest man aboard the Janie, a veteran of many summer voyages on the Labrador. He was just thirty-six years old, already a seasoned schoonerman, an experienced freighter, a compassionate handler of men, and the best of fishermen. In the prime of life, he was as tough as the deck he now braced himself upon.

Fred Hounsell stood at the helm just abaft of Charlie, who faced forward and clung to the port side cabin railing with both hands. The cabin was low enough for a man to look over. No one else was on deck. Fred had lashed himself to the wheel with a thick line of hemp around his midriff. Without the line the lurch and toss and twist of the schooner would dislodge him. There was also a danger of the spokes from a suddenly spun wheel left unattended for only a second, which could break a man’s arm. The wind bore scuds of snow, the noise of the storm raged above hissing seas, and the Janie groaned her discomfort. She was rigged with a lone jumbo sail set fastened to the foremast in lieu of the much bigger foresail.

“What time do ’ee figure ’tis?” Fred asked during one of the brief lulls.

The schooner yawed sideways. Fred brought her to heel with a jolt, staggering with the sudden strain on his arms. The ropes held him upright.

“Nigh on twelve o’clock, I ’lows,” Charlie yelled.

He fished inside his soaked waistband and found his watch. He yanked the watch free and it dangled at the end of its silver fob. Holding the watch close to his eyes, he tried to read the timepiece between glances at the foaming waves that kept coming.

“’Tis jest pas’ twelve an—”

“Look out, fer Crise sake! Look out! ’Ang on, by gawd, er yer done fer!” yelled Hounsell.

But the warning came too late. A huge wave crashed down on the middle deck with a gunshot slap. Then it raced aft. Charlie was standing with only one hand holding the rail when the wave laid into him. For one horrifying moment, Charlie Rogers disappeared from Hounsell’s view.

The skipper’s gone over the side!

The Janie listed to port under the weight of the tumbled water. A long grey comber with a seething top hoisted her starboard side high. Hounsell figured she would broach to. Then, like a drowning man who just would not go under, she rose again. The schooner shuddered from bow to stern under the deadly weight. Foaming rivers of water poured over her port bulwarks, releasing her to face yet another onslaught. And when she righted herself Fred saw his captain, on bended knees, still clinging to the cabin rail. Charlie’s face was contorted in pain. The water sluiced around him as he struggled to his feet. One of his arms was clasped around his torso. Hounsell realized Rogers was injured and started to untie himself from the helm. Rogers saw what he was about to do.

“’Old the ’elm, Fred! Stand yer ground! I’m a’right!”

“I t’ought you was gone fer sure, Skipper! What’s wrong wit’ ’ee?”

“I—I t’ink I’ve broke one of me bloody ribs!”

Charlie, in obvious misery, stepped closer to his helmsman. His watch was still dangling from its fob and he grabbed it again. The schooner fell free from the long grey wave that had tried to claim her, and when she floated deep into the trough and readied herself for the next attack, Rogers said, “’Tis past midnight. It’s me birthday!”

It was Sunday morning, December 1, and Skipper Charlie Rogers had just turned thirty-seven.

“Fine gif’ ya got, too. A broked rib!” mumbled Fred.

* * *

All around Fred Cutler men were screaming in agony. Men staggered and fell. Men were dying. Men were already dead. Bullets zipped and snapped through the air and ricocheted away with a frightening whine. The stench of cordite and spent black gunpowder filled the air. Cutler was running and dodging like a madman. Barbed wire fangs tore at his lower legs as he tried to get over the four terrible rolls of it. Pieces of clothing stayed on many of the barbs, some of them bloody. One man ahead of him had not gotten over the wire. He lay still, his tabard riddled with holes from which blood oozed. His eyes were open and he looked very young. Like a porpoise caught in a salmon net, Cutler thought.

Shells burst somewhere ahead of him. He ran along the edges of huge shell craters in the earth. Most of them were still smoking. The sound of gunfire and cannons and yelling men was overpowering. He couldn’t understand any of the voices. Some of the shouts sounded foreign to him. He suddenly realized they were—he was hearing German voices!

He felt a sharp, stinging vibration in his right heel, then he tripped and fell forward. It probably saved his life. He heard more than felt a ping in his helmet and the tin hat went flying off his head. He lay on the ground, his gun clutched under him. The bayonet attached to the barrel end protruded as if pointing him onward. He was in one of the shell holes, luckily without injury, and the battle raged above him. Rolling over without rising, he inspected the barrel of his gun. He figured it was jammed with mud after his fall.

Keep yer bloody guns clean! his sergeant had yelled over and over again. His gun was still clean. He spider-crawled up to the edge of the hole. All around him was a scene of death and destruction. The field of no man’s land was strewn with bodies. More fell as he watched, all of them young Newfoundlanders. There didn’t appear to be any order to any of it, as though it was every man for himself. Cutler stood on shaking legs and, without orders, and running crippled because of his missing boot heel, he ran with the others.

How could it be? Why wasn’t someone stopping the slaughter of innocent men? Surely this was not how it was supposed to be! Fred Cutler had never seen a shot fired in anger in his young life. The only time he had ever held a gun was to shoot seabirds or migrating seals. Another man ahead of him fell. Cutler recognized him. He was from Conception Bay. They had trained together. He was about to stop and give aid when he heard, “Go on! Go on! Keep goin’!” It was the fallen man, who was clutching his bloody thigh. Cutler ran on blindly, following his Company.

And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, wondrously, miraculously, it was over and he was still alive. The noise of battle tapered to a few distant pops of gunfire. Men started to stagger back to their lines, most of them helping wounded comrades. Some of them were dragging bodies showing no sign of life. Cutler collapsed on the ground and lay there on the broad of his back, unhurt, in disbelief. Someone nearby screamed in agony. Another scream sounded, high-pitched and very loud. Pitiful. Terrible. Cutler thought it sounded like a horse.

There came a thunderous sound of shelling again, this time directly over his head. The hammering of battle had started again and he knew he would not survive a second time. He lifted his head to see where the noise was coming from, but all around him was darkness. He was in a bunk in the forecastle of the schooner Janie E. Blackwood. He had been dreaming . . . or was he living a continuous nightmare? The noise of battle he had heard was the war waged on the tossing deck of the Janie, between a reckless sea and her handlers.

* * *

Fred Cutler was born on January 29, 1900. With the first Great War already two years old in 1916, he lied about his age and was enrolled into the First Newfoundland Regiment of the British Army. On July 1 of that same year he had crouched with hundreds of other Newfoundlanders along the soggy bottom and leaning against the muddy walls of a smelly wet ditch in Northern France. As is the way of Newfoundlanders to give things a knowing name, they had called the hand-dug ditch the St. John’s Road.

It was eight thirty in the morning. He was wet and hungry and his feet were sore. He was also lousy. They all were. He had never seen a louse in his life before coming here. His mother would have been mortified to know her boy had lice in his thick hair. He scratched his head for the thousandth time, but it didn’t help. He ran his hand down over a scraggly beard that had just started to grow. He was proud of it. It made him look older. He would have to borrow a shaving kit. He looked along the line of men to the right and left of him. Most of them were unshaven. Or was it dirt? He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember when he had last had a good wash. Everyone was unusually quiet.

Young Fred Cutler had no way of knowing it, but he was about to become part of a ferocious battle that would make history. It was the Battle of the Somme against the might of the German Army. It was to be the first day of the largest offensive of the Allied Army in the entire war.

When Cutler stole furtive glances above the ditch and across the land they would soon be ordered to run across, he saw nothing but desolation. Stunted trees had been blasted and scorched and burnt and uprooted, looking like the remains of fire-ravaged tuckamore or the skeletal frames of distorted crunnicks.

When the order to advance was given and Cutler climbed up out of the trench with the rest of his regiment, it was like suddenly facing an inescapable northeast blizzard that had come out of nowhere. He was sure he was going to die. He thought they all were. After a thirty minute slaughter of young defenceless men, it was over. The rest of the day was one of dragging corpses, mending the all too few wounded, and mourning the dead. Not until the next morning was the true extent of the killing revealed. Of a total of 778 men who had so valiantly plunged themselves up over the edge of the St. John’s Road, a mere sixty-eight had returned to answer the roll call on the morning of July 2. Amazingly, sixteen-year-old Fred Cutler was one of them.

The battle in the Somme area of France would go on and on. The war would be fought for two more long years. When it was finally over, Young Cutler was still alive but he no longer felt young.

Now, in the guttering light of a lone lantern, a twenty-nine-year-old Cutler wondered if he would survive another fierce battle that went on and on, this one under the relentless onslaught of the North Atlantic’s might.

* * *

The Janie had no sextant or any other means of navigation, aside from a magnetic compass housed in the binnacle. It pointed to the magnetic North Pole and not toward true north. True north is the direction in which the North Pole lies along our forever-moving planet’s rotational axis. Magnetic north is the direction toward which the north end of a compass needle points. The difference or declination between magnetic and true north could be as much as twenty-two degrees, or even more. Like most schoonermen, Rogers had the ability to navigate by dead reckoning, an age-old, tried and true method used as far back as the Moorish corsairs who ventured out into a world most had thought was flat.

The few charts in the locker over Skipper Charlie’s bunk he knew more by rote than by actual reading. They only proved useful when sailing the near shores of the island of Newfoundland or along the coast of Labrador. Here, on the broad reaches of the open Atlantic, they were just paper—but the intrepid Charlie Rogers and his mate, John, had another use for the chart. Turning the chart over, they used the blank paper as a scale to determine their rate of drift and travel. They determined as best they could the point below the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland where they had gone adrift and marked it on their improvised chart. They had a taffrail log aboard. This solid brass, torpedo-shaped marine speedometer was twenty or so inches long. The back end of the log was fitted with arrow-like vanes and the tapered front end was swivel-attached by a line. In practice, three sealed gauges inside the conical front end of the log were set, the time of day was noted, and the log was thrown over the stern, or taffrail, where it turned like a struggling fish, all the while recording the vessel’s rate of speed. This was done by the captain and his mate whenever possible. This common method of determining distance travelled, along with recorded compass bearings, gave them a fair idea as to where they were in the vastness of the North Atlantic.

For two weeks the schooner was pummelled with one endless storm, the likes of which no one had ever witnessed. She blew farther away from the land, sometimes to the south and sometimes to the east, and again and again the crew fought their way back toward the land they could never see. At times the captain figured they were as close as twenty miles from land. They could see birds, which they knew roosted upon the land at night, but without fail the incessant northerly flow of winter winds took them away again and again.

They could not continue like this. Skipper Charlie still suffered silently from what he thought was a broken rib. Others had been thrown against bulwarks and masts and some of them had injuries. The wrists and necks of the crewmen were worn sore and the constant wearing of oilskins had chafed their flesh. They were always wet and seldom got completely dry. They kept a constant watch on deck from evening, through the dogwatch, and on into the morning watch. They ran out of food in the forecastle. There were stores of food lashed below the schooner’s deck, but due to the high seas that kept washing over her deck, they couldn’t get the hatch open to go below.

“Chop a ’ole t’rough the after bulk’ead in the fo’c’sle!” Charlie ordered. “Get to the grub an’ take what’s needed!”

The men immediately went to work on the bulkhead. The sound of their chopping came as dull thuds to the skipper on deck. He winced at the sound of the axes biting into his vessel.

“Go below, John, an’ keep a good tally of the grub taken from ’er stores.”

John nodded his agreement and made his way forward. He was not only Charlie’s mate but also co-owner of the Janie E. Blackwood. He kept a strict account of all her business transactions. Every pound of food taken from the schooner’s hold would be weighed and carefully recorded.

The Janie had been battered beyond belief. She was stripped of all but a few tatters of her once proud sails. Like a dazed pugilist the little schooner rose again and again. And below her briny deck her weakening planks were leaking.

When they left St. John’s harbour a seventeen-foot-long four-oared punt had been lashed bottom up on the Janie’s deck. They had also carried a trap skiff equipped with a five-horsepower make and break Atlantic engine, or one-lunger. The punt had been reduced to debris by the waves and had long since disappeared over the sides. The trap skiff, too, had been torn from its lashings and repeatedly slammed against the bulwarks. Though it was severely damaged and beyond repair, the men had retied it in an effort to save the valuable engine. Their barrels of fresh water had been bulged in; they were out of drinking water.

Though none of the men could be considered drinkers, during the long, isolated winter months, especially when a time was held, a drop of ’shine would bolster the spirits. Aubrey Cutler was the one most knowledgeable in this area, and he set to work devising a method of producing fresh water. He never thought the simple process used to make alcohol would one day serve him in such good stead. While it is true that necessity is the mother of invention, using near-primitive tools like this on a small schooner somewhere on a storm-tossed Atlantic was pure genius.

They removed the copper line running from the gas tank to the make and break engine and built a still! Amazingly, these simple men devised a method of making their own fresh water. They used the desalination process, whereby they heated salt water to the evaporation point. It was then allowed to cool, and the fresh water dripped down and the salt content was left behind.

* * *

Back on Fair Island the families of the Janie Blackwood were living through their own nightmare. It’s one thing to know what is happening, for then the human way is to deal with it, each in his own way. It has to be done. It’s quite a different thing altogether to wait daily for bad news that everyone knows is sure to come.

Hannah remembered her husband’s birthday. Her children didn’t remember and she didn’t remind them. That Sunday morning she had entered her pantry to cut off a piece of salt pork to make scruncheons for the Sunday morning ritual of fish and brewis. There was only a small piece of pork left. Charlie was to bring a barrel of it in the Janie.

Leaning against the sparse shelves of her larder, Hannah wept. She hadn’t thought of it before, so rapt with grief for her missing husband was her heart. What would she do without him? Where would she turn to raise her children? How would they fare? She knew she could depend on family and friends anywhere on this island and even the islands nearby. It was the island way to assist anyone in need. She and Charlie had gone to the aid of many such families, but she had never had a need for charity before.

Three days later, on December 3, their fears were allayed. The Janie was safe and sailing toward Fair Island! She had been seen outside the town of Elliston, just south of Cape Bonavista. The happy news came clicking into the telegraph office on Fair Island. The St. John’s newspaper, the Daily News, had confirmed the sighting.

But—cruelly— the sighting, and all of the reports that followed, were wrong! The Janie was not sailing for home. She was still lost at sea.

Now the wives and families of everyone aboard the Janie were disconsolate. All hopes for their loved ones had been dashed by the dots and dashes of the machine in the post office. There was more. Days later young Ron, Skipper Charlie’s son, was lounging around the door of the post office hoping to bring a favourable word of his father’s schooner home to his anxious mother. But what he heard only caused them more grief and further distress. He had heard the clacking of the Morse code machine. He listened until it was still. Then he caught a few words from the men who were inside.

“Derelict schooner . . . far out to sea . . . bare poles . . . Janie Blackwood.”

The boy ran without stopping away from the post office that had given him the terrible news. Up the snowy path he went and he burst breathlessly into the warmth of his mother’s kitchen. He told her what he had heard, and Hannah, unable to bear the pain in private any longer, sat back in her well-used rocking chair with her children gathered around her and wept. The children had not seen their mother cry before.

And below the comforting homes where humans gathered and worried and sometimes cried, the mother of all tears sounded upon the grieving land and gave no comfort at all.

* * *

Far away from the despairing family, Skipper Charlie’s schooner was, indeed, little more than a derelict. The vessel had suffered severe damage: her few remaining sails were mere tatters and hung in pitiful skeins from her stripped masts; pieces of sailcloth clung to the debris on the Janie’s deck, like bedsheets ripped from a windy clothesline. Several times during the past two weeks the valiant crew had beaten their way unerringly back toward the land. They were all tired and cold, soaked with icy water, and never really dry. They had all been tossed and beaten around the schooner. All of them had bruises on their weary bodies. Charlie Rogers was in constant pain.

The Janie Blackwood could not take many more beatings. She was leaking badly and had sustained a list to port. Her pumps needed constant attending to, a boring, back-breaking, laborious task. Without adequate sails aloft her handlers could not give the vessel true direction. They were now at the mercy of a fickle, pitiless sea.

On Thursday night, December 12, Charlie Rogers figured they were a little over 100 miles east of St. John’s. The sky was still the steel, sullen grey colour that it had been for days on end. As he looked at the snow falling all around him, Rogers couldn’t remember ever being warm. The spirits of all aboard the Janie Blackwood were ebbing.

Then they saw, on the cresting swells and disappearing in the wallows, not one, but two sets of lights! Charlie glanced skyward. Their lantern attached to the gantline high above their heaving deck was burning. Would they be seen?

A few days ago a steamer had hove into view a good distance away. Rogers had raised the Red Ensign, only to watch in disbelief as the ship sailed away until she was hull down. It was only after the ship had disappeared over the humped horizon that Skipper Charlie realized they had raised the flag in the upright position. To indicate distress aboard a ship at sea, the flag must be flown upside down. From that point on they kept the flag flying bottom up from the mainmast of the Janie Blackwood.

* * *

Without any of her crew knowing it, the Janie’s plight had not only been recognized but acted upon. A chain of modern communication was exercised and in that dark, furious night and an attempt to rescue them was begun!

The ship Cairmona had spotted them, and its crew had tried to communicate with the Janie by using Semaphore Flags. No one aboard the schooner knew how to send or even read the old method of communication between vessels at sea. The Cairmona was equipped with wireless. While the captain ordered bearings to stand by the stricken schooner, her wireless officer immediately contacted the Beothic, another ship that was in the area. However, the Beothic was wallowing in the same heavy seas and was too far away to be of immediate service. The distress call was picked up by yet another ship, one that was nearer. The SS Nova Scotia was outbound from the British Isles and sailing under heavy weather for the safety of the old St. John’s port. She was a modern vessel, barely three years old, more than 400 feet long and equipped with a state-of-the-art oil-fired steam engine capable of pushing her along at fourteen knots. The ship altered course for the Janie Blackwood.

Captain Furneaux was well aware of the state of most of his passengers. They had had a hard go of it crossing the Atlantic. His passengers, fifteen of them in expensive first-class berths and eighty of them in much cheaper third-class, were suffering from seasickness. Another ship, the SS Anthrim, sailing on that terrible sea, was notified and it, too, veered toward the Janie.

And so the tossing Atlantic stage was set. The players were assembled. And without rehearsal but with precise choreography, the two actors set out boldly from the trembling night curtain on a deadly, heaving stage to follow the lines that would save one of their own.

And aboard the stricken Janie her skipper and crew knew their time of life or death was at hand. An attempt to rescue sailors from the deck of a heaving, out-of-control vessel is the most perilous of all manoeuvres. The Nova Scotia was more than four times longer than the Janie. Only a rub from her mighty steel sides in such a sea would rupture and capsize the Janie Blackwood. It would require skill, nerves of iron, and a precision born of experience to play the part successfully.

The Anthrim’s captain held his ship to the windward of the schooner. This not only kept the bulk of the wind away from the Janie, but also broke some of the heaving swells that harassed the schooner. This positioning also gave a measure of shelter to the Nova Scotia’s lifeboat, which her captain had ordered over her tilted side. Jackstaves or rescue lines were thrown from the tossing lifeboat onto the washing deck of the schooner, where the men hanked them tightly to themselves. Before long they were hauled away from the deck of their schooner and into the safety of the lifeboat. The rescuers rowed to the massive, looming, heaving sides of the Nova Scotia, where rope ladders were lowered. Jackstaves were used again on some of the Janie’s crew, who were suffering from injuries. Finally, every man of the Janie Blackwood rose to safety aboard the SS Nova Scotia.

Their ordeal on the furious sea was almost over. When Captain Furneaux learned that Charlie Rogers barely knew what the word “navigation” meant, much less its modern use, he questioned him as to where he thought he might be, as well as what course he figured he would need to steer for Newfoundland. Skipper Charlie answered without hesitation.

“I’d say we’re jest a hundred or so miles east of the Notch, and if I was to do so, I’d set me course fer west and a bit nart’, sir.”

“By my reckoning, Captain Rogers, you are less than ten miles from your estimation, and the course you suggest would take you to land somewhere between Cape St. Francis and Cape Spear. Probably to the entrance of St. John’s itself. Or, as you say, the Notch.”

The helm was ordered over and the Nova Scotia came into the wind again, gathering way and making for land. The crew of the schooner were going home. But for the master of the Janie Blackwood, the abandoned wastrel that had been his home for years was staying behind. Outside the warmth of the bridge, he stood with his hands on the painted iron rails and watched the feeble light from her once proud mast grow dull and duller still. Then, with one last, pitiful wink, as if searching for the master of her light, the Janie slid down over the slope of the sea and rose no more.

7 GEORGE K.

They laid my hand-hewn spine down in the chocks on the white frozen ground in the outport called Glovertown. My owner was the firm of George Knowling Ltd. It was the winter of the human year 1918. Glovertown was a place deep in the recess of Bonavista Bay, only accessible to the open sea by sailing along deep water in canyon-like fjords.

With heavy steel mauls and broad wooden wedges my keel was hammered and jammed immovably tight on the frozen ground. Dark descended on the land. Tools were laid across my backbone and the black-clad figures trudged away, their feet crunching loud against the frozen snow with every weary step. The moonless night deepened. Stars glittered high above me. The cowardly frost stole along the ground, pierced through my single bone, and whitened my cradle, but I felt nothing. The new day came without warmth. The men who would mould and craft me returned.

The days lengthened and warmed some. To one end of my prepared and waiting spine they moulded my raking stem and secured it with a strong keelson and stemson. I was sixty-seven feet long. Then they designed and shaped my tilted stern. Now I had direction, for I had a fore and an aft. They fastened strong ribs or knees to my keel and interspersed them with axed timbers. They bored with twisted, hand-turning steel bits, and sometimes burned with heated rods circular holes through my rising frame. They spawled countless chips of wood with adze and wide-bladed axe and with rasping saw added falling sawdust to the growing residue of my construction.

They cursed and laughed. They spat warm streams of steaming tobacco juice on my wooden flesh. The brown stains were my first hint of colour. The frozen bay at my stern carried laughing children and barking dogs. Men with bent backs hauled loaded sleds over its slippery surface. Labouring horses pulled timbers straight and crooked up over the baddycadders—rough shore ice formed by the freezing of every day’s tide. And still I was without feeling.

The first strakes of planks that were to be fastened next to my naked keel on either side were prepared. Garbit planks, they called them. They were sculpted and sawed and chopped and the men carefully trimmed them both until they fit just right. They paid strict attention to these first of planks on which all of my others would lie. My exposed skeeg—the section of my keel that jutted under my stern—pointed like a finger to the frozen harbour. I was being wooded. I felt secure but inanimate. Then came the day when they fastened my sheer planks, the last wooden strakes on my hull, which would give me my lines. My one-of-a-kind distinctiveness.

And then I knew something was wrong! They bent and clamped the shear plank on my starboard side. It defined my waist. My fore and aft. My shape. But when they hammered the shear stake on my port side I sensed a sudden weakness. The inner, unseen fibres of one of my forward ribs was weak. It was my fifth one and it did not hold the nails as it should. But my builders never noticed and my construction went on. The ice in the still harbour finally turned black with the spring heat and no one walked upon it any more.

Two huge straight trees were brought to my side. They brought the smell of pine from the distant forest. They peeled the bark from them. It spewed the smell of them upon the spring-thawing ground. When the trees were stripped of their bark and showed white and naked, they were hoisted and rolled on my deck. And when they were carefully stepped against my spine, my two masts dominated high above my lone deck.

Every seam in my sides was rammed tight with tarry oakum. My deck, too, was caulked and hot tar was poured into each seam and joint. Living quarters for my handlers was built in my forward. A sturdy wooden rudder was fastened to my skeeg below and my transom above. A birch helm to guide me was added. The name George K. was carefully scrolled with white paint on both my black bows and across my broad-angled transom.

Then one morning in the murky dawn I heard the quiet waves lap gently against the landwash behind me. The ice had gone, and when the new light came, blue water waited for me. The ways under me and the ones behind me reaching into the water were smeared and greased with the oil from cod livers. It stank. It left calm streaks on the water. Crowds gathered around me. Men shouted. Heavy mauls were hoisted above muscled shoulders and when they came slamming down on the wedges that held me fast, I trembled all over. Again and again the hammers smote and drove the wedges tighter. I started to slide toward the quiet water. Then I slid suddenly seaward without stopping. My cradle slid with me. For a moment it felt like I would fall over. Men shouted again. Women cheered and children screamed. Barking dogs added to the din. Then, when my skeeg touched the cold, clear sea, I was born.

The burgeoning, expectant life of the sea washed over my lower frame and permeated my land fibres. I left my wooden caul behind and swayed and yawed proudly amidst the cheers of men. A trembling sensation of belonging, of boundless freedom, filled my fibre; a sudden yearning to be away from the claiming land; a desire to adventure forth upon the endless sea. I was alive!

For the following six years my forefoot led me over waves that rolled endlessly by. I sailed below high, rugged crags tufted with bunches of bracken, where great ernes soared on summer winds. On such days the smell of the sylvan land of which I was made stayed with me until I sailed hull down over the slope of the blue sea. I scudded before brisk winds, my hold filled with the smelly, heavy salted cod. I rested on calm bays in the warm darkness of summer nights and I tacked home in the teeth of autumn gales. Always we searched the seas for the codfishes. Each season, just before the pondlike harbour of Glovertown froze solid, I was anchored safely in midstream. The residue and stench of countless fresh and salted codfish were never really cleaned from my bilge, but when the winter’s cold penetrated into my wooded bones, the smell faded away. And in all that time my only worry was my fifth rib. It was steadily weakening.

Then one cold winter’s day, while I lay imprisoned within the harbour ice, money was exchanged between my captain and another man who stood on my motionless deck. It was the human year of 1924. And when Frank Green took a firm hold on the worn, polished spokes of my helm, I knew that although I had been captained and skippered before, this man would truly be my master. I also knew that, with his hand still on my weathered helm, one of us would die!

And when the brisk spring winds brought warmth to the inner bays, he took me sailing over the sea and I floated easy with downed sails, from the edge of the sea roads, through the dangerous straits, and edged my prow into the safe haven called Greenspond.

* * *

Frank had descended from generations of the Green family. His surname and that of the Pond family were believed to have been the origin of this small seaward isle’s name. Fifteenth-century English merchants had no intention of letting their indentured and conscripted sailors have any part of the wealth of this New-founde-lande, but men who want freedom will forever seek a way to find it. Many of the enslaved fishermen stole skiffs and rowed far into the inner bays. There they hid until the cold westerly autumn winds bore the leaving fish merchants’ ships down over the lip of the sea. Then they cautiously returned. They built tilts and spent harsh winters in little more than hovels. But they were free men. One of these men was Frank Green’s ancestor.

It was this fierce lust for independence and for a free way of life handed down to him by his determined forebears that took him to war. Frank Green loved adventure, and during the terrible four-year struggle of the First World War, he would find more than his share of it. The man also seemed to live a charmed life. He joined the Royal Naval Reserves, that reach of the British military that found its way even to an isolated outpost of the Empire like “Pond Island.” It was 1914. The Archduke of Austria, Ferdinand, along with his good wife, had been assassinated. Their deaths caused the burbling cauldron of dissention to boil over, and war spewed out.

Ill-prepared and with little training, and wearing blue puttees on the calves of his legs—which he didn’t like—Frank Green, still in his teenage years, found himself crammed into a crowded, stinking troopship with 1,076 other young Newfoundlanders. They anchored in the Dardanelles off the coast of Gallipoli on September 19, 1915.

The lands around the Dardanelles had been a battleground before there was paper to record it, when sages scrawled events upon scrolls of vellum. Land-hungry armies under the emperor Caesar had fought and won their way up from the land of Egypt, across the plains of Syria, and into the stronghold of the Ottoman Empire at Turkey. Years after the Roman Empire fell into the hands of other warmongers, self-righteous Christians from the north of Europe came plundering across this land scarred with battle. It would take the Christian armies years to finally fight their way into the Holy Lands of the Middle East. There they fought to claim the land on which “the Christ” had walked—along with as many of the golden relics as they could carry—from “the infidel.” But throughout the ages, all of the warriors had first to fight their way across the narrow reaches of water that separated Europe from Asia—the Dardanelles and the Bosporus.

And now modern warriors had come again to do battle on this ancient land. And again the ancient waters were the reason for the ensuing battle. It is said that the waters that separate the Black Sea from the Mediterranean Sea are kept warm with the blood of warriors.

Russia, England’s ally during the First World War, wanted an ice-free port as well as sea access to its southern borders in the Black Sea. This was only possible by sailing through the Bosporus at the southern entrance of the Black Sea, into the Sea of Marmara and through the Dardanelle straits into the Aegean. From there ships could enter the Middle Sea and, sailing its length westward, finally set forth on the open sea roads of the mighty Atlantic.

When the Turks steamed across the Black Sea in German ships, flying the flag of the Ottoman Empire as they attacked Russia’s major warm-water seaports of Odessa and Sevastopol, Russia declared war on Turkey and Germany. In a fierce attempt to keep Russia’s exit to the Mediterranean open, Britain came to her aid with ships laden with troops. And aboard one of these huge grey ships with the sounds of battle raging around him was young Frank Green.

Frank’s regiment from Newfoundland were the only ones from North America to fight at Gallipoli. The Dardanelles looked like little more than a tickle to Green and hardly worth fighting over. He wondered how he would react under fire for the first time. He didn’t really get the chance to find out. Frank was one of the many severely wounded during the landing.

On the shores of the Gallipoli peninsula, under the blaze of guns and with men dying all around him, his wounds were treated by a tired doctor with the blood of dozens of other men on his hands. There was little antiseptic and no anaesthetics. Green did not heal quickly. He was carried on a stretcher, without a blanket, aboard a small ship that made its slow way across the Mediterranean to Alexandria, Egypt. From there, along with hundreds of other maimed and wounded, he was eventually shipped back to England and finally back to Newfoundland, where he recovered from his wounds. Ironically, the British colonel who commanded the First Newfoundland Regiment at Gallipoli was not yet done with the soldiers. Colonel A. L. Hadow was the same man who ordered the regiment across the battlefield at Beaumont Hamel, where most of them would die.

Frank Green went back to war again in 1917, and again he met with disaster. He left for Europe on the British troopship SS Laurentic. Nearing her destination, the ship collided with two explosive mines off Lough Swilly, in the north of Ireland. It was January 25, 1917. In one hour the vessel went under, and for the next seven hours Green, who had also suffered an injury during the explosion, struggled for survival in the winter waters of the North Atlantic. The lifebelt he was wearing became sodden and threatened to drag him under. He tore it off his chest. Only 121 of the 475 men who had been aboard the Laurentic survived. Frank Green was one of them. He was rescued and, more dead than alive, shipped to an English hospital again.

Later that winter, still unable to walk, he was taken off a ship in the iced-over harbour of St. John’s. A few nights later he crippled off the train at the Gambo station. News of his arrival had preceded him. His Orangeman brothers from the communities of Dark Cove, Middle Brook, Hare Bay, and Trinity arranged passage along the frozen coast of Bonavista Bay by horse and sled for the wounded soldier. He was taken over frozen bays and forested trails to the tiny hamlet of Shamblers Cove and from there was ferried by boat across Pond Tickle to his home in Greenspond.

The young man healed quickly in the clear Atlantic air and was soon on his way to Halifax, where he hoped to be sent overseas again. In Halifax he was given sea patrol duties. He went to navigational school and eventually earned a captain’s ticket.

On the morning of December 6, 1917, the French cargo ship SS Mont Blanc, loaded with tons of explosives destined for the war in Europe, collided with the Norwegian ship SS Imo in the narrowest place of Halifax harbour. The collision caused the greatest man-made explosion in history. Two thousand people on ships and around the city were killed in seconds. Nine thousand more were injured, most of them severely. Apart from a temporary hearing loss—in both ears—Frank Green survived without a scratch.

The First World War was finally over on November 11, 1918. A few months later Frank Green returned to Greenspond.

* * *

I felt the stirrings of my fellow schooners in the murky waters of St. John’s harbour. I was tied fore and aft to a slimy wharf on the north side of the harbour. It was evening and the lights from the city were shining on the water. The filthy water stank. The bottom below my barnacled keel was layered with centuries of human discard. Frank Green was not on my deck. The tide had flowed in from the open sea and my deck was level with the dock.

A man walked across the dock. I could hear the sound of his boots on the wooden wharf. As he approached me I could hear a whining sound coming from a coarse burlap bag he was carrying in his left hand. He rounded the grump to which my fore line was fastened and stopped at the wharf edge. He dropped the bag on the wharf with a thud. The whining increased. Then the man lit a straight-stem pipe and appeared to be studying the water below him. The match flare revealed a rough, unshaven face. He pulled a few times on his pipe. He spat out of the corner of his mouth. A thin cloud of smoke accompanied his saliva. He started to cough and pulled the pipe from his mouth with his right hand and picked up the bag again with his left. The cries smothered inside the burlap were pitiful. My bow lifted uneasily. The man cast the bag high out over the water and walked away. The bag barely cleared my port bow and landed in the dark water with a muffled splash, where it began to sink. The cries from within became screams of terror. The bag went down slowly. The cries became muffled with the deadly water but continued as the bag went down, until all eight pups inside finally drowned.

Another dark figure with a sure step walked toward me. I would know the step anywhere. It was my master. He was carrying his suitcase in one arm. His other one was filled with brown paper–wrapped packages and I knew we were leaving. Green more jumped than stepped on my deck. He was in a hurry. At his shout light appeared from the flung-open forecastle door. A head appeared in the scuttle and, just below, on the forecastle stairs, another one.

“Go below and sound the timbers. We are leaving!” shouted Green.

Sounding the timbers was something Green always ordered whenever we left port for a major sailing. It involved an inspection of my ribs with a hammer. It had been done many times, but the weakness in my fifth rib had never been detected. Maybe this time would be different.

There was excitement all around the harbour. Shouts came from the different schooners. Rigging creaked and squealed as sails were raised. The heavy splash of mooring lines dropping into the water came to me. The tide had turned and the dirty harbour water was already been sucked out through the Notch. All manner of human refuse went with it. The little Water Sprite floated past my port side. Men scurried about her deck preparing her for sail. The Janie E. Blackwood followed behind her. I had sailed with both schooners many times. Shouts were exchanged across the water.

“Got yer moorin’ lines tangled, ’ave ’e, b’ys?”

“’Fraid of a good time along cause ’tis dark, is ’ee, Frank Green?”

“Seed enough of them townie wemmin yet, b’ys? Sure, dey’re wearin’ more paint dan Jake Feltham’s stage!”

The man sent below was hammering at my aft timbers. He was in a hurry. The excitement of so many vessels leaving harbour was a tangible thing. The man climbed out of my hold and the cover was slammed down and secured. My lines were let go aft.

“Decided to keep company wit’ the fleet, have ’ee, b’ys? Better clean yer chimneys before ye hauls ’em aloft on the gants. ’Tis the only way we’ll see ’e from behind!” came from the passing schooners.

“P’raps ye should stay in ’arbour wit’ the Neptune. Seems like Skipper Job is feared of the dark, too!”

My bowline was pulled up over the grump and dropped into the black water in the widening space between my starboard side and the grimy wharf. The man forward, who was checking my timbers, wasn’t doing it very well. He wanted to be on deck. The flurry of chores and pent-up excitement between sailors shipping out is the best of times with seamen the world over. The crewman tapped only every second one of my ribs. My foresail was pulled aloft. I lurched away from the dock. The hammer smote upon my fourth rib. Then the man raced topside. And again my weakened knee went undetected. With the excitement of the entire northern fleet of schooners leaving for home it probably would not have made a difference anyway.

I felt the hand of my master on my helm as I slid out into the ebbing stream of St. John’s harbour. The lines that had held me to the old seaport for days were neatly coiled—clockwise, or, as they called it, with the sun and never against it—on my deck.

The foresail followed Green’s shouted order up the mast. It snapped in the wind as it rose aloft and I was under way. Men stood by the mainsail and jib. Green shouted again to “Get the blankets on the bugger,” and with the leaving tide sucking on my keel below and the pull of the wind aloft, I was drawn out into the St. John’s Notch. Pieces of splintered wood and debris floated along by my sides as I went and the grease of the harbour issue accompanied me out to a troubled night sea.

When the first dark comber of the open sea lifted me up without warning, I sensed the restlessness that lay out there. From out of the dark maw of ocean that went endlessly on below my Plimsoll line came an uneasy feeling. The sea outside this safe harbour was rife with danger. A terrible storm like no other was coming. But the man who controlled my destiny did not sense the danger. He kept stepping with animated feet around my helm, looking now ahead and now quickly astern, but his strong hand never once released its steady grip on my wheel. It was as if he wanted to tie up the winds in the belly of the sails, so eager was he to be away to home with the rest of the schooner fleet.

He was like a musher who ran behind his team, eager to catch the sleds ahead and hounded by the barking dogs behind. I believe if he had a whip he would have snapped it repeatedly at my sails. But I shared none of the frenzy I could feel in his grip, and for the first time since my launching I did not want to sail forth on my home waters. For when the lights of the old city were hidden inside the protective hills astern, I knew I would never again see the lights of the sheltered land.

The night pressed down on us in a scowl of racing, darkened clouds. Far behind me I felt the presence of the last of the schooners, the biggest one of the fleet, the Neptune II, as it cleared the safety of the St. John’s Narrows. The winds that had been moderate from out of the south were veering rapidly out of the north and west. The dark thickened with snow and the lights of schooners ahead and astern disappeared. The change in the wind sent an undercurrent throughout the surface layer of ocean, so that there was no pattern to the heightening waves. It was that most dreaded of happenings at sea, when the tide fights a losing battle with a fierce change in wind direction. And now caught in the impending maelstrom was the entire argosy of northern schooners.

With the wind backing out of the north came a drastic drop in temperature. We were being borne away from the dark land mass to port. The snow that had been a sloppy mix on my deck froze solid, only adding to the weight I had to bear. Green ordered my mainsail down. With the plastered weight of ice, it dropped like a stone from head to clew when the halyards were released, breaking the main boom as it fell, and I felt the pain when my boom broke.

Sometime during that interminable night of misery, my foresail was reefed in an attempt to bring me into the wind. Green hauled my helm down and shivered me, I came into the wind so keenly. But it wasn’t enough to halt our drift. He ordered another reef put into my lone sail. The crew strained with all their might to carry out the order. It took great courage and much skill to work above my foaming breast. Great walls of water came crashing down without warning. My scuppers were choked with pieces of snow and ice and could not handle all the water. The rest went scurrying over my laden sides in cascading streams of white. The wind howled like a plague of demons through my near-naked rigging.

A cresting wave higher than all the rest came up out of the night on my port side. Green downed my helm to meet it. But with nearly bare poles and in such a sea, my rudder could not respond quickly enough. The wave broke a short distance away and I thought it would pass under my keel. I was wrong. It lifted my port bow high with a jerked snap, and with its crest breaking again it sent great spindrifts surging across my deck. And when the wave released me and I fell tumbling down, I felt my fifth rib finally crack. Water began seeping in immediately. There was still time to save it—if it were detected. But for now no one knew of my wound and I raised my crippled bow again. But this time it was already laggard with the added weight of cold sea water.

The day came without sun and the fight for survival continued on that cruel sea. I could not survive such a continuous onslaught, and when my weary bows went down for the last time, the men so valiantly fighting for their lives would go with me. Their only means of escaping, a small lifeboat that had been lashed to my open deck but had already been torn from its moorings and pounded to splinters, vanished over the side.

The day wore on and soon my continued list to port was noticed. The leak coming up through the planking beneath my broken knee was discovered. The single pump was manned without cease. The men, their feet and legs constantly awash in the icy seas that kept coming over my deck, worked the pump in relieving spells. The water they sucked out of my depths sluiced over the deck with the fresh sea water. But I knew the water that kept bubbling in was more than the crew were able to pump out.

The day darkened into a murky evening, and almost without knowing the night had come again. And in all that time the hand of my master barely left my polished helm. Though I felt the drain of his great strength resonate from warm blood to cold wood, his determination was resolute. Only death would stop this man’s fight. Night at sea with the sure hand of this man to guide me brought memories of better times. Nights when the friendly seas bore me along chasing a moon that held the winds clutched within the crook of its shiny elbow, when stars without number became entangled in my rigging. Grey pre-dawn mornings when my captain dozed on my helm and great denizens larger than I swam near and stared at me with their great lone eyes before vanishing soundlessly into the depths.

But now as his feet strained for purchase on my slippery deck I felt a weakness in one of his legs. It was the pain of old war wounds that the constant wet and cold were reviving. Upon a tossing deck awash with water day and night, it was difficult for the crew to notice their captain had a limp, and Frank Green told no one of his war pains.

The break in my fifth rib widened. The crack ruptured and bulged the planks that clung to it. The sea water eagerly gurgled inside and the men strained harder to keep me afloat. More than ever came the sure knowledge that I would soon founder beneath the weight of these ceaseless seas, and just as sure was the premonition that my captain would also meet his fate on this same ocean.

Green was more than just one of the usual schooner skippers who could find their way by the magnetic needle, or by-guess-or-by-God method. He was capable of finding our position by shooting the sun with his sextant, or by measuring the angles of stars. But we had seen neither hint of sun or stars nor even lofty moon in all our time at sea. But through it all the faithful crew, under his command, kept my tattered foresail half up the mast and sometimes twice-reefed. He kept me in irons before the gale. He constantly tacked me from starboard to port, like a pig before thunder, in an effort to keep me as near as possible to the land.

Then, in the dismal pre-light of Sunday morning, my rudder was torn from its metal holdings. The shout from the wheelsman, when my helm went over without my bows answering, brought Green from his cabin, where he had been sleeping fitfully. One of the crew was seated at the forecastle table and, under the murky light from a swinging lantern, was reading from a scarred and well-thumbed black book. I had seen this same man read from the same book on many early Sunday mornings before.

Without direction from my rudder, my bows bore away before the wind, listing hard to port. The forecastle tilted. The unshaven man dropped his book and dashed toward the steps leading above. Behind him the book fell onto the floor and was afloat in the water that came bubbling up through the floor seams.

Green ordered the pitiful foresail down to try and correct and slow my drift and dangerous list. But before the sail could be lowered to my washing deck, the lashings holding to my decks the steel barrels filled with gasoline and kerosene oil let go. The deck was now in turmoil. The heavy barrels were weapons of destruction and could do terrible damage. They could easily kill a man. The men at the pumps jumped and dodged the careening barrels. Green shouted. The crew shouted back. There was nothing the crew could do to stop the deadly toss and roll of loose barrels free upon my deck. Two of the barrels collided and immediately burst open. Their oils poured out over the sides and through my lee scuppers, smoothing the surface of that terrible sea. My starboard side lifted suddenly and on my tilted deck one of the barrels was flung like a missile down upon my port bulwarks. It passed on through, seemingly without resistance. It was accompanied by a crack barely heard above that terrible din. As if in a game of following the leader, several other barrels went overboard through the same hole. The last one of them smashed against the edge of the splintered hole and it, too, released its oily contents into the wild sea. But the calm look was deceiving, mocking, for there was no calmness in the greasy sea that wrestled me away before the wind. When the last barrel disappeared over my heaving side I was relieved, for their weight was gone from my topsides, but it would make little difference now. I was sinking!

Then I heard the distinctive thresh of propellers come up out of the steely depths below the surface of that windy sea. The sound was coming our way! The men pumped more frantically than ever. They could see that I was taking on water at an ever-increasing rate. No one aboard knew a huge ship was passing somewhere nearby and I had no way of telling him. The sound of the throbbing screw increased. It was nearing us. It was a big ship. I could even hear the cavitations from the propellers as the stern of the ship was frequently lifted out of the water on the huge swells.

Green yelled for his men to fashion a sea anchor. To lash together anything they could find that would float. Anything that might slow down my drift. Anything to stop my deadly sideways roll and get my bows into the wind. I was raised by the seas almost onto my beam ends. Then it was there! A black leviathan smeared briefly across the humped horizon. It emerged out of the sea only to sink again. But now the huge ship had been seen by my captain. A cry escaped his bearded lips. It was a sound of relief, and from the throat of every man aboard arose shouts of delight. The steamship was now bearing down on us. Deliverance was at hand for my handlers. I felt none of their jubilation. My deck was almost completely awash; there would be no deliverance for me.

Above the sound of wind and wave came the bellow of the ship’s whistle. She was standing to the windward sheltering me from the seas. I was dwarfed in the lun of her. The name Holplein was painted in large bold letters on her bow. A large lifeboat with three men aboard was already being lowered slowly down over her black hull. Twice it stopped and swayed like a small white moth stuck in a spider’s web. Sounds in a foreign tongue were shouted over the surging water that separated me from the huge vessel. Then came broken words that my captain understood.

The lifeboat reached the sea, which reached up hungrily to meet it. The black figures aboard pushed it away from the clifflike hull and they started to row toward me. A wave came crashing down on my deck. The water rushed all over me, weighing me under, and for several minutes I struggled to stay afloat. The small boat with the strange voices approached my starboard side. A jackstave or lifeline was flung onto my seething deck and caught by one of my crew. One by one they jumped toward the lifeboat. Two of them fell in the roll of water between my wallowing deck and the side of the lifeboat. They untied their rescue line and swung it again onto my lowering deck for the next man.

Frank Green suddenly ducked into the after cabin. Water sloshed around his feet. I was going under. Surely he would leave in time. Several packages he had purchased on the streets of St. John’s for his family waited on his bunk. One was a new coat and the other a hard-to-find book for his daughter. He couldn’t take them all with him. The coat was bulky. He chose the book. I lurched to port.

The water on the cabin floor was nearly to his knees. He grabbed the case that held his sextant, cradled a few rolled charts under his arms, and dashed outside. There was no one on my deck. All had successfully jumped or had been hauled to the safety of the lifeboat. Familiar sounds and foreign ones were yelled at my captain. He raced across my deck. The water, which was rapidly claiming me, surged toward him. It struck him just above his knees. He faltered and stumbled. One of his precious charts escaped from his grip when he reached for the thrown rope. He missed the lifeline.

It was drawn hand over hand back aboard the lifeboat by one of the crew from my own deck. I settled low with the weight of seas that could now wash easily over me. I could not rise again. But my master was still on my deck. While I sank steadily down, the lifeboat that was his only hope rose steadily higher on the raging swells. A great shuddering effort filled every fibre of my wooden frame. I must rise above the sea one more time. One more effort to save the man who was my one true master.

My fifth rib finally broke under the terrible strain. Tons of water came gushing inside my hull. The terrible weight of sea water was as nothing I had experienced before. But then a long, undulating grey roller came lifting under my once proud keel and I began to rise above my death wave. Several planks rented away under the strain of my rising. The wave that was lifting me above the surface was sucking the lifeboat beside me down into its wonderful trough.

The thrown line landed in the surf of water on my rearing, tilted deck. My captain caught it. He somehow managed to drape it over his sodden shoulders and hanked it tightly under his armpits. For a moment I rose out of the water like a whale before it sounded. Then I started to settle low. The lifeboat rose up as I fell down, and when it came level with my water-filled deck my commander jumped to safety. My deck surged and sank below my final wave and I felt no fear or regret.

But just as the tip of my mainmast went sliding down, I saw something I had not seen before. From the eyes of my noble captain welled tears that I alone witnessed. It was a burden harder to bear than the weight of the Atlantic indifference that finally carried me down and out of his view.

There were no day beams of surface light to follow me into the nether depths of the sea, and rising up out of that mysterious well of life came haunting voices of death. They were sirens from my own kind and they beckoned me. Down I slid, stern first, as I did on that long-ago day of my birth, circling slow on the middle currents as I went. When I finally reached the sea floor, there was no crashing jolt, no further destruction of my much-torn frame, merely a gentle settling into the wet earth from which I had been wrought.

* * *

For twenty-eight years I rested on the floor of the North Atlantic sea. I settled deeper into the clammy soil. Countless vessels sailed on the surface high above me. Sometimes some of them came drifting down and sometimes the still bodies of humans followed them.

More and more the ships built from the forest were replaced, until it was rare to feel the quiet presence of sailing ships, their wood flexing on the rolling sea as they came by. Vessels with rigid, unyielding hulls of steel were noisily threshing the waters. Their thrumming vibrations pierced the weight of water above me and I listened.

Then came the day of October 31, 1957. The sea was still and no wind blew. But I knew my premonition was about to come true. I heard the throb of propellers slicing through the sea above, and with it came the overpowering presence of my old master, Frank Green. Down through the connecting threads of water came the sound of his feet on the deck. I felt his old limp. He was still trying to hide it. His hand was upon a black helm. Then his hand suddenly weakened and left the wheel. He clutched his breast, one of his fingers digging into his fifth rib. His legs folded, and even before his body reached the unfeeling deck I knew my captain had died. The ship sailed on. The throb of its leaving faded away. And I, who had kept the last watch, felt my one remaining rib, the one I had thought was my weakest but which was still holding, finally crumble down without a sound.

* * *

Author’s Note: On October 31, 1957, Frank Green was captain of the iron trawler Imperialist, owned by National Sea of Halifax. It was a warm autumn day without cloud or wind and there was hardly a swell on the sea. While standing on the bridge of the ship, he suddenly grasped his chest and, without making a sound, fell dead to the floor. The crewmen said the bow of the Imperialist suddenly rose unexpectedly and gently, up over a lone grey swell, and then settled down just as gently again on the placid sea.

8 EFFIE MAY PETITE

Flowers Island it is called, though actually there are two of them. The smaller one, Kean’s Island, is separated from the bigger Sturge’s Island by a wide-open tickle of water through which the sea sluices. The names of Sturge and Kean are believed to be the ones who first settled there. Both islands combined cover an area of only a few hundred square feet. The islands are situated just south of Cape Freels, on the northernmost side of Bonavista Bay, and rise just four miles to sea from the seaport of Wesleyville, its nearest mainland point. They are an imposing sight when approached, grey and looming up out of the sea, a seemingly impenetrable granite barrier near which there can be no safety. To the north, south, and east, breaking shoals and treacherous reefs collide with the never-ending Atlantic swells.

But, as is the case with nearly all islands around the coast of Newfoundland, Flowers Island’s rugged approaches can be deceptive. Like similar islands in the area, it bears its limited stunted growth close to its stingy soil. The evergreen-twisted tuckamore that persists there is almost as difficult to walk over as it is walked through, so dense is the growth. Short-stemmed brackens survive in the sheltered hollows of cliffs, and gorse, the old Norse name given to the spiny yellow shrubs, brighten the otherwise drab island grey for a few days at summer’s height. They justify the island’s name and give a charming ring to a place where there are few pleasantries. Some historians claim that the name first given to Bonavista Bay was Rio de Rosa, or Bay of Flowers. Still others believe the name to be of an Italian origin—fior d’aqua—meaning rocks rising out of the sea. Whatever its origin and no matter how rugged its facade, Flowers Island offered a relatively safe haven from the Atlantic sea to its first inhabitants, who relished a homestead close to the cod fishing grounds.

The island is steeped with maritime history and is known more for the names of the people who first settled there than for its geography. One such name is Kean, and especially Abram Kean. Abram maintained the name of the islands came from the flowers that grew there and further claimed that in summer months their rich scent could be detected on the mainland, that Flowers Island “has provided a place for wild flowers to grow and birds to build their nests and hatch their young as nature intended.” Abram Kean would become Flowers Island’s most famous son. One of his greatest feats was as a sealing captain, hunting and subsequently killing one million harp seals.

By the year 1929, the Keans, along with all of the other residents, had long gone from Flowers Island but not from the seafaring way of life. Charles Kean was the great-nephew of Abram Kean, but unlike his great uncle, who was feared more than he was revered, Charlie was a much-loved and well-respected schooner captain.

When he sailed with the others out of the entrance to St. John’s harbour on the evening of November 29, 1929, he was captain of one of the biggest of the schooners. The Effie May Petite was anything but petite. At eighty-nine feet in length she was second only to the three-masted schooner Neptune II, which was still in harbour when the Effie May Petite cleared Amherst Rock at the entrance to the harbour and headed north.

Aboard the schooner, along with their captain, were the men of his crew: Roland Gaulton, Edward Gaulton, Theodore Norris, Aaron Pickett, William Sturge, Phillip Best, Joseph Green, Peter Best, Abner Kean, and John Hoyles. Also aboard were Charlie Kean’s wife, Lydia, and their daughter Doris, who was only five years old. The evening seemed fair enough and Kean figured his big schooner, with an almost following wind from the southeast, would take them along smartly. The Effie, as Charlie called his vessel, was well-loaded with provisions in both holds for the Kean general store in Brookfield, Bonavista Bay. She wasn’t carrying anywhere near the weight of the well-stacked salt fish she had brought to this port just a few days ago. Kean considered his schooner had just enough weight aboard to “keep ’er in ballas’.” The long, sleek schooner had seen many rough seas, and many of them at night under the hand of Skipper Charlie Kean.

Their first indication of trouble ahead was a sudden drop in the needle of the weather glass hanging securely on the starboard wall in the captain’s cabin, just forward of the helm. As if on cue, with the quick barometer drop, the wind blew much harder out of the southeast and the big schooner made good time along by the dark land as she sailed steadily north. Deep into the night the wind began veering steadily, as the weather glass portended and Kean feared, until it was backing from the north. There was no star shine, no moon, and the night was sullen and foreboding. Several times Kean spotted lights from the other schooners. They sometimes showed closer and then farther away as the distant schooners tacked north to home.

The Effie May Petite was taking a hard pounding in the wind and snow, and she had almost made it across Trinity Bay when the wind chopped viciously out of the northwest. It took all of Charlie Kean’s experience and the bravery and sure sailing knowledge of his crew to keep the vessel from being blown away before that first terrible onslaught of wind. The sails were reefed and then reefed again. Still it tasked the skill of the crew who now fought to keep their schooner in the relative safety of the looming land.

They were several cable lengths off the cape of Bonavista when the wind, screaming away from their home waters on the north side of Bonavista Bay, laid into them. It came as a hammer-like blow which the Effie May Petite could not withstand. The schooner reeled broadside, sucker punched by the wind, until, blindsided and staggering in the darkness, she was borne away before the wind with both her masts stripped as naked as an Easter Sunday Cross.

* * *

The day came without comfort or let-up from the gale. It was still snowing and the water crashing over the deck of the Effie May Petite turned the snow to a dirty slush. The schooner had dozens of wooden as well as steel barrels lashed to her deck. Kean’s quick eye for possible problems soon spotted the loosened lines wrapped around the barrels. It looked as though two barrels were already missing. He was right. Two barrels filled with fresh water taken aboard at the St. John’s dock had been washed overboard sometime during the night. Heavy barrels loose on a rolling, pitching deck could be extremely dangerous. He would have no “loose cannons” on his deck! He ordered the lines tightened.

Their trap skiff tied on deck as a lifeboat also had slack lines after last night’s battering, and they, too, were tightened. They had fared well during the night. The men took some of the ripped sails and dragged them below for mending. Kean never sailed without spare sails and sailcloth, and his crew were quite capable of not only mending but sewing new sails. Right now, though, as he surveyed the situation, Kean could see no advantage of having sails aloft in such a blow. He decided on a trysail, or spencer. He instructed his crew to attach a small, triangular sail abaft of the mainmast in the hopes of keeping his vessel into the teeth of the wind. It yielded only marginal effect, for during the course of the day the Effie May Petite boxed the compass.

The two lost barrels of water had dangerously limited their supply. Not knowing how long it would take them to reach land again, Kean immediately ordered water rationing. He decided to fetch a barrel of oranges from the schooner’s after hold along with two cases of soda pop. It was a dangerous manoeuvre. The removal of a hatch cover on a schooner with her deck frequently awash was not to be done without extreme care. If the items were in the forward hold he would not risk it in these sea conditions. The timing had to be just right. An open hold in heavy seas could mean disaster. The crashing weight of just one roller pouring down into the hold could easily swamp the Effie May Petite.

That day of misery wore on. Each wave bearing down on them seemed to be a challenge. Night was coming again and still Charlie Kean had not seen the right conditions to remove the hatch from the hold. He couldn’t risk it. If the chance didn’t present itself before dark they would have to wait until morning.

Then, with barely an hour of daylight left, the opportunity came. There was a sudden lull in the weight of wind they had waited under all day. Though the schooner was still rolling gunnel in and gunnel out in heavy seas, and the waves still licked and snarled along the scupper edges, for several minutes the heaviest of the swells abated. Kean figured it was a tide change and it was long enough.

At the skipper’s shout, men with backs bent scurried over the deck, looking like monkeys. They clung to safety lines that hung from the rigging and masts and trailed fore and aft between the after and forward hatch covers. A man carrying a sledgehammer smote the wedges holding the hatch cover in place. The wedges flew from the hold chocks at his blows and, still holding to their lines, clattered upon the slippery deck. They slid open the hatch cover just enough to allow a man to enter and two jumped down, one after the other. One of them was Roland Gaulton, just seventeen years old, fearless and quick as a cat on hot bricks.

Two lengths of rope were thrown after them. More men stood on deck peering down into the hold as they held on to the rope ends. Shouts were heard from Kean at the helm. Shouts came from the hurrying men. The ropes wrapped around both ends of the barrel of oranges were strained back by the deckhands and the barrel appeared out of the depths. Then they quickly hauled it over the edge. Quicker still, two wooden crates of soda pop came up into waiting hands and the two men climbed back up out of the hold. They hauled the hatch cover over and replaced the wedges. The man with the hammer slammed down on each wedge and the hatch cover was secure again. The crew carried the cases of drinks forward to the forecastle with the sound of water sucking and hissing along the schooner’s sides as they ran. The rolling barrel was pushed and kicked along the swaying deck, the scuttle to the forecastle was opened, and the drinks and the barrel of oranges disappeared below.

Kean relaxed his grip on the spokes of the wheel and breathed easier. He had kept the Effie May Petite full into the wind, or in irons, while his men had carried out his orders. It had all taken just a few minutes, with every move choreographed like a nimble dancer. The night closed around the schooner, and as the darkness fell upon them the wind rose to gale force again. And the only semblance of light came from the frothy, white, cascading bubbles that were ceaselessly cast aside by the plunging bows of the Effie May Petite.

* * *

It takes a rare breed of man to stand defiantly on the open deck of a heaving schooner, in the teeth of a winter gale, in total darkness. The only thing the pitching binnacle showed Kean was that they were bearing away from the land again. He was relieved at the wheel at regular intervals by members of his faithful crew. There were two men on deck at all times now.

Below the deck no one really slept. The forecastle was damp and cold, so they had started a fire in the small stove. There was plenty of coal aboard to keep the stove going, but they would only open the stove drafter partway. The backdrafts of wind baffled down the small stovepipe and curled black smoke out through the damper. Besides the smoke, there was the constant fear of the stove overturning with the unpredictable rolling of the schooner. Inside the forecastle, or forward cabin, the effects of that fierce gale were intense. The bows of the schooner took the brunt of the terrible wind and seas and the noise was deafening. The rush of sea water tearing along the schooner’s sides, separated from the crew by only a few inches of creaking wood, was not a pleasant sound on this night. Even below the deck that fury of wind emitted a howling noise, and the wind-whine from the near-naked rigging pierced the crowded cabin.

The captain’s wife, Lydia, and her daughter Doris were seated at the wedge-shaped table, fully clothed with winter coats, and wrapped around young Doris’s neck was a heavy, hand-knitted red scarf. Lydia was reading a well-worn Bible by the dismal light of a smoky lantern, which squeaked as it swung back and forth from its gimbal above her head. Young Doris asked where the cat was. It was a medium-sized male cat with mottled colours and it always sailed aboard the Effie May Petite. The cat was considered to be a wonderful hunter, the proof in that there was never a field mouse, or dreaded rat—always a feared pest that was known to board ships while tied to the wharves in the harbour of St. John’s—found aboard the schooner. There came a faint mewling sound amid the din of the storm and everyone looked around for the cat. The schooner’s bow rose high and fell back with a crashing sound and the flaws screamed above the deck of the schooner. Somewhere the cat meowed again, indistinct. It could have been anywhere in the shadowed cabin. Figuring the animal would bring the girl some comfort, some of the men began looking for it.

Roland Gaulton was passing the stove when he heard the sound again.

“Listen, b’ys! Sounds like it’s comin’ from the stove oven!” he said.

Everyone listened, but another flaw hit the schooner and, with its cacophony of noises, drowned out the sounds of the missing cat. The wind noise subsided, and then everyone heard it: the pitiful sound of the cat trapped in the hot oven. Gaulton pulled the door down and the frantic cat shot out onto the floor! The fur all over its body was burnt and singed. Crying in pain and terror, the smoking cat raced into the very eyes of the forecastle. Hidden in the dark recess of the schooner’s bows, the creature moaned in pain. It remained there and refused to come to the crew. Many hours later its pitiful cries calmed and it grew quiet.

* * *

Charlie Kean had earned his sea legs under the tutelage of Abram Kean, under whose stern watch no man dared buckle. The Keans were men born of the sea. This wasn’t Charlie Kean’s first time in a gale, even at night, but he hadn’t seen one with such ferocity. Kean had no fear for himself or for his crew. They were hand-picked and proven seamen and had sailed with him to the coast of Labrador many times under the worst of conditions. Not one of them would complain or show fear. But aboard his schooner tonight, riding out the storm, there was cause for Charlie Kean to be afraid. His wife and his precious child were aboard. Charlie was just as tough and just as capable a seaman as his uncle Abram, but Charlie Kean was a most compassionate man. He considered the welfare of all aboard his vessel to be his responsibility and no one else’s. And before harm came to his family, he would have himself lashed to the helm and die before the bare masts of the Effie May Petite.

On their first night out, the crew of the Effie May Petite had twice seen lights. They figured they belonged to one of the fleet that had left St. John’s along with them and that, being adrift on the same terrible sea, the owner could offer no assistance. But on this night they also spotted lights that would have had to come from ships. The spirits of everyone aboard lifted when they found out that a large ocean-going ship had been spotted. A bucket was filled with clothing doused with kerosene, tied to a gantline, and hoisted above the deck of the stricken schooner. The light flared and flashed as the wind knocked the bucket back and forth many times, and then it went out. The men repeated the same procedure again and again. But the ship disappeared over the humped sea without acknowledging in any way that they had seen the schooner. The crew of the Effie May Petite were alone again on an endless sea, wrapped in a cauldron of blackest night.

The Effie May Petite was thirteen years old. She was built in the town of Allendale in the county of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, in 1913 and was framed of stout Nova Scotian oak and solid spruce planking. Her first owner was Jeremiah Petite of English Harbour, Trinity Bay, in Newfoundland. Jeremiah named the schooner after two of his family members. The first time Charlie Kean had stepped onto the solid deck of the Effie May Petite he knew her worth. He wasn’t all that pleased with her name. He would have preferred to give the schooner a name of his own choosing, but this old rhyme came to him:

Change my skipper and my helm holds true;

But change my name and rough seas to you.

And though Kean was not a superstitious man, he kept the schooner’s christened name—though he considered that keeping her name hadn’t brought him much good luck on this sailing. Charlie Kean had no way of knowing it, but all of the schooners that had sailed out of St. John’s harbour on Friday evening were not faring as well as his. In fact, the Effie May Petite was one of the lucky ones. Aside from being stripped of her sails—most of which had been recovered and could be repaired—and despite being pounded day and night, the schooner was still in good condition. Virtually all of her deck cargo—which was usually the first to go in a gale—was still intact. Even the schooner’s lifeboat still tied on deck with only a few signs of minor chafing, was uninjured. This fact was as much accredited to the intrepid crew of the Effie May Petite as it was to her stalwart captain.

The gales continued for days. After all that time, even though the Effie May Petite had been beaten away ever eastward, she was now less than eighty miles southeast of the harbour entrance through which she had so eagerly sailed. It was Thursday, December 5. The winds had moderated some, though conditions were still dangerous; after days of gale-force winds, the sea surface was in torment. Great rolling hills of water undulated and flexed their frothy tops before sliding down to grey valleys, only to rise again expectantly.

Kean and his crew had retained the storm trysail and had added a reefed foresail and jib. Despite the schooner’s trial at sea, the little jib gave the vessel a determined, jaunty air as she reached again for the safety of the faraway land. But if the downed needle of the weather glass was any indication, which Kean checked by tapping with an anxious finger every hour, their ordeal was far from over. Then a great ship hove up over the undulating horizon, slid out of sight, and then bulged against the skyline once more. Her plunging bows were pointed toward the Effie May Petite.

* * *

The SS Meigle was just one of the ships that had been ordered to sea by the Newfoundland government to search for the northern schooner fleet. They had spent days searching the ocean for the missing schooners. The Meigle was 220 feet long, fashioned from steel in the Barclay, Culle and Company shipyard at Whiteinch, Glasgow. For the crew of the Effie May Petite, who ran shouting on deck at the unexpected sighting of the ship, she was heaven-sent. The ship, which was more than twice the size of the schooner, looked formidable as it poured black smoke out of her lone stack and bore down on them. It would take only one nudge from the steel ship to sink the schooner as quickly as a leaky dory.

Captain Burgess of the Meigle was well aware of the damage his ship could do to the wooden schooner. He veered to the windward of the smaller vessel. The smoke from her funnel faded as her engines were slowed and she hove to within hailing distance. Keeping the schooner in his lee, Burgess shouted across the rolling seas to Kean.

“Skipper Kean o’ the Effie May Petite?” The question came muffled over the water.

“An’ that I am, sir!” Kean shouted back.

“Are you prepared to abandon your vessel, sir?”

“Aban—aban—’deed I am not, sir!” came the incredulous reply.

“How may I assist you, then?”

“Tow my vessel to the nearest shore, sir! Any shore!”

The captain of the Meigle paused to consider Kean’s request, then said, “Stand by for my stern hawser, sir, and make it fast in your bows! We will give you plenty of scoop! Keep your helm, though, and drop your sails!” Another pause, then, “Good luck to you, Skipper!”

“My t’anks to ’ee, sir! I am in yer debt!”

With this brief discourse between the two captains concluded, a sudden puff of smoke billowed out of the Meigle’s stack and she made sea room between them. The end of a huge line was paid out over the Meigle’s taffrail and it floated toward the pitching schooner in the ship’s wake. A man waiting on the deck of the Effie May Petite threw a cod jigger when the hawser came near. His first throw was successful and he pulled the towline to the starboard bow of the schooner, where it was hauled aboard by many eager hands and quickly fastened to the schooner’s forward bollard. The ship gained way and plucked the bow of the schooner to heel. The schooner came into the wind and the ship took her weight.

They were not fully under way when a deep, sneaky roller reached up under the bow of the schooner and lifted her bows free of the water. At the same time the lumbering Meigle, hundreds of feet ahead, was falling down over the slope of a similar swell. The cable parted, like a housewife’s sewing thread, with a whip crack plainly heard aboard the schooner. The Effie May Petite was instantly broached to, and just like that she was adrift again. The schooner careened over on her beam ends before she righted herself, so slow was she to answer her helm without sail.

The Meigle’s wake turned white with the thresh of her propeller as she veered around, with black smoke pouring from her stack. Captain Burgess would not give up his charge as easy as that. The ship rounded well astern of the schooner, then slowed and steamed along her windward side again. This time a heavier line was dangling over her stern. A man on the deck of the schooner stood ready with jigger in hand again.

“The jigger line will not take the strain of that line!” yelled Kean. “Get a grab ’old! Quick, afore she passes!”

Another man grabbed a line with a small grapnel attached. He spun the grapnel twice before he released it, and again the towline was hooked on the first try. The crew manhandled the new cable up over the heaving sides of the schooner. The line was bigger than a man’s arm. The schooner’s bows suffered the same whiplike jerk as before when her drift was suddenly checked. She shivered from bow to stern at the indignity. Then, like a lost pup fighting at her leash, she finally settled into the pull for home. It was the first time Charlie Kean had been towed anywhere.

There came no excited shouts of joy as there had been on the first attempt. The crew of the Effie May Petite expected the line to part again at any time. But an hour later, after they had suffered many hard plucks and the line still held, they relaxed and breathed sighs of relief. Their time at sea was almost at an end.

* * *

They had been taken under tow around 9:00 a.m. As the day and the distance to land decreased, the wind increased and it started to snow again. The seas climbed higher. The Meigle slowed to lessen the plucking strain on the schooner. Then at 3:00 p.m. the line parted again and the Meigle disappeared under a scudding blanket of snow. The Effie May Petite went back into the storm, alone again.

Cries of disbelief went up aboard the schooner. The trysail was hurried aloft again in an attempt to gain some control over her rudder. These men would never give up the fight. Then, rising out of the blinding snow squall came the sound of the Meigle’s whistle. The ship was still searching for her charge. Pots were brought on deck and banged together until they were dented. The heads of oil drums were hammered, but in utter dismay the crew of the schooner heard the sound of their would-be rescuer fade away. The wind had risen as the day died and, as if taking what was rightfully its own, the west wind bore the battered vessel and its exhausted handlers away to sea once more.

* * *

On board the Meigle, Burgess cursed the cables that had broken. He was now in a quandary. He was getting dangerously low on fuel—he had been to sea for days searching for the schooners. Looking out the port bridge window he could see another, more dangerous problem. The snow was a drifting screen that even the powerful lights of his ship could not penetrate. The Effie May Petite had no modern means of communication. If she carried a light at all, it would be a dismal one. The captain’s fear was in cutting down the schooner he was so desperately trying to save in the stormy night. He had no choice but to go slow in his efforts to find the schooner. He also knew that, with every minute, the schooner was drifting farther and farther away from him. Certainly the schooner would be blown downwind, but on a night like this one she could be anywhere. He comforted himself with the knowledge that, when he had last seen her, the Effie May Petite had not been in any immediate danger of sinking. After three fruitless hours of searching for the schooner, he changed course and steamed for St. John’s harbour for more fuel.

* * *

They had heard the Meigle’s engine power up. They had listened with ears bent, hoping to hear the noise come closer, and listened further in disbelief and despair when amid the tempest the ship became no more that a soft drone that finally died. The elation everyone felt at being so near to the precious land was now replaced by chagrin at being cast away again to the wiles of a dreadful sea. Kean came forward to the forecastle and tried to allay their fears.

“The Meigle will find us again, b’ys. But you can see ’ow t’ick it is topside. It will take some doin’ fer Burgess to fine us. We’ve set the starm lanterns aloft. In the meantime, we’re doing a’right. We’ve plenty of grub—a bit short of water, I’ll grant ya, but we have survived the worst storms I ’ave ever seen. We’re goin’ to be a’right.”

“I can’t believe the Meigle’s lines broke as dey did, Skipper—the two of ’em! Sure dey mus’ ’ave been fousty!” came from one of the crew.

“Dey should’ve hanked another line to dat last one. Doubled ’em up,” another one said quietly.

“Dere’s only a coupla gallons of fresh water left in the fo’c’sle barrel, Skipper.”

“Ration it out fer drinking an’ not fer tea.”

“’Tis ’ard to swallow grub wit’out the tea, Skipper.”

“Drink the soda pop till ’tis all gone, den,” Kean said. “The boys’re tryin’ to fill a barrel with snow on deck. Though ’twill not be easy wit’ all that spray comin’ over ’er. Fetch some new cloth out of the sail locker. We’ve more patchin’ to do. Use the double naught duck,” he added.

“’Tis hard stuff to sew, Skipper. We can’t find nar file aboard to sharpen the awl with.”

“Do the best ya can, b’ys. ’Tis the tough stuff we need. I intend to tack fer the shore again at firs’ light.”

“Seems like we’ll ’ave a white Christmas, Skipper,” came from a shadowed bunk. The speaker was grinning and it lightened the mood.

“I’ll have every manjack aboard home long before Christmas,” Charlie Kean said, and with that he went back out to the windy deck of his schooner.

True to his word, the determined skipper was beating toward the land even before the first steely light of dawn came. Despite the constant watch changes, the crew were dead tired. These were men who frequently not only lived but thrived on the very cusp of danger, but there was a limit to their legendary strength and they were nearing it now.

* * *

Lydia and Doris had endured their own battle in the small cabin on the after deck. Several times during their first two nights at sea, when he entered the cabin, Kean had heard his daughter crying and the comforting softness of her mother’s voice. But as the terrible days and nights wore on his heart burst with pride to see his young daughter playing on a tossing bunk. Lydia had shared the same water ration as the rest of the crew, and when her daughter tired of the sweet drinks, Lydia gave up her own portion of water for Doris. Kean had seen seasoned seamen become violently ill under the constant pitch and roll of a schooner, but amazingly, neither his wife nor young daughter suffered from seasickness.

Monday came before they had tacked their way close enough to see the high, looming land. Kean figured it might be Cape Race, and he made ready to enter Trepassey Bay. The winds, now gale-force out of the northeast, bore down over the headlands like a winter demon.

The indefatigable Effie May Petite struggled to keep the land, but she was slowly losing ground. She made it back to land again and was beating her slow way just a few miles south of Cape Race when another ship showed itself on that windy sea. It was the SS Farnorth. The schooner’s distress flag, although tattered, caught the ship’s attention and the Farnorth veered toward them.

“Would you like a tow, Skipper?” was hailed from the bridge of the Farnorth as she hove to the windward of the Effie May Petite.

Charlie Kean looked briefly at the reams of the Meigle’s hawser, which still dangled uselessly over his starboard bow.

“I don’t think I will, sir! But if you could bide to the win’ard of us, we’ll make fer the lun of Trepassey Bay!”

“Aye to that, Skipper! We will stand to your win’ard side for as long as you need us! Good luck, sir!”

“My t’anks to you, sir!”

And so, with the big steamer cutting down on the northeast wind, the Effie May Petite finally came into the shelter of land under her own tattered sails. In the lee of Freshwater Point, on the southeastern edge of Trepassey Bay, Kean came alongside the Farnorth. Barrels of fresh water were hoisted aboard the schooner, and two of the schooner’s crew who had suffered bruises from their ordeal were transferred aboard the Farnorth. It would take considerable time to repair the schooner’s sails to make them suitable for controlled steering. The wind was still more than half a gale out of the northeast. Skipper Kean and the Farnorth captain discussed their options, and Kean relayed his recent experience under tow and his reluctance to have it repeated. A much heavier cable with nearly twenty fathoms of one-inch chain attached to it was secured between the two vessels.

The next day, December 10, the Farnorth steamed into the haven of St. John’s harbour with the Effie May Petite still tied to her stern. The schooner’s ordeal at sea was over. Her attempted 100-mile run for home had kept the schooner adrift at sea for eleven days. And snoring gently in the cradled arms of young Doris Kean, and bristling with a brand new calico coat, was the schooner’s cat!

9 LLOYD JACK

Only two schooners made it back to land under their own sails and control. The first one was the smallest one of the fleet, the little Water Sprite of Wesleyville under the command of John Bishop. She sailed back to the port of St. John’s after six days at sea. The only other one to do so unaided was the Lloyd Jack under Skipper Eldon Bishop, also of Wesleyville. The two captains were cousins. Incredibly, before she fought her way back, the Lloyd Jack was at sea for twenty days.

Edward Churnside Bishop was born on the Salisbury plains of south central England on March 22, 1798, when Britain and Ireland were ruled by King George III. George was one of the Hanover kings. A Saxon. Hanover was in reality in Germany, but due to a union with British royalty, the Hanovers, though German-born, ascended to the throne of England. Many of the British population called them the German kings. King George III, however, was born in England, he spoke the English language, and he never went to Hanover, Germany. He was the first of the Hanover line to be considered by the British people a true English king.

England was a major world power of both land and sea. Amazingly, the tiny English-speaking island nation floating on the western edge of Europe controlled one fifth of the entire world land mass and no less than one quarter of the world’s population, most of which could not speak the King’s English. When the British royalty boasted that the sun never set on their flag, it was probably true. England was a controlling, dominating nation that had no respect for boundaries, no matter how distant they were.

At home, the British industrialists were just as dominating, and they were entering into the age of an industrial revolution, which would change the world forever. Electricity was invented. Modern machinery thrummed away in their mills. New means of communication and travel were invented. The modern English businessmen had something else to keep their bottom lines black: child labour.

When evening whistles announced the end of another day of terrible labour and hordes of men and women poured out of grimy factories, around their legs scurried hundreds of young children, boys and girls. Many of them were not yet tall enough to reach the cluttering shuttlecocks that raced back and forth over their heads as they carried heavy bolts of cloth and skeins of wool to their masters’ bulging shelves.

Far below the English soil, in dust-choked stopes of unvented, gaseous, lamplit coal mines, children were placed on their bellies on wheeled trolleys and pushed into crevices too small for men. They carried in their pudgy, coal-gritted hands, handmade explosive devices with fuses already alight. After placing the bomb in a fracture of the seamed coal vein, the yelling child was pulled rapidly backward by the rope attached to his pram. Sometimes they were not pulled back fast enough.

Into such an England young Eldon Bishop was born and raised. He was a fortunate child. His father was a well-established member of the Church of England, and through his influence Eldon received a top-notch education. He grew up just eight kilometres away from one of the greatest mysteries known to man—Stonehenge. The colossus dominated the Salisbury plains and downs where the growing boy sometimes played. Reported to be as ancient as 3,000 years and feared by almost everyone—especially religious people—it was just a place of weird-looking stones to the growing Eldon. However, no boy was brave enough to enter the ruins when the sun had gone.

Weary travellers walking, and peddlers with jingling wagons always found a welcome at Eldon’s parents’ door when evening came. They lived by a winding, gravelly road that disappeared into the lonely plains of Salisbury. Frequently, travellers who found their feet under his mother’s table were seamen. Their faces were weather-burnt and crinkled. Their eyes squinted and seemed to pierce the listener as they told their wayward tales. Tales of oceans that had taken months to cross over. Where emerald seas, warm as the water on the stove hob, washed upon glittering white beaches that burnt a man’s bare feet. Tales of rum-drinking pirates who never washed or shaved, who stole rich cargoes from ships at sea and sometimes dark-eyed women from the land.

But always they spoke of a New-founde-lande. A huge island so big they had never sailed all the way around it. It was a place where icy seas snarled around the most terrible of coastlines, where ghostly fogs came creeping up out of a clear sea—a place where schools of fishes so thick as to foul a ship’s keel crowded the water to very cliffs. Young Bishop listened with wonder at such tales of the distant seas. The only body of water he had ever seen was the confluence of the Bourne, Wyle, Ebble, and Nabbeb rivers, all tributaries of the river Avon, at Wiltshire, where he lived.

Then one day when he was a man—though still a young one—he found himself at the mouth of the Avon River where it ran into the English Channel. There in the crowded seaport of Christchurch, a very excited and extremely nervous Eldon Bishop boarded a brigantine outbound for Newfoundland. The ship had two masts, one of which, the foremast, was square-rigged, and the other, the mainmast, was fore and aft, or schooner-rigged. The vessel was badly in need of paint and both her hulls looked as though they had scrubbed against the spiles of far too many wharves.

They left the harbour on the ebb tide, without fanfare and with no one waving, with the promise of day still below the aft sails. Late evening of the second day found them still beating southwest. They had left the Lizard behind and were passing the Scilly Isles to starboard when a brisk southwest breeze coming up out of the Bay of Biscay found them. Her sails filled with new wind and her lee scuppers flooded. The brigantine left the islands of Britain behind and reached into the open Atlantic for another great island.

It took the ship thirty-eight days to reach the northeast coast of Newfoundland. Though he had no fear of the sea, for nearly twenty of those days Eldon Bishop was sick. No one pitied him. He envied nimble sailors who climbed ratlines and hung from shrouds. He watched as they ran without a care out over yardarms high above unsteady decks and cried like perching ravens to men below. He had overcome his illness and was enjoying the experience of his first sea journey when the ship lowered sail and hove to off the small yet treacherous Greenspond harbour. There they would have to clear customs. The Bishops of England had arrived at the north side of Bonavista Bay.

Bearing the credentials of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, as well as the Colonial and Continental School Society, Eldon Bishop became involved in the church and also served as a schoolteacher. The man who had been raised on the Salisbury plains of far-off England spent his lifetime around the isolated islands of Bonavista North. He eventually fell in love with and married a young Wicks woman from Fair Island. He lived on Pinchard’s Island for a while. He died on Swain’s Island on May 13, 1885.

* * *

The sense of freedom and adventure that had borne their ancestor away from possible servitude and indenture, unbeknownst that another way of life even existed, was well-founded in his progeny. The man who bore the old pioneer’s name, Eldon Bishop, was captain of the schooner Lloyd Jack. He and his crew had been adrift at sea for days and all of them were nearing exhaustion. Water came lacing over the weather bow of the schooner and stung into his salt-encrusted eyes, but by now he was immune to it.

The flung spray came again and he licked the warm water from his lips. Warm water? The water was actually warm! They had drifted out into the Gulf Stream!

Almost immediately, despite the northwest gale, came the feel of his schooner bearing to the northeast. Bishop knew about the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico reaching all the way to Newfoundland, of course. Dozens of stories were told, when schooner captains gathered in port, about these same ocean currents. Stories such as the one about two banking schooners each laden with codfish harvested from the far offshore Banks. One had beaten farther out to sea in a winter gale and had survived, and the other, which had tried to make it to land in the same blow, had not. The difference, of course, was that while both schooners had to weather the same gale—in fact, the one that had headed farther to sea probably encountered more wind—the one that found the warm waters of the gulf did not have to deal with the added weight of tons of freezing water on its deck.

Although the Gulf Stream gets its name from the Gulf of Mexico, from where it veers north and follows the eastern seaboard all the way to the east coast of Newfoundland and beyond, this largest of gulfs is not its origin. It actually begins in the warm waters around the Canary Islands, off the northwest coast of Africa. Sometimes it even spawns out of the heated sands of the great Sahara Desert. This “Canary Current” first bears south to the bulge of Africa before flowing west toward the Americas, then north into the Gulf of Mexico before it turns toward the northeast. Its flow reaches as far north as Norway on the edge of the Barents Sea.

Some of North America’s earliest explorers thought the warm waters of the Gulf Stream originated from the Mississippi River. Although that river drains a large portion of the North American continent and its source can even be traced into Canada’s north—and though it spews its voluminous warm flow into the Gulf of Mexico—they were wrong. The Gulf Stream is a ponderous flow of sea water that makes even our planet’s mightiest rivers seem like shallow streams in comparison.

Eldon Bishop had no exact way of telling how far off shore he and his crew had drifted. He had a compass on board, which gave him direction but not position. It was built into the binnacle next to the helm. He had a dogvane of his own devising, a simple thing that gave him wind direction and nothing more. There was no other means of navigation on board the Lloyd Jack. By his calculation, based on hours adrift and by taking frequent speed checks with the taffrail log, he figured they were as far as 200 miles east of St. John’s.

The warm waters of the Gulf Stream vary from year to year, depending on how close they come to the east coast of Newfoundland. Some years the stream can be detected as close as fifty miles, other years as far as 300 miles. After passing the Grand Banks and standing far to sea from the east coast of Newfoundland, the current is divided. Its tributary, which bears part of the flow steadily north, is called the North Atlantic Drift, while the flow that prevails to the west holds its name of origin, the Gulf Stream.

Bishop was a man of infinite patience with an ever-curious and inventive mind. He was also that type of individual who becomes bothered by not knowing where he is, and he was bothered now. He was convinced he was right about being out into the warm gulf waters. It had to be: there was nowhere else around the coast of Newfoundland like it. He had several charts aboard that he could read more by rote than by education. However, he had no charts for anywhere along the southern coast of Newfoundland, west of Cape Race. These marine maps were of little use to him now, anyway. He knew they had sailed out over the edge of his charts days ago, but exactly where he was he wasn’t at all sure.

Like most schooners, there was a sounding lead aboard the Lloyd Jack. This was a simple, ancient instrument used the world over by sailors to determine water depth. A leadsman stood in the chains, or bows, of the schooner. If the schooner was moving, the lead was whirled and thrown as far forward as possible. Leadsmen were chosen for their good throwing arm as well as for their ability to simultaneously measure the line as they pulled it back. This was done by stretching the retrieved line the full extent of a man’s reach. A man’s extended arms were considered to be one fathom. One fathom is six feet. This method of measuring the bottom had produced many idioms over the years. The “Deep Six,” six fathoms or thirty-six feet of water under a ship’s keel, was considered to be safe.

One of the terms used with this method of measurement was made famous by one of America’s most celebrated authors, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or, as he is better known, Mark Twain.

While still a young man, Clemens was trained as a pilot on a stern paddle wheeler on the Mississippi River. The Mississippi bears tons of silt along with its determined flow of water. Due to the constant addition of soil swept from its nation-long banks as it passes, its bottom is constantly shifting into different depths. It makes for dangerous conditions for the boats that ply their way over its murky surface. The bottom had to be constantly sounded, and this was Clemens’s main job as pilot. He quickly learned the jargon of a leadsman: The words “By the mark—twain” or two fathoms, were sung out so often they were shortened to “Mark Twain.” When Clemens started writing about life along the Mississippi River, he of course adopted the pen name Mark Twain.

The sounding lead was a good tool when sailing in strange waters, especially the isolated rugged shores of Labrador, where most of the schooners fished. Most of the Newfoundland schoonermen simply threw the lead cod jigger for sounding the bottom, but Bishop’s lead was a better one. He had seen one, years before on a big tern schooner out of the French port of St. Pierre, and Bishop made it his own. He poured a short, cylindrical piece of lead with a shallow concavity in one of its ends. The other end was attached to a strong, thin fishing line fifty fathoms long. While dry, the lead was smeared with tallow. The hollow in the lead’s end was packed with tallow, or sometimes a sticky grease. This instrument could tell observant skippers of rocky or muddy bottoms, which could mean good holding grounds, or of sandy ones, which would not.

For days now the thrown lead aboard the wayward Lloyd Jack had brought from the bottom pebbles and sand and, once, grey mud, with two tiny, sideways-crawling shrimplike creatures stuck to the tallow. Another time it brought up pink coral pulsating with life. Sometimes the line ran out the full fifty fathoms and found no bottom at all. Other times the bottom had risen to thirty fathoms. It once showed an amazing fifteen fathoms—this was an area of immense ocean swells that seemed to rise up out of the very depths of the sea, as if the land would soon appear, and still no land was seen.

Another Bishop aboard the Lloyd Jack was the first mate. Churnside Bishop carried the given name of his forebear. He made his way aft and joined the captain at the wheel.

“We’ve reached warm water as you planned, Eld, b’y,” Churnside shouted above the roar of wind and crashing waves. He never called Eldon Skipper. Not only were they family, they were close friends.

“Aye, we ’ave, though mind ye I’d sooner take the cold water, providin’ we were under the lan’. The warm water means we’ve come out into the stream we’ve always ’eard about, a’right,” came the bellowed answer.

“’Tis a wunnerful t’ing to see the snow an’ ice melt an’ the brutal wind as col’ as ever.”

“Aye, ’tis jest one of the mysteries of the sea, I s’pose. I’ve heard the current ’ere in those warm waters can run as much as eight knots. No bottom either on the last soundin’. You’re right about the wind. It’d still burn ’ee.” Eldon tried once again to button his wet coat collar as he had done many times on this voyage, but again his neck lay exposed. The button had been missing for days.

“The ice is drippin’ from the riggin’ like ice from the eaves of me ’ouse on a spring day. We’re ridin’ higher already!” Churnside shouted.

“P’raps I should’ve kept our cargo on deck,” the skipper said. He spoke this in a voice so low Churnside could barely make it out over the noise. He watched the skipper’s eyes flash around the near-naked deck of the heaving vessel before he spoke.

“’Twas the rite decision, Eld. We was too top-’eavy. If you ’adn’t ordered the freight overboard we would’ve swamped days ago. Don’t be punishin’ yerself over the loss of a few barrels of h’oil an’ such.”

“I guess yer right, b’y. ’Sides that, ’tis no good to be cryin’ over spilt milk.”

“Spilt h’oil in dis case,” shouted the mate. He was actually grinning and it brightened the skipper’s mood. Churnside had that way about him.

A thin smile broke through the stiff beard on the skipper’s face. “We’ll soon be ice-free again. Den we’re beatin’ our way nar’west again. Back into the cold waters fer ’ome. I still says our rotten sails ’ave been the bigges’ cause of our misery. Dat bloody S’n John’s sailmaker! ’E’s like all the rest of the S’n John’s merchants. The buggers can’t be trusted.”

And with that the skipper of the Lloyd Jack put the helm over and the schooner heeled away from the warm waters of the Mexican Gulf toward the island of Newfoundland again.

* * *

“What do ’ee mean not ready? We’re leavin’ on dis evenin’s tide! All the scunners are. I’ve got to ’ave all of me new sails. The ones on her spars now ’ave even got patches in the mendin’.”

“’Tis not possible fer me to do, Skipper Bishop. All we’ve got ready of yer order is the jib and jumbo. Wit’ all of the schooners in town an’ half of ’em wantin’ sails either made er mended, ’twas not possible.”

“Well, why did ’ee tell a man fer if ’ee knew ’twas not fer the doing? I give ’ee me arder fer a brand new suit of sails better dan five days ago!”

“Why don’t you wait a day or so, Skipper? By that toime I’ll ’ave all of ya sails finished.”

“Wait! Wait! An’ not leave ’arbour wit’ the rest of the fleet? Why, you must be sillier dan a narry-face capelin!” Eldon expostulated. He felt insulted. “Never a Bishop yet was lef’ in the wake of no man, sir, fer not being ready fer sea. Get what you’ve made onto yer ’arse ’n dray an’ down to the dock, sir. I’ve barely time to get ’em aloft afore the tide turns.”

A fuming Bishop, not showing any of his usual patience, paid cash for the two smaller sails and went out of the sailmaker’s shop and slammed the door behind him. The sailmaker, who was a timid man, jumped as the door slammed shut, and he just remembered he hadn’t asked Bishop if he was going to pay—in advance—for the rest of his order.

* * *

That night the wind shifted from southeast to north and then northwest. The only cloth left on the Lloyd Jack was the two new sails. Bishop ordered her helm down, and with her back to the wind’s full fury, the vessel fled south with it and disappeared into the Atlantic night. In would be no less than twenty days later before the schooner made land again, and during all of that time not one sign was seen of the schooner Lloyd Jack. She was feared lost with all hands.

In the village of Wesleyville, the families of the Lloyd Jack’s crew had never given up hope, though there were some in that community who doubted the schooner had survived. They never voiced their doubt to anyone, though. They would not be heeded, anyway. It was known that the Lloyd Jack had left St. John’s harbour around the same time as the schooner Neptune II. The Neptune II was from Newtown, just a few miles north of Wesleyville, and she had not being heard of either. All of the other schooners that had gone adrift in that wicked November gale had been accounted for. Some had been wrecked at sea. Some had been towed back to port. But the smallest one of them all, the little Water Sprite, had made it back to port unaided. The Water Sprite was skippered by another member of the Bishops of Bonavista North: John Bishop.

Mid-December came with winter blows that seemed never to let up, and always the wind blew away from the land. Christmas was near, but no one in Wesleyville was in the traditional outport Christmas spirit yet. Each time when news came of another schooner’s safe arrival back to land, the spirits of the people of Wesleyville were lifted and buoyed afresh.

The only means of modern communication was in the village post office, in the form of telegraphy. The postmaster, who was also Morse code receiver and dispatcher, waited daily for news. News of public interest came at a set time each day, usually in the evening. When the little machine with so much power sitting on his lone desk became animated, he carefully copied its messages.

Between his office and the porch that led to the outside was a low, narrow wicket through which mail was handed and news relayed. But as each passing day brought no news from the Lloyd Jack, the crowds who eagerly waited for comforting news grew until the porch could not hold their numbers. The postmaster now went outside each day at the appointed time for news and, standing without coat or hat, read from the writing of his own longhand. Children and adults waited in complete silence, huddled against the bite of wind careening over that barren land. With great anticipation they feared the postmaster’s words but longed for them nonetheless. The postmaster, who knew every man aboard the Lloyd Jack and was friends with most of them, shook his head sadly before he even looked at his single sheaf of paper.

The news the man had to tell those who so anxiously waited was not bad, but it wasn’t anywhere near good news, either. With the exception of the three-masted schooner Neptune II out of Newtown, the Lloyd Jack was the only schooner not accounted for. The man added that not one sighting of the schooner had been reported from the three steamships sent by the Newfoundland government to search for the missing fleet. The last two schooners had simply disappeared. Maybe the two schooners were at sea together, someone suggested hopefully, but the words came without comfort. The crowd shuffled away, murmuring among themselves over the drifting snow–covered lanes. As they passed the church built on a knoll just up from the sea, two men descended a ladder that led to the high, peaked roof. They had been searching the sea in vain for evening sails. Walking behind the scattering crowd, their shadows blended with the others.

* * *

When the wind veered viciously out of the north and west on their first night out, the Lloyd Jack was nearing the entrance to Catalina harbour. They had made it across Trinity Bay. The lights from Catalina twinkled. Then came a roar of wind that still could not hide from Skipper Bishop’s ears the hated sound of tearing sailcloth. Both the main and topsails ripped from their gaff topsails to their clews. The sails luffed and flapped when they spilled their wind, like the broken pinions of giant birds. Bishop ordered the torn sails down and furled, before they were destroyed beyond repair. He cursed the St. John’s sailmaker for not having his full complement of sailcloth ready. The new sails held, but they were stretching as new sails will. Bishop ordered frequent tightening of the sheets to allow for it.

Among the thousands of pounds of other goods, the Lloyd Jack had stored in her holds twenty-five tons of loose coal and five tons of loose salt. Lashed to her deck were 200 steel barrels of gasoline and kerosene. But, as Bishop put it, despite her weight the Lloyd Jack was tossed about as though she were nothing more than a bull bird in Bonavis’ Bay. Bishop wasn’t about to take a chance on trying to keep his heavily laden schooner before such a wind without at least a reefed mainsail. And so, with all of the crew on deck soaked and shivering, many of them without oilskins, Bishop carried his vessel before the wind. In the black of this violent night there was nothing more he could do.

It was nearing dark on the next day when the deck cargo started to loosen. Their lines were lashed tighter and they added more rope, but it was no use. The wind, which had slacked briefly, had increased to gale-force again, bringing with it blinding scuds of snow. The constant wrenching, and sideways deck roll, the pitch and plunge of the schooner’s bows, and the mountains of crashing water sluicing around and against the barrels slackened the ropes as quickly as they were retied. Bishop decided to jettison all of them.

It was a gut-wrenching decision for him to make. To him it was like throwing money over the side, and there was no insurance to cover discarded cargo. He consulted with others of his crew and they all decided it had to be done. Visions of loaded steel drums tumbling loose on an uncontrolled deck were in everyone’s mind. They had heard of one schooner whose aft cabin had been shattered to pieces by stampeding barrels. Another story was told of a barrel that had been thrown against the forecastle hatchway and had tumbled down the steps, breaking timbers as it went. Holed bulwarks during such an event were as common as the breaking of limbs.

The decision to dump the heavy barrels overboard, though a difficult one, was just as difficult to carry out. The drums, each filled with fifty gallons of gasoline and oil, weighed as much as 300 pounds per drum. Someone suggested chopping open the barrels and letting the seas wash it out through the scuppers. It would then be an easy matter to toss the empty drums over the side. But Captain Bishop, who had seen a spilled barrel of oil on his deck once before, said no. It would take days, he said, for the slippery oil to be washed from the deck, and weeks before the smell of it left the vessel.

It took nearly three hours for several of the crew to dump the last of the drums over the side. The ropes that restrained them could only be released one at a time for fear that all of them would be set loose. The time had to be gauged just right between particularly high seas and relatively lower ones. When the chance came the barrels were hurried by use of swinging boom to the lee side one by one and quickly lifted over the washing bulwarks. The filled drums dropped with a chunking sound and bobbed on the tormented surface alongside the schooner for a while before disappearing below the frothy waves. When the last of the barrels had been thrown from the Lloyd Jack the only thing remaining on her now significantly less cluttered deck was the securely tied trap skiff, which, if it was necessary, would become their lifeboat. The whole time it took to jettison the freight, Eldon Bishop had managed to keep his schooner, for the most part, in irons before the wind.

Almost as soon as the task was completed the wind increased in its fury. Huge waves came at them like great watery dams. So intense were the oncoming waves that, as the schooner remained virtually neutral in her movement, there came the vertigo of an intended fast forward motion where there was none at all. When the three largest of the waterfalls had broken over her raking bows and had dumped their icy contents on her deck, the master of the Lloyd Jack followed his instincts again and heeled away to leeward, with the gathering seas in hot pursuit.

* * *

Everyone who saw her agreed that the Lloyd Jack was a good-looking schooner that had a fine cut to her. She had broad flaring bows and a rakish stem tipped with a long bowsprit. Her clean lines, which traced over a graceful bulge amidships of a full twenty-three feet, followed her seventy-eight-foot length aft, veered upward toward her sloping stern, and ended below a semi-round taffrail. She was built in LaHave, Nova Scotia, in 1899, and after sailing the seas for nearly thirty years she was well past her prime. She was originally a banker and, employed in that offshore fishing trade, sailed out of St. Jacques in Fortune Bay with the name D.M. Owen scribed on her bows. As she aged the vessel was sold and, with the same name, found her way to Notre Dame Bay on the east coast of Newfoundland. She changed hands again, to the Robertses of Wesleyville for a time. By now it was 1925 and the Lloyd Jack had sailed the waters of Newfoundland for more than a quarter of a century without repair, and it was doubtful the schooner could be salvaged. Her owners decided not to repair the schooner.

Noah Bishop was another well-known schoonerman from Wesleyville. In the autumn of 1925 his schooner, the Bessie S., sank on the northeast side of Newman Sound, near Happy Adventure in the central part of Bonavista Bay. Noah needed a schooner for the following spring. On board the Lloyd Jack in Wesleyville harbour, Bishop discerned that the schooner was sound enough below her waterline, but, as is the case with most wooden vessels, she was in decay above it. He offered Roberts a one-time, take-it-or-leave-it price for the schooner. Roberts accepted and the Bishops took ownership.

The Bishops were hard-pressed to get the vessel ready for the following spring. Undaunted, they hauled the schooner far enough on the land to walk around her stern at the highest of tides. They stripped her of her rotting structure to just below the Plimsoll line. Next they bought the long planks needed for her deck and hull, but the sturdy knees and crooked timbers required they cut themselves. This was not easy to do. The north end of Bonavista Bay is not especially blessed with stands of timber, but inland from its barren coasts, several species of trees grow in abundance. All that winter the Bishops—along with the crew who would sail in their restored schooner—cut by axe and bucksaw and hauled by horse and sled enough timber to repair the big schooner. Richard Sturge was considered to be the best boat builder on the north side of Bonavista Bay. Noah hired him to do the work on his schooner, and by spring she was ready. Considering his vessel was more than half new, Bishop figured she should also have a new name. One that would reflect his family. It was said that changing the name of a vessel that had undergone extensive repairs wouldn’t bring her bad luck, but Noah Bishop wasn’t superstitious, anyway. Besides, with a name like Noah, the biblical boat builder, how could he be wrong? And so, while the Arctic ice floes still choked every cove and inlet of the coast, she was launched. Without champagne, but with much cheering and family pride, the schooner went down to the sea again, and on her brand new bows she wore the names of Noah Bishop’s two grandsons—Lloyd and Jack.

* * *

Standing on the deck of the schooner, Lloyd Bishop, who had given the vessel the first part of its name, was concerned but unafraid. He knew his grandfather Noah was a fearless schoonerman. The stories about his feats of seamanship had been told again and again around the kitchen table. There were stories about his father, Eldon Bishop, too. Lloyd was beginning to see why. His father seemed fearless. He didn’t know when his father slept. He was seldom away from the open deck for more than an hour at a time. Even then he simply entered his cabin near the helm and lay down in his berth for a nap without removing his wet clothes. He had never seen him forward in the forecastle. There was something else, too. Lloyd had never seen his father with a scraggly beard. In fact, everyone aboard, himself included, wore beards, not of their choosing.

His father had informed them days ago their supply of fresh water had to be rationed. He had no idea how long they would be at sea; he told them this straight out. There would be no water for shaving. They could try salt water, but he had tried it once, he said, and it got all frothy when it heated and it burned his face like hell. Neither would there be any water for washing. He didn’t give a damn, he said, how long their beards grew or how scruffy their skin. The limited water supply was for drinking only.

An empty pipe tobacco can, its sides emblazoned with Big Ben—a horse—was hung near the water barrel. Each man was allowed one full tin—about one pint—of water a day.

Noah Best was the cook aboard the Lloyd Jack. He wasn’t doing much cooking on this trip and the shortage of fresh water wasn’t the main reason. Cooking a scoff of vegetables in salt water didn’t matter much to men whose diet consisted of salty foods. Fresh codfish was cooked in salt water and they ate salt cod almost daily. Codsheads, salted capelin, and salmon, along with barrels of pickled herrings were salted down for the winter. Slaughtered pigs were salted, as well as seabirds. Salted green cabbage leaves and even the white heads were considered a delicacy. Along the shores of Newfoundland, the world’s most plentiful of spices was the main preservative of foods.

It was the constant yaw, pitch, and side-to-side roll that was causing Noah so much grief. Even with the wire strap he used to keep the pot secured to the bogie rail, liquid still spewed out of the big bosun kettle and onto the floor. Despite the cook’s frequent mopping the floor in an effort to keep his galley clean, the floor was perpetually slippery. Added to the cook’s woes were the frequent watch changes. Presently he heard the forecastle door slam open. Another watch change. Noah waited for what he knew was to come.

A dark figure appeared in the companionway above his head.

“Be quick wit’ the door,” he shouted up to the hunched-over man climbing backward down the ladder.

The man reached above his head and started to haul the vertical door shut, but not before Noah saw the surge of sea water race across the schooner’s deck, lick up over the edge of the coaming and pour down the steps. The water dropped from step to step ahead of the man, spraying as it fell. When it reached the floor it rinsed and flushed over the grimy surface with every motion of the schooner.

“Oh, ’tis you, Noah Kean.” Noah Best always called the other Noah by his full name. “I didn’t know ’ee wit’ yer back turned.”

Noah Kean stood on the floor of the forecastle and wrung the water out of his mitts before he answered. The water from his drenched clothing dripped endlessly.

“Oh, das a’right, Cook. If we don’t soon get a shave an’ a good wash, I ’lows no one’ll know us be the front er the back!”

The cook rubbed his bearded face at the reminder. “You know what, Noah Kean? I t’inks I’m startin’ to like it. One t’ing I’ve come to notice about havin’ a beard. Me face seems to be a bit warmer when I’m on deck.”

Being a cook was only part of Best’s duties. In a blow he also helped on deck. He was a competent deckhand and his services on this trip had been required as much above deck as below.

“Find a spot to ’ang yer cuffs above the bogie, Noah Kean. If ye can. Mind ye, don’t drop ’em into me pot, now.”

Noah Kean looked into the coverless pot half-filled with beans and onions and junks of salt beef simmering on the stove as he hung his mitts to dry. “Oh, scunner beans, is it!” he exclaimed. “Loves ’em, I do! Will ’ee be havin’ spoon duffs wit’ ’em, too?”

The cook was standing over the table peeling carrots and turnips with a big knife that looked more suited to cutting the throats of cods than it did for peeling vegetables. He crossed the floor with a big pan filled with the chopped and diced vegetables, then dumped them into the pot and stirred the contents. The dark red of the salt beef and the bright orange and yellow colours of carrot and turnip blended with the white navy beans and onions as he stirred. Neither man spoke or seemed to notice the water slick washing back and forth across the floor.

“Did ’ee ever see me cook scunner beans wit’out makin’ spoon duff? Sure, the ’ands would be surlier dan a cat smeared in cod oil if I didn’t cook the duff fer ’em.”

Noah Kean pulled another pair of mitts that were more warm than dry from the hooks above the stove. The two men talked briefly about the gale they had been in for so long, about what their families must be going through at home. Noah Kean made ready to climb outside again.

“You know what, Cook?” He grinned. “I been t’inkin’ ’ard on it, an’ dis is ’ow I figures it. If one Noah could survive fer forty days and nights adrift, two Noahs should double the time wit’ no trouble a’tall.”

Both Noahs laughed at the comment, and Noah the cook watched as Noah Kean climbed the ladder. He heard the roar of wind as the door opened, caught a glimpse of sullen sky, and watched as the eager water washed over the coaming and trickled down the stairs again. Without saying a word he crossed the floor, mop in hand.

* * *

During the course of their lengthy ordeal at sea, the Lloyd Jack’s handlers had brought their schooner in sight of land several times, but each time the intensity of the storm drove them back to sea. The incredible duration of sustained winds was as nothing any of them had ever experienced. They had spotted seven ocean-going steamers in total. Their time out in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream had been an anxious one with the ever-present fear of being cut down by one of these huge ships. It would not be the first time. All the schoonermen believed that many of the schooners lost at sea had in fact been rammed by ocean-going ships, especially at night. Skipper Bishop hauled lighted lanterns aloft from his gantlines before dusk of each day.

Four of the ships had come close enough to see the Lloyd Jack’s distress signals. A Union Jack was flown bottom up and a bucket swung from her topmast crosstrees. Once, a trawler passed close enough for them to see a man on her deck, but no one came to their aid. The Lloyd Jack’s crew figured they must be foreign sailors who did not understood their signals. True, the “Jack” was recognized the world over, but from a distance on a stormy sea, many would not distinguish if it was hung on the mast upside down or right side up.

Before daylight on December 19, the Lloyd Jack had clawed her way back close enough to land to see a distant, blinking light: a lighthouse for sure. Bishop dashed inside his cabin, grabbed his “lightbook,” and ran outside again. He pulled a watch from his pocket and, holding it by the fob, bent over the dim binnacle light. He watched as the light ahead of his schooner went out, then stared at his watch and counted the seconds until the light flicked into the darkness once more. The lighthouses were identified by their different flash times. He flipped the pages of the lightbook but could not find a match. He tried again, but still the distant signal would not match anything in his book. Bishop knew why. His book, like his charts, only showed the northeast coast of Newfoundland. He even had some for the coast of Labrador. But he had nothing to show him anything south of Cape Race. He was sailing toward the south coast of Newfoundland. He was sure of it.

As daylight came and the flashing light faded, the land came up. It was not a coast any of the crew knew. Breakers showed everywhere. They could see houses but no safe passage. Without charts or knowledge of this part of the coast and not enough sail power to give him full rudder control, Bishop brought his schooner as near as he dared to the land. For the first time in weeks they were in relative calm waters. He had no intention of putting to sea again. After twenty days on a cruel sea—even with two Noahs aboard—he would not risk losing his schooner on a reef.

He sent men ashore in a rowboat, and when they returned they brought with them a man who could guide them to safety. They were outside the port of Burin, on Newfoundland’s south coast. They were piloted to the Burin harbour and docked safely at the Holletts’ wharf. Their odyssey on the northern sea was over. For the most part they had fared well: the schooner had lost most of her sails; they had dumped their casks of oil to ensure their safety; the crew looked like bearded Vikings afoot on a strange land; they were almost done in with their wanderings; but they were far from beaten. The Lloyd Jack had survived the worst and longest storm on Newfoundland record.

* * *

The expectant crowd trudged once more over the frozen road leading toward the post office in Wesleyville. Though the calendar denied it, winter was already here. A bitter wind came seeking warm flesh. From the despairing crowd went one of their numbers to the office steps. He was reaching for the doorknob when it was pulled inward so violently he almost fell into the post office.

“They’re alive! She’s safe! The Jack is safe! She’s tied up in Burin!”

The good news burst from the postmaster, who held the doorknob in one hand and waved his free hand excitedly. The man was so pleased to be the bearer of good news he forgot to write the news on paper, as he usually did. The waiting family members of the Lloyd Jack changed from a silently milling crowd to a jubilant throng. They shouted with joy, with tears, with relief, and some with disbelief. Now, bearing the glad news, they made their way home with eager steps.

One thoughtful woman walked to the schoolhouse and tapped loudly on the door. Inside, the schoolmaster raised his head in surprise and walked to the door at the back of the room. The heads of every student of different grades and ages followed him. He opened the door. The woman who stood there shouted the good news in a high-pitched, musical voice. The schoolmaster turned to eagerly relay the message to his students, but the lady burst past him and shouted afresh her wonderful tidings. The children, many of whom had family members aboard the Jack, shouted with glee. They jumped from their seats and waved their arms in delight.

But in the back of that happy classroom, one young girl remained seated. She was crying. She was crying for joy because her father had come back from the sea. She was weeping with shame because she thought that he would not.

10 JENNIE FLORENCE

When descends on the Atlantic

The gigantic

Storm-winds of the equinox

Seaweed, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There is a place south beyond the reach of the cold North Atlantic waters where constant warm winds balm the seas. It is a place where cold-water fishes dare not enter, a place where warm-water fishes remain. For days on end the burning sun emerges out of a glassy sea and, sliding down again, over a murky, purple evening sky, hisses back into its nightly manger. The night comes without pausing for twilight and still the warmth stays upon the land. Hordes of stars bunch and glitter with imaginary figures.

The sands at the edge of this warm ocean are hot enough to burn a man’s naked feet. Where the ocean-rubbed sandy beaches are defeated by arable soils, tall trees with great spreading green leaves grow. So dense is the growth it appears to spread in wild confusion. Bursts of yellow, pink, and red flowers dapple the greenery. Exotic fruits buckle the limb tips and fall ripened to the ground. But rising unseen above it all is the one common denominator: heat. Heat rises from the sylvan hills and sweltering misty valleys; it rises from the wide, sandy beaches and simmering cliffs. Heat is extracted out of the tepid freshwater streams and is drawn up from the humid sea. The gradual but constant evaporation of warm, moist air disrupts the atmosphere, and for all of this southern withdrawal, the north will pay the price.

It begins as an undetected spiral that whirls into a cyclone of power. Feeding on the rising air, it swells and expands, sometimes for hundreds of miles wide. Now it is called a hurricane. To make matters worse, it spins from right to left. Landlubbers who don’t know better call it a counter-clockwise motion, but as every seaman knows, it is a contrary wind, one that is turning against the sun, a direction in which even a greenhorn sailor would not coil a line for fear of bringing bad luck to his vessel.

The hurricanes race north unchecked, and in the year of 1929 they arrived unannounced. Reaching up over cold waters, its name changes again. It is now called a gale, and though nearing the island of Newfoundland it is still undetected. But to the people whose lives depended on a keen knowledge of the sea, there were signs of impending autumn storms. The people who lived on the northeast coast of the island called it “the liners.” They knew little of the autumn equinox, that time when the earth tilts on its axis so that the sun’s rays favour neither the north or south poles but centre on one place, the equator.

These simple people who knew little of the science of such things knew of course about the sun crossing “the line.” What they did know from experience was that it was a time of change.

The sea colours were suddenly different. The blues were deeper. The grey skies scowled under dark clouds. Black clouds came piling up over the horizon in menacing shapes. Sudden brief squalls hidden within vertical veils sneaked by and dumped torrential rains. After it had gone glassy, calm streaks dissected the ocean roads. For the fishermen it was the last days of good fishing. They had to fish farther from shore. The elusive cod had moved to the very edges of the offshore shoals. It was a time to be wary aboard a small boat when miles from the shore with a lone tattered sail. Squalls seemed to come from nowhere. They were sudden and fierce.

The ocean currents had changed and now had no pattern. Riptides swirled and swung in frothy, mile-long circles and defied the strongest of winds. Rare sharks appeared, their curved fins suddenly breaking the surface, and sometimes were pulled up, tangled and drowned in cod nets. Grampuses, singly or in small schools, flashed and frolicked on the surface of the changing sea. It was like no other time of the year. The liners were “taking on.” Long after the sun had crossed the line, and though the liners—which had lasted longer than usual—portended something was coming, no major gales had yet hit the east coast of Newfoundland in the autumn of 1929.

There had been a fault earthquake far to sea on the edge of the Grand Banks on November 18. A massive underwater landslide had occurred, and the subsequent power the earthquake had unleashed rose out of the ocean depths and sent its full fury landward. It was the talk of all the schoonermen. Still the gales of autumn had not come. But on the last day of November, by which time the liner warnings had largely gone unheeded, came the brutal Gale of ’29. It would never be forgotten.

* * *

Wilson Stoyles had seen all the symptoms of the liners. For the most part he considered it to be the talk of old men who frequented the wharves at every sailing. They came bent over on crippled joints, eager to give advice or hear the news of distant ports. Their rheumy eyes had been stung by endless exposure to salt waters and their gnarled arthritic hands burnt by countless many lines. Stoyles’s schooner, the Jennie Florence, hadn’t far to go, just north of St. John’s harbour to Cape St. Francis, across Conception Bay, where he would go through Baccalieu Tickle around Grates Cove Point and sail up Trinity Bay for home. Simple. He and his crew had done it many times. Here in the bowl of St. John’s harbour the evening was grey but seemed civil enough. The schooner Catherine B. was making ready for sail. She, too, was from Trinity Bay and was well-known to Stoyles. He and her skipper were friends. Nine other schooners were making sail on that evening as well. The nine were all from Bonavista Bay and had much farther north to go. He would have lots of company.

Wilson Stoyles loved the Jennie Florence. Built in 1922, the sixty-two-foot-long schooner, barely seven years old, was in excellent condition. Her sails were of the same age, having never been replaced since her maiden voyage. Both the mainsail and foresail were neatly stitched and sewn in several places and the jib and jumbo were intact without any scars of mending. All of her sails had been deeply barked that spring, but now in late autumn their dark, earthy tan colours were fading, so that they now looked more of a dirty white than a deep brown.

The Jennie was owned by James Stoyles, who, along with his two sons, Wilson and Ned Stoyles, and the men who would sail in her, had built the vessel in Hillview, Trinity Bay. They laid her keel in the autumn. Under their father’s direction the Stoyles boys cut from the hills around their home every timber and crooked knee, every plank and post required for her construction. The timbers were sawed by a local water wheel–powered sawmill. She was launched in the spring of 1922 and James named her after his two granddaughters: Jennie, who was Ned’s daughter; and Florence—though everyone called her Flossie—who was Wilson’s. And with James Stoyles as her skipper, the family-owned Jennie Florence made her maiden voyage to the coast of Labrador. By 1929 James’s son Wilson was skipper.

* * *

Like the other schooners, the Jennie Florence was loaded with winter provisions. These were destined for several of the small hamlets along the shores of Southwest Arm in Trinity Bay. The vessel had sailed carefully on reefed foresail and downed jib into St. John’s harbour five days before. She had swung on her hook in midstream for three days while her skipper bargained and finally arranged for his salt fish to be unloaded. Wilson had to settle for a lower price for his fish than did any of the others. Unlike the others, who had brought sun-dried codfish, he had sailed into the harbour with a bumper load of Labrador Tan.

Labrador Tan was the name given to heavily salted fish that had not been washed or sun-cured, but sold as it was. This fish was considered “green,” and the price offered reflected the weight of the salt. The pleas of the skipper—who reasoned with the fish merchants that by this late date most of the salt had dissolved into pickle and had long since rendered into the schooner’s bilge—fell on deaf ears. He had to accept, for the schooner’s summer voyage, a price that was below the break-even figure. All the other schoonermen Stoyles had talked to had returned from the Labrador in late summer in time to cure their catch, thus fetching a better price.

The Jennie Florence and her crew, like most of the Newfoundland schooners and crews, were considered by the people on the Labrador coast to be “floaters.” That is, they came to Labrador to fish only. They sailed back to the island of Newfoundland and home again as soon as their schooner had reaped the fish harvest of the Labrador coast. They stayed—or floated—aboard their schooner all summer and did not live ashore. Many schoonermen spent whole seasons fishing on the Labrador without setting foot on the land.

The summer of 1929 had been a hard one for the crew of the Jennie Florence. To begin with, they had been late getting out of Trinity Bay. The past winter had been a severe one, with unusual cold spells followed by mild ones with heavy, wet snows. These were ideal conditions for making ice in the inland bays. By early June the inner reaches of Southwest Arm were still icebound, having frozen solid just before Christmas of 1928. It delayed their sailing by more than a week. It was enough, for when the Jennie Florence reached Labrador all of the best berths had already been taken. Even the one Stoyles had worked last year was already claimed. This was a first-come, first-take place. With only a few exceptions, the only way to claim a fishing berth, even a much-used one, was simply to be the first one on it.

Wilson Stoyles had to move three times that summer in search of fish, and each time they tacked farther north than he had planned. Stoyles was a patient man, but as the summer days shortened and his schooner had barely wetted her salt, his patience was further tested. He knew there was a limited time when codfish could be caught by the use of the trap and it was fast running away from him.

North they went, across Groswater Bay to Indian Harbour and Smokey, both well-known for their rich fishing grounds, and again all the berths were taken. They sailed north again and rounded Cape Harrison. After veering to the northwest of that northern cape, as far as Advalik Islands, they found the cod. But long before the Jennie’s hold was full, the time for trapping fish was gone.

Now they had no other choice but to handline. With lead jigger and baited lines, the schooner crew refused to give up. It was back-breaking work. Before the cold dawn they fished the Labrador sea, pulling the glistening cod out of the northern waters. On into the lantern-lit night the men cleaned and salted away their day’s catch. Fortunately the cod seemed to come without end and the men pulled the fish from relatively shallow waters. Despite their late start, so plentiful were the fish that, by the time they finally loaded the hold of the Jennie Florence, the cod was still coming to their hooks. It was one of the best times the crew of the Jennie had spent down on the Labrador. As one of the crew, a churchgoer, said, “The Man above kep’ the bes’ fer las’.” And everyone agreed with him.

To take full advantage of this manna from the sea, the skipper of the Jennie Florence started salting fish in makeshift pounds on her deck. The cod was stacked and carefully stowed into every available space below deck, until only a few inches of space between the fish layers and the deck ceiling remained. This area was always hard to work. There was room enough here for many more quintals of fish, but the narrow space was difficult to store or salt the fish properly. The men would have to fling the salt sideways to cover the fish.

The huge volume of salt-covered fish below the deck created its own heat, and without the right amount of salt cover it would rot and turn maggoty. Just a few maggoty fish could contaminate many quintals more. The men knew that the thousands of pounds of fish would settle and compress and shrink as the salt brine cured it.

They fished daily and stored their catch on the schooner’s deck. At night, and when it rained, they covered it with heavy sailcloth. Finally their salt was wetted and the schooner was loaded. Wilson would not take the chance of sailing home with fish stored on deck. Men jumped below with nails fastened to the ends of long poles and the salted fish was thrown down to them. Using the poles with the nails on the ends, they hooked the fish and pushed it into the small remaining spaces. The hold of the schooner was so full, the last of the fish was placed below by men stooped over on the deck. They fastened the hold hatches, and on a morning tide with light winds the Jennie Florence sailed south for home.

They were late, it was the middle of October, and the load of fish delayed them even more. The Jennie Florence was so deeply laden she wallowed in even the smallest of swells and water sluiced across her settled deck. She could only sail in light winds and moderate seas and the time for such luxury was quickly closing on the wild coast of Labrador.

They crossed the Strait of Belle Isle on a day with a light west wind coming up out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence bearing on her starboard quarter. There were days when she couldn’t sail south because of winds. They simply stayed in whichever port was closest and waited. They rarely sailed at night.

And so it was that in that fall of 1929 the Jennie Florence sailed into her home port of Hillview, Trinity Bay, too late to sun-cure one of her biggest catches. The decision was made to sell it as Labrador Tan. It would fetch a lower price, but there was no other alternative. They sailed for the St. John’s markets, and when her holds were emptied and her fish culled and tallied, her skipper was handed a receipt for 1,025 quintals of fish. He had expected 1,200.

Before her provisions could be loaded aboard, the Jennie Florence had to be cleaned. If they were at home in Hillview they would use the clean bark of the white birch to line their vessel, but there were no stands of birch, or any other trees, anywhere near St. John’s. The men spent hours drawing sea water up over her sides with buckets and throwing it down in the hold, where it flushed the residue of her recent catch down into her bilge. All of the water thrown in had to be just as laboriously pumped out by hand. Pieces of cod flesh, black skeins of cod skin, yellowy salt brine, and salt crystals mixed with the sea water poured out over her sides and fell with a gushing sound into the polluted harbour.

Aside from general goods, the cargo that went aboard the Jennie Florence for the trip home was also different from the other northbound schooners. The inner villages of both Northwest and Southwest arms of Trinity Bay were largely logging communities.

Many of them boasted modern sawmills powered by water wheels and steam. The mills had been started to cut timbers for the building of the Newfoundland railroad in the closing years of the nineteenth century. All of the timber was harvested from the sloping hills around the inner bays and winter-hauled by horse and sled directly to the sawmills. Even after the establishment of the railroad, though, the most common means of transporting lumber was by schooner. The skipper of the Jennie Florence had transported thousands of board feet of newly sawed lumber from her home port of Hillview to markets in St. John’s, as well as to the shipbuilding yard at Trinity, just a day’s sail out the bay. The Jennie had on board many items for supplying this logging and sawmill industry: rolls of wide leather belting manufactured in Canada and England and destined for pulleys on a sawmill in Trinity Bay were rolled aboard; smaller rolls of leather belt-lacing were carried aboard, as well as several hammer-driven belt-hole punches; tubs of hard grease to keep bearings cool; pounds of molten bavit, which the sawmillers used to pour their own steel shaft bearings; boxes of soap cakes to keep the hot bavit from sticking to the metal shafts during the pour; rotary saw teeth; saw blades, four feet in diameter; horse harnesses; bucksaws and axes; hand-held wood hooks and curved peaveys.

The Jennie’s bow swung away from the wharf as soon as her forward line was let go. It was as if she wanted to keep ahead of the other schooners and not be the last one to leave. When her raising foresail luffed with the first of the wind she cleared the starboard bow of the Catherine B., which was also swinging away from the wharf. Stoyles’s friend Ellis Janes was at the Catherine B.’s helm. The two Trinity Bay schooners, with the Jennie Florence in the vanguard, were the first ones out of the harbour.

* * *

Out past the Narrows and venturing onto the roads of the North Atlantic the schooners dispersed like a herd of black sheep chased by a yapping dog. Though they were all headed north they all went their various ways. Soon only faint glimpses of swaying, winking oil lights against a black sky showed where in the distance. Then that night company, too, disappeared and the schooners were each on its own. The Jennie Florence went to the outer reach of her port tack to clear Sugar Loaf Head. Her helm was over for the starboard tack, which would take her as far north as Logy Bay, or, if the wind held to its southerly point, as far as Outer Cove.

Then an unexpected blast of wind out of the northwest hit her port bow just as she was coming around. Stoyles had shortened his offshore tack. He had had a bad feeling about this night, but he was surprised at the suddenness, the viciousness, and the sheer weight of the wind. With the wind change came the quickly building seas. They looked even bigger in the darkness. He heard the mainsail rip first; even with the roar of wind in the rigging and the sound of crashing waves there was no mistaking the sound of renting canvas, a sailor’s most hated sound. Without sails they had little control of their vessel, they were at the wind’s mercy, and on this night the winds had none.

The crew worked feverishly to get the foresail down before it, too, was swept away along with the mainsail. They downed the foresail just in time to save part of it. The luff side—where it was fastened to the foremast—had suffered a rip of fifteen feet or more from head to half-mast. It was difficult to tell in the dark. Her deck tilted and careened to one side as she went over before the wind. Her lee bow fell over a huge roller with a white cresting top and went under. For one moment that seemed to take an hour it appeared as though the schooner would not bear the strain, but she slowly rose and then shot up suddenly as yet another wave lifted her. The rush of water pouring away from her forward deck caused the schooner to vibrate and tremble all over. Now she was directly before the wind and plunged obediently on. The naked rigging thrummed. Somewhere above, on one of her masts, broken sheets snapped and whistled through the air like a cat-o’-nine-tails. Then it started to snow.

* * *

The schooner Jennie Florence, despite being recklessly tossed and carried steadily offshore, survived that night without further incident. With the daylight her crew mended her foremast and raised it double-reefed. Her fore-staysails, which were still intact, were set, and now with a measure of rudder control she tacked and beat for the hidden land to the west. She crept closer to that shore until noon of that day. Then, when it looked as though the schooner would win her fight, the gale blew fiercer still. They had no choice but to bear away downwind again.

They smelled the smoke from the big ship before they saw her. Then they topped out on a huge grey roller and there she was, rising out of a grey trough to the east of them. It was the ore ship SS Daghild, which had left the iron ore mine at Bell Island and was sailing for Sydney, Nova Scotia. She was deeply laden with rich Newfoundland ore and the seas were breaking over her lowered deck. They immediately saw the Jennie’s distress signal, and so began an unrehearsed rescue that only men of the sea could perform. The Daghild, with her threshing prop sometimes breaking water in the swells, hove abaft of the Jennie Florence’s weather side. The men aboard the Jennie could not understand the foreign language shouted from the bridge of the huge ship. Only two words from the ship registered in the ears of the anxious schooner skipper.

“Stand by!”

An empty steel barrel flew over the taffrail of the ship as she passed. Attached to the barrel was a small line. The steamer rolled sideways, her steel bulwarks shipping sea water. The schooner, looking small and pitiful beneath the ship’s bulk, plunged and listed dangerously. The barrel drifted to the schooner’s port side, where it banged and boomed against the schooner, demanding urgent attention.

A man with a rope tied to his waist ran across the washing deck. He snagged the barrel line and hauled it over the heaving side of the Jennie. He was joined by two other men and they fumbled with the knot for a second. Then they cut the line from the barrel. Back from the end of the smaller line, a bigger, four-inch bass tow cable, was hanked on by its bight. The heavy line strained as it knocked astern and drooped and lifted in the undertow. The weight of it alone could easily carry a man over the side. The three men got firm holds on the smaller line, and as quickly as possible they hauled it to the chains of the schooner. They could not drag or lift the heavy line out of the swelling seas by hand. Instead they fastened it to the windlass to haul it up over the pitching bows of the Jennie. The bight of the cable was wrapped twice over the Jennie’s main bollard. It draped and hung in the water between the two vessels, appearing and disappearing as the waves rose and fell. Then a steady stream of smoke poured out of the Daghild’s stack and the cable tightened. The Jennie’s bow was plucked around into the wind and, willingly, she followed her rescuer.

She was towed to shelter under the land just outside the St. John’s Narrows. The tugboat Hugh D., which had already been messaged from the ship, came bursting out of the old seaport. The Jennie dropped the Daghild’s cable from her bow. The ship blew twice on her whistle, and with the crews on both ship and schooner waving she headed back to sea. The Hugh D. towed the schooner into the safety of St. John’s harbour, and just like that the Jennie Florence, which had been the first of the schooners to sail out through the Notch, was the first of the stricken schooners to return. She had been gone for less than twenty-four hours. She was one of the fortunate ones.

11 NEPTUNE II

The end of the third decade of the twentieth century was one filled with firsts. Some of them were simple. Others were life-changing events that would have a worldwide effect. One such event was the discarding of the old Julian calendar and the adoption of the Gregorian one on January 1, 1929. That year also saw the first appearance of the cartoon character Popeye. It was one of the simple occurrences. May 16 of that same year produced, for all those who could afford the venue, the very first Academy Awards show. Continuing in the burgeoning field of entertainment, a month later, on June 27, the first public demonstration of colour television appeared. The colour was indistinct, but as the springtime robin makes way for the more colourful summer birds, this new phenomenon ushered in more lifelike television images that were here to stay. There were no televisions, however, with or without colour, in any of the outports on the northeast coast of Newfoundland.

Across the sea, in the place Christians regarded as the Holy Lands, some unholy events were happening. The Palestine riots, also known as the Western Wall Uprising, had been threatening major violence and finally erupted on August 23. By late evening of August 29, 113 Jews and 110 Arabs lay dead on dusty streets, shadowed by their own blood. They had fought using mostly primitive, hand-held weapons in a minor skirmish upon soil that had been warred over since before Christ. The news never even reached the isolated settlements of Newfoundland.

Then on October 18 a major accomplishment was achieved in the nation of Canada. It was of great interest to a group comprising nearly fifty per cent of the entire population of the island of Newfoundland—women. In 1876 the British Court ruling had stated thusly: “Women are persons in matters of pains and penalties, but are not persons in matters of rights and privileges.” The Supreme Court of Canada agreed with the British Lords by making their own ruling, which stated, in part: “That the word persons did not include female persons.”

Incredibly, it would take half a century for that nefarious ruling, which had been presided over by an all-male jury, to be overruled. This time it was done by the decades-long work of women, all five of them. They were from the province of Alberta. Their names were Nellie McClung, Emily Murphy, Louise McKinney, Henrietta Muir Edwards, and Irene Parlby. They became known as the Famous Five. They fought to have women included in and to be a part of “matters of rights and privileges.”

William Lyon Mackenzie King was Canada’s Liberal prime minister. He presided over Canada’s sixteenth parliament. The Famous Five, after months of trying, finally acquired an audience with Canada’s governor general, the Viscount Willingdon of Rafton. The Persons Case, as it was now known, had already been debated in Canada’s highest court for two years.

The governor general presented the women’s petition to the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council, and on the evening of October 18, 1929, Canada’s Supreme Court ruling was overturned. It was ordered to read, in part, “That the word person is to henceforth include the female gender.”

On October 24, 1929, the day that became known as Black Thursday, made worldwide news. The American stock market came tumbling down. In just five days the New York Stock Exchange lost no less than $30 billion. Rich businessmen who were suddenly destitute jumped out of high-rise buildings to their deaths. Thousands of men and women were out of work. Prices of goods fell, including that of Newfoundland fish.

November 18 brought another first. Off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter Magnitude Scale rumbled far beneath the ocean waves. Its explosion was muffled and heard by no one, but the underwater explosion tore apart twelve submarine telegraph cables. Its shock waves erupted out of the sea and sent a tsunami surging toward the unsuspecting south coast of the island of Newfoundland. The immense wave brought death and destruction with it and marked Canada’s most deadly earthquake. It was also the first tsunami to strike the northeast coast of America.

A more pleasing and celebrated event occurred before this month was out. On November 29, Bernt Balchen, Captain Ashley McKinley, Harold June, and United States Admiral Richard Byrd flew over the very centre of the frozen South Pole. They were the first men to do so.

* * *

It took a few days for the news of the Famous Five event of October 18, 1929, to reach the coastal communities of Newfoundland. Some women heard the news from their husbands when they returned from the post office, where they had listened to the postmaster read the daily news. Most of the women never heard of it at all.

Mary Sturge was sixteen years old and had long since done a woman’s work. She heard about the news up there in Canada from her employer. He hadn’t told it to Mary directly but to his wife, Pearl, and Mary had overheard him. He was the village schoolteacher. His name was Joseph Yetman, but Mary would never call him anything other than Mr. Yetman.

Mary wasn’t sure if she was yet considered to be a woman. She knew women had been allowed to vote in Newfoundland since April of 1925, but she had to be twenty-one years old to exercise that right.

Maybe when I’m old enough to cast my vote I’ll be considered a woman, she thought.

Mr. Yetman had told his wife that Canadian women were now deemed by law to be persons. Strange, though, he had not said what women had been considered to be before that. Mary was “in service” and had been for the last six years.

* * *

“Really, Mom? You actually went to work when you were but ten years old?” Sophie Gill was astounded. She was sitting at her mother’s kitchen table and listening to her tell the story about the time the schooner Neptune II had gone adrift.

“Oh, yes, my dear! Indeed I was!” Mary said wistfully. “And not only me. A good many more young girls just like me. Boys, too. But not in service like we girls were. They worked down on the wharves, the boys did, or out in the stages as soon as they were strong enough to lug a fish to the flake. Long before they were ten years old, too, mind you! But at day’s end they could go back to their own homes. Not us girls, though. We had to live where we worked. Just a few doors down from our parents, in some cases. We weren’t allowed to go home.”

“Child labour,” said Sophie.

“Well—maybe, but it wasn’t like that, Sophie, maid. Although the work we had to do was little more than slavery. Still, we weren’t forced to work, not really. It was just the thing we were expected to do. My parents loved me, as far as I know. It began with family work. Everyone was expected to help. To pull their weight, no matter how slight it was.”

Mary looked out her window at two children playing in the snow beside the well-plowed road that ran by her door. The sight seemed to brighten her mood. She smiled the mischievous smile that Sophie loved so much. Then, as if on cue, she continued.

“But we girls, though . . . I have to say, we didn’t know much about playing. Not much time for daydreaming, either, you know. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t working. Never wore a bright-coloured winter’s coat, either.”

Sophie followed her mother’s gaze out the window. The two children were walking away. They were girls, dressed in warm, colourful winter jackets. Mary paused for a moment as if deep in thought. She watched her daughter, who was busily writing.

“What a wonderful thing it is, Sophie, to have the ability to put your thoughts upon the page.”

Sophie looked up. The tone of her mother’s words saddened her.

* * *

It was January 16, 2010, in the coastal community of Newtown on the northern edge of Bonavista Bay. Mary Sturge Blackmore was nearing her ninety-seventh year. Her full head of hair had lost its youthful auburn lustre and was now burnished with a silver-white sheen. Her eyes had lost some of their former aqua hue, and though they showed the faint rheumy signs common to old people, they were still bright and her mind was sound and clear.

Mary had awakened early on this morning, as was her wont. She lived alone in the same two-storey house she had shared with her late husband, David Blackmore, who had died nine years before. She had made her way carefully down the stairs and turned on her radio. She filled the kettle and set it to boil for her morning tea before crossing her immaculate kitchen floor to the window.

Not as many flags flying today as there was in 1930 on this day, she thought. It’s almost as cold, though. Minus six degrees, the man on the radio said behind her. Mary still didn’t have the Celsius scale figured out, but she knew it was well below the zero freezing point on the Fahrenheit reading that she had grown up with. Outside her window it was snowing and thin drifts of snow scudded across her small garden.

Her daughter Sophie was coming over this morning to ask about her memories of that long-ago time when news of the castaway schooner Neptune II finally came. My oh my, thought Mary, how times have changed! And isn’t it wonderful that they have.

* * *

Grey Islands is the name given to the two islands that stand to sea well north of the mouth of the long White Bay, on the east side of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. Both islands were well-known to early European explorers, especially the French, who used the craggy islands as a fishing base in the sixteenth century. This was made evident by the writings of Jacques Cartier, who sailed into the Groais Islands Harbour in 1534 and mapped the islands thusly: “Les deux Belles Isles qui sont pres de cap Rouge.” As time and politics wore on, the islands came into English possession, and they of course soon dropped the French word Groais in favour of Grey, and the islands’ name held.

The northernmost of the two islands, Groais Island, has an elongated shape and lies about seven or so miles from Cape Rouge on the mainland. The other island, the larger of the two to the south, is as misshapen as the huge island of Newfoundland, which lies in its lee. It is fifteen miles from land and is separated from its sister island by five miles of icy sea. It bears the name Bell Island. Of the two islands, it is here that can be found the only cove to provide suitable anchorage for harbouring vessels. It was given the appropriate name Grey Islands Harbour, and during the first few decades of the twentieth century it was still a thriving fishing community.

All species of fish common to that piece of the North Atlantic, situated on the southernmost reach of the Labrador sea, were harvested. Black herds of spring-migrating harp seals, carried freely on vast ice floes of white, came mewling along by the bitter islands and stayed long enough to swell the ranks with their white-furred young, which were the prize of that fearless of all predators—the seal hunters.

The schooner owners and fish merchants who handled all the bounties of the sea were frequently in need of house servants, always girls. And so it was that, in the spring of 1925, when the schooners from Newtown scurried down on the Labrador, Mary Sturge huddled teary-eyed and forlorn in the damp forecastle of one of them, wondering what her immediate future held.

Her mother had hustled the young girl down the well-worn pathway and over the bridges that connected the many islets of this “Venice of the north,” as Newtown was called, toward the Barbour rooms just after dark the evening before. Mary could hear the yells from excited men before she reached the wharf that paralleled the shoreline of the Barbours’ premises. The ebb tide, which was needed to carry the schooner down the narrow tickle and out to the open sea, was already greedily sucking its dirtied waters away. The schooner master would not allow his readied vessel to miss the evening tide, especially not for a slip of a girl. Mary lagged behind, hoping the schooner would sail without her. A firm admonishment from her mother quickened her unwanted step, however, and they reached the wharf edge doused in lantern light. Two burly men were in the process of slipping the gangway even as the weak-kneed Mary scurried across and gingerly stepped down on the schooner’s deck.

Surprisingly, the young girl experienced no symptoms at all of the dreaded seasickness on her trip north. It was her first time at sea aboard anything bigger than a trap skiff. With a dismal evening falling all around and a stoic following sea, with sails downed the girl’s unsteady conveyance bumped roughly against a smelly wharf in the inner Grey Island Harbour the next day. Mary Sturge was eleven years old.

When she was summoned, the frightened girl climbed the forecastle steps and pushed her portmanteau out on the deck ahead of her. The worn bag, which was fastened with toggles, contained very little: one shift of work clothes, a single change of undergarments, and one dress with a bonnet to be worn on Sunday. She was told she would be expected to go to church. No one told her that her new employer was Catholic.

A stranger of medium height, wearing a full-neck home-knit guernsey sweater, with a matching cap perched above a full head of dark, unruly hair, stood speaking to the schooner captain. He turned her way when she stepped slowly out on the deck.

“So you’re Mary Sturge, are ye?” he commented with a deep, growly voice.

And with a shaky “Y-yes I am, sir,” Mary Sturge spoke to her first Roman Catholic person.

The Brothers family of the Grey Islands, for whom Mary worked all that summer, was a large one. Despite his rough voice, the head of the family, Clifford, as well as his wife, Dora, treated her fairly. She was seldom asked to go to their church and instead was asked to mind small children, whom Mrs. Brothers—who was pregnant again—seemed to keep producing. The couple of times Mary managed to get to church—it was a welcome change from the daily drudgery of housework—she enjoyed it. The various rituals led by a droning Catholic priest in a singsong voice seemed little different from her own Church of England customs. In a wooded nave on one side of the church was a white figurine of a serene girl with a bowed, shawl-covered head. The figure didn’t look any older than herself, the servant girl thought, and her name was Mary, too. It gave her comfort.

Mary was scullery maid and housekeeper. She made bread and beds. She peeled, washed, and cooked vegetables. She pulled stinky chamber pots out from under featherbeds in which she wasn’t allowed to sleep. She emptied them into fetid slop pails and carried them to nondescript outhouses built over sea crevices, where she dumped their contents into the cleansing sea. She lugged daily, tea-coloured water from a deep well, two pails at a time, with the aid of a square wooden hoop framed around her burdened knees, until the wooden water gully in the porch was full. Beside the water barrel was a woodbox, which she was instructed to keep filled with firewood for the cooking stove in the kitchen.

She hung wet clothes on rope lines and spread wet cod on lungered flakes of scented boughs. She cleaned floors and walls. She washed every dish in the house a thousand times. At dusk she fitted oil lamps and followed the yellow glow from the smallest one of them to a tiny, neat room without heat behind the stairs, where she slept alone. And before the grey of every dawning she sleepily crept behind the same lamplight toward a cold kitchen stove. And for all of this Mary was paid $7 a month.

A few days after her twelfth birthday on September 28—which came and went unannounced—Mary sailed to her home in Newtown on one of the first well-laden schooners heading south from Labrador. The child of twelve years was already a seasoned worker—a woman. The little money she carried in the pocket of her jacket—she didn’t own a purse—she gave to her mother after she walked down the gangway at the Barbour premises.

* * *

Esther Humphries didn’t mind the water so much, but she hated boats, especially schooners. Well, at least she hated being aboard one. Just standing on the wharf looking at a schooner stirring on a calm sea and straining against its harbour lines made her stomach sick. She was sick now. She had never been so sick in her life, and she hadn’t thought it was possible to be so sick. Sick as a dog.

Her entire body convulsed in another pitiful, retching heave, but from her salivating mouth came no vomit. There was nothing remaining in her digestive tract to come up. It had all been violently emitted days ago, yet her body refused to heal.

Esther was lying in a narrow berth, covered with damp blankets, in the dingy forecastle of the tern schooner Neptune II somewhere on the high seas of the open Atlantic. All around her everything was in constant motion, which further sickened her sore stomach. The wooden walls that separated her from the sea were creaking and rising and falling without cease. The sound of roiling, wildly rushing water was everywhere. Above her head came the rustling, chafing sound of deck gear awash. Muffled shouts of men and the crash and rush of sea water surging across the schooner’s deck frightened her, but over it all came the terrible whine through the riggings, the relentless roar of a storm at sea. And she was afraid.

She didn’t know if it was day or night. A lantern with a flaring bottom swung back and forth on its hook in the ceiling. It gave off a wan glow of light from its smoked chimney that did little to brighten the dingy cabin. The place was in disarray. Bedclothes lay bundled on berths or half hung out of them. The floor was flushed with water and smeared black with the countless tracks of heavy boots. A long table, triangle-shaped like the forward part of the forecastle, was filled with dirty, clinking dishes and cutlery, which kept sliding back and forth to the railed table edge with each roll and toss of the schooner. From the polished pawl post or spar—which was stepped beneath the dingy floor and dominated in the cabin’s middle before disappearing through the murky ceiling—were hung coats, woollen cuffs, and stockings.

A small stove, too, was all but surrounded with the steaming clothes belonging to the men. Its dented funnel gave off periodic puffs of blue smoke as the flaws of wind baffled down its joints. It only added to the dismal pall of the cabin. The latest exhaust of coal smoke drifted throughout the angular yellow beams of light daring from the swinging lantern.

Esther coughed. The overhead door above the cabin steps was yanked open with great force. Its three hinges squealed and light spewed into the cavern. Esther looked up and saw that it was daytime. A black-clad figure climbed backward down the steps accompanied by a stream of water that flushed ahead of him from step to step. The door was slammed shut again and before long the man reached the floor, ankle deep in cold sea water. Esther reached for her glasses.

“’Ow’re you doin’, my love?” It was her husband, Peter.

“Oh, I’m no worse, Pete, b’y, nor any better, I must confess. I don’t s’pose there is any land to be seen?” Her voice sounded hopeful.

“No lan’, Ess, maid.”

“Does Jobie Barbour know where we are?” Esther always called the skipper Jobie, as did the captain’s mother.

“Well . . . not fer sure, ’e don’t! Somewhur in the mid-Atlantic, he says. ’Ell, even I knows dat much! Fer the most part we’ve been beat like a pig before t’under.”

Peter Humphries was the Neptune II’s bosun. He stepped closer to his wife’s bunk, leaned over, and said softly, “Merry Christmas, Ess!”

“Merry Christmas? ’Tis not Christmas, is it, Pete?”

“Well, ’tis Christmas Eve, maid, an’ dat was always the start of Christmastime fer us.”

“My God, December 24! We’ve been adrift for nearly a month. When will we get to lan’, Pete?”

“I wish I could tell ’ee, Ess, maid. Da skipper’s t’inkin’ of squarin’ away fer da coast of Englan’. Can you believe dat? Englan’! My gawd! Sher dat’s on da udder side of the world!”

“I don’t care what side of the world ’tis on, Pete, b’y, jest as long as we find dry lan’.”

Peter pulled a pair of warm mitts wafting with steam from above the bogie, hung up the soaked ones he pulled from his numbed hands, and prepared to climb outside again.

“I ’ave to go topside again, my love.”

“Merry Christmas, Pete, my love.” His wife’s voice, weak with sickness, followed him out of the shadows.

Peter gave his wife a reassuring grin, walked briskly up the steps, and flung open the door. The miserly light penetrated the cabin gloom for a second and sea water trickled down the steps again. The unwanted roar of wind came to Esther’s ears once again. The door hinges squealed once more as it slammed shut, and she was alone in her misery again. She prayed to the Christ—whose birthday was upon them—for deliverance.

* * *

She had boarded the Neptune II at Barbour’s wharf in Barbour’s Tickle in Newtown, Bonavista Bay, during the early morning of November 7. The schooner’s master, Job Barbour, wasn’t pleased that she was going with them to St. John’s. He didn’t like women aboard his vessel. They were always trouble, he was heard to say. But because Esther’s husband, Peter Humphries, who was his bosun, had spoken for her, he had reluctantly agreed to her passage. Barbour considered Peter one of his best seamen. There were a few others who had obtained passage to the city, but they were all men and—as Job Barbour well knew—were quite capable of working for their passage while under sail.

The local fishermen in the area had been alerted days before by a flag flown from the Barbour premises. It signalled the company was ready to load codfish for the trip to St. John’s. The Barbours paid $9.50 per quintal for the cured cod, free on board the belly of their schooner. Men wheeled and carried aboard the vessel 1,200 quintals from their own stores. The remainder came from their agents scattered throughout the area. With sixty barrels of rendered cod-liver oil lashed to her deck and 3,300 quintals of salt cod stowed safely below, the Neptune II sailed for St. John’s and to market.

A steady north wind pushed her away from the land and followed her taffrail south. And before the Neptune II had cleared Cabot Island, just six miles from the motionless land, with all sails drawing and with a white, surly wake tracing behind her sloping stern, Esther Humphries was already seasick. It was merely a cruel harbinger of the lengthy seasickness in store for this gentle woman.

Seasoned sailors, who sometimes develop the illness after prolonged stormy conditions, declare that it is far worse than being drunk-sick, a self-inflicted state some of them find themselves in while in port after months on a “dry” sea. This dreaded bane of all who go to sea for the first time is a motion sickness always accompanied with nausea and, in extreme cases, vertigo. The real cause is the human brain, which receives conflicting signals from its unsteady environment. While the eyes show a world that is still, the equilibrium senses located in the ear canals send messages of a moving environment. This discordance causes the mind to send the whole body an alarm signal to stop all normal activities, in particular the most complex one of them all: the digestive system.

Esther Humphries couldn’t describe the medical reasons why she was seasick. She just wished it would go away. It had been a pall over her for days. At times she had been violently sick. She had never spent so much time in bed in her life. Her stomach would not keep food down. She survived on hot tea and little else, and now even that meagre substance was reduced to a half-cup a day. They were short of fresh water and Job Barbour had ordered rationing.

She was the only woman in what was clearly a man’s world. It was bad enough for her to be sick and to be tended to by a man, but luckily it was her husband. What caused the woman almost as much distress as the illness itself was heaving the contents of her tormented stomach into a bucket tied to the floor beside her berth. But even this wasn’t the worst of it. Into the same bucket she had to pass her bodily waste. Peter had rigged a heavy blanket on a line to the beams above. It provided a measure of privacy, but on a fiercely working schooner in a driven storm, with shouting men coming and going without announcement, it only added to her woes. She had always been a shy woman, especially around men. Each time her bowels bunched and strained, Esther cringed against the need, fighting with her body until release could no longer be denied. With tears in her eyes she climbed dizzily out of her bunk, pulled the blanket across, used the bucket, and stumbled back under the damp blankets again. Esther was glad she was old enough to be past her time of monthly menses. The further embarrassment of such a thing would have been unbearable.

The pulled blanket was the sign for her husband that the bucket needed emptying. Pete would take the bucket on deck, rinse it in sea water, and return it to the cabin floor where it was again fastened with a rope. With the exception of her heavy winter coat and boots she lay in the bunk fully clothed. She knew she had lost weight. Her dress hung limp on her frame. There were times when she was so cold she shivered beneath the heavy quilts, and other times, spasms of fever caused her to fling the blankets aside and gasp the foul air of the shrouded forecastle.

She was born Esther Carter on the island of Greenspond, just south of Newtown, in the year 1885. There wasn’t a day in her life when she wasn’t aware of the sea. It was always there just beyond the doorstep where she grew. It sounded by summer days and winter nights upon the polished island coastline. It stretched infinitely out over the edge of her vision. It waited and beckoned. It nourished and sustained and sometimes claimed without mercy.

Strangely enough, Esther wasn’t afraid of the sea at all. Her childhood memories as well as her adult reminiscences were frequented by many sea tragedies. Men had died in raging storms just like the one she was now living through. Men in pursuit of their living on the ocean had simply slipped beneath the sea, sometimes on calm, blue summer days, and had never surfaced again. Entire ships had sailed away and never returned to the land again. Seal hunters had died on the frozen, rumpled breast of the hibernating spring ice. Staunch seamen who walked with bent backs away from the freshly covered graves of one of their kind simply boarded waiting skiffs and went back to sea. It was the calm, stalwart acceptance that kept them all going on and on. It was the only way to live at the edge of an unforgiving ocean.

* * *

From above Esther’s head came the thud of many boots. It was as if the entire deck crew were running. The schooner was in the throes of a lurch that kept repeating itself over and over again. Several of the men were seated at the forecastle table and talking in monosyllables. The schooner’s rise and inevitable fall were met with crashes of displaced, watery noises directly beside her spinning head. It seemed to Esther that this time the few inches of wooden planks that separated her from the ocean of turmoil would surely give way.

The forecastle door slammed open. The roar of the storm outside enveloped the cabin. Esther huddled deeper into her blankets in dread. The feet of water-soaked men appeared to her view again and again. Torrents of water accompanied the men down over the steps and sloshed in miniature waves on the floor.

Some of the water reached as high as Esther’s berth, soaking her blankets in its clinging, icy grip. She screamed in fear. The door was forced shut and the room was suddenly crowded with noisy men all talking at once. Some of them cursed. Esther thought they were sinking and that all the crew had abandoned the schooner to its fate.

She was assured by her husband that they were not sinking, but they were all told by Captain Barbour that they were, indeed, at the mercy of the winds. No man could survive up on the deck of the Neptune II in such a rage of wind. Their wheelhouse and lifeboat had been washed away. They would have to wait it out—and pray for their deliverance. It was December 8 and the Neptune II had been adrift for nine days, and Esther Humphries wished she could relive not only the morning of November 7 when she had first boarded the Neptune II in Newtown, but especially the last three minutes of the evening of November 29.

* * *

Mary Sturge watched with mixed feelings as the Neptune II prepared to sail from Newtown on the morning of November 7. She knew the vessel was headed south for the city of St. John’s. There came the usual excited shouts that accompanied a vessel leaving port. With its bow already pointed downstream, the Neptune II moved away from the wharf as soon as the last line was dropped. Job Barbour stood at the helm and shouted orders as he always did. Many who had sailed with him said it was all for show, that Barbour made sure to man the wheel at all entries and leavings, but that when at sea, away from the eyes of land, he relegated the ship’s handlings to his crew.

“Up full the fores’l,” came from the gravelly throat of the Neptune II’s skipper. “Up be half the mains’l. Down the gaff tops’ls. Snub tight the win’ard foresheet. Stand by the mizzen as she clears!” Then in a louder, sterner voice, “Bosun, get yer missus below out of the way! Tie off the spanker an’ ready the wind bag!”

The blocks squealed as the sails were hauled aloft into the protesting, swaying rigging and the stately schooner sailed out of the last channel and cleared the land.

“Full the main. Full the mizzen!” came in a fainter and what Mary believed to be a different voice as the Neptune II headed to sea with all three of her masts sprouting with billowing sail.

Part of Mary wanted to be aboard the schooner and heading to the city. Providing she could go where she wanted to, of course. She was now a beautiful sixteen-year-old woman with a mind of her own. There were times when people left here for a different way of life altogether. She knew of one whole family that had left to board a steamer for the United States. They had never returned. There were even a few who had gone away to board steamers to go on a vacation. Mary wasn’t sure what it meant, only that if you had one you didn’t have to work at all.

It was when she saw ships at night that Mary wondered most what it would be like to be aboard one heading for some exotic port where the sea was always warm. Out on the open sea roads past the shores of Newtown, on the night horizon the great ocean-going liners silently sailed by, their lights twinkling against the dark sky. What would it be like, she wondered, to be a passenger on such a ship? Dressed in expensive clothes and eating succulent meals from fancy dishes she would never have to clean. And after that, sleeping in a bed big enough for three, on sheets that slid against her skin, her head snuggled deep among the many fluffy pillows.

The last time Mary had left here on schooner and sailed to St. John’s had been little different than her trip north to the Grey Islands. She was older and more experienced now, but the little-girl fears of going to strange places and having to work and live with strangers still went with her.

* * *

The hundred or so miles between Newtown and St. John’s slid by all too quickly under the stern of the schooner, and one bright spring morning, having sailed all night, Mary arrived in the harbour of St. John’s early one Monday morning. The entire waterfront seemed filled with schooners as well as huge ships. She waited on the quay beside the schooner for over two hours for someone to come for her. She didn’t even know the name of her employer.

Mary kept looking for someone, and when she saw a big man walking along by the wharf and talking to men on the different schooners as he passed, she knew instinctively he was looking for her. At the sight of him, she hoped she was mistaken. The man was huge. He wore a full-length fur coat that she later learned came from a bear he had shot. The man stopped when he came up to her and looked first at the schooner’s bow, as if reading its name, and than at her.

“Yer Mary Sturge from Newtown, I s’pose!” he said in a voice that sounded as though it had come out of a cave. She answered in the affirmative.

He grabbed both her bags—one of them her old battered portmanteau—in one massive hand and without further comment walked away. Mary followed him up the streets and away from the smelly harbour to his home on Kennas Hill. It was her first time in a city. Her first impression was that it was a place of confusion: smelly, dirty, and messy. All along the narrow stone streets, horse and cart and automobile jostled with hurrying pedestrians for the same space. Mary had never seen a car before. A ship’s horn sounded in the harbour below. A train whistle blew farther to the west. Mary had never seen a train before, either. The young woman took in all that was new and different to her and tried her best to keep stride with the powerful man she was following. Mary would have liked to spend more time looking into some of the store windows she passed, especially one with all feminine apparel on display, but her leader didn’t slow at all until they came to a large, two-storey house with bay windows built near the street. He opened a black wrought-iron gate that needed painting and, without holding the gate open for Mary, entered a pleasant green yard. Budding trees of a species Mary hadn’t seen before swayed above her. Aside from stunted firs and spruces, few trees grew on the barren lands of Newtown.

Despite his rough exterior and burly manners, she would soon discover that the man who had met her—her employer—was a gentle person. The woman who appeared, with the sharpest, thinnest nose, and sharpest shoulder blades to match, and with the fiercest black eyes young Mary had ever seen—was not.

Mary had an older sister, Sophie, who also worked as a maid somewhere in the city of St. John’s. Mary didn’t know which street Sophie worked on or even the name of her sister’s employer. Then one day, after she had been in the city for nearly three weeks, she answered the door. A young man stood there holding a cut of beef from the butcher shop. He stared curiously at Mary as she took the parcel wrapped with brown paper and tied secure with string. Her mistress, who had heard the knock at the door, appeared as if from nowhere and instructed Mary to take the meat to the kitchen. When she returned, the lady of the house had just counted out the price for the beef and, with a pained look on her face, dropped it into the man’s hand before disappearing down the hall. Turning to leave through the opened door, he saw Mary.

“You wouldn’t have a sister workin’ ’ereabouts, would ya now?”

“Yes, I do. Her name is Sophie!” she answered excitedly. “Have you seen her?”

“Oh, I don’t know ’bout that,” replied the young man, holding his hands up chest high. “All I can tell ya is that I jest delivered a small rack of ribs an’ a blade roast to a house two streets down, to a girl who looks a lot like yerself!”

Mary had found her sister.

No, Mary thought as she watched the Neptune II sail out of sight, I don’t want to go back to St. John’s to work. She was now working here in Newtown and was content with her lot. Well, sort of. She would still like to sail away somewhere, where endless work wasn’t waiting for her.

* * *

Esther had heard Jobie Barbour when he ordered her below as they sailed out of Newtown. It now seemed like such a long time ago. But the shouted order, directed at her through her husband as they sailed out of Newtown, mattered little to her. She knew she would be seasick and willingly went to a berth below deck. Esther was like most victims of seasickness, who dreaded even the thought of the confines of walled cabins. The very sight of an undulating horizon, grey rolling seas that rose above and fell below the sea rails of the schooner, wind-filled sails that forever kept the schooner on a permanent, nauseating list, a swaying deck that just wouldn’t be level—not even for a moment—was all too much for her. She hurried below and stayed there and endured the sick feeling in her stomach without complaint until the next morning, when the Neptune II docked in the calm, greasy waters of the port of St. John’s. It was November 8.

Esther stayed with friends in the city while Peter slept aboard the Neptune II. She rarely saw him for the first week or so as his time was spent dockside overseeing the off-loading of the schooner.

They were delayed several times in this task by rainy weather. It took seventeen days to complete the discharging of the Neptune II’s sea cargo and a couple of days more to load her with provisions for the Barbour chandlers of Newtown.

Esther was tired of the city by this time. She had strolled the streets of the old downtown district of St. John’s many times while she waited for news of their return voyage. She and her husband had four small children waiting at home. Christmas was near and the shops beckoned her. Esther wanted to buy something special for her children, something different from the hand-knitted wool mittens and socks she usually gave them. She wanted to buy something in a store. When she entered the few stores with prices to match her tightly gripped pocketbook, she soon discovered she would be able to buy only the cheapest of gifts.

As bosun of the Neptune II, Peter Humphries sailed under wages when the vessel freighted along the coast, and shareman when he was fishing for the Barbours. Shortly after arriving in St. John’s, Job Barbour had told him that, due to the sudden drop in the fish prices, the bonus he would have gotten for a good voyage of fish was not going to happen. Captain Barbour further informed his bosun that while he would have to discuss the matter with his brothers back in Newtown, it was likely his bosun wages would be cut by a few cents per hour to allow for the company’s loss at the hands of the fish merchants.

Esther ran her fingers over the fine clothing that her children would never see. She was in one of the stores up from the noisy waterfront, wondering if the decline in fish prices would affect the Barbour children as much as it did her own.

Thinking of her children made her impatient to leave for home. She missed them very much and, despite knowing she was in for a full day or more of being seasick on the trip north, she was eager to be away. When she got the word to be ready to sail by 5:30 p.m. on the evening of November 29, she walked down over the hill toward the docks. She didn’t hurry her step; she didn’t want to be aboard the schooner for one minute more than was necessary.

They were already casting off when she arrived on the dock at the side of the Neptune II. The last line holding the vessel to the wharf had been loosed and the gangway had been hauled aboard. Job Barbour was already at the wheel, as impressive as always. Esther had to jump down aboard the Neptune II. She landed in the arms of her anxious husband.

A noisy harbour tug was slowly approaching the bows of the Neptune II, stern first. A man threw a heavy line from the Neptune II down aboard the tug. The line was fastened to the tug’s stern grump and a bellow of black smoke poured out of her lone stack as her engine roared to full life. Under her settling stern came a seething wash of sea water. The Neptune II was plucked unceremoniously away from the wharf and pulled out into the ebbing stream of the St. John’s port.

“Tell your woman this, Bosun, if she had been three minutes later she would have missed her passage aboard of this vessel!” came from Captain Barbour as he spun the helm with one hand and looked at a gold watch in the other.

Esther stood on the deck of the slow-moving schooner and held to the ratlines on the port side. The city of St. John’s slipped by on both sides of the schooner in a glimmer of lights. Through the lower rigging and far beyond the bows of the Neptune II she saw several dimples of light bobbing in the black granite frame of the Notch toward which they were being pulled. They were the hoisted lights of other schooners heading out into that black Atlantic night.

Barbour ordered sails aloft as the Neptune II took the first swells of the open sea. The tugboat slowed a bit. A dark figure on her stern threw the bight of the Neptune II’s hawser overboard and there came a sudden roar as the black tug pulled away on the schooner’s starboard side. The Neptune II heeled to port as her sails took the night wind. The tug blew once on its whistle as it passed and Barbour and the crew of the Neptune II waved to the tug’s skipper.

“Take the helm, Bosun. Crack on all the sails the vessel will bear as she presents herself. Stay the jumbo, though, fer now. Make course for home,” said Barbour as he walked aft toward his cabin. Then, over his shoulder he said, “Tell your good wife to go below, if you please. No place for a female up on the deck of a working schooner, as you well know.”

Barbour walked away, his figure disappearing in the murky evening before he reached his cabin door.

“Same bunk as before, Ess, maid. The after one on the starburd side,” Peter said calmly.

“Oh, I knows me bunk, Pete, b’y, and I knows me place, too. Not on the deck of this one, but hidden below, accordin’ to Jobie Barbour!”

Esther walked forward and opened the forecastle door. The light from below illuminated her for a minute before she turned and stepped backward down below the deck of the heaving deck of the Neptune II. The next time the woman would see that same deck, or the sky above it, she would be on the other side of this ocean. She would sail near death’s door and remain adrift there for days on end. And again and again she would wish she had been just three minutes behind the Neptune II’s leaving St. John’s.

The schooner had been constructed in Denmark in 1920. At 126 gross tons, ninety-one feet long, twenty-three feet wide, and with a depth of nine feet she was the largest of all the schooners that left St. John’s harbour on November 29, 1929. She was also the last one to leave the port. The Danes had built her well with stout northern oak. She had copper nailing in places and her mast stays, or chain plates, were fastened to her hull with wide iron strapping. Boasting three tall masts, she was considered a tern schooner, the word taken from the Latin meaning “a set of three”—though all who sailed in her considered her a tern schooner, named for that magnificent bird, the Arctic tern, which unerringly finds it way to the shores of Newfoundland from South America each spring.

Due to the vessel’s size and because he had delayed long enough to miss the pull of ebb tide, Barbour had called for a tug to get the Neptune II out of St. John’s harbour. The captain knew his schooner could sail the 100 miles to Newtown in twelve hours or less with a fair wind and with all three of her masts drawing full sails. But even the weight of the biggest schooner was as nothing before the might of an Atlantic gale.

Like all the others the Neptune II was borne away from the land of her handlers by a fetch of wind that was fierce to hear and terrifying to look upon. And below her heaving deck was a lone frightened woman who was violently sick and who for the next forty-eight days would go through her own personal hell.

* * *

Mary Sturge heard about the missing schooners like everyone else in Newtown. The first day or so no one was alarmed. After all, it wasn’t unusual for a schooner to be delayed by a day or two or even longer. It was the way of vessels dependent solely on wind and tide. The word came that both schooners from Newtown, the Gander Deal and the Neptune II, had left the port of St. John’s on Friday night, November 29. It was now December 2, late Monday evening, and still there was no sign of either one of the schooners. Not only that, it was now known that several schooners from the outports all along the north coast of Bonavista Bay were overdue as well. Still, although everyone cast frequent anxious looks south over the endless ocean, hoping to see the first glimpse of sails, no one was yet overly worried. Since Friday night the winds had been a gale. The schooners had holed up somewhere, maybe Catalina or Elliston, or possibly in some sheltered cove in the lee of a headland.

Funny about wind sounds, Mary thought as she plodded along the snow path between house and well, a gale of wind just as strong could come blowing in over the sea and race across the land in midsummer, but it would never bring the mournful sounds of a winter’s gale. Mary’s right boot was filled with water. In her haste to get the water barrel filled before it became full dark, she had forgotten to take the water-hoop with her. A person stepped into this simple, square, wooden device, about four feet across. With its outer edges placed on the bucket rims inside the handles, a half pulling, half lifting motion made lifting the five or so gallons of water a much easier task. It also kept you dry, as any water that flopped out of the buckets was kept well away from your feet.

Mary hated Mondays. Monday was washday, and aside from washing clothes, which meant extra water—which she had to carry—it also meant catching up on housework. Outside of cooking, nothing was done on Sundays. No floors were allowed to be mopped or even swept and no water would be brought from the well. God forbid anyone would be seen lugging water from the well on a blessed Sunday! Even most of the dirty dishes were piled on the counter waiting for Monday morning.

At last evening’s vespers everyone’s mind was on the missing schooners. The knelling of the first bell had brought whole families out from lamplit kitchens and along the narrow path toward the church, its rectangular windows aglow and beckoning with the same soft light. The minister had prayed for the schooners and their missing crews and had asked his flock to bear them before the throne of Him who ruled the wind and wave. But no one was overly concerned about the schooners yet. This time of year was unpredictable, anyway, they said. Everyone expected the schooners were riding out the winds in some safe port, and as soon as the wind moderated they would be seen sailing home.

But all that night and into another the wind had howled without let-up. It was now a cold, raw wind from out of the northwest. Before the dark had come, black scuds of wind could be seen racing out over the water’s surface in hundreds of dark, twisting, velvet-like shadows until the reach of the sea whipped them into countless caps of white. The cold wind mourned like a living thing around the corners of houses and whined and whistled along their eaves, seeking entry into each wooden seam, and howled overhead with a sound that nobody liked.

Mary staggered the last few steps to the low bridge beneath the porch door. She lowered one bucket, opened the door, and stepped inside. She dumped both buckets of iron-rich, tea-coloured water into the water gully. The barrel was not quite full but would do for the night. Mary knew the water barrel in the cold porch would be frozen over by morning. When she opened the kitchen door the inside warmth meeting the frigid outside air produced a waft of foglike steam that for a moment surrounded the girl’s head like a wreath.

From strings above the stove and from hooks behind the stove and from the backs of chairs was draped clothing set to dry. Mary had heated boilers of water early this morning and had flensed the usual piles of Monday morning clothes over a serrated scrubbing board until it was spotless clean. She wrung out every garment and cloth by hand until her arms ached. Some people had a modern hand-cranked device to wring the water from clothes; Yetman did not. Carrying the heavy mound of clothes outside in a galvanized oval tub balanced on her hip, she pinned it to the clothesline. The winter wind dried little of the water but rather froze most of it solid. Shortly after noon she hung and draped it wherever she could around the kitchen to dry. It had been a busy, back-breaking day for the young girl, which was why she was late fetching the water. And her day was far from done yet. She hurried the partially dried clothes away from the kitchen; her master didn’t like to see clothing strung around the kitchen while he was eating his supper. She set the supper table, scurrying back and forth between cupboard, stove, and kitchen counter like a wisp. When supper was done—she was allowed to eat with the family—she was expected to clear the table, wash the dishes, and sweep the floor again. And then there was the ironing to do.

Mary smiled at a childhood memory that came to her every time she had ironing to do. She had been playing on the kitchen floor near the table where her mother stood ironing clothes—must have been on a Monday, she thought. The kitchen door opened and an older woman stepped inside without knocking.

“Oh, Ethel, my dear, you’re doin’ your ironing. Good. I’m so glad to see you’re not busy! Every woman knows ironin’ is something she does in her slack time!”

Since she had begun working, Mary Sturge could not remember having any slack time and she still hated Mondays.

* * *

By Monday night Esther Humphries, lying in a tossing bunk aboard the Neptune II, was deathly ill. All through that interminable night and into the fury of the following day the crew of the Neptune II managed to keep her broad bows before the wind. The vessel was being carried away from the land by a whelp of wind and by seas that ran higher than any of them had ever seen before.

All the crew of the schooner lay huddled below in the forecastle, save for Esther’s husband, Peter, the bosun, who was alone on deck struggling with the helm. Suddenly, above the fury of the wind and wave came a faint cry for help from above. The men hurried on deck to find Peter crying in agony. He was still lashed to the wheel but had been thrown violently against the wheelhouse by a huge wave and had now passed out from the pain.

Through a haze of nausea Esther watched them lower her husband down the stairs and lay him in his bunk. Pete was still. She thought he was dead and she cried out in agony, but Captain Barbour told her in a consoling tone that Peter was not dead, merely knocked unconscious by the blow he had received on deck. He was right, for her husband soon regained his senses and told his wife in a shaky voice that he was going to be all right. But it would be days before the bosun could return to his duties. The men helped another man down over the stairs as well. Ephraim Blackmore, who was a passenger aboard the schooner, had helped with the rescue of the bosun and in so doing had injured his back. He, too, was consigned to his bunk. He would remain there for fourteen days.

The Neptune II continued drifting. By the log, Barbour determined that some days they drifted as much as eighty miles. Their wheelhouse was swept away and all of the steering apparatus was gone and the helm was damaged. The resourceful men ventured on deck and at the risk of their lives they fastened ropes, blocks, and tackles to the tiller and steering was restored, but it took two men on each side to pull on the ropes. Pearce Barbour repaired the broken wheel and again one man was all that was needed to steer the schooner. They drifted out onto the warm Gulf Stream, and the ice that had frozen to almost every section of deck and rigging thawed. All of this Esther learned from the men who talked of nothing else when gathered in the forecastle. They brought the huge sails, which nearly filled the cabin, down over the steps and sewed and repaired them. It was impossible to do the work on the tortured deck of the Neptune II. Water washed down over the floor every time the forecastle scuttle was opened. Again, such a wash of water descended the steps and reached up into the berth where Esther lay. She rose up on her elbows and screamed in panic, sure they were sinking, but the men assured her they were not and after a while she settled back into her soaked bedclothes again. She heard Jobie Barbour tell the crew that she was a brave woman. It made her feel better.

On the afternoon of December 13, Esther noticed a difference in the motion of the schooner. The winds were quieter and the sickening roll of the vessel had lessened. Then from somewhere outside there came the muffled sound of a ship’s steam whistle. The men raced above deck. They signalled the liner. Esther felt sure they were saved. It was the SS Cedric, her 26,000-ton bulk looming above the Atlantic rollers more than two miles away.

The huge ship turned toward them and Barbour ordered a lifeboat lowered along with three of his crew members, who rowed toward the Cedric. The boat, which had been hooked to the Neptune II’s main boom like a flattie on a prong, swayed and pitched and was dropped into the humped sea with the men aboard. The hook was released and, with Barbour manning the tiller, the boat rowed with thole-pins chafing toward the massive ocean liner. Job Barbour carried in his coat pocket a message he hoped to send to Newtown by wireless to assure all at home that they were adrift at sea, but safe.

The men in the lifeboat had to use all of their small-boat skills on the wide-open, tumultuous sea between the safety of their own schooner and possible rescue in the form of the massive, rolling Cedric. Even though the wind had slacked some, the seas were still high. They marched in great undulating water masses that sometimes shouldered their weight under the boat and lifted it without effort, shipping some of its cloying liquid in over its gunnels. They came into the relatively sheltered lee of the looming ship, looking like a small stone that had fallen from a mountain. They approached the heaving steel sides of the ship and Barbour prepared to climb the rope ladder that had been lowered for him.

“The skipper tried to board ’er, Ess, maid, but the first time the boat rubbed against the ship ’er gunnels was tore apart like cheese t’rough a grater! No man could climb dat ladder in such a sea. The crew from the ship lowered a canvas bag when the skipper waved the paper ’e ’ad in his ’and, and after some more shoutin’ back an’ fard dey returned to the Neptune.”

“You mean dere wont be any rescue, Pete?” Esther’s tired, weak voice was now crestfallen. Her hopes of being put aboard a ship she had not even seen were dashed.

The woman listened in disbelief as her husband tried to make her see that Barbour had not asked for rescue, that the Neptune II was in no immediate danger of sinking. He merely wanted to know where they were.

“Over 700 miles away from ’ome, we are, Ess. Right out in the middle of the Atlantic, we are! But we’re safe enough, my dear. Never fear, we will get to lan’,” her husband said in a soothing voice. Peter told her that the captain of the Cedric had written on a paper they had lowered down not only their distance from Newfoundland but also their accurate longitude and latitude. However, Skipper Barbour only knew compass bearings and had no knowledge whatsoever of accurate navigation.

Esther settled back under her quilts again, despondent and feeling more hopeless than ever. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.

For the deathly ill woman lying in a berth that was never dry and was warmed with little more than her own feeble body heat, the days wore on. From her husband and from muted conversations she heard in the musky cabin and through the haze of her sickness, she learned of their progress. Or, as Esther considered it, their fate. Daily the schooner tacked toward an unreachable land and daily the vessel was beaten back farther to sea. And in all of that miserable time the woman stayed below the deck of the storm-tossed schooner. Her daily food was no more than tidbits of bread and sips of water fed to her by her concerned husband, who sometimes gave her hot water laced with brandy and sugar. Seldom did she keep the food down. The winter solstice came, and though it was the shortest day and longest night of the year, the defeat of winter had already set in. When the sun came again it would stay longer each day, but aboard the Neptune II, adrift and lost somewhere on the frigid North Atlantic, the day was merely a harbinger of even colder days at sea.

On Christmas day the men ate bologna and raisins and Esther was given a small measure of brandy. Everyone wished her a Merry Christmas. Her husband told her they were heading for a place called the Scilly Isles, in the British Channel, and in a few days they would be safe ashore. Esther only nodded her head, her unwashed hair matted to her forehead, her skin clammy and cold despite her fever.

“Merry Christmas, Ess, my love,” Pete said gently in her ear. But his terribly sick woman did not answer, and for the first time her husband thought she was going to die.

* * *

Christmas of 1929 in Newtown was far from an ordinary one. Besides the many family members of the two schooners feared lost at sea, the Gander Deal and the Neptune II, there was also the added burden of a food shortage for many families. Anxious housewives making frequent trips to their ever-shrinking pantries had to silently bear—away from the watching eyes of their children—not only the absence of husband, but also the possible death of father, lover, and breadwinner.

Other wives, whose husbands were not aboard the missing schooners, felt and shared the pain of their sisters. Everyone around these islands as well as in isolated mainland homes, if not directly related, had friends aboard the long-overdue schooners. The one thing they all had in common was the need for basic food. Both vessels were a veritable storehouse of winter provisions for almost everyone in Newtown as well as Pinchard’s Island. Barrels of flour and sugar. Cases of yeast. Cases of India tea. Wooden tubs of hard butter as well as Crosbie’s Eversweet butter packed in modern galvanized buckets. Puncheons of sweet molasses. Most of it was destined for the Barbour chandlers, and through them it would eventually find its way onto the table of every fisherman.

Missing still were skeins of dull grey wool for stockings, hats, and cuffs. Bright balls of worsted, used to brighten a little girl’s sweater or to hang spiralling from a Christmas tree. Precious things to cheer the human spirit at this bleak time of the year. Hard sweet candy and bottles of coloured sugar water. A rare store-bought gift, one a white, intricately laced shawl, a longed-for brooch to match a wedding ring, a child’s first store-bought gift coming from a city store. All of it was adrift on a raging winter sea. And then on Christmas Eve, something unexpected happened!

Mary Sturge was prying a measure of hard butter from a small tub in the pantry. There wasn’t much left. She smiled to herself as she closed the lid. If provisions for the winter weren’t soon obtained, there would be no need to nail the lid on this tub when Lent came, she thought. During her stay on the Grey Islands, one of the things the Brothers family did to observe Lent was deprive the entire family of the luxury of using butter on their bread. To ensure his rule was carried out, the master of the house, Cliff Brothers, nailed the lid of their butter tub down, just in case some member of the household would break his stern rule during his absence.

Mary had returned from the cold pantry, had entered the warmth of the kitchen, and was passing the multi-pane window over the table when she heard an unusual commotion coming from outside. Bending over the table she peered out and saw several children as well as adults running along the narrow road. To see adults running was almost always a cause for alarm. Mary’s first thought was there was a fire somewhere. She hurried outside. Everyone on the road was shouting excitedly. Dogs, both chained and running loose, sensed the mood of the humans and barked ceaselessly.

“The crew of the Gander Deal are home!” someone shouted at her with excitement.

Mary instinctively looked toward the sea, half expecting to see the Gander Deal coming in under the land. But then she realized the crowd were running away from the sea and not toward it. Then she saw them: several black figures approaching the village on foot, from up the Arm. As they neared, the children, who were eagerly running toward them over the snowy trail, and who were the first to greet them, were snatched and hoisted aloft and clasped in great hugs of joy to the breasts of the returning seamen.

The crew of the Gander Deal had come home, indeed, but their vessel with all of its treasures had gone beneath a sea that for days on end had tried to claim her handlers. But for now everyone was filled with expectant joy. Wives ran out of houses crying and with aprons flying were scooped into the brawny arms of returning husbands. Men shook hands with the crew and slapped the long-lost sailors on their backs with blows that nearly felled them to the ground. Tears of joy welled up and rolled down over ruddy cheeks.

Mary kept staring back along the trail over which had come the trudging men. She half expected to see the crew of the Neptune II come walking behind them in the cold winter dusk. But the haul-path was now empty and bare, save for calf-high drifts of new snow that had already covered the tracks of the men who had come home for Christmas.

When asked about news of the Neptune II—whether they had seen her during all that time at sea—the answer was always in the negative, but because the Gander Deal’s crew had survived, everyone’s spirit was buoyed. If the little Gander Deal had survived the endless onslaught of storms, surely the Neptune II would as well. After all, the Neptune II was the biggest of all the schooners. The pride of the Barbour fleet. And at thirty-two years of age, Job Barbour, the captain of the Neptune II, who had been master of his own schooner since the age of twenty-one, was considered to be a master mariner.

* * *

In Roman mythology the god Neptune and his brothers Jupiter and Pluto reigned over the realms of Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Added to Neptune’s role was the rulership over all the seas. Whether it was the Roman god Neptune, whose named was etched on the schooner’s prow, his Greek counterpart Poseidon, or the supreme God to whom all Christians pray, some deity seemed to be keeping the Neptune II afloat.

Aboard the Neptune II, Christmas Day with its bologna dinner had long passed and still the schooner was nowhere near any land. The storms kept coming without end until it seemed as though they had endured one continuous blow for the full month they had now been adrift. On the eve of the day that would roll back the pages to reveal a brand new year, and with it a new decade, was the day Barbour reluctantly weathered his schooner around for the faraway Scilly Isles of the English Channel.

The next day, January 1, 1930, Esther Humphries was at her lowest ebb. Her breathing was as shallow as that of a little bird. Her body had lost most of its heat. She had not been able to keep food down for all of that time. She was haggard and thin and her face was white. Esther Humphries was dying. Peter leaned in over her bunk and listened to her faint breathing. He spoke her name but there came no answer. He pulled the blankets tighter under her chin and was shocked to feel her emaciated frame. Her blankets were damp again, though he had tried his best to dry them just two days ago. It wasn’t easy to dry the heavy coarse quilts above the coal-burning bogie, which was already covered with the men’s sodden clothing. After whispering her name again, Peter got up and went up on deck.

Job Barbour approached him and questioned him, as he always did, concerning the state of his wife. Barbour was not a married man. The only woman he loved was his mother, but he felt the anguish of his bosun, who was losing his woman. Up on deck the two men discussed Esther’s fate. Barbour told Peter that he thought she was the bravest woman he knew and that he had great admiration for her. Peter thanked him and then told him she was dying and that he didn’t expect his wife to live for longer than another hour. Then they talked about how they would bury her. Peter could not bear the thought of heaving the body of his beloved Esther into that cruel sea. Skipper Barbour told him that when she died he would arrange her body to be wrapped in their heaviest sailcloth and lashed to the main hatch cover on the deck of the Neptune II. They would hold her there until they sighted land or until such time as they would have to bury her at sea. Peter nodded his head in agreement and walked away crestfallen.

But to everyone’s pleasant surprise, Esther survived for more than the expected hour. After the night had passed, when her husband had to place his ear to her lips to determine if she was or alive dead, the courageous woman raised her head above her grimy pillow and asked—knowing they were living under water rations—for a small drop of water. Over the next few days her health steadily improved, and while she was still unable to get out of her bed it was obvious their dire circumstances had not defeated her will to live. She listened to Ephraim Blackmore play familiar hymns on his accordion. They reminded her of church and home and lifted her spirits.

Esther had never heard of the Scilly Isles before. Now it was the constant talk of the men. Would Barbour find the islands with only a compass to guide him? Many of them doubted that he would. Some of them thought they might end up on the rugged coast of Scotland, or Iceland, or as far south as Gibraltar, or even north to Denmark. Esther listened without comment and prayed for any land on earth. She just wanted to get ashore from the sickening, constantly rolling sea.

Then came January 14, when her husband ran to her bunk and told her in an excited voice, “The bottom is comin’ up!”

Barbour had ordered the sounding lead over, as he had done whenever it was possible to do so. On the first try it had come up with sand clinging to its end and for the first time it read a mere 100 fathoms. After only a few hours it was sounded again and this time it measured a mere sixty fathoms.

“Not only that, Ess, maid, everywhere dere’s birds that roost upon the land in the nighttimes! ’Tis almost dark an’ the birds are flying toward the lan’. Dere’s a light blinkin’ in the distance! A lighthouse, the highest one I’ve ever seen! We’re comin’ to the lan’ fer sure! The Scilly Isles, the skipper says ’tis, accordin’ to ’is reckonin’ and the light flashes.”

Peter gave her a drop from the last of their wine and a sip of tepid water. From the schooner’s stores he found among the rotting apples and oranges a few that were still edible. He cut small pieces of the fruit for his wife, who ate of it sparingly. But the news of being close to land had cheered the woman immensely, and for the first time since they had sailed out of the port of St. John’s, a lifetime away, Peter saw his woman smile.

Job Barbour had found in one of his lockers a chart showing part of the south coast of England. He correctly counted and timed the flashes from the winking light far ahead of the Neptune II’s plunging bows. He was convinced that they were coming in under the land of the Scilly Isles. But he was wrong.

The Scilly Isles, which lie twenty-eight miles to the southwest of Land’s End, or the tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain at the westernmost reach of the English Channel, consist of more than one hundred small islands. This broken archipelago of islands that rise out of the Celtic Sea like the misshapen tail of the Lizard, the name given to the southern end of England itself, has been a silent witness to ships of sail without number. But it would never see the schooner Neptune II, as Captain Job Barbour had predicted. In fact, the Neptune II was far to the north of the Scillies—230 miles north of them!

* * *

The Skerryvore Rock, just twelve miles from the Isle of Tiree, part of the chain of islands of the Inner Hebrides, was the most feared rock on the west coast of Scotland. It had impaled countless ships upon its mostly hidden reef, and on the bottom, far below its spine, lay the bones of sailors since before the Vikings had come.

In 1814, Sir Walter Scott, Scotland’s most famous and beloved novelist, playwright, and poet, upon seeing Skerryvore Rock for the first time, wrote, “At length, by dint of exertion, come in sight of the long ridge of rocks (chiefly underwater), on which the tide breaks in a most tremendous style.” By 1814, after years of trying to convince the government of the need and after finally obtaining the necessary funds for it, the chief engineer of the northern lighthouses, Alan Stevenson, started the work of constructing a lighthouse on that infamous rock. Alan, who was uncle to one of the greatest tellers of sea adventures—Robert Louis Stevenson—was about to begin a great sea adventure of his own.

Due to the severity of the seas that constantly smashed upon and sometimes flew over the rock, construction could not be attempted during inclement weather. Work commenced only during ebb tides and in the summer months. Stevenson organized gruelling shifts for his workmen of seventeen hours duration, with only two-hour breaks during the short construction seasons. The work took no less than eight years to complete, but when finished they had achieved the greatest feat of ocean engineering of that century. Standing 156 feet above the deadly reef and with its foundation awash in stormy seas, the Skerryvore lighthouse, complete with two fog-bells sounding one stroke every half-minute, warned sailors of its perilous rock for the first time in history.

There is a place east of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland where the greatest saltwater current on our planet suddenly divides. The stream of water from the Gulf of Mexico now separates as if not knowing which way to go. Part of it heads south and becomes the Canary Current as it reaches the Canary Islands off the huge bulge of North Africa. The other river of water continues its odyssey north to warm the climate of the British Isles, and even as far as the coast of Norway. It is called the North Atlantic Drift. It was this mighty, hidden stream of water flowing beneath the algae-covered keel of the Neptune II that had deceived Job Barbour.

Without any knowledge of positioning navigation necessary to determine just where he was on the vast ocean, he only knew that his schooner was sailing in a generally easterly direction. The prevailing winds from the coast of North America far to the west, as well as the silent, eastbound currents coursing unseen beneath the Neptune II’s bilge, had carried the vessel inexorably eastward. The looming light the crew of the Neptune II were sailing toward was nowhere near the Scilly Isles. It was the Skerryvore light off the west coast of Scotland. And when the day came again, they could see the precious land.

When Peter told Esther they were coming under a huge land, the woman cried with joy. It was as if her brain, knowing it would soon be away from the surging sea, had commanded her body to heal itself for the occasion. She wanted to go on deck and see the land. She was still very weak and unable to walk, so the men, eager to help this woman who had persevered against a terrible illness, fashioned a bed and carried her, wrapped in damp blankets, up on the deck of the Neptune II. It was the first time in nearly forty-eight days Esther had seen the light of day. And there it was, standing firm and solid all around, the blessed land that she had so longed for—solid and earthy, secure, and, most of all, unmoving. She turned her face toward it, taking in the wonderful smell of it. It was like a tonic to the land-loving woman.

The steamer Hesperus came puffing along by the land and hove to within shouting distance of the Neptune II. The battered schooner with tattered sails and rejoicing crew was taken in hand and eventually towed to Tobermory on the Isle of Mull in Scotland. The crew of the Neptune II were safe on a foreign shore. It had taken them forty-eight days to get there. Esther Humphries was given care by the doctor aboard the Hesperus. When she finally stepped shakily onto the Tobermory harbour dock, she was surprised to learn she had developed a sailors’ gait. Though she had spent the entire voyage bunk-ridden, it would be months before this rolling sensation of walking would leave her.

Job Barbour immediately sent a message to his mother in Newtown. It read simply and without emotion: “Arrived safely Tobermory, Scotland. All well.”

His mother wired him back: “Thank God for your deliverance. Never gave you up. Kind regards to Mrs. Humphries and crew. Take care of yourself. Love. Mother.”

Job Barbour arranged passage for himself and his crew to Liverpool, England, where on January 30, 1930, he arranged for his passengers—Esther Humphries, William Norris, Edward Gill, Ephraim Blackmore, and crew members Pearce Barbour, Peter Humphries, and John Norman—passage to St. John’s, Newfoundland. They crossed back over the winter Atlantic in relative comfort aboard the SS Nova Scotia. For Esther Humphries there was no other way to get home. She would have walked, if possible, rather than make another voyage across that ocean of her misery. She was given a comfortable berth, which was always warm and dry. Even then she seldom came out on deck during the crossing and was sick for most of the time. But it was only a shadow of the ordeal the woman had endured aboard the Neptune II. They arrived in St. John’s without incident, and transportation was arranged by train for all of them to Gambo. From there they travelled north to Newtown and home over blustery trails and paths by sleds drawn by horse and dog.

The atmosphere in Newtown on that long-ago day, when the message was received and, more especially, when the Neptune II’s crew came home, is best described by one who was there, the servant girl Mary Sturge.

* * *

Mary Blackmore (née Sturge) passed away on May 27, 2010.

Her memories were recorded by her daughter, Sophie Gill.

“I was a sixteen-year-old servant girl with teacher Joseph Yetman and his wife, Pearl. They had two children, George and Lloyd. Pearl was the daughter of George and Susie Davis. Susie was Peter Humphries’s sister. Peter and his wife, Esther, were both on board the Neptune II, Esther being the only female.

“Sadness prevailed in the community of Newtown for forty-eight days. People watched for the schooner’s lights at night bringing loved ones home. One such person was Susie Davis, who never failed in her faith for their return.

“Along with the turmoil at sea, the families were suffering at home. Food supplies hadn’t arrived. Loved ones were lost at sea, presumed dead. It was a very sad time with Christmas in the midst and breadwinners absent from families and sweethearts. Fifty-seven-year-old Susie knew her brother Peter Humphries was a capable person and could help when things got rough. He and Esther were always on her mind—on everybody’s mind. She chose her own way of dealing with the situation. George Davis, her husband, would go to the post office every morning to read the public news received by wireless by Mr. Bannister, the postmaster, who would have posted it for the public to read. Morning after morning they were disappointed—no news of the Neptune II.

“Every day Susie visited her sister Pearl at the Yetman house and every evening George would walk her back home. After supper he prepared bavins and crunnicks and lit the fire in the bedroom stove. With the fire crackling and snopping, the kerosene lamp turned down low and with reverence, dignity, and many tears, Susie prayed for the safe return of her brother and sister-in-law, Peter and Esther, and the whole Neptune II crew. There was hymn singing often. This ritual continued throughout Christmas and into the longest, darkest nights of the year 1929 and into the new year of 1930. Then on the morning of January 16, 1930, Susie looked out of Mr. Yetman’s bay window to see Mr. Bannister crippling along the road waving a piece of paper. Susie said to me, ‘Mary, go see what Mr. Bannister got there!’

“The excitement of Mr. Bannister lisping, ‘They’re in Tobermory, Scotland, all well and safe!’ was overwhelming. This news was passed from house to house (at Mrs. Barbour’s former request) as the postmaster stumbled along the long bridge up to Captain Job’s mother’s house. The long bridge reached from where Keith Bungay now lives to Jessie Blackmore’s, where the longliners tie up. Flags were flying and there was unimaginable excitement at Newtown and Pinchard’s Island. That night a square dance was held at the SUF Lodge. However, it closed early because an elderly member of the community died. Celebration for the passengers and crew continued in the form of ‘times’—a cup of tea and dance, etc., in the Anglican Hall. A celebration was held for Captain Job at the United Church Hall.

“The Newtown schoolchildren were permitted to leave school on the arrival of the passengers and crew (Job Barbour was still in Liverpool, England) of the Neptune II. They paraded with flags up to the farm—the woodslide road—up past Len Howell’s and toward the United Church cemetery.

“Dogsled teams had brought the crew and passengers from Gambo. Great rejoicing that day! Flags were all over Newtown. However, I didn’t get to the night’s celebrations. I had to stay home. I was the servant girl.”

AFTERWORD

And now I have ended my tales of that argosy of schooners set adrift in that terrible Gale of 1929. My research for this project has been all-consuming and I found the work very challenging. It has involved the reading of hundreds of pages of written accounts of the event. I have interviewed by telephone many family members of the schooner crews who have been passed down knowledge of the happenings. My wife, Rose, and I have sat in many kitchens and listened and recorded as the yarns were passed down yet again.

Some of them have given me private written accounts, as is the case of Sophie Gill of Newtown, who willingly gave me Mary Sturge’s first-hand account of the ordeal suffered by those who waited upon the land.

Frank and Honor Dominie gave me a wonderful CD upon which I heard the lyrical voice of Skipper Charlie Rogers, his tale beautifully told by one who was there: “We was five hun’red and one miles from Newfoundland, be the log, when a Jap ’ospital ship passed us wit’out stoppin’.”

During my time on the decks of all of the storm-ravished schooners, I have come to one conclusion regarding the men who sailed them. They were the best of seamen afloat on any ocean.

On a piece of ancient pottery dated 4,000 years ago is etched the drawing of a boat with billowed sail. It is the earliest known record of man using wind as a means to carry him over water. Sail-driven boats of Greece, Crete, and Phoenicia dared away from the waters of the Middle Sea and set out into the unknown reaches of the endless Atlantic Ocean. They have earned a place on the salty pages of discovery. No less brave are the seamen of Newfoundland and Labrador, who have earned a reputation, worldwide, as being the greatest of sailors afloat on any ocean.

And always behind the seamen were the unsung women, who silently waited and often wept.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to my friend Alec Oram, who answered most of my questions concerning the cod fishery. Thanks also go to the following for their assistance: Guy Oram; Craig Parsons; Evelyn Parsons; Sophie Gill; Leigh Anne Power, CBC Radio, Gander; Frank and Honor (née Rogers) Dominie; Ralph Rogers; Eliza Jane Pickett; Henry Vokey; Roy Stoyles; Reg Tulk; Anita Stratton.

APPENDIX

SCHOONERS CAUGHT IN THE GALE OF 1929

George K. — Frank Green (Master), Greenspond

Water Sprite — John Bishop (Master), Wesleyville

Merry Widow — Martin Blackwood (Master), Brookfield

Gander Deal — Manuel Barbour (Master), Newtown

Effie May Petite — Charles Kean (Master), Brookfield

Northern Light — Thomas Parsons (Master), Bloomfield

Janie E. Blackwood — Charles Rogers (Master), Fair Island

Lloyd Jack — Eldon Bishop (Master), Wesleyville

Neptune II — Job Barbour (Master), Newtown

All of the above vessels were from Bonavista North. The following were from Trinity Bay.

Catherine B. — Ellis Janes (Master), Hant’s Harbour

Jennie Florence — James Stoyles (Owner, Master), Hillview

SOURCES

Barbour, C. Lind. Coming Home. Nokomis: Last Mountain Times Ltd., 2002.

Barbour, Captain Job. Forty-Eight Days Adrift. St. John’s: Breakwater Books Ltd., 1981.

Butler, Paul and Maura Hanrahan. Rogues and Heroes. St. John’s: Flanker Press, 2005.

Cranford, Garry. Norma & Gladys. St. John’s: Flanker Press, 1994.

Dear, Ian and Peter Kemp, eds. An A-Z of Sailing Terms. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Feltham, John. Setting Sail for Bonavista Bay. St. John’s: H. Cuff Publications, 1988.

Kipling, Rudyard. The Best of Kipling. New York: Nelson Doubleday Inc., 1968.

Monsarrat, Nicholas. The Master Mariner, Book 2. Great Britain: Chaucer Press Ltd., 1980.

O’Flaherty, Patrick. The Rock Observed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979.

Ryan, D.W.S. and T.P. Rossiter, eds. The Newfoundland Character. St. John’s: Jesperson Press, 1984.

Smallwood, Joseph R. Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, Vol. 2. St. John’s: Newfoundland Books Publishers, 1967.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Collins was born in a small, two-storey house by the sea in the town of Hare Bay, Bonavista North. He finished school at Brown Memorial High in the same town. He spent forty years in the logging and sawmilling business with his father, Theophilus, and son Clint. Gary was once Newfoundland’s youngest fisheries guardian. He managed log drives down spring rivers for years, spent seven seasons driving tractor-trailers over ice roads and the Beaufort Sea of Canada’s Western Arctic, and has been involved in the crab, lobster, and cod commercial fisheries.

His writing career began when he was asked to write eulogies for deceased friends and family. He spent a full summer employed as a prospector before he wrote Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine; he liked the work so much, he went back to school to earn his prospecting certificate. A critically acclaimed author, he has written a total of eight books, including Cabot Island, The Last Farewell, Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine, Where Eagles Lie Fallen, Mattie Mitchell: Newfoundland’s Greatest Frontiersman, A Day on the Ridge, and the children’s illustrated book What Colour is the Ocean?, which he co-wrote with his granddaughter, Maggie Rose Parsons. The latter won an Atlantic Book Award: The Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration.

Gary Collins is Newfoundland and Labrador’s favourite storyteller, and today he is known all over the province as the “Story Man.” His favourite pastimes are reading and writing, and playing guitar at his log cabin. He lives in Hare Bay, Newfoundland, with his wife, the former Rose Gill. They have three children and three grandchildren. Gary Collins can be reached by email at nicholasc68@live.ca. The official Gary Collins website is www.garycollins.ca.

Index

Advalik Mountains 210

Aegean Sea 149

Africa xii, 40, 108, 187, 251

Alberta 220

Alexandria, Egypt 150

Allendale, Nova Scotia 172

Anglo-Newfoundland Development (A.N.D.) Company 54

Anthrim 141

Asia 73, 149

Atlantic Ocean xiii, xiv, 7, 11, 24, 32, 33, 39, 65, 73, 76, 90, 98, 107-109, 111, 112, 115, 121, 125, 126, 130, 135-138, 141, 149-151, 160, 165, 166, 185, 188, 191, 205, 212, 224, 227, 228, 237, 239, 243-245, 251, 252, 256

Austria 149

Avalon Peninsula 136

Avon River 185

Baccalieu Island 9, 12, 28, 29, 42, 43, 57, 58, 75, 98, 100, 118

Baccalieu Tickle 98, 207

Balchen, Bernt 221

Baltic 32, 33, 38, 44-49, 89

Barbour, Job 56, 57, 153, 228-230, 232, 235-238, 243, 247, 248, 250-252, 254

Barbour, Manuel 55-61, 65

Barbour, Pearce 243, 252

Barbour’s Tickle 56, 229

Barclay, Culle and Company 173

Barents Sea 187

Battery, The 56

Battle of the Somme 135

Bay de Verde 29, 98

Bay of Biscay 185

Beaumont Hamel, France 150

Belfast, Ireland 32, 64

Bell Island 107, 108, 214

Bell Island (Great Northern Peninsula) 224

Beothic 80-85, 87-90, 140

Beothuk 22

Bessie S. 195

Best, Abram 78, 83

Best, Noah 197-200

Best, Peter 166

Best, Phillip 166

Best, Stanley 12, 15

Birkenhead, England 32

Bishop, Churnside 189, 190

Bishop, Edward Churnside 183

Bishop, Eldon 183-187, 189-191, 194-196

Bishop, Hazel 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18

Bishop Jack 196

Bishop, James 12, 15

Bishop, John 3-18, 117, 183, 192

Bishop, Lloyd 196, 197

Bishop, Noah 195, 196

Bishop, Wilfred 12, 15

Black Sea 149

Blackhead 118

Blackmore, Billy 70

Blackmore, David 223

Blackmore, Jessie 254

Blackmore, Mary (Sturge) 221-226, 232-235, 239-242, 246, 247, 253-255

Blackwood, Bert 78

Blackwood, Emily 76-78, 83, 85-87, 89, 90

Blackwood, Henry 74

Blackwood, Martin 75, 76, 79-81, 83, 84, 86-90

Blackwood, Martin, Jr. 76

Blackwood, R. A. 78

Bloomfield 24, 25

Boland, Garfield 57, 66, 69

Bonavista 10, 128

Bonavista Bay 5, 10, 11, 14, 15, 24, 49, 69, 76, 86, 115, 117, 118, 130, 145, 151, 165-167, 186, 193, 195, 196, 207, 223, 229, 239

Bonavista North 122, 186, 192

Bosporus 149

Bourne River 185

Bourne, Stephen 14, 15

Bowaters 54

Bowring 10

British Army 134

British Isles 107, 108, 126, 141, 251

Brookfield 76, 167

Brothers, Clifford 225, 246

Brothers, Dora 225

Bungay, Keith 254

Burgess, Captain 174-177

Burin 200, 201

Burin Peninsula 93, 96

Burry, Herbert 60, 68

Burry, Lewis 59

Byrd, Richard 221

Cabot Island 229

Cairmona 140

Canary Current 187, 251

Canary Islands 187, 251

Cape Bauld 115

Cape Bonavista 9, 118, 138, 167

Cape Clear, Ireland 33

Cape Freels 21, 24, 75, 165

Cape Harrison 210

Cape Pine 115

Cape Race 17, 37, 178, 188, 200

Cape Rouge 224

Cape St. Francis 9, 28, 57, 118, 119, 142, 207

Cape St. John 21, 75

Cape Spear 18, 56, 84, 142

Cartier, Jacques 223

Catalina 10, 57, 58, 118, 119, 128, 193, 239

Catherine B. 91-112, 207, 212

Cedric 243, 244

Celtic Sea 250

Chandlers Reach 24

Christchurch, England 185

Church of England 184, 225

Clemens, Samuel Langhorne 188, 189

Coaker, William Ford 53, 54

Colonial and Continental School Society 186

Conception Bay 12, 28, 29, 57, 58, 98, 118, 133, 207

Corner Brook 54

Cutler, Aubrey 120, 137

Cutler, Fred 119, 132-135

D. M. Owen 195

Daghild 214, 215

Daily News 138

Dardanelles 149, 150

Dark Cove 151

Davis, Evan 32, 38

Davis, George 253

Davis, Susie 253, 254

Deer Islands 124

Deer Lake 54

Denmark 238, 249

Easton, Peter xii

Ebble River 185

Edwards, Henrietta Muir 220

Effie May Petite 163-179

Egypt 149, 150

Elliston 138, 239

England 23, 32, 33, 38, 54, 63, 74, 149, 150, 183, 184, 186, 212, 225, 250, 252, 254

English Channel 33, 108, 185, 248, 250

English Harbour 172

Europe xiii, 22, 23, 29, 40, 73, 74, 102, 149-151, 183, 223

Eurylus 74

Exploits Island 75

Exploits River 54, 75

Fair Island 115-117, 122-124, 128, 130, 138, 186

Fair Island Tickle 123, 124

Famous Five 220, 221

Farnorth 178, 179

First Newfoundland Regiment 134, 150

Fishermen’s Protective Union (FPU) 53, 54, 117

Flagstaff Hill 118

Flowers Island 165, 166

Fogo 23

Foote, Thomas 13

Fort Amherst 11, 17, 166

Fortune Bay 13, 195

France xii, 73, 74, 134, 135

Francis, Freeman 97-100

Freshwater Point 178

Funk Islands 22

Furneaux, Captain 141, 142

Gallipoli 149, 150

Gambo 27, 151, 253, 254

Gander Deal 51-70, 239, 245-247

Gander River 54

Gaulton, Edward 166

Gaulton, Nathan 11, 12

Gaulton, Roland 166, 169, 171

George K. 108, 143-161

George Knowling Ltd. 145

German Army 135

Germany 64, 65, 108, 150, 183

Gill, Edward 252

Gill, Jesse 61-63

Gill, Sophie 222, 253, 255

Glovertown 145, 148

God Head Bay 29, 30, 119

Goose Bay 24

Grand Bank 13

Grand Banks 38-40, 125, 188, 207, 220, 251

Grand Lake 54

Grates Cove Point 29, 58, 99, 207

Great Northern Peninsula 223

Green Island, 58, 118, 119

Green, Charlie 97

Green, Frank 148-151, 153, 156, 159, 161

Green, Joseph 166

Greenspond 148, 151, 186, 231

Grey Islands 223, 225, 233, 246

Grey Islands Harbour 224, 225

Groais Island 224

Groais Islands Harbour 223

Groswater Bay 209

Gulf of Mexico 40, 186, 187, 190, 251

Gulf of St. Lawrence 211

Gulf Stream 40, 102, 186-188, 199, 243

Hadow, A. L. 150

Halifax, Nova Scotia 49, 151, 161

Halloway, Carty 25, 30, 31, 37, 42, 43, 46

Hanover, Germany 183

Hant’s Harbour 95, 98, 103

Happy Adventure 195

Hare Bay 151

Harland and Wolff 32, 64

Harvey, James 78

Hebrides 126, 250

Helena 25

Hesperus 6, 252

Hillier, Jonas 78

Hillview 11, 208, 211, 212

Hoboken, New Jersey 64, 69

Hodge, John 23

Holplein 106-112, 158

Holyhead, Wales 32

Home 69

Hounsell, Cater 69

Hounsell, Fred 118, 120, 131, 132

Howell, Len 254

Hoyles, John 166

Hudson River 69

Hugh D. 18, 215

Humber Deal 54

Humber River 54

Humphries, Esther (Carter) 226-232, 235-238, 242-245, 248, 249, 251-254

Humphries, Peter 228-230, 236, 238, 242, 244, 245, 248-254

Imo 151

Imperialist 161

Indian Harbour 209

Ireland 32, 33, 64, 126, 150, 183

Ireland’s Eye 58

Irish Sea 32, 64

Isle of Tiree 250

Janes, Ellis 95, 97, 99, 100, 105, 110, 212

Janie E. Blackwood 10-12, 16, 113-142, 152

Jennie Florence 11, 203-215

June, Harold 221

Kean, Abner 166

Kean, Abram 166, 171

Kean, Charles 166-168, 171, 172, 175, 177, 178

Kean, Doris 166, 170, 178, 179

Kean, Lydia 166, 170, 178

Kean, Noah 198-200

Kean’s Island 165

Kelloway, Frances 77, 78, 83, 87

Kelloway, Simon 78, 83

Kennas Hill 234

King, William Lyon Mackenzie 220

Labrador 25, 26, 55, 57, 75, 76, 88, 97, 123, 125, 126, 128, 130, 131, 136, 171, 189, 200, 208-211, 224, 226, 256

Labrador Current 40

Labrador Tan 97, 208, 211

LaHave, Nova Scotia 195

Laurentic 150

Liberal Reform Party 53

Liverpool, England 32, 63, 252, 254

Lloyd Jack 181-201

Lockers Reach 124

Loder, James 97

Logy Bay 213

Lough Swilly, Ireland 150

Manhattan, New York City 69

Manuel, Chesley 76

Manuel, Jabez 75

Manuel, Josiah 75

McClung, Nellie 220

McKinley, Ashley 221

McKinney, Louise 220

Mediterranean Sea x, 149, 150

Meigle 173-178

Merry Widow 71-90

Middle Brook 151

Middle Sea 73, 149, 256

Millie Ford 25

Mississippi River 187-189

Mont Blanc 151

Morgan, J. P. 64

Morton, J. P. 65

Murphy, Emily 220

Musgrave Channel 64

Musgrave Harbour 21

Nabbeb River 185

National Sea 161

Nelson, Horatio 74, 75

Neptune II 56, 57, 153, 154, 166, 191, 192, 217-254

New York 32, 33, 48, 49, 63, 65, 69, 220

New York City, New York 33, 48, 63, 65, 69

Newman Sound 195

Newport 123

Newtown 24, 54-56, 69, 70, 191, 192, 223, 224, 226, 229, 231-236, 239, 243, 245, 252-255

Norfolk, Virginia 65

Norman, John 252

Norris, Theodore 166

Norris, William 252

North Atlantic Drift 188, 251

North Channel 32, 64

North Pole 135

Northern Light 19-50

Northwest Arm 211

Norway 187, 251

Notre Dame Bay 21, 23, 75, 195

Nova Scotia 141, 142, 252

Odessa, Ukraine 150

Ottoman Empire 149, 150

Outer Cove 213

Parlby, Irene 220

Parsons, Edgar 24, 25

Parsons, Peter 25, 30, 31, 34, 36, 41, 42, 47

Parsons, Rex 25, 31, 34-37, 40, 41, 47, 48

Parsons, Thomas 24-29, 31, 34-37, 41-43, 45-49

Perry, James 63, 67, 68

Petite, Jeremiah 172

Pickett, Aaron 166

Pinchard’s Island 24, 60, 66, 69, 186, 245, 254

Pitt Sound Reach 124

Placentia Bay 30

Point May 94

Pond Island 149

Pond Tickle 151

Port au Bras 94

Port Union 54, 117, 128, 130

Pouch Cove 118

Pound Cove 69

President Grant 64, 65

Quirpon Island 115

Random Island 58

Red Ensign 79, 81, 84, 90, 140

Redoubtable 74

Republic 63-69

Rheinewaldham Glacier 107

Rhine River 107

Rogers, Charles 10, 11, 116-119, 122-124, 128, 130-132, 136-140, 142, 255

Rogers, Ethel 129

Rogers, Hannah 128-130, 138, 139

Rogers, John K. 119, 122

Rogers, Lester 129

Rogers, Ronald 129

Roman Catholic 225

Roman Empire 73, 149

Rotterdam, Holland 107

Royal Naval Reserves 148

Russell, Richard “Dick” 25, 36

Russia 149, 150

S. Short and Sons 100

Safe Harbour 14, 130

Sahara Desert 187

Sainsbury, William 63

St. George’s Channel 33

St. Jacques 195

St. John’s ix, xii, xvi, 6, 9-11, 15, 18, 25, 28, 45, 49, 50, 56-58, 67, 69, 76, 77, 80, 84, 86, 95, 96, 99, 100, 108, 111, 117, 118, 122-124, 126, 128, 134, 135, 137, 138, 140-142, 151, 153, 154, 159, 166, 168, 171, 172, 176, 179, 183, 187, 191, 193, 207, 208, 211, 212, 215, 229, 232-239, 250, 252, 253

St. John’s Narrows 96, 154, 212, 215

St. John’s Notch xi, 10, 11, 28, 96, 118, 142, 152, 153, 215, 237

St. John’s Road 134, 135

St. Pierre and Miquelon 94, 189

Salisbury, England 183-186

Salvation Army 97

Schapp, Captain 107-109, 111, 112

Scilly Isles 126, 185, 245, 248-251

Scott, Walter 250

Sea of Marmara 149

Seldom Come By 23

Servian 64

Sevastopol, Ukraine 150

Seven Years’ War 21

Shamblers Cove 151

Shelburne, Nova Scotia 13, 172

Short, Fred 97, 100, 110, 111

Short, Wesley 97, 99, 107

Short, Wilbert 97

Siberia 65

Signal Hill 11

Silver Fox Island 123

Silvia 49, 69

Skerryvore Rock 250, 251

Smallwood, Joseph Roberts 27

Smith, Edward 32

Smokey 209

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 186

South America 30, 239

South Pole 206, 221

Southwest Arm 208, 209, 211

Spanish flu 35

Spanish Main xi, xii

Squires, Richard 27, 53, 54

Stevenson, Alan 250, 251

Stevenson, Robert Louis 250

Stockley, Ephraim 78, 84

Stockley, Norman 12

Stonehenge 184

Stoyles, James 208

Stoyles, Ned 208

Stoyles, Wilson 207-210

Straight Shore 21

Strait of Belle Isle 211

Strickland, Frank 97

Sturge, Ethel 241

Sturge, Richard 196

Sturge, Sophie 235

Sturge, William 166

Sturge’s Island 165

Sugar Loaf Head 11, 118, 213

Swain’s Island 186

Sydney, Nova Scotia 214

Syria 149

Thames 33

Titanic 32, 39, 48

Tobermory, Scotland 252, 254

Torbay 28, 118

Trepassey Bay 178

Trieste 65

Trinity 151, 212

Trinity Bay 9-11, 29, 30, 54, 55, 57, 58, 75, 95, 98, 103, 117-119, 167, 172, 193, 207-209, 211, 212

Turkey 149, 150

Twain, Mark 188, 189

Union Jack 79, 199

Union Shipbuilding Company 54

United Kingdom 27

United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) 65

United States 9, 33, 63, 65, 221, 233

United States Army 65

United States Line 65

Victory 74

Walker, Third Officer 46

Water Sprite 1-18, 117, 118, 124, 152, 183, 192, 246

Water Street 26, 98

Wesleyville 4, 9, 10, 69, 165, 183, 191, 192, 195, 201

White Bay 223

White Star Line 32, 38

White, Samuel 78, 84

Whiteinch, Scotland 173

Wicks, Israel 12, 15

Wilson and Furness-Leyland Line 64

Wiltshire, England 185

Windsor, Billy 80, 82-85, 88

Windsor, George 6, 7, 12

Wiseman, Fred 25, 30, 31, 34, 37

World War I 35, 54, 148, 149, 151

Wyle River 185

Yetman, George 253

Yetman, Joseph 221, 253

Yetman, Lloyd 253

Yetman, Pearl 221, 253

ALSO BY GARY COLLINS

In November of 1954, a terrible storm darkened the skies above Cabot Island and battered its solitary lighthouse with a single-minded fury. The keepers of the Cabot Island light were no strangers to sea weather, but when tragedy struck the brothers Gill, the younger of the two was left to fend for himself amid one of the worst storms in Newfoundland’s history. Cabot Island is a true story of the love between two brothers, a love that perseveres in the face of death, loss, and greatest personal challenge.

The Last Farewell tells the true story of a crew of logger-sailors who left their home port of Hare Bay aboard a two-masted schooner in early June of 1934. Along her route to St. John’s, the crew of the Ethel Collett tell each other stories of life and death on the sea. But little do they know that they are heading toward one of the most astonishing tales of them all: their own.

In the summer of 2008, writer Gary Collins teamed up with Allan Keats, a great-grandson of legendary Mi’kmaq prospector Soulis Joe, and they set out to unearth the secret of Soulis Joe’s lost silver mine. After many weeks and months spent combing the island of Newfoundland, Gary Collins figured it out. Come along for the trip and discover the location of Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine. (Canadian Aboriginal Books for Schools 2010–2011 Selection)

Where Eagles Lie Fallen is Gary Collins’s solemn tribute to the American servicemen and servicewomen who lost their lives aboard Arrow Air Flight 1285 when it crashed in Gander, Newfoundland, on December 12, 1985. Eyewitnesses to the tragedy and the surviving loved ones of the lost American soldiers reveal for the first time the profound effect this event had on them, and how it still affects them today.

In researching the life and times of Mattie Mitchell: Newfoundland’s Greatest Frontiersman, critically acclaimed author Gary Collins gleaned much insight on his subject from the diary and other personal papers of Marie Sparkes, granddaughter to the remarkable Mi’kmaq woodsman. Now, for the first time, Mattie Mitchell’s legendary deeds are revealed in full, comprehensive detail.

Author Gary Collins has earned a seat at the head of the table as Newfoundland and Labrador’s favourite storyteller. Now the “Story Man” from Hare Bay is ready to tell you a little bit about himself. The tales that make up A Day on the Ridge are taken from diary entries he recorded during the forty years he spent as a woodsman. Beginning with his childhood, Gary Collins retraces his first steps as a boy growing up in Bonavista North in the 1950s, when his father taught him the skills of an outdoorsman and how to be a leader among men.

Maggie Rose loves to sing! And her favourite song is “What Colour’s the Ocean Today,” a song she made up with her Grandy about how the ocean changes colour from season to season. Join Maggie Rose and Grandy through Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall and see what colour the ocean is today! Parents and children will both enjoy reading (and singing) this book over and over again. With colourful illustrations and sheet music in the back, What Colour is the Ocean? is sure to become a family favourite . . . no matter what season it is! (Winner of the 2010 Atlantic Book Awards Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration)

Table of Contents

Title page

Quotes

Copyright

Dedication

Also by Gary Collins

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1 Water Sprite

2 Northern Light

3 Gander Deal

4 Merry Widow

5 Catherine B.

6 Janie E. Blackwood

7 George K.

8 Effie May Petite

9 Lloyd Jack

10 Jennie Florence

11 Neptune II

Afterword

Acknowledgements

Appendix

Sources

About the Author

Index

ALSO BY GARY COLLINS