The Black Joke (4 page)

Surprised, Peter cast a quick glance astern. To his horror he saw that the ship's wake, instead of being an arrow-straight line, was more like a continuous letter S. He began spinning the big wheel to straighten out the wake, but the more he spun it, the more the ship swung
alternately from one side to the other of her proper course.

“Steady, lad,” said Jonathan, amused at his efforts. “Be aisy with her. Just keep her sails full and by, and cock your eye on them islands up ahead to give ye a course.”

Relaxing, Peter did as he was told and after a few more minutes the feel of the ship began to seep into him. He began to find himself so exhilarated by her motion, and by the knowledge that the whole eighty tons of her was as responsive as a child to his command, that he was soon steering instinctively; and the wake had straightened up behind him.

Meanwhile Kye had gone down to the forepeak to stir up some grub for dinner. He found Barnes still stretched out on a bunk. Tentatively Kye (who was secretly afraid of the merchant, as were all the boys of Ship Hole) cleared his throat and politely asked:

“Would ye feel like a bowl of fish and brewis, sorr? Missis Spence, she sent a pot of it on board for we 'uns.”

Fish and brewis, which is a pudding-like mixture of softened ship's biscuits, salt cod and pork fat, is not the best thing to offer a man whose stomach is heaving with seasickness. But Kye did not know that, and he was shocked and enraged when the merchant answered with a particularly lurid curse.

Kye held back the angry comment he wanted to make, and, turning to the old stove, he soon had a roaring wood fire going. Then, deliberately and with malice aforethought, he took a frying pan and, half-filling it
with thick slices of fat pork, set it to sizzling merrily on the stove. As if this were not enough, he soon contrived to spill some of the grease onto the stove lid where it sent up a billowing oily smoke which filled the whole forepeak.

There was a stifled groan from Barnes. Suddenly the merchant rolled off the bunk, staggered to his feet and made a rush up the companion ladder for the deck. Kye watched him go, with a wicked grin on his face.

“Maybe that'll teach ye to be more polite, ye old goat,” he muttered to himself. Whistling happily he stowed the pan of pork fat in a locker and began warming up the pot of brewis and boiling the tea kettle.

By two o'clock that afternoon
Black Joke
had come abeam the mouth of Bay Despair. Now Jonathan took the wheel and brought the ship around on the other tack so that her course lay northward between Whale Rock and the mainland. This was not the main entrance but a shortcut or “inside” passage, full of sunkers (as reefs and shoal rocks are called in Newfoundland). It was the kind of place ships would normally stay well away from unless their pilots knew the waters well. However, Jonathan knew the passage perfectly, and he was anxious to get well into the Bay before nightfall so he had chosen the inside route in order to save time.

The passage through the sunkers was wildly exhilarating to the two boys. The ocean surge, bursting on the myriad reefs, sent great towers of spray billowing up on either side of
Black Joke
, and so close to her that wind-driven foam fell all across her decks. Boiling along with
all sheets started, she was sailing so fast that an inexperienced observer would have been certain she was going to smash headlong into one of the unseen sunkers whose presence was revealed only by the swirling waters over them.

Barnes was not inexperienced, but on previous voyages, usually in his own schooners, his captains had carefully chosen the less spectacular passages. Despite his heaving stomach he was still able to take notice, and he was horrified at what he saw.

“Damn you, Spence!” he cried from his position hanging half over the lee rail. “Are you trying to drown us and sink the vessel? Get her out of this, you hear!”

Now, once at sea, the master of a ship is simply that–the master. Only a very foolhardy passenger, even if he has chartered the vessel, would dare criticize the master's judgment. The arrogance of this merchant in attempting to give him sailing orders was enough to fire Jonathan's temper to white heat. He managed to control himself, and he made no reply; but as far as he was concerned the brief truce between himself and the merchant–which had resulted from the charter–was at an end.

Clearing the inside passage,
Black Joke
ran down the main opening of the Bay past the little outport of Push-through and into the Lampidose Passage, whose towering cliff walls lead to the head of the bay and to the twin villages of Milltown and St. Albans. The wind held steady and an hour before dusk
Black Joke
was abeam of Milltown.

When the lines were fast to the wharf, and the ship settled for the night, Jonathan joined the two boys in the forepeak. Barnes had gone ashore.

It was Peter's turn to act as cook and he was just dishing up supper when his father climbed down the ladder and took his place at the table.

Jonathan looked at the two boys for a moment.

“For a pair of tom-cods with no brains and not much brawn, ye do all right,” he said, smiling. “Give me a month or two, and I'll make sailors out of ye…or else.”

Kye and Peter caught each other's glance. Neither would have admitted it, but they were as pleased as only two boys can be who have been told they can do a man's job and do it well.

 

4

Encounter with a Salmon

T
UCKED
snugly in their bunks, with the water lapping against the vessel's planks to quiet them after the day's excitement, the boys slept right through the early morning sounds of the lumbering town as it awakened. They did not hear the steam whistle at the ramshackle lumber mill screech its summons to the dozen or so men who operated the old-fashioned plant. They did not hear the high whine of the saw as it bit into its first log of the day. They were too dead to the world to hear anything–but they could still smell.

The sharp odor of boiling coffee seeped into Peter's sleeping thoughts. His nostrils wrinkled like those of a dog smelling a bone, then his eyes popped open and he was wide awake in an instant. Raising one foot he put it against the woven rope spring of the bunk above him and pushed hard.

“Hey, Kye! Quit poundin' your ear!” he shouted. “You goin' to sleep all day?”

Standing beside the stove, Jonathan watched the by-play with a smile. While the two boys tumbled out of their bunks and began to pull on their clothes, he dished up three huge bowls of cornmeal porridge and slapped them down on the cabin table.

“Eat hearty, b'ys,” he told them. “We've ten thousand feet of lumber to stow afore dark. I wants to sail fust thing tomorrow mornin' while we still got fine weather. 'Twon't last forever.”

The prospect of spending the whole day wrestling planks into the ship's hold thrilled neither boy. But it was man's work, and they were men–for this voyage at least.

“Yiss, sorr,” they said in unison, and began shoveling the porridge into them.

Helped by a couple of men from the mill and watched with impatience by Barnes, the crew of the
Black Joke
soon got down to work. The rough, un-planed lumber came aboard in a steady flow while down in the hold Peter and Kye stacked it so that all the available space was used to best advantage. Their hands were soon filled with splinters, and the sweat ran down their backs, but they stuck to their task so well that an hour before suppertime Jonathan took pity on them.

“That'll do, lads,” he said. “You can take the dory now and see can you catch a salmon for supper over to the mouth of Southwest Brook.”

The boys needed no second invitation. Their aching muscles and sore hands were instantly forgotten. In a
minute they had untied the dory, heaved their fishing gear aboard, and were rowing for the brook–a mile away–with as much vigor as if they had just jumped out of bed.

The salmon run had not yet actually begun, but a few early fish were to be found near the mouth of the rivers. Reaching the mouth of Southwest Brook, the boys anchored the dory in a deep pool and, while Peter leaned over the side to see if he could spot the black, twisting shadows of salmon, Kye paid out the jigging line from its wooden reel. This was a heavy twine, to the end of which was fastened the jigger itself–a cluster of big hooks whose shanks were bound together with sheet lead.

Kye lowered the jigger till it was a few feet above the bottom and then, with a rhythmic movement of his arm, he began “jigging” the little lead fish up and down so that it was constantly in motion.

Peering into the clear water, Peter saw an eel come swimming slowly up toward the jigger, then turn and slip down into the depths again. Two or three sea trout swirled around the jigger watching it with curiosity, though it was far too big for them to take.

Suddenly the trout vanished. There was a swirl of darkness and then a glint of silver as a big fish swam beneath the jigger and half turned on its side.

“Salmon!” Peter whispered excitedly. “Jig aisy, Kye! He's lookin' at it now.”

The fish was probably not hungry, for salmon seldom eat much during the spawning run. But this one
was at least curious about the jigger which bobbed slowly up and down before him. He hovered on gently moving fins, facing the jigger for some moments; then he lost interest and turned his back on the cluster of hooks as if in complete disdain. But as the salmon's tail curved past the jigger, Kye gave the line a strong upward jerk, and two of the hooks drove deep into the salmon's flesh.

“Pull he up! Pull, b'y,
PULL
!” yelled Peter, but Kye had felt the strike and was already hauling in the heavy line.

“Give us a hand!” he cried. “This here's no half-dead cod! The way he's chargin' around he's like to cut the fingers clean offen me!”

There was no question of playing the big fish. The line was too heavy for the salmon to break, and the hooks were too deeply embedded to let him shake them free. It was a trial of strength between the boys in their rocking dory and a twenty-or thirty-pound fighting fish in his own element.

As the fish surged away under the dory, he dragged the gunwale almost down to the water; and as Kye stumbled backward to balance the boat, the line slipped from his sore hands and the wooden reel rattled wildly in the bottom of the boat while the line paid out with a rush. There was no time for half-measures. With a whoop, Peter jumped full-length to fall on the reel before the last few turns of line spun off it. Kye scrambled to help him and for a few minutes they both sprawled where they were, hanging on for dear life to the reel.

“'Tain't no salmon down there, 'tis a whale!” gasped Kye. “Here, try and take a turn of the line round a thole pin afore he hauls us clean out of the dory!”

The tension on the line eased as the big fish changed direction. Peter took advantage of it to throw a turn around the pin while Kye frantically hauled in the slack. The next time the fish lunged away, the turn of twine around the thole pin acted as a brake, and the boys were able to ease the line out slowly.

The fight continued for nearly thirty minutes, but by then the salmon was growing tired. Once, he allowed himself to be hauled almost to the edge of the dory before he mustered his reserves and went charging off again. The boys had a good look at him before he surged away.

“By Harry,” Peter said in an awe-smitten voice. “He's nigh as big as we 'uns. We'll never git he into the dory! Haul up the anchor, Kye, and see can ye row us to the shore.”

While Peter hung onto the line, Kye recovered the anchor and, straining his muscles to the full, began to row for land. The salmon felt the motion and fought against it, so that Kye made slow headway. The dory was still a dozen yards from shore when the salmon, growing frantic as he felt himself being dragged into shallow water, made a supreme effort to escape into the depths. The dory swung half around and this time both boys lost their balance as the gunwale rolled down.

“Jump for it,” yelled Kye, and, still clinging grimly to the jigger reel, he plunged into the icy water. Peter
followed with an ungainly leap. Gasping for breath and splashing like two stranded fish themselves, the boys were now engaged in a straight tug-of-war with the great fish. But their feet were on bottom and slowly they inched backward toward the shore until the salmon, completely exhausted at last, gave up the struggle. In a few more moments they had pulled his glistening silver body up on the rough beach.

The boys had their fish, but that was all.

“The dory!” cried Peter as he looked up from a rapt contemplation of the salmon. “She's went and gone!” Sure enough the dory was placidly drifting off into the open bay accompanied, some distance behind, by a bobbing pair of oars.

Since neither lad was a particularly good swimmer, there was nothing for it but to hoist the salmon up on their shoulders and ignominiously make their way along the shore toward the little town. By the time they reached its outskirts most of the population had seen the drifting dory, and two men had already put off to rescue it. As the boys came along the waterfront they were met with joking remarks about, “Fishermen who trades their boat for a leetle salmon,” and, “Lardy, b'ys, are ye practicin' to walk home from off the Grand Banks?” or, “Well, me b'ys, they's some can stay in a dory, and they's some as can't. Maybe the knack'll come to ye one day!”

The remarks were all good-humored, and Kye and Peter could grin ruefully in reply–until they reached
the mill wharf where Simon Barnes was standing talking to Jonathan.

“You've no business puttin' to sea without a proper crew,” Barnes was saying. “A pair of feckless b'ys what can't even handle a dory, ain't no crew at all. You'd best take my offer, and sign on Paterson and Wilson. Remember, if you loses any of my cargo, or damage it, there'll be not a cent of charter pay. And I knows you got no insurance on the ship. You'd best think it over.”

The victory over the big salmon suddenly seemed like ashes in the boys' mouths. Without a word, they sneaked past the men, clambered over
Black Joke's
gunwale and slid into the forepeak like a pair of beaten pups.

“We've spoilt things for yer dad,” Kye said. “There ain't no salmon worth makin' trouble for him with ole dogfish Barnes.”

When Jonathan descended into the forepeak a few moments later his face was set and stern, and the boys dreaded the prospect of what he would have to say. But they need not have worried.

“That's the finest kind of salmon ye got, me sons,” he said. “And don't ye pay no heed to what Mr. Barnes was sayin'. Losin' the dory was somethin' anyone could do when he was fast to a fish like that 'un. Fact of it is, he's been onto me all day to sign on a couple of extra hands. Even says he'll stand their wages. But I knows the chaps he has in mind. Dock rats, the pair of 'em. They'll not come aboard a ship of mine. You youngsters is twice the men they'll ever be. So cheer yerselves
up a bit, lads, and one of ye git busy and carve off some salmon chunks for supper. I'm that famished I could eat the whole beast, head and all.”

Their spirits restored, the boys jumped to obey, and an hour later they were all sitting around the table, stuffed with fresh salmon and at peace with the world. But something still niggled at Jonathan's thoughts.

“Merchant Barnes was considerable anxious to git them fellers took on board,” he mused aloud. “Seems like there's a bit of a stink in the air, and I don't like it none. We'll keep our eyes skinned, b'ys. He might be up to some of his queer tricks.”

 

The next day dawned overcast and cool with a light southeast wind. By the time the last of the lumber had been stowed on deck (the hold was full by then) and lashed securely in place, Jonathan had begun to glance at the gray sky with some concern. A sou'easter in the spring of the year could blow up dirty, as he well knew. He was anxious to get away as soon as possible, but Barnes did not arrive on the dock until nearly ten o'clock.

“Step lively, if you please, Mr. Barnes,” was Jonathan's greeting. “There's weather brewing and we 'uns should be underway afore it hits. Unless you're a mite nervous to sail with only the two b'ys and me?”

It was said politely enough but there was a sting to Jonathan's words that brought a flush to the merchant's face.

“I'll sail with the devil if I has to,” he retorted
sharply. “But when a man asks for trouble like you're doing, Jonathan Spence, he's like to get it.”

There was an ominous quality to Barnes's reply that made Jonathan's eyes narrow, but he said nothing more. Soon the lines were cast off and, as the ship's head swung away from the dock, the boys ran forward to crowd on the headsails. They moved smartly and, as the main and foresail gaffs rose on the masts, some of the men lounging on the lumber dock nodded their heads approvingly. Jonathan, at the wheel, noted their approval and he was pleased. The boys were shaping well, he thought, and once more he was glad he had refused Barnes's offer of a crew.

The run through the narrow channel, or “tickle,” out of Milltown Bay was fast and uneventful. Close-hauled, heading as near to the wind as she would point,
Black Joke
snored through the water, her heavy cargo holding her steady. The wind freshened slowly as they ran on past St. Albans, past the mouth of hidden Roti Bay, and through another tickle into the Big Reach of Bay Despair. The rounded hills of Long Island, with their spruce forests in every valley, slipped rapidly past. Snooks Harbour came up abeam and Peter and Kye could see half a dozen dories anchored off shore, their crews busily jigging for cod. The boys waved gaily and the dorymen paused in their work to watch
Black Joke
go storming past toward the open sea. She was a sight worth watching. As the wind freshened she lay down to it a little, and the bone in her teeth grew bigger and whiter. Her red-brown sails bellied as hard as wood,
and her slim black hull rushed through the water with the effortless grace of a porpoise.