The Black Joke (5 page)

Even Simon Barnes was somewhat moved by her perfection, and he found himself half wishing he could keep her for his own use, once he had gained possession of her. But the thought of ten thousand dollars in American currency quickly drove the idea out of his head. As he stood amidships, his back against a pile of lumber, he reviewed the plans he had made for
Black Joke's
reception in St. Pierre. Jonathan's refusal to take on the two extra hands was a complication, for Barnes had counted on these two men, both of whom had long been in his debt, to help carry out his plans. Still, they were not absolutely essential. As long as the St. Pierre people followed the instructions given in Barnes's letter, nothing serious could go amiss. Barnes allowed himself a wintry smile as he contemplated the come-uppance which was awaiting that stiff-necked fellow, Jonathan Spence.

As
Black Joke
cleared the end of Long Island and encountered the Atlantic again, she began to rise to a head sea. The sky was a somber gray and the wind was still freshening. The ship's course lay southeast around the tip of Hermitage Peninsula and then across the bay to the town of Fortune, where all vessels outward bound for St. Pierre were required to clear through customs. It was a forty-mile run, but even with a head wind Jonathan could expect to make Fortune before nightfall. He remembered his promise to Sylvia, not to risk bad weather; but the ship was going along so well,
and he was so satisfied with the way the boys were settling down to their work that he decided to hold on rather than put in to one of the nearby harbors for the night.

As the ship came up to Pass Island Tickle, he laid her on the compass course for Fortune and then called Kye to take the wheel.

“Hold her steady, b'y,” he said. “There's a fair good breeze of wind blowin' and it may puff up. If a hard squall hits ye, head her up into it until the puff is gone. I'll slip below now for a bite to eat.”

Alone on deck–for Barnes had again sought his bunk, and Peter was busy getting supper–Kye stood with his legs braced well apart, both hands holding hard to the outer spokes of the wheel, and his head cocked upward to watch the leach of the mainsail for signs of flutter which would tell him he was pushing the ship too close to the wind. He felt twice as big as he really was, and twice as strong. Alone, in control of a big ship in half a gale of wind (which was an exaggeration, but one for which he could be forgiven), he would not have traded places with the captain of the
Queen Mary
.

It was coming on dusk and the compass binnacle lamp would soon need lighting, he thought. He glanced down to check the course, found that the ship was slightly off to nor'ard and gently eased her back again. When he looked up, he was surprised to see a small, rakish-looking steamer appearing from behind Pass Island and heading on an intersection course with
Black Joke
. Smoke was pouring from her stack as she
came on. It was a moment or two before Kye recognized her, then he picked up a tin horn which hung from the binnacle and gave a blast on it to call the skipper.

“Revenoo cutter, sorr,” he yelled as Jonathan's head appeared out of the companionway. “Comin' up fast on the port quarter.”

Jonathan joined him at the wheel, closely followed by Peter. The three of them stared at the approaching steamer with no friendly eyes. The government revenue cutter was not popular with the south coast men, who looked upon her anti-smuggling activities as an unjust intrusion into their lives.

The steamer, rolling heavily in the seaway, was steering a course which would carry her across
Black Joke's
bows and no great distance off. As she drew closer, the boys could see the figures of two or three men on her bridge, one of them watching
Black Joke
through binoculars. On the foredeck stood a canvas-shrouded machine gun, the sight of which made Jonathan spit over the lee rail in disgust.

“The gov'munt says it can only pay starvin' folk six cents a day to keep life in 'em,” he said. “But they finds money enough to send that tin-pot warship to stand betwixt us and the cheap grub in St. Peter's…. Hold your course there, Kye, hold straight on!”

This last was a direct order to Kye, who had begun to ease the wheel over since it seemed to him that the revenue steamer was going to cut dangerously close under
Black Joke's
bows.

Peter, too, had seen the danger.

“She's comin' awful close in, Father,” he said a little nervously.

“Yiss,” Jonathan replied. “Close as she dares. Thinks she can bluff me into altering course to let her by. Well, me son, I ain't aisy bluffed. A sailin' ship has the right of way over a powered vessel. That's the law of the sea, lads, and don't forgit it. Hold her steady, Kye. He'll alter.”

Kye's hands on the wheel were growing white with strain as the two ships continued to converge, each traveling at full speed. Even Jonathan had tensed, where he stood by the port rail. But he did not open his mouth to order Kye to haul away, even when the steamer, now less than three hundred yards off, sounded a demanding and penetrating blast from her siren.

A collision seemed inevitable, but at the last instant the revenue cutter heeled hard over as she made an emergency turn to port.
Black Joke
rushed on, and for a minute both ships were running almost side by side, and so close together that the boys could clearly see the face of the uniformed skipper of the cutter as he ran to the outer wing of his bridge, and, waving his fist at Jonathan, shouted down to him.

“Can't you keep that lumber scow out of my way, you idiot? We might have rammed you, and we should have, too!”

“Just you try it,” Jonathan yelled back, “and the law'll have your master's ticket offen you quick as a wink–that is if you
got
a master's ticket, which I doubt!”

The cutter's captain could apparently think of no adequate rejoinder to this insult. The steamer dropped back until she could resume her course by crossing under
Black Joke
's stern. By this time Kye's hands were wet with sweat and he was trembling.

Jonathan took the wheel from him.

“There's a lesson in this for ye, me sons,” he said gently. “When ye're in the right of a thing, hang on. Don't change yer mind. There'll be many a time some feller what's bigger'n you, or maybe richer, or maybe just louder in the mouth'll try and shove you off your course. Don't take no heed.”

It was good advice, and the day was approaching when Jonathan would wish that he had continued to follow it himself.

 

5

The Waiting Trap Is Sprung

T
HE WIND
held steady throughout the remainder of the afternoon, and shortly before dusk the land loom of the Burin Peninsula began to show on the horizon ahead. Brunette Island came up fast and was left astern. The lighthouse on the end of the Fortune pier had not yet been lit as
Black Joke
came up into the wind a quarter of a mile off shore and hung there, her sails slatting until her crew had lowered them. The engine started with an explosive bark as Kye swung the flywheel and, with Jonathan steering, the schooner swung back on course and eased her way through the narrow entrance into the inner harbor.

Fortune's harbor seemed very small; but small or not, it was jammed with ships. At least twenty schooners lay moored side by side across the upper end, and another dozen lay alongside the wharves. These made up the Fortune banking fleet which would normally have spent the summer on the Grand Banks, dory-fishing
for cod. But this spring the harbor had a deserted and abandoned look. There was no sign of life on any of the ships. No sails were bent to their spars. No running rigging stood taut and ready. Decks and upperworks were scruffy with neglect, and paint peeled from rails and planks. It was clear that hard times had come to Fortune as they had to all of Newfoundland.

“I mind the days,” said Jonathan to Peter, who was standing by the rail, “when there was fifty vessels here at the one time. And all busy loadin' or unloadin' fish. A man could walk across the harbor on their decks…. Cut off yer bullgine, Kye…. Now, Peter, hop along for'ard and put a line ashore.”

Black Joke
kissed gently against the government wharf, and a few moments later she was securely moored for the night. Barnes hastened ashore at once. He had a telegram to send and one that brooked no delay. It was an innocent-looking message. Addressed to the well-known St. Pierre merchant, Jean Gauthier, it read:

 

EXPECT ME EARLY FRIDAY AFTERNOON WITH AGREED MERCHANDISE HOPE YOU PREPARED RECEIVE SAME PROPERLY–BARNES

 

Through the night, as the crew of
Black Joke
slept unaware, this message was being relayed by land-wire to St. John's, then to Placentia, where the trans-Atlantic underwater cable leaves Newfoundland for St. Pierre en route to Canada. Before dawn on Friday morning it
had arrived in St. Pierre, and by breakfast time it was being read by Monsieur Jean Gauthier.

At about the same time that Gauthier was reading the telegram, Jonathan was reporting to the Fortune customs officer and getting his clearance papers for a “foreign-going voyage” to St. Pierre. It was only a formality, but a necessary one. Without proper papers it would have been illegal for him to land at St. Pierre. Jonathan believed in staying within the law, even if he did not always think the law was fair.

By 10:00
A.M.
Black Joke
was again under way. Overnight the wind had shifted easterly and though it had dropped light, there was still a good sea running. There was also the probability of fog, for an easterly wind often brings heavy fog in from the Grand Banks to blanket the eastern and southeastern coasts of Newfoundland. However, fog was no great threat to Jonathan. He had sailed in fog so often that he had developed a sort of sixth sense which seemed to enable him to find his way about.

They met the fog as they cleared the outer extremity of the Burin Peninsula at Danzic Point and took their departure from the land. It lay off to the southeast, a looming black wall that seemed as solid as stone. Rapidly it drifted down upon them, and before noon it had enveloped the vessel. Thick, wet, and icy-cold, it hung right down to the decks so that Peter, at the wheel, could not even see the sails above his head. Kye, posted as lookout forward, could not see fifteen feet ahead of the bowsprit as he strained his eyes through
the curling murk. At intervals of three or four minutes, he pumped the handle of the bellows-driven foghorn. The deep blast of the machine seemed to be swallowed up at once in the dark and roiling mist.

Even Barnes came on deck. He made his way aft, and he seemed uneasy, pacing a few feet back and forward and staring up into the impenetrable fog overhead.

Thinking that the merchant was worrying about his cargo, and mastering his dislike for the man, Jonathan tried to soothe him.

“No call to mind a little fog, Mr. Barnes,” he said conversationally. “We'uns'll raise the sound of the Green Island horn pretty soon. Still, it's your cargo and your charter. If ye say the word, we'll come about and run in under Danzic Head and wait to see will it clear off.”

Barnes shook his head impatiently. “I'm not the man to worry about fog,” he replied shortly. “But you might have to anchor in the Roads outside St. Pierre until it clears. I won't risk my cargo in the entrance channel in this kind of weather.”

“There'll be no need to anchor, sorr. The breeze is haulin' northerly right now. By the time we stands in under the land she'll have blowed clear; or pretty nigh it anyway.”

Barnes said no more, but his mind was busy. The fog might very well crimp his plans if it remained so thick that
Black Joke
could approach St. Pierre's harbor unobserved. On the other hand, a little fog would serve as a useful mask for what was planned. And much
as he disliked Jonathan Spence, he had to admit that the man was a truly expert seaman. If he said the fog would be clearing by the time they reached St. Pierre, he was probably correct. Barnes decided to wait and see, but, with so much at stake, he found himself as restless as a cat. The blast of the hand foghorn from the unseen bow of the ship rasped his nerves. Turning on his heel he made his way to the forepeak, where he took a bottle of black rum out of his handbag, pulled out the cork, and raised the bottle to his lips.

Black Joke
ghosted on through the fog. Between blasts on their own horn, Jonathan and the two boys strained their ears for the sound of another horn, either that of some unseen ship, or that of the powerful diaphone on Green Island. It was Peter who caught the distant murmur of the Green Island horn first. Cupping his right hand to his ear Jonathan listened for it too, and when it came again
–O-o-o-o-o-UMP–
he cast a quick glance at the compass and then smiled. “Three points off the port bow,” he said. “Hold her as she goes, lad. We'll be abeam of the horn in half an hour and then we'll alter for St. Peter's.”

Time slipped along.
Black Joke
altered to her final course, and Kye took the wheel while Peter relieved him as lookout. The light breeze had shifted to northeast and was making up a little. Soon the schooner would be approaching the entrance to St. Pierre's harbor and Peter, feeling the responsibility of his task, was already straining every nerve to penetrate the murk for a first sight of land.

He was not the only one who was staring out into the thinning fog that Friday afternoon. On the crest of the high hill which rises behind the town of St. Pierre and which commands a good view of the harbor approaches, a dark-faced man was waiting impatiently for the mist to clear enough so that he could use the telescope which lay across his knees. Near the foot of the hill, and within shouting distance of the man on the crest, a second man lay at his ease beside a motorcycle, smoking a cigarette and idly leafing through an old French magazine. From where he lay, a rough track led down to the town, joined the steeply descending streets, and ran on to the harbor side where a powerful but dirty-looking motor vessel, some sixty feet in length, lay with her dual engines gently ticking over. She was one of the fast American rum-runners, and in her wheelhouse Monsieur Gauthier sat nervously sipping a glass of brandy while opposite him the boat's captain, a big, broad-faced American named Smith, was absently toying with a heavy automatic pistol.

“There must be no possibility of mistaking things,
capitain
,” said Gauthier in his stilted English. And, with a sideways glance at the pistol, “No monkey's stuff, you understand, with guns. The officials here are my good friends, but we must not make it difficult for them to be on our side. In New York, no doubt you would do things differently, but here you are in France. I implore you to remember that.”

Smith gave him an amused look.

“You got nothin' to worry about, Johnny. Just do
your own job and I'll do mine. Soon as I get word from the boys up the hill that the schooner's comin', I'm off; and if I can't outsmart a hillbilly Newfie without usin' a rod, I'll quit the game. I'll make the whole thing look so good even that Newfie skipper'll end up thinkin' it was his own damn fault. The fog's clearin' off. You better git ashore–unless you wanta come along for the ride.”

Hurriedly Gauthier set down his glass and scrambled to his feet. The last thing he wanted was to be aboard the rum-runner when she put to sea to carry out the plans of his friend, Simon Barnes. He was an organizer, not a doer.

As the Frenchman jumped agilely to the wharf, the American grinned disdainfully. “Frogs!” he muttered to his grease-stained engineer who had joined him on deck. “I'd give something to see that character turned loose on the New Jersey waterfront. The boys'd soon slice him up fer crab bait–him and his fancy talk!”

 

Black Joke
was now close enough to the French islands so that her crew could hear the bleat of the foghorn on Galantry Head of St. Pierre. “Keep a sharp lookout, Peter,” Jonathan commanded.

Peter did not need to be reminded of his duty. The fog was thinning and lifting, leaving scattered swirls of mist to obscure the surface of the water. As Peter stared ahead, he saw a darker loom.

“Land off the starboard bow!” he yelled.

“Good lad!” Jonathan shouted back. “That'll be Co
lombier Rock. Haul her off to south'ard, Kye, and keep yer eyes skinned for the channel buoy.”

As the schooner closed with the land, the fog continued to fade until the outline of Grand Colombier Rock, six hundred feet high, stood clear and bold. Now the St. Pierre Roads–the open anchorage lying outside the harbor–began to appear. Farther away, and still somewhat obscured by mist, the high hills behind the town could be dimly seen.

“Time to shorten sail; there's a crooked channel ahead, and we won't want too much headway on the ship. Get the jumbo off her, Peter, then come and give me a hand with the foresail,” Jonathan commanded.

As Peter brought the jumbo down with a run, Kye spotted the outer channel buoy and headed the ship toward it. Barnes, who had come on deck some time before, was standing in the bow looking fixedly toward the harbor itself.

“Nothin' to fear now, sorr,” Peter said cheekily as he finished securing the jumbo and started aft to help his father. If Barnes heard the boy, he gave no sign; nor did he relax his attitude of expectation. Suddenly he leaned forward–yes, there was no doubt of it: coming slowly out between the twin piers of the inner harbor, a rakish-looking motor vessel was turning into the seaward channel. Barnes let out his breath as he recognized the rum-runner, then walked quickly aft.