A Stroke in Time

by Gerard Doran

  “I’ll take him out for a spin around the cove.” John rose from the daybed and stretched his arms over his head. “We won’t be long. I’m still sore from digging all them potatoes yesterday.” He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her firm waist. “Thirty-seven and solid as a rock, my dear,” he whispered in her ear. “I can still work with the best and row with the youngest.”

  The porch door flew open, banging against a bucket.

  “Let’s go rowing, Uncle John,” said Tommy, his chest heaving. “The ocean is flat calm.”

  Kate slipped out of John’s arms. “Get your school clothes off now, Tommy, so you can go down to the beach with Uncle John.” She took his books from him and placed them on the table.

  The beach rocks crunched beneath their boots as they pushed the punt down to the landwash. The weak tide barely generated enough swell for the boat to catch a lift at the launch.

  “We got to push as hard as we can to get her in the water,” said John.

  Tommy grunted and heaved, and together they moved the punt away from the rocks until its bottom rested partly on the ocean.

  “You get in and I’ll shove her off.” John held on to the boat while Tommy climbed aboard. He sent the boat out into the sea, quickly jumping over the side before it had gone too far, and sat down beside Tommy. He took an oar, slid it into the thole-pin, and placed the end in Tommy’s hand. The boy’s hand barely fit over it. “Here you go, now. I’ll grab the other one.” The boat slowly drifted away on the open water.

  “Tommy, where you’re a boy, you have to use both hands on the oar.”

  Tommy looked up at the cliffs and chopped his blade into the still ocean. “I don’t mind. Sure, that’s the way ye does it when ye races, one oar to each man.”

  John smiled at him. “That’s right, my son. Now, the next time you drops your blade in the water, pull the oar toward yourself, and I’ll do the same. You’re the stroke oar, and I’ll follow you. That’s grand, Tommy. You knows what to do.”

  “I think I learned from watching them rowing out the harbour all the time. I always pays particular attention to the way Martin and Jack rows together,” said Tommy, making short strokes. He looked down into the dark sea, then back up, watching the beach move farther and farther away from him as the punt went past Witty Cove. Small whirlpools formed in the water as the blades pushed the boat along. Along the bottom of the rocky cliffs, seaweed floated on the top of the water, soon to be submerged by the approaching evening tide. Stroking evenly, side by side, the pair in the punt were soon far from shore.

  “We’ll have a rest, now, Tommy, my son. We come a good ways for your first row.”

  They put their oars across the gunwales and rested. A gentle swell rolled beneath them. Looking back at the cove, they saw a lone figure sitting on the grassy bank.

  “You can’t be out on the water for long before someone is watching you,” said John. “I suppose that’s a good thing, too. If we tipped over, he’d let the rest of them know. And then we’d be saved.”

  “Why do you think he’s there, Uncle John? Sure, it’s only you and me on the water.”

  “Some people don’t rest easy, Tommy. I mean, some people’s minds are always at work.” John placed his hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “He never does stop coming to the cove and watching us all row out to sea. He can’t stop, my son.”

  “Do you think you can stop, Uncle John? I mean, do you want to stop rowing?”

  John looked down at his weathered hands, inches from Tommy’s small fingers. The boat had barely moved since they’d rested their oars. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you suppose Watt is watching me row?”

  “There’s no doubt he is.”

  “Will I ever be as good as you, Uncle John? Do you think I could row faster than nine thirteen?”

  “You mean nine thirteen and four-fifths.” John put an arm around Tommy and squeezed him gently. “Maybe, if you works at it. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of work to set a record, and even more to break one. You needs good men in the boat with you. Men you can depend on, and a coxswain you can trust.”

  They slid their oars into the water and started toward shore. Tommy gritted his teeth and pulled with all the strength his small arms could give the oar. The punt glided over the calm ocean. Herring gulls moved overhead, sounding as if they were in pain. A slight change in the tide helped the boat along. Out at the horizon, there was a hint of blue sky.

  “Your first row was very good,” said John, as the punt butted into the sandy gravel of the beach.

  “It was calm today, Uncle John, calmer than the pond.”

  They pulled the punt up on the beach, away from the rising tide. A hint of tobacco smoke drifted by them as they turned toward the bridge. The grassy bank was empty.

  John gathered the stiff salt fish from the tinder-dry flakes. He pulled the brim of his hat down to shade his eyes from the descending sun and then finished placing the final catch of the season, now ready for market, in waist-high piles.

  As he worked, he wondered, as he did each fall, if he would get a fair price for all his work. How quickly the year had passed. It was almost twelve months since he’d had the racket with Clements at Scanlan’s. Then there’d been the meeting with Bob Sexton, the building of the crew, and the regatta. He wasn’t going to any tavern on his own once he settled with the merchants this time. He wouldn’t be alone, anyway. Tommy was going with him. The boy was nine now, and Kate’s cooking had done him a world of good. He was healthy, and starting to sprout up like a weed.

  He got some freshly cut hay for Prince, tossed it over the fence of the pound, and lingered to admire the horse. Prince trotted up and nibbled the hay, tossing his head up and down as if thanking John. John reached out and patted the sleek neck, then turned around and headed for the house.

  “Kate! Tommy!” A low murmuring crept through the hall. It was coming from the parlour. John followed the sound.

  “What are ye doing in here?” John said, looking at Tommy’s head bent over a book. Kate was sitting beside him on the couch.

  “Sure, I’m going to make my first communion soon. I’m learning the Catechism. Aunt Kate’s helping me.” Tommy looked at the ceiling and rolled his eyes. “I knows most all of it by heart now.”

  “I’m going to go out and cut some hay. I’ll be back in a couple of hours, about suppertime.”

  Tommy moved closer to Kate and looked up at John. “Aunt Kate says you and her are going to adopt me. And then I’ll be a Whelan just like you, won’t I, Uncle John?”

  Kate kissed the soft hair on the top of his head. John felt a lump rising in his throat. He coughed and then spoke. “Sure, you’re already a Whelan, my son. We just got to tell the government about it.”

  “That’s right,” said Kate. “You’re our son, and you’ll be that forever. You can call us Mother and Father if you wants. But you don’t have to.” Kate looked away from him and took up her knitting.

  “Forever?” Tommy smiled. “You mean till I grows up, Mother.”

  “Till you grows up and long after that, my child.” Kate’s voice was so full of joy John could hardly bear it.

  a couple of hours of light remained to the day. John stood alone in the meadow. A second crop of hay was ripe. He was anxious to begin his favourite chore. First he had to make the scythe as sharp as a lance.

  The sharpening stone slid across the edge of the scythe. He touched the warm blade, then gripped the handle. The sunlight skimmed across the metal, making him blink as he began sweeping through the meadow. The grass fell easily, in snake-like patterns. He kept cutting until it was almost dark. Tommy was suddenly beside him, although he hadn’t seen the boy approach.

  “Finished me lessons and supper’s ready, Father.”

  “Good. I’m famished.” John picked up the sharp
ening stone and placed the scythe on his shoulder. He took Tommy’s hand, and they headed home.

  Author’s Note

  The writing of this story was long overdue: it’s been 114 years since the members of the 1901 Outer Cove winning crew’s record was set. Everyone I talked to when I first considered writing this book wondered why the story hadn’t already been written. But it wasn’t as easy as that; I had only a few pages of facts to work with at the beginning. I had plenty of passion about the St. John’s Regatta, but passion comes from the heart. I needed to connect my heart to my mind to start the process of creating what the world of these fishermen might have been like in 1901. That required a lot of research and a lot of imagining. I went back to 1900 and started my yarn.

  I’ve left a good chunk of my heart in this book, and, I hope, some insight into the hearts of those who have rowed on Quidi Vidi Lake and the hearts of tens of thousands who have followed “the races.”

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to Paul Butler, the best teacher and mentor a writer could have.

  My wife, Carol, is a saint for enduring my impatience while I was working on A Stroke in Time.

  A debt of gratitude is owed to those who read the pre-publication manuscript. Their lovely words are on the cover and inside the book.

  Special thanks to Paddy Hickey, Agnes Hickey, and Dave J. Hickey of Outer Cove, the Croke family and the late Pat Coady of Outer Cove, and the late Margaret Houlihan of Flatrock for sharing their stories.

  Thanks to Martin Boland, whose three pages of facts of Regatta Day, 1901, were the fuel that really got me started.

  Thanks to Dick Carroll, a great storyteller of the races who hasn’t missed a regatta in eighty years.

  I am eternally grateful to Andrea Roberts and Ray Walsh for helping me manage Word documents.

  Thanks to all the great rowers, past and present, who inspired me to write about the sport.

  I would like to extend my gratitude to Jessica Grant, Jean Simpson, and Michael Winter, writers-in-residence at Memorial University.

  Thank you, Ed Kavanagh, for insisting on the many changes this book needed to make it better (which involved making me rewrite the whole darn manuscript).

  I am also grateful to Susan Rendell for her gift of managing the words of this greenhorn writer.

  Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude toward Flanker Press for putting their faith in this story and publishing it.

  About the author

  Gerard Doran, currently a resident of St. John’s, Newfoundland, grew up in Outer Cove, a former fishing village five miles from the capital city. He has been active in the sport of rowing for many years as a rower and a coach, and he is a two-time Royal St. John’s Regatta championship coxswain. Gerard is a member of the board of directors of the regatta committee. A Stroke in Time is his first novel.