August Gale

by Walsh, Barbara

  It is this moment, when my grandfather is most fragile, that he becomes real in my mind. I can hear his sobs and see his face red with pain, and for the first time in my life, I want to know more about him and his family. I press my father for details: “How bad was the storm? Did a lot of our people die? Did Ambrose ever get back to Newfoundland to see his family?”

  My father cannot answer these questions. He believes that one of the crew may have lashed himself to the schooner wheel to survive, but he is unsure of what happened to Captain Paddy or any of our other Newfoundland relatives. The scant details are enough to lure my imagination. For most of my journalism career, I have chased stories about strangers. Now the journalist in me wants to chase the storm, resurrect the men, my ancestors, who sailed schooners and relied on God and the wind to carry them home. My father, a lover of history, sea adventures, and a former Navy shipman, is equally intrigued by the story.

  “Maybe we can get in touch with some of the family,” he says, “and see if they know anything about the storm.”

  Family? Ambrose’s relatives? I silently ask. My father’s offer to contact Ambrose’s family stuns me into silence. Over the last twenty years, attempts to coax my father to talk about my grandfather have met with little success. Though I did not often try to broach the topic, one occasion stands out in my mind: My dad had flown from his New Hampshire home to visit me and tour the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, newsroom where I worked in the late 1980s and early 1990s. On a warm March evening, we sat in the dark on my patio, a small deck that looked out onto the city’s man-made canals. We sipped beer and dined on the only thing I had in my cabinet—a bag of pretzels. Perhaps it was the effect of the second beer on my empty stomach that gave me the courage to try and unearth my father’s feelings. “How,” I asked, “did you learn to be a good father, when your dad wasn’t around to teach you or give you advice?”

  My father stared into the dark, past the row of sailboats silhouetted in the city lights. His rocking chair creaked as he pushed it back and forth with the tips of his sneakers. He could not find the words to answer me.

  The rigging on the nearby boats rattled and clanged, filling the silence between us. When our words returned, they focused on the newspaper stories I had written that day and my father’s plans to play golf the following morning.

  Now on this winter evening, my father’s offer to contact Ambrose’s family leaves me quiet again. I do not question why he is ready to share memories that have remained private for decades. I only know that I am grateful that this conversation about the August Gale has found its way to my living room on this February night. It is well after midnight when we finish talking about the storm and how we might further our research. My father promises to e-mail and call relatives, who can help us learn more. I kiss him on the forehead and bid him goodnight, adding “I love you.”

  He quickly replies, “I love you, too.” Before I head down the hallway to my bedroom, I turn to look at him. He is lost in thought, and I wonder if his mind has drifted back to his childhood, and his father, Ambrose.

  The house is still as I slip beneath my bedcovers. My husband, two daughters, and my mother have been asleep for hours. I lie awake in the dark, excited about this story that links me to my father’s past and our Newfoundland family. That night, I dream of giant waves and the grandfather I never had the chance to know or meet.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE KING OF MARYSTOWN—NEWFOUNDLAND, 1935

  Paddy Walsh rubbed the coins in his pocket as he walked toward the priest’s meadow. The coins had always given him comfort as tokens of his good fortune and the bountiful catches that had provided well for his family. Yet on this August day the sound of the money did not console, but rather unnerved Paddy, reminding him of how little the salt cod was worth.

  The schooner captain was not a man who consumed himself with worry, but in this summer of 1935, Paddy was uneasy about the years ahead. At the age of forty-eight, he could still find the fish, hauling more cod than most captains on the southern shores of Newfoundland, yet a full hold meant little when it drew a pitiful price. The smell of the sea pulled Paddy from his thoughts. He eyed the bay that separated the northern and southern shores of Marystown. Wooden houses flanked the dirt paths leading along the water; here the Reids, Brintons, Farrells, Walshes, and Powers made their home, descendants of Irish immigrants who crossed the Atlantic to seek their fortune in a place the Irish called Talamh an Éisc, “Land of the Fish.”

  Like the thousands of Irish fleeing wretched poverty and farms they could not own, Paddy’s great-grandfather left one British-ruled country for another. Unable to convince young British men to immigrate to an island known for its boggy land and fog-shrouded seas, the English relied on Irish fishermen and farmers who viewed Newfoundland as a transatlantic Tipperary to settle the colony. By the mid-1800s, much of Marystown and Newfoundland’s southern shore was as Irish as Ireland itself.

  As the August breeze rippled the water, the bay where Paddy’s great-grandfather once moored his schooners was oddly quiet. For as long as Paddy could remember, nearly every family in Marystown had put aside their chores and work to celebrate the Blessed Virgin’s ascension into heaven. The rural outport was named after the Mother of God, and none of the five hundred souls who called Marystown home dared tend to their trawls or vessels on the fifteenth of August, a holy day that called for prayer in church and a communal feast in the priest’s meadow.

  Paddy understood the fishermen’s fervent beliefs, but the sight of the empty schooners reminded the skipper of his mounting debt and the money owed to local merchants. The miserable 1930s were nearly half over now, and politicians promised prosperity was around the corner. Yet the only corner Paddy could see was the one that he felt himself boxed into. Despite his threats to local merchants—Give me the highest price for the fish or I’ll kill ye—the price of cod had begun tumbling not long after the First World War, and with unemployment and poverty crippling the economy in Newfoundland and foreign countries, the salt fish exports dropped like a stone.

  Supplying schooners with grub and gear was damn near impossible when the merchants offered a pittance for a quintal of fish. Paddy thought of his younger brother Ambrose’s words before he immigrated to the Boston States. “Fishing’s too much hard work for too little pay. There’s no future in it, Paddy.”

  Whispers and the jingle of metal pulled Paddy from his thoughts. Small boys walking a few steps behind the captain rubbed pieces of tin in their pockets, wishing for the real coins that Paddy often had. Turning to the boys, Paddy offered a greeting, “Afternoon lads.” The youths quickly replied with a polite, “Afternoon, Mr. Paddy.”

  There were many Paddies among the Irish immigrants in Marystown, but there was only one “Mr. Paddy.” Known as “The King of Marystown,” William Patrick “Paddy” Walsh followed his own rules both on land and at sea. The boys had heard stories about Paddy from their fathers and other fishermen. They knew you watched your step and your words around Mr. Paddy. Like his four younger brothers, Paddy was a large man. Nearly six feet tall, his chest was blocky, his shoulders broad from decades of rowing dories and pulling cod from the sea. The salt wind and years of drink had also made their mark, leaving Paddy’s cheeks red and flushed. His dark eyes held a wildness and unpredictability to them, as if he were perpetually issuing a challenge. And those in town well knew, ye didn’t challenge Skipper Paddy.

  The men who crewed for Capt’n Paddy, Marystown merchants, the law, and the town priest understood: Paddy had no fear of nothin’ or nobody. Fishermen swapped stories about Paddy like precious coins, retelling their favorites over and over. The law didn’t mean much to Paddy. It did not stop him from starting a brawl with a constable who towered over the captain or half murdering a man for swearing in the skipper’s house. Following several rounds of drinks, Paddy had nearly punched a fisherman’s eye out after the man cursed in the captain’s parlor. When the bloodied doryman later filed charges, Paddy confessed to
the local magistrate that, indeed, he was guilty of the assault.

  The judge, who often enjoyed cards and rum with Paddy, chastised his friend for the crime. “Next time ye would handle yurself differently now wouldn’t ye, Paddy?”

  “Yes sir,” Paddy said tipping his cap, “Next time I’d kill the son of a bitch.”

  With every exploit and adventure on land and sea, Paddy’s legend grew until the people of Marystown and the villages and towns beyond could no longer discern which stories about the “king” were true and which had been stretched like the line on a doryman’s trawl.

  Still, like most of the fishermen on Newfoundland’s southern shore, the boys who followed Paddy on this Lady Day afternoon dared not test the skipper’s ire. Careful not to meet Paddy’s eyes, they cast a furtive glance at the skipper and raced toward the carnival barker and his lyrical chant: “Try yur chance at the Wheel of Fortune. Five cents for fifty cents.”

  Children lined up at the wooden wheel, rubbing a nickel or two in their hands, dear few coins their fathers had given them for the garden party. In the shadow of the Sacred Heart Church, boys chased one another in a game of tag. Pennies jingled in their pockets, payment for a paper grab bag that might hold a few special trinkets: a comb, candy, or a bar of soap. Large wooden tubs held every child’s delight—ice cream churned with winter ice from the bay and homemade berries.

  From long wooden tables, the smell of fudge and homemade apple pies beckoned hungry fishermen. Women outfitted in their Sunday finery, long dresses with buttons of pearl or glass, fussed over their baked goods. Nimble and quick hands arranged pies, cakes, and pots of tea, waiting for customers to buy their offerings. A line of fairgoers stood before Paddy’s wife, Lillian, who sold her cakes to eager customers. A petite and proper woman, Lillian was known for her baking and sewing skills. Her goods were always the first to go at the garden party. And Paddy made certain none of Lil’s pies went unclaimed.

  Across the field, a crowd of fishermen gathered around a large barrel of rum. Dorymen who would soon be rowing miles back and forth to their skippers’ schooners stood in tight circles drinking from mugs that were blessedly full. Tom Reid, Paddy’s second hand, sipped his liquor and listened to the voices that grew increasingly louder. Tall and blocky like Paddy, the two men could have been brothers. Reid had fished with Paddy for many years, and despite their occasional brawls (fueled by too much rum or moonshine made in the woods), Reid counted himself lucky to be aboard Paddy’s schooner. The winters weren’t as rough when the skipper returned to Marystown with his boat weighted down with cod. There was likely to be a bit of salt pork on the table, butter for the bread, and maybe even sugar for the tea. Aye, Paddy can be a rough character, but a skipper has a rough job, Reid thought. He’s got to command his crew and know everything about the seas, how to handle the waves when they grow to mountains, how to keep clear of the sunkers, and how to find the best fishing grounds. He worked ye hard, but he always found the fish.

  “Yis b’ys,” drink up, Reid and the men told one another. There would be no rum in the dories, where their calloused hands would soon be busy baiting and hauling trawl and pulling on the oars from dawn to dusk. The fishermen were anxious to make their catches before the long, dark months ahead. But they also knew it was the start of hurricane season, when tropical storms roared up the North Atlantic and descended upon the Bay of Fundy and the Grand Banks.

  It was bad luck to talk about the August gales, but each of the fishermen had heard the stories that were told and retold by those who sailed the sea. They had heard the tales about the gale of 1873 that struck the sea off Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, claiming more than five hundred Canadian and American fishermen. The tide on that August evening rose higher than it had in twenty-four years. Ships as large as a thousand tons, and boats as small as thirty tons, foundered or sank. Scores of fishermen were found dead, lashed to their schooners’ rigging or drowned in their decks below. Hundreds more were swept off vessels and met their watery grave. In the days following the storm, dead bodies rolled in with the tide; dories and derelict boats washed ashore, empty and battered with holes.

  One hundred more Newfoundland and Nova Scotia men drowned in 1927 when an August gale blew into the Grand Banks with winds of one hundred miles per hour. Captains had never seen the barometer drop so suddenly.

  It was as if the devil himself had danced on the waters, surviving fishermen told their sons. The sea was as smooth as oil. By Gad, all of a sudden there came mountains of water. We pulled on our oilskins and got ready for the boil.

  The wind roared like a freight train. Walls of water broke onto decks, stripping vessels of their masts, dories, and gurry butts. Everything above board disappeared into the briny deep as captains hollered, It’s every man for himself!

  Throughout the small outports, telegrams arrived bearing news of all hands lost. Word came too about the fate of vessels like the John Loughlin. The schooner from nearby Placentia Bay had been fishing off Cape St. Mary’s with a seven-man crew and a young boy, when the gale breezed up. A day after the storm, a fisherman spied the Loughlin bobbing in seas that were still rough and hazy with fog. From the rigging in the schooner’s crosstrees, a man hung by his right arm. The corpse dipped in the sea as the boat listed. When the storm winds ceased, fishermen boarded the schooner and cut the sailor from the mast. Captain Albert Loughlin would be the only body found on the vessel. Loughlin’s two brothers, the five other crew members, and the small boy had disappeared in the monstrous waves that had risen up beneath blue skies.

  The weatherglass was no good when the August gales whirled up the coast. Without radios on board, there was little warning and scant chance of sailing to safe harbors. Fishermen faced the storms with nothing but the small crosses and religious medals they carried in their pockets. Still, there was no use fretting over the hurricanes when there were hungry children at home. Like many of the Irish Catholics, Tom Reid had a large family, six children to feed and clothe. It was a struggle to keep enough food on the kitchen table.

  No, Reid told himself, no sense worrying about the gales and the winds that could flip a dory like a matchstick. Reid also took comfort in Paddy’s resolve to come home with all hands. Aye, the Capt’n never left a man behind. No, we never returned to harbor wit’ the flag at half-mast. Paddy could be a son of a bitch to work for, but he never lost a man in his twenty-five years as skipper. Despite shipwrecks, storms, t’ick of fog, or treacherous ice floes, Paddy and his crew always made it home.

  Reid shook off the dark thoughts and joined the other fishermen at the rum barrel. Paddy nodded to Reid and grinned at the fishermen who were already unsteady on their feet. As sure as Sunday, Paddy told himself, the fists will be flying before dawn. The Farrells, Fitzpatricks, Brintons, Reddies, and Walshes will be carrying on decades-old feuds over slights suffered by their grandfathers.

  Beyond the circle of men, children’s voices carried across the meadow, where boys wrestled in the grass. Paddy searched for his own young sons, Frankie and Jerome. The sight of girls outfitted in flour sack dresses, rags mended with the odd button and tattered ribbon, prompted a curse and sigh from the skipper. The boys were no better off with their frayed knickers and caps. The children’s gaunt faces told of flour and potato diets, with a bit of fish, if they were lucky. The boggy town graveyard had claimed enough of them, Paddy thought. Their frail bodies couldn’t fight off a cold never mind the damned tuberculosis sweeping through the country. With spotty medical care and one doctor for five neighboring villages, few in Marystown hadn’t lost a child or youth to disease. Paddy had grieved two of his own, Cornelius and Mary Bernice, babies stricken by pneumonia. His wife, Lil, still mourned the infants who had been buried twenty years past.

  The laughter of Paddy’s son, Frankie, stirred the captain from his brooding memories. The boy sat in the wooden swing as other lads pushed the box, sending it skyward. Frankie’s mouth widened into a grin, causing Paddy himself to smile. The boy didn’t laugh o
ften enough, Paddy thought; he’s too serious for a child of twelve. Paddy had hoped fishing would loosen Frankie up a bit, give him more courage, confidence. But the lad was just too sensitive. Frankie’s stomach had betrayed him on last summer’s fishing trip, leaving him ill and retching. Maybe this trip, me boy, you’ll find your love of the sea.

  Paddy had no worries with his older son, Jerome. If anything, the lad had to be reined in. Two years older than Frankie, Jerome would have gladly dropped out of school to fish with his father. Aye, there’s plenty of time for fishing, me son, Paddy had told him. Plenty of time.

  Before they headed back to school, Paddy had promised the boys one final summer journey. In less than a week, they’d be heaving the anchor, sailing forty miles east, across Placentia Bay toward Cape St. Mary’s fishing grounds. If the weather remained fair, Paddy had promised he’d let his sons set trawl from the dory with the rest of the crew.

  Sensing someone’s eyes upon him, Paddy turned to face a lone man dressed in black. The customs officer glared at Paddy and spit into the dirt.

  “Afternoon,” Paddy said. tipping his cap.

  The local officer sneered at Paddy and muttered words beneath his breath. Paddy laughed, savoring the memory of the lawman’s attempt to search Paddy’s boat for liquor. Paddy had just returned from the nearby French island of St. Pierre, where rum was plentiful and cheap. A fifty-mile sail from Marystown, Paddy and other fishermen often smuggled the booze home in the hold of their vessels. The skipper had never paid any taxes on his liquor, and he wasn’t about to start now. As the customs officer stepped on board Paddy’s boat, he grabbed the lawman by his coat and tossed him into the bay.