by Philip Roy
Back in the shed I picked up the sander just as the alarm light started blinking. This alerted us when someone drove up to the gate. I put the sander down and went out. A man in a truck looked surprised to see me. I tried my hardest to look disinterested in whatever he had in the back of his truck, which turned out to be old lawn mowers and buckets of bolts. I took a quick peek at the bolts, which I knew Ziegfried would be interested in, and tried to sound bored.
“We can’t use any of this.”
“Nothing? Where’s the other fellah — the big guy.”
“He’s not here. I could give you fifteen dollars for the metal but . . . we really don’t need any of that stuff.”
I turned to go. I had seen Ziegfried use this tactic.
“Fifteen bucks? I was hoping to get a little more than that.”
“Sorry. We’ve got more lawn mowers than we can shake a stick at and more bolts than we can count.”
I started to go again.
“All right, all right. I’ve come all this way, I might as well get rid of it.”
I opened the gate. He drove in and emptied his truck. I paid him from a wallet Ziegfried left, then went back to the shed. I put on a face-protector and got busy with the tedious work of sanding. An hour later the light started blinking again. I pulled off the mask, shook the dust from my clothes and went to the gate. There I found Mr. Boyd, one of my teachers. In his summer clothes, Mr. Boyd didn’t look much like a teacher. He didn’t act like one either.
“Is Ziegfried here?”
“Nope.”
“You in charge?”
“Yup.”
“Okay. Well, I’m looking for a bathtub — one of those old-fashioned ones. Have you got any of those?”
I squinted up at the sky and pretended I was thinking hard.
“Maybe.”
“What do you mean, ‘maybe?’ Either you’ve got one or you haven’t.”
“I think we might have one but they’re expensive.”
“Okay. But you do have one?”
“I might be able to find one.”
In truth, we had more than a dozen and Ziegfried would be glad to get rid of them.
Then Boyd let his guard down.
“The thing is: we’re renovating the house and the wife has always wanted one of those old tubs and if I come home without one I might as well sleep in the barn.”
I grinned. I felt like giving him one for free, but my loyalty to Ziegfried was rock solid.
“It’ll cost you fifty dollars. I should be charging sixty but seeing as you’re my teacher and all . . .”
“Fifty bucks!”
“It’s better than sixty.”
“Yah, I guess so. Okay, then. Let me see it first.”
“I’ll see if I can find it for you. Just wait here.”
I slowly sauntered away until I was around the corner of the house. Then I took off as fast as I could and grabbed a trolley and rushed to a back corner where the bathtubs were. The tubs were heavy and I struggled to get one onto the cart and push it across the yard. I paused to catch my breath before coming around the corner of the house.
“You’re lucky. We just happened to have one left. And it’s a white one. I think I’m supposed to charge seventy-five for this.”
“You said fifty!”
He took fifty dollars out of his wallet.
I sighed and took the money as if I were doing him a big favour. Then we loaded the tub onto his truck.
“Well, this ought to make her happy.”
“I’m glad you won’t have to sleep in the barn.”
“Me too.”
After he left, I grinned all the way back to the shed. I didn’t know why Ziegfried hated buying and selling so much. It was fun.
Chapter Five
After a week, Ziegfried came striding into the yard with a big smile, two heavy suitcases and a huge backpack.
I could tell the suitcases were heavy the way he held them low to the ground. Ziegfried was probably the strongest man for a thousand miles.
“Alfred! You won’t believe it!”
“Is your mother okay?”
“Okay? She’ll live to be a hundred and fifty. Hah! Do you know what happened?”
“What?”
“Well, she had written to me in her old scribbled hand-writing and said she was ‘leaving soon’ and ‘hoped I’d make it to the funeral.’ Of course I thought she was talking about herself. But she wasn’t. An old great aunt of mine died. My mother was just ‘leaving soon’ to go to her funeral. Here I go all the way to Germany to see my dying mother, who greets me at the door but has forgotten she even wrote to me by then, and takes one look at me and says: ‘What are you doing here?’
“Well, I laughed and cried and laughed and cried, and then had a great old time visiting all my relatives. To top it off, the old aunt left me a pile of money. And do you know what, Al? I went to a second-hand marine shop over there and guess what I found?”
“What?”
He opened the suitcases. Wrapped in oiled paper were glass discs, metal plates, gauges, screens, valves, hoses, knobs and wire.
“Nothing . . . but a periscope and sonar.”
My mouth dropped.
“A periscope?”
“Well, it will be once we construct it. But these are the important pieces.”
“Wow. That’s lucky.”
“It’s really lucky. We’d never find this stuff around here. And so, Al, how did you make out here? I see you’ve still got all your fingers.”
I smiled.
“The birds are okay. I sold two bathtubs, a screen door, a winch, five toilets, a bunch of wire and . . . the old Ford station wagon.”
“The old Ford wagon? You sold it?”
“I hope that was okay.”
“What did you sell it for?”
“Three hundred and fifty.”
“Three hundred and fifty! You got three hundred and fifty for the old Ford wagon? Oh, Al, that’s wonderful! And you sold two bathtubs?”
“Yup.”
“What were the total sales for the week?”
“Seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars and seventy-five cents.”
“Al, that’s amazing! I can’t believe it. That’s absolutely wonderful. Did you buy anything?”
“Some lawn mowers and bolts . . . and a fridge and stove. Altogether I spent forty-five dollars.”
“You sold seven hundred and twenty-eight bucks and only spent forty-five?”
“Yup.”
“Al, you’re a genius.”
“I was lucky, I guess.”
“Oh no. There’s no luck about it. You’re a born salesman that’s what it is. Seven hundred and twenty-eight bucks . . . in one week. Well, that’s something.”
By late summer the wood interior was finished. We donned overalls and ventilator masks and painted five coats of waterproofing varnish into the wood. This gave the interior a golden shine. It was beautiful. There were still many open spaces for the installation of equipment but the interior already looked more or less what it would look like when it was done.
Next, we worked on laying the electrical, gas, air and hydraulic pipes and fittings. This was all wizardry to me. I assisted Ziegfried with a silent awe. Only rarely would he disappear into the house to consult a manual on a specific problem. Otherwise, it looked as if he constructed submarines for a living.
But he insisted upon my understanding how everything worked, and . . . how to fix anything when it broke down. Everything breaks down sometime, he said. For every system — both in diagram and actual construction — I learned every step between the switch and the function. Thus, for instance, the engine switch sat on the panel board, which was in the main compartment, right in front of where the stationary bicycle would stand. First, there was the switch itself, which I learned to build from scratch. Then, there were the wires, which ran through waterproofed pipes to the engine itself, stored in its own soundproofed, waterproofed compartment in the st
ern. Ziegfried went over every detail again and again until I had a crystal-clear picture of the whole system in my mind, and learned how to diagnose a problem by the sound of the engine running. And so it was with all the other systems.
The propulsion of the sub was created by three systems, either singly or in combination. I could drive the sub simply by running the engine — but only on the surface. The engine required a constant flow of air, which simply wasn’t available once the sub dived. Running the engine was the fastest but noisiest way. Completely submerged, the sub could travel by battery alone, which was much quieter, once it had stored enough power by running the engine for awhile; or, I could simply ride the bike. By bicycle gears alone the sub would move about as fast as someone paddling a canoe. At that rate, Ziegfried said, allowing for currents and such, I could cross the Atlantic in about three months. By engine alone I could do it in about two weeks.
But I could run all three systems at once. That is, I could drive the sub by engine power, which stored power in the batteries, and, I could pedal, which would also add juice to the batteries. When fully charged, the batteries might propel the sub for about ten hours or so, depending upon the speed. But this was slower than engine power, and the batteries had to run other functions inside the sub as well.
For fuel, Ziegfried installed two permanent tanks and a small, portable auxiliary tank, which I could carry out of the sub and fill by hand. Altogether, he estimated the sub could travel about three thousand miles before needing to be refuelled. Of course I could lengthen that distance immeasurably by pedalling.
In the evenings, after a full day’s work, I went to Deep Cove and practised diving. I could reach fifty feet now fairly comfortably and my lung capacity had improved a lot. The trick was slowing everything down. This was a state of mind more than anything else. I would breathe deeply and focus on slowing my heartbeat. Then, instead of hurrying down, I would simply sink past the markers as if I had all the time in the world. I could hold my breath a full minute and a half — three times as long as when I first started. Rarely did my ears bother me anymore. Ziegfried said I was growing webbed feet.
At fifty feet, on a clear day, I could see the schooner below. She lay on her side like a ghost. Just fifty feet more and I would be able to touch her and maybe find something interesting to bring back.
And then one evening I got a terrible fright. It was my last dive for the day. I had reached the fifty-foot marker and paused for a second to stare at the schooner. Suddenly, there was a shadow above me. I looked up. On the surface I saw a shark.
My heart pounded in my chest. I knew there were sharks occasionally caught in fishermen’s nets but it wasn’t often — we were so far north. I watched the shark glide back and forth as if it were looking for something. My lungs insisted I rise. So, I started to move. I came up as slowly and controlled as possible, trying not to make any sudden movements that might attract the shark’s attention. But it never seemed interested in me. It bumped against the wire once and I felt it as if a cow had bumped against a fence. I was surprised at its strength.
When I reached the surface I slowly climbed onto the raft. It was only when I was out of the water that I saw the shark’s fin cutting through the water about thirty feet away, and I felt a shiver run through my spine. It came close once more and then disappeared.
Ziegfried couldn’t believe it.
“You’re braver than anyone I know, Al. You’re not afraid to go back?”
“Not really.”
Having shared the water with a shark once made me more confident to do it again.
“Well, we can take comfort in the fact that there has never been a shark attack in these waters, or at least not a reported one. People have been lost at sea. I suppose no one knows what happened to them. I take my hat off to you, Al. You’ve got the courage of an explorer, that’s for sure.”
I appreciated Ziegfried’s support. It was a different story at home. My grandfather had noticed I was growing stronger and more confident — changes he didn’t expect me to make until I was out on the fishing boat. He had no idea how hard I was already working.
“I’d take you out now,” he said, “except that it’s a tradition in our family to come out when you’re fourteen. I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait one more year, Alfred.”
All I could think of was how the submarine had to be ready by the end of the school year — when I turned fourteen. I was already scouting for places in the woods to set up a tent if I had to.
“Once you come out on the boat, you’ll forget about everything else. It’s in your blood.”
By “everything else,” I knew he meant the submarine. But he was wrong. I lived and breathed for the day I would go to sea — but not as a fisherman — as an explorer.
Chapter Six
Over the fall we installed the batteries, air-compressors, driveshaft, propeller and stationary bike. There were ten industrial-size batteries — each the size of a small suitcase. The propeller had come from a fancy yacht that had been damaged in a storm years before. The air-compressors were installed independently — each operating as a backup to the other in case of failure. Ziegfried was still working out the design for a manual inflation of the ballast tanks. The stationary bike was an adaptation of an old touring bicycle. It had ten gears, an adjustable seat and toe-clips, for greater pedalling efficiency. I found it extremely easy, but Ziegfried said this would all change when the sub was sitting in water.
Each installation brought the sub nearer to completion, and my hopes rose every time. But Ziegfried kept talking about how much work there was left to do, and I knew he never said things he didn’t mean. Without a functioning sonar system the sub was useless in the water. It was like going down the highway with your eyes closed, he said.
“After all, Al, you won’t be the only sub in the sea.”
The periscope also had to be constructed and installed, as did the heating, lighting, communications and safety systems. And then, every system had to be thoroughly tested. Ziegfried put special emphasis on the testing phase.
“But there is one thing we can’t test, Al.”
“What?”
“The sub’s buoyancy. Once we slip her into the water she’s done, except for minor adjustments. If she sinks like a stone she’s gone. We’ll never get her out of the water again without a proper landing. And that’s a lot of work and we’d have to get a permit to build it and things would get mired in bureaucratic red tape. You can be sure they’d send government people down to inspect the sub, and then it would have to pass a thousand tests and I don’t think the sub would ever leave the yard.”
“Oh.”
I hadn’t given any thought to the legal side of things. “I’m not really worried about the sub sinking, Al. Laws of physics dictate she will float. The ballast we’ve added gives us more control, so I feel pretty confident about her overall buoyancy. What I wish we could test is her maneuverability — how she sits in the water and how she rides. Will she ride with her nose up, or down? Will she cut through the water smoothly and with little drag, or will she create waves that slow you down? Will she rock side to side like a bouncing clown and make you seasick before you even leave the harbour? These are things we cannot know until she’s in the water.”
I continued to dive all through September and October. Diving every day kept my body adjusted to the changing ocean temperature. I felt cold, but it didn’t bother me as it used to. I didn’t see any more sharks either, but always kept an eye out for them. By mid-October, I was down to sixty feet. On my last dive of the season — Halloween day — I touched the sixty-five-foot marker before surfacing. I was under the water for a minute and forty-five seconds. Ziegfried was deeply impressed.
“That’s a heck of a lot of weight sitting on top of you, Al. What does it feel like?”
For once, I felt like I was the expert and Ziegfried the novice.
“I don’t know. It just feels like something squeezing your whole body together. It�
��s very tight, especially on your chest.”
“Well, it compresses your lungs, you know.”
“You get used to it.”
“And a minute and forty-five seconds without breathing. I can’t imagine it. Nerves of steel, Al. Nerves of steel.”
I grinned.
In the fall and winter I could only come to the yard after school and on weekends. It was hard to sit through the long days at school. I tried to do my homework while I was there, so I wouldn’t have to do it later. By November I was no longer diving and I could also spend my evenings at the yard. My grandfather and grandmother didn’t see much of me — only at breakfast and before bed.
“I was the same at his age,” said my grandfather. “Never mind. Let him enjoy his freedom; he’ll be busy soon enough.”
Yes, I said to myself, but not in the way you think. I tried to explain my passion for exploring to my grandfather, but my words fell on deaf ears.
“When you are a child,” he said, “it is okay to think like a child. But when you are a man you must think like a man.”
I dropped my head. I didn’t want to let my grandfather down, but I would die if I had to accept a life on the fishing boats.
“It’s a tough situation, Al,” said Ziegfried. “It is important to respect our elders, that’s for sure. On the other hand, a man has got to do what he has got to do. In the end, it’s your life. Your grandfather has had his life. Now it’s your turn. But I feel for you, Al. It’s not an easy thing to turn your back on your elders.”
“I already decided a long time ago. I just wish he would accept it.”
“Hmmm. Have you ever actually told your grandfather you are decidedly not going to be a fisherman?”
“Not exactly.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I know what he would say.”
“You never know for sure. He might surprise you.”
I went home and lay awake thinking about it. In the morning I greeted my grandfather, “Grandpa. I have made a firm decision not to become a fisherman.”