by Gary Collins
Mary smiled at a childhood memory that came to her every time she had ironing to do. She had been playing on the kitchen floor near the table where her mother stood ironing clothes—must have been on a Monday, she thought. The kitchen door opened and an older woman stepped inside without knocking.
“Oh, Ethel, my dear, you’re doin’ your ironing. Good. I’m so glad to see you’re not busy! Every woman knows ironin’ is something she does in her slack time!”
Since she had begun working, Mary Sturge could not remember having any slack time and she still hated Mondays.
* * *
By Monday night Esther Humphries, lying in a tossing bunk aboard the Neptune II, was deathly ill. All through that interminable night and into the fury of the following day the crew of the Neptune II managed to keep her broad bows before the wind. The vessel was being carried away from the land by a whelp of wind and by seas that ran higher than any of them had ever seen before.
All the crew of the schooner lay huddled below in the forecastle, save for Esther’s husband, Peter, the bosun, who was alone on deck struggling with the helm. Suddenly, above the fury of the wind and wave came a faint cry for help from above. The men hurried on deck to find Peter crying in agony. He was still lashed to the wheel but had been thrown violently against the wheelhouse by a huge wave and had now passed out from the pain.
Through a haze of nausea Esther watched them lower her husband down the stairs and lay him in his bunk. Pete was still. She thought he was dead and she cried out in agony, but Captain Barbour told her in a consoling tone that Peter was not dead, merely knocked unconscious by the blow he had received on deck. He was right, for her husband soon regained his senses and told his wife in a shaky voice that he was going to be all right. But it would be days before the bosun could return to his duties. The men helped another man down over the stairs as well. Ephraim Blackmore, who was a passenger aboard the schooner, had helped with the rescue of the bosun and in so doing had injured his back. He, too, was consigned to his bunk. He would remain there for fourteen days.
The Neptune II continued drifting. By the log, Barbour determined that some days they drifted as much as eighty miles. Their wheelhouse was swept away and all of the steering apparatus was gone and the helm was damaged. The resourceful men ventured on deck and at the risk of their lives they fastened ropes, blocks, and tackles to the tiller and steering was restored, but it took two men on each side to pull on the ropes. Pearce Barbour repaired the broken wheel and again one man was all that was needed to steer the schooner. They drifted out onto the warm Gulf Stream, and the ice that had frozen to almost every section of deck and rigging thawed. All of this Esther learned from the men who talked of nothing else when gathered in the forecastle. They brought the huge sails, which nearly filled the cabin, down over the steps and sewed and repaired them. It was impossible to do the work on the tortured deck of the Neptune II. Water washed down over the floor every time the forecastle scuttle was opened. Again, such a wash of water descended the steps and reached up into the berth where Esther lay. She rose up on her elbows and screamed in panic, sure they were sinking, but the men assured her they were not and after a while she settled back into her soaked bedclothes again. She heard Jobie Barbour tell the crew that she was a brave woman. It made her feel better.
On the afternoon of December 13, Esther noticed a difference in the motion of the schooner. The winds were quieter and the sickening roll of the vessel had lessened. Then from somewhere outside there came the muffled sound of a ship’s steam whistle. The men raced above deck. They signalled the liner. Esther felt sure they were saved. It was the SS Cedric, her 26,000-ton bulk looming above the Atlantic rollers more than two miles away.
The huge ship turned toward them and Barbour ordered a lifeboat lowered along with three of his crew members, who rowed toward the Cedric. The boat, which had been hooked to the Neptune II’s main boom like a flattie on a prong, swayed and pitched and was dropped into the humped sea with the men aboard. The hook was released and, with Barbour manning the tiller, the boat rowed with thole-pins chafing toward the massive ocean liner. Job Barbour carried in his coat pocket a message he hoped to send to Newtown by wireless to assure all at home that they were adrift at sea, but safe.
The men in the lifeboat had to use all of their small-boat skills on the wide-open, tumultuous sea between the safety of their own schooner and possible rescue in the form of the massive, rolling Cedric. Even though the wind had slacked some, the seas were still high. They marched in great undulating water masses that sometimes shouldered their weight under the boat and lifted it without effort, shipping some of its cloying liquid in over its gunnels. They came into the relatively sheltered lee of the looming ship, looking like a small stone that had fallen from a mountain. They approached the heaving steel sides of the ship and Barbour prepared to climb the rope ladder that had been lowered for him.
“The skipper tried to board ’er, Ess, maid, but the first time the boat rubbed against the ship ’er gunnels was tore apart like cheese t’rough a grater! No man could climb dat ladder in such a sea. The crew from the ship lowered a canvas bag when the skipper waved the paper ’e ’ad in his ’and, and after some more shoutin’ back an’ fard dey returned to the Neptune.”
“You mean dere wont be any rescue, Pete?” Esther’s tired, weak voice was now crestfallen. Her hopes of being put aboard a ship she had not even seen were dashed.
The woman listened in disbelief as her husband tried to make her see that Barbour had not asked for rescue, that the Neptune II was in no immediate danger of sinking. He merely wanted to know where they were.
“Over 700 miles away from ’ome, we are, Ess. Right out in the middle of the Atlantic, we are! But we’re safe enough, my dear. Never fear, we will get to lan’,” her husband said in a soothing voice. Peter told her that the captain of the Cedric had written on a paper they had lowered down not only their distance from Newfoundland but also their accurate longitude and latitude. However, Skipper Barbour only knew compass bearings and had no knowledge whatsoever of accurate navigation.
Esther settled back under her quilts again, despondent and feeling more hopeless than ever. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.
For the deathly ill woman lying in a berth that was never dry and was warmed with little more than her own feeble body heat, the days wore on. From her husband and from muted conversations she heard in the musky cabin and through the haze of her sickness, she learned of their progress. Or, as Esther considered it, their fate. Daily the schooner tacked toward an unreachable land and daily the vessel was beaten back farther to sea. And in all of that miserable time the woman stayed below the deck of the storm-tossed schooner. Her daily food was no more than tidbits of bread and sips of water fed to her by her concerned husband, who sometimes gave her hot water laced with brandy and sugar. Seldom did she keep the food down. The winter solstice came, and though it was the shortest day and longest night of the year, the defeat of winter had already set in. When the sun came again it would stay longer each day, but aboard the Neptune II, adrift and lost somewhere on the frigid North Atlantic, the day was merely a harbinger of even colder days at sea.
On Christmas day the men ate bologna and raisins and Esther was given a small measure of brandy. Everyone wished her a Merry Christmas. Her husband told her they were heading for a place called the Scilly Isles, in the British Channel, and in a few days they would be safe ashore. Esther only nodded her head, her unwashed hair matted to her forehead, her skin clammy and cold despite her fever.
“Merry Christmas, Ess, my love,” Pete said gently in her ear. But his terribly sick woman did not answer, and for the first time her husband thought she was going to die.
* * *
Christmas of 1929 in Newtown was far from an ordinary one. Besides the many family members of the two schooners feared lost at sea, the Gander Deal and the Neptune II, there was a
lso the added burden of a food shortage for many families. Anxious housewives making frequent trips to their ever-shrinking pantries had to silently bear—away from the watching eyes of their children—not only the absence of husband, but also the possible death of father, lover, and breadwinner.
Other wives, whose husbands were not aboard the missing schooners, felt and shared the pain of their sisters. Everyone around these islands as well as in isolated mainland homes, if not directly related, had friends aboard the long-overdue schooners. The one thing they all had in common was the need for basic food. Both vessels were a veritable storehouse of winter provisions for almost everyone in Newtown as well as Pinchard’s Island. Barrels of flour and sugar. Cases of yeast. Cases of India tea. Wooden tubs of hard butter as well as Crosbie’s Eversweet butter packed in modern galvanized buckets. Puncheons of sweet molasses. Most of it was destined for the Barbour chandlers, and through them it would eventually find its way onto the table of every fisherman.
Missing still were skeins of dull grey wool for stockings, hats, and cuffs. Bright balls of worsted, used to brighten a little girl’s sweater or to hang spiralling from a Christmas tree. Precious things to cheer the human spirit at this bleak time of the year. Hard sweet candy and bottles of coloured sugar water. A rare store-bought gift, one a white, intricately laced shawl, a longed-for brooch to match a wedding ring, a child’s first store-bought gift coming from a city store. All of it was adrift on a raging winter sea. And then on Christmas Eve, something unexpected happened!
Mary Sturge was prying a measure of hard butter from a small tub in the pantry. There wasn’t much left. She smiled to herself as she closed the lid. If provisions for the winter weren’t soon obtained, there would be no need to nail the lid on this tub when Lent came, she thought. During her stay on the Grey Islands, one of the things the Brothers family did to observe Lent was deprive the entire family of the luxury of using butter on their bread. To ensure his rule was carried out, the master of the house, Cliff Brothers, nailed the lid of their butter tub down, just in case some member of the household would break his stern rule during his absence.
Mary had returned from the cold pantry, had entered the warmth of the kitchen, and was passing the multi-pane window over the table when she heard an unusual commotion coming from outside. Bending over the table she peered out and saw several children as well as adults running along the narrow road. To see adults running was almost always a cause for alarm. Mary’s first thought was there was a fire somewhere. She hurried outside. Everyone on the road was shouting excitedly. Dogs, both chained and running loose, sensed the mood of the humans and barked ceaselessly.
“The crew of the Gander Deal are home!” someone shouted at her with excitement.
Mary instinctively looked toward the sea, half expecting to see the Gander Deal coming in under the land. But then she realized the crowd were running away from the sea and not toward it. Then she saw them: several black figures approaching the village on foot, from up the Arm. As they neared, the children, who were eagerly running toward them over the snowy trail, and who were the first to greet them, were snatched and hoisted aloft and clasped in great hugs of joy to the breasts of the returning seamen.
The crew of the Gander Deal had come home, indeed, but their vessel with all of its treasures had gone beneath a sea that for days on end had tried to claim her handlers. But for now everyone was filled with expectant joy. Wives ran out of houses crying and with aprons flying were scooped into the brawny arms of returning husbands. Men shook hands with the crew and slapped the long-lost sailors on their backs with blows that nearly felled them to the ground. Tears of joy welled up and rolled down over ruddy cheeks.
Mary kept staring back along the trail over which had come the trudging men. She half expected to see the crew of the Neptune II come walking behind them in the cold winter dusk. But the haul-path was now empty and bare, save for calf-high drifts of new snow that had already covered the tracks of the men who had come home for Christmas.
When asked about news of the Neptune II—whether they had seen her during all that time at sea—the answer was always in the negative, but because the Gander Deal’s crew had survived, everyone’s spirit was buoyed. If the little Gander Deal had survived the endless onslaught of storms, surely the Neptune II would as well. After all, the Neptune II was the biggest of all the schooners. The pride of the Barbour fleet. And at thirty-two years of age, Job Barbour, the captain of the Neptune II, who had been master of his own schooner since the age of twenty-one, was considered to be a master mariner.
* * *
In Roman mythology the god Neptune and his brothers Jupiter and Pluto reigned over the realms of Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Added to Neptune’s role was the rulership over all the seas. Whether it was the Roman god Neptune, whose named was etched on the schooner’s prow, his Greek counterpart Poseidon, or the supreme God to whom all Christians pray, some deity seemed to be keeping the Neptune II afloat.
Aboard the Neptune II, Christmas Day with its bologna dinner had long passed and still the schooner was nowhere near any land. The storms kept coming without end until it seemed as though they had endured one continuous blow for the full month they had now been adrift. On the eve of the day that would roll back the pages to reveal a brand new year, and with it a new decade, was the day Barbour reluctantly weathered his schooner around for the faraway Scilly Isles of the English Channel.
The next day, January 1, 1930, Esther Humphries was at her lowest ebb. Her breathing was as shallow as that of a little bird. Her body had lost most of its heat. She had not been able to keep food down for all of that time. She was haggard and thin and her face was white. Esther Humphries was dying. Peter leaned in over her bunk and listened to her faint breathing. He spoke her name but there came no answer. He pulled the blankets tighter under her chin and was shocked to feel her emaciated frame. Her blankets were damp again, though he had tried his best to dry them just two days ago. It wasn’t easy to dry the heavy coarse quilts above the coal-burning bogie, which was already covered with the men’s sodden clothing. After whispering her name again, Peter got up and went up on deck.
Job Barbour approached him and questioned him, as he always did, concerning the state of his wife. Barbour was not a married man. The only woman he loved was his mother, but he felt the anguish of his bosun, who was losing his woman. Up on deck the two men discussed Esther’s fate. Barbour told Peter that he thought she was the bravest woman he knew and that he had great admiration for her. Peter thanked him and then told him she was dying and that he didn’t expect his wife to live for longer than another hour. Then they talked about how they would bury her. Peter could not bear the thought of heaving the body of his beloved Esther into that cruel sea. Skipper Barbour told him that when she died he would arrange her body to be wrapped in their heaviest sailcloth and lashed to the main hatch cover on the deck of the Neptune II. They would hold her there until they sighted land or until such time as they would have to bury her at sea. Peter nodded his head in agreement and walked away crestfallen.
But to everyone’s pleasant surprise, Esther survived for more than the expected hour. After the night had passed, when her husband had to place his ear to her lips to determine if she was or alive dead, the courageous woman raised her head above her grimy pillow and asked—knowing they were living under water rations—for a small drop of water. Over the next few days her health steadily improved, and while she was still unable to get out of her bed it was obvious their dire circumstances had not defeated her will to live. She listened to Ephraim Blackmore play familiar hymns on his accordion. They reminded her of church and home and lifted her spirits.
Esther had never heard of the Scilly Isles before. Now it was the constant talk of the men. Would Barbour find the islands with only a compass to guide him? Many of them doubted that he would. Some of them thought they might end up on the rugged coast of Scotland, or Iceland, or as f
ar south as Gibraltar, or even north to Denmark. Esther listened without comment and prayed for any land on earth. She just wanted to get ashore from the sickening, constantly rolling sea.
Then came January 14, when her husband ran to her bunk and told her in an excited voice, “The bottom is comin’ up!”
Barbour had ordered the sounding lead over, as he had done whenever it was possible to do so. On the first try it had come up with sand clinging to its end and for the first time it read a mere 100 fathoms. After only a few hours it was sounded again and this time it measured a mere sixty fathoms.
“Not only that, Ess, maid, everywhere dere’s birds that roost upon the land in the nighttimes! ’Tis almost dark an’ the birds are flying toward the lan’. Dere’s a light blinkin’ in the distance! A lighthouse, the highest one I’ve ever seen! We’re comin’ to the lan’ fer sure! The Scilly Isles, the skipper says ’tis, accordin’ to ’is reckonin’ and the light flashes.”
Peter gave her a drop from the last of their wine and a sip of tepid water. From the schooner’s stores he found among the rotting apples and oranges a few that were still edible. He cut small pieces of the fruit for his wife, who ate of it sparingly. But the news of being close to land had cheered the woman immensely, and for the first time since they had sailed out of the port of St. John’s, a lifetime away, Peter saw his woman smile.