by Bob Chaulk
“I was just tellin’ the b’ys here about when the Queen of Swansea was lost on Gull Island. You’ve heard that story, I’m sure.”
“More than once. Finish it up; I can come back later.”
Sensing an opportunity to finally have a serious talk with his nephew, Simeon said, “No, no, these fellers ain’t goin’ nowhere. I’ll just be one minute if you promise not to tell them how it ends.” He turned back to his audience. “So, they managed to get offa her but, of course, there wasn’t a lick of shelter to be had on the island. On top of that, before they could salvage anything from the vessel, she slid off the ledge and down she went. So there they were, twelve people in a storm in December month, and no shelter or provisions.”
“So they must’ve all perished then, did they?”
“They survived the storm all right but, yes, they perished. Some hunters found them in the spring. The details of their story survived because some of them wrote down what was goin’ on; they found it in their pockets. Don’t go away, now; I’ll be back in a minute and tell you how it all turned out.”
The cold struck Henry and Simeon as they emerged on the deck and strolled over to the mainmast. Simeon leaned his back against the mast, pulled out his tobacco pouch and removed a cigarette paper from the packet. Giving a slight shiver, he shook some tobacco into the paper. “A bit airsome, ain’t it?”
“It is, ’tis a bit chilly,” said Henry, his words trailing off into the night.
“Heavy ice, too. The old man is pushin’ ’er hard into it. We’ll be shuttin’ down for the night pretty soon, I expect.”
Henry declined the pouch that Simeon offered, and watched as he rolled a cigarette, clipped the end of it with his thumbnail to remove the loose tobacco, and placed the cigarette lightly between his lips. “Somethin’ on your mind?” Simeon asked as he struck a match, his hands cupped close around it. Henry looked at Simeon’s raised eyebrows and wondering eyes as the older man’s face was illuminated by the matchlight. He half expected one of those bushy grey eyebrows to catch fire.
He hesitated slightly and responded, “Yes there is, Simeon.”
Simeon flicked the match across the deck, exhaling the smoke while picking a strand of tobacco from his tongue. He waited.
“You remember when we were walking up to the train? You said I shouldn’t stay at the ice for too long. What did you mean by that?”
Simeon looked with a curious expression into Henry’s face, obviously unsure of how to respond. He nervously shoved the cigarette between his pursed lips. It glowed fiercely as he took a draw and let the smoke come out of his mouth and nose in short puffs like a train engine. He pushed his hands into his pockets and turned his darkened face, covered in black and grey stubble, into the wind. Finally, he snatched the cigarette from his mouth with his thumb and two fingers and threw it on the deck, as though offended at it, and ground it into the deck with his toe. “Now, Henry, you know I’m not one to stick my nose into other people’s business…”
Henry said nothing, waiting anxiously for an answer.
Simeon cleared his throat. “You heard there’s a new minister?”
Henry felt like he had just been punched in the gut and his breath failed him for a second. “Yes, Em…” —he swallowed, unable to say her name out loud—“I was told there was a new minister.”
“Well, we was over to Jim and Ada’s place a few weeks ago, and Emily was there and the minister and….” He paused and reached for his tobacco pouch again.
Henry groaned to himself—a mournful, silent dirge—as he concentrated on stashing his thoughts deep inside.
“I’m sure it was nothin’,” he heard Simeon’s faraway voice, “just my imagination. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any more, for it would not be good. He could feel the embarrassment he had feared overtaking him. “Right,” he said finally.
As his hopes sank, he began to berate himself. He deserved to lose her. It was his proper punishment. He stood there like a medieval monk, awaiting his mortification.
Simeon seemed reluctant to continue. Suddenly, as the awkward silence intensified, the deck took a violent lurch and started to tilt as though the ship was about to turn turtle. Simeon fell forward, banging his forehead into Henry’s nose as they both went tumbling along the steeply inclined deck, fully expecting to go overboard, but the sturdy rail arrested their fall. Dazed and bruised, they lay there wondering what was coming next as the ship slowly righted herself and settled on an even keel.
“What the hell was that? I thought we was upsot for sure,”
Simeon exclaimed, as he cautiously got to his feet, not quite certain that everything was back to normal. All was peaceful. Along the port rail towards the bow, men were looking stunned, darting furtive glances here and there for clues as to what was happening.
In the galley, Jackie just missed getting scalded with five gallons of boiling tea, and ended up in the open doorway of the galley. To avoid falling through and into the water he hung onto the door frame amid a cacophony of plates, pots and other cooking gear that came flying off the shelves before the ship righted herself. Grabbing his coat he ran outside to see what was up.
“Are you okay?” Simeon said, as he offered Henry a helping hand. “Your nose is bleedin’ a bit. You okay?” he repeated.
“I think I’m in one piece,” said Henry. “For a minute there, I thought we were goin’ over the side.”
“She took an awful pitch. She must have runned up onto the ice, I guess,” said Simeon quietly. “We might have struck a growler.” He looked at Henry’s drawn face. He was sure he could see him shaking.
“Are you sure you’re okay…Henry?”
“I…I just need a minute to get my bearings.”
“Okay?”
Henry smiled faintly. “Really, I’m fine. I wonder if we got any damage,” he said, in a tone that did not allay Simeon’s suspicion that all was not quite right with him.
They looked out over the ice as the ship entered a quiet lagoon that formed a small pond. “Dead slow,” came the captain’s voice as the ship gently butted against the solid ice surrounding the lagoon. The slowly turning propeller held her there until the stern swung in, and men dropped to the ice to anchor her to the ice pinnacles.
“It looks like we’re gonna settle in here for the night,” said Simeon. “I guess we got no major damage; we’re not sinking, anyway.” Holding his mitt against his nose and checking periodically for blood, Henry glanced back towards the stern, worried at the thought that perhaps somebody had gone overboard and conscious of the need, above all else, to remain composed in front of Simeon. He was watching a couple of men massaging sore elbows and knees, when they disappeared as the aft end of the ship burst before his eyes to the accompaniment of a loud cracking boom, and wood flew in all directions.
Ducking the hail of debris falling upon them, Simeon reacted first, “That damned old boiler must have blowed up!”
“Then we better get down there; there’s gonna be fellers scalded and—”
Before he could finish there was another explosion, and the whole back end of the ship blew off. The Viking gave a sickening shudder from deep within, as if announcing that her time had finally come. “I better see to my men,” said Simeon, as he turned and disappeared.
Jackie picked himself up from the deck, confused and aching. What had happened? How did he get so far forward? Turning around, he saw that the stern of the ship was aflame. Then he realized that the galley was gone. Where was Reub? Was the ship going to sink? He could see flames appearing from the hatch that led to his bed on the coal pile and where he had helped store pelts. He could see men come pouring out from doors and up from hatches, looking completely baffled; fire seemed to be trying to get out through every opening below, but nobody was making an effort to put it out. Jackie’s feet felt like they were nailed to the deck; he had no idea what to do or where to go. The disorder terrified him. He needed Reub or hi
s mother or somebody to tell him what to do. A master watch was directing a group of men to get over the rail and onto the ice. He decided to follow them, and slid down into the darkness.
Instinctively, Henry ran back in to get his gaff and knife. Wrapping his towing rope around his shoulder, he grabbed an extra sweater, followed the throng to the side and, after a brief hesitation, scrambled over the rail.
As the men were running from the ship, like Lot’s wife they could not resist turning to digest the horrific scene, grief stricken at the appalling disaster unfolding before them. Jackie, too, turned from running to look back at the spectacle. The pace at which the fire spread shocked him. He had lit the stove many times at home but had never seen anything burn with such ferocity. It was as if there was a fire-breathing monster running amok in the ship’s belly, feasting on the coal and pelts and oil. The beast had squeezed his way out through the hatches and doors and now was loose on the tar that coated the masts and rigging.
New explosions were coming as the monster found additional kegs of blasting powder, gloating in triumph as it sent up fireworks of burning wood, pelts, cans of food, coal and personal possessions. A few emergency flares shot into the air, lighting up the sky, followed by the crack, crack, crack of what sounded like a machine gun, all hastening the violent death of the Viking.
Jackie could see men swarming over the side; they reminded him of maggots he had seen on a dead cat in an alley last summer. Some climbed down, others jumped, a few fell and he saw one who hesitated a second too long at the rail get hurled off by a fresh blast, his arms and legs flailing like a rag doll as he flew, barely over Jackie’s head, and bounced along somewhere out in the black void beyond them. A few were even trying to get back on board, maybe in the hope of retrieving some important article. Some succeeded and managed to throw some dories onto the ice but most who did not immediately grab what they needed had lost their chance.
There were many injured men on the ice—bloody faces, twisted limbs and broken bones—some able to limp along by themselves, others being helped by a buddy. One with a broken leg was dragging himself across the ice, looking much like the seals whose lives they had all been so intent on taking. Many were frantically searching for friends, relatives, sons and fathers. When one man went by him for the third time shouting the same name, it became clear to Jackie that some must be missing.
Despite having men all around him, Jackie had never felt so alone in his life. The vast space behind him was so forbidding that he hoped the ship would take a long time to burn so he would not have to face this chaos in the cold and dark. He had no father, brother or best buddy aboard to search for him, and he, likewise, had nobody to look for. He feared for Ed, alone like him, who had been working back in the engine room.
The huge mizzenmast, dislodged by the first blast, was down across the ice, dangling by what was left of its standing rigging. In the light cast by the gyrating flames, he could see a man entangled in the mess of cables and ropes like a fly caught in a web. The ship’s guts had been ripped out by the explosions; the monster’s flames now owned her as they completed their work with frightening rapidity. The whole destruction had taken only a few minutes.
Leaning on his gaff, Henry did a quick personal survey and concluded that he was all right. “Henry, did you see any sign of Lije?” Lloyd Verge shouted.
“Yeah, I did. He looked okay. He was with his watch up by the bow. Lloyd, did you see the young stowaway that was helping out in the galley?”
“Yes, sure he’s right there almost alongside o’ ya. Off to your left, there.”
So he was. “Jack!” he yelled and beckoned him over. Jackie drifted over in a daze, black-faced, looking like a waif from a Dickens novel. Like an unwanted orphan he took up station next to Henry, a guardian in this moment of confusion and anxiety.
“Jack, old buddy, are y’ okay?” Henry asked, looking him up and down.
“I guess so,” he muttered.
“You ’bide here alongside o’ me now, ’til we figure out what we’re gonna do. Here, let’s move back a bit; it’s too hot where we’re to.”
At a safe distance from the burning ship they encountered Dorman, his prized snowshoes still strapped to his back. “Darmy, you haven’t come across Simeon anywhere, have you?” Henry asked.
“Ain’t laid eye on ’im.”
“What about Alf and Bert?”
“They’re okay.”
Jackie felt a pang of sadness at the thought that Simeon might be gone. The heat from the burning ship was fierce and they had to keep moving back. “Henry, what happened?” Jackie finally managed to ask.
“I dunno, Jack. Simeon and I were just picking ourselves up off the deck after she took that lurch, when she blew up back aft. It happened right before my eyes.”
“Some fellers thinks it was the boiler,” said Darmy. “Wasn’t that some explosion when the first batch of dynamite went up?”
“Do you think there’s some dead guys?” said Jackie.
“Oh, I think so,” said Henry. “It looks like there might be a few. Anybody who was back in the ass end is gone for sure.”
“What will become of us, now?” Jackie’s voice cracked slightly as the gravity of their situation began to sink in.
“We’ll be all right. We’re not far from the Horse Islands. As soon as we get organized we’ll head over there. Don’t worry; we’ll be there in no time.”
Looking around, Henry could see many men without basics such as coats or mitts. “You got all your gear? Where’s your cap?”
“Right here in my pocket. But are there people at Horse Islands to help us? What will we do when we get there?”
“Sure, there’s whole families living there,” said Dorman. “We fished over there the summer before last and I was in there half a dozen times. Best kind of people; no worries there.”
“I don’t understand why Simeon hasn’t come around,” said Henry. “He was right next to me when that first blast went. He said he was going to see to his watch but sure, we’re in his watch and we haven’t seen any sign of him. I think I better have a look around.”
“We shouldn’t split up,” said Dorman. “Wait here with me and your buddy. He’ll find us and it will be better if we’re together.”
As Jackie’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he glanced behind but saw only that sinister blackness. It felt better to be with Henry. He looked at his feet, firmly gripping the ice. Thankfully, he was still wearing Henry’s skinny-woppers; they would come in handy for the walk to the Horse Islands. When he looked up again the group of men in front seemed to have moved farther away from where they had been a moment ago. Strange, he thought. As he looked back down along the surface of the ice, the realization slowly hit him that he was looking at water. His eyes followed it left and right; a lead had opened, trailing out of sight in both directions.
“Henry!”
Henry didn’t answer. He and Dorman were looking and pointing off to the right, disagreeing on the exact bearing of the Horse Islands. “Henry.” He tugged on Henry’s sleeve.
“What is it, Jack?”
“I think we’re getting separated from the others. There’s water in front of us.”
“What!”
Henry and Dorman moved forward and saw the rapidly growing gap, already too wide to jump across. Henry ran to the left but the water stretched out of sight into the darkness. To the right the lead was even wider. They were on a large island of ice and he could see no obvious way off. In an instant he realized there was only one very unattractive option. “B’ys, we’re gonna have to swim across there while we still got a chance. I’m scared this chunk of ice is goin’ to drive away with us on it.”
“I can’t swim!” Jackie barely managed to squeak out as his panic returned.
“Now when the cold water hits you, Jack, ’twill take your breath clean away. You’ll feel like somebody just whacked you in the guts with a two-by-four, so the best thing to do is just hold your breath, seeing as
how it’s not very far. Don’t even stop to think about it. Before you know it you’ll be across and somebody will haul you out. Hey! You fellers over there. We’re drivin’ away!”
“I said, I can’t swim,” Jackie repeated, louder this time.
“Ey? You can’t swim?”
“No.”
“Shit! Well, so much for that idea.”
“Don’t be feelin’ bad, Skipper,” said Dorman. “I’d say there’s too much slob ice there to swim through anyway. ’Twould be like swimmin’ through porridge. But it looks like I’m gonna get a chance to try me snowshoes on the ice after all.”
“I don’t know Darmy—” said Henry.
“You got a better idea?”
“No, I s’pose not.”
Dorman was already attaching them to his boots. “I’ll throw the snowshoes back over for you fellers once I get across. I think buddy here…what’s your name, anyway, Skipper?”
“John Gould, sir.”
“John, you should come after me, so as Henry can help you get the snowshoes on. You ever been on snowshoes before?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, when you’re runnin’ the trick is to keep movin’ fast enough so they don’t sink too far into the snow. It should work the same on this slob ice. You’ll get the hang of it. Just watch how I do it.”
“You fellers still there?” he yelled.
“We’re still here.” A voice came back from across the lead. “Are you comin’?”
“Yes, I’m comin’ now—on snowshoes. Grab me as soon as I get near enough and haul like hell. Can you see me?”
“I think so. We’ll keep yellin’ to guide you over.”
“All right, here goes.”
Jackie watched Dorman intently, sick at the prospect of what lay ahead. Dorman moved a few feet back from the edge and took a deep breath. With a powerful stride he glided forward and left the floe. Silhouetted against the flames of the burning ship, he put his right foot on a piece of ice about the size of a large pumpkin. He bounced from that and his left foot slopped into a cluster of apple-sized pieces of ice. He cleared that. His third step came down in a large area of ice and water with the consistency of porridge. It took his weight and his fourth step as well. He was halfway across and rapidly disappearing into the shadowy darkness.