The Black Joke

by Farley Mowat

  “Eat hearty, b’ys,” he told them. “We’ve ten thousand feet of lumber to stow afore dark. I wants to sail fust thing tomorrow mornin’ while we still got fine weather. ’Twon’t last forever.”

  The prospect of spending the whole day wrestling planks into the ship’s hold thrilled neither boy. But it was man’s work, and they were men–for this voyage at least.

  “Yiss, sorr,” they said in unison, and began shoveling the porridge into them.

  Helped by a couple of men from the mill and watched with impatience by Barnes, the crew of the Black Joke soon got down to work. The rough, un-planed lumber came aboard in a steady flow while down in the hold Peter and Kye stacked it so that all the available space was used to best advantage. Their hands were soon filled with splinters, and the sweat ran down their backs, but they stuck to their task so well that an hour before suppertime Jonathan took pity on them.

  “That’ll do, lads,” he said. “You can take the dory now and see can you catch a salmon for supper over to the mouth of Southwest Brook.”

  The boys needed no second invitation. Their aching muscles and sore hands were instantly forgotten. In a minute they had untied the dory, heaved their fishing gear aboard, and were rowing for the brook–a mile away–with as much vigor as if they had just jumped out of bed.

  The salmon run had not yet actually begun, but a few early fish were to be found near the mouth of the rivers. Reaching the mouth of Southwest Brook, the boys anchored the dory in a deep pool and, while Peter leaned over the side to see if he could spot the black, twisting shadows of salmon, Kye paid out the jigging line from its wooden reel. This was a heavy twine, to the end of which was fastened the jigger itself–a cluster of big hooks whose shanks were bound together with sheet lead.

  Kye lowered the jigger till it was a few feet above the bottom and then, with a rhythmic movement of his arm, he began “jigging” the little lead fish up and down so that it was constantly in motion.

  Peering into the clear water, Peter saw an eel come swimming slowly up toward the jigger, then turn and slip down into the depths again. Two or three sea trout swirled around the jigger watching it with curiosity, though it was far too big for them to take.

  Suddenly the trout vanished. There was a swirl of darkness and then a glint of silver as a big fish swam beneath the jigger and half turned on its side.

  “Salmon!” Peter whispered excitedly. “Jig aisy, Kye! He’s lookin’ at it now.”

  The fish was probably not hungry, for salmon seldom eat much during the spawning run. But this one was at least curious about the jigger which bobbed slowly up and down before him. He hovered on gently moving fins, facing the jigger for some moments; then he lost interest and turned his back on the cluster of hooks as if in complete disdain. But as the salmon’s tail curved past the jigger, Kye gave the line a strong upward jerk, and two of the hooks drove deep into the salmon’s flesh.

  “Pull he up! Pull, b’y, PULL!” yelled Peter, but Kye had felt the strike and was already hauling in the heavy line.

  “Give us a hand!” he cried. “This here’s no half-dead cod! The way he’s chargin’ around he’s like to cut the fingers clean offen me!”

  There was no question of playing the big fish. The line was too heavy for the salmon to break, and the hooks were too deeply embedded to let him shake them free. It was a trial of strength between the boys in their rocking dory and a twenty-or thirty-pound fighting fish in his own element.

  As the fish surged away under the dory, he dragged the gunwale almost down to the water; and as Kye stumbled backward to balance the boat, the line slipped from his sore hands and the wooden reel rattled wildly in the bottom of the boat while the line paid out with a rush. There was no time for half-measures. With a whoop, Peter jumped full-length to fall on the reel before the last few turns of line spun off it. Kye scrambled to help him and for a few minutes they both sprawled where they were, hanging on for dear life to the reel.

  “’Tain’t no salmon down there, ’tis a whale!” gasped Kye. “Here, try and take a turn of the line round a thole pin afore he hauls us clean out of the dory!”

  The tension on the line eased as the big fish changed direction. Peter took advantage of it to throw a turn around the pin while Kye frantically hauled in the slack. The next time the fish lunged away, the turn of twine around the thole pin acted as a brake, and the boys were able to ease the line out slowly.

  The fight continued for nearly thirty minutes, but by then the salmon was growing tired. Once, he allowed himself to be hauled almost to the edge of the dory before he mustered his reserves and went charging off again. The boys had a good look at him before he surged away.

  “By Harry,” Peter said in an awe-smitten voice. “He’s nigh as big as we ’uns. We’ll never git he into the dory! Haul up the anchor, Kye, and see can ye row us to the shore.”

  While Peter hung onto the line, Kye recovered the anchor and, straining his muscles to the full, began to row for land. The salmon felt the motion and fought against it, so that Kye made slow headway. The dory was still a dozen yards from shore when the salmon, growing frantic as he felt himself being dragged into shallow water, made a supreme effort to escape into the depths. The dory swung half around and this time both boys lost their balance as the gunwale rolled down.

  “Jump for it,” yelled Kye, and, still clinging grimly to the jigger reel, he plunged into the icy water. Peter followed with an ungainly leap. Gasping for breath and splashing like two stranded fish themselves, the boys were now engaged in a straight tug-of-war with the great fish. But their feet were on bottom and slowly they inched backward toward the shore until the salmon, completely exhausted at last, gave up the struggle. In a few more moments they had pulled his glistening silver body up on the rough beach.

  The boys had their fish, but that was all.

  “The dory!” cried Peter as he looked up from a rapt contemplation of the salmon. “She’s went and gone!” Sure enough the dory was placidly drifting off into the open bay accompanied, some distance behind, by a bobbing pair of oars.

  Since neither lad was a particularly good swimmer, there was nothing for it but to hoist the salmon up on their shoulders and ignominiously make their way along the shore toward the little town. By the time they reached its outskirts most of the population had seen the drifting dory, and two men had already put off to rescue it. As the boys came along the waterfront they were met with joking remarks about, “Fishermen who trades their boat for a leetle salmon,” and, “Lardy, b’ys, are ye practicin’ to walk home from off the Grand Banks?” or, “Well, me b’ys, they’s some can stay in a dory, and they’s some as can’t. Maybe the knack’ll come to ye one day!”

  The remarks were all good-humored, and Kye and Peter could grin ruefully in reply–until they reached the mill wharf where Simon Barnes was standing talking to Jonathan.

  “You’ve no business puttin’ to sea without a proper crew,” Barnes was saying. “A pair of feckless b’ys what can’t even handle a dory, ain’t no crew at all. You’d best take my offer, and sign on Paterson and Wilson. Remember, if you loses any of my cargo, or damage it, there’ll be not a cent of charter pay. And I knows you got no insurance on the ship. You’d best think it over.”

  The victory over the big salmon suddenly seemed like ashes in the boys’ mouths. Without a word, they sneaked past the men, clambered over Black Joke’s gunwale and slid into the forepeak like a pair of beaten pups.

  “We’ve spoilt things for yer dad,” Kye said. “There ain’t no salmon worth makin’ trouble for him with ole dogfish Barnes.”

  When Jonathan descended into the forepeak a few moments later his face was set and stern, and the boys dreaded the prospect of what he would have to say. But they need not have worried.

  “That’s the finest kind of salmon ye got, me sons,” he said. “And don’t ye pay no heed to what Mr. Barnes was sayin’. Losin’ the dory was somethin’ anyone could do when he was fast to a fish like that ’un. Fa
ct of it is, he’s been onto me all day to sign on a couple of extra hands. Even says he’ll stand their wages. But I knows the chaps he has in mind. Dock rats, the pair of ’em. They’ll not come aboard a ship of mine. You youngsters is twice the men they’ll ever be. So cheer yerselves up a bit, lads, and one of ye git busy and carve off some salmon chunks for supper. I’m that famished I could eat the whole beast, head and all.”

  Their spirits restored, the boys jumped to obey, and an hour later they were all sitting around the table, stuffed with fresh salmon and at peace with the world. But something still niggled at Jonathan’s thoughts.

  “Merchant Barnes was considerable anxious to git them fellers took on board,” he mused aloud. “Seems like there’s a bit of a stink in the air, and I don’t like it none. We’ll keep our eyes skinned, b’ys. He might be up to some of his queer tricks.”

  The next day dawned overcast and cool with a light southeast wind. By the time the last of the lumber had been stowed on deck (the hold was full by then) and lashed securely in place, Jonathan had begun to glance at the gray sky with some concern. A sou’easter in the spring of the year could blow up dirty, as he well knew. He was anxious to get away as soon as possible, but Barnes did not arrive on the dock until nearly ten o’clock.

  “Step lively, if you please, Mr. Barnes,” was Jonathan’s greeting. “There’s weather brewing and we ’uns should be underway afore it hits. Unless you’re a mite nervous to sail with only the two b’ys and me?”

  It was said politely enough but there was a sting to Jonathan’s words that brought a flush to the merchant’s face.

  “I’ll sail with the devil if I has to,” he retorted sharply. “But when a man asks for trouble like you’re doing, Jonathan Spence, he’s like to get it.”

  There was an ominous quality to Barnes’s reply that made Jonathan’s eyes narrow, but he said nothing more. Soon the lines were cast off and, as the ship’s head swung away from the dock, the boys ran forward to crowd on the headsails. They moved smartly and, as the main and foresail gaffs rose on the masts, some of the men lounging on the lumber dock nodded their heads approvingly. Jonathan, at the wheel, noted their approval and he was pleased. The boys were shaping well, he thought, and once more he was glad he had refused Barnes’s offer of a crew.

  The run through the narrow channel, or “tickle,” out of Milltown Bay was fast and uneventful. Close-hauled, heading as near to the wind as she would point, Black Joke snored through the water, her heavy cargo holding her steady. The wind freshened slowly as they ran on past St. Albans, past the mouth of hidden Roti Bay, and through another tickle into the Big Reach of Bay Despair. The rounded hills of Long Island, with their spruce forests in every valley, slipped rapidly past. Snooks Harbour came up abeam and Peter and Kye could see half a dozen dories anchored off shore, their crews busily jigging for cod. The boys waved gaily and the dorymen paused in their work to watch Black Joke go storming past toward the open sea. She was a sight worth watching. As the wind freshened she lay down to it a little, and the bone in her teeth grew bigger and whiter. Her red-brown sails bellied as hard as wood, and her slim black hull rushed through the water with the effortless grace of a porpoise.

  Even Simon Barnes was somewhat moved by her perfection, and he found himself half wishing he could keep her for his own use, once he had gained possession of her. But the thought of ten thousand dollars in American currency quickly drove the idea out of his head. As he stood amidships, his back against a pile of lumber, he reviewed the plans he had made for Black Joke’s reception in St. Pierre. Jonathan’s refusal to take on the two extra hands was a complication, for Barnes had counted on these two men, both of whom had long been in his debt, to help carry out his plans. Still, they were not absolutely essential. As long as the St. Pierre people followed the instructions given in Barnes’s letter, nothing serious could go amiss. Barnes allowed himself a wintry smile as he contemplated the come-uppance which was awaiting that stiff-necked fellow, Jonathan Spence.

  As Black Joke cleared the end of Long Island and encountered the Atlantic again, she began to rise to a head sea. The sky was a somber gray and the wind was still freshening. The ship’s course lay southeast around the tip of Hermitage Peninsula and then across the bay to the town of Fortune, where all vessels outward bound for St. Pierre were required to clear through customs. It was a forty-mile run, but even with a head wind Jonathan could expect to make Fortune before nightfall. He remembered his promise to Sylvia, not to risk bad weather; but the ship was going along so well, and he was so satisfied with the way the boys were settling down to their work that he decided to hold on rather than put in to one of the nearby harbors for the night.

  As the ship came up to Pass Island Tickle, he laid her on the compass course for Fortune and then called Kye to take the wheel.

  “Hold her steady, b’y,” he said. “There’s a fair good breeze of wind blowin’ and it may puff up. If a hard squall hits ye, head her up into it until the puff is gone. I’ll slip below now for a bite to eat.”

  Alone on deck–for Barnes had again sought his bunk, and Peter was busy getting supper–Kye stood with his legs braced well apart, both hands holding hard to the outer spokes of the wheel, and his head cocked upward to watch the leach of the mainsail for signs of flutter which would tell him he was pushing the ship too close to the wind. He felt twice as big as he really was, and twice as strong. Alone, in control of a big ship in half a gale of wind (which was an exaggeration, but one for which he could be forgiven), he would not have traded places with the captain of the Queen Mary.

  It was coming on dusk and the compass binnacle lamp would soon need lighting, he thought. He glanced down to check the course, found that the ship was slightly off to nor’ard and gently eased her back again. When he looked up, he was surprised to see a small, rakish-looking steamer appearing from behind Pass Island and heading on an intersection course with Black Joke. Smoke was pouring from her stack as she came on. It was a moment or two before Kye recognized her, then he picked up a tin horn which hung from the binnacle and gave a blast on it to call the skipper.

  “Revenoo cutter, sorr,” he yelled as Jonathan’s head appeared out of the companionway. “Comin’ up fast on the port quarter.”

  Jonathan joined him at the wheel, closely followed by Peter. The three of them stared at the approaching steamer with no friendly eyes. The government revenue cutter was not popular with the south coast men, who looked upon her anti-smuggling activities as an unjust intrusion into their lives.

  The steamer, rolling heavily in the seaway, was steering a course which would carry her across Black Joke’s bows and no great distance off. As she drew closer, the boys could see the figures of two or three men on her bridge, one of them watching Black Joke through binoculars. On the foredeck stood a canvas-shrouded machine gun, the sight of which made Jonathan spit over the lee rail in disgust.

  “The gov’munt says it can only pay starvin’ folk six cents a day to keep life in ’em,” he said. “But they finds money enough to send that tin-pot warship to stand betwixt us and the cheap grub in St. Peter’s…. Hold your course there, Kye, hold straight on!”

  This last was a direct order to Kye, who had begun to ease the wheel over since it seemed to him that the revenue steamer was going to cut dangerously close under Black Joke’s bows.

  Peter, too, had seen the danger.

  “She’s comin’ awful close in, Father,” he said a little nervously.

  “Yiss,” Jonathan replied. “Close as she dares. Thinks she can bluff me into altering course to let her by. Well, me son, I ain’t aisy bluffed. A sailin’ ship has the right of way over a powered vessel. That’s the law of the sea, lads, and don’t forgit it. Hold her steady, Kye. He’ll alter.”

  Kye’s hands on the wheel were growing white with strain as the two ships continued to converge, each traveling at full speed. Even Jonathan had tensed, where he stood by the port rail. But he did not open his mouth to order Kye to haul away, even w
hen the steamer, now less than three hundred yards off, sounded a demanding and penetrating blast from her siren.

  A collision seemed inevitable, but at the last instant the revenue cutter heeled hard over as she made an emergency turn to port. Black Joke rushed on, and for a minute both ships were running almost side by side, and so close together that the boys could clearly see the face of the uniformed skipper of the cutter as he ran to the outer wing of his bridge, and, waving his fist at Jonathan, shouted down to him.

  “Can’t you keep that lumber scow out of my way, you idiot? We might have rammed you, and we should have, too!”

  “Just you try it,” Jonathan yelled back, “and the law’ll have your master’s ticket offen you quick as a wink–that is if you got a master’s ticket, which I doubt!”

  The cutter’s captain could apparently think of no adequate rejoinder to this insult. The steamer dropped back until she could resume her course by crossing under Black Joke’s stern. By this time Kye’s hands were wet with sweat and he was trembling.

  Jonathan took the wheel from him.

  “There’s a lesson in this for ye, me sons,” he said gently. “When ye’re in the right of a thing, hang on. Don’t change yer mind. There’ll be many a time some feller what’s bigger’n you, or maybe richer, or maybe just louder in the mouth’ll try and shove you off your course. Don’t take no heed.”

  It was good advice, and the day was approaching when Jonathan would wish that he had continued to follow it himself.

  5

  The Waiting Trap Is Sprung

  THE WIND held steady throughout the remainder of the afternoon, and shortly before dusk the land loom of the Burin Peninsula began to show on the horizon ahead. Brunette Island came up fast and was left astern. The lighthouse on the end of the Fortune pier had not yet been lit as Black Joke came up into the wind a quarter of a mile off shore and hung there, her sails slatting until her crew had lowered them. The engine started with an explosive bark as Kye swung the flywheel and, with Jonathan steering, the schooner swung back on course and eased her way through the narrow entrance into the inner harbor.