The Black Joke

by Farley Mowat

  “Went off smooth as oiled silk,” he was saying. “That Yankee fellow–Smith you say his name is?–couldn’t have done no better. So now there’s him, and his crew, and me from Black Joke to testify Spence done the wrong thing. We’ll all of us swear he had his engine going, even though his sails was still up. I figured on having two of my own men aboard to back up the story, but I don’t reckon we’ll need them. Spence won’t have nobody but they two b’ys to testify for him, and both of ’em’s too young to fetch any weight in court. How much did you tell Smith to ask fer damages?”

  “Fifty thousand francs,” Gauthier replied amiably. “It will be enough, for you tell me Captain Spence has no money. My avocat has arranged all. The official investigation will be held on Monday, and there is little doubt of the result. After that will come Smith’s suit for damages. If we win that, then the boat will be sold to pay the judgment, and already it is arranged that I will buy the boat. A week, no more, is needed. I have been able, as you say, to oil the wheels of justice a little.”

  6

  The Land Sharks Snare a Ship

  JONATHAN SPENCE was more angry than unhappy. He was not much worried about the outcome of the investigation into the accident. That would get straightened out easily enough, thought Jonathan. But he was annoyed that the master of the rum-runner had had the nerve to pretend total innocence and attempt to lay the blame on the Black Joke.

  “We’re in a kettle of fish, b’ys,” he explained to Peter and Kye, whose curiosity about the presence of the policeman was so great they could hardly contain themselves. “See that bit of paper the Johnnydarm has nailed onto the mainmast? That’s what they calls a ‘blanket.’ It’s a kind of summons, like. Means Black Joke is under arrest, but they can’t very aisy put a schooner into their jail, so they sticks up that poster on her and puts a guard aboard to see she don’t run off.”

  “But why’d the Frenchies want to arrest Black Joke?” asked Peter.

  “On account of the so-called skipper of that cockeyed motorboat what almost sunk us. Knowed he was in the wrong, so he hustles into harbor ahead of us and swears out a complaint claimin’ ’twas we ’uns was at fault. Tryin’ to git the leap on us, ye see. But we’ve no cause to worry none. With ye two young ’uns and merchant Barnes to back me up, the truth’ll come out quick enough. We’ll have that seagoing idjut wishin’ he’d stayed t’home to drive a pony cart, when the truth gits told. I’m off to the agent now to see about gittin’ the cargo took off. Ye b’ys stay close to the ship till I gits back.”

  Jonathan leapt onto the quay and walked briskly across the Place, a large open square beside the harbor which was enclosed on three sides by the offices of ships’ agents (who conduct the shore business for visiting ships), bars, cafés, and shops catering to fishermen and seamen. Several idlers glanced at the big Newfoundlander curiously. The story of the collision in the channel was already common gossip.

  Jonathan turned into one of the larger buildings, under the gilt-encrusted sign of Jean Gauthier et Cie, and striding up to the ornate counter he caught the attention of a rather seedy-looking little man behind it.

  “Captain Spence,” he said firmly, “Schooner Black Joke come from Bay Despair with lumber belongin’ to Simon Barnes. You speak English?”

  The seedy little man smiled briefly. “Oui, monsieur–yes, mon capitain, I speak it very well. We already have the order from Monsieur Barnes to act as agent for your ship. Tomorrow the stevedores will unload the lumber. Meanwhile whatever we can do to be of service, you must ask. There are supplies perhaps you need?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “Maybe afore we sails for home there’ll be some things to buy. Main thing you can do fer me now is find out exactly why my vessel’s been arrested. That, and tell me the course I ought to steer with the authorities.”

  “Certainly, Monsieur. As to the first, I can myself tell you what you wish to know. Monsieur le capitain Smith, whose ship you hit, has made the protest to the harbor authorities that you cut across his bow incorrectly and without warning. Besides he has made the action against you in the court for damages–very large damages I think, perhaps fifty thousand francs.

  “Two days from now will be the investigation at the Palais de Justice. It will be best for you to have an avocat–how you say, a lawyer? There is, of course, the matter of the cost. It will be necessary to deposit five thousand francs, to guarantee the fee of the lawyer.”

  “Five thousand francs!” Jonathan replied indignantly. “That’s close by a hundred dollars! Almost more’n me charter’s worth! Where d’ye think I’d lay hands on that much money, eh?”

  “As to that, Monsieur, I cannot say,” said the agent smoothly. “Nevertheless, no lawyer will act for you without the guarantee. Perhaps Monsieur Barnes will make the advance against your charter?”

  “And perhaps codfish’ll start to fly! Look ’ee here, me son. I’m in the rights in that collision, and it don’t take a hundred dollars to help me tell the truth, neither!” And with that Jonathan turned on his heel and stamped out of the building, while the agent lost no time in picking up the old-fashioned phone in his office to inform his employer, Mr. Gauthier, of the details of the encounter.

  Gauthier and Barnes were still together. After having listened to his employee on the telephone, Gauthier turned gleefully toward his guest.

  “It marches well,” he said. “The good capitain will not find anyone in St. Pierre to help him with his case–unless he pays; and pay he cannot unless you wish to be the generous friend and make an advance upon his charter.”

  Barnes chuckled and poured himself another drink. “That sounds likely, don’t it now?” he asked.

  Aboard Black Joke, Peter and Kye were doing ship’s chores, furling the sails in proper harbor style and generally putting things shipshape; but they could not refrain from casting longing glances at the town.

  It was the largest town either of them had ever seen and, though it only boasted five thousand people, it seemed like a veritable New York. Trucks laden with salt fish trundled busily through the Place. Other trucks laden with wooden boxes, stenciled with the names of famous whiskey manufacturers in Scotland, were shuttling back and forth between the whiskey warehouses and a rusty old tramp freighter which was unloading at one of the docks. Basque fishermen, wearing black berets, brought their big power dories laden with fresh cod into the harbor. Motorcycles roared and sputtered up the steep and narrow streets past gray and weathered houses built in the styles of ancient France. A steady stream of apparently aimless loungers moved in and out of the several bars along the waterfront. One group, consisting of three or four tough-looking men carrying sheath knives at their belts, wandered down to the dock where Black Joke was lying, and eyed her speculatively. Ignoring the two boys, who were at work loosening the lashings on the piles of lumber stowed on deck, they began to talk amongst themselves.

  “Them Newfies sure build ’em rough,” one of them said.

  “Rough but tough, I guess,” replied a second.

  “Good enough lines to her,” said the third. “Give her the power and she’ll move.”

  The first man laughed harshly. “Yep, she’ll move. Move right out from under that tinhorn Newfie skipper. Who do you reckon’ll take charge of her?”

  “Smith, more’n likely. He’s welcome. For my money she’s a fish tub, nothin’ more, even when they put a hundred horse-power diesel in her guts.”

  “Lay off that talk,” said the first man. “This joint’s getting lousy with Federal agents. Keep your yap shut, Jimmy, or someone’ll shut it for you.”

  “Who’s to hear? Nobody aboard her but a French cop with hair in his ears and a couple of kids. Hey, kids, you hear what we been sayin’?”

  Peter and Kye had heard all right, though they had not fully understood. They were a little afraid of these strange men who spoke English with a queer accent, so they pretended total ignorance. Ducking their heads they continued with their work.

  “See?” said th
e man who had been told to keep his mouth shut. “Deaf and dumb. Dumb, anyhow.”

  Nevertheless the three men continued their conversation in lowered tones that no longer carried to the boys’ ears. After a few minutes they re-crossed the Place and entered another bar.

  When they were out of earshot, Peter turned to Kye.

  “Can ’ee figure what they ’uns was talking about?” he asked.

  Kye shrugged: “Sounded like they was plannin’ to buy Black Joke, or thought they was anyhow. You think maybe they’re rum-runners from the States?”

  Peter nodded his head wisely. “Must be. Good thing Dad wasn’t aboard or he’d have made ’em swallow what they said about Newfoundlanders.”

  Jonathan did not get back to the boat until late afternoon, and when he did arrive he was in no happy mood. After leaving the agent’s office, he had gone to the offices of three different lawyers and had tried to arrange for one of them to represent him at the official hearing into the accident. The first lawyer had simply refused to understand English, though Jonathan was certain the man understood it well enough. The other two had been agreeable to represent Jonathan–if he was prepared to give them a retainer of a hundred dollars in advance.

  “I never thought too much of lawyers,” Jonathan told the boys when he got back to the ship, “but I never figured to find them squeezin’ blood from a man afore they’d give him a hand. I’d have told the lot of ’em to go to perdition, only I run into a skipper I knowed, Paddy Mathews from Burin. His vessel’s lyin’ up on the marine railway for hull repairs and he got me aboard of her and told me he figures I either got to git a lawyer, or lose the case. He claims he heard a story someone’s plannin’ to steal Black Joke offen me, and has paid off the authorities to help. Paddy’s a good man, and worth trustin’. So after he told me that, I went huntin’ for merchant Barnes. Took me two hours to track him down. I asks him for half the charter money in advance, seein’ as how the lumber is safe delivered in St. Peter’s. Barnes says, ‘Your charter ain’t completed until we gits back home, Skipper Spence, and I never pays until a job’s complete.’ Well, b’ys, I wasn’t goin’ to beg offen the likes of him so I come away, and here I am.”

  Kye and Peter looked at each other, not quite sure whether to risk adding to Jonathan’s problems or not, then Kye took the bull by the horns.

  “There was somethin’ happened whilst you was away, Uncle Jonathan. A crowd of Yankees or some such fellows come down to the wharf–rum-runners likely from the look of them–and Peter and I heard ’em talkin’ like they expected friends of theirs was goin’ to own Black Joke. One of ’em said somethin’ about ‘movin’ her right out from under her Newfie skipper.’”

  “Don’t pay no heed to half what ye hear, me b’ys,” Jonathan said, for he did not wish the boys to know how worried he was becoming, and how their story dovetailed with what he had already heard from his friend, Mathews. It was all rumor, of course, but the rumors were beginning to make a pattern–one that Jonathan did not like at all.

  Affecting an air of joviality, Jonathan put the boys to work getting supper ready. After it had been eaten and the enamel plates and mugs had been washed and carefully stowed in the racks above the old stove, he announced that he was going ashore once more.

  “Goin’ to look for a old friend of mine,” he explained. “Fisherman from Miquelon, name of Pierre Roulett, married a woman from the south coast. He used to come down the Bay years past, salmon fishin’. Me and Kye’s father done him a good turn once when the fishery patrol boat was looking for Frenchy poachers. He always said if ever I come to St. Peter’s I was to seek him out, and now I guess it’s time I did. Seems like we could use a friend or two.”

  The boys waited up until late that night, but Jonathan did not return until after sleepiness had driven them to their bunks. In the morning he told them that he had been unable to find his friend, Pierre Roulett. “He’s off in Miquelon where he belongs to,” he explained. “Him and his son Jacques. So it looks like we’ll just have to make out on our own.”

  Soon after breakfast a gang of French navvies appeared on the wharf with three old trucks, and all through the day they worked the lumber. By the afternoon the decks and holds had been cleared and Black Joke lay empty.

  At dusk another gendarme came to relieve the one on duty guarding the boat, and he brought a paper for Jonathan–in French. When Jonathan took it to the agent for a translation it turned out to be a summons to appear at the Palais de Justice at 10:00 A.M. on Monday to attend an investigation of the collision.

  Unable to find another soul in St. Pierre who seemed willing to lend him even moral support, Jonathan called on Paddy Mathews to accompany him and the two boys to the inquiry. The four of them sat ill-at-ease on a hard front bench in the dusty old judicial hall while the proceedings commenced. These were all in French, and no effort was made to translate them into English. When Jonathan got to his feet and protested that he might as well be back on his ship, for all he understood of what was going on, he was told sharply by the President of the Court–who spoke excellent English–that it was his own fault for failing to obtain the services of a bilingual lawyer to represent him.

  But several of the witnesses spoke English. The first of these was Captain Benjamin Smith, the skipper of the rum-runner.

  Grinning broadly, Smith stood before the table occupied by the President and two harbor officials, and when he was asked to tell his story, he did so with gusto.

  “…So there we was, headin’ down-channel nice and careful and legal-like, and mindin’ our own business, and givin’ that schooner plenty room, seein’ as how she seemed to be under sail. We was a couple hundred yards from her when my mate notices smoke comin’ from her exhaust pipe, so we knew her skipper was usin’ his engine to help him along. About then, for no reason I could figure, he shoves his helm hard over and comes sheering right out into our side of the channel, cuttin’ straight across our bow. I swung off to starboard as hard as I could but it was too late and he plows square into us and damn near cuts my ship in half. I turned and beat it for the harbor quick as I could, figurin’ we’d sink any minute. We only just got her back to the wharf and put a couple auxiliary pumps aboard in time to keep her afloat. The way I see it, the schooner skipper must have figured we didn’t know he had his engine running, and was just plain ornery enough to try and make us give way to a vessel under sail….”

  Jonathan’s rage, when he heard this piece of barefaced lying, was too much to control. He leapt to his feet and in one stride had reached the American. His hand shot out like a striking snake and caught the Yankee by the right shoulder. Shaking him as easily as he would have shaken a rabbit, Jonathan roared at him:

  “That’s…a…ruddy…lie…and…ye…knows it!”

  Caught off balance, and wincing from the pain of Jonathan’s grip, Smith seemed paralyzed. Before he could recover, three gendarmes had surrounded the struggling pair and separated them. Jonathan was forced back against a table and held there while the President delivered a stinging rebuke and threatened to eject him from the court if he misbehaved again.

  The President and the two officers who sat with him barely seemed to listen to the rest of the evidence, simply nodding their head as if in agreement with everything Smith’s crew members had to say.

  But the worst was yet to come. After the last of the rum-runner’s crew had testified, each following his captain’s lead, Simon Barnes was called to the stand.

  He did not look at Jonathan. He kept his gaze on a spot on the ceiling as he described exactly the same situation Smith had already described. When he had finished, the President asked him whether or not the engine of Black Joke had indeed been running at the time.

  “Yiss, sorr,” Barnes replied without hesitation. “Captain Spence, he started it up just after we passed the outer channel buoy. It was runnin’ about half speed, and no mistake.”

  This time nothing but the firm grip of Paddy Mathews, plus the fact that Kye and Peter w
ere clinging to his coatsleeves, kept Jonathan in his place–but nothing could make him keep quiet. His roar of anger must have been heard over most of St. Pierre and even the magistrate seemed a little intimidated by it. At any rate he did not carry out his threat, but called Jonathan to the stand instead.

  “You may now give your version of the affair, monsieur le capitain,” he said coldly, “and perhaps you will be able to control yourself.”

  “Indeed, sorr, I’ll tell me story,” Jonathan cried. “In the face of that whole lot of lyin’ savages and a hundred more of their black-hearted kind–”

  Here the President banged his gavel hard on the desk. “I’ve warned you already, capitain,” he shouted at Jonathan. “This is the last time. Your story, please, and nothing more!”

  Jonathan managed to get a grip on his emotions. Slowly and fully he described exactly what had occurred in the channel. The President asked no questions and made no comment. Soon after Jonathan had returned to his seat it became obvious that the hearing was over, and that the three-man panel was now deliberating over the verdict–though all in French.

  Once more Jonathan interrupted.

  “Are ye not going to hear the b’ys?” he asked. “Ye’ve listened to a pack of thieving wharf-rats. Will ye credit them ahead of these two lads?”

  “They are mere children,” the magistrate replied sternly, “and as such cannot give evidence in this inquiry. And you, Monsieur, have been warned often enough to behave yourself. Remove him!” This last was directed to the gendarmes.

  In a matter of moments Jonathan found himself hustled outside into the street, accompanied by the boys and by Mathews.

  “Well,” said Mathews, wiping his brow and spitting angrily on the steps of the Palais. “If that’s what they Frenchies call justice, I be powerful glad I lives somewhere else.”