The Black Joke

by Farley Mowat

  Peter had not had time to think of the two in the boat. Caught off guard when the engine started, they barely avoided being run down. The skiff had come crashing back against the ship as she forged ahead, and both Kye and Jonathan had had to jump for it, hauling themselves aboard over the gunwale, abandoning the swamped skiff to its fate.

  Once aboard, Jonathan ran aft.

  “Good lad,” he said to Peter as he took the wheel from him. “Ye’ve saved our bacon proper. Half-an-hour’s run down the buoyed channel now and we’ll be in open water; and on a night as black as this, nobody’ll catch us then.”

  Still shaking from the narrowness of the escape, Peter moved forward to join Kye on lookout in the bow. Forging ahead at three knots on her engine and with a three-knot tide to help, Black Joke was actually moving past the land at a full six knots. The channel buoys, flashing white to port and red to starboard, were sliding quickly by. Not far ahead, the revolving beacon on Little Pierre Rock marked the end of the channel and the beginning of the open sea.

  Looking astern, Jonathan could see no sign of pursuit, or even of an alarm having been given. St. Pierre still seemed to be sleeping soundly as the darkened schooner drew rapidly away.

  It was keen-eyed Kye who saw the shadow first. Grasping Peter’s arm he pointed off to starboard. “Look there,” he said sharply. “Somethin’ lying’ in the channel–looks like a boat.”

  Peter had barely seen the dim shape and was just opening his mouth to call a warning to Jonathan, when he and Kye were blinded by an intense light shining full in their eyes.

  At the same time, the roar of big engines bursting into life came to their ears.

  Jonathan immediately guessed what had happened. Someone had given them away, or else the authorities had suspected all along that Black Joke would try to make a break for it, and now a boat was lying full in their path to intercept them.

  A stentorian voice, bellowing through a megaphone, cut across the waters.

  “The game’s up, Spence. Cut off your engine. We’re coming alongside!”

  Jonathan recognized the voice as that of Captain Smith and a great surge of rage boiled through him. Although dazzled by the searchlight, he guessed that the blockading motorboat could not be more than fifty feet or so off the starboard bow. He thought rapidly. If he tried to make a run for it, he would have to haul away to port, and Smith would be expecting just such a maneuver, and be ready to counter it. Well, he thought, they tried to steal my boat because I hauled away last time. This time, by the Lard, I’ll fool ’em. Whereupon he spun the wheel hard down to starboard, while at the same time yelling to Peter, who had run aft, to open up the old engine to full power.

  Black Joke seemed to know this was her final chance. She swung so sharply to starboard that Kye, in the eyes of the ship, almost lost his balance. He staggered back to his feet in time to hear Jonathan’s bellow.

  “Heave over yer mooring lines to starboard, every line that’s loose; HEAVE ’EM ALL OVER, KYE!”

  The men on the rum-runner had been caught completely off guard as Black Joke came charging down upon them. Motors roared as they attempted to back their vessel clear, but, before they could get underway, Black Joke’s bow had struck the motor vessel in almost the same place where she had been struck–by accident–three days earlier. But this time she struck as if she meant it! In the darkness, the resultant confusion was monumental. The searchlight on top of the motorboat’s cabin top went out as it was smashed by Black Joke’s bowsprit. The sound of breaking wood, and the squeal as the two ships slid along each other, was ear-splitting.

  Doing as he had been told, though without understanding the reason for it, Kye was meanwhile busily heaving overboard every coil of rope he could find. Some of the rope fell on the rum-runner’s decks, further confusing things there, but much of it fell into the water alongside her and was sucked toward her churning propellers. This was what Jonathan had intended. He knew that a few turns of heavy line around the rum-runner’s propeller shafts would jam them, leaving her to drift helplessly while Black Joke escaped.

  “Stop engine, Peter!” Jonathan bellowed, as the two boats began to sheer apart. Black Joke’s own propeller eased to a stop until her headway could carry her clear of the rum-runner and clear of the danger of fouling her own screw.

  At this intant the darkness was broken by a stream of orange tracer and the simultaneous chatter of a tommy gun being fired from the rum-runner. The heavy slugs thudded into Black Joke’s planking with a sickening sound.

  “Start up agin, START UP!” Jonathan yelled urgently, and at once Peter spun the flywheel over. Being hot, the engine caught easily, and Black Joke went plunging away down the channel, an invisible target now, and running hard for freedom.

  Behind her the crew of the rum-runner was in wild confusion. Their boat had suffered considerable damage, though it was mostly superficial. Her decks were a shambles of bent stanchions, hanks of rope, and debris. One of her two propellers was hopelessly fouled with trailing lines, and for a few moments she steamed in circles while her cursing skipper struggled to get her under control.

  Nevertheless, only five or six minutes elapsed before the motor vessel was again under way. On one engine, and much hampered by the trailing twisted ropes, she could only make ten knots now, but this was still much faster than Black Joke could manage.

  Deprived of her searchlight, the rum-runner had to take up the pursuit rather cautiously, but Jonathan, at the wheel of his schooner, soon picked up the sound of her engine and knew that his attempt to completely disable the motorboat had failed.

  Although the entrance to the channel was still a quarter of a mile away, there was one final gamble Jonathan could take. If he veered out of the channel now, the rum-runner might carry straight on and miss him in the darkness. It was a dreadful risk, for if Black Joke were to strike one of the uncharted rocks outside the channel at her present speed, the bottom would be ripped clean out of her.

  “Well, b’y,” Jonathan thought to himself, “ye’ll lose her anyway if they chaps catches up to ye. Better let her die an honest death.” And with that he again put the wheel hard over, this time swinging the ship to port.

  “Cut loose the lashings on the dory, Kye!” he called. “Peter, ye git up here on deck! We may strike at any moment, and there’ll be precious little time to leave her, if we do. Come on, old girl, keep yer keel off bottom for a while, and you and us’ll all be free agin!”

  Black Joke had barely sheered out of the channel when there was a roar as the motor vessel shot by across her stern. Had the rum-runners been looking to port they could hardly have avoided seeing Black Joke as a darker shadow in the night, but they were staring straight ahead, confident they would overtake the schooner before she cleared the channel entrance.

  “Made it, by Harry, made it now!” breathed Jonathan to himself as he eased his vessel off to starboard again, clinging as close to the channel as he dared.

  They were almost free. The light from Little Pierre Rock was almost abeam of them, though they were on the wrong side of it. Another hundred yards….

  A shudder ran through the schooner. She seemed to groan aloud. The way came off her so fast that it threw both boys to their knees. Her bow rose well up out of the water as she slid forward a few more feet…and stopped.

  8

  The High and Lonely Rock

  IT SEEMED miraculous that the ship was still alive; but instead of striking a rock as Jonathan had feared she might, she had run onto an underwater spoil-bank consisting mainly of soft mud and gravel which had been dredged from the channel.

  Apparently she was not damaged, but she was so hard aground that Jonathan realized at once she would never come off without a tow. He also realized that his battle to save her was over–and that he had lost.

  As soon as she struck he had run to sound her bilges, then, having found she was not making water, he had returned aft, where he stood leaning on the rail, staring into the black night, with the muted ro
ar of the searching rum-runner sounding distantly in his ears. He remained there for some time while Peter and Kye stood quietly behind him, not knowing what to say.

  At length Jonathan straightened, then turned toward them.

  “Well, b’ys, we tried. Ship, man, and b’ys–we tried. That’ll be somethin’ to remember, now we’ve lost her. There’s nought left but to wait till they fellers comes and hauls her off–and takes her and we’uns back to port. I figure it’ll be prison for me, but I doubt even they Frenchies would chuck a couple of b’ys into jail. Ye must nip around to Paddy Mathews, smart as ye can. He’ll take care of ye and see ye git safe home to Ship Hole. I don’t rightly know how things’ll turn out, but ye’re to tell Sylvia I’ll be along afore too many days. They Frenchies’ll find me a hard cod to hold–that I promise….”

  “But why let them catch us at all, Father?” Peter interrupted. “We still has the dory, and they fellers in the motorboat don’t know where we’re to. We could be ashore in an hour, and then let ’em find us if they can.”

  “The Johnnydarms would find us soon enough, lad,” Jonathan answered kindly. “St. Peter’s is a mighty small island, ye understand, and we with no friends to hide us, and not a word of the language either. They’d take us pretty quick…. But hold hard a moment…may-haps they wouldn’t. I’d clean forgot about Colombier–Colombier Rock. She’s not more’n an hour’s pull from here. Six hundred feet high and so steep-to it’d take a mountain goat to climb the cliffs. I’ve heard tell there’s a ten-acre field on top, level as yer hand, with a pond in her full of fresh water. Pierre Roulett, he used to talk about the Rock–claimed he was the only feller what knew his way around her. Told me ’twas full of puffins and rats. The puffins come in from the sea to nest in the cliffs, and the rats was washed ashore from some wrecked ship a long time back. I doubt anyone would ever think to look for us there. When they comes aboard the schooner and finds the dory gone, they’ll more’n likely figure we’re pulling for Fortune, trustin’ to luck and darkness to git clear. Let ’em think that, then! By the Lard Harry, ’tis just what we’ll do–only we won’t try for Fortune tonight, for they’d be sure to spot us and take us at dawn. We’ll row to Colombier and hide till there comes a fog–and that won’t be long, not in these waters. Then we can make for Fortune. By that time they Frenchies’ll have give up lookin’ for we. With a bit of luck and not too much stiff weather, we can make safe harbor in ten or fifteen hours even if we ain’t lucky enough to git picked up by a schooner partway over.”

  The old accustomed strength had returned to Jonathan’s voice as he talked, and it infected the two boys so that they threw off their depression and entered excitedly into the new plan.

  “What-all will we take along of us, sorr?” Kye asked.

  “The sleepin’ gear, lad. The cookin’ pots. All the grub ye can lay yer hands to. Bring along yer kitbags–there’s plenty room in our big dory. And Peter, ye nip down and heave up the spare jib for to make a tent out of. It’ll make a boat sail later on when we sets out for Fortune. Hop to it now, me sons; that prowlin’ sea-wolf might happen to blunder into us afore too long.”

  Heedless of the difficulties of getting around the decks in the pitch-darkness–they did not dare show a light–the boys rushed off to collect the gear, while Jonathan rigged the slings on the dory and shoved her clear of the rails for launching. Twenty minutes later she was in the water and fully laden. The boys were already aboard her, waiting for Jonathan to join them.

  Jonathan delayed a few more minutes. Silently he walked Black Joke’s deserted deck, seeing nothing, but knowing from old familiarity every aspect of her. Standing finally at her wheel he patted the worn spokes affectionately.

  “Good-by to ye, girl,” he said softly. “Ye’ve done fine by me ever since ye was launched. Now I’ve done ill by ye. But if ever there comes the chance–someday–I’ll git ye back.”

  He turned to the rail and quickly climbed down into the dory where, without a word, he took up a pair of oars and began to row away from his ship.

  There was only one set of oars, for the second set had been lost when the borrowed skiff was smashed against Black Joke’s side at the harbor entrance. But Jonathan was a husky man, and in a few minutes the dory was well away from the abandoned vessel.

  It was too dark to take bearings, so Jonathan rowed by the sound of the ocean swells breaking on the unseen shore of St. Pierre. Keeping the sound on his port side he pulled steadily while the boys sat silently at either end of the dory. There was nothing much to say. They were aware of how great a pain the parting from his ship had brought into Jonathan’s heart, but they were buoyed up by the exciting possibilities which lay ahead.

  After an hour the sound of breakers to port grew faint.

  “We’s off the end of St. Peter’s now,” Jonathan said abruptly. “Colombier lies pretty nigh a mile to seaward. Keep yer ears liftin’, lads, and tell me when ye hears surf ahead of us.”

  “I can hear the rum-runner, Father,” Peter replied. “Sounds like he’s gone back toward the channel. Hope he misses it and hits a rock.”

  “They’ll be a rare mad crew aboard of her, anyways,” Kye said. “Give her a good knock, we did. I don’t reckon they’ll think too kindly of us; figurin’ we got clean away, ship and all.”

  “They’ll find the ship soon enough,” Jonathan interjected shortly. “And I’ll thank ye lads to leave off talkin’ about her now.”

  The boys subsided into listening silence until at last Kye thought he could hear the distant sound of surf ahead. Jonathan pulled the dory in the direction Kye indicated. The sound grew stronger, and after another ten minutes the dory was hovering on the back swell from breakers that were bursting, still unseen, against the foot of the sea-cliffs of Colombier.

  “We don’t dare try landin’ till we gits a little light,” Jonathan said. “But we’ll pull round to the seaward side so there’s no chance of being spotted from the land when first light comes.”

  Dawn was not far away. A pearl-gray lightening of the eastern horizon showed its progress. The loom of the great rock began to emerge and harden into a distinct and forbidding shape: a sheer-sided mountain rising from the sea. Flights of puffins began to plane down from the ledges of the cliffs, skimming the dory as they headed off for the day’s fishing.

  It was already half-light when Jonathan, after a searching examination of the cliffs, chose a landing place in a narrow cleft just wide enough to admit the dory. There was no proper place to haul her up, and so the boys and the man had to unload her bit by bit as she surged up and down against the rocks. It was tricky work, for the rocks were wet with slime. Once Peter slipped and plunged into the deep water at the cliff-foot, but Jonathan instantly grabbed him by the slack of his jacket and hauled him back to safety.

  When the gear was landed all three of them turned to the job of sliding the empty dory up on a sloping face of spray-washed rock. She was heavy, and there was no purchase for their feet, but somehow they managed to get her out, and overturned her. Jonathan lashed her to the rocks with several lengths of rope.

  “ ’Twon’t hold her if a real sea comes up,” he said, “but ’tis the best we can do. Now then, me b’ys, make up a back-pack for each of ye–not too heavy, mind–and we’ll tackle the cliffs. What we can’t carry now we’ll come back for later when we gits the chance.”

  By this time it was full daylight, with the sun just showing to the east. The cliffs no longer looked quite so formidable and, seen from the bottom, they were not absolutely sheer. The many ledges were thick-covered with deep moss which was riddled by the burrows of rats and puffins.

  Having started the two boys up the cliff, Jonathan remained behind to scuff a small avalanche of moss down over the dory, effectively concealing it from any but the closest inspection. Then he too shouldered a pack and began climbing upward.

  Peter led the way, scrambling from ledge to ledge; pausing now and again to search for the best route, but gradually gaining heigh
t. A hundred feet up he found a narrow ravine that slanted sideways up the cliff, so that the going became easier. All the same, it took half an hour of hard climbing before the three of them were at the top.

  Before them they beheld a saucer-shaped plateau about three or four hundred yards across and covered with luxuriant mosses. Right in the middle was a small pond of ice-clear water with a jumble of split boulders along one side of it.

  “Pretty near made to order for a camp,” said Jonathan, when he had caught his breath again. The boys clearly agreed, for without a word they heaved off their packs and, running to the edge of the pond, sprawled belly-down in order to drink deeply.

  Jonathan did not join them. Making his way to the southern edge of the little plateau, he sat down on the moss and stared out across the St. Pierre Roads. Two miles away, and standing out clearly, was Black Joke. She was no longer alone. The rum-runner was lying close off her stern and Jonathan could see men scurrying about his own vessel’s decks. While he watched, they passed a heavy towing line between the two ships, and a few minutes later a whirl of white water showed at the motorboat’s stern as she strained to haul Black Joke clear. Jonathan could hardly bear to watch; yet he could not tear himself away. He did not notice that the two boys had joined him.