The Black Joke

by Farley Mowat

  His next stop was the shipyard, where he found it impossible to gain entry. Two dockyard workers were lounging about the entrance gates, and when he tried to pass them he was stopped.

  “Pardon, Pierre,” one of them explained. “It seems there has been some stealing from the yard, and the boss says no one comes in now without permission from him.”

  Pierre made no attempt to get permission. He guessed at once that the guards were really there to prevent spies from discovering what was being done to Black Joke. In any event he did not need to go in. At twelve o’clock he was loitering near the gate when his cousin, the carpenter, came out on his way home for lunch. The two walked side by side up the narrow streets.

  “They move quickly,” his cousin told him. “Last night they bring the new engine aboard with much secrecy. Only the Yankee sailors are allowed on board now, and nobody is supposed to know what’s really going on. Everybody working in the yard got twenty dollars to keep his mouth shut except to say the schooner is being repaired after the damage in the collisions.”

  “Good, good,” said Pierre. “They try to fool the American agents, eh? But they don’t fool us. Now you must watch close. I want to know when they are ready to launch the ship. Leave a message for me at the Basque Café.”

  The Basque Café was Pierre’s next stop. He had some lunch and then idled away a few hours chatting with other Miquelon fishermen, for this was their favorite spot when in St. Pierre. At four o’clock Pierre’s friend, who worked for Gauthier, pushed through the door, saw Pierre and nodded briefly, then went to the bar for a drink of Pernod. After a few minutes he casually sat down at Pierre’s small table.

  “Gauthier is worried,” he said quietly. “He and Barnes are afraid about the business of the two boys being shot or drowned. The shooting was an accident–one of Smith’s men lost his head. But they think if the matter comes to the attention of the British authorities in Newfoundland, they will demand an investigation and the Governor here will not be able to refuse. Much might come to light which they wish to keep hidden. So far it does not seem that Monsieur Spence remembers what happens. But he may recall it at any time and if he can get a message to Newfoundland, there may be trouble. Gauthier wants to get the schooner out of here as soon as possible. She will sail with a cargo of salt cod supposed to be bound for Barbados, but instead she will go to Miquelon and dump most of her cod and take on whiskey. After that she will sail for the United States. That is the plan, I think, but it is difficult for me to be sure. I do not hear all that goes on, you understand.”

  “You hear enough, my friend,” Pierre said warmly. “Now let us have another Pernod and talk about the weather. It is not wise even here to speak too much of secret things.”

  Despite their worries about Jonathan and Black Joke, Kye and Peter were having a good time in Miquelon. After showing them through the village, Jacques took them off in a small dory to try for some lobsters. They rowed for half a mile along the beach until they reached an outcrop of rocks. Here the water was calm and extremely clear. Jacques produced a wooden box about a foot square and three feet long, open at one end and closed at the other with a pane of thick glass.

  “Hold the glass part under the surface, Kye,” he instructed, “and look down through it. Then you will see everything on the sea floor. Watch out for the lobster. He will be backed into the holes in the rocks with just his feelers poking out.”

  Kye did as he was told and found he could see every detail of the bottom. Crabs moved slowly over the few open places between the rocks, and small schools of young cod wavered back and forth. But no lobster did he see.

  “How about a peek?” Peter asked impatiently. “Bet you I can spot a lobster even if you can’t.”

  Reluctantly Kye handed over the water glass. Jacques sculled the dory slowly over the rocky area. Suddenly Peter gave a shout. “There’s one!” he cried. “Saw his big old claw for a minute till he hauled it in.”

  Now Jacques picked up a fifteen-foot pole which had been lying in the bottom of the dory. Attached to one end was a cluster of big hooks. Leaning out over the side of the boat he lowered the pole very slowly while Peter held the glass so Jacques could see through it.

  “You are right, Peter. A big fellow too, but wise I think. Kye, please, will you take some handfuls of cod flesh out of the can in the bow? Let it sink in the water where the lobster is.”

  Kye did as he was told and the bits of cod spiraled down through the clear water to litter the bottom near the lobster’s lair.

  “He can smell underwater you see,” Jacques explained. “When he smell the good food, he will come out perhaps.”

  All three heads were crowded over the water glass, watching expectantly. Twelve feet below them they could see the feelers of the lobster waving in the current as he “smelled” the water. Then very cautiously he began to move, walking on his underbody legs, with his great claws stretched menacingly out before him. Jacques held the hooked end of the pole about three feet above the lobster, being careful to keep it as still as possible. As the lobster reached the first shred of codfish, Jacques gently lowered the tip of the pole until it filled the entrance of the lobster’s lair. The crustacean seemed to sense that something was wrong. He gave one powerful flick of his tail and shot backwards. Jacques gave a sharp jerk on the pole.

  “Ha, ha, my friend. Got you!” he cried. Rapidly hauling up the pole, he flicked the end of it in over the boat. The lobster had been only lightly hooked and he fell free, rattling onto the floorboards at Peter’s bare feet and instantly spreading his claws for defense or attack.

  Peter hopped nimbly out of the way.

  “It’s a monster!” he cried. “Never see ’em that big t’home, does we, Kye?”

  “That is because you fish differently for them in Terre Neuve,” Jacques explained. “There you use the lobster pots; but the big lobsters, they will not go in the pots. You must catch them this way.”

  Leaving the big fellow to scuttle about the floorboards the boys sculled slowly on. By noon they had caught three more lobsters. They were content as they rowed home and presented their catch to Mrs. Roulett.

  Lunch was something of a surprise. Neither Peter nor Kye had ever eaten French cooking before, but Mrs. Roulett had become an expert at it since marrying Pierre and moving to Miquelon. The boys picked away rather tentatively at the main course which seemed to be a roll of some kind of white meat stuffed with an indescribable substance. Peter finally plucked up courage to ask what it was.

  “Stuffed squid, me b’ys, stuffed squid!” said Mrs. Roulett, beaming proudly.

  Kye went white, his eyes took on a glassy look, and he hurriedly covered his mouth with his hand as if expecting the worst to happen.

  Mrs. Roulett burst into a gale of laughter.

  “Never fret, Kye. Don’t think of what it is, just think of how good it tastes! And take a mouthful of wine, if your stomach’s feelin’ queer.”

  Peter and Kye had noticed glasses of red wine standing by their plates, but had assumed the presence of the wine was a mistake. The idea of drinking wine with meals had never occurred to them. But Kye was desperate. He snatched up his glass and took a great swallow and instantly forgot about the squid, for the wine was dry and bitter and made him gag. He was up and away from the table like a shot, and when he came back some time later, pale-faced and weak, he was only able to grin feebly as he apologized.

  “Never mind, Kye,” said Mrs. Roulett. “Tonight I’ll give ye a good Newfoundland feed of fish and brewis. I guess you’ll have to get on to Frenchy cookin’ slowlike.”

  “I’ll starve first,” muttered Kye under his breath to Peter.

  In the afternoon Jacques took them duck hunting on a huge salt-water lagoon which lay to the south of the village. They had only one gun between them, a double-barreled 12-gauge hammer-lock which belonged to Pierre. Each boy took his turn hiding in the salt grass near the edge of the lagoon while the other two made a wide circle inland and, having reached th
e lagoon again, walked back on either side of it toward the hidden gunner. Flocks of teal got up from the brackish water and went whistling down the pond. Between them they killed five teal.

  “That is enough,” said Jacques, when they had retrieved the last bird. “We will give some to my Uncle Paul when we ask him to take us fishing, and the rest ma mère will cook for us to eat in the dory tomorrow. It is not good to kill more than one needs.”

  Toward evening they arrived back at Miquelon, tired, hot, and hungry; and, as she had promised, Mrs. Roulett fed them fish and brewis. The wineglasses again stood by their plates, but neither Peter nor Kye touched them.

  “It is all right, you know,” Jacques said. “Here everyone drinks the wine with the meals. But it is only half-wine, you understand; the rest is water.”

  “I’ll take me water straight, thank’ee,” said Kye feelingly.

  When the meal was over and the dishes washed, Jacques took the boys to see his Uncle Paul, a gray-bearded man in his sixties who lived alone in a house at the very end of the beach. Paul could speak no English but he shook the Spence boys warmly by the hand, and when Jacques asked him if they could go fishing with him in the morning he nodded his head and replied with a spate of French.

  “He says he is glad if we come,” Jacques translated. “It is lonely on the Banks, and his partner is sick. We will meet him on the beach three or fours hours before dawn.”

  It was pitch-dark when the three boys reached the beach the following morning. There was still no moon, and a light southerly breeze was blowing. Uncle Paul was waiting for them.

  Once the boat was floating, all four jumped aboard and pushed it off into deeper water. Then Uncle Paul lowered the propeller shaft, for the Miquelon dories are built with a hinged shaft so that the propeller can be lifted into a box or “well” in the hull in order to protect it from being damaged when the dory is hauled ashore.

  The engine caught as Uncle Paul spun the flywheel, and they were away. By the time the eastern sky had begun to grow light, the breeze had become stronger. By dawn it was blowing fresh, and the dory was so far at sea that the mountains of Miquelon Island could hardly be seen at all. To make matters worse, the fog was coming in from the southeast.

  Peter and Kye began to feel a little uneasy. They did not mind being at sea in a schooner, but this open dory was something else again. The only cheerful thing was the presence of half a dozen other dories scattered around the horizon on every side.

  Uncle Paul shouted something to Jacques who scrambled to the bow and pushed the anchor overboard.

  They had arrived over the offshore banks where the cod congregate.

  Now Uncle Paul gave each boy a jigging reel and then he opened a wooden drum and with his hand shoveled out a mess of revolting-looking objects.

  “They are clams, for bait,” Jacques explained. “Now we fish, eh? Bait your jiggers and we see what we can catch.”

  Slipping a clam on one of the gang hooks, each boy began to lower his jigger. Though they were over a “bank” the water was still nearly twenty fathoms, or one hundred and twenty feet deep. When they felt the jigger hit bottom, they hauled in about a yard of line and then began jigging the bait up and down.

  The fog swept over them, and the rest of the dories vanished. Suddenly Paul began hauling in his line, hand over hand. There was a swirl of water and over the gunwale came a twenty-pound cod. Uncle Paul flicked the line sharply, and the jigger came out of the big fish’s mouth.

  The boys did not have time to admire his catch. They were “into the fish,” as Newfoundlanders say, and within a few minutes each of them was hauling in a cod.

  Uncle Paul grinned and shouted something at them.

  “He says you are bring good luck,” Jacques translated. “Big fish today, and plenty fish too–hoy!” He paused as a tug on his line made him hurriedly begin hauling in.

  It was not new work for Peter and Kye, for they had often jigged cod before, but never under quite these circumstances. After the first few minutes, it ceased to be fun and became hard work. Each of them was catching a fish every three of four minutes, and the effort involved in hauling in the big cod was back-breaking. The fish-well or fishhold in the middle of the boat was soon carpeted with cod.

  From somewhere astern came the thudding of a motor, whereupon Paul took a hitch in his line, then picked up a big conch shell and blew a penetrating blast. The sound of the motor grew stronger and Paul continued to blow at intervals till suddenly the bow of another dory loomed through the fog not twenty feet away. Its motor stopped and it drifted slowly closer, revealing three more of the Basque fishermen.

  “Hello, Paul,” one of the newcomers shouted. “Lots of fish, eh? What you think about the weather? Looks dirty, maybe?”

  Jacques translated this–it had been shouted in French of course–and went on translating the conversation for the benefit of the Spence boys.

  “Going to blow up strong, all right,” Uncle Paul replied. “We fish another half-hour only, then we run for shelter.”

  They fished the remaining half-hour, by which time all three boys’ arms were aching so that they could hardly lift them. Then Jacques hauled up the anchor and they got under way for home.

  They had not realized how big the sea had become until they started to run before it. The great gray rollers came up behind them, caught the dory, and lifted her stern until she seemed to point her nose straight to the bottom. But Uncle Paul, at the tiller, did not even notice. The Spence boys hung onto the gunwales for dear life and wished they had Black Joke under them.

  With wind and sea astern, the run home was much faster than the outward journey. As the wind whined harder, the fog began to shred away and the mountains of Miquelon came into view, growing larger every minute. Hunger was beginning to gnaw at the boys’ stomachs and they were delighted when Uncle Paul opened the grub box. He tossed each of then a cold roast duck and a great chunk of bread, then he hauled out a wine bottle and offered it to each in turn. There appeared to be nothing else to drink aboard the dory, but even though they were extremely thirsty Peter and Kye shook their heads in refusal.

  “Guess ye got to be born a Frenchy to drink that stuff,” said Peter.

  “Born crazy, more likely,” Kye replied and closed his eyes at the memory of his previous experience.

  The lighthouse on the northern tip of Miquelon was in sight now, standing high and white against the rocks. The little boat drove on, pitching wildly as it changed course to round the bend of the island, then they were in the lee of the land, and the sea died away. Half an hour later the dory was nosing in to the gravel beach.

  Winching the dory up the beach was hard work too, but there was still more work to be done before the day ended. Eight or nine hundred pounds of cod had to be forked into baskets and carried to the nearby splitting tables. Then each fish had to be gutted, its head removed, and the remainder neatly split. The boys worked as hard as Paul, for it was work they knew well, but it was not until nearly dusk that the last split cod was carried to the brine barrels.

  There was no question of staying up late that evening. Hardly was supper finished when all three boys went off wearily to bed. It had been a hard day but a good one, and they had been so busy that they had had little time to think of Jonathan and of Black Joke.

  11

  Pierre Plots a Rescue

  ALTHOUGH the boys had been able to put Black Joke out of mind for a little while, the fate of the schooner was occupying Pierre Roulett’s thoughts almost exclusively.

  To tell the truth, Pierre was thoroughly enjoying himself. There was a good deal of buccaneering instinct in him, as there is in most seafaring Basques, and the prospect of organizing a plot to seize a ship did not daunt him in the least.

  In the evening he had taken his friend Pascal for a walk up the mountain behind St. Pierre where they could be alone and unobserved. As they sat watching the lights come on in the town below them, they could also see Black Joke sitting in the slip.


  “Tomorrow morning she is being launched,” Pierre explained. “She will remain in the harbor for a few days to complete her re-fit and to take on a cargo of salt cod for Barbados. That is what her clearance papers will say, at any rate. She will sail with Smith as Captain, and four or five of his Yankee friends for crew, but she will not go to Barbados. She will go instead to Miquelon where she will unload most of her fish and take on one thousand cases of whiskey. This she will do at night. Smith intends to take her right in to our little wharf and load from there. This will save him much time, for loading from the dories at sea is slow work. It will save time, but it is also dangerous unless the weather is very calm, for there is no shelter at our wharf. Therefore, Smith will not sail until he is sure of calm weather at Miquelon. He will take with him a pilot who can show him the way to the wharf in darkness and, by happy coincidence, that pilot is my second cousin, Gabby Morazi, whom you know. Captain Smith will load his whiskey and depart well before dawn so that he can be out of sight of the islands by daylight. When he departs he will still have Gabby aboard to pilot him clear of the shoals in Miquelon Bay.

  “We can make no move while the schooner is at the wharf. The people of Miquelon are our friends and relatives, but they are also businessmen, no? They would not take kindly to the idea if we tried to seize the schooner there, for it would be bad for future business with the rum-runners. Therefore we shall not try.

  “But this is what we shall do. When Gabby pilots the schooner out of the bay he will bring her to a certain spot, and there the Yankee sailor handling the lead line will suddenly find shoal water and will give the alarm. Gabby will order the engine stopped while he tries to locate himself. And then, my friend, two dories will appear out of the darkness astern and Gabby will hail them. He will tell Smith they are fishermen friends of his bound for the offshore banks; and he will ask the Captain for permission to consult them so that he can get the schooner back in the proper channel. The dories will come alongside, and before the good Captain Smith–who will have no reason to suspect fishermen–has time to draw his breath, or his pistol, there will be eight men standing on the deck of his ship, all carrying shotguns. Even though it will still be far too dark to shoot at a duck it will not be too dark to shoot at a man, as the good Captain and his crew will quickly realize when they note that the shotguns are pointed straight at them. You follow me, yes?”