The Black Joke

by Farley Mowat

  Pascal chuckled. “You are very clear, Pierre,” he said. “I for one will follow you. Let me see now…One thousand cases of whiskey divided between eight men is–”

  “Not a thousand,” Pierre interrupted. “You do not yet know all my plan. There is still the matter of my friend, Captain Spence, and there is the matter of the ownership of the schooner which was stolen from him. We cannot just give him back the ship, for by law it now belongs to Smith. Also what good is Captain Spence’s ship to him when he is still in jail, hey? No, no, my friend, it pains me, but there will not be a thousand cases for us to divide. Eight hundred cases will be given back to Monsieur Gauthier and his American friends, but, not until Monsieur Spence’s fine is paid and he is free, and not until he has in his pocket a bill of sale which once more makes him the owner of the ship Black Joke.”

  Pascal looked somewhat crestfallen for a moment. “Ah, well,” he said philosophically. “Twenty-five cases each is better than a kick in the behind, is it not so? But tell me Pierre, what shall we do with the ship and the whiskey, and with Captain Smith and his desperados, while we are making the bargain with Gauthier?”

  “That is easy, my friend. Captain Smith and his so-tough sailors we will put ashore on the far side of Miquelon. It should take them ten hours or so to climb the mountains and come down to the village. Our people will then rent them a boat to take them to St. Pierre so that they can deliver our terms to Monsieur Gauthier.

  “As for the whiskey, while Smith and his men are mountain climbing we will put it ashore in the sea caves near Anse du loup…eight hundred cases in one cave, and two hundred in a very secret cave known only to me. When Captain Spence is free and owns his ship again, I suppose we shall have to tell Gauthier where his eight hundred cases lie.”

  “Maybe we will forget where we put them, eh?” his companion asked hopefully.

  “It is possible,” replied Pierre solemnly. “There have been times in the past when my memory has failed me…but no more of that. There are many things to do. Tomorrow morning you will go in my dory to Miquelon and you will speak privately to our friends and you will prepare them for the work ahead. You will have two dories ready, and the shotguns well cleaned. You will watch the weather for a likely day and then wait until I arrive–I shall borrow a dory for the trip from a friend here in St. Pierre. I will leave here well in advance of the schooner, so that there will be ample time for us to reach the shoal in Miquelon Bay before Gabby so kindly brings Captain Smith to meet us. You will also warn the men to say nothing even to their wives–wives have leaky tongues–but you will tell my wife, whose tongue is not leaky, but is more like a sharp sword and one she will prick me with if I keep a secret away from her. You may also tell Jacques and the Spence boys, for it is their right to know our plans.”

  “What about the authorities in St. Pierre, will they not come searching for the schooner?”

  “I do not think the authorities will be asked to search for us. For one thing, there will be the matter of the schooner’s false clearance papers from St. Pierre. For another, there will be the assurance from me that if such a thing is attempted I will send word to Newfoundland that two Newfoundland boys were shot in St. Pierre Roads and that the matter was hushed up with the connivance of the officials of St. Pierre. In addition there will be my promise that none of the whiskey will ever be seen again if a search is started. No, Pascal, I think we will be left alone to settle matters with M. Gauthier and his friends in our own way.”

  When the boys came down to breakfast the following morning, they found a visitor waiting for them in the big kitchen. It was Pascal, who had arrived from St. Pierre during the night in Pierre’s dory and who had already told Mrs. Roulett the details of Pierre’s plan. Now she explained it to the three boys, who sat listening with rapt attention.

  “I bet John Phillip, the pirate skipper, never thought up anythin’ as smart as that,” said Peter admiringly, when Mrs. Roulett had finished.

  “Pierre can think straight enough when he wants to,” said Mrs. Roulett grudgingly. “Trouble is, he usually don’t bother. It does sound like a good plan, but if Pierre gets anyone hurt, I’ll take the broom to his behind! Now then, ye b’ys, off with ye and find some mischief, but don’t let on a word of what ye’ve heard.”

  With the knowledge of Pierre’s plan to cheer them up, Peter and Kye had no difficulty filling in the hours. They fished for lobsters again, and one morning they went with Jacques to a stream which flowed down from Miquelon’s mountains, and spent half a day catching brook trout. On another occasion they borrowed some of the nondescript dogs that roamed the village and took them hunting rabbits which abounded on the slopes of the island’s hills.

  Miquelon seemed a veritable paradise to the boys, and the time slipped past quickly even though the weather remained unfavorable to Pierre’s plan. For two days there was a brisk onshore breeze which completely precluded the possibility of a schooner landing at the little wharf, and on the third day there was such a heavy fog that no vessel could have found her way into Miquelon Bay. But on the morning of the fourth day the sky was clear, the sea was almost dead calm, and there were no wind clouds to indicate a blow in the offing. All the village dories put to sea early for the fishing banks and the three boys were on the beach to greet them when the boats began to arrive home in the late afternoon. They helped Uncle Paul haul up his dory, and Jacques inquired anxiously about the forthcoming weather.

  “It will stay fine for a day, maybe two days now,” Uncle Paul replied after a reflective look at the sky. “Why do you ask, eh? Maybe you wish to come fishing with me again?”

  “Perhaps,” Jacques answered noncommittally. “Come on, Peter and Kye, let us help my uncle with his fish.”

  Later, at the supper table, the boys and Mrs. Roulett excitedly discussed the possibilities that this night might be the night. Pascal came in for a few minutes to report that he and the six picked men were standing by and that two dories had been prepared for quick launching.

  “I am sure it will be tonight,” he told them. “Pierre said Gauthier was very anxious for the schooner to sail before trouble started over the missing boys, and already she has been lying in St. Pierre nearly a week. Pierre is probably on his way here to tell us that she comes, and to take the lead in what we intend to do. I shall go to the beach now and wait for him there.”

  It would have been impossible to keep the boys at home, even had she tried to do so, so Mrs. Roulett reluctantly gave them permission to go to the beach too. But she warned them sternly that they were to stay out of “that Pierre’s monkey business, and keep clear of the wharf, ye hear me? If they schooner fellers should happen to recognize ye, it would spoil everything.”

  Darkness fell and Miquelon became very tranquil–to outward appearances at least. But at the far end of the beach, half a mile from the wharf and the center of the village, an observant eye might have distinguished the dim red glow of two or three cigarettes. There, lying at their ease in the rough salt grass beside the beach, were seven men and three boys. They were waiting impatiently for the sound of an approaching dory. But though all of them were straining their hearing, they could not detect the sound they sought.

  Early that same afternoon Pierre Roulett had been at work bailing the water out of a dory he had borrowed, when a little boy came seeking him.

  “You are wanted at the Basque Café, Monsieur Roulett,” he had said.

  Pierre had dropped the tin dipper and crossed the Place in long strides. As he entered the bar, his quick gaze swept the dim-lit place and hesitated for a second on the face of his friend from Gauthier’s office. The friend drooped an eyelid and made an almost imperceptible nod of his head toward the harbor. Pierre paid him no further attention. Ordering a Pernod, he drained it at a gulp and then turned and briskly left the bar. The game had started.

  Five minutes later the borrowed dory swung away from the dock and went puttering down the channel with Pierre at the tiller.

  Figuring
four hours at the maximum to reach Miquelon–for this dory was not as fast as his own–Pierre reckoned on arriving between eight and nine o’clock. He guessed that Black Joke would not clear from St. Pierre until shortly before dark, and that she would not reach Miquelon dock much before midnight. There would therefore be time enough to arrange to intercept her at the Miquelon Bay shoals–but not much time to spare.

  Pierre’s dory rounded out of the channel and ran through the passage between the island and Columbier. As the dory started on the crossing of the broad channel separating St. Pierre from Langlade, she seemed to be vibrating more than she should have done and Pierre carefully checked the single-cylinder engine. It seemed in perfect order. Nevertheless the vibration of the boat increased slowly as the miles rolled on and it seemed to be coming from under the stern. Opening the top of the well, into which the propeller could be withdrawn for landings on hard beaches, Pierre peered down into the turmoil of water being churned up by the propeller.

  He drew a sharp breath at what he saw. The propeller shaft was not turning true but was waggling about like a puppy-dog’s tail. And for that there could only be one explanation–the hinge on the shaft had become slack. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, the loose hinge would give way and then the engine could run as well as it wished without moving the boat another inch.

  Pierre sprang forward and throttled the engine back to dead slow. But this was only prolonging the moment of crisis. He thought rapidly. There was a sail aboard the boat, but the weather was so calm that any attempt to sail the dory would be useless. There were the oars, of course, but not even a giant could have rowed the big dory the twenty-five remaining miles to Miquelon in time to keep the rendezvous with Black Joke. Pierre frantically scanned the surrounding seas for the sight of another dory that he might hail for a tow. But the fishing dories had all put into port after their day’s work, and the seas were empty. Only one possibility remained to Pierre and that was to beach the dory and hope, by some miracle, that he could repair the damage.

  Pierre swung the dory’s head for shore. He was now cursing himself bitterly, for, although he had carefully checked the engine to make sure it was in good order before leaving St. Pierre, he had taken the condition of the shaft for granted. It was so seldom that anything went wrong with the shaft hinges of Miquelon boats that the possibility of such an accident had never even crossed his mind.

  He recognized the magnitude of the task ahead of him even before he had driven the dory’s bow up on a convenient stretch of beach and leapt ashore. One man could never hope to haul out a Miquelon dory by himself, nor turn one over. If he was to repair the shaft at all, he would have to work under water, and the sea at this season of the year was still so brutally cold that only a seal or a fish could stand it for long.

  He did not hesitate. Wading in beside the dory he took a deep breath, ducked under, and felt his way to the shaft joint. The light was good enough so that he was able to see at once what had gone wrong. Normally the hinge should have consisted of two tubes of brass, each with an end slipped over one section of the shaft, and linked together by a bronze pin to form a sort of universal joint. But in this case someone had substituted a steel pin, and the steel had worn away the soft brass fittings to the point where they were now only linked by a shred of metal.

  Pierre surfaced, puffing, and already shivering almost uncontrollably. Throwing himself into the boat he searched the spare-parts box for another hinge, but there was none. All he could find were two flat strips of iron and a roll of wire. These, he thought, might just possibly serve. If he could lash the iron strips along the joint, rather as a man would splint a broken arm, he might, just might get the boat to Miquelon, or at least to within walking distance of it. But even if the repair job was immediately successful he knew he would have to run the boat dead slow, and it would be touch and go whether he could reach Miquelon in time.

  Pierre Roulett was not the man to give up while there was the slightest chance. Grabbing the strips and the wire he prepared to go under the boat again….

  On the beach at Miquelon the men and the boys were waiting with growing anxiety and impatience. Eight o’clock passed. Eight-thirty, nine, and still there was no sound of an approaching boat to be heard from the silent ocean. No one spoke. No one expressed the rising doubts that each one felt. Ten o’clock came and went and finally the doubts could be suppressed no longer.

  “This cannot be the night, after all,” one of the men said, breaking the uneasy silence. “The schooner cannot have sailed, or Pierre would have been here by now.”

  “Unless something happened to him,” one of the other men remarked.

  “Something happen to Pierre? Huh! Nothing would stop that one. No, the schooner could not have sailed, that is all. Perhaps some trouble with her new engine. But the weather will be good for a time, and no doubt it will be tomorrow night she comes.”

  “We will wait here anyway for another hour–just in case,” said Pascal. “You are all agreed?”

  There was a murmur of assent and then the flare of matches as more cigarettes were lit. The seven men settled back and began talking in low voices amongst themselves of fishing and other matters. But the three boys remained silent. Their disappointment was almost too much to bear after the tensions of the evening. They did not even feel like talking to one another. Finally Kye got up and went wandering along the beach by himself.

  He had not gone a hundred yards when he stopped and stared seaward. He could see nothing except the stars reflected on the water close inshore, but his acute hearing had surely detected some sound from seaward, and very faintly, almost as if he were feeling it rather than hearing it, there came to him a rhythmic thumping.

  In seconds he was back amongst the group on the beach.

  “There’s a boat comin’ now!” he shouted, forgetting the need for quiet.

  Jacques immediately repeated what had been said, in French, and everyone was on his feet. One by one, the others picked up the distant sound.

  Peter’s heart was beating so hard with excitement that he was almost choking. Then one of the men spoke quietly. It was a second or two before Jacques translated.

  “He says it is a boat, but it is not a dory. It is a big engine, a diesel. He thinks it may be the schooner.”

  “But where is Pierre? Where is Pierre?” cried Peter, and his voice was almost a wail.

  No one replied. Slowly, slowly, both Peter and Kye began to realize what the others already understood. Somehow, Pierre Roulett had failed.

  It was not for want of trying. At that moment Pierre’s dory was still twenty miles from Miquelon. Pierre himself was barely conscious. Prolonged immersion in the icy waters had nearly paralyzed him. Nevertheless he had made some sort of repair, and the dory was under way, though moving slowly. Hazily Pierre calculated the time it would take him to reach Miquelon. Twenty miles–seven hours or more at the dead-slow speed which was all he dared risk. Too late–far too late. He gripped the tiller with a hand which shook as if he had the palsy, and swung the boat back toward the shore. He was abeam of the Langlade sand dunes, and it was now possible to walk along the shore to Miquelon Island; then, by a mountain path, to Miquelon village. Walking would get him there as quickly as if he stayed with the crippled dory, and furthermore if he did not get ashore and warm himself soon, he knew he would be useless when he reached Miquelon in any case. The dory grated on the shingle and Pierre crawled stiffly over the bows, hardly able to stand. Setting his teeth he began to walk along the beach, and gradually the blood began to flow again. Soon he was trotting through the darkness; but all the time a voice was whispering inside his head: “Too late…. Too late….”

  “Even if Pierre comes now, it will be too late,” Pascal was saying softly. The throb of the schooner’s engine was now loud in the night, and she would soon be easing in to the dock. Her foghorn sounded, two long blasts followed by two short ones.

  “That is the signal to the people ashore who look after th
e whiskey,” Jacques muttered to Peter and Kye. “It is to wake them so they will harness their pony carts and be ready to work. It is Black Joke that comes, there can be no doubt.”

  Peter and Kye felt sick. Everything was suddenly falling apart. Black Joke would be lost forever; and with her would go the only chance of freeing Jonathan from jail.

  “Won’t they try the plan anyway?” Peter asked plaintively.

  “Not without Pierre. No, they will not try,” Jacques replied, and scorn was mixed with bitterness in his voice. “Already they have decided to go home. Look, some of them are going now.”

  It was true enough. Denied Pierre’s leadership, the men had decided to give up the attempt. Their shadowy figures began to melt away into the darkness until only the boys and Pascal were left. The man put his hand on Jacques’s shoulder, kindly.

  “It is no use, Jacques. Without Pierre we can do nothing. I am sorry. It would be best for you three to go home and go to bed. Perhaps in the morning Pierre will come, and perhaps he has made a different plan–a better one. Go on now, go to your home, eh?”

  Wordlessly the three boys turned away and began the long walk home. They had not gone far when Peter stopped abruptly and the other two almost fell over him.

  “We got to do somethin’!” he whispered fiercely. “Kye, we got to. Why can’t we take a dory and try the plan ourselves?”