Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More (11 page)

“Won’t need any canned stuff now. What a shot, Skipper!” I shouted.

A sly grin crossed Bert’s face. “But I only got two.”

“Only two. It’s a miracle to me we got any,” I stammered.

I turned the boat around and headed back in the bay. Bert came back by the
tiller.

“Bert, what about the missus and the others back in Mary’s Har—”

“Ah! They’re all right. We’ll be home in a few hours for sure, and they know
we’ll be birding and sealing as we come in the bay. I figure they have us in
some cove until it cleared up.”

“Remember I was telling you about the bay seals? Well, the ice has just gone,”
I said.

“Slow her down—stop her and let us float for a spell. We have to make this a
good trip after all our troubles today,” Bert exclaimed. “There should be some
beaters in the bay. Looks like a good price this year. Now, you have to look
very closely—the seals are swimming just below the water. Sometimes you will
only see their snout. I’ll get in the middle of the boat—that’s where she is
most steady—and get my gun ready.”

“Off to the starboard, two o’clock,” I shouted. Bert steadied and shot. Blood
spurted. I grabbed the gaff, sculled toward the blood, grabbed the seal before
it submerged in the water, then hauled it in the boat.

“To the port, ten o’clock,” Bert shouted. I lunged toward the
tiller and repositioned the boat.

More gunshots. More blood and our second beater. We were floating out the bay
with the westerly wind, and away from Mary’s Harbour.

“Another five minutes,” Bert said, “and we will start the motor.”

We scanned the water.

“Dammit,” growled Bert. “Can’t see anymore.”

“Well, we got something, and I never saw a shot like that before, Bert. That
was fantastic!”

Bert grinned. “Well, I used to be a good shot, but this past year or so I’ve
slipped a little. Not enough seals and I haven’t practised like I used to. Years
ago we would get out in the harbour and throw these spin tops in the water and
see who could hit them.”

We started steaming in the bay. We could see a few boats out from Indian
Harbour looking for beaters. We passed by and waved.

Everybody older than ten in a community knew a boat when it came over the
horizon toward the harbour—it was either because of the design or colour of the
boat or, when in hearing range, the sound of the engine. So as we approached
Mary’s Harbour and as our identity became known, we could see people moving
toward the wharf to greet us.

Someone called out as we approached. “Are you fellas all right?”

“We’re just fine,” I shouted from the bow.

And someone else asked, “Are there any beaters in the bay?”

I CANNOT FORG ET CROQUE
, ontheFrenchShore, thewind and the
ice, Ben Fillier, and other interesting people.

It was well past midday. Saturday, I think, perhaps two o’clock. We thought we
would leave Croque, having been there for four days because of lousy
weather—wind, rain, and slop snow. It was spring, and anything was possible. And
the ice was just off the coast, shifting its location with every new draft of
wind.

Everyone had an opinion concerning the wind and ice. Would we get a good
nor’easter and drive the ice tight to the rocks like this past week? Skipper
George thought so. And some of the younger guys said
there wasn’t
going to be much to it; the wind would veer around to the west and in a few
hours there would be nothing left of it. And the last Almanac predicted an early
spring.

I wanted to move on. So did Ben, the owner and operator of the boat I had
rented and now a good friend. We were getting close to wearing out our welcome.
Not that we didn’t like the place. We did, what with the homebrew and moonshine.
But being a welfare officer, even a temporary one like me (some called my
position a relieving officer), you can stay too long, and people being people,
they could— yes, would—cook up new ways to see what else they could get from
this young gaffer sent down from St. John’s for the spring and summer.

As I said, I enjoyed the place, and through my work meeting people and visiting
their homes, it was a short few days.

This is a part of the French Shore, a part of the Newfoundland coast to which
the French had a right to fish right up to the Anglo-French Convention of 1904.
In Croque, there was a French cemetery, and during this time (1964) a French
frigate would visit every year or so and care for the graves. It was a
well-protected harbour a good ways in from the coast. I remember entering the
arm (an elongated body of water) heading in a northwesterly direction for
several miles; it looked as if there was just a dead end up ahead, when suddenly
the arm turned abruptly to the southeast and we entered a tickle. On ahead there
was Croque, tucked away from the lashing sea and tireless wind of the coast. Ben
smiled at me for not noticing there would be an opening, since only a few days
earlier I was recounting to him my time on the Labrador Coast the previous year
and how you couldn’t tell sometimes that there would be a cove just around this
head or that point of land. I was fooled again!

Given its seclusion it was hard to tell from Croque harbour just what was
happening “on the outside.” So, with our impatience leading us on, we decided to
leave and have a look for ourselves to determine what our chances were of
getting around Windy Point and back home to Englee by nightfall. Off we went in
our forty-foot boat, which had been our home now for almost two weeks.

“What do you think?” Ben shouted from the wheelhouse as I was reeling up the
painter on the bow of the boat.

“It’s hard to say. We’re too far in from the coast. The boys who
were out yesterday said the ice was off to the Grey Islands and seemed to be
moving farther off.”

“Yes,” said Ben. “We will know soon enough.”

Ben knew this well. He was born and bred on this shore, and this was the usual
situation every April and May. He had seen it all before, for over forty years
now. But he liked it no better now than when, as a boy one mid-May, he was with
his uncle and almost drowned off Hooping Harbour, just south of Englee.

We moseyed out the harbour and around the point to the arm. It was overcast
with the temperature hovering around freezing. We were both in the wheelhouse
scanning the horizon.

“Bit of a breeze, Ben boy,” I said as we completed the turn around Harbour
Point.

“Yeah, I think so. Hard to tell its direction. It’s coming from all over,” Ben
replied.

We were now heading across the arm to Windy Point and then to open ocean. As we
crossed the arm, we began to see the open sea and the Grey Islands.

“The ice is just off the Grey Islands, Ben,” I shouted over the noise of the
engine. “Do you see it?”

“Yes, you’re right. That’s about five or six miles, I figure. But which way is
it headed now?”

That was the real question, because the way the wind was shifting around, there
was no way to tell about the ice.

“What are we going to do, Ben?” I asked as we began to move around Windy Point
and then to open ocean. “Will we go on or will we go back to Croque?”

“Well, we don’t have to go all the way to Englee if we hit trouble. We can put
in to Conche, can’t we?”

“Yes, boy, we can do that, and that’s only a little over half the steam to
Englee.”

So around the point we went, and headed south to Conche, a course that seemed
possible.

There are stories on top of stories about the sea and the weather.
Newfoundlanders have all heard of them. Our history is clogged
with this or that disaster, from the seal fishery to the Banks fishery and a lot
of harrowing experiences in between. Every family can tell a story of a loved
one of some generation who felt the tragic ferocity and unpredictability of the
North Atlantic. It helped make a hardy people and at one time a self-reliant
people. My own grandfather was master watch on the SS
Greenland
when
disaster struck, and saw only thirty-seven of eighty-five men survive a furious
winter storm on the ice floes in 1898.

Fifteen minutes past Windy Point we felt the wind rising. I stuck my head out
the wheelhouse. “Ben, boy, I think it’s starting to come up, and I think it’s
coming from the northeast. She’s settled around to the northeast, boy.”

“Shit, can’t be true!” Ben shouted. “What luck! Take the wheel and let me have
a look.”

Ben got out on deck and held onto the door of the wheelhouse, sniffed the
biting air, and peered out toward the Grey Islands.

“You’re right. A good wind has come up and right this way. The ice will move
like lightning now.” Scattering wet snow began howling around us. As the wind
increased, our progress slowed. And the race was on. Could we get inside Fox
Head, the headland before Conche, before the ice?

We were punching broadside to the waves. We tried to zigzag and shoot straight
into the waves, then coast in and repeat, but the wind was making that
difficult.

With the boat heaving, I asked Ben, “You told me about the time with your
uncle. Have you been out in many storms in recent times?”

“No, boy, I have not. We’ve had a few good years of just a little ice and no
storm winds. But it looks like we’re getting back to an old-fashioned spring.
Christ, look!” he shouted suddenly, looking out on deck. “I think we’re losing
the water barrel! Can you get out there and fasten it down?”

“I can try,” I shouted back.

I opened the wheelhouse door. With the wind coming broadside, the only way I
could possibly survive on the now slippery deck was to crawl. On all fours, I
ventured outside, the wind slamming the door
shut behind me.
Jesus, it was getting cold, and the water on the deck was forming tiny pebbles
of ice. The boat heaved dangerously.

The water barrel was fastened to the outside wall of the wheelhouse by ring
bolts. Straps of leather were wrapped around the barrel and then fastened to the
ringbolts. I was to try to tighten the leather so that the barrel was closer to
the bolts, thus reducing the shaking of the barrel with the rocking of the
boat.

It was too slippery to stay in a crawling position, so I quickly found myself
on my stomach shimmying gingerly, army-like, toward the barrel. With a little
timing and the appropriate rocking of the boat, I was able to reach my arm
toward the leather strap and clasp my hand on it. But with such a motion of the
boat, my body flung across the deck, with my feet almost dangling over the
gunnels. I grabbed the other strap with my left hand, hauling my legs from the
edge, and with my chin banging against the barrel, I looked up to see if I could
tighten the straps.

Ben, realizing my precarious position through the half-misty wheelhouse window,
opened the door and howled to me, “For Christ’s sake, get out of there!” The
rest was drowned by nature’s ferocity.

I was in deep trouble. Somehow I had to shimmy back to the wheelhouse door.
Forget the bloody barrel—it’s not like we would have died of thirst. Why did we
take such chances over a friggin’ old barrel? We can’t lose anything regardless
of risk, was our motto. How silly!

I had to pick my chance. Get my body ready, look to see the movement of the
waves and wind and how it would affect the boat, and slide back to the starboard
and the door when there was the least movement. But what would I grab hold of
when I let go of the barrel straps? There was nothing.

Moving my face away from the barrel, I glanced out to sea. There were bits of
ice not a mile from the boat, and as I looked farther out toward the Grey
Islands, there was only white to see.

Ben opened the wheelhouse door and threw a heavy rope around the corner of the
wheelhouse toward me. He was holding on to the other end of the rope with one
hand and trying to steer with the other,
with the door swinging
frantically back and forth. There wasn’t much time for me to make a move. Ben
couldn’t stay long in his position, nor could I hold mine for more than a few
minutes. As the boat heaved, I lunged back toward the rope, gliding on the icy
deck, grasping the rope with my left hand and then with my right. Ben hauled on
the rope and I swung around the wheelhouse with my legs hanging out over the
boat. He kept hauling on the rope to pull me closer and I kept clasping the
rope. With both hands now, Ben pulled as the boat crashed aimlessly against the
ice-laden waves. I was near the edge of the door, and with one desperate attempt
I hauled on the rope and succeeded in getting my right hand on the raised step
under the door. I was almost there. With one more haul from Ben, I was dragged
over the step into the wheelhouse.

Ben leapt for the wheel, and getting to my knees I went for the door, grabbed
the door knob, and slammed the door shut!

“Holy Jesus, that was close!” I gasped.

“I thought you were gone,” Ben uttered breathlessly. “That deck froze in a few
minutes. Just look at that ice—the tide’s coming in and the wind coming with it.
There will be pieces of ice around any minute, and then we’ll have to slow down
even more. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Shoulder is paining a bit and one of my elbows is bleeding,
but nothing serious. I never saw anything move like that ice—the devil himself
must be in charge,” I said.