August Gale (16 page)

Paddy turned to glimpse Frankie's face as he sat in the dory; his cheeks were as white as chalk.
The lad had eaten nothin' but a few crackers for much of the journey
. “Aye, Frankie, we'll be on land soon, me boy.”

Frankie smiled at his father and gazed back to the beach where three boys raced along the shore with a couple of black water dogs. “Look, Da!” Frankie shouted. “That one is just like your old dog that shipwrecked with you on Codroy!”

“'Tis a fine likeness of the dog, isn't it?”

For much of his life, Paddy had owned a Labrador water dog. He took the animals on board his schooners; the dogs were known to be good luck, and they were also handy for catching sea ducks to use for bait if the squid and capelin ran scarce. The Labradors were also loyal and had saved many a man from drowning if a dory or schooner capsized. Paddy remembered how his own dog dove into the sea after waves and wind had torn the masts from their vessel on their way home from Prince Edward Island. The dog seemed no worse for wear as he floated to shore on Paddy's sea chest.

The laughter of the three boys on the beach carried across the water as Paddy rowed toward the shore. The dogs barked and raced across the sand, fetching sticks, stones, and anything else they could sink their teeth into.

“They're grand fellas aren't they, Da?” Frankie laughed.

Paddy nodded and before the dory struck the shore, Frankie and Jerome leaped from the boat and ran toward the dogs. Paddy chuckled at the spectacle of flying sand and the blur of black fur. The animals yelped, begging to retrieve, raring for a chance to dive into the sea, chasing bits of bobbing wood.

Dragging the dory onto the beach, Paddy hoisted a barrel that was nearly as big as Frankie. The captain's rubber boots squeaked across the sand as he made his way toward the cliffs that rose up the side of the cove. Cold springwater flowed from the rocks, a treat to bring back to the schooner. As he climbed the cliff, Paddy turned to take in the waning sunlight that lit up the water. The sea reflected the light like a thousand diamonds. The skipper never grew tired of gazing at the water, watching how it changed from dawn to dusk, a kaleidoscope of colors, streaks of violet, red, and blue.
And aye, then there was the Northern Lights. 'Twas nothing like it, standing on deck in the pitch black and quiet, the rainbow lights flashing over yur head, glowing like spirits among the stars
.

But then the sky and the sea could turn ugly, too. The sea she could turn black as night and as fierce as any foe. She was silent, now, c'am
, but Paddy knew she could do more. He took in the sight of the
Annie Anita
rocking gently on her anchor. A dozen other schooners moored within a quarter mile of each other. Captains from Newfoundland's southern shore and some from Nova Scotia, they had all fished Cape St. Mary's over the past few days. Paddy's crew had landed more cod than any of the other vessels, but still, the catch was not as good as the skipper had hoped. Paddy wondered if his son James was faring any better. He had heard word from the other captains that James had decided to set the dories out in Placentia Bay, fishing grounds about twenty-five miles west of Cape St. Mary's bay.
Plenty of fish to be caught there, me son, but keep an eye out for the reefs and the sunkers
.

Paddy filled the barrel with water and looked to the north. Not long after he and the boys returned to the vessel, they'd be sailing across St. Mary's Bay to Cape Pine. There before sunset, they'd lower the dories over the rail. Paddy would give each of the six dorymen a course, “Four hundred strokes to the east, four hundred to the west” and the fellas would fish all night, setting and hauling trawl until Sunday dawn broke, a day that Catholic fishermen refused to work. Fearing the wrath of God, the dorymen dared not fish on the Lord's Day. Paddy would allow them a bit of rest then, time to repair their gear and share a few yarns and songs.

Aye, that might cheer Frankie up, some sea stories and music
. And with some luck maybe the hold would be filled with the codfish by then. Paddy knew the men were dog tired; he had worked them for seventy-two hours straight; the weather had been fine, the sky clear and blue, the sea smooth as oil. 'Twas no reason for sleep or slackin' off, when the conditions were this good. “The sooner we catch the fish, b'ys,” Paddy had told them, “the sooner, we sail for home.”

Paddy dragged the barrel of springwater from the cliffs to the dory. His boots crunched the shells beneath his feet, reminding the captain of his own childhood. A boy of twelve, he had raced along the sand with his own dogs and brothers. Pushing his cap back from his head, the skipper wiped the sweat from his brow. One of the lads who owned the dogs waved and walked toward the skipper. The boy knew Paddy from previous journeys, and he had heard plenty of stories about the captain's fearsome nature and rough-and-tumble character.

“Aye, Skipper Paddy, how's the fishing?” the boy asked.

“Not so good, son. The fish are scarce off Cape St. Mary's. We'll be off before dark for Cape Pine. We'll see what we can land there.”

“Aye, good luck, sir.”

Paddy nodded farewell and hauled the barrel into the boat.

“C'mon sons, time to get back to the schooner,” Paddy shouted.

Frankie and Jerome ran to their father with the older of the two dogs at their heels.

“Da, they say we can keep one of their dogs,” Frankie pleaded. “They can barely feed 'im. His name is Trey. He's a fine fellow, Da.”

“Please, can we keep him, Da?” Jerome asked. “Please?”

Paddy looked at the grins on his sons' faces. Frankie hadn't looked this chipper since the Lady Day garden party when he soared in the box swing.

“Alright,” Paddy agreed, “Get 'im in the dory.”

“C'mon, Trey, C'mon, boy,” Frankie hollered.

The dog bounded for the boat, leaping through the water and landing in the dory with a thud that shook the planks.

“Jaysus, hold onto him so he doesn't capsize us,” Paddy warned.

Jerome and Frankie sat on either side of the dog, their arms holding tight to their new companion. “Thanks fellas!” they shouted to the boys who remained in the cove.

The three brothers returned the farewell, their eyes following the skipper, his sons, and the black dog who barked at the seagulls flying overhead. Despite the dog's added weight, the dory cut through the water quickly with Paddy's steady strokes. The boat rose and fell gently in a sea that had turned golden with sunlight.

Two hundred miles south, there was no sun to be found. The sky was dark as ink, and rain flew sideways as the gale roared toward the southeastern shores of Newfoundland. A fast-moving mass of ferocious winds, the storm would arrive without warning. The weatherglass would drop quickly marking the fall in air pressure. The current would run like a river, the sea would swell, and then the demon would descend. Mountains of water would rise from ten to thirty to forty and fifty feet within hours. The combers would strike with a force that would splinter boats to kindling and sweep men, masts, and everything else on deck overboard into the cold and raging sea.

P
addy Walsh's house is cold. Our footsteps echo on the wooden floors. The smell of damp wood and musty air lingers in the shuttered rooms.

“Mind the boards here,” Alan Brenton tells us, pointing to the floor in the kitchen.

My father, sister, and I step gingerly, careful not to fall through one of the rotting planks. Despite the disrepair, we walk through the 120-year-old home as if we were in a museum, awed by the parlor's mahogany ceilings, the scrolled stairway banister, and the mammoth front doors framed by a stained-glass transom.

This was Paddy Walsh's house.

Not long after she enters the home, Joanie is struck by an odd sensation, as if Paddy's force, his formidable nature along with Lillian's worry and angst, still breathed within the century-old walls.

“There was a heavy vibe when you walked through the door,” she will later tell me.

My father's engineering and pragmatic eye appreciates the home's solid construction, its walls and corners that remain sturdy, square. In my mind, I am pulled into the past; each room represents a stage, a scene for the stories I have collected, the details I have recorded. From the dining room window, the waters of Marystown's bay reflect the blue sky. I picture Lillian sitting on a velvet-covered chair, her eyes on distant coves, watching for the returning sails of her husband's ship. In several other windows, the thick and wavy glass that Lillian once peered through has been boarded up, victims to decades of wind and the young vandals who have broken into Paddy's home.

In the kitchen, plywood covers the window that faces east. Lillian and Paddy sat beneath this window and sipped tea on the evening before the skipper journeyed to Cape St. Mary's. The window would have shone clean and bright years ago, its view marred only once, when the evening grass and dirt flew against the pane: a sudden whirlwind spitting sand—the first of Lillian's omens.

In the darkened hallway leading to the kitchen, Alan tugs on a trapdoor beneath the stairs. He laughs as he tells us, “Paddy used to hide his bootleg liquor down here.”

Here, the skipper hid his jars of rum among the root vegetables in the dark, cool cellar, defying the customs officer and anyone else who dared enter his home to search for the illegal spirits. We continue through the house into the dining room with its marble fireplace and blue-flowered wallpaper that is torn and peeling. Brenton pulls off a piece of the paper, showing us the layers of material hidden beneath: horsehair and sheets of newspaper, insulation to keep out the cold. I rip some of the paper to keep as a memento of my great uncle's home. The date on the yellowed newsprint reads 1903. A news item reports:
Colonel Willard Glazier of Albany has returned to his home after a successful trip to Labrador, for purpose of learning more than is now known about the topography and the inhabitants of the Great Lone Land . . . ten mountains, fifteen islands, six rivers, and four bays were noted and charted
.

I picture Paddy reading about such adventures as a young man and decades later sitting by his cookstove, sharing stories with his sons about his own far-reaching journeys. I see my grandfather, too, visiting Paddy on a cold January evening, the two of them warm by the fire, Paddy sharing yarns about the sea and Ambrose voicing his desire and dream to leave, to immigrate to the Boston States.

Alan Brenton's voice pulls me from my reverie. “You talk like Ambrose,” he tells my father. “You have some of the same mannerisms.”

Alan has watched my dad wave his hands in the air as he spoke. He has quietly observed this American stranger who reminds him of his deceased relative and friend.

“He kept pictures of you and your brother Billy in his wallet,” Alan continues. “You were both young in the pictures, small boys.”

The notion that my grandfather preserved pictures of my father and uncle in his wallet surprises and confuses me. I search my father's face for clues to his thoughts. He seems caught off guard, puzzled, too. Did my Nana send Ambrose those pictures years after he left? Or did Ambrose tuck them in his wallet the November night he slipped out the door leaving behind two sons and a wife in Brooklyn?

“He bragged about you and Billy,” Alan explains to my father. “He'd talk about how smart you were and the good jobs you had.”

His hands dug into the pockets of his khakis, my father is silent, weighing Alan's words. Later, his voice irritated and laced with resentment, he will tell Joanie and me, “I don't know what the hell Ambrose was bragging about me and Billy for. He had nothing to do with us.”

Alan leads us to the second floor on stairs that creak with each of our footsteps. I run my fingers along the banister that has been worn smooth by the hands of Paddy's seven children. We wander through the five bedrooms on the second floor. They are small, and two of them have fireplaces. A white cast-iron bed frame remains in one of them. I picture Frankie and Jerome wrestling beneath the covers before they fell asleep; in another room, I see Little Lillian playing with her dolls, her eyes occasionally drifting toward the water below, hoping for a glimpse of her da's schooner.

Downstairs again, Alan pulls the back door shut, and we step into the meadow beyond Paddy's home. The grass is knee high, and the field is filled with buttercups. The June sun warms our faces, and we take in the panoramic view of the inlet as it flows from the west and then meanders east toward the sea. Marystown's shipbuilding factory and warehouses loom on the banks of the town's northern shore. To the left of the commercial buildings is a vacant lot where the Sacred Heart Church rectory once stood. Father McGettigan was but a quick dory or skiff ride across the bay from his friend Paddy. The two men could see each other's houses, their kerosene lamps lit up in the dark.

“This is some nice view,” my father says looking east to Little Bay.

“Not bad, eh?” Alan agrees. “Years ago, they could see all the schooners coming and going. The women did a lot of watching and waiting. Could be days or weeks 'til ye knew whether someone was lost or shipwrecked.”

“Well ye best be off for yur appointments,” encourages Alan's son, Jack, who has helped us arrange interviews with retired dorymen and family whose fathers sailed on board the
Annie Anita
and
Mary Bernice
.

“Good luck and we'll see ye later,” the Brentons tell us.

The footpath from Paddy's home leads down a small hill to the street. I follow my father and sister, reluctant to leave, to part from this home that connects me to my ancestors' past. Like Joanie, I sense lingering emotions in Paddy's house. What would this silent witness share if its walls could recount the memories, the celebrations and births, the music and song, the mourning and loss?