The Black Joke (12 page)

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 Opening the top of the well, into which the propeller could be withdrawn for landings on hard beaches, Pierre peered down into the turmoil of water being churned up by the propeller.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 si
lent 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 the 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?”

“ 'Twouldn't work, Peter, and ye knows it. Three of us agin five or six rum-runners? And only one shotgun betwixt us? Shake it out of yer mind. It's crazy.”

“All right,” Peter replied between his teeth. “Ye knows it all. But I tells ye one thing sure, I'm not goin' back to bed while me father's boat sails off for good. I'm goin' to the wharf and I'll figure somethin' out or bust!”

“Ye'll git yourself into a real kettle of fish, that's what ye'll do,” replied Kye. “So I guess I'll have to trot along to git ye out of it.”

Jacques hesitated for a moment. “I think it will do no good at all,” he said at last. “But if you two go, so must I. I am certain my father has had trouble somehow, and now it is up to me to do what I can to help you. But we must be careful. We will stop at our fish store. There are many old clothes there. You two must dress to look like Basques, for even though it will be dark on the wharf, the Yankees might recognize you.” And he led off toward the Roulett fish store at a trot.

 

12

A Desperate Venture

T
HE FISH
store was pitch-dark and smelled strongly of codliver oil and old nets. Jacques cautiously lit a stump of candle and by its flickering light the three fitted themselves out with worn bits of fishermen's gear. With dirty berets pulled firmly down over the sides of their heads, and their faces smeared with “cutch”–the reddish substance used to preserve the nets from rotting–in a dim light all three boys could now pass muster as three slightly built Basque fishermen.

“By the time the schooner docks, the people will have started to haul the whiskey to the wharf on the pony carts,” Jacques explained. “There will be no lights on the wharf because they might be seen by one of the
Terre Neuve
customs' cutters that sometimes lie off Miquelon at night hoping to catch one of your schooners with a load of contraband. There will be starlight–enough so that the men can see what they are about, but, if we are careful, no one will notice us.”

“We better not go all together in a lump,” Peter interjected. “Best go one by one.”

“I don't see why we're goin' at all,” Kye grumbled. “What can we do when we gits there, 'cept pile up trouble?”

Peter's blood was up, “How can we
know
what we can do until we sees what's goin' on? We'll mosey round for a bit, then in about a half-hour we'll meet in the churchyard just back of the wharf. By then maybe we'll have some ideas. Anyhow, it's better'n lyin' in bed, waitin' for
Black Joke
to disappear forever.”

Kye had no answer to that. “All right,” he muttered. “Let's git it over with. I'll go first, I guess.”

The other two gave him five minutes start, then Peter followed and, after another interval, Jacques also left the fish store.

It was a dark night, but the blaze of stars gave sufficient light so the boys could see that there was already a considerable bustle near the wharf, even though the schooner was not yet in sight. Five or six two-wheeled pony carts were lined up at the foot of the wharf, each cart laden high with whiskey cases. More pony carts were arriving from the direction of the warehouses. There was a good deal of noise. Ponies whinnied shrilly, and men shouted instructions and jokes at one another. Over this local hubbub the throb of the ship's diesel was now plainly audible; and as Peter reached the foot of the wharf and ducked between two pony carts, he saw a black shadow thickening on the water and immediately recognized it as the silhouette of
Black Joke
.
A wave of anger and frustration filled him, and forgetting caution he walked straight to the end of the dock where half a dozen men were waiting to take the schooner's lines. No one paid him the slightest heed. The night was full of dim figures moving busily in all directions, and one more attracted no particular attention.

The throb of the diesel ceased, and there was a gentle swish of water as the schooner came alongside. Someone yelled out in English, “Get them bleedin' lines ashore. We ain't got all night!”

The lines had hardly been made fast when the clatter of pony-cart wheels showed that the whiskey was being brought out. Aboard the vessel there was a babel of confused curses and orders as hatch covers came off and as two or three of the schooner's crew began heaving crates of salt cod up on deck.

“Herd some of them Frogs on board,” bellowed a voice which Peter recognized, with a sting of fear, as that of Captain Smith. “Put 'em to work for their dough. Get the blankety fish off onto the dock and start that whiskey comin' aboard!”

A looming figure leapt from the ship and caught Peter by the arm.

“Come on, you,” a rough voice said. “You heard the Captain. Git across there and start heavin'.
Allez! Allez!
”

Almost before he knew what had happened, Peter found himself aboard
Black Joke
. Not knowing what else to do, he bent down and began shifting crates of salt cod. Somebody stepped on his feet, and someone else heaved a box that narrowly missed his head. There
were too many men on deck for efficient work, and they were getting in each other's way. Frightened by the tumult and by the danger of discovery, Peter began to work his way through the press of shouting, heaving men until he reached the rail not far from a brand-new wheelhouse which had been erected near the stern of the ship. Suddenly a flashlight shone full in his face and his heart nearly stopped; but the light moved on at once and then Smith's voice bellowed almost in his ear.

“You, Jake, you blindin' idiot! You've got that cargo hoist rigged like a piece of knittin'. Don't you Brooklyn cowboys know
anything
about a sailin' ship? My God, if the engine ever quits, the lot of us'll drown…!”

There followed a string of profanity which made Peter's hair lift, and which sent him skittering over the rail and running headlong down the wharf. He was brought up short by collision with a pony–doing the pony no harm, but knocking the wind out of himself. He decided he had had enough for the moment and, still gasping for breath, headed for the churchyard. He was almost there when inspiration struck him.

“Kye…Jacques,” he whispered as he slid in amongst the tombstones. “Where ye at? It's me, Peter.”

“Over here,” someone whispered back. It was Kye, crouched in the shadow of a headstone.

“I got aboard,” Peter whispered excitedly. “Right onto her. They've changed her quite a bit. Got a wheelhouse onto her and new hatches. But listen, I know how to fix 'em good and maybe git the schooner back our
selves….
Shhhh–
someone's sneakin' through the grass.”

The “someone” was Jacques, and in a few moments he was squatting beside the other two while Peter poured out his plan.

“I heard Captain Smith talkin' with the crew, callin' 'em about forty red-hot names and sayin' they didn't know enough about a sailing ship to come across the harbor. He said if the engine ever quit, he figured they'd all drown. Well, I'm goin' to stow away until they start, and then I'm goin' to
make
that engine quit!”

“What good'll that do?” Kye asked skeptically.

“Do? Why it'll stop 'em cold! There ain't enough wind tonight to sail a dory, supposin' them robbers
did
know how to sail. If their engine quits after they git out in the bay they won't be able to come back, and they won't be able to go away neither. Now listen…Pierre's bound to git back here sometime soon. He's
bound
to, everybody says so. Jacques, ye tell him what I've done. Then he can come out with the dorymen and offer Smith a tow; and that'll be the end of Smith.”

Jacques interrupted. “I do not like to say it,” he said softly. “But I am very worried about my father. Maybe he does not come back. Maybe something bad has happened to him in St. Pierre. Then what will happen to you, eh?”

Peter shook his head with wild impatience.

“It don't
matter
,” he almost shouted. “If their engine's bust, they still can't git far. Some other vessel's
bound to pass close aboard. Maybe one of the Newfoundland cutters even. And if I'm hid on board
Black Joke
and if I fires off a signal flare…That'll do it…” His voice faded off, for he could not really visualize what would follow such an action, even if it proved feasible.

“Ye're mad-crazy in the head,” Kye said. “If we knowed Pierre was comin' for sure, it just might work. But if he don't come and ye stow away, that'll be the end of you. Maybe them fellers
can't
sail good, but I bet they can put canvas onto her somehow. And where ye goin' to git any signal flare? And what ye think they'll do to ye, when they finds ye
…and
they'll find ye certain sure. Ye and me's supposed to be dead, remember? What's to stop 'em makin' ye
real
dead?”

“Kye is right,” Jacques added. “It is too dangerous, it will not work. Where would you hide, eh? In so small a ship, there will be no place to hide. And how will you break the engine?”

Although Peter's common sense told him that the other two were right, he was so feverishly excited by the necessity of taking some action to regain possession of the ship that he refused to listen to reason. His face was set in hard lines that belonged to a much older person.

“All right, it's dangerous. But it
will
work. I can hide in the chain locker, and no one will ever know I'm there till I show myself.
And
I knows how to stop a diesel too. Ye only got to bust the fuel injectors with a hammer and the whole thing's finished.

“I'm
goin
' to do it, ye hear me? And don't try to stop
me neither. You just tell Pierre what I done, and he'll help me, even if you two won't.”

Peter sprang suddenly to his feet and was away, running into darkness, before the other two could move.

“He's gone potty as a puffin,” Kye cried. “C'mon, we got to stop him 'fore he gits hisself killed!”

Stopping Peter was not so easy. He had vanished amongst the confusion of men and ponies on the wharf, and though the two boys searched for fifteen minutes they found no trace of him. Finally they bumped into each other, and Kye muttered in Jacques' ear: “The blame fool must have done it. He must have gone aboard and into the locker. We can't haul him out of there without lettin' the whole world in on it–not if he won't come on his own, and I figure he won't.”

“I think there is nothing we
can
do,” Jacques replied.

Kye's eyes glittered in the momentary illumination of a match, as someone lit a cigarette.

“Well, there's one thing
I
can do,” he said. “Go along with him. I got to do that much. I can't let him try it alone. Thank'ee Jacques. Ye've been a good feller; and I sure hope for all our sakes ye're dad gits back tonight.”

Jacques clutched at Kye's jacket in an attempt to stop him, but Kye wrenched free with one quick movement.

He gained the deck without any difficulty. The salt fish had all been unloaded and a steady stream of whiskey boxes was being passed along from hand to hand by several men while others sweated below decks, stowing them away. There was less confusion on deck than when Peter had first come aboard, but there was still enough
to mask Kye's movements as he slipped forward, cautiously slid off the small hatch which gave access to the chain locker and slid himself through it. His feet touched the pile of anchor chain and instantly he was grabbed about the knees and thrown heavily down while someone began scrambling over him towards the still-open hatch.

“Peter…Peter…lay off…it's Kye,” he managed to gasp.

“Kye! I thought ye was one of the crew, and I figured I was a gonner. Kye, I'm scared to death!”

“Let's git out of here quick then. I'm so scared I figure me hair's turning green.”