The Gale of 1929 Read online

  Green yelled for his men to fashion a sea anchor. To lash together anything they could find that would float. Anything that might slow down my drift. Anything to stop my deadly sideways roll and get my bows into the wind. I was raised by the seas almost onto my beam ends. Then it was there! A black leviathan smeared briefly across the humped horizon. It emerged out of the sea only to sink again. But now the huge ship had been seen by my captain. A cry escaped his bearded lips. It was a sound of relief, and from the throat of every man aboard arose shouts of delight. The steamship was now bearing down on us. Deliverance was at hand for my handlers. I felt none of their jubilation. My deck was almost completely awash; there would be no deliverance for me.

  Above the sound of wind and wave came the bellow of the ship’s whistle. She was standing to the windward sheltering me from the seas. I was dwarfed in the lun of her. The name Holplein was painted in large bold letters on her bow. A large lifeboat with three men aboard was already being lowered slowly down over her black hull. Twice it stopped and swayed like a small white moth stuck in a spider’s web. Sounds in a foreign tongue were shouted over the surging water that separated me from the huge vessel. Then came broken words that my captain understood.

  The lifeboat reached the sea, which reached up hungrily to meet it. The black figures aboard pushed it away from the clifflike hull and they started to row toward me. A wave came crashing down on my deck. The water rushed all over me, weighing me under, and for several minutes I struggled to stay afloat. The small boat with the strange voices approached my starboard side. A jackstave or lifeline was flung onto my seething deck and caught by one of my crew. One by one they jumped toward the lifeboat. Two of them fell in the roll of water between my wallowing deck and the side of the lifeboat. They untied their rescue line and swung it again onto my lowering deck for the next man.

  Frank Green suddenly ducked into the after cabin. Water sloshed around his feet. I was going under. Surely he would leave in time. Several packages he had purchased on the streets of St. John’s for his family waited on his bunk. One was a new coat and the other a hard-to-find book for his daughter. He couldn’t take them all with him. The coat was bulky. He chose the book. I lurched to port.

  The water on the cabin floor was nearly to his knees. He grabbed the case that held his sextant, cradled a few rolled charts under his arms, and dashed outside. There was no one on my deck. All had successfully jumped or had been hauled to the safety of the lifeboat. Familiar sounds and foreign ones were yelled at my captain. He raced across my deck. The water, which was rapidly claiming me, surged toward him. It struck him just above his knees. He faltered and stumbled. One of his precious charts escaped from his grip when he reached for the thrown rope. He missed the lifeline.

  It was drawn hand over hand back aboard the lifeboat by one of the crew from my own deck. I settled low with the weight of seas that could now wash easily over me. I could not rise again. But my master was still on my deck. While I sank steadily down, the lifeboat that was his only hope rose steadily higher on the raging swells. A great shuddering effort filled every fibre of my wooden frame. I must rise above the sea one more time. One more effort to save the man who was my one true master.

  My fifth rib finally broke under the terrible strain. Tons of water came gushing inside my hull. The terrible weight of sea water was as nothing I had experienced before. But then a long, undulating grey roller came lifting under my once proud keel and I began to rise above my death wave. Several planks rented away under the strain of my rising. The wave that was lifting me above the surface was sucking the lifeboat beside me down into its wonderful trough.

  The thrown line landed in the surf of water on my rearing, tilted deck. My captain caught it. He somehow managed to drape it over his sodden shoulders and hanked it tightly under his armpits. For a moment I rose out of the water like a whale before it sounded. Then I started to settle low. The lifeboat rose up as I fell down, and when it came level with my water-filled deck my commander jumped to safety. My deck surged and sank below my final wave and I felt no fear or regret.

  But just as the tip of my mainmast went sliding down, I saw something I had not seen before. From the eyes of my noble captain welled tears that I alone witnessed. It was a burden harder to bear than the weight of the Atlantic indifference that finally carried me down and out of his view.

  There were no day beams of surface light to follow me into the nether depths of the sea, and rising up out of that mysterious well of life came haunting voices of death. They were sirens from my own kind and they beckoned me. Down I slid, stern first, as I did on that long-ago day of my birth, circling slow on the middle currents as I went. When I finally reached the sea floor, there was no crashing jolt, no further destruction of my much-torn frame, merely a gentle settling into the wet earth from which I had been wrought.

  * * *

  For twenty-eight years I rested on the floor of the North Atlantic sea. I settled deeper into the clammy soil. Countless vessels sailed on the surface high above me. Sometimes some of them came drifting down and sometimes the still bodies of humans followed them.

  More and more the ships built from the forest were replaced, until it was rare to feel the quiet presence of sailing ships, their wood flexing on the rolling sea as they came by. Vessels with rigid, unyielding hulls of steel were noisily threshing the waters. Their thrumming vibrations pierced the weight of water above me and I listened.

  Then came the day of October 31, 1957. The sea was still and no wind blew. But I knew my premonition was about to come true. I heard the throb of propellers slicing through the sea above, and with it came the overpowering presence of my old master, Frank Green. Down through the connecting threads of water came the sound of his feet on the deck. I felt his old limp. He was still trying to hide it. His hand was upon a black helm. Then his hand suddenly weakened and left the wheel. He clutched his breast, one of his fingers digging into his fifth rib. His legs folded, and even before his body reached the unfeeling deck I knew my captain had died. The ship sailed on. The throb of its leaving faded away. And I, who had kept the last watch, felt my one remaining rib, the one I had thought was my weakest but which was still holding, finally crumble down without a sound.

  * * *

  Author’s Note: On October 31, 1957, Frank Green was captain of the iron trawler Imperialist, owned by National Sea of Halifax. It was a warm autumn day without cloud or wind and there was hardly a swell on the sea. While standing on the bridge of the ship, he suddenly grasped his chest and, without making a sound, fell dead to the floor. The crewmen said the bow of the Imperialist suddenly rose unexpectedly and gently, up over a lone grey swell, and then settled down just as gently again on the placid sea.

  8 Effie May Petite

  Flowers Island it is called, though actually there are two of them. The smaller one, Kean’s Island, is separated from the bigger Sturge’s Island by a wide-open tickle of water through which the sea sluices. The names of Sturge and Kean are believed to be the ones who first settled there. Both islands combined cover an area of only a few hundred square feet. The islands are situated just south of Cape Freels, on the northernmost side of Bonavista Bay, and rise just four miles to sea from the seaport of Wesleyville, its nearest mainland point. They are an imposing sight when approached, grey and looming up out of the sea, a seemingly impenetrable granite barrier near which there can be no safety. To the north, south, and east, breaking shoals and treacherous reefs collide with the never-ending Atlantic swells.

  But, as is the case with nearly all islands around the coast of Newfoundland, Flowers Island’s rugged approaches can be deceptive. Like similar islands in the area, it bears its limited stunted growth close to its stingy soil. The evergreen-twisted tuckamore that persists there is almost as difficult to walk over as it is walked through, so dense is the growth. Short-stemmed brackens survive in the sheltered hollows of cliffs, and gorse, the old Norse na
me given to the spiny yellow shrubs, brighten the otherwise drab island grey for a few days at summer’s height. They justify the island’s name and give a charming ring to a place where there are few pleasantries. Some historians claim that the name first given to Bonavista Bay was Rio de Rosa, or Bay of Flowers. Still others believe the name to be of an Italian origin—fior d’aqua—meaning rocks rising out of the sea. Whatever its origin and no matter how rugged its facade, Flowers Island offered a relatively safe haven from the Atlantic sea to its first inhabitants, who relished a homestead close to the cod fishing grounds.

  The island is steeped with maritime history and is known more for the names of the people who first settled there than for its geography. One such name is Kean, and especially Abram Kean. Abram maintained the name of the islands came from the flowers that grew there and further claimed that in summer months their rich scent could be detected on the mainland, that Flowers Island “has provided a place for wild flowers to grow and birds to build their nests and hatch their young as nature intended.” Abram Kean would become Flowers Island’s most famous son. One of his greatest feats was as a sealing captain, hunting and subsequently killing one million harp seals.

  By the year 1929, the Keans, along with all of the other residents, had long gone from Flowers Island but not from the seafaring way of life. Charles Kean was the great-nephew of Abram Kean, but unlike his great uncle, who was feared more than he was revered, Charlie was a much-loved and well-respected schooner captain.

  When he sailed with the others out of the entrance to St. John’s harbour on the evening of November 29, 1929, he was captain of one of the biggest of the schooners. The Effie May Petite was anything but petite. At eighty-nine feet in length she was second only to the three-masted schooner Neptune II, which was still in harbour when the Effie May Petite cleared Amherst Rock at the entrance to the harbour and headed north.

  Aboard the schooner, along with their captain, were the men of his crew: Roland Gaulton, Edward Gaulton, Theodore Norris, Aaron Pickett, William Sturge, Phillip Best, Joseph Green, Peter Best, Abner Kean, and John Hoyles. Also aboard were Charlie Kean’s wife, Lydia, and their daughter Doris, who was only five years old. The evening seemed fair enough and Kean figured his big schooner, with an almost following wind from the southeast, would take them along smartly. The Effie, as Charlie called his vessel, was well-loaded with provisions in both holds for the Kean general store in Brookfield, Bonavista Bay. She wasn’t carrying anywhere near the weight of the well-stacked salt fish she had brought to this port just a few days ago. Kean considered his schooner had just enough weight aboard to “keep ’er in ballas’.” The long, sleek schooner had seen many rough seas, and many of them at night under the hand of Skipper Charlie Kean.

  Their first indication of trouble ahead was a sudden drop in the needle of the weather glass hanging securely on the starboard wall in the captain’s cabin, just forward of the helm. As if on cue, with the quick barometer drop, the wind blew much harder out of the southeast and the big schooner made good time along by the dark land as she sailed steadily north. Deep into the night the wind began veering steadily, as the weather glass portended and Kean feared, until it was backing from the north. There was no star shine, no moon, and the night was sullen and foreboding. Several times Kean spotted lights from the other schooners. They sometimes showed closer and then farther away as the distant schooners tacked north to home.

  The Effie May Petite was taking a hard pounding in the wind and snow, and she had almost made it across Trinity Bay when the wind chopped viciously out of the northwest. It took all of Charlie Kean’s experience and the bravery and sure sailing knowledge of his crew to keep the vessel from being blown away before that first terrible onslaught of wind. The sails were reefed and then reefed again. Still it tasked the skill of the crew who now fought to keep their schooner in the relative safety of the looming land.

  They were several cable lengths off the cape of Bonavista when the wind, screaming away from their home waters on the north side of Bonavista Bay, laid into them. It came as a hammer-like blow which the Effie May Petite could not withstand. The schooner reeled broadside, sucker punched by the wind, until, blindsided and staggering in the darkness, she was borne away before the wind with both her masts stripped as naked as an Easter Sunday Cross.

  * * *

  The day came without comfort or let-up from the gale. It was still snowing and the water crashing over the deck of the Effie May Petite turned the snow to a dirty slush. The schooner had dozens of wooden as well as steel barrels lashed to her deck. Kean’s quick eye for possible problems soon spotted the loosened lines wrapped around the barrels. It looked as though two barrels were already missing. He was right. Two barrels filled with fresh water taken aboard at the St. John’s dock had been washed overboard sometime during the night. Heavy barrels loose on a rolling, pitching deck could be extremely dangerous. He would have no “loose cannons” on his deck! He ordered the lines tightened.

  Their trap skiff tied on deck as a lifeboat also had slack lines after last night’s battering, and they, too, were tightened. They had fared well during the night. The men took some of the ripped sails and dragged them below for mending. Kean never sailed without spare sails and sailcloth, and his crew were quite capable of not only mending but sewing new sails. Right now, though, as he surveyed the situation, Kean could see no advantage of having sails aloft in such a blow. He decided on a trysail, or spencer. He instructed his crew to attach a small, triangular sail abaft of the mainmast in the hopes of keeping his vessel into the teeth of the wind. It yielded only marginal effect, for during the course of the day the Effie May Petite boxed the compass.

  The two lost barrels of water had dangerously limited their supply. Not knowing how long it would take them to reach land again, Kean immediately ordered water rationing. He decided to fetch a barrel of oranges from the schooner’s after hold along with two cases of soda pop. It was a dangerous manoeuvre. The removal of a hatch cover on a schooner with her deck frequently awash was not to be done without extreme care. If the items were in the forward hold he would not risk it in these sea conditions. The timing had to be just right. An open hold in heavy seas could mean disaster. The crashing weight of just one roller pouring down into the hold could easily swamp the Effie May Petite.

  That day of misery wore on. Each wave bearing down on them seemed to be a challenge. Night was coming again and still Charlie Kean had not seen the right conditions to remove the hatch from the hold. He couldn’t risk it. If the chance didn’t present itself before dark they would have to wait until morning.

  Then, with barely an hour of daylight left, the opportunity came. There was a sudden lull in the weight of wind they had waited under all day. Though the schooner was still rolling gunnel in and gunnel out in heavy seas, and the waves still licked and snarled along the scupper edges, for several minutes the heaviest of the swells abated. Kean figured it was a tide change and it was long enough.

  At the skipper’s shout, men with backs bent scurried over the deck, looking like monkeys. They clung to safety lines that hung from the rigging and masts and trailed fore and aft between the after and forward hatch covers. A man carrying a sledgehammer smote the wedges holding the hatch cover in place. The wedges flew from the hold chocks at his blows and, still holding to their lines, clattered upon the slippery deck. They slid open the hatch cover just enough to allow a man to enter and two jumped down, one after the other. One of them was Roland Gaulton, just seventeen years old, fearless and quick as a cat on hot bricks.

  Two lengths of rope were thrown after them. More men stood on deck peering down into the hold as they held on to the rope ends. Shouts were heard from Kean at the helm. Shouts came from the hurrying men. The ropes wrapped around both ends of the barrel of oranges were strained back by the deckhands and the barrel appeared out of the depths. Then they quickly hauled it over the edge. Quicker still, two wooden c
rates of soda pop came up into waiting hands and the two men climbed back up out of the hold. They hauled the hatch cover over and replaced the wedges. The man with the hammer slammed down on each wedge and the hatch cover was secure again. The crew carried the cases of drinks forward to the forecastle with the sound of water sucking and hissing along the schooner’s sides as they ran. The rolling barrel was pushed and kicked along the swaying deck, the scuttle to the forecastle was opened, and the drinks and the barrel of oranges disappeared below.

  Kean relaxed his grip on the spokes of the wheel and breathed easier. He had kept the Effie May Petite full into the wind, or in irons, while his men had carried out his orders. It had all taken just a few minutes, with every move choreographed like a nimble dancer. The night closed around the schooner, and as the darkness fell upon them the wind rose to gale force again. And the only semblance of light came from the frothy, white, cascading bubbles that were ceaselessly cast aside by the plunging bows of the Effie May Petite.

  * * *

  It takes a rare breed of man to stand defiantly on the open deck of a heaving schooner, in the teeth of a winter gale, in total darkness. The only thing the pitching binnacle showed Kean was that they were bearing away from the land again. He was relieved at the wheel at regular intervals by members of his faithful crew. There were two men on deck at all times now.

  Below the deck no one really slept. The forecastle was damp and cold, so they had started a fire in the small stove. There was plenty of coal aboard to keep the stove going, but they would only open the stove drafter partway. The backdrafts of wind baffled down the small stovepipe and curled black smoke out through the damper. Besides the smoke, there was the constant fear of the stove overturning with the unpredictable rolling of the schooner. Inside the forecastle, or forward cabin, the effects of that fierce gale were intense. The bows of the schooner took the brunt of the terrible wind and seas and the noise was deafening. The rush of sea water tearing along the schooner’s sides, separated from the crew by only a few inches of creaking wood, was not a pleasant sound on this night. Even below the deck that fury of wind emitted a howling noise, and the wind-whine from the near-naked rigging pierced the crowded cabin.