The Gale of 1929 Read online

  Garfield Boland couldn’t believe his ears. Someone was actually shouting his name from the dockside of New York City! When he finally singled out the voice, he stared down at the face of Cater Hounsell. They had been best friends all during their school days!

  Arrangements were made for passage to St. John’s for the entire crew aboard the SS Silvia, the same ship that brought the crew of the Northern Light home. The day after their arrival, they secured another passage to Wesleyville aboard the coastal steamer SS Home. From there the shipwrecked crew walked over the snow-packed trail to Newtown.

  Several of them still hadn’t reached home. The men from Pinchard’s Island had one last stretch of water to cross before they got home that Christmas Eve. Pinchard’s Island lies on the weather side of Newtown. It appears crouched and hunkered down in the sea barely a mile from the town. The calm tickle on this night was frozen over, the frozen water behind the island standing in stark contrast to the ocean furies waiting at its front.

  The men from the Gander Deal borrowed a punt from Uncle Billy Blackmore and made ready to cross the dark tickle. Heavy slob had formed and had almost solidified with the low temperature, yet it wasn’t strong enough to bear a man’s weight. The men punched and pulled and hauled until they finally made their way across in the dark to the snow-covered island. Lamplight shone from the houses there and the church windows were aglow.

  The men stepped ashore from the punt. The bell rang from the lighted church, drawing its people to celebrate the birth of a child. No one knew they were home. Their feet crunched on the frozen path as they walked and the bell rang sweet and clear, its knell keening away over the winter sea. A door slammed. A dog barked. Sliding children squealed in delight somewhere above them. Flankers flew from a funnel overhead. The comforting smell of woodsmoke from every house broadcasted the warmth within.

  Then a door opened, spilling its light onto the tracked snow. A woman cried aloud. Human shadows framed a doorway.

  Behind another door a woman wondered at the package her husband was hiding behind his back. The men from the Gander Deal had come home for Christmas.

  4 Merry Widow

  Under the command of one of the world’s greatest warmongers, the Roman Empire had fought its way from Anatolia, or Asia Minor, across the face of Europe. Julius Caesar had driven his fierce army of fighting men from the warm waters of the great Middle Sea in the south to the very edge of the cold North Atlantic ocean. Twenty thousand foot soldiers fought and pillaged and razed and raped their way across entire countries. In their wake lay naked fields and empty storehouses, a vast land stripped bare after the hordes of human locusts had passed.

  The Gauls had fought the longest in a brutal, senseless battle that could have but one end. After the Romans put the country to fire and sword and laid waste to its resources, France was finally defeated. Encamped on the verge of the British Channel, Caesar learned that the small island nation of Briton had not only aided the French with supplies during his siege, but its army had also fought alongside the Gauls.

  Caesar was a vengeful man. The thirty-four kilometres of water that he stared across would not keep him from accomplishing his mission. He would teach the English a lesson. In 55 BC he crossed the Strait of Dover and, after the worst of battles, the English were cruelly defeated. Caesar had successfully completed his most northern conquest. It would be centuries later before France and England would again be allies.

  By 1805 the British nation controlled the world’s greatest navy, and France, her closest mainland neighbour, was her enemy.

  The Napoleonic wars raged between the British Royal and the French and Spanish navies. On October 21 of that same year, one of the most devastating sea battles in history was fought. At Cabo de Trafalgar, off the coast of southwestern Spain, west of the Gibraltar Strait, the three mighty naval forces finally clashed.

  Admiral Horatio Nelson, commander aboard the pride of the British fleet, the 100-gun HMS Victory, led his convoy of twenty-seven square-rigged, white-sailed warships against thirty-three vessels of the French and Spanish line. The British soundly defeated their enemies, sinking twenty-two ships without losing a single one of their own. Many combatants were killed on both sides.

  A musket ball pierced the left shoulder of Nelson. He was a bold target dressed in his colourful admiral’s regalia. The bullet passed through his spine at the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebrae and stopped two inches below his right scapula. By 4:30 p.m., three hours after falling to the deck of his ship, mortally wounded by a French marine firing from the mizzen-mast of the ship Redoubtable, the champion of the British Navy was dead.

  On the starboard side of Nelson’s ship Victory and in the thick of the fight was the British ship Eurylus. Her name was drawn from the ancient sea legend of Jason and his Argonauts. Her captain was Henry Blackwood.

  “May the Great God, whom I worship, grant to my Country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious Victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may humanity after Victory be the predominant feature in the British Fleet. For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him who made me, and may his blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my Country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen. Amen. Amen.”

  The above passage was the final entry in a personal diary found aboard the HMS Victory, dated Monday, October 21, 1805. It became a phrase of national importance and was required learning for English schoolchildren. Far across the ocean, to the far-flung claims of the British Empire, Nelson’s final prayer became known. Even in the small, one-room schools of Newfoundland’s outports, sternly disciplined schoolchildren stammered out the words by rote. It was supposed to improve their memory and perfect their enunciation of the mother tongue. In the religion-based schools where English royalty adorned the walls, Nelson’s prayer was as revered as if it had been taken from the Bible.

  As a boy Martin Blackwood hated having to memorize the words. He never knew that one of his ancestors had heard it from its author more than a century before, and an ocean away. As a man Martin Blackwood remembered it still.

  * * *

  “May the great God, whom I worship,” the expletive burst from his lips. It was as close as he came to blaspheming. The blast of northwest wind and cutting snow whipped over the starboard side of his schooner the Merry Widow. He figured they were fifteen or sixteen miles north of Baccalieu Island. One minute he was fighting the helm of his schooner and beating their hard way north across Trinity Bay, and the next, with a warning howl from the night sky, he was struggling to keep the rapidly veering, hurricane-struck vessel from capsizing. His aging schooner would not get much older.

  It was nearing midnight, the end of the last dogwatch, November 29, 1929. Blackwood had no way of knowing it, but he would have to draw on the strength of generations of his seagoing ancestors to see him through the next few harrowing days and furious nights. It would serve him in good stead.

  The Merry Widow was built in 1909 on Exploits Island, Notre Dame Bay, the largest bay in Newfoundland reaching from Cape Freels in the south to Cape St. John in the north. Exploits Island, situated where the spew of the mighty Exploits River mixes with the salt sea, was renowned for its shipbuilding. By the mid-eighteenth century, one of the biggest builders of these Labrador fishing vessels were the Manuel brothers. Josiah Manuel was considered one of the best. He built the Merry Widow. Originally owned jointly by Jabez Manuel and Chesley Manuel, by 1929 the schooner had changed hands to Martin Blackwood of Brookfield, Bonavista Bay.

  The twenty-year-old vessel had hauled thousands of quintals of heavy, salt-weighted codfish from the far north coast of Labrador, and freighted ton after ton of goods and provisions all along the northeast coast of Newfoundland. She had served her masters well, but now her spruce bones were weak and failing. The sudden blast of hurricane-force wind that heel
ed her away from the land on this night shook the old vessel down to her every timber, straining her native softwood construction and exposing her decrepitude.

  Sitting below at the forecastle table and looking very worried were the captain’s wife, Emily, as well as Martin Blackwood, Jr. A good friend of Emily’s, looking just as frightened, was Miss Francis Kelloway.

  Emily hadn’t felt good about leaving St. John’s harbour earlier that day but she had said nothing about her fears to her husband. It would not have done much good, anyway. Martin was a stubborn man and would seldom change his mind, even for her. Besides, they had been waiting for days for the weather to moderate enough to sail home. He, like most of the other skippers waiting to sail north, was very impatient. When he saw the smallest of the schooners leave, nothing would keep him in the harbour. Still, as much as she wanted to get home, with a dark night already upon them, Emily had had some reservations about their hasty departure from the safety of the port. Night didn’t delay much in these northern climes.

  Emily was on deck shortly past 4:00 p.m., when they passed out through the cleft that allowed the Merry Widow onto the North Atlantic. Looking up at the mountains of rock that met the dull sky, she suddenly felt very small, aboard a frail vessel. Why were they leaving this sheltered place on such a night? The bright, twinkling lights of the city closing behind only heightened her fears and told her that she didn’t really have to leave. When the schooner mounted the first long roller of the open sea, Emily went below. She would stay below for days.

  * * *

  Only the quick order from Skipper Blackwood and the equally rapid response from his experienced crew saved the Merry Widow from capsizing.

  “Get the sails off ’er, b’ys. If you ’ave trouble with the cleat knots, cut the bloody sheets,” Blackwood yelled to his crew. He was always a man of action, capable of snap decisions. “Leave the jumbo, an’ drop the rest.”

  Blackwood knew he had to have some sail to control his schooner. The jumbo was all he would allow in a gale like this one. He couldn’t believe the ferocity of the storm, nor the suddenness of it. They had been battling a southeast gale almost as soon as they left St. John’s, but it was a mere summer breeze compared to the northwest gale that was now pushing them south and east away from their island. Where had it come from and why had there been no warning from the St. John’s weather people? He remembered the pleading eyes of his wife when he had shouted orders to cast off from the pier. She would never question his decision—at least not in front of his men. He suddenly wished she had.

  For the next two days the wind continued unabated. Sunday showed some promise of relief. The wind slackened a bit and the Merry Widow made a little headway toward the land, but it was a false hope. By nightfall the storm gathered its might once more and bore them away again. They quickly lost all the ground they had covered and were carried miles farther out to sea.

  * * *

  Emily Blackwood and Frances Kelloway didn’t endure the fury of the storm on the pitching deck of the schooner as did the crew. They had their own hell to deal with. Not once during the several days at sea could the two women walk with a straight step or even in an upright position. Every move was a calculation, every step a stagger. They kept a fire going in the bogie during the days and most of the nights. Tea was made available to the shift changes. They did what they could to provide hot food. They hung wet clothes for the men, sewed holes in worn woollen mitts, repaired torn trousers, and darned smelly socks. Neither of the two complained.

  If they were to complain, it would not be about the long, arduous days that seemed to go on without end. Nor would they complain about being tossed about the confines of a long, narrow compartment. Their lack of privacy bothered them most of all. They knew the situation could not be helped, but while the men were respectful toward them, it did little to appease their needs. The men took care of their bodily functions on deck, as seamen had always done. Both women would gladly have done the same, given the chance. But it was out of the question. The deck was a constant roil of water. Ropes were slung everywhere, the men clinging to them as they clawed their way to the helm, to the masts, to the pumps. The women’s privations among a bunch of seamen were pitiful and caused them many anxious moments.

  The second day out was the worst. The women could endure the need to make their water no longer; the urgency had finally overcome their shame. A coarse, dark blanket was secured from ceiling to floor in the aft starboard section of the forecastle, and here Emily and Frances attended to their toilet. A slop pail normally used for table scraps completed the ritual. The men carried the pail up the steps and tossed it over the side of the schooner.

  Aboard the Merry Widow were two more men who shared the captain’s surname and ancestry: Bert Blackwood and R. A. Blackwood. Also aboard the stricken schooner were Simon Kelloway, Samuel White, Abram Best, Jonas Hillier, James Harvey, and Ephraim Stockley. Though there was no shortage of hands to share the constant work of keeping the vessel afloat, after a week of gruelling toil day and night, they were all exhausted.

  December 5 came and there was still no let-up in the storm. The crew were out of fresh water and out of fuel to heat the stove. The hold of the Merry Widow carried no luxuries, no snack foods, no tasty tidbits to sate the hungry palate. The below-deck stores that were to carry the crew and their families through the coming winter consisted of only the basics of food. All of it had to be cooked, and to make matters even more dire, salt water was leaking and gradually seeping into this precious supply.

  The men and the two women were now wearing wet socks and clothing; the hems from the women’s long dresses mopped sea water from a filthy floor and soaked their legs, but they never complained. They dried the clothes on their bodies while standing near the stove. Everyone suffered from a cold day and night. Everything and everywhere about them there was a dampness. They lay down under damp, smelly blankets and sought the sweet relief of God-given sleep, their tired heads resting on damp, lumpy pillows.

  * * *

  Stowed below in Skipper Blackwood’s locker, and just as damp as the rest of the schooner’s trappings, was the Red Ensign. The island of Newfoundland had been given consent to fly the flag by British royalty in 1877. The purpose of this bold red-coloured cloth with the Union Jack stitched into its top left corner was to make sure the sun never set on the British flag. On the fly of the flag was the great seal of Newfoundland and the badge was topped with the words “Terra Nova.” In the centre the Greek god of merchandise and commerce—Mercury—accepted, from a kneeling fisherman, fish from the sea. Below, in Latin, were the words Haec Tibi Dona Fero: “These gifts I bring you.”

  On the evening of December 5, Martin Blackwood had just poked his weary head out of the forecastle scuttle when an excited shout from the stern of his schooner startled him.

  “A ship, Skipper! Comin’ right fer us, by God! We’re saved! We’re saved!”

  Blackwood never even looked in the direction the man was pointing. He just swung his feet free of the ladder rungs and slid back to the bottom. The smooth wooden rails burned his hands, but he didn’t care. In two strides, his feet sloshing in water on the cabin floor as he ran, he reached the locker over his narrow bunk and pulled the Red Ensign free.

  Back on deck he clung to the lifeline and staggered astern. He pushed the flag into the surprised hands of one of the men manning the squeaking pumps.

  “Free the gantline and get the bloody flag aloft. Tie it bottom up,” he yelled as he passed. “Make damn sure ’tis bottom up!”

  He reached the wheel and grabbed the spokes away from his crewman. Only then did Martin look away from his suffering schooner. His crewman was right. Making her ponderous way toward them, hull down, was a black ship. Martin thought she looked familiar, but he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see her full profile. It didn’t matter what ship it was, though—the approaching vessel was their salvatio
n!

  “’Ow will we get aboard dat one, Skipper? ’Tis too rough fer a lifeboat,” the man beside Blackwood said.

  “Git off dis one? Are you mad? We wont be leavin’ our own vessel, sir! A tow is what I’ll be askin’ fer when she comes alongside,” yelled the indignant captain.

  The ship kept to windward as she closed with the schooner. Her captain was obviously tying to shield the smaller vessel from the wind. The ship climbed a long grey swell. As her engine slowed, the smoke trailed away from her lone stack until it was little more than a puff. She turned broadside, still trying to protect the Merry Widow, then rolled toward the schooner, and when she heaved away again Blackwood saw her name.

  “The Beothic. One of our own, by God! Billy Windsor is ’er master. We’re saved fer sure, b’ys. Captain Billy is from our own shore. I knows ’im well. He’ll tow us back to the land.”

  * * *

  It was, indeed, the Beothic. She was searching for the missing schooners that had left the port of St. John’s on November 29. Billy Windsor posted himself against the roll of his ship. The schooner he was looking at through the window of the bridge was in bad shape. He could see two men straining at her pumps aft of the mainmast. So much wave water sluiced through the scuppers, Windsor couldn’t tell if it was coming from the pump or not. This wasn’t going to be easy, he knew.

  He recognized the schooner and knew the captain of the Merry Widow well. He also knew Blackwood would not consider abandoning his vessel. Not yet, anyway. Windsor had seen the flag flying on its back, the global signal for a vessel in distress.

  Twice Windsor sailed his ship as close as he dared to the windward of the Merry Widow. His men threw a heaving line toward the schooner. The first time it fell into the white, surging wash between the two vessels. On the second try, he watched the line arc up and away from his ship and finally span the distance between the two yawing vessels. A scrambling crew aboard the schooner pulled the line taut and attached a heavy hawser to the heaving line. Once they hauled it aboard, they attached it to the main bow grump of the Merry Widow. Blackwood ordered the Red Ensign down and the little schooner, plucked violently after the stern of the Beothic, began her trek for land.