August Gale by Walsh Barbara

Author:Walsh, Barbara
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780762777099
Publisher: Globe Pequot Press

CHAPTER 17

“THERE’S A DIVIL COMING!”—NEWFOUNDLAND FISHING GROUNDS, AUGUST 1935

Strange things began to happen in the sea.

Anchor buoys marking the dorymen’s fishing trawl sank and then shot back to the surface. The lines curled and twisted as if they were caught in a whirlpool fathoms below. Fishermen eyed their gear and the sky. Aside from the orange glow of sunset, no dark clouds loomed. The ocean did not swell, and the wind did not breeze up. Still, the seasoned dorymen knew the sea was not right; the current beneath the dories ran like a river. Something fierce was coming.

West of Cape St. Mary’s, Mary Bernice’s crew hauled cod from the shoal reefs along Placentia Bay. Bent over the dory gunnel, Dennis Long dragged his fishing line into the boat. The catch was good on this August evening. The gray-haired fisherman pulled a fish from nearly every fourth hook. Long reckoned they could haul a thousand pounds of fish by midnight, but the fifty-five-year-old doryman did not like the peculiar shift in the sea. He had taken to the dory when he was just nine years of age, and more than four decades on the water had taught him to mind the subtle changes, changes that portended deadly storms.

Long glanced at the pile of cod; the dory was only half full. He could stay out and fill the boat, but getting caught in the shoal waters, twenty and thirty fathoms deep among clusters of rock and reef, would be treacherous in a storm. And if a gale, an August gale, was coming, she would come fast. They would have little time to row back to the Mary Bernice. Long worried, too, about the young captain James Walsh. A maiden voyage was rough enough without fighting an August gale. And the lad had been a bit distracted, fretting no doubt about his wife giving birth while he was at sea. Long knew James would need some help at the helm, if a fierce storm struck. Paddy had asked Long and Dick Hanrahan of Little Bay to keep watch over the young skipper, and there would be hell to pay if James did not return ashore. Long turned to his dorymate, a greenhorn who was eager to prove his fishing skills. “Sorry, son, it’s time to haul the gear and head for the schooner. A fierce storm is drawing near.”

The younger doryman stared up at the clear night sky and began to argue, but Long’s stern gaze silenced the fisherman’s protest. The two men pulled their trawl into the dory, the hooks cartwheeling beneath their hands. Not caring where they landed or if they tangled, the dorymen tossed the lines in the bait tub and reached for their oars. Long sat down and prepared himself for a rough row back to the vessel. He rubbed the religious pendant beneath his shirt for comfort. The cloth scapular depicted the Blessed Virgin, and he never ventured upon the sea without it.

“Pull hard, son,” Long told his dorymate.

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