The Wreck of the Mail Steamer

The Northwest coast of Newfoundland is no favorite with our seafarers in the fall of the year. The long, straight, rock-bound shore line for eighty miles in one stretch, offers no shelter whatever even to the small vessels that ply to and fro along it in pursuit of their calling. Yet, as great shoals of codfish frequent the cold waters of the north shore of the Gulf, just as soon as the frozen sea permits it in spring, swarms of fishing craft, of all sizes, from all the Newfoundland coasts, and even from as far south as Gloucester, push their way “down North” in pursuit of the finny harvest. On the Newfoundland vessels women and children often come, the women helping to cure the fish and cook for the men, the children because they can’t be left behind.

Uncle Joe Halfmast had not been North for some years, for he had never liked the sea and, like many another of our handy fishermen, he had developed great talents as a carpenter. But this year the people of Wild Bight were building a church, and had induced Uncle Joe to come down and lead them. It was a late season; the fall weather had been so wet and “blustersome” that the men found it impossible to dry their fish for shipment as usual, and were consequently late getting ready for the return South. Moreover the church had to be sheathed in before Christmas, so that, when spring came round, the work would not have to be done over again.

The one little mail steamer which served three hundred miles of coast was unusually crowded with passengers and wrecked crews, and it had twice passed Wild Bight without calling on the southern journey, owing to the impossibility of making the Cove in northwest gales. Indeed every inch of space aboard her had been already occupied long before she reached us. Thus for three long weeks we had been waiting for a chance to go South.

Winter had set in in real earnest. Ice was making everywhere, and to offset our anxiety the whole Cove was secretly rejoicing that we might be compensated by Uncle Joe having to spend the winter with us. He was justified a little by the fact that everyone knew his attitude to rough seas, and that if he returned he had promised to take back with him Susie Carless’ derelict baby—a tiny piece of flotsam—with no natural guardian to “fare” for it. And near Christmas is no time for sending babies traveling round our northwest coast. Uncle Joe said nothing—he never did—and the church grew steadily under his hands.

“I’m not worrying,” was Uncle Joe’s motto, “I leave that to Him that watches over us,” he would add, if he was in a real talkative mood.

So as a matter of fact no one was surprised when, one day after Michaelmas, a familiar fussy whistle broke the absolute silence of the harbor just at the first streak of dawn, and kept restlessly repeating itself as if to say, “Last chance—last chance—last chance for the year. Hustle, hustle, hustle.” Sorry as they were to lose him, all hands went to help Uncle Joe off, and give the baby those last touches that only women’s hands are allowed “to be able for” on our coast.

The little vessel was crowded, for her accommodation; badly overcrowded. But she was as fine a little sea vessel as money and human skill could make her and through many a gale of wind she had safely carried our friends. It was bitterly cold, the thermometer being actually away below zero, and our weatherwise people knew that something was brewing to windward that boded no good to a small boat however staunch, with only our long miles of harborless coast under her lea. Some at the risk of appearing self-interested, urged the old man to stay right on through the winter, and with that unbounded hospitality that is so universal a characteristic of our northern people were offering him a home, “baby and all.” But Uncle Joe’s philosophy is proof against any fears, indeed his faith is such real simple working material all through his life that the cynic calls it fatalism. So, as from those who saw St. Paul off on his long sea journey from the beach at Ephesus, not a few prayers went up for their friend and his helpless charge, as the little column of smoke once more disappeared into the sullen darkness that hung on the horizon under the southern sky, while the ominous soughing of the sea note on the rocks sent all hands back to make everything fast, even about the small homes on the land.

The storm did not actually break till after dark that night but slow come is long last with us, and it will be still longer before the memory of that Christmas gale ceases to blow in our memories.

The mail steamer was lost in it, violently blown out of the water on that evil coast. But these happenings are not strange in our world and we never got the story till the following year when one fine Sunday morning I happened to drop into young Harry Barney’s home, a little wooden cottage on the glorious sandy beach at L’Anse au Loup in Labrador.

Harry was enjoying a morning pipe of peace, with his darky embryo Vikings playing round the door. This was my reward for a Sunday visit. For it is as easy to catch a weasel asleep as Harry with time to burn from midnight Sunday till the next Day of Rest comes round.

A big liner had run ashore close to us only a week before, and was now an abandoned wreck lying well out of water on the north side of Burnt Island, so we fell to talking of wrecks, and the topic of the loss of our mail steamer came up. To my amazement he said, “Yes, I knows about her, doctor, I was fireman aboard when she was cast away.”

“You? What have you to do with steamers?”

“Oh, they shipped me and poor Cyril Manstock as they couldn’t get men south. I’d acted runner before, but it was Cyril’s first voyage, and he died after of consumption, as you know. They says it was that chill did it.”

“Tell us about it, Harry. We heard that a dog saved all hands by carrying a line ashore. I’ve been crazy to get the facts from an eye witness.”

“I wasn’t much of an eye witness till we were high and dry, but I saw the dog do his bit, doctor, and he certainly did it all right.”