Haunted Harbours (12 page)

It was the wreckers who brought about the end of the
Frances
, luring her to her doom with the aid of several lanterns. Aboard her were a Doctor Copeland, the medical surgeon of the seventh Prince's Regiment, his wife and their two children, fourteen other passengers, and a crew of nineteen men.

Mrs. Copeland was a young woman, younger than her husband by a good six years, and was to all accounts a most beautiful woman with long flowing hair the colour of sunburned straw. She was wearing her wedding ring, a family heirloom of solid silver surmounted by a large red ruby. Those who saw the ring close up described it as an eerie thing, the colour of welling blood.

Frances
went down with all hands, and the wreckers found easy pickings, scavenging the supplies and furniture that washed ashore. Amongst the jetsam on the beach, the lead wrecker found the body of Mrs. Copeland. Her face was as pale as candle wax, her skin bloated by long hours in the salt water. Her hair was loosened and snarled by the tide's angry fingers, and her clothes had been nearly torn from her, but the ring was still there. Its beauty caught the wrecker's eye.

He knelt in the surf, heedless of the waves. He caught at the ring and tried to work it from her hand. The ring wouldn't budge; her fingers were swollen from the cold and the long immersion. Stealing a glance to his left and right, making certain no one watched, the old wrecker snapped open his case knife and severed Mrs. Copeland's ring finger.

The instant he cut the finger off, her eyes flew wide open like rudely-snapped window blinds. She opened her mouth to scream, and in panic he held her under the water. She struggled, splashing his face with the blood from her mutilated hand. The wrecker grimly held her under, cutting her throat with the edge of his case knife. In a few short moments, she was dead.

The wrecker stood up, still holding his case knife and the dead woman's finger. He worked the ring off and cast the finger into the tide. He pushed her body out a little ways into the water, saying a prayer to Father Neptune in hopes that the current would catch her and hide his dirty work.

In fear he fled to Halifax, where he sold the ring to a watch-maker of dubious ethics. He used the money to purchase a room and a bottle, and that night he opened his throat with the very case knife he'd used to cut Mrs. Copeland's fair white neck.

Some say it was guilt, and some say that it happened in a fight over the spoils of his crime, while others claim the wrecker was visited that night by the ghost of Mrs. Copeland, who stood over his bedside pointing an accusatory finger stub.

I cannot say for sure, but I do know this. On lonely summer nights when the mist hugs the shores of Sable Island closer than a widow's veil, sailors say that a gray lady may be seen walking through the mists, pointing with the stub of her missing finger. And to this day as the sun slowly sinks, the waters and the sand of Sable Island are still stained a deep and lingering red.

18
THE PHANTOM
OARSMAN OF
SABLE ISLAND
SABLE ISLAND

As sure as the sunshine follows the rain, one thing will always follow another. In my last tale I told you about Mrs. Copeland's ruby ring and the unfortunate state of her ghostly finger. That tale leads surely to this second Sable Island tale.

Following the wreck of Mrs. Copeland's ship, the
Frances
, the government decided that it would be wise to place a couple of lighthouses upon the hook ends of Sable Island. These lighthouses have been moved, four times since, due to the island's constantly shifting shoreline.

Along with the lighthouses, the government stationed a lifesaving crew of an even dozen men. Twelve souls, and one stout dory.

Some said that twelve men were all who were needed to haul a good-sized dory. It really wasn't that complicated a trick. One man would stand in the bow with a heavy brass sea lantern; he was the boat's set of headlights. A second man would squat in the back, leaning on the rudder; he was the steering wheel. Ten strong lads would haul on the oars, playing the role of the world's very first ten-cylinder search and rescue vehicle.

These twelve men kept watch night and day for any sign of ships in trouble. In stormy weather, and it was stormy more days than not around Sable Island, they'd sit astride their stocky little Sable Island ponies, wrapped in oilskins and gum rubbers, peering into the darkness for any sign of trouble.

They'd keep shifts, some men resting while the others kept watch, so that the dangerous shoals around the ill-fated island were watched over every minute of the day, a necessity in the days before radios and radar. A ship would happen along when it happened along, and the lifesaving crew always needed to be ready for action.

Every four months a second crew would arrive from the main-land, and the first crew would return home: four months on and four months off, that was their shift.

This is the tale of one such crew, during one such four-month-long shift.

The story began on a moonless November evening when the waves were tossing and kicking about Sable Island like a herd of angry horses. The watchman clenched his knees, hanging tightly to his little pony, squinting out to sea, but he couldn't see any-thing. His ears strained, listening for the grinding of a hull running aground, for the crack of timber breaking free.

I could tell you where he was standing on the shoreline, but what difference would that make? The shores of Sable Island changed with every year. That is why you so rarely see a reliable map of the island; it simply refuses to sit still long enough to be mapped.

And then the watchman saw it. A ship, foundering upon the rocks, caught in the current and the wind, sure to be sunk. He rode full out for the main lodge, and the lifesaving crew ran for the dory.

It's hard work putting a dory out into storm-tossed waters. The currents of the Atlantic tie a knot around the island that unravels any plan.

The crew pushed and hauled hard and the waves kicked them back shorewards as fast as they hauled oar. Sometimes they'd get launched, and sometimes not. Many a time the crew sat shore-bound, the conditions too heavy to launch the dory.

They had to wait until the blow had its temper and was done with, listening for the wails of the drowning carried in on the Atlantic wind. Even when the wind was blowing too hard to hear the screams of the dying, the rescue crew could hear them deep in the pits of their communal conscience.

They hauled the dory out into the waves, standing hip deep in the water with the waves and the wind slashing at them like long wet knives. Finally they were afloat. They rowed out towards the shoal-bound ship, one man in front holding the big brass sea lantern, one fellow in back leaning on the rudder, and ten stout men hauling on the oars. As they approached the shoal, a great wave hooked up and out and dragged the lead oarsman straight into the storm-tossed waves. Down he went in his oilskin jacket and gum rubber boots, three sweaters, and a suit of union long johns. He sank like a dropped anchor and drowned. When you fall into water that cold and deep, there is nothing that can be done; each man knew that. They rowed on, without looking back. They'd lost a friend and a good man, but they had a ship to save.

They rowed out as fast as they could, moving slower now with one less man at the oars. They lost some time correcting their course, as the odd number of rowers kept veering the dory side-ways. By the time they'd arrived at the wreck, nearly half of the crew had drowned or perished from the cold.

They shot a line out to the wreckage with a breeches buoy attached: a life preserver with a pair of hip waders sewed in tight. They rowed the survivors to the shore, and saw them safe into the shelters built upon the island for just this purpose. Now, it was time to fetch in the dead.

They'd haul in as many of the dead as they could; later they would comb the beach for the ones who'd washed ashore, some-times days afterwards. They would sew the dead in a tattered sail-cloth shroud, and leave them on the shoreline to be picked up later, by the supply steamer. The sand was too unstable for graves, so the steamer tipped the remains into the open sea. Until the vessel arrived it was the duty of the lifesaving crew to stand watch over the bodies, shooing away hungry gulls and eager crabs.

A couple of weeks after the wreck, there came another ship in trouble. The dory crew rowed out, still short-handed. The survivors of the last wreck had already been picked up by the steamer and taken to the mainland. They rowed out in somewhat calmer water, and as they came to that patch of wild shoals, the lantern man saw a white shape moving in the water.

“It's ice,” the lantern man yelled out. “Watch out!”

Only it wasn't ice; it was a body, swimming towards them, the body of their drowned comrade. He swam up to the dory and climbed on board, sat in his usual seat, and began to row. He was a Nova Scotian, and there was no way on God's green earth that he was about to give up on a job half done.

He wasn't pretty to look at. His flesh was soft and bleached from the time spent in the water. There was a little crab clawing through his beard and long sea worms crawling about his body. You could see clear through to his bones in a few spots, but by god, he could row.

The dory crew were astounded by this sight, but being practical fellows they decided there was nothing to do but to keep on rowing. Besides, they weren't about to let a dead fellow outdo them in seamanship.

They made the sinking ship in easy time and rescued all on board. A few of the survivors of the wrecked ship started at the sight of the grisly rower, but the majority of them knew enough of the ways of the sea not to question her work. They looked the other way, or pretended they did not notice. They were mostly just grateful for being pulled from their sinking ship. To them the phantom oarsman was just another sailor in dirty yellow oilskins and a pair of fat black rubber boots.

As the dory crossed over the wild patch of water, the phantom oarsman stood up, tipped his cap like he was saying goodbye and stepped out into the wind-tossed waves and sank beneath the Atlantic.

“His work is done,” one oarsman said. “He's gone back to his briny bedroom.” But these were hasty words spoken too quickly.

There were two more ships in trouble over that four-month stretch. Both times the phantom oarsman reported for duty, swim-ming up and clambering into the dory, pulling like mad on the oars, and then finally tipping his hat in a sign of respect right before sinking like a wishing well stone.

Yet time is a river that must always flow forward, and there came a day when the four months of the shift was finished, and the steamer came, bringing along a fresh new crew.

The old crew debated for half of the night before the steamer arrived on whether or not they should tell anyone what they had seen. Word had doubtlessly already escaped from the survivors who had noticed the phantom oarsman. In the end, they decided it best not to tell anyone. If word got out that they'd been seeing a dead man at their dory oars, they might be locked away as luna-tics.

“Better not to stir that pot,” they decided. “Let her lay and settle.”

For a few weeks all was calm with the new crew. They kept their watches, and ran dry-run practices on the shore. Yet things are never quiet on Sable Island for very long. After those few weeks had passed, there came a storm and another ship was in trouble.

The new crew rowed their dory on out across the waves, and as they came to that wild stretch of water, up came the phantom oarsman. He swam straight up to the dory. The men didn't know what to make of him. He looked up into that boat, and saw some-body strange sitting right where he'd always sat.

I cannot tell you if he felt sad or relieved. He just tipped his hat like he was saying goodbye and sank like a stone.

They say he's still out there, to this very day. When the weather is rough and the waters run wild around Sable Island, you might see him swimming through the waves, looking for someone to save, or perhaps someone to save him.

19
THE SALT MAN
OF ISAAC'S
HARBOUR
ISAAC'S HARBOUR