Newfoundland Stories by Eldon Drodge Read Free Book Online Page B

he
eventually drifted into unconsciousness.
    Five hundred miles away, in her bed in St. John’s, Bridie Carroll worried about the storm buffeting her house. Her windows rattled so violently she feared they would break, and gusts of wind shook the dwelling so viciously she thought it must surely topple from its foundation. She couldn’t remember a storm of this intensity in many years. Yet, amidst all this, Pius was foremost on her mind.
    She couldn’t sleep. I’m just tormenting myself, she thought. This storm is just around here. It’s probably as calm as a summer’s day up there.
    Still, no matter how she tried to reassure herself, Bridie couldn’t
put herself at ease. She lay in her bed as the storm continued to punish
her house as she prayed over and over for Pius’ safety. Finally, around
three o’clock in the morning, the winds abated and the sounds of
the storm ceased. It was then, there in the darkness of her bedroom as
she was finally beginning to doze off, that a noise caught her attention:
footsteps on the stairs. She sat up in her bed. Someone was coming up,
and then opening and shutting a door the door to Pius’ room.
    She wasn’t afraid. She left her bed and went to her son’s room. She opened the door and entered. She knelt at his empty bedside and prayed more fervently than ever before. At seven o’clock in the morning, as the first light of day filtered through the room’s tiny curtained window, she finally arose. She returned to her own bed and slept as deeply and as untroubled as she had when she was a small child.
    Pius, now encased in his icy cocoon, was oblivious to the storm raging about him. He was unaware that men were perishing all around him, succumbing one by one to their dire circumstances. He was in his own bed at the top of the stairs, yet he was freezing, and he had no blankets to cover himself and make himself warm. He couldn’t move, and didn’t know what to do. Then he heard her coming, as he knew she would. She came to his bedside and covered him with a thick heated quilt, then she bent down and kissed him gently on his forehead. She left, and warmth was restored to Pius’ frozen body.
    Sometime later he was jolted by the prolonged blaring of a ship’s horn. Must be a steamer coming in through the St. John’s narrows, he thought. But why is she blowing like that? Must be some kind of trouble on board.
    Then he heard voices, muffled voices and words he couldn’t understand. They came closer, until he distinctly heard a familiar voice say, “That makes seven. Poor devils, they perished where they stood. They didn’t stand a chance. At least there’s five still alive. Let’s get them aboard first and then come back for the dead ones.”
    The voices receded. Then Pius felt something nudge his body and another voice calling out, “Here, what’s this?”
    He felt hands pulling his mother’s quilt off him. He reached up to tug it back, opened his eyes, and looked directly into the compassionate face of Captain Dickie. He sat up, then slowly rose to his feet, his ice-encrusted clothing frozen to his body. His rescuers were astonished. How could a youngster clad in only a canvas windbreaker survive when grown men dressed in much warmer clothing had been frozen to death? It defied all logic. They picked him up and carried him to the Raven.
    AUTHOR’S NOTE
    The seal fishery has historically been an important part of the economic structure of Newfoundland. The cost, however, has been extremely high in terms of the enormous loss of men and ships while out to the ice. While sealers were plying their trade on the vast ice-fields off Newfoundland’s north coast and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, there were always loved ones waiting at home for their safe return, fully aware of the extreme risks their men-folk were taking. “Pius Carroll Goes Swiling” is a fictional story about an