Free Chain Locker by Bob Chaulk

themselves of stowaways. Even after they left St. John’s, they still had to sail along the eastern shore of the island, and as they headed north they would pass numerous communities where the ship could put in to shed the unwelcome addition to her company.
    He glanced astern towards the cabin: not a good choice. He wasn’t important enough to be in there so somebody was bound to ask him his business. Up towards the bow was the forecastle, where the crew was quartered. Not there either. It would be obvious that he was not a member of the crew. Farther towards the bow was an area where there seemed to be nobody. He walked forward towards a big set of gear wheels and spools—the windlass, he assumed, used to raise and lower the anchors. His eye followed the chains that emerged from the two hawsepipes where the anchors were suspended above the water, then along the deck and past the windlass until each chain dropped into a hole and disappeared down into the ship’s hull. He casually walked over and glanced down into one of them but could see only darkness.
    Near one hole was a small hatch. Not daring to look around, he calmly raised it. There was a ladder inside. He stepped on the first rung and descended to his armpits, then grasped the cover and pulled it down.

chapter ten
    Inside it was still and dank like their cellar at home, but much colder. He could not see the bottom of the ladder in the dingy light. Gingerly, he felt his way down, and as his eyes adjusted he could discern great piles of something below. Two cone-shaped beams of faint light descended from the holes in the deck above, and a chain hung silently down the middle of each cone. Man, I bet your tongue would stick to that, he thought, looking at the layer of hoar frost on each chain. He got to the bottom and found himself surrounded by mountains of hairy, smelly rope as big around as his leg.
    This must be the chain locker, he thought as he pushed against one of the unyielding chains. Those must be connected to the anchors. This is perfect. They’ll never look for me down here. Glancing around for a place to sit, he realized that if the anchors went out, those giant ropes screaming their way up through the ceiling would give him a horrible thrashing. He made a mental note to stay clear of them. Perhaps this wasn’t such a great spot after all, he mused. Maybe I could jump on the ladder—or maybe I should just get the hell out of here altogether.
    But, he reconsidered, I guess there’s no reason for the anchors to go out while the ship is tied at the dock, and we should soon be on the move.
    He decided to stay where he was. He could hear next to nothing, so he settled away and waited for the ship to depart, getting colder as each hour of inactivity dragged by.
    The muffled sounds of the speeches had ceased long ago, and the Archbishop had probably pronounced his blessing and gone home. He was annoyed at himself for feeling lonely—and while they were still tied at the wharf! The long hours would be easier to bear if Hubert were here. What had become of him? he wondered. But feelings of loneliness were soon interrupted by yelling from above; it sounded like the lines were being cast off from the dock. All went quiet for a while and suddenly the ship started to shudder. At first he was not sure if this was good or bad but finally… movement! There was scraping and crunching from below and the occasional thump against the hull. Must be the ice, he thought, as the ungainly ship laboured to get out into the stream and join the lineup of ships headed out the harbour.
    He could sense the feeling of excitement that he had often heard Nimshi Crowe talk about in his father’s store: “As soon as the first pound of steam gets shot into the engine there’s only one thing on everybody’s mind, from the skipper right down to the galley-bitch: get ahead of everybody else. I don’t know how many times ships have runned