nearest house. Marie asked to use the phone and called her grandpapa to come and pick us up. In less than an hour, Hollie and I were in the back of an old pickup truck, riding along the road high above the river. Marie and her grandpapa were sitting in the front, talking in French a mile a minute.
Chapter 10
OLD FARMERS AND fishermen have something in common: enormous hands. Like my grandfather, Marie’s grandpapa had hands that could crush a coconut. It was as if the strength of their backs and legs went into their hands when they got older. When he shook hands with me it felt like my hand had been caught in a wooden trap. I couldn’t move it until he let it go; and he didn’t let it go until he had shaken it up and down about ten times. I didn’t believe in all my lifetime I would ever have strength like that.
Marie was right; he loved to talk about the war. And he spoke English too. But he didn’t hear very well, so we had to shout. Marie and I sat on the floor with a plate of crepes and cups of hot chocolate, like two kids listening to a bed-time story. The crepes were just skinny pancakes filled with fresh strawberries, cream and maple syrup, and they were absolutely delicious. Hollie sat on Marie’s lap, sniffed at her crepes and waited for her to pat him, which she did a lot.
Her grandpapa was gentle, but his eyes were wild. Marie said that one of them was made of glass. I didn’t want to stare, but one of the eyes kept staring at me. The other one was smaller and wandered around a lot. I couldn’t tell which one was the real one.
He hadn’t served in the war, he said, because of an accident when he was a boy. That’s when he lost his eye. He never told us what the accident was. He said that he and his friends played on the river a lot and that the river was a dangerous place to play. I believed him. As a young man, he floated logs downriver to the sawmill and sometimes rowed his girlfriend out at night to see the lights of the peninsula from the water. It was on one of those nights, in the summer of 1942, that he saw a German U-boat surface in the river.
“She broke the surface like a demon from the deep,” he said, with his big eye fixed on me and the smaller one wandering around the room. You could tell that he enjoyed telling the story. “She climbed out of that dark water and pulled herself up on top of the surface and snorted like a beast. She snorted just like a bull! And there she was, not more than a hundred and fifty feet away from us.”
“How big was she?”
“Hey?”
“How big was the submarine?”
“Long! Long as a giant eel! Two hundred and fifty feet long! They caught her off the coast of Nova Scotia the next year and sank her. But she sent a dozen ships to the grave first, including the ferry between Port aux Basques and North Sydney. Killed a hundred and thirty-six people that night, before they rammed her.”
“They rammed her?”
“Hey?”
“They
rammed
her?”
“Oh, yah! Ran over her like a snake on the road, sent her to the bottom. HMS
Viscount
.”
Wow. I tried to picture a ship ramming a submarine. It was like sea monsters fighting. “And the night you saw the submarine?”
“Hey?”
“Tell us about the night you saw the submarine, Grandpapa.”
“Oh, yah! She sank the
Carolus
that very night. A big Finnish freighter. Canadian government seized her for the war then the Germans sank her a few days later. Right off Metis Beach.”
He jumped to his feet, went to the bookshelf and pulled down a heavy book. As he dropped it onto the table, the book opened by itself to a page where it was creased. He stuck it with his finger. Then, he pointed out the window towards the river. “She’s out there!”
I leaned closer and saw an old black and white photo of a merchant steamer with a single smokestack in her centre. She was over three hundred feet long! Now, she lay on the river bottom. I wondered if we would see her on our way.
“Were you
Chapter 10
OLD FARMERS AND fishermen have something in common: enormous hands. Like my grandfather, Marie’s grandpapa had hands that could crush a coconut. It was as if the strength of their backs and legs went into their hands when they got older. When he shook hands with me it felt like my hand had been caught in a wooden trap. I couldn’t move it until he let it go; and he didn’t let it go until he had shaken it up and down about ten times. I didn’t believe in all my lifetime I would ever have strength like that.
Marie was right; he loved to talk about the war. And he spoke English too. But he didn’t hear very well, so we had to shout. Marie and I sat on the floor with a plate of crepes and cups of hot chocolate, like two kids listening to a bed-time story. The crepes were just skinny pancakes filled with fresh strawberries, cream and maple syrup, and they were absolutely delicious. Hollie sat on Marie’s lap, sniffed at her crepes and waited for her to pat him, which she did a lot.
Her grandpapa was gentle, but his eyes were wild. Marie said that one of them was made of glass. I didn’t want to stare, but one of the eyes kept staring at me. The other one was smaller and wandered around a lot. I couldn’t tell which one was the real one.
He hadn’t served in the war, he said, because of an accident when he was a boy. That’s when he lost his eye. He never told us what the accident was. He said that he and his friends played on the river a lot and that the river was a dangerous place to play. I believed him. As a young man, he floated logs downriver to the sawmill and sometimes rowed his girlfriend out at night to see the lights of the peninsula from the water. It was on one of those nights, in the summer of 1942, that he saw a German U-boat surface in the river.
“She broke the surface like a demon from the deep,” he said, with his big eye fixed on me and the smaller one wandering around the room. You could tell that he enjoyed telling the story. “She climbed out of that dark water and pulled herself up on top of the surface and snorted like a beast. She snorted just like a bull! And there she was, not more than a hundred and fifty feet away from us.”
“How big was she?”
“Hey?”
“How big was the submarine?”
“Long! Long as a giant eel! Two hundred and fifty feet long! They caught her off the coast of Nova Scotia the next year and sank her. But she sent a dozen ships to the grave first, including the ferry between Port aux Basques and North Sydney. Killed a hundred and thirty-six people that night, before they rammed her.”
“They rammed her?”
“Hey?”
“They
rammed
her?”
“Oh, yah! Ran over her like a snake on the road, sent her to the bottom. HMS
Viscount
.”
Wow. I tried to picture a ship ramming a submarine. It was like sea monsters fighting. “And the night you saw the submarine?”
“Hey?”
“Tell us about the night you saw the submarine, Grandpapa.”
“Oh, yah! She sank the
Carolus
that very night. A big Finnish freighter. Canadian government seized her for the war then the Germans sank her a few days later. Right off Metis Beach.”
He jumped to his feet, went to the bookshelf and pulled down a heavy book. As he dropped it onto the table, the book opened by itself to a page where it was creased. He stuck it with his finger. Then, he pointed out the window towards the river. “She’s out there!”
I leaned closer and saw an old black and white photo of a merchant steamer with a single smokestack in her centre. She was over three hundred feet long! Now, she lay on the river bottom. I wondered if we would see her on our way.
“Were you
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