Phantom Ships. Susan Ouriou

      Phantom Ships

       The Author

      Claude Le Bouthillier has published seven novels and one book of poetry. His eighth novel and second collection of poetry are both slated for publication in fall 2004. He has won several major literary prizes, including the Pascal-Poirier Prize (2000) from the province of New Brunswick, an award of excellence bestowed for an author’s life’s work. For Phantom Ships, originally published in French as Le Feu du Mauvais Temps, he received the Champlain Prize (1989) and the France-Acadie Prize (1990).

      Born in New Brunswick, Claude Le Bouthillier studied psychology at the University of Moncton and the university Paris-X-Nanterre. He has worked in educational and university settings, in a clinic, and in his own practice. At present, his office is in Caraquet. For the past thirty years, he has devoted a great deal of his time and energy to writing and to promoting literary activities and reading. From 1989 to 1991, he chaired the Public Lending Rights Commission. Claude Le Bouthillier represents Acadian writers on the Board of Directors of the New Brunswick Arts Council and chairs the Acadian Poetry Festival held every fall.

       The Translator

      Susan Ouriou translates fiction from French and Spanish and writes fiction in English. She has been nominated twice for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation (2003, 1995). She is the founding editor of TransLit, a bi-annual anthology of literary translation, and still serves on its editing collective twelve years later. Her first novel, Damselfish, was published by XYZ in 2003 and was a finalist for the 2004 Alberta Book Awards Georges Bugnet Award for Novel and the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. Susan Ouriou lives in Calgary and works as a simultaneous interpreter.

       Phantom Ships

      a novel by

      Claude Le Bouthillier

      translated by Susan Ouriou

      Originally published as Le Feu du Mauvais Temps by Québec Amérique © 1989 by Claude Le Bouthillier and Québec Amérique English translation © 2004 by Susan Ouriou and XYZ Publishing

      All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

       National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Le Bouthillier, Claude

      [Feu du mauvais temps. English]

      Phantom ships: a novel

      Translation of: Le feu du mauvais temps

      ISBN 1-894852-09-5

      I. Ouriou, Susan. II. Title. III. Title: Feu du mauvais temps. English.

      PS8573.E336F4813 2004 C843’.54 C2004-940464-4

      PS9573.E336F4813 2004

      Legal Deposit: Second quarter 2004

      National Library of Canada

      Bibliothèque nationale du Québec

      XYZ Publishing acknowledges the financial support our publishing program receives from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) of the Department of Canadian Heritage, the ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, and the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles.

      Editor: Rhonda Bailey

      Layout: Édiscript enr.

      Cover design: Zirval Design

      Cover painting: Joseph Turner, Typhoon Approaching, 1840 Map of ancient Acadie (p. vi): Victoria Tico Thibault

      Set in Caslon 12 on 14.

      Printed and bound in Canada by Transcontinental Imprimerie Gagné

      (Louiseville, Québec, Canada) in April 2004.

XYZ Publishing1781 Saint Hubert StreetMontreal, Quebec H2L 3Z1Tel: [phone]Fax: [phone]E-mail: [email protected] site: www.xyzedit.qc.ca

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       For my mother… and for my family, both close and extended, guardians of the seeds that sprouted through my imagination into this novel

       Chapter 1

      The land we have seen on the south side of this gulf is as fertile and as beautiful as anything we have ever seen, with its stunning countryside and prairies as flat as a lake. The land to the north is a highland with tall mountains covered in forests and many varieties of tall, thick trees. Among others, there are beautiful cedars and pine trees as far as the eye can see, tall enough to make masts for ships of over three hundred tons…

      … The heat in this region is more temperate than in Spain.

      –Jacques Cartier in the Baye des Chaleurs, 1534

      At the entrance to the Baye des Chaleurs¹ in the spring of the year of grace seventeen hundred and forty under the reign of Louis XV, Captain Hyacinthe, an old Breton seadog, his beard white, his face weathered by the salt of the sea, scanned the horizon, a pipe clenched in his teeth. The trip from Quebec² had been made without incident, and favourable winds had pushed L’Ensorceleuse down the St. Lawrence River³ and past Gaspeg⁴. Some ten Atlantic crossings had made of Hyacinthe an experienced seaman, and his men – thirty-sixers for the most part (since they had signed up for thirty-six months) – respected him as much for his strict discipline as for his sense of justice.

      Joseph was leaning on the ship s rail, lost in thought. Tall and fair with pearl-grey eyes, a slender nose, a bushy brown beard with auburn-coloured streaks, and long brown hair held back off his face, he had an aura of nobility about him, of grandeur and generosity. His wiry muscles hinted at great strength; he walked with a wave s fluid grace, and his fine, knotted hands held both a workers strength and a violinist’s sensitivity. His origins, however, were a mystery. His adoptive parents were already in their forties when he arrived as a present from France. Their love for him was all the greater because they themselves were unable to have children. Joseph grew up on Rue Sault-au-Matelot, in the heart of Place Royale, where Champlain founded Quebec. He spent his childhood just down the street from the royal battery, right next to the warehouses and docks, the place of transit for merchandise between the two continents. His father Pierre initiated him at an early age into the secrets of the smithy: the iron, the fire, the sparks. The mysterious, unpredictable dance of the flame keeping time to the blows of the hammer on the anvil instilled an adventurers spirit in him.

      As an adolescent, Joseph worked in the smithy and helped his father on Quebec’s fortifications; each spring, the powder magazine and walls damaged from the winter freeze needed repair. While working on those same damp ramparts, his father was felled by influenza. Joseph was barely out of adolescence. His sorrow lessened over time, and he remembered his father as