The Seiners Part 16

And he was a fisherman. All that summer he drove things with but little time for us ash.o.r.e. Twice he put into Gloucester with a day to ourselves and another time we had a chance to run down after we had put into Boston for market, and that we suspected was because the skipper found he could not keep away himself any longer. Things, we judged, were going pretty well with him in Gloucester. He did not pretend any longer now that he was not interested in Miss Foster, and from my cousin Nell I got occasional hints, most of which I confided to Clancy, who explained them as if they were so many parables.

"It'll be all right," said Clancy, "if only Minnie Arkell stands clear. I'm glad she's away for the summer, but she'll turn up in the fall. You'll see her just before the race large as life, and some of her swell-dressed friends, and a yacht, I'll bet."

Considering how deeply the skipper was interested in Miss Foster, some of us thought he ought to be putting in a little time ash.o.r.e between trips. After a run into the Boston fresh fish market, say, we would have liked mighty well to take in the theatre, or a trip to the beach, or some other little entertainment of a night. But no, it was in and out--drive, drive, drive.

He was all ambition, the skipper. He was going to be up front or break something. Miss Foster was one of the ambitious kind, too. If she was going to have a fisherman, he would have to be a killer or she would know why. And so I suppose that had a lot to do with the way the skipper drove things.

We had our loafing spells, as I say, but mostly it was plenty of work.

That time when we stayed awake for five days and nights was not the only one. Another time our legs swelled up and the blood came out of the ends of our fingers with standing up to the keelers and dressing fish without rest. But, Lord, n.o.body minded that. After we'd got rested up we felt better than ever.

We had good luck generally. We lost neither men nor gear to amount to anything that summer. That seine we lost trying for our first school to the s'uth'ard in the spring was the only bit of misfortune that came, and we had long ago made up for that. But others were not so lucky. There was the loss of the Ruth Ripley, Pitt Ripley's vessel. I think I have said that she was a fast vessel. She was fast--fast, but of the cranky type. We were jogging along a little to windward of her one fine afternoon--it had been a fine September day and now it was coming on to evening. To the westward of Cape Sable, in the Bay of Fundy, it was, and no hint of a blow up to within a few minutes of the time when the squall struck the Ruth. I suppose it would have been more prudent on Pitt's part if he had had less sail on, but like most of the skippers in the fleet I guess he was not looking for any record for prudence. Any minute he might have to be up and driving her, and keeping sail on was the quickest way to have it when you needed it in a hurry. The squall hit her--it hit us, too, but we saw it coming and met it and beyond washing a few keelers overboard, when she rolled down, no harm was done to the Johnnie. On the Ripley, I suppose, they saw it too, but the Ripley and the Duncan were not the same cla.s.s of vessel by any means. She went over--hove down, with her foremast under water to the cross-trees almost.

Most of her crew were below at the time, some in their bunks. Four or five of those below never reached the deck at all--the water rushing down the companionways cut them off. Some rushed aft where the stern was high out of water and some piled into the rigging. Some were calling out and giving advice to others. We could hear them plainly.

Two jumped to the wheel and threw it up, but she would not right.

We had the Johnnie to keep right side up, but we saw the whole thing.

It could not have been more than two or three minutes from the time the squall struck her when she was going down head-first. Those of her crew who had gone to the stern were going with her, but those who had taken to the rigging, by leaping wide came clear. Their seine-boat, which had been towing astern, might have been of use to them, but being fast to the vessel by the painter it was pretty well filled with water before anybody had a chance to cut the painter. The man that cut it went down with the vessel. He was all right, whoever he was.

Those in the water were looking about for the dory, and found that half full of water, too. They were trying to bail the water out of the dory, after hauling it across the bow of the submerged seine-boat, when we got them in our seine-boat and picked up what was left of them.

Nine of them were lost, her skipper among them. One of the men saved--the cook--said that when the squall struck the vessel, Captain Ripley had been seen to jump for the boom tackle, which he unhitched, and then to spring for the lashings of the dory, which he cut with his knife. The cook also said that he thought the skipper lost his life because of the half-stunning blow that he must have received from the fore-boom while he was on the rail trying to free the dory. The vessel was sinking all the time and it being dark--or near it in the squall--I suppose Captain Ripley could not watch everything. No doubt, it was the fore-boom hit him and knocked him overboard. Certainly he was knocked overboard, and the last seen of him he was swimming and pushing an empty barrel before him to one of the crew. "Keep your nerve up," he called to the cook, and after that he suddenly disappeared. He got a man's death, anyway.

We rowed back to the Duncan with the survivors. Nine men gone--it was a hard story to take home with us, but we had it to do. It was all a part of fishing life, and so we put back for Gloucester.

XXII

ON THE CAPE Sh.o.r.e

While we were into Gloucester, after taking home the crew of the Ruth Ripley, our vessel was put on the ways. That was after a talk between the skipper and Mr. Duncan. There is always something that needs attending to on a fisherman, and this time it was our water-tanks. And while they were being looked after, the Johnnie was overhauled, her bottom scrubbed and topsides painted. Old Mr. Duncan, we found, was beginning to take a lot of pride in our vessel and balked at no expense to have her in trim. And now that the Ripley was lost, he would have only two vessels to represent him in the big fishermen's race, which was then only four weeks away.

"Hurry up home now," he said to Maurice as we left the dock that time.

"Hurry up, and give yourself plenty of time to tune her up and get her in trim for the race. I've set my heart on it. You or the Lucy Foster must win that race, and whatever else we do we've got to beat Withrow's vessel, anyway."

And Miss Foster said that one of her guardian's vessels would have to win the race, and my cousin Nell said that the Johnnie Duncan would have to win. There was a lot depending on it, she said. It meant a lot to Will Somers, I suppose Nell meant.

We figured that we had time to make a Cape sh.o.r.e trip, and, with fair luck, to fill the Johnnie with salt mackerel and be back in time to get her in good condition for the race, which this year, because it was anniversary year in Gloucester, promised to be the greatest ever sailed.

Our plans were somewhat interfered with by a rescue we made. We found a Glasgow bark, New York bound, in the Bay of Fundy, and her crew in hard straits. We stood down and after a lot of trouble took them off--Clancy and Long Steve in the dory. Billie Hurd came near being the second man in the dory, but Clancy, grabbing him as he had one foot over the rail, hauled him back with, "Way for your elders, little man," and jumped in beside Long Steve.

"Elders, but not betters," said Hurd.

"Have it your own way," answered Clancy, "but I go in the dory."

The rescue was really a fine thing, but the important thing was that some of the rescued men had been exposed to the battering of the sea so long that they needed medical attention, and so we drove for home--and cracked our foremast-head doing it. That delayed us almost a week, for the skipper had to have that spar just so. A lot might depend on it, same as the rest of the gear. And it was a spar--as fine a bit of timber, Oregon pine of course, as was ever set up in a fisherman. And maybe that too was just as well, with the race coming on.

By the time we were down the Cape sh.o.r.e--down Canso way--and among the fleet again, we had lost a week. Our hold was still to fill up, and only two weeks and a day to the race. Wesley Marrs, Tom O'Donnell, Sam Hollis, and the rest were then talking of going home and making ready for the race. Bottoms would have to be scrubbed, extra gear put ash.o.r.e--a whole lot of things done--and a few try-outs in the Bay by way of tuning up.

The race was the talk of all the fleet. Half the crews on the Cape sh.o.r.e wanted to be in Gloucester when the race came off, and some of the skippers of the slower vessels, which would not enter because they had no show to win, were already scheming to be home just before the race so that they could be on hand to follow it.

The morning after we were back among the fleet we got a small school right from under the eyes of the Lynx, one of the English cutters which were patrolling the coast to see that we didn't get any fish within the three-mile limit. I remember that while we were satisfied at the time that we were outside the line, we did not know what the revenue-cutter might say, and particularly the Lynx, whose captain had a hard name among our fleet for his readiness to suspect law-breaking when there wasn't any. The cutter people generally seemed to want to be fair toward us, but this Lynx's captain was certainly a vindictive cuss. Anything hailing from Gloucester was an abomination in his eyes.

And so this morning, when, after we had decided that we were outside the limit, and made ready to set, it was hard to have to take the order of the Lynx and sheer off. Our judgment of distance ought to have been as good as his--better, really, we thought it, because we were always judging distances at sea, and more at home upon the sea, too. But that made no difference--what the cutter people said had to be law for us.

So this time he ordered us not to set where we were or he'd seize our vessel. Several Gloucester vessels had been confiscated just before this and the owners had to pay the fine to recover them. One owner disputed the judgment and his case was then waiting settlement.

Another who refused to pay saw his vessel turned into a lightship and placed down Miramichi way in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where it is yet. This day the commander of the Lynx might have some reason to think that his order ended that for us--and we could almost see him chuckling--but it didn't. A fog was creeping up at the time and in ten minutes it was on us, and under cover of the fog we got a little school--the same school we thought and on the exact spot where the cutter was lying when she ordered us off. Didn't we cackle though when we bailed it in? Oh, no! It was not much of a school--only twenty barrels--but it made us all feel fine. Not alone did we feel that we had got the better of the English cutter, but also that luck was coming to us again. We justified ourselves by saying that we honestly believed we were outside the three-mile limit, and that our judgment was as good as theirs.

That night the forec's'le of the Johnnie Duncan presented one of the most beatific scenes I ever saw. Everybody was in the temper of an angel. There was nothing doing--no whist at the table, no reading out of upper bunks, no love song from the peak, and no fierce argument on the lockers. We were discussing the cutters and the talk was very soothing. The cook, as usual, was finishing up a batch of dough. You might have thought he was the only man who had been working in a week, were it not for the wet oil-clothes hanging up to dry, and the overhauling of second suits of oil-clothes by some of the gang. Every man, except the cook, who never smoked while at work, was puffing away as if he mis...o...b..ed he would ever get another chance for a pipeful in his life. "Harmony most ex-quis-ite," said somebody, and that's what must have been that hung over the forec's'le, and it seemed to be merely in keeping with the heavenly order of things that the atmosphere showed pale blue wherever the rays of the lamp could get a chance to strike through.

When Clancy dropped down for his usual mug-up before going to the mast-head for the night of course, he wasn't going to let that get by without having a word to say about it. He leaned against the foremast and took a look around. "My soul, but it's as if the blessed angels were fanning their wings over this forehold. There's Brian Boru and Lord Salisbury there double-banked on the same locker, and nothing doing on any Irish question. There's the lad that sleeps in the peak and not a single hallelujah of praise for his darling Lucille. The other one--the wild man that sings the Bobbie Burns songs--not a shriek out of him. And Bill and John no longer spoiling their eyesight on bad print. I expect it's that little school of fish--the first in two weeks or more. The prospect must be making you all pleased. Well, it ought. A few hundred barrels of that kind of mackerel--as fine fish as ever I see bailed over the rail. And some of you ready reck'ners ought to easily figure up what'll be coming to us if we ever fill her up--say five hundred barrels. A good thing--a few hundred barrels of mackerel. A few too many of 'em for good trim, but it's comforting to know they're there. She seemed to be in pretty nice trim when we tried out one or two of the fleet this morning, didn't she?

And to-night, if it breezes up--and it looks now as if it will--we'll get some more--if it's a night like last night. One time there last night--did you notice her, cook?--that time that crazy lad started to cross our bow and we luffed her. Why, man, she shot over like I don't know what--just shot like one of those torpedo boats we see around when the Navy goes evoluting. I was near shook overboard from aloft.

They tell me they're going crazy over the race in Gloucester. Well, here's one that'll bet his summer's earnings----"

"What's left of it, you mean, Tommie," said George Moore from his pan of dough.

"Well, yes, what's left of it--and what I c'n borrow. Old man Duncan'll stake me, and there's others. I hope, though, it blows a jeesly gale. For this one, G.o.d bless her, she c'n sail, and some of them'll find it out--when it's too late, maybe. Sam Hollis for one.

There's a man I'd give my eye almost, to beat. And maybe the skipper hasn't got it in for him! He doesn't say much, Maurice don't, but a while ago, after coming down from aloft, Billie Simms hails him and tells him that the cutter people know all about that little school to-day--and who told him, who told him? Well, the skipper'll drive this one to the bottom before he ever lets Sam Hollis or any of Withrow's vessels get by him when we race. Yes, sir.

But, Georgie-boy"--Clancy shouldered away from the foremast--"how is it for a wedge or two of one of those blueberry pies you got cooling there? Just a little wedge, now. But you don't need to be too close-hauled with your knife--no. Sailing by the wind is all right when you're jogging in and out among the fleet, and nothing partic'lar doing except an eye out for mackerel, but you want to give her a full always--always, Georgie--when you're cutting pie.

There's the lad--straight across the beam. And now at right angles again. And now lay one atop of the other, and you have it--an invention of my own--a blueberry sandwich. M-m--but look at the juice squish through her scuppers!" He held it up for all of us to have a look. "Now another little wash of coffee in the wake of that and I'll be all right for a fine little watch aloft."

He jammed his sou'wester hard down, and heroically waved away the remainder of the pie. "No, no. First thing I know I'll be having dyspepsia. I never had it yet, but I might," and then heaved himself up the companionway, humming, as he went, one of his old favorites:

"Oh, the 'Liza Jane and the Maria Louise Sailed a race one day for a peck of peas.

You'd hardly believe the way them two Carried sail that day--they fairly flew.

People ash.o.r.e they said, 'Gee whiz!

The 'Liza Jane the fastest is.'"

We could hear him scrambling, still humming, over the barrels on deck.

He halted long enough by the rail to say, "How is it, boys?" to the watch on deck, and then swung himself up the rigging. Once aloft he had his work cut out, with hours of strain on brain and nerve. But Clancy never minded--he never minded anything so far as we could make out.

XXIII

DRESSING DOWN

That night was the worst I ever put in towing astern of a vessel.

"Owling" is the seiners' word for that kind of work. It was "owling"

sure enough, with the seine-boat on a short painter and the dory on a shorter painter still and astern of the seine-boat again. We came near to being lost in the dory. Mel Adams, who was in the dory with me, thinking she was surely going to capsize one time she rode up over the stern of the seine-boat, took a flying leap into the seine-boat. He had a hard time getting back, for there was quite a little sea on.

Even in the seine-boat they were all glad enough to hear Clancy give the word to cast off and pull after the school.

It was a big school, and hard work in that sea, but we had them safe at last. The vessel then came alongside and the bailing in began.

Having had a good long lay-off we bailed them in with plenty of good-will. It was "He-yew!" "Oy-hoo!" "Hi-o!" and "Drive her!" all along the line until we had on deck what the skipper thought was a hundred barrels. Then the bag was put around the seine to protect the rest of the mackerel from dogfish and sharks, and we were ready to dress.