The Seiners Part 17

Barrels were tossed out of the hold, keelers set up, sharp-edged knives drawn from diddy-boxes below, and a chance had to see a smart crew dressing a haul of mackerel that were to be salted. It was too long a run, four hundred miles or so, to take a chance of getting them fresh to market. It needed a fair and fresh breeze to be sure of it, and besides with the market for salt mackerel getting stronger all the time it was good judgment to salt down and fill her up before going home.

We had been through the same thing before, even with as good a deckload, but now we were getting near the end of the season. This trip, then the race, and maybe one more trip after the race, and we would be done seining. And so we drove things.

Four gangs of four men each took corners in the waist. Each gang had two keelers--yard square boxes, eight inches or so in depth, and set up on two or three barrels. Into the keelers the mackerel on deck were bailed and around them the men gathered, with long-handled torches set up all about.

All hands came into the dressing--skipper and cook too--and the work went on. It was one gang against the other, each jealously counting barrels when they were filled, that full credit might be given for speed. Sixteen men were accounted for in this way. The seventeenth and eighteenth were to keep the keelers filled, draw water for pickle from over the side, roll the filled barrels out of the way--in short, to help out generally.

It was fine to watch the splitters. One left-handed grab and the mackerel was in place; flat and smooth, one right-handed slit and he was laid open the length of his back. Forty-five mackerel a minute either the skipper, Clancy or Moore could split--that is, pick them up, place in position, split from nose to tail along the back, and slide out of the way again. Sixty a minute they could do in spurts, if somebody would place the mackerel in rows for them.

The busiest man of all was the skipper. He had to keep an eye out for the course of the Johnnie. Vessels that are dressing fish, vessels on which the entire crew are soaked in blood, gills, intestines, and swashing brine, might be allowed privileges, one might think; but no, they must keep a lookout just the same. On this dark night, the Johnnie Duncan, though making a great effort--considering that she had jibs down and wheel in the becket--to stay as she was put, yet would fall away or come-to, especially when the wind shifted two or three points at a jump. And just as soon as she did the skipper would notice it instantly, jump aft and set her right. Generally, to shift the wheel a few spokes would be enough, but now and then he would have to give the wheel a good round whirl. At such a time he would sing out a warning, the torches would be lowered, we would duck our heads, the boom would go swinging by in the smoky yellow glare, and the Johnnie Duncan would be off on another tack. We would brace our legs to a new angle, the skipper would hop back to his knife, and again the dressing would go humming along.

When we had the first hundred barrels of mackerel swashing in brine, the rest of them, perhaps another hundred barrels, were bailed in. And all night long like that we stood to it driving. Under the yellow and smoky light of the torches I could see nothing but mackerel or the insides of mackerel in the air. Keelers, deck, rail, our hands, faces, boots and oilskins were sticky with the blood and gurry. At top speed we raced like that through the night. Once in a while a man would drop his knife or snap off his gibbing mitt, rinse his hand in the brine barrel by his side, slap his hand across the hoops, and condemn the luck of a split finger or a thumb with a fish-bone in it. Another might pull up for a moment, glance up at the stars or down at the white froth under the rail, draw his hand across his forehead, mutter, "My soul, but I'm dry," take a full dipper from the water-pail, drink it dry, pa.s.s dipper and pail along to the next and back to his work.

When the cook called out for breakfast we were still at it, with the deck of the vessel covered with barrels of pickling mackerel. It was beginning to get light then. "Oh, the blessed day's coming on. Smother the torches, boys," said the skipper, and led the way below for the first table to have a bite.

Before the sun came up we were beginning to make out the rest of the fleet. One after another they were coming into view, their long hulls and high spars reaching across the wind. Between the gray sky and the slaty sea their white sails looked whiter than chalk.

We had to name the different vessels then. "There's Tom O'Donnell--and Wesley Marrs--and Sam Hollis--and--" sung out Andie Howe.

"Sam Hollis--where's Sam Hollis?" broke in Mel Adams.

"Away to the east'ard, ain't it, Andie?--the fellow with jibs down?"

spoke up Billie Hurd, who was a bit proud that he too could pick her out at such a distance.

"So it is, ain't it?" said Mel, and he began to tell our troubles in the dory. "'Twas him near ran over us last night--remember, Joe?

Leastways, it looked like Hollis's new one's quarter goin' by. He was pointin' 'bout no'the-east then, but he couldn't 've held on that tack long or he'd be somewhere up by Miquelon and not here this mornin'--the gait he was goin'. Man, but there was smoke coming out of his scuppers when he went by. 'Why don't y' come aboard whilst you're about it--come aboard and be sociable,' I hollers. 'Oh, don't cry, y' ain't hurted,' says whoever's to the wheel of her. Least it sounded like that, 'Y' ain't hurted,' he says."

"Must have been pretty close, Mel?" said Clancy, never stopping, but keeping a string of split mackerel rolling into his keeler. Mel and I were gibbing for Clancy.

"Close? I could've touched his chain-plates like that," and Mel, getting excited, reached his mittened hand across the keeler and touched Clancy on the arm. Clancy's knife took a jump and cut a finger. For a few seconds Clancy laid down the law of a splitting knife to Mel, but Mel didn't mind.

"That's just about the way I swore at the man to the wheel of the Withrow. Didn't I, Joe? Yes, sir, I cert'nly swore at him good, but it no more jarred him than--but when their seine-boat came by, half of 'em smokin', some half-breed among 'em has to sing out, 'Y'ought to hang up a riding light if your vessel's hove-to,' he says. What do you think of that, Tommie--'if your vessel's hove-to!'--and if the Johnnie was going one she was going ten knots an hour."

"That's right, Mel--I heard you to the mast-head," said Clancy. Clancy heard it about as much as old Mr. Duncan back in Gloucester did, but he was always ready to help a man out.

"Did you? Well, I hove-to him. I hove the bailer at him, that's what I did, and he ducked. But he ducked too late, I callate, for 'Bam!' it caught him--or somebody in the seine-boat with him. He swore some, or somebody swore, you c'n bet. 'I don't know who y'are,' he hollers, 'but if ever I meet you ash.o.r.e,' and he was so far away then I couldn't ketch no more of it. 'Don't know who y'are, but if I ketch you ash.o.r.e'--Lord----"

"So, if a lad with a b.u.mp on the side of his head waltzes up to you on Main Street and whangs you, Mel, next time you're ash.o.r.e in Gloucester, what'll you do?" asked Clancy.

"I'll say, 'Where's that bailer, you loafer?' but first I'll whang him back. I had to finish the bailing out with my sou'wester. I sings out to Andie Howe in the boat here to hand me one of the bailers in the boat. 'I'm usin' my hat,' I hollers, 'and Joe's using his sou'wester,'

thinkin' that would fetch him all right. 'Well, we're usin' ten sou'westers here,' says Andie, 'and one or two of 'em leaks,' and that was all the satisfaction I got."

"Yes," said Eddie Parsons, "the seine-boat was sure wallerin' then.

The skipper had only just told Jimmie Gunn to quit his growling.

'You'll be wanting hot-water bags to your feet next, I suppose,' says the skipper."

"I was thinking of the boat--afraid she'd be so logy with the water in her that we couldn't drive her when the time came," bristled up Jimmie Gunn to that.

"Y-yah!" snorted Eddie, "if you weren't scared, then I never saw a man scared. Logy? I notice we made her hop along all right after we cast off from the vessel. Man, but she fair hurdled some of them seas--some of the little ones, I mean. Didn't she, Steve? We thought we'd lost Joe and you, Mel, in the dory, didn't we, fellows?"

"You did, hey? Well, you didn't, nor nowheres near it," broke in Mel.

"We were right there with the goods when they hove the seine, warn't we, Joey?"

And so it went on through all that day, while the men worked, dressing, salting, and putting all in pickle. It was a drive all through without any quitting by anybody, except when it was time to relieve lookouts at the mast-head. In the middle of it all, had the call of "School-O!" been heard from aloft, we would have been only too glad to drop everything, jump into the boat and dory, get after the mackerel, and do the same thing over--split, gibb and pack away--for all of the next night, and the night after that--for a week if necessary.

Not until well into the afternoon, when the last mackerel was flattened out in its barrel, did any of us feel that we could step back in our own time, straighten ourselves out, and take a look over our work. Then we counted the oozing barrels with great satisfaction, you may be sure, even while we were ma.s.saging our swollen wrists with our aching fingers. It was a good bit of work that, well and quickly done, and it was fine to get a rest after it, although it might be only for a little while. Even though we had to do it all over again--to stay half-drowned and chilled through in the seine-boat or dory for half the night and then dress down for eighteen or twenty hours on top of it--what did a little hard work matter? "Think of the hundred-dollar bill, maybe, to be carried home and laid in the wife's lap," said Long Steve.

"Or the roaring night ash.o.r.e when a fellow's not a family man--m-m--!"

said Eddie Parsons. Eddie was not a family man.

XXIV

THE WITHROW OUTSAILS THE DUNCAN

We certainly were feeling pretty good along about that time, and we felt better when next day, cruising in and out among the fleet, other crews began to take notice of our catch. By that time the word had gone around. One after another they came sailing up--as if to size us up was the last thing that could enter their heads--rounding to, and then a hail. Something like this it went:

"Hulloh, Maurice."

"Hulloh, Wesley," or George Drake, or Al McNeill, or whoever it might be.

"That's a mighty pretty deckload of fish. When'd y'get 'em?"

"Oh, twenty barrels yesterday morning and the rest last night."

"That so? How many d'y'call 'em, Maurice?"

"How many? Oh, two hundred and eighty or ninety wash barrels. Ought to head up about two sixty."

"That so? Fine, Maurice, fine. As handsome a deckload as I've seen this year."

And he would bear off, and another vessel would come and go through the same ceremony. It was very satisfying to us and the skipper must have felt proud. Not that a lot bigger hauls had not been made by other men before--indeed, yes, and by the very men perhaps who were complimenting him. But three hundred barrels, or near it, in pickle at one time does look fine on a vessel's deck, and they looked especially fine at this time because there was not another vessel in the fleet that had half as many, so far as we knew.

Not another but Sam Hollis--or so he claimed. He came ranging up that same day and began asking how the Duncan was sailing lately, and followed that up by saying he himself had two hundred odd barrels in the hold. He showed about sixty wash barrels on deck. We did not believe he had twenty below. She looked cork light. "If she sets as high out of water with two hundred and forty barrels, then you ought to put two hundred and forty more in her and she'd fly," called out Clancy to Hollis, and that was pretty much what we all thought.

And 'twas Sam Hollis made trouble for the Duncan that day. He bore off then but came back in the afternoon. More talk there was, and it wound up by our racing with him. We did not start out to race, but gradually, as we found ourselves jogging along side by side, jibs were drawn away and sheets began to be trimmed. The first thing we knew we found ourselves swaying up sails, and then before we really woke up to it we were both off and away before a little breeze.

Hollis had all the best of it. He was bound to, with the Duncan carrying most of her mackerel aft and away down by the stern. Even had we had time to--we did shift some of it forward--we were too deep for any kind of racing in that moderate breeze. We said that to ourselves, anyway, and yet we held on. But it was no use--it wound up by Hollis giving us a scandalous beating. And after running away from us he kept straight on to the westward, and by that we knew that he was bound for Gloucester to get ready for the big race.

The skipper felt it. He was one that took things to heart.

"I've been bragging about this one--what she could do. I told the old man only the last time we were in that he could go broke that I'd beat Sam Hollis, and here the first time we come together he makes her look like a wood-carrier. The best thing I can do, I guess, is to keep out of the race; maybe it will save the old man some money. I expected he'd beat us, the trim we were in--but to beat us the way he did!"

Nothing the crew could say seemed to make him think otherwise, and that night it was not nearly so joyful below in the Johnnie Duncan.

The talk was that she would not go home for the race. Only Clancy seemed to be as cheerful as ever. "Don't any of you get to worrying,"

he said. "I know the skipper--the Johnnie Duncan'll be there when the time comes."