The Seiners Part 21

x.x.xI

THE START OF THE RACE

We got away at last and beat out the harbor with the Lucy Foster, the Colleen Bawn, the Withrow, the Nannie O, and four others. For other company going out there was a big steam-yacht with Minnie Arkell and her friends aboard, which did not get out of the harbor. Out by the Point they shipped a sea and put back, with Minnie Arkell waving her handkerchief and singing out--"Don't take in any sail, Maurice," as they turned back. There was also the Eastern Point, a high-sided stubby steamer, at that time running regularly to Boston; and there was the New Roch.e.l.le, a weak-looking excursioner that might have done for Long Island Sound, where somebody said she'd just come from, but which didn't seem to fit in here. Her pa.s.sengers were mostly fishermen--crews of vessels not in the race. There was also a big powerful iron sea-tug, the Tocsin, that promised to make better weather of it than any of the others.

Billie Simms was one of the men who were not going in the race but intended to see some of it. He was in the Henry Clay Parker, a fine-looking vessel that was not so very fast, but had the reputation of being wonderfully stiff. Coming out past Eastern Point lighthouse, where he could begin to get a look at things, Billie hollered out that he was sorry he hadn't entered. "Looks to me like the vessel that'll stay right side up the longest ought to win this race, and that's the Henry C." He hauled her across our stern while he was yelling and I remember she took one roll down to her sheer poles when pa.s.sing on, and Maurice sang out, "Look out, Billie, or you'll capsize her."

"Capsize this one? Lord, Maurice, I've tried it a dozen times and I'm d.a.m.ned if I could," and he went rolling on like nothing I ever saw, unless it was the rest of us who were then manoeuvring for the start.

We pa.s.sed the Parker again before we got to the line, and old Peter Hines, who was hanging to her main-rigging, had to yell us his good wishes. "Drive her, Maurice-boy, and whatever you do don't let the man that took your vessel from you beat you home," meaning Sam Hollis of course. Maurice waved his hand, but said nothing. He was looking serious enough, however.

Tommie Clancy was the boy who wasn't worrying particularly. He saluted Peter as if he were going out on a holiday excursion. "Ain't she a dog, Peter? Watch her."

"That's what she is--and drive her, Tommie--drive her."

"Oh, we'll drive her, Peter," called back Tommie, and began:

"Oh, I love old Ocean's smile, I love old Ocean's frowning-- I love old Ocean all the while, My prayer's for death by drowning."

"Let you alone, Tommie, and you'll get your prayer some day," was Peter's last hail as we straightened out for the swoop across the line.

Clancy was to the wheel then with the skipper. Both were lashed and we had life-lines around deck. To the wheel of every vessel in the fleet were two men lashed, and they all had life-lines around deck.

In crossing the line there was no attempt at jockeying such as one often sees in yacht racing. There was no disposition on the part of any skipper to do anything that would set anybody else back. Of course, everybody wanted to be in a good berth and to cross between the guns; but the idea was to give the vessels such a try out as they would get out to sea--as if they were making a pa.s.sage in a breeze.

The course--forty-two miles or so--was very short for a fisherman, for one great thing in a fisherman is her power to stand a long drag.

Day and night in and day and night out and driving all the time is the way a fisherman wants it. Any sort of racing machine could be built to stand a little hard going for a while. But that wouldn't be living through a long hard winter's gale on the Banks--one of those blows where wind and sea--and in shoal water at that--have a chance to do their worst. Fishermen are built for that sort of work and on their sea-worthiness depends not only the fortunes of owners but the lives of men--of real men--and the happiness and comfort of wives and children ash.o.r.e. And so the idea in everybody's mind that day was to make this test as nearly fair as could be and see who had the fastest and most weatherly boat in the fleet. There were men to the wheel that day who could handle big fishermen as if they were cat-boats, who would have dared and did, later, dare to sail their vessels as close to a mark in this sea as men sail a twenty-foot knockabout in the smoothest of waters insh.o.r.e--only with the fishermen a slip-up meant the loss of a vessel, maybe other vessels too, and twenty-five or fifty lives perhaps.

And so the skill of these men was not used to give anybody the worst of it. A fair start and give everybody his chance was the idea. Thus Tommie Ohlsen could have forced the Withrow outside the starting boat and compelled her to come about and maybe lose a few minutes, but he did not. He held up and let her squeeze through. O'Donnell in his turn could have crowded Ohlsen when he let up on the Withrow, but he did not. He, too, held up in turn and let Ohlsen have his swing going across.

Across we went, one after the other. West-sou'west was the course to a stake-boat, which we were told would be found off Egg Rock, fourteen miles away. We had only the compa.s.s to go by, for at the start it was rain and drizzle, as well as wind and a big sea, and you couldn't see a mile ahead. On the way we shot by the New Roch.e.l.le, which had started ahead with the intention of waiting for the fleet at the first stake-boat. Now she was headed back, wabbing awfully. From Billie Simms, who went over part of the course in the Henry Clay Parker ahead of the fleet, we got word of the trouble as we went by. The New Roch.e.l.le was beginning to leak. "You c'n spit between her deck-planks and into her hold--she's that loose," hollered Billie. I don't think the fishermen aboard of her minded much so long as she stayed afloat, but her captain, a properly licensed man, did, I expect, and so she put back with some of them growling, I heard afterward, "and after paying their little old three dollars to see only the start of the race." Her captain reported, when he got in, that he didn't see anything outside but a lot of foolish fishermen trying to drown themselves.

The first leg was before the wind and the Lucy Foster and the Colleen Bawn went it like bullets. I don't expect ever again to see vessels run faster than they did that morning. On some of those tough pa.s.sages from the Banks fishing vessels may at times have gone faster than either of these did that morning. It is likely, for where a lot of able vessels are all the time trying to make fast pa.s.sages--skippers who are not afraid to carry sail and vessels that can stand the dragging--and in all kinds of chances--there must in the course of years of trying be some hours when they do get over an everlasting lot of water. But there are no means of checking up. Half the time the men do not haul the log for half a day or more. Some of the reports of speed of fishermen at odd times have been beyond all records, and so people who do not know said they must be impossible. But here was a measured course and properly anch.o.r.ed stake-boats--and the Lucy and the Colleen did that first leg of almost fourteen sea-miles in fifty minutes, which is better than a 16-1/2 knot clip, and that means over nineteen land miles an hour. I think anybody would call that pretty fast going. And, as some of them said afterward, "Lord in Heaven!

suppose we'd had smooth water!" But I don't think that the sea checked them so very much--not as much as one might think, for they were driving these vessels.

x.x.xII

O'DONNELL CARRIES AWAY BOTH MASTS

We were next to the last vessel across the starting line. The Nannie O--we couldn't see them all--about held the Lucy Foster and the Colleen Bawn level. The Withrow showed herself to be a wonderful vessel off the wind, too. Wesley Marrs was around the stake-boat first. In the fog and drizzle the leaders did not find the stake-boat at once. Wesley happening to be nearest to it when they did see it, got the benefit and was first around. We were close up, almost near enough to board the Withrow's quarter rounding. I am not sure that the skipper and Clancy, who were to the wheel, did not try to give Hollis a poke with the end of our long bowsprit; but if they did, the Johnnie was not quite fast enough for that. The Withrow beat us around.

Looking back we could see the others coming like wild horses. Every one of them, except one that carried away something and hauled up and out of it, was diving into it to the foremast with every leap the same as we had been. On that first leg n.o.body could stand anywhere for'ard of the fore-hatch or he would have been swept overboard.

Leaving Egg Rock and going for Minot's Ledge, the skipper left the wheel and George Nelson took his place beside Clancy. It was drizzling then, every now and then that settling down so that we couldn't see three lengths ahead. At such times we simply hoped that n.o.body ahead would carry away anything or in any way become disabled in the road.

Well clear of the stake-boat, however, it lifted and we could see what we were doing. The Lucy Foster was still ahead with O'Donnell and Ohlsen and Hollis almost abreast--no more than a few lengths between.

Practically they were all about just as they started. We were next. It was a broad reach to Minot's Ledge and hard going for all hands. It must be remembered that we all had everything on, even to balloon and staysails, and our halyards were lashed aloft. The men to the mast-head, who were up there to shift tacks, were having a sweet time of it hanging on, even lashed though they were.

Everybody was pretty well strung up at this time. The skipper, a line about his elbow, was hooked up to the main-rigging--the weather side, of course--and it was up to a man's waist and boiling white on the lee side. The crew were snug up under the weather rail and hanging on--no mistake either about the way they were hanging on. Every once in awhile one of us would poke his head up to see what they were doing to windward of us. Mr. Duncan, who had come aboard just before we left the dock, was trying to sit on the weather bitt near the wheel-box. He had a line around his waist, too. He had bet a lot of money with Withrow on the race, but I don't think that his money was worrying him half so much as some other things then.

So far as we could see at this time we were making as good weather as any of them. And our best chance--the beat home--was yet to come. The Johnnie had the stiffness for that. Had the Johnnie reached Gloucester from the Cape Sh.o.r.e earlier she, too, would have been lightened up and made less stiff. To be sure she would have had her bottom scrubbed and we would have had her up to racing pitch, with every bit of sail just so and her trim gauged to a hair's depth, but that did not matter so very much now. The Johnnie was in shape for a hard drag like this, and for that we had to thank the tricky Sam Hollis. We began to see that after all it was a bit of good luck our vessel not being home in time to tune up the same as the rest of the fleet.

It was along about here--half-way on the reach to Minot's--that Tommie Ohlsen broke his main-gaff. It was the fault of the Eastern Point, the Boston steamer. She had gone ahead of the fleet, taking almost a straight course for Minot's Ledge. Reaching across from Half-Way Rock to Minot's the fleet began to overhaul her. She, making bad weather of it along here, started to turn around. But, rolling to her top-rail, it was too much for them, and her captain kept her straight on for Boston. That was all right, but her action threw Ohlsen off. She was right in the Nannie O's way, and to save the steamer and themselves from a collision and certain loss of life, Ohlsen had to jibe the Nannie O, and so suddenly that the Nannie O's gaff broke under the strain. And that lost Ohlsen his chance for the race. It was too bad, for with Ohlsen, Marrs, and O'Donnell, each in his own vessel in a breeze, you could put the names in a hat and shake them up. When we went by the Nannie O her crew were getting the trysail out of the hold, and they finished the race with that, and made good going of it, as we saw afterward. Indeed, a trysail that day would have been sail enough for almost any men but these.

Before we reached Minot's there was some sail went into the air. One after the other went the balloons--on the Foster, the Colleen, the Withrow and at last on us. I don't know whether they had any trouble on the others--being too busy with our own to watch--but we came near to losing men with ours. It got caught under our keel, and we started to try to haul it in--the skipper having an economical notion of saving the owner the expense of a new sail, I suppose. But Mr. Duncan, seeing what he was at, sang out: "Let the sail go to the devil, Captain--I'll pay for the new one myself." Even at that we had to crawl out on the bowsprit--six or eight of us--with sharp knives, and cut it away, and we were glad to get back again. The Johnnie never slackened. It was desperate work.

Rounding Minot's, Tom O'Donnell gave an exhibition of desperate seamanship. He had made up his mind, it seems, that he was due to pa.s.s Wesley Marrs along here. But first he had to get by the Withrow. Off Minot's was the turning buoy, with just room, as it was considered, for one vessel at a time to pa.s.s safely in that sea.

O'Donnell figured that the tide being high there was easily room for two, and then breasted up to the Withrow, outside of her and with the rocks just under his quarter. Hollis, seeing him come, made a motion as if to force him on the rocks, but O'Donnell, standing to his own wheel, called out--"You do, Sam Hollis, and we'll both go." There certainly would have been a collision, with both vessels and both crews--fifty men--very likely lost, but Hollis weakened and kept off.

That kind of work was too strong for him. He had so little room that his main-boom hit the can-buoy as he swept by.

Once well around O'Donnell, in great humor, and courting death, worked by Hollis and then, making ready to tack and pa.s.s Wesley's bow, let the Colleen have her swing, but with all that sail on and in that breeze, there could be only one outcome. And yet he might have got away with it but for his new foremast, which, as he had feared, had not the strength it should have had. He let her go, never stopped to haul in his sheets--he had not time to if he was to cross Wesley's bow. So he swung her and the full force of the wind getting her laid both spars over the side--first one and then the other clean as could be.

Hollis never stopped or made a motion to help, but kept on after the Lucy Foster. We almost ran over O'Donnell, but luffed in time, and the skipper called out to O'Donnell that we'd stand by and take his men off.

O'Donnell was swearing everything blue. "Go on--go on--don't mind me.

Go on, I tell you. We're all right. I'll have her under jury rig and be home for supper. Go on, Maurice--go on and beat that divil Hollis!"

Half way to Eastern Point on the way back saw us in the wake of the Withrow, which was then almost up with the Lucy Foster. It was the beat home now, with all of us looking to see the Withrow do great things, for just off the ways and with all her ballast in she was in great trim for it. Going to windward, too, was generally held to be her best point of sailing. All that Hollis had to do was to keep his nerve and drive her.

x.x.xIII

THE ABLE JOHNNIE DUNCAN

Hollis was certainly driving her now. He ought to have felt safe in doing so with the Lucy Foster to go by, for the Lucy, by reason of the ballast taken out of her, should, everything else being equal, capsize before the Withrow.

Hollis must have had that in mind, for he followed Wesley Marrs's every move. Wesley was sailing her wide. And our skipper approved of that, too. To attempt a too close course in the sea that was out in the Bay that day, with the blasts of wind that were sweeping down, would have deadened her way altogether too much--maybe hung her up.

And so it was "Keep her a full whatever you do," and that, with coming about when the others did--we being afraid to split tacks--made plenty of work for us.

"Hard-a-lee" it was one after the other, and for every "Hard-a-lee"

twenty of us went down into the roaring sea fore and aft and hauled in and slackened away sheets, while aloft, the fellows lashed to the foremast head shifted top and staysail tacks. They were wise to lash themselves up aloft, for with every tack, she rolled down into it as if she were never coming up, and when she did come up shook herself as if she would snap her topmasts off.

Half way to Eastern Point on the beat home it seemed to occur to the skipper and to Clancy that the Johnnie Duncan stood a chance to win the race. It was Clancy, still lashed to the wheel, now with Long Steve, turned his head for just a second to Mr. Duncan and spoke the first word of it.

"Mr. Duncan, do you know, but the Johnnie's got a chance to win this race?"

"D'y'think so, Tommie--d'y'think so?"

Some of us in the crew had been thinking of that same thing some time, and we watched Mr. Duncan, who, with a life line about him, was clinging to a bitt aft, and watching things with tight lips, a drawn face and shiny eyes. We listened to hear what else he might have to say. But he didn't realize at once what it meant. His eyes and his mind were on the Lucy Foster.