IX

“The wind blows warm and the wind blows fair,Oh, the wind blows westerly––Our jibs are up and our anchor’s in,For the Duncan’s going to sea.And will you wait for me, sweetheart?Oh, will you wait for me?And will you be my love againWhen I come back from sea?“Oh, sway away and start her sheetsAnd point her easterly––It’s tackle-pennant, boom her outAnd turn the Duncan free.You’ll see some sailing now, my boys,We’re off for the Southern cruise––They’ll try to hold the Johnnie D,But they’ll find it of no use.”

“The wind blows warm and the wind blows fair,

Oh, the wind blows westerly––

Our jibs are up and our anchor’s in,

For the Duncan’s going to sea.

And will you wait for me, sweetheart?

Oh, will you wait for me?

And will you be my love again

When I come back from sea?

“Oh, sway away and start her sheetsAnd point her easterly––It’s tackle-pennant, boom her outAnd turn the Duncan free.You’ll see some sailing now, my boys,We’re off for the Southern cruise––They’ll try to hold the Johnnie D,But they’ll find it of no use.”

“Oh, sway away and start her sheets

And point her easterly––

It’s tackle-pennant, boom her out

And turn the Duncan free.

You’ll see some sailing now, my boys,

We’re off for the Southern cruise––

They’ll try to hold the Johnnie D,

But they’ll find it of no use.”

I didn’t wait any longer than that for Clancy, but ran ahead to the Duncan. I found her with jibs up and paying off. I was in time to get aboard without trouble, but Clancy and Howe coming later had to make a pier-head jump of it. Clancy, who could leap like a hound––drunk or sober––made it all right with his feet on the end of the bowsprit and his fingers on the balloon stay when he landed, but Howe fell short, and we had the liveliest kind of a time gaffing him in over the bow, he not being able64to swim. They must have heard us yelling clear to Eastern Point, I guess. Andie didn’t mind. “I must be with a lot of dogs––have to jump overboard to get aboard.” He spat out what water he had to, and started right in to winch up the mainsail with the gang. He had on a brand-new suit, good cloth and a fine fit.

“You’ll soon dry out in the sun, Andie-boy,” they all said to him.

“I s’pose so. But will my clothes ever fit me again like they did?––and my fine new patent-leather shoes!”

Drifting down by the dock next to Duncan’s our long bowsprit almost swept off a row of old fellows from the cap-log. They had to scramble, but didn’t mind. “Good luck, and I hope you fill her up,” they called out.

“Oh, we’ll try and get our share of ’em,” our fellows called back.

There was a young woman on the next dock––one of the kind that quite often come down to take snap-shots. A stranger to Gloucester she must have been, for not only that Gloucester girls don’t generally come down to the docks to see the fishermen off, but she said good-by to us. She meant all right, but she should never have said good-by to a fisherman. It’s unlucky. Too many of them don’t come back, and then the good-by comes true.

Andie Howe looked a funny sight when we were making sail. Clancy, who, once he got started, took a lot of stopping, was still going:

“Oh, the Johnnie Duncan, fast and able––Good-by, dear, good-by, my Mabel––And will you save a kiss for meWhen I come back from sea?”

“Oh, the Johnnie Duncan, fast and able––

Good-by, dear, good-by, my Mabel––

And will you save a kiss for me

When I come back from sea?”

“Yes,” roared Andie,

“And don’t forget I love you, dear,And save a kiss for me,”

“And don’t forget I love you, dear,

And save a kiss for me,”

with the salt water dripping from his fine new suit of clothes and the patent-leather shoes he was so fond of.

And Clancy again:

“Oh, a deep blue sky and a deep blue seaAnd a blue-eyed girl awaiting me,”

“Oh, a deep blue sky and a deep blue sea

And a blue-eyed girl awaiting me,”

and Howe,

“Oh, too-roo-roo and a too-roo-reeAnd a hi-did-dy ho-did-dy ho-dee-dee,”

“Oh, too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree

And a hi-did-dy ho-did-dy ho-dee-dee,”

and Clancy,

“Too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree,The Johnnie Duncan’s going to sea,”

“Too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree,

The Johnnie Duncan’s going to sea,”

and Howe––a little shy on the words––

“Tum-did-dy dum-did-dy dum-did-dy-dum,Hoo-roo-roo and a dum by gum.”

“Tum-did-dy dum-did-dy dum-did-dy-dum,

Hoo-roo-roo and a dum by gum.”

And by that time the gang were joining in and sheeting flat the topsails with a great swing.

I don’t suppose that Gloucester Harbor will ever again look as beautiful to me as it did that morning when we sailed out. Forty sail of seiners leaving within two hours, and to see them going––to see them one after another loose sails and up with them, break out anchors, pay off, and away! It was the first day of April and the first fine day in a week, and those handsome vessels going out one after the other in their fresh paint and new sails––it was a sight to make a man’s heart thump.

“The Johnnie Duncan, seiner of Gloucester––watch her walk across the Bay to-day,” was George Moore’s little speech when he came on deck to heave his first bucket of scraps over the rail. George was cook.

And she did walk. We squared away with half a dozen others abreast of us and Eastern Point astern of us all. Among the forty sail of fishermen that were standing across the Bay that morning we knew we’d find some that could sail. There was the Ruth Ripley, Pitt Ripley’s vessel. He worked her clear of the bunch that came out of the harbor and came after us, and we had it with him across to Cape Cod. Forty miles before we beat him; but Pitt Ripley had a great sailer in the Ruth, and we would have been satisfied to hold67her even. “Only wait till by and by, when we get her in trim,” we kept saying.

“This one’ll smother some of them yet,” said Eddie Parsons, looking back at the Ruth. He felt pretty good, because he had the wheel when we finally crossed the Ruth’s bow.

“With good steering––yes,” said Clancy.

“Of course,” exclaimed Eddie to that, and filled his chest full, and then, looking around and catching everybody laughing, let his chest flatten again.

The skipper didn’t have much to say right away about her sailing. He was watching her, though. He’d look at her sails, have an eye on how they set and drew, take a look over her quarter, another look aloft, and then back at the Ruth, then a look for the vessels still ahead. “We’ll know more about it after we’ve tried her out with the Lucy Foster or the Colleen Bawn or Hollis’s new vessel,” he said, after a while.

One thing we soon found out, and that was that she was a stiff vessel. That was after a squall hit us off Cape Cod. We watched the rest of them then. Some luffed and others took in sail, and about them we could not tell. But those that took it full gave us an idea of how we were behaving. “Let her have it and see how she’ll do,” said the skipper, and Howe, who was at the wheel––with his clothes good and dry again––let her have it68full. With everything on and tearing through the water like a torpedo-boat, one puff rolled her down till she filled herself chock up between the house and rail, but she kept right on going. Some vessels can’t sail at all with decks under, but the Johnnie never stopped. “She’s all right, this one,” said everybody then. A second later she took a slap of it over her bow, nearly smothering the cook, who had just come up to dump some potato parings over the rail. The way he came up coughing and spitting and then his dive for the companionway––everybody had to roar.

“Did y’see the cook hop?––did y’see him hop?” called Andie, who was afraid somebody had missed it.

We passed the Marauder, Soudan McLeod, soon after. His mainmast had broken off eight or ten feet below the head. They were clearing away the wreckage. “I s’pose I oughter had more sense,” he called out as we went by.

“Oh, I don’t know––maybe the spar was rotten,” said Maurice, and that was a nice way to put it, too.

That night it came a flat calm, and with barely steerage way for us. There was a big four-masted coaster bound south, too, and light, and for the best part of the night we had a drifting match with her. Coasters as a rule are not great all-round69sailers, but some of them, with their flat bottoms and shoal draft, in a fair wind and going light, can run like ghosts, and this was one of that kind. We had our work cut out to hold this one while the wind was light and astern, but in the morning, when it hauled and came fresher, we went flying over the shoals. So far as the looks of it went the big coaster might as well have been anchored then.

All that day we held on. And it was a lesson in sailing to see the way some of those seiners were handled. Our skipper spent most of that day finding out how she sailed best and putting marks on her sheets for quick trimming by and by.

Trying each other out, measuring one vessel against another, the fleet went down the coast. We passed a few and were passed by none, and that was something. Ahead of us somewhere were a half-dozen flyers. If we could have beaten some of them we should have had something to brag about; but no telling, we might get our chance yet.

70IXMACKEREL

Throughout all that night the lights of the fleet were all about us, ahead and behind. At breakfast next morning––four o’clock––we were off Delaware Breakwater, and that afternoon at two we began the mast-head watch for fish. And on that fine April day it was a handsome sight––forty sail of seiners in sight, spread out and cruising lazily.

The skipper was the first to get into his oilskins and heavy sweater, for with a vessel hopping along at even no more than six or seven knots by the wind it is pretty chilly aloft, nice and comfortable though it may be on deck in the sun.

There was a game of seven-up going on in the cabin, and the sun striking down the companionway was bothering Andie Howe. He began to complain. “Hi, up there to the wheel! Hi, Eddie––can’t you put her on the other tack?––the sun’s in my eyes. How can a man see the cards with the sun in his eyes?”

Parsons didn’t have the chance to talk back when the word came from aloft to put the seine-boat71over the side, and after that to overhaul the seine and pile it in the boat. Vessels ahead had seen mackerel, the skipper called out. We got into oilskins and boots and made ready. Those who were going into the seine-boat had already picked out in what positions they were going to row, and now there was an overhauling of oars and putting marks on them so that they could be picked out in a hurry. Clancy and I were to be dorymen. We made ready the dory, and then Clancy went to the mast-head with the skipper and Long Steve, whose watch it was aloft.

Things began to look like business soon. Even from the deck we could see that one or two vessels ahead had boats out. We began to picture ourselves setting around a big school and landing the first mackerel of the year into New York. I think everybody aboard was having that dream, though everybody pretended not to be in earnest. You could hear them: “A nice school now––three hundred barrels.” “Or two hundred would be doing pretty well.” “Or even a hundred barrels wouldn’t be bad.” There were two or three young fellows among the crew, fellows like myself, who had never seen much seining, and they couldn’t keep still for excitement when from the mast-head came the word that a boat ahead was out and making a set.

We were going along all the time and when we could see from the deck for ourselves the boats that were setting, Billie Hurd couldn’t stand it any longer, but had to go aloft, too. The four of them made a fine picture––the skipper and Steve standing easily on the spreaders, one leaning against the mast and the other against the back-stay, with Hurd perched on the jib halyards block and Clancy on the spring-stay, and all looking as comfortable as if they were in rockers at home. I’d have given a hundred dollars then to be able to stand up there on one foot and lean as easily as the skipper against the stay with the vessel going along as she was. I made up my mind to practise it when next I went aloft.

I went to the mast-head myself by and by, and, seeing half a dozen schools almost at once, I became so excited that I could hardly speak. The skipper was excited, too, but he didn’t show it, only by his eyes and talking more jerkily than usual. He paid no attention to two or three schools that made me just crazy just to look at, but at last, when he thought it was time, he began to move. Ten or a dozen Gloucester vessels were bunched together, and one porgy steamer––that is, built for porgy or menhaden fishing, but just now trying for mackerel like the rest of us.

“There’ll be plenty of them up soon, don’t you think, Tommie?” the skipper asked.

“Plenty,” answered Tommie, “plenty,” with his eyes ever on the fish. “I think Sam Hollis has got his all right, but Pitt Ripley––I don’t know.”

It was getting well along toward sunset then, with everybody worried, the skipper still aloft, and one boat making ready to set about a mile inside of us. “They’ll dive,” said our skipper, and they did. “There’s Pitt Ripley’s school now,” and he pointed to where a raft of mackerel were rising and rippling the water black, and heading for the north. “There’s another gone down, too––they’ll dive that fellow. Who is it––Al McNeill?––yes. But they’ll come up again, and when it does, it’s ours.” And they did come up, and when they did the skipper made a jump and roared, “Into the boat!” There was a scramble. “Stay up here, you Billie, and watch the school,” he said to Hurd, and “Go down, you,” to me. I slid down by the jib halyards. The skipper and Clancy came down by the back-stay and beat me to the deck. They must have tumbled down, they were down so quick.

“Hurry––the Aurora’s going after it, too.” The Aurora was one of Withrow’s fleet and we were bound to beat her. I had hardly time to74leap into the dory after Clancy, and we were off, with nobody left aboard but Hurd to the mast-head and the cook, who was to stay on deck and sail the vessel.

In the seine-boat it was double-banked oars, nine long blades and a monstrous big one steering––good as another oar that––and all driving for dear life, with Long Steve and a cork-passer standing by the seine and the skipper on top of it, with his eyes fixed on the school ahead––his only motions to open his mouth and to wave with his hands to the steersman behind him. “Drive her––drive her,” he called to the crew. “More yet––more yet,” to the steering oar. “There’s the porgy steamer’s boat, too, after the same school. Drive her now, fellows!”

The mackerel were wild as could be, great rafts of them, and travelling faster than the old seiners in the gang said they had ever seen them travel before, and what was worse, not staying up long. There were boats out from three or four vessels before we pushed off with ours. I remember the porgy steamer had cut in ahead and given their boat a long start for a school. However, that school did not stay up long enough and they had their row for nothing. But then their steamer picked them up again and dropped them on the way to the same school that we were trying for.75How some of our gang did swear at them! And all because they were steam power.

It promised to be a pretty little race, but that school, too, went down before either of us could head it, and so it was another row for nothing. We lay on our oars then, both boats ready for another row, with the skipper and seine-heaver in each standing on top of the seine and watching for the fish to show again. Of course both gangs were sizing each other up, too. I think myself that the Duncan’s crowd were a huskier lot of men than the steamer’s. Our fellows looked more like fishermen, as was to be expected, because in Gloucester good fishermen are so common that naturally, a man hailing from there gets so that he wants to be a good fisherman, too, and of course the men coming there are all pretty good to begin with, leaving out the fellows who are born and brought up around Gloucester and who have it in their blood. A man doesn’t leave Newfoundland or Cape Breton or even Nova Scotia or Maine and the islands along the coast, or give up any safe, steady work he may have, to come to Gloucester to fish unless he feels that he can come pretty near to holding his end up. That’s not saying that a whole lot of fine fishermen do not stay at home, with never any desire to fish out of Gloucester, in spite of the good money that a fisherman76with a good skipper can make from there, but just the same they’re a pretty smart and able lot that do come. And so, while our gang was half made up of men that were born far away from Gloucester, yet they had the Gloucester spirit, which is everything in deep-sea fishing, when nerve and strength and skill count for so much. And this other crowd––the porgy steamer’s––did not have that look.

“Look at what we’re coming to,” somebody called. “All steam boys soon, and on wages––wages!” he repeated, “and going around the deck, with a blue guernsey with letters on the chest of it––A.D.Q.––or some other damn company.”

“Well, that would not be bad either, with your grub bill sure and your money counted out at the end of every month,” answered somebody else.

I was sizing up the two gangs myself, I being in the dory with Clancy, and I guess that nearly everyone of us was doing the same thing and keeping an eye out for fish at the same time, when all at once a school popped up the other side of the porgyman’s boat. Perhaps, half a mile it was and, for a wonder, not going like a streak.

We saw it first and got to going first, but the Aurora’s boat and the steamer’s boat were nearer, and so when we were all under good headway there were two lengths or so that we had to make77up on each. Well, that was all right. Two lengths weren’t so many, and we drove her. It was something to see the fellows lay out to it then––doubled-banked, two men to each wide seat and each man with a long oar, which he had picked out and trimmed to suit himself, and every man in his own particular place as if in a racing crew.

And now every man was bending to it. A big fellow, named Rory McKinnon, was setting the stroke. There was a kick and a heave to every stroke, and the men encouraging each other. “Now––now––give it to her,” was all that I could hear coming out of him. All this time we in the dory were coming on behind, Clancy and I having to beat their dory just as our boat had to beat their boat. And we were driving, too, you may be sure. Clancy was making his oars bend like whips. “Blast ’em! There’s no stiffness to ’em,” he was complaining. And then, “Sock it to her,” he would call out to our fellows in the seine-boat. “We’ve got the porgy crew licked––that’s the stuff,” came from the skipper. From on top of the seine he was watching the fish, watching the gang, watching the other boats, watching us in the dory––watching everything. Whoever made a slip then would hear from it afterwards, we knew. And clip, clip, clip it was, with the swash78just curling nicely under the bow of the other boat, and I suppose our own, too, if we could have seen.

Our boat was gaining on the Aurora’s and the skipper was warming up. The fish was going the same way we were, still a quarter of a mile ahead.

“Drive her,” said the skipper. “Drive her––drive her––another length and you got ’em. And, Kenney, it’s the best of ash you’ve got. Don’t be afraid of breaking it. And, Dan Burns, didn’t y’ever learn to keep stroke in the Bay of Islands with nine more men beside you rowing? And drive her––hit her up now––here’s where we got ’em––they can’t hold it on their lives. Now then, another dozen strokes and it’s over. One, two, three––quicker, Lord, quicker––six, seven––oh, now she’s fair flying––look at her leap. You blessed lobster, keep rowing and not looking over your shoulder. We got to get the fish first.”

A quarter mile of that with the foam ripping by us, and every man with his blood like fire jumping to his oar, when the skipper leaped back to the steering oar. “Stand by,” he called, and then, “Now––over with the buoy,” and over it went, with the dory at hand and Tommie Clancy right there to pick it up and hold it to windward. And then went the seine over in huge armfuls. Just to see Long Steve throw that seine was worth79a trip South. And he was vain as a child of his strength and endurance. “My, but look at him!” Clancy called out––“look at the back of him!” “He’s a horse,” somebody else would have to say, and “H-g-gh,” Steve would grunt, and “H-g-gh” he would fill the air full of tarred netting, “H-g-gh––pass them corks,” and over it would go, “H-g-gh,” and the skipper would say, “That’s the boy, Steve,” and Steve would heave to break his back right then and there. All the time they were driving the seine-boat to its limit, and the skipper was laying to the big steering oar, the longest of them all and taking a strong man to handle it properly––laying to it, swinging from the waist like a hammer-thrower, and the boat jumping to it. She came jumping right for us in the dory in a little while. It doesn’t take a good gang long to put a quarter mile of netting around a school of mackerel.

It was a pretty set he made. “Pretty, pretty,” you could almost hear the old seiners saying between their teeth, even as they were all rowing with jaws set and never a let-up until the circle was completed, when it was oars into the air and Clancy leaping from the dory into the seine-boat to help purse up. “It’s a raft if ever we get ’em,” were his first words, and everybody that wasn’t too breathless said yes, it was a jeesly raft of fish.

“Purse in,” it was then, and lively. And so we pursed in, hauling on the running line in the lower edge of the seine, something as the string around the neck of a tobacco bag is drawn tight. It was heavy work of course, but everybody made light of it. We could not tell if the fish were in it or not. The leaders might have dove when they felt the twine against their noses and so escaped with the whole school following after, or they might have taken no alarm and stayed in.

So we pursed in, not knowing whether we were to have a good haul with a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars apiece at the end of it, or whether we would have our work for nothing. All hands kept up the pretence of joking, of course, but everybody was anxious enough. It was more than the money––it was fisherman’s pride. Were we to get into New York and have it telegraphed on to Gloucester for everybody that knew us to read and talk about––landing the first mackerel of the year? We watched while the circle narrowed and the pool inside grew shallower. Somebody said, “There’s one,” and we could see the shine of it, and another––and another––and then the whole mass of them rose flipping. They lashed the water into foam, rushed around the edges, nosed the corks of the seine. I don’t think myself that mackerel are particularly intelligent, take them81generally; but at times they seem to know––these fellows, at least, seemed to know they were gone and they thrashed about in fury. A mackerel is a handsome fish any time, but to see him right you want to see him fresh-seined. They whipped the water white now––tens of thousands of them. I don’t believe that the oldest seiner there didn’t feel his heart beat faster––the first mackerel of the year. “And Lord knows, maybe a couple of hundred barrels,” and the skipper’s eyes shone––it meant a lot to him. And some of the men began to talk like children, they were so pleased.

82XWE LOSE OUR SEINE

Two hundred barrels the skipper had said, but long before we were all pursed up we knew that five hundred barrels would never hold the fish in that seine. The size of that school filled us with joy and yet it was the very size of it that caused us our trouble. It was too big for the seine, and when they began to settle down and take the twine with them the trouble began for us. No bit of twine ever made to be handled from a seine-boat was big enough to hold that school of fish when they began to go down.

The skipper was awake to it early and signalled for the vessel to come alongside. So the Johnnie stood over to us, and Hurd, pushing the spare dory over with Moore’s help, came jumping with it to the side of the seine where I was alone in the first dory. He hadn’t even stopped to get into his oilskins, he was in such a hurry. By the skipper’s orders I had made fast some of the corks to the thwarts in the dory and Billie took some into the spare dory. The whole length of the seine-boat they were making fast the seine too. In that way83the skipper hoped to buoy up the fish and hold them until we could lighten the seine up by bailing some of the fish onto the deck of the vessel. But it was of no use. There must have been a thousand barrels of them, and dories and seine-boat began to go under. It was over the rail of my dory and spare dory both, and both Billie and myself to our waists, when the skipper sung out for us to jump and save ourselves. We hung on a little longer, but it got to be too much for us and overboard we went. We were not in danger then. It is true that the sea was making and we were weighted down with oilskins and rubber boots, but we had for support the corks that had not yet gone under. And along the corks we hauled ourselves toward the seine-boat. I was praying that the sharks that sometimes follow up mackerel would not bother us. It is probable that they would not even if there were any around, as mackerel are better eating. And such a fuss as we made hauling ourselves through the water! We’d have scared away a whole school of sharks. Before we could get to the seine-boat that, too, was under. “Jump!” called the skipper, and “Jump everybody!” called Clancy, and themselves both hanging on to a last handful of twine. The men in the seine-boat jumped and struck out for the vessel, which was now quite close, with the cook, the only84man left aboard, throwing over keelers, draw-buckets, the main sheet––anything within his reach that was loose and would support a man.

The skipper and Clancy hung on to the last. “Jump you, Tommie!” called the skipper. “Not me till you go,” answered Clancy. They couldn’t do a bit of good, but they hung on, each grabbing handfuls of twine in a last effort to hold up the seine. The seine-boat went under––and they up to their necks––and then it turned over and in toward the seine. Some of us hollered––we were afraid that it was all up with both of them––that they would be thrown toward the inside and tangled up in the seine. But both of them bobbed up, the skipper saying nothing, but Clancy sputtering like a crazy man. The dories coming loose gave a few of us a chance to climb up on the bottom of them, and when the seine-boat came bobbing up most of the others climbed up on the bottom of that. And there was some swearing done then, you may be sure! The gang would have been all right then, waiting to be picked up by the cook from the vessel, which was then pretty handy; but the seine-boat started to go under again and then came the slap of a little sea, and overboard went seven or eight of us. Clancy was one of those thrown into the water. We all remembered it afterwards because he called out for Andie Howe.

“Where’s Andie?”

“Here,” said Andie.

“Where?”

“Hanging onto the bow of the seine-boat.”

“Well, hang on a while longer,” said Clancy and struck out for the vessel, and made it too, oilskins, big boots and all. He threw two or three lines out at once––one especially to Thad Simpson, the other man of the crew besides Andie Howe who it was known couldn’t swim. So Clancy hauled him in. The third man he hauled in was Billie Hurd.

“Good Lord, Tommie,” said Billie, “you hove a line over my head to Andie Howe.”

“You pop-eyed Spanish mackerel!” roared Clancy at him, “you ought to know by this time that Andie can’t swim.”

“I know, but he was all oiled up, and look at me–––”

“Go to hell,” said Clancy.

We all got aboard after a while, but our fine new seine was gone, and the big school of fish too. After a hard grapple we got the dories and a little later the seine-boat, and after a lot more work we got them right side up. The dories we pulled the plugs out of to let them drain and then took them on deck, but the seine-boat we had to pump out. By then it was pretty well on in the night and I remember how the moon rose just as we had86it fairly well dried out and dropped astern––rose as big as a barrel-head and threw a yellow light over it, and then went out of sight, for a breeze was on us.

And “Oh, Lord! that thousand-barrel school!” groaned everybody.

87XIAN OVER-NIGHT BREEZE

It wasn’t bad enough that we came near losing a few men and our boat, and our seine altogether, but it must come on to breeze up on top of that and drive us off the grounds. After putting everything to rights, we were having a mug-up forward and wondering if the skipper would take sail off her or what, when we heard the call that settled it.

“On deck everybody!” we heard. And when we got there, came from the skipper, “Take in the balloon, tie it up and put it below. Haul down your stays’l too––and go aloft a couple of you, fore and aft, and put the tops’ls in gaskets.”

We attended to that––a gang out on the bowsprit, half a dozen aloft and so on––with the skipper to the wheel while it was being done. When we had finished it was, “Haul the seine-boat alongside––pump out what water’s left.” Then, “Shift that painter and hook on the big painter. Drop her astern and give her plenty of line. Where’s the dorymen? Where’s Tommie and Joe? Haul the dories into the hatch, Tommie, and make ’em88fast. Gripe ’em good while you’re at it. Clear the deck of all loose gear––put it below, all of it––keelers, everything. Maybe ’twon’t be much of a blow, but there’s no telling––it may. She mayn’t be the kind that washes everything over, but put it all safe anyway.”

The skipper watched all this until he had seen everything cleared up and heard “All fast the dory,” from the waist. Then he looked up and took note of sky and wind. “Don’t feel any too good. Maybe ’twill blow off, but we might’s well run in. We’ll have to wait for our other seine anyway and Wesley will be sure to put into the Breakwater for news on his way down, especially if it comes to blow.”

He dropped below then to light his pipe. Seeing me and Parsons, with me trying to fix up Parsons’s leg where it had been gashed––Eddie never knew how––in the mix-up of the evening, the skipper said, “There’s some liniment in the chest and some linen in one of the drawers under my bunk. Get it. And some of you might’s well turn in and have a nap. She’ll be all right––the watch and myself can look after her now,” and he went on deck again, puffing like an engine to keep his pipe going.

Most of them did turn in and were soon asleep. Some of the older men had a smoke and an overhauling89of their wet clothes, while a few joined in a little game of draw before turning in. One or two were deploring the loss of the seine. The nearness to losing lives didn’t seem to be worrying anybody. For myself, I was somewhat worked up. There was one time in the water when I thought I was gone. So I went on deck after the skipper. It was a black night and breezing all the time and I wanted to see how the vessel behaved. The Johnnie was close-hauled at this time and swashing under, and I knew without asking further that the skipper intended to make Delaware Breakwater.

While hurrying forward, after lending a hand to batten down the main hatch––the Johnnie plunging along all the time––and my head perhaps a little too high in the air, I stumbled off the break and plump over a man under the windward rail. I thought I was going to leeward and maybe overboard, but somebody hooked onto the full in the back of my oil-jacket, hauled me up the inclined deck again, and in a roaring whisper said, “Get a hold here, Joey––here’s a ring-bolt for you. Don’t let go on your life! Isn’t it fine?” It was Clancy. He had nights, I know, when he couldn’t sleep, and like me, I suppose, he wanted to watch the sea, which just then was firing grandly. Into this sea the vessel was diving––nose first––bringing90her bowsprit down, down, down, and then up, up, up, until her thirty-seven-foot bowsprit would be pointing to where the North star should be. Whenever she heaved like that I could feel her deck swelling under me. I remember when I used to play foot-ball at the high school at home and it was getting handy to a touch-down, with perhaps only a few yards to gain and the other side braced to stop it, that a fellow playing back had to buck like that from under a line when he had to scatter tons, or what he thought was tons, of people on top of him. The vessel was that way now, only with every dive she had hundreds of tons to lift from under. At a time like that you can feel the ribs of a vessel brace within her just as if she was human. Now I could almost feel her heart pumping and her lungs pounding somewhere inside. I could feel her brace to meet it, feel her shiver, as if she was scared half to death, and almost hear her screech like a winner every time she cleared it and threw it over her head.

Now down she went––the Johnnie Duncan––down and forward, for she wouldn’t be held back––shoulders and breast slap into it. Clear to her waist she went, fighting the sea from her. To either side were tumbling the broken waves, curling away like beach combers. The hollow of each was a curved sheet of electric white, and the top––the91crest––was a heavier, hotter white. The crests would rise above our rail and break, and back into the hollows would fall a shower of shooting stars that almost sizzled. There wasn’t a star above, but millions on the water!

“Ever see anything like that ashore, Joey-boy?” said Clancy, and I had to roar a whisper that I never had.

Through this play of fire the Johnnie leaped with great bounds. She boiled her way, and astern she left a wake in which the seine-boat was rearing and diving with a fine little independent trail of its own.

Two men forward––the watch––were leaning over the windlass and peering into the night. They were there for whatever they might see, but particularly were they looking for the double white light of Five Fathom Bank lightship. The skipper was at the wheel. When he got in the way of the cabin light, we could catch the shine from his dripping oil-clothes, and the spark from his pipe––which he kept going through it all––marked his position when he stepped back into the darkness.

Clancy noticed him. “There’s a man for you, Joey. Think what it meant to a young skipper with a new vessel––the loss of that school and the seine on top of it the very first day he struck fish. If we’d got that, he might have been the first vessel92of the year into the New York market. And think of the price the first fish fetch!––and the honor of it––and he breaking his heart to make a reputation this year. And yet not a yip out of him––not a cranky word to one of the gang all night. A great man I call him––and a fisherman.” I thought so, too.

Sometimes I imagined I could see the wink of red and green lights abreast and astern, which I probably did, for there should have been fifty sail or so of seiners inside and outside of us––there were sixty sail of the fleet in sight that afternoon––and I knew that, barring a possible few that had got fish and were driving for the New York market, all the others were like ourselves, under lower sails and boring into it, with extra lookout forward, the skipper at the wheel or on the quarter and all ears and eyes for the surf and lights inshore when we should get there.

“Something ahead! dead ahead! sa-ail!” came suddenly from forward. There was a scraping of boot-heels at the wheel. “What d’y’make of it?––all right, I see her!” In the shadow we saw the skipper pulling the wheel down. Ahead I imagined I saw a dark patch, but to make sure I squirmed up to the fore-rigging. Whoever she was, the light from her cabin skylight was right there and I realized that we were pretty close, but93not really how close until a boat bobbed up under my jaws almost. Right from under our bow it heaved. It was a seiner and that was her seine-boat towing astern, and I could easily have heaved a line to her helmsman as we swept by her. There was an awfully tall shadow of sails––half up to the clouds I thought––and the black of the hull looked as long as a dock. A voice was hurled to us, but we couldn’t quite make it out––but it was the watch, probably, saying a word or two by way of easing his feelings.

We worked up to the windward of that one and slowly crowded past her tumbling green light. Then the skipper let the wheel fly up and we shot ahead and soon we had her directly astern, with her one green and one red eye looking after us. “That’s one fellow we outsail,” thought I to myself, and I knew I was beginning to love the Johnnie Duncan.

All through that night it went on like that.

At four o’clock or so in the morning the cook stuck his head out of the slit in the forec’s’le companionway and spoke his welcome little piece. “Can’t have any reg’lar sit-down this morning, boys. Have to leave the china in the becket for a while yet, but all that wants can make a mug-up, and when we get inside––if we do in anything like a decent hour––we’ll have breakfast.”

At five o’clock the sky began to brighten to the eastward, but there was no let-up to the wind or sea. If anything it was breezing up. At six o’clock, when the short blasts of the lightship split the air abreast of us, things were good and lively, but there was no daylight to go by then. The wash that in the night only buried her bow good was then coming over her to the foremast and filling the gangway between the house and rail as it raced aft. The beauty of double-lashing the dories began to appear, and all hands might have been towing astern all night by the look of them. But the Johnnie Duncan was doing well and the opinion of the crew generally was that the skipper could slap every rag to her and she’d carry it––that is, if she had to. The skipper put her more westerly after we had passed the lightship and on we went.

We had the company of a couple of coasters in this part of the drive; and by that, if nothing else, a man might know we were inshore. Some Gloucester men were in sight, too, though most of the fleet, we guessed, were still outside of us. The coasters were colliers, three-masters both, and reefed down, wallowing in the sea. One had her foretopmast snapped short off, and such patched sails as she had on looked lonesome. The gang, of course, had to make fun of her.

“There’s one way to house a topm’st!”

“Broke your clothes-pole, old girl!”

“Better take in your washing there––looks like rain!”

“Go it, you beauty! I only wish I had my cameraw. If y’only suspected how lovely you look!”

Two big ocean tugs, one clear white and one all black, offered a change in looks, though in nothing else, for each one, with two barges of coal, was making desperate hauling of it, and the Breakwater yet a good bit away.

“Hustle ’em, you husky coal-jammers!” roared Parsons at them, as if he could be heard beyond the rail. “I wouldn’t be aboard of you for my share of the Southern trip––and mackerel away up in G, too. Would you, Billie?”

“Then? Naw!” said Hurd, with a wrinkling of his little nose.

“No, nor me neither,” said Long Steve. “Hi––ever hear the cook––ever hear George Moore’s song:––

‘If ever you go to sea, my boy,Don’t ever you ship on a steamer;There’s stacks to scrape and rails to paint––It’s always work to clean her.When the wind is wrong and the shore is by,They’ll keep you clear of leeway,But they roll and they jolt and they’re never dry––They’re the devil’s own in a sea-way!’“

‘If ever you go to sea, my boy,

Don’t ever you ship on a steamer;

There’s stacks to scrape and rails to paint––

It’s always work to clean her.

When the wind is wrong and the shore is by,

They’ll keep you clear of leeway,

But they roll and they jolt and they’re never dry––

They’re the devil’s own in a sea-way!’“

Steve, trying to sing that, had one hand hooked into a ring-bolt under the rail and he was slowly pickling––we were all pickling––like a salted mackerel in a barrel.

An hour past Five Fathom and the tall white tower of Cape Henlopen could be made out ahead, as well as the gray tower of Cape May through the mists to the northward. The wind was coming faster and it felt heavier. We could judge best of how we were looking ourselves by watching all our fellows near by. We could see to the bottom planks of two to leeward of us, while on the sloping deck of one to windward it was plain that only what was lashed or bolted was still there. When they reared they almost stood up straight, and when they scooped into it the wonder was that all the water taken aboard didn’t hold her until the next comber could have a fair whack at her.

The men––that is, a few of them––might joke, but were all glad to be getting in. There’s no fun staying wet and getting wetter all night long. If it wasn’t for the wetness of a fellow it would have been great, for it was the finest kind of excitement, our running to harbor––that night––especially in the morning when we were passing three or four and nobody passing us. We went by one fellow––the Martinet she was––a fair enough sailer––passed her to windward of course,97our gang looking across at their gang and nobody saying a word, but everybody thinking a lot, you may be sure. It was worth a square meal that.

With the Martinet astern, the skipper let her pay off and run for the end of the Breakwater. For a while he let the wind take her fair abeam, with sheets in, and the way she sizzled through the water was a caution. There was a moment that an extra good blast hit her that my heart sank, but I reflected that the skipper knew his business, and so tried to take it unconcernedly. Everybody around me was joking and laughing––to think, I suppose, that we would soon be in.

A moment after that I went down to leeward. The sea was bubbling in over her rail at the fore-rigging and I wanted to get the feel of it. I got it. It is pretty shoal water on the bar at the mouth of the Delaware River and quite a little sea on when it blows. One sea came aboard. Somebody yelled and I saw it––but too late––and slap! over I went––over the rail––big boots and oilskins I went down into the roaring. For a second my head came up and I saw the vessel. Everybody aboard was standing by. The skipper was whirling the spokes and the vessel was coming around like a top. I never saw a vessel roll down so far in all my life. I went under again and coming up heard a dull shout. There was a line beside98me. “Grab hold!” yelled somebody. No need to tell me––I grabbed hold. It was the seine-boat’s painter. The Johnnie was still shooting and when the line tautened it came as near to pulling my arms out of my shoulders as ever I want to have them again. But I hung on. Then she came up, and they hauled the painter in and gaffed me over the rail.

“You blankety blank fool!” roared Clancy, as soon as I stood up––“don’t you know any better? A fine thing we’d have to be telegraphing home, wouldn’t it? Are you all right now?”

“All right,” I said, and felt pretty cheap.

While being hauled in, knowing that I was safe, I had been thinking what a fine little adventure I’d have to tell when we got back to Gloucester, but after Clancy got through with me I saw that there were two ways to look at it. So I took my old place under the windward rail and didn’t move from there again till it was time to take sail off her.

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