99XIITHE FLEET RUNS TO HARBOR
Nearing the Breakwater we had more company. Other seiners, with boats astern and dories on deck, were coming in; jumbo, jib, fore and reefed mainsail generally, and all plunging gloriously with a harbor near at hand.
For the next few hours of that morning any watcher in the lighthouse on the Breakwater could have seen plenty of samples of clever seamanship. At our time we were only one of a half-dozen at the business of working around the jetty, some making for one end and some for the other. There was a great trying of tacks and some plain criticism of tactics and weatherly qualities. There was one who tried to cut in before he could quite make it. When he had to put back or run ashore and lose her, a great laugh went up, though there was nothing the matter with the try. He had only tried too much.
Eddie Parsons was the sharp critic. “Trying to beat out the fleet, hey? And with that old hooker? Nothing wrong with your nerve, old man, but some fine day, when there’s a little wind stirring, you’ll roll that tub over a little too far. That’s100right––jam her up now! Think you got a steamboat? Wonder nobody ever told you about sailing a vessel. Come out of it, old man, and let her swing off.”
We had yet to get in ourselves, and that we had the Johnnie Duncan to eat into the wind we were thankful. At last we were by and reaching down to the end of the jetty. We all began to feel good once we were sure of it. It was fine, too, to listen to Clancy as we got near. He was standing on the break, leaning against the weather rigging and looking forward.
“You’d think she’d been coming here for a hundred years, wouldn’t you? Look at her point her nose now at that beacon––don’t have to give this one the wheel at all. She’s the girl. See her bow off now. Man, but she knows as well as you and me she’ll be inside and snug’s a kenched mackerel before long. Watch her kick into the wind now. Oh, she’s the lady, this one. I’ve sailed many of them, but she’s the queen of them all, this one.”
A half dozen of lucky fellows were in before us. We drove in among them, under the bow of one and past the stern of another. They were all watching us, after the custom of the fleet in harbor. We knew this and behaved as smartly as we could without slopping over.
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By and by our skipper picked out a place to his fancy. “Stand by halyards and down-hauls,” was his warning.
“Ready––all ready.”
“Ready with the anchor!”
“All ready the anchor, sir!”
“Down with your jib! Down with jumbo! Let go your fore halyards! Watch out now––ready––let go your anchor!”
Rattle––whizz––whir-r-r––splash! clink––and the Johnnie Duncan of Gloucester was safe to her mooring.
And not till then did our skipper, ten hours to the wheel, unclinch his grip, hook the becket to a spoke, slat his sou’wester on the wheel-box and ease his mind.
“Thank the Lord, there’s a jeesly blow behind us. There’s some outside’ll wish they had a shore job before they get in. Hi, boys, when you get her tied up for’ard, better all go below and have a bite to eat. Let the mains’l stand and give it a chance to dry.” Then he looked about him. “And I didn’t notice that anybody passed us on the way.” There was a whole lot in that last.
After eating a bite, I went over in the dory to the lighthouse on the jetty, where seamen’s mail was taken care of. After leaving my letters I stopped to watch some of the fleet coming. It was102easy enough to pick them. The long, slick-looking, lively seine-boat in tow and the black pile of netting on deck told what they were, and they came jumping out of the mists in a way to make a man’s heart beat.
There was a man standing on the jetty. He was master of a three-masted coaster, he told me. “You come off one of them Gloucester mackerel-catchers?” he asked me. I said yes. “That new-looking one that came in a while ago?” I said yes again.
“I was watching her––she’s a dream––a dream. I never see anything like them––the whole bunch of ’em. Look at this one––ain’t she got on about all she can stand up under though? My soul, ain’t she staggering! I expect her skipper knows his business––don’t expect he’d be skipper of a fine vessel like that if he didn’t. But if ’twas me I’d just about take a wide tuck or two in that ever-lastin’ mains’l he’s got there. My conscience, but ain’t he a-sockin’ it to her! I s’pose that’s the way some of your vessels are sailed out and never heard from again––that was never run into, nor rolled over, nor sunk in a reg’lar way, but just drove right into it head-first trying to make a passage and drowned before ever they could rise again. Well, good-luck to you, old girl, and your skipper, whoever he is, and I guess if your canvas103stays on you’ll be to anchor before a great while, for you’re making steamboat time. Go it, old girl, and your little baby on behind, go it! There ain’t nothing short of an ocean liner could get you now. Go it! a sail or two don’t matter––if it’s a good mackerel season I s’pose the owners don’t mind if you blow away a few sails. Go it, God bless you! Go it! you’re the lads can sail a vessel, you fishermen of Gloucester. Lord, if I dared to try a thing like that with my vessel and my crew and the old gear I got, I rather expect I’d have a rigger’s bill by the time I got home––if ever I got home carryin’ on like that in my old hooker.”
I watched her, too. She was the Tarantula, Jim Porter, another sail-carrier. Around the point and across she tore and over toward the sands beyond, swung off on her heel to her skipper’s heave, came down by the wreck of a big three-master on the inner beach, and around and up opposite what looked like a building on the hill. Then it was down with the wheel, down with headsails, let go fore-halyards, over with the anchor, and there she was, another fisherman of Gloucester, at rest in harbor after an all-night fight with a lively breeze.
And I left the master of the coaster there and went back to the Duncan, where the crew were standing along the rail or leaning over the house and having a lot of fun sizing up those who were104coming in. It is one of the enjoyments of the seining fleet––this racing to harbor when it blows and then watching the others work in. I’ve heard it said that no place in the world can show a fleet like them––all fine vessels, from one hundred to one hundred and twenty feet over all, deep draught, heavily sparred, and provided with all kinds of sail. They were ably managed, of course,––and a dash to port makes the finest kind of a regatta. No better chances are offered to try vessels and seamanship––no drifting or flukes but wind enough for all hands and on all points of sailing generally.
They came swooping in one after the other––like huge sea-gulls, only with wings held close. Now, with plenty of light, those already in could easily see the others coming long before they rounded the jetty. Even if we couldn’t see the hulls of them, there were fellows who could name them––one vessel after the other––just by the spars and upper rigging. The cut of a topsail, the look of a mast-head, the set of a gaff––the smallest little thing was enough to place them, so well were they acquainted with one another. And the distance at which some of them could pick out a vessel was amazing.
George Moore, coming up out of the forec’s’le to dump over some scraps, spied one. “The Mary105Grace Adams,” he sang out,––“the shortest forem’st out of Gloucester. She must’ve been well inside when she started––to get in at this time. Slow––man, but she is slow, that one.”
“Yes, that’s the old girl, and behind her is the Dreamer––Charlie Green––black mast-heads and two patches on her jumbo. She’ll be in and all fast before the Mary Grace’s straightened out.”
And so it was––almost. The Mary Adams was one of the older fleet and never much of a sailer. The Dreamer was one of the newer vessels, able, and a big sailer. They were well raked by the critics, as under their four lowers they whipped in and around and passed on by.
After the Dreamer came the Madeline, with “Black Jack” Hogan, a fleshy man for a fisherman, who minded his way and remained unmoved at the compliments paid his vessel, one of the prize beauties of the fleet. The Marguerite, Charley Falvey, a dog at seining, always among the high-liners, who got more fun out of a summer’s seining than most men ever got out of yachting, who bought all the latest inventions in gear as fast as they came out and who had a dainty way of getting fish. The Marguerite dipped her bow as she passed, while her clever skipper nodded along the line.
The King Philip, another fast beauty, made her106bow and dipped her jibs to her mates in harbor. At sight of her master, Al McNeill, a great shout goes up. “Ho, ho! boys, here’s Lucky Al! Whose seine was it couldn’t hold a jeesly big school one day off here last spring but Billie Simms’? Yes, sir, Billie Simms. Billie fills up and was just about thinking he’d have to let the rest go when who heaves in sight and rounds to and says, ‘Can I help y’out, William?’ Who but Lucky Al McNeill, of course. Bales out two hundred barrels as nice fat mackerel as anybody’d want to see. ‘Just fills me up,’ says Al, and scoots to market. Just been to New York, mind you, that same week with two hundred and fifty barrels he got twelve cents apiece for. ‘Just fills me up,’ says Al, and scoots. No, he ain’t a bit lucky, Captain Al ain’t––married a young wife only last fall.”
Then followed the Albatross, with Mark Powers giving the orders. Then the Privateer, another fast one, but going sluggishly now because of a stove-in seine-boat wallowing astern. Then the North Wind, with her decks swept clear of everything but her house and hatches. Seine-boat, seine and dory were gone.
After her was a big, powerful vessel, the Ave Maria, with the most erratic skipper of all. This man never appeared but the gossip broke out. Andie Howe had his record. “Here comes George107Ross. What’s this they say now?––that he don’t come down from the mast-head now like he used to, when he strikes a school. When I was with him he was a pretty lively man comin’ from aloft––used to sort of fall down, you know. But now he comes down gentle-like––slides down the back-stay. Only trouble now he’s got to get new rubber boots every other trip, ’count of the creases he wears in the legs of them sliding down the wire. I tell you they all lose their nerve as they get older. There’s Billie Simms coming behind him. He’s given up tryin’ to sail his vessel on the side and tryin’ to see how long he c’n carry all he c’n pile on. Billie says ’t’ain’t like when a fellow’s young and ain’t got any family. I expect it’s about the same with George since he got married.” The master of the Ave Maria didn’t even glance over as he piloted his vessel along. He very well knew that we were talking about him.
Pretty soon came one that everybody looked at doubtfully. She sported a new mainmast and a new fore-gaff. “Who’s this old hooker with her new spars? Looks like a vessel just home from salt fishing, don’t she? Lord, but she needs painting.” Nobody seemed to know who she was, and as she got nearer there was a straining of eyes for her name forward. “The H-A-R-B-I––oh, the Harbinger. Must be old Marks and the old craft he108bought down East last fall. This the old man, of course––the Harbinger. How long’s she been down here? Came down ahead of the fleet? Well, she ought to––by the looks of her she needs a good early start to get anywhere. They ought to be glad to get in. I mind that September breeze twenty year ago that the old man said blew all the water off Quero and drove him ashore on Sable Island. He says he ain’t taking any more line storms in his. No, nor anybody else in the old square-enders he gen’rally sails in. I’ll bet he’s glad to change winter trawling for summer seining. I’ll bet he put in a few wakeful nights on the Banks in his time––mind the time he parted his cable and came bumping over Sable Island No’the-east Bar? Found the only channel there was, I callate. ‘Special little angels was looking out for me,’ he says, when he got home. ‘Yes,’ says Wesley Marrs––he was telling it to Wesley––‘yes,’ says Wesley, ‘but I’ll bet keepin’ the lead goin’ had a hell of a lot to do with it, too.’”
So they came rolling in by the end of the jetty until they could make one last tack of it. Like tumbling dolphins they were––seiners all, with a single boat towing astern and a single dory, or sometimes two dories, lashed in the waist, all gear stowed away, under four lower sails mostly––jumbo, jib, fore and main, though now and then109was one with a mainsail in stops and a trysail laced to the gaff, and all laying down to it until their rails were washing under and the sea hissed over the bows.
Anybody would have to admire them as they came scooting past. When they thought they were close enough to the Breakwater––and some went pretty close––up or down would go the wheel, according to which end of the jetty they came in by, around they would go, and across the flats and down on the fleet they would come shooting. They breasted into the hollows like any sea-bird and lifted with every heave to shake the water from bilge to quarter. They came across with never a let-up, shaving everything along the way until a good berth was picked out. Then they let go sails, dropped anchor and were ready for a rest.
Nobody got by our fellows without a word. And we weren’t the only crew of critics. Bungling seamanship would get a slashing here, but there was none of that. It was all good, but there are degrees of goodness, of course. First-class seamanship being a matter of course, only a wonderful exhibition won approval from everybody. And crews coming in, knowing what was ahead of them, made no mistakes in that harbor.
A dozen ordinary skippers sailed past before a famous fisherman at length came in. Everybody110knew him––a dog, a high-liner, truly a master mariner. A murmur went up. “There’s the boy,” said Tommie Clancy. “I mind last summer when he came into Souris just such a day as this, but with more wind stirring. ’Twas Fourth of July and we had all our flags to the peak––and some fine patriotic fights going on ashore that day––our flag and the English. The harbor was jammed with seiners and fresh-fishers. You couldn’t see room for a dory, looking at ’em end on. But that don’t jar Tom O’Donnell. What does he do? He just comes in and sails around the fleet like a cup-defender on parade––and every bit of canvas he had aboard flying––only his crew had to hang onto the ring-bolts under the wind’ard rail. Well, he comes piling in, looks the fleet over, sizes up everything, picks out a nice spot as he shoots around, sails out the harbor again––clean out, yes sir, clean out––comes about––and it blowing a living gale all the time––shoots her in again, dives across a line of us, and fetches her up standing. We could’ve jumped from our rail to his in jack-boots, he was that close to us and another fellow the other side. Slid her in like you slide the cover into a diddy box. Yes, sir, and that’s the same lad you see coming along now––Tom O’Donnell and his Colleen Bawn.”
He certainly was coming on now, and a fine111working vessel he had. She showed it in every move. She came around like a twin-screw launch, picked out her berth like she had intelligence in her eyes, made for it, swirled, fluttered like a bird, felt with her claws for the ground underneath, found it, gripped it, swayed, hung on, and at last settled gently in her place. There was no more jar to the whole thing than if she had been a cat-boat in a summer breeze. “Pretty, pretty, pretty,” you could hear the gang along our rail.
“They talk about knockabout racing craft,” said Clancy, “but did y’ever see anything drop to a berth slicker than that? And that’s a vessel you c’n go to sea in, and in the hardest winter gale that ever blew you c’n turn in when your watch is done and have a feeling of comfort.”
“Where’s the steam trawler, the porgy boat, we saw yesterday?”
“Put into Chincoteague most likely––nearer than here.”
“That’s what we’ll have to come to yet––steamers, and go on wages like a waiter in a hotel.”
“Yes,” said Clancy, “I s’pose so, but with vessels like we got and the seamen sailing out of Gloucester we’ll stave ’em off a long time yet, and even as it is, give me a breeze and a vessel like this one under us and we’ll beat out all the steam fishermen that ever turned a screw.”
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One of the latest experiments in a fishermen’s model reached in then and her coming started a chorus. They were always trying new models in Gloucester, everybody was so anxious to have a winner. This one’s sails were still white and pretty and her hull still shiny in fresh black paint. The red stripe along her rail and the gold stripe along her run set off her lines; her gear didn’t have a speck on it, her spars were yellow as could be and to leeward we thought we could still smell the patent varnish. For that matter there were several there as new-looking as she was, our own vessel for one; but there had been a lot of talk about this one. She was going to clean out the fleet. She had been pretending to a lot, and as she hadn’t yet made good, of course she got a great raking.
“She’s here at last, boys––the yacht, the wonderful, marvellous Victory! Ain’t she a bird? Built to beat the fleet! Look at the knockabout bow of her!”
“Knockabout googleums––h-yah! Scoop shovel snout and a stern ugly as a battle-ship’s, and the Lord knows there was overhang and to spare to tail her out decent. Cut out the yellow and the red and the whole lot of gold decorations and she’s as homely as a Newf’undland jack.”
“Just the same, she c’n sail,” said somebody who wanted to start an argument.
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“Sail! Yah! might beat a Rockport granite sloop. Ever hear of the Henry Clay Parker, Mister Billie Simms, and the little licking she gave this winner of yours? No? Well, you want to go around and have a drink or two with the boys next time you’re ashore and get the news. It was like a dogfish and a mackerel––the Henry just eat her up. And there’s the others. Why, this one underneath us’d make a holy show of her, I’ll bet. And there’s half a dozen others. There’s the––oh, what’s the use?”
“Oh, Eddie Parsons, a perfect lady and coming in like a high-stepper and yet you must malign her beauty and make light of her virtue,” and Clancy jammed Parsons’s sou’wester down over his eyes––“hush up, Eddie.”
Into the harbor and after the Victory heaved another one. And she was the real thing––handsome, fast and able. And she had a record for bringing the fish home––an able vessel and well-known for it. She could carry whole sails when some of the others were double-reefed and thinking of dragging trysails out of the hold. And her skipper was a wonder.
“You c’n cut all the others out––here comes the real thing. Here’s the old dog himself. Did he ever miss a blow? And look at him. Every man comes in here to-day under four lowers, no more,114and some under reefed mains’l, or trys’l, but four whole lowers ain’t enough for this gentleman––not for Wesley. He must carry that gaff-tops’l if he pulls the planks out of her. He always brings her home, but if some of the underwriters’d see him out here they’d soon blacklist him till he mended his ways. It’s a blessed wonder he ain’t found bottom before this. Look at her now skating on her ear. There she goes––if they’d just lower a man over the weather rail with a line on him he could write his name on her keel!”
And she certainly was something to make a man’s eyes stick out. There had been a vessel or two that staggered before, but the Lucy fairly rolled down into it, and there was no earthly reason why she should do it except that it pleased her skipper to sport that extra kite.
She boiled up from the end of the jetty, and her wake was the wake of a screw steamer. She had come from home, we knew, and so it happened she was one of the last to get in. The harbor was crowded as she straightened out. We knew she would not have too much leeway coming on, and what berth she was after kept everybody guessing.
“If she goes where’s she pointing––and most vessels do––she’ll find a berth down on the beach on that course, down about where the wreck is. It’ll be dry enough walking when she gets there.115If she keeps on the gait she’s going now, she ought to be able to fetch good and high and dry up on the mud. They’d cert’nly be able to step ashore––when they get there. Ah-h-h, but that’s more like it.”
She was taking it over the quarter then. She cleared the stern of the most leeward of the fleet and then kicked off, heading over to where the Johnnie Duncan and the Victory lay. The betting was that she would round to and drop in between us two. There was room there, but only just room. It would be a close fit, but there was room.
But she didn’t round to. She held straight on without the sign of a swerve. On the Johnnie, the gang being almost in her path picked out a course for her. Between the outer end of our seine-boat and the end of the bowsprit of the Mary Grace Adams was a passage that may have been the width of a vessel. But the space seemed too narrow. Our crew were wondering if he would try it. Even the skipper, standing in the companionway, stepped up on deck to have a better look.
“He’s got to take it quarterin’, and it ain’t wide enough,” said Eddie Parsons.
“Quartering––yes, but with everything hauled inboard,” said the skipper. “He’ll try it, I guess. I was with him for two years, and if he feels like trying it he’ll try it.”
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“And s’pose he does try it, Skipper?”
“Oh, he’ll come pretty near making it, though he stands a good chance to scrape the paint off our seine-boat going by. No, don’t touch the seine-boat––let her be as she is. We’ll fool ’em if they think they c’n jar anybody here coming on like that. There’s room enough if nothing slips, and if they hit it’s their lookout.”
It looked like a narrow space for a vessel of her beam to go through, but she hopped along, and the eyes of all the harbor followed her to the point where she must turn tail or make the passage.
She held on––her chance to go back was gone.
“Watch her, boys. Now she’s whooping––look at her come!”
And she was coming. Her windward side was lifted so high that her bottom planks could be seen. Her oil-skinned crew were crowded forward. There were men at the fore-halyards, at jib-halyards, at the down-hauls, and a group were standing by the anchor. Two men were at the wheel.
She bit into it. There was froth at her mouth. She was so near now that we could read the faces of her crew; and wide awake to this fine seamanship we all leaned over the rail, the better to see how she’d make out. The crews of half the vessels inside the Breakwater were watching her.
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She was a length away and jumping to it. It was yet in doubt, but she was certainly rushing to some sort of a finish. She rushed on, and w-r-r-rp! her weather bow came down on the Johnnie’s seine-boat. But it didn’t quite hit it. Her quarter to leeward just cut under the Adams’ bowsprit and the leech of her mainsail seemed to flatten past. For a moment we were not certain, but no jolt or lurch came and our seine-boat seemed all right. Another jump and she was clear by. And then we felt like cheering her, and her skipper Wesley Marrs, too, as he stood to the wheel and sung out, “Couldn’t scare you, could I, Maurice. I thought you’d haul your seine-boat in. I’ve got your extra seine,” and swept by.
From our deck and from the deck of the Adams, and from the decks of half a dozen others, could be heard murmurs, and there was a general pointing out of the redoubtable skipper himself to the green hands that knew him only by reputation. “That’s him, Wesley himself––the stocky little man of the two at the wheel.”
If the stocky little man heard the hails that were sent after him, he made no sign, unless a faint dipping of his sou’wester back over his windward shoulder was his way of showing it.
He had business yet, had Wesley Marrs. There was a tug and a barge and another big seiner in118his course. He clipped the tug, scraped the barge, and set the seiner’s boat a-dancing, and two lengths more he put down the wheel and threw her gracefully into the wind. Down came jib, down came jumbo, over splashed the anchor. She ran forward a little, rattled back a link or two, steadied herself, and there she was. Her big mainsail was yet shaking in the wind, her gaff-topsail yet fluttering aloft, but she herself, the Lucy Foster of Gloucester, was at your service. “And what do you think of her, people?” might just as well have been shot off her deck through a megaphone, for that was what her bearing and the unnatural smartness of her crew plainly were saying.
We all drew breath again. Clancy unbent from the rail and shook his head in high approval. He took off his sou’wester, slatted it over the after-bitt to clear the brim of water, and spoke his mind. “You’ll see nothing cleaner than that in this harbor to-day, fellows, and you’ll see some pretty fair work at that. That fellow––he’s an able seaman.”
“Yes, sir––an able seaman,” said the skipper also.
And Clancy and the skipper were something in the line of able seamen themselves.
119XIIIWESLEY MARRS BRINGS A MESSAGE
Generally a day in harbor is a day of loafing for the crew of a seiner; but it was not so altogether with us that day. Within two hours of the time that Wesley Marrs came in to the Breakwater in such slashing style the skipper had us into the seine-boat and on the way to the Lucy Foster. By his orders we took along ten empty mackerel barrels. “We’ll go over to the beach first and fill these barrels up with sand.” We all knew what the sand was for––the Johnnie Duncan was going to be put in trim to do her best sailing. Coming down the coast the skipper and Clancy decided that she was down by the stern a trifle.
So we attended to the sand, and on the way back hauled our second seine out of the hold of the Lucy Foster, and piled it into the seine-boat. With the last of the twine into the seine-boat and just as we were about to push off from the Lucy, Wesley Marrs put a foot on the rail of his vessel and spoke to Maurice.
“And when I was taking the last of that aboard120in the dock in Gloucester, you wouldn’t believe who it was stepped onto the cap-log and looking down on the deck of the Lucy says, ‘And you’ll take good care of that seine for Captain Blake, won’t you, Captain Marrs?’ Could you guess now, Maurice?”
“No,” said Maurice.
“No, I’ll bet you can’t. It isn’t often she comes down the dock. Miss Foster no less. ‘And what makes you think I won’t?’ I asks her. ‘Oh, of course I know you will,’ she says, ‘and deliver it to him in good order, too.’ ‘I’ll try,’ I says, as though it was a desp’rate job I had on hand––to put a seine in the hold and turn it over to another vessel when I met her. ‘But what makes you worry about this partic’lar seine, Miss Foster?’ I asks.”
“Which Miss Foster was it, Wesley––the one your vessel is named after?” broke in our skipper.
“No––no––but the younger one––Alice. ‘But what makes you worry?’ I asks her, and she didn’t say anything, but that one that’s with her all the time––the one that goes with the lad that designed the Johnnie Duncan–––”
“Joe’s cousin here–––”
“That’s it––the fat little Buckley girl––a fine girl too. And if I was a younger man and looking for a wife, there’s the kind for me––but anyway she up and says, ‘Alice is worried, Captain Marrs,121because she owns a third of Captain Blake’s vessel––a good part of her little fortune’s in the Duncan––and if anything happens to the seine one-third of it, of course, comes out of her. And it cost a good many hundred dollars. So you must be careful.’ ‘Oh, that’s it?’ says I. ‘Then it’ll be shortened sail and extra careful watches on the Lucy till I meet Maurice, for I mustn’t lose any property of Miss Foster’s.’”
We rowed away from the Lucy Foster, and I supposed that was the end of it. But that night going on deck to take a last look at the stars before turning in, there was the skipper and Clancy walking the break and talking.
“And did you know, Tommie, that Miss Foster owned any of this one?” the skipper was saying.
“No,” said Tommie, “I didn’t know, but–––”
“But you suspected. Well, I didn’t even suspect. And there’s that seine we lost last night––cost all of eight hundred dollars.”
“That’s what it did––a fine seine.”
A few minutes later the skipper went below, and Clancy, seeing me, said, “Hold on, Joey. Did you hear what the skipper said?”
“About Miss Foster owning a share of the vessel?”
“Well, not that so much, but about the loss of the seine?”
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“Yes––why?”
“Why? Joe, but sometimes a man would think you were about ten year old. I tell you, Joe, I’m not too sure it’s going to be Withrow. And if you don’t see some driving on this one when next we get among the fish, then––” But he didn’t finish it, only clucked his tongue and went below.
Clancy was right again. During the night the weather moderated, and in the morning the first of the fleet to go out past the Breakwater was the Johnnie Duncan. It looked to us as if the skipper thought the mackerel would be all gone out of the sea before we got back to the spot where we had struck them two days before.
123XIVA PROSPECT OF NIGHT-SEINING
We might have stayed in harbor another twenty-four hours and lost nothing by it. It was dawn when we put out from the Delaware Breakwater, and by dark of the same day we were back to where we had met the big school and lost the seine two days before. And there we hung about for another night and day waiting for the sea to flatten out. Mackerel rarely show in rough weather, even if you could put out a seine-boat and go after them. But I suppose that it did us no harm to be on the ground and ready.
On the evening of the next day there was something doing. There was still some sea on, but not enough to hurt. Along about eight o’clock, I remember, I came off watch and dropped into the forec’s’le to fix up my arm, which was still badly strained from hanging onto the seine-boat’s painter when I was washed overboard. The skipper, taking a look, told me not to go into the dory that night, but to let Billie Hurd, who was spare hand, take my place, and for me to stay aboard. I would124rather have gone into the dory, of course, but was not able to pull an oar––that is, pull it as I’d have to pull when driving for a school––and knowing I would be no more than so much freight in the dory there was nothing else to do. “And if we see fish, Clancy’ll stay to the mast-head to-night––as good a seine-master as sails out of Gloucester is Tommie––better than me,” he said. “I’m going in the seine-boat, and Eddie Parsons, you’ll take Clancy’s place in the dory.” And buttoning his oil-jacket up tight, he put on his mitts and went on deck.
That evening the forward gang were doing about as much work as seiners at leisure usually do. It was in the air that we would strike fish, but the men had not yet been told to get ready. So four of them were playing whist at the table under the lamp and two were lying half in and half out of opposite upper bunks, trying to get more of the light on the pages of the books they were reading. Long Steve, in a lower port bunk nearer the gangway, was humming something sentimental, and two were in a knot on the lockers, arguing fiercely over nothing in particular. There was a fellow in the peak roaring out, “Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.” Only the cook, just done with mixing bread, seemed to have ever done a lick of work in his life, and he was now standing by the125galley fire rolling the dough off his fingers. The cook on a fisherman is always a busy man.
Down the companionway and into the thick of this dropped Clancy, oiled up and all ready to go aloft. To the mast-head of a vessel, even on an April night in southern waters, it is cold enough, especially when, like a seiner, she is nearly always by the wind; and Clancy was wrapped up. “I think,” said Clancy, as his boot-heels hit the floor, “I’ll have a mug-up.” From the boiler on the galley-stove he poured out a mug of coffee and from the grub-locker he took a slice of bread and two thick slices of cold beef. He buried the bread among the beef and leaned against the foremast while he ate.
Once when Clancy was a skipper he did a fine bit of rescuing out to sea, and after he got home a newspaper man saw him and wrote him up. I had the clipping stuck on the wall of Withrow’s store for months and had read it so often that I knew it by heart. “In heavy jack-boots and summer sou’wester, with a black jersey of fine quality sticking up above the neck of his oil-jacket, with a face that won you at sight; cheeks a nice even pink; damp, storm-beaten, and healthful; with mouth, eyes, and jaw bespeaking humor, sympathy, and courage; shoulders that seemed made for butting to windward––an attractive, inspiring, magnetic man altogether––that126is Captain Tommie Clancy of the Gloucester fisherman, the Mary Andrews.” That, was how it read, and certainly it fitted him now, as he stood there in the middle of the thick curling smoke of the pipes, holding the mug of coffee in one hand and the sandwich of bread and meat in the other, leaning easily against the butt of the foremast, and between gulps and bites taking notice of the crew.
“Give me,” he said to the cook as the proper man for an audience, “a seiner’s crew when they’re not on fish for real gentlemen of leisure. Look at ’em now––you’d think they were all near-sighted, with their cards up to their chins. And above them look––Kipling to starb’d and the Duchess to port. Mulvaney, I’ll bet, filled full of whiskey and keeping the heathen on the jump, and Airy Fairy Lillian, or some other daisy with winning ways, disturbing the peace of mind of half a dozen dukes. Mulvaney’s all right, but the Duchess! They’ll be taking books of that kind to the mast-head next. What d’y’ s’pose I found aft the other day? Now what d’y’ s’pose? I’ll bet you’d never guess. No, no. Well, ‘He Loved, but Was Lured Away.’ Yes. Isn’t that fine stuff for a fisherman to be feeding on? But whoever was reading it, he was ashamed of it. ‘Well, who owns this thing?’ says I, picking up the lured-away lad. ‘Nobody,’ speaks127up Sam there. Of course he didn’t own it––O no!
“Violet Vance,” went on Clancy, and took another bite of his sandwich. “Violet Vance and Wilful Winnie and a whole holdful of airy creatures couldn’t help a fisherman when there’s anything stirring. I waded through a whole bunch of ’em once,”––he reached over and took a wedge of pie from the grub-locker. “Yes, I went through a whole bunch of ’em once––pretty good pie this, cook, though gen’rally those artificial apples that swings on strings ain’t in it with the natural tree apples for pie––once when we were laying somewhere to the east’ard of Sable Island, in a blow and a thick fog––fresh halibuting––and right in the way of the liners. And I expect I was going around like a man asleep, because the skipper comes up and begins to talk to me. It was my first trip with him and I was a young lad. ‘Young fellow,’ says the skipper, Matt Dawson––this was in the Lorelei––‘young fellow,’ says Matt, ‘you look tired. Let me call up the crew and swing a hammock for you from the fore-rigging to the jumbo boom. How’ll that do for you? When the jumbo slats it’ll keep the hammock rocking. Let me,’ he says. ‘P’raps,’ he goes on, ‘you wouldn’t mind waking up long enough to give this music box a turn or two every now and then while the128fog lasts.’ We had a patent fog-horn aboard, the first I ever saw, and I’d clear forgot it––warn’t used to patent horns. But just another little wedge of pie, George.
“However, I suppose when there’s nothing doing there’s no very great harm. But we’ll try to keep some of you busy to-night. Praise the Lord, the moon’s out of the way and it’s looking black already and the sea ought to fire up fine later on. And there’s a nice little breeze to overhaul a good school when we see one. If any of you are beginning to think of getting in a wink of sleep then you’d better turn in now, for you’re sure to be out before long. I’m going aloft.”
Clancy climbed up the companionway. Then followed the scraping of his boot-heels across the deck. Half a minute later, had anybody cared to go up and have a look, I suppose he would have been discovered astraddle of the highest block above the forethroat––he and the skipper––watching out sharply for the lights of the many other vessels about them, but more particularly straining their eyes for the phosphorescent trails of mackerel.
129XVCLANCY TO THE MAST-HEAD
The men below knew their skipper and Clancy too well to imagine that they were to be too long left in peace. And then, too, the next man off watch reported a proper night for mackerel. “Not a blessed star out––and black! It’s like digging a hole in the ground and looking into it. And the skipper’s getting nervous, I know. I could hear him stirrin’ ’round up there when I was for’ard just now, and he hollered to the wheel that up to the no’the’ard it looked like planty of fish. ‘And I callate we ain’t the only vessel got eyes for it,’ he said.”
“Yes,” said his watch-mate, who had just dropped down, “it’s nothing but side-lights all ’round and–––”
Just then came the skipper’s voice from aloft. “Tell the boys they might’s well oil up and be ready.” The watch did not have to repeat it––we all heard it below, and fore and aft, in cabin and forec’s’le, the gang made ready. Cards, novels, and all the hot arguments went by the board,130and then after a mug-up for nearly all we slid into oil-clothes, boots and sou’westers, and puffing at what was probably to be the last pipeful of the evening, we lay around on lockers and on the floor, backs to the butt of the mast and backs to the stove––wherever there was space for a broad back and a pair of stout legs our fellows dropped themselves, discussing all the while the things that interested them––fish, fishing, fast vessels, big shares, politics, Bob Fitzsimmons, John L. Sullivan, good stories, and just then particularly, because two of the crew were thinking of marrying, the awful price of real estate in Gloucester.
By and by, ringing as clear as if he himself stood at the companionway, came the skipper’s voice from the mast-head: “On deck everybody!” No more discussion, no more loafing––pipes were smothered into bosoms, and up the companionway crowded oilskins and jack-boots.
Then came: “It looks like fish ahead of us. Haul the boat alongside and drop the dory over.”
We jumped. Four laid hands on the dory in the waist and ten or a dozen heaved away on the stiff painter of the seine-boat that was towing astern. Into the air and over the starboard rail went the dory, while ploughing up to the vessel’s boom at the port fore-rigging came the bow of the seine-boat.
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Then followed: “Put the tops’ls to her––sharp now.”
The halyards could be heard whirring up toward the sky, while two bunches of us sagged and lifted on the deck below. Among us it was, “Now then––o-ho––sway away––good,” until topsails were flat as boards, and the schooner, hauled up, had heeled to her scuppers.
“Slap the stays’l to her and up with the balloon. Half the fleet’s driving to the no’the’ard. Lively.”
The Johnnie liked that rarely. With the seventy-five foot main-boom sheeted in to her rail, with the thirty-seven-foot spike bowsprit poking a lane in the sea when she dove and a path among the clouds when she lifted, with her midship rail all but flush with the sea and the night breeze to sing to her––of course she liked it, and she showed her liking. She’d tear herself apart now before she’d let anything in the fleet go by her. And red and green lights were racing to both quarters of her.
“Into the boat!” It was the skipper’s voice again, and fifteen men leaped over the rail at the word. Two dropped into the dory and thirteen jumped from the vessel’s rail onto thwarts or netting or into the bottom of the seine-boat––anywhere at all so that they get in quickly. As extra hand on deck I had to stand by and pay out the painter.
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In the middle of it came the skipper sliding down from the mast-head. “Drop astern, boat and dory,” he called out, and himself leaped over the quarter and onto the pile of netting as into the Johnnie’s boiling wake they went. The thirty-eight-foot seine-boat was checked up a dozen fathoms astern, and the dory just astern of that. The two men in the dory had to fend off desperately as they slid by the seine-boat.
On the deck of the Johnnie were the cook, who had the wheel, and myself, who had to stand by the sheets. There would be stirring times soon, for even from the deck occasional flashes of light, marking small pods of mackerel, could be made out on the surface of the sea. Clancy, now at the mast-head alone, was noting these signs, we felt sure, and with them a whole lot of other things. To the mast-heads of other vessels out in the night were other skippers, or seine-masters, and all with skill and nerve and a great will to get fish.
The Johnnie was making perhaps ten knots good now, and with every jerk the painter of the seine-boat chafed and groaned in the taffrail chock. The skipper from the boat called for more line. “Slack away a bit, slack away. We’re not porpoises.”
I jumped to attend to the painter just as Clancy’s voice broke in from above: “Swing her off about133two points, ease your main sheet and keep an eye on that light to looard. Off, off––that’s good––hold her––and Joe, slack stays’l and then foretops’l halyards. Be ready to let go balloon halyards and stand by down-haul. Look alive.”
I paid out some sheet from the bitt by the wheel-box, unbuttoned the after stays’l tack, jumped forward and loosed up halyards till her kites dropped limp.
“Down with your balloon there––and at the wheel there, jibe her over. Watch out for that fellow astern––he’s pretty handy to our boat. Watch out in boat and dory!” The last warning was a roar.
The big balloon gossamer came rattling down the long stay and the jaws of the booms ratched, fore and main, as they swung over. From astern came the voices of the men in boat and dory, warning each other to hang on when they felt her jibing. Some of them must have come near to being jerked overboard. “Why in God’s name don’t you slack that painter?” came the voice of the skipper from the boat.
I leaped to give them more painter, and “Draw away your jib––draw away your jumbo,” came from aloft. Sheets were barely fast when it was: “Steady at the wheel, George––steady her––ste-a-dy––Great God! man, if you can’t see can’t134you feel that fellow just ahead? And, skipper, tell them to close their jaws astern there––water won’t hurt ’em. Ready all now?”
“Ready!” roared back the skipper.
“All right. Down with your wheel a bit now, George. Down––more yet. Hold her there.”
The vessels that we had dodged by this bit of luffing were now dropping by us; one red light was slowly sliding past our quarter to port, and one green shooting by our bow to starboard. Evidently Clancy had only been waiting to steer clear of these two neighbors, for there was plenty of fish in sight now. The sea was flashing with trails of them. Clancy now began to bite out commands.
“Stand ready everybody. In the boat and dory there––is everything ready, skipper?”
“All ready, boat and dory.”
Out came Clancy’s orders then––rapid fire––and as he ripped them out, no whistling wind could smother his voice, no swash of the sea could drown it. In boat, dory and on deck, every brain glowed to understand and every heart pumped to obey.
“Up with your wheel, George, and let her swing by. Stea-dy. Ready in the boat. Steady your wheel. Are you ready in the boat? Let her swing off a little more, George. Steady––hold her there. Stand by in the boat. Now then––now! Cast off135your painter, cast off and pull to the west’ard. And drive her! Up with the wheel. More yet––that’s good. Drive her, I say, skipper. Where’s that dory?––I don’t see the dory. The dory, the dory––where in hell’s the dory?––show that lantern in the dory. All right, the dory. Hold her up, George. Don’t let her swing off another inch now. Drive her, boys, drive her! Look out now! Stand by the seine! Stand by––the twine––do you hear, Steve! The twine! Drive her––drive her––blessed Lord! drive her. That’s the stuff, skipper, drive her! Let her come up, George. Down with your wheel––down with you wheel––ste-a-dy. Drive her, skipper, drive her! Turn in now––in––shorter yet. Drive her now––where’s that dory!––hold her up!––not you, George! you’re all right––ste-a-dy. Hold that dory up to the wind!––that’s it, boys––you’re all right––straight ahead now! That’s the stuff. Turn her in now again, skipper. In the dory there––show your lantern in the dory and be ready for the seine-boat. Good enough. Now cover your lantern in the dory and haul away when you’re ready.”
To have experienced the strain and drive of that rush, to have held an oar in the boat during that and to have shared with the men in the confidence they gathered––ours was a skipper to steer a boat around a school––and the soul that rang in Clancy’s136voice!––why, just to stand on deck, as I did, and listen to it––it was like living.
During this dash we could make out neither boat nor dory from deck, but the flashes of light raised by the oars at every stroke were plainly to be seen in that phosphorescent sea. Certainly they were making that boat hop along! Ten good men, with every man a long, broad blade, and double banked, so that every man might encourage his mate and be himself spurred on by desperate effort. Legs, arms, shoulders, back, all went into it and their wake alive with smoke and fire to tell them they were moving! To be in that?––The middle of a black night on the Atlantic was this, and the big seine-heaver was throwing the seine in great armfuls. And Hurd and Parsons in the little dory tossing behind and gamely trying to keep up! They were glad enough to be in the dory, I know, to get hold of the buoy, and you can be sure there was some lively action aboard of her when Clancy called so fiercely to them to hold the buoy up to the wind, so that the efforts of the crew of the seine-boat, racing to get their two hundred odd fathoms of twine fence around the flying school, might not go for naught.