173
The skipper looked back a long time––looked back, and looked back. He began walking the quarter––back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The sun got lower and lower, the sea lost some of its blue, and the air grew fresher, and still he kept looking back.
“It’ll be a grand sunset to-night, Tommie.”
“The finest kind. But one thing wrong with it.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re not seeing it astern of us.”
The skipper stopped. “Astern? That’s so, too––itisa fine westerly, isn’t it?”
Clancy said nothing, only leaned against the rigging, not a move out of him––puffing his pipe and looking away.
Nobody spoke till the skipper spoke again.
“Who’s to the wheel––you, Steve? How’s she heading now?”
“No’the by west.”
“No’the by west? Put her east by no’the––ease off your mainsheet. Let it go to the knot. Call the gang and make sail––stays’l and balloon––everything––we’ll go home, I guess.”
Clancy snapped the pipe out of his mouth and hove it over the rail. Then he went for the forec’s’le gangway. In two jumps he was there.
“Up, you loafers––on deck and make sail. ‘To174the east’ard,’ says the skipper, and over the shoals we’ll put her to-night.”
“Home! Home––good enough––and hurroo!” we could hear from below.
The skipper said nothing more––only all night long he walked the quarter.
Next day when we were almost abreast of Cape Cod Clancy began to instruct me. “Here’s a tip for any girl friends you got, Joe. See the skipper last night? Tell them if they’re after a man––a real man––even if he’s a bit shy––tell them––” Oh, the advice that Clancy could give!
About the time that we left Cape Cod light astern and squared away for Thatcher’s––with Gloucester Harbor almost in sight––with the rocks of Eastern Point dead ahead––Clancy began to sing again:
“Oh, a deep blue sky and a deep blue seaAnd a blue-eyed girl awaiting me––Too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree––Who wouldn’t a Gloucester seiner be?
“Oh, a deep blue sky and a deep blue seaAnd a blue-eyed girl awaiting me––Too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree––Who wouldn’t a Gloucester seiner be?
“Oh, a deep blue sky and a deep blue sea
And a blue-eyed girl awaiting me––
Too-roo-roo and a too-roo-ree––
Who wouldn’t a Gloucester seiner be?
Ha, Joey-boy?” and gave me a slap on the shoulder that sent me half-way to the break.
That was all right, but I went aloft so I could see the rocks of Cape Ann a mite sooner. I was just beginning to discover that I had been almost homesick.
175XXISEINERS’ WORK
We were high line of the seining fleet when we got home from the Southern cruise and we felt pretty proud of ourselves. It was something to stand on the corner on one of the days when the Johnnie was fitting out again, and have other fellows come up to you and say, “What’s that they say you fellows shared on the Southern trip?” And when we’d tell them, and we trying not to throw out our chests too much, it was fine to hear them say, “That so? Lord, but that’s great. Well, if Maurice only holds out he’ll make a great season of it, won’t he?”
“Oh, he’ll hold out,” we’d say, and lead the way down to the Anchorage or some other place for a drink or a cigar, for of course, with the money we’d made, we naturally felt like spending some of it on those who were not doing so well. And of course, too, no seiner could ever resist anybody who talks to him in a nice friendly way like that.
The skipper’s doings ashore interested all of his crew, of course, although me, perhaps, more than176anybody else, unless it was Clancy. I got pretty regular bulletins from my cousin Nell. She was for the skipper, first, last and all the time.
“I like him,” she said to me more than a dozen times. “I do like him, but I never imagined that a man who does so well at sea could shrink into himself as he does. Why, you almost have to haul him out by the ears ashore. If it weren’t for me I really believe––” and she stopped.
But I thought I understood what she meant. “Meaning your chum, Alice Foster?” I said.
“Yes, meaning my chum, Alice Foster. Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I think she’s a kind of a frost.”
“No, she isn’t a frost, and don’t you come around here again and tell me so.”
Nor did I, for I would not have an argument with Nell for all the Alice Fosters in the world, for if Nell were anybody else but my first cousin, I think I would have fallen in love with her myself.
And then we put out to sea and again we were living the life of seiners, having it hard and easy in streaks. There were the times when we went along for a week and did not do a tap but eat, sleep, stand a trick at the wheel, a watch to the mast-head, and skylark around the deck, and read, or have a quiet game of draw or whist or seven-up below. But again there were times when we were177on fish, and our skipper being a driver, it was jump, jump, jump for a week on end. There was that time in August when the fish were so plentiful on Georges Bank, when, standing to the mast-head, you could see nothing but mackerel schooling for fifteen or twenty miles either side of the vessel. But, oh, they were wild! A dozen times we’d heave the seine––put off from the vessel, put out that two hundred and odd fathom of twine, drive seine-boat and dory to the limit, purse in––and not so much as a single mackerel caught by the gills. That happened fifteen or twenty times some days, maybe. We got our fill of sets that month. But then again there was a week off Cape Cod and in the Bay of Fundy and off the Maine coast when we ran them fresh to Boston market, when we landed more mackerel it was said in a single week than was ever landed before by one vessel. We were five days and five nights that time without seeing our bunks. It was forever out and after them, heave the seine, purse up and bail in, ice some, and dress the rest along the way, and the vessel with everything on driving for Boston.
We stood to it that week, you may be sure, until coming on the fifth day some of us fell asleep over the keelers as the Johnnie was coming into T Wharf. I remember that I could just barely see in a kind of a hazy way the row of people along the178cap-log when we made fast. And yet after that we had to hoist them out of the hold and onto the dock. That day, going out again, the skipper made all but the watch and himself turn in. That afternoon, when everybody had had a little kink, the skipper himself, who had been under a heavier strain than any of us, suddenly fell backward over the house and sound asleep. And there he lay all the rest of that day and that night.
After ten or twelve hours of it we tried to wake him, but not a budge. We tried again, but no use. At last he came to and without any help at all. Sitting up, he asked where we were, and being told, he said nothing for a moment or so, and then suddenly––“That so? How long was I asleep?” We told him––seventeen hours. “Good Lord!” he groaned, and after a mug-up scooted for the mast-head like a factory hand with the seven o’clock whistle blowing. “He’s a fisherman, the skipper,” said the gang as they watched him climb the rigging.
And he was a fisherman. All that summer he drove things with but little time for us ashore. Twice he put into Gloucester with a day to ourselves and another time we had a chance to run down after we had put into Boston for market, and that we suspected was because the skipper found he could not keep away himself any longer.179Things, we judged, were going pretty well with him in Gloucester. He did not pretend any longer now that he was not interested in Miss Foster, and from my cousin Nell I got occasional hints, most of which I confided to Clancy, who explained them as if they were so many parables.
“It’ll be all right,” said Clancy, “if only Minnie Arkell stands clear. I’m glad she’s away for the summer, but she’ll turn up in the fall. You’ll see her just before the race large as life, and some of her swell-dressed friends, and a yacht, I’ll bet.”
Considering how deeply the skipper was interested in Miss Foster, some of us thought he ought to be putting in a little time ashore between trips. After a run into the Boston fresh fish market, say, we would have liked mighty well to take in the theatre, or a trip to the beach, or some other little entertainment of a night. But no, it was in and out––drive, drive, drive.
He was all ambition, the skipper. He was going to be up front or break something. Miss Foster was one of the ambitious kind, too. If she was going to have a fisherman, he would have to be a killer or she would know why. And so I suppose that had a lot to do with the way the skipper drove things.
We had our loafing spells, as I say, but mostly it was plenty of work. That time when we stayed180awake for five days and nights was not the only one. Another time our legs swelled up and the blood came out of the ends of our fingers with standing up to the keelers and dressing fish without rest. But, Lord, nobody minded that. After we’d got rested up we felt better than ever.
We had good luck generally. We lost neither men nor gear to amount to anything that summer. That seine we lost trying for our first school to the s’uth’ard in the spring was the only bit of misfortune that came, and we had long ago made up for that. But others were not so lucky. There was the loss of the Ruth Ripley, Pitt Ripley’s vessel. I think I have said that she was a fast vessel. She was fast––fast, but of the cranky type. We were jogging along a little to windward of her one fine afternoon––it had been a fine September day and now it was coming on to evening. To the westward of Cape Sable, in the Bay of Fundy, it was, and no hint of a blow up to within a few minutes of the time when the squall struck the Ruth. I suppose it would have been more prudent on Pitt’s part if he had had less sail on, but like most of the skippers in the fleet I guess he was not looking for any record for prudence. Any minute he might have to be up and driving her, and keeping sail on was the quickest way to have it when you needed it in a hurry. The squall hit her––it hit us, too, but181we saw it coming and met it and beyond washing a few keelers overboard, when she rolled down, no harm was done to the Johnnie. On the Ripley, I suppose, they saw it too, but the Ripley and the Duncan were not the same class of vessel by any means. She went over––hove down, with her foremast under water to the cross-trees almost.
Most of her crew were below at the time, some in their bunks. Four or five of those below never reached the deck at all––the water rushing down the companionways cut them off. Some rushed aft where the stern was high out of water and some piled into the rigging. Some were calling out and giving advice to others. We could hear them plainly. Two jumped to the wheel and threw it up, but she would not right.
We had the Johnnie to keep right side up, but we saw the whole thing. It could not have been more than two or three minutes from the time the squall struck her when she was going down head-first. Those of her crew who had gone to the stern were going with her, but those who had taken to the rigging, by leaping wide came clear. Their seine-boat, which had been towing astern, might have been of use to them, but being fast to the vessel by the painter it was pretty well filled with water before anybody had a chance to cut the painter.182The man that cut it went down with the vessel. He was all right, whoever he was. Those in the water were looking about for the dory, and found that half full of water, too. They were trying to bail the water out of the dory, after hauling it across the bow of the submerged seine-boat, when we got them in our seine-boat and picked up what was left of them.
Nine of them were lost, her skipper among them. One of the men saved––the cook––said that when the squall struck the vessel, Captain Ripley had been seen to jump for the boom tackle, which he unhitched, and then to spring for the lashings of the dory, which he cut with his knife. The cook also said that he thought the skipper lost his life because of the half-stunning blow that he must have received from the fore-boom while he was on the rail trying to free the dory. The vessel was sinking all the time and it being dark––or near it in the squall––I suppose Captain Ripley could not watch everything. No doubt, it was the fore-boom hit him and knocked him overboard. Certainly he was knocked overboard, and the last seen of him he was swimming and pushing an empty barrel before him to one of the crew. “Keep your nerve up,” he called to the cook, and after that he suddenly disappeared. He got a man’s death, anyway.
183
We rowed back to the Duncan with the survivors. Nine men gone––it was a hard story to take home with us, but we had it to do. It was all a part of fishing life, and so we put back for Gloucester.
184XXIION THE CAPE SHORE
While we were into Gloucester, after taking home the crew of the Ruth Ripley, our vessel was put on the ways. That was after a talk between the skipper and Mr. Duncan. There is always something that needs attending to on a fisherman, and this time it was our water-tanks. And while they were being looked after, the Johnnie was overhauled, her bottom scrubbed and topsides painted. Old Mr. Duncan, we found, was beginning to take a lot of pride in our vessel and balked at no expense to have her in trim. And now that the Ripley was lost, he would have only two vessels to represent him in the big fishermen’s race, which was then only four weeks away.
“Hurry up home now,” he said to Maurice as we left the dock that time. “Hurry up, and give yourself plenty of time to tune her up and get her in trim for the race. I’ve set my heart on it. You or the Lucy Foster must win that race, and whatever else we do we’ve got to beat Withrow’s vessel, anyway.”
185
And Miss Foster said that one of her guardian’s vessels would have to win the race, and my cousin Nell said that the Johnnie Duncan would have to win. There was a lot depending on it, she said. It meant a lot to Will Somers, I suppose Nell meant.
We figured that we had time to make a Cape shore trip, and, with fair luck, to fill the Johnnie with salt mackerel and be back in time to get her in good condition for the race, which this year, because it was anniversary year in Gloucester, promised to be the greatest ever sailed.
Our plans were somewhat interfered with by a rescue we made. We found a Glasgow bark, New York bound, in the Bay of Fundy, and her crew in hard straits. We stood down and after a lot of trouble took them off––Clancy and Long Steve in the dory. Billie Hurd came near being the second man in the dory, but Clancy, grabbing him as he had one foot over the rail, hauled him back with, “Way for your elders, little man,” and jumped in beside Long Steve.
“Elders, but not betters,” said Hurd.
“Have it your own way,” answered Clancy, “but I go in the dory.”
The rescue was really a fine thing, but the important thing was that some of the rescued men had been exposed to the battering of the sea so186long that they needed medical attention, and so we drove for home––and cracked our foremast-head doing it. That delayed us almost a week, for the skipper had to have that spar just so. A lot might depend on it, same as the rest of the gear. And it was a spar––as fine a bit of timber, Oregon pine of course, as was ever set up in a fisherman. And maybe that too was just as well, with the race coming on.
By the time we were down the Cape shore––down Canso way––and among the fleet again, we had lost a week. Our hold was still to fill up, and only two weeks and a day to the race. Wesley Marrs, Tom O’Donnell, Sam Hollis, and the rest were then talking of going home and making ready for the race. Bottoms would have to be scrubbed, extra gear put ashore––a whole lot of things done––and a few try-outs in the Bay by way of tuning up.
The race was the talk of all the fleet. Half the crews on the Cape shore wanted to be in Gloucester when the race came off, and some of the skippers of the slower vessels, which would not enter because they had no show to win, were already scheming to be home just before the race so that they could be on hand to follow it.
The morning after we were back among the fleet we got a small school right from under the187eyes of the Lynx, one of the English cutters which were patrolling the coast to see that we didn’t get any fish within the three-mile limit. I remember that while we were satisfied at the time that we were outside the line, we did not know what the revenue-cutter might say, and particularly the Lynx, whose captain had a hard name among our fleet for his readiness to suspect law-breaking when there wasn’t any. The cutter people generally seemed to want to be fair toward us, but this Lynx’s captain was certainly a vindictive cuss. Anything hailing from Gloucester was an abomination in his eyes. And so this morning, when, after we had decided that we were outside the limit, and made ready to set, it was hard to have to take the order of the Lynx and sheer off. Our judgment of distance ought to have been as good as his––better, really, we thought it, because we were always judging distances at sea, and more at home upon the sea, too. But that made no difference––what the cutter people said had to be law for us.
So this time he ordered us not to set where we were or he’d seize our vessel. Several Gloucester vessels had been confiscated just before this and the owners had to pay the fine to recover them. One owner disputed the judgment and his case was then waiting settlement. Another who refused to pay saw his vessel turned into a lightship and placed188down Miramichi way in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where it is yet. This day the commander of the Lynx might have some reason to think that his order ended that for us––and we could almost see him chuckling––but it didn’t. A fog was creeping up at the time and in ten minutes it was on us, and under cover of the fog we got a little school––the same school we thought and on the exact spot where the cutter was lying when she ordered us off. Didn’t we cackle though when we bailed it in? Oh, no! It was not much of a school––only twenty barrels––but it made us all feel fine. Not alone did we feel that we had got the better of the English cutter, but also that luck was coming to us again. We justified ourselves by saying that we honestly believed we were outside the three-mile limit, and that our judgment was as good as theirs.
That night the forec’s’le of the Johnnie Duncan presented one of the most beatific scenes I ever saw. Everybody was in the temper of an angel. There was nothing doing––no whist at the table, no reading out of upper bunks, no love song from the peak, and no fierce argument on the lockers. We were discussing the cutters and the talk was very soothing. The cook, as usual, was finishing up a batch of dough. You might have thought he was the only man who had been working in a week, were it not for the wet oil-clothes hanging up to189dry, and the overhauling of second suits of oil-clothes by some of the gang. Every man, except the cook, who never smoked while at work, was puffing away as if he misdoubted he would ever get another chance for a pipeful in his life. “Harmony most ex-quis-ite,” said somebody, and that’s what must have been that hung over the forec’s’le, and it seemed to be merely in keeping with the heavenly order of things that the atmosphere showed pale blue wherever the rays of the lamp could get a chance to strike through.
When Clancy dropped down for his usual mug-up before going to the mast-head for the night of course, he wasn’t going to let that get by without having a word to say about it. He leaned against the foremast and took a look around. “My soul, but it’s as if the blessed angels were fanning their wings over this forehold. There’s Brian Boru and Lord Salisbury there double-banked on the same locker, and nothing doing on any Irish question. There’s the lad that sleeps in the peak and not a single hallelujah of praise for his darling Lucille. The other one––the wild man that sings the Bobbie Burns songs––not a shriek out of him. And Bill and John no longer spoiling their eyesight on bad print. I expect it’s that little school of fish––the first in two weeks or more. The prospect must be making you all pleased. Well, it190ought. A few hundred barrels of that kind of mackerel––as fine fish as ever I see bailed over the rail. And some of you ready reck’ners ought to easily figure up what’ll be coming to us if we ever fill her up––say five hundred barrels. A good thing––a few hundred barrels of mackerel. A few too many of ’em for good trim, but it’s comforting to know they’re there. She seemed to be in pretty nice trim when we tried out one or two of the fleet this morning, didn’t she? And to-night, if it breezes up––and it looks now as if it will––we’ll get some more––if it’s a night like last night. One time there last night––did you notice her, cook?––that time that crazy lad started to cross our bow and we luffed her. Why, man, she shot over like I don’t know what––just shot like one of those torpedo boats we see around when the Navy goes evoluting. I was near shook overboard from aloft. They tell me they’re going crazy over the race in Gloucester. Well, here’s one that’ll bet his summer’s earnings–––”
“What’s left of it, you mean, Tommie,” said George Moore from his pan of dough.
“Well, yes, what’s left of it––and what I c’n borrow. Old man Duncan’ll stake me, and there’s others. I hope, though, it blows a jeesly gale. For this one, God bless her, she c’n sail, and some of them’ll find it out––when it’s too late, maybe. Sam191Hollis for one. There’s a man I’d give my eye almost, to beat. And maybe the skipper hasn’t got it in for him! He doesn’t say much, Maurice don’t, but a while ago, after coming down from aloft, Billie Simms hails him and tells him that the cutter people know all about that little school to-day––and who told him, who told him? Well, the skipper’ll drive this one to the bottom before he ever lets Sam Hollis or any of Withrow’s vessels get by him when we race. Yes, sir. But, Georgie-boy”––Clancy shouldered away from the foremast––“how is it for a wedge or two of one of those blueberry pies you got cooling there? Just a little wedge, now. But you don’t need to be too close-hauled with your knife––no. Sailing by the wind is all right when you’re jogging in and out among the fleet, and nothing partic’lar doing except an eye out for mackerel, but you want to give her a full always––always, Georgie––when you’re cutting pie. There’s the lad––straight across the beam. And now at right angles again. And now lay one atop of the other, and you have it––an invention of my own––a blueberry sandwich. M-m––but look at the juice squish through her scuppers!” He held it up for all of us to have a look. “Now another little wash of coffee in the wake of that and I’ll be all right for a fine little watch aloft.”
192
He jammed his sou’wester hard down, and heroically waved away the remainder of the pie. “No, no. First thing I know I’ll be having dyspepsia. I never had it yet, but I might,” and then heaved himself up the companionway, humming, as he went, one of his old favorites:
“Oh, the ’Liza Jane and the Maria LouiseSailed a race one day for a peck of peas.You’d hardly believe the way them twoCarried sail that day––they fairly flew.People ashore they said, ‘Gee whiz!The ’Liza Jane the fastest is.’“
“Oh, the ’Liza Jane and the Maria LouiseSailed a race one day for a peck of peas.You’d hardly believe the way them twoCarried sail that day––they fairly flew.
“Oh, the ’Liza Jane and the Maria Louise
Sailed a race one day for a peck of peas.
You’d hardly believe the way them two
Carried sail that day––they fairly flew.
People ashore they said, ‘Gee whiz!The ’Liza Jane the fastest is.’“
People ashore they said, ‘Gee whiz!
The ’Liza Jane the fastest is.’“
We could hear him scrambling, still humming, over the barrels on deck. He halted long enough by the rail to say, “How is it, boys?” to the watch on deck, and then swung himself up the rigging. Once aloft he had his work cut out, with hours of strain on brain and nerve. But Clancy never minded––he never minded anything so far as we could make out.
193XXIIIDRESSING DOWN
That night was the worst I ever put in towing astern of a vessel. “Owling” is the seiners’ word for that kind of work. It was “owling” sure enough, with the seine-boat on a short painter and the dory on a shorter painter still and astern of the seine-boat again. We came near to being lost in the dory. Mel Adams, who was in the dory with me, thinking she was surely going to capsize one time she rode up over the stern of the seine-boat, took a flying leap into the seine-boat. He had a hard time getting back, for there was quite a little sea on. Even in the seine-boat they were all glad enough to hear Clancy give the word to cast off and pull after the school.
It was a big school, and hard work in that sea, but we had them safe at last. The vessel then came alongside and the bailing in began. Having had a good long lay-off we bailed them in with plenty of good-will. It was “He-yew!” “Oy-hoo!” “Hi-o!” and “Drive her!” all along the line until we had on deck what the skipper thought was a hundred barrels. Then the bag was put around194the seine to protect the rest of the mackerel from dogfish and sharks, and we were ready to dress.
Barrels were tossed out of the hold, keelers set up, sharp-edged knives drawn from diddy-boxes below, and a chance had to see a smart crew dressing a haul of mackerel that were to be salted. It was too long a run, four hundred miles or so, to take a chance of getting them fresh to market. It needed a fair and fresh breeze to be sure of it, and besides with the market for salt mackerel getting stronger all the time it was good judgment to salt down and fill her up before going home.
We had been through the same thing before, even with as good a deckload, but now we were getting near the end of the season. This trip, then the race, and maybe one more trip after the race, and we would be done seining. And so we drove things.
Four gangs of four men each took corners in the waist. Each gang had two keelers––yard square boxes, eight inches or so in depth, and set up on two or three barrels. Into the keelers the mackerel on deck were bailed and around them the men gathered, with long-handled torches set up all about.
All hands came into the dressing––skipper and cook too––and the work went on. It was one gang against the other, each jealously counting195barrels when they were filled, that full credit might be given for speed. Sixteen men were accounted for in this way. The seventeenth and eighteenth were to keep the keelers filled, draw water for pickle from over the side, roll the filled barrels out of the way––in short, to help out generally.
It was fine to watch the splitters. One left-handed grab and the mackerel was in place; flat and smooth, one right-handed slit and he was laid open the length of his back. Forty-five mackerel a minute either the skipper, Clancy or Moore could split––that is, pick them up, place in position, split from nose to tail along the back, and slide out of the way again. Sixty a minute they could do in spurts, if somebody would place the mackerel in rows for them.
The busiest man of all was the skipper. He had to keep an eye out for the course of the Johnnie. Vessels that are dressing fish, vessels on which the entire crew are soaked in blood, gills, intestines, and swashing brine, might be allowed privileges, one might think; but no, they must keep a lookout just the same. On this dark night, the Johnnie Duncan, though making a great effort––considering that she had jibs down and wheel in the becket––to stay as she was put, yet would fall away or come-to, especially when the wind shifted two or three points at a jump. And just as soon as she196did the skipper would notice it instantly, jump aft and set her right. Generally, to shift the wheel a few spokes would be enough, but now and then he would have to give the wheel a good round whirl. At such a time he would sing out a warning, the torches would be lowered, we would duck our heads, the boom would go swinging by in the smoky yellow glare, and the Johnnie Duncan would be off on another tack. We would brace our legs to a new angle, the skipper would hop back to his knife, and again the dressing would go humming along.
When we had the first hundred barrels of mackerel swashing in brine, the rest of them, perhaps another hundred barrels, were bailed in. And all night long like that we stood to it driving. Under the yellow and smoky light of the torches I could see nothing but mackerel or the insides of mackerel in the air. Keelers, deck, rail, our hands, faces, boots and oilskins were sticky with the blood and gurry. At top speed we raced like that through the night. Once in a while a man would drop his knife or snap off his gibbing mitt, rinse his hand in the brine barrel by his side, slap his hand across the hoops, and condemn the luck of a split finger or a thumb with a fish-bone in it. Another might pull up for a moment, glance up at the stars or down at the white froth under the197rail, draw his hand across his forehead, mutter, “My soul, but I’m dry,” take a full dipper from the water-pail, drink it dry, pass dipper and pail along to the next and back to his work.
When the cook called out for breakfast we were still at it, with the deck of the vessel covered with barrels of pickling mackerel. It was beginning to get light then. “Oh, the blessed day’s coming on. Smother the torches, boys,” said the skipper, and led the way below for the first table to have a bite.
Before the sun came up we were beginning to make out the rest of the fleet. One after another they were coming into view, their long hulls and high spars reaching across the wind. Between the gray sky and the slaty sea their white sails looked whiter than chalk.
We had to name the different vessels then. “There’s Tom O’Donnell––and Wesley Marrs––and Sam Hollis––and––” sung out Andie Howe.
“Sam Hollis––where’s Sam Hollis?” broke in Mel Adams.
“Away to the east’ard, ain’t it, Andie?––the fellow with jibs down?” spoke up Billie Hurd, who was a bit proud that he too could pick her out at such a distance.
“So it is, ain’t it?” said Mel, and he began to tell our troubles in the dory. “’Twas him near ran198over us last night––remember, Joe? Leastways, it looked like Hollis’s new one’s quarter goin’ by. He was pointin’ ’bout no’the-east then, but he couldn’t ’ve held on that tack long or he’d be somewhere up by Miquelon and not here this mornin’––the gait he was goin’. Man, but there was smoke coming out of his scuppers when he went by. ‘Why don’t y’ come aboard whilst you’re about it––come aboard and be sociable,’ I hollers. ‘Oh, don’t cry, y’ ain’t hurted,’ says whoever’s to the wheel of her. Least it sounded like that, ‘Y’ ain’t hurted,’ he says.”
“Must have been pretty close, Mel?” said Clancy, never stopping, but keeping a string of split mackerel rolling into his keeler. Mel and I were gibbing for Clancy.
“Close? I could’ve touched his chain-plates like that,” and Mel, getting excited, reached his mittened hand across the keeler and touched Clancy on the arm. Clancy’s knife took a jump and cut a finger. For a few seconds Clancy laid down the law of a splitting knife to Mel, but Mel didn’t mind.
“That’s just about the way I swore at the man to the wheel of the Withrow. Didn’t I, Joe? Yes, sir, I cert’nly swore at him good, but it no more jarred him than––but when their seine-boat came by, half of ’em smokin’, some half-breed199among ’em has to sing out, ‘Y’ought to hang up a riding light if your vessel’s hove-to,’ he says. What do you think of that, Tommie––‘if your vessel’s hove-to!’––and if the Johnnie was going one she was going ten knots an hour.”
“That’s right, Mel––I heard you to the mast-head,” said Clancy. Clancy heard it about as much as old Mr. Duncan back in Gloucester did, but he was always ready to help a man out.
“Did you? Well, I hove-to him. I hove the bailer at him, that’s what I did, and he ducked. But he ducked too late, I callate, for ‘Bam!’ it caught him––or somebody in the seine-boat with him. He swore some, or somebody swore, you c’n bet. ‘I don’t know who y’are,’ he hollers, ‘but if ever I meet you ashore,’ and he was so far away then I couldn’t ketch no more of it. ‘Don’t know who y’are, but if I ketch you ashore’––Lord–––”
“So, if a lad with a bump on the side of his head waltzes up to you on Main Street and whangs you, Mel, next time you’re ashore in Gloucester, what’ll you do?” asked Clancy.
“I’ll say, ‘Where’s that bailer, you loafer?’ but first I’ll whang him back. I had to finish the bailing out with my sou’wester. I sings out to Andie Howe in the boat here to hand me one of the bailers in the boat. ‘I’m usin’ my hat,’ I hollers, ‘and Joe’s using his sou’wester,’ thinkin’ that would200fetch him all right. ‘Well, we’re usin’ ten sou’westers here,’ says Andie, ‘and one or two of ’em leaks,’ and that was all the satisfaction I got.”
“Yes,” said Eddie Parsons, “the seine-boat was sure wallerin’ then. The skipper had only just told Jimmie Gunn to quit his growling. ‘You’ll be wanting hot-water bags to your feet next, I suppose,’ says the skipper.”
“I was thinking of the boat––afraid she’d be so logy with the water in her that we couldn’t drive her when the time came,” bristled up Jimmie Gunn to that.
“Y-yah!” snorted Eddie, “if you weren’t scared, then I never saw a man scared. Logy? I notice we made her hop along all right after we cast off from the vessel. Man, but she fair hurdled some of them seas––some of the little ones, I mean. Didn’t she, Steve? We thought we’d lost Joe and you, Mel, in the dory, didn’t we, fellows?”
“You did, hey? Well, you didn’t, nor nowheres near it,” broke in Mel. “We were right there with the goods when they hove the seine, warn’t we, Joey?”
And so it went on through all that day, while the men worked, dressing, salting, and putting all in pickle. It was a drive all through without any quitting by anybody, except when it was time to relieve lookouts at the mast-head. In the middle201of it all, had the call of “School-O!” been heard from aloft, we would have been only too glad to drop everything, jump into the boat and dory, get after the mackerel, and do the same thing over––split, gibb and pack away––for all of the next night, and the night after that––for a week if necessary.
Not until well into the afternoon, when the last mackerel was flattened out in its barrel, did any of us feel that we could step back in our own time, straighten ourselves out, and take a look over our work. Then we counted the oozing barrels with great satisfaction, you may be sure, even while we were massaging our swollen wrists with our aching fingers. It was a good bit of work that, well and quickly done, and it was fine to get a rest after it, although it might be only for a little while. Even though we had to do it all over again––to stay half-drowned and chilled through in the seine-boat or dory for half the night and then dress down for eighteen or twenty hours on top of it––what did a little hard work matter? “Think of the hundred-dollar bill, maybe, to be carried home and laid in the wife’s lap,” said Long Steve.
“Or the roaring night ashore when a fellow’s not a family man––m-m––!” said Eddie Parsons. Eddie was not a family man.
202XXIVTHE WITHROW OUTSAILS THE DUNCAN
We certainly were feeling pretty good along about that time, and we felt better when next day, cruising in and out among the fleet, other crews began to take notice of our catch. By that time the word had gone around. One after another they came sailing up––as if to size us up was the last thing that could enter their heads––rounding to, and then a hail. Something like this it went:
“Hulloh, Maurice.”
“Hulloh, Wesley,” or George Drake, or Al McNeill, or whoever it might be.
“That’s a mighty pretty deckload of fish. When’d y’get ’em?”
“Oh, twenty barrels yesterday morning and the rest last night.”
“That so? How many d’y’call ’em, Maurice?”
“How many? Oh, two hundred and eighty or ninety wash barrels. Ought to head up about two sixty.”
“That so? Fine, Maurice, fine. As handsome a deckload as I’ve seen this year.”
203
And he would bear off, and another vessel would come and go through the same ceremony. It was very satisfying to us and the skipper must have felt proud. Not that a lot bigger hauls had not been made by other men before––indeed, yes, and by the very men perhaps who were complimenting him. But three hundred barrels, or near it, in pickle at one time does look fine on a vessel’s deck, and they looked especially fine at this time because there was not another vessel in the fleet that had half as many, so far as we knew.
Not another but Sam Hollis––or so he claimed. He came ranging up that same day and began asking how the Duncan was sailing lately, and followed that up by saying he himself had two hundred odd barrels in the hold. He showed about sixty wash barrels on deck. We did not believe he had twenty below. She looked cork light. “If she sets as high out of water with two hundred and forty barrels, then you ought to put two hundred and forty more in her and she’d fly,” called out Clancy to Hollis, and that was pretty much what we all thought.
And ’twas Sam Hollis made trouble for the Duncan that day. He bore off then but came back in the afternoon. More talk there was, and it wound up by our racing with him. We did not start out to race, but gradually, as we found ourselves204jogging along side by side, jibs were drawn away and sheets began to be trimmed. The first thing we knew we found ourselves swaying up sails, and then before we really woke up to it we were both off and away before a little breeze.
Hollis had all the best of it. He was bound to, with the Duncan carrying most of her mackerel aft and away down by the stern. Even had we had time to––we did shift some of it forward––we were too deep for any kind of racing in that moderate breeze. We said that to ourselves, anyway, and yet we held on. But it was no use––it wound up by Hollis giving us a scandalous beating. And after running away from us he kept straight on to the westward, and by that we knew that he was bound for Gloucester to get ready for the big race.
The skipper felt it. He was one that took things to heart.
“I’ve been bragging about this one––what she could do. I told the old man only the last time we were in that he could go broke that I’d beat Sam Hollis, and here the first time we come together he makes her look like a wood-carrier. The best thing I can do, I guess, is to keep out of the race; maybe it will save the old man some money. I expected he’d beat us, the trim we were in––but to beat us the way he did!”
205
Nothing the crew could say seemed to make him think otherwise, and that night it was not nearly so joyful below in the Johnnie Duncan. The talk was that she would not go home for the race. Only Clancy seemed to be as cheerful as ever. “Don’t any of you get to worrying,” he said. “I know the skipper––the Johnnie Duncan’ll be there when the time comes.”
Yet next morning when Wesley Marrs went by us with the Lucy Foster bound for home and sang out, “Come along, Maurice, and get ready for the race––we’ll have a brush on the way,” our skipper only waved his hand and said, “No––this old plug can’t sail.” Wesley looked mighty puzzled at that, but kept on his way.
206XXVTROUBLE WITH THE DOMINION CUTTERS
Next day after, in a calm, Clancy and I had to take the dory and row out among the fleet for some salt. The skipper thought it likely that some of the vessels that were going home might have salt to spare. He doubted if he himself would have enough in case we struck another good school. So we rowed out. We went from one vessel to another without any luck, until we found ourselves aboard Tom O’Donnell––the Colleen Bawn. And just as we got aboard a school showed near by her, and they made a dash for it. The Colleen was pretty well inshore then, and yet safe outside the three-mile limit in our judgment. Even in the judgment of one of the Canadian revenue cutters, the Mink, she was outside the limit. “You’re all right, go ahead,” her commander sang out from the bridge.
Yet trouble came of it. The Colleen’s gang were making a set when along came the Lynx, the same cutter that had ordered our own skipper not to set two or three days back in the fog, and we had set in spite of him. I think I said that he had a207bad reputation among our fleet. In this case some said afterwards that he had been watching the Duncan since that time, and having seen a dory put out from her and go aboard Tom O’Donnell, that he then had a special watch for O’Donnell. Anyway, we know that as the Colleen Bawn’s crew were pursing in the seine he came along and ordered them to cast loose the fish. “You’re inside the limit,” said this fellow now.
“I may be, but I don’t think so,” said O’Donnell to that.
“You’re inside and you know it.”
“You’re a liar if you say I know it.”
O’Donnell had had trouble with the Lynx before, and had small patience with her captain. More words came out of it, and while they were talking back and forth another of the fleet a mile to the east’ard put out a boat.
The cutter went after him, her captain singing out as he went, “You wait here till I come back.” “Wait like hell!” said O’Donnell, “and this breeze making,” and continued to purse up. Pursed up, the fish aboard––there were forty or fifty barrels––he started off. One of those sudden breezes were springing up and it promised to be wind enough to suit anybody. We made out the Johnnie Duncan bearing down, intending no doubt to take off Clancy and me. But the cutter was coming toward208us then, and O’Donnell said we had better stay aboard or we would be picked up on the way by the cutter’s people and maybe get the Duncan and our skipper into trouble. That last––the thought that our skipper or the vessel might get mixed up in it––kept us aboard the Colleen Bawn.
The Lynx could steam as fast as any cutter they had on the Cape shore at that time, but the Colleen was a witch and O’Donnell a wonder at sailing her. So we stayed with O’Donnell and watched him and the cutter have it out. They had it, the cutter letting drive a shot every once in a while. The first shot, I remember, went whistling by the ear of one of O’Donnell’s crew who was standing back-to in the waist, and so astonished him, he not expecting it, that he fell into the forehold. He raised a great racket among a lot of empty barrels. The fall never hurt him, but the things he said when he came on deck again! O’Donnell made him lie flat––and then all of us but Clancy, who refused to lie down but compromised by leaning over the house and watching the cutter and making comments on her actions for the benefit of the rest of us. Through it all O’Donnell stood to the wheel and the nearest he came to honoring the cutter by a compliment was when he’d half turn his head, spit over the rail and swear at her. The wind and sea-way together were too209much for the cutter. The Colleen left her behind, and she at last drew off after bunching a few farewell shots.
O’Donnell then hove-to and took his seine-boat on deck. He had been towing it the wrong end foremost for the whole forty miles, and he was worried over it. “It’s strained her maybe––and she almost a new boat,” he lamented. “For the rest I don’t care. That lad had it in for me all along. The other one though, he’s decent––never bothers a man without a little reason. I was going home anyway for the race, and so it don’t matter. I suppose Maurice will be along soon, Tommie? Did you see him coming after the cutter––he held her fine and he in no trim. What’s it they say about Hollis beating the Johnnie yesterday? If he did, be sure he was specially prepared, and the Johnnie had an off-day. But I suppose he’ll be holding on now for Gloucester?”
Clancy said maybe, but no telling, and explained how it had been––the skipper’s discouragement after Hollis had beaten him.
O’Donnell said he was foolish to worry over a thing like that. “I know Sam Hollis,” he said––“’twas a trap he laid for Maurice. He’s got a smart vessel in the Withrow, but he can’t run away from Maurice. No, nor beat him I doubt––with both in trim. But wait a while––let the day of the210race get near and Maurice to thinking it over, and you’ll see him flyin’ home.”
We hoped so. For ourselves we went home on the Colleen. There was nothing else for us to do. We had quite a time of it that trip with O’Donnell. He sailed about five hundred miles out of his way––away to the eastward and s’uth’ard. There might be cruisers and cutters galore after him, he said––they might put out from Halifax, or telegraph ahead––you couldn’t tell what they might do, he said, and so he sailed the Colleen out to sea. But we came across the Bay one dark night without side-lights, and reached Boston all right. O’Donnell had a suit of sails stowed away in an East Boston wharf that he wanted to get out for the race. And also he didn’t like his new foremast and was going to have a new one put in if there was time.