Chapter 5

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

X

WE LOSE OUR SEINE

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

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

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

"Where's Andie?"

"Here," said Andie.

"Where?"

"Hanging onto the bow of the seine-boat."

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

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

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

"I know, but he was all oiled up, and look at me----"

"Go to hell," said Clancy.

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

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

XI

AN OVER-NIGHT BREEZE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All through that night it went on like that.

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

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

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

"There's one way to house a topm'st!"

"Broke your clothes-pole, old girl!"

"Better take in your washing there--looks like rain!"

"Go it, you beauty! I only wish I had my cameraw. If y'only suspected how lovely you look!"

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

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

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

"No, nor me neither," said Long Steve. "Hi--ever hear the cook--ever hear George Moore's song:--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"All right," I said, and felt pretty cheap.

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

XII

THE 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's right--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.

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!"