Poor Man's Rock

by Bertrand W. Sinclair

Presently the loneliness of the Cove was broken by the return of Vincent Ferrara. They skidded the Bluebird out on the beach at the Cove's head and overhauled her inside and out, hull and machinery. That brought them well into April. The new carrier was complete from truck to keelson. She had been awaiting only MacRae's pleasure for her maiden sea-dip. So now, with the Bluebird sleeked with new paint, he went down for the launching.

There was a little ceremony over that.

"It's bad luck, the very worst sort of luck, to launch a boat without christening her in the approved manner," Nelly Abbott declared. "I insist on being sponsor. Do let me, Jack."

So the new sixty-footer had a bottle of wine from the Abbott cellar broken over her brass-bound stemhead as her bows sliced into the salt water, and Nelly's clear treble chanted:

"I christen thee Agua Blanco."

Vin Ferrara's dark eyes gleamed, for agua blanco means "white water" in the Spanish tongue.

The Terminal Fish Company's new coolers were yawning for fish when the first blueback run of commercial size showed off Gray Rock and the Ballenas. All the Squitty boats went out as soon as the salmon came. MacRae skippered the new and shining Blanco, brave in white paint and polished brass on her virgin trip. He followed the main fleet, while the Bluebird scuttled about to pick up stray trollers' catches and to tend the rowboat men. She would dump a day's gathering on the Blanco's deck, and the two crews would dress salmon till their hands were sore. But it saved both time and fuel to have that great carrying capacity, and the freezing plant which automatically chilled the fish. MacRae could stay on the grounds till he was fully loaded. He could slash through to Vancouver at nine knots instead of seven. A sea that would toss the old wrecked Blackbird like a dory and keep her low decks continually awash let the Blanco pass with only a moderate pitch and roll.

MacRae worked hard. He found ease in work. When the last salmon was dressed and stowed below, many times under the glow of electric bulbs strung along the cargo boom, he would fall into his bunk and sleep dreamlessly. Decks streaming with blood and offal, plastered with slime and clinging scales—until such time as they were washed down—ceased to annoy him. No man can make omelettes without breaking eggs. Only the fortunate few can make money without soiling their hands. There is no room in the primary stages of taking salmon for those who shrink from sweat and strain, from elemental stress. The white-collared and the lily-fingered cannot function there. The pink meat my lady toys with on Limoges china comes to her table by ways that would appal her. Only the men who toil aboard the fishing boats, with line and gear and gutting knife know in what travail this harvest of the sea is reaped.

MacRae played fair, according to his conception of fair play. He based his payments on a decent profit, without which he could not carry on. Running heavier cargoes at less cost he raised the price to the fishermen as succeeding runs of blueback salmon were made up of larger, heavier fish. Other buyers came, lingered awhile, cursed him and went away. They could not run to Vancouver with small quantities of salmon and meet his price. But MacRae in the Blanco could take six, eight, ten thousand salmon profitably on a margin which the other buyers said was folly.