After three days’ hard fishing, they cleaned up the fish on their first “berth,” and when it “thinned out” they hoisted sail and anchor and shifted to the northward. Every day was not a good fishing day. Sometimes they got a mere handful of cod or haddock, and there were other days when the April fogs were so dense that Captain Nickerson had to keep the dories aboard, in spite of his desire to get “a trip of fish” quickly. These were the days when Donald experienced the grey terror of the Banks—the soaking, impenetrable fog which would steal up apparently from nowhere and settle over the sea in a heavy pall of finely atomized mist which defied sight and played strange tricks with sound. The fishermen hated fog, and well they might. McKenzie got an idea of their antipathy one day when a huge New York liner almost “got” them as she whirled past them in the vapor. So close was she, that they had to let the main-boom run to the end of the sheet or the steamer would have struck it as it lay in the crotch. All hands were frightened, and standing on the rolling schooner’s deck, they shook their fists at the receding liner and howled picturesque oaths. “Half-speed on the telegraph, half speed in the log, but the engines turning up their maximum revolutions,” growled the skipper, and Donald thought of how his father had to drive his ship through these foggy wastes and possibly just escape destroying a schooner as this steamer had narrowly missed sending the West Wind to the bottom. During thick weather, while at anchor on the Banks, in daytime, they kept the bell tolling and fired a shot-gun when steamers were heard blowing in the vicinity. At night, they kept torches alight. When under way, they relied on sharp ears and eyes and a mechanical fog-horn, which emitted a sound a trifle more audible than the buzz of a bee.
Fog, however, did not always keep the fishermen aboard. If it was thin, or if there were signs that it would dissipate shortly, the dories went over the rail, and the fishermen pulled into the mist with only a kerosene torch, a tin trumpet or a conch-shell, rudely cut at the end of the spiral to make a bugle-like blast when blown, to protect them. Donald had only been a week at sea on a fisherman when he learned of what calibre these Banksmen were. He saw them pull off in their frail dories in mists; in sharp March and April snow-squalls, and in moderately heavy breezes, when the seas were cresting and the spring rains were pelting down. They went over the rail in the dark of early morning, with brooding sky and a hint of storm in the air, and with torches aflare on their dory gunnels, they set and hauled their gear, until the wind and sea decreed that it was dangerous to defy it longer. Were it not for their skipper’s signal to come aboard, they would have fished until the most timid of their gang buoyed the gear and pulled for the schooner, but there were no timid men in the West Wind’s crowd.
They fished hard on the West Wind, harder than they would have ordinarily, but there was a bet to be won, and it was safe to assume that Ira Burton on the Annie Brown, was working “double-tides” and “wetting his salt” as fast as he could. Captain Nickerson kept his men at it, and he did not spare himself. He worked harder than any of them, and called up all his sea-lore and fish-lore to bring the finny spoils aboard. At odd intervals, he produced blue-books and pamphlets on icthyological subjects from his bunk shelf and studied the migrations of fish and the distribution of plankton and the various other marine minutiæ upon which the cod, haddock and other demersal species are supposed to feed. Two or three times a day, he lashed a thermometer to the lead-line and recorded bottom temperatures. Temperatures and salinity of the surface waters were taken by him regularly and recorded in his private log. Donald attempted to assist him in this work, and the two of them pored over the scientific literature and incidentally cursed the writers for recording their researches in language beyond their common school educational understanding.
The men looked upon this scientific work with scorn. “A blame’ thermometer ain’t agoin’ to tell him whar’ th’ fish are,” they said. “Let him fix a camerar to that there lead an’ photygraft th’ bottom to tell us whar’ th’ fish an’ th’ rough spots are. That’s th’ ticket. Ira Burton don’t fish thataway. No, siree! That guy hez th’ mind of a cod, an’ they say he jest picks one up aout o’ th’ pen an’ he goes below with it an’ talks to it, an’ he’ll come up a while after an’ say: ‘We’ll fish araound here some more. They’re thick on th’ bottom in this here spot!’ That’s Burton’s way.” And some joker would raise a laugh by picking up a big codfish in his arms and asking it the whereabouts of the main body of its family.
They were doing very well, however, and when an ugly easterly sprung up, they took advantage of the break in the weather to run into port and secure more bait. On the run-in, the men caught up on sleep, and the skipper and Donald sailed the vessel the fifty or sixty miles to port under a reefed mains’l and through a spiteful wind and sea. They only remained long enough to secure bait and some supplies, and shot out again on the last of the easterly blow.
Working the grounds around Sable Island, they swung off for Eastville Harbor with over a thousand quintals of fish in salt below, and arrived in the home port on May 10th, after nearly two months’ absence. Ira Burton had been in and was gone again, and nobody knew how much he had landed. The fish had been weighed by his own men, and the tally was kept a secret. It was a good “jag” gossipers averred, and various estimates were given—none of which could be credited.
“We’ll git aour fish aout, salt an’ supplies aboard, an’ we’ll skin aout too,” said the skipper. “An’ we’ll see what’s what at the end of the season.”
It was early morning when they arrived in Eastville Harbor, and the skipper and Donald surprised the Nickerson family by stamping into the house before a soul was stirring. The first one downstairs was Ruth, who greeted them both warmly, and asked excited questions about the West Wind’s catch. “Will you beat Captain Burton, Juddy?” she cried. “He’s landed his spring trip and people say it was a record one—” She broke off and turned to Donald. “And how do you like the fishing, Mr. McKenzie?” she enquired interestedly. “I suppose you’re glad to get back. Are you going to stick at it?”
McKenzie answered enthusiastically, “I surely do like the fishing life and I intend to stick at it. I’ve enjoyed myself immensely. Of course, I’m glad to get back for a spell—”
“It ain’t agoin’ to be a long spell though,” interrupted Judson, who was worrying about Ira Burton. It was not the chance of losing five hundred dollars that caused him anxiety, but rather the blow to his prestige—the horror of losing and being called a “windy bluff.” Masterful men of the Nickerson type cannot stand ridicule. “We’ll skip aout again to-morrow morning, I cal’late.”