We cruised four days off Block Island without seeing a sword-fin. Plenty of big sharks were loafing under the surface there, but sharks don't bring anything on the market. We stood easterly. Off Nantucket light-ship we picked up Bob Johnson of Nantucket and Bill Jackson of Maine, Bill Rice and Tom O'Brien of Gloucester, the Master and the Norma also of Gloucester, a Boston schooner, the Alarm, and a big, black brute of a sloop which nobody could name. Tom Haile was there, too—in the Esther Ray.
No fish in sight that afternoon; but even so the skipper took his station in the pulpit. John, Shorty, and I went aloft. John was topmost, and swung in his chair just under the truck. Shorty and I were just under John. When we got tired of swinging in our chairs we could stand up, one cross-line in the small of our backs, another against our chests, and balance ourselves. When the vessel dove we could wrap our arms around the topmast and hang on. There was a swell on this morning—no crested seas, but a long, smooth, black swell, enough to send the vessel's bowsprit under every little while; and sometimes to send the pulpit atop of the bowsprit under, too.
"But this skipper—he don't mind gettin' wet," explained Shorty. "I've seen him go divin' till it was over his head in the pulpit an' he still hangin' on waitin' for fish."
Bill did not stand watch at the masthead. His eyesight was good enough, but Bill's three hundred pounds climbing up the rigging four or five times a day to the masthead—the skipper said he guessed he'd take pity on the rigging. So Bill stayed on deck to go in the dory, when a fish would be ironed. Also he took the pulpit when the skipper came inboard to eat. The first time John saw Bill go into the pulpit, he let a yell of mock terror out of him from aloft. "Skipper, skipper, he's puttin' her down by the head, and Lard knows she was down by the head enough before. Let she go into a good head sea, she'll never come up an' we'll be lost, all hands!" Which made Bill turn and glare up at John; and when he did that, John hove one of the cook's bright-blue dumplings down at Bill.
That afternoon we sighted our first fish. The skipper was in the pulpit, with the pole half hitched across the pulpit rail. Bill was resting his chest across the gunnel of the top dory and with half-closed eyes studying the sea to wind'ard. Oliver was sitting on the wheel-box, motionless except when he moved an arm or a hand to roll a spoke or two up and down. Aloft, we had not seen a sign of fish, near or far, for an hour or more.
John let out a sharp little cry: "Fish-O!" The skipper stood up and balanced his long pole. Oliver straightened up at the wheel-box. Bill came out of his trance, looked to us aloft and shifted his gaze to leeward. The bright, bald head of the cook shone up the forec's'le ladder. He cast a peek aloft, said "Fish-h?" inquiringly, and stepped onto the deck, smoking his pipe.
"Fair abeam to looard!" John called, and Oliver put the wheel up. Soon they could see the curved three-cornered fin from the deck. A shark's fin is three-cornered, too, but straight-edged, not curved. And a swordfish's tail moves almost without motion through the water.
The skipper balanced his pole, but without looking down at it. His eyes were for the fish only. "Hard up!" called John, and Oliver sent our bow swinging into line.
"Stea-a-dy!" called John.
The skipper was swaying from the waist. A big-boned, rangy man the skipper, more than six feet high and wide-shouldered, with a great reach and a strong-looking back. He hefted his pole—more than a week since he had ironed a swordfish—and he looked to see that the line running from his pole to a tub in the waist of the vessel was all clear. To look after that was the cook's business, and now, meeting the skipper's look: "All clear!" he sang out, and stowed his pipe in his stern pocket.