Once we were aboard they gave the Esther a little more sheet, and off she went on her ear till we made twenty-five fathoms of water; and there we brought her to. And while we lay there hove to the wind moderated to fifty miles or so, and as the wind came down the seas went up. Higher and higher they kept mounting. Just to look at the height of them would make your back ache. And then the wind backed into the northwest, and the seas came two ways together. No dodging them at all now, and the little Esther Ray—stripped to her last little white shift, a corner of a storm trysail—lay to a drogue and took it.
I'd been fishing mostly in big vessels before this trip, and for the first time in my life I saw a little boat stand up and take a beating. She was a few tons bigger than the Henriette, but still little enough—the Esther. Little and deep-laden, she lay there and took it.
Little and deep-laden, yes; but, man, a stout one, too. When she was building it was Tom Haile himself who drove every bolt—every trenail—into her. He had seen to it that her timbers were heavy enough for a vessel four times her tonnage. Believe him, a vessel the Esther! A solid block of oak, yes! And like a solid block of oak she lay there, and "Come on, damn you, come on and get me!" we could almost hear her saying to the big seas.
Of course, she could not do it all herself. After all, she was no five-hundred-foot steamer, that no matter how it came all you had to do was to let her lay and no harm come to her. There were the moments when it was up to the skipper and her crew. But a capable skipper on her quarter and a quick-moving, handy crew in her waist—when your vessel is well-found leave the rest of it to them! They were all there, and there on the jump when wanted. No talk, no questioning—when the word was passed the word was carried out. By seven o'clock that night the little Esther had ridden out the gale in glory. To be sure, it was a thunderer of a night that followed, with seas pounding her solid little head, and perhaps the man in the peak bunk did not have a word to say about that in the morning! But with the morning—Glory be!—'twas a silver sunrise and a little schooner smiling and bowing like to the baffled ocean.
But not all the swordfishing fleet were there in the morning. Bill Jackson was there, and the big, ugly sloop, and we thought we could make out Bill Rice and Tom O'Brien on the horizon. But where was the Norma? And the Master? And Bob Johnson? And the Alarm of Boston? And our own little Henriette?
We made sail, and after a time the big sloop with the ugly bow also made sail. And we jogged back to where we had left the good fishing, and, the sea having moderated sufficiently, lookouts went aloft and the Esther's skipper to the pulpit. Vessels and men may be lost, but men and vessels have to keep on with the fishing just the same.
But there were no fish to be seen. The storm had scattered them. The skipper wanted to know what somebody else thought of the storm. He ran down to speak to Bill Jackson.
Bill was sitting on the wheel-box whittling a piece of red cedar when we drew alongside. Bill's half-bared chest seemed to be trying to burst through his undershirt, and above the shirt his seamed neck rose ruggedly. Neck, arms, and chest were burned red. His beard, red in the shadows and gold in the sun, was ten days old at least. Fifteen centuries ago it must have been men of Bill Jackson's style that left the marshes of the Elbe and, sailing westward across the North Sea, looted the shores of wherever they happened to beach their keels.
"How'd you make out yesterday, Bill?" asked Tom.
"Rolled our sheer-poles under," said Bill, "not once in a while, but reg'lar. An' not a stitch o' canvas on her to the time, nuther. An' washed over everything that warn't bolted. When I see it warn't lettin' up, I ran her under bare poles. Logged eight and a half knots under bare poles. Goin' some? I call it so. Glad not to be lost, we were."