“Yes, sir, when this tide turns—if anybody wants to see somethin’ superfine in the way of tide-rips, right here’ll be the place,” remarked the Skipper, and, seeing that the extra length of hawser was paid out, dropped below for a mug-up. “There’s no tellin’ when we’ll get a chance again for a cup of coffee,” he said. “‘Twill be a long night, I’m thinkin’. But what’ll that mess be, cook, when it’s done cookin’?”
“Tapioca puddin’, Skipper.”
“That’s good.” He helped himself to a mug of coffee, saying no further word, barely giving ear to John Gould, a miraculous man, who had survived thirty-five winters on Georges, and was still rugged as oak.
“When our old cook used to make tapioca puddin’, ’twas a sure sign of heavy weather comin’, warn’t it, Skipper?”
The Skipper barely inclined his head, and John turned to his less preoccupied mates. “That last big breeze—let’s see. Yes, ten year ago this month. I’ll never forget that gale. Nobody will, I cal’late, that was out that night. The Skipper here was in this same vessel—she twenty year old then, though only the Skipper’s second year as skipper in her. The glass was down that afternoon, I mind, but the sea smooth—that is, for that time o’ year. But by ten that night! Lord, what a night that was! Wind! and sea! Forty vessels and five hundred men in the hand-linin’ fleet that night, and every third man and vessel gone by the mornin’. God, how they did smash into each other! And their spars—like fallin’ trees when they’d come together in the dark.”
John passed from narrative to reflection. “Some widows made that night, warn’t there, Skipper?”
“Aye, John—and some maids widowed.” The Skipper did not even smile at his own pun.
“There ought to be a law, I think,” continued John, “to keep vessels from anchorin’ so close to each other. Take it that night. If the fleet warn’t bunched up so close there wouldn’t ’a’ been half so many lost. Yes, sir, there oughter be a law, don’t you think, Skipper?”
“What?” The Skipper came out of his abstraction. “What—oh! a law, eh? And who’d come out here to see it lived up to? Gover’ment vessels? No, John, no law would do. Where there’s good fishin’ there men and vessels will go, and devil take the risk. I know we oughtn’t be huddled in here like we are. I know that if another such breeze as that one ten years ago hits in here to-night there’ll be just as many of us lost as there was that night. Yes, sir, just as many.” He stopped by the companionway to button his sou’wester under his ear—“Good pie that, cook. I hope the tapioca’ll taste as well in the mornin’”—drew on his mitts, and went on deck.
Down the companionway soon came his voice. “Everybody up, and give her a little more string. There’s one or two of them beginnin’ to drift a’ready.”