It wasn’t bad enough that we came near losing a few men and our boat, and our seine altogether, but it must come on to breeze up on top of that and drive us off the grounds. After putting everything to rights, we were having a mug-up forward and wondering if the skipper would take sail off her or what, when we heard the call that settled it.
“On deck everybody!” we heard. And when we got there, came from the skipper, “Take in the balloon, tie it up and put it below. Haul down your stays’l too––and go aloft a couple of you, fore and aft, and put the tops’ls in gaskets.”
We attended to that––a gang out on the bowsprit, half a dozen aloft and so on––with the skipper to the wheel while it was being done. When we had finished it was, “Haul the seine-boat alongside––pump out what water’s left.” Then, “Shift that painter and hook on the big painter. Drop her astern and give her plenty of line. Where’s the dorymen? Where’s Tommie and Joe? Haul the dories into the hatch, Tommie, and make ’em 88 fast. Gripe ’em good while you’re at it. Clear the deck of all loose gear––put it below, all of it––keelers, everything. Maybe ’twon’t be much of a blow, but there’s no telling––it may. She mayn’t be the kind that washes everything over, but put it all safe anyway.”
The skipper watched all this until he had seen everything cleared up and heard “All fast the dory,” from the waist. Then he looked up and took note of sky and wind. “Don’t feel any too good. Maybe ’twill blow off, but we might’s well run in. We’ll have to wait for our other seine anyway and Wesley will be sure to put into the Breakwater for news on his way down, especially if it comes to blow.”
He dropped below then to light his pipe. Seeing me and Parsons, with me trying to fix up Parsons’s leg where it had been gashed––Eddie never knew how––in the mix-up of the evening, the skipper said, “There’s some liniment in the chest and some linen in one of the drawers under my bunk. Get it. And some of you might’s well turn in and have a nap. She’ll be all right––the watch and myself can look after her now,” and he went on deck again, puffing like an engine to keep his pipe going.
Most of them did turn in and were soon asleep. Some of the older men had a smoke and an overhauling 89 of their wet clothes, while a few joined in a little game of draw before turning in. One or two were deploring the loss of the seine. The nearness to losing lives didn’t seem to be worrying anybody. For myself, I was somewhat worked up. There was one time in the water when I thought I was gone. So I went on deck after the skipper. It was a black night and breezing all the time and I wanted to see how the vessel behaved. The Johnnie was close-hauled at this time and swashing under, and I knew without asking further that the skipper intended to make Delaware Breakwater.
While hurrying forward, after lending a hand to batten down the main hatch––the Johnnie plunging along all the time––and my head perhaps a little too high in the air, I stumbled off the break and plump over a man under the windward rail. I thought I was going to leeward and maybe overboard, but somebody hooked onto the full in the back of my oil-jacket, hauled me up the inclined deck again, and in a roaring whisper said, “Get a hold here, Joey––here’s a ring-bolt for you. Don’t let go on your life! Isn’t it fine?” It was Clancy. He had nights, I know, when he couldn’t sleep, and like me, I suppose, he wanted to watch the sea, which just then was firing grandly. Into this sea the vessel was diving––nose first––bringing 90 her bowsprit down, down, down, and then up, up, up, until her thirty-seven-foot bowsprit would be pointing to where the North star should be. Whenever she heaved like that I could feel her deck swelling under me. I remember when I used to play foot-ball at the high school at home and it was getting handy to a touch-down, with perhaps only a few yards to gain and the other side braced to stop it, that a fellow playing back had to buck like that from under a line when he had to scatter tons, or what he thought was tons, of people on top of him. The vessel was that way now, only with every dive she had hundreds of tons to lift from under. At a time like that you can feel the ribs of a vessel brace within her just as if she was human. Now I could almost feel her heart pumping and her lungs pounding somewhere inside. I could feel her brace to meet it, feel her shiver, as if she was scared half to death, and almost hear her screech like a winner every time she cleared it and threw it over her head.
Now down she went––the Johnnie Duncan––down and forward, for she wouldn’t be held back––shoulders and breast slap into it. Clear to her waist she went, fighting the sea from her. To either side were tumbling the broken waves, curling away like beach combers. The hollow of each was a curved sheet of electric white, and the top––the 91 crest––was a heavier, hotter white. The crests would rise above our rail and break, and back into the hollows would fall a shower of shooting stars that almost sizzled. There wasn’t a star above, but millions on the water!
“Ever see anything like that ashore, Joey-boy?” said Clancy, and I had to roar a whisper that I never had.
Through this play of fire the Johnnie leaped with great bounds. She boiled her way, and astern she left a wake in which the seine-boat was rearing and diving with a fine little independent trail of its own.