Toward the end of May, with the fish schooling easterly to off No Man’s Land and reported as being seen on Georges and in the Bay of Fundy––working to the eastward all the time––we thought the skipper would put for home, take in salt, fill the hold with barrels and refit for a Cape Shore trip––that is, head the fish off along the Nova Scotia shore, from Cape Sable and on to anywhere around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and stay there until we had filled her up with salt mackerel. We 154 thought so, because most of the fleet had decided on that plan and because we had been away from home since the first of April. But no––he stayed cruising off Block Island and running them fresh into Newport with the last half-dozen of the fleet.
Our idea of it was that the skipper wanted to go home badly enough, but he was set on getting a big stock and didn’t care what it cost himself or us to get it. Some of us would have given a lot to be home.
“Oh, fine blue sky and a fine blue sea
And a blue-eyed girl awaiting me,”
was how Clancy put it as he came down from aloft one afternoon and took the wheel from me. “By the wind is it, Joe?”
“By the wind,” I said––the usual word when seiners are cruising for mackerel, and I went aloft to take his place at the mast-head. It was a lazy watch, as the mackerel generally were not showing at this time in the middle of the day. They seemed to prefer the early morning or the late afternoon, or above all a dark night.
Long Steve, who came up this day to pass the time with me aloft, had been telling me about his old home, when we both noticed the topsails of what we knew must be the first of a fleet of big schooner yachts racing to Newport––from New 155 York, no doubt, on one of their ocean races. Steve, of course, had to try to name the leader, while she was yet miles away––seiners have wonderful eyes for vessels––and was still at it, naming the others behind, when the next on watch relieved me and I went below.
The first of the yachts was almost on us when I came down, and Clancy was watching her like a hawk when he turned the wheel over to the next man. She was as about as big as we were. We knew her well. She had been a cup defender and afterwards changed to a schooner rig. Our skipper was taking a nap below at this time, or we supposed he was. He had been up nearly a week, with no more than a two-hours’ sleep each day, and so was pretty well tired. That was what made Clancy stand by the wheel and ask if the skipper was still asleep.
“No,” said the skipper himself. He had just turned out, and in his stocking feet he came to the companionway and looked up. “What is it?”
“Here’s this big yacht crawling by on our quarter––she’ll be by us soon. I thought you wouldn’t like it.”