The sea is never mean. Strife and brotherhood with it give a largeness to men which, like all deep qualities of the spirit, can be neither specified nor defined; only felt, and seen in the outcome. The Seacombe fishermen are more or less amphibious; ocean-going seamen look down on them. They are petty in some small things, notably in jealousy lest one man do more work, or make more money, than another: to say a man is doing well is to throw out a slur against him. Nevertheless in the larger, the essential things of life, their sea-largeness nearly always shows itself. They are wonderfully charitable, not merely with money. They carp at one another, but let a man make a mess of things, and he is gently treated. I have never heard Tony admit that any man—even one who had robbed him—had not his very good points. Is a man a ne'er-do-well, a drunkard, an idler? "Ah," they say, "his father rose he up like a gen'leman, an' that's what comes o'it." In their dealings, they curiously combine generosity and close-fistedness—close-fistedness in earning, and generosity in spending and lending. A beachcomber, for simply laying a hand to a rope, receives a pint of beer, or the price of it, and next moment the fisherman who paid the money may be seen getting wet through and spoiling his clothes in order to drag a farthing's worth of jetsam from the surf. Tony fails to understand how a gen'leman can possibly haggle over the hire of a boat. When he goes away himself, he pays what is asked; regrets it afterwards, if at all; and comes home when his money is done. "If a gen'leman," he says, "can't afford to pay the rate, what du 'ee come on the beach to hire a boat for—an' try to beat a fellow down? I reckon 'tis only a sort o' gen'leman as does that!"
Like most seafarers, the fishermen are fatalistic. "What's goin' to be, will be, an' that's the way o'it." But they are not thoroughgoing fatalists, inasmuch as disappointment quickly turns to resentment against something handy to blame. If, for example, we catch no fish, Tony will blame the tide, the hour, the weather, the boat, the sail, the leads, the line, the hooks, the bait, the fish, his mate—anything rather than accept the one fact that, for reasons unknown, the fish are off the bite. A thoroughgoing fatalist would blame, if he did not acquiesce in, fate itself or his luck.
Tony is a black pessimist as regards the present and to-morrow; convinced that things are not, and cannot be, what they were; but as regards the further future, the day after to-morrow, he is a resolute optimist. "Never mind how bad things du look, summut or other'll sure to turn up. It always du. I've a-proved it. I've a-see'd it scores o' times." He can earn money by drifting for mackerel and herring, hooking mackerel, seining for mackerel, sprats, flat-fish, mullet and bass, bottom-line fishing for whiting, conger or pout, lobster and crab potting, and prawning; by belonging to the Royal Naval Reserve; by boat-hiring; by carpet-beating and cleaning up. I have even seen him dragging a wheel chair. His boats and gear represent, I suppose, a capital of near a hundred pounds. It would be hard if he earned nothing. Yet he is certain that his earnings, year in and year out, scarcely average fifteen shillings a week. "Yu wears yourself out wi' it an' never gets much for'arder." The money, moreover, comes in seasons and lump-sums; ten pounds for a catch perhaps, then nothing for weeks. Mrs Widger must be, and is, a good hand at household management and at putting money by. I doubt if Tony ever knows how much, or how little, gold she has, stored away upstairs. Probably it is as well. He is a generous man with money. He 'slats it about' when he has it.
OPEN BOATS
It has to be realised that these fishermen exercise very great skill and alertness. To sail a small open boat in all weathers requires a quicker hand and judgment than to navigate a seagoing ship. Seacombe possesses no harbour, and therefore Seacombe men can use no really seaworthy craft. "'Tis all very well," Tony says, "for people to buzz about the North Sea men an' knit 'em all sorts o' woollen gear. They North Sea men an' the Cornishmen wi' their big, decked harbour boats, they have got summut under their feet—somewhere they can get in under, out the way o'it. They can make themselves comfor'able, an ride out a storm. But if it comes on to blow when we'm to sea in our little open craft, we got to hard up an' get home along—if us can. For the likes o' us, 'tis touch an' go wi' the sea!"
Tony knows. At places like Seacombe every boat, returning from sea, must run ashore and be hauled up the beach and even, in rough weather, over the sea-wall. The herring and mackerel drifters, which may venture twenty miles into the open sea, cannot be more than twenty-five feet in length else they would prove unwieldy ashore. To avoid their heeling over and filling in the surf, they must be built shallow, with next to no keel. They have therefore but small hold on the water; they do not sail close to the wind, and beating home against it is a long wearisome job. Again, because the gear for night work in small craft must be as simple as possible, such boats usually carry only a mizzen and a dipping lug—the latter a large, very picturesque, but unhandy, sail which has to be lowered or 'dipped' every time the boat tacks. Neither comfort nor safety is provided by the three feet or so of decking, the 'cuddy' or 'cutty,' in the bows. To sleep there with one's head underneath, is to have one's feet outside, and vice versa. In rough broken seas the open beach drifter must be handled skilfully indeed, if she is not to fill and sink.
I have watched one of them running home in a storm. The wind was blowing a gale; the sea running high and broken. One error in steering, one grip of the great white sea-horses, meant inevitable wreck. Every moment or two the coastguard, who was near me with a telescope to his eye, exclaimed, "She's down!" But no. She dodged the combers like a hare before greyhounds, now steering east, now west, on the whole towards home. It was with half her rudder gone that she ran ashore after a splendid exhibition of skill and nerve, many times more exciting than the manœuvres of a yacht race. Were there not many such feats of seamanship among fishermen, there would be more widows and orphans.
BOATS SHEERING
Those are the craft, those the sort of men—two usually to a boat—that put to sea an hour or two before sunset, ride at the nets through the night, and return towards or after dawn. Anything but a moderate breeze renders drifting impossible. In a calm, the two men are bound to row, for hours perhaps, with heavy 16-20 ft. sweeps. Moreover, if the sea makes, or a ground swell rises, the least mistake in beaching a boat will cause it to sheer round, capsize, and wash about in the breakers with the crew most probably beneath it. Yarns are told of arms and legs appearing, of a horrible tortured face appearing, while the upturned boat washed about in the undertow, and those ashore were powerless to help. There is nothing the fishermen dread so much. One of them owns to leaving the beach when he has seen a boat running in on a very rough sea, so that he might not endure witnessing what he could not prevent.—He peeped however.
These risks need considering, not in order to exaggerate the dangers of drifting in open beach boats—in point of fact, accidents seldom do happen,—but to show what skill is habitually exercised, what a touch and go with the sea it is.