THE DEEP SEA’S TOLL
“’Tis Tommie I’m after,” hollers back the Skipper.
THE DEEP
SEA’S TOLL
BY
JAMES B. CONNOLLY
AUTHOR OF “OUT OF GLOUCESTER,”
“THE SEINERS,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
W. J. Aylward & H. Reuterdahl
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
NEW YORK::::::::::::::::::::1905
Copyright, 1905, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
——
Published, September, 1905
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Sail-Carriers
IT was a howling gale outside, but howling gales were common things to Peter, and he did not see why this one need hinder his taking a little stroll along the docks. Something in the appearance of the vessel just rounding the Point helped to give new life to the idea he had been entertaining for some minutes now—that a little trip along the harbor front wouldn’t be a half bad notion.
Exactly what that something was Peter could not say. Queer inner workings were not to be argued as if they were Trust or Tariff questions; but this vessel—and she certainly was an able vessel—and the vessel just before her was an able vessel too—both these vessels, he might say, tearing around the Point, rails buried and booms dragging, did suggest in some way Peter couldn’t quite reason out, that his intended little voyage was a good idea.
It had been ever so with Peter. Never one of his favorites came swinging in before a breeze that he did not begin to get nervous. So, having made a note of the Colleen Bawn, Tom O’Donnell master, under a note of the Nannie O, Tommie Ohlsen master, and seeing nothing further to hinder he just the same as conferred a decoration on the most meritorious of his volunteer staff by giving him full charge of the tower while he should be gone. Then, with conscience clear, he climbed down the winding back stairs and out onto the street.
In and about among the wharves did Peter jog under easy sail until he felt somewhat more rested. He was, indeed, about to return to Crow’s Nest, but happening to glance down Duncan’s Dock, he made out Dexter Warren painting dories under the lee of the long shed. “Miracles!” murmured Peter, “Dexter’s workin’.” Picking his course over the planks of the dock, tacking in and out among the fish flakes, empty hogsheads and old broken spars, Peter noticed Dexter step away from his dories, raise his hands to his eyes, take a squint across the harbor, shake his head sadly, come back and resume his dory-painting.
But resumed it leisurely, for Dexter, as everybody in Gloucester that knew him knew, was not the man to do things in a bull-headed way. That some men painted portraits with less care than Dexter painted bankers’ dories was readily believed by anyone who had ever seen Dexter painting dories. Dexter would have told you that the dories were the more useful. He was now putting in the discriminating touches that distinguish the type of man who works for something other than the money there is in it. It was the precise little dab of the brush here and a deft little flirt of the wrist there, and the holding of the head first to one side and then the other, that caught the eye of Peter when he rounded to under Dexter’s quarter and hailed.
“Hulloh, Dexter-boy, and what’s it you’re paintin’?”
“Miniachoors—miniachoors on iv’ry,” responded Dexter, with brush suspended at arm’s length, and himself swinging slowly around. He had some more little repartee on the tip of his tongue, but seeing who it was he forgot it, and “Hulloh, Peter,” he said instead, “and what ever druv you out this mornin’?”
“I dunno. The confinement, maybe.”
“Ah, that’s bad—too much confinement.”
“That’s what I was thinkin’ myself. For who are the dories?”
“Captain O’Donnell.”
“For the Colleen Bawn? A man’d think’d be a new vessel and not new dories he’d be gettin’—the old one’s that wracked apart. Red bottoms, yeller sides, and green gunnels—m’m—but they’ll be swell-lookin’ dories when you get ’em done, won’t they?”
“They’ll be the prettiest dories that was ever put aboard a trawler out of Gloucester,” said Dexter, appreciatively.
“I’ll bet. And he’ll be pleased with ’em, I know—’specially the green gunnels—and he ought t’ be along soon.”
“Who along soon?—not the Colleen Bawn?”
“Sure. She was comin’ around the Point just as I left Crow’s Nest.”
“No! Well, I’m glad,” breathed Dexter. “I’m glad he’s home again. And so’ll his wife be, too. There was that gale just after she left. His wife, I’ll bet, ain’t slept a wink since.”
Peter straddled the sheer of a broken topmast. “Whose wife, Dexter?—not meanin’ to be inquisitive.”
“Why, Jimmie Johnson’s. He’s on the Colleen this trip.”
“Him? The little fellow lumps around here sometimes? Why, we used to scare him ’most to death up in Crow’s Nest tellin’— How came it he got it into his head to go fishin’?”
“Oh, it was what the papers’d call a little matrimonial difference. I expect that him and his wife ain’t got real well acquainted with each other yet. He’s pretty young yet, and she don’t know too much about the world. I know, because she’s my first cousin. Young married couples, I s’pose, got to have ’bout so many arguments before they find each other out. I ain’t married myself, but ain’t it about that way, Peter?”
“Well, gen’rally, Dexter, though not always.” Peter jabbed the point of his knife-blade into his spar. “You see, Dexter, it’s a good deal like vessels. You don’t always know how to take them at first. There’s some sails best down by the head, and some by the stern. There’s some’ll come about in the wildest gale under headsail alone, and others you have to drive around with the trys’l or a bit of the mains’l and that, too, when a minute too late means the vessel gone up on the rocks. Some you c’n find all about how they trim the first trip, and some you c’n never find out about; and some fine day they rolls over or goes under, and the whole gang’s lost. But about Jimmie, Dexter—how’d Tom O’Donnell ever come to ship him?”
“Lord, I dunno. I only know I came down on the dock that mornin’, and he was standin’ right where I am now, just goin’ to begin on a new set of dories for the Scarrabee that was fittin’ out to go halibutin’. When I came along I was wonderin’ where I could get about a week’s work. I didn’t want more’n a week, because I’d been promised a job in the glue factory the first of the month, and I never did see the use of wearin’ yourself out beforehand when you’re goin’ to start in soon on a steady job, would you, Peter?”
“Well,”— Peter made a few more thoughtful jabs into the topmast—“well, no, maybe not—more especially if ’t was a glue factory job.”
“That’s what I say. Well, I notices something was wrong, and I asks what the matter was. ‘Tired of work?’ I says, thinkin’ to cheer him up.”
“‘Tired of everything,’ says Jimmie, and I see he was ’most ready to cry. Well, you know the kind he is, Peter. He ain’t one of them fellows that’ll go out and have a few drinks for himself and forget it. No; he thinks over things that don’t amount to nothin’ till he’s near crazy—you’ve met them kind? Yes? Well, Jimmie was that way this mornin’. I drew it out of him that he’d had a scrap up home. He told me, knowin’ I wouldn’t tell it all over the place, and——”
“And he wound up by shippin’ with Tom O’Donnell? How’d Jimmie ever get a chance with that gang? They’re an able crew.”
“Lord, I dunno. I went away, and warn’t gone more than an hour when the boy from the office came huntin’ for me and says that Jimmie Johnson’d gone a haddockin’ trip in the Colleen Bawn and did I want his job? And I came back and went to work thinkin’ I had a week ahead of me or so, and here it’s the fourteenth day—not countin’ Sundays—and I’m glad he’s back, and I hope he hurries ashore as soon’s they come to anchor. Fourteen days now paintin’ dories and lumpin’ around this dock, and——”
“And that poor boy out in the Colleen Bawn in that last blow! Well, maybe it’ll do him good. Your cousin, you say, Dexter? I think I’ve seen her—and a nice little woman, too—though I expect there was a little to blame on both sides. There gen’rally is. But I must be gettin’ back. I left a lad in charge of Crow’s Nest that I’m afeard ain’t able to pick out a Georgesman from an Eyetalian barque loaded with salt till they’re under his nose, and maybe he won’t be reportin’ one or two to the office till after they know it themselves, and then somebody’ll ketch the devil—me, most likely. So, so long, Dexter.”
Regretfully relinquishing his old topmast, and leaving Dexter and his dories in his wake, Peter gradually gathered steerage-way, and headed up the dock, from where, in time, he managed to work into the street, and then, with Duncan’s office to port and a good beam wind, he bore away for Crow’s Nest. He had it in mind to go by way of the Anchorage, and laying his course therefor—no’west by nothe—he hauled up for the Anchorage corner.
Luffing the least bit to clear the brass railings outside the Anchorage windows, and having in mind all the while how fine it would be once he was around with a fair wind at his back, and bending his head at the same time to the breeze, Peter ran plump into somebody coming the other way.
“I say, matey, but could you swing her off a half-point or so?” sung out the other cheerfully.
“Swing off? Why, of course, but gen’rally a vessel close-hauled is s’posed to have right of way where I come from.”
“Close-hauled are you? Well, so’m I—or I thought I was.”
“And so maybe y’are, if you’re so round-bowed and flat-bottomed a craft you can’t sail closer than seven or eight points. Anyway, I’m starb’d tack.”
“Well, who in—” The other peered up. “Why, hello-o, Peter!”
“What! Well, well, Tommie Clancy! the Colleen Bawn in already?”
“To anchor in the stream not two minutes ago. I hurried ashore on an errand for her.”
“And what kind of a trip did y’ have?”
“Oh, nothing extra so far as the fish went, but good and lively every other way. Stayed out in that breeze week before last and left Georges last night with that latest spoon-bow model and I guess she’s still a-comin’. Some wind last night comin’ home, Peter.”
“M-m— I’ll bet she came a-howlin’.”
“Oh, maybe she didn’t. Peter boy, but if you only could’ve seen her hoppin’ over the shoals last night and comin’ up to Cape Ann this mornin’! But let’s step inside, and have a little touch.”
“Well, I don’t mind, seein’ the kind of a day it is, Tommie. And I want to ask you about that little fellow you shipped— Jimmie Johnson.”
“Ho, ho—‘Your oilskins are too loose,’ says the Skipper to him. Ho, ho—wait and I’ll tell you about him, Peter—‘Your oilskins too loose—’ ho, ho.”
“What did he mean by that?”
“Wait, till I tell you, Peter-boy. But let’s sit down and drink in comfort. There y’are. Here’s a shoot. G-g-g-h-! m-m-! but ain’t it fine to feel that soaking into your inside planking after you’ve been carryin’ a dry hold for sixteen days? Ain’t it? What? You bet! And about the little lumper-man—it was funny from the start. I was down the end of the dock the mornin’ we left, with the dory, waiting for the Skipper, when along comes this little fellow lookin’ like something sad’d happened. I kind of half knew him from seein’ him around the dock now and again. He seemed to be lookin’ for some good sympathetic party to tell his troubles to and I let him pour them into me. He talks away and I listens and before he’s through I begin to see what the trouble was. ‘What you need is a couple of drinks,’ I says—‘What d’y’ say if we step up the dock and have a litle touch?’
“‘No, no,’ says he, ‘I ain’t drunk a drop since I got married—and I never will whilst I am married.’
“‘Then if you don’t hurry up and get a divorce, I can see that you are goin’ to carry around an awful thirst,’ I says, but the way he took it I see he didn’t want any foolin’. And then, to soothe him, I asked why he didn’t go a haddockin’ trip, and forget it.”
“‘Do you think I’d forget it?’ he asks, eager-like.
“‘Well,’ I said, ‘I can’t say. Some people remember things a long time, but you go a trip with Tom O’Donnell, and you’ll stand a pretty good chance ’specially ’bout this time o’ year,’ I says. ‘And maybe it’ll teach people a lesson,’ I insinuates. And just then down the dock comes the Skipper, with big Jerry Sullivan. Ain’t he a whale though—big Jerry?”
“Yes, and gettin’ bigger every day.”
“Yes. Well, the Skipper was layin’ down the law to big Jerry, and you could hear him the length of the dock. He was sayin’, ‘I told him we’d leave at nine o’clock, and it’s quarter-past now, and I told him above all the others, knowin’ his failin’. He knows me, and he oughter know that when I say nine o’clock that ’tis nine o’clock I mean, and not ten, or eleven, or two in the afternoon; and we’ve been in two nights now, and he’s had plenty o’ time to loosen up since.”
“‘That’s right enough, Skipper,’ says Jerry. ‘I heard you myself, and I said myself, “Now, mind, Bartley, what the Skipper’s tellin’ you.” But you see, Skipper, it was a weddin’ last night, and a wake the night before——’
“‘A wake and a weddin’! And whose weddin’—his?’ roars the Skipper.
“‘Why, no,’ says Jerry.
“‘Was it his wake, then?’
“‘Why, Skipper, don’t you know it couldn’t been his wake?’
“‘Not his wake and not his weddin’? Then what the divil reason has he?’
“‘Why,’ said Jerry, ‘I ain’t sayin’ he’s got any good reason. But you know what he thinks of you and of the vessel. He’s been in the Colleen ever since she was built, and he’s a fisherman—a fisherman, Skipper, stem to stern a fisherman—and he knows your ways and the vessel’s ways,’ says Jerry.
“‘Indeed, and I’m not sure he knows my ways too well,’ says the Skipper. ‘It’s so proud he should be to sail in the Colleen Bawn, the fastest, ablest vessel out of Gloucester, if I do say it myself, that— But no more talk. To the divil with him. There’s the dory—jump in and go aboard.’
“‘But what’ll I do for a dory-mate?’ says Jerry.
“‘Oh, I’ll get you a dory-mate. When we put into Boston for bait there’ll be plenty to pick up on T wharf.’
“Well, just there I nudges the little lumper, and he sets his jaws and steps up: ‘Captain, could you give me a chance? I’d like to ship with you for a trip.’
“The Skipper looks down at him. ‘And who are you?’
“And right away he begins to tell his troubles to the Skipper, and the Skipper—you know the Skipper—listens like a father. But he near spoiled it all by windin’ up, ‘Oh, I’ve been workin’ around the dock lately, but I used to be quartermaster on a harbor steamer in Boston one time,’ to let the Skipper know he wouldn’t have a passenger on his hands.
“The Skipper looks him up and looks him down. ‘Quartermaster on a harbor steamer once, was you? Think of that, now. It’s the proud man you oughter be! And about as big as a pair of good woolen mitts! But’—and he looks over at Jerry sideways—‘you’ll have a mate that’s big enough. Jerry,’ and he begins to smile sly-like, ‘Jerry, here’s the dory-mate you’ve been screechin’ for.’
“‘What!’ howls Jerry, ‘him—him! Why, I could slip him into one of my red-jacks. That little shrimp! A shrimp? No—a minim!’
“It was scandalous, of course, to speak out like that to the little man to his face, but Jerry and Bartley were great friends, you see; and Jerry’d kept on, but the Skipper puts an end to it quick, and we went aboard.
“Well, we puts into Boston for the bait, gets it up to T wharf and puts out. Coming down the harbor it was Jerry and the little man’s watch on deck. Jerry put him to the wheel. ‘Bein’ quartermaster of a harbor steamer here once, of course you know the channel,’ says Jerry, and leaves him and goes for’ard. Well, we went along till we were pretty near the little light-house on the thin iron legs that sets up like it was on stilts. Well, you know how the channel is there, Peter, and this time it was blowin’ some—wind abeam. I mind the little man askin’ Jerry afore this if it warn’t pretty bad weather to be puttin’ to sea and Jerry sayin’ maybe it would be for harbor steamers. We were crowdin’ along at this time, Jerry for’ard by the windlass, me in the waist, and the little man to the wheel. We gets near to the little light-house—like a spider on long legs it was— Bug Light is the name of it, and a good name for it, too. We were crowdin’ through, and I was thinkin’ of askin’ Jerry if he hadn’t better take the wheel himself, and then I thought I wouldn’t. It warn’t my watch, and you don’t like to be hintin’ to a man that he don’t know his business, you know, not even to a man that was green as this one might be in handlin’ a fisherman. Well, we gets nearer and I noticed the little man beginnin’ to fidget like he was nervous or something. At last he hollers out to Jerry, ‘I say, matey, what’ll I do? I don’t know’s I c’n keep her away from the light, and there’s rocks on the other side. What’ll I do, matey?’
“Jerry turns around. ‘Whatever you do, don’t call me matey. And whatever you do again, don’t put this vessel up on the rocks or the Skipper’ll swing you from the fore-gaff peak and let this fine no’therly blow through you.’
“‘But we won’t go by,’ hollers the little man; ‘we’re goin’ to hit it.’
“‘Well, hit it if you want to,’ says Jerry—‘it’s your wheel. You shipped in Bartley Campbell’s place, now do Bartley Campbell’s work. Anyway,’ goes on Jerry, ‘you won’t do any great harm if you do. It’s bent to one side anyway here where some old coaster or other hit it a clip last fall. Maybe you c’n straighten it out.’
“Jerry no more than got that out than the vessel got way from the little man and ran into the light. She hit it fair as could be, with her bowsprit against one of the long, thin iron legs, and she did give it a wallop. There was a man climbin’ up the ladder the other side of the light—to fill his lamps, I s’pose—and when we hit the light he shook off like an apple from a tree, and drops into the water. The vessel bounces off where we hit, and the Skipper and the rest of the gang comes rushin’ up on deck. ‘What the divil’s that?’ says the Skipper; and seein’ the man in the water, he rushes to the side and gaffs him in nice and handy.
“‘What the devil do you mean?’ says the man the Skipper’d gaffed, soon’s he’d got his mouth clear of salt water.
“‘What the divil do you mean?’ says our Skipper, ‘by comin’ aboard this vessel?’ He’s about as quick a man to see a thing—that Tom O’Donnell—as ever I saw in my life.
“‘What do I mean?’ says the man. ‘What do you mean by running that gaff into me the way you did?’
“‘Holy Mother!’ says the Skipper, ‘but will you listen to him? It’s gold medals we should be gettin’ from the Humane Societies for savin’ the life of him, and now it’s nothin’ but growling because we did save it.’
“‘Saved my life!’ sputters the light-house lad. ‘My boat was right there when I fell. Why, it ain’t your vessel’s length away now under the light’—the Colleen was beginnin’ to slide away again—‘and I want you to know I c’n swim like a fish.’
“‘Then swim, ye divil ye, swim!’ says the Skipper quick’s a wink, and picks him up and heaves him over the rail. ‘Yes,’ says big Jerry, ‘swim, you lobster, swim!’ and he pushes him along with an oar he’d grabbed out the top dory. And he did swim, too.
“And then the Skipper comes aft. ‘Who the divil,’ says he, ‘was to the wheel?’ and spots the little man, who was lookin’ more surprised than the light-keeper in the water. ‘And where’d you ever steer a vessel before?’ says the Skipper.
“‘I dunno’s I did so very bad,’ answers the little man. ‘I used to be quartermaster on a harbor steamer once, and I kept her off the rocks.’
“The Skipper looked at him like he was a new kind of fish. ‘Indeed, was you now? And you kept her off the rocks? And did you ship for a fisherman or what?’ And the Skipper looks at him a little more, then laughs and takes the wheel himself. ‘Maybe,’ says he, ‘the insurance company would like it better if I took her the rest of the way out of the harbor myself. And I don’t want to lose her myself. She’s too good a vessel—the fastest and the ablest out o’ Gloucester. But go below now, boy, and have your supper.’
“Well, that passed by all right, but outside the harbor, off Minot’s, we ran foul of the Superba—that’s the new one, the latest spoon-bow model. He sees her comin’ and sways up, but she comes on and goes on by—goes on by nice and easy. ‘And she used to be a good vessel once,’ says Dick Mason, her skipper, to some of his gang standing aft. We could hear him—he meant us to hear him—‘of course, a good vessel once, the Colleen Bawn, but she’s been wracked so she can’t carry sail no longer.’
“Imagine Tom O’Donnell, Peter, havin’ to stand on the quarter of his own vessel and take that from Dick Mason—imagine it, Peter, and from Dick Mason that, standing on deck and wide-awake, couldn’t sail a vessel like Tom O’Donnell could from his bunk below and half asleep. The Skipper looked after her, then he turns us to, and it was sway up and no end to the trimmin’ of sheets. But no use. The Superba kept goin’ on away, and the Skipper couldn’t make it out. He stood with one foot on the house, his chin in his hand, and his elbow on his knee, and tried to figure it out as he looked after her. It was by the wind, and plenty of it—the rail nice and wet—couldn’t been better for our vessel. ‘There’s something wrong,’ says he. And there was something wrong. We found it after awhile. It was one of the iron bands that was holdin’ her together—the one for’ard was loose and draggin’ under her bottom. The Skipper was tickled to death when he found what it was. ‘Troth, and I knew there was something wrong with her,’ he says; and puts into Provincetown and has it bolted on again. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘she’ll be nice and tight again when we wants to drive her. And if we runs foul of that spoon-bow again, we’ll see.’ We warn’t out the harbor hardly before the wind gettin’ at her, she begins to leak for’ard, but the Skipper pretended he didn’t see it, puts around the Cape and off for Georges, where we got to just about in time to ketch that no’west gale that was riotin’ out there the week before last. We were blowed off, but banged her back, blowed off and banged her back again, tryin’ to hang on to shoal water so’s to be handy to good fishin’ when it moderated. But it was a week before it did moderate, and by that time the Colleen was pretty well shook up, with the water sizzlin’ through her like she was a lobster-pot for’ard, and the gang makin’ guesses on how long before she’d come apart altogether. The Skipper, he didn’t seem to mind. ‘She’s a little loose,’ says he, ‘but don’t let it worry ye. Keep your rubber boots on, and don’t mind. So long as the iron bands hangs to her planks, she’s all right.’
“Well, as I said, it moderated, and we got a chance to fish a little on and off for another week, and the troubles of Jerry with his dory-mate would fill a book that week. ‘It’s two men’s work you have now, Jerry,’ I says to him. ‘’Tisn’t two but three,’ says Jerry. ‘It’s my own work and his work and another man’s work to see he don’t get tangled up in the trawls or capsize the dory or fall over himself and get lost.’ However, fishin’ on and off brought us to yesterday, when, with the wind makin’ all the time, it got too rough toward the evenin’ to put the dories out, and we used the time up till along toward dark in dressin’ what fish we had on deck and cuttin’ fresh bait for next day—to-day that’d be. We’d done all that, and was gettin’ ready to make ourselves comfortable for the night with the Skipper sayin’: ‘Ten thousand more, and I’d swing her off for Gloucester, I would. But another set, and, with any kind of luck, we’ll get that, and then we’ll swing her off.’ He’d only just said that—he was havin’ a mug-up for’ard at the time—when whoever was on watch sticks his head down the gangway, and calls out: ‘Captain, here’s the Superba, and she’s goin’ home, I think.’
“‘What!’ says he, and gulps his coffee and leaps for the gangway, and we knew that our notions about a comfortable night might’s well be forgotten. He takes a look at the vessel comin’. ‘That’s Dickie Mason, sure enough. Shake the reef out the mains’l, and we’ll put after her.’
“‘Mason’s under a trys’l, Skipper,’ says big Jerry.
“‘And so would I be in that cigar-box,’ says the Skipper.
“We drives up and shoots under her stern. ‘Hi-i, Captain Mason!’ sings out our Skipper.
“‘Hi-i, Captain O’Donnell,’ hollers Mason.
“‘I sure do.’
“‘And this vessel?’
“‘That old wrack?— I’d know her in a million.’
“‘Would you now? Then swing on your heel and follow her home.’ And then he turns to us, ‘Boom her out now, boys—boom her out—no’west by west and never a slack.’ And off he goes straight for the shoals, with a livin’ south-easterly gale and the black night on us.
“‘Twarn’t more than an hour, or maybe two, runnin’ like that, when we couldn’t make out the Superba’s lights any more. The Skipper himself went to the masthead and looked. ‘She’s put to the nothe’ard, I think,’ he said, comin’ down. ‘But then again maybe he isn’t. Maybe he’s put them out. Anyway, we’ll keep on and make a holy show of her—the fine Superba, indeed! that don’t dare to follow the Colleen Bawn, all wracked as they say she is! Maybe he’ll get his courage up and come after us later, but whatever she does we’ll keep this one as she is.’
“We were fair into the shoal water then with the Skipper keepin’ the lead goin’ himself. ‘Billie Simms in the Henry Parker showed me in the Lucy Foster the short course over these shoals,’ he says—‘and it cost me twelve hundred and odd dollars, and I haven’t forgotten the road.’ He warn’t tellin’ anybody what water he was gettin’. It was pretty shoal though, man, it was. Once or twice, I swear, we were real worried. But he’s the lucky man, is Tom O’Donnell. The wind hauled and he swung her fore-boom over and tried to spread a balloon. It carried away her foretopm’st, which maybe was just as well. And all night long he kept her goin’——”
“Lord, but you must’ve had it, Tommie. And Jimmie Johnson—how was he makin’ out?”
“Jimmie Johnson? Ho, ho! the little lumper. Let me tell you. In the middle of the night, thinkin’ the worst of it was over, with the shoals behind us, the gang went below and turned in, all but me. I gets my pipe from my bunk and was havin’ a smoke, and thinkin’ of turnin’ in too, when this Jimmie Johnson came down, lookin’ pretty well worried.
“‘Ain’t it awful?’ he says.
“‘Ain’t what awful?’ I asks.
“‘Why, the night—the vessel—the way she’s sailin’—and everything else.’
“‘Why don’t you turn in?’ I asked.
“‘It’s no use turnin’ in now,’ he answers; ‘my watch comes in half an hour or so.’
“‘Turn in,’ says I; ‘I’ll stand your watch.’
“‘Will you?’ he says, and looks like a load’d come off his chest.
“He was goin’ to turn in then, when he happened to think he’d like to have a mug-up. So he gets a mug of coffee and a slice of pie, and takes a seat on the wind’ard locker. There was plenty wind stirrin’ then, mind you, but there he was havin’ a nice little mug-up for himself, sittin’ on the weather-locker and all oiled-up, leanin’ over the table, his mug o’ coffee to one hand and a wide wedge o’ pie to the other. Man, I have to laugh every time I think of him. ‘The cook of this vessel does make the finest apple pie, don’t he?’ he says, and you could see his spirits was beginnin’ to rise, with the hot coffee gettin’ inside of him. The Colleen was bumpin’ herself all this time, rollin’ over like she was goin’ to lie down, and then gettin’ up again, rearin’ her head and fannin’ herself with her forefeet, standin’ on her hind legs and then comin’ down again, doin’ all those kind of things you gets used to on her when the Skipper’s tryin’ to sail her in a blow. Well, I watches this little Jimmie for awhile, till I happens to think that so long’s I had another watch to stand I might’s well have another pipeful while I was waitin’. I was thinkin’ of steppin’ over for a bit of tobacco out of big Jerry’s bunk, which was right over where this Jimmie Johnson was sittin’, when the Colleen gave an extra good lurch, and with it all at once this lad sank down about a foot or so, and Jerry at the same time most comes through the bottom of his bunk. The lad, he gets pale, and makes as if he was tryin’ to stand up but couldn’t. ‘What is it?’ I said, and wonders what was wrong with him. ‘My oil-skins,’ said he. ‘All the looseness in my oil-pants is ketched tight.’ And then Jerry woke up, with the noise he made in fallin’, I s’pose, and the most surprised man you ever saw. ‘Mother o’ mine!’ says Jerry, ‘what’s that?’ and just for’ard of him Aleck McKenzie leaps a full three feet into the air, hittin’ the deck beam so hard he must’ve left pieces of himself stickin’ to it. ‘What in the—!’ says Aleck, and when he got that far he sees this Jimmie Johnson. ‘Did you do that?’ he says.
“‘No,’ says he, and tryin’ himself to get off the locker Aleck notices him.
“‘What you doin’ there anyway?’ says Aleck.
“‘I dunno,’ says Jimmie, and just then the Colleen falls the other way and lets him loose again, and he leaps for the gangway and up on deck. Man, he fair flew, and I went up after him, not knowin’ what might happen to him, and Jerry and Aleck below swearin’ like crazy men.
“Up on the deck there was the Skipper just able to keep his feet and talkin’ to Dal Skinner,
“All the looseness in my oil-pants is ketched tight.”
who was to the wheel. It was dark enough, but you c’d make him out where the light of the binnacle hit on his wet oil-skins. Up to him popped the little man from somewhere. ‘My God, but it’s a wild night, ain’t it, Captain?’ says he.
“‘Who the divil’s that?’ says the Skipper, and he peeks along the deck to where Jimmie was hangin’ to the weather rail. After takin’ another peek and seein’ who it was, the Skipper don’t pay no more attention to him, but goes on talkin’ to Dal.
“‘I’m thinkin’,’ says the Skipper, ‘that it’s moderatin’ a bit and maybe she’d stand the stays’l pretty soon.’ Jimmie, I guess, was listenin’ to that and couldn’t hold in any longer. ‘Oh, Captain, Captain,’ says he, ‘she’s fallin’ apart forward,’ and tells him what happened in the forec’s’le. ‘How long you been sleepin’ for’ard?’ asks the Skipper.
“‘Four nights now,’ says Jimmie.
“‘Only four nights? That’s it, you’re not used to sleepin’ for’ard yet. You mustn’t mind that. They all used to think that at first. But Lord bless you, don’t you mind that. That’s just a little way she has. She don’t mean any harm.’
“‘But Jerry fell through his bunk.’
“‘And why wouldn’t he? sure he weighs a ton.’
“‘But,’ says Jimmie, ‘she pinched my oil-pants, her planks opened up so wide!’
“‘That so? And what size oil-skins do you wear?’
“‘I dunno,’ says he—‘these belong to Clancy.’
“‘There it is,’ said he, ‘Clancy’s a big man, and your oil-skins are too loose. Go below and see if you can find some that are four sizes smaller and get the loan of ’em. Go below anyway,’ says he, ‘and finish your mug-up. You’ll feel better.’
“‘If you don’t mind, Captain,’ says he, ‘I’d rather stay on deck awhile—it’s safer, I think.’
“‘All right,’ says the Skipper, ‘but don’t get in the way.’
“He hadn’t got that fair out, when ‘Hard down—hard down!’ comes ravin’ from the watch for’ard. ‘Down,’ hollers Dal, and the Colleen makes a shoot, and the booms start to come over. And just then the Skipper makes a jump for the waist after this Jimmie and slings him out of the way of the fore-boom. He saved Jimmie from having his head split open and knocked overboard and lost, but he couldn’t save himself. Even a man like Tom O’Donnell can’t sling a man out of the way on a wet and driving deck with one hand like he was a feather, and the boom ketches him side the head just as the vessel heels down again on the other tack and over the railing he goes——”
“Not overboard, Tommie!”
“Yes, overboard and into the black sea, and me standing by couldn’t save him from it. I jumped, but he was gone, and over on the other side the clumsy ark of a vessel we had to turn out for went on by. The watch must’ve been asleep aboard of her. I stood and cursed her lights as they went away from us. Yes, sir, cursed ’em out between the times I was hollering for the gang to come up.
“‘On deck everybody—all hands on deck!’ I roars it loud’s I could, and had the gripes slashed off the nest of lee dories by the time they came up flying.
“‘The Skipper is gone,’ says I—‘over with a dory!’ and we had one over in no time, and Jerry and me jumps in— Jerry in his stockin’ feet—and out we goes. We couldn’t sees so much as a star in the sky, if there was one—not even the white tops of the seas—but we drove her out, and ’twas all we could do to keep the dory from capsizin’ by the way. ‘To looard!’ I says, and to looard we pushed her, and then, ‘Hi, the Colleen Bawn! On your lee quarter.’ ’Twas the Skipper’s voice. And maybe we didn’t row! But ’twas one thing to hear his voice, and another in that night and sea and blackness to find him, and keep the dory right side up at the same time. But he kept singin’ out and we kept drivin’ away, and at last we got him. A hard job he must’ve had trying to keep afloat with his big jack-boots on, and everything else on, for the fifteen minutes or more it took us to find him.
“‘Lord!’ says he, ‘but I’m glad to see you. Paddling like a porpoise I’ve been since I went over the side. But drive for the vessel—there’s her port light—and I’ll keep bailin’, if one of ye’ll lend me your sou’wester.’
“We got alongside, and the Skipper climbs over the rail. ‘Put her on her course again,’ he says, and then starts to go below to overhaul his head.
“And then Jimmie Johnson steps up. ‘How’d it come, Captain,’ he says, ‘you fell overboard?’ By the light from the cabin gangway the Skipper sees him, and——
“‘You little— I dunno what—but go below. Take him for’ard, somebody,’ he says, ‘and tie him in his bunk, or give him laudanum out of the medicine-chest, afore we have all hands lost tryin’ to look after him.’
“Then he goes below to fix his head up—the side of his head was laid clean open, with the blood runnin’ scuppers full from him.
“‘Och,’ says he, ‘but ’tis a great pickle—salt water,’ and he takes an old cotton shirt and tears it up and wraps it ’round his head, and goes on deck again.”
“And after that he kept her comin’ just the same, Tommie?”
“Just the same. All night long he kept her comin’, and payin’ attention to nobody. In the early mornin’, I mind we passed Josh Bradley in the Tubal Cain, him bangin’ along with a busted fores’l, remindin’ us of a gull with a broken wing. We passed a whole fleet of old plugs anchored off Highland Light, ripped by ’em roarin’, and they lookin’ over the rails at the Skipper, his head all wrapped up. Imagine her, Peter, with her four lowers and gaff topsail, and the wind makin’ if anything. And then what should happen but he made out the Nannie O ahead. ‘’Tis Tommie Ohlsen,’ he says, ‘under four lowers. We’ll chase him.’ But Tommie must’ve seen us, for soon we saw his tops’l break out. Then we sent up the stays’l, and then Tommie sent up his. Then we came swingin’ round the Cape—and I’d like to had a photograph of her then—with the Skipper standin’ between house and rail to wind’ard, squeezin’ the salt water out of his beard, and Jerry below singin’:
‘What’s that a-drivin’ in from sea,
Like a ghost from out the dawn?
And who but Tom O’Donnell
And his flying Colleen Bawn.’
“‘’Tis fine and gay they’re feelin’,’ says the Skipper, ‘with their singin’, thinkin’ they’ll soon be home. In a minute, now, there’ll be something to sing about. Look at what’s coming,’ and she gets it fair and full. And it was too much for the gang. He floats them all out below. From fore and aft they comes runnin’ up on deck. ‘For God’s sake, Skipper, what is it?’ says they. ‘Don’t worry,’ says the Skipper, ‘’tis only a little squall, and the Nannie O ahead.’ ‘But what’re we goin’ to do, Skipper? We can’t stay below.’ ‘Oh, climb on the weather-rail,’ says the Skipper, ‘and if she goes over, ’tis only a mile to shore.’ And then the face of little Jimmie! ‘My God, my God—my poor, poor wife!’ he says. ‘Whisht, lad, whisht,’ says the Skipper, patting his head, ‘’tis to your wife we’re takin’ you,’ and he keeps on chasin’ the Nannie O across the bay.”
“And then?”
“And then? Why, he kept her goin’ across the bay. Half-way home, there was a big white steam yacht layin’ to both anchors. She was big enough to tow the Colleen ten knots an hour.
What’s that a-drivin’ in from sea, like a ghost from out the dawn?
‘You’d think it was banshees we was, the way they look out from between the lace curtains,’ says the Skipper, and we rips by her stern like the express train goin’ by West Gloucester station.
“A little while after that we overhauled Eben Watkins. Eben, you know, used to brag some about that vessel of his one time, but now he was under a storm trys’l. ’Twas kind of thick—we’d lost sight of the Nannie—and the Skipper was goin’ on by without intendin’ to say anything, but Eben hails him.
“‘Where were you about two hours ago?’
“‘Roundin’ the Cape,’ says the Skipper.
“‘What sail d’y’ have on her?’
“‘What she’s got now.’
“‘That stays’l?’
“‘That stays’l—yes.’
“‘Get that squall?’
“‘Oh, a little puff.’
“‘A little puff?’ says Eben, and he stretches his head at us—‘a little puff. And how’d she stand it?’
“‘Just wet our rail—just wet our rail.’
“‘Go to hell!’ says Eben—‘just wet your rail.’ And I don’t blame him, for the Colleen was down to her hatches then. ‘I s’pose Tommie Ohlsen just wet his rail too,’ says Eben. ‘All we could see of him goin’ by a while ago was the weather-side of his deck.’
“‘’Tis Tommie I’m after,’ hollers back the Skipper and gets out of hearing.
“I don’t know whether we gained or lost on the Nannie O, but we carried our stays’l every foot of the way from Cape Cod to Eastern Point and we carried into the harbor just the same’s we came across the bay. Did you see her beatin’ in? No? Well, it was a scandal. Her deck was slidin’ back and forth under our feet—we could feel it, and you’ve seen a soap-box with the top and bottom gone floatin’ about in the tide? Yes? And how it lengthens out sometimes when a sea hits it broadside? Well, that’s the way the Colleen was shiftin’ back and forth comin’ in the harbor. She was that loose ’twas immoral. ‘She’s ten feet longer when she stretches herself real well,’ says Jerry. ‘She is a bit loose,’ says the Skipper, ‘but she sails better loose. When she lengthens out like that, she’s doin’ her best reachin’.’
“And that’s the way she came in. When we came to anchor the Skipper went into her peak with a lantern, tryin’ to find out what it was. ‘I think she’s a little more loose than ordinary this trip,’ he says—‘it must be the calkin’. But before he got through he discovered that it was her iron band had dropped off altogether. And then it was he told me to go ashore to see about a place for her on the railway. And I guess I’d better hurry along. But afore we go, Peter, just a little touch to the Colleen Bawn, for God bless her, loose as she is, there’s nothing like her out the port.”
“And are you goin’ to stay on her and she like that?”
“And she that way? And why not? He’s going to put four-inch joists in her fore and aft this time on the railway, and then she’ll be all right. She’ll leak a little maybe, but what’s a little leak? And anyway I’d rather be lost in her with Tom O’Donnell than live a thousand years with some. And so here’s to her, Peter-boy. One thing, you know you’re alive on her—and here’s to the Colleen Bawn.”
“To the Colleen Bawn, Tommie, and I don’t know but what you’re right.”
When Peter came out of the Anchorage again, the atmosphere had cleared. The blush of the sky was a marvellous thing for March. Peter could not remember when he had ever seen so rosy a morning for that time of year. And it was a fair wind, too—so fair that Peter could not but remark it. “If we was comin’ home in the Colleen Bawn, or the Nannie O, in this breeze, our wake’d be fair boilin’. The Colleen Bawn with the Irishman aboard, or the Nannie O with Tommie Ohlsen—they’d be loggin’ fifteen knots—yes, and sixteen maybe.” He looked over his shoulder, and for twenty fathoms back he could see the smooth, white log-line and the brass-bound log whirling like mad. It was a rosy morning, and Peter rolled along for Crow’s Nest.
Along the road he overhauled Dexter Warren, who seemed to be out taking the air.
“Seen Jimmie Johnson yet, Dexter?” asked Peter.
Dexter took a hand out of one pocket to gesture. “Jimmie? Yes, and he’s crazy. He came up the wharf like a ghost. ‘Hulloh, what kind of a trip’d you have, Jimmie?’ I asked, ‘and how do you like Captain O’Donnell?’
“‘Yah,’ he says, ‘your oil-skins is too loose.’ ‘What?’ I hollers after him—he goin’ up the dock like a streak. ‘Take to the weather-rail—it’s only a mile to shore,’ he waves his hand and hollers back to me. And then his wife popped around the corner. ‘Jimmie!’ says she. ‘Jennie!’ says he, and in a second it was all off. The pair of them flew up the dock like a pair of gulls before a no’the-easter and I picked up my pots and brushes and went up to the office and told the old man that I guessed I’d quit.”
“Did I? And why wouldn’t I? Jimmie’s job is waitin’ for him if he ain’t too crazy to take it, and if he is it don’t matter to me. There’s my glue-factory job the first of the month. ‘Your oil-skins is too loose,’ says he. He must be crazy, Peter—plumb crazy.”
It was in the middle of the morning when the Colleen Bawn came to anchor. It was late in the afternoon, almost dark, and Peter was fillin’ his last pipe at Crow’s Nest, when the Superba came to anchor in the stream. By and by Dickie Mason came up the dock and hailed for “twenty-five thousand haddock and ten thousand cod.”
“Twenty-five thousand haddock and ten thousand cod—aye, aye. Any news?”
“Well, yes; and, if it turns out to be true, it’s pretty bad.”
“That so, Captain? What is it?”
“I think we’ve seen the last of the Colleen Bawn and Tom O’Donnell. Last night, comin’ on dark, he left us on Georges for a short cut across the shoals. The gale hit in right hard after, and I guess he’s gone—you know how loose and wracked his vessel is—and the last we saw of her she was swung out and goin’ before it—all four lowers, and a livin’ gale. She couldn’t have lived through it. We swung off and came around. We drove all the way and just got in. It’s too bad if it turns out to be so—though maybe he’ll wiggle home in spite of it. Of course, he’d get her to home if anybody could, but you know them shoals in a gale and how loose and wracked his vessel was.”
“Yes,” said Peter. He leaned over the taffrail of Crow’s Nest and put it as politely as he could. “Yes, she’s loose and wracked, Captain Mason, but there’s a few planks of her left, and if you was up here, Captain Mason, and could look over the tops of buildings same’s I can, you’d see her main truck stickin’ up above the railway. I heard them sayin’ she left the same time your vessel did, but she got home so long ago, Captain, that her fish is out and her crew got their money, and if you was to drop up to the Anchorage you’d probably find Tommie Clancy and a few more of her gang havin’ a little touch—and maybe they’ll tell you how they did it.”
Peter spoke with some moderation while his head was outside and his voice within range of the astounded master of the Superba, but once inside, with only his trusted staff to testify, he gave vent to less restrained comment. “Them young skippers, and some of them late models, give me a pain in the waist. ‘The last we see of her,’ says he, ‘she was goin’ over the shoals, and you know how loose and wracked she was, Peter.’ And so she is. But, Lord! I’d like to told him she’d be comin’ home trips yet when his fancy model’d be layin’ to an anchor. Lemme see now—telephone one of you the Superba’s trip—twenty-five thousand haddock and ten thousand cod. And make a note on a slate of the Colleen Bawn’s trip. She don’t sail for the firm, but I do like to keep track of her. Forty thousand haddock and ten thousand cod—loose she is, and her deck crawly under your feet, and they have to wear rubber boots in her forehold, when Tom O’Donnell starts to drive her, and iron bands around her for’ard to hold her together. But, Lord she was an able vessel once—an able vessel once. I think I’ll be goin’ along to supper pretty soon—yes, sir, an able vessel was the Colleen Bawn.
“‘What’s that drivin’ in from sea,
Like a ghost from out the dawn?
And who but Tom O’Donnell
And the flying Colleen Bawn.’
M-m—the flyin’ Colleen Bawn.”
So hummed Peter, and closed in the hatches of Crow’s Nest with a feeling that his little morning trip along the water front had not been without its reward.
The Wicked “Celestine”
SAILING out of Boston is a fleet of fishing schooners that for beauty of model, and speed, and stanchness in heavy weather are not to be surpassed—their near admirers say equalled—by any class of vessels that sail the seas; and, saying that, they do not bar the famous fleet of Gloucester.
This Boston fleet is manned by a cosmopolitan lot, who are all very proud of their vessels, particularly of their sailing qualities. Good seamen all—some beyond compare— Irishmen still with the beguiling brogue of the south and west counties, Yankees from Maine and Massachusetts, Portuguese from the Azores, with a strong infusion of Nova Scotians and Newfoundlanders, and scattering French, English and Scandinavians.
No class of men afloat worry less about heavy weather than do these men; nowhere will you find men more deeply versed in the ways of vessels or quicker to meet an emergency; none will carry sail longer, or, if out in a dory, will hang on to their trawls longer if it comes to blow, or the fog settles, or the sea kicks up. In the matter of courage, endurance and skill, they are the limit.
The standard for this superb little navy was first raised by a lot of men of Irish blood, from Galway and Waterford originally, who chose this most hazardous way to make a living—and in other days, with the old-class vessels, it was terribly hazardous—who chose his life, tenderhearted men and men of family though most of them were, in preference to taking orders from uncongenial peoples ashore.
They are still there, an unassuming lot of adventurers taking the most desperate chances in the calmest way—great shipmates all, tenderness embodied and greatness of soul beyond estimation. And it was one of the best known of them, a dauntless little Irish-born, who, squaring his shoulders and swinging his arms, spat right and left and moved up the dock to a hail of salutations this beautiful winter morning. “Good-morning, Captain,” and “How are you, Coleman?” and “Are you to take the new one this trip, Skipper?” All this, and more, as Captain Coleman Joyce, not above five feet in height nor a hundred and thirty pounds in weight, but of a port to subdue Patagonians seven feet high, as with a beard that curled and shoulders that heaved he rolled gloriously up the dock.
An abstemious man was Captain Joyce; but there were times and circumstances, say now, for instance, when before casting off for a haddocking trip to Georges Banks it became necessary to consummate one of the rites without which no man could conceive a fishing trip to be lucky. These rites, incidentally, were two: One consisted of taking a good drink before going out; the other was to take a good drink after getting in. Simple, but not to be overlooked.
And now, when, after a beat up Atlantic Avenue to the saloon that is nearest the south side of the wharf, Coleman found himself leaning against the bar and looking at the barkeeper, that suave party, without further orders, set before him a small glass of water and a small glass empty and the same old bottle with the horse and rider on the outside.
Raising his filled glass, and absent-mindedly looking about him by the way, Captain Joyce observed that it was a wistful crowd which was watching him. It was always a wistful crowd. He nodded amiably to four or five, but gazed vacantly at the others. All told, there must have been twenty loafers in the place, and everyone undeniably thirsty, with a thirst that was immeasurably intensified by the sight of this successful skipper preparing to take a drink.
Coleman, regarding them again, pulled out an old wallet and from it took a five-dollar bill. Every pair of expectant eyes in the place saw the V on the bill. Plainly, too, he was not trying to hide it. A symphony of short, hacking coughs foretold clogged throats clearing for action— Captain Joyce always was free with his money. Following the bill, but only after a lot of digging about with his fingers, Captain Joyce extricated a silver coin—a quarter of a dollar, they saw. Coleman held it up to his eyes that he might the better see it. Nobody, looking at those eyes of his, would ever suspect that they were weak. He put back the bill, restrapped the wallet, replaced it in his pocket, laid the quarter on the bar, and took his drink, first the whiskey, then the water, and both rapidly, as a man of action should.
Smacking his lips and regarding the change on the bar—a dime and a nickel—at the same time casting a sly glance at the barkeeper, he beckoned with his hand over his shoulder, but without looking around. “Let ye all come up,” he said, and bolted for the door to escape the rush.
Outside the door of the saloon he was hailed by a shore-going friend, once a fisherman, but now a grocer, whose chief income arose from provisioning fishing vessels, and so one who kept up with all the gossip of the fleet. “Hello, Captain Joyce! What’s this they’re telling me about you having a new vessel—a new style model, too.”
“It’s the truth.”
“And given up the Maggie—that was built for you—that I heard you say a hundred times was not a bad sailer at all and the ablest vessel of her tonnage that ever sailed past Boston Light?”
“Yes, or past any other light. She’s that and more. But Lord bless you, she can’t sail with some of the new ones, and I’m tired to my soul of havin’ every blessed model of a fisherman that was ever launched comin’ up on my quarter and goin’ by like I was an old sander. This last time who was it, d’y’ think? You’d never guess. Name every vessel that ever sailed out of T Dock and she’d be the last you or any other man’d name. Who but the Bonita—yes. The black-whiskered divil, Portugee Joe, yes—with the rings in his ears. Faith, an’ had I hold of him when he said it, ’tis in his nose he’d be wearin’ them. ‘Captain Joyce,’ he hails, and the bloody Dago he can’t talk United States yet—‘Captain Joyce, what you carry, hah?—breeks or gran-eet or what?’ Gran-eet, mind ye, with the Western Islands brogue of him! Yes, and goes on by the same’s if the Maggie was r’ally loaded with granite. ‘By the Lord,’ I calls out after him, ‘but the next time you and me try tacks I’ll make a wake for you to steer by or I’ll know why.’ And I’ve got a vessel now, b’y, a vessel that can sail or I don’t know fast lines when I see them. And the Portugee he’s just gone down the harbor—he’ll be waitin’ for me outside the lightship, he says. So I’m off.”
Captain Joyce journeyed on and, standing on the cap-log at the end of the wharf, he looked down on his new vessel and his eyes shone with joy in the sheer beauty of her. “Purty, purty, purty,” he murmured; “just like she was whittled out of a block.” And, turning to a man who was taking his bag ashore, the last man of the old gang to leave her, he inquired, “She can sail, they tell me, this one?”
“Oh, she can sail all right.”
“And how does she handle?”
“Handle? She’s that quick in stays that you want to watch her.”
“Watch her, eh? And stiff is she?”
“I don’t know about that. One day we used to think she was a house, but again she’d roll down in a twelve-knot breeze, and in a way to make your hair curl.”
“Man alive! But whisper, was that why Jimmie Eliot gave her up?”
“I don’t know about that. He wouldn’t say, the Skipper wouldn’t.”
“And that’s queer, too, come to think.”
“It do look queer, but maybe he thought it wouldn’t be fair to the owners.”
“’Tis the divil and all of a mystery. And where is he now?”
“Went to Gloucester last night.”
“That’s too bad. When another man’s been in a vessel I gen’rally likes to get his notions of her myself. You can’t tell a vessel by just lookin’ at her—you have to be in her a while. Well, whatever she is, we’ll put out in her now. Let ye hoist the mains’l, b’ys, and we’ll go. Portugee Joe is waitin’ for us below.”
Captain Joyce and his able crew put out from the dock and a great crowd lined the cap-log to see her off. Down the harbor she went, creeping before the light westerly as if she had a propeller hidden somewhere below.
Captain Joyce and his old friend Jerry Connors looked her up and looked her down.
“I say, Jerry, but did ever y’ see annything scoot like her—hardly a breath and she goin’ along like she is. It’s not right, Jerry—hardly a ripple in her wake.”
“Oh, you’ve been so long in the old Maggie, Skipper——”
“The old Maggie, is it? She’s not too old—ten year.”
“I know. Ten year is nothing in a good vessel, but they been improving them so fast. Last fall, the trip you didn’t wait for me, you know, I went in the Jennie and Katie. Y’oughter seen her skipper. Handle? Like a little naphtha launch to pick up dories. And sail? Man, but she could sail!”
“That so? And how’d she behave in heavy weather?”
“Well, we didn’t have any heavy weather that trip.”
“No breeze at all?”
“Well, one day it did breeze up. We had her under a balanced reef mains’l. She did slap around a bit. ’Twas the devil and all to stay in your bunk, but she did pretty well. But you mustn’t get ’em out of trim. The first two doryloads of fish that came aboard that trip was pitched into her after-pens and, man, she reared right up in the air—right straight up on her hind legs and began to claw out with her fore feet like she was trying to climb up a wall——”
“You’d think ’twas a horse you were talkin’ about, Jerry. But she could sail, you say?”
“Sail? Like a plank on edge—and greased.”
“Well, this one can sail, too. Look at her. Not a blessed hop out of her—just smoochin’ along like a girl slidin’ on ice ashore, isn’t she?”
Off the lightship they found the Bonita. “There he is,” announced Coleman, “with his rings in his ears. Keep her as she is till the pair of us come together. Trip afore last he sailed a couple of rings around the Maggie by way of amusin’ himself, but I’ll amuse him now or I’ll tear the sail off this one.”
In a freshening breeze and both vessels soon swinging all they had, it was a good chance for a try-out. Four hours of that and the victory went to the handsome Celestine, for off Cape Cod, after a run of fifty miles, Coleman had the Bonita two miles to leeward.
For an hour after that Coleman could hardly be coaxed down to eat. Standing on the Celestine’s quarter, he chuckled, and chuckled, and chuckled. Even after taking his place at the table, he had to climb up the companionway to have one more look at the beaten Bonita. “A good vessel for rip-fishin’ the Portugee’s got—she drifts well,” he said, “and maybe ’tis me won’t tell him next time we meet.”
And yet in the middle of the meal he suddenly set down his mug of coffee and leaned across the table. “Don’t it strike you, Jerry, that for a vessel of her model this one is the divil for stiffness?”
“We were saying among ourselves a little while ago, Skipper, that we never before saw a vessel that barely wet her scuppers in a breeze like this.”
“That’s it— I don’t know what it is. But she’s a queer divil altogether. Sometimes when she luffs she fetches up in a way to shake every tooth in your head. And there was what one of the men that was in her last trip said of her.”
“And what did he say, Skipper?”
“He said—but come to think, he didn’t say anything, and that’s the divil of it. One or two little outs in a vessel, if you know what they are, aren’t always a great harm. But when you don’t know how to take her!”
The crew agreed with their Skipper that there was something queer about this new vessel of theirs, but no illuminating discussion came of it until next morning when, having cleared the north shoal of Georges, it became necessary to head southward.
Heading to the east’ard in a southerly breeze, she had been on the starboard tack up to that time. Now her helmsman shot her head across the wind, her sails shook, shivered, her booms began to swing, and over on the port tack went the Celestine. Everybody looked to see her roll down some, but in that breeze—they hadn’t even taken their stays’l in—nobody looked to see her do what she did. Least of all her Skipper, who, standing carelessly by the starboard rail, would have gone overboard and been lost probably, but for Jerry Connors.
“Wheel down! wheel down!” roared Jerry, and hauled the Skipper back aboard.
“Down it is!”
“Cripes!” said the Skipper when he found his breath—“cripes, but she’s left-handed.”
“Left-handed?”
“Yes, and double left-handed, the cross-eyed whelp! Just barely put her scuppers under on one tack and down to her hatches on the other. Man alive, but if we have to put her on the wrong tack makin’ a passage, what’ll we ever do with her? Put her back, put her back—back on the other tack with her and keep her there till we get some sail off her. Man, man, but when we have to put a vessel under her four lowers in a little breeze like this——”
They kept her so until next morning, when they hove her to—they had to heave her to—with Georges north shoal bearing twenty-three miles west by north and a howling gale in prospect. With the glass showing a scant 29 and the sea coming to them in a long swell, they all foresaw a good lay-off with a chance to catch up on sleep or read up, or overhaul their gear.
The storm hit in hard that night. A northeaster it was, with a thick snow in its wake and a whistle that made a bunk feel most comfortable. The snow passed, and after two days the worst of the breeze also; but after it came the tremendous seas that make such a terrible place of the northerly edge of Georges shoals in the wrong kind of winter weather.
Nobody aboard the Celestine worried particularly. They had been having that sort of thing all their lives. After a while it would pass. Only when it lasted for too long a time it did make slow fishing. They put her under jumbo and riding sail and let go their chain anchor. Next day they took sail off her altogether and made ready their hawser and big anchor. Under both anchors, if it came to that, she certainly would be safe.
This gale was some time in passing. And now it was coming on evening of the fourth day—two days of a heavy breeze and two days of the great seas. All the men, excepting the watch, were below, about half for’ard and half aft, those for’ard mugging-up or overhauling trawls, those aft listening to Jerry Connors, a great reader, who was now reeling off a most interesting story with dramatic emphasis. It was the “Cloister and the Hearth,” and Gerald was up in the tree with the bear after him—the Celestine dancing like a lead-ballasted cork figure all the while. In the middle of it all the watch hailed something from deck. The Skipper, trying to keep from sliding off the locker and, at the same time, above the howling of the wind get what Jerry was reading, grew wrathy at the interruption.
“What’s that ballyhooin’ on deck—whose watch?”
One had risen, and now from the companion steps, his head above the slide, passed on the word. “It’s John’s.”
“Oh, John is it? Don’t mind John—the least thing worries John. But what was he sayin’?”
“He says there’s some big seas coming, and getting bigger all the time; and true enough, they are.”
“Big seas, is it? Cripes, a man don’t need to stand watch on deck or stick his head out of the hatch, like a turkey in a crate, to find that out.”
“Big seas coming aboard, he says, and hadn’t we better make ready to put out the big anchor, she being on her weak tack?”
“Her weak side! That’s so—maybe we had. Tell him yes and call the gang for’ard. Now go on, Jerry, whilst we’re waitin’. What did that divil of a bear do then?” The Skipper leaned forward from the locker. “What did he do? Hurry on, Jerry-boy.”
“And then he—” recommenced Jerry, but got no further. A scurry of boots was heard on deck, a quick slamming back of the slide, and down the companionway came John. Feet first he came flying and hauled the slide after him. “Here’s one big as a church and——”
That was all he got out when the sea struck. Over went the Celestine—over, over—the Skipper was shot from the locker through the open door of his stateroom across the cabin. Jerry, who had been sitting by the stove, was shot into that same room ahead of the Skipper. Another, lying comfortably in his bunk to windward, was thrown clear across the cabin and into the opposite bunk on the lee side, and his bedding followed him and covered him up. Another of the crew, doubled up in the after windward bunk, was sent past the lazarette and in on top of his neighbor, who had a moment before been comfortably lying in his bunk to leeward, passing the time of day with a pleasant word and a pipe in his mouth. The bedding also followed that man. Everything loose went from the windward bunks to the lee bunks—from the whole windward side to the lee side.
The vessel poised so for perhaps ten seconds, while men called one to another. “What’s it?” “Are you hurted, Joe?” “God help us—what in the divil’s this?” “What in the devil’s name—” “Man, let me up—’tis smothered I am!” Cries of surprise and cries of consternation, while through it all the Celestine seemed balanced between going down for good and never coming up at all. The wall-lamp flared and then started to blaze. It looked like a possible fire to add to the rest of it, but the Skipper, like a flash, threw a smothering wet oil-jacket over it. The binnacle lamp then started, but only for a moment—suddenly went out, and then for the first time they heard the rush of the sea coming on them in the dark.
“Did you think to draw the slide tight, John?” bellowed the Skipper.
“Tight? ’Tis tighter than the lid of hell.”
“Then somebody must’ve left the binnacle slide open—there’s men without sense to be found wherever you go—you can’t dodge them.”
A short space of that, and she rolled part way back. “Up she comes,” said the Skipper—“’tisn’t in nature she won’t come—she’s got to come up soon or go down entirely.” And it did seem as if she was coming up, but the next big sea hit her—bigger than the one that had hove her down. Down inside the Celestine they never quite agreed on what happened. They knew that for a moment or two they were standing on the roof of the cabin, that the red-hot cover fell off the stove and hit that same roof, that the hot coals fell out of the stove and began to sizzle among the loose bedding. They knew, too, that in the middle of it all John’s voice was heard exclaiming, “Oh, my poor wife!” and again, “O God, O God, we’re lost!” and that the Skipper said, “Hush up your caterwauling—we’re a long way from bein’ lost yet,” even while the loose bedding began to take fire and blaze up.
Then all at once she righted, and so suddenly that they were thrown one against the other, across the floor and back again. And Jerry Connors became entangled in a tub of trawls that somebody had been overhauling. Six hundred hooks, every hook attached to three feet of ganging, and the whole hanging to two thousand feet of line—it was an awful mess to get mixed up with at a time like that. Twenty hooks at least were sticking in him here and there, and Jerry swore prodigiously.
They smothered the fire with blankets and old clothes and lit the lamp again. That done, they noted that the print of the red-hot stove cover had been left on the roof of the cabin, showing that the vessel had been keel up. “D’y’ s’pose she went clean over and over, or did she go half-way and back again, Jerry?” was the first inquiry of the Skipper when the lamp was lit.
“In God’s name, wait till I get some of these hooks out of me—they’re into me gizzards, some of them.”
Up on deck they met the gang coming out of the forec’s’le, the cook in the lead.
“How was it for’ard?” asked the Skipper.
‘I was lying in my bunk to looard,” began the cook, “and Jack was in his bunk to wind’ard just opposite. Jack was playing with the cat. Well, sir, when she went over I forgot the cat, but through the air came this great black thing with forty claws and fourteen green and yellow eyes and got me by the hair, and Jack with his two hundred pound weight on top of him again. And the cat gets his claws in among me whiskers——”
“Shut up!” roared the Skipper—“you and the cat and your whiskers. Is anybody gone? Who was on watch with you, John?”
“Mattie.”
“Is he here now?”
“Here, Skipper,” responded Mattie for himself. “When John dove for the cabin I dove for the forec’s’le. I didn’t lose no time.”
“I’ll bet you didn’t, if you came down red-jacks first the way John Houlihan did. Well, that’s all right, then. Let’s see what’s left on deck. Get up a few torches—and have a care some of you aren’t washed overboard.”
Nothing was left on deck. The spars had been torn out when she went over and were now lying alongside threatening to punch holes in her side as they lifted and dropped to every big sea. The Skipper took the big axe and the cook his hatchet, and others got out their bait knives, and all began to chop and hack and cut until the wreckage of the spars was clear of the vessel.
Then they took a further look. Dories were gone, booby hatches were gone, the rail was gone. Only the stanchions sticking up above the deck showed where the rail had been. But the wonderful thing was yet to appear. Going forward, the Skipper noticed a turn of chain around the vessel’s bow. He looked again—and again. When he had satisfied himself he thoughtfully combed his beard.
“Forty winters I’ve been comin’ to Georges, and this is the first time ever I see that. There’ll be people that’ll say it never happened—that it couldn’t have happened. But there’s the cable around her bows, a full turn, to prove she went clean over—down one side and up the other. We’re blessed lucky to be alive, that’s what I say.”
“That’s what we are,” affirmed Jerry, and had another look for himself. And they all had another look for themselves. “Blessed lucky,” they all agreed. “And what’ll we do now, Skipper?”
“Do?” He looked around and saw only the stumps of masts projecting above her deck—no sails, no rigging, nothing. The bowsprit, even, was gone and their chain parted—and the north shoal of Georges bearing twenty miles to leeward. “Give her the other anchor, and whilst we’re layin’ to that we’ll see what we can do.”
That night they hung grimly on to the other anchor. In the morning the Skipper chewed it over. “We can’t lay here forever—that’s certain. We must try and get her out. I don’t like that shoal to looard. With this one there’s no tellin’ what she’ll take it into her head to do—to go adrift maybe, and then it’s all swallowed up we’ll be in short order.”
So they prepared to work her out. For masts they could do no better than take the pen-boards out of the hold, split them up and fish them together. They were of two-inch stock, and when they had used them all up they made but sorry-looking spars. For sails they shook the bedding out of their mattresses, took the ticking and their blankets and sewed them together with pieces of oilskins by way of patchings. There was some record-breaking sewing aboard the Celestine that morning, for all were thinking of the shoal under their lee.
They set up the pen-boards by way of masts, laced the bedding and blankets to them for sails, and then they had it—a medley of colors! Blue and white striped ticks, green and gold and red blankets—the masterpieces of fond wives ashore—and two crazy-quilts. One particular crazy-quilt the Skipper eyed with regret. “I mind the night the wife won that at the church fair. A hundred and fourteen chances she took—at ten cents a chance—me payin’ for them. Nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces in it. ‘There’ll be the fine ornament for your bunk, Colie,’ says she to me. ‘And warm, too,’ she says, ‘on a winter’s day.’ ’Tis tears she’d be sheddin’ could she see it this winter’s day, usin’ it by way of a cloth to a fores’l up where the single reef cringle should be.”