Through all of that month and through most of the month of May we
chased the mackerel up the coast. By the middle of May we were well up
front with the killers, and our skipper's reputation was gaining. The
vessel, too, was getting quite a name as a sailer. Along the Maryland,
Delaware, and Jersey coasts we chased them--on up to off Sandy Hook
and then along the Long Island shore, running them fresh into New
York. There were nights and days that spring when we saw some driving
on the Johnnie Duncan.
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 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 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."
"I'll be right up. Tell the gang to sway up."
He drew on his slip-shods and came on deck. He took a look over at the
yacht while we were swaying up. When we had everything good and flat
and trimmed sheets a bit, the skipper called out to take in the
fore-topsail. "She hasn't got hers set," he explained.
Now, a fore-topsail does not help much--hauled up, as were the Johnnie
Duncan and the yacht, it would be a hindrance to most vessels, and,
perhaps, because it did not help her was why the yacht had not hers
set. But it showed the skipper's fairness. Ours had been left set,
because we might need it in a hurry, and also because with the skipper
below nobody could order it down. Now we clewed it up.
Clancy, standing aft, threw a look at our seine-boat, which of course
we had in tow. "She's quite a drag," he suggested, "for a vessel
that's racing."
"Yes," said the skipper, "but wait a while. We won't cast it off
unless we have to."
We did not have to. We soon had her in trim. For weeks the skipper and
Clancy had been marking the Johnnie's sheets so that in an emergency
they could whip her into her best sailing in no time. With that, and
with the shifting of some barrels of salt that we had on deck, we soon
had her going. It is surprising what a lot of difference the shifting
of a few barrels of salt will make in the trim of a vessel. We had not
had a try with anything for two weeks or so and had become careless.
The last thing we did was to take some barrels of fresh water that
happened to be standing forward of the windlass and shift them aft,
and then the Johnnie began to go along for fair.
Coming up to Block Island Light things were pretty even. Then it came
a question of who was to go to windward. The yacht hauled her
mainsheet in to two blocks. So did we, and, further, ran a line from
the cringle in her foresail to the weather rigging. She could not make
it--we had her.
"Mind the time," said the skipper, when at last we had her under our
quarter--"mind the time, Tommie, when we used to do so much racing
down on the Cape shore? There's where we had plenty of time for racing
and all sorts of foolishness. I was pretty young then, but I mind it
well. A string of men on the rigging from the shear poles clear up to
the mast-head--yes, and a man astraddle the main gaff once or twice,
passing buckets of water to wet down the mains'l."
"Yes, and barrels of water out toward the end of the main-boom keep
the sail stretched. Man, but those were the days we paid attention to
racing."
"Those were the days," asserted the skipper. "But we can do a little
of it now, too."
By that you will understand we were walking away from our yacht. We
were to anchor in the harbor while she was still coming, and we had
towed our seine-boat all the way.
"Lord," said Clancy, as we were tying up our foresail, "but I'd like
to see this one in an ocean race with plenty of wind stirring--not a
flat breeze and a short drag like we had to-day."