That night was the worst I ever put in towing astern of a vessel.
"Owling" is the seiners' word for that kind of work. It was "owling"
sure enough, with the seine-boat on a short painter and the dory on a
shorter painter still and astern of the seine-boat again. We came near
to being lost in the dory. Mel Adams, who was in the dory with me,
thinking she was surely going to capsize one time she rode up over the
stern of the seine-boat, took a flying leap into the seine-boat. He
had a hard time getting back, for there was quite a little sea on.
Even in the seine-boat they were all glad enough to hear Clancy give
the word to cast off and pull after the school.
It was a big school, and hard work in that sea, but we had them safe
at last. The vessel then came alongside and the bailing in began.
Having had a good long lay-off we bailed them in with plenty of
good-will. It was "He-yew!" "Oy-hoo!" "Hi-o!" and "Drive her!" all
along the line until we had on deck what the skipper thought was a
hundred barrels. Then the bag was put around the seine to protect the
rest of the mackerel from dogfish and sharks, and we were ready to
dress.
Barrels were tossed out of the hold, keelers set up, sharp-edged
knives drawn from diddy-boxes below, and a chance had to see a smart
crew dressing a haul of mackerel that were to be salted. It was too
long a run, four hundred miles or so, to take a chance of getting them
fresh to market. It needed a fair and fresh breeze to be sure of it,
and besides with the market for salt mackerel getting stronger all the
time it was good judgment to salt down and fill her up before going
home.
We had been through the same thing before, even with as good a
deckload, but now we were getting near the end of the season. This
trip, then the race, and maybe one more trip after the race, and we
would be done seining. And so we drove things.
Four gangs of four men each took corners in the waist. Each gang had
two keelers--yard square boxes, eight inches or so in depth, and set
up on two or three barrels. Into the keelers the mackerel on deck were
bailed and around them the men gathered, with long-handled torches set
up all about.
All hands came into the dressing--skipper and cook too--and the work
went on. It was one gang against the other, each jealously counting
barrels when they were filled, that full credit might be given for
speed. Sixteen men were accounted for in this way. The seventeenth and
eighteenth were to keep the keelers filled, draw water for pickle from
over the side, roll the filled barrels out of the way--in short, to
help out generally.
It was fine to watch the splitters. One left-handed grab and the
mackerel was in place; flat and smooth, one right-handed slit and he
was laid open the length of his back. Forty-five mackerel a minute
either the skipper, Clancy or Moore could split--that is, pick them
up, place in position, split from nose to tail along the back, and
slide out of the way again. Sixty a minute they could do in spurts, if
somebody would place the mackerel in rows for them.
The busiest man of all was the skipper. He had to keep an eye out for
the course of the Johnnie. Vessels that are dressing fish, vessels on
which the entire crew are soaked in blood, gills, intestines, and
swashing brine, might be allowed privileges, one might think; but no,
they must keep a lookout just the same. On this dark night, the
Johnnie Duncan, though making a great effort--considering that she had
jibs down and wheel in the becket--to stay as she was put, yet would
fall away or come-to, especially when the wind shifted two or three
points at a jump. And just as soon as she did the skipper would
notice it instantly, jump aft and set her right. Generally, to shift
the wheel a few spokes would be enough, but now and then he would have
to give the wheel a good round whirl. At such a time he would sing out
a warning, the torches would be lowered, we would duck our heads, the
boom would go swinging by in the smoky yellow glare, and the Johnnie
Duncan would be off on another tack. We would brace our legs to a new
angle, the skipper would hop back to his knife, and again the dressing
would go humming along.
When we had the first hundred barrels of mackerel swashing in brine,
the rest of them, perhaps another hundred barrels, were bailed in. And
all night long like that we stood to it driving. Under the yellow and
smoky light of the torches I could see nothing but mackerel or the
insides of mackerel in the air. Keelers, deck, rail, our hands, faces,
boots and oilskins were sticky with the blood and gurry. At top speed
we raced like that through the night. Once in a while a man would drop
his knife or snap off his gibbing mitt, rinse his hand in the brine
barrel by his side, slap his hand across the hoops, and condemn the
luck of a split finger or a thumb with a fish-bone in it. Another
might pull up for a moment, glance up at the stars or down at the
white froth under the rail, draw his hand across his forehead,
mutter, "My soul, but I'm dry," take a full dipper from the
water-pail, drink it dry, pass dipper and pail along to the next and
back to his work.
When the cook called out for breakfast we were still at it, with the
deck of the vessel covered with barrels of pickling mackerel. It was
beginning to get light then. "Oh, the blessed day's coming on. Smother
the torches, boys," said the skipper, and led the way below for the
first table to have a bite.
Before the sun came up we were beginning to make out the rest of the
fleet. One after another they were coming into view, their long hulls
and high spars reaching across the wind. Between the gray sky and the
slaty sea their white sails looked whiter than chalk.
We had to name the different vessels then. "There's Tom O'Donnell--and
Wesley Marrs--and Sam Hollis--and--" sung out Andie Howe.
"Sam Hollis--where's Sam Hollis?" broke in Mel Adams.
"Away to the east'ard, ain't it, Andie?--the fellow with jibs down?"
spoke up Billie Hurd, who was a bit proud that he too could pick her
out at such a distance.
"So it is, ain't it?" said Mel, and he began to tell our troubles in
the dory. "'Twas him near ran over us last night--remember, Joe?
Leastways, it looked like Hollis's new one's quarter goin' by. He was
pointin' 'bout no'the-east then, but he couldn't 've held on that
tack long or he'd be somewhere up by Miquelon and not here this
mornin'--the gait he was goin'. Man, but there was smoke coming out
of his scuppers when he went by. 'Why don't y' come aboard whilst
you're about it--come aboard and be sociable,' I hollers. 'Oh, don't
cry, y' ain't hurted,' says whoever's to the wheel of her. Least it
sounded like that, 'Y' ain't hurted,' he says."
"Must have been pretty close, Mel?" said Clancy, never stopping, but
keeping a string of split mackerel rolling into his keeler. Mel and I
were gibbing for Clancy.
"Close? I could've touched his chain-plates like that," and Mel,
getting excited, reached his mittened hand across the keeler and
touched Clancy on the arm. Clancy's knife took a jump and cut a
finger. For a few seconds Clancy laid down the law of a splitting
knife to Mel, but Mel didn't mind.
"That's just about the way I swore at the man to the wheel of the
Withrow. Didn't I, Joe? Yes, sir, I cert'nly swore at him good, but it
no more jarred him than--but when their seine-boat came by, half of
'em smokin', some half-breed among 'em has to sing out, 'Y'ought to
hang up a riding light if your vessel's hove-to,' he says. What do you
think of that, Tommie--'if your vessel's hove-to!'--and if the Johnnie
was going one she was going ten knots an hour."
"That's right, Mel--I heard you to the mast-head," said Clancy. Clancy
heard it about as much as old Mr. Duncan back in Gloucester did, but
he was always ready to help a man out.
"Did you? Well, I hove-to him. I hove the bailer at him, that's what I
did, and he ducked. But he ducked too late, I callate, for 'Bam!' it
caught him--or somebody in the seine-boat with him. He swore some, or
somebody swore, you c'n bet. 'I don't know who y'are,' he hollers,
'but if ever I meet you ashore,' and he was so far away then I
couldn't ketch no more of it. 'Don't know who y'are, but if I ketch
you ashore'--Lord----"
"So, if a lad with a bump on the side of his head waltzes up to you on
Main Street and whangs you, Mel, next time you're ashore in
Gloucester, what'll you do?" asked Clancy.
"I'll say, 'Where's that bailer, you loafer?' but first I'll whang him
back. I had to finish the bailing out with my sou'wester. I sings out
to Andie Howe in the boat here to hand me one of the bailers in the
boat. 'I'm usin' my hat,' I hollers, 'and Joe's using his sou'wester,'
thinkin' that would fetch him all right. 'Well, we're usin' ten
sou'westers here,' says Andie, 'and one or two of 'em leaks,' and that
was all the satisfaction I got."
"Yes," said Eddie Parsons, "the seine-boat was sure wallerin' then.
The skipper had only just told Jimmie Gunn to quit his growling.
'You'll be wanting hot-water bags to your feet next, I suppose,' says
the skipper."
"I was thinking of the boat--afraid she'd be so logy with the water in
her that we couldn't drive her when the time came," bristled up Jimmie
Gunn to that.
"Y-yah!" snorted Eddie, "if you weren't scared, then I never saw a man
scared. Logy? I notice we made her hop along all right after we cast
off from the vessel. Man, but she fair hurdled some of them seas--some
of the little ones, I mean. Didn't she, Steve? We thought we'd lost
Joe and you, Mel, in the dory, didn't we, fellows?"
"You did, hey? Well, you didn't, nor nowheres near it," broke in Mel.
"We were right there with the goods when they hove the seine, warn't
we, Joey?"
And so it went on through all that day, while the men worked,
dressing, salting, and putting all in pickle. It was a drive all
through without any quitting by anybody, except when it was time to
relieve lookouts at the mast-head. In the middle of it all, had the
call of "School-O!" been heard from aloft, we would have been only too
glad to drop everything, jump into the boat and dory, get after the
mackerel, and do the same thing over--split, gibb and pack away--for
all of the next night, and the night after that--for a week if
necessary.
Not until well into the afternoon, when the last mackerel was
flattened out in its barrel, did any of us feel that we could step
back in our own time, straighten ourselves out, and take a look over
our work. Then we counted the oozing barrels with great satisfaction,
you may be sure, even while we were massaging our swollen wrists with
our aching fingers. It was a good bit of work that, well and quickly
done, and it was fine to get a rest after it, although it might be
only for a little while. Even though we had to do it all over
again--to stay half-drowned and chilled through in the seine-boat or
dory for half the night and then dress down for eighteen or twenty
hours on top of it--what did a little hard work matter? "Think of the
hundred-dollar bill, maybe, to be carried home and laid in the wife's
lap," said Long Steve.
"Or the roaring night ashore when a fellow's not a family man--m-m--!"
said Eddie Parsons. Eddie was not a family man.