The Seiners Part 3

"First I'd single-reef the mains'l. Then I'd hold her up a little--not too much--me being skipper would be to the wheel myself--and then I'd give the order, 'Dories to the rail!' and then, when everything was all right--when I'd be satisfied we wouldn't foul the next vessel's trawls--I'd call out, 'Over with your wind'ard dory!'"

"Loud and clear you'd holler, because the wind might be high."

"Loud and clear, yes--'Let go your wind'ard dory!'--like that. And 'Set to the west'ard,' or the east'ard, whatever it was--according to the tide, you know. I'd call that out to the dory as it went sliding by the quarter--the vessel, of course, 'd be sailing all the time--and next, 'Wind'ard dory to the rail!' And then, when we'd gone ahead enough, again, 'Let go your looard dory!' and then, 'Looard dory to the rail! Let go your wind'ard dory! Let go your looard dory!' and so till they were all over the side."

"And supposing, they being all out, it came on thick, or snowing, and some of them went astray, and it was time to go home, having filled her with eighty or ninety or a hundred thousand of fresh fish, a fair wind, and every prospect of a good market--what then?"

"Oh, I'd have to wait, of course--cruise around and stand by."

"And suppose you couldn't find them again?"

"Why, after waiting until I was sure they were gone, I'd come home."

"And your flag?"

"Half-mast."

"Half-mast--that's it. I hope you'll never have to fly a half-masted flag, Johnnie. But suppose you did see them, and they were in shoal water, say--and the shoals to looard, of course, and it blowing----"

"I'd stand in and get them."

"And it blowing hard--blowing hard, Johnnie?--and shoal--shoal water?"

"Why"--Johnnie was looking troubled--"why, I'd have to stand in just the same, wouldn't I?"

"Your own men and you ask me, Johnnie-boy?"

"Why, of course I'd have to stand in and get them."

"And if you got in so far you couldn't get out--you got smothered, say?"

"Why, then--then we'd be lost--all hands would be lost."

Poor Johnnie! he was all but crying.

"That's it. And that's where some would say you showed yourself a man, and some a fool, Johnnie-boy. Some would say, 'Use judgment--think of the other eighteen or twenty men safe aboard the vessel.' Would you use judgment, or what, Johnnie?"

"M-m--I don't know. What would you do, Captain Clancy?"

"What d'y' think I'd do, Johnnie?" Clancy drew the boy up and tucked the little face to his own broad breast. The rest of us knew well enough what Clancy would do. "Judgment h.e.l.l!" Clancy would say, and go in and get lost--or maybe get away with it where a more careful man would be lost--but we waited to hear what Johnnie--such a little boy--would say. He said it at last, after looking long into Clancy's face.

"I think you'd go in, Captain Clancy."

Clancy laughed at that. "Lord, Johnnie-boy, no wonder everybody loves you. No matter what a man does, all you see is the best that's in him."

It was time to clean up then, and Johnnie of course was bound to help.

V

FROM OUT OF CROW'S NEST

"What'll I do with this?" asked Johnnie, in the middle of the cleaning up, holding up a pan of sweepings.

"Oh, that"--Clancy naturally took charge--"heave it overboard. Ebb tide'll carry it away. Heave it into the slip. Wait--maybe you'll have to hoist the hatches. 'Tisn't raining much now, anyway, and it will soon stop altogether. Might as well go aloft and make a good job of the hatches, hadn't he, Peter?"

"Wait a minute." Peter was squinting through the porthole. "I shouldn't wonder but this is one of our fellows coming in. I know she's a banker. The Enchantress, I think. Look, Tommie, and see what you make of her."

Clancy looked. "That's who it is, Peter. Hi, Johnnie, here'll be a chance for you to hoist the flag. Hurry aloft and tend to the hatches, as Peter says, and you can hoist the flag for the Enchantress home from the Banks."

In bad weather, like it was that day, the little balcony of Crow's Nest was shut in by little hatches, arranged so that they could be run up and down, the same as hatches are slid over the companionway of a fisherman's cabin or forec's'le. Johnnie was a pretty active boy, and he was up the rope ladder and onto the roof in a few seconds. We could hear him walking above, and soon the hatches slid away and we all could look freely out to sea again.

"All right below?" called out Johnnie.

"Not yet," answered Peter. He was standing by the rail of the balcony and untwisting the halyards that served to hoist the signal-flags to the mast-head. Peter seemed slow at it, and Clancy called out again, "Wait a bit, and we'll overhaul the halyards." Then, looking up and noticing that Johnnie was standing on the edge of the roof, he added, "And be careful and not slip on those wet planks."

"Aye, aye!" Johnnie was in high glee. "And then I can run up the flag for the Enchantress?"

"Sure, you've been such a good boy to-day."

"M-m--but that'll be fine. I can catch the halyards from here if you'll swing them in a little."

"All right--be careful. Here you go now."

"Let 'em come--I got----"

The first thing we knew of what had happened was when we saw Johnnie's body come pitching down. He struck old Peter first, staggering him, and from there he shot down out of sight.

Clancy jumped to the rail in time to save Peter from toppling over it and just in time, as he said afterward, to see the boy splash in the slip below. He yanked Peter to his feet, and then, without turning around, he called out, "A couple of you run to the head of the dock--there'll be a dory there somewhere--row 'round to the slip with it. He'll be carried under the south side--look for him there if I'm not there before you. Drive her now!"

"Here, Joe, wake up!" Clancy had untied the ends of the halyards after whirling them through the block above, and now had the whole line piled up on the balcony. He took a couple of turns around his waist, took another turn around a cleat under the balcony rail, pa.s.sed the bight of the line to me, and said, "Here, Joe, lower me. Take hold you, too, Peter. Pay out and not too careful. Oh, faster, man! If he ain't dead he'll drown, maybe--if he gets sucked in and caught under those piles it's all off."

He was sliding over the rail, the line tautening to his weight in no time, and he talking all the time. "Lower away--lower, lower!

Faster--faster than that--he's rising again--second time--and drifting under the wharf, sure's fate! Faster--faster--what's wrong?--what's caught there?--let her run!"

The halyards had become fouled, and Peter was trying to clear them, calling to Clancy to wait.

"Fouled?" roared Clancy. "Cast it off altogether. Let go altogether and let me drop."

"We can't--the bight of it's caught around Peter's legs!" I called to him.

"Oh, h.e.l.l! take a couple of half-hitches around the cleat then--look out now!" He gripped the halyards high above his head with both hands, gave a jumping pull, and let himself drop. The line parted and down he shot.

He must have been shaken by the shock of his fall, but I guess he had his senses with him when he came up again, for in no time he was striking toward where Johnnie had come up last. Then I ran downstairs, down to the dock, and was just in time to see Parsons and Moore rowing a dory desperately up the slip, and Clancy with Johnnie chest-up, and a hand under his neck, kicking from under the stringers, and calling out, "This way with the dory--drive her, fellows, drive her!"