Читать книгу Northern Neighbours: Stories of the Labrador People - Wilfred T. Grenfell - Страница 7

Table of Contents

“Heave her to, skipper, and tell Jim to throw the boat out. I’m going to board that steam trawler; I see she has her gear down.”

This was to the skipper of the North Sea Mission vessel in which I was at the time working among the deep-sea fishermen of the Dogger Bank.

“She’s going fast, Doctor; do you think we shall catch her?”

“Run out a Spudger on the mizzen gaff; she’ll come around then. She’s a stranger to our fleet, I see.”

“I think she joined us in the night; must have mistaken the lights, I suppose. The Short Blue Fleet passed through our weather-most vessels last night, and she’s a Short Blue vessel.” While he was speaking he had been hauling out our broad tri-color “Bethel” flag to the gaff end. It usually signals to the fleet for service, but hung on the gaff end it means “want to speak to you.” The strange trawler blew her whistle in answer and evidently put her helm over, for she commenced to make a circle round us as nearly as her great net, sweeping over the bottom, permitted her.

“Who’s the skipper of her, do you know?” I asked, handing the glasses to our captain.

“Can’t say I do, Doctor; but him they call Fenian Jack had her once. It’s the old Albatross—you know her, I’m sure.”

“Well, let’s have two good hands in the boat; we shall need them in this lop.”

The trouble in boarding a trawler at sea is that she cannot stop to allow you to come alongside, and it is always hard to go alongside a vessel that is under way, even in smooth water. However, it is a faint heart that never won, and no man can accuse a deep-sea fisherman of that. We were soon aboard and the big-bodied and big-hearted fisherman on the bridge was shouting out:

“What cheer-oh! Come up on the bridge. Mind the warp there. Go down below, you lads, and get a mug o’ tea. You’ll find the cook in the galley.”

The grip the skipper gave me as I mounted the bridge left no doubt that there was a man behind the hand that gave it. Strangers though we were, we were soon good friends, for the skipper was a typical deep-sea man, with the absence of self-consciousness so delightful in men of the sea. Generosity, indeed, becomes almost a fault with them, and is often the cause of their being absolutely unable to say “no,” just because “no” means hurting the feelings of some comrade who perhaps is asking them to enter, say, a saloon that they have promised the wife to keep out of.

Chancing to look up, I saw a man sitting in a sling about halfway up the funnel, which he was leisurely chipping preparatory to repainting it. On looking more closely at the man on the funnel I thought I noticed something familiar about him, more especially the head of red hair.

“That’s never you, Dick, is it?” The red head turned around, and now I saw there could be no doubt about it, for the laughing countenance was ablaze with freckles. “Why, man alive, I thought you were drowned last New Year’s!”

“So did I, Doctor. And ’deed so I was, till the crew of the old Europa pumped the water out of me.”

“Come and tell us a yarn as soon as you are through with the funnel. I’m mighty glad to see you in the fleet again.”

The watch was roused at eight bells, and after Dick had enjoyed a scrub in a bucket on deck I followed him below. The steward had spread out for all of us some steaming bowls of tea, which seemed to have driven the thoughts of the promised yarn out of my friend’s red head, till I broke in: “Come along, Dick, let’s hear how it is you’re still above water.” At last, as if he had already forgotten all about it, and when he had lighted his pipe to assist his memory, he began:

“It was last New Year’s Day, Doctor. We was in the old Sunbeam on the tail end o’ the Dogger. The wind was in the nor’northeast, and there were a nasty lop heaving along from overnight. ’Deed it was so bad the admiral didn’t show his flags for boarding fish on the cutter.”

Under our regulations if any loss of life occurred from throwing out a boat to try to transfer fish to the carrier, it meant a charge of manslaughter against the skipper of the vessel who sent his men. But the temptation to a skipper to do so is great, because the worse the weather and the fewer boats that send their fish to the market, the higher will be the returns for those that do send. Moreover, the young fellows are recklessly courageous and don’t care to show the white feather when ordered to go in the little boat to ferry fish.

“Our skipper ordered the boat out, as we had a big haul, and me and Sam and Arch took her. It was pretty bad alongside the steamer among the other boats. She were shipping the lop over both rails as she rolled in the trough o’ the sea. I never saw such a crowd knocked off their pins by loose boxes, and rolled into the water in the scuppers in my life. Almost every one got a cold bath on deck before they were through with it. However, our boat got clear all right at last. It was snowing at the time and looked dirty to wind’ard, so we were for getting aboard again as soon as we could. I suppose we must have been a bit careless, now we were clear of that heavy lot o’ fish. For I was just standing up shouting ‘A happy New Year and many of ’em’ to the Sunbeam’s boat, when a curly sea caught us right under the quarter and turned us clean upside down. I grabbed hold of something hard, and found myself holding on to the thwart. Only it was pitch-dark, for I was clean under the boat. There was air enough, as we had tipped over like a trap, but it were awful cold hanging in the water. I knew it weren’t much good holding on there, so I just grabbed the gunwale, and hauled myself outside. I had to go right under water for it, and I can’t swim a stroke. But somehow I came up all right and caught the life-line which is rove through the keel, and out I climbed on the bottom.

“Archie was there already, but Sam had gone, and I guess he was dead by then. The driving spray kept us from seeing to windward, and we knew that was the only way help could come. We were half dead with cold, for the old boat was level with the water and pretty nigh every sea went over us. Arch soon gave up and his head went down on the boat’s bottom. I kept shouting to him, ‘For God’s sake keep up a little longer,’ for I could see a smack shaking up into the wind ahead of us, and I guessed they had seen us and were getting out their boat.

“Just then an extra big sea came along and washed us both off, me still holding on to Arch’s oil frock. All I remember was striking out and finding something was holding me up. I had come up right through the life-buoy ring. I’d hardly had time, however, to cough up some of the water I’d swallowed when I felt something tugging at me, and then it pulled me right under water again. The life-buoy was fastened to the stern of the boat by a half-inch hemp line, and every time a sea came along the old boat sogged down under water and dragged me with it.

“Then it flashed across my mind what would happen. If I didn’t cut that line and get loose, the same sea that would bring the boat for me would find me under water, even if I wasn’t drowned before that. I felt in my pocket for my fish knife—I couldn’t have opened it if I had it. I knew it wasn’t there, for I could remember leaving it on the capstan after cleaning the fish. ’Deed, it seemed I could remember everything I ever did. Then I felt the tugging again, and down I went. It weren’t the fault o’ the life belt. It was just that bit o’ line. All I could do was to get it in my teeth when I could and chew at it. But it was no good; I couldn’t cut adrift, try as I would.

“Then suddenly I saw the boat coming. It got nearer and nearer. I could see some one leaning over the bow to grab me, and then I felt the old tugging again, and down I went under water. It was just as I had thought it would be. As I looked up through the water I saw the boat rush past over my head, and I knew, once it was to leeward, it could never get back to me. Then I lost consciousness. Of course, they went on and told every one I was lost. But I suppose the Lord hadn’t done with me yet. For soon after, the steam carrier came along, and saw the boat, and then saw me still fast in the life buoy. They picked me up, and after a couple of hours rubbed life into me again. So here I am, you see.” He stopped and sucked strenuously at his short clay pipe as if the telling had been an effort.

Surely God’s ways are not ours. Here in this unexpected way he had put into my mouth a subject that would be sure to interest the little company that gathered in the strange trawler’s after-cabin. When the meal was over and the pipes alight again, while the cook-boy washed up the last remains of the meal, I produced my pocketful of hymn-books and proposed to sing. With a ready response, such as sailors generally make to such a proposal, we launched out into “one with a chorus.” The various members of the crew chimed in with the nearest tunes they knew, so that it was a cheerful noise together that ascended the hatchway. Owing to the vigor displayed it reached the man at the wheel, and even he couldn’t resist joining in as he steered the ship. The life buoy and its lessons served as a subject all could understand.