The Deep Sea's Toll. James B. Connolly

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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, СКАЧАТЬ