The Seiners Part 22

"What d'y'think of the Lucy and the Withrow, Tommie?" Mr. Duncan said next.

Tommie took a fresh look at the Lucy Foster, which was certainly doing stunts. It was along this time that big Jim Murch--a tall man, but even so, he was no more than six feet four, and the Lucy twenty-four feet beam--was swinging from the ring-bolts under the windward rail and throwing his feet out trying to touch with his heels the sea that was swas.h.i.+ng up on the Lucy's deck. And every once in a while he did touch, for the Lucy, feeling the need of her ballast, was making pretty heavy weather of it. Every time she rolled and her sheer poles went under, Jim would holler out that he'd touched again.

We could hear him over on the Johnnie at times. Mr. Duncan, who believed that nothing ever built could beat the Lucy Foster, began to worry at that, and again he spoke to Clancy. He had to holler to make himself heard.

"But what do you think of the Lucy's chances, Tommie?"

Clancy shook his head.

And getting nothing out of Clancy, Mr. Duncan called out then: "What do you think of the Lucy, you, Captain Blake?"

The skipper shook his head, too. "I'm afraid it's too much for her."

And then--one elbow was. .h.i.tched in the weather rigging and a half hitch around his waist--the skipper swung around, and looking over to the Withrow, he went on:

"I don't see, Mr. Duncan, why we don't stand a pretty good chance to win out on Hollis."

"Why not--why not--if anything happens to the Lucy."

It jarred us some to think that even there, in spite of the great race the Johnnie was making of it, she was still, in the old man's eyes, only a second string to the Lucy Foster.

About then the wind seemed to come harder than ever, but Clancy at the wheel never let up on the Johnnie. He socked it to her--wide and free he sailed her. Kept her going--oh, but he kept her going. "If this one only had a clean bottom and a chance to tune her up before going out,"

said somebody, and we all said, "Oh, if she only had--just half a day on the railway before this race."

We were fairly buried at times on the Johnnie--on the Lucy Foster it must have been tough. And along here the staysail came off the Withrow and eased her a lot. We would all have been better off with less sail along about that time. In proof of that we could see back behind us where the Nannie O, under her trysail, was almost holding her own. But it wouldn't do to take it off. Had they not all said before putting off that morning that what sail came off that day would be blown off?--yes, sir--let it blow a hundred miles an hour. And fishermen's pride was keeping sail on us and the Foster. Hollis tried to make it look that his staysail blew off, but we knew better--a knife to the halyards did the work.

It was after her big staysail was off and she making easier weather of it that the Withrow crossed the Lucy's bow for the first time in the race and took the lead.

We all felt for Mr. Duncan, who couldn't seem to believe his eyes. We all felt for Wesley, too, who was desperately trying to hold the wind of the Withrow--he had even rigged blocks to his jib sheets and led them to cleats clear aft to flatten his headsails yet more. And Wesley's crew hauled like demons on those jib sheets--hauled and hauled with the vessel under way all the time--hauled so hard, in fact, that with the extra purchase given them by the blocks they pulled the cleats clean out, and away went the Lucy's jib and jumbo--and there was Wesley hung up. And out of the race, for we were all too near the finish for her to win out then unless the Johnnie and the Withrow capsized entirely.

Mr. Duncan, when he saw the Lucy's crew trying to save the headsails, couldn't contain himself.

"Cut 'em away--cut 'em to h.e.l.l!" he sang out, and we all had to smile, he spoke so excitedly. But it was no use. The Lucy was out of the race, and going by her, we didn't look at Mr. Duncan nor Wesley Marrs--we knew they were both taking it hard--but watched the Withrow.

Over on the other tack we went, first the Withrow, then the Johnnie.

We were nearing the finish line, and we were pretty well worked up--the awful squalls were swooping down and burying us. We could hear Hollis's voice and see his crew go up when he warned his men at the wheel to ease up on her when the squalls. .h.i.t. On our vessel the skipper never waved an arm nor opened his mouth to Clancy at the wheel. And of his own accord you may be sure that Clancy wasn't easing up. Not Tommie Clancy--no, sir--he just drove her--let her have it full--lashed her like, with his teeth and eyes flas.h.i.+ng through the sea that was swas.h.i.+ng over him. And the Johnnie fairly sizzled through the water.

There were several times in the race when we thought the going was as bad as could be, but now we were all sure that this was the worst of all. There was some excuse for Mr. Duncan when he called out:

"My G.o.d, Tommie, but if she makes one of those low dives again, will she ever come up?"

"I dunno," said Clancy to that. "But don't you worry, Mr. Duncan, if any vessel out of Gloucester'll come up, this one'll come up."

He was standing with the water, the clear water, not the swash, well up to his waist then, and we could hear him:

"Oh, I love old Ocean's smile, I love old Ocean's frowning-- I love old Ocean all the while, My prayer's for death by drowning."

That was too much for Mr. Duncan, and, watching his chance, he dove between the house and rail, to the weather rigging, where the skipper grabbed him and made him fast beside himself. The old man took a look down the slant of the deck and took a fresh hold of the rigging.

"Captain Blake, isn't she down pretty low?"

"Maybe--maybe--Mr. Duncan, but she'll go lower yet before the sail comes off her. This is the day Sam Hollis was going to make me take in sail."

Less than a minute after that we made our rush for the line. Hollis tried to crowd us outside the stake-boat, which was rolling head to wind and sea, worse than a lights.h.i.+p in a surf gale--tried to crowd us out just as an awful squall swooped down. It was the Johnnie or the Withrow then. We took it full and they didn't, and there is all there was to it. But for a minute it was either vessel's race. At the critical time Sam Hollis didn't have the nerve, and the skipper and Clancy did.

They looked at each other--the skipper and Clancy--and Clancy soaked her. Held to it cruelly--recklessly. It was too much to ask of a vessel. Down she went--buried. It was heaven or h.e.l.l, as they say, for a while. I know I climbed on to her weather run, and it was from there I saw Withrow ducking her head to it--hove to, in fact, for the blast to pa.s.s.

The Johnnie weathered it. Able--able. Up she rose, a horse, and across the line we shot like a bullet, and so close to the judge's boat that we could have jumped aboard.

We all but hit the Henry Clay Parker, Billie Simms's vessel, on the other side of the line, and it was on her that old Peter of Crow's Nest, leaping into the air and cracking his heels together, called out as we drove by:

"The Johnnie Duncan wins--the able Johnnie Duncan--sailin' across the line on her side and her crew sittin' out on the keel."

x.x.xIV

MINNIE ARKELL ONCE MORE

We were hardly across the line when there was a broom at our truck--a new broom that I know I, for one, never saw before. And yet I suppose every vessel that sailed in the race that day had a new broom hid away somewhere below--to be handy if needed.

But it was the Johnnie Duncan, sailing up the harbor, that carried hers to the truck. And it was Mr. Duncan who stood aft of her and took most of the cheers, and it was Clancy and Long Steve who waved their hands from the wheel-box, and it was the skipper who leaned against the weather rigging, and the rest of us who lined the weather rail and answered the foolish questions of people along the road.

Every vessel we met seemed to think we had done something great; and I suppose we had in a way--that is, skipper, crew and vessel. We had out-carried and out-sailed the best out of Gloucester in a breeze that was a breeze. We had taken the chance of being capsized or hove-down and losing the vessel and ourselves. Mr. Duncan, I think, realized more than anybody else at the time what we had been through. "I didn't know what it really was to be," he said, "before I started. If I had, I doubt very much if I'd have started." We all said--"No, no, you'd have gone just the same, Mr. Duncan;" and we believed he would, too.

Going up the harbor somebody hinted to Clancy that he ought to go and have a mug-up for himself after his hard work--and it had been hard work. "And I'll take your place at the wheel," said that somebody, "for you must be tired, Tommie."

"And maybe I am tired, too," answered Clancy, "but if I am, I'm just thick enough not to know it. But don't fool yourself that if I stood lashed to this wheel since she crossed the starting line this morning I'm going to quit it now and let you take her up the harbor and get all the bouquets. I'll have a mug-up by and by, and it'll be a mug-up, don't you worry."

And it was a mug-up. He took the gold and silver cup given to Maurice as a skipper of the winning vessel, and with the crew in his wake headed a course for the Anchorage, where he filled it till it flowed--and didn't have to pay for filling it, either.

"It's the swellest growler that I ever expect to empty. Gold and silver--and holds six quarts level. Just a little touch all round, and we'll fill her up again. 'Carte blanche, and charge it to me,'

says Mr. Duncan."

"What kind is carte blanche, Tommie?" asked Andie Howe.

"They'll tell you behind the bar," said Clancy.

"Billie," ordered Andie, "just a little touch of carte blanche, will you, while Clancy's talking. He's the slowest man to begin that ever I see. Speeches--speeches--speeches, when your throat's full of gurry--dry, salty gurry. A little touch of that carte blanche that Mr.

Duncan ordered for the crew of the Johnnie Duncan, Billie, will you?"

"Carte blanche--yes," went on Clancy, "and I callate the old fizzy stuff's the thing to do justice to this fe-lic-i-tous oc-ca-sion. Do I hear the voice of my s.h.i.+pmates? Aye, aye, I hear them--and in accents unmistakable. Well, here's a shoot--six quarts level--and a few pieces of ice floating around on top. My soul, but don't it look fine and rich? Have a look, everybody."

"Let's have a drink instead," hollered Parsons.

Clancy paid no attention to that. "Who was the lad in that Greek bunch in the old days that they sank up to his neck in the lake--cold sparkling water--and peaches and oranges and grapes floating on a little raft close by--but him fixed so he couldn't bend his head down to get a drink nor lift his head to take a bite of fruit--and hot weather all the time, mind you. Lord, the thirst he raised after a while! What was his--oh, yes, Tantalus--that's the lad, Tantalus--the cold sparkling water. Man, the thirst he----"