The men below knew their skipper and Clancy too well to imagine that they were to be too long left in peace. And then, too, the next man off watch reported a proper night for mackerel. “Not a blessed star out––and black! It’s like digging a hole in the ground and looking into it. And the skipper’s getting nervous, I know. I could hear him stirrin’ ’round up there when I was for’ard just now, and he hollered to the wheel that up to the no’the’ard it looked like planty of fish. ‘And I callate we ain’t the only vessel got eyes for it,’ he said.”

“Yes,” said his watch-mate, who had just dropped down, “it’s nothing but side-lights all ’round and–––”

Just then came the skipper’s voice from aloft. “Tell the boys they might’s well oil up and be ready.” The watch did not have to repeat it––we all heard it below, and fore and aft, in cabin and forec’s’le, the gang made ready. Cards, novels, and all the hot arguments went by the board, 130 and then after a mug-up for nearly all we slid into oil-clothes, boots and sou’westers, and puffing at what was probably to be the last pipeful of the evening, we lay around on lockers and on the floor, backs to the butt of the mast and backs to the stove––wherever there was space for a broad back and a pair of stout legs our fellows dropped themselves, discussing all the while the things that interested them––fish, fishing, fast vessels, big shares, politics, Bob Fitzsimmons, John L. Sullivan, good stories, and just then particularly, because two of the crew were thinking of marrying, the awful price of real estate in Gloucester.

By and by, ringing as clear as if he himself stood at the companionway, came the skipper’s voice from the mast-head: “On deck everybody!” No more discussion, no more loafing––pipes were smothered into bosoms, and up the companionway crowded oilskins and jack-boots.

Then came: “It looks like fish ahead of us. Haul the boat alongside and drop the dory over.”

We jumped. Four laid hands on the dory in the waist and ten or a dozen heaved away on the stiff painter of the seine-boat that was towing astern. Into the air and over the starboard rail went the dory, while ploughing up to the vessel’s boom at the port fore-rigging came the bow of the seine-boat.

Then followed: “Put the tops’ls to her––sharp now.”

The halyards could be heard whirring up toward the sky, while two bunches of us sagged and lifted on the deck below. Among us it was, “Now then––o-ho––sway away––good,” until topsails were flat as boards, and the schooner, hauled up, had heeled to her scuppers.

“Slap the stays’l to her and up with the balloon. Half the fleet’s driving to the no’the’ard. Lively.”

The Johnnie liked that rarely. With the seventy-five foot main-boom sheeted in to her rail, with the thirty-seven-foot spike bowsprit poking a lane in the sea when she dove and a path among the clouds when she lifted, with her midship rail all but flush with the sea and the night breeze to sing to her––of course she liked it, and she showed her liking. She’d tear herself apart now before she’d let anything in the fleet go by her. And red and green lights were racing to both quarters of her.

“Into the boat!” It was the skipper’s voice again, and fifteen men leaped over the rail at the word. Two dropped into the dory and thirteen jumped from the vessel’s rail onto thwarts or netting or into the bottom of the seine-boat––anywhere at all so that they get in quickly. As extra hand on deck I had to stand by and pay out the painter.

In the middle of it came the skipper sliding down from the mast-head. “Drop astern, boat and dory,” he called out, and himself leaped over the quarter and onto the pile of netting as into the Johnnie’s boiling wake they went. The thirty-eight-foot seine-boat was checked up a dozen fathoms astern, and the dory just astern of that. The two men in the dory had to fend off desperately as they slid by the seine-boat.

On the deck of the Johnnie were the cook, who had the wheel, and myself, who had to stand by the sheets. There would be stirring times soon, for even from the deck occasional flashes of light, marking small pods of mackerel, could be made out on the surface of the sea. Clancy, now at the mast-head alone, was noting these signs, we felt sure, and with them a whole lot of other things. To the mast-heads of other vessels out in the night were other skippers, or seine-masters, and all with skill and nerve and a great will to get fish.

The Johnnie was making perhaps ten knots good now, and with every jerk the painter of the seine-boat chafed and groaned in the taffrail chock. The skipper from the boat called for more line. “Slack away a bit, slack away. We’re not porpoises.”

I jumped to attend to the painter just as Clancy’s voice broke in from above: “Swing her off about 133 two points, ease your main sheet and keep an eye on that light to looard. Off, off––that’s good––hold her––and Joe, slack stays’l and then foretops’l halyards. Be ready to let go balloon halyards and stand by down-haul. Look alive.”

I paid out some sheet from the bitt by the wheel-box, unbuttoned the after stays’l tack, jumped forward and loosed up halyards till her kites dropped limp.

“Down with your balloon there––and at the wheel there, jibe her over. Watch out for that fellow astern––he’s pretty handy to our boat. Watch out in boat and dory!” The last warning was a roar.

The big balloon gossamer came rattling down the long stay and the jaws of the booms ratched, fore and main, as they swung over. From astern came the voices of the men in boat and dory, warning each other to hang on when they felt her jibing. Some of them must have come near to being jerked overboard. “Why in God’s name don’t you slack that painter?” came the voice of the skipper from the boat.

I leaped to give them more painter, and “Draw away your jib––draw away your jumbo,” came from aloft. Sheets were barely fast when it was: “Steady at the wheel, George––steady her––ste-a-dy––Great God! man, if you can’t see can’t 134 you feel that fellow just ahead? And, skipper, tell them to close their jaws astern there––water won’t hurt ’em. Ready all now?”

“Ready!” roared back the skipper.

“All right. Down with your wheel a bit now, George. Down––more yet. Hold her there.”

The vessels that we had dodged by this bit of luffing were now dropping by us; one red light was slowly sliding past our quarter to port, and one green shooting by our bow to starboard. Evidently Clancy had only been waiting to steer clear of these two neighbors, for there was plenty of fish in sight now. The sea was flashing with trails of them. Clancy now began to bite out commands.

“Stand ready everybody. In the boat and dory there––is everything ready, skipper?”

“All ready, boat and dory.”

Out came Clancy’s orders then––rapid fire––and as he ripped them out, no whistling wind could smother his voice, no swash of the sea could drown it. In boat, dory and on deck, every brain glowed to understand and every heart pumped to obey.

“Up with your wheel, George, and let her swing by. Stea-dy. Ready in the boat. Steady your wheel. Are you ready in the boat? Let her swing off a little more, George. Steady––hold her there. Stand by in the boat. Now then––now! Cast off 135 your painter, cast off and pull to the west’ard. And drive her! Up with the wheel. More yet––that’s good. Drive her, I say, skipper. Where’s that dory?––I don’t see the dory. The dory, the dory––where in hell’s the dory?––show that lantern in the dory. All right, the dory. Hold her up, George. Don’t let her swing off another inch now. Drive her, boys, drive her! Look out now! Stand by the seine! Stand by––the twine––do you hear, Steve! The twine! Drive her––drive her––blessed Lord! drive her. That’s the stuff, skipper, drive her! Let her come up, George. Down with your wheel––down with you wheel––ste-a-dy. Drive her, skipper, drive her! Turn in now––in––shorter yet. Drive her now––where’s that dory!––hold her up!––not you, George! you’re all right––ste-a-dy. Hold that dory up to the wind!––that’s it, boys––you’re all right––straight ahead now! That’s the stuff. Turn her in now again, skipper. In the dory there––show your lantern in the dory and be ready for the seine-boat. Good enough. Now cover your lantern in the dory and haul away when you’re ready.”

To have experienced the strain and drive of that rush, to have held an oar in the boat during that and to have shared with the men in the confidence they gathered––ours was a skipper to steer a boat around a school––and the soul that rang in Clancy’s 136 voice!––why, just to stand on deck, as I did, and listen to it––it was like living.

During this dash we could make out neither boat nor dory from deck, but the flashes of light raised by the oars at every stroke were plainly to be seen in that phosphorescent sea. Certainly they were making that boat hop along! Ten good men, with every man a long, broad blade, and double banked, so that every man might encourage his mate and be himself spurred on by desperate effort. Legs, arms, shoulders, back, all went into it and their wake alive with smoke and fire to tell them they were moving! To be in that?––The middle of a black night on the Atlantic was this, and the big seine-heaver was throwing the seine in great armfuls. And Hurd and Parsons in the little dory tossing behind and gamely trying to keep up! They were glad enough to be in the dory, I know, to get hold of the buoy, and you can be sure there was some lively action aboard of her when Clancy called so fiercely to them to hold the buoy up to the wind, so that the efforts of the crew of the seine-boat, racing to get their two hundred odd fathoms of twine fence around the flying school, might not go for naught.