The Deep Sea's Toll. James B. Connolly
the same. All night long he kept her comin’, and payin’ attention to nobody. In the early mornin’, I mind we passed Josh Bradley in the Tubal Cain, him bangin’ along with a busted fores’l, remindin’ us of a gull with a broken wing. We passed a whole fleet of old plugs anchored off Highland Light, ripped by ’em roarin’, and they lookin’ over the rails at the Skipper, his head all wrapped up. Imagine her, Peter, with her four lowers and gaff topsail, and the wind makin’ if anything. And then what should happen but he made out the Nannie O ahead. ‘’Tis Tommie Ohlsen,’ he says, ‘under four lowers. We’ll chase him.’ But Tommie must’ve seen us, for soon we saw his tops’l break out. Then we sent up the stays’l, and then Tommie sent up his. Then we came swingin’ round the Cape—and I’d like to had a photograph of her then—with the Skipper standin’ between house and rail to wind’ard, squeezin’ the salt water out of his beard, and Jerry below singin’:
‘What’s that a-drivin’ in from sea,
Like a ghost from out the dawn?
And who but Tom O’Donnell
And his flying Colleen Bawn.’
“‘’Tis fine and gay they’re feelin’,’ says the Skipper, ‘with their singin’, thinkin’ they’ll soon be home. In a minute, now, there’ll be something to sing about. Look at what’s coming,’ and she gets it fair and full. And it was too much for the gang. He floats them all out below. From fore and aft they comes runnin’ up on deck. ‘For God’s sake, Skipper, what is it?’ says they. ‘Don’t worry,’ says the Skipper, ‘’tis only a little squall, and the Nannie O ahead.’ ‘But what’re we goin’ to do, Skipper? We can’t stay below.’ ‘Oh, climb on the weather-rail,’ says the Skipper, ‘and if she goes over, ’tis only a mile to shore.’ And then the face of little Jimmie! ‘My God, my God—my poor, poor wife!’ he says. ‘Whisht, lad, whisht,’ says the Skipper, patting his head, ‘’tis to your wife we’re takin’ you,’ and he keeps on chasin’ the Nannie O across the bay.”
“And then?”
“And then? Why, he kept her goin’ across the bay. Half-way home, there was a big white steam yacht layin’ to both anchors. She was big enough to tow the Colleen ten knots an hour.
What’s that a-drivin’ in from sea, like a ghost from out the dawn?
‘You’d think it was banshees we was, the way they look out from between the lace curtains,’ says the Skipper, and we rips by her stern like the express train goin’ by West Gloucester station.
“A little while after that we overhauled Eben Watkins. Eben, you know, used to brag some about that vessel of his one time, but now he was under a storm trys’l. ’Twas kind of thick—we’d lost sight of the Nannie—and the Skipper was goin’ on by without intendin’ to say anything, but Eben hails him.
“‘Where were you about two hours ago?’
“‘Roundin’ the Cape,’ says the Skipper.
“‘What sail d’y’ have on her?’
“‘What she’s got now.’
“‘That stays’l?’
“‘That stays’l—yes.’
“‘Get that squall?’
“‘Oh, a little puff.’
“‘A little puff?’ says Eben, and he stretches his head at us—‘a little puff. And how’d she stand it?’
“‘Just wet our rail—just wet our rail.’
“‘Go to hell!’ says Eben—‘just wet your rail.’ And I don’t blame him, for the Colleen was down to her hatches then. ‘I s’pose Tommie Ohlsen just wet his rail too,’ says Eben. ‘All we could see of him goin’ by a while ago was the weather-side of his deck.’
“‘’Tis Tommie I’m after,’ hollers back the Skipper and gets out of hearing.
“I don’t know whether we gained or lost on the Nannie O, but we carried our stays’l every foot of the way from Cape Cod to Eastern Point and we carried into the harbor just the same’s we came across the bay. Did you see her beatin’ in? No? Well, it was a scandal. Her deck was slidin’ back and forth under our feet—we could feel it, and you’ve seen a soap-box with the top and bottom gone floatin’ about in the tide? Yes? And how it lengthens out sometimes when a sea hits it broadside? Well, that’s the way the Colleen was shiftin’ back and forth comin’ in the harbor. She was that loose ’twas immoral. ‘She’s ten feet longer when she stretches herself real well,’ says Jerry. ‘She is a bit loose,’ says the Skipper, ‘but she sails better loose. When she lengthens out like that, she’s doin’ her best reachin’.’
“And that’s the way she came in. When we came to anchor the Skipper went into her peak with a lantern, tryin’ to find out what it was. ‘I think she’s a little more loose than ordinary this trip,’ he says—‘it must be the calkin’. But before he got through he discovered that it was her iron band had dropped off altogether. And then it was he told me to go ashore to see about a place for her on the railway. And I guess I’d better hurry along. But afore we go, Peter, just a little touch to the Colleen Bawn, for God bless her, loose as she is, there’s nothing like her out the port.”
“And are you goin’ to stay on her and she like that?”
“And she that way? And why not? He’s going to put four-inch joists in her fore and aft this time on the railway, and then she’ll be all right. She’ll leak a little maybe, but what’s a little leak? And anyway I’d rather be lost in her with Tom O’Donnell than live a thousand years with some. And so here’s to her, Peter-boy. One thing, you know you’re alive on her—and here’s to the Colleen Bawn.”
“To the Colleen Bawn, Tommie, and I don’t know but what you’re right.”
When Peter came out of the Anchorage again, the atmosphere had cleared. The blush of the sky was a marvellous thing for March. Peter could not remember when he had ever seen so rosy a morning for that time of year. And it was a fair wind, too—so fair that Peter could not but remark it. “If we was comin’ home in the Colleen Bawn, or the Nannie O, in this breeze, our wake’d be fair boilin’. The Colleen Bawn with the Irishman aboard, or the Nannie O with Tommie Ohlsen—they’d be loggin’ fifteen knots—yes, and sixteen maybe.” He looked over his shoulder, and for twenty fathoms back he could see the smooth, white log-line and the brass-bound log whirling like mad. It was a rosy morning, and Peter rolled along for Crow’s Nest.
Along the road he overhauled Dexter Warren, who seemed to be out taking the air.
“Seen Jimmie Johnson yet, Dexter?” asked Peter.
Dexter took a hand out of one pocket to gesture. “Jimmie? Yes, and he’s crazy. He came up the wharf like a ghost. ‘Hulloh, what kind of a trip’d you have, Jimmie?’ I asked, ‘and how do you like Captain O’Donnell?’
“‘Yah,’ he says, ‘your oil-skins is too loose.’ ‘What?’ I hollers after him—he goin’ up the dock like a streak. ‘Take to the weather-rail—it’s only a mile to shore,’ he waves his hand and hollers back to me. And then his wife popped around the corner. ‘Jimmie!’ says she. ‘Jennie!’ says he, and in a second it was all off. The pair of them flew up the dock like a pair of gulls before a no’the-easter and I picked up my pots and brushes and went up to the office and told the old man that I guessed I’d quit.”
“And did you?”
“Did I? And why wouldn’t I? Jimmie’s job is waitin’ for him if he ain’t too crazy to take