Roy Norton

“ The funnel of the Williwaw now belched smoke as if she were steaming a race against time on the reach to Brixham Town. Around the breakwater’s end she swung in a flashing sweep to the outer and up to the very gates of the inner harbor before she stopped. Surmising tragedy, boats put off to meet them, and fishermen swarmed about the I’ll Try to assist. Broken men were tenderly carried away. The harbor-master’s telephone urged a surgeon to haste. The men on the landing-pier thrust and jostled, all eager to serve.
The survivors of the I’ll Try’s crew had come to port at last. ”

“ They clung to the rail, staring with perplexed eyes and parted lips until aroused to action by Moran’s shout: “Stand by to lower away a boat there, you men. Mr. Long, go over and learn what’s up.”
The boat splashed into the water, and down the steel side of the Williwaw went the men to man it. Her screw thrust the sea again to hold her off at a safe distance, for the swells still surged and lifted forward; but the voice still carried on:
“I fear no woe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness. ”

“ On her wet, slippery and heavily rolling and bounding deck, with tarpaulins and sou’westers dripping with driven rain and spray, every man of her crew, from skipper to cabin-boy, fought doggedly, desperately at the hand-winch. For seven hours thev had labored thus, unceasingly, until now they were too wearied and spent for speech. They laid breasts, hands or shoulders to the long bars, bent their backs, planted their feet, lowered their heads like bulls in a charge and tried again to make the weary treadmill round in the hope of hoisting the trawl. ”

“ A heavier blast smote the ship until she lay so far over that her lea bulwark met the water, and waves swept the length of her scuppers.
“’Vast heaving!” rumbled Captain Josh, holding an end of a long winch-bar in his hand, and the others fell heavily over the ones upon which they had been exerting themselves, to catch breath. “It’s no use,” panted the beaten old skipper. “Storm’s got so high it’s dangerous to hold on any longer. Us must bend a line on the warp, rig a buoy, cut loose, and hope to find our gear another day.” ”

“ His broken arm throbbed with an ever poignant and increasing anguish, but even pain may be dulled by time and endurance, inasmuch as there is a climax where kindly nature brings either partial or complete unconsciousness. Sometimes in the long hours he felt himself swooning, and then he clung harder to the spokes and begged that God, in Whom he had such unlimited, unquenchable trust, might enable him to keep awake, that he might still sprawl across the wheel. ”

“ The ships in the harbor, ketch-rigged, red-sailed, able to live in seas where huge liners perished, were eager to be liberated from their moorings Their crews, clumsy, awkward, inept on land, but dexterous, apt and graceful on sea-washed decks, breathed deeply, freely, once they stepped aboard the dinghies that they must row from the placidity of the inner harbor out into the surge. ”

“ To these men who throughout all their years had been habituated to the great, comforting roll of the sea, or the petulant unrest of it when like an angry child it had stormed as if at restraint, the land was stagnant, uncomfortable, unnatural, a sullen thing without soul or spirit of its own. ”

“ But if it be Thy will that we are to see no harbor lights again but those by Thy everlasting gates, pray let use see them shine clear to bring us to Thy port.”
He rolled aft to the wheel that swayed helplessly to and fro, and using alternately his hand and knee against the spokes, brought the staggering ship up to her work. She seemed grateful for the attention, and eager to respond. Her mere rags of red sails filled, and she was ready to fight the storm.
“Good old girl! Good old girl!” Captain Josh muttered approvingly. “That’s it! Take hold of the wind. ”

“ Go it, you stubborn old shell-back!” laughed the chandler; and then as Captain Josh continued his rolling, clumping way down the narrow street, smiled at his obstinacy, and discovering that his new assistant, who had but recently arrived from Bristol, was at his side said garrulously: “There he goes, white of head and clean of heart. Unbending! And I can remember, as a boy, when he was six feet two tall, and the broadest-shouldered man in all the port. Admiral of the fleet, for more than twenty years. As good a sailorman as ever cleared from Brixham. Fight as well as he can pray. ”

“ Fickle as the affections of a jungle-bred lioness, playful as a lioness can be and—dangerous and savage as the lioness when crossed. On that Channel a single hour of time may change the sea from the placidity of a lake to the ferocity of a tempest. ”

“ Put on full speed. No use in wasting time.” And from the engine-room sounded the clang of shovel and slice-bar; the funnel plume blackened, and the Williwaw began to “foam at the mouth” as she closed down on the ketch. When her engine was rung down, a peculiar silence enveloped her that was broken by Moran's hail:
“Ahoy there! I'll Try! Ahoy! What's wrong with you men?”
But he evoked no answer. Under silent way the Williwaw bore closer, and now there became faintly audible a cracked old voice monotonously droning:
“Abide with me, fast falls the eventide. ”

“ There’s nothing else to be done.”
He crouched against the wheel, waiting to seize one of the momentary lulls when the gale paused to catch breath for another blast.
“Now!” he cried at last, as if addressing his full crew. “Around she goes!” and with hand and knee, he deftly worked the wheel until the canvas flapped and fluttered, and then under way of impetus and storm the I’ll Try hesitated, paid off, leaned over so far that her lee rail was awash, was in danger of coming to beam ends if the storm sent a quick gust of wind, struggled, recovered, threw water from her deck, and fell away. ”

“ The toes of the worn sea-boots dragged listlessly. The inert hands dragged with equal helplessness. But this was no time for anything but action. Captain Josh almost pitched headfirst into the companionway under the roll and swing of the sea as he lowered his burden downward. Under its weight the cabin-boy rocked and swung, standing upon one foot, imbued by the indomitable spirit above, and at least lessening the shock of the ancient’s fall.
“Cans’t drag him inside, lad? Good! A good lad! Then stand by for Bill. It’ll be hard on ’ee, because Bill be heavier than the old ’un,” he cautioned ”

“ The boy was still wailing and screaming. Captain Josh dropped heavily to the deck, and as he lunged past the boy, shouted: “No use, lad. Poor Bob’s gone. God rest him! Steady now! Steady! Us must be steady if us would live.” And hurriedly he sought an ax.
He returned and with his uninjured and still powerful arm fell to hacking the warp whose drag threatened momentarily to end the I’ll Try. ”

“ It must be borne in mind that these men are brought up from childhood to regard their ships as their homes, that there they are most comfortable and in their element, that they are bountifully fed, that they are in a measure independent because all work without wage, but share on a well-adjusted proportion of the price which the fish command at auction (and I may add that our buyers on the spot are invariably and sometimes uncomfortably liberal in their bids) , and that they do neither toil immoderately nor run any very serious risks. ”

“ Instantly he caught the rail with his big, uninjured arm, lifted himself to his feet, and lurched and slithered downward to the nearest man, the mate of the I’ll Try, who lay unconscious and half-drowned. He seized the inert form and dragged it back until he could rest it against a hatch from where it could not again roll downward into the wash and make death certain by drowning.
“Stand by, lad! Stand by! Hang on to something for a moment. Us has got to be men now!” ”

“ So us has sold they engines, and had ’em hauled out, and—the I’ll Try be just the same as she was when I built her, livin’ by her sails and the winds of the Lord Almighty. Just as she was! No, not quite, because she’s got a wheel instead of the big clumsy tiller, and—I was a fool. All I should have done to her was to put in a boiler and a steam winch to handle the trawl. That was a mistake. But—there her be, waitin’ for us, all our own, and mebbe her’ll be glad to have they dirty engines out of her again. Everything considerin’,” he announced, almost triumphantly, “us be doin’ right well. ”

“ Her don’t act natural at all, sir.”
Captain Moran turned and trudged past the complex litter of mechanism and gear to have a look. After but a moment he shouted back to his mate: “You’re right about that, Mr. Long. Run down to ’em.”
The wheel in the pilot house of the Williwaw whirled, and she turned her nose inquisitively on the new course.
“Somethin’ wrong? Aye? There be,” declared one of the crew to others who came leisurely up to the starboard rail. “Her be in trouble, sure! Look at they sails, what’s left of ’em, and her be yawin’ this way and that as if her had no hellum.” ”

“ See you looking at that winch. I had expected you'd be in to buy that lot for the I'll Try. You should have it. It does more work than two men aboard. Wouldn't you like it?”
“I'd like it, all right, John,” said the skipper, “but what with bad catches and bad markets, and that fool experiment with motors, I haven't the money, and—”
The ship-chandler laughed as if immensely amused.
“Since when has any man in Brixham town asked anything more than the word of Captain Josh? Why, you can have my shop on your word!”
“Nope,” said the veteran. “I'll never buy anything more I can't pay for. ”

“ Your correspondent, who is evidently ignorant of basic facts, asserts that although it is the fishermen themselves who actually catch the fish, they—the fishermen—do not receive a commensurate share of the price which the people ultimately pay for a staple article of food. ”

“ Heed what I tell ’ee, because ’ee must stay here by them—stay to the last, lad, no matter what may happen, for I be goin’ on deck to bring the I’ll Try home.”
And then, quickly, knowing that at any moment death might interrupt, Captain Josh gave all the instructions he could, and while he talked, fashioned for his broken arm a sling. He squatted down on the floor in front of the boy so that the lad’s hands could tie the knots. Once he admonished him.
“Tighter, lad! Tighter! Make ’em fast so they can’t slip loose.” ”

“ The boy forgot his pain under the influence of that steady old voice, and obeyed. His young fingers trembled at their task; struggled with a simple knot.
“Now,” said Captain Josh, “us must work fast if us are to make port again. I know it’s hard, for ’ee has a hurt foot, I take it; but if us can make port, it’ll heal. Brace up, for if ’ee doan’t, us’ll never again see they harbor lights. ”

“ It stands to reason that these men when in fear of storms can always run to shelter, and that they do. There is no serious hardship or stress in the lives of the trawlermen. If your correspondent were to suggest such a thing to a fisherman, he would be laughed at. ”