Philip Marsden - The Main Cages

It was not until the following week that the pilchards stopped coming. Four nights in a row they drew black nets. The gains they had made began to slip away. When some of the St Ives boats announced they were cutting their losses and returning home, Double suggested doing the same.

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ sighed Jack.

Croyden told him: ‘You leave now and you leave without me.’

Jack knew he could not continue fishing without Croyden. They agreed to give it another week. On the Sunday another half-gale set in from the south and they lost a further two days. The rafted boats in the inner harbour strained and knocked against each other, as did the crews. Croyden and Double came close to blows and Jack told Croyden to go and stay with his wife’s family in their tobacco store.

On Tuesday afternoon the wind began to ease. The next evening, in a brilliant blue and orange dusk, the entire fleet put to sea again. The Maria V headed west, and with a group of Mevagissey boats reached a place some three miles south of the Wolf Rock. It was a warm night. A light westerly breeze just filled the mizzen. The moon glowed behind a thin layer of cloud. Down to leeward, the other boats took up positions and on the Maria V they could hear the murmur of conversation and the single, united voice of a crew singing.

Double rubbed his hands. ‘They’re about tonight, Jack! I feel it in my bones.’

Croyden glared at him. ‘Shut up, Dee.’

They shot the first fifteen nets with ease. The seas had settled and the boat wallowed in the last of the swell. From the bows, the line of cobles stretched out into the darkness. Some way off, receding, was the light of the dan buoy. Double was humming as he paid out the leech. Croyden had his eyes on the head-rope. Every five fathoms he flicked at the line and a coble came swinging up out of the net room, over the gunwale and into the water.

‘Come on now, my darlings!’ cooed Double at the sea.

Jack leaned out of the wheelhouse. ‘All twenty?’ Croyden’s beret nodded as he worked and he fed out the line and the buoys. Below the surface the mile-long curtain of nets grew.

Croyden had reached the seventeenth buff when he suddenly paused and looked up. Double stopped his humming.

‘What is it?’ called Jack.

Croyden held up his hand. He was looking up to windward. ‘Quick – knock her in!’

Jack pushed the boat forward. Then he noticed it too, a faint oily smell on the breeze. As he eased the throttle, he became aware of a brook-like sound off the starboard bow. The nets spun out of Croyden’s hand, the cobles shot overboard. Jack turned on the fishing lights and watched. He could hear the shoal coming nearer. The fish were now very close, speeding towards them like a flash-flood. Then he saw them – the furring of the water, the swarming of fish at the surface. It was a vast shoal!

‘Best haul now,’ shouted Croyden. ‘We’ll leave the others.’

The first net came in thick with fish. They fell out and slid over the deck.

‘I told you they was here, Croy!’ shouted Double.

Even Croyden seemed excited. He was pulling in the head-rope two feet at a time. The first couple of nets were heavy. Fish spilled out of them and Croyden and Double shoved what they could down into the hold.

‘Yee-ee!’ yelled Double.

‘In now,’ muttered Croyden with each haul. ‘In ’ee come now …’

With the third net Croyden began to falter. Jack watched the head-rope tighten on the roller. He brought the bows over it – but it hardly slackened. Croyden braced himself and with Double beside him the net came aboard again. In places the fish were so thick it was hard to see the net at all.

The fourth net had turned over the head-rope as the fish drove into it and it was lighter. Another great mound of pilchards fell on the deck. Then the head-rope tightened again. Jack eased the boat forward. But it did not slacken on the roller. It did not budge at all.

‘Hold her!’ said Croyden. ‘Hold her now!’

Jack steadied the boat on the throttle. He watched Croyden and Double gripping the head-rope, frozen against its weight. The fish were all around the boat. Gannets were diving into the shoal. He looked out beyond the loom of lights and saw the flash of fish-backs far into the darkness. There was no end to the shoal. For the first time he thought: how were they to land such a catch?

He left the wheelhouse and hurried forward. Together the three of them managed to haul a little more. But the weight came again and with each haul they managed less. Still the fish were coming. Another ten inches of net. But now again the head-rope was jammed on the roller.

‘Hold her now! Hold her!’ cried Croyden.

Then Double lost his footing. They dropped another several feet before he recovered. The scuppers were dipping below the surface with the weight of the nets.

In with the shoal now were dogfish. Hundreds had been drawn to the shoal, driven mad by the plenty. Their brown bodies squirmed amidst the silver. They snapped at the fish. Their eyes flashed in the lights. Some of them came up with the nets and Double knocked them off when he could. Those on deck continued to thrash about among the pilchards, even as they died.

‘Out of there, you bastard! Get on now, get on!’ Croyden kicked one away and turned back to the nets. ‘Come in, my beauties! Come in now!’

The boat was low in the water and heeling hard to the nets. It was difficult to tell which was water now and which was boat. Double shouted, ‘Leave it, Croy! Leave the nets!’

There were still twelve nets out. Croyden’s face shone in the lights. He was grinning.

‘For Christ’s sake, Croy!’ shouted Jack. ‘They’ll drag us down!’

‘Pull!’

Together they managed a little. ‘Again!’ shouted Croyden.

Five inches. ‘Again!’

Seven inches. ‘We’re winning!’

Nearly a mile of nets remained in the water, pulling down on the cobles with their weight. And still the fish were coming, shoaling so thickly that they were drowning each other. The surface was full of their bodies. Gannets were diving all around the boat, striking the churned-up water in bomb-bursts and the gannets too were coming up in the nets, and they too were drowned, their necks caught in the mesh as they fed.

‘Now! Again!’ The sweat was running down Croyden’s face.

Fish covered the deck. The head-rope on the roller was slipping back again. The boat was being pulled over. ‘Let it go, Croy!’ Jack lunged for the rope. Croyden pushed him off. He grabbed the head-rope and alone managed to pull a couple of inches. Jack reached down and slipped a gutting knife from inside the bulwarks. He slashed at the rope. He sawed at it – but Croyden shoved him aside and he fell. The knife spun overboard.

Croyden continued to heave. The net was stuck fast. He tried to reach ahead but the strands of the head-rope were popping apart on the roller. The last one went and the Maria V sprang back onto an even keel. The remaining nets stretched out into the shoal. Still the fish were driving into them, but one by one the cobles disappeared from the surface, dragged down by the weight. Croyden watched them go. He remained at the gunwale, even as the boat turned and they made their way back through the fleet to Newlyn.

The next morning, three million pilchards were landed at Newlyn, a post-war record, but for the Maria V the season was over. They left Newlyn and headed out towards the Lizard. In Polmayne Bay the Petrels were racing. Jack and Croyden and Double rowed in unnoticed through the Gaps, while a crowd of people stood at the quay wall cheering the yachts as they pushed towards the finishing line.