Rudyard Kipling - Captains Courageous

“You’re white,” said Dan, as Harvey regained the deck, flushed to the tips of his ears.

“I don’t feel it,” said he.

“I didn’t mean that way. I heard what dad said. When dad allows he don’t think the worse of any man, dad’s give himself away. He hates to be mistook in his jedgments, too. Ho! ho! Onct dad has a jedgment, he’d sooner dip his colours to the British than change it. I’m glad it’s settled right eend up. Dad’s right when he says he can’t take you back. It’s all the livin’ we make here – fishin’. The men’ll be back like sharks after a dead whale in ha’af an hour.”

“What for?” said Harvey.

“Supper, o’ course. Don’t your stummick tell you? You’ve a heap to learn.”

“Guess I have,” said Harvey, dolefully, looking at the tangle of ropes and blocks overhead.

“She’s a daisy,” said Dan, enthusiastically, misunderstanding the look. “Wait till our mainsail’s bent, an’ she walks home with all her salt wet. There’s some work first, though.” He pointed down into the darkness of the open main-hatch between the two masts.

“What’s that for? It’s all empty,” said Harvey.

“You an’ me an’ a few more hev got to fill it,” said Dan. “That’s where the fish goes.”

“Alive?” said Harvey.

“Well, no. They’re so’s to be ruther dead – an’ flat – an’ salt. There’s a hundred hogshead o’ salt in the bins; an’ we hain’t more’n covered our dunnage to now.”

“Where are the fish, though?”

“ ‘In the sea, they say; in the boats, we pray’,” said Dan, quoting a fisherman’s proverb. “You come in last night with ’baout forty of ’em.”

He pointed to a sort of wooden pen just in front of the quarter-deck.

“You an’ me we’ll sluice that out when they’re through. ’Send we’ll hev full pens tonight! I’ve seen her down ha’af a foot with fish waitin’ to clean, an’ we stood to the tables till we was splittin’ ourselves instid o’ them, we was so sleepy. Yes, they’re comin’ in naow.” Dan looked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen dories rowing towards them over the shining, silky sea.

“I’ve never seen the sea from so low down,” said Harvey. “It’s fine.”

The low sun made the water all purple and pinkish, with golden lights on the barrels of the long swells, and blue and green mackerel shades in the hollows. Each schooner in sight seemed to be pulling her dories towards her by invisible strings, and the little black figures in the tiny boats pulled like clockwork toys.

“They’ve struck on good,” said Dan, between his half-shut eyes. “Manuel hain’t room fer another fish. Low ez a lily-pad in still water, ain’t he?”

“Which is Manuel? I don’t see how you can tell ’em ’way off, as you do.”

“Last boat to the south’ard. He f’und you last night,” said Dan, pointing. “Manuel rows Portugoosey; ye can’t mistake him. East o’ him – he’s a heap better’n he rows – is Pennsylvania. Loaded with saleratus, by the looks of him. East o’ him – see how pretty they string out all along – with the humpy shoulders, is Long Jack. He’s a Galway man inhabitin’ South Boston, where they all live mostly, an’ mostly them Galway men are good in a boat. North, away yonder – you’ll hear him tune up in a minute – is Tom Platt. Man-o’-war’s man he was on the old Ohio – first of our navy, he says, to go araound the Horn. He never talks of much else, ’cept when he sings, but he has fair fishin’ luck. There! What did I tell you?”

A melodious bellow stole across the water from the northern dory. Harvey heard something about somebody’s hands and feet being cold, and then:

“Double game for Tom Platt. He’ll tell you all about the old Ohio to-morrow. See that blue dory behind him? He’s my uncle, – dad’s own brother, – an’ ef there’s any bad luck loose on the Banks she’ll fetch up agin’ Uncle Salters, sure. Look how tender he’s rowin’. I’ll lay my wage and share he’s the only man stung up to-day – an’ he’s stung up good.”

“What’ll sting him?” said Harvey, getting interested.

“Strawberries, mostly. Punkins, sometimes, an’ sometimes lemons an’ cucumbers. Yes, he’s stung up from his elbows down. That man’s luck’s perfectly paralyzin’. Naow we’ll take a-holt o’ the tackles an’ h’ist ’em in. Is it true, what you told me jest now, that you never done a hand’s turn o’ work in all your born life? Must feel kinder awful, don’t it?”

“I’m going to try to work, anyway,” Harvey replied stoutly. “Only it’s all dead new.”

“Lay a-holt o’ that tackle, then. Behind ye!”

Harvey grabbed at a rope and long iron hook dangling from one of the stays of the mainmast, while Dan pulled down another that ran from something he called a “topping-lift”, as Manuel drew alongside in his loaded dory. The Portuguese smiled a brilliant smile that Harvey learned to know well later, and a short-handled fork began to throw fish into the pen on deck. “Two hundred and thirty-one,” he shouted.

“Give him the hook,” said Dan, and Harvey ran it into Manuel’s hands. He slipped it through a loop of rope at the dory’s bow, caught Dan’s tackle, hooked it to the stern-becket, and clambered into the schooner.

“Pull!” shouted Dan; and Harvey pulled, astonished to find how easily the dory rose.

“Hold on; she don’t nest in the crosstrees!” Dan laughed; and Harvey held on, for the boat lay in the air above his head.

“Lower away,” Dan shouted; and as Harvey lowered, Dan swayed the light boat with one hand till it landed softly just behind the mainmast. “They don’t weigh nothin’ empty. Thet was right smart fer a passenger. There’s more trick to it in a sea-way.”

“Ah ha!” said Manuel, holding out a brown hand. “You are some pretty well now? This time last night the fish they fish for you. Now you fish for fish. Eh, wha-at?”

“I’m – I’m ever so grateful,” Harvey stammered, and his unfortunate hand stole to his pocket once more, but he remembered that he had no money to offer. When he knew Manuel better the mere thought of the mistake he might have made would cover him with hot, uneasy blushes in his bunk.

“There is no to be thankful for to me!” said Manuel. “How shall I leave you dreeft, dreeft all around the Banks? Now you are a fisherman eh, wha-at? Ouh! Auh!” He bent backward and forward stiffly from the hips to get the kinks out of himself.

“I have not cleaned boat to-day. Too busy. They struck on queek. Danny, my son, clean for me.”

Harvey moved forward at once. Here was something he could do for the man who had saved his life.

Dan threw him a swab, and he leaned over the dory, mopping up the slime clumsily, but with great good-will. “Hike out the foot-boards; they slide in them grooves,” said Dan. “Swab ’em an’ lay ’em down. Never let a foot-board jam. Ye may want her bad some day. Here’s Long Jack.”

A stream of glittering fish flew into the pen from a dory alongside.

“Manuel, you take the tackle. I’ll fix the tables. Harvey, clear Manuel’s boat. Long Jack’s nestin’ on the top of her.”

Harvey looked up from his swabbing at the bottom of another dory just above his head.