The Deep Sea's TollConnolly, James B. (James Brendan)
General
The Deep Sea's Toll
Connolly, James B. (James Brendan)
Sea stories, American; Seafaring life -- Fiction; Short stories, American
Getting nervous under the strain, Oddie stood down and hailed the two
men in the dory farthest from the _Eldorado_. They said they did not
know quite what to do--no signal to haul had yet been hoisted on the
vessel. They guessed, though, they would hang on a while longer.
Patsie understood their feelings. No fisherman wants to be the first to
cut and go for the vessel, and so lose fish and gear also. Losses of
that kind have to be shared by the men equally. Not only that, but to
have somebody look across the table at supper and say, “And so there
were some that cut their gear and ran for it to-day, I hear?” No, men
face a good bit of danger before that.
In the next of the _Eldorado’s_ dories they were pretty nervous, but
said that as long as the others were not cutting they were not going to.
“That’s right,” said Patsie, “that’s the way to feel about it. But take
my advice and you’ll buoy your trawls and come aboard of me. It’s goin’
to be the divil to pay on this bar to-night--and in these short days
’twill soon be night.”
And they, knowing Patsie Oddie’s reputation, buoyed their trawls and
came aboard the _Delia Corrigan_. And after that Patsie picked up three
more dories out of the blinding snow and took them aboard the _Delia_.
By the time Patsie had those four dories of the _Eldorado_ safe, it was
too rough to attempt to put the men aboard their own vessel. “But I’ll
stand down and hail her fer ye,” said Patsie.
Now all this time it never occurred to Patsie Oddie that anybody but
Fred Watson was master of the _Eldorado_. In the hurry and bustle of
picking up the stray dories, there had been no time to talk of anything
but the work in hand; and so his immense surprise when he made out Artie
Orcutt standing by the quarter rail of the _Eldorado_, and so his anger
when Orcutt called out before he himself had a chance to hail: “If
you’re getting so all-fired jealous of me, Patsie Oddie, that you can’t
even see me get a good haul of fish without you trying to steal it from
me----”
The rest of it was lost in the wind, but there was enough in that much
to make Patsie Oddie almost leap into the air. “So it’s you, is it?
Lord, and I’d known that, you c’n be sure I’d never tried to help you
out.” That was under his breath, with only a few near by to hear him.
He wanted to say a whole lot more, and say it good and hard, evidently,
but he did not. All he did say to Orcutt before bearing away was, “You
take my advice, Artie Orcutt, and you’ll let go your second anchor.”
Just that, and sheered off and left him.
“And how comes it Artie Orcutt’s got the _Eldorado_?” he then asked of
one of the men he had picked up.
“He came aboard at Saint Peer, where we put in with Captain Watson sick
of the fever. He came aboard there and took charge.”
“H’m!” Oddie stroked his beard and smiled--smiled grimly. “I don’t see
but what he brought it on himself.” But that last as though he were
talking to himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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