Ham called from above that he’d get Jace coffee. He sounded relieved. Hank kept his voice crisp. “You can show him where we store mop and soogee. Coffee’s his own affair.”
He decided still to cruise in the direction of Karluk in case the business went wrong, but with a gesture he stopped Ham’s work on the life raft. “Better check out gear with our Chesapeake Bay greenhorn,” he called with a wink at Tom. “He’s been too busy puking to tell a trawl door from a shovel.”
Tom laughed. Good sign.
Suddenly they heard shots fired, then shouts delivered in a high-pitched Asian scream. It was coming from one of the South Korean mother ships. Crews began to line the rails of all the boats around them. Hank grabbed binoculars. A trawler of about their own 108-foot length pitched beneath the 350-foot ship. A man on the bridge of the trawler held a rifle, while his crew around him yelled and waved fists. It was Gus Rosvic.
“Har har,” continued Arne over the CB. “I vatch it all. This fellow from Anacortes on Thunder, forget his name, must have high blood pressure. The Korean ran over his line, and the fellow shot at the ship.”
Hank quickly tried to communicate. “ Thunder, fishing vessel Thunder, Gus! Read me! Over!”
A few moments later Gus’s voice said calmly, “That you, Hank? Don’t worry. I just shot high to their wheelhouse. Nobody hurt unless one of ’em was hanging from the ceiling like a monkey. Buggers overrun my gear again on purpose.”
Hank flashed on his own incident in the Bering Sea years before, when Seth in fury over gear being overrun fired at a Japanese ship, bringing down the wrath of the State Department.
“Gus! Now get your ass out of there.”
“Well, Hank, mebbe to please you.”
Moments later there were more shouts. The Korean crew had begun to throw garbage at the Thunder.
“Now see that?” Gus exclaimed. “You know them fellows were up to no good.”
“Gus, move!”
All at once boats around them began to blow whistles. “Boss . . . Boss!” called Terry beside him in the wheelhouse. “Sounder’s going red all over the place!”
Indeed, the screen displayed more red than any other color. It passed in big blotches at depths below a hundred fathoms. Hank had never seen so much solid red on a sounder screen. He quickly checked his position relative to the boats around him.
“Yah, Hank,” came Arne Larsen’s voice over the CB. “You see vot I see? Or is it broke, my machine?”
“Red here too, Arne. Red red red.”
Joe Eberhardt’s voice joined from the Nestor. “Those fuckers are coming like everybody said they would. And looks like they’re holding to the bottom, swimming deep.”
“Vait, vait,” said Arne. “Now it’s a mess of red moving up to midwater. Takes less cable and weights for pelagic. I think I try those fish. Good-bye.”
Indeed, the red now moving past them with the current had risen to a higher position in the water column. Hank told Terry to start Ham and Tom laying out the trawl gear. “I’m not leaving up here now, so you look in on what’s-his-name, the drunk. No time now to dump him ashore. You be the judge. He’s not going on my deck boozed even if we have to lock him in the cabin.”
“Gotcha.” And Terry was off.
Hank cruised among the fleet. Not as crowded as he’d expected since boats had fanned out over the thirty-mile expanse of the Shelikof to gain space. He headed into the current and wind and considered what Arne had said. Catching a midwater school would use shorter cable with less drag on the engine.
He glanced aft. Tom was helping Ham at the starboard rail and seemed to be doing all right. After attaching the net line, they released the chain that secured the trawl door tightly against the side. The heavy steel flat bumped free at the boat’s hull, ready to be dropped into the water. When Ham pointed, Tom nodded his understanding and went portside to do the same on the other door. Together the two—a crewman short, but they managed—dragged the heavy trawl bag and chafing gear astern and readied it for launch. Ham’s directions appeared to be direct and clear, while Tom responded with quick intelligence and a ready back. Hank felt reassured. Tom knew his way around work. And, nice to see in a guy who’d been so guarded back in Maryland, he now seemed eager and lively. Even his war-wound limp had smoothed under the drive of jobs with purpose.
Other boats around them cruised for location. Whistles blew to signal nets being dropped. The red blotches on the color sounder drifted on either side of the Jody Dawn at varying depths like targets at a range. On the busy surface, milky swirls that rode the swells signaled fish sperm below. Hank felt his own excitement rise. Just wait for the right blob of red. Finally a bolus of it approached them, directly centered. “Stand by,” he announced over the deck speaker.
When next he glanced back, all four of his crew stood at the ready. Jace wore clean coveralls over what appeared to be his drunk clothes, and a clean cap anchored hair still in a tangle. He seemed alert. Terry looked up, gestured toward Jace, and fingered an okay.
Hank accelerated the boat and pulled the whistle. Over went the end of the trawl bag. Prop wash swirled around the attached red plastic floats. A puff of net stayed above water briefly, then sank. Hank adjusted to a steady slow speed through the oncoming swells. His boat’s forward motion against the friction of net already in the water pulled the rest of the net across deck and overboard. At Hank’s signal his men released the trawl doors and they splashed into the water. Down, down—the heavy steel doors weighted the net. They were attached to parallel cables that spun out from their drums on deck. Ham called out fathom markers on the cables as they clattered by.
Hank kept the images below surface in his mind. The boat’s forward motion should by now have activated the doors to paravane out like sails that would be pulling open the mouth of the net. If his adjustments were correct, the mouth would engulf the school of fish and entrap it.
No drag he’d ever made had lasted less than an hour, so he continued to tow while waiting for another mass of red on the sounder. At last he radioed the Tsurifune processor that he was hauling in. “Must wait,” came the reply. “Going presently first to fishing vessel Northern Queen. You must waiting please.” Hank decided to continue his tow since Arne had hauled in ahead of him.
“Sonofabitch!” exclaimed Arne a while later over the radio. “Bring up bagful of fish, send it offur to fuckin’ Japs, dey call back fish is too little. Jap machines set for bigger fish. Dey sample a few, say not enough eggs to do it all by hand, goddamn bastards say dey are not going to buy, throw fish back.”
Hank hauled in at once. The fish that bulged against the trawl bag measured only inches when he had expected lengths over a foot. Only Jace of the four on deck did not appear astonished. “I been here last year,” he called up. “The big fish they want go along the bottom. Didn’t nobody tell you?” Nor did you, thought Hank, furious.
Instead of detaching the bag to a delivery skiff as planned, Hank had his men ease it up the stern ramp until they could reach the release cord at bag end. “Open it!” he called down, sickened by the waste.
At least Jace was the one who insisted on easing himself down the slippery ramp, gripping fingers for support into mesh tightened against fish. He now wore oilskins with a fresh shirt showing beneath, and from Terry’s report had vigorously cleaned himself and the room during the time of the tow. He leaned over the swirling water, grappled for the cord, then tugged and tugged until the clamp snapped to release the circular drawstring. The end of the net opened. Fish gushed back into the sea. They floated dead, a carpet of dull silver.
Jace gripped his way back up the ramp with fingers in now-loose mesh and kicked his boot into the bag to dislodge fish that had stuck against the sides. Then, as they watched, he clung to the web, lowered his head, and vomited over and over. Ham slipped down the ramp to grip his arm, but it did not appear necessary.
Terry began to laugh. Tom, at first startled, joined in. Ham turned but kept his grip on the vomitin
g man. His large, open face was serious. “You guys sure pick some funny things to think is funny.”
Hank waited until the sobered drunk had pulled himself back to deck and could look up through watery eyes to signal he was safe, then returned to the images on the color sounder. The sight of wasted fish that now bobbed around his hull appalled him, but he put it out of mind.
On deck under Ham’s direction Tom and Jace lowered the net back into the water to clean it, then prepared to set again. In the wheelhouse the blotches of red continued to pass at differing depths and concentrations. Hank decided to bide his time for a perfect bottom mass of fish.
Terry joined him in the wheelhouse. “You saw Jace could work. Think you might keep him now, Boss?”
Hank saw that Terry’s hiring ability was on the line. “I’ll do it for you, ” he declared, feeling expansive. “But don’t bother telling him yet.”
“Good idea! Let him sweat. Thanks. Jace is the one of us who’s done the Shelikof roe before. That’s why I took him on.”
“Then if he knows anything it’s time to hear it. Not after we’ve made the mistakes.”
Terry brought Jace to the wheelhouse. He was still a mess, bleary-eyed although he now poked up his shoulders. “So we shouldn’t fish the midwater schools?” Hank asked sternly. “What else do you know?”
“Well, Captain . . .” Jace looked around, still unsure but suddenly cocky. “That’s the main thing for now. But there’s plenty I know since I’m the only one here’s done Shelikof roe before. You still going to put me ashore in that Klutch place?” It sounded more like a challenge than a plea.
Hank allowed a grave silence before saying, “You’re on probation. Terry, what’s his cabin look like now?”
“Swabbed out, Boss. Everything neat as a whore’s buttons.”
“Then grab yourself some coffee or something, Jace. We’ll be setting again soon.”
The man didn’t move. “You know, Captain, since I’m the one knows most about the fishing here, I oughtta be deck boss. Don’t you think?”
Hank controlled an explosion. Terry understood and hustled the man below.
Suddenly the red masses that crawled across the sounder screen turned solid red in a swath from the seafloor to several fathoms above. Shouts and whistles sounded from other boats. Above water, the surface of the long, wind-driven waves popped and boiled. Birds swooped and squawked overhead, diving into the boils and ascending with fish in their beaks. The air coming through the windows smelled of churning brine.
“On deck!” Hank shouted through the speaker.
Within minutes they had floated the trawl bag astern again and the steel doors pulled it below the surface. The depth sounder showed a curve that, while Hank watched and maneuvered among the boats, descended from 130 fathoms to 146 before leveling off. Hank calculated triple the depth for his cable, roughly 450 fathoms or 2,700 feet, more than half a mile.
Boots hit the metal stairway and Jace appeared in the wheelhouse door. “Skipper! I remember something else. Don’t set clear to the bottom when it’s solid fish down there. If it’s too many you won’t get your net back up.”
Hank had heard the tales but judged them barroom yarns. Jace sounded like he knew. By now his own net would be approaching bottom. No time to consider. He accelerated the boat to make the trawl doors paravane upward and barked “Hauling in!” through the speaker.
Terry appeared, breathless. “Boss! We just set her.”
“Taking a chance.” He could feel the engine strain. They couldn’t gain the speed he’d expected. Maybe they’d already snagged or overweighted the trawl, and pressure might snap the cables. “Off the deck!” he shouted.
He had kept the wheelhouse radios open on CB for his partners and on VHF for the fleet. The fleet band, which had droned with long time-killing conversations, now crackled with short comments but little else. “Guys,” volunteered Hank over CB, “better watch out going straight down into the deep fish.”
“Anybody’s fished here before knows that’s a fact,” said a voice.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” came back Joe Eberhardt’s voice. “Too late. It’s like I’m anchored dead to the bottom. I’m yanked like a dog whenever I try to move.” Arne Larsen answered with a steady stream of curses.
Simultaneously the wind accelerated, driving the steady waves higher straight into their bow.
Hank’s orders turned precise. “Terry. You by one winch, Ham by the other, nobody else on deck. If those cables snap it’s whiplash, so stay ducked behind the drums except when I call. I’ll cut speed in spurts to give cable slack, then you two wheel in all you can for the seconds I give you before I throttle again. And repeat—Tom and Jace off deck.”
During the next hour he gained back cable fathom by fathom. When he slowed, the waves hitting his front drove the boat back so that he needed to guard against tangling cable in the propeller. At length he knew that he had kept control and that as long as he kept moving, whatever his trawl bag held would not sink to the bottom. Arne, between curses, appeared to have done the same. Joe’s trawl remained stuck. “When I try to reel in cable I can draw up my safety slack but it pulls me back with it. Any pressure drags down my stern. Been in worse. I’ll just keep nudging her.”
A commotion on the VHF made Hank look to starboard. A quarter mile away, a boat that he didn’t know, shorter and narrower than the broad-beamed Bering Sea crabbers he and his partners rode, had tilted down at the stern. Whenever a wave washed the bow higher more sea gushed up the afterdeck. Water sluiced around men frantically sawing the cables. Didn’t they have axes? The cables were like a taut leash that yielded slack then jerked up tight. If such cables snapped under the pressure they’d cut the men in half, but if they held they’d pull the boat under. He read the name with binoculars. “Skagee over there,” he radioed on the open band. “Slack your winches. Throw off the damn cables. Give ’em up, for Chrissake!”
“They can’t,” came a voice from another boat. “Their winches is jammed.”
A foam-cresting wave higher than the rest reared toward the imperiled boat. It raised the boat’s bow, the deck slanted nearly vertical, and the men dropped into the water. Somebody on the emergency channel was calling the Coast Guard Air Base in Kodiak. But even with quick response the Coastie chopper might not reach the men before winter seas froze them. Hank hesitated, thought of his obligations, then dismissed thought. His own boat was out of danger now, and, from the showdown with Jace, their life raft was probably the only one already half launched. He grabbed his survival suit from its rack and began to pull it on while he shouted orders out the window to lower the life raft.
Terry scampered to the wheelhouse. Hank told him to take over, hold way into the wind, and slowly haul the trawl bag up to the stern after the raft was launched.
“No, Boss, I’m the one should go.”
“No, I’ve handled the raft more than you.”
“But that time when Jones Henry died on you wasn’t good.”
“I learned, I learned.” By now Hank was zipping up the front of the foam rubber suit.
“But you need another guy with you, Boss. That’s me.”
“Need you here.”
Within minutes Hank had stomped to deck encased to the chin in the clumsy survival suit. The raft was already inflated and bouncing by the rail. Ham, aboard, had started the engine. He wore neither survival suit nor even float jacket. Hank ordered him out while Ham protested he’d be fine. Indeed, the ballooning bow of the rubber raft tipped upward with only a man in the stern, but: “No time. By time you suit up they’ll drown. Out, Ham. Go!”
Alone in the raft, Hank cast off the line Ham held, and the flat-bottomed craft bounced free. He settled on his haunches as far toward the center as possible with hand on the tiller, and steered around Arne’s boat blocking the way, gauging the swells. Cold water slapped his face, but he felt in control except that he kept losing sight of his target. Arms and shouts from Arne’s deck above him pointed the
direction. He dismissed the memory of the Jones Henry’s loss by his side in the same life raft a year and a half before. This time there would be no deaths.
The Skagee had already submerged halfway. Its bow pointed upward like the sinking Titanic s. Hank made out single figures holding to the now-vertical rail on opposite sides. He chose first the man closest, and eased the raft against the hull as best he dared without creating new instability. The man coughed and struggled. Water rolled over his head. Hank could not safely leave the tiller. Should have waited for Ham! he realized. He maneuvered to grip one of the man’s arms and lock it over the inflated side with his knee. Bit by bit the man slowly bellied aboard. Hank recognized the guy, a part-native named Emmitt. With Emmitt in the center the raft was more level. Up close he couldn’t see the opposite side of the bow.
“How many are you?”
Emmitt didn’t hear or chose not to. He had collapsed. Hank realized that he himself needed to be brutal. He kicked out at the man with one foot while he steered. “How many?”
“Three.”
On the other side, still clinging to the upthrust bow, was only one. It was his former crewman Oddmund! Odds, his eyes groggy-lidded, gripped the plunging rail with a single hand, riding up then under the water with the wreck’s motion. His other hand held something below the surface. He tipped his head toward the hand submerged, and tried to speak but made only weak sounds.
“Grab what he’s holding!” Hank commanded, and nudged Emmitt again with his boot.
Emmitt weakly snaked one arm, and then the other, over the side, leaned into the water, and clutched onto the neck of a shirt. “Oh Jesus,” he cried, and started to pull. A head, with eyes closed, emerged. “It’s Mikey.”
“Hold him tight,” Hank ordered. With the boat balanced he grabbed Odds’s now-free arm and helped him wriggle into the raft. Odds crawled at once beside his shipmate. Both were barely able to move, but together they grunted and pulled the limp, dripping figure slowly over the raft side.
Raiders Page 38