paint between the grill of the ladder, on the underside of a rail, spotted beneath the mats on the bridge, or tracked to other parts of the ship on the clothes or shoes of seamen. At the end of three days even Dane was content. Brace, unable to accomplish a personal cleanup, begged Amon for help, and Amon shaved Brace's head.
"There are such tales on the Grand Banks," chief engineman Snow mentioned with little interest to second engineman Fallon. "Come, lad, when we plot the bilge piping, the job is complete."
"The lobster boat was nearly out of fuel," Abner 's yeoman Wilson told Howard. "Been wallowing along for two or three days. His lobsters was dead but not stinkin'."
Abner had streamed grapples and gone through the necessary hours and motions of a hopeless box search. The ice in the trawler Ezekiel 's hold was melting.
"We rigged a short tow aft of Ezekiel ," Wilson told Howard. "Put a seaman aboard. All the kid had to do was lock down that helm and keep watch."
Abner , according to yeoman Wilson, settled into a straight double tow toward nightfall. A double tow was not common, but it was something Abner had done a dozen-twenty-times before. The deck force was short one watchstander because of the man on Hester C . Still, enginemen and firemen were running two on, four off. An eight- to ten-knot breeze rose. The tows rode well and Abner maintained speed.
"We were just changing watch for the mid," Wilson said. "That kid on the lobster boat got the engine started somehow. He dropped the tow and came kiting around Ezekiel 's stern like he had a pocketful of pus. Ran the boat alongside, eyes bulging like a cod, and yelling that the boat was haunted. We lost an hour rerigging the tow."
"And that's when the Clara caught fire?"
"No," Wilson shook his head in wonderment. "The Clara didn't catch fire until they were relieving the four-to-eight. I was aboard that bumboat at the time.
"It was just nothing, at first," Wilson said after a moment spent thinking. "We rode for nearly an hour, me, and this seaman with his teeth chattering and pretending like he was brave. The dead lobsters were sloshing around in the well. We couldn't run the engine because of the low fuel. It was just real quiet, and the running lights were dirty and dim and things were all shadowy." Wilson looked at Howard, knowing that Howard had already heard the story, thinking, perhaps, that Howard would say that the story was only crazy.
"This hand came up over the transom," Wilson said. "It just hung there for maybe thirty seconds, just pale and graspy, and then it slipped away. I ran aft and there wasn't nothing. No splash. That kid seaman started to cry. Ten minutes later the hand came back again. I ran forward and started leaning on the whistle to signal for a stop." Wilson looked ashamed, and then indignant. "We were only trying to help," he said. "Trying to get the boat back in so at least his old lady could sell it. That guy was dead. He didn't have any right to do that. He didn't have any right at all."
Chapter 7
At each nightfall the gray chill seemed to move like the whisking touch of a spirit hand across Adrian . As standing lights flared against the slowly encroaching dusk that layered with the cold and colder-growing diminishment of a waning summer, men chatted beside the galley, or walked the decks, or laundered, played cards, laughed and told stories. Commercial radios on the messdeck and in the crew's compartment were turned higher. The compartments were filled with the voices of young women, touted as "hot chicks" by a local disc jockey who praised songs of love and its unavoidable sadness. The gray chill, experienced at outwaiting eons of illusions, dwelt like an ice-covered boulder planted at the foot of the gangway.
At 2200 hours, dead center in the eight-to-twelve watch, the stories faltered, the flaring and somehow suddenly beautiful incandescent lights went out, and the red nightlights were switched on. They signaled the approach
"There are such tales on the Grand Banks," chief engineman Snow mentioned with little interest to second engineman Fallon. "Come, lad, when we plot the bilge piping, the job is complete."
"The lobster boat was nearly out of fuel," Abner 's yeoman Wilson told Howard. "Been wallowing along for two or three days. His lobsters was dead but not stinkin'."
Abner had streamed grapples and gone through the necessary hours and motions of a hopeless box search. The ice in the trawler Ezekiel 's hold was melting.
"We rigged a short tow aft of Ezekiel ," Wilson told Howard. "Put a seaman aboard. All the kid had to do was lock down that helm and keep watch."
Abner , according to yeoman Wilson, settled into a straight double tow toward nightfall. A double tow was not common, but it was something Abner had done a dozen-twenty-times before. The deck force was short one watchstander because of the man on Hester C . Still, enginemen and firemen were running two on, four off. An eight- to ten-knot breeze rose. The tows rode well and Abner maintained speed.
"We were just changing watch for the mid," Wilson said. "That kid on the lobster boat got the engine started somehow. He dropped the tow and came kiting around Ezekiel 's stern like he had a pocketful of pus. Ran the boat alongside, eyes bulging like a cod, and yelling that the boat was haunted. We lost an hour rerigging the tow."
"And that's when the Clara caught fire?"
"No," Wilson shook his head in wonderment. "The Clara didn't catch fire until they were relieving the four-to-eight. I was aboard that bumboat at the time.
"It was just nothing, at first," Wilson said after a moment spent thinking. "We rode for nearly an hour, me, and this seaman with his teeth chattering and pretending like he was brave. The dead lobsters were sloshing around in the well. We couldn't run the engine because of the low fuel. It was just real quiet, and the running lights were dirty and dim and things were all shadowy." Wilson looked at Howard, knowing that Howard had already heard the story, thinking, perhaps, that Howard would say that the story was only crazy.
"This hand came up over the transom," Wilson said. "It just hung there for maybe thirty seconds, just pale and graspy, and then it slipped away. I ran aft and there wasn't nothing. No splash. That kid seaman started to cry. Ten minutes later the hand came back again. I ran forward and started leaning on the whistle to signal for a stop." Wilson looked ashamed, and then indignant. "We were only trying to help," he said. "Trying to get the boat back in so at least his old lady could sell it. That guy was dead. He didn't have any right to do that. He didn't have any right at all."
Chapter 7
At each nightfall the gray chill seemed to move like the whisking touch of a spirit hand across Adrian . As standing lights flared against the slowly encroaching dusk that layered with the cold and colder-growing diminishment of a waning summer, men chatted beside the galley, or walked the decks, or laundered, played cards, laughed and told stories. Commercial radios on the messdeck and in the crew's compartment were turned higher. The compartments were filled with the voices of young women, touted as "hot chicks" by a local disc jockey who praised songs of love and its unavoidable sadness. The gray chill, experienced at outwaiting eons of illusions, dwelt like an ice-covered boulder planted at the foot of the gangway.
At 2200 hours, dead center in the eight-to-twelve watch, the stories faltered, the flaring and somehow suddenly beautiful incandescent lights went out, and the red nightlights were switched on. They signaled the approach
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