Story of Albert

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 44, 8 March 1937, Page 13

Story of Albert

Out with the Herring Drifters

A LBERT' sat rubbing salfc-water tarnish off a brass lamp as big es a searchlight. He was nicely out of the wind, in the lee of the wheelhouse and closs to the engine-room fidley with its sudden wafts of hot, oiled metal tainted with carbide, oue of the distinguishing smells of a drifter. Across the fidley, in the doorway of the wheelhouse itself, elbows on knees, sat the skippeif, dark, stocky, with a tough faee and heavy jaw. But now he was smoking placidly and watching the chief and second ettgineers as they painted the funnel; the majority of the crew were below> sleeping. The weather was perfect (though not for fishing), and the December sun shone through high wisps of cloijd which pointed fingers to where they had spun a thick line of soft grey vapour low on the horizon to the sou*west. Albert felt very pleased to be where he was. rPHEY had caught few herring the night before, and immediately the nets had been hauled in and cleaned: they had shot again. A fleet of 90 had gone hissing into the steel-blue water of early morning, the pallets slapping regularly, marking the progress of the shot; now they were streaming ahead of the drifter llke a chain of whitish beads conneeted yet held' apart by an invisible mesh. 5 "YX^HAT you want 1s a bit o' elbow- - grease, Albert, me lad," sald the skipper darkly, dropping his t's Nor-folk-fashion and leaving little clicks in their places. Albert said nothing. "Damned if I'd let a flve-minute' Job fcake me 'n hour.". "You mlght say difl'rent if you was doin' it," Albert pointed out smartly. The "chief,"' who was up a ladder hooked into the black top of the funnel, peered down and guffawed. The skipper grunted. He did not believe ln bullying "younkers," and this one, who had only joined the Ocean Harvester the day before, would soon learn his place and his job. He was lucky to strike soft weather; but he would soon learn. "Turn on the wireless, Joe," he called to the mate in the wheelhouse. •JlfUSlO from London fioated delicately about the drifter, cloying as the smell of fish. They were playing the most sophisticated sort of jazz, ixnmensely expert and pointless, and between the tunes a rather breathless young man was being ecstatic about them — "Serious musidians say that jazz lacks development, but this brilliant number by Blink Honkers disproves that. Blink's tenor saxophone solo is almost incredibly ingenious " " Blink started to do his stuff. rpo Albert this was heaven. It added -*• the final touch of happiness, reassured him again and again that he'd done right to give up his Job of carting butchers' meat round to customers and go to sea. People had told him not to be a fool, to stick to a comfortable job ashore; that wages on a drifter were low, that conditions were miserable, that the work was harder than he could imagine; driftermen he 'knew had casually remarked that it was a dog's life, and had meant it. But Albert reckohed that "the sea" had "got him," and to sea he went for a minute share in the catch and fifteen bob a week "lent" to his parents by the company, in lieu of what he might expect to earn by the end of t!ie ihree months' season. YX7ELL, what was ihe matter with being ■*' a fisherman? Sitting in the sun polishing this great old lamp, with the skipper smoking his pipe across the fidley and chafflng him was all right. It was a change; and when he looked at the pale, meek sea and saw other shlps llke the Ocean Harvester all at rest, all waiting for the swim that would burden their nets with herring, he felt that this was the life for him. Hardship? Why, what was hardship, with the hot music streaming over bim and the implicatioih. behind it, that the ship too was O.K. . . . conveniences . . . that sort of thing . . .

He began to patter with his hands on the lamp, imitating an imaginary drummer in London. The other men listened to the music phlegmafeically, as they listened to everything else on the wireless, and at last the skipper asked, "Ever go dancing, young Albert?" "You betl" Albert was enthusiastic. "Got a new suit, too." He described the suit lovingly. The mate came out to listen, he and the skipper and the engineers exchanged mild winks, but Albert didn't notice. He went on talking about his suit, and the dances he went to, and the girls he knew. The drifter men said nothing, neither drew him out nor snubbed him. But he was a lot more interesting than the wireless, and they found themselves faintly amused. "Have yer paid for yer soot?" asked the "chief" with interest from the top of his ladder. "Almost." T^HE mate nodded sagely. "Have yer paid fer the frock and boots you'll be wearin' fer this job?" he asked. "No." "Ah," said the skipper. He and the old hands were learning what sort of a "younker" they had shipped. They were not critical, and they made no judgments. However, Albert was quietly amusing with his nonsense about suits, and they liked to be amused. But he was a willing lad, they thought, from what they had seen of him, and his deck gear was decent stuff. He would learn ali right. * * • ALBERT Was just explaining why he enjoyed dancing when he was brlsky told to shut up by the skipper. Another volce had superseded the enthusiastic youth in the London studio, a businesslike volce which announced that at Yarmouth up to twelve o'clock 85 drifters had landed an average catch of 17 crana each, top shot 110 crans; that prices were from 35/6 to 32/- for fresh herring and 30/- to 24/6 for overdays. . . . It was the herring flsheries bulletin and meant business; It was what they had been waiting for. The skipper took his pipe out of his mouth, the mate leant in the wheelhouse door, and the engineers stoocf with paint brushes poised and dripping red paint. The whole drifter listened. The volce concluded, "Here is a gale warning. Southerly winds of gale force are expected on all coasts south of a line Northern Ireland — Flrth of Forth." 'T'HEN the music continued. The skip1 per put back his pipe and the othera relaxed. Albert looked at them with quick apprehension, but could read nothing in their faces. "Does that mean us?" he asked nervously. "O' course it means us," said the skipper, surprised. "Will we go back?" "Blast, we ain't got noth'n' to go in with yet!" "Never you mind, younker," said the mate klndly, "a sou'-westerly puffH give us a good shot. Maybe you'll be able to finish payin' fer yer soot." They all laughed. "DUT for Albert even the lamp he was polishing had changed: suddenly he had noticed how battered it was, how the salt had eaten little pock-marks into the brass, how the glass had been slightly frosted by the slash of the spray. He looked round at the other drifters in sight; but they looked just as peaceful as ever, the sky was serene, the sea as blue; and the men on deck looked as though they hadn't heard that there was going to be a gale! Why didn't they do somethlng about ' it? He remembered with a shock that they were forty miles from land! "Go you on polishing that ole searchlight," said the skipper severely, "you'll take all day at this rate." Albert aufcomatically moved his hands. The young man from his armchair in London was heing enthusiastic again about the "modern idiom." "Turn that ruddy wireless off, Joe," said the skipper. — (John Arrow in the Manchester Guardian).