ensuring the smooth operation of the above—tubs of cork floats and lead weights, clusters of small anchors and marker buoys, spools of twine and coils of rope, buckets of nails, tins of grease and barrels of tar.
Stacked in one corner of the barn was a jumble of obsolete whaling gear—lances, double-fluke and toggle harpoons, longhandled blades for cutting into blubber, block and tackle for prizing the blankets free from the carcass, more blades for mincing the blubber, two cast-iron cauldrons for trying-out the whale oil, and large sieves for skimming off the bones and skin.
This clutter had come with the old whaleboat house—Rollo’s contribution to their enterprise—that now stood beside the barn. A twenty-six-foot whaleboat had also formed part of the package. They had hoisted the craft up into the barn’s rafters where the beauty of its slender lines was revealed to maximum effect. It was the first thing Conrad’s gaze would settle on each time he heaved open the double-doors. This morning was different in that he found himself smiling as he stared up at the craft.
He singled out a short haul-seine net, grappled it outside, and shouldered it into the dory. He was hitching the boat’s trailer to the back of his battered old Model A Ford when Rollo appeared from the outhouse.
‘Let’s go get us a bunch,’ said Rollo, predictably, in words that never changed.
The stretch of ocean beach they planned to fish was no more than a few hundred yards from where they stood, but there was no breach in the tall dune that fronted the sea, no passage for a vehicle, and they were obliged to take the long route round—up the rutted sand track that connected Conrad’s secluded world to Montauk Highway, a mile westwards into Amagansett, then down Atlantic Avenue to the beach landing and back along the shore.
At any other time, they would have been met at the landing by Sam and Ned Raven, the foul-mouthed sons of the equally foulmouthed Joe Raven. A family of scallopers from Accabonac Creek, the quiet tidal backwater a few miles northeast of Amagansett, the Ravens were true ‘Bonackers’, and proud of it. They did little to hide their resentment at having to sell their services to other fishermen from the wind-scoured days of March, when the adult scallops began to die, to the limpid days of late summer, when they could take to their sloop again in pursuit of the inshore pectens.
The boys had grunted half-hearted interest when Conrad offered to take them on for the short haul-seine season. ‘I don’t know, a quarter share for haulin’ another cunt’s nets?’ was how Ned had phrased his hesitancy.
Conrad figured they’d come round to the idea. The eelgrass was still dying back and the scallops had been down that winter. Most baymen had struggled to hit their daily limit of five bushels, and money was tight for the Ravens and their kind.
After a couple of weeks in Sam and Ned’s company, Conrad had begun to wish the brothers had rejected his offer. The flood of blue speech that tumbled from their lips displayed an impressive and, at times, amusing grasp of the English language; but it unsettled Rollo, a devout Presbyterian and church-goer.
Fortunately, the reduction gear on the Briggs & Stratton winch bolted to the bed of the Model A had given out a few days back, and Conrad had taken the opportunity to lay the boys off until it was repaired, buying a respite from the obscenities. This meant that he and Rollo were hauling by hand right now using a shortened eighty-fathom net, about a third the length of their usual seine. A two-man crew also demanded that they go off through the surf with only one oarsman, difficult and dangerous at the best of times.
The semi-inflated tires carved blunt furrows in the soft sand as the Model A slowly ranged the beach, Conrad teasing the stiff clutch to keep apace of Rollo, who wandered the water’s edge, scanning the ocean. He was looking for signs of fish: driven bait stippling the surface, like handfuls of sand cast upon the water, or a feeding slick that marked the spot where the larger fish were wreaking their havoc beneath the waves. Gulls and terns, everalert scavengers, would sometimes help guide the eye. If you were lucky. Most sets were made blind, based on some inexplicable feeling that the fish were there. Some called it smell, and Rollo came from a distinguished line of ‘long-nosed’ Kemps. In the brief time they’d been in business together Conrad had come to respect his uncanny instincts.
Rollo drew to a halt, squinting out to sea. Conrad eased the gear stick into neutral, letting the motor idle. He knew better than to say anything, and had time to roll a smoke before Rollo finally turned.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’ He appeared puzzled that his sixth sense had deserted him. ‘Good a place as any, I reckon.’
Conrad backed the trailer down to the water and they dragged the dory into the wash. As surfboats went she was a little shorter than most—fourteen feet along the bottom—but in all other respects she was typical, her high, flaring sides climbing to sharp ends fore and aft that sliced through the surf when going off and parted the following sea around her stern on the equally perilous run to shore. Along with her oars and two nets, she was the only piece of his father’s gear that Conrad still owned.
Hitching the inshore end of the net to the back of the Model A, Conrad pulled the vehicle up the beach until the line ran taut. He hurried back to join Rollo and they wrestled the dory through the thumping chaos of white water, fighting to keep its bow headed into the seas.
Conrad scrambled aboard. Moving fast, he slipped the oars into their locks and began to row gently, still standing, setting his stroke. His eyes were fixed on Rollo, chest-high in the water, doing his best to steady the dory. There was no need for Conrad to glance over his shoulder at the rearing seas. Everything could be read in Rollo’s face as he waited for a slatch between two series of waves.
The next few seconds were critical. Rollo’s judgment would determine whether they went off cleanly, or whether they filled up, broached to, or—God forbid—pitchpoled.
‘Pull!’ yelled Rollo, pushing off and struggling aboard in one graceless movement.
Conrad arched his back into the stroke. The dory slid up the face of the first capping sea. It broke over the bow, dowsing them, but Conrad was already well into his second stroke, shifting his weight, the oars biting deep, driving them down into the trough. His third stroke, long and measured, propelled them up and over the face of the next wave before it broke. They knew they were safe now unless Conrad popped an oar or the gods tossed a rogue wave their way. But the gods were in a good mood and Conrad hadn’t popped an oar in almost a decade.
Clear of the surf, Rollo could now concentrate on paying out the net, pitching the coils of lead line over the gunwale, the cork line dragged right along with it. Conrad settled down on to the thwart and eased into his long distinctive stroke. Carrying so little twine, he soon began to turn the dory in a short clean arc. The thicker mesh of the bunt began passing through Rollo’s hands. This reinforced middle section housed the bag at the very center of the net, marked by a cork flag buoy. As soon as the bag was set Conrad swung the dory parallel to the beach.
Rollo paid out the rest of the net until the offshore wing narrowed to a manila line coiled at his feet. This was Conrad’s signal to turn again and begin their run to shore.
Speed and timing were everything when approaching the surf line. If Conrad lost momentum the dory would slip
