Page 12
THE FISHERMAN
December 16, 1963
Continued from Page 9
THE THING THAT COULDN'T HAPPEN
pearls on the deck. He could hear the creak of a loose halyard block aloft.
What he presently heard dead ahead was a sound that puzzled him, gave him a queer apprehensive feeling. Something threshed water in that obscurity. Not far away. Along with that splash there was a hiss like escaping steam. Once he heard what he took to be the rending of wood.
Then silence again. A breath of wind brought a thick waft of fog over the Western Isle. Brought to Danny's nostrils that strange foul smell, that dank odor of decay which yesterday had risen from that rippie across the groundswell.
THE Western Isle crept slowly along, dragging four lines down eighteen fathoms. Danny resisted an impulse to drive full speed away from there. It angered him. He beat on his breast with one fist like a small gorilla. He would not run away from a splash of water and a bad smell. He bared his teeth in defiance at the unseen, the unknown. What menace could be abroad on that quiet sea? Danny didn't know. He did know that he was nervous, without knowing why.
Another puff of wind, stronger than the first. A momentary rift in that grayness. In a little while. Danny expected, the wind would roll up that fog.
Leaning from the working cockpit aft, peering ahead past the side of his wheelhouse, Danny saw some formless object rise on a swell and sink into the trough. At the same moment one of his belis clanged — a sound that always galvanises a salmon troller.
But Danny's fingers clamped on a line that held no struggling fish. He had hooked something solid. In thirty to forty fathoms clear water he couldn't hook bottom. Impossible.
All his lines had gone taut, trigger sticks pulled to their limit, main poles bending. Danny sprang to his controls. All his lines began to stream side-wise, toward the Reef. One pole snapped six feet
in from the tip. A main line let go at the tag snap. As he gathered speed the rest came clear of that fouling, streamed straight out astern.
The Western Isle bumped something hard enough to make her sheer off. Danny kicked his clutch out. He gulped. He could see what he had struck as it scraped by.
Mark Smith's Sturgeon. Hove down on her side. Awash. Her wheelhouse askew. Splintered wood raw on her upturned bilge.
A cold chill crept over Danny the Piper's flesh. But he took his pikepole, hooked into the swamped Sturgeon before she drifted clear. Because he saw an arm and shoulder in the broken framing of the wheelhouse doorway.
Danny leaned far over to clutch that limp hand. With a great effort he hauled Mark Smith aboard the Western Isle. Smith breathed. A few scratches on his face bled slightly. Danny dragged him down into the cabin, draped him on his bunk. Then he bounced out on deck and hurriedly began to pull what gear he had left.
No use attempting salvage. The Sturgeon was settling fast. Bank trailers are ballasted to ride deep, roll easy. Holed, such a boat fills and sinks like a stone. Danny hurried his gear in. He was getting jumpy. He wanted to get away from there.
He stood staring at the last five pound lead on a deep line. It was scraped and cut. Clean bright streaks in the soft lead as if it had been dragged across iron or steel. And between those bright streaks a smear of something black.
Danny rubbed a finger oh that smear, smelled it. Straightened up with a gleam in his blue eyes.
"Sea-beasties don't have asphalt paint on 'em," he muttered.
★ ★ *
ANNY cocked up his poles. By the time he had made every lashing fast he rode under a ring of bright blue sky. White wisps of fog like spectral shapes scattering and faading. Close astern the Sturgeon vanished between two swells as the gray steamer vanished the day before. Danny
watched the swirls where she sank. He looked at his parted lines. He stared at the black paint on that lead. Most certainly sea serpents, horrendous monsters from the deep, are not coated with asphalt paint.
Something else fixed Danny's attention, and he stayed the foot pushing in his clutch.
Something like a path led toward the brown mat of kelp over Blind Reef. A narrow band,
bright with the colors of the spectrum. The ebb swept across the Reef now. That and a freshening breeze brought down toward the Western Isle a rainbow streak, lovely shifting colors — the tints that come from petroleum derivatives, gasoline, diesel oil, lubricants, spilled on salt water.
Danny's ancestors in the Hebrides had believed in both real and fabled monsters of the deep. Danny in naval service had learned a great deal about man made mechanical monsters which also traffic under water, and he had no fear of them.
The dank, foul smell that had twice been in his nostrils could make his heart pound and his face grow clammy with sweat. He couldn't fathom the thing he had partly seen and clearly smelled, which had bumped the Klem-tu and — so far as he knew — destroyed the Sturgeon.
But he knew what that spreading rainbow streak meant.
He stepped down to the cabin floor. Mark Smith sat on the bunk, his head in his hands.
"Ye hurted?" Danny asked.
Smith shook his head.
"She sank," Danny said. "Yer boat."
"Uh-huh," Smith mumbled. "How'd I get here?"
"I pulled ye off her," Danny told him. "She was wrecked cruel. What hit ye?"
Smith looked out the open door. The Western Isle had turned so that her stern pointed to the Reef.
"Let's get to hell outa here," he said. "Hey! What's that?"
Danny looked out. High above a multicylinder engine droned.
"Coupla seaplanes," he said. "The lads are on patrol. There's nought to be scared of."
"If you'd seen what I seen," Smith whispered, "you'd be scared."
"What did ye see?"
"It — aw, hell, Danny," Smith breathed, "y' wouldn't believe me. It's just one of them things that ain't so."
Danny nodded comprehension.
"Sit ye still," he counseled. "I'm goin' to look about a bit an' then head for the Cove." ★ * ★
kANNY stared up at those swift airships streaking high and far across the sky. 'Ye're a bit late, lads," he muttered. Danny shoved along until he picked up that oil streak again. He followed it to where it streamed
(Continued on Page 13)
SEASON'S GREETINGS TO STEVESTON FISHERMEN AND SHOREWORKERS
§ |
1 1
i
WESTERN MARINE SUPPLY CO. LTD
Fishing and Ship Supplies
528 Powell St., Vancouver, B.C Phone: MUtual 3-9611
I
For unto us a child
% is born, unto its as a
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1 sou is given; and the 9
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| and His name shall
| be called Wonderful,
| Counsellor, The
| Mighty God, the
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I Everlasting Father,
% The Prince of Peace.
Peace and Happiness for Christmas GREETINGS . . .
TO OUR OLD AND NEW FRIENDS IN THE FISHING INDUSTRY
EASTHOPE
BROTHERS LTD.
H
1
£ GEORGE
JOE ,
| Phone: BR. 7-7710 & 1225 No. 1 Road
PERCY
in
GENE P.O. Box 424 | Steveston, B.C. $
■
I Our Best Wishes!
I MARINE | GROCERY
| Meats - Vegetables % Confectionery
% STEVESTON - B.C. f
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Christmas Greetings from
River Radio
OUR BEST WISHES TO ALL
FOR A GOOD CATCH IN '64 \
¥ 1
| MR. and MRS. SAKAMOTO 2 I MR. and MRS. MACKEY 1
I BR. 7-7432 Steveston, B.C. £
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% Christmas Greetings from . . .
STEVESTON DRUGS
E. Coulthard PRESCRIPTION SPECIALISTS
BR. 7-7030
BEST COMMERCIAL FISHING SUPPLIES
TAITO SEIKO WESTERN
Steveston, B.C. 1 I BR. 7-7340
Steveston, B.C.
Box 399
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SEASON'S BEST
Rod's Building : Supplies Ltd.
347 Moncton St. STEVESTON. B.C. BR. 7-8088
SEASON'S GREETINGS from
Steveston Frosted Food Lockers
§ GROCERIES
SHIP CHANDLERY
MEATS *
I
STEVESTON, B.C.
Seasons Greetings
■
I from
| Parker's Store
■
| 600 Steveston Highway | Richmond, B.C. BR. 7-8277
S
Wishing . . . A Very Prosperous 1964!
STEVESTON I SHEET METAL WORKS I
(MARINE SHEET METAL) 1223 No. 1 Road BR. 7-7944 jj
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Season's Greetings |
To All My Customers i
and Their Families
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CHOLBERG
Manufacturer of j
V - ROLLERS & NET REELS
795 River Road — Lulu Island i
§ Vancouver 14, B.C. CR, 8-0630 i
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To FISHERMEN and FRIENDS
METALEX LTD.
S 251 No. 5 Road, Richmond
CR. 8-2010 3 1
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The Best to All the Fist.
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and Their Families % |
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for CHRISTMAS and the NEW YEAR!
STEVESTON HOTEL CAFE
Best Wishes for 1964
DOUG LITTLEJOHN
STEVESTON HOTEL
ferry. Jf^roAperoui lf]i to Our ^idfi
and a. IJjear Jriendd!
ew
ermen
CANADA NET
AND
TWINE LIMITED
392 Moncton Street
Tel.: BR. 7-1716
•Where Fishermen Meef % S P.O. Box 458, Steveston, B.C.
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