Read Online August Gale by Barbara Walsh - Free Book Online Page B

caught the fishermen’s attention.
    â€œAye, there’s Captain Paddy coming over.”
    As the boat angled toward the pier, the men glimpsed Paddy’s dark eyes beneath his cap.
    â€œWhat kind of mood ye think he’s in today?” one of the dorymen joked.
    â€œNo telling with Captain Paddy, he can turn like the wind, but one thing is certain: The skipper will be happier once he gets out to sea.”
    â€œAye, he’s had a rough go this year not getting that commissioned boat.”
    The dorymen remembered the talk around the north and south sides of Marystown at Paddy’s fury over the lost government-built vessel. He had been promised shares in the schooner. A seventy-footer, she would have carried six dories and sixteen men. The vessel could have handled the monthlong trips to the Grand Banks and beyond, but after gathering a crew, Paddy learned that the government ran out of money before his boat could be completed.
    â€œYou’d of thought he was going to beat someone bloody over that one,” a veteran doryman nodded as his calloused hands scrubbed the hull of his dory clean.
    After promising his smaller schooner Mary Bernice to his son James, Paddy was left without a boat to sail as the March ice thawed.
    â€œDo you remember Paddy’s face after his brother Ernest arrived with his first catch this spring?”
    â€œAye, Ernest had thirty quintals of fish on deck, and here Paddy is wit’ nothin’.”
    â€œPaddy ’twasn’t happy about that one. Him usually being the big fish-killer and his brother home with more than three thousand pounds of fish before Paddy’s even got a boat beneath ’im.”
    Eager to haul home more fish than his brother, Paddy quickly found himself another boat, buying shares in Annie Anita , a small schooner owned by the merchant James Baird. Other captains might have struggled to find another boat so quickly, but Paddy had told his crew they’d sail in March, and the skipper never went back on his word, especially when it came to fishing.
    â€œHe’s like a dog to fish,” a gray-haired doryman agreed. “Gad himself would have to strike Paddy dead to stop the skipper from setting out.”
    The fishermen nodded to one another. They had witnessed Paddy’s resolve in years past when his newly built schooner Lillian had got stuck in the spring ice.
    Built up in Creston on the upper reaches of Marystown’s Mortier Bay, Paddy had been eager to sail the new schooner that he had proudly named after his wife. But the March winds had blown bitterly cold, and the bay was still frozen over when it came time to ease the thirty-ton boat off its cradle.
    Still, the ice did not stop the skipper from launching his schooner. From the north and south shores of Marystown, Paddy’s shouts could be heard: “Free rum to any man who will help haul a schooner over the ice!”
    Paddy hollered to the land from his horse and cart as he dragged a barrel of rum along the frozen bay. By the day’s end, one hundred men had lined up along the ropes tethered to the Lillian’ s bow. They pulled the fifty-foot schooner a mile and a half over the ice until it broke free and slipped into the open water.
    â€œJaysus, that was some sight,” laughed one of the dorymen. “Paddy ladling out rum from his horse and an army hauling the boat for ’im.”
    The sound of a dory scraping rocks pulled the fishermen back to the August morning. As the ferry master dragged his boat to land, Paddy stepped out onto the sand. The dorymen quickly shed their grins and put their thoughts aside; they knew better than to smirk in front of the skipper.
    â€œMorning, Capt’n,” they offered, tipping their caps.
    â€œMorning, fellas,” Paddy replied, his eyes taking in the men’s worn clothing and tattered leather boots.
    â€œHow’s the crew shaping up for yur upcoming trip, Skipper?”
    â€œFine,