Read Online Trawler by Redmond O'Hanlon - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Redmond O'Hanlon
Ads: Link
don’t even have a survival suit! And as for hard hats—Marine Lab Government Civil Service safety regulations! I’ve
never
seen a trawlerman in a hard hat—so if the rush of water knocks you over and whacks you head-first into a winch, well, bad luck.”
“Luke—hang on, wait a minute. What are you saying? What is
it?”
“Uh? It? Why—the lump! The lump! Redmond, I forget the exact numbers—but it’s the one thing I really don’t like about life on a trawler. In a Force 9 or 10 and up—with every 100,000 waves, or was it 250,000? I can’t remember, and of course it damn well doesn’t matter when it’s happening—you are, statistically speaking, 100 per cent certain to meet a lump. A giant wave. Which is in fact just two or more waves rolled into one—for whatever reason, in the chaos, a big wave behind has captured the waves in front. And I hate that—because when it comes at you:
you can’t see it coming.
You have to understand, Redmond—in a Force 10, with gusts up to 61 knots or over—you have no horizons. You’re closed in by normal Force 10 waves and their white-out, the spray from their crests, and you’ve got to do something difficult—because it’s always difficult in a 9 or 10—so you’re concentrating as hard asyou can, and you’re trying to stay on your feet, but somehow you feel it, I can’t tell you how—and suddenly there’s this monster, and I hate it, those five or ten seconds as you look up at it, as it looms over you, the terror …”
“Jesus!”
“Yes. Well. Can we be quiet now? Get some sleep? Because this is our last chance … Before the fishing-grounds …”
AND DESPITE the increasingly violent pitch and toss and yaw and surge of the bows, and despite a new sound which every few seconds overwhelmed even the eardrum-pounding, intestine-shaking vibrations from the engine-room beneath us—the great weighted thump of a wave on the hull, level with our heads: blows, surely, whose kinetic energy would have to be measured in many tons-per-square-inch—Luke fell asleep.
I lay on my back in the dark, my head on my pillow of pants wrapped in a shirt, my arms stretched down my sides, my left hand clamped to the edge of the mattress, to hold myself in the bunk. There was no oxygen left in the deep-fry, fat-saturated air. I could not stop gasping and yawning and swearing. All was confusion, and smelt bad. I pulled my right hand downwards over my face. My forehead was wet, slime-wet, and surprisingly cold. My chin was covered with spittle. I was dribbling like a baby. So yes, I said to myself, this is a cold sweat; and you are hypersalivating; and that’s it, you can’t stop it now, it’s called sea-sickness: how
embarrassing,
how
shaming.
“So let’s get this over,” I said out loud, and, concentrating (the smallest movement was an effort), with my right hand I scrabbled along the outer gap between the mattress and the side of the bunk, found my head-torch, strapped the elastic band over my slippery forehead and turned on the lamp. Exhausted, I lay back on my pillow and stared at my lit-up ceiling, at the plywood board two and a half feet above me, the base of the upper bunk.
A leering trawlerman stared back. He wore a tartan cap with a bobble; his eyes were enormous, their pupils a pair ofventilation-holes in the plywood; a ring hung from the lobe of his left ear; the scar of a knife-slash, freshly stitched, disfigured his right cheek; the tough shoots of his beard were perhaps ten days old. Drawn in thick black felt-tip pen, his portrait was signed, “CHUKKA FROM DY JANUARY ’95” in the top right-hand corner, and “BLAKEY FAEBCK MAY ’95” in the left.
My gullet and stomach rose out of my body: up above the trawlerman they flapped right and left, like fish-tails; still rising, they jinked and dipped and surged; they broke surface and, like dolphins, leapt undulating forward on the mass of bow-wave. They played, they plunged, they drove down in one
never
seen a trawlerman in a hard hat—so if the rush of water knocks you over and whacks you head-first into a winch, well, bad luck.”
“Luke—hang on, wait a minute. What are you saying? What is
it?”
“Uh? It? Why—the lump! The lump! Redmond, I forget the exact numbers—but it’s the one thing I really don’t like about life on a trawler. In a Force 9 or 10 and up—with every 100,000 waves, or was it 250,000? I can’t remember, and of course it damn well doesn’t matter when it’s happening—you are, statistically speaking, 100 per cent certain to meet a lump. A giant wave. Which is in fact just two or more waves rolled into one—for whatever reason, in the chaos, a big wave behind has captured the waves in front. And I hate that—because when it comes at you:
you can’t see it coming.
You have to understand, Redmond—in a Force 10, with gusts up to 61 knots or over—you have no horizons. You’re closed in by normal Force 10 waves and their white-out, the spray from their crests, and you’ve got to do something difficult—because it’s always difficult in a 9 or 10—so you’re concentrating as hard asyou can, and you’re trying to stay on your feet, but somehow you feel it, I can’t tell you how—and suddenly there’s this monster, and I hate it, those five or ten seconds as you look up at it, as it looms over you, the terror …”
“Jesus!”
“Yes. Well. Can we be quiet now? Get some sleep? Because this is our last chance … Before the fishing-grounds …”
AND DESPITE the increasingly violent pitch and toss and yaw and surge of the bows, and despite a new sound which every few seconds overwhelmed even the eardrum-pounding, intestine-shaking vibrations from the engine-room beneath us—the great weighted thump of a wave on the hull, level with our heads: blows, surely, whose kinetic energy would have to be measured in many tons-per-square-inch—Luke fell asleep.
I lay on my back in the dark, my head on my pillow of pants wrapped in a shirt, my arms stretched down my sides, my left hand clamped to the edge of the mattress, to hold myself in the bunk. There was no oxygen left in the deep-fry, fat-saturated air. I could not stop gasping and yawning and swearing. All was confusion, and smelt bad. I pulled my right hand downwards over my face. My forehead was wet, slime-wet, and surprisingly cold. My chin was covered with spittle. I was dribbling like a baby. So yes, I said to myself, this is a cold sweat; and you are hypersalivating; and that’s it, you can’t stop it now, it’s called sea-sickness: how
embarrassing,
how
shaming.
“So let’s get this over,” I said out loud, and, concentrating (the smallest movement was an effort), with my right hand I scrabbled along the outer gap between the mattress and the side of the bunk, found my head-torch, strapped the elastic band over my slippery forehead and turned on the lamp. Exhausted, I lay back on my pillow and stared at my lit-up ceiling, at the plywood board two and a half feet above me, the base of the upper bunk.
A leering trawlerman stared back. He wore a tartan cap with a bobble; his eyes were enormous, their pupils a pair ofventilation-holes in the plywood; a ring hung from the lobe of his left ear; the scar of a knife-slash, freshly stitched, disfigured his right cheek; the tough shoots of his beard were perhaps ten days old. Drawn in thick black felt-tip pen, his portrait was signed, “CHUKKA FROM DY JANUARY ’95” in the top right-hand corner, and “BLAKEY FAEBCK MAY ’95” in the left.
My gullet and stomach rose out of my body: up above the trawlerman they flapped right and left, like fish-tails; still rising, they jinked and dipped and surged; they broke surface and, like dolphins, leapt undulating forward on the mass of bow-wave. They played, they plunged, they drove down in one
Similar Books
