When he finished his smoke, he turned the schooner toward the shore.
He eased the throttle and steered her in, glancing constantly at the depth sounder and the boat on the rocks, and back over his shoulder into the chaotic sea and the south wind.
After fifty yards, as he reached the beginning of the undersea ledge, the number on the depth sounder started getting smaller. The wind blew spray off the disorderly, rough swells, which slapped against the stern of the schooner and splashed up into the cockpit.
The depth sounder’s numbers changed as the swell lifted and lowered the boat: 40, 34, 38, 32.
When the depth sounder read twelve feet on the top of the swells and eight at the bottom — as close to bottom as Scarnum wanted to get — Cerebus was still about one hundred feet from the lobster boat.
“Son of a whore,” he said, and he goosed the diesel and spun the wheel, bringing the bow into the chop. He powered offshore another twenty feet, set the engine to idle, and ran up to the bow and dropped to his knees over the anchor winch. He opened it up and yanked on the chain as it spun off the spool, measuring it between his outstretched arms — six feet from fingertip to fingertip — so he would know how much line he was dropping. When he’d played out sixty feet of rope, he wrapped it around the cleat on the bow and moved back to the cockpit.
He sang to himself as he waited for the anchor to catch.
I’s the b’y that builds the boat,
and I’s the b’y that sails her.
When the line pulled tight, and the schooner pulled itself straight into the wind, Scarnum went below to the rope locker, put on a life jacket, and fetched a plastic bucket, a coil of light, yellow nylon rope, a coil of heavy white rope, and an inflatable boat in a nylon bag.
It took him half an hour of pumping and cursing to inflate the boat. When he was done, he cut two pieces from the end of the nylon rope, one short and one long. He used the short piece to tie the bucket to the inflatable. The longer piece he used to tie his life jacket to the inflatable — a lifeline in case he was washed out of the boat.
He tied one end of the yellow line to the bow of the little boat. The white rope he coiled carefully on the inflatable’s floor. He then tied the ends of both lines to a big cleat on the stern of the schooner.
He stood on the deck for a moment, thinking, then untied his lifeline, went below, and lit the diesel heater in the cabin, then went back to the cockpit and retied his lifeline.
Scarnum cursed as he eased the boat over the stern of the schooner, and he cursed as he climbed down the little ladder. He cursed as he pulled the boat closer with his feet and cursed as he sat down heavily in it, clutching an oar and the yellow nylon line in one hand.
Somehow, there was already water in the damned thing, and he could feel the seat of his pants getting wet. He wedged his legs against the walls of the boat, pulled himself up to his knees, and started to let out some of the yellow line tied to the stern of the schooner, letting the wind push the inflatable away from the schooner toward the lobster boat. The boat rose and fell on the swells, jerking on the line as he let it out. The thick white line uncoiled slowly, falling into the grey sea in front of him. Spray splashed over the bow of the little boat and into his face. Scarnum grimaced, then grinned, and sang, out loud now.
I’s the b’y that builds the boat,
and I’s the b’y that sails her.
I’s the b’y that catches the fish
and brings them home to Liza.
There were more verses to the song, and Scarnum knew them, but he sang only the first, over and over again.
With his left hand he played out yellow line. With his right he held the oar. He jammed the end of it into his armpit and jammed the blade into the water and used is as a rudder, managing to steer the inflatable boat through the swells a bit to the east, so that he would reach the lobster boat. As he let out the line, he looked anxiously back and forth between the schooner and the lobster boat.
When he was six feet away from his prize, he held the line taut and looked over his shoulder at the lobster boat. The stern was being hammered by the choppy sea. It was so low in the water that the waves were splashing up onto the deck, but it was not so low that there would be any easy way to get up on the deck to make a line fast.
Scarnum eased out more line and steered the inflatable toward the surging stern of the lobster boat, until the two boats touched. He put his hand against the smooth fibreglass hull of the lobster boat’s stern and cursed when the boats slipped apart again. He had to drop to his arse to keep from falling in the roiling, freezing water between the boats, and had to paddle frantically to get the inflatable against the lobster boat again. Again he clutched the lobster boat, this time with both hands. He could hear the hull of the lobster boat grinding against the rocks below, and for the first time he could see the name of his prize, painted on the stern just below the water’s surface: the Kelly Lynn.
With each swell, the inflatable rode higher against the stern of the Kelly Lynn, which was shifting unpredictably on its rock pivot. Scarnum grabbed the white line, pulled it over his shoulder, and looked up at the stern rail of the Kelly Lynn. As the two boats rose and fell, the plastic lip at the top of the lobster boat’s stern came tantalizingly close. Scarnum had to keep his hands moving constantly to keep the boats together. It started to rain.
After a few minutes of scrabbling against the stern of the Kelly Lynn, Scarnum realized he was never going to get hold of the stern rail from his knees.
“Son of a whore,” he said, quite loudly, and rose to his feet in the little boat, jamming his boots into the space where the inflated tube met the floor. He pressed his chest and face against the stern of the Kelly Lynn and reached up toward the stern rail. The inflatable twisted and pulled at his feet. For one sickening moment, the two boats pulled apart and Scarnum thought he was going to drop into the water.
On the next swell, the inflatable rose at the same moment that the Kelly Lynn sank down. Scarnum managed to get his hands and his elbows over the rail. When the sea rose again, he grunted and launched himself off the inflatable boat and managed to get his arms entirely up over the stern rail, so that his forearms were inside the Kelly Lynn. Behind him, the inflatable drifted away. His legs were in the icy sea, which surged and splashed at him as the Kelly Lynn rose and fell. Waves smacked hard against his back.
This, Scarnum knew, was as close as he was going to get to being on the deck of the boat. There was no way he could pull himself up. Behind him, the inflatable rode the waves. The line from the boat tugged at his life jacket.
To Scarnum’s right, on the starboard gunwale, there was a stainless steel cleat. He pulled himself toward it, his freezing hands clutching against the smooth fibreglass, the waves surging around his legs.
When he was next to the cleat, Scarnum held himself to the boat with his left arm and pulled the white line off his right shoulder and wrapped it around the steel post. It took him five minutes of exhausting work to manage a simple cleat hitch with the heavy, wet line, and the inflatable tugging hard at his life jacket and the sea pulling at his legs. By the time the line was fast, linking the lobster boat to the schooner, his left arm felt like it was going to be pulled out of its socket.
“I’s the b’y that builds the boat,” he sang softly through clenched teeth as he hauled the inflatable toward him. “I’s the b’y that builds the fucking boat.”
Scarnum’s left arm was getting weak and he was shivering uncontrollably. He had no choice but to drop into the little inflatable boat. His upper body landed in the boat but his legs were in the sea. A sickening amount of water surged into the boat as he pulled himself in. It was very cold.
The inflatable swung away from the lobster boat on its yellow nylon tether, riding the confused swells, jerking roughly on the line.