Backline

short and dark story.

BACKLINE.

 

I awoke with a start. Bloody Captain leaning on the horn. Dark. I stood up. Bathwater was cold now. I opened the window and leaned out into the frosty November air.

Let yourself in. Put the kettle on. I’ll be down now.

I go into my bedroom and get ready. It’s two-thirty. B*****d’s never late. I make sure my knife is at the small of my back. Just so. I go down.

You’re always late, Silas.

You’re always on time, Calum. Where’s my coffee?

We drink quickly and I have a slug of rum from the bottle on the kitchen table after he’s marched out. Neaps moon. Less tide. Less work. I get into the truck beside my Captain. Six boxes of frames in the back. Cod and Haddock. Heads on, fillets off. Frames. Death ever present in our lives. The stench of it always around us. Always upon us.

Calum goes on board Curlew, I lift on the frozen boxes of frames and stow them abaft the wheelhouse to port. He starts the engine and I undo and throw on board the bow and stern lines and backspring, I slip the forespring and go onboard. He motors forward on the spring and Curlew’s stern swings out into the channel away from the cluster of boats. We head out. I coil the mooring warps and stow them in the lazarette. Breakfast time.

As Calum makes way into the dark, I fry rashers and eggs. We eat in silence. Curlew starts pitching and rolling as we clear the point and head into the Atlantic to haul our first string. Forty pots on this one. An hour to drink coffee and smoke. An hour to split the frozen frames in two, to bait up.

Murdo was out early today.

I never saw him last night.

Aye, he’s steady that one.

He usually has a pint, so.

Sure, he got in after us.

Did you see him so?

No.

How d’you know then?

You talk too much, Silas.

Ah, f**k yerself!

I don’t like Calum. We steam into the gloom. I go aft and sort the god damn frames. I’m tired of this s**t. We’d left the Broken Yard at midnight. Drunk. I’d had a hot bath. Fallen asleep in it. Woken up in cold water by a b*****d captain taking me out to more bloody cold water. I wanted to wake at nine in the morning. Next to a beautiful woman. She’d be kind. She’d be warm. She’d like me for my smile and the guns this f*****g work puts on my bones. She’d like me for who I am. Sure, and she’d be rich.

Seaway starts to build and I go forward into the wheelhouse to haul on my oilskins. I make sure I can get my knife out quickly. I check the edge. Keen as mustard, so. I replace the blade carefully. Death comes quickly at sea. He’s always in the shadows. Watching. Waiting for a little mistake. An oversight. A psycho cousin that won’t go away.

The little boat rolls violently as we’re struck by a breaking comber. I’ll have to watch the bloody backline today. Must check the stack before shooting the gear. One wrong step...

Calum calls aft to me.

Five minutes, set the sorting table and get ready with the gaff.

Aye, aye, yer rosy arsed b*****d!

I unlash the parts of the sorting gear and set ready. I stand by the slave-we call the pothauler our slave- and peer into the gloom. Dawn is a hollow vow in the east.

I spot the dahn buoy before him, and tell him ten points starboard.

He comes aft to help me haul the gear. First the buoy, backline onto the slave. Hydraulics on. Up slow, soon the chain. Heavy chain each end of the string. Stops the tide moving our gear too far. After the chain, the first pot. Parlour pots here. No escape for the crabs. Brown crabs this far out. Velvets close in. Maybe a lobster if we’re lucky. Better price.

Hard work. Shake out. Sort. Bait. Stack. Then the danger. Calum forward to steam into the tide. Me aft amongst five hundred fathoms of backline, legs and bridles, all spliced to heavy pots to shoot into the dark. One wrong move...

The first string takes us thirty five minutes beginning to end. I’m sweating. Its ten minutes to the next string, so I go forward to roll a cigarette. Calum’s already done it and hands me a steaming cup of coffee. I cheer up as I taste the rum he’s poured into it.

What’s that?

Ah, s**t!

There’s a blip on the radar. We head towards it. After a while we recognize Ann Bonney. She’s turning circles around her gear.

We say nothing but exchange dark looks.

Calum radios but no response.

I’ll put alongside to windward, go onboard and I’ll stand off half a cable.

I climb over the gunwales between swells. The little boat’s deserted. Marie Celeste in miniature. Murdo’s half drunk coffee is on the bench next to the tiny gimballed stove.

I go aft and peer at the deserted deck. Scratch marks on the starboard gunwale. His knife rolling in the scuppers. No doubts now.

I go back into the wheelhouse and look at the plotter. I set a course for the nearest string. Calum keeps pace half a cable away to port. I lay little Ann Bonney alongside the dahn and run aft to grab the gaff. I hook the buoy and lay the backline onto the tiny slave. Start hauling. Murdo works twenty pot strings.

It’s a good haul. Four lobsters, eight big c**k crab and thirty two hens by the thirteenth pot.

I throw them all overboard.

The thirteenth pot is empty. Deep breath. Steel.

He comes up after six fathoms of backline. Riding turn round his right sea boot. The leg broken. Bent the wrong way. Must have held onto the gunwale ‘til it snapped. Scratch marks on the gunwale, knife in the scuppers. Dropped it in his panic. Panic at sea means death.

Yes, there were no crabs in the thirteenth pot. They were all on him. Eaten away his eyes and face. Put them all back, I did.

Got in early that day.

A big depression formed over us that night. We were stormbound for days. I drank all my wages.

Reviews

[Storyworker]

First off, great style. The combination of short sentences worked well to keep the reader’s interest, while strangely adding some mystery to the story. It brought out the personality of it and I loved that. Plus, you combined short sentences with long at times, easing perfectly between styles. Very nice.

One thing I noticed very quickly was your apparent knowledge of sailing. This knowledge is used a lot in your story and gives it a lot of quality if you know how a ship works. Words are used that almost make the story seem like a second language. Sadly, that may be a problem. Many readers aren’t going to understand what exactly is going on. If you want readers to understand, you may have to somehow explain what each word means. Now, this may not involve blatantly telling the reader, but it may instead be showing how the word affects what’s happening, or what it may look like, etc. Now, understanding may not have been your goal, which is completely acceptable, but know that a reader will have to do their research to understand the story at all, and many readers will not do this. If you’re going for art though, I applaud you, because this is very well done.

Dialogue was great. I really got a sense of the characters in just how they were talking. It was realistic, short and sweet and to the point. I loved how it flowed and had great personality. The dialogue was also rather rare (for lack of a better term) in the story, and it’s impressive that you were able to keep my attention throughout without alternating description and dialogue.

Something I didn’t quite like was what seemed like filler throughout the story. The majority of the story was not based on the main plot. Instead, it was focused on the sailing aspects. Once again, this may have been what you were aiming for, but don’t lose sight of the plot in order to give your story quality. You might try finding a way to combine that quality filler with plot in order to give the reader some real interest, and still retain the literary appeal. As it stands, the reader is just floating along, waiting for something to happen that has something to do with the main plot, which, as it seems to stand now, only appears in the beginning and end of the story.

I would really focus on the fact that the story is not understandable to the average reader. If you’re going for an artistic view where readers must decode your information though, well done. It’s hard to write that way. I can tell that you put a lot of work into this because of all of the real information that it contains. Just be sure to use that information well, and don’t get carried away with using it in every sentence.

Once again, your story is sort of like a second language. Whether you want it that way or not is your choice, but consider your audience.

-Storyworker