Innocent on the run. Part 32.

Chapter 11. Ricky awoke from a troubled sleep. He lay there thinking of the bad news that he'd heard last night on the radio. If they traced the money that he'd used last night it wouldn't be very long before they found him. He still had to pay for the motel room today, so he jumped out of bed and looked at the money in the holdall. There were some old, used notes in loose bundles, but the most of it was crisp, new money. He would have to take a chance and use some of the old money, and hope that they couldn't trace it. He washed and dressed quickly and retrieved his washing from the balcony. His heart was thumping like mad as he approached the desk to pay for his room, and the desk clerk laughed and said ` Butterfingers,' when he dropped the money on the floor from his shaking hands. Scooping it up quickly he dropped enough to cover the bill on the counter and hurried away. Walking back down the seafront he mingled with the crowds, and headed towards the docks. There were three sea going vessels in the docks but none of them was flying the red duster, so he walked around the fish dock looking at the small boats and trawlers. Men were busy unloading boxes of fish on to the quay, to be taken away on the backs of the trucks that were stood by waiting. Hundreds of boxes were piled up and more coming off the boats. There was an enormous variety of fish, of many different colours and sizes, from huge swordfish to little sardines, large octopus to small shrimp. Ricky wandered on, killing time by watching the bustling activity of the fish docks. He saw the Texas State Aquarium building and went in to pass the time, marvelling at the number of different species of fish, mammals and crustaceans on display from the Gulf of Mexico. Outside the Aquarium he got on the Tide, which is a brightly coloured bus running between the beaches and the downtown district. He wandered around the shops and stores, and stopped at a Soda fountain to have a hamburger and coke. He'd noticed several cheap looking hotels on the way and decided to stop at one of them that night. Looking out of the window of the Soda fountain, he saw a police car draw up outside one of the hotels and a policeman went inside. He came out a few minutes later and went into the next hotel. There were three other hotels on that block and the policeman went in to each of them. Ricky was scared. They were obviously making enquiries about someone. Maybe it was himself . Maybe the ten dollar bill he'd passed in the restaurant last night had been found to be a part of the robbery. He was sweating again. Once the police car had driven off, he went out on to the street and walked back to the docks area. It was early evening by the time he got there. Feeling very depressed, he watched the trawlers getting ready to put to sea, not really observing anything, wrapped up in his own problems. If the police were warning the hotels and motels to keep an eye open for him, then he had nowhere to stay at night, unless he slept in a railway carriage or a disused building. A voice said,` You looking for work pal?' He looked up. A man was stood on the back deck of a stern trawler, looking at him. `I see you've got your bag with you. Are you looking for work?' Ricky thought quickly. This was an answer to his problem, he could go to sea until the heat died down. `Yes,' he answered. The skipper looked at him. `You been to sea before ?' `Yes I have.' `Okay, I need a deck hand. My regular man's on vacation. Ten bucks a trip and a share of the catch.' ‘Fine,' Ricky answered, jumping on deck. `Stand by that stern rope, we're about to cast off,' and he went forward and climbed the ladder into the wheelhouse. The engine started with a roar and the bow line was thrown aboard by a man on the quay. The skipper eased the bow of the boat out and looked out of the rear window of the wheelhouse. He signalled to the man on the quay and he cast off the stern line. Ricky hauled it inboard and coiled it down on deck. The boat got under way and she steamed slowly out of harbour. Ricky went up to the wheelhouse, taking his bag with him. There was another man in there beside the skipper and he looked at Ricky and held out his hand. `Call me Hank.' `Ricky.' Hank was a short, stocky man about twenty five years old, with blonde hair and blue eyes. `Nice to meet you Ricky. You been on these boats before ?' `No, but I've done a trip to sea.' `You aint American, Rick, where you from ?' 'England. I'm here on holiday but I've run out of money.' `Oh, right, kinda working your way around the States, huh?' `Yes, that's right.' `Okay, you'll soon learn this job, it's easy.' `Easy my ass.' The skipper joined in. ` If you call being on your feet for up to eighteen hours a day, sliding all over the deck in scales and slime, easy, then O.K. it's easy.' Hank laughed. `Take no notice of the skipper, Rick, he loves this job, otherwise he wouldn't be back here every trip.' `I'm back here to pay the bank, that's why I'm back here. Now show Rick where to stow his gear and get some coffee up here.' Hank jumped to attention and gave a salute. ` Yes sir, ' he shouted. `Asshole,' the skipper said, grinning. Hank threw Ricky's bag down the hatch in the deck and climbed down the ladder after it. Ricky followed him and found himself in a small mess room with one table and some red leather seats around the walls. There were two wooden chairs at the table and a refrigerator in the corner. A small two ring cooker was alongside the fridge and a small sink unit alongside that. There were three bunks above the red seating, two already made up and one with a sheet and blanket folded up on it. Hank threw Ricky's bag up on the unmade bunk. He went across to the cooker and put a coffee pot on and turned the heat on.` I'll show you around ,' he said. ` It won't take long, she's a small boat.' There was a passageway behind the messroom with three doors opening off it, one a shower and the other a toilet. The third door opened on to the back deck, and Hank showed him the winches and nets that they used to catch the fish. A small hatchway in the deck opened up for access to the engine room, and loose boards on the deck were lifted to expose the fish hold. Before leaving the dock the boat had been supplied with a load of ice to keep the fish fresh, and this was piled in one part of the hold. Hank also showed him where they kept the large fishing rods that they used if they came across a shoal of Tuna. The three of them would be on deck casting the rods and hauling in Tuna as fast as they could, until the shoal disappeared. He told Ricky that Tuna went for the flashing hooks, thinking they were small fish glinting in the water. They went back inside the accommodation and Hank poured coffee into three mugs, before they joined the skipper on the bridge. The sea was flat calm, and they steamed into the setting sun, passing an island on the starboard side. `North Padre Island,' the skipper said. ` You been on the island, Rick?' `No, not yet.' `You ought to go when you get a chance, there's some great beaches with fine restaurants on the islands. There's water sports like sailing and surfing, too. ' `Is it a big island ? ' `Yeah, North and South Island stretches all the way down to Brownsville, on the Mexican border, and Mustang Island goes the other way up to Galveston Island. It's like a barrier that stops the coastline from eroding away. ' ‘Oh, I see.' `Okay,' Hank said. ` I'm turning in. See you at four a.m. Goodnight,' and he disappeared down the hatch. `Goodnight .' They both called after him. `You'd better turn in as well, Rick,' the skipper said. `We start work at four a.m. as soon as we get to the fishing grounds.' `Okay, skipper, see you in the morning.' He climbed down the ladder to the mess room. Hank was already in bed, so he stripped off, made the bunk up roughly and turned in, using his holdall for a pillow. Hank shook him awake after what seemed like a very short time, and told him it was four o'clock. Coffee was already on the stove and Ricky got out of bed and went into the bathroom. When he came out the coffee was ready and Hank gave him a cup, then climbed the ladder to the bridge. Ricky joined the two of them in the wheelhouse and the Skipper turned from the echo sounder and showed Ricky the paper record, which was a cluster of pen lines on the otherwise virgin paper that he said was a shoal of fish. The echo sounder transducer was mounted in the hull of the boat and it sent out radio frequency signals which bounced off any target in the sea. The reflected signals were then received by the transducer and sent to the display in the wheelhouse, where they were displayed on a paper chart on the recorder. If there was nothing underneath the boat, the paper was unmarked, but if fish were present they appeared as groups of black lines. ` Time to go to work.' Hank said, and led the way out of the wheelhouse and down the ladder to the after deck. He showed Ricky the locker containing oilskin coats and trousers and they dressed up while the skipper turned the boat on to a new course, to fish for the shoal they'd seen on the echo sounder. Hank looked up to the wheelhouse window and got the thumbs up sign from the Skipper. He showed Ricky how to start up the winch and they paid the net out slowly over the stern. When all the net was out, the two wires holding the mouth of the net open were secured by applying the winch brake. As they towed the net along, any fish in it's path would be trapped and would swim to the far end of the net. Once the Skipper judged that he'd got the shoal, he signalled out of the window and they operated the winch again, hauling the net inboard. Hank operated the winch, hauling the catch clear of the water. The net was bulging with thousands of fish of different colours, and Hank showed Ricky how to bring the hydraulic ‘A’ frame, which the net was suspended by, inboard. They took up the deck timbers exposing the hold. Hank then paid out on the winch while Ricky dragged the suspended net over the hold. As Hank slipped the quick release knot on the bottom of the net, the fish tumbled into the hold in a multi coloured cascade. The two of them then went into the hold and sorted the fish into types and sizes, adding ice to the boxes, while the Skipper looked for another shoal. Twice more that day they lowered the net. The first time they bagged another shoal of fish, but the second time they got only a few. Ricky had to prepare the evening meal while Hank took over from the Skipper, steering the boat. When the steaks were done, Ricky shook the Skipper, then relieved Hank while he ate. The rest of the evening and night was divided up into watches and they took turns at the wheel. This was the routine for the next six days, shooting the net when a shoal was near, sorting the catch into sizes and types, until the boxes in the hold were gradually being used up. Ricky caught his oilskin coat in the winch one day and was nearly pulled into the drum. Luckily, Hank managed to stop it just before a serious accident occurred. He was extra careful after that. They were in the hold one afternoon, when the Skipper raced down the deck and shouted into the hold ` Tuna.' Hank shouted, `Come on, Rick' and leapt for the ladder. Ricky looked in amazement at the sea boiling with Tuna. They were in the middle of a shoal and Ricky grabbed the fishing rod that was thrust in his hands and swung the hook into the sea. Immediately he felt the tug as a Tuna snapped at the hook and he followed Hank's example and hauled it inboard, flicking it off the hook into the hold before dropping the hook over the side again to repeat the process. The Tuna were biting at anything and they spent three hours constantly shaking Tuna off their hooks. As quickly as they had appeared, the Tuna were gone. Some magical signal had sent them flying off in a different direction, diving for the depths. Ricky was exhausted. His arms felt like lead and he sat on the deck, puffing and panting. The Skipper was ecstatic. It was a marvellous catch and he left Hank and Ricky to get the Tuna into the last of the boxes while he turned the boat to head for home. The skipper and Hank were as happy as schoolboys, laughing and joking with each other and singing snatches of songs, as the boat plodded on, reduced in speed by the amount of fish in the hold. The Skipper had called up his wife on the radio, and when they bumped alongside the quay at Corpus Christie, there were trucks waiting to take the cargo away. They spent the next two hours unloading the boat onto the quay, swinging the boxes out of the hold in a net with the boats little davit. When the work was done, the Skipper told Ricky he would pay him the following day when they'd worked out how much the catch was worth, and he was free to go. `Could I Stay on the boat tonight, Skip, I don't really fancy a motel.' `Sure you can, no problem. Feel free to take anything you need to eat, there's loads of food left.'