The thin dawn light barely penetrated within the fish dock. A low grey sky hung over lower, greyer buildings. The quayside was stone cobbles, steel rails, iron bollards, hawsers of wire, hemp, grubby orange or green poly...
(Poly-propylene not polly parrot and with certainty nothing to do with the orange and green, and blue and yellow, macaw mariachi band that had so led Phoebles astray the previous evening.)
...And above all else, bludgeoning every other sensation into submission, the all pervading smell of fish meal.
A small, rusty, steam driven crane clanked and hissed as its arm swung the last of the provisions aboard the hundred and fifty foot of sturdy, workmanlike vessel tied up before them. The Lord Ancaster was an Arctic Coleyfishtrawler and Coldwar Spyship of a type known to trawlermen as a sidewinder, the most seaworthy craft ever built. She had a low grey hull with high bow and whaleback foc'sle. The superstructure aft was painted in excremental yellows and fawns and grained in imitation of pine planking. Her funnel was canary yellow with a red and black flag painted on each side.
Consuella and Snowdrop had come to see them off. Steam was already up and the tide on the turn. Good-byes were said and a few hugs exchanged, Bert Wold handed over a letter for his family, to be posted in the event... Boris and Phoebles, Ginsbergbear, Strawberry, Ferdinand and Bert were no sooner aboard than the gang-plank was pulled in and lines cast off. Everyone waved.
"Lovely she goes." intoned the helmsman.
They left port in the traditional manner, midway between the lock sides and at speed, to prevent any of the crew jumping ship at the last minute. Then they turned down the thick brown river towards the open sea.
The skipper was Harold Entwhistle, roundish and shortish. The Entwhistles had been trawler skippers for as long as there had been cod in the sea. His shirt sleeves rolled up, he wore a knitted waistcoat, moleskin trousers, carpet slippers and a cloth cap. "We will take you to the edge of the pack-ice and then you are on your own. If we hear nothing from you we'll come back in the spring to look for your bones."
The crew stood about eyeing the landlubbers. To a man they wore sou'westers, thigh-boots and rubber frocks, "Bit Malcolm McClaren." quipped Ginsbergbear, but it would be a rare fetishist found this bunch alluring. The cabin-boy, barely visible under his oilskins, was clipped round the ear and told to show the party to the saloon and furnish them with tea.
The saloon was below deck and trapezoidal in plan, its shape governed by that of the ships stern, which it occupied. For the most part the space was taken up with a matchingly trapezoidal table, there was fixed seating around the panelled sides and above and behind the seating were cupboards which were the bunks for our party. Each had a little bookshelf and lamp and induced a surprising, womblike sense of security in its occupant. At mealtimes the table was criss-crossed by deep fiddles and twisted tea-towels were used to jam the pots and pans in place. Whilst still in the river such precautions seemed excessive, but they were soon to learn that there is little that a trawlerman does without reason.
As she left the river the Ancaster met the North Sea swell. She settled her stern down into the troughs like an old pipe smoker relaxing into his favourite, well cushioned armchair. She rolled with an easy motion. She trailed seagulls. Here on the midnight-grey waters beneath a gun-metal sky, she was at home.
For twelve hours all but Ginsbergbear were seasick. He swore by the preventative properties of his Black Alamout Catnip Shag which he packed into a cracked and burn-scarred churchwarden, but the foul fug did little for his comrades. Ginger biscuits were consumed in vast number - and alleviated the worst of the nausea. Bert Wold retired to his bunk with a bucket and was not seen to move in two days. Once the miseries of mal de mer were behind them (for most it goes off as suddenly as it comes on) our heros began to savour the seagoing experience. Ginsbergbear had found a sheltered spot between the funnel and lifeboat where he was well into a second hand hardback of Moby Dick. Phoebles had discovered that the galley was warm and the cook often appreciated his culinary advice. There was a great deal of fish on the menu. For Ferdy it was the bridge, where he had befriended the Third Hand, one Bill Tate, who had a Yorkshire tan that stopped at neck and wrist and who had sailed the Arctic from Greenland to the White Sea, Norway to Bear Island, Svalbard, and beyond. Bill imparted some of his knowledge of helmsmanship and navigation and at night they watched the shimmering green veils of the northern lights playing above them. Boz liked the deck best, the salty sea smells, the waves rushing by, the dolphins and terns and gulls. He wished they were in warmer oceans with the flying fish of which he'd read, he'd always wanted to see flying fish. Flying coleyfish would be nice, he mused. Strawberry had taken to playing cards with the crew in the foetid foc'sle where he discussed politics and engendered a degree of unrest. Bert had still not arisen from his bunk.
On the third day they began to encounter growlers and bergy bits, manageable chunks of floating ice. On their fourth morning they woke to find the whole ship encrusted in sparkling, sugary ice and on the horizon, northwards, a glaring thin white line.
"We are there. That is the ice-pack." announced the skipper.
