Wreckers Must Breathe Read Online Free Page A

jagged reef, now half-submerged, that curved out across Kennack Sands. ‘A Dutch barge went aground there—oh, it must have been four winters back. In three days there was nothing of her left except an iron stern post that’s there to this day, wedged among the rocks.’
    â€˜Have you had any wrecks recently?’ I asked. ‘There was the
Clan Malcolm
, I know—but since then?’
    â€˜Not just round here. There was one over to St Ives.’ He lit his cigarette. ‘Now the
Clan Malcolm
, she was a lovely wreck—a real Cornishman’s wreck.’ He shook his head over it. ‘If we had a wreck like that every year we wouldn’t need to worry about the winter.’ He put the tiller down and edged the boat along the shore. We were very close in now and the sea was making it difficult for me to stand. ‘You might get at pollock here,’ he said, taking over my other line.
    But, though we circled for more than ten minutes around the spot, all I got was a snide—a cross between a baby swordfish and an eel that made the bottom of the boat abominably slimy and got thoroughly tied up in the line. At length Big Logan headed the boat out to sea again. ‘You ought to get a few mackerel on the way back,’ he said. At that time I had caught just on forty. The sea was getting very jumpy, and every now and then I had to sit down on the thwart for fear of losing my balance. The movement of the boat did not seem to worry Logan. With feet spread slightly apart his great hulk seemed to tread the planks and almost to steady the boat.
    We were level with Caerleon Cove and about half a mile out when I got my next bite. I felt one sharp tug and then the line went quiet. I pulled it in. It was a mackerel all right. They always seemed to lie quiet after they had been hooked. I left Logan to deal with it and went over to the other line. As soon as I felt it I knew it was shoal mackerel for there was one on this line too. I began to pull it in. Suddenly there was a flash of broken water in the trough of a wave. I caught sight of it out of the corner of my eye. Something solid went streaking through the water beside the boat. The sea swirled and eddied, and before I had time to see what it was the line went tight in my hand and I was whipped overboard.
    Instead of bobbing to the surface immediately, I seemed to be sucked down into the sea. I was seized with a sudden panic. My breath escaped in a rush of bubbles and with my lungs suddenly emptied, I found myself as near to drowning as I have ever been. I fought my way upwards with a horrible feeling of constriction across the chest. And when I thought I could not restrain my lungs from functioning normally any longer, I came to the surface and trod water, gasping for breath.
    Almost immediately Big Logan hailed me from the boat, which had now circled and was making towards me. A moment later he had hauled me on board and I lay panting on the bottom of the boat. A fish flapped unhappily on the boards beside my head. I rolled over and found myself face to face with the mackerel that I had left Big Logan to deal with. Its plight was so similar to what mine had been an instant ago that I scooped it up in my hand and threw it back into the sea. Then I sat up and looked at Big Logan. ‘What was it?’ I asked.
    He shook his head and tugged at his beard. ‘I’d just got the mackerel off your line,’ he said, ‘and had dropped the weight back into the water, when suddenly the whole boat was rocking like hell and you were overboard. I looked up just in time to see your feet disappearing over the side. The line was tight in your hand, I could see that. Something pretty big must have got hold of it. It not only jerked you overboard so violently that your feet did not even touch the gun’l, but it snapped the line as clean as though it had been cut with a knife.’
    The boat was now headed back