The Night Surfer

By Alpheus Williams

There was a time when people read the sea. They touched skin and scale, fur and feather and divined the weather and the way of things with their fingertips. They felt its dimpled skin, watched its rippled surface and it sang to them and they heard its song.

Mattie Finn surfs dark water when the moon shines like a white stone on the surface and c

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publicious Book Publishing
• Release date: Dec 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9780987465818

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Amma and the boy are alone. The boy’s parents have gone out for the evening and Amma has been planning for weeks. She has a basket with bits of paper, leaves, feathers, twigs, pebbles, shells, shapes and figures. She has practised and rehearsed the scenes in her mind and now it’s time. The light from the fire flutters across the wall. Amma’s undulating, dulcet tones provide the narrative and the flickering flame from the peat fire breathes life to the shadows as the stories unfold.

The fire is warm and the room is redolent with the sweet marshy earthiness of burning peat. The shapes take on life in the flickering light. Amma works her magic with fingers, hands and the magical store in her basket.

The boy watches wide-eyed as the events take place. His heart beats quickly. He looks over his shoulder, checking, making certain they are alone. He knows that he is privileged to see these secret things, to hear these secret stories. He has sworn with his hand over his heart and his eyes shuttered tightly into darkness that he would not speak of it to his parents.

They have gone to a dance. His mother excited, his father acquiescent. She wore a new dress and did her hair. He wore his suit, waistcoat and tweed cap and trimmed his moustache. They had been planning their outing for weeks. So had Amma.

There! On the wall painted in shadow, moving as if in an ocean current…a mountain of ice! An iceberg! And beneath the surface, a castle. A city of crystal. The castle where the secret folk live, the immortals, the Faery folk, the magical folk, the Daoine Sidhe, deep beneath the hulking ice mountain floating way, way to the north in the cold, cold sea. The Finfolk.

She drops before the fire, her shawl closes up and the scene begins to change.

Her hands create transitions, fuzzy images on the wall, rushing wings and a conspiracy of ravens launch into frantic flight. The scene changes to beneath the surface, a city of ice, with watery passageways and finny creatures.

And here long, long ago they lived in castles beneath the sea, with walls of ice and windows of blue crystal. The enchanted ones would sleep forever and a day and only wake to visit mortals for their own amusement. Scream to the wind and cry to the rain if these days are gone and these castles empty!

My own people lived far to the north where it gets very cold indeed. And the water becomes ice and air becomes mist. Winter. Life is hard. Days are short. Nights are long and darkness lasts for days, weeks and months and the sky is lit at night with dancing bands of light that sweep across the sky in such richness and beauty that they forever ink themselves on the hearts of any who gaze upon them.

And the boy finds it hard to believe that a place exists where night lasts for such a long time; a place where the ocean freezes into continents of ice and there are fine cities of great wealth and beautiful creatures.

Amma waves her hand before the flame and a different place and time appears. And now on the wall, a fishing currach; long, narrow and lean, bobbing and rocking on a gentle sea.

There is a fisher, a young man, brash and silly who fancies himself for sure. He fishes alone and works hard. He spends hours out to sea in his boat and catches many fish. He makes a reputation as a young man of wealth. He is long, hard and strong and he is stingy, curmudgeonly and mean. There is little room in his heart for any other than himself. One day when pulling in his catch, he discovers a young seal pup caught up in his net. He is sorely angry. He doesn’t care to share his catch or the sea with men, let alone creatures. From his currach he hears the protesting barks and pleas of the seal herd. Piteous it is and would tear at the heart of the most hardened men. The soft brown, pleading eyes and plaintive cries make ne’er a dent on the fisher. The fisher scoffs and quick as a flitter, he pulls out his knife, long, shiny and honed to a quick and deadly edge. He slits the pup’s throat and tosses it over the gunnels. The sea bleeds red. Gulls circle above and the seal herd cries out in heartbreak and anguish.

He sets out early the next day. The mist is on the water but the sea is flat and calm. He rows to his secret site where a black rock rises above the surface and the sea laps gently at its edge. It’s a fine place for herring and a place that always rewards him with heavy nets of glittering shiny fish. The fisher sits in the stern and pulls at his nets and here he encounters a woman of rare beauty.

Amma’s voice brings colour to the shapes and shadows.

A woman of ivory skin and eyes as green as the near frozen sea sits on a rocky outcrop, the white swell surging around her feet like the train on a virgin bride’s wedding dress. The pale mists enfolds her, a cloak of shifting winds and breezes. Rich, red hair falls along a slender neck as pale and soft as a crocus petal. The young fisher feels his pulse quicken and his loins surge with a greedy, carnal hunger.

The porcelain head turns on the slender neck and the icy green eyes transfix him like a lance. Her lips part and she sings; sweet, sad and seductive, glamouring his mind and heart. He rows towards the rocky pinnacle. The white-fringed water laps the sharp hungry teeth of reef beneath his currach. The thin skin of his boat scrapes over the sea-honed rocks and opens his craft from stem to stern like a gutted fish. The lady of the froth laughs musically and blows a fine mist from the palm of her hand into the fisher’s gaping eyes. His eyes sting with fire. He squeezes them shut and is overcome with a burning darkness.

In blind horror he hears her soft, dulcet song as icy water rushes into his boat. The seals bark in the distance. Above him a sharp chorus of gulls sing out for supper.

The following morning his corpse rides the waves to a stony beach. Gulls circle over the rocky shore, a cacophony of cries, as they spiral down for breakfast. The village crone, withered, bent and raven-eyed, knows the signs. She knows the old ways and has skill in these things. She sounds the alarm and the village priest and a small group of people swarm down to the ocean’s edge. The priest and others wait deferentially for the hunchbacked hag to make her reading. The young fisher lies face-down on the stony beach, his hands stretched out before him as if he were diving into the earth. A young seal pup with a cruel cut across its throat lies next to him. The crone pulls back the shuttered lids of the seal pup, and with eyes that can thread needles by firelight, sees the angry image of the fisher on its pupils. She flutters quickly to the body of the fisher. She turns his face to the pale sun. His lids are squeezed closed. The crone looks to the sea, shuts her eyes and says the words that must be said. She looks into his face and peels back the eyelid with a gnarled thumb. And there, on the fisher’s pupil, only for her to see…the smiling lady of mist.

She makes a sign against the glamour and the priest is called to say the words that will free the fisher’s soul from the enchanted. The priest says the holy words over the prostrate fisher. The wind whispers above them. Sleet drops from the sky. Cold, milky mist envelops them. From the sea rides a cold, swirling vapour and an enchanted song sweeps in over gentle swells. They shiver. Men with shoulders strong and corded from pulling at the oars in stubborn seas feel the shudder in their hearts. Hard men, practical men that know of such things and fear them and give them their due respects.

None were fond of the young fisher. Still, they are men of the sea and the right and proper thing must be done. They shoulder his body and carry him to the village. The priest and the rest follow behind. No one turns a head. No one looks behind. The waves break and surge to the body of the young seal pup and suck it out to deep water. The sea claims it own and purges the intruder. The hag waits at the sea’s edge and whispers the right and proper words. Things are set aright.

Amma shakes her head and the wall blurs. She begins again.

Sometimes great harm and sometimes great fortune.

Once, a long time ago…

A fisher was lost at sea. He leaves behind a young wife and a young daughter. And now that he is gone, they need to fend for themselves. Mother and daughter are poor and their home is simple. The girl works hard at her chores and provides great comfort to her mother. She walks gently upon the earth and appreciates the value and worth of all living things. She and her mother are humble. They make do with what they have.

It is a hard life, for sure. The widow and girl walk down to the shore and gather seaweed and carry the heavy baskets up a steep hill to their cottage. They spread it on their garden to nourish potatoes, onions and greens. The girl walks barefoot in the cold water to collect cockles and mussels and she grows into a woman of a wondrous, strange and wild beauty. She attracts the eye of all the young men.

One day as she collects cockles along the shore, she looks out to see a great wave forming. She runs through the shallows as fast as she can. She runs and runs but cannot run quickly enough. She is swallowed up and gone. Her mother keens and sobs to the sea, air and earth. The priest comes to the shore in his dark robes and crosses and sprinkles it with holy water and fine Latin words. Young men who desired her and loved her and would have fought to the death for her hand openly weep at her loss. The village mourns.

At night the owl hoots eleven times plus one and all in the village know that she sleeps in a cold watery grave. The sea will wash away her soft, creamy flesh and bleach the blue from her fetching eyes. She will be scoured away to pale bone.

Once a year the mother returns to the sea’s edge on the date of the day that her daughter was lost. She tosses into the waiting waves sea kale, mouse ear and small delicate flowers that peek out amongst the grasses, twined into a wreath of grief. And it bobs and floats towards the empty horizon and the setting sun, then disappears. On this day the mother keens well into the night until her heart swells and hurts and almost breaks.

And in the eleventh year plus one of her going, the mother appears at the date of the day with her wreath of grief. The sky is dark, rain falls in stinging sheets and the sea is the colour of smoky slate. The mother grieves today as she has every day for twelve long years. She flings the wreath into the restless sea and waits. The wreath doesn’t move. It sets still on the surface of the tumultuous sea. A sharp intake of breath and a hand, pale and wet, reaches from the depths and clutches the wreath. The old woman, and she is old because grief has made her old well before her time, screams in the wind.

An arm and body follow the hand, and a woman of such wondrous, strange and wild beauty emerges from the blue slate sea. And…she’s as young and as fresh as the day she left. She is not alone. She holds the hand of a young girl with raven locks and ice blue eyes; a quick-eyed child of deep and magical beauty. Alongside her is a man of surpassing handsomeness; upright and strong with fierce and noble features.

And the mother knows that the Finman has taken her daughter to wife and she lives with him in his castle under the ice. Her daughter glides from the sea like wind on the water. She embraces her mother and the embrace is cold and icy. She places a heavy sack of silver and gold in her mother’s hand and tells her not to grieve. She wipes the tears from her cheeks with an icy finger; the tears turn to diamonds and she drops them into her mother’s hand. She instructs her mother to build a house on the hill overlooking the sea.

The mother has the house built and a fine house it is, too. And when it is finished she sits by the fire and looks out of her fine windows on moonlit nights for her daughter and granddaughter. And they visit her when the moon is full and lights a silver trail on the surface of the sea.

The widow becomes very old and one moonlit night her daughter comes for her and takes her to the castle in the ice and there she finds her long lost husband. And the house on the hill crumbles to dust, as all things made by man surely must. And forever and a day the widow and her husband live with their beautiful daughter, their grandchild and the Finman.

And believe me, young Frankie, forever and a day is a very, very long time indeed.

And then…Amma’s head arches and turns like a crow considering breakfast. Her eyes sharpen and quick as a twinkle she tosses the contents of the basket into the fire. It flares and licks at the magic and disappears before the door opens. His mother and father come into the room, fresh cheeked and lively from a night of dancing. And none the wiser for the secret stories told in their absence.

Amma pats his hand and softly whispers that there will be other dances and other times for stories and learning.

***

The shawl is black. She made it with her own hands. He has seen her knit, needles whirring and clicking, long sharp flashes before his eyes, his own sweater, cap and socks in red wool, green wool and white wool. But the shawl is black and was knitted long before he was born. It has cables, interwoven Nordic borders, starfish, shells, fish and long-stemmed flat leaves like those that are cast up by the sea in a storm. The blackness of the shawl shields the designs from human eyes. It becomes blurred and fuzzy, like faith and reason. If you want to learn, you have to touch. Skim your fingertips lightly like a butterfly over the woollen designs, the dimples, dips, rises and mounds. Close your eyes. Read carefully like the blind and you’ll see far more in Amma’s shawl. She says that they are magic symbols, magic words that will charm the wild things, watery things, and the Fin-people. She wears the shawl always. Sometimes in bad weather she pulls it up over her head and it makes her look magical, mysterious and witchlike. She wears it because she is a widow. She is in mourning. She has been in mourning since the boy can remember. The boy wonders who she mourns. He doesn’t think it is her husband. The boy is too young to have such doubts, but he heard it from his father. He heard it in the dark whispers of night after his mother and father made their mattress sing and his mother stifled screams of pleasure and giggles as the wind skittered about the eaves like a plague of twittering swallows.

Whispers slither through the walls and beneath the spaces of closed doors. The boy hears them. Ponders them. Files them in his young head for another day.

His dad’s deep, dulcet whisper, He weren’t me dad…no…and everyone knows it…but they pretend not to.

So, who was your dad? asks his mother, voice languid, soft, satiated and sleepy.

A Faery! But he weren’t no ordinary fairy…he were a sea Faery! whispers his father and they giggle softly in the night like naughty children.

Little boys are haunted by things in the night, things that moan and call out to them, things that are hidden in the forest and the trees and beneath the long-stemmed barley. Things bubble and burp in the peat bogs at night and disturb the far off cows and sheep and set them to lowing and bleating in the darkness. Things keep a boy’s eyes open at night; keen and wary with anticipation. At this time of night, after the passion ride of his parents, after their naughty, sensual whispers and all is quiet, he hears his mother’s soft breathing and his father’s low porcine snoring. These sounds fade into the background walls of the house and the whispers of those far off things whistle against his window and titter at his door.

Some in the village whisper things, their heads down, eyes averted, shoulders shielding intrusion from others. Hushes and secrets. They say Amma’s a witch. They believe it. They really do. They fear her, too. Some craft ancient druidic signs with fingers to ward away the evil eye and protect them from spells and charms. The more enlightened think she’s eccentric.

In this memory, she clutches the top of the blackthorn walking stick, poking the ground and securing her purchase, her other hand grasps the hand of a young boy. They walk stooped, with the wind at their backs pushing them along the steep grass- tufted headland. Blades of grass pushed flat to the ground, wet and slippery under foot. Her hair blows out in front of her face, flapping against her cheeks. She throws the woollen shawl over her head and laughs out loud. The wind drowns the music of her laughter to a tiny soft murmur but still loud enough for the boy to hear. He takes comfort in that. She holds his small hand firmly in hers and the little boy feels the strength in her tenacious fingers. Hers are clever hands. They knit and sew. The bones of her hands are like bird bones, fine and light and capable of flight. When she tells him tales, she uses them to etch out the outlines of Faeries, Banshees, Goblins and mysterious sea folk that live beneath the bothered surface of the oceans. They are delicate hands and look fragile, like fine china. But appearances deceive; even at his young age it astounds him how strong they are. Milky white hands on the verge of becoming old, a liver spot here and there freckle their surface and the knuckles and joints are beginning to take on size.

She moves under moody slate skies, the clouds dark and bruised, swaybacked and swollen bellied. She takes him to the edge of the earth that drops off into tumultuous seas. Rolling waves ragged, scarred and dimpled to living jade. Frothy white veils of elfin hair shoot out behind the rolling crest of swells as they race towards them, slamming and hammering onto the rocky headland and stony beach below. The rain comes pounding in torrents, pelting their hunched backs like pebbles thrown by vicious children.

She takes him down the steep incline, picking her way with her stick. Amma laughs in the wild anarchy of storm and they find shelter from the wind and pelting rain. Out of the wind she turns to him and holds him in her arms, just a little boy surrounded and embroiled in nature’s tempestuous temper. Amma revels in it. Her lips pull back in a warm smile and her cheekbones sharpen. The rain beads and glistens in her hair like a diadem beneath her magical black shawl. Her lazuli eyes glitter with scattered Faery lights

It is hard to imagine at times that beneath this violence was a world under a crystal dome, with magic cities of enormous wealth and beauty where the Fin-people lived. There, they took lone children into their cold embrace and swam them down to immortality. It was true. True, as his Amma had said, but it sang and rang of the devil’s work and that was true as well. True, as his mother had said.

His mother sang the song of the black-robed priest. Amma sang of something else altogether. She would take him on walks along the land that ran along the sea. And her birdlike hands would fly before the sky and trace her thoughts and beliefs to him:

There was a time when people read the earth and sea. They read the flight of creatures of wing. They touched skin and scale, fur and feather and divined the weather and the way of things with their fingertips.

They read the lichen that grew on stony surfaces. They read the moss and textured tree bark. They read the troughs in sea swells. They read the brooding, hulking bulks of clouds and translated their resonant rumblings and electric luminescence into words and meaning.

They divined the world like bent-backed, hoary-haired crones reading the glistening entrails of a sacrificed fowls. They felt its dimpled skin, watched its rippled surface. It sang to them and they heard its song.

People forgot the ways of the world but his Amma remembered. She walked the stony earth beneath the hammering rain and chilling wind, her acetylene eyes riveted on the surface of the water. Jewelled droplets shimmered on her skin and studded her hair with glistening crystals.

He feared the sea. Like a crystal orb held before him, the sea prophesised his end. Whipping out, running wildly towards land to crash into sprays and scatter droplets on stone and pebbles, then retreating, turning stones and pebbles end over end, clicking beneath the white surge, like clapping claws.

Shush! Amma cocks her head to one side, a birdlike movement, listening to something just beneath the torrent of hammering water and whistling wind and thudding rain. A sound, a shriek, a wail, a long keening cry on the wind and the water and then a song so sweet, so sad and so seductive that it reaches out and traps the heart. She takes the black shawl from her shoulders and wraps him snugly. The moment is leaden with expectation and the air is filled with ozone, salt and iodine. She places her cool lips to his forehead and smiles. Her lapis acetylene eyes freeze him to a stone seat raised above the incoming tide. He cannot move.

She turns from him. A wave builds and approaches the rock platform and in its froth the boy sees the figures through milk-glassy swells. Wrapped in ragged wisps of gossamer fluttering in the wind, they appear on the glistening rock, radiating silvery luminance against the dark angry clouds behind. His grandmother looks to the boy then turns towards the figures in the mist and the rain. The songs seduce him but he cannot move. The swells rush towards land and cast white-frothing violence upon the stones but the shapes are indifferent and upright in the surge. They hold out their arms to Amma. It is sanctuary and home. Amma, swift and light with the tumult and torrent, flies into their arms and vanishes with a crashing wave of snowy whiteness.

They find him there the following morning. The sun shining on the water, the great swells, smoothed, steep and glassy. The wind is still. The sky, punctuated with acrobatic white winged gulls, is clear. The songs have vanished.

His father mutters and curses. He shakes his head, picks up the boy and carries him back to the village. They never of speak of Amma, the mad Nordic witch again.

With care and reverence, the boy folds the magic shawl and hides it beneath his mattress.

He is taken to the blackrobed priest and all the magic and sorcery and evil is exorcised from him in a language foreign to his ear and punctuated with incense that burns his eyes and makes them water. His eyes will water like the surface of a still pond from then on and no one will ever speak to him of the black-shawled lady again. All will forget except him. The boy with the magic shawl hidden beneath his mattress will remember.

That was so long ago and the man doesn’t know whether it happened that way or not. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a dream or a memory. What matters is that he knows its story and that a black shawl with all its magic and meaning lives beneath his mattress.

Frank sometimes wonders if it really happened that way. The way he remembers it and the way he dreams it. It troubles him because it’s a dream he hasn’t had in a long time. Now, as sickness bleaches him, withers him to a thin papery husk, he throws his arms over his knees and clutches his wrists in trembling hands. He tightens his arms, pulling his knees in closer against his chest until the stinging sweat in his eyes feels good compared to the rest of him. Again, the dream, but he loses it, goes delirious. He’s not certain whether it’s a dream or a waking memory. It frightens him because when he has the dream he knows that he is looking into the vast maw of eternity. It comforts him for the same reason.

CHAPTER ONE

Dormant, benign or malignant, we carry them in the darks of our minds, in the secrets of our hearts, in the oceans of our blood. They dance in magical, complex conundrums of our genes. They swim in the ether of our soul. They follow us over oceans of time and space. We see them in our dreams. When we wake, we forget.

A scent of ozone, whisper of salt, touch of iodine, something cool next to you, an eye of acetylene blue or icy green, your heart thuds, your pulse speeds, perspiration slicks your forehead.

On this night the moon is full. Dark shadowy fingers drift across the sky playing peek-a-boo moon. On the sea, fickle moonlight dances on the surface…rubbery faced, condensing, lengthening, widening and undulating. A shaft of light scouts a steep path down the sharp, brittle headland rock towards the water. You pick a spot beyond the reach of the dark, surging sea and drop your gear on a flat, dry rock. You pluck a pilchard, cold and slippery, from your bag and thread it on a three-ganged hook, pushing the points through the flesh just over the top of the spine, cock the rod over your shoulder and whip the bait out to sea. You hear the whirr of escaping line and listen for the slap of the pilchard hitting water. You turn the handle and take in the slack. The rod dips forward a fraction. Good. You place the torch in the pocket of your waterproof jacket and seal the Velcro flap.

You sit on a flat, hard rock, lean the rod at an angle across your knee and watch rows of waves form in the darkness. The moon gives them a slight silver edge as they crest. You sigh, flip a cigarette from inside your jacket and light it with a metal lighter, hands cupped against the breeze. All is good in the world.

It’s a cool evening but you’re warm enough. You wear thick denims and a light woollen jumper beneath a waterproof windbreaker. You smoke and watch the sea. A large wave rises and races towards your rock. You scramble, lift the rod and shoulder bag, clamp the cigarette between compressed lips and crab-walk up the rocky headland. The wave breaks below, sending moon-glittered water into the air. Your rock is dry.

You return, adjust the tension on the line and sit, quiet and thoughtful in the dark. Blue-black swells sweep towards rocks and land. The moon shimmers, dances and mesmerises.

The breeze, cool and fresh, feels good. The tide hasn’t peaked. You watch the water carefully. You reel in the line. The pilchard has gone but pilchards are soft and after a while they wash off. You thread another on the hooks and cast, leaning forward to let the line spill further. You close the bail and tighten the line.

The fish strikes so hard that it throws you off balance and you almost go over the rock ledge. You lean back on the rod and set the hook deep. The fish hits back and you fall to one knee. Sharp pain. Your heart bangs in your chest and your pulse percolates in your throat.

There is too much fish on the line. You lighten the drag and give the fish its run. Line spills and jerks the tip of the rod. You’re almost out of line when the fish stops. The rod bends with its weight. Slow and easy you work the fish back towards the headland. No gaff. No net. You’re alone. This is a two-person job.

You bring it in close. You should cut the line. There is no safe way to land this fish. Still, it’s a big fish and it has been a real accomplishment to get this close. A prize. You shift the rod to your right hand, and using your left hand for support, you work your way down the sharp, brittle rock. You arrive at the edge, take the torch, slip the lanyard around your wrist and shine the torch on the water. The line circles below you. You see the large, forked tail froth the water. The water and fish lift high and then freeze for a split second before the wave sucks back, exposing shiny, wet weed and sharp, glittering rock. It’s like stepping in front of a train.

A rush of watery volume, a wall of black water blots pale silver moonlight. There can be so much in a split second; fear, sadness, surrender and a strong desire and impulse to live. In less than a second, you drop the rod, clutch the torch, fill your lungs then dive into the black wave and kick and thrash towards the bottom. It was either that or to be slammed against the unforgiving rocks with enough force to break arms and legs.

You are swept up and over sharp surfaces. There is some mercy and cushioning from the kelp clinging to the face of the submerged rock. You shove knees against chest and thrust against rock and towards the sandy bottom. It’s dark and your heart pumps with panic. Lungs shriek for air and your body bounces on sand and scattered rock. Clutch, pull, kick against the surge away from hard, sharp rock. Water sucks you back. You somersault with the force. Your head stings. Your ears ring.

Another wave tumbles you forward. The waterproof jacket slips over your head, binds your arms. The torch lanyard tight on your wrist is caught in the sleeve. You manage to free your head and then your left arm and hand from the sleeve. Lungs ache. There’s not much left. You force calm. Panic kills.

You see the pale moonlight wiggling on the surface and kick towards it. You break through and take sweet, cold air into raw lungs.

Slip out of your shoes. The knife is snug in its scabbard. Lucky. Slip it out and slice the elastic cuff of the waterproof jacket to free your right hand and torch.

Another wave forms up in front, sweeping you back towards rocks. You struggle to make distance from rocks and headland. The swell passes over you, sucks you under. You break towards the surface, slip out of your denims, kick them away, clutching belt and knife.

It’s cold. The woollen jumper feels heavy but it’s buoyant and it will hold in heat. You secure the belt with the knife and scabbard around your waist, holding the jumper close to your body. Shove the knife into the scabbard, push it in hard and place the rubber strap over the hilt. The headland is further away. That’s good. The rocks hurt, bruise and cut.

Your struggle to keep your head above the water and your body away from rocks has worn you down. Calm down, think and figure things out.

Now, swept away from the headland and the beach. Point the torch, flick the light on and off towards the shore. No salvation. No rescue. It is up to you. Stupid, stupid, stupid… fishing on the rocks at night...alone. You can be unlucky. You can be stupid. You can be both. Look out to sea, search for the lights of fishing trawlers. The horizon is empty except for the pale path of moonlight and