Someone suddenly popped up and told Chap to go to the crew quarters below deck. A new sailor like him should liedown there, rather than climb up and down, risk a misstep at night and fall into the water. If seasick, it was the placeto be to crawl to the gunwale and vomit.
Sila 4 was 18 meters in length. It was the single-net middle-sized trawler seamen call a soft-timber boat. With its 250HP engine and ten deckhands, it was the biggest of Thaokae* Kok’s boats. It had come out of the shipyard a little overtwo years before. Deckhands, engineer, pilot, cook and captain—altogether fourteen lives on board. The fishing masterand his nine net handlers had long been together, knew their jobs and each other’s minds well. There was no need forextra help.
The old hands were all relieved when they knew for certain Chap was to be delivered to Sila 3, which was stilltrawling around Tao Island. They had no time for a work mate who wasn’t up to it, like a