French Canadian Trawler threw weapons at us and rammed into our side, chief. We was comin’ back, from the island of west of Greenland, doing some lobesterin’, just delivered the cargo of all cargoes. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn’t see the first enormous lobster for about a half an hour. Enormous lobster. Thirteen footer. You know how you know that when you’re in the water, chief? You tell by lookin’ from the Front claws to the tail. What we didn’t know… was our lobster mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Huh huh. They didn’t even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The lobsters come cruisin’. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it’s… kinda like ol’ squares in battle like a, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the lobster comes to the nearest man and that man, he’d start poundin’ and hollerin’ and screamin’ and sometimes the lobster would go away. Sometimes he wouldn’t go away. Sometimes that lobster, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a lobster, he’s got…lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eye. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’. Until he snaps his claws at ya and those black eyes stare at you. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin’ and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin’ and the hollerin’ they all come in and rip you to pieces.
Y’know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don’t know how many lobsters, maybe a thousand! I don’t know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin’ chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, Fisherman’s mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well… he’d been snapped in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Coast Guard C-130 saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He’s a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big Coast Guard SH-60 comes hovering own and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a life-jacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the lobster took the rest, June the 24, 2005. Anyway, we delivered the lobster cargo.