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Aboard the vessel Deep Sea Explore the early days of the Bering Sea king crab fishery in this excerpt from William McCloskey Jr.'s new novel 'Warriors' Warriors By William B. McCloskey Jr. Skyhorse Publishing, 2013 Hardcover, 400 pp., $24.95 www.skyhorsepublishing.com
Editor's Note: William McCloskey Jr., whose work has appeared in NF through the years, as well as in many other publications, has written a prequel to his novel "Highliners" and its sequels "Breakers" and "Raiders." In "Warriors," fictional characters Sgt. Jones Henry, Japanese officer Kiyoshi Tsurifune, and Resistance fighter Swede Scorden struggle to regain normalcy after World War II; each wrestles with what they've endured in the war, and yearn to return to the fishing life. All three eventually find themselves in Alaska -Jones as a fisherman, Swede working in a cannery and Kiyoshi as an ambassador for the Japanese trade.
In this excerpt from "Warriors,"Jones and Swede head to the Bering Sea aboard the 140-foot Deep Sea, which caught and processed king crab from 1947 into the 1950s in this blossoming new fishery.
The crab legs they handled were like the big ones [Jones] hustled Uve in Kodiak, waving sluggishly from their central body. The workers boiled the legs until the shells turned red, then packed them in trays that were sent down to a freezer. He soon grew bored of watching the process over and over. Why the hell had he stuck himself aboard this ship?
And then there was Swede - watching, taking notes, asking questions of the foreman. He even crawled below into the freezer spaces. He pulled out crab legs just boiled and packed, and long-frozen crab, to taste and compare the meat. Then he'd be on the bridge talking. Always busy. Next, down in the cabins with some of the fishermen who worked on deck, talking to them in Norwegian or Swedish with their arms in the air and big laughs at whatever they said to each other. So busy he barely had a word for Jones, even when they sat together for dinner just a few hours after leaving Sand Point.
By next morning the ship was pitching in open sea. And Jones, immune to seasickness aboard small fishing boats,...