Living Silver 



farewells. It meant, above all, the money that came from the her- 

 ring themselves, the German, Polish, Russian, Belgian money that 

 poured out of the bridges of the big ocean-going 'Klondykers' as 

 barrels of salt fish poured into their holds. 



And Jan, who was still studying the fish on the table in front of 

 him, thought too of the money that he himself hoped to collect 

 from the herring. Soon he would be at sea, his countrymen aboard 

 the m.f.v. Stanislaw and whatever other crew they could pick up 

 to fill the remaining necessary berths. In the end they had to sail 

 short-handed, a bad thing on a drifter, where procedure is almost 

 as stylised as an embassy dinner table, and two of their hands were 

 students, amateurs who could not be relied on. The other two 

 were veteran Scotsmen. 



194 



