Page 344 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition
into their own skin, first resembling a cat moving in a sack and then
becoming a lifeless fig.
Except for the crabs, none of our submarine passengers ventured
above the wet part of the reeds. Perhaps it was the flying-fish that
lured the little crabs up on deck as time passed. We did not always
find every flying-fish that sailed on board during the night, but the
crabs located them between bundles and cargo. The little two-
armed, eight-legged rascals posed themselves merrily on top of the
titanic helping of sea-food, scaled clear a convenient portion and
began serving themselves greedily with both hands.
Our little kitchen-garden did not serve the eye alone. It was
Dctlef who discovered that by harvesting a pot-full of the biggest
goose-barnacles and boiling them with garlic, Iraqi spices and some
dried vegetables, he had invented the best variety of fish-soup we
had ever tasted, particularly when some bits of flying-fish were
thrown in.
Flying-fish are a blessing to any raft-ship voyager in warm
waters. As a delicacy they are second only to breakfast herring, and
as bait they are superior to the most expensive artificial tackle. The
variety we encountered in the Indian Ocean was not the largest I
have seen, being only about seven inches long, and when only two
or three landed on deck they did not suffice as breakfast for eleven
men. But a single one put on a hook would straightway catch a
dolphin three feet long, which sufficed as dinner for everyone. And
when the old secret of how to lure flying-fish on board was shown
to the keenest among the fishermen, Asbjorn, master of our ship
lanterns, lit all our kerosene lamps and placed them outside the
cabin walls at night. Flying-fish began raining on board like projec­
tiles. Day by day, as we travelled southwards, our morning harvest
;
increased. When we had a late dinner by lamp-light flying-fish
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sometimes shot across the table, hitting us left and right, tumbling
into pots and pans, while fish-scales that marked collision points
had to be brushed off canvas and cabin walls. Several times we were
awakened by a cold fish landing in the bed, struggling with long
breast-fins that could not give them take-off speed for flying away,
which in the water is done by the tail. More than once I was
awakened by a wet creature wriggling down my neck as I lay naked
in my sleeping-bag right inside the door, and one night Carlo, my
neighbour, sat up greatly amused when I could not find the visitor
that had danced all over my bed. Next morning he found it dead in
his own sleeping-bag. There were days when the morning cook
was able to serve each of us with three fried flying-fish for breakfast.
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