“Three tugs mean you caught lobsters and are rising to the surface, the puller then reels in your ropes so that it does not get caught on anything on your way up.”
“Are those all the signal we have to learn for the ropes?”someone else asked.
” No, there’s a last and very important signa, you tug desperately on the rope. This implies you’re in serious trouble and need to be rapidly pulled up. Your partner will quickly bring in the extra man power and you will be pulled up to the surface.”
” I hope that never happen to anyone ,” someone said.
“Well it has happened a numbers of times and will continue to happen,” Goliath said, “A couple of times we have been unfortunately not to bring the chap up. Just remember we are being forced to do work that is extremely dangerous, even for adults.”
Martins noticed the passion with which Goliath was speaking about what the boys had to do to stay safe, he figured he was not one who would be planning an escape.
This place offered him chances that he would never get on outside; like being supervisor over operations crucial to such a big business.
“How long does each shift last?” another boy asked.
“Though our jobs are the most dangerous, we are luckier than the surface-boys with respect to lobsters caught hours, our shift start at eight in the evening and last till five in the morning. Sometime we use an hour of that to feed the lobsters in the sector were not harvesting in,”Goliath explained. “So we basically work nine hours max while the surface – boys work from eight in the morning up to ten in the evening sometimes.”
“How many lobsters are we supposed harvest in a shift?” another boy asked.
” If we are able to caught six hundred lobsters before five in the morning, we are free to come back to the dorm, any more questions?”Goliath asked.
“How do the headband and frog-feet thing work?” Martins calmly asked .
Goliath walked up to him and collected the device, he put it around his head and with his left hand flicked a switch on the band close to his left ear.
The lamp in the middle of the band lit up, using his right hand, he demonstrated how the lamp could be tilted to the left and to the right, and up and down.
Next, he collected the flippers and explained how those worked as well. He placed a foot in one and strapped it in using a fastener martins hadn’t noticed earlier.
“Is that lamp supposed to help us see underwater?” Martins asked after he had finished both demonstrations.
“Not really, it’s very dark down there and this is to weak to do much, What it does do however is to help you determine whether what you thought you had caught is actually a lobster or just a dead piece of wood at the bottom of the lake,” Goliath replied.”As for the flippers, they will feel funny at first, but you will gradually get used to them.”
“How long are we supposed to stay underwater for?” someone asked.
“Unless you’ve got gills, I suggest you come up as soon as you feel you have to breath in some air” Goliath answered.”Most of you will only be able to catch one lobster, or none at all , before you feel the need to come up for air, the best among us normally bring up only two lobsters when we surface”.
“How many teams are there during the shift?”
“We used to have fifteen teams of three, with two spotters who are supposed to look out for trouble and help the pullers if need be,” Goliath said.”with the arrival of the sixteen of you, I think we’ll now have twenty teams of three with three spotters.”
“How many lobsters is each team expected to bring up?”I asked again.
“We were doing approximately forty lobsters per team before you guys arrived,” Goliath answered.”l don’t know if they will ask the teams to catch less to keep it at six hundred lobsters or still ask each team to bring in forty, making it eight hundred lobsters per shift. My guess is that it will be the second option. Otherwise why bring in more boys.