The Empty Net

Text 1: Cod-End, by Fergus MacAskill

An original novel extract.

The winch groaned and the warps came up out of the black water, streaming, and every man on deck watched the stern. Nobody spoke. Seventeen hours we had been out, and the fuel gauge in the wheelhouse was a thing nobody looked at any more, the way you do not look at a bill on the mat.

The net came up over the ramp like a great wet animal dragging itself ashore. Then it kept coming, and coming, and there was nothing in it to slow it down. Weed. A few crabs. Half a dozen dabs flapping in the mesh, so small they would have been an insult to throw back. The cod-end swung above the deck, slack as an empty sleeve.

Donnie came out of the wheelhouse and stood looking at it with his hands on his hips. He was a big man, but he seemed smaller then. ‘Right,’ he said at last, quietly. ‘Shoot it again.’ We moved to obey. Gulls had gathered, screaming, wheeling over the stern, and then, one by one, finding nothing, they peeled away towards the shore, as if they knew something we did not.

How does Fergus MacAskill use language and structure to show the crew’s disappointment and anxiety?

You should use relevant subject terminology to support your answer.