Our officers were all highly indignant at the conduct of the Battles,
which was contrary to all the ethics of whaling, if not to the law of
the high seas. I overheard Captain Nelson talking with Mr. Baker, who
got very vehement about it, and wanted to take Starbuck’s whale away
from them by force.
Captain Nelson was quiet for a moment, stroking his beard, which had
got pretty ragged.
“Some excuse, perhaps,” he said at last. “Kind of a row with Fred
three or four weeks before we sailed. My house. Maybe I was a little
trifle hasty, but so was he. Both got mad, and I said more than I
meant to. Never thought he ’d—well, I ’ll go aboard of him in the
morning, and see if I can’t fix it up.”
So Lizzie Nelson was at the bottom of it all! At our house we always
spoke of her as “that Nelson girl,” a rather pretty girl in a buxom,
loud, Nelsonish sort of way; “pleasant-spoken” the best that people
said of her, and the worst much worse than that. I had the feeling
that I was warned against the wiles of Lizzie Nelson, although my
mother never actually said anything against her. You would think it
unnecessary to warn a boy of fifteen against the wiles of a girl
of twenty, but you did not know Lizzie Nelson, and my mother did.
However, I did not fancy her, nor any of her stripe. Ann McKim was
the idol of my boyhood, as she was the idol of my youth. I had no
room for fancy for the Lizzie Nelsons of the world, but there were
plenty of those who had.
We were not to know the results of Captain Nelson’s visit, for he
did not make it. The Annie Battles had finished cutting-in during
the night, and at dawn her {166} topsails were just dropping over
the horizon to the eastward. We followed. There was no chance of our
catching her, of course, unless she hove to to try out, and we could
creep up on her unbeknownst, like ’Zekiel. We soon lost her; and
although we kept on to the eastward for a couple of days, Captain
Nelson was not yet ready to leave those cruising grounds. He would
not be ready for that, with average luck, for weeks, and it was like
looking for a needle in a haystack, with the additional disadvantage
that, even if we found the needle, it would slip away at the first
sight of us. At the end of the second day we came about, and worked
back across the grounds.
While making a passage from one cruising ground to another the
distribution of duties is much the same as on a merchant vessel. When
whaling grounds have been reached, however, all this is changed.
Each boat’s crew constitutes a watch, and the night, from four bells
to four bells—from six in the evening to six in the morning—is
divided among them. The officer of the watch is the boatheader, or
mate. A watch, for a four-boat ship, is thus three hours long, and
for a five-boat ship, such as ours, two hours and forty minutes.
This easing up on the men is in order that they may be as fresh as
possible for the chase and taking of whales, which is their first and
most important business. For the same reason the crew has only the
most necessary duties during the day; and except for the necessary
change of sails morning and night, and washing down and scrubbing
the decks each morning, the day is passed in utter idleness, so far
as regular ship’s duties are concerned. The men are allowed to do
what they please: read—if they can read—play cards, mend clothes,
scrimshaw, sleep.
During the day the ship stands along under easy sail so that nothing
will be missed, usually going to windward slowly, tacking or beating;
picking up whales if they are seen and can be got. At sunset light
sails are {167} taken in, topsails close-reefed, and everything
done to insure the ship’s making as little progress as possible
during the night. They even wear ship occasionally, to keep in the
same place throughout the night. At six in the morning—four bells—or
perhaps earlier if they are in the more temperate latitudes, the crew
is called up, sail restored, decks washed and scrubbed, and she is
off again on her beating to windward. It made me think of the terns
fishing off Ricketson’s Point in Padanaram: tacking slowly, beating
to windward, the eyes above the coral-red bill, like a man at the
masthead, keeping a bright lookout for fish; then coming down swiftly
with the wind to the leeward side of their cruising ground to begin
once more their slow beating against the wind. In just this way, when
the ship has reached the windward edge of her cruising ground, she
wears around, and comes down before it, to repeat the process until
the old man has tired of it.
We had been doing this for three weeks, since the Annie Battles
parted from us, without taking any whales. We had seen but two
spouts, and lowered once without result. The other spout was sighted
about sunset, and we did not lower. I was standing, one morning, by
the rail, as I was always doing when I had a chance, and Macy was
walking the deck behind me. As he was passing I turned to him.
“No sign of the Battles,” I said. I had been thinking of her, and my
remark was only the continuation of my thought.
“No sign of the Battles,” he said cheerfully, stopping by me for a
moment. “I ’m glad of it. I thought we should surely see her again
before this, but we have n’t, and good riddance, I say.”
He began his pacing the deck again, and I strolled forward. I found
Peter sitting beside the windlass, working on his model. I never knew
Peter to be asleep. He did not seem to need sleep. I told him what
Macy had said. {168}
“Aye, Tim,” he said, “and I hope so too. The sea ’s a big place, but
it ’s a little place, too, and you ’re always running across some
vessel you don’t want to see, ’specially when she ’s on the same
business as yourself. One voyage I made to eastern ports, Canton,
Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila, and the like, I was always meeting Tim
Fernand, who ’d been my shipmate in the navy. He ’d shipped on the
Mary Easton, and she followed us around from port to port, or beat us
to it. I was hard put to it to get rid of him, for he ’d fasten on me
like a leech, and he was a robber.”
“Like the Annie Battles.”
Peter looked up at me with a smile in his eyes, but said nothing, and
then there came down to us from the masthead the familiar, quavering
cry. Peter sighed, put down his model, and got up. It was a single
spout—from a lone whale, so far as he could judge—miles off to the
southeast. Peter turned back to me.
“Speak of the devil,” he said. “Do you see, Tim? Just there, well
beyond the whale? What do you make of it?”
I was a long time in seeing anything, but at last I made out dimly
the two slender topmasts with their yards, but no sails.
“Cutting-in, like as not,” said Peter. “If she was trying-out you ’d
see the smoke.”
We headed up toward the whale, and when we were near enough, Mr.
Wallet and Mr. Brown lowered. The whale led them a leisurely chase
directly toward the Battles, and we followed. Mr. Brown got fast,
but Mr. Wallet did not. He sailed on after the whale, which was
running away with Mr. Brown. The whale was going much faster than
Mr. Wallet’s boat was, and it was a losing chase from the moment
Mr. Brown struck. We wondered, and snickered, for it was so like
Wallet. As Peter said, it was like a drunken man chasing his hat,
{169} always hoping it would stop, and always keeping after it
with the one fixed idea. But Peter was wrong about the idea. If Mr.
Wallet had a fixed idea it was not what Peter—and all of us who
watched—thought it was, for he sailed straight up to the side of the
Battles. Although we had got within three miles of her, I could not
see clearly what was happening then, but Peter could. His eyes were
better than mine, in spite of his age.
“Now, what do you make of that?” he cried. “They ’re holding her
there, and the Battles’ crew ain’t making any sort of objection that
I c’n see. It ’s a queer vessel and a queer crew and queer doings,
and Cap’n Coffin ’s the queerest of the lot, if you believe what they
say of him—which I don’t. There goes Mr. Wallet over the side, and
that ’s queerer yet. Mebbe he thinks he can clear up the queerness,
but I miss my guess if that ’s what he thinks. If it was the old man
himself, now, or Mr. Baker, say, or Mr. Brown, I ’d say it would
be cleared up, but ’tween you and me, I doubt Mr. Wallet can if he
tries, and I doubt he tries.”
“What do you suppose, Peter,” I asked, “he means to—”
“I ain’t had time to s’pose anything, Tim,” said Peter. “There ’s
George Hall, now, wanting to go aboard, and they won’t let him. Tell
him to cast off and keep off. I c’n almost hear ’em say it. Quite
a crowd of ’em along by the gangway, and all motioning him off.
They were cutting-in, as I thought, and they ’ve let the carcass go
adrift. You can see it, I guess, going astern, just awash. Now some
of ’em take spades, and jab at the boathook, and they ’re getting
sail on her.”
Peter’s bulletins stopped, and we just stood there, gazing in silence.
“That Wallet,” he said at last, “ ’s got more sense than I gave
him credit for. You see, Tim, if it ’s desertion, which is more ’n
likely, and if we ever get hold of him {170} again, he ’ll say
that he was kidnapped by that crew of pickpockets. It ’d be hard to
prove ’t he was n’t, and it would n’t make much difference whether
anybody believed it or not. If we don’t get him—and I should think
that the old man ’d be glad to be rid of him—we ’ll never know the
rights of it, or what ’ll be done about his lay in our take so far. I
don’t know what course the—Aye, aye, sir.”
For Mr. Baker’s boat was called away, and Peter ran. Captain Nelson
himself took the boat, and the men pulled hard for the Battles; but
her mainsail was already up, and they got the foresail up and broke
out a jib, and she stood off on the wind before the boat had gone
half a mile. It was hopeless to chase her, and Captain Nelson came
back. He was very sober and stern as he came over the side, and we
watched the square topsails of the Battles gradually sinking to the
eastward, while we got ready to receive Mr. Brown and his whale.
As soon as the cutting-in and trying-out was finished we made
sail, and headed for Montevideo. It was within a couple of days of
Christmas, and the men hoped for some liberty ashore. Captain Nelson
was governed by other reasons in making for port; he wanted to send
letters, as it turned out, chiefly on account of the mysterious
behavior of the Battles, and the desertion of Wallet, I suppose,
although I never knew definitely. He let it be known that any letters
would be sent, and I wrote home, but by a piece of carelessness of my
own, my letter did not go.
We did not get into Montevideo by Christmas, as we had been more than
three hundred miles from the coast; and we had to be content with
the usual ship’s fare on that day, with the addition of plum duff
and a serving of rum. I did not take the rum, of course, but I took
the duff, which tasted good enough, although it was nothing more
than soggy dumpling, with molasses over it. I could {171} not help
thinking of my mother’s dumplings—food of a different species—and of
the turkey and cranberry sauce, and the pumpkin and apple pies, and
the apples and nuts and raisins to which my family were sitting down
on that day. No doubt they were thinking of me.
At Montevideo, which we reached in the afternoon of the twenty-sixth,
the captain sent his letters and tried to ship another man. This he
was unable to do, and he had to sail without him, a man short. The
men were disappointed in their hoped-for liberty, only one boat’s
crew getting two hours’ liberty. This crew was chosen with some care,
as the men must be those who could be relied upon to return at the
end of their two hours. We sailed at sunset, with some grumbling on
the part of the men.
Nothing was done about the second mate’s berth for more than a week,
and I did not happen to hear him mentioned, although I have an idea
that the captain talked the matter over with Mr. Baker. At last,
however, he acted, having concluded, as I supposed, that there was
little chance of getting Mr. Wallet back. There was some show of
letting the men choose, but it amounted to nothing. Macy was made
fifth mate, and the other mates moved up a peg, so that Mr. Brown was
second mate. That pleased me, and the appointment of Macy pleased
Peter, for he said that there was not a better man on the ship. I
agreed with him in that. Macy was one of the finest specimens of
man I have ever seen. He was over six feet tall, with a perfectly
proportioned figure, but his perfect proportions did not give an
adequate idea of his size unless he stood beside another man. He had
rather tightly curling flaxen hair—we called him “Towhead”—and deep
blue eyes, and a smile that won the heart of every one on whom it
shone. I felt that I should like to know him well, but it was not
easy to know him well. There was about him a certain atmosphere of
aloofness. No doubt this was due largely to a natural shyness; but,
knowing {172} less about such things then than I do now, I ascribed
it to a feeling of superiority on his part. That was his reputation
on the ship, a reputation which he did not deserve. He was a silent
giant, not given to useless motions, but you felt his power and his
alertness. It used to give me great pleasure merely to look at Macy.
Unfortunately, we were now one man short, and the vacancy was in Mr.
Brown’s boat, for Starbuck had been moved into Macy’s place in Mr.
Baker’s boat, again over the head of the man to whom the promotion
would naturally fall. This was Ezra Winslow, a good-natured young
fellow, but rather stupid, and not nearly as good a man as the
Prince. There were few men in the whole crew who were anywhere near
as good as the Prince, and there was another boatsteerer needed, and
he was it. I do not know whether it was the usual practice, in cases
of the promotion of mates, for the mates who were moved up to keep
the boats and crews they had had before, but they did in this case.
The Prince was therefore Mr. Brown’s boatsteerer. The vacancy in his
boat was not filled for some time, but it worked out very well for me.
{173}