As we ran to the northward, we had the wind on the beam or aft of
that, most of the time, usually brisk to strong, as fair a wind
as we could have wished for. The hurricane season was about to
begin. Hurricanes are most frequent in March and April, although
occasionally there is a severe one toward the last of February;
and their tracks most commonly cross the Fiji or Samoan Islands
in a general southerly direction, then curving more and more to
the eastward. We stood well to the west of Fiji, and were past the
Ellices before the end of the southern summer, so that we escaped
them entirely—if there were any—and were usually running about as
fast as the old Clearchus was able, under the southeast trades, and
under a regular trade-wind sky.
It was seldom necessary to touch a brace or a halliard, and our
crew had very little to do. The mastheads were kept manned, but I
soon came to the conclusion that that was done merely as a matter
of form, or from habit, and not for any practical purpose, for we
raised spouts on two occasions on our way up without lowering or even
changing the course. Each time Captain Nelson came on deck, looked at
the spoutings for a couple of minutes, and turned away without saying
anything. And each time Mr. Baker asked him, “Lower, sir?” rather
wistfully, and the old man shook his head, and went below again. I
did not know what to make of it, and Mr. Baker did not seem to know
either. He appeared to be dumbfounded—completely flabbergasted—and he
looked after the captain, and, on the second occasion, I heard him
mutter that he ’d be eternally damned to hell-fire, or words to that
effect—with sundry embellishments—if he knew what the captain was up
to. I made up my mind that the idea of finding the {323} mythical
Apollo island obsessed him. We had over two thousand barrels on
board, and needed only three or four hundred to fill us up. Think of
the disappointment of finding a gold mine, with nowhere to put the
gold! Easy money, for the mere picking up, and no way of carrying it
off.
I had always been in the habit of standing by the bulwarks, when I
had the chance, or sitting curled up in some favorable spot with an
unobstructed view, and watching the water and the sky. There was
more chance now than usually, and I would stand by the main rigging,
or lie in a coil of rope by the heel of the bowsprit, for an hour
at a time, and watch the Southern Ocean slip by. I generally had
the “Navigators” in my hand, held open by my thumb, but I read very
little. It is fine print, and it was much more interesting to watch
the trade wind clouds, or to glance at the swaying masthead men, or
at the birds which accompanied us. There was usually a frigate-bird
or two, or a tropic-bird, although these birds were rare; gannets
and boobies and terns and many others. It was my delight to see a
frigate-bird rise majestically in great circles, higher and higher,
without a motion of his wings or his body that I could detect, until
he was a mere speck in the blue. At sight of flying fish rising in
flight, perhaps before albacore, or of a gannet or a booby that had
been successful in fishing, he begins to drop, at first in circles;
when still at a considerable height, he closes his wings, makes his
body miraculously small, falls like a stone or a bullet, and comes
up before the poor gannet, threatening, the robber that he is! The
gannet instantly drops the fish, the frigate dives through the air,
and, getting it before it has fallen far, rises to eat. He did not
always get his fish by robbery, but caught flying fish at the height
of their flight in the air. I never saw one dive into the sea, and
the men said they were unable to rise from the water, but must keep
on the wing, waking or sleeping, from land to land. {324} I never
saw one rob a tropic-bird either, but they used sometimes to threaten
the masthead men.
One morning I was standing by the rail, Captain Coffin pacing the
deck behind me, although it was not his watch. I should not speak of
him as Captain, for he was not captain on the Clearchus, although I
suppose still captain of the Battles. We had run out of the trades,
and we were trying to make an easterly course, but we were not making
out very well. We had frequent showers, some of which were almost of
the proportions of deluges; and calms and light airs from any point
of the compass about a quarter of the time. When the wind did come,
it was mostly ahead, and we made little progress. On the night before
this morning, I remember, there was a great deal of phosphorescence
in the water. The ship was scarcely moving, but the little ripples
at her bow glowed brightly; her wake was a luminous road, stretching
out far astern, every whirl and eddy a vortex of living light. I saw
a shark clearly outlined in greenish light, and a sudden burst of
fireworks at a little distance showed where a school of flying fish
had been disturbed and driven from the water like the balls of a
roman candle.
I was thinking of those flying fish as I stood by the rail that
morning, and I had brought my old battered glass along. It was a
calm morning, hot and sticky, the sea fairly quiet. Suddenly I saw
what I thought must be a school of flying fish break the water about
a quarter of a mile away and take their flight. They looked too big
for flying fish, their flight in the air too short, and I brought my
glass to bear. I soon caught them again, and they certainly did not
look like fish, but I was not ready to believe they were what they
looked like. I turned to Captain Coffin, and asked him.
He stopped by my side, waving the glass away when I offered it to
him. The creatures soon appeared again, coming out of the water in a
spurt or gust. {325}
“Oh,” he said, “flying squid.”
“But,” I asked, “do squid fly?”
He laughed. “No,” he said, “no more than flying fish fly—nor so much.
As you see. There must be something chasing them.”
At this moment the musical, quavering cry of the Admiral came down to
us: “Bl-o-o-ows!”
The spout was dead to windward, about five or six miles off. I, at
any rate, could not see it from the deck, even with my glass, there
was such a quiver of heated air at the horizon. Captain Nelson came
on deck, went up to the main crosstrees, and stayed there for some
time, watching. When he came down Captain Coffin asked him what he
made of it.
“Can’t make out,” he answered. “Something queer going on. May be
swordfish, or perhaps those big sharks; or killers, except for the
latitude. We ’ll stand up that way as fast as we can.”
“Lower, sir?” Mr. Baker asked, knowing well what the answer was
likely to be.
Captain Nelson shook his head. “Not yet.”
It took us a long time to get up anywhere near, but the spout
remained very nearly stationary, and there was considerable white
water raised about it. The light breeze, nearly dead ahead, died out,
and we wallowed there for a quarter of an hour, in a flat calm. But
we were near enough to see what was going on, and I watched through
my glass. There were two whales instead of one, very different
in size. The smaller of the two seemed to be the centre of the
commotion, and I caught several glimpses of bodies, gleaming brightly
as they broke the surface for an instant. There must have been five
or six of them, but I could not tell certainly whether they were
sharks or swordfish or what. I had never seen a killer. The larger
whale was making short, savage dashes at the attacking fish, but
without any marked result, so far as I could see. {326}
I handed the glass to Captain Coffin. “Won’t you look, sir, and tell
me what they are?”
“I don’t really need the glass, boy,” he said, “to tell me that
they ’re sharks.” But he took it, and held it to his eyes. “Sharks;
big devils, twenty-five or thirty feet long. That whale ’s a small
cow, and she must have a small calf under her fin. That ’s what the
sharks are after, and they ’ll get it, too, if we don’t get a breeze
pretty quick.”
Small difference it could make to the whale what got it! They were
still keeping up the fight vigorously when a cooler breath came out
of the southeast. It was only a puff, but soon there was another,
which lasted longer; and before many minutes the breath of cooler air
was steady, and growing stronger. We were just on the northern edge
of the southeast trades, and had edged into them, or they had passed
us, which amounted to the same thing. Captain Nelson had been edging
to the southward for some days, with just that in view.
We gathered way again, and when we had got near enough, Captain
Nelson ordered Mr. Baker and Mr. Brown to lower. The order he gave,
however, reduced Mr. Baker to a stupefied silence.
“I don’t want you should hurt the whales,” he said quietly, as if
it were the most natural thing in the world for a whaler not to
want to hurt whales. “Drive off those sharks, and kill them if you
can. I ’m going to try to keep those spouts in sight,” he went on,
probably thinking that some explanation was necessary, or his mates
might think he was losing his mind. “I ’m going to keep those spouts
in sight, and see if they don’t lead us to something worth while.”
And he turned away, muttering that it should be hereabouts if it was
anywhere.
We lowered, and pulled hard for the scene of combat. It was full
time, for the cow was bitten and torn in many places, and could
not have kept up the fight much longer. The larger whale—a bull, I
thought—seemed {327} about ready to give it up, and take himself
off. There were six of the big sharks, but one of them was so badly
hurt by one of the whales that he could barely drag himself off, and
all of them had been marked. The insensibility of sharks to pain
or injury is an extraordinary thing. This one had been cut nearly
in two, but he had kept up the fight, his viscera trailing behind
him in a long festoon, until one of the others had relieved him of
them. The other sharks did not molest him further, being too intent
on getting the more delicate morsel, which we could see by the side
of its mother. Nearly the whole of one side of its flukes had been
bitten off, and it was somewhat torn in several places, although not
seriously injured.
We put the sharks to flight, killing three, after one of them, in his
thrashings, had got his tail into the boat, and wiped me across the
cheek. It was like a wipe with a rasp, or coarse sandpaper, and took
the outer skin completely off my right cheek. It was a long time in
healing, and I had to be at my duties for nearly a month, with half
my head tied up as if I had the toothache.
The whales were going, swimming slowly, probably because of the
injuries to the cow, and to the reduced speed of the calf, owing to
the loss of one fluke. The bull was at some distance, but he seemed
to regulate his speed by that of the cow. We got back to the ship,
one side of my face a mass of blood, and blood which had dripped into
my shirt. I must have been a frightful-looking object. Such a hurt
makes a great show, and always looks much worse than it is. I do not
remember that I felt anything more than the inconvenience of it, and
of having my head tied up for so long. Nobody thought it necessary to
put anything on it—iodine or alcohol, or anything of the kind. I drew
a bucket of sea-water, and washed most of the blood off, but that was
all.
We stood off at once after the whales. Fortunately, they did not
swim directly to windward, and the ship was able {328} to make the
course, and to keep up with them. They seemed to be making for some
definite place, and at nightfall we were not far behind them. Even
Mr. Baker appeared to think that the old man knew what he was about.
We reduced sail for the night, although it could have been no better
than a guess on Captain Nelson’s part how far he should reduce speed.
With the first gleam of light—a little before six o’clock, or four
bells, for we were not many degrees south of the equator—our best
men were sent to the mastheads. Our best lookout was the Admiral, a
Kanaka. There were no spouts to be seen. We had lost the whales. Sail
was crowded on, and the Clearchus was soon making good speed under
the steady trades, which had grown much stronger since the day before.
We held on the course on which we had been sailing for nearly three
hours. Then the Admiral’s quavering cry came down to us, for he was
the first to see it.
“Ah bl-o-o-ows!”
It was a musical cry, but given with indifference. He had seen
too many spouts to become excited over two and a half; for he had
detected the little spout of the calf, close alongside its mother.
There was no doubt that there was our quarry, although still miles
away. We kept on after them, and continued to gain slowly, for
another hour, the officers keeping an eye on the spouts, which we
could now see from the deck, and occasionally glancing up at the
Admiral. We had had breakfast, and I was doing the same thing as the
officers, from my perch on the heel of the bowsprit. Suddenly I saw
the Admiral straighten up. He looked far out ahead as if he could not
believe his eyes. Then he gave an excited cry.
“Bl-o-ws! Ah bl-o-ws!” It was not as musical as we were used to hear
from the Admiral. “Blows! Big school! Hunnud whale! All over!” And he
waved his arm to include a wide arc.
I could not see the new spouts, of course, from my place {329} on
deck, and I sprang into the fore rigging, clasping my old glass,
which I had brought up with me after breakfast. Many others of the
men swarmed up, but I was first, and I went rapidly up as far as I
could get, and put the glass to my eyes.
I did not see them at first, for it was about four bells—ten o’clock
in the forenoon—I was looking to the eastward, directly into the
glare, and I was expecting to see them nearer than they were; but at
last I saw them. There were many spouts in the air at once over a
wide arc of the sea; and the sun shining on them all, and glorifying
them into tiny ostrich plumes, each on Ann McKim’s hat.
Every time that I saw a sperm whale’s spout with the sun shining
upon it, I thought of that hat of Ann McKim. Ann McKim was a few
months older than I—she is yet, although that fact is not generally
published—and when I left home she had just got her first plumed hat.
It was a big, broad-brimmed hat of dark blue satin—or velvet, I do
not know which—with a generous white ostrich plume sticking up from
the brim at just the angle of a sperm whale’s spout. I know she had
bought it with her own money, and had trimmed it herself, for she
told me so. No doubt such a hat was absurd, especially on a girl of
fifteen, but it did not seem absurd to her, nor to me when I saw her
with it on, the Sunday before I came away. But Ann McKim was sweet
and lovely, and she would have lent beauty to any hat she chose to
wear.
The large school of whales did not seem to be going anywhere in
particular as a body, although the individuals of the school
continually moved about, or sounded, or came up again. They may have
been feeding. The bull and the wounded cow and calf which we had been
chasing were evidently meaning to join the school, and we followed
them, getting all the boats ready for lowering as we went. We were
now getting the full sweep of the trades, steady and strong, and we
gained on the three whales, so {330} that we were in a position to
see well what happened when they neared the school.
A big bull swam out from the school to inspect the newcomers. He was
not old and scarred, as most of the lone whales were, but as big as
any of them, and in his prime. Although we were not far off, that
means perhaps half a mile; and as but little of the whales was out
of water, I could not see with any certainty what went on. The big
bull at once joined the cow, and swam beside her for some distance,
apparently trying to persuade her to leave her lord and come with
him; an unnecessary proceeding, as that was just what she was doing.
He seemed to pay no attention to the calf. It was no concern of his.
The cow swam on, and took no notice of him, so far as I could see,
but the other bull did not like it. He was not so very much smaller
than the big one, and before I realized that there was anything on
the programme, here he was, coming for the big bull, fire in his eye,
I could imagine, and jaw dropped. When he was a hundred feet away,
he turned over, nearly on his back, apparently, for I saw his jaw
projecting above the surface of the water.
The big bull was aware of the other just in time to slip out of the
way, but not in time to escape entirely. The jaw closed on his small,
and I saw the wounds made by the teeth, which tore out great pieces
of blubber and flesh. By what seemed agreement, the two big whales
turned about as soon as they could and went at each other full tilt.
Their jaws locked, and they wrestled there for a minute, each seeming
to try to break the jaw of the other, and tearing and thrashing the
water into boiling fountains of spray. As we found out later, great
gobs of flesh were torn from the sides of their heads. After a while
they broke their hold, I could not see how, and they backed off and
went at it again.
This time the fight was fiercer than before, and it was impossible to
see what was happening, or to see anything {331} but white water.
This round was a little longer than the first. The performance was
repeated two or three times, and then I saw the boiling white water
gradually become quiet. The two great bodies lay there for a few
seconds, head to head; then the smaller of the whales moved off
slowly away from the school. He seemed to have lost all interest in
the cow, and the bigger one, satisfied that the other had definitely
given up the fight, let him go in peace. Both whales seemed to be in
distress. I saw the big one, as he swam to join the school, raise his
head completely out of water two or three times, and his jaw seemed
to be slewed around so that it would not close properly. He had
difficulty in moving it at all.
Up to this point it had not seemed to be a propitious time for
lowering, but when the fight was over, Mr. Tilton lowered at once,
and went after the vanquished bull. He was still moving slowly, and
the boat easily overtook him, and got fast. He made no fight at all,
but lay fin out in fifteen minutes. His jaw was hanging down queerly,
and when we got him alongside and began to cut-in, we found that it
had been broken short off, and was hanging by the flesh. Many of his
teeth were stove out, and he had terrible wounds in the head.
Meanwhile the ship had kept off after the school, which began to show
signs of moving along. We got pretty near it, however, and lowered
three more boats, but we did not succeed in getting whales of any
size. The school consisted principally of rather small cows, under
the charge of two or three bulls as schoolmasters. We could not find
the bull which had been fighting, and did not look for the others,
for schoolmasters are always pugnacious devils. They have to be.
We managed to get three small cows of about twenty barrels apiece
before the school was well under way and left us. One of these cows
was lost during the night, stripped by sharks and broken adrift, and
much of another fell a prey to the sharks. Four whales at once {332}
alongside is almost too much to take care of. We got the blubber all
hove in by sunset of the next day, and the carcasses cut adrift. They
made only a hundred and twelve barrels altogether, only about as much
as we might have expected to get from one really big whale in those
waters.
{333}