They buried the second mate in the conventional sea manner, Marr reading
the simple service from the Bible.
Stirling saw the sack-sewn body plunge into the icy waters of the Bering
Sea, and replaced his cap when the last ripples had died. He turned and
glanced upward at Marr, watching the skipper fold the Book and look over
the rail. The whale lay alongside with only a slight hump to mark its
bulk, and in the centre of this hump a harpoon had been thrust. The
stout iron, of Swedish construction, was bent and twisted, and to it was
fastened a bight of inch hemp which had held throughout the struggle.
Purple night was falling when Stirling had the whale's body in a
position for cutting in. More irons had been driven home, lines were
brought aboard and fastened to cleats, a strong hawser was passed about
the giant flukes.
Cutting in a whale to Stirling was like peeling an apple. It had been
one of the greatest joys the seas had granted to him. It was the
culmination of months of preparation and searching. The value of a head
of bone was well up in the thousands, and Stirling estimated the length
of the whale to be all of seventy feet. The bone, therefore, being in
proportion, he expected slabs from the upper jaw to reach fifteen feet.
The waist of the ship was cleared of riffraff and dunnage; a strong
whale tackle was rigged between fore and mainmast, one line of this
tackle being wound about the foreward winch. The other end was carried
down the cutting-in stage and hitched to a slice of blubber which had
been peeled from the whale's neck. This slice of blubber was called the
blanket piece.
Kanakas climbed then over the slippery body and started work with
blubber spades and axes. They severed the strip, as the winch was
started, the whale rolled over and exposed an open cut which banded its
neck. Into this the crew slashed until the backbone was reached. They
then climbed aboard, after rigging a second line through a purchase in
the upper jaw.
"Hoist away!" ordered Stirling. A watch tackle creaked, the line
tightened, and the upper jaw of the monster came aboard and was swung
over a spot in the waist, lowering to position when the tackle was
slacked. The carcass, useless now, was cast adrift by cutting the lines.
It drifted to leeward where it was soon surrounded by polar bears and
screeching sea gulls.
Marr appeared at the quarter-deck rail and sent down a huge jug of
whisky, which the crew shared with boisterous shouts. The skipper
watched them, then shrugged his slight shoulders, glanced at the ice to
the northward, and disappeared as Stirling gave the order to clear decks
and cut the bone from the upper jaw.
This baleen, as it was called, had to be split from a white gristle by
blubber spades and knives. The bone ran from sixteen feet in length down
to little whiskers, and its value was all of five dollars a pound.
The last of the slabs was taken below to be stored in the forehold, and
the great jaw, after the cook had removed a barrel of muck tuck, was
hoisted overboard. This sank to the bottom of the Bering. The decks were
then swabbed and squeegeed, and the watch on duty finished cleaning up.
It was midnight before Stirling turned toward Whitehouse and reported
that all was clear.
The cockney mate climbed from the dark poop, took a turn about the ship,
ran his fingers over the planks and pinrails, and peered down the
forehold.
Then he came to Stirling and asked: "'Ow much do you think that 'ead of
bone will weigh?"
"All of twenty-two hundred pounds. It's as big as I ever cut in."
Whitehouse glanced aft. "The old man wasn't figurin' on that," he said,
reflectively. "I think it was out of 'is calculations. 'E's just
confided in me--not a watch below--that 'e is up North for trade stuff.
Also, 'e said there's a firm of Dundee & Grimsby owners interested in
the voyage. I thought all along 'e owned the ship."
Stirling studied the face of the mate in an endeavour to ascertain if he
were speaking the truth. Whitehouse was far from stable in his
statements.
"That's news," said Stirling. "I thought you, or somebody else, told me
he was the sole owner."
"Maybe Cushner told you that."
"Maybe! It settles a point or two I was trying to fathom."
Stirling glanced at the poop, and in fancy he thought a figure appeared
there. He stepped to one side of the galley house and stared aft. A
shadow moved against the canvas screen, a light shot skyward, then was
blotted out as the companion closed.
"Marr?" he asked, striding over to Whitehouse.
The mate grinned and reached in his pocket for a plug of tobacco.
"Sure," he said. "W'o else could hit be? The old man is very irregular
in 'is 'abits. Never saw any one like 'im. You never know where 'e is.
All the time walking around."
Stirling crammed his hands into his pockets and turned away from the
mate, but he paused at the door leading into the alleyway and his cabin.
Whitehouse, believing Stirling had passed inside, jerked his elbows,
buttoned up his coat with care, smoothed down his hair, and otherwise
spruced himself up. Then he started aft and mounted the poop steps, his
whistle merging into a low song. Stirling heard it and wondered:
"England, oh, my England!
Gone for many a day;
I never knew I loved you
Until I sailed away."
The Ice Pilot raised his brows and closed his mouth in a firm line. The
mate had revealed another side of his character. He had come down into
the waist of the ship in order to make an inspection, and was returning
like a man who expected to meet with a cheerful welcome. Perhaps,
decided Stirling, he had gone aft and below in order to create an
impression. The impression could hardly be made upon Marr. That little
skipper was no more interested in whaling than in cob fishing. He had
treated the entire chase of the day as a diversion which would answer
until the ice opened and allowed the _Pole Star_ to drive northward
toward some coast where bigger game was waiting.
The morning dawned, warm, gray, and cloud-shrouded. An east wind swung
over the North pack and loosened the lighter floes. They drifted toward
the south, as the seals gave the warning of the first breaking up of the
ice, and loud reports were heard to windward.
Stirling rolled from his bunk and sniffed the air, pressed his face to a
porthole, then rapidly dressed. Taking coffee from the galley boy, he
hurried to the deck and stared about him. The ship was hove to in a
position that commanded a view of the pack ice and the sea to the south
and west.
Climbing hand over hand, Stirling reached the Jacob's ladder, and then
the crow's-nest. He settled down and clapped the glasses to his eyes.
A voice rose from the quarter-deck, and increased in volume as Stirling
still stared to leeward.
"Aloft, there!" Marr shouted, angrily. "Hey, you aloft!"
Stirling leisurely removed the glasses from his eyes and glanced
downward. He said nothing.
"How's the ice?" asked the skipper, jerking his thumb toward the north
and east. "What do you make of it?"
Stirling turned and lifted the glasses. "She's breaking," he called. "I
see a few lanes to the east. This wind will clear things in a day or
two. We can go then!"
Marr paced the deck, bringing up against the rail on the ice side of the
ship. "We'll go now!" he shouted. "Right now, if there's any possible
route open. I want to be at Indian Point within the week. Can you do
it?"
"I can!" said Stirling. "I'm----"
"A blow!" called a foremast hand from the forepeak. "A blow! There she
blows!"
Stirling turned and darted his eyes out over the sea to leeward. He
squinted slightly and saw the white vapour of a huge whale's spout. He
closed his lips and shaded his brow. Another blow showed to windward of
the first. A school of bowheads was approaching an open lane to the
north and the Arctic.
"Stand by the boats!" shouted Stirling, eagerly. "Call both watches and
stand by!"
Marr stiffened in his position close by the rail, turned, and glided
forward until he stood at the weather steps which led to the waist of
the ship. He darted a savage glance out over the sea then fastened his
eyes upon Stirling. "Countermand that order!" he shouted.
Stirling stared over the edge of the crow's-nest. "What's that?" he
asked. "Don't you know there's whales to leeward? They're making for the
ice. There's a----"
"I don't give a darn if there's a million whales. I told you what to do.
Do it! I'm captain of this ship!"
"A blow!" repeated the foremast hand.
Marr reached and snatched up a brass belaying pin from the pinrail. He
leaned forward after grasping the step rail with his left hand, and
brandished the weapon out over the waist of the ship in the direction of
the cry. "'Vast that!" he snarled. "'Vast with you! There's no need of
yelling your lungs out! This ship is going into the ice. D'ye get me?"