Having put down these recent experiences of modern whaling, which, though
not exciting, may at least be instructive, let us return to follow the
fortunes of our patient whalers on the St Ebba.
It is September now, and a Wednesday, and early and clear and cold, with
no gale, with just a ripple down Lerwick Bay; one or two people are
lighting their peat fires and the scent comes off to us on the pure,
almost wintry air, and we hoist the Union Jack astern though no one may
see it, and let steam into the steam donkey-engine, and up comes the
port anchor, then the starboard and there is a pause and a bell rings
for stand-by, then half-speed and clash goes the air pressure; then full
speed, and the motor settles down to its steady musical beat and hum. We
are becoming more easy in our minds now about our air compressor starting
the engine, but have not quite forgotten that failure down south-west of
Norway, in the heavy weather, and the subsequent twenty-four hours of
hand-pumping for air pressure to start the engine.
Now we swing round and head south and east out of Lerwick Bay, past the
Bressay Light on our left, and then turn northwards towards Whalsey and
the Outer Skerries, making for Yell Sound and the west of Shetland for
whales, finners, rorquals or big cetaceans of any kind. I found on my
visit to the west coast of Shetland on Sunday, to our whaling station
there, that our steam-whalers had left for Norway a week previously.
Owing to the rough weather they said the season was over; but they left
word that there were still whales about the coast as close as five miles.
Now we have lovely weather to-day, though so cold it feels as if we
were at the start of the spring fishing rather than arriving at the end
of the season. It will be rather rich if we capture a few whales when
the others have fled. At any rate we have the joyous sense of freedom
from competitors that we trout and salmon fishers feel when we find our
favourite pool is unoccupied by another rod.
But, dear brother anglers, could I but tell you of the joy of preparation
for whaling! You know how your fingers almost tremble as you undo your
casts for the first day’s fishing of the year, and what pleasure there is
in all the preparations.
Now we are enjoying a similar pleasure, only our preparations are on a
larger scale, fifteen there are of us, all doing something to help. The
captain and the writer sit on the bridge and con the chart with thumb and
finger, picking up the points—rocks, skerries, beacons. “Steady she is
now, keep her heading for Muckle Skerry,” with Isbister, Moa, Nista and
Nacka skerries on our left. Another mile or two in this direction and we
will turn westwards right through Yell Sound that divides the main island
from the island of Yell.
A swell comes from the north and there is a fresh, pleasant ripple,
and sea and sky are blue as can be expected up north in September, and
everyone is busy, some on deck, some below, engineers at the engine—it
takes very little attention. Then there is a jolly hot fire amidship,
where the smith is busy at his forge. The mate gives him a hand with the
bellows and there is the cheery sound of the ring and beat of red iron on
the anvil. The bos’n, a mere lad, of fairest northern type but of much
seafaring knowledge, sits in a sunny spot sewing canvas. Hansen beside
him is peeling potatoes, and some of the crew bring up bolts of canvas
preparatory to the task we have before us of making awnings, awnings
against the hot sun of the equator. It is a little difficult up here in
the north to believe there is such a thing as hot weather, when we find
two ply of winter clothes none too warm in the sun.
We have our three guns in the bow still swaddled in canvas, but we will
take that off and get them ready farther up the Yell Sound, and perhaps
give my late host a salute as we pass Lochend.
We rather hug ourselves for having at last and at length escaped from
official red-tape entanglements and got to the comparative wilds of the
west of Shetland.
Last night before we left Lerwick we entertained the Custom House and
other officials very modestly, I must here say, and they entertained us
too in the way of songs and arguments and stories. A Swedish captain
joined the entertainment and our evening meal of cormorants and light
beer without making a very wry face at either, and later he gave us
songs. He was slightly grizzled, with close-cropped beard and hair, with
brilliant blue eyes, and he shook his head and beard and closed his eyes
whilst he sang, and hit off some of his notes most exquisitely truly—sang
Freuden’s “Der ganger tre Jenter i Solen” (Three maids towards the sun
went under the linden trees, and the flowers swept their skirts as they
sang tra-la, tra-la, tra-la-la-la), and he quite excelled himself and
shook his head twice as hard, in a dainty ditty about a maid who argued
she might do many things “For mama did so when she var a flikke” (I think
“flikke” stands for our “flapper”), and verses of this he hummed and
sang right into the middle of our most solemn debates on international
politics. Our friend of the “wyles” and the Bow Bells accent, junior
Customs officer, turned out to be Southern Irish, and for the evening at
least a strong Home Ruler and Socialist. His song was too blue to catch
on, but his Socialism raised Henriksen’s fighting spirit to such heat
that we had almost to hold the disputants. But through all the smoke and
heated discussion and small amount of beer, our worthy Swede either slept
or awakened and sang “So did mama, when she were a flikke,” smiling and
shaking his head in a most ingratiating manner.
Then we had a Gaelic song from MacDiarmid of the Isles, and Glen Lyon,
and with the Norwegian national song we dispersed, the Swede still
smiling, singing about the flikke, and the Cockney from Cork firing off
fluent platitudes. Henriksen would hardly believe me when I told him that
any Southern Irishman could be just as eloquent and excited on any side
of any subject under the sun. I hope they were not all drowned, for they
went ashore in a very small, leaky harbour boat, five souls, one pair of
oars, and it dark, late and windy.
But to continue our cast round the islands for whales—we motor steadily
through Yell Sound and past Haldane’s house at Lochend and its silvery
crescent shore, with the little green crofts and low, misty hills beyond.
We swing round his bay and blow our horn three times and by-and-by we
see two figures, Haldane and his gillie, against the white house with
its many little windows in the thick walls and they wave a greeting and
we dip our flag three times and proceed west and north till we feel the
ocean swell again, and pass Ramna Stacks, the battered sentinels at the
north entrance to Yell Sound, home of cormorants and shag. A lumpy sea
generally heaves about them, throwing white fountains up their dark
sides. Often I have seen them when passing up the coast in whalers, and
always they express a rough, rugged aspect of the sea. I have known them
change their colour in a most remarkable manner in the space of a few
moments, from livid yellow to green and back again, and at their feet lie
many shells of great value deposited there in H.M.S. by various cruisers.
This is how it happened. One day an admiral came from the outer seas
at thirty miles an hour and called on R. C. Haldane and said he’d like
to have a shot or two at the Stacks as they were exquisite targets. So
Haldane agreed, seeing the matter was one of national service. And one
morning, bright and early, my host climbed on board the admiral’s ship,
and in the time they had half done breakfast they had travelled from
Lochend at a fearful speed to the Stacks, and then their owner saw the
islands stagger and change colour; when the war vessels passed them, each
decorating the islands with four shells apiece of various explosives,
each patent explosive painting the rocks a different tint.
To-day as we pass they seem to be of their natural colour again, sombre
black and red with a suggestion of pale green grass on their sloping
tops, with streaks of white on the ledges where the sea-birds breed,
undisturbed by man.
N. by W. we steer, the wind ahead as usual, with a careful look-out for
whales, the wind rising meantime till the sea becomes too rough for
harpooning; then we turn tail to the rising sea and fine rain and do a
patrol southwards. As it still grows rougher and there is no sign of any
kind of life, whales or birds, or whales’ food[8] in the water, and as we
have a sheltered anchorage on our lee, we right about, and head for Colla
Firth and Lochend for the night.
For we argue that we can make a more certain “departure” from Colla
Firth if the weather improves to-morrow morning than we could make after
drifting a night in a strong wind in the open sea.
Now we have at last a fair wind almost aft, and up goes our foresail and
staysail and cheerily we hoist away at mainsail, all hands pleased to
turn back from a nasty sea to a cosy night in shelter. We tramp along in
great style, a sailing-ship once more, plus the engine going steadily.
We ought to drop anchor in shelter before dark. How big the sails seem
to-day, with all the reefs out. Dear me! that foresail must have looked
very small indeed in last week’s gale, with all the reefs in, a mere
pocket-handkerchief bit of mainsail.
St Ebba lies over with the squalls off shore as we get into the wind
again, but she doesn’t roll much and we feel increasing belief in her as
a sailing-ship.