CAPTURING AND CUTTING-IN
I have said that there is a wide difference between a merchantman
and a whaler. A ship that carries a cargo that is to be delivered
must make the port of delivery with all possible speed. On arrival
the sailors, who are paid wages, are not very likely to desert; and,
if they do, their places are usually easily filled. The food on a
merchantman generally strikes a pretty good average, because, in
most cases, recruits are obtained in the ports visited. It is
different with the whaler. There isn’t so much variety to or change
in the food on the whaler; the sail is shortened at night, and the
slower she goes at all times the better. Her cargo is to be taken
from the sea, and the whales are just as likely to find her as she
is to find them. Then the whaler is a home, such as it is, for three
or four years, and it is the duty of the captain to keep away from
ports as much as he can.
The _Seabird_ took it very leisurely. Day followed day and we saw no
whales. I had to take my place in the hoops, and I searched the sea
for whales until my eyes fairly ached. I noticed that as we cruised
farther south, most of the birds were different from those of the
North Atlantic and far more numerous. The most interesting to me
were the albatross. They would come very near the vessel. They
seemed to float along rather than fly like other birds, and their
cry was somewhat like the braying of an ass. It is said that when
they have gorged themselves with fish and jellyfish, they will sit
motionless on the water and may be taken with the hand. One of them
seemed almost bent on getting on the ship, and some of the men,
watching their opportunity, captured him and secured him on the
deck. He measured fifteen feet in spread of wings. The plumage was
soft and mostly white. The beak was long and hooked at the point and
was of a delicate pink. The most curious things about him were his
webbed-feet with no hind toe or claw. The capture of the bird
afforded a pleasant change in our lives and provided a theme of
conversation for the rest of the day.
After covering six or seven thousand miles, we reached the Rio de la
Plata, called by whalemen the River Plate. This is an estuary
between Uruguay and Argentina, and is a famous whaling ground. Here
once occurred one of the most terrible battles with a sperm whale of
which there is any record. When struck, the whale cut the boat in
two with his jaw and thrashed the wreck into bits. After the men
were picked up, two other boats planted irons in him and he smashed
both these boats to pieces. Of the men in the water, two could not
swim, so they climbed up on the whale’s back and sat down just
forward of the hump. Another boat arrived and took all the men on
board. The whale had six harpoons in him, but he made no effort to
escape. Two spare boats having come up, the whale tried to sweep his
jaw through the bottom of one of them, but the craft was, for a
time, well handled. He succeeded, however, in rushing through the
boat, and after four boats, about twelve hundred fathoms of line and
all the whaling gear were lost, the whale made off.
Boylike, I fancied that all whales on this ground must be very
fierce. If I had any fear, it was only for a moment, for I was
anxious to hear the glad cry from aloft and to be ordered to the
boat. Just a week from the day when we reached the ground came the
welcome announcement, and all the boats were lowered. The whales
were to the windward and pretty far off. Lustily we pulled, but as
it happened the other boats led. There is sometimes luck or chance
in the pursuit of whales, and so it was with us. A whale made a kind
of detour and gave us a splendid advantage. We approached the
creature in very much the same way as we had formerly approached the
whale we had lost. The boat-steerer threw both irons successfully
and we got out of the suds and avoided the awful sweep of the great
flukes. The whale sounded, and the warp passed out quickly but not
so fast as to draw the boat’s stem very near to the surface. At last
the line slacked, and we were ordered to haul in, hand over hand. As
we did so, the line was coiled in a wide heap in the stern sheets,
as in the wet state it would not lie very close. When the whale
reappeared we were ordered to take the oars, and, when we reached
the great black object, Lakeum drove the lance between the third and
fourth ribs into his vitals. We pulled away, and the monster began
to thrash like an animal in a fit; the water was crimson, and jets
of blood at least six feet high leaped from the spout hole. They
gradually diminished until the blood merely oozed from it. The whale
made a final breach, fell on his side with a fearful splash and lay
dead in his own blood and a lather of foam. Then came the cry, “Fin
out!” Lakeum ran the lance into the whale’s eye, to make sure he was
dead, and then the tow-line was made fast to a slit cut in the spout
hole. Here let me say that the whales we captured didn’t all die in
the same way. I remember one whale whose head rose and fell in the
last struggle, while the flukes beat the water rapidly and
vigorously. I remember more than one whale that performed the
“flurry,” that is, swam for a few minutes in a circle, to the peril
of the men in the boat—that is, “milled”—and then rolled on his
side, dead.
The whale we had just killed did, before death, what sperm whales
nearly always do. He threw up the contents of his stomach,
consisting of pieces of cuttlefish. As I looked at the monster, I
thought of the saying of Melville, quoted wherever whaling was
carried on, and likely to be quoted so long as any one cares for the
story of the enterprise, “A dead whale or a stove boat.”
Another boat at some distance was also fast to a whale. There were
no other whales in sight. If there had been, Lakeum would have
“waifed” our whale—that is, planted in his body a barbed iron rod
bearing a flag. We were now to tow our whale to the ship—no easy
task, even in calm weather. The first step was to pass a chain
around what they call the “small” at the root of the tail. One of
the old hands, with a rope around his waist, climbed on to the
slippery object and, with some difficulty, got a line around the
“small” and thus enabled the men to secure the flukechain. We set
the sail and we used the oars, too. The ship, which had worked to
windward, bore down on us and lessened the distance. We got to the
ship before the other boat referred to. They were all ready for
us—cutting-fall, spades and cutting-stage. The last named was a
plank platform which reached beyond the carcass and just over the
surface. Now it is to be remembered that there was only one boat on
the starboard side, so that side was all clear from bow to gangway.
The whale was secured by the fluke chains. The head was under the
gangway and the tail was to the bow. The weather was good and so we
“cut to windward”, that is, with the whale toward the wind. In this
way the wind filling the sails counterbalanced to some extent the
weight of the cutting-falls, and helped to keep the vessel on an
even keel.
Cutting-in required great skill. A bunch of blocks was secured
above, through which a rope was passed and then carried to the
windlass. The great, lower block, to which the blubber hook,
weighing about a hundred pounds, was attached, was swung over the
whale. Two men on the cutting-stage, provided with long spades, cut
a hole in the body just above the nearer of the two side fins. A
line in a half-circle was cut around the hole, and the hook was
inserted. A little army of men singing their chantey began heaving
at the windlass. Then the ship careened to the whale, a sharp sound
was heard, the ship rolled backwards from the whale, and the tackle
rose with a strip of blubber attached. The strain caused the whale
to roll over in the water, and, as the blubber peeled off along the
line called the “scarf”, it was hoisted higher and higher aloft till
its upper end grazed the maintop. The men at the windlass ceased
heaving and a harpooner with a long, keen weapon sliced out a hole
in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into this hole the end of the
second great tackle was hooked so as to retain a hold upon the
blubber. Then he severed it completely, so that while the short,
lower part was still fast, the long, upper strip, called the blanket
piece, swung clear, and was all ready for lowering. The heavers
renewed their chantey, and, while the one tackle was peeling and
hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other was slowly
slackened away, and down went the first strip through the main
hatchway, right beneath, into the blubber room. This gloomy place
was about thirty feet each way and between six and seven feet high.
From a beam swung a lamp, which gave a dull light. Blanket pieces
weighed a ton or more each, and, as they were coiled away, they
looked like hideous serpents.
While the floor of the blubber room was slippery at all times, it
was particularly so when a heavy sea was on. Two men with
short-handled spades hewed off blocks from the blanket pieces,
called horse pieces, and pitched them up into a trough secured to
the upper edge of the hatch. Then they were loaded into tubs and
dragged away. The mincing of the horse pieces was performed at a
wooden horse, placed endwise against bulwarks, the pieces falling
into a tub.
The beheading of the whale required skill similar to that involved
in the treatment of the carcass. He had no neck, and, as a fact,
where the neck might have been was the thickest part of him. It was
necessary to cut deep into the flesh and divide the spine at the
point where it was inserted into the skull, not an easy task, as the
whale tossed and rolled in the sea. If the whale had been a small
one, the head would have been hoisted on deck, but, as it was a
large one, it was held against the ship’s side and partly out of the
sea. The upper part of the head is called the “case.” A block was
arranged so that it hung down from the yardarm, and a man dropped
down to the head. A light tackle called a “whip” passed through the
block. Then came the task of beheading the whale, which was no easy
one.
It is to be noted that the other boat which I have mentioned as fast
to a whale succeeded in killing the creature—a cow—and towing her to
the ship. She was secured astern to await the disposal of our
cachalot. I have forgotten to say that while cutting in the first
whale, the sea was full of sharks and the air thick with birds. This
was not peculiar to our case, but was common wherever a sperm whale
was cut in. Sharks! Sharks! Sharks! Squirming, darting, wiggling,
showing their white bellies as they turned this way and that and
displaying rows of huge teeth as they opened their hideous mouths.
Their efforts to tear off pieces of blubber were not very
successful, but the fact that they remained by the whale and showed
no disposition to depart seemed to indicate that they knew that a
treat awaited them when the carcass was to be cut from the ship and
to drift away.
“Isn’t there any danger from these creatures?” I asked Kreelman.
“Not very much. A shark is an awful coward, unless he’s sure he’s
got the better of you. I’ve seen one of ’em jump clean out of water
to try to get a man on the whale’s back, but, instead of that, a man
on deck got the shark with a spade, and, as he fell back in the
water with the blood flowing, the other sharks got him. Now and then
one of ’em will jump out of water and fall back among the others,
not so much for exercise but to show how hungry he is. Then it isn’t
always easy to get him with a spade, but I’ve seen it done.”
The birds hovered about twenty feet above the carcass. They were of
all varieties, sizes and colors. Their screaming and screeching were
enough to drive one distracted. I had read of the wild pigeons, that
flew in such great flocks a hundred years ago, that for a time they
shut off the light of the sun, and, as I gazed at the winged
vampires, I could not help thinking that a not very large increase
in their numbers would serve the purpose of a dense cloud. Just then
there was a great commotion in the water.
A man holding a spade declared, “They always do that just before one
of ’em jumps out. You can’t always get him, they’re so quick, but
I’m goin’ to try if I get a chance.”
Hardly were the words uttered when a huge shark leaped into the air,
and the chance of which the spadesman spoke was an easy one, as it
happened, for the shark rose to a considerable height and so turned
his body as to present a good front for a spade. The man who had
spoken drove the implement clear through the fellow, and, as he held
the handle fast, the great weight of the body detached the spade,
and out gushed the blood as the shark fell back into the sea. If
there was commotion before, there was turmoil now, and, as the
sharks devoured their unfortunate companion, the water was red with
blood. The birds came lower and increased their shrieking. The awful
scene was not soon to be forgotten.
The “case” was full of pure spermaceti and constituted nearly half
the head. In a large whale the case contained nearly three tons of
spermaceti. This is the way our case was baled out. A bucket was
attached to one end of the whip, and the other end was held by a
couple of hands on deck. These hoisted the bucket. The spermaceti
bubbled like new milk and was emptied into a large tub.
After the blubber was stripped from the body and the contents were
removed from the head, these members drifted away, and, to the
relief of everybody, the sharks and birds followed the carcass. And
now the ship was reeking with oil and grease—a fitting preparation
for starting the try-works. The relief spoken of was only temporary,
for the cow whale took the place just vacated, and the air was again
thick with birds and the sea filled with sharks.
And what was the reward for all our labor? The whales were first
sighted by the Gay Head Indian, and, as our whale yielded sixty
barrels, the Indian received five dollars. As for the crew, we were
given a great treat. Our customary food was, of course, lobscouse,
but now to it was added, at supper, a limited supply of gingerbread.
That was all. But now trouble arose over a garment. The boatsteerer
who struck the cow whale asked for a flannel shirt, and most of us
heard the discussion between him and the captain.
“Why do you want a flannel shirt?”
“Ain’t I entitled to it, sir?”
“Why?”
“I struck the cow.”
“What if you did? I ain’t offered any prize for striking or killing
a whale. Only the Gay Header is entitled to a prize and he’s got it,
because he sighted the whales, and the first one made over fifty
barrels.”
“Well, it seems to me that when whale is sighted and there’s a pod
of them, that after the mastheader gets his prize of five dollars
for the first whale captured, the boat-steerers of the other boats,
who strike whales that are captured, ought to get a flannel shirt
each.”
“Yes,” said the captain scornfully, “and then the boat-steerer who
struck the first whale captured wouldn’t get anything at all.”
This observation pretty effectually disposed of the boat-steerer’s
argument. But the men did not allow the discussion to die. A few
days after, when the oil from the two whales had been stowed down,
some of the crew took the matter up in the second dogwatch, and
showed real intelligence in the presentation of their views. The
boat-steerer’s contention met with no favor. The general view was
that the capture of every whale in reality justified the bestowal of
five dollars or a flannel shirt upon the mastheader and that, even
if four or five whales were taken from one pod, he was entitled to
all the prizes. This was, of course, liberal interpretation. The
incident seems to us now unimportant, but I recall how, as a boy, I
listened to the debate, how deeply interested the men were in the
discussion, and how it ended with the remark of one of them, that it
didn’t make any difference what they thought on the matter, as the
captain was likely to save all the money and shirts that he could.