AMONG RIGHT WHALES
We left our hero Rube suffering in body but triumphant in soul, and
also in perfect ignorance of the astounding change his behaviour was
bringing about in all hands. I have always maintained that a Christian
ship presents as near an approach to what most of us agree Heaven must
be like as we can make on this side of the gate thereof. For look at
the position! The grosser forms of temptation are entirely absent, yet
there is none of the selfish side of monasticism present. Men talk and
laugh and work with their fellows amid the most glorious of all earthly
surroundings--the pure, wide, bright ocean. There is no monotony,
since every day brings diversified duties, and in hours of rest not
needed for sleep there is an ever-changing panorama of glory present
to the newly awakened eyes, drawing ever-deepening thankfulness from
the regenerated heart. The thousand-and-one miseries and pettinesses
that distract men ashore are absent. From the little world evil has
departed--almost the knowledge of it, since there is no daily paper
recording the never-ending succession of crimes.
Yes, it is an ideal state of existence, a sort of Happy Valley in the
midst of the ocean, whence the trail of the serpent has been removed,
and where the community bask, unshadowed by sin, in the sunshine of
God. Of course, it will be cynically remarked that this is a picture
of perfection, unattainable, impossible. Well, it is nearly, but not
quite. I have experienced something very near it, and I beg to submit
that it was so idyllic that it could not be made a subject for cynical
sarcasm, even by the editor of the _Freethinker_, if he only saw it in
operation. It might be called right fruit of wrong belief; but I do not
love paradoxes. I prefer to believe that men do not gather grapes of
thorns or figs of thistles.
But I am doing an injustice to Reuben and his shipmates by
interpolating my own meditations in their story. When the work of
realising the spoil of their first whale had been finished, all hands
felt that they had now served their apprenticeship--were now fully
equipped for their work on board, whatever it might be. And in their
watches below the men found a wondrous fund of conversational matter
in the happenings of the past few days. But whenever they approached
the subject of Rube’s rescue of MacManus there was a perceptible
lowering of the voice, an air of solemnity upon everybody, for they
all felt that here was a man who, given opportunity, would have dived
into hell itself if by so doing he might haply rescue a comrade. And
that a comrade by no means specially dear to him, but just one of the
many. The incident brought them a truer insight into the character of
Christ than millions of sermons could have done. And in saying this
I in no wise undervalue sermons. ‘It hath pleased God through the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.’ But the living
example of faith’s outcome, a far-off and feeble imitation of Christ,
carries us beyond the reach of argument, makes the most sceptical
silent. Against it the waves of criticism beat in vain. Logic, with
all its perverseness; the scornful finger-pointing at the unfaithful
professors; the cavilling of the sticklers for formulated creeds--all,
all are silenced or stopped; and the splendour of Christ manifest in
the flesh again, though it be but in the flesh of one of His humblest
servants, overwhelms us.
But it must be confessed that Captain Hampden, even in the midst of his
new-found peace of soul, had occasional fits of despondency when he
realised how little progress the ship was making towards a prosperous
voyage. Over six months had now elapsed and only one sperm-whale had
been seen. Hope buoyed him, of course, but it was often deferred,
and, consequently, though he maintained a cheery demeanour towards
his officers his heart was becoming very sick. Going below into his
lonely little cabin he would stand as if in deep thought, gazing
into vacancy and wondering in some indefinite way how it was that he
was so unfortunate this voyage. For he had the reputation of being a
‘lucky’ skipper who never stayed out all his legal time, and on several
occasions so great had been his success that he had found no need to
go out of the Atlantic Ocean. Twice, indeed, he had spent gloriously
successful seasons on ‘Coffin’s Ground,’ just a little south and west
of the English Channel, finding there sperm-whale, so numerous and fat
that he was inclined to wonder why it should ever be necessary to go
farther afield. I could not help thinking of him last year, when, on my
way to the Mediterranean in one of the crack P. and O. liners, I heard
the veteran captain tell a lady at dinner that there were hardly any
whales now--they had been almost exterminated. I ventured to question
his dictum, and we had rather an interesting discussion. But next
morning he and I met on deck a little after daybreak, to find the ship
gliding along at her usual seventeen knots through the midst of a
school of sperm-whales of the largest size, extending to the horizon on
both sides, and taking us an hour to get away from them.
Nothing of that kind, however, came in the way of the _Xiphias_.
Day after day passed, lengthening into weeks, during which from the
lofty eminence of the crow’s-nest nothing could be seen but sea and
sky, an occasional barnacle-encrusted piece of drift-timber, a school
of dolphin or bonito, a few porpoises, flying fish innumerable, and
now and then a fin-back whale. But with the exception of the skipper
nobody seemed to worry or find the life monotonous. Work went on with
clock-like regularity, but outside of the work the men’s lives appeared
to be full of interest. Interminable yarns, often inconsequential,
were exchanged, and hardly a detail of their lives remained unrevealed
to each other. Reuben’s return to active service was hailed with such
delight that he did not appear to understand what it meant. He could
not realise that the service he had rendered to his shipmate so readily
could have taken such heroic proportions in the eyes of the crew. If
he could have known, that great deed was, after all, but an incident:
it was the lovely life, the splendid man in him which appealed to all
hands, as, indeed, it will ever do where men are gathered together.
Many complaints of lack of appreciation are heard from men of all
classes, but the truth appears to be that with few exceptions men
and women are marvellously generous in their appreciation of one
another’s good deeds. There is, of course, a bogus hero-worship, an
undiscriminating appreciation of work that only makes for evil, and
consequently had far better be left undone, but it is only a virtue
carried to excess. Let men or women do ever so little good work to-day,
and, if it becomes known, their reward is almost certain to transcend
their merits by far.
So Reuben, unconsciously as the sun shines or the birds sing, was
made the means of sweetening the crew of the _Xiphias_, and keeping
them sweet, and at the same time, as a consequence, was teaching
them--teaching them how to teach themselves from the great book open
around them lessons that would be the delight of their whole remaining
lives. Meanwhile the Captain grew more and more irritable, moody,
despondent. He still prayed, but listlessly, as if wondering what good
it could do. And all this mental agony of his was just due to the lack
of common-sense appreciation of the benefits conferred by the Gospel
of Christ. What should we say of a parent, who, while ever ready to
confer upon his children the best of advice, the best educational
advantages possible, and who gave them promises of glorious prospects
in the future, should yet keep them without the common necessaries of
life, food and clothing--yes, not only keep them without, but hinder
them from obtaining those things for themselves? Yet this is the idea
which so many, the vast majority of orthodox Christians, have of the
dear Father God. But the educational process, if of any value, is slow,
and Captain Hampden was learning, unwillingly it is true, but still he
_was_ learning. At times, though, the content which seemed to possess
all hands but himself was very trying to him. He naturally felt that
his crew should in some measure share his anxiety over the non-success
of the voyage so far, and resentment at their apparently callous
conduct often made him miserable. Their behaviour was irreproachable.
There was no slackness shown in any duty, and he knew that as far as
the look-out was concerned not a fish could leap by day within a radius
of four or five miles without being instantly noted by one or more of
the six pairs of keen eyes at the mastheads.
But it was not until the old _Xiphias_ had rolled her way eastward as
far as Gough Island that payable whales were sighted again. Then when
within about ten miles of that huge isolated crag rising solitary,
awful, out of the vast waste of the Southern Ocean, a dubious cry of
‘Blo--o--o--w’ was heard from the fore crow’s-nest. It told plainly
that the utterer was not at all sure whether what he was reporting was
worth while troubling after. So many false alarms had been raised,
rorquals, finbacks, grampuses had so often filled them with delusive
hopes, that only the unmistakable bushy spout of a sperm-whale was
looked for. Since, however, no chance, slight though it might be, was
neglected, the warning was given, and was presently being repeated by
all the other watchers. Captain Hampden rather listlessly mounted the
rigging, his binoculars slung to his neck, and reaching the mainyard,
focussed them upon the, as yet, far-off whales. One glance was enough.
In a tremendous voice he roared his orders to come down from aloft,
prepare to leave the ship, alter the course, &c. He had discovered
that a school of ‘right’ whales was in sight: a species of cetacean,
almost identical with the great Greenland whale, and because of the
high value of the baleen, or whalebone found in the mouth, worth almost
as much in those days as the sperm-whale in spite of the poor quality
of ‘right’ whale oil--perhaps, when all the circumstances were taken
into consideration, more, for even the Southern right whale, although
certainly more elegant in figure and swifter in movement than his
Northern congener, is a meek and gentle creature, in the chase of which
an accident is almost unknown.
There were about twenty individuals in the school, of average
size--that is to say, each looking as if he or she might yield eighty
or ninety barrels of oil and seven or eight hundredweight of bone. I
mix up the genders, for, curiously enough, while the sperm-whale cow
never attains to much more than one-fourth of the size of the adult
cachalot, the mysticetus, or right whale has little or no disparity
between the size of the sexes; what difference does occur is usually
in favour of the female. With great glee the skipper ordered all five
boats away, leaving the ship in charge of the four petty officers
and two men only; and having told each boat-header to do his level
best to get fast to a whale for himself, and not interfere with any
other boat’s quarry, also to make the best possible time down to
where the whales awaited them all unconscious of their proximity,
the chase began. Oars and sails were both used with such good effect
that although the breeze was not strong the boats fairly flew over
the darkened surface of the sea. It was in the mid-morning--about 10
A.M. and the sky was, as usual in those latitudes, on the edge of the
roaring forties, overcast with a thick veil of grey clouds which shut
out the sun as effectually as night. And when the sun goes the sea’s
aspect is cold and cheerless even on the Line. Also, there rolled
up from the west mighty knolls of water, the heaving of old ocean’s
breast, which when they caught a boat, hurled her forwards as if she
were flying, sometimes accurately balanced upon a gliding summit as
if by the fingers of a juggling genie. Viewed from an independent
standpoint, the enterprise of these seafarers would have looked like
some forlorn hope whereof the prize was leave to live a little longer
and the penalty death. But the men in those boats had no such thought.
Their teeth clenched, their nostrils expanded, their eyes ablaze with
excitement, they plied their oars, scorning fatigue, overcoming the
ache in their bones by sheer will-power, and without a word or sign
of encouragement save those which proceeded from their own fierce
desire to do better than the fellows in the next boat. It was emulation
unpaid, unfostered, raised to its highest power, and achieving far more
than any hope of reward could have done.
With a wild yell of delight, the mate’s boat dashed into the centre
of the school, and his harpooner’s weapon flew into the body of the
nearest monster like a lightning flash. The other boats, spreading
themselves fan-wise, came on the scene almost immediately, and then
all the wild delight of the chase, all the romantic interest of the
scene was for a season in abeyance. It was too sordid. The clean sea
became a slaughter-house; the soul-sickening smell of blood permeated
the air. The exuding oil from the wounds made the sea quite smooth,
although, of course, the swell rolled high as ever. The bewildered
victims, unable to fight or flee, rolled helplessly upon the surface,
exposing their vitals to the deadly thrust of the long lances, and only
by an occasional flap of their mighty tails did they show any sign of
resentment or desire to escape. Happily it was soon over. Within half
an hour from the time of attack and without the expenditure of one
hundred fathoms of line, five whales lay dead upon the solemn sea.
No boat was injured, no damage of any kind had been done. And round
about the victims and their slayers quietly circled the still-living
monsters as if by some horrible fascination held to the spot. The
skipper gave orders that none of these apparently mourning ones should
be molested--not, be it noted, because of any tenderness for them,
but because the average sailor, and especially the whaler, is averse
to taking life wantonly. Where profit is concerned blood flows like
water--slay, slay, slay, insatiable apparently of slaughter; but kill
for killing’s sake as some gentlemen do in a pheasant battue--no: the
rude whalemen leave such practices to their betters.
The deadly work had been so well and swiftly done that, as the mate
said figuratively, ‘a good-sized handkerchief would have covered ’em
all.’ Making allowance for pardonable exaggeration, the whole of the
five certainly lay within half a square mile, and, therefore, two
boats were judged sufficient to attend to the needful tail-boring,
&c., while the other three cut adrift and sped back to the fast
approaching ship, all their crews in a state of wild delight at so
successful an encounter, and feeling quite fresh, for really they had
hardly got their second wind. Indeed, it was a busy day for them,
although rendered much easier than it would otherwise have been by
the exceptionally favourable circumstances. Still, even then the work
of getting alongside and securing by the passing of fluke-chains five
gigantic bodies like those was bound to be a heavy one in any case.
However, it was successfully accomplished by eight bells, noon, and
with a satisfied sigh of relief every man made his way below to as good
a dinner as the circumstances would admit of.
A full hour was allowed the resting men for food and smoke, and then at
the first cry of ‘Turn to!’ they all scurried on deck as if eager to
get to work again. But a surprise awaited them. Instead of the tedious
and terribly hard work which they had seen before of cutting off and
splitting lengthways the head of the sperm-whale, now the clatter of
the pawls was unceasing. Once the upper jaw of the right whale, with
its valuable fringe of baleen, is lifted out, the rest of the work of
‘flenching,’ or skinning the blubber off the body of the whale, is just
a pleasant piece of recreation. And here let me say that, whatever
may be the practice in bay-whaling when the big body is stranded, it
is utterly ridiculous to suppose, as so many readers of fiction do
suppose, that men with spikes in their boots get down upon the whale’s
back and hew slabs of blubber off his body, which they fling on deck.
Such a feat would be utterly impossible, besides being most wasteful
of time as well as spoil. For the ship and the whale roll and tumble
about to such an extent that standing upon that rolling mass alongside
is inconceivable. No: the great ‘cutting-tackles’ come into play, and
once having a wide riband of blubber started off the whale’s neck the
blubber is unwound as it were by continual hoisting, cutting at the
still attached side, and the rolling round of the body.
The men all toiled as if fatigue were a word of no import, nor was a
word spoken or needed to spur them on to greater efforts. They toiled
until the deck, as well as the blubber-room, was packed from end to end
with the mountainous masses of blubber and upper jaws with their wealth
of bone. And as the last despoiled carcass was cut adrift the men
raised a great shout of joy. It had been such a mighty task, so well
and profitably performed, that their exultation was legitimate, and
even praiseworthy. But the Captain, feeling the reaction from his great
exertions, in a sense of almost overpowering lassitude, slowly dragged
himself up on to the little deck aft to have a look round before going
below for a meal and a short rest. And he saw a sight that drove the
blood back to his heart, and left his extremities cold and numb. In the
fury of labour no one had noticed the drift of the ship, nor indeed,
the worsening of the weather. True, the sails had all, except the
close-reefed main topsail and fore topmast staysail, been furled before
beginning, so that the weather mattered little, but--the grim, towering
mass of the island was close abeam to leeward. Like some vast cloud
it loomed above them, while to windward, through the fast-gathering
gloom of evening, came thundering on the rising, gleaming seas of the
great Southern Ocean, precursors of the gale that would presently be
here--nay, was already making its presence felt and heard.
For a few moments Captain Hampden stood and gazed irresolute. What
could he do? With his deck so hampered by those vast greasy masses
that movement fore and aft was well-nigh impossible, with night almost
here, and crew worn out with the severe labour they had so cheerfully
performed all day, what could he resolve upon? Like an inspiration
came the thought, ‘Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,’ and baring
his head he said, ‘O God, save us, don’t let us perish like this. Let
us escape, please, Father, from this awful danger.’ In a moment his
relaxing muscles stiffened, he stood erect, and with a voice that
reached every corner of the ship he shouted, ‘Lay aloft and loose
taups’les an’t’gallants’les. Drop everything, men, and get sail on
her.’ There was a momentary hush as the crew took in his words, and
then cheerful cries of response came back to him as the weary fellows
realised that they were being called upon for a supreme effort.
Slipping, clutching, fighting their way over the greasy masses, they
scrambled aloft, and soon the white gleams above told of the loosened
canvas, while the waiters below tailed on to the halyards and sheets,
and in all kinds of apparently impossible attitudes among the slimy
obstructions dragged the reluctant sails up again. By the time all
possible sail was made there was another and a deeper note mingling
with the voice of the storm--the deep roar of the great Atlantic
rollers beating up against those aged barriers of rock. But to their
amazement the crew felt the vessel’s motion ease. She had been rolling
heavily, labouring under the immense upper weight as if bewildered by
it and hardly knowing what to do. And now she hardly moved at all,
while overside the whole sea seemed smoothed down and ablaze with
phosphorescent light. Even the veteran officers were puzzled, until the
Captain suddenly bethought him of the gigantic seaweed that in fronds
of hundreds of feet in length, and the thickness of a man’s body, grows
upward to the surface in those waters all around the bases of the
island mountains. But was there any protection there? True, the sea
had become smooth, but the ship’s way had also deadened so that she no
longer forged ahead, while it was impossible to ascertain in any way
whether or not she was drifting broadside on over the heads of the kelp
towards the stern precipices to leeward. The night was now so dark that
in spite of the proximity of the mountain to leeward it was impossible
to distinguish between one side and the other. Only the ear could tell
by that deep moan of the sea against the rock bases.
Nothing could be done now but wait patiently to see what was the will
of God concerning them. It was most obvious that if the kelp let them
through, the ship must be battered to pieces against those precipices,
where the sea was at least twenty fathoms deep alongside the rocks.
Anchoring was out of the question--seamanship, in fact, was entirely
discounted. And so, feeling all this, Captain Hampden, again raising
his voice, summoned all hands aft. ‘Boys,’ he said, when they had
gathered around him, ‘this looks like our last night of life. Now
we’ll pray that God will let us live, but specially we’ll pray that
if He doesn’t see fit to grant us any more life we may die clean an’
wholesome. An’ whether we live or die we’ve done our best, and that’s a
great comfort.’ So holding on in all sorts of attitudes, those hardly
bestead men prayed with the skipper, full of faith that whatever the
outcome of the night might be, it would be all right. They finished and
were dismissed to their quarters, while the gale howled ever louder,
and the awful shadow to leeward deepened.