IN WHICH WE "STRIKE ON"
Belly uppermost the huge whale (its actual length was seventy-three
feet) was fastened "stem and stern" along the starboard side of the
Scarboro. The first operation of butchering a whale--if it be a
baleener--is to secure the whalebone. This is a difficult job as I very
soon saw. The thick, hard, horny substance must be separated from the
jaw; and it sometimes turns the edge of the axe like iron would.
When we had got the baleen inboard, however, the more disagreeable work
of "flensing" began. A number of the men, with old Tom Anderly at their
head, got upon the whale in spiked shoes and with blubber spades
attacked the main carcass of the beast. The blubber was cut up into
squares, weighing a ton or more each, the hook of the falls caught in
one end, and then the blubber was "eased off" with the spades while
those aboard hauled on the tackle, thus ripping the blubber from the
layer of flesh beneath.
In handling a small whale, Tom told me, they would thus rip the blubber
off in long strips, rolling the carcass over and over in the bights of
the holding chains. For this one whale Captain Rogers did not see fit to
start the fire under the donkey-engine amid ships, by which the blubber
could have been raised inboard much easier.
The try-out caldrons were heated, however, and the blubber as it came
inboard--like "sides" from a great hog--was hacked into pieces of two or
three pounds each and thrown into the pots. Soon the deck of the bark,
from bow to stern, was slippery with spilled oil, or bits of blubber. A
thick, greasy smoke rolled away from the ship. It's flavor in the mouth
was at first sickening. We got used to it.
"Hi, lad!" cried Tom Anderly, when I looked over the rail, "now you've
got a taste of real whaler's souse--everything you put in your
potato-trap for the rest of the v'y'ge will be flavored with whale-oil."
A whale will weigh about as many tons as it is feet long--in other
words, this seventy-three foot whale weighed probably seventy ton and
from the blubber we tried out thirty tons of oil--nearly half its weight
in the tanks beside the baleen!
We had been sailing in the wake of the big school of whales we had
spied when we killed the baleener. We came up with them again at
mid-afternoon, and found that they were sperms. That was why the
_Mysticete_ we had killed the day before did not start to drag the
Scarboro toward the school. The baleeners and the _Denticete_ (toothed
whales) do not mix in company, and are, indeed, seldom found in the same
seas. The baleeners are usually found toward the Arctic or Antarctic
regions, while the sperms and their ilk hold to the warm seas.
Captain Rogers might have run down to the school of cachelots and gunned
for one of the beasts; but then the others would have been frightened
away. The bark lay to upon a perfectly calm sea, and at a distance of
about two miles from the school, and four boats were manned and shot
away from the ship. The whales seemed to be asleep, or lying sunning
themselves, upon the surface of the sea.
I was in Ben Gibson's boat, of which old Tom was steersman. He would
handle the iron too, for as I have said, Ben was just as green in the
actual practice of whalemanship as I was myself. We raced with the other
boats for the nearest prize, which proved to be a husky bull, longer
than the baleener we had killed.
I was bow oar, and I found that I could hold my own with the rest of the
crew. Our stroke set a slapping pace and we bent to the work as though
we were racing for the sport of it. Each crew desired to be first and
have the credit of fleshing the iron in this monster. The water being so
calm it proved to be a very pretty struggle. And all done so silently!
The whale is sharp-eared and on a mill-pond sea like this, sounds carry
far. We came up from behind the mammoth, and we were ahead of the other
boats.
The captain, in the nearest boat, signaled us with his hand to strike
on, while his boat rushed past for another of the sleeping monsters. Old
Tom and the young second mate changed places swiftly and the old
harpooner stood up poising the heavy iron and looking to see that the
coils of the rope were free. With a nod Mr. Gibson ordered the oars
brought inboard and he pulled in the long steering oar himself. The
whaleboat shot close up to the whale's side. The body loomed beside us
like the rolling hull of an unballasted ship.
With my face over my shoulder I watched old Tom poise the iron. When he
swung it back the muscles of his shoulder and upper arm flexed like a
pugilist's! He was a fit subject for a statue at that instant. Then he
flung body and weapon forward, the latter left his hand smoothly, and
the sabre-sharp point sunk deep in the yielding blubber.
"Back all!" gasped Ben Gibson, scarcely above his breath, so excited was
he.
But we had expected the order and were ready for it. The oars went in
with unanimity and the boat shot back, for a whaleboat is as sharp at
one end as it is at the other.
The whale made no flurry, however. It was as though he lay stunned for
half a minute--perhaps longer. Then he made up his mind what to do, and
he did it with a promptness and speed that was amazing.
Like a spurred horse the whale started ahead. I declare, it seemed as
though half his length came out of the sea at the first jump. The line
whizzed over the bow as though it were tackled to a fast express.
"Pull!" yelled Ben and we laid to the oars so that when the line ran out
the shock would not be so great. When the first line was all out and Tom
bent on another we were rushing through the water like mad. We passed
the captain's boat just after he had struck on himself and his kill had
sounded.
"Go it, young man!" yelled Captain Rogers, standing up and waving his
hat to his nephew, "you're going out of town faster than you'll come
back."
All we could do in that double-ended boat was to sit still and hold
tight. I candidly believe that we traveled at a speed of a mile minute.
I had once been aboard of a turbine launch, and the black water was
thrown up on either side of that whaleboat in a wave just as it had
flowed away from the nose of the launch!
This wave seemed to be three feet higher than the gunwale of the boat
and as black as ebony. Even Tom Anderly cast a glance at the
boat-hatchet as though he contemplated cutting the taut line. Our eyes
were blinded by the wind which seemed to be blowing a hurricane.
Actually there was scarcely a breath stirring over the surface of the
placid ocean.
Our locomotive went directly through the school. Its mates rolled
placidly and eyed us as we shot by with wicked glance. But none of them
followed the boat which continued to tear through the water with
undiminished speed.
But after a time we found that we had company, and mighty unpleasant
company, too. In the boiling wake of the whaleboat I could see a dozen
triangular fins--the fins of the real tiger shark of the tropics. Not a
nice spectacle to men in such a situation as ours. Secretly I was
frightened, and I reckon even the oldest in the boat's crew felt
serious.
The mad whale was taking us farther and farther away from the bark and
our friends. Indeed, the Scarboro was wiped out of sight, it seemed,
within a very few minutes, and the other three boats were lost behind
us, too.
The runaway, however, did not continue straight ahead. Its speed did not
seem to slacken in the least; but soon it began to circle around,
finding itself without its mates.
"If the old feller don't put on brakes pretty soon the harpoon'll git so
hot it'll melt the blubber and pull out," chuckled the stroke-oar.
It was the first word spoken that showed relief. There was a perceptible
slackening of our speed. And the whale was "going back to town," as the
captain had intimated.
"Get hold of that line, Webb, and stand ready to haul," said Mr. Gibson
to me, taking the heavy whalegun from its covered beckets, after
changing places again with old Tom.
"Now for it!" muttered the boat-steerer, gripping the eighteen-foot oar
and craning forward eagerly. He was just as excited as the rest of us. I
hauled in on the line, standing firmly braced just behind the young
second mate. The whale had actually come to a stop and did not sound. We
drew closer and closer.
"Jest a leetle be-aft the for'ard fin, sir!" whispered old Tom,
excitedly.
Gibson grunted some reply and raised the gun, taking careful aim at the
mountain of flesh about which the water swirled. A second or two of
breathless suspense followed as, oars in hand, we waited the report of
the gun.
A sharp report made me jump. Then came the dull explosion of the
bomb-lance somewhere in the vitals of the whale.
"Stern all! stern all!" shouted Mr. Gibson, this time finding his voice.
The wounded whale flung itself completely out of the water. For a moment
we could see daylight underneath the huge bulk and as we backed water
with all our strength it did seem as though that convulsed, eighty
barrel sperm must fall upon the boat and overwhelm it!