The _Sally_ came, abruptly, into a sea that was full of whales. At
nightfall they had not smelled oil for weeks; at dawn there were spouts
on three quarters of the horizon; and thereafter for more than a month
there were never three successive days when they did not sight whales.
This turn of the luck brought three things to pass: Roy Kilcup had his
first chance in the boats during the chase; Brander killed his first
whale as an officer of the _Sally_; and Noll Wing killed the last
cachalot that was ever to feel his lance.
Dan'l Tobey had promised Roy, at the time when Brander was promoted to
be mate, that he would give the boy a chance in his boat. He put Roy on
the after thwart, under his own eye, and Roy leaned to the oar and
pulled with all his might, and bit his lip to hold back the sobbing of
his breath. The boy came of whaling stock; his father and his father's
father had been men of the sea. And he did not turn white when the
boat's bow slid at last alongside a slumbering black mass, and the keen
harpoons chocked home.
That first experience of Roy's was a mild one. The whale, a fairish
bull, showed no fight whatever. He took the irons as a baby takes
soothing sirup; and he lay still while they pulled alongside and prodded
him with a lance. At the last, when his spout was a crimson fountain,
he gave one gigantic forward leap; but he was dead not ten fathoms from
the spot where he lay when the first harpoon went home; and thereafter
there was only the long toil of towing the monster back to the ship for
the cutting in.
A small affair, without excitement; yet big for Roy. It worked a change
in the boy. He came back to the ship no longer a boy, but the makings of
a man. He spoke loftily to Faith; and he brushed shoulders with the men
on equal terms and was proud to do so, altogether forgetting the days
when he had liked to think himself their superior, and to order them
around. Dan'l catered to the new mood in the boy; he told Cap'n Wing in
Roy's hearing that the youngster would make a whaleman.... That he had
never seen any one so cool at the striking of his first whale.... Roy
swelled visibly.
Brander's initiation as an officer of the _Sally_ came at the same time;
and a bit of luck made it possible for the fourth mate to prove his
mettle. When they sighted spouts in three quarters, that morning, the
mate had chosen to go after a lone bull; old Tichel and Brander attacked
a small pod to the eastward; and Willis Cox went north to try for a fish
there.
Brander gave Tichel right of way, since the old man was his superior
officer; and they came upon the pod with a matter of seconds to choose
between them. The whales were disappointingly small; nevertheless Tichel
attacked the largest, and Brander took the one that fell to him. His
irons went home a moment after Tichel's; his whale leaped into the
first blind struggle, not fleeing, but fighting to shake off the iron.
Now it is customary, among whalemen, to wait till this first flurry has
passed, to allow the whale to run out his own strength, and then to pull
in for the finishing stroke. But Brander was ambitious; the whale was
small.... He changed places with Loum, and shouted orders to his men to
haul in the loose coils of line that had been thrown over with the
irons. The whale was circling, rolling, striking with its flukes; it had
not seen them, gave them no heed, but the very blindness of its
struggles made them a greater menace.
They drew in on the whale; and Loum at the steering oar swung Brander
against the monster's flank. Brander got home his lance in three thrusts
before they were forced to draw clear to avoid the whale's renewed
struggles. But those three were enough; the spout crimsoned; he loosed
and backed away from the final flurry, and the whale was dead ten
minutes from the time when the first iron went home.
That was exploit enough to prove Brander's ability; his quick kill
marked him as a man who knew his job. He could have afforded to be
content; but when his whale was fin out, and he looked around, he was in
time to see trouble come upon James Tichel.
The whale Tichel struck had sounded; and just after Brander killed, it
breached before his eyes, under the very bows of Tichel's boat. Brander
saw the black column of its body rise up and up from the sea; it seemed
to ascend endlessly.... Then toppled, and slowly fell, and struck the
water so resoundingly that for a moment the whale and Tichel's boat were
hidden alike. Tichel was dodging desperately to get clear; but the
wallowing whale rolled toward him, over him, smothering his craft....
Brander, when the tossing and tormented water quieted, saw the bobbing
heads of the men, and the boat just awash, and the gear floating all
around....
The whale showed no immediate disposition to run; it was rolling in a
frenzy, bending double as though to tear at its own wounds.... Brander
stuck a marking waif in his own whale, drove his men to their oars, cut
across to see that Tichel and the others were kept afloat by the boat,
and then managed to pick up one of the floating tubs of line, to which
the whale was still attached. The rest was easy enough; the whale fought
its strength away, and Brander made his kill.
Willis Cox had failed to get fast; the whales he sought to attack took
fright as he approached them, and his game got away with a white slash
across the blubber where Long Jim's desperate cast of the harpoon had
gone wild. So Willis rowed to join Brander, and picked up Tichel and his
men, and took their boat and Tichel's whale which Brander had killed, in
tow. Brander took the other; they worked back to the _Sally_. When they
got back to the ship, Noll Wing clapped Brander on the shoulder and
applauded him. The excitement of the sudden chase, after the weeks of
idling, had put life into Noll. His cheeks were flushed; his eyes were
shining; he had the look of his old self once more....
Two whales at a time is as much as any whaler cares to handle; the
_Sally_ had three. A blow of any violence would have made it impossible
for them to cut in even one of the carcasses before the steady heat of
the southern seas rendered them unfit; but no squall came. The luck of
the _Sally_ had turned, and turned in earnest. The men welcomed the hard
work after their long idleness; they toiled at the windlass and the
gangway with the heartiest will. They raised chants as they walked the
blanket pieces up to the main head or slacked them down the deck to be
cut and stowed in the blubber room below the main hatch. The
intoxication of the toil took possession of them; they went at it
singing and exultant and afire; and even Noll caught the spirit of the
day from them. Youth flooded back into the man; his shoulders
straightened; his chest seemed to swell before their eyes. Faith,
watching him, thought he was like the man she had loved.... She was, for
a time, very happy....
The fever of it got into Noll's blood; and when they killed another
whale the third day after, he swore that at the next chance he would
himself lower for the chase. He fed on the thought.... Faith, fearful
for him, ventured to protest; her first thought was ever that on Noll's
safety depended the safety of the _Sally_, that Noll's first duty was to
bring the _Sally Sims_ safely home again. She told Noll this; told him
his place was with the ship.
"The _Sally_ is your charge," she said. "You ought not to risk
yourself.... Take chances...."
He laughed at her tempestuously. "By God," he cried, "I was never a man
to send men where I was afeared to go. So let be, Faith. You coddle me
like a child; and I am not a child at all. Let be."
Faith surrendered helplessly; but she hoped he would forget, would not
keep his word. He might have forgotten as she hoped; he was sinking back
into his old lassitude when the masthead men sighted the next whale; but
Dan'l sought Noll out and said anxiously:
"Best think better of it, sir. This looks like a big whale; a hard
customer."