05 Whale Adventure (16 page)

‘You sentimental fools!’ roared Captain Grindle. ‘Slug him with an oar. Pull him down. That’s our dinner - pretty stringy meat, but better than nothing.’

Some of the men protested loudly. Others were not so Mire. Their hunger was greater than their respect for a bird, even if it was the ghost of a dead sailor.

‘We’ll be ghosts ourselves if we don’t eat soon,’ grumbled one.

‘If he’d take a message for us -‘ said Roger.

Grindle glared. ‘What kind of nonsense is that? In my day boys kept their mouth shut and left the thinking to the men.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Scott. ‘Perhaps the boy has something there. We have several accounts in the files of our museum of just that sort of thing - I mean, a bird carrying a message. Usually it was an albatross or a frigate-bird - because they love ships - and are large enough to be easily noticed. Since we haven’t any food for Bill, he will soon leave us. Chances are he’ll make for the nearest ship.’

‘But who’ll pay any attention to a bird?’ objected Grindle.

‘We paid attention to this one, didn’t we?’ said Scott. ‘Remember, he’s half tame. Likely as not, he’ll come down on the spars or the rail, looking for a hand-out. He’s so big and handsome and friendly - they’ll notice him all right.’

‘And how’ll he give them our message? He can’t talk.’

‘Hee-haw! Hee-haw!’ said the albatross, sounding more than ever like an indignant donkey. ‘Can’t talk indeed !’ he seemed to be saying. ‘Just try me.’

‘We won’t depend upon his talking. We’ll fasten a message to his leg.’

‘And who is apt to notice a little wad tied to a bird’s leg?’ scoffed Grindle.

‘We’ll tie a ribbon to it.’

Grindle roared with laughter. ‘Where do you think you’re going to get a ribbon? What do you suppose this is-a girls’ school?’

Scott looked down at his shirt. It was a sports shirt, and it happened to be red. ‘You fellows get the bird,’ he said, ‘and I’ll supply the ribbon.’

“Still think we ought to eat ‘im,’ objected Grindle, but he was smothered under the scrambling men reaching for one of the trailing legs of the big bird. The goney kept just beyond their grasp. When one man climbed on another man’s shoulders the bird rose a few inches and still floated clear.

Hal Hunt’s experience in taking animals alive stood him in good stead now. He made a bight in a line, fashioned a slip-knot, threw the lasso into the air and snared the bird’s right foot. The goney was drawn down, braying like a dozen donkeys, pecking at the men with his powerful hooked beak and thrashing his great wings, so strong that they packed the kick of a mule. There were several bruised pates and shoulders before the mightiest of ocean birds, still braying loudly, was held motionless by many strong hands.

In the meantime Scott had torn a page from his notebook and with the help of the mate was constructing a message. He read it to the men:

Crew of the wrecked ship Killer adrift in two boats. Approximate bearings, 150° 5’ West, 3° South. Sailing South. No food or water. Urgent.

The note was wrapped in a piece of sailcloth cut from a seaman’s coat and tied to the bird’s right leg with a bit of twine frayed from a rope’s end. Scott pulled his shirt out of his slacks and tore from the bottom edge a long strip two inches wide. The end of the strip was tied firmly to the bird’s leg.

‘All right, let him go.’

The released bird with a final angry squawk soared into the air, the red streamer fluttering behind him. Even at five hundred yards Scott’s fiery shirt-tail could be plainly seen.

The goney struck out due west. He seemed delighted to escape from his tormentors.

Nothing could more please the tormentors.

‘Disgusted with us, he is,’ said Bruiser. ‘He’s making straight for another ship.’ Every hungry and thirsty man had a new spark of courage and hope.

But in an hour the bird was back. He had evidently forgiven his persecutors. Again he hovered over the boat, though he was cautious enough to ride a little higher than before. His red banner fluttered bravely in the breeze.

The men tried to shoo him away. ‘Go on - chase yourself !’ They made motions of throwing rocks at him, but unfortunately they had no rocks nor anything else to throw. The goney watched with beady eye for any scraps that might be tossed overboard. Afternoon wore into dusk and dusk into night and the bird still floated above.

Again the castaways huddled around and upon each other in the bottom of the boats. Sleep was difficult, due to the nagging misery of hunger and thirst.

But the first man to open his eyes at dawn roused the others with a joyful shout:

‘Bill’s gone!’

They scanned the sky. There was not a sign of the great white wanderer. Hopes rose high.

That factory ship we saw can’t be more than a few hundred miles away,’ Jimson said. ‘She had about a dozen catchers. That makes thirteen chances we’ll be picked up.’

‘Providin’ your stupid bird finds the ships,’ put in Grindle. ‘That goney ain’t got radar, you know.’

‘Birds have something very much like radar,’ said Scott.

Grindle tried another tack. He was determined to turn the men against Durkins. If he could just make a fool of the second mate he might still get back his command.

‘It it was me,’ he said. ‘I’d be makin’ straight for Christmas Island. It’s due west, and it’s a lot closer than your French islands.’

Durkins did not answer. But Bruiser spoke up smartly:

‘Shut your trap, Cap. With the wind the way it is we wouldn’t get to Christmas by Christmas.’ ‘Our best bet is south,’ said Jimson. ‘Our best bet is Bill,’ said Scott cheerfully. But as the fresh morning air gave way to the scorching heat of midday both bets began to seem very poor. The men looked at Durkins with bloodshot eyes, inflamed by sun and brine. Was he doing the right thing? Which would come first, Tahiti or death? And were they idiots to be trusting their lives to a bird?

They splashed sea-water on their clothes. This had a cooling effect, but it did not last. Exposure to sea-water was bringing out salt-water boils.

Hunger was agonizing. Even a belt or a boot began to look good. One man tried chewing a leather bailing-bucket.

A small shark appeared. Jiggs dangled his bare foot over the side to attract it. It was a dangerous experiment, but it would be worth while if he got something to eat. -

The shark came closer, eyeing the flashing fishlike thing that trailed through the water. Then it lunged.

Jiggs brought down an oar upon its head, jerking his foot away at the same time.

Perhaps he was fortunate that the shark got only the big toe and not the whole foot. The shark swam away, relishing this titbit, while Jiggs and his companions still went hungry.

Men dying of thirst do not behave like ordinary people. Jiggs felt no pain where the toe had been - he only saw the dripping blood. He caught it in the palm of his hand and drank it. Then Scott bandaged the stump with a fragment of shirt-tail.

Another cold wet night, and another blistering day. Hunger was less, but thirst was more. The stomach had given up its demand for food. But the need for water had become a shrieking pain.

Thirst had cracked the lips and swelled the tongue so that every man talked as if he had a baked potato in his mouth. Some began to drink sea-water.

‘Better not,’ said the mate, ‘unless you want to go off your head.’

But the mate thought that he himself must be going out of his mind when at the next dawn he saw a ship on the horizon. He poked Hal Hunt. ‘Do you see what I see? Over yonder.’ Hal rubbed his sore eyes. ‘It’s a ship and no mistake. A catcher, I think.’

Some of the men cheered faintly. Others were too weak to raise their heads. ‘Ill bet she’s looking for us,’ the mate said. Grindle peered at the ship. ‘She may be looking for us, but she won’t find us. We can see her because she’s big, but she can’t see our sail at this distance.’

‘But she’s coming straight on. Pretty soon she will see us.’

But as they watched the ship veered slowly to the north and then to the north-west. In half an hour she had disappeared. T told you so,’ said Grindle.

The men sank into a heavy stupor. They lay as they had lain all night, heaped in the bottom of the boat. Even the mate was ready to give up. He closed his eyes and slept.

Hal never knew how much time went by before he heard that whirring sound. Drowsily he looked up. Then he shouted - as well as anyone could shout with a mouth full of tongue. ‘Look!’

Directly over the whaleboat hovered a small helicopter. It settled to within twenty or thirty feet and the pilot looked down. His grin was good to see. ‘How goes it?9 he shouted. The mate tried to answer but could not command his

‘Got your message by bird,’ shouted the pilot. ‘Been looking for you for two days. I’ll phone the catcher.’

They could hear him speaking over the radio telephone. Then he looked down again.

‘Catcher 7 is just over the edge. Perhaps you saw her a while back. She’ll be here in half an hour.’ And with a friendly wave and another grin he rose to a safe altitude and waited.

The change in the men was remarkable. A few moments before they had been sunk in misery and resigned to death. Now it was as if they had just had a drink of fresh, cold spring-water.

They strained their eyes for a glimpse of the ship. There it was at last, a small white blob that rapidly swelled as the catcher bore down at a speed of fifteen knots.

Hal estimated that she was a vessel of about four hundred tons - a little larger than the bark Killer. She had a single smokestack. There were two masts but they bore no sails. Radio antennae stretched between them. At the peak of the forward mast was a crow’s-nest and in it stood a lookout.

Now the name, Catcher 7, painted on the bows could be plainly seen. Above it in the very bow was a platform on which stood something that looked like a cannon. Hal knew it must be a harpoon gun.

And to think that there were a dozen of these catchers, every one of them bigger than Captain Grindle’s Killer. At the masthead of every catcher was a lookout, watching for whales. Even these twelve pairs of eyes were not enough. Also there were the pilots of the little insect-like helicopters which ranged across the sea more swiftly and widely than any catcher could go. Whenever the helicopter pilot sighted a whale he would radio back the news to the nearest catcher.

And all these catchers and copters were just small chickens compared to the great mother hen, the factory ship. A catcher after killing a whale towed it to the factory ship where it was hauled aboard and cut up. The modern floating factory could process more whales in a day than the old-time whale-ship in a month.

After the castaways had been taken aboard the catcher and given a little water and a little food (too much at first would have made them deathly sick) they were made comfortable below deck in the bunks of the crew. There they slept the day out.

At night they received a little more food and water, then slept again while the catcher’s crew who had obligingly given up their quarters got through the night as best they could on benches in the messroom.

In the morning there was a bit more to drink and to eat, then more sleep. Sleep! It seemed as if they could never get enough of it.

The first one to bounce back was the youngest. It was about noon when Roger woke to find that his tongue no longer felt like a large potato, the dizziness and dullness were gone from his head, and he was almost tempted to get up.

Presently he heard a running about on the deck above, much shouting, then the boom of a gun. His curiosity got the better of him. He slid out of his bunk, pulled on his clothes, and went up on deck. His legs seemed to want to buckle under him, but he managed to make his wobbly way forward.

Several men were moving about on the gun platform. One of them noticed him.

‘Come on up, boy,’ he called.

Roger climbed the few steps to the platform. The man at the gun greeted him heartily.

‘Well, I’ll be danged if the kid isn’t the first one to get on his feet. Good for you, lad.’

Roger said: ‘I thought I heard the gun.’

‘So you did, but we missed. A big sperm. He’s under now, but he’ll probably be up again in a few minutes.’

Roger inspected the gun with interest. It looked quite like a cannon, except that a harpoon projected from its muzzle. ‘Know how it works?’ asked the gunner. ‘Well, I’ve heard about it,’ Roger said. ‘There’s a bomb in the harpoon. When the harpoon goes into the whale the bomb explodes - and kills the whale.’

‘You’re ninety per cent right,’ grinned the gunner. ‘I mean, about ninety per cent of the whalers still use bomb harpoons. We don’t. This is the very latest - the electric harpoon.’ ‘How is that better?’

‘Several ways. One trouble with the bomb is that when it explodes it scatters bits of steel through the flesh. When the whale goes into the factory these steel fragments damage the saws. Another thing - a bomb killing is very painful. The whale doesn’t die at once. He suffers terrible agony. Why make him suffer if it isn’t necessary? And there’s one more point: agony poisons the meat. Doctors say it’s the same way with humans; if you suffer terrible worry or pain your system becomes toxic -poisoned. Toxic whale meat is no good. But with the electric harpoon it’s a different story. It packs a wallop of two hundred and twenty volts, one hundred amperes. The electric shock kills the whale before he has time to get poisoned. In ten seconds he’s a dead duck. It’s as painless as the electric chair.’

Roger smiled. This gunner made the electric chair sound almost attractive. Well, perhaps it was better than a long-drawn-out death agony.

‘If the electric harpoon is so good,’ he said, ‘why don’t they all use it?’

‘Because it’s new. Some of them are afraid it won’t work. The most progressive companies already use it -they all will in time. You’ll see for yourself what kind of a job it does.’

‘Breaches!’ came a call from the masthead. ‘Five points off the weather-bow.’

The whale had surfaced half a mile away. The two-thousand-horsepower diesel of the catcher sprang into action. The catcher raced towards its quarry. The whale was swimming away at full speed, but the catcher swiftly overhauled it.