05 Whale Adventure (7 page)

The cutting-stage was now lowered. This was a sort of platform that was lashed to the rail of the ship when not in use. When let down it projected about ten feet from the ship like a balcony. Directly under it was the whale.

The cutters went out on the stage. Each was armed with one of the long-handled spades. With these sharp tools they cut a foot deep into the whale’s hide, making a lengthwise slit Then one man descended to the whale’s back and fixed a large ‘blubber-hook’ in the hide. A line ran from the blubber-hook up over a block in the rigging and down to the windlass.

The man who had fixed the hook clambered back to safety and the mate shouted: ‘Haul! \ ||&

Then men heaved on the windlass. The rope tightened. The strong pull of .the hook lifted the whale an inch or two higher in the water. It had a greater effect upon the ship. The weight of the monster made the vessel lean farther and farther to starboard until it was hard to keep a footing on the slippery deck.

Then there was a tearing sound and the hook went up carrying a great strip of hide with it. As the whale rolled the hide peeled like the skin of an orange. Whalers called this the blanket. It was a good name. This hide, a foot thick, consisting mainly of oily blubber, wrapped the whale as in a blanket and kept it snug and warm when it sank into the chill depths of the sea.

The piece of blanket was hauled inboard and dropped on the deck. The process was repeated and, piece by piece, the entire blanket of the whale was brought aboard.

The hardest job came next. The head must be cut off. The spades attacked the neck, cutting deeper and deeper through muscle and nerve and flesh. Every once in a while the blades, dulled by bones, had to be resharpened. They must be so sharp that they would slice through the bones and even through the backbone itself.

At last the head and trunk parted company. The carcass was now cast loose and drifted several hundred feet off, where a company of sharks attacked it.

Now it was a race with the killers. They had almost finished off their dead friend. They began making passes at the whale’s head, trying again to get at the tongue.

The head, still floating in the sea but secured by hooks, was turned upside-down. Cutters neatly removed the lower jaw. And there, exposed to view, was the elephant-size tongue.

It was severed at the root, a hook was fixed in it, the windlass creaked, and the great spongy morsel so loved by the killers began to rise. It was none too soon. Already the killers were nipping at it feverishly. Several large bites were torn out of it. Even when it was eight feet above the sea three killers stood up on their tails snapping at it. Then it was drawn out of their reach and hauled aboard.

It would have done Roger good to hear how the men cheered. The rich fine oil of the tongue would put more money into the pocket of every man aboard. ‘Don’t forget,’ said Jimson, ‘we owe it to the kid. Fifteen barrels in that tongue if there’s a pint!’

The disappointed killers turned upon the floating carcass. They scared away the sharks, but they could not scare away the frigate birds, albatrosses, and gulls that had come in swarms to this royal feast.

The cutters were not done with the head. It contained another rich prize. Having turned it right side up a cutter with a rope about his waist stood on the head and poked about with his spade, hunting for the soft spot. When he found it he cut a round opening about two feet across.

A bucket was let down through the hole and came up full of clear oil as sweet-smelling as any perfume. Bucketful after bucketful was hoisted to the deck and poured into casks-For this oil was so pure that it did not need to be boiled in the try-pots.

When the job was finished the mate did some adding up. ‘Two thousand gallons of oil we got out of that head!’ Now the head itself was hoisted aboard. Even without the tongue and empty of oil it was so heavy that its weight listed the whaler far to starboard. When it lay at last on the deck it seemed as big as a cabin. Hal had to look up to see the top of it. He had known that a sperm-whale’s head is one-third of the entire body, but it was hard to believe such a thing without actually seeing it.

Then came the dirty, greasy job of trying-out. The head and hide were cut into small pieces and dumped into the try-pots. As fast as the oil was boiled out of the blubber it was ladled out into casks.

Then the scraps of blubber from which the oil had been boiled were thrown out on deck. Hal wondered why they were not tossed overboard.

He soon saw why. When the fixe burned low no more wood was put on it. Instead, the scraps of boiled-out blubber were thrown in. Thus blubber boiled blubber. The whale was actually cooking itself.

This saved both money and space. There would not be room on a ship for the wood required to boil down all the whales captured on an average voyage. Besides, it would be costly. But the scraps were supplied free of charge by every whale that came aboard.

Because of their oiliness they made an extremely hot fire. But it was not as pleasant as a wood fire. It sent up a greasy smudge of rank-smelling black smoke that made the men choke and gag and cover their faces with grey masks. Sweat running down their cheeks made rivers of white through the grey.

As the knives attacked the blubber, spurts of oily blood spattered the shirts and trousers of the workers.

Some of them saved their clothes by taking them off and stowing them, and worked almost naked. Their bodies were rapidly covered by layers of grease and grime and blood. It got into their unshaven whiskers and uncut hair.

They were the sort of creatures one might see in a nightmare. They were pictures no artist could paint. If one of them had appeared suddenly in a Honolulu street women and children would have run screaming to their homes.

And the crew could not look forward to soap and a hot shower when the job was finished. Water was too precious to be used to clean bodies that would only become dirty again. Most of the mess could be scraped off with the back edge of a knife, and the rest would wear off.

No, trying-out was not a pleasant job on an old-fashioned whaler. Yet the men went at it with a will, because every additional pint of oil meant more money in their pockets at the end of the voyage.

Hal, slipping on the fat-slimy deck, hacking at the blubber blanket with a long knife, shutting his eyes when the stuff spurted into his face, coughing in the oily smoke, was as grey, greasy, and grubby as anyone else on board.

This was not his idea of a good time. How delighted he and his brother had been when their father proposed to let them go on a number of scientific expeditions, skipping a year of school because they were both too young for their classes. They were thrilled with the prospect of a whole year of hunting, fishing, and exploring. And a lot of it so far had been great fun. But Hal had not looked forward to anything like this - drowning in a sea of oil and blood and smoke, with nothing to look forward to when the job was finished but a cat-o’-nine-tails.

Any hope that the captain had forgotten about the flogging was dispelled when Hal heard Grindle say to the mate: ‘What man o’ yours has the strongest right arm?’ ‘Well, Bruiser throws the hardest harpoon.’ Bruiser was a great brute with the strength of a gorilla. The mate might have made a different answer if he had known that the captain was not thinking of harpooning. ‘Good,’ said Grindle. ‘He’s the one to swing the cat.’ ‘You mean, you still aim to string up Hunt?’ ‘Of course!’ snapped Grindle. ‘Did you ever know me to go back on a promise?’

The mate felt like saying: You never go back on a bad promise. Just on good ones. He did not say it. He only thought it. ‘I’ll tell Bruiser,’ he said.

A cry came from the masthead.

‘Whale away! Sperms on the lee bow! They blow! They blow!’

The captain went up the mainmast like an electrified monkey. He had no time now to think of ‘the Gent’. Hal must wait for his flogging. Hal was almost sorry. He would rather have had it over and done with than be for ever looking forward to it.

The men piled into the boats. The tackle creaked and groaned as the boats descended from the davits and struck the bouncing waves.

‘Cast off!’ came the call. ‘Oars - all together! Jump to it! Stroke - stroke - stroke!’

The spouts could be plainly seen. It was not just one whale this time, but a whole pod.

Funny, the names we give to various groups of animals. We speak of a flock of sheep, a herd of cattle, a gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, a school of fish - and a pod of whales.

It was hard to tell how many whales were in this pod.

Perhaps half a dozen. Two of the spouts were very short, indicating that they came from babies. Possibly all the animals in the group were of one family.

In Hal’s boat the third mate, a small man named Brown, stood at the steering-sweep. At the bow-oar was the big, gorilla-like fellow, once a boxer, whom the men called Bruiser. When the time came he would rise from his seat and throw the harpoon. ^

Brown was small, but he had courage. He steered the boat into the very centre of the pod of whales.

‘Steady now,’ he said. ‘Quiet with those oars. Don’t alarm the beasties.’

The boat crept in between the two largest whales, probably the father and mother of the two youngsters. The other two whales might be uncles or aunts or just hangers-on.

Still unaware of the boat, the mother was giving milk to one of the youngsters. This is done in much the same way as a cow feeds a calf. But it is not quite as easy. If the baby whale were to try to take its breakfast under the whale it would not be able to breathe and would drown. Therefore the mother rolls over on her side to bring the nipples near the surface. The baby takes a nipple in its mouth and at the same time can keep its nostrils above water.

The greatest difference between a cow and a whale is that the cow gives milk only if the calf works to get it, but the baby whale does not have to work. The mother is equipped with a pump - a set of strong muscles which literally pump the milk into the infant.

When the baby’s mouth slipped aside for a moment, Hal saw a great jet of white milk shoot out over the waves with the force of a stream from a fire-hose. The baby hastily fastened on again so that no more of the precious liquid would be lost.

Perhaps Nature made this unique pumping arrangement because it would take too long for the infant to get its breakfast by ordinary methods. The baby should have about two hundred pounds of milk a day. The newborn whale may be anywhere from fourteen to twenty-five feet long. It is without exception the biggest baby in the world. A lot of milk is needed to fill such a whale of a baby. If it had to pull for every drop it might easily become discouraged and fail to get the amount of food it needs for its rapidly growing body.

And how fast it does grow on this milk, much like cow’s milk but extra rich in minerals, proteins, and fats. The weight of the infant whale increases by nearly ten pounds every hour, two hundred and forty pounds a day! Within a year it doubles its length. At the age of four it becomes a mother or father.

The boat crept into the centre of this family group. The eye-sight of whales is not very good and the monsters were still unaware of their danger. Their extremely keen ears did not detect any sound, for the men did not speak and dipped their oars silently.

Then Bruiser took up the harpoon. The haft of it touched the gunwale of the boat and made a faint click.

That was enough. At once the mother threw a protecting flipper over the baby, gave a spout of alarm, and turned to face the boat. The great bull struck the water with his flukes.

‘Harpoon!’ yelled Brown. ‘Quick!’

Bruiser was both quick and strong. The harpoon went from his hand as if shot from a gun. It sank deep into the neck of the enormous male.

Bruiser, who looked like a giant among other men, was a dwarf beside this monster. And yet his arm, as big as a pin in comparison with one flipper, had made an earthquake go shivering through the huge black mountain of flesh. Man can move mountains, it is said, and Bruiser had done it.

Hal braced himself for a sleigh ride. Surely the beast would take off on a wild race, towing the boat behind it as the previous catch had done?

But this bull had a family to take care of. He was not going to desert them. He wheeled about and came for the boat. He sent up a spout that reminded Hal of the launching of a satellite. The roar was like the Wast of a jet when it breaks the sound barrier. Up and up went the column, house-high, then spread out like the leaves of a palm, and the spray falling from it sprinkled the men in the boat.

Now the two monsters both came head-on towards the boat. The two enormous heads were like the jaws of a giant nutcracker. Between them the stout cedar whaleboat would be crushed as easily as a walnut.

‘Pull, pull!’ shouted Brown. ‘Pull for your lives!’

Five men pulled as they had never pulled before. Hal’s oar cracked with the strain he put upon it.

The boat slid out from between two oncoming battering-rams. The forehead of a sperm-whale is straight up and down and some ten feet high. Now these two black cliffs met in a crash that sent a shiver through both great bodies and must have resulted in two whale-sized headaches.

The mother whale lay trembling, sheltering her babies under her flippers, one on each side. The big bull, infuriated by his failure to smash the boat and maddened by the pain of the harpoon in his neck, thrashed the water into white foam. The two who might have been uncles, for they both seemed to be males, swam round and round, blowing furiously and keeping the other two boats from entering the circle. Mr Scott, standing up in one boat, was getting a picture of the whole great show.

The big bull submerged and the water was suddenly quiet. Hal could see the long black body like a submarine passing just below the boat. He saw the tail whipping upward.

Then the world flew apart. The boat rose into the sky as if being hauled up by unseen cables. It turned upside down. Hal and his companions were flung out into space and whirled round and round together with oars and tubs and spars and gear of every sort.