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.
Chapter 11
The great bull
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.
Chapter 12
The giant nutcracker
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 sub
merged 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.
Then he struck the water and went deep into it. Clawing his way upward he collided with the underside of a whale. Hal’s breath had already been knocked out of him and if he could not get to the surface very soon he would drown.
Which way should he go? He should try to come out on the flank, but he could not tell how the whale lay. If by mistake he went towards the rear a whip of the tail might knock him senseless. If he went forward it would be an even greater mistake.
m
He swam, his back brushing against the whale’s hide. He kept groping for a flipper. If he found one he would know that he was on the whale’s flank and could come up to breathe.
Presently his hand grasped something that might be a flipper. He was about to pull himself up when he realized that this was no flipper - it was the edge of the whale’s lower jaw. He was practically inviting himself to dinner. One snap of that great mouth and Hal Hunt would go to join his ancestors.
He backed off at once and came up at the whale’s right side behind the fin. He had never thought to see the boat again, but there it was right-side up. It had landed luckily and had very little water in it. Oars and gear floated all about. Hal, after a deep breath or two to replenish his starved lungs, joined with the other men in collecting the floating articles, chucking them back into the boat and climbing in after them. Third mate Brown counted heads. Not a man was missing.
‘All right, boys,’ said Brown, raising his voice to be heard above the spouts and splashes of the whales. ‘You’re lucky to be alive. Oars! Let’s get out of here.’
‘Easier said than done!’ growled Bruiser.
The boat rammed head-on into a whale.
‘Try backing up,’ commanded the third mate.
A few strokes backward and the way was blocked by an uncle.
The boat was trapped in whales. It lay in a bit of water no bigger than’ a swimming-pool, with whales all round it. They closed in upon it. The big bull, smarting from his wound, began to rush off across the sea, and all the others with him. The whole pod moved like one animal, and snugly packed in the centre was the whaleboat, in peril of being crushed at any moment between the great flanks.
And yet even at such a time a whaleman thinks of barrels of oil. Brown seized the lance and went forward. The boat was snugged up tightly to the side of the big bull. It was a perfect set-up for a killing. A perfect chance for Brown to kill the whale, an equally perfect chance that the whale and his pals would kill every man aboard.
Brown stood in the bow with lance raised. He was enveloped in spray thrown up by the speeding boat, and thrown down by the spouting whales. He looked like a statue in a fountain.
The lance went home. Deep, deep it went, and the whale in one convulsive movement it struck the water with its head and tail, raising its middle so that it looked like a great blade arch over the waves.
‘Back away!’ yelled Brown.
But there was no room to back away. The eighty-foot arch came down with a thunderous crash, barely missing the boat. The wave produced by the fall of some one hundred and twenty tons of whale washed the boat high up on to the flank of an uncle, from which it slid back into the sea, still right side up but full of water to the gunwales.
The men bailed furiously, expecting another attack at any moment. But they looked up to see with astonishment that the big whale had left them. It was swimming away from the pod.
The reason was plain. The ship had drawn nearer, and the great whale in its agony was about to attack it.
If that rock-hard head collided squarely with the keel below the water-line the timbers would be stove in.
Many a sailing ship had been sunk in this fashion, and occasionally a vessel under steam power or diesel.
Grindle in the rings could be heard bawling orders to the helmsman. The ship began to veer to port. The whale was ploughing ahead at a good twenty knots. The men watched anxiously. Would the ship turn in time?’
Whale and ship met. Men breathed again. It had not been a square hit. The whale struck the vessel’s side a glancing blow and slid off towards the stern. The vessel shook itself like a dog and the sails shivered, but her hull was still sound beneath her.
The whale did not try again. He seemed to remember that he had some unfinished business to attend to. Back he came towards the boat, whose deadly irons were already draining away his life. He was still spouting, but now his spout blazed blood-red.
‘His chimney’s afire!’ yelled one of the men.
The monster sank out of sight.
‘He’s done for!’ shouted one.
‘No such luck!’ came the voice of the second mate whose boat was still held off by the circling uncle. He called to Brown:
‘Look out below!’
‘Aye aye, sir!’
Brown and his crew looked over the gunwales into the depths. Hal at first could see nothing. Then he made out a small white spot. It seemed only as big as a hand, but it was rising and it rapidly grew in size as it rose.
Then he could make it out plainly. It was the open mouth of the bull whale. The enormous teeth, each as big as Hal’s head, were ready for action.
‘Full astern!’ yelled Brown.
The men pulled, but it was no use. A whale blocked the way, and there was another ahead. With terrible speed the open jaws rose towards the middle of the boat. The men tumbled out of the way, some aft, some forward. One man was not quick enough. He was caught between the two twenty-foot jaws as they closed in, one on either side of the boat, and crushed it like an eggshell.
The two ends of the crippled craft drifted apart, men in the water clinging to them, and thanking their stars they had something to cling to.
What had happened to the man who had been caught? There was just a chance that he lay unharmed in the beast’s mouth and would be thrown out when the jaws opened. Hal watched anxiously.
But when the great mouth sprang open it was empty. The monster that could attack and devour a cuttlefish almost as large as itself had had no difficulty in swallowing this human morsel.
If the man had escaped being injured by the closing teeth, was he still alive? It was a fantastic thought. However, there was the story of Jonah and the whale, a story that was supposed to be based upon fact. The stomach of a whale was as big as a good-sized cupboard. There might possibly be enough air in it to sustain life for a short time. Now and then a shark, still alive, has been taken from a whale’s stomach. But a man is not so tough as a shark.
The mad bull thrashed about among the wreckage, his great jaws crunching everything within reach. The men had to let go their hold upon the pieces of the boat and swim to one side. There was always the danger of an attack by the other whales. Sharks had been drawn by the smell of blood and Hal splashed vigorously to keep them off.
He yelled a warning to one of his companions as he saw a shark about to seize his foot. The man, numbed by fear and cold, did not act in time. The razor teeth closed on his leg and he was drawn down.
Hal at once dived down in the hope of rescuing him. He explored the blue depths in vain. There were plenty of sharks about, but no sign of the man and the shark that had taken him.
He battled his way back through the gleaming silver bodies to the surface and came up by the rolling flank of the big whale.
Chapter 13
Wild ride
His hand struck something hard and cold. It was the harpoon in the whale’s neck. Instinctively he grasped it and felt himself lifted out of the water and carried away at high speed.
The bull, having destroyed the boat, had now changed his tactics and was trying to run from the pain
that tormented him. The rest of the pod followed at a slower pace. Sharks snapped alongside and Hal drew his feet up out of their way. He was thankful to the big bull. The monster that he had been helping to kill was now saving him.
He looked back and saw with relief that the two other boats were now able to come in and pick up the survivors.
Would anyone think about him? Some of them must have seen him dive, but perhaps no one had seen him rise again, because he had come up on the off side of the whale. They could not know what a wild ride he was getting.
Many a man had ridden horseback, camel-back, elephant-back, and even ostrich-back, but who had ever gone for a ride whale-back?
In other circumstances he might have thought it was great sport. It was like riding on the bridge of a submarine before it submerges.
Submerges. That was an unhappy thought. If this living submarine took a notion to dive, what would happen to its rider?
The bull, as if the same idea had just occurred to him, slid below the surface. Hal caught his breath as his head went under, and held on grimly. Perhaps this was just a surface dive. On the other hand it might be a ‘sound’, a dive far down to a depth of as much as a quarter of a mile. The whale might stay down for an hour. Three minutes of that would be quite enough to exhaust Hal’s air, and the terrific pressure would crush him as flat and dead as a pancake.
But he had no sooner thought of these things than his head rose again above the waves. The whale sent up a terrific spout of blood and steam. And Hal remembered being told that a whale spouting blood never sounds, perhaps because its pierced lungs and drained arteries cannot retain enough oxygen for a long stay under water. However this may be, the big bull made only brief dips below water, coming up within a minute or so.
Every time he emerged he blasted more blood into the air which showered down upon Hal until he was so plastered from head to toe that his own mother would not have known him.
Wherever this deposit touched his skin it stung like fire. It was not the blood that caused this violent irritation, but the poison gases expelled from the monster’s lungs. The wind blew these vapours back upon Hal along with the blood.
05 Whale Adventure Page 6