'Kreng, ha, ha ha!' cried a dozen voices on the gangway; and the helmsman, in a low, kindly murmur said to Reade, 'That's what we call a corpus, sir: a carcass with his head emptied of spermaceti and the blubber all stripped off.'
Jack took the Franklin's bearing, said, 'Mr Reade, acknowledge and make the signal Course SSE by E: close-reefed topsails .'
This same course took the Surprise past the dead whale soon after the moon had risen: white birds whirled and flashed through the beams of the stern lantern. They could scarcely be identified - some pied petrels and possibly a few of the small albatrosses, apart from gulls - but on the other hand the huge carcass, rolling in the phosphorescent sea, was perfectly clear. 'I reckon he would have been an old eighty-barrel bull,' observed Grainger, standing at the rail by Stephen's side. 'They are not as troublesome as the young ones, not being so nimble, but they sound mighty deep - I have known one take out the line of four boats an-end, eight hundred fathom, can you imagine it? - and when they come up they are apt to turn awkward and snap your boat in two. But may I say, Doctor,' he added in a hesitant murmur, 'I saw your mate catting over the side - to windward, poor soul - and then he went below, looking right sickly. Could he have eaten something, do you suppose?'
'Perhaps he may. Though possibly it is the lively motion of the ship, with these short sudden seas and all this spray.'
'To be sure, the breeze is dead against the current now: and the stream has grown stronger with the main not so very far away.'
However, Martin seemed reasonably well for their morning rounds, though the sea was livelier still, and the ship pitched with more than ordinary force as they sailed large under mere topsails and they close-reefed, sweeping as wide an expanse of the somewhat hazy sea as ever they could, perpetually looking for their quarry or to their consort for a signal. Theoretically each could see at least fifteen miles in all directions; and even with the necessity for keeping within clear signalling distance they covered a vast area, but the veering wind brought low scud and it was not until early in the forenoon watch, with the misty sun two spans above the horizon, that the exultant hail 'Sail ho!' came down from the masthead, echoing below, even into the sick-berth itself.
'We've found them!' cried Martin with a triumph that contrasted strangely with his now habitually anxious, withdrawn, cheerless expression.
'Go along, my dears,' said Stephen to the little girls, whose duties were already over, and with the sketch of a bob they flitted away into the dark orlop, scattering rats and cockroaches as they ran, invisible but for their white pinafores. Stephen finished rubbing blue ointment into Douglas Murd, washed his hands, tossed Martin the towel, called to Padeen, 'Let the glasses dry of themselves,' and ran on deck, joining almost all the ship's company who were not aloft.
'Ho, Doctor,' called Jack from the starboard rail, 'here's an elegant spectacle.' He nodded forward over the short tossing angry sea, and as he nodded a sperm whale rose not ten yards out, blew a fine spout, breathed audibly and dived, a great smooth roll. The spout swept aft along the deck and beyond it Stephen saw the whaler clear, directly to windward: beyond her, two boats close together, and farther still, a mile and more to the east, three more. 'They were so busy with their fish they did not see us till a moment ago. The boats in the north-north-east have not seen us yet. But look at the men on board the ship - parcel of old women.' He passed the telescope and at once that remote deck sprang close, sharp and distinct, visibly dirty and disordered even from here. Not many people still aboard, but those few running about with great activity and little apparent purpose, while a person in the crow's nest waved his arms with uncommon vehemence, pointing to the south.
'Mr Grainger,' called Jack, 'pray explain the situation to the Doctor.' He took back his telescope, slung it, and ran up to the masthead like a boy.
'Why, sir,' said Grainger in his comfortable West Country voice, 'those far-off boats away to the eastward are fast to a gurt old bull, running like a coach and six on a turnpike. George, tell our William to bring my other spyglass, and bear a hand, bear a hand. Now, do you see,' he went on, when it came, 'there is the headsman standing in the bows with his lance, to kill the whale when he rises. It was the boat-steerer sent the harpoon home, of course; and now he is in the stern again.'
'A very broad-shouldered man.'
'They generally are. The other boats are standing by, right close, ready to pass their lines in case he sounds again and deeper still. Now if you look back to the ship, sir, you will see they have had a fine morning: two whales killed and fast to a third. They are emptying the first one's head alongside now, or were until they saw us and started their capering; and an awkward time they were having of it, with the short seas breaking over all. And the two boats close to are towing in the second fish. Those fast to the gurt old bull ain't seen us yet, watching so eager; but I dare say the ship will give them a gun presently.'
Stephen gazed and gazed, the little figures hurrying and jerking about in the distant whaler, though clear, were perfectly mute, inaudible, which added a ludicrous side to their distress: some, including a man who was presumably the master, since he beat and cuffed the others, were struggling round the great try-pots set up amidships to melt the blubber - struggling to get a gun clear of all the trying-out gear, the casks and the general whaler-like disorder.
'The man in the crow's nest seems very earnest in urging them to go away to the right. He leaps up and down.'
'Why, yes, sir. The Franklin lies there in the west, Ain't you noticed?'
'To tell you the truth, I had not. But why should he want them to go to her?'
'Because she is wearing American colours, in course, whereas we wear the ensign. That is the Captain's guile, do you see? In any case they certainly know her, she having been a-privateering in these waters since March; and the look-out wants them to make sail for her while there is yet time: they do not know she is took. As the breeze lays now we should need two long boards or tacks if you follow me to come up with her, and by then she could just squeeze under the Franklin's lee.'
'Little good would it do them.'
'None at all, Doctor. But they don't know it. Nor they don't know what metal we carry.'
'Would it not mean abandoning their friends over there in the east?'
'Oh yes. And it would mean abandoning three good fish, enough to break a whaler's heart. I doubt they do it: they are more likely to wait for the Franklin to come up, and then brazen it out the two of them, either hoping we will sheer off, or putting before the wind and running for it, the one supporting the other. But her master might possibly think it worth while to save a full hold; and then you know, sir,' said Grainger in a low confidential tone, 'a whaler's crew ships by the lay - no wages but a share in the profits - so the fewer come home the more the survivors gain. Oh, by God, they are doing it!' he cried. 'They are leaving their friends behind.' Indeed, the hands had dropped the gun for the yards and braces; and the nearer boats, having cast off their whale, were racing for the side, tearing through the broken sea. The sails dropped, the yards rose up, the ship's head turned, and as the men from the two boats scrambled aboard she gathered way. She had a fine topgallant breeze on her quarter and she moved at a surprising pace.
Her people packed on sail faster than would have been believed possible for so few hands, and their calculations were right: the whaler, wearing American colours on every mast, reached the Franklin well before the Surprise, which had paused to take the eastern boats in tow.
When the whaler was within pistol-shot the Franklin hauled down her Stars and Stripes, hoisted the ensign and sent a twenty-four-pound ball skipping across the whaler's forefoot. She let fly her sheets and Tom Pullings hailed her in a voice of brass: 'Strike your colours and come under my lee.'
She was still lying there when the Surprise came up with the eastern boats strung out behind her; Jack rounded to and ranged up on the whaler's starboard side.
'I have left her for you, sir,' called Pullings across the
prize's deck.
'Quite right, Tom,' replied Jack, and wiping the spray from his face - for even here, in the lee of two ships, the waves were chopping high - he gave the order 'Blue cutter away. Mr Grainger, go across, if you please: take possession and send the master back with his papers. The whaler, ahoy!'
'Sir?'
'Start a couple of casks fore and aft, d'ye hear me, there?'
'Aye aye, sir,' said the master, a sparse, hard-featured man, now awkwardly willing to please; and a moment later whale-oil poured from the scuppers, spreading with extreme rapidity. The sea did not cease heaving, but the spray no longer flew - there was no white water, no breaking between the ships nor away to leeward.
'Should you like to go, Doctor?' asked Jack, turning kindly. 'I believe you have always wanted to look into a whaler.' Stephen bowed, and quickly tied a length of bandage over his hat and wig, tying it under his chin. Jack directed his voice towards the half-swamped whale-boats astern: 'You fellows had better go aboard, before you are drowned.'
It took some little time to get the Doctor safely down into the blue cutter; it took longer to get him up the oily side of the whaler, where the master stretched down an officious hand and Bonden thrust him from below. But he was scarcely on the filthy deck before the whale-boat crews came swarming aboard with their gear, the headsmen carrying their lances, the boat-steerers their shining harpoons. They boarded mostly on the quarter, coming up nimbly as cats, and raced forward with a confused bellow. The master backed to the mainmast.
'You left us to starve on the ocean, you rat,' roared the first headsman.
'You made all sail and cracked on - cracked on,' roared the second, shaking his lance, barely articulate.
'Judas,' said the third.
'Now Zeek,' cried the master, 'you put down that lance. I should have picked you up...'
The broad-shouldered harpooner, the man who had been fast to the big bull whale, was last up the side; he heaved his way through the shouting, tight-packed throng; he said nothing but he flung his iron straight through the master's breast, deep into the wood.
Returning to the Surprise covered with blood - a useless investigation, heart split, spinal cord severed - Stephen was met with the news that Martin had been taken ill. He dabbled his hands in a bucket of sea-water and hurried below. In spite of the activity on deck the gunroom was an example of the inevitably promiscuous nature of life at sea, with two anxious-looking officers sitting at the table with biscuit and mugs of soup in front of them, the cook standing at the door with the bill of fare in his hand and the grizzle-bearded lady of the gunroom at his side, all of them listening with concern to Martin's groans and stifled exclamations in the quarter-gallery, or rather the nasty little enclosure just aft by the bread-bins that served the gunroom for a quarter-gallery or house of ease, the deck being too low for anything more luxurious than a bucket.
Eventually he came out, fumbling at his clothes, looking inhuman; he staggered to his cabin and fell on to his cot, breathing quick and shallow. Stephen followed him. He sat on a stool and said in a low voice, close to Martin's head, 'Dear colleague, I am afraid you are far from well. May I not do something - mix a gentle palliative, a soothing draught?'
'No. No, I thank you,' said Martin. 'It is a passing... indisposition. All I need is rest... and quiet,' He turned away. It was clear to Stephen that at this stage there was nothing more he could usefully say. And when Martin's breathing grew easier he left him.
The rest of the ship was full of life, with prisoners coming aboard with their chests and a prize-crew going across to take over; and as usual the whaler's hands were being checked against her muster-book by Mr Adams, the Captain's clerk, in the great cabin. Jack and Tom Pullings were there, watching the men, listening to their answers, and making up their minds how they should be divided. They were heavy, sad, disappointed men at present, with the whole of their three-years cruise taken from them in a moment; but their spirits would revive, and many an enterprising band of prisoners had risen upon their captors and seized the ship. Moreover sailors from the northern colonies could prove as troublesome and pugnacious as Irishmen.
It appeared, however, that no more than a score of them belonged to the original crew from Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and New Bedford. In three years many had died by violence, disease or drowning, whilst two or three had run, and their places had been filled with South Sea islanders and what could be picked up in the odd Pacific port: Portuguese, Mexican, half-castes, a wandering Chinese. A fairly simple division, though the Surprise was already somewhat short of hands.
The last, a thick-set youngish man who had lingered behind, came to a halt before the table and called out, 'Edward Shelton, sir, headsman, starboard watch: born in Wapping,' in a strong, undoubted Wapping voice.
'Then what are you doing in an enemy ship?' asked Adams.
'Which I went a-whaling during the peace and joined this here ship long before the American war was declared,' said Shelton, his words carrying perfect conviction. 'May I speak a word to the Captain?'
Adams looked at Jack, who said, 'What have you to say, Shelton?' in a tone that though mild enough promised nothing.
'You don't know me, sir,' said Shelton, putting a doubled forefinger to his forehead in the naval way, 'but I seen you often enough in Port Mahon, when you had the Sophie: I seen you come in with the Cacafuego at your tail, sir. And many a time when you came aboard Euryalus, Captain Dundas, Captain Heneage Dundas, in Pompey: I was one of the side-men.'
'Well, Shelton,' said Jack, after a question or two for conscience' sake, 'If you choose to return to your natural service, to enter volunteerly, you shall have the bounty and I will find you a suitable rating.'
'Thank you kindly, your honour ,' said Shelton. 'But what I mean is, we cleared from Callao on the seventh, and while we were getting our stores aboard - tar, cordage, sail-cloth and stockfish - there was a merchantman belonging to Liverpool, homeward-bound from the northwards, in dock, tightening up for her run round the Horn. We cleared on the seventh which it was a Tuesday, homeward-bound too though not really full: not a right good voyage, not heart's content as you might say, but middling. And off the Chinchas at break of day, there was a four-masted ship directly to windward. Man-of-war fashion. The master said, "I know her, mates: she's a friend. A Frenchman out of Bordeaux, a privateer," and he lay to. There was nothing else he could do, dead to leeward of a ship of thirty-two guns with yards like Kingdom Come and the black flag flying at her masthead. But as we lay there he walked fore and aft, gnawing his fingers and saying, "Jeeze, I hope he remembers me. God Almighty, I hope he remembers me. Chuck" - that was his mate and aunt's own child - "Likely he'll remember us, don't you reckon?"
'Well, he did remember us. He hauled down his black flag and we lay alongside one another, matey-matey. He asked after the Liverpool ship and we told him she would be out of dock in under a month. So he said he would stretch away to the westward for a while on the chance of an English whaler or a China ship and then lie off the Chinchas again: and he told us the sea thirty leagues to the west-north-west was full of whales, thick with whales. We sailed together, separating gradually, and the day after we had sunk his topgallants there we were in the middle of them, spouting all round the compass.'
'Tell me about her guns.'
'Thirty-two nine-pounders, sir, or maybe twelves; in any case all brass. Besides her chasers. I never seen a privateer so set out. But I did not like to go aboard or look too curious, let alone ask no questions, not with that crowd of villains.'
'Was their black flag in earnest?'
'Oh yes, sir; deadly earnest. They were as thorough-paced a no-quarter-given-or-asked as ever I see - trample the Crucifix any day of the week. But you and your consort could deal with her. I dare say Surprise could do so on her own, though it might be nip and tuck; and she would buy it very dear, they having to sink or be sunk. Which I mean if they are killed they are deaders, and if they are taken they are hanged. It is half a dozen of
the one and..." His voice died away; he hung his head, a certain coldness having told him that he had been talking too much.
'As taut as it is long,' said Jack, not unkindly. 'Well, Shelton, is Mr Adams to write you down as pressed or volunteer?'
'Oh volunteer, sir, if you please,' cried Shelton.
'Make it so, Mr Adams, and rate him able for the moment: starboard watch,' said Jack. He wrote on a piece of paper. 'Shelton, give this to the officer of the watch. Well, Tom,' he went on after the man had gone, 'what do you think?'
'I believe him, sir, every word,' said Pullings. 'I am not to put my opinion before yours; but I believe him.'
'So did I,' said Jack, and the old experienced Adams nodded his head. Jack rang the bell. 'Pass the word for Mr Vidal.' And a few moments later, 'Mr Vidal, when we have seen the whaler's mate and her charts, and when we have shifted as much water out of her as can be done in thirty minutes, you will take command and steer for Callao under moderate sail. We are running down no great way in the hope of a Frenchman, and it is likely we shall overtake you. If we do not, wait there. Mr Adams will give you the necessary papers and the name of our agent: he looked after the frigate's prizes on the way out. You may take the whaler's mate, bosun and cook - no arms, of course, either on themselves or in their chests - and several of our people.'
'Very good, sir,' said Vidal, unmoved.
'As for getting the water across, you have half an hour: there is not a minute to lose; and since the sea is a little choppy, spend the oil and spare not. A couple of casks are neither here nor there.'
'Aye, aye, sir: spend and spare not it is.'
'Jack!' cried Stephen, coming in to their strangely late and even twilit dinner, 'did you know that those active mariners have brought a large number of hogsheads aboard, and they filled with fresh water?"
'Have they, indeed?' asked Jack. 'You amaze me.'
The Wine-Dark Sea Page 12