So picture, me lads, this new tableau. An iron vessel, scaled to a size scarce imaginable, well out from Ireland, yet not within sight of Nova Scotia. In latitudes where the sun it sets late (and in some seasons not at all). Thin, slanting, northern light. And hands on deck, and the shadows of those hands—navigators and brass men, stokers and swabbers, those who spent their lives before the mast, and those who were aft of it— All of them, casting shadows long, thin, westerly along the flat ungainly deck.
And now onto that deck here come Ahab. With shoe returned to its rightful place on leg the left, and the padding now gone from t’other, so that the list of Ahab were no more perceptible than the list of the ship. Comes Ahab, with a thud and a thump, a thud and a thump, and all souls on deck quieted to hear it. Ahab he stood in front of the sun, backlit, that as day commenced, and the orange orb rose in the skies, it be his dark power they would see, not the features on his face. The mass of Ahab, and the Ahab voice— Those were what yer Ahab did his new crew wish to see and hear.
And when all did settle, when the loudest noise were that of the rising sun; when Ahab were surrounded by his trusted men (his chips and yes, his chanteyman); when the waft of bean and biscuit promised contentment to come, and coffee too; when the black-rimed stokers blinked their eyes in unaccustomed daylight— Then did Ahab give his first command.
“I am Ahab. And yer Ahab doth tell ye: raise the mainsail. We now cease our steaming. It is time for us to sail.” His voice it were calm but left no doubt that he were the man on this new and untrod day, where the sense of possible were still before us, yet to be unrolled.
And so the deckmen and the ropemen they did snap to, and all on deck saw the raising of the mainsail, and saw it billow in the easy morning breeze. It were the work of perhaps ten minutes, yet when it were done, all of them saw in that sail the flag of a new nation. And knew that the best days of the G____ E______ were not, all of them, in the past.
“Afore we continue: three good men were last night killed. They were fighting on the wrong side, but they were loyal to their ship. They were sailors. And so I have told my chips to craft three coffins, of good wood, and of brass fittings, that their mortal remains be returned to family, should they have family, to home should they have home, when next we make port. They were casualties but they were not mine enemy. We owe the three good men the honor of their action. Let us be silent, and for those of us who are godly men, let us pray.”
With that Ahab did his head bow down, and left it down for three minutes full, that there be no doubt of his respect. He were quiet ‘til the silence lost its comfort, and then some. When at last he spoke all were relieved to have that silence broke.
“Nor do we forget yer Captain Anderson. Ye can say this, and ye can say that, yet he were a man of the sea. To the oceans of the world he did consecrate his life. And in doing so did see more of the world than any landlub can scarce imagine. Across those seas in weather fine and weather fierce, through waves and icy floes, did Anderson his ships command without the loss of any. So we remand his body to the waters in tribute to a life spent upon them.”
Cued by Ahab’s words two swabbers did emerge from belowdecks, carrying with them the muslin-swathed body of the late Captain. With all eyes upon them they did march, slow and solemn, from near-prow to near-stern, and then did mount the iron tower, where the cable it had been payed out. With one at head and one at foot they heaved their load off-deck, into the sea, where it hit the water with low plash, then slowly sank beneath, even as the Great Eastern, powered now by wind, left all in its wake.
“‘Tis the sailor’s lot to do, and not to ask. Yet even without the voicing of it, ye may be wondering what necessitated this change of command. Was not a whim and was not arbitrary. The life of us all did on this change of course depend.
“All of ye know that the cable she had been cut, and cut, and cut again. And now yer Ahab he will tell ye the why of it. There lives below us, in depths unfathomable, a Leviathan whose bulk and power be to the sea creature as the Great Eastern be to yer sailboat. His jaw can slice through metal the way a scimitar will slice through yielding flesh. While Leviathan lives, at any moment we may die.
“Yer investors told yer Mr. Field, and Mr. Field he told yer Captain, and yer Captain he told ye, to stay in one dead spot, while the grapnel were lowered and raised, lowered and raised. But to stay in one spot is to be prey. To be morsel. Our only way forward, our only way to see land once more: to seek and to kill and to destroy.
“The men of the Valparaiso, they will tell ye: at those tasks yer Ahab be adept.”
Ahab let there be a silence, while the words traveled through the clear air of North Atlantic dawn, from the foredeck to those massed below. And when he was certain all understood, only then did he say this:
“We will meet our Leviathan, and our Leviathan will we defeat. And in that moment yer Great Eastern, she shall once more be great. As great as the day when she were launched, the onliest, biggest, proudest ship on this sea or any other. That were our past, and that be our future. All we need is the mettle to sail into it. And I know that all of ye are sailors, and all of ye have the gut.
“So we will again pay out the cable. We will let the cable sink from the stern of our ship down to the depths of the sea. Think of it, men, as fishing, but with stouter line. What do we know about the Leviathan? That though its breakfast consist of krill, and lunch of sardine, yer Leviathan likes to feast, on special days, upon copper. He hath done it once, twice, thrice, and will do it again.
“Yer Captain Anderson, the good Captain Anderson, were under orders from Mr. Field, to cease the pay of cable. Mr. Field, all that concerns him, be utility and cost. Once the cable had been severed, then it must be repaired, or abandoned. That is the way a cable-man sees the world. I am a sailor and so I see it different.
“To me, the cable is our main chance.
“If we sit here for weeks with the grapnel and the whatnot, we bob up and down while Leviathan stares at our belly from beneath and waits for us to sleep.
“Listen up. I hide my notions from no man. Here is what we do: we pay the cable. And should there be a tug, meaning the Leviathan hath grabbed it in his terrible jaw— Why then we come about and go at it. With everything we have. We glide silent—by sail! by sail!—to where he on copper wire feasts.
“And we come up on him. And we come down on him. And with every strength in my strong right arm— And with every sight in my sharp right eye— I stare down upon him. And fix, in my mind and heart, the spot between his eyes, where the skin is most soft, the skull most thin. A foot to the side and ye might as well try and pierce a wall of rock. A foot below and yer lance is consumed up to the hand-end with no damage done at all. There is that spot that few men know well, and Ahab he know best of all. The spot within his skull that day and night thinks of the spot within the skull of the Leviathan. It is the place within the skull of Ahab where Leviathan lives, and the place corresponding within the skull of Leviathan where Leviathan will die. The two are connected by a line sturdier than hemp or copper. It is a line of thought and of will.
“Ye may think me mad. Ahab asks not for yer faith, but for yer cognition. For what choice, really, hath the Almighty given us? To sit and bob upon the gentle waves, soon to be slain. To churn back toward shore, knowing the Leviathan will kill so many more, on so many other days. Or to pay out behind us the thing he cannot forgo. To wait for his moment of triumph and delight. And in that moment, a stroke of blood and surprise, of iron and of justice, as the lance be correctly placed, and the line between Ahab and Leviathan be charged as if with electricity. The ‘poon plunges. The Leviathan he thrashes, the way a fish will thrash when dumped on deck, he will thrash his flukes bigger than most ships. But ‘twill be the thrash of death.
“And then the line between yer captain, and yer beast, that line shall be severed. For good. And yer captain he can return to land to live out his simple days. And all of ye: ye can return to sea, knowing that t
he winds may foul yer sails, and the ice may seize yer toes and fingers, and ye may in the horse latitudes find yerself becalmed and die there of thirst and of sun. But those are the deaths of a sailor. Not to be killed before ye are awake by that white and demonic beast. Because the beast will be on the bottom of the sea, where he will feed a multitude of krill, and sardine— What once he ate, now will eat him. And all of ye will feast by day, sleep sound by night.
“Even now I feel the throb. Even now I know he grows near. The line that connects us, it has that pulse, it has that tug. I spin—” And here Ahab did spin, upon his fixed leg, and did spin round thrice. “—until that line is taut. And the tug and the glow tell Ahab that he hast found he true compass.”
Ahab he did look out upon his crew, and upon the crew of the Great Eastern, and then o’er their heads to the stern of the ship, and then o’er that to the ship’s long and V-shaped wake, where soon the cable she’d once more be paying out.
“He is astern. He is nearing.”
There were a hush, as if all had their breath inhaled, but had not yet thought to let it out. A blanket of damped sound, where even the lap of waves be quieted. And at length Ahab did that silence break, with a brief remark as he did rest his case:
“If ye have the gut: the Great Eastern she will have the grace. And we, all of us, shall prevail.”
With that yer Ahab turned, and paused, allowing them to see his coat, his legs, his silhouette ‘gainst the rising sun, then Ahab he went belowdecks, to the stateroom that had been that of Captain Anderson, and now belonged to the other, stronger captain. While on deck, my navigator, my chips, my swabbers, and yes, my chanteyman, were left above: to let them know who John Ahab was on this unanimous morn.
So if the Leviathan he had the advantage of speed— Yer Ahab would have to rely on his best skill: the harpoon. He’d not have to outrun it, or o’erpower it: just place the lance—large to yer Ahab, small to Leviathan—in the locus of harm. Above the eye, through the orbital lobe, there to unleash the roar of blood within the skull. Drown Leviathan’s brain in a sea of its own ichor. Sever the vessels and let the beast’s own heart do the work of flooding the cranium, from eye to occiput. And then, once they were thus paralyzed—
Peel the skin (and this must be done quick: have ye any idea of the heat generated by yer decomposing whale?). Hack the blubber into rough cubes. Lash them, secure them—or let them float out to sea. (The Great Eastern, she was no whaler, and the profit from whale oil, why that be of no interest to her.) And when the skin was scored and parted, the blubber hacked away, the oil saved or spent— There would be the whale, still alive, still sentient, knowing, without being able to flee or prevent, that it was skinned alive, peeled alive, being taken apart, ton by ton, ‘til there would be nothing left save bone and sinew and teeth and skull and blood and viscera.
And still yer Ahab will not let it die. Let that come later, and slow, let the beast realize all the harm it had done, and let the beast feel the judgment, the pound of humanity’s gavel. Let the sentence be engraved by harpoon and by knife. A scrimshaw, only whilst the ivory were still alive, and could know how it were being knived.
THIRTY-SEVEN
IN THE LARGE iron ship there was a wheelhouse, and within that a wheel, and at that wheel a captain. And within the large and terrible whale there must be a wheelhouse, and within that a wheel, and at that wheel a captain of sorts: the part of the brain that takes all in, then wishes, decides, performs. Would this whale of all seas know, e’en as the red curtain descended, that his executioner be from America? He would be made to know it.
Let Leviathan come. And if in this fight yer Ahab were himself killed, if he gave up his life in this way: he would know that all those years had toted up, and that the sum rendered worthwhile all that had come before. The years at sea, the years on land, all the two-bit Valparaisos, the taverns of New Bedford, the chilly nights on Manhatto when he felt he would die of cold, all would be seen as preface. As that what led him here, drenched in blood and oil, harpoon in one hand knife in the other, all the air his lungs would hold expelled in one long, sharp cry.
As other fishermen seeking other kinds of fish did let out a line, Ahab did also cast. Yer Ahab he had told his men to pull the staves, un-fast the clamps, lift up the wood-and-leather brake and let the large wheel turn, paying copper cable—no signal upon it but no matter, no matter—out her stern, into the sea and down, where the scent of gutta-percha would spread out into the North Atlantic. And one of those fragrant molecules would reach the Leviathan. It would sense direction, trajectory— Then set out in pursuit. Little knowing that it was less pursuing than pursued, and that in its quest to sever cable it would sever, instead, the line of its own life.
Let us watch. We have some tales to tell.
THIRTY-EIGHT
THE CHANTEYMAN LANGHORNE was a child of the islands, of the West Indies, as they are called, a name applied by the British in a time of geographical confusion. He was born on the sugar colony of Tobago. His history was inseparable from the history, on that island, of slavery in its various forms.
The trade in human slaves (though not slavery itself) was abolished in 1807. This took from the islands’ plantation owners (who were, as might be imagined, neither desirous nor capable of tending their own cane fields) their stream of unsalaried labor. The owners campaigned for compensation and nine years later were granted it. In August 1816 some 700 former slaves from the US South who had escaped to the British lines during the War of 1812 were freed from bondage and with the same stroke conscripted into the Royal Marines. Then, as reward for their service to the British Crown, demobbed to the islands.
Among them was Langhorne’s father, who had survived both cotton slavery and maritime battle to find himself at least by definition a free man. But if he was liberated from bondage, he was not liberated from the necessity of subsisting and thus like so many of his brothers found employment on the plantations of Tobago. There was a wage, to be sure, and there were no shackles, least not of iron; but in other aspects the life was not so different than that which he’d known back in the United States as chattel.
On 1st August 1838 the fuller emancipation of slaves on the island became a reality; and again the cane field owners pleaded for the importation of workers on favorable terms. This they received. On 30th May 1845 the British brought several ship-holds of indentured servants from East India to Trinidad. Among them was Langhorne’s mother, Saraswati Ramroop, who met Langhorne’s father the day she arrived. Who was in love with him by sunrise the next, and before the anniversary of their meeting had given him a son.
Langhorne was born in the fields and when he was old enough to hold a machete he worked in the fields. Where else to go? Langhorne cut cane. What else to cut? The days were long, the work hard, the company good. They’d start from the northeast corner, work forward around and back ‘til all was cut. Then on to the next field. There were many fields all owned by the same man. By the time you finished with the last one it was time to cut the first again. They sang as they worked, old songs, songs from nowhere— Received, handed down, sung again.
If you want to have a fill
Of kingfish or of mackerel
Just come down the hill
To Charlotteville
Though they worked the fields, the songs they sang were often sea songs, the ones their fathers and grandfathers sang.
I’m going to stand on a sea of glass
Hold the wind! Don’t let it blow!
I’m going to stand on a sea of glass
Hold the wind! Don’t let it blow!
Sometimes when they’d sing they’d sing in parts, with a low melody in baritone, holding down the bottom of the song, and a tenor in harmony. Langhorne found he could without effort find a path between, a fine sweet strain a major third above the baritone, or a minor third, or a fourth or even something flatted, all without having to think: he sang and the song was with him. Or, the way it felt: the song found its way throug
h him, without him having to do much other than open his heart and lungs.
And then I had a Baltimore girl and when she took the notion
She’d rise and fall as steady as the waves upon the ocean.
Langhorne’s right arm—the one that held the machete—was strong like that of Hercules. And so he swung his arm back and forth, and walked the fields forth and back. The seasons came and went. One day a ship came down Rockley Bay to harbor at Scarborough and when it left Langhorne was on it. He did not know for what port it might be bound and he did not care. It wasn’t that he’d decided to leave. He just found himself on board, as easy and true as following the line of a song.
Langhorne worked hard and they liked that. And when they sang hauling songs he hauled with them and sang with them in a voice so sweet it broke their hearts, a voice that would break the heart of a mermaid, too, were any in the sea and happening to swim nearby.
A dollar a day is fisherman’s pay.
Oh yes it is.
Sail all night and fish all day.
Oh yes, oh yes it is.
He was fourteen years old when he stepped on his first ship and nineteen when he first saw New York. It was late October. The news of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry had come up by rumor and by wire: in certain precincts of Manhattan some revelry was set loose. It was late at night or early morning in an alehouse a short step from Cooper Union that Langhorne met the man who would, from that day forth, be his captain. They were the only seafarers in a saloon otherwise frequented by landlubs. Two men of the world, surrounded by men whose lives were narrow and circumscribed. Brought together as if by divine magnet. The conversation was easy, it continued until closing, then well past it.
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