His Scottish accent was such that at times John Beck found him difficult to understand.
‘Mudder?’ he queried.
‘You heard me the first time, Reverend. I will not repeat it.’
John Beck stared at him a moment, nonplussed. Then the penny dropped.
‘Oh,’ said John Beck. ‘Well, not very favourably, I’m afraid. In fact, that is one of His Commandments – Thou shalt not kill – so it’s something that I think He feels rather strongly about.’
Shankly said nothing, but returned his brooding gaze to the horizon.
‘Why do you ask?’ asked John Beck, after a moment.
‘Well, I killed a man, Reverend.’
‘What, just now?’
‘No. Some time ago.’
‘I see.’
‘I killed a man and I ate his kidneys, and then I was satisfied.’
‘I see,’ said John Beck. ‘Did you say that you ate his kidneys?’
‘Yes, Reverend. I cooked them up in a frying pan.’
‘Well, no. The Lord does not view such things favourably.’
‘He was a wretch, Reverend, and deserved his fate.’
‘Nonetheless.’
A silence fell between them. They both gazed out to sea. After a while, John Beck felt that he must really resume his search for firewood.
‘Well, I’d best be off then,’ he said.
‘As you wish, Father,’ said Shankly.
Twenty-four hours had passed since the whale had been killed, and still it had not risen to the surface. The two whaleboats sat tight by the marker buoys. It had been a miserable day; the wind blew, squalls came and went, and throughout it all, the sea had had a nasty lurching jobble which kept them all in a state of digestive discomfort. As day drew into night, the wind began to freshen once more into a gale. Still their prize lurked deep below. The men stared at the marker buoys as if willing the carcass to materialise. Surely it had to be imminent.
Hungry and exhausted, cold and sodden, the men now barely spoke to each other, and did so only to offer a terse rebuke for some perceived misdeed. ‘Shallow Brown’ had been cycled through many times now, and they were heartily sick of it; yet none had the inclination to sing anything more cheerful. Not long after midnight on the second night a spat broke out. Robert Heffernan had fallen asleep, and in his unconscious state had slumped heavily against Shankly. When shoved off, Robert had briefly regained consciousness only to slump against him again, and again a third time, and this had roused Shankly to anger and he leapt to his feet wielding a boat spade and shouting: ‘Violate me, would ye, so brazenly?’ John Beck and Harry managed to wrench the boat spade from him, but in the ensuing struggle, the boat had come close to capsizing. Finally, amidst my father’s shouts for calm, some semblance of civility was restored to the second whaleboat. John Beck was instructed to sit between the two men to deter any further infractions. This did not stop Shankly from muttering dark threats at Robert Heffernan out of my father’s earshot. Further, as his own weariness threatened to overtake him, John Beck became concerned that he might himself inadvertently violate Shankly. He did not fancy having his kidneys cooked up in a frying pan, no matter how satisfying Shankly might find the result.
For some time, Robert Heffernan could be heard crying softly in the darkness. Far from appealing to their compassion, this seemed to work as an irritant upon the men, yet shouting at him to stop blubbering or punching him hard on the shoulder seemed only to induce fresh bouts of weeping. These small sobs the young man attempted to stifle, producing an effect all the more pathetic and exasperating.
‘For pity’s sake,’ cried Salty. ‘This is beyond all endurance!’
‘All right,’ said my father heavily. ‘We’ll go ashore and light a fire.’
Once again, they rowed to the rocky and inhospitable beach; once again they almost capsized and drowned in the breakers; once again they lit a scrap of a fire and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep atop the cold wet sand.
Dawn broke to find my father standing alone on the beach, peering out to sea. Amongst the sleeping whalers, Arthur Ashby stirred. Seeing my father, he dashed the sleep from his eyes and stumbled over to him.
‘What can you see, Arthur?’ asked my father, turning to him anxiously. ‘I don’t know if my eyes are playing tricks upon me.’
Arthur looked out. It was difficult to see with the breakers and the spray and the size of the swell. His eyes narrowed, and he studied intently for several moments the vicinity where they had left the carcass only a few hours before. Seeing nothing, his eyes shifted out to sea. There he caught a flash of something. It was a marker buoy bouncing jauntily over a wave top.
‘She’s adrift,’ he said.
The Perils of Whaling
No sooner had the black whale risen to the surface than a whole gale rose also from the south-west, sweeping the bloated carcass before it and causing it to break free of its anchors. Now the huge body was bowling out to sea unrestrained, its marker buoys crashing along behind it. The whale men set after it, their thoughts focused solely on their vanishing prize: twelve hundred pounds worth of blubber and whalebone, now apparently en route to New Zealand. Once they had made it out of the bay, however, they were struck by seas so vertiginous that the headsmen began to experience great difficulty in handling their boats.
‘Pull, for God’s sake, men!’ cried my father as he grappled with the steer oar. ‘Pull! Pull!’
As they bent to the oars, their weary muscles burning, one or other of the men would throw a look over his shoulder and snatch a glimpse of the marker buoys, then turn back to my father in disbelief. Not only were the buoys a great distance away, but the two small boats were pursuing them further and further out to sea. Even if they managed to catch the breakaway whale, they still had to face the prospect of the long and perilous journey back, towing a mountain of blubber. As this new horror dawned upon them, the precarious morale of the new chums began to waver, and the second boat staggered fitfully up each new precipice of water. Even the hardened men of the first boat found their resolve flagging when they realised they had now lost sight of land.
‘Keep going!’ cried my father. ‘Why do you slow down?’
I imagine it can only have been out of loyalty to my father that the men continued to pull at all, for the chase must have surely seemed hopeless.
‘I can’t see her,’ cried Salty from the other boat. ‘Where’s she gone?’
My father gripped the steer oar for support and squinted against the spray. It was true: the marker buoys and carcass seemed to have vanished.
‘Darcy!’ he cried. ‘Stop rowing and look. Can you see anything?’
Darcy had the best eyes of all the whale men; it was extraordinary what he could see. Where we could see a tree on a distant hill, he could identify the birds that sat in it. He rose to his feet now and stood looking for several minutes. Then he turned and faced my father.
‘I see her, boss,’ he said. ‘She’s too far.’
My father stared at him. Darcy was Percy Madigan’s boy, cheeky and good-humoured and well-liked by all. But to tell my father that he deemed the whale too far was an act of unheard-of defiance. The other men kept their heads down, even Bastable. In their hearts, they agreed with Darcy; the whale was too far away to catch, and had been from the beginning.
‘How far?’ said my father, eyeing Darcy steadily.
‘Miles.’
‘How many miles? Two? Three?’
‘Four maybe.’
‘But the marker buoys –'
‘Those marker buoys have come loose, boss.’
My father reeled. Albert Thomas Senior leapt up to support him, but he regained his equilibrium and motioned him aside, instead leaning heavily upon his steer oar. (We wanted that the steer oar be buried with my father. It was of course twenty-two feet long and would not fit in
the grave; but the fact that it seemed appropriate will give an indication of how much a part of him it was.) The men stared up at him. They had been chasing after marker buoys that were no longer even attached to the whale? Then where in God’s name was the whale?
‘Home,’ said my father hoarsely. ‘Turn your boat, Salty. We’re going home.’
Turning the boats around, the long journey back now confronted them. At best reckoning, they were seven miles out. The wind was against them and every wave that rose up threatened to engulf their frail crafts. There was no choice except to tackle it; their only other option was to sink and drown. It was all too terrible to contemplate. And yet, as they rowed, calling upon every last ounce of energy from their exhausted reserves, the boats seemed to barely progress. Instead, they slid sickeningly up each new wall of water, only to be dashed into the trough below. Then the next wave presented itself. It seemed impossible that both whaleboats and men could continue to withstand such a battering.
‘This isn’t funny anymore,’ said Robert Heffernan, not that at any point he had shown signs of amusement.
Salty looked at his exhausted men, rowing as if already dead, their faces haggard with disbelief.
‘A prayer! That’s what we need!’ cried Salty. ‘Give us a prayer, Father, now as we row! Is there not a special prayer for whale men in distress?’
John Beck looked up at him in dismay. A prayer? When it was all he could do to keep his hands on the oars, he must suddenly come up with a prayer – and not just any prayer, but one appropriate to the dire circumstances in which they found themselves? The fact that the hardened whale man and self-proclaimed Professor of Whales felt it necessary to appeal to the Almighty surely meant that things were worse than he could imagine. The other oarsmen turned to him now, feebly hopeful. They needed something perhaps he alone could give them, some small words of encouragement, some promise of salvation.
‘O God,’ John Beck began tentatively. ‘Give to the wind our fears –'
‘Speak up, Father!’
‘O God,’ he repeated, raising his voice. ‘Give to the wind our fears. Hear our sighs –'
‘We can’t hear you back here in the cheap seats!’
‘Hear our sighs and count our tears!’ He had to shout to be heard above the elements. ‘Lift up our heads and carry us through waves and clouds and storms!’
‘Yea, O Lord,’ cried Salty.
‘Yea, O Lord!’ agreed the whale men.
‘Dispose our hearts that death may not be dreadful to us –'
‘Not that prayer, Father!’ cried Salty abruptly.
‘No. No, of course,’ said John Beck. They were riding up an especially vertiginous wave. The boat hovered horribly at its crest, causing their bellies to lurch with fear, then smashed down bow first into its trough.
‘Oh Jesus,’ whimpered Robert Heffernan, and nobody blamed him.
‘Yes, Jesus, hear us now!’ cried John Beck. All this shouting against the elements and rowing at the same time was making him short of breath, and the words came out in staccato bursts. ‘You have – taken from us – the great Leviathan – whose empty carcass must now rot – uselessly – upon the ocean floor –'
In fact, he was quite pleased with this style of delivery. It seemed to suggest a passion and urgency that had perhaps been lacking in his sermons, and his straining voice was acquiring a commanding timbre.
‘Where once – its precious bounty – might have lubricated – cogs – of great machinery,’ he continued. ‘Or served perhaps – in the construction of umbrellas – or indeed corsets – to enhance the silhouettes of our womenfolk –'
‘Not a sermon, Father, just a prayer if you would!’
‘Right, yes,’ said John Beck. ‘O God,’ he commenced afresh, ‘who hath embarked our souls in these frail boats – preserve us from the dangers that on all sides assault us – give Your oarsmen the strength to pull against this tempest – that we might arrive at last in the haven of eternal salvation –'
‘Haven of eternal salvation, Lord,’ cried Salty.
‘Yea, O Lord,’ cried the whalers, who would welcome a haven of any description.
‘Hear the cry of our hearts, and have mercy upon us, Lord. Have mercy upon whale men who have lost their cargo –'
‘Yes, Lord!’
‘– and seek only to return home.’
And just as these last words blew away on the wind, by all accounts of those who were present, the dark clouds above broke apart just enough to permit a shaft of pale crepuscular sunlight to shine down upon the two small boats. The men gazed up to the heavens in amazement, and none more so than John Beck.
‘Amen,’ he said.
‘Amen, Father,’ said Salty.
‘Amen,’ said the whalers.
Importance of Preserving Memories
I realise, on looking back at these pages, that in my anxiety to hurry along to the exciting part of the story, I have moved on from the moment where John Beck kissed me without perhaps acknowledging that this was, and remains, a moment of great significance to me. Our lips met again on other occasions (and I will get to them in due course), but this was the first kiss, and here I will state that it is not for nothing that these first tender caresses between lovers are so treasured. Unlike the time when Burrows had kissed me roughly and conjured up the unpleasant image of the live sea slug or bivalve flailing about inside my mouth, John Beck’s kisses on this occasion were more tentative, indeed almost chaste. And yet even to attempt to describe this moment between us seems to diminish it somehow, so I shall desist from going any further. I have only these memories to hold on to, and am anxious lest I wear them out.
Several years ago, in my anxiety over this possibility, I introduced a ration plan whereby I permitted myself to summon these most precious memories only once a day (usually at bedtime, after extinguishing the lamp). It was difficult, but I felt I had to do this, so concerned was I that the tangibility of the memory (where I could bring it to mind so vividly I could smell and taste, and feel the roughness of his cheek and so forth) was fading, or at least somehow becoming less. Not long after the introduction of this plan, I noticed that I was beginning to compensate for the deprivation by allowing myself, once a memory was summoned, to dwell in that pleasant state for longer and longer periods of time, as if reluctant to relinquish it for another whole day. Again I had to be firm with myself and impose a greater self-discipline. That is, I permit myself to linger in the memory state for a period of no more than two minutes. And yet, even in spite of these efforts, I find the memories are continuing to recede. Thus I have put in place a new regime of allowing myself to indulge in these memories only once every few days, trying to stretch the period between them for as long as possible each time. If I catch myself wanting to summon the memory more frequently, I pinch myself as hard as I can on the underside of my forearm.
The Whale Men Return
I did not hear about the shaft of miraculous sunlight that had answered John Beck’s prayer until some time later, and it did much to explain the puzzling behaviour he manifested from the moment of his return.
But I am getting a little ahead of myself. For although the crepuscular beam pierced the clouds so marvellously that bleak morning, inspiring in the men a sense of hope and salvation, the effect lasted barely a minute and did nothing to assuage the wild seas or ameliorate their ordeal. Their journey continued in the same arduous and terrifying manner until finally they reached the shelter of Leonards Island, and then of Twofold Bay itself. Sometime in the afternoon, they made it back to the whaling station at Kiah. We watched much of this last stage of their journey from the headland (where we had been taking it in turns to keep lookout); it was pitiful indeed to see the laborious progress they made in these conditions, the smaller second boat huddling in the wake of the first.
I was unable to linger, though, for it was necessary that I turn my atte
ntion promptly to the problem of how to feed them. They would of course be extremely hungry; I had packed only small quantities of salted beef and damper in their tuckerbags, little expecting that they would be gone for two whole nights. In their absence, the family had subsisted on porridge and griddle scones; our stores were getting worrisomely low. Now, as I untied the last of the salted beef, hanging in muslin from the roof of the cellar, I leapt back in fright. The muslin was alive; that is, the salted beef had become completely infested with larder beetles.
‘We can’t feed them that,’ said Louisa, as we stared in horror at the seething hunk of meat, now lying on the floor where I had dropped it.
‘Of course we can’t feed them that. I had no intention of feeding them that,’ I snapped. Leaning in to examine it more closely, we could see that the industrious beetles were busily laying their eggs in it.
‘Dan!’ I bellowed. ‘Dan!’
‘What?’ said Dan, from the top of the cellar stairs.
‘Run at once and check the bandicoot traps.’
The reader may not be familiar with the long-nosed bandicoot; it is a slight creature, about the size of a small rabbit, with bright eyes, pointy ears and a nervous, querulous disposition. It sleeps by day, and spends its evenings scurrying around in the undergrowth, grunting and squeaking and fighting with other bandicoots. If you come across one unexpectedly, it will jump straight up in the air out of fright; ‘Startle the Bandicoot’ had long been a popular game amongst the children. I bear no ill-will to the bandicoot, nor is its meat particularly flavoursome; however, ‘needs must’ and, thankfully for us, Dan returned with one such creature found in the trap. We then sent him off with the rifle to try to pot a rabbit. Not that we held out much hope of this; Dan was somewhat near-sighted, like myself.
Louisa and I stared at the bandicoot in dismay; they do not have a lot of meat at the best of times, and this one appeared to be a juvenile.
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