Having gone to be wasted in battle, the grass grew over our brother Dan before he reached his twenty-first birthday. Or at least, we can only assume it did, for there were no remains ever to be found; we had simply to take their word for it.
I find myself once again reluctant to go on, except to comment briefly on the effect Dan’s death had on my brother Harry. He was six years older than Dan, but had not enlisted, owing to the fact that he was by then married with a small child and working as assistant light keeper at Green Cape lighthouse. In the recent letters leading up to his death, Dan had taken to insinuating that Harry was a shirker.
‘A toothless old man can keep a lighthouse lamp burning, yes the job is nesessary but it does not take an ABLE BODIE YOUNG MAN to do so, just so long as he can climb the steps. I think if they had a few showers of shrapnel instead of the rain he is always complaining about at Green Cape, he might realise what we are all putting up with over here and decide to lend us a bit of a hand insted of living the life of Riley.’
We did our best to keep these letters from Harry, but it was difficult. He and Grace would come to visit with the baby and always ask what news of Dan. Letters were so infrequent that when we had received one he would want to read it himself; this he would do silently, and without making any comment regarding the contents. In the awkwardness and embarrassment of the situation, we did not say anything, and I feel now that this was our mistake, for he must have imagined that our silence indicated our agreement with the sentiments Dan expressed. I know my father wrote back to Dan and tried to convey the responsibilities a married man owed to his family, especially since Grace was expecting again; not to mention the responsibilities of lighthouse work for the safety of navigation, never more so than during wartime. But who knows if Dan ever received the letter.
After Reverend Forbes came with the cable, my father and I travelled over to Green Cape to break the news to Harry. I remember it clearly, for we stood on the verandah of his cottage, and force of habit was such that my father kept turning his head to gaze out to sea on the off-chance he might see a whale spout.
Harry stood there in silence for a long time, and then finally he spoke. ‘I suppose you’re wishing it was me, not him, if I hadn’t been such a shirker.’
Well, my father told him not to talk nonsense, but Harry became belligerent then and said he knew that’s what we all thought of him; that he was a coward and that he scarcely deserved to be called a Davidson. He turned on me then and said I was right to depict him wringing his hands like a girl in that painting, and wasn’t I happy it had turned out to be true? And then he said to my father, who was looking out to sea again, ‘That’s right, look for whales, at a time like this. And I’ll bet if one swam by, you’d chase it.’
Poor Grace came out then, and seeing at once that we had received the news we had been so dreading, insisted we come inside for some tea. Harry, however, went off somewhere on the pretext of work needing to be done, and we did not see him again before it was time for us to head home.
From that point on, Harry seemed to want nothing more to do with the family. I urged my father to write to him to convince him that we had never thought him a shirker, but for some reason my father seemed disinclined to do so and simply responded, ‘He will get over it eventually.’ Harry took up a position shortly thereafter at Gabo Island and after that we scarcely heard from him except for a card at Christmas, and even that was written by Grace. So, in truth, my father lost both his sons and we girls lost both our brothers. It was another sad aspect of the whole terrible thing.
It fell upon me, of course, to write to Maeve or Maud in order to convey the dreadful news. I spent a good deal of time in drafting the letter, for I wished it to bring her some small measure of comfort, a comfort we had failed to provide her when she visited. One line in particular stands out in my memory: ‘I have no doubt that the memory of your dear freckled face provided Dan tremendous solace, even as he faced his final moments.’ I showed the letter to Annie, who urged me to strike that passage out. ‘Do you really think now is the time to start concocting fantasies? Besides, she may not wish to be reminded of her freckles.’ To which I responded, ‘How do you know it is a fantasy? It may very well be the truth, for all we know. He certainly seemed keen on her at Tathra wharf.’ Ignoring Annie’s continued protests, I went ahead and posted it. I hope it afforded Maeve or Maud some small consolation; at the very least, I hope she did not take umbrage at the reference to her freckles. Perhaps in retrospect, given her sensitive nature, I would have been wiser to omit that particular adjective, or use another expression, such as ‘sun-kissed’. In any case, we never heard back and I cannot say whatever became of her.
The Flukes
It was Sunday when the whale upended the boat; by Tuesday the boat was repaired and the men set off to the lookout. Young Dan took the place of Shankly, and Uncle Aleck stood in for John Beck, until such time as John Beck could return to the oars. This was felt to be within a day or so, as he was considerably improved and keen to return; however, my father deemed it prudent that he rest a little longer. Thus John Beck sat on our front verandah in the morning sunshine reading the Eden Observer and South Coast Advocate, while Louisa and I laboured over the week’s washing.
My father had erected three solid posts, crossed at the top, from which hung a big cast-iron pot, and under this we lit a fire to boil the water. I did most of the hard scrubbing, as Louisa felt that the steam rising off the tub caused an unattractive ruddiness of the complexion (here indicating my own complexion) and that the Rumford’s Blue was too harsh on one’s hands. Thus she concentrated most of her efforts on jamming the mangle and hanging out the wet sheets in such a pointedly bad-tempered fashion that inevitably a pole would collapse and the whole lot would end up in the dirt. Rarely did we get through washing day on speaking terms with one another.
Normally, as a matter of strong principle, we did not tend to the whale men’s laundry, but as John Beck was still recuperating in the front room, it was a small matter for me to ask if he would like me to launder his white shirt. He gratefully accepted and requested that perhaps I might starch and iron it also, to which I agreed somewhat hesitantly, as our laundering standards were such that we rarely bothered with starch and were somewhat uncertain as to how best to get satisfactory results from the process. However, I found a small amount of cornstarch and boiled it up with water and hoped for the best. Whilst I was plunging the shirt into the starch bowl, I noticed it had been darned very neatly near the cuff; perhaps it had become caught on something and torn. As I studied the tiny stitches, I found myself wondering if this was not the handiwork of whichever lady had caused John Beck such problems with Temptation. Certainly there must have been some attentive gentlewoman offering her services, for the needlework was far too dainty to have been done by any man. It was on this matter that I was thus preoccupied when a series of muttered maledictions caused me to glance in Louisa’s direction. She was struggling with our mangle, the cogs of which frequently jammed and could only be released by employing a dangerous and intricate manoeuvre involving great risk to one’s fingers. My vantage point was such that I saw at this moment a plume of fine spray apparently emanating from the top of her head; that is to say, the plume emanated from the sea directly behind her, at a point behind the breakers, not far removed from where Tom would often come to marshal troops. Saying nothing for fear of having imagined it and thus invoking my sister’s derision, I put down the shirt and fixed my eyes upon the sea, waiting for another such appearance. Surely, if I had seen a spout, then it must have been the spout of a Killer whale, for it struck me as remarkably reckless, even foolhardy, of a whale to swim up to a whaling station and draw attention to itself in this manner. But no, there it was again! The size of the spout and the glimpse of grey bulk beneath the water confirmed it.
‘Whale,’ I said in a strangulated tone, for excitement had gripped the muscles of my throat.
‘Whale?’ said Louisa.
‘There! See it?’ I said, pointing triumphantly. For now the mass of whale had surfaced and was rolling idly with the swell.
‘Is it dead?’ said Louisa, staring.
‘No, I just saw it spout.’
‘How have the Killers not seen it?’
‘I don’t think anyone has seen it.’ For there was no sign of whaleboats bearing down upon it, nor indeed the familiar tall black dorsal fins.
‘Louisa, saddle up Two Socks at once and ride over to the lookout,’ I said.
‘Are you mad? I will have to take the cow as well.’
‘Then – run over!’
‘I can’t run all that way!’
‘Well, what else do you suggest then? Should we row out and catch it ourselves?’ And even as I said it, the idea took form before my eyes. ‘Yes. We will row out and catch it ourselves.’
‘Are you mad?’ she repeated shrilly. ‘How can we?’
‘We’ll take the dinghy.’
‘But we don’t have any harpoons.’
‘We’ll use the whale gun.’
At this, Louisa gasped and clapped her hand to her mouth, but without waiting for another query as to my sanity, I took off as fast as I could down to the boatshed. Forced to choose between finishing the washing or chasing down a whale, Louisa opted for the latter, for she at once hitched up her skirts and came tearing down the hill after me. Patch and Bonnie rose up in a startled fashion from their sunbathing and joined in the chase, barking excitedly but with little notion as to what they were actually barking about; all the while the Maudrys shrieked their protests.
The whale gun was kept up on a high shelf in the boatshed, wrapped in a blanket and oilcloth. It was rarely used for, as previously mentioned, the loudness of its report was known to scare the Killers away; however, since the Killers had failed to show up at all in this instance, I was not unduly concerned by this. It was also said to have a fearsome recoil, but that too was something I did not pause to ponder, so consumed was I by the desire to surprise our father with a whale. In truth, I suspect that the main reason my father preferred not to use the whale gun was that he felt it somehow dishonourable to do so. Far better to have the battle play out hand-to-hand, as it were, in close quarters, than to fire a bomb at the whale from a safe distance.
My first shock was how brutishly heavy was the whale gun – far heavier than you would reasonably expect by looking at it. It was just over three feet in length, with a wide round muzzle and a curious skeleton stock of cast iron. I passed it down to Louisa, who staggered back a little with its weight, then I seized a rectangular wooden box inscribed in my father’s lopsided capitals ‘bomb lances’, along with a small bottle of Black Powder.
‘Well now! How are you going to load the stupid thing?’ cried Louisa.
‘Oh, I expect it cannot be too difficult,’ I responded, anxious that Louisa not detect any sign of uncertainty in my demeanour. I was no expert at armoury, but I imagined I knew enough to load a bomb lance, having heard my father once describe the action and having frequently loaded our muzzle-loading rifle which we used for potting the occasional rabbit. I say ‘occasional’ because the aim of the ancient rifle was infamous – if one wanted to hit a rabbit, it was best to aim roughly four feet to the right and slightly upwind of it. It was the same weapon with which my great-grandfather, Alexander Davidson, had infamously shot dead Uncle Aleck’s beloved pony Nimblefoot when she made the mistake of bailing him up once too often on his morning walk. It was offered in my great-grandfather’s defence that perhaps he had only meant to teach Nimblefoot a lesson, and had been surprised when the weapon had unexpectedly fired straight. I know for certain, however, that Uncle Aleck (who had been a small boy at the time) considered this unlikely, and still thought very bitterly of the old man. ‘She was the grandest little pony you ever saw,’ he would say, if ever the subject came up in conversation, and it did, remarkably frequently. Louisa averred privately that grand the pony may have been, but none too nimble-footed if she had managed to get herself shot by this most unreliable of weapons.
The whale gun required that the sharply fluted arrowhead of the bomb lance be forced down the muzzle with a ramrod. The bomb lance itself was about thirty inches in length and its latter section was hollow to contain a fuse which was lighted by the flash of the powder; this would cause the weapon to explode once embedded in the whale’s flesh. Having jammed it in the muzzle as securely as I could, I set the hammer in the half-cock position in readiness. Now gathering up some rope, a marker buoy, the box of bomb lances and a kellick, we hurried towards the jetty, at which the dinghy was moored. Hearing a cry, we saw John Beck running down towards us.
‘God help us, not the nanny goat,’ muttered Louisa. ‘He will want to say a prayer over us.’
‘You’re not going after it, surely!’ cried John Beck as he caught up with us.
‘Well, what else are we going to do?’ I responded. ‘Let go a perfectly good whale simply because no one has seen it?’
‘All right – then I am coming with you,’ he said, and we clambered down into the dinghy. Compelled by sense of duty to protect us, the two dogs jumped into the dinghy also, causing us to waste several valuable minutes in hoisting them back upon the jetty and sternly admonishing them with little effect, however, for they jumped directly back into the boat again. Fortunately, at this point Violet and Annie appeared and were instructed, by means of our screaming at them, to hold on to the dogs till we had gained some distance from the jetty. We had only managed to row a short distance when Violet must have relaxed her grip, for Bonnie – always a plucky little dog – leapt heroically into the water and proceeded to paddle after us with an expression of deranged determination on her face, intermittently barking and disappearing underwater. This of course necessitated that we turn about and rescue her. All the while, Patch yelped his outrage from the jetty (he had a horror of water, and did not care to get his paws wet).
Realising we had little choice but to continue our mission with Bonnie on board, we squared up to the breakers now, and it was here I felt the first pang of doubt as to the wisdom of our proposed adventure. With three of us on board and one small wet dog, our aged craft sat worrisomely low in the water. In truth, the dinghy, like the rifle, dated back to Alexander Davidson’s time and was now mostly retired from use; I was not entirely confident that it would withstand the rigours of crossing the bar. However, it surprised us by ploughing gamely through, although not sparing us from a terrific drenching.
‘Ease up now, there it is!’ I cried, once I had dashed the stinging water from my eyes and resumed my position at the steer oar. For there indeed the whale drifted, only fifty feet away. I could tell at once that it was a humpback whale, and a very good-sized one at that.
‘Let me see,’ said Louisa, pausing in her rowing to swing about and look at it.
‘Keep rowing!’ I hissed. ‘But quietly does it. We must sneak up upon it, as a cat would a mouse.’
We rowed to within twenty feet of the vast creature, at which I signalled to my crew to lie on their oars. The three of us now took the opportunity to gaze at the creature in wonderment; certainly it was the first time in my nineteen years that I had ever seen a living whale at such close quarters. It was dark grey in colour and approximately forty or so feet in length, though this was difficult to determine precisely as most of its bulk was underwater. Its back (which was the only part above water) was rounded, yet surprisingly sleek in appearance, its modest dorsal fin forming part of a ridge or ‘hump’ from whence I suppose it got its name. It seemed perfectly aware of our presence but not in the slightest concerned; it lifted its knobbly head and spouted, Bosh!, as if by way of casual greeting. It conveyed no sense of purpose but seemed content to simply drift about aimlessly, as if enjoying the gentle motion of the swell; if a whale could whistle, I imagined it would be whistling just now, or humming
to itself some small snatch of song it vaguely remembered. It was remarkable to me how different it was in its affable demeanour to the determined intent and ruthless purpose of the Killer whale.
Having admired it long enough, I reached down now and picked up the whale gun, and at once an odd feeling of calm descended upon me. Given the remarkable ease with which my plan was unfolding, it felt almost as if this day, this moment, had been laid out for me by Fate. I would capture this creature which floated so obligingly within range of my whale gun and, in doing so, I would turn around my family’s fortunes. My father would be surprised and delighted; even proud of me in his own quiet way. ‘Good work, lass,’ he might say, placing his knotted hand upon my shoulder. Perhaps one of the Eden townsfolk would write a poem about me.
‘I really don’t think we should be doing this,’ said Louisa. ‘Dad won’t be at all happy when he finds out.’
‘He’ll be happy if we catch a whale,’ I responded, moving the hammer to full-cock.
‘He won’t be happy that you’re using the whale gun.’
‘May I ask a question?’ said John Beck. ‘Is it loaded?’
‘Of course it is loaded!’ I said, turning to him.
‘Don’t wave it at us!’ cried Louisa, and even John Beck cowered involuntarily as if I was about to shoot him.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ I said crossly.
Raising the gun to my shoulder, I now took careful aim at the mass of grey that lay before me. There was so much of this whale, it seemed almost impossible that I could miss – if I could only control the muscles of my right arm, which had begun to tremble involuntarily with the great weight of the weapon. I braced myself as best I could till the muzzle steadied, but just as my finger moved to the trigger, Bonnie – who had up till then been gazing off eagerly in the other direction – turned about in her seat, and seeing the whale for the first time, took strong and vocal exception to its presence.
Rush Oh! Page 17