The full moon was high in the sky and the bay unusually illuminated by its eerie silvery light. A great weariness, a kind of happy exhaustion, descended upon us. Dan and Violet and Annie fell asleep almost immediately on the bench seats, covered over by blankets. Harry and Uncle Aleck appeared to have passed out altogether, and lay snoring underfoot; in fact, we left them there, covered in blankets, when we got home. Of the rest of us, no one talked much, but instead just sat staring out to sea, listening to the gentle sputtering of the motor as we crept across the bay.
‘Well, Father,’ said Salty after a while, slapping John Beck companionably upon the knee, ‘how did you enjoy your first season whaling?’
‘I’ve enjoyed it very much,’ replied John Beck. ‘It has truly been a memorable experience.’
‘Indeed,’ said Salty, taking out his pipe and proceeding to light it, enveloping himself for a short while amidst a cloud of smoke. ‘I daresay you fancy you know a bit about whales now?’ he continued, once his pipe was lit.
‘Oh well,’ said John Beck. ‘I suppose I know a little more than I did before.’
‘I see.’ Another cloud of smoke. ‘Then I wonder, Father, can you tell me why it is that whales breach?’
‘Breach, did you say?’
‘That’s right. By which I mean leap out of the water in their entirety.’
‘Yes,’ said John Beck. ‘I am aware of what breaching is.’
‘You are aware of what breaching is, but are you aware of what causes it?’
‘No, I am not.’
‘Hazard a guess, if you will.’
‘I’m sure I do not know.’
‘I imagine you might think it an expression of high spirits. Glad to be alive, is that it? Possessed of the joie de vivre?’
‘Perhaps,’ said John Beck in a noncommittal tone.
‘Perhaps? Of course it is obvious! Here is a lovely big humper swimming along with not a care in the world! Why shouldn’t he leap up in glee?! He would click his heels, if he had any.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Then you suppose incorrectly, for that is not the reason,’ said Salty. ‘Hazard another guess. For example, perhaps the whale is of a sportive disposition?’
‘Why don’t you just simply tell me why the whale breaches?’ A note of irritation had crept into John Beck’s voice. ‘It would save a lot of time and effort.’
‘Very well then, I will,’ said Salty, smiling pleasantly. ‘It is because the whale has an earache.’
At which Darcy, who had been following the back and forth between the two men in some amusement, burst into a peal of laughter. For some reason, the idea of a whale having an earache tickled him enormously.
‘An earache?’ queried John Beck, and he was smiling a little because Darcy’s laughter was rather infectious. Others began chuckling also. In fact, even my father was smiling.
‘Yes, that’s right, an earache,’ said Salty, seeming a little annoyed at all the merriment. ‘And I can assure you, young man’ – turning to Darcy, and becoming more vehement in his tone – ‘that it is no laughing matter for the whale. A minuscule crustacean is pestering the poor beast to the point of endurance, scampering up and down in the ear cavities. The whale is breaching in a desperate bid to rid himself of the pest.’
‘I was not aware that whales had ears,’ remarked John Beck.
This set Darcy off again.
‘Indeed they do,’ cried Salty. ‘Indeed they do have ears! Granted, they do not have the fleshy appendages of land mammals –'
And just at this moment, as if directly refuting Salty’s claim, we heard a mighty and unmistakable Bosh! and a plume of fine silvery spray rose within twenty yards of the launch. At once we all cried out, and there we saw in low silhouette against the water the sloping curve of a humpback commencing to dive. Up turned the insouciant flukes, a glimpse of their snowy undersides in the darkness, then down they slid into the water, disappearing from view.
‘Well, that is a very late whale,’ said Arthur Ashby thoughtfully. ‘A straggler of sorts.’
The men turned to my father at the wheel. I suppose they were wondering whether they would now be expected to give chase. My father desisted from the throttle and let the motor idle. The little ones roused blearily from their sleep.
‘What’s the matter? Why has the boat stopped?’
‘Sshhh. We are waiting for a whale to reappear.’
At once the children sat up, wide awake. They were not going to miss seeing a whale close up.
‘There she is!’ cried Darcy. The whale had reappeared a short distance ahead and lolled about, spouting amiably. The children hastened up to the bow and clustered together there, watching it reverently.
‘Gee, I wish I had my whale gun,’ said Dan earnestly.
‘It’s a juvenile,’ said my father. ‘I suppose that’s why it’s lagging so far behind the others.’
‘It is Robert Heffernan, in whale form,’ remarked Bastable.
‘What do you think, boss?’ asked Arthur Ashby, and all eyes turned to my father in trepidation. I suspect none of them felt very much like having to suddenly do battle with a whale. Really, everyone wanted to just curl up in their beds and sleep for twelve hours. ‘We try calling the Killers?’
‘Well, we could try, I suppose,’ said my father. ‘But I doubt they’ll come.’
He did not sound very enthusiastic himself. Perhaps he was aware of the stony disapprobation rising up from Louisa, who sat quietly at his side. Or perhaps he also wanted to go to bed. After a good bit of fumbling about in the dark, the men unclipped the Excelsior’s oars and slapped them over the side in a haphazard attempt at unison. Then they all stood around and scoured the water, waiting for the happy miracle of those raking dorsal fins. The children and I waited too, wrapped in our blankets.
‘Come on, Tom,’ urged Annie in a small voice. ‘Come on, Hooky. Come on, Humpy.’
‘And Kinscher and Cooper,’ continued Violet. ‘And Jackson and Little Ben and Jimmy and Charlie Adgery and Stranger and Typee . . .' In fact, she went on to list nearly every Killer whale she could think of, living or deceased, and was admonished for her errors by her brother.
Minutes passed. The men tried slapping the oars a couple more times, increasingly more half-hearted and less in unison at each successive attempt. No Killers came; nor was anyone much surprised, for they hadn’t been sighted now in well over a week. They had moved on to colder waters, presumably, to wherever Killer whales liked to go when the whaling season was over. Meanwhile, Robert Heffernan in whale form drifted further away, ambling along in his aimless, distracted fashion, making his journey south.
‘We’ll let him go,’ said my father, opening up the throttle. ‘He’ll be bigger next year.’
Author’s Note
George ‘Fearless’ Davidson, Master Whaler, was born in 1863, in Eden, New South Wales. He was the grandson of Alexander Davidson, a Scottish immigrant who was the first in the line of Davidsons to take up whaling in Twofold Bay. In 1890, George married Sarah Galli, who bore him eight children. George and Sarah both lived to a ripe old age. In 1936, several years after he had put the whaling station up for sale and by now an old man, George rowed out in a small dinghy and lanced a whale single-handedly. ‘Davidson’s feat of attacking and killing a whale without assistance is unparalleled in the history of local whaling,’ claimed the Sydney Morning Herald (12 November 1936).
In the interests of fiction, and with sincere apologies to the descendants of the Davidsons, I have taken a few liberties with some details of his life, in particular by making him a widower and inventing a whole new set of offspring for him.
Regarding the killer whales, however, I have endeavoured to be as truthful as possible. Much of my research centred on the local Eden newspapers of the time, held in the archives of the State Library of New South Wales. Here I disc
overed an abundance of extraordinarily vivid and detailed eyewitness accounts of the whale hunts, often referring to specific killer whales by name. These newspapers seem to have followed the ups and downs of the Davidsons’ fortunes and the killer whales’ activities obsessively, even to the extent – in this instance – of documenting the killers’ pursuit of an unfortunate ‘grampus’ (most likely a minke whale):
‘After travelling somewhat about a mile he again altered his course for North Head expecting to get away, but his attempt was foiled by the appearance of “Cooper”. He then trended his way towards the entrance to Curalo Lake, only to find laying in wait for him on the verge of the breakers, “Typee”. By a skilful bit of manoeuvring, the grampus succeeded around the killer “Typee”, who, finding himself outclassed, immediately took up a position with his confederates. After travelling slowly along the breast of the sandy beach, “Humpy” thought he (the grampus) was not going fast enough, so he took a hand in the game, and gave the unfortunate grampus a reminder that he was in close attendance . . . After floptailing a while, there were to be noticed Hooky, Cooper, Jackson, Typee, Tom, Kinscher and other killers known by their distinctive dorsal fins, ranged in semi-circular form between Lookout Point and North Head . . .’
Eden Observer and South Coast Advocate, 3 August 1909.
The whale chases themselves make tough reading, at once exciting and horrifying:
‘. . . the Killers were attacking them in the most ferocious manner, and the unfortunate creatures seemed lost as to which course was best to get rid of their tormentors. The bellowing the whole time was of the most awful and pitiful nature, and it would be a hard man indeed who could not bestow a little sympathy on the poor harassed creatures. Getting slightly away from the Killers, the whales made for East Boyd Bay. There a number of erratic movements were made, but the whales, getting out of the bay, steered a course for the open sea . . . instinctively (the Killers) knew that if the whales were once outside the bay in deep water their chances of capture were limited and so, like dogs on a beast, they were at the whales’ heads and, after a great effort, turned them around again. During all this time, many efforts were made by George Davidson and his crew to fasten to one of the whales, but in vain. Their constant twistings and turnings rendered it impossible . . . After a while the whales and Killers took a course direct for Quarantine Bay, the whaling crew following in hot pursuit. Here success crowned the efforts of the crew, and one of the whales had the harpoon driven well home into its body, and the hopes of the crew went high; but only for a few minutes as an event, not uncommon, happened. It is well known that the Killers will often take hold of a piece of line hanging from a boat, or at times a kellick, and run away with it; and this is just what one of them did on Sunday night; and the extraordinary sight of a Killer having the whale line in his mouth and being towed about by a whale was witnessed. The result of the Killer taking the line was that the crew had to take the oars and row hard for about two miles before they managed to again secure the whale line . . .’
Eden Observer and South Coast Advocate, 1 September 1905.
In fact, I found several examples of frolicsome Killer whales taking the whale line:
‘. . . At this stage an incident occurred which fortunately is not frequent although a similar one took place last season. A Killer, known to the whaling crew as Tom, took the whale line in its mouth, dragging it out of the boat, and for a while threatening the loss of the whale. Fortunately Tom held fast to the line, the whale towing him about the bay, and presenting an unusual sight to the few onlookers who were about at that early hour . . .’
Eden Observer and South Coast Advocate, 3 August 1906.
Here is the famous Tom making an appearance! On the same page of the very same newspaper, in miniscule print, I found this fascinating tidbit:
‘A painful, but fortunately not serious accident happened to Mr George Davidson on Friday afternoon last at the site of the dead whale off South Head. While explaining the names of the Killers, one of them rose immediately at the bow of the launch and catching the whale line of which Mr Davidson had hold, in his mouth, crushed his finger in such a severe manner that the top of it burst. For his playful habits, Tom, the name by which this particular Killer is known, received sufficient anathemas to last him till his dying day – and after.’
Tom died in September 1930, and the obituary and poem included in this book are taken verbatim from the Eden newspapers of that month. His skeleton was preserved by George Davidson, and is on display to this day at the Eden Killer Whale Museum. Although other explanations have been offered for it, there appears to be a conspicuous rope groove on one of his back teeth.
George Davidson’s whale crews appear to have consisted of various Davidsons, a few itinerants and, notably, a regularly returning group of Aboriginal whale men: Arthur Ashby, Albert Thomas Senior (Charaga) and Albert Thomas Junior (Boukal) among them. By most accounts (although this is difficult to verify), the Aboriginal whale men received the same pay and conditions as the white whale men. Certainly, they were highly regarded for their superior eyesight and ability, and Arthur Ashby in particular is mentioned in newspaper accounts for his skill as a harpooner (or boat-steerer). Of particular interest is the great significance that the killer whales held for the Aboriginal people:
‘The older race of aboriginals around Eden had strange beliefs about the Killers, holding the opinion that when they departed from this sphere of usefulness they at some time later returned as Killers, and the one which bears the name of Cooper was so-called after an old aboriginal who had in the flesh been king of the Kiah River tribe. Just as a small Killer, on being seen for the first time, was said to be the recently deceased child of one of the natives changed into a Killer. There is no doubt that these animals are looked upon as being supernatural, and held consequently in great reverence. Many years ago, an old whaler named Higginbotham (Flukey), in throwing the lance, by accident caused the death of a Killer. The same night, the natives armed themselves with spears, with the intention of taking his life in revenge for what they considered a great crime, and it was only owing to the intervention of some of the more powerful of the tribe that Flukey was allowed to live.’
Eden Observer and South Coast Advocate, 27 November 1903.
It is informative of the times to note that ‘Killers’ warrants a capital letter, while ‘aboriginals’ does not.
Further study of these newspapers reveals that whaling in Eden does not appear to have been a hugely profitable enterprise in the early 1900s:
‘The whaling season at Twofold Bay was practically brought to a close with the ending of last week, when the two crews dispersed to their homes. Mr Davidson will keep a lookout for chance whales a little while longer, but the fact that the Killers have not been seen for some time renders it probable they have taken their departure for other fields and oceans blue, and there is poor chance of obtaining whales without their assistance . . . The season opened auspiciously with the capture of ten whales between July 19 and September 5, the last being a black whale . . . Since the latter date, however, the long weary watches have been fruitless. During 1903, not a single whale was taken, with the exception of a small finback, which was driven ashore by the Killers at Haslems Beach. After all expenses are paid, there will unfortunately be small profit for the adventurous work of whaling in the last two years in Twofold Bay. The total quantity of oil secured was 25 and a half tons. Had the Killers remained and the last two humpers and right whale been captured, the story would have been slightly different. As it is, we can only hope that captures may yet be made, late as the period is, and that next year’s work may recoup plucky George Davidson for past losses.’
Eden Observer and South Coast Advocate, 11 November 1904.
In fact, 1905 proved to be worse than 1904: only five whales were captured, quite late in the season, and two of these were blown away in gales before they could be towed to the try-works
. These losses were a bitter blow for the whalers, but perhaps even more disappointing for the gentleman below:
‘Mr James Hogan, of Moruya, who came to Eden this week to be immersed in one of the whales as a cure for rheumatism from which he is a great sufferer, returned to his home on Monday. Owing to the loss of the whales after they were killed, Mr Hogan could not try the remedy.’
Eden Observer and South Coast Advocate, 15 September 1905.
For those interested in reading further about the Davidsons and the killer whales of Eden, I recommend the following:
Tom Mead, Killers of Eden, Angus & Robinson, 1961; re-published Dolphin Books, 2002
Danielle Clode, Killers in Eden, Allen & Unwin, 2002
Rene Davidson, Whalemen of Twofold Bay, self-published, 1988
W.J. Dakin, Whalemen Adventurers, Angus and Robertson, 1934; re-published Sirius Books, 1963
www.killersofeden.com
It is well worth visiting the area, not only for the Eden Killer Whale Museum, where Tom’s skeleton may be admired and much of the Davidson whaling paraphernalia is on display, but also for the charming, rough-hewn Davidson cottage at Kiah, which stands preserved just up the hill from where the try-works used to be. At South Head, it is possible to visit the whaler’s lookout post of Boyd Tower, where one can plainly see, carved into the sandstone, an epitaph for the whale man Peter Lia, who died when a whale smashed a whaleboat with its flukes in 1881. There’s even the faded remnants of an old draughtsboard, painted on a flat rock – no doubt a means of whiling away the long hours, waiting for a whale.
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