The Whitest Flower

by Brendan Graham

  Lavelle answered him. ‘Are you sailing for Boston?’

  ‘No, not precisely,’ West answered, dashing Ellen’s hopes momentarily, ‘… but I am sailing for Quebec, not far north of Boston, and at first tide in the morning. I can accommodate two more fare-paying passengers.’

  ‘How would we get to Boston?’ Ellen enquired.

  ‘Without mishap, the Enterprise should anchor in Quebec well before the ice sets in. You could then quite readily sail from there to Boston, or, if you willed, travel overland from Quebec.’

  ‘We’ll go with you.’ She looked at Lavelle, her mind already made up.

  So it was that Mr and Mrs Coogan took their leave of Australia for Quebec City on the banks of Canada’s St Lawrence River.

  But Boston bound.

  Book Three

  Grosse Île

  41

  Conditions aboard the Enterprise proved infinitely more pleasant than those on the Eliza Jane. Captain West was at all times solicitous; their quarters, though cramped, were the height of luxury compared to Ellen’s previous experience; and the provisions were ample and varied.

  Ellen had been concerned at the prospect of sharing married quarters with ‘Mr Coogan’ on such a long voyage, but Captain West had unwittingly come to her rescue. Welcoming them on board at first light, he had been most apologetic: ‘I ought to have told you, Mr and Mrs Coogan, but the Enterprise, being a cargo vessel, has but limited space for passengers. I regret that the larger staterooms have all been taken; the two remaining will only accommodate one person – but they are adjoining. I trust this will not discommode you …’

  ‘No, that is fine, Captain,’ Ellen said, trying to keep the relief out of her voice.

  There were six other passengers on the Enterprise apart from the young ‘Mr and Mrs Coogan’. A French couple, Edouard and Marie-Claire Chabot, and their six-year-old son Phillipe, bound for Montreal. A prim, self-possessed little surveyor with the odd name of Thimble, who would remain with them as far as Valparaiso in Chile. A large, moustachioed gentleman named Mr Knatchbull, whom they gathered was a servant of the Crown. And then there was the Reverend James Bonney, an Anglican missionary from Somerset. He had been stationed in the Port Phillip District these past few years, but was now posted to Grosse Île, a small island thirty miles downstream from Quebec City which had been used as a quarantine station for European immigrants since 1832.

  Ellen took an immediate liking to the Reverend, a quietly pleasant man in his mid-thirties, and they whiled away many an hour in conversation. He knew much more than she did about their destination, and was only too happy to share his knowledge.

  ‘Many of your countrymen,’ he told her, ‘fleeing the pestilence in Ireland, are perishing on the journey to Canada or on Grosse Île itself. While most are Roman Catholics, amongst them are scattered members of the Established Church who also suffer. Often they are deprived of our solace in their dying moments, because there are so few clergy and it is difficult to detect the members of our faith amongst the inhabitants of the fever sheds.’

  ‘But does it matter, Reverend, who ministers to whom, when all the dying need is a comforting hand?’

  ‘My dear lady, would that it were so simple. Each soul seeks to enter the Kingdom of Heaven by his own gate, lest he approach by the gate of another and it be closed against him. It matters indeed.’

  ‘But don’t all the gates lead to the same place, once you’ve passed through them?’ she posed, a hint of mischief in her voice.

  Reverend Bonney reflected for a moment, then asked her: ‘Where is it in Ireland that you hail from, originally?’ Puzzled, she replied: ‘Maamtrasna.’

  ‘And is this a village or a town?’

  ‘It is a village, Reverend.’

  ‘And in what county does Maamtrasna reside?’

  ‘In the county of Galway, near the border with County Mayo,’ she told him, wondering where all this was leading.

  ‘Precisely!’ he said. ‘See how, in a simple way, you have answered your own question?’

  Ellen was perplexed. ‘How?’

  ‘Because, when I enquired as to from whence you came, you did not say County Galway, but Maamtrasna – your own individual place in the county of Galway. Then, you were quick to explain what Maamtrasna was not: that it was not in County Mayo. Yet, before everything, you are Irish, only then of County Galway. So, why is it that you define yourself first by village – the smallest unit?’

  She thought about this for a moment, getting the drift of his argument. Somehow it didn’t seem the same as the point she was making.

  ‘It is because you, like all of us, prefer particularity,’ he continued. ‘We each need our own smaller identity, even though we belong to a larger grouping. The same applies in how we, His creatures, worship our Creator – each to his own beliefs. Each believing we are right, and that He has called us to be different.’

  The pleasant and neat-haired Reverend Bonney was pleased with how he had made the point to her, and she let it go at that.

  When the Enterprise hove-to at Valparaiso to disembark Thimble, Ellen and Lavelle took the opportunity to go ashore.

  Never before had she seen mountains so high as those in the distance behind the Chilean port. The Andes, it seemed, reached through the outer skin of the earth and tipped beyond the blue edge of the sky into the very heavens themselves.

  The people here spoke Spanish and were coloured – not the black black of the Aborigines, but an attractive hazelnut brown. They were beautiful to behold. Despite their obvious poverty, they displayed such infectious good-humour that Ellen would have liked to remain amongst them a little longer. The ranchos they lived in reminded Ellen of the scailpeens back home: a few sticks in the ground with some pieces of wood for a roof, topped off with a layer of grass and straw.

  Fowl ran riot all over the place, and the streets were thronged with donkeys slung with kishogues similar to those used for carrying the turf in Ireland. At the roadside were bamboo stalls selling exotic fruits and dubious-looking cuts of meat, the stallholders seemingly unworried by the multitude of strange flying insects which landed on their wares and, once replenished, took off again, buzzing and whirring their noisy approbation. And amidst the hustle and bustle, oblivious to it all, children ran naked as the day they were born – free spirits.

  Drawn by the sound of music, Ellen and Lavelle came upon a procession of people who appeared to be celebrating something – perhaps the feast day of a local saint. Then she noticed a group at the head of the procession, bearing aloft a wooden board on which reposed the body of a beautiful young girl, no more than six or seven years old. The child was dressed all in white, as if for a wedding, her hair garlanded with white flowers. At her head and feet, two large candles burned. Ellen watched, entranced. This, she learned, was an angelito – a little angel. White and pure, untainted by sin, the girl’s direct passage to heaven was here being celebrated on earth with music and dance.

  Lavelle, when he realized the nature of the procession, kept an anxious eye on Ellen. He knew that it would act as a poignant reminder of the passing of her own angelito, Annie, into the Aboriginal spirit world.

  But Ellen was captivated by the beauty and the joy of the occasion, and returned to the Enterprise uplifted by what she had witnessed.

  On leaving Valparaiso, the captain informed them that they would tack southwards along the coast of Chile to ‘round the Horn’.

  ‘This side, the weather will be even enough, but once we turn eastwards to round the Horn expect anything,’ he warned.

  Later, trying to assuage her fears, he told her, ‘Mrs Coogan, the art of captaining a Cape-Horner such as the Enterprise is in knowing, not how to extricate oneself from troublesome situations, but how to avoid them in the first instance. You need have no worries – trouble, I avoid like the plague.’

  He was true to his word. The Enterprise was a frenzy of activity in preparation for its voyage through the Straits of Magellan, and past Tierra
del Fuego – the southernmost tip of the continent of South America.

  The shipwright, a friendly young fellow known as ‘Chippy’, fixed what seemed only minor damage to her cabin door by putting in a whole new panel. ‘For the next few days I won’t have a minute to spare, miss! Doors, hatches, spars – everything that moves and doesn’t move – I have to make it right for the captain. And caulk the decks an’ all!’ he said cheerily.

  And every time she stepped on deck, she’d find the sail-maker busy with his needle and twine. ‘Stops me stitches from rotting – beeswax it is, miss,’ he explained when she stopped, inquisitive about his work. ‘If I don’t smother ’em in it, those westerlies would shred me sails in five minutes – and might do anyway!’

  The ship’s farmyard – the stalls and pens where the livestock were kept – was lashed down even more securely than before. Lifelines were rigged along the deck for the crew to hang on to while working. Safety nets were rigged above the bulwarks to catch any crewman washed overboard by one of the giant waves they were likely to encounter.

  But some excitement was to ensue before they ever reached Cape Horn.

  The Enterprise had been making good progress against the Humboldt Current. In readiness for the westerlies ahead, the best sails had been broken out of the locker and a new mainsail had been set. The old sails, which would not now be used again until more clement weather was reached on the far, eastern coast of the continent, were being furled away.

  Ellen watched, marvelling at the men as they hauled in the giant sails, singing their sea shanties, and heaving in unison to the rhythm of the songs, some of them swinging aloft on the ropes.

  ‘“Norwegian steam”, Mrs Coogan!’ the captain said. Then, seeing her puzzled expression, he explained: ‘It’s a seafarer’s joke. “Norwegian steam” is plain old-fashioned muscle-power, that’s all. Though it won’t be long, I’d wager, until all of this is no more—’ He made a sweeping gesture that took in all the hauling and setting of the sails. ‘Another five or ten years, and these beautiful old Cape-Horners will be replaced by steam-ships. Can you imagine it, Mrs Coogan?’ he asked, a hint of something in his voice. ‘Instead of seeing the great white sails of the tall ships rise on the horizon, all you will see is ugly black smoke darkening the skies.’

  Suddenly the lookout on the fo’c’sle-head rang out his bell, once, twice, thrice.

  ‘Three bells!’ said Captain West, excusing himself. ‘Something straight ahead. Probably whalers!’

  He was right. Soon Ellen could see three large windjammer whaling ships.

  ‘Thar she blows! Thar she blows!’ the lookout shouted. Then, from out of the water halfway between the Enterprise and the whalers, Ellen saw a giant block-headed sperm whale surface, madly spouting water from his blow-hole as he did so.

  ‘It’s a bull, by the size of him!’ Captain West ventured, having returned to her side. ‘Now you’ll see something. He must be worth forty barrels if he’s worth a one!’ he said, excitement in his voice.

  The whale, all forty feet of him, thundered on ahead of them surrounded by blackfish. Now, in his wake, Ellen could see another, slightly smaller whale and just behind this one a very small whale indeed.

  ‘The cow and her calf following the bull,’ said the captain.

  As the Enterprise neared the whalers, Ellen could make out the crewmen hard at work. The four boats slung to the starboard of the windjammers were quickly lowered into the water, each carrying six to eight men, some of whom rowed, while others sat clutching long steel poles.

  ‘At the prow is the boat-steerer, or harpooner,’ the captain pointed out. ‘Watch him.’

  The boats made straight for the on-coming whales, which were being herded towards them by the Enterprise. To Ellen, the boats looked like tiny pieces of flotsam pitted against the giants of the deep.

  Two of the boats made for the great black bull, two for the cow, it seemed. But to her horror, Ellen saw these two boats bypass the cow, heading instead for the calf who trailed in its mother’s wake.

  ‘What are they doing?’ she demanded of the captain, sensing something awful was about to happen.

  ‘Perhaps you had better retire to your cabin, Mrs Coogan?’ he replied, dodging her question.

  She held firm, waiting for a proper explanation.

  ‘When the hunt is over, you can return on deck, and perhaps we can engage in some gamming with the whalers – they’re sure to be out of New England,’ he said, still avoiding her question.

  That was it.

  ‘No, I’m staying here,’ she said defiantly.

  ‘Ma’am – as you wish!’ The captain gave a quick bow, and then went astern.

  Ellen watched as the man steering the leading boat of the second pair stood upright on its prow. He then drew back his arm and, in one swift throwing movement, cast his harpoon into the sleek back of the baby whale. Its cries cut across the ocean towards her, sickening her. The harpooner made no attempt to further harpoon the calf, and then Ellen realized what plan it was the whale-hunters had.

  The mother, who had swum beyond the boats, now turned, summoned by the cries and thrashings of her calf. She would not leave while her harpooned baby lived. Back towards death the loyal mother came, an easy target now for the second of the two boats. The boatmen waited the certain enactment of the cow’s fate.

  Soon the harpoons bit deep into her, until she too cried and thrashed like her baby. She died, the trap sprung by love’s fatal flaw. Only when the mother’s death-throes were in their final convulsions did the harpooner in the first boat deliver the coup-de-grâce to the crying calf.

  Meanwhile, cries of a different kind were emerging from the other two boats. The great bull had been speared thrice. But he battled wildly, his body and huge tail turning the waters about him into a seething mass of foam. Now, at the death-cries of his young, the giant leviathan turned and made directly for the killing boat. As he neared it, the massive jaws opened wide, revealing his awesome weaponry. Before the boat could take evasive action, the rows of fierce pointed teeth crunched down on its prow. It was splintered into firewood, the harpooner severed at midriff as if he had been no more than fowl meat. The severity of the attack catapulted the other members of the crew, more fortunate than their harpooner, into the water from which they were eventually rescued.

  But the drama was far from over.

  Ellen saw the mighty sperm whale, not yet finished with his attackers, roll in the water as if trying to rid himself of the harpoons. The ropes with which his tormentors had made him fast now became twisted. When he swam out to sea, the two boats were towed crosswise behind him in what she later learned whalers whimsically called the ‘Nantucket sleigh-ride’.

  ‘Jump! Jump! The bastard’s going to sound!’ the gallied sailors shouted, terrified of the watery grave that would be their lot if the whale sounded for the depths of the ocean.

  As the men plunged overboard, Ellen saw the bull, black skin glistening, arch out of the water in all his power. Then he plunged downwards into the dark lairs of the sea, pulling behind him the two empty boats. She was greatly pleased at this, feeling some justice had been done.

  ‘Floating palaces of sin!’

  She gave a start at the sound of Reverend Bonney’s voice. She’d been so engrossed in the battle between whalers and whale that she had not been aware that the Reverend and Mr Knatchbull had joined her. The Reverend was obviously not enamoured of whaling ships – or those aboard them.

  ‘When those men leave shore on one of these expeditions, they leave their wives behind them – and, I am afraid to say, their souls too!’ he gave her by way of explanation.

  ‘Aye, Reverend, they’ve turned the Pacific Islands into a tropical whorehouse! Begging your pardon, Ma’am,’ said Mr Knatchbull. ‘More of your lot needed out here to put a halt to their gallop, Reverend. Mostly New Englanders, of course – not Her Majesty’s subjects!’

  Both Ellen and Reverend Bonney were surprised by this most unusual lac
k of reticence on Knatchbull’s part.

  ‘Indeed, Mr Knatchbull!’ was all the Reverend would add.

  The Enterprise and the nearest of the three whalers, the Lucy Goodnight of New Bedford, flagged each other, sending their communications over the bloodied brine of the Pacific that was between them.

  Captain West approached Ellen, in obvious good spirits. ‘Mrs Coogan, I am pleased to tell you that the Lucy Goodnight carries a woman aboard. Captain Brock’s wife would be pleased to gam with you and Madame Chabot!’

  Ellen looked at him askance.

  ‘“Gamming” – it’s what the ladies do out here!’ he teased, before explaining: ‘Visiting, talking. Originally it referred to a group of whales socializing together – no offence intended to the ladies, of course,’ he laughed.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Not many of the whalers carry wives … For various reasons,’ the captain said, unaware of the discussion that had just taken place in her presence. ‘But of late the ladies seem more determined to be with their men, gaining for the ships they travel on the name “petticoat whalers”!’

  So it was that Mrs Almira Brock came and gammed with the ladies of the Enterprise, while Captain West and Lavelle gammed aboard the Lucy Goodnight with Captain Shubael Brock. Monsieur Chabot remained behind to watch over Phillipe. The Reverend Bonney and Mr Knatchbull declined the invitation to board the whaler, for different reasons. The clergyman again invoked ‘Floating palaces of sin!’ while Knatchbull cited ‘the God-awful stench!’

  Almira Brock of New Bedford was a handsome, dark-haired Quaker lady. Ellen estimated her to be somewhere in her mid-thirties. She was clearly delighted to see not one, but two other white women. The greatest surprise, however, was what she carried on board in her arms: a baby, not yet two months old, bright and beautiful as could be.

  ‘She weighs all of fifteen barrels!’ Almira Brock gushed at them delightedly – fifteen barrels of sperm oil being not an unworthy weight for a two-month-old!