Potato Factory

by Bryce Courtenay

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  In the general course of events, the meeting of an acquaintance sixteen thousand miles from where you had last known them would seem to be a miracle. But in the penal colonies of New South Wales or Van Die-men’s Land, it was a very common experience. The under class of London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Belfast were transported in their thousands. Men and women who had lived in the same dark, stinking courts and alleys, who had, as children, starved and played in the same cheerless streets, might run into one another in a tavern crowd in Hobart Town. An old accomplice might tap one on the shoulder and claim a drink and a hand-out, or simply an hour’s gossip of people and places known in a past now much romanticised by time and absence.

  Ikey came to expect a familiar yell across a crowded room from someone who recognised him from London or the provinces; though in truth, he was previously so well known by reputation that there were some who merely imagined a past association with him. It did not come as a total shock, therefore, when Ikey one night entered the Hobart Whale Fishery, a tavern frequented by whalers, and heard a high sweet voice raised above the noise of the crowd as it sung a pretty ditty. He had last heard that tune at the Pig ‘n Spit, and knew at once that the voice belonged to Marybelle Firkin.

  Fine Ladies and Gents

  come hear my sad tale

  The sun is long down and

  the moon has grown pale

  So drink up your rum

  and toss down your ale

  Come rest your tired heads

  on my pussy. . .

  come rest your tired heads

  on my pussy. . .cat’s tail!

  Jack tars of every nation joined in the chorus so that the tavern shook with their boisterous singing.

  Come rest your tired heads

  on my pussy. . .

  Come rest your tired heads

  on my pussy. . .cat’s tail!

  Ikey listened as Marybelle Firkin now added a new verse to the song.

  Whaleman, whaleman

  To Hobart you’ve come

  The hunt is now over

  the oil in the drum

  So lift up your tankards

  and drink to the whale

  Come rest your tired heads

  on my pussy. . .

  Come rest your tired heads

  on my pussy. . .cat’s tail!

  The notorious tavern on the Old Wharf was crowded with whalemen returned from Antarctic waters with a successful season’s catch behind them, and their canvas pockets bulging with silver American dollars, French francs and the King’s pound.

  The tars spent wildly at their first port of call in months, and the shopkeepers rubbed their hands in glee. But it was at the Hobart Whale Fishery where most of the money was spent. This was the tavern most favoured by the thirsty and randy jack tars, and it was here also that some of the more expensive of the town’s whores gathered.

  It was almost sunrise before Ikey was able to greet Marybelle Firkin, who loomed large, bigger than Ikey had ever imagined, holding a tankard of beer. Around her on the floor washed with stale beer and rum lay at least a dozen jack tars, quite oblivious to the coming day.

  Marybelle Firkin, who now called herself Sperm Whale Sally, put down her tankard of Bitter Rosie and swept Ikey into her enormous arms, lifting him from the ground in the grandest of hugs, until he begged her for mercy.

  ‘Oh Ikey, it is you!’ she screamed with delight. Then she placed Ikey down and held him at arm’s length. ‘You ‘aven’t changed at all, lovey, ‘andsome as ever!’ She pointed to Ikey’s bald head. ‘No ‘at! Where’s your lovely ‘at?’

  Ikey touched the shiny top of his head as though he had only just noticed the absence of his broad-brimmed hat. ‘It ain’t kosher to wear a Jew’s ‘at here, my dear, and I have yet to find another I prefers.’

  Ikey and Marybelle resumed their friendship, though in truth Sperm Whale Sally, as Marybelle now insisted she be called, had fallen on hard times. Though Ikey was largely, though indirectly, responsible for this, she bore him no malice. Her involvement on the morning of his notorious escape had brought her to the attention of the police, and the blind eye previously turned to the existence of the ratting den upstairs was now withdrawn. As a consequence the profits of the Pig ‘n Spit had greatly decreased. With the closing down of the ratting ring, Thomas Tooth and George Betteridge had taken it into their minds to find another buyer for their Bank of England bill paper, no longer trusting Mary-belle Firkin as their intermediary. When the two men were arrested they had named her to place bond for them, threatening to tell of her involvement if she did not acquiesce. At the plea of Habeas Corpus, the judge had set the bond very high and when this had been paid Marybelle Firkin found herself under suspicion and at the same time robbed of all of her available resources.

  It was not long before she received a visit from a police sergeant whom she had regularly paid to overlook the existence of the ratting ring. Now, after first extorting a tidy bribe from her, he warned that she was about to be investigated by the City police over the matter of the bank paper.

  Marybelle had left that same night under the assumed name of Sally Jones, taking the first available boat from Gravesend, which happened to be sailing on the morning tide for Van Diemen’s Land. She had arrived in Hobart Town almost penniless, and had found that the only way she could maintain her voracious appetite was to join the ranks of the world’s oldest profession. She had soon enough been christened Sperm Whale Sally by the jack tars who came off the whaling ships. She begged Ikey never to reveal her proper name, lest news of her presence in Hobart Town reach England.

  ‘That be my story, Ikey,’ Sperm Whale Sally concluded. ‘Sad, but no sadder than most and not as sad as many a poor wretch.’ She chuckled and placed her boot on the stomach of an unconscious tar under the table at her feet. ‘It were pretty bad at first, ain’t too much call for an ‘arf crown Judy. I grow’d most skinny them first months. Not every whale man likes a four ‘undred pound cuddle!’ Sperm Whale Sally hooted with laughter. ‘It’s the ‘Mericans what most favoured me, but they ain’t always in port. But then, three year ago. I come up with this Blue Sally lark, and now I eats well with a bit to spare for when the whalin’ ships be out to sea.’ She nudged the man at her feet with the toe of her boot. ‘I loves these whalemen, Ikey. They come in from the cruel, cold sea proper starvin’ for a bit o’ love and cuddlin’.’ She started to positively wobble with laughter, ‘and I ‘as a lot of lovin’ to give ‘em if they got the stamina to win it!’ She lifted her tankard of Bitter Rosie and swallowed half of it in one great gulp. ‘Ikey Solomon, we goes back a long ways, it be most lovely to see you again!’

  The Blue Sally Challenge was a grand contest known to the crew of every whaling ship that sailed the Pacific Ocean. The Blue Sally was treasured among whalemen above anything else they took to sea, and some of the more superstitious considered it a matter of life or death that the vessel they sailed in carried it flying from the topmast, even though it was nothing more than a modest piece of bunting, a white flag with the outline in blue of a sperm whale stitched upon it. It was common enough in whaling ports around the world for a ship’s master or agent recruiting whalemen for the season to be asked two questions: the crewman’s share of the catch and, ‘Capt’n, do she sail under a Blue Sally?’ So important had the flying of the Blue Sally become that a whaling ship sailing into a Pacific port without the blue and white bunting flying from her masthead was the subject of more than a little raucous innuendo as to the masculine nature of the men aboard her.

  How this peculiar and unique contest first came about is a story best told by Sperm Whale Sally herself. She recounted it to Ikey early one morning when she was sufficiently sober, having eliminated that night’s Blue Sally challenger with such a degree of ease that she was still happily tucking into a leg of pork alone at the challenge table, her opponent stretched out unconscious under it, both arms folded across his chest.

 
‘As you knows, lovey, eatin’ is me passion, and drinkin’ is me Gawd given gift! So I decides to combine both in a grand competition. If them fuckers won’t pay ‘arf a crown for me body, they’ll do so for me north and south, for me great cake ‘ole.’ Sperm Whale Sally laughed.

  ‘I needs a story, whalemen being most superstitious and given to legends and the like. So I invents me own. It be a real beauty, lots of adventure and a grand opportunity for me voice, me bein’ an actress an’ all. I even invents a song what goes with it. That done the trick, the song, the sea shanty what o’ course you’ve heard a hundred times or more.’

  Sperm Whale Sally began to sing in the clear, sweet voice the whalemen loved.

  Come gather around me, you jack tars and doxies

  I’ll sing you the glorious whaleman’s tale

  Let me tell you the story, of death and the glory

  of Rackham. . .who rode on the tail of a Whale

  So take up your doxy and drink down your ale

  And dance a fine jig to a fine fishy tale

  We’ll fly the Blue Sally wherever we sail

  and drink to the health o’ the great sperm whale!

  It started at dawn on a bright Sabbath morning

  When Lord Nelson’s body came ‘ome pickled in rum

  Every jack tar mourned the great British sailor

  And drank to their hero as church bells were rung

  I be born to the sound o’ the bells of St Paul’s

  Where they buried the sealord all solemn and proper

  That very same day harpooner John Rackham

  Rode the tail of a whale around Davey Jones’ locker

  The watch up the mainmast gave out a great shout,

  ‘A six pod to starboard all swimming in strong!’

  So they lowered a whale boat, harpoon gun and line

  Three cheers for the crew then the whale hunt was on

  John Rackham, he stood to his harpoon and line

  ‘Row the boat close, lads, ‘til we see its great chest

  Steady she goes now, keep the bow straight

  Or this great fearless fish will bring all to their rest!’

  The boat’s bow, on a crest, held still for a moment

  Sufficient for Rackham to make good his aim

  Then the harpoon flew screaming to carry the line

  And buried its head in a great crimson stain

  ‘Steady now, lads, let the fish make his dive

  Then he’ll turn for the top and the fight’ll begin

  Ship your oars, boys, take the ride as he runs

  For the sperm has a courage that comes from within’

  Ten fathoms down the fish turned from its dive

  As the harpoon worked in, on the way to his heart

  Then he spied the boat’s belly directly above him

  And he knew they’d pay for this terrible dart!

  Fifty tons rose as the fish drove like thunder

  Like a cork in a whirlpool the boat spun around

  The jaws of the whale smashed through its planking

  And the sharks made a meal o’ the pieces they found!

  John Rackham was saved as the fish drove him upwards

  he found himself up on the nose of the whale

  With a snort he was tossed sky high and then

  backwards

  and landed most neatly on the great creature’s tail

  ‘Let me live! Master Whale, I’ve a child to be born!

  Spare my life and I promise to name it for you!’

  ‘That’s a fanciful tale,’ cried the furious whale

  ‘But how can I know what you say will be true?’

  John Rackham he pondered then started to smile

  ‘Not only its name, but its soul to you too!

  And we’ll make a white flag with your picture upon it

  A great sperm whale emblazoned in blue!’

  The great fish turned and swam straight to the ship

  With a flick of his tail threw him safe in a sail

  Then the deadly dart finally pierced his great heart

  Now we fly the Blue Sally to honour the whale!

  So take up your doxy and drink down your ale

  And dance a fine jig to a fine fishy tale

  We’ll fly the Blue Sally wherever we sail

  and drink to the health o’ the great sperm whale!

  Sperm Whale Sally started to laugh. ‘It were the song and the story. Some likes the song and others the story. Whalemen loves to dance a jig and sing a shanty and they loves a good story too, and so I made ‘em two o’ the very best I could!’

  Sperm Whale Sally always told the story with the utmost sincerity so that the whalemen, anxious for a new sea legend, wanted to believe it and many of them did. Sperm Whale Sally never told the story without singing the song about her dearest papa, whaleman John Rackham, and how he had been nearly killed and then saved by a great sperm whale while hunting in Antarctic waters on the same day that she had been born and Lord Nelson was brought back to England from Cape Trafalgar in Spain, his body pickled in rum to preserve it.

  Though Sperm Whale Sally had been born a normal size baby, she immediately started to grow at an alarming rate, and she needed the breasts of four wet nurses to keep her satisfied. Her concerned mother took her to see a Romany woman who told her that she saw death and life in the form of a great fish. That the fish was her child’s birth sign and it had stolen her spirit and exchanged it for its own, so she had a whale as a child, which would continue to grow, and nothing could stop her.

  The gypsy prophesied that one day ‘the child of the Great Fish’ would return to the hunting grounds where the nearest of all fish were to be found. That her fish spirit, looking to find its natural home so that her own human spirit might return to her, would guide the hunters in their quest for the whale. But this only if there was one among them who could match the strength and endurance of the great female fish, and consummate this by entering her. This man would earn for his crew a talisman in the form of the fish flag. Those who flew it would be protected at sea and have bountiful luck in hunting the great sperm whale.

  ‘Ah, Ikey, lovey! It were a feeble enough legend and a not very good song, both most contrived to begin with, but you know ‘ow these things grow with a little bit added ‘ere and a bit more there. The first season I were dead lucky, the ships o’ Black Boss Cape Town and Tomahawk were the only two that ‘ad earned a Blue Sally, though thank Gawd there were a great many others who tried and met with the greatest o’ good luck. They took the biggest catches o’ the season and not a jack tar among them were lost overboard or killed in a whale boat.’

  Sperm Whale Sally laughed uproariously. ‘That were all it took! When the Sturmvogel and the Merryweather come into port flyin’ the Blue Sally, the legend were truly born. Suddenly I were the reincarnation o’ the great fishy, the talisman, the good luck a whaleman takes to sea.’ Sperm Whale Sally’s great carcass wobbled again as she laughed. ‘Blimey, it were on for one an’ all!’ She paused and wiped the sweat from her brow and sighed. ‘Thank Gawd it ain’t stopped since and I eats like a queen, and when the whalin’ ships are in I earns sufficient to live well after they be gorn orf again to ‘unt.’

  The rules of the contest had formed over the years Sperm Whale Sally had been playing it, though, for all this, it remained much the same. The crew of a whaling ship would issue their challenge and nominate their man as challenger. They would pay their dues, half a crown per man on board the vessel, and the master would sign a statement that his crew, or the vessel itself, would meet the costs of the food and the drink consumed by Sperm Whale Sally and her challenger.

  It was not unusual for a ship’s master to be present at such a contest and it was often claimed that the Blue Sally meant so much to the crew of a whaling ship that some captains would advertise in their ports of origin for a crew member of sufficient size and drinking reputation to join, with an extra bonus promised if he should win a coveted Blue
Sally for his vessel.

  With the challenge formally made and payment guaranteed, the crew would choose pork or mutton, and the nature of the challenger’s drink, this being a choice of rum, brandy, whisky or gin. Sperm Whale Sally’s nomination was always ale. The rules required that her drink be matched with a strong spirit and that each contestant drink one kind of drink followed by the other. Thus a pint of ale, followed by a tot of rum, was matched by both contestants drink for drink.

  In addition, a roasted sheep or pig was placed on the table together with a barrel of ale and one of the challenger’s nominated spirit. The publican, or the ship’s master if he’d agreed to be present, would act as the meat carver, drink dispenser and master of the ceremony. His task was to pour the drinks openly so all might see they were not spiked to the disadvantage of the challenger. He would also carve equal amounts from the carcass and add the same number of roasted potatoes from a dish of one hundred equally sized.

  Precisely two hours was allowed for the contest and if, after this time, the challenger was not ‘under the table’, that is to say unconscious, then he was led by Sperm Whale Sally to the beach some fifty yards from the Whale Fishery. This final ceremony was known as ‘the Beaching of the Whale’ where the victor was invited to mount and consummate his ‘taking of the flag’.