A Whale for the Killing

by Farley Mowat

  SHE STAYED ON the surface an unnaturally long time. Onie kept the dory running close alongside so we would not lose sight of her in the snow flurries, and I was horrified by the difference a single day had made in her appearance. Not only had her back become steeply and ominously V-shaped, but the inexplicable bulges under her skin had grown much larger. There was no longer an aura of almost supernatural vitality about her—an aura which had strangely affected everyone who had seen her, including even those who wished her dead. She seemed less like a living beast than like some monstrous lump of flotsam.

  She gave no indication of knowing we were so close to her, but when she blew—a thin, almost instantly erased wisp of vapour—there was a sign, an omen. The stench from her blow was a fetid assault upon our nostrils.

  At length she sounded, but slowly, as if with great effort or reluctance. The snow scud streamed down over the surface of the Pond, obliterating the last faint swirl from her flukes.

  Because of the increasing violence of the storm, we could not stay with her any longer. Drawing our parka hoods close about our faces, we headed out through the channel into the cold fury of the storm. The Guardian, for it must have been he whom we had met in the entrance cove, was not in sight. As we bucked homeward through cascades of freezing spray, I thought about the encounter with him. I should have guessed that his presence so close to land, in such dangerously constricted waters, and on a lee shore, was also a portent. But I chose to believe he had simply been trying to drive herring into the Pond; and perhaps that is what he had been trying to do, although I now suspect he had an even more pressing urge to take the risks he did.

  CLAIRE AND I had a little birthday party that stormy night, but our hearts weren’t in it. A belated message had finally arrived from Premier Smallwood, informing me somewhat loftily that, although a fin whale could live six months on its stored blubber, he was nevertheless sending a certain Captain Hansen down by air to show us how to attract herring into the Pond with floodlights! Although he was not forthright enough to say so, it was obvious we would not get the Harmon.

  God alone knew when, if ever, Schevill and his team of experts would reach us now. And there were rumours that the main herring run had already begun, prematurely, to move off the Sou’west Coast.

  The cloud of foreboding I had been under during our visit to the Pond hung over Claire’s birthday celebration, which was, at best, a disjointed one. The telephone rang almost constantly as one unknown voice after another demanded fresh news of the Burgeo whale. When I could stand it no longer, I took the receiver off the hook and we went to bed.

  When I awoke on Monday morning I was amazed to discover it was after ten o’clock. Sleepily I wondered how it was that the imperious demands of Mr. Bell’s incubus had not dragged me from my bed at dawn. Then I remembered. Reluctantly I shuffled through the icy kitchen, automatically noting from the dial of the wind gauge that the gale had swung around into the nor’east. I restored the receiver to its cradle and barely had time to turn up the oil stove when the bell rang. A fisherman from Smalls Island, for whom I had once done a small favour, was on the other end of the line.

  “Skipper Mowat? Is it you, bye? I’se been trying to raise you for a couple of hours now. We was out to The Ha Ha when the wind dropped out for a change at dawn, to see was our gear carried away by the starm, and the whale is beached. Aye, hard aground just inside the gut. ’Tis bleeding bad... looks to we like some’uns been at she with a lance...”

  Fear knifed through me more piercingly than the arctic cold brought by the nor’easter. I ran to the window and saw at a glance that no dory could live in such a sea. Frantically I called Curt Bungay and that good man agreed to chance the voyage to Aldridges in his decked motorboat.

  The harbour waters were “feather white,” but Curt was undismayed. He pushed his boat at full throttle until I thought he would drive her under. As he struggled with the wheel he yelled something into my ear that turned my fear to livid rage.

  “Not surprised... was word some of they... going to strand she if they could... must have... lull this morning when... wind shifted round...”

  The fury that filled me verged on the homicidal. When Curt grounded the bow of the boat on the shore of the cove, I leapt to the slippery rocks so impetuously that I fell full-length into the landwash. Stumbling to my feet, I ran recklessly across the broken rocks of the intervening ridge. As I cleared the crest I saw her. She was lying directly below me. Her vast white chin was resting on the shore but, thank God, she was beached at a point where the water ran deep almost to the shoreline so that most of her immense body was still afloat.

  As I plunged down the slope toward her, I became aware of a foul stench—the same I had smelt the day before when she blew alongside Onie’s dory. I also saw that the beach near where her head was resting was white with the partially digested bodies of herring. However, I saw these things without really seeing them, for I was totally engrossed in the urgency of getting her off that beach before the falling tide doomed her to die from her own great weight.

  My memory of the next few minutes is hazy, but Curt, stumbling along behind me, saw it all and remembered the scene vividly.

  “When I cleared the crest you was already on the beach. I could hear you yelling your head off before I even see you.

  “‘Get off, you crazy bitch,’ you was yelling.

  “Then the next thing I sees you was pounding on the head of her with your fists. You was acting like some fellow what’s drunk too much white lightning, trying to launch a ship with his bare hands. Cause that’s what she looked like to I. Like a ship with her bows ashore.”

  Curt was so dumbfounded and disconcerted by my behaviour that he remained on the ridge while I berated the whale and screamed imprecations at her, commanding her to shift herself. Finally, in utter desperation, I flung myself down with my back against an upright slab of granite, thrust my feet against the hard, rubbery curve of that immense mouth and tried to shove her off by main force!

  It was insane... a hundred and sixty pounds of puny human flesh pitting itself against the inertia of eighty tons of leviathan. Nevertheless, I pushed and I kicked and I yelled, and I may also have wept out of sheer frustration.

  Then, almost imperceptibly, she began to move! I saw the flippers, big as dories, shimmer as they turned like hands on wrists. Slowly, so very slowly, she backed herself off the shore, turned, and cruised on the surface to mid-Pond.

  Curt stumbled down the slope to join me.

  “You done it, bye, you saved her, sure!” he cried.

  But I knew better. The scales were off my eyes, and now I saw the truth. She had not grounded by accident, neither had she been beached by the malice of men. She had deliberately gone ashore because she was too sick to keep herself afloat any longer. I had misread the evidence, but now it was unmistakable. There was the vomit stirring in the shallows where her head had lain. There was the stench. It was familiar now and well remembered... the same rancid stink which had made me retch away from the gangrene-rotted bodies of soldiers in Sicily in 1943.

  There was more. As she moved slowly away from us she left thin ribbons of dark discoloration in the water. These were coming from the great swellings which had formed beneath her skin. I could see one of them pulsing out a dark flow of blood; and I realized that those swellings were vast reservoirs of pus and infection, some of which were breaking open to discharge their foul contents into the cold sea water.

  As I watched, stunned and sickened, the whale continued to move across the Pond. She did not submerge. I doubt if she had sufficient strength to do so. Almost drifting, she reached the opposite shore and there she again rested her mighty head upon the rocks.

  “Lard Jasus, she’s beached again!” Curt shouted in alarm.

  “No,” I replied dully. “She’s sick, Curt. She’s too sick to even swim. If she stays in deep water she k
nows she’ll sink; and then she’ll drown.”

  Curt could not take that in. It seemed incredible to him that any beast which lived its life in the sea could drown. He shook his head in bewilderment.

  The barriers of illusion had crumbled so suddenly that my mind was in chaos. How could I have been so blind as to believe she would suffer no real harm from the hundreds of bullets that had plowed into her flesh? Yet, in all honesty, how could I have imagined that this gargantuan creature might succumb to the attacks of infinitesimal microbes entering her wounds? Nevertheless, this was what was happening. What could I do about it now? Was it too late to do anything except curse my own stupidity?

  I was in an almost paralytic state of indecision. I wanted desperately to get to a phone and talk to Schevill or anyone who had some knowledge of whale pathology; who could perhaps suggest what to do for the sick whale, and how to do it. On the other hand, although I now realized she had not been driven ashore by anyone, or lanced, I was very much afraid the news that she was beached and completely vulnerable would swiftly spread through Burgeo and convince some of her enemies that the time was ripe to finish her off. It was a measure of how deeply the virus of suspicion, anger and ill will had entered into the human fabric of Burgeo, of which I was a part, that I was afraid to leave her unprotected.

  That problem was solved by the arrival of the police boat after a hard punch out from The Reach. Danny Green had heard rumours that the whale had been attacked again, and he and Murdoch had risked the passage to the Pond. They anchored, and rowed ashore to join Curt and me upon the ridge. As I explained the situation, Murdoch stared across the leaden waters through his binoculars at the vast and motionless shape on the far shore. When I finished talking, he lowered the glasses and turned to me. His face showed how he felt... sickened at the sight of her; sickened and angry.

  “We’ve still got no authority to stop people coming here,” he said shortly. “But orders or no orders... no boat’ll come near her again while we’re about!”

  I thanked him and turned to go... and then I heard the voice of the fin whale for the fourth time... and the last. It was the same muffled, disembodied and unearthly sound, seeming to come from an immense distance: out of the sea, out of the rocks around us, out of the air itself. It was a deep vibration, low-pitched and throbbing, moaning beneath the wail of the wind in the cliffs of Richards Head.

  It was the most desolate cry that I have ever heard.

  19

  ON THE WAY BACK TO Messers we put in at Firby Cove so I could collect a second bag of mail from the post office—mail from more well-wishers of the whale. As I hurried back to rejoin Onie at the dock, the heavy bag over my shoulder, I was confronted by a man I had known since my first arrival in Burgeo; a man for whom I had great respect and who, only a few days previously, had expressed his sympathy with the whale and with the attempts to save her. I greeted him warmly. He responded by deliberately spitting just to one side of my feet.

  “What’s that for, Matt?” I asked, bewildered.

  “’Tis for the likes of you! Strangers come here from away, telling lies about the people. Making troubles like we never had afore!”

  He was a big man, and his words were delivered with such intensity I thought he was going to strike me. I stepped back; but he had no intention of using his fists. Words would serve.

  “You and that bloody whale! Well, bye, she’s finished now! And you’re the same. Finished in Burgeo. I’ll tell you that without a lie!” He turned on his heel and strode away.

  Shaken by this outburst, I reached the dock where the dory lay and here was another unexpected confrontation. The two doctors were there talking to Onie. They looked up as I approached.

  “Onie’s told us the whale’s sick,” said the male doctor in a concerned and friendly manner. “Sounds as if it might be septicaemia. Is there anything we can do to help?”

  I was astounded. From open advocacy of killing the whale, this couple had made as total a volte-face as Matt... but in the other direction. It was all just too damned confusing. Those whom I had thought were my “natural” allies seemed to be turning violently against me, while those who were my “natural” antagonists were now offering to help... but at this juncture I would have accepted help from the devil himself.

  “There might be something. What about antibiotic treatment for a whale? Is it possible? Could you give it?”

  The wife, an aggressive and impetuous woman, answered.

  “We could try. Only there aren’t enough antibiotics in the hospital to make one dose for an animal that big. If you can get the drugs somewhere, we’ll see if we can administer them.”

  I nodded gratefully. “Right. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Twenty minutes after reaching home I had written a press release. It was an intemperate piece of work, reflecting the anger that I could no longer control. It began with a statement that the whale was probably dying of infection resulting from the wounds inflicted on her by the men of Burgeo. There followed the most harrowing paragraph I could compose describing the agonies the great animal was enduring—had been enduring for many days as her wounds turned septic. I concluded with a plea for help, for donations of antibiotics and injection equipment, “in order that we can try to make amends for the atrocious behaviour of those who inflicted such tortures on the imprisoned whale.”

  I handed the paper to Claire to read before attempting to phone it out. She was horrified.

  “You can’t send this, Farley! It’s... it’s vindictive. It’s as vicious as what they did to the whale! Please, don’t send it.” It was not sent.

  When, about seven that evening, I finally got a call through to Canadian Press, the story I gave was as dispassionate as I could make it. CP promptly put it on the Canadian wires and relayed it to the international services. The CP district manager in Toronto took the dictation personally, and when I finished he thanked me and added:

  “Moby Joe is front-page news across the continent. The story’s stirred up the hell of a stink. It’s crazy, but people seem more worked up about your whale than about the mess in Vietnam. I hope you know what you’re doing down there, Farley.”

  I was not sure what he meant by that parting shot, but I did not ask. The truth was that I was no longer sure what I was doing, or of what I had already done. Fortunately, there was no time for reflection. Within an hour the CBC was broadcasting a special bulletin:

  Moby Joe’s keeper tonight issued an urgent appeal for massive donations of antibiotics after it was discovered the trapped Burgeo whale had a huge infection in its back from bullet wounds. Farley Mowat said the whale was very sick. He said a husband-and-wife medical team in the hospital in Burgeo had volunteered to administer the antibiotics if they could be made available. They need 160 grams of petracyclin hydrochloride for each dose and a minimum of eight doses will be required. They also need a three-pint syringe and a three-foot stainless steel needle...

  The response began to reach us almost immediately. A pharmaceutical manufacturer in Montreal phoned to say that 800 grams of antibiotic was being shipped to us from St. John’s by charter flight at dawn—weather permitting—and a further supply would be flown from Montreal to Gander. A second message told me that suitable syringes existed only at the Bronx Zoo and at the Vancouver Aquarium, and that both institutions had been asked to air express their syringes to Gander, from which point another charter flight would ferry them to Burgeo in the morning.

  Schevill, still stranded at Stephenville, heard the first radio bulletin and spent hours on the long-distance phone consulting experts as far afield as Puerto Rico; obtaining opinions on the treatment the whale should receive, and setting into motion shipments of drugs from the United States. Then he called me.

  “There’s a good forecast for tomorrow. We’ll make it in by helicopter in the morning, for certain this time!”

  A
veterinary surgeon from St. John’s wired that he was flying to Burgeo at his own expense to give us a hand. Dozens, scores, of wires and phone calls plugged all South Coast circuits with offers of advice, encouragement and money. By midnight the response of the outer world had mounted to such a crescendo that the poor Hermitage operator, willing as she was, could not handle the flood. So we arranged to have a friend in St. John’s accept and deal with the overflow.

  The incredible and almost instantaneous response to the radio and television appeals had a curious effect upon me. The anger and grief of the early part of the day were submerged and washed away in an intoxication of excitement. The constant ringing of the telephone, and the blaring of radio voices describing the reaction to our plea for help, acted like a powerful stimulant. I felt like someone who discovers he can command miracles. I no longer doubted that I would save the whale. Realities were dimming in the euphoric glare of attention which played on Burgeo throughout that long, cold night.

  Just before midnight I had a call from one of the Sou’-westers. He was exultant.

  “Are you listening to the radio? It’s fantastic, eh? The old town’s really on the map! Another couple of weeks like this and Joey’ll be pushing the highway down to us. Thank the Lord for that whale! Moby Joe’s going to put Burgeo into the modern times for sure!”

  He paused, and when he continued there was a note of anxiety in his voice.

  “She is going to pull through all right, isn’t she?”

  “She’s sick and getting sicker,” I replied. “Look, there’s supposed to be at least five charter flights coming in early tomorrow with drugs and experts and I’ll have to stick to the phone until I hear. Will you get someone to go to Aldridges as soon as it’s light and keep an eye on things? The Mountie can’t be there all the time, and I don’t trust those bastards who peppered her. And ask someone to call me early on to let me know how she looks.”

  “Sure, Farley. Nothing easier. I’ll go myself. Can’t take a chance on something happening to her now.”