To Become a Whale

by Ben Hobson

  ‘Your kid here stole my bloody whetstone yesterday.’

  The gaze his father levelled at the boy could have meant anything. Then he said to Harry, ‘Step back, mate.’

  ‘There’s no bloody place on deck for kids, mate, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Wanders around like he needs a whack in the head to put him straight.’

  ‘My kid doesn’t steal. He’s a good boy. And he’s learning, mate.’ His father bit off the last word like he’d meant violence with it. ‘You got no call to be speaking down about other’s abilities on this deck, yeah?’

  Harry wasn’t put off by the implied insult. ‘You gonna return my whetstone?’

  ‘I’m telling you he didn’t steal it. You didn’t take it, did you, mate?’

  Squirming beneath his father’s gaze, the boy wished he had the courage to tell the truth, but instead he said, ‘No. I used the one you gave me.’

  ‘There. That’s it.’

  ‘I had it there.’ Harry pointed an angry finger. ‘Will saw your kid wandering around near it, and then it wasn’t there. You reckon it disappeared by magic?’

  ‘Mate, step back.’

  ‘Your kid –’

  The boy did not see his father’s fist swinging until it connected with Harry’s jaw. Harry himself seemed to be taken by surprise, and he stumbled back. Then he reared forward and the two men were locked together in a violent hug, their feet stomping into the deck like two bulls, horns entwined.

  The boy was pushed aside as two men ran over and grabbed his father. Others latched onto Harry and the two men were held apart.

  The boy’s father seemed calm, laughing, but Harry struggled violently against the arms restraining him, spitting foul obscenities at the boy’s father.

  Eventually he quietened, and his mates coaxed him back to his team. As Harry passed he looked at the boy with such hatred the boy felt his stomach lurch. He knew that what had happened was his fault entirely and he had no way of making amends without causing further harm.

  The men who had surrounded his father soon let him be, patting him on the back as they drifted back to work.

  The boy, after waiting another moment, approached his father.

  His father, looking at his flenser, said, ‘You alright?’

  ‘Are you?’

  His father laughed. ‘Harry’s an arsehole, mate. Don’t pay attention to him. You’ll meet them in life, you know? All kinds. Can’t let ’em get one over on you.’ He paused. ‘You got that whetstone handy? Might sharpen the flenser.’

  The immediate fear his crime would be discovered. ‘I left it in the room, sorry.’

  His father shrugged. ‘Just bring it next time.’

  ‘Is it true? What he said?’

  ‘What? About you needing a whack in the head?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you think it’s true?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well. Don’t believe everything everybody says about you. Yeah?’

  The boy nodded. ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Go to the hose again, if you want.’

  Instead of moving away, the boy stayed watching his father, the assured way he handled the flenser. He said, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For sticking up for me.’

  His father laughed. ‘He’s an arsehole,’ he repeated. ‘Had it coming. Don’t worry about it.’

  The boy walked away thinking about how he had failed his father and hoping there would be no further repercussions. He also hoped he would never be forced to admit what he’d done and so damage his reputation in his father’s eyes. His father had called him a good boy and this was what he wanted to be from now on.

  He found Brian on the hose and when he approached to take over he got a shake of the head, as if he were no longer trusted with the task. The boy didn’t step closer but neither did he immediately move away. He stood with his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels like he didn’t care.

  After the first few whales, which came in quick succession, he made his way to his father’s side and stood and watched as he flensed with expert precision. Each of his cuts sank in just so to the edge of the blade, and each slice was straight and spaced evenly. The whale’s skin opened up a cavity from which blood oozed slowly. A canyon with wet, pulsing walls. This thought disgusted him. His father didn’t seem to notice he was there. There were a number of discarded eardrums lining the side of the flensing deck now, and in their pink and red discardment the boy saw himself. The smell of cooking blubber reminded the boy of their small campfire.

  His father finished stripping the blubber, and the meat and innards cascaded onto the deck in a sloppy shower. The boy was loath to step near them even with his boots on.

  Without fuss, his father’s team cut the innards and other parts into small chunks, and as they shovelled them out of the empty whale slowly the white bone emerged. Some meat and other red bits still clung to the bones, the ribs forming a cage. The boy stepped between the ribs and held two of them in his hands, staring out at his father as if from behind bars.

  His father turned and said, ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘Looking.’

  ‘Get out of there. Help us push ’em to the saw.’

  The boy helped the men to shove the bones to the hole at the rear of the deck. When they were dropped in there came a crash from below. The boy could hear the sound of the bones being ground by the saw and turned into meal.

  ‘Listen,’ his father said when he returned. He bent down to look him in the eyes. His red and glistening hand rested on the boy’s shoulder. ‘It’s not okay you keep slipping off before our shift is up. Okay? I know it’s hard, I know you’re young, but you need to push through it. You need to stay here for the whole shift. That’s your job tonight. You just focus on making it to the end. Once you’re over the hump, it gets easier. It’s because you keep on giving up that you’re struggling so much. So just stay awake tonight, alright? You show Harry what you can do.’

  The boy had almost forgotten about the earlier violence. He nodded and said, ‘When do we get a day off?’

  His father smiled. ‘We don’t.’ He kept smiling despite his son’s expression. ‘We work seven days a week. I only do this a few months a year, we all do, and during those months we work as hard as we can to get it bloody done. We do get off night shifts eventually, though, and you get a good half-day then to get used to it.’

  His father walked away to await the next whale and the boy watched as he approached a team member and started to chat. The boy became genuinely concerned that he might die from exhaustion. The task before him felt too monumental for his young body and young mind. He wondered what on earth his father had been thinking, consigning him to this earthbound hell. Limping on aching feet, he walked down the stairs that led to his room.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Over the coming days, the boy’s ability to function despite a lack of sleep increased. He worked on the hose occasionally, but apart from that he only watched. A few times he fell on his back in the cool grass outside the mess hall and looked at the sky but didn’t shut his eyes. Most of the men smiled and teased him as they shuffled into the mess hall, and the boy accepted this with good humour. He didn’t manage to finish an entire shift but found he forgave himself readily and started again the next day with renewed enthusiasm for the task he had once seen as insurmountable.

  Amid all of this the boy dreaded coming upon Harry. When the two of them were in the same room the boy felt sick with guilt and would often look over at the man to keep an eye on him, to assure himself the hatred he sensed emanating from Harry was all in his mind, though he knew it wasn’t. A dark bruise soon clouded the right side of the man’s face.

  Having just started a new shift, awaiting their first whales, he and his father stood on deck. With winter now started in earnest the winds of a night-time were thinner and penetrated skin more quickly. He looked forward to warmer
months, and dreaded spending such a long time in this place. Soaked to the skin with blood. Who would he be by then? It took a few whales each night, slipping by him as he worked on the hose, before his legs would warm up. Now he stood with his arms wrapped around his middle. His father’s team were seated on barrels and coils of ropes to the side of the deck. Harry and his team were still in the mess hall. Phil was nowhere nearby. The boy watched his father sharpen his flensing knife with the stolen whetting stone, gripping it with his three-fingered hand. His father, as if sensing his gaze, said, ‘What is it?’

  ‘How long before you were able to work a whole shift?’

  His father grinned. ‘I’ve done a lot harder work than this.’

  ‘In the war?’

  ‘Yeah, in the war.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  His father pocketed the stone and swung the knife back and forth. ‘You just never slept at all. Even when you could sleep you were in the mud or the jungle, and the Japs were always somewhere. Even when they weren’t there, they were there. You understand?’

  The boy nodded, licked his lips. ‘So you started out working the whole night?’

  ‘Yep.’

  The boy looked down at his gumboots, which were splashed with dried blood. ‘Why can’t I, then?’

  ‘What? Work through?’

  The boy nodded.

  His father sighed. ‘I don’t know. You’re young, I guess. You’re doing alright, mate. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘What about on the farm?’

  His father smiled. ‘That’s right, mate. Took me a long while to get it on the farm. And I was working less than you. You’ll get there.’

  The boy nodded, but deep down he felt that he had failed his father and that if he only tried harder he might manage to push through this weakness and just work and work. Maybe the problem was that he had been giving into this urge where his father had determined to subdue it. Maybe it was that simple.

  He worked hard that shift, taking turns on the hose and helping to push the bones into the holes at the rear of the deck, but despite this by dawn he was struck with the familiar lethargy in his limbs. Instead of running to the mess hall to drink coffee, he threw himself into his tasks with even more vigour.

  During a lull between whales in the early hours, the boy stood near his father and his father’s team as they sharpened their knives. He shut his eyes for a moment and lost his bearings and swayed on his feet. He pressed hard at his eyes until they were sore. A real struggle to open them again. He was so weary and distracted he managed to miss an incoming whale – despite its size – and another man shoved him aside as the whale was winched into position, right where he’d stood.

  As he waited for Dan to inspect the whale’s dimensions, his father said with a sigh, ‘Just go, mate.’

  ‘I want to make it to the end.’

  ‘Just go. Make it tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘It’s seven-thirty.’

  The boy was downcast.

  One of his father’s team added, ‘We only want you here if you’re not getting in the way and you’re getting in the bloody way.’ The bloke glanced at his father as if fearing a reaction.

  His father refused to look at the boy, who was hurt by the implied rejection and angry at himself for having caused it. All he craved was his father’s approval. He felt like he might cry and hated that about himself too. So he left.

  As he walked along the verandah to their room he passed Phil, who had a steaming cup of coffee in his hand and a smoke dangling from his mouth. Whale blood glistened on his boots. He was leaning on the rail watching the flensing deck with acute interest, but when the boy approached he turned and put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘You alright?’

  ‘I can’t make it to the end of a shift,’ the boy said. His voice cracked when he spoke.

  ‘That’s alright, mate. Who told you you had to?’

  The boy shook his head. ‘Dad. I know he wants me to.’

  Phil looked back at the deck and sighed and rolled his shoulders. He said, ‘Don’t worry so much, alright? It took me a while to adjust. Everybody’s different. You’re young. Might just take a while. Your old man’s got other concerns anyway.’

  ‘What other concerns?’

  ‘Heard he’s been called into Melsom to sort out what happened between him and Harry last week.’

  The boy’s shame increased. ‘You mean he could get fired?’

  Phil laughed. ‘I doubt that, mate. He’s too valuable. Harry provoked him, anyhow. But it’s probably on his mind.’

  The boy started to tear up and angrily swatted his face and sniffed. He smiled through it and said, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘What for?’ Phil asked.

  The boy shrugged.

  Phil smiled. ‘Mate, don’t you worry. Just head inside, try again tomorrow.’ Phil tousled his hair and walked away, turning by the steps to ask, ‘How’re those boots doing?’

  ‘They’re great,’ the boy said, and he watched as Phil walked along the path and up the stairs back to the deck. When Phil passed the boy’s father, he stared at the man’s back. His father didn’t notice, and kept flensing.

  Over the next week, the boy woke each morning determined and went to sleep sore, defeated, angry at himself, angry at his father. The cycle was making him sick with doubt. Sometimes, in his deep exhaustion, he would sob on his couch under the blankets. He knew he would give up, if it were an option, and felt ashamed of this weakness. Understood his father and resented him all the same.

  The next day the boy was still at work on the hose, aiming the water low, when his father approached him. The sun behind him shone and the boy squinted through it and saw a smile. ‘Mate. We’re done.’

  The boy breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, and his father shook his hand, grinning wide. The other team members walked by him and though they said nothing he saw that he had earned a small amount of respect and felt pleased.

  The men leaving the deck greeted those starting their shifts with smiles and weary nods. The boy followed them and did likewise, handing the hose like a baton to the next bloke.

  They headed into the mess hall and ate a large meal of spaghetti. The boy kept looking outside at the sun warped by the glass and curtains and the leaves that never looked so green. He ate well and didn’t feel sick and his father laughed. ‘You look pleased.’

  The boy nodded. ‘Didn’t think I’d make it.’

  ‘Ever?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Mate,’ his father said, ‘some things just take time.’ The man swallowed, looked down at his knees. ‘Not good, being soft, you know. Good you’ve finished your shift. Like me on the farm. Proving yourself. Changing who you are, yeah?’

  The boy didn’t respond, just kept eating until he’d finished everything on his plate, then rose to go put his dishes and cutlery in the tubs. He thought of his mother. He’d often helped her at the sink with the plates when it had been just the two of them. Difficult to think of her. Though he knew she would be proud of him – how determined he was, how sincere he was in effort – he felt bad because he’d not spoken to her for some time and had forgotten her completely while he worked. Like she’d never been. This ate at his sense of triumph, but he did his best not to let it. She wouldn’t want to be remembered out of guilt.

  After dinner he showered, and stared at his new reflection in the bathroom mirror, trying to discern what changes had been wrought.

  As he stretched out on the couch and closed his eyes, he moved his weary limbs and tested his fatigued body. Not as bad as he thought it would be. Better than the previous weeks. There was an honour to his weariness now.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The boy soon found himself slipping into a routine. Though he had not yet touched a knife and the sight and smell of butchered whale still troubled him, he gradually became accustomed to working on the deck. He still hated the job, though. Each time a new whale was brought on deck he
felt such sympathy for the carcass it was difficult for him to just stand there as Dan sliced out the eardrum and his father winched off the blubber. Each time a piece was ripped from the belly the boy winced and pictured the winch attached to his own stomach.

  He kept a constant eye on Harry, who usually worked on the opposite side of the deck. He kept the whetstone he’d stolen in his pocket and whenever his eyes met Harry’s he would think of it. If his father asked to use it to sharpen his blade, the boy would feel sick with anxiety as he held out the stone, sure his father would discover his deception. His father and Harry avoided each other as much as possible and the whole deck seemed thankful for it. Still, the boy dwelled on how quickly the violence had escalated before, and feared Harry would approach him and simply swipe a flenser across his stomach and watch his innards pool near his feet and laugh. Nothing his father could do would stop such swift retribution and he would be dead with his mother in the afterlife.

  On the deck the boy watched the horizon as a breeze struck. A hand rested on his shoulder and the boy turned. ‘Here,’ his father said, and handed the boy a knife. It was sticky with blood and looked razor sharp up close.

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘I want you to help Marshall here cut up the blubber.’

  ‘Into squares?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The boy nodded and regarded the blade. He kneeled beside Marshall, careful with his knife, and Marshall said, ‘You know what you’re doing?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘I’ll just copy you.’

  ‘You gotta be quick about it, the pace we work.’

  ‘I know,’ the boy said.

  When the next piece of blubber was peeled from the whale they shuffled over to it and kneeled before it as though in prayer. The boy watched Marshall work. His movements were quick and deft as he sliced each piece into precise squares. Before the boy could say a word, Marshall said, ‘Get in here. Start on the other end.’

  The boy complied, but he was much slower than Marshall, and he had to keep looking up to make sure he had estimated the dimensions correctly. He had never touched the blubber before. It was like jelly: slimy, smelly, wobbly jelly. Hard to pin down, like eggshell in yolk. He made only a few cuts before Marshall had reached him from the other end and finished his work for him. He hadn’t managed a single square. Marshall said nothing, but the boy could read the contempt in his eyes as he shoved the squares he had formed into the boiler hole.