Book 16 - The Wine-Dark Sea

by Patrick O'Brian

  Chapter Five

  The barrel, the first inanimate object they had seen outside their own wooden world for what already seemed an age, was watched intently by all hands as it bobbed closer; and when at last it came aboard, seized with some difficulty by Bonden and Yardley, tossing on the choppy sea in the Doctor's skiff, most of the Surprise's former whalers came as far aft alongside the gangway as was decent, for the cask was seen to be bound with withies, not with iron hoops, not man-of-war fashion nor even that of a China-going ship.

  'Mr Vidal,' said Jack, 'you have been in the South Sea fishery: what do you make of it?'

  'Why, sir,' said Vidal, 'I should say it is a Yankee barrel; but I sailed out of London River, and never was in those ports. Simon and Trotter would know more.'

  'Pass the word for Simon and Trotter,' said Jack, and they instantly stepped on to the quarterdeck.

  'Martha's Vineyard,' said Trotter, turning the barrel in his hands.

  'Nantucket,' said Simon. 'I was married there, once.'

  'Then how come it has Isaac Taylor's mark?' asked Trotter.

  'Well, any road,' said Simon, looking fixedly at Jack, 'this here is a Yankee barrel, sir, what they call a Bedford hog in New England; and it has not been in the water a couple of days. There is no sea-clummer on it. And the dowels is sound. They would never have heaved it over the side without they had a full hold. A full hold and homeward bound.'

  All within earshot nudged one another, grinning: their prize-money clanked in their loaded hats; they were delighted at the idea of even more.

  Jack considered the sky, the set of the sea, the breeze and the current. The whole ship's company, eminently professional, did the same. The only exception was Dr Maturin, who considered a thin line of birds, high and remote: when he had fixed them in his pocket-glass (no simple feat with the increasing swell) he put them down as southern cousins to the kittiwake: they were gliding steadily east-south-east. For a moment he thought of offering Martin the little telescope; but he decided against it. For their part Martin and Dutourd were contemplating the seamen, their profoundly serious, concentrated weighing of the sea, the weather, the possibilities of a capture, and Stephen heard Martin say, 'Homo hominis lupus.'

  Jack called the Franklin up by signal and when she was within half a cable's length he stepped right aft and called out, 'Tom, we have picked up a barrel, seemingly fresh, perhaps from a Yankee whaler. Bear away to leeward and let us sweep on our former course.'

  Not a great deal was left of the tropical day, but until the very dipping of the sun every masthead was manned and relieved each bell; and some lingered on throughout the brief twilight. Even the most sanguine had known that the chance of finding a ship in this immensity of ocean with no more than a barrel and the known habits of South Sea whalers for guidance was very remote, although hope was sustained by the presence of sea-birds (rather uncommon in these blue waters) travelling in the same direction. The chief basis of this hope was a fervent desire that it should be fulfilled, and it sank steadily with the coming of the night, sweeping up deep purple from the east, already flecked with stars. Now, in the last dog-watch, as the last men came slowly down, dispirited, it revived, rising high above its former merely speculative pitch, for the Franklin, far over to leeward, sent up a blue flare, followed shortly after by a night-signal, a hoist of lanterns.

  Reade was signal-midshipman, and with his telescope poised on Wedell's shoulder he read off the hoist to his Captain in a firm, official voice. 'Telegraphic, sir: alphabetic. K. R. E. N. G. Kreng, sir: I hope I have got it right,' he added in a more human tone.

  'Kreng, ha, ha ha!' cried a dozen voices on the gangway; and the helmsman, in a low, kindly murmur said to Reade, 'That's what we call a corpus, sir: a carcass with his head emptied of spermaceti and the blubber all stripped off.'

  Jack took the Franklin's bearing, said, 'Mr Reade, acknowledge and make the signal Course SSE by E: close-reefed topsails.'

  This same course took the Surprise past the dead whale soon after the moon had risen: white birds whirled and flashed through the beams of the stern lantern. They could scarcely be identified—some pied petrels and possibly a few of the small albatrosses, apart from gulls—but on the other hand the huge carcass, rolling in the phosphorescent sea, was perfectly clear. 'I reckon he would have been an old eighty-barrel bull,' observed Grainger, standing at the rail by Stephen's side. 'They are not as troublesome as the young ones, not being so nimble, but they sound mighty deep—I have known one take out the line of four boats an-end, eight hundred fathom, can you imagine it?—and when they come up they are apt to turn awkward and snap your boat in two. But may I say, Doctor,' he added in a hesitant murmur, 'I saw your mate catting over the side—to windward, poor soul—and then he went below, looking right sickly. Could he have eaten something, do you suppose?'

  'Perhaps he may. Though possibly it is the lively motion of the ship, with these short sudden seas and all this spray.'

  'To be sure, the breeze is dead against the current now: and the stream has grown stronger with the main not so very far away.'

  However, Martin seemed reasonably well for their morning rounds, though the sea was livelier still, and the ship pitched with more than ordinary force as they sailed large under mere topsails and they close-reefed, sweeping as wide an expanse of the somewhat hazy sea as ever they could, perpetually looking for their quarry or to their consort for a signal. Theoretically each could see at least fifteen miles in all directions; and even with the necessity for keeping within clear signalling distance they covered a vast area, but the veering wind brought low scud and it was not until early in the forenoon watch, with the misty sun two spans above the horizon, that the exultant hail 'Sail ho!' came down from the masthead, echoing below, even into the sick-berth itself.

  'We've found them!' cried Martin with a triumph that contrasted strangely with his now habitually anxious, withdrawn, cheerless expression.

  'Go along, my dears,' said Stephen to the little girls, whose duties were already over, and with the sketch of a bob they flitted away into the dark orlop, scattering rats and cockroaches as they ran, invisible but for their white pinafores. Stephen finished rubbing blue ointment into Douglas Murd, washed his hands, tossed Martin the towel, called to Padeen, 'Let the glasses dry of themselves,' and ran on deck, joining almost all the ship's company who were not aloft.

  'Ho, Doctor,' called Jack from the starboard rail, 'here's an elegant spectacle.' He nodded forward over the short tossing angry sea, and as he nodded a sperm whale rose not ten yards out, blew a fine spout, breathed audibly and dived, a great smooth roll. The spout swept aft along the deck and beyond it Stephen saw the whaler clear, directly to windward: beyond her, two boats close together, and farther still, a mile and more to the east, three more. 'They were so busy with their fish they did not see us till a moment ago. The boats in the north-north-east have not seen us yet. But look at the men on board the ship—parcel of old women.' He passed the telescope and at once that remote deck sprang close, sharp and distinct, visibly dirty and disordered even from here. Not many people still aboard, but those few running about with great activity and little apparent purpose, while a person in the crow's nest waved his arms with uncommon vehemence, pointing to the south.

  'Mr Grainger,' called Jack, 'pray explain the situation to the Doctor.' He took back his telescope, slung it, and ran up to the masthead like a boy.

  'Why, sir,' said Grainger in his comfortable West Country voice, 'those far-off boats away to the eastward are fast to a gurt old bull, running like a coach and six on a turnpike. George, tell our William to bring my other spyglass, and bear a hand, bear a hand. Now, do you see,' he went on, when it came, 'there is the headsman standing in the bows with his lance, to kill the whale when he rises. It was the boat-steerer sent the harpoon home, of course; and now he is in the stern again.'

  'A very broad-shouldered man.'

  'They generally are. The other boats are standing by, right close, ready
to pass their lines in case he sounds again and deeper still. Now if you look back to the ship, sir, you will see they have had a fine morning: two whales killed and fast to a third. They are emptying the first one's head alongside now, or were until they saw us and started their capering; and an awkward time they were having of it, with the short seas breaking over all. And the two boats close to are towing in the second fish. Those fast to the gurt old bull ain't seen us yet, watching so eager; but I dare say the ship will give them a gun presently.'

  Stephen gazed and gazed, the little figures hurrying and jerking about in the distant whaler, though clear, were perfectly mute, inaudible, which added a ludicrous side to their distress: some, including a man who was presumably the master, since he beat and cuffed the others, were struggling round the great try-pots set up amidships to melt the blubber—struggling to get a gun clear of all the trying-out gear, the casks and the general whaler-like disorder.

  'The man in the crow's nest seems very earnest in urging them to go away to the right. He leaps up and down.'

  'Why, yes, sir. The Franklin lies there in the west, Ain't you noticed?'

  'To tell you the truth, I had not. But why should he want them to go to her?'

  'Because she is wearing American colours, in course, whereas we wear the ensign. That is the Captain's guile, do you see? In any case they certainly know her, she having been a-privateering in these waters since March; and the look-out wants them to make sail for her while there is yet time: they do not know she is took. As the breeze lays now we should need two long boards or tacks if you follow me to come up with her, and by then she could just squeeze under the Franklin's lee.'

  'Little good would it do them.'

  'None at all, Doctor. But they don't know it. Nor they don't know what metal we carry.'

  'Would it not mean abandoning their friends over there in the east?'

  'Oh yes. And it would mean abandoning three good fish, enough to break a whaler's heart. I doubt they do it: they are more likely to wait for the Franklin to come up, and then brazen it out the two of them, either hoping we will sheer off, or putting before the wind and running for it, the one supporting the other. But her master might possibly think it worth while to save a full hold; and then you know, sir,' said Grainger in a low confidential tone, 'a whaler's crew ships by the lay—no wages but a share in the profits—so the fewer come home the more the survivors gain. Oh, by God, they are doing it!' he cried. 'They are leaving their friends behind.' Indeed, the hands had dropped the gun for the yards and braces; and the nearer boats, having cast off their whale, were racing for the side, tearing through the broken sea. The sails dropped, the yards rose up, the ship's head turned, and as the men from the two boats scrambled aboard she gathered way. She had a fine topgallant breeze on her quarter and she moved at a surprising pace.

  Her people packed on sail faster than would have been believed possible for so few hands, and their calculations were right: the whaler, wearing American colours on every mast, reached the Franklin well before the Surprise, which had paused to take the eastern boats in tow.

  When the whaler was within pistol-shot the Franklin hauled down her Stars and Stripes, hoisted the ensign and sent a twenty-four-pound ball skipping across the whaler's forefoot. She let fly her sheets and Tom Pullings hailed her in a voice of brass: 'Strike your colours and come under my lee.'

  She was still lying there when the Surprise came up with the eastern boats strung out behind her; Jack rounded to and ranged up on the whaler's starboard side.

  'I have left her for you, sir,' called Pullings across the prize's deck.

  'Quite right, Tom,' replied Jack, and wiping the spray from his face—for even here, in the lee of two ships, the waves were chopping high—he gave the order 'Blue cutter away. Mr Grainger, go across, if you please: take possession and send the master back with his papers. The whaler, ahoy!'

  'Sir?'

  'Start a couple of casks fore and aft, d'ye hear me, there?'

  'Aye aye, sir,' said the master, a sparse, hard-featured man, now awkwardly willing to please; and a moment later whale-oil poured from the scuppers, spreading with extreme rapidity. The sea did not cease heaving, but the spray no longer flew—there was no white water, no breaking between the ships nor away to leeward.

  'Should you like to go, Doctor?' asked Jack, turning kindly. 'I believe you have always wanted to look into a whaler.' Stephen bowed, and quickly tied a length of bandage over his hat and wig, tying it under his chin. Jack directed his voice towards the half-swamped whale-boats astern: 'You fellows had better go aboard, before you are drowned.'

  It took some little time to get the Doctor safely down into the blue cutter; it took longer to get him up the oily side of the whaler, where the master stretched down an officious hand and Bonden thrust him from below. But he was scarcely on the filthy deck before the whale-boat crews came swarming aboard with their gear, the headsmen carrying their lances, the boat-steerers their shining harpoons. They boarded mostly on the quarter, coming up nimbly as cats, and raced forward with a confused bellow. The master backed to the mainmast.

  'You left us to starve on the ocean, you rat,' roared the first headsman.

  'You made all sail and cracked on—cracked on,' roared the second, shaking his lance, barely articulate.

  'Judas,' said the third.

  'Now Zeek,' cried the master, 'you put down that lance. I should have picked you up . . .'

  The broad-shouldered harpooner, the man who had been fast to the big bull whale, was last up the side; he heaved his way through the shouting, tight-packed throng; he said nothing but he flung his iron straight through the master's breast, deep into the wood.

  Returning to the Surprise covered with blood—a useless investigation, heart split, spinal cord severed—Stephen was met with the news that Martin had been taken ill. He dabbled his hands in a bucket of sea-water and hurried below. In spite of the activity on deck the gun-room was an example of the inevitably promiscuous nature of life at sea, with two anxious-looking officers sitting at the table with biscuit and mugs of soup in front of them, the cook standing at the door with the bill of fare in his hand and the grizzle-bearded lady of the gun-room at his side, all of them listening with concern to Martin's groans and stifled exclamations in the quarter-gallery, or rather the nasty little enclosure just aft by the bread-bins that served the gun-room for a quarter-gallery or house of ease, the deck being too low for anything more luxurious than a bucket.

  Eventually he came out, fumbling at his clothes, looking inhuman; he staggered to his cabin and fell on to his cot, breathing quick and shallow. Stephen followed him. He sat on a stool and said in a low voice, close to Martin's head, 'Dear colleague, I am afraid you are far from well. May I not do something—mix a gentle palliative, a soothing draught?'

  'No. No, I thank you,' said Martin. 'It is a passing . . . indisposition. All I need is rest . . . and quiet,' He turned away. It was clear to Stephen that at this stage there was nothing more he could usefully say. And when Martin's breathing grew easier he left him.

  The rest of the ship was full of life, with prisoners coming aboard with their chests and a prize-crew going across to take over; and as usual the whaler's hands were being checked against her muster-book by Mr Adams, the Captain's clerk, in the great cabin. Jack and Tom Pullings were there, watching the men, listening to their answers, and making up their minds how they should be divided. They were heavy, sad, disappointed men at present, with the whole of their three-years cruise taken from them in a moment; but their spirits would revive, and many an enterprising band of prisoners had risen upon their captors and seized the ship. Moreover sailors from the northern colonies could prove as troublesome and pugnacious as Irishmen.

  It appeared, however, that no more than a score of them belonged to the original crew from Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and New Bedford. In three years many had died by violence, disease or drowning, whilst two or three had run, and their places had been filled with
South Sea islanders and what could be picked up in the odd Pacific port: Portuguese, Mexican, half-castes, a wandering Chinese. A fairly simple division, though the Surprise was already somewhat short of hands.

  The last, a thick-set youngish man who had lingered behind, came to a halt before the table and called out, 'Edward Shelton, sir, headsman, starboard watch: born in Wapping,' in a strong, undoubted Wapping voice.

  'Then what are you doing in an enemy ship?' asked Adams.

  'Which I went a-whaling during the peace and joined this here ship long before the American war was declared,' said Shelton, his words carrying perfect conviction. 'May I speak a word to the Captain?'

  Adams looked at Jack, who said, 'What have you to say, Shelton?' in a tone that though mild enough promised nothing.

  'You don't know me, sir,' said Shelton, putting a doubled forefinger to his forehead in the naval way, 'but I seen you often enough in Port Mahon, when you had the Sophie: I seen you come in with the Cacafuego at your tail, sir. And many a time when you came aboard Euryalus, Captain Dundas, Captain Heneage Dundas, in Pompey: I was one of the side-men.'

  'Well, Shelton,' said Jack, after a question or two for conscience' sake, 'If you choose to return to your natural service, to enter volunteerly, you shall have the bounty and I will find you a suitable rating.'