The White South

by Hammond Innes

  On the morning of the fourth day in the ice the sky to the south became very black and louring. There was a lot of low cloud and at first I thought a storm was coming up. But Gerda shook her head. “It is the open sea. It always look dark when you are in the ice blink.” She was right. The lead we were following gradually opened out. The floes became looser and more scattered. And early on the 23rd January we were in open sea in 66.01 S., 35.62 W. with the ice blink behind us.

  Almost immediately Hval 1 and Hval 3 ahead of us peeled off. Gerda had ordered a lookout to the tonne, which is the barrel crow’s-nest, and a few minutes later came the cry of “Blaast! Blaast!”

  “Hvor er den?” Gerda called up.

  “Paa styrbord side.”

  We picked it up almost immediately. I ordered starboard helm and emergency full ahead and we were off on our first whale hunt. I’ve heard people say that there’s no longer any excitement in whaling, that Sven Foynd’s invention of the explosive harpoon took all the adventure out of it. Don’t you believe it. Whaling is still the biggest of all big-game hunting and only the arm-chair whalers make statements like that.

  I must admit that as we swung away at full speed on that cry of Blaast I was under the impression that the work of a catcher was just the shooting down of the whale. I hadn’t realised the chase that was involved. Almost immediately the whale sounded and Gerda suggested we reduce to half speed. All eyes were scanning the sea ahead, waiting for the next sight of the thin plume of vapour as the whale surfaced again to blow. I found myself nervous and excited as I stared into the heaving, slate-grey waste of water. Gerda plucked at my sleeve. “You have not done this before, so perhaps if you take the wheel and I give directions—” She hesitated. “It is very difficult to get so that we can shoot him. We must drive him under again and again until he is blown. You understand?”

  “Of course,” I said. She didn’t wish to embarrass me, but at the same time she wanted our first whale hunt to be successful. I think we were both a little excited and a little awkward at sharing the command.

  I took the wheel and almost immediately one of the hands gave a shout and Gerda ordered full speed. The whale was wallowing on the surface about two cables’ length ahead of us. We were on top of him almost immediately and the sleek, grey back curved as it sounded.

  Gerda ordered “Stop!” and the vibration of the engine died as we drifted forward. When next he broke surface he was away on the port beam and we heeled over as I turned the catcher in pursuit. Five times we drove the whale under, and each time we were closer to him. Now we were driving him under almost before he had time to blow and all my nervousness was gone in the excitement of the chase. “Now I think we have him,” Gerda shouted to me as it wallowed in the trough of a wave so close that we could hear the snort of the water being expelled from the huge body. Her eyes were alight with excitement. She thrust open the door of the bridge and ran down the catwalk to the gun platform. From there she directed me by hand signals which we had rehearsed beforehand.

  We were steaming at slow ahead and turning to port. She had taken hold of the slender butt of the gun. She signalled for half speed and I saw the whale surface right ahead of us, not fifty feet away, as I jerked the engine-room telegraph. The catcher gathered speed. Gerda braced her legs apart and swung the harpoon gun. We were right on top of the whale now. I lost sight of it under the high bows and braced myself for the shock of our bows ripping into it. There was a flash, the sharp crack of an explosion and I saw the harpoon fly down into the water, the light forerunner snaking after it. There was another, duller explosion, a terrible flurry of spray and then the winch drums were screaming and the masthead block dragging down as the heavy two-inch whale line went roaring out through the fairlead in the bow.

  Gerda came running back to the bridge. “My shot is no good,” she said. “I tell you I am not so good a skytter as Olaf. The harpoon, he explode outside. I do not hit the backbone. Slow now please.”

  The whale had sounded and the line was still roaring out with the block dragged down to the danger mark. I watched one, two splices run through the block. Each splice meant 120 fathoms of line gone out. Altogether there were four lengths—three splices. Just when the third splice was reeling through the block we saw the whale surface half a mile ahead.

  Gerda was gripping the windbreaker in a frenzy. This was her first whale independent of her father. It meant a lot to her. The last splice went through the fairlead. She ordered full speed. And just as I rang the engine-room telegraph, I saw the block start to rise up the mast. “We win,” she cried. “We win.” McPhee at the winch was braking now. I could hear the scream of the brake drums above the hum of the engines. Then suddenly the line was slack. Gerda ordered stop and the winch began to clatter as McPhee took in line. We drifted and the line continued to come in slack.

  Then suddenly it was taut again, stretched so tight that from a diameter of two inches it was shrunk to half an inch. It was like a violin string. I thought it must break. The block was down the mast again and the whole ship was being dragged through the water at about 6 knots. McPhee paid out line on the winches. It lasted like that for perhaps a minute—maybe only thirty seconds. It seemed like years. Then it was over. It was the whale’s last bid for freedon. We began to winch in. It was still lashing the water with its huge tail as we hauled up to it and Gerda ran down to the gun platform and fired another harpoon into it. There was a sudden spout of blood and then the great brute was motionless, lying alongside us like a half-submerged submarine.

  “Next time I shoot better I hope,” Gerda said and took me down to the bows to superintend the pumping of air into the whale. As one of the hands thrust the lance with the air pipe into it, there was a cry of “Blaast! Blaast!” from the tonne. The air hissed as it went into the huge carcase. The harpoon holes were plugged, a long steel rod with a flag was thrust deep into the animal and a moment later we were back on the bridge and off after our next whale, two men working furiously to reload the harpoon gun and rig a new fore-runner as we went.

  I have given this detailed account of our first whale hunt to show the degree of concentration the work entailed. It occupied all our waking thoughts and energies and when we fell into our bunks we were so tired we slept like the dead. For whale were plentiful and when we had killed one, another was sighted almost immediately. The cry of Blaast! Blaast! echoed almost unceasingly from the tonne and the crack of the harpoon gun slamming its deadly weight of metal into the whale sounded all day and on through the unending daylight of the night. When we’d flagged three or four whale we’d put through a call on the R/T for one of the towing vessels or a buoy boat and go on to the next kill whilst they picked up our catch and towed it back to the factory ship. All around us, through good weather and bad, the rest of the catcher fleet was working in the same frantic haste. The only occasions on which we returned to the Southern Cross were to refuel and take on provisions and a new supply of harpoons straightened out in the blacksmith’s shop. I had neither the time nor the energy to think about Nordahl’s disappearance and though I wondered sometimes how Judie was getting on in Larvik’s catcher, my mind was so tired that the image it sketched of her was blurred as though she were a girl I’m met years ago.

  Even the announcement over the R/T that the committee of enquiry over which I had presided had found that Nordahl had committed suicide whilst the balance of his mind was affected by financial worries made little impression in the fatigue induced by hard and constant work. Bland had said that he must consider the morale of the men in any announcement he made and I must say I agreed with him. Whatever Howe might say, I had no reason to suppose that he would not carry out his promise to hand over the evidence to the police on our return to Capetown. And if he failed in this I could always notify the police myself. Howe’s reaction was, of course, very different. “I told you what would happen,” he shouted at me. “I told you they’d try to hush it up. But I can wait. I can wait. And sooner or later—” But I was too
tired to listen to his railing. Too many things demanded my attention for him to be able to corner me for more than a moment at a time. And when I wasn’t on duty I was asleep and then not all the angels of wrath calling for vengeance could have got an answer out of me.

  In two weeks we chased and killed forty-six whale. Most of these were shot by Gerda for I felt it was unfair on the men to assume the role of gunner except at the end of a good day’s hunting. They had a financial interest in the whale we caught. However, by the end of that fortnight I was becoming quite a fair skytter and the men, who were a good crowd, would ask me to go down and see if I could get one, laying small bets against each other as to whether I’d be successful or not with my first shot. They were very proud of their ship and I think they were unwilling to accept the idea of a skipper that wasn’t also a skytter.

  Towards the end of this period of intense activity an incident occurred which brought the whole question of Nordahl’s disappearance back into my mind. We’d had a good day and after our fourth kill we radioed for a towing vessel to pick up the catch. As it happened it was Tauer III that answered our call. We were quartering the sea on the line of her approach and as she neared us she swung off her course and made straight for us, her sharp bows cleaving the water at a steady 14 knots. She came round in a wide circle and steamed up almost alongside. Erik Bland was on the bridge and he called to me on the loud-hailer, asking permission to come aboard and have a word with me.

  Before I could reply, Howe came pell-mell up the ladder to the bridge. He was breathless and his face was working. He caught hold of my arm, forcing the megaphone away from my lips. “Don’t let him come on board.” His eyes looked wild and the grip of his fingers on my arm was like a vice.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why?” He shook me. “You ask me why?” His voice was trembling. “If that bastard sets foot on board this ship, I’ll kill him. That’s why. I’ll kill him. I swear it.”

  I stared at him for a second in amazement. His violence had taken me by surprise. Yet the strange thing is, I never doubted that he meant it. We hadn’t seen much of him during the last few days. He’d kept to the cabin mostly, working on what he’d told me was a treatise on whaling. He’d been drinking hardly anything. I realised suddenly that what he’d been doing was brooding. “All right,” I said, and raised the megaphone to my lips. “Ahoy there! I—will—come—over—to—you.”

  The two vessels were steaming parallel only twenty feet or so apart. Bland waved his hand to signify he’d heard and I ordered the engine stopped and a boat swung out. As my men rowed me across the long swell to the waiting corvette I had time to wonder what it was Bland wanted to see me about. And in those few minutes I thought more about the antagonism between him and Nordahl that we’d unearthed at the enquiry than I’d had time to do in the past few days.

  He met me at the head of the ladder they’d thrown over for me, and I was astonished at the change in the man. His face was almost haggard and there was a nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth. The small eyes seemed to have sunk farther into his head. He took me straight to his cabin without a word and poured me a drink with hands that shook. “Skaal!”

  I didn’t say anything, but raised my glass and drank.

  “Well,” he said. “Don’t you want to know why I asked to see you?”

  “It would help,” I said. “You’re supposed to be picking up our catch and we’re supposed to be searching for more whale.”

  He toyed with his glass, running the yellow liquid round the inside and watching it as though it were a crystal. Suddenly he leaned forward, staring at me. “You think I killed Nordahl, don’t you?” And when I didn’t say anything, he repeated—“Don’t you?” His voice was savage.

  “I’ve no views on the matter,” I said. “I took evidence at a committee of enquiry. The rest is for the police to decide.”

  “What if there was a row?” he cried. “What if it did come to blows and he fell overboard. That doesn’t make me a murderer, does it?”

  I didn’t know what to say. The man seemed to me on the very edge of sanity and I wished I hadn’t come on board. “A court will have to decide that.”

  He peered at me, measuring my mood, his hands clenching and unclenching. “There’s Judie,” he said quietly.

  “What’s Judie got to do with it?”

  “She’s Nordahl’s daughter—and she’s my wife.” He hesitated, and then said suddenly, “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  I stared at him in shocked surprise. The unexpectedness of the question put everything else out of my mind. Put bluntly like that I realised that it was a question I’d been asking myself.

  He sat back, suddenly relaxing. His face had a cunning look. “You wouldn’t want her dragged through an ordeal like that—her husband accused of murdering her father. Picture it in the English newspapers—the Sunday ones. And I’ll swear that she was your mistress here on board Tauer III.”

  I went for him then, I was so angry. But he caught my arm and flung me back into a chair. He was a big man and pretty powerful. “Oh no,” he said. “Oh no you don’t. This isn’t a matter to fight over. You just sit there and listen to me. I’m in a jam and I’m not having a rope put round my neck by you or anyone else, do you understand? Now listen. Only four people know the whole of the evidence taken by the committee of enquiry over which you presided. My father holds that evidence. He’ll die soon, anyway. But I can handle him and I can handle Eide. Judie can’t give evidence against me. She’s my wife. There remains you.”

  “There’s also Howe,” I reminded him. After all that cable must have shown him Howe’s part in the business.

  “Ah, yes. The illegitimate doctor.” The sneer in his voice made it clear that he didn’t take Howe very seriously. “I can look after him too. If you were to keep your mouth shut, then the whole thing could be hushed up. Will you do that?”

  “The answer is No,” I said.

  He nodded as though he’d expected that. “All right then. I’ll make a bargain with you. Keep your mouth shut and I’ll let Judie divorce me.”

  “You must be mad to think I’d do such a thing,” I answered hotly.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Then I’d remind you again that Judie is my wife. If you go through with this I’ll make her life hell. Whether I’m convicted or not, I’ll see she curses the day she was born. I’ll show her up as a common tart. I’ll represent that the row with Nordahl was about her. Oh, you needn’t worry. That sort of dirt sticks, and there’s always enough evidence if used in the right way to sway the minds of a jury. And when I’m acquitted, I’ll still be her husband. And I’ll see she lives with me. She’ll get no grounds for divorce and if she tries to divorce me I’ll oppose it and cite you for one as co-respondent.”

  “You must be mad,” I said. I’d got to my feet. I didn’t want to stay there another minute.

  But he jumped between me and the door and said, “Well, which is it? Do you keep your mouth shut or—” He left the sentence unfinished. “Look, Craig,” he said. “You’ve no alternative. Nordahl’s dead. Trying to hang me for what was no more than an accident won’t bring him to life again. You’ve a choice between Judie and revenge for something that happened to a man you didn’t even know. Come on now. Be reasonable.” His manner was suddenly boyish as though he were asking me to keep quiet about some indiscreet prank.

  I said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll go to my ship now. You’re lucky that you’re a more powerful man than I am, or I’d thrash you within an inch of your life.”

  He stood aside and his smile was almost friendly, as though I’d paid him a social call. “All right,” he said. “But think it over. And don’t forget. I can break Judie mentally so that in two years you won’t even recognise her.”

  I stopped then. A wave of uncontrollable anger engulfed me. But there was nothing I could do. “Watch out somebody doesn’t kill you before we get back to Capetown,” I said. And then I went quickly past him th
rough the door. If I’d had a gun on me I swear I’d have shot him.

  Outside on the deck the air was cold, the sea slate-grey and a mile away a flag stood out of the water marking a dead whale. The scene was just as it had been when I’d come on board. I could hardly believe the conversation in that cabin had really taken place. It seemed so horribly unreal. Yet when I glanced back, there was Erik Bland watching me with that vicious little smile on his lips.

  I climbed down into the boat and was rowed in silence back to my ship. Howe was there on the deck, waiting for me. “Well, what did he say?” he asked. But I brushed by him and went straight to my cabin. There I paced up and down, my mind a bewildering turmoil of half-formed ideas. On only one thing was I really clear. It was there in my mind like a flash of light. Bland was right. I was in love with Judie. And in no circumstances could I let her go through the hell he’d planned for her.

  At length there was a tap on the door and Gerda came in. “We have sighted another whale,” she said. “I think you should be on the bridge.” No questions. No desire to peer into my mind. Just—I think you should be on the bridge. I could have hugged her for that. It was something practical for my mind to grasp and cling to.

  But with Howe it was different. When I came down that night to get some sleep, he was sitting at the desk, his papers spread out in front of him, waiting for me. I was tired out. All I wanted was to lie down on my bunk and sleep. But I’d hardly got my boots off when he said, “Craig. Suppose you tell me what Erik Bland said to you.” His voice was tense.

  “It’s none of your business,” I told him and rolled over on to the bunk.

  “Anything to do with Bernt Nordahl is my business,” he answered in a flat, obstinate voice. “What did he say about Nordahl’s disappearance?” He was leaning slightly forward now. “That’s what he wanted to talk to you about, wasn’t it?”