by Justin D'Ath
‘Where do they keep the smokebombs?’
Frøya explained how to get to the lazaret, a little storeroom at the rear of the ship. ‘You must get the key from Raoul Garcia, the bosun,’ she said.
There wasn’t time to go searching for Raoul. We were nearly level with the leading whales.
‘When we get ahead of the pod,’ I called back as I headed for the stairs, ’steer across in front of the whales and slow down.’
Frøya’s directions were good. They led me straight to the lazaret. There was a padlock on the door and a sign that said: Danger, Explosives.
Excellent! I thought.
Coming along the gangway, I’d passed an axe attached to the wall. It must have been for use in emergencies. This was an emergency. I swung it three times – Bang! Clang! Chop! – and the padlock few apart. The door creaked open.
The smokebombs were in boxes of twelve. They weren’t heavy, but the bulky cardboard cartons were difficult to handle. One was all I could manage. I lugged it up on deck.
Hooley dooley! I’d forgotten to put on a dry suit and the cold was like an invisible wall. Luckily the rain had passed, but the wind blasted me with pellets of frozen spray. A frosting of ice covered everything. The deck pitched from side to side as the Black pimpernel was tossed about on the heaving sea. I wobbled and slithered towards the stern, keeping away from the edge because half the railing was missing – crushed by our run-in with the iceberg – and I wasn’t wearing a life jacket. Not that a life jacket would have been much help if I fell over the side. Even if the Japanese tried to save me in their helicopter, I’d be dead before they got me out of the water.
Suddenly the Black pimpernel tipped sharply to starboard. Frøya must have turned the ship in front of the whales. She was only doing what I’d asked, but it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. My feet went out from under me. I landed on my backside and went sliding across the deck. Straight towards a gap in the railing. The deck was like an ice-skating rink. I couldn’t stop.
Shishkebab! I was going to go over the side!
At the very last moment – when I was a metre from the gap in the railing – the ship lurched the other way. Frøya had seen what was happening and swung the helm hard to port. It was too late to stop my slide, but enough to slow me down. As my feet went over the edge, I arched my body sideways and made a wild grab for one of the davits used for lowering the Zodiacs into the water. My fingers were numb with cold, but somehow they latched around the rusty iron and held on. The Zodiac bobbed in the sea a few metres below my swinging legs, attached by a single rope. The other davit must have snapped when we hit the iceberg. If I’d gone over the side, I might have landed in the Zodiac. Then again, I might have missed it. And been snap-frozen in the icy Antarctic ocean.
Badly shaken, I pulled myself back on deck and used a ventilator cowl to drag myself upright. The whales were close. They came surging towards the ship in a line that stretched back half a kilometre. Every so often one would break the surface, shooting up a fountain of spray as its ten-tonne body rose out of the sea like a mountain. Sometimes three or four came up at once. A mountain range on the march. They looked unstoppable.
But I had to stop them – or at least make them change course.
Crouched on all fours, I scuttled over to the carton I’d dropped when I fell over. Luckily it hadn’t slid overboard. It was jammed under a water cannon. I dragged it clear and ripped it open. Inside, two layers of large green cylinders lay packed side by side like jam jars. They didn’t look like bombs. I picked one up and glanced at the long list of instructions written on the side. There wasn’t time to read them. A plastic loop on a short string dangled from one end. I gave it a tug.
POP! The top of the cylinder flew off and a plume of bright-orange smoke came billowing out.
Houston, we have ignition!
I hurled the hissing smokebomb at the nearest whale. Missed. It landed in the sea. The whale took no notice. It swam right underneath the bobbing, smoking cylinder as if it wasn’t there.
Bummer! This was harder than herding cattle.
I picked up another smokebomb. This time I would get the timing right. I waited until a whale was about to surface, then pulled the loop, took careful aim, and threw.
Bullseye!
The smokebomb hit the surfacing whale right on the nose. But the huge creature didn’t bat an eyelid. Well, it did – one eye blinked when the cylinder bounced over it – but that was the only reaction I got. The whale kept coming. It swam right up to the Black pimpernel ’s stern and disappeared underneath.
I tossed all ten remaining smokebombs at the other whales, but the results were the same. The pod didn’t deviate by a single degree. They stayed on course – a course that was going to take them right into the waiting harpoons of the Japanese whaling fleet.
So much for Plan B.
The helicopter circled overhead as I made my way back to the bridge.
‘It didn’t work,’ I said.
Frøya acted as though she hadn’t heard me. She didn’t even look in my direction. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon ahead and a deep frown etched her forehead.
I turned to see what was so interesting.
Uh oh! Ships. Two of them. Coming straight towards us.
‘Are they … ?’ I asked.
Frøya nodded. ‘Rotten stinkers!’ she muttered.
19
NO CONTEST
They were still a long way off. Two or three kilometres. But through the binoculars I recognised the familiar square shape of the Nisshin Maru. The second ship was smaller. It was low and sleek and looked like a miniature destroyer.
As it came closer, I began to see more details. Instead of cannons, there was a big harpoon gun on the bow. A harpoon designed to kill whales. I’d read about them in Earth Watch. The harpoon has an exploding head that goes off inside the whale, causing the huge animal to slowly drown in its own blood. Gross!
‘Should I ram them?’ I asked. I had taken over the helm from Frøya, who was back in the captain’s chair resting her sore foot.
‘For sure, we will all be killed,’ she said softly.
I remembered what Captain Dan had said. A fair exchange. But I knew I couldn’t do it. The lives of forty-seven sick people – including Harry – were in my hands. I couldn’t jeopardise their safety. not for all the whales in the world.
But I couldn’t just watch as the whales were slaughtered.
Neither could Frøya.
‘Sam, see if you can get the Black pimpernel between the whales and the killer ship,’ she said.
It was worth a try. The whalers couldn’t fire their deadly harpoons if we were in the way. I set the throttle on full speed and put us on a collision course with the killer ship. It was still a long way off. I estimated we had four or five minutes before things got exciting.
‘My father is doing this,’ Frøya said as the Japanese ships slowly grew larger.
‘Stopping whalers?’ I asked.
‘No. He is a whaler. Back in Norway they are still murdering whales like these Japanese. My father is captain of a whaling ship. That is why I have volunteer for crew on the Black pimpernel. ’
‘Did you run away from home?’
Frøya sniffed. ‘I am twenty-two years. Old enough to do what I want.’
I had thought she was younger. Closer to my own age. But it didn’t matter – I already had a girlfriend. Well, girl pen friend. Her name was Michiko Takai and she lived in Japan. I hoped she didn’t eat whale meat.
We had caught up with the pod again. I changed course slightly and eased the ship past a mother and her calf. There were whales all around us, swimming on both sides of the Black pimpernel like overgrown dolphins. Frøya’s right, I thought as one rolled onto its side and slapped a huge fin playfully on the water – they are beautiful.
Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! The killer ship had drawn ahead of the Nisshin Maru. It was four hundred metres away and closing fast.
I made a slight ad
justment to the helm to avoid a whale, then lined up the Jolly Roger on our bow with the harpoon gun on theirs.
‘Which way will they turn?’ I asked. My hands were sweaty. I hoped they were going to turn.
‘Maybe to the right,’ Frøya said, sounding nervous. ‘Be careful, Sam.’
I was being careful – careful not to hit any whales. Most of them were behind us now. But the pod was still swimming in the same direction. Straight towards the approaching vessels. Easy pickings for the Japanese hunters, except for one thing. A black pirate ship that was in the way.
‘It is turning,’ Frøya said.
She was right. The killer ship’s bow began to veer slowly to the right. I spun the Black pimpernel ’s wheel.
Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! went their horn, but I didn’t finch. I matched the killer ship’s turn. Both vessels were still on a collision course.
I wasn’t going to hit them. I was just trying to keep the Black pimpernel between the killer ship and the whales. But the Japanese captain didn’t know that. It must have looked like I was going to plough straight into them. With a final, angry hoooooot! he chickened out and started to turn away.
‘Yessss!’ I said, pumping the air with my fist.
It was just like herding cattle.
‘Watch out for the other one!’ warned Frøya.
I hadn’t been watching the other ship. The Nisshin Maru had been two or three hundred metres behind the killer ship. When the smaller ship turned, its eight-thousand-tonne companion turned, too. But not as sharply.
The Nisshin Maru seemed to come out of nowhere. Suddenly its huge bow came steamrolling around the killer ship’s stern. Straight towards the Black pimpernel. Its captain hadn’t seen us, either.
The two ships were going to collide.
It was too late to turn. I slammed the throttle lever into full reverse and braced myself against the wheel as the two ships ploughed towards each other head on. Eight thousand tonnes versus eight hundred tonnes.
No Contest.
20
DIVE, WHALE, DIVE!
The captain of the Nisshin Maru must have seen us at the same moment that we saw him. He slammed his ship into reverse as well.
Too late. The two ships came together at an angle, our bow against her side.
SCRE-E-E-E-E-ECH!
The can opener, the two-metre steel blade on the Black pimpernel’s prow, scraped along the side of the factory ship, leaving a big scratch just below the the tagging crew had painted there.
That was the only damage. Both vessels had slowed down to a virtual stall by the time of impact. Then our reversing props bit into the sea and began pulling us away.
As the Black pimpernel reversed out of the factory ship’s shadow, a spray of water exploded against the bridge, turning the windows white.
‘What’s going on?’ I gasped.
‘They are shooting us with water cannons,’ Frøya said, shouting to make herself heard over the roar of water.
I gritted my teeth. I wanted to return their fire – Captain Dan couldn’t stop me from using our water cannons now – but I had to stay at the helm. There was nobody else to drive the ship, and we were still perilously close to the Nisshin Maru ’s towering hull. One wrong move and we’d be crushed like an empty drink can. I reversed until we were thirty or forty metres away and the water cannons could no longer reach us, then spun the wheel left and pushed the throttle forwards.
‘Oh no!’ Frøya cried as we emerged from behind the Nisshin Maru. Once more we could see the killer ship. It had turned in a huge circle and was coming back towards the whales. ‘Stop them, Sam!’
I tried to cut them off, but the Black pimpernel didn’t have enough acceleration. We were doing barely four knots when the killer ship surged across our bow at full throttle. A man in orange waterproofs crouched behind the harpoon gun. All we could do was watch as the whale hunters raced towards the pod of unsuspecting minkes.
A whale broke the surface about a hundred metres ahead of the killer ship.
‘DIVE, WHALE, DIVE! ’ shrieked Frøya.
It was almost as if the whale heard her. The huge animal started to dive. Its broad fluked tail rose out of the water as the whale rolled forward. But it seemed to be moving in slow motion.
Hurry! I thought, watching the killer ship eat up the distance between them.
The huge tail started sliding back down into the sea. It was going to make it!
There was a puff of smoke from the front of the killer ship and a black steel harpoon shot out across the water. It was almost too fast to see. The whale disappeared. For a moment I thought the harpoon had missed. Then I glimpsed a length of wire running out from the bow of the ship. When the whale went down, the wire snapped taut like a fishing line.
‘They got it,’ I muttered, feeling sick.
Frøya had jumped out of the captain’s chair and hopped over to the window. She peered through the binoculars.
‘I do not think the explosion worked,’ she said.
I hoped she was right. But what difference would it make in the long run whether the harpoon had exploded or not? The whale still had a harpoon in it. It was still attached to the ship by a strong steel wire. It couldn’t escape.
The killer ship was slowing down. Orange-clad figures raced across the forward deck. Thirty metres ahead of the bow, the water boiled like an undersea volcano. A huge tail rose out of the foam and smacked down so hard we heard the bang from the bridge of the Black pimpernel, two hundred metres away. Then the whale disappeared again.
But in the brief instant it had been visible, I’d seen the harpoon dangling from one of its tail fiukes.
‘I was right,’ said Frøya. ‘The explosion did not work.’
‘But the whale can’t get away,’ I said.
‘We can cut the wire with our propeller.’
‘Won’t it get tangled?’
Frøya shook her head. ‘No, Sam. The wire is very thin. Not like a prop fouler. For sure, our propeller will cut it.’
Hoping she was right, I turned the Black pimpernel across the bow of the killer ship.
The Japanese saw us coming. But there was nothing they could do. The tables were turned – now they were stationary in the water and we were travelling at full speed. The captain began angrily tooting the horn and two of the deckhands aimed a water cannon at us.
I wasn’t concerned. My only worry was the whale. It was still underwater somewhere forward of the killer ship’s bow. I didn’t want to run into it. So I steered the Black pimpernel as close to the Japanese vessel as possible. We passed within a few metres of their bow. The man at the harpoon gun glowered at me over the sights of his weapon as we barged past.
‘Stinker!’ Frøya shouted at him.
There was a tiny vibration through the floor as the harpoon wire dragged along the underside of the Black pimpernel ’s hull. I held my breath, waiting for it to reach the propeller.
Either of two things could happen. The propeller could slice it in two, setting the whale free. or – if Frøya was wrong and the wire did tangle our propeller – the Black pimpernel would be put out of action.
I wondered if the Japanese would help us if our plan backfired. International Maritime Law states that you must assist a stricken vessel at sea, but we were a pirate ship, after all.
I didn’t have to worry about it for long.
Twang!
The ship shuddered, the helm gave a tiny twitch … and we kept going.
‘Look!’ Frøya pointed.
Out the port-side window, a huge tail rose into the air. The harpoon was hanging on by a thread. The whale gave its tail a flick and the harpoon came free. It cartwheeled into the sea, trailing three metres of severed wire behind it like the tail of a falling meteor.
Mission accomplished. We’d freed the whale.
But it was just one animal in a pod of about fifty. When I looked back at the killer ship, I saw three orange-clad deckhands loading another deadly harpoon into the gun.
21
LOST THE WAR
There’s a saying my school basketball coach sometimes uses when we lose a game: We won the battle but lost the war. He means we did really well in one aspect of the game – we had sixty percent of ball possession, for example – but the other team had too many tall players and they gave us a hiding on the scoreboard.
My basketball coach might have said the same thing if he’d been there when Frøya and I saved the minke whale. We had won a minor battle, but the Japanese were going to win the war. They had too much speed, too much technology, too much firepower, and too many men. No way could a creaky old rust bucket like the Black pimpernel, crewed by a fourteen-year-old boy and a girl with a sprained ankle, hope to stop them.
But we could try.
‘Go after them,’ Frøya cried. ‘See if you can get in front.’
I brought the Black pimpernel around in a big, agonisingly slow u-turn and set off after the killer ship. But it was a wasted effort. Already the ship was several hundred metres away, right in among the pod.
I saw a puff of smoke. A whale rolled onto its side. One long fin flapped in the air like the arm of a drowning man.
‘No-o-o-o-o-o-o!’ Frøya wailed, covering her eyes.
I wanted to cover my eyes, too, but I was in charge of a ship. Grinding my teeth, I steered the Black pimpernel towards the horrific scene. The sea was red with blood. A whale was dying before my eyes.
Frøya and Captain Dan were right: this wasn’t research, it was a crime.
I slowed down and brought the Black pimpernel alongside the dying whale. There was nothing I could do. Cutting the harpoon wire wouldn’t help it now. The Japanese deckhands turned their water cannons on us, so I moved further away. Already the Nisshin Maru was approaching. The huge factory ship drew up beside the smaller vessel, and a team of workers in orange waterproofs and gumboots lowered cables down its slipway to drag the dead whale aboard for butchering.
‘Murderers!’ Frøya said.
I silently agreed with her.