A BATTLE WITH A WHALE
By Frank T. Bullen
Before the discovery of petroleum, whale oil was generally used for lighting. Whaling was then one of the big businesses of our country. Our whalers sought their game in all the waters of the world where the big animals were to be found. A whaling cruise usually lasted from two to five years. The following description of harpooning a whale is an actual experience of the author.
"There she white-waters! Ah, bl-o-o-o-o-w, blow,
blow!" sang Louis; and then, in another tone,
"Sperm whale, sir; lone fish, headin' 'beout east-by-nothe."
"All right. Way down from aloft," answered the
skipper, who was already halfway up the main rigging; and 5
like squirrels we slipped out of our hoops and down the
backstays, passing the skipper like a flash as he toiled upwards,
bellowing orders as he went. Short as our journey
down had been, when we arrived on deck we found all
ready for a start. But as the whale was at least seven 10
miles away and we had a fair wind for him, there was no
hurry to lower, so we all stood at attention by our respective
boats, waiting for the signal. I found, to my
surprise, that although I was conscious of a much more
rapid heartbeat than usual, I was not half so scared as I15
expected to be— that the excitement was rather pleasant
than otherwise.
"Lower away boats!" came pealing down from the
skipper's lofty perch, succeeded instantly by the rattle of
the patent blocks as the falls flew through them, while the 20
four beautiful craft took the water with an almost simultaneous
splash. The ship keepers had trimmed the yards
to the wind and hauled up the courses, so that simply
putting the helm down deadened our way and allowed the
boats to run clear without danger of fouling one another. 5
To shove off and hoist sail was the work of a few moments,
and with a fine working breeze away we went.
Our boat, being the chief's, had the post of honor; but
there was now only one whale, and I rather wondered
why we had all left the ship. According to expectations, 10
down he went when we were within a couple of miles of
him, but quietly and with great dignity, elevating his tail
perpendicularly in the air and sinking slowly from our
view.
The scene was very striking. Overhead, a bright-blue sky 15
just fringed with fleecy little clouds; beneath, a deep-blue
sea with innumerable tiny wavelets dancing and
glittering in the blaze of the sun; but all swayed in one
direction by a great solemn swell that slowly rolled from
east to west, like the measured breathing of some world-supporting 20
monster. Four little craft in a group, with
twenty-four men in them, silently waiting for battle with
one of the mightiest of God's creatures—one that was
indeed a terrible foe to encounter were he but wise enough
to make the best use of his opportunities. 25
My musings were very suddenly interrupted. Whether
we had overrun our distance, or the whale, who was not
"making a passage" but feeding, had changed his course,
I do not know; but anyhow he broke water close ahead,
coming straight for our boat. His great black head, like 30
the broad bow of a dumb barge driving the waves before
it, loomed high and menacing to me, for I was no longer
forbidden to look ahead. But coolly as if coming alongside
the ship, the mate bent to the big steer oar and swung
the boat off at right angles to her course, bringing her back
again with another broad sheer as the whale passed foaming.
This maneuver brought us side by side with him before he 5
had time to realize that we were there. Up till that instant
he had evidently not seen us, and his surprise was correspondingly
great.
To see Louis raise his harpoon high above his head and
with a hoarse grunt of satisfaction plunge it into the black, 10
shining mass beside him, up to the hitches, was indeed a
sight to be remembered. Quick as thought he snatched up
a second harpoon, and as the whale rolled from us it flew
from his hands, burying itself like the former one, but lower
down the body. The great impetus we had when we 15
reached the whale, carried us a long way past him, out of all
danger from his struggles. No hindrance was experienced
from the line by which we were connected with the whale,
for it was loosely coiled in a space for the purpose in the
boat's bow, to the extent of two hundred feet, and this was 20
cast overboard by the harpooner as soon as the fish was
fast.
He made a fearful to-do over it, rolling completely over
several times, backward and forward, at the same time
smiting the sea with his mighty tail, making an almost 25
deafening noise and pother. But we were comfortable
enough while we unshipped the mast and made ready for
action, being sufficiently far away from him to escape the
full effect of his gambols.
After the usual time spent in furious attempts to free 30
himself from our annoyance, he betook himself below, leaving
us to await his return and hasten it as much as possible
by keeping a severe strain upon the line. Our efforts in
this direction, however, did not seem to have any effect
upon him at all. Flake after flake ran out of the tubs until
we were compelled to hand the end of our line to the second
mate, to splice his own on to. Still it slipped away, and 5
at last it was handed to the third mate, whose two tubs
met the same fate. It was now Mistah Jones's turn to
"bend on," which he did with many chuckles, as of a man
who was the last resource of the unfortunate. But his
face grew longer and longer as the never-resting line continued 10
to disappear. Soon he signaled us that he was
nearly out of line, and two or three minutes after, he bent
on his "drogue" (a square piece of plank with a rope tail
spliced into its center, and considered to hinder a whale's
progress at least as much as four boats) and let go the end. 15
We had each bent on our drogues in the same way, when
we passed our ends to one another. So now our friend was
getting along somewhere below, with 7200 feet of one-and-a-half-inch
rope, and weight additional equal to the
drag of sixteen thirty-foot boats. 20
Of course we knew that unless he were dead and sinking
he could not possibly remain much longer beneath the
surface. The exhibition of endurance we had just been
favored with was a very unusual one, I was told, it being a
rare thing for a cachalot to take out two boats' lines before 25
returning to the surface to spout.
Therefore we separated as widely as was thought necessary,
in order to be near him on his arrival. It was, as
might be imagined, some time before we saw the light of
his countenance; but when we did, we had no difficulty 30
in getting alongside of him again. My friend Goliath,
much to my delight, got there first and succeeded in picking
up the bight of the line. But having done so, his chance
of distinguishing himself was gone. Hampered by the
immense quantity of sunken line which was attached to
the whale, he could do nothing and soon received orders to
cut the bight of the line and pass the whale's end to us. 5
He had hardly obeyed, with a very bad grace, when the
whale started off to windward with us, at a tremendous
rate. The other boats, having no line, could do nothing to
help; so away we went alone, with barely a hundred fathoms
of line in case he should take it into his head to sound again. 10
The speed at which he went made it appear as if a gale of
wind were blowing, and we flew along the sea surface,
leaping from crest to crest of the waves with an incessant
succession of cracks like pistol shots. The flying spray
drenched us and prevented us from seeing him, but I fully15
realized that it was nothing to what we should have to
put up with if the wind freshened much. One hand was
kept bailing out the water which came so freely over the
bows, but all the rest hauled with all their might upon the
line, hoping to get a little closer to the flying monster. 20
Inch by inch we gained on him. After what seemed a
terribly long chase we found his speed slackening, and we
redoubled our efforts.
Now we were close upon him; now, in obedience to the
steersman, the boat sheered out a bit and we were abreast25
of his laboring flukes; now the mate hurls his quivering
lance with such hearty good will that every inch of its
slender shaft disappears within the huge body.
"Lay off! Off with her, Louey!" screamed the mate;
and she gave a wide sheer away from the whale, not a 30
second too soon. Up flew that awful tail, descending with
a crash upon the water, not two feet from us.
"Out oars! Pull, two! starn, three!" shouted the mate;
and as we obeyed, our foe turned to fight.
Then might one see how courage and skill were such
mighty factors in the apparently unequal contest. The
whale's great length made it no easy job for him to turn, 5
while our boat, with two oars a side and the great leverage
at the stern supplied by the nineteen-foot steer oar, circled,
backed, and darted ahead like a living thing animated by
the mind of our commander. When the leviathan settled,
we gave a wide berth to his probable place of ascent; 10
when he rushed at us, we dodged him; when he paused, if
only momentarily, in we flew and got home a fearful thrust
of the deadly lance.
All fear was forgotten now—I panted, thirsted, for his
life. Once, indeed, in a sort of frenzy, when for an instant 15
we lay side by side with him, I drew my sheath knife and
plunged it repeatedly into the blubber as if I were assisting
in his destruction.
Suddenly the mate gave a howl: "Starn all—starn all!
oh, starn!" and the oars bent like canes as we obeyed. 20
There was an upheaval of the sea just ahead; then slowly,
majestically, the vast body of our foe rose into the air.
Up, up it went, while my heart stood still, until the whole of
that immense creature hung on high, apparently motionless,
and then fell—a hundred tons of solid flesh—back 25
into the sea. On either side of that mountainous mass the
waters rose in shining towers of snowy foam which fell in
their turn, whirling and eddying around us as we tossed and
fell like a chip in a whirlpool. Blinded by the flying spray,
bailing for very life to free the boat from the water with 30
which she was nearly full, it was some minutes before I
was able to decide whether we were still uninjured or not.
Then I saw, at a little distance, the whale lying quietly. As
I looked he spouted, and the vapor was red with his blood.
"Starn all!" again cried our chief, and we retreated to a
considerable distance. The old warrior's practiced eye had
detected the coming climax of our efforts, the dying agony, 5
or "flurry," of the great mammal. Turning upon his side
he began to move in a circular direction, slowly at first,
then faster and faster, until he was rushing round at
tremendous speed, his great head raised quite out of water
at times, clashing his enormous jaws. Torrents of blood 10
poured from his spout hole, accompanied by hoarse bellowings
as of some gigantic bull, but really caused by the
laboring breath trying to pass through the clogged air
passages. The utmost caution and rapidity of manipulation
of the boat was necessary to avoid his maddened 15
rush, but this gigantic energy was short-lived. In a few
minutes he subsided slowly in death, his mighty body reclined
on one side, the fin uppermost waving limply as he
rolled to the swell, while the small waves broke gently over
the carcass in a low, monotonous surf, intensifying the 20
profound silence that had succeeded the tumult of our
conflict with the late monarch of the deep.
—The Cruise of the Cachalot.
1. Boats were always lowered when whales were sighted within rowing distance. Why? How many were lowered in this instance? How many men were in each? Who was in command of each?
2. There was considerable rivalry between the boats of the same ship to be the first to harpoon and the first to give the final lance thrust. Was there rivalry shown here?
3. How many feet of rope did the whale take out when he sounded? Reduce this to miles. How many feet of rope were there in each boat?
4. Find five words in the story for your classmates to define.