A Whaleman's Wife

by Frank Thomas Bullen

A STRICKEN DEMON

It has been a frequent matter of remark, not merely by myself, but by all the writers with whom I have conversed who have ever interviewed old sailors on the subject of their experiences, how difficult it is for the latter to tell what they have seen. Their memories are most keen, but the mighty happenings they have witnessed seem to overwhelm their simple vocabulary, and they will suddenly break off in the midst of a splendid tale, and, holding up their hands in a gesture of despair, cry out, ‘Oh, God, if I could only tell ye what I’ve seen!’ I am led to think that perhaps it is this felt inability to do justice to the memory of what they have really seen that has often made sailors possessed of vivid imaginations invent magnificent lies, rushing by some curious mental paradox into the opposite extreme, from the sober recital of fact to an absurdly extravagant invention of fiction.

But be that as it may, there can be no doubt that even those who have been most successful in the attempt to transport their readers to the scenes which they themselves have witnessed, are often touched by the same feeling of inability, as the grandeur of the scenes they would fain depict flashes through their minds. They sit with poised pen—present, indeed, as to the body at their desks, but in spirit, by some unexplainable mystery, away back amid the surroundings of those former years, going through it all again. And thus they sit waiting, waiting, prisoners of hope, until relief comes in some commonplace word or thought, and the pen is re-started, to run perchance glibly enough until again arrested in like manner.

These reflections irresistibly arise as I recall similar scenes to the one which I would now describe: that splendid silken circle of sea and dome of sky just commencing to palpitate with the glories of the new day; those low, tender ranges of softest cloud like carelessly piled heaps of snowy down, with sober grey bases almost parallel with the horizon, and summits blushing sweetly with all the warm tints of the coming sun; through the eternal concave overhead running tremulous sprays of liveliest colour throbbing and changing incessantly on their background of deep violet, from which the modest stars are quietly fading before the advent of morning. Across the mirror-like surface of the ocean great splashes of colour come and go in never-ending progression, although there be never a cloud from which they may be reflected and their pure hues come direct from the impalpable ether around. And in the centre of it all, grating at first upon the mind as the only discordant note in the harmony otherwise reigning, is a ship surrounded by the greasy, mutilated carcasses of her spoil—that spoil which was so recently fulfilling the exhortation of that glorious hymn, ‘O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever.’ What a hideous scene of squalor it does appear, to be sure! Great shapeless masses of flesh and fat and bone, huge clots of black blood, an undefinable odour of death—for the time has not yet come for corruption to defile air as well as sea—and in the midst of it all, fiercely toiling, hacking, thrusting, tearing, yelling, blaspheming, are the slayers. From every pore the ship exudes oil warm from the body, at every roll a new extent of ‘sleeky’ water is thrust out from her slimy sides. Gradually, as the space in her main-hold known as the blubber-room becomes filled up, the limited area on deck is piled with the masses of blubber, and the oil which exudes from them fills up the carefully caulked decks and at each wallowing roll she makes rises against the bulwarks, which are almost as impervious as the deck itself. So inside, outside, half-way up the mainmast, she reeks with blood and grease, while the water all around is a seething mass of silent voracity. From who knows how far away the hungry denizens of the deep sea have hastened to the feast, summoned by some unerring sense, of which we know nothing at all. No one, as far as I know, has ever attempted to compute the number of the host of sharks alone which surround a whaleship while she secures her spoil; so I shall not try. It would be only a wild guess, after all, for they come and go incessantly in utmost haste, and as far as the eye can see the water is aboil with their strugglings to secure at least some portion of the great feast.

Of the other deep-sea citizens present I can say little. They are to be seen of course, but only occasionally, for this feast is peculiarly the shark’s great opportunity, and it is no easy matter for any other fish to displace him. In the air, the hungry self-invited guests may be few or many, according to the position of the ship. In the North Atlantic birds are far less plentiful than they are in the South, for some reason which I have never been able to find out, and consequently in this great scene of spoliation which I am now attempting to limn there were only about a dozen or twenty ’gulls.’

During its progress, as during the hunting, Priscilla sat on the top of the after-house motionless under the influence of some horrible fascination which she could not resist. She watched the lithe form of her saturnine husband as, leaning over the rail of the cutting-stage, he dealt blow after blow at the black and white masses beneath him, or occasionally varied his labours by a sidelong thrust which severed some thieving shark’s head from its body. But she noted that while he appeared to be doing more than any other member of the crew, his physical efforts never interfered with his mental energies in the oversight of his men. He seemed to know where every man was, and what he was, or ought to be, doing. An incessant stream of orders, threats, and cursings poured from his throat, which was apparently of brass, since it never got hoarse. The only physical sign of his vocal labours was the foam with which his raven-black beard was flecked.

Utterly brutal, utterly callous and heartless as she now knew her husband to be, she could not withhold from him a silent tribute of admiration for his powers of command and organisation, and for his courage. She felt shuddering pity for the poor men, who, against the most urgent calls of Nature to rest their tortured limbs, went fiercely toiling on as if only by that means could they avert sudden, violent death. Once or twice she gave vent to a low moan of compassion as she saw the Captain leap inboard with a tiger-like spring and fall upon some man whom his eagle eye had detected lagging behind the others, assailing him with the utmost ferocity by knocking him down, jumping on him, kicking him as if determined to do him to death. Again and again she turned to go, overcome by the horror of these constantly recurring scenes, but she could not: she was compelled to remain and witness them while powerless to help and unable even to pray that God would have mercy upon these poor wretches upon whom man—at least her man—had none.

What man has done, man can and will do unless restrained by powerful laws, and what was done amid such scenes as I am recalling was gentleness itself when compared with what went on aboard the galleys of ancient days—scenes which no modern writer has dared, or would dare, to put comprehensively into print. For even on board a whaler, where one man embodied all the law or justice obtainable by anybody, the blessed influences of Christianity in the modifying of cruelty were felt, and things were thus not nearly as bad as they might have been; nay, they were only in exceptional cases as bad as I have represented. This fact, I think, deserves special emphasis, because it goes to show that the majority of men in command of these ships, knowing full well that they were never likely to be called to account for any cruelties they might commit in the name of discipline, yet abstained from exercising their autocratic power, or only used it when it became undoubtedly necessary that they should do so.

Gradually the mighty task drew to its close. One by one the vast carcasses were cut adrift and floated away, each the centre of a writhing mass of hungry creatures fiercely fighting for places at the feast, which, great as it was, seemed but a trifle compared with the host of candidates for it. One by one the huge square ‘cases’ were hove up alongside and their bland contents ladled out into the tanks below. But when the last but one was being emptied, as it hung, a weight of some twenty tons, suspended from the cutting-in falls, Captain Da Silva went to the waist, and, leaning up against the case, looked down to see whether or not the precious spermaceti was draining away from some cut in its walls, as he suspected it was. As he did so the ship rolled ever so slightly, and without any warning the massive chain slings which held the case aloft tore out. It fell like an avalanche descending, a big flap of ‘white horse’ or head integument curling round the Captain’s body and whirling him after it into the fathomless depths. It was so terribly sudden that Priscilla was momentarily stunned, but with returning breath she uttered a wild cry of terror and fell fainting, her overwrought condition of nerves unable to bear this last great shock. For one moment the crew also stood like statues, but ere one could count five, the third mate and second boat-steerer had leaped into the sea after their commander, although they knew (none better) of the swarming sharks and the many other reasons why they should be unsuccessful. But all traces of him had vanished, and realising that not only were they most dangerously situated, but that they could see better from above, they climbed on deck again with all the speed they might, reaching it at the same moment as Captain Da Silva’s head appeared on the other side above the rail.

For a few moments all who witnessed his rising stared with starting eyes at what they deemed to be his wraith, but his hoarse voice, full of anger, roused them instantly from their brief lethargy. ‘Naouw, then, whutye all gapping at, like a lot er—— suckers’s y’air. Git along wi’ thet work, ’relse I’ll be ’mong ye in mighty short order, naouw I’m telling ye.’ And each man sprang to his task as does a mettled horse when the lash falls unexpectedly across his flanks. And Captain Da Silva strode off muttering maledictions. Perhaps it was all the formula of thanksgiving which he knew: certainly no word of praise for the miracle of his escape out of the very jaws of death crossed his lips. He had been carried down by that long sliver of skin which had enwrapped him and held him tightly bound to the mighty mass of the case until he felt as if his head were a boiler under a full pressure of steam. But as the ‘case’ sank, by some mysterious influence it spun round, or rather revolved, for its motion was but slow, and in doing so it unwound the clinging band from the skipper’s body. Never having lost his presence of mind, and being as nearly amphibious as the rest of his island countrymen, he sprang upward to the surface, just grazing the bilge on the opposite side of the ship to that from which he had descended, and grasping a bight of the main sheet which dangled invitingly alongside, he swung himself aboard, ready and alert to resume the tyranny he loved.