The Boy Whaleman

by George Fox Tucker

Boylike, I fancied that all whales on this ground must be very fierce. If I had any fear, it was only for a moment, for I was anxious to hear the glad cry from aloft and to be ordered to the boat. Just a week from the day when we reached the ground came the welcome announcement, and all the boats were lowered. The whales were to the windward and pretty far off. Lustily we pulled, but as it happened the other boats led. There is sometimes luck or chance in the pursuit of whales, and so it was with us. A whale made a kind of detour and gave us a splendid advantage. We approached the creature in very much the same way as we had formerly approached the whale we had lost. The boat-steerer threw both irons successfully and we got out of the suds and avoided the awful sweep of the great flukes. The whale sounded, and the warp passed out quickly but not so fast as to draw the boat’s stem very near to the surface. At last the line slacked, and we were ordered to haul in, hand over hand. As we did so, the line was coiled in a wide heap in the stern sheets, as in the wet state it would not lie very close. When the whale reappeared we were ordered to take the oars, and, when we reached the great black object, Lakeum drove the lance between the third and fourth ribs into his vitals. We pulled away, and the monster began to thrash like an animal in a fit; the water was crimson, and jets of blood at least six feet high leaped from the spout hole. They gradually diminished until the blood merely oozed from it. The whale made a final breach, fell on his side with a fearful splash and lay dead in his own blood and a lather of foam. Then came the cry, “Fin out!” Lakeum ran the lance into the whale’s eye, to make sure he was dead, and then the tow-line was made fast to a slit cut in the spout hole. Here let me say that the whales we captured didn’t all die in the same way. I remember one whale whose head rose and fell in the last struggle, while the flukes beat the water rapidly and vigorously. I remember more than one whale that performed the “flurry,” that is, swam for a few minutes in a circle, to the peril of the men in the boat—that is, “milled”—and then rolled on his side, dead.

The whale we had just killed did, before death, what sperm whales nearly always do. He threw up the contents of his stomach, consisting of pieces of cuttlefish. As I looked at the monster, I thought of the saying of Melville, quoted wherever whaling was carried on, and likely to be quoted so long as any one cares for the story of the enterprise, “A dead whale or a stove boat.”

Another boat at some distance was also fast to a whale. There were no other whales in sight. If there had been, Lakeum would have “waifed” our whale—that is, planted in his body a barbed iron rod bearing a flag. We were now to tow our whale to the ship—no easy task, even in calm weather. The first step was to pass a chain around what they call the “small” at the root of the tail. One of the old hands, with a rope around his waist, climbed on to the slippery object and, with some difficulty, got a line around the “small” and thus enabled the men to secure the flukechain. We set the sail and we used the oars, too. The ship, which had worked to windward, bore down on us and lessened the distance. We got to the ship before the other boat referred to. They were all ready for us—cutting-fall, spades and cutting-stage. The last named was a plank platform which reached beyond the carcass and just over the surface. Now it is to be remembered that there was only one boat on the starboard side, so that side was all clear from bow to gangway. The whale was secured by the fluke chains. The head was under the gangway and the tail was to the bow. The weather was good and so we “cut to windward”, that is, with the whale toward the wind. In this way the wind filling the sails counterbalanced to some extent the weight of the cutting-falls, and helped to keep the vessel on an even keel.

Cutting-in required great skill. A bunch of blocks was secured above, through which a rope was passed and then carried to the windlass. The great, lower block, to which the blubber hook, weighing about a hundred pounds, was attached, was swung over the whale. Two men on the cutting-stage, provided with long spades, cut a hole in the body just above the nearer of the two side fins. A line in a half-circle was cut around the hole, and the hook was inserted. A little army of men singing their chantey began heaving at the windlass. Then the ship careened to the whale, a sharp sound was heard, the ship rolled backwards from the whale, and the tackle rose with a strip of blubber attached. The strain caused the whale to roll over in the water, and, as the blubber peeled off along the line called the “scarf”, it was hoisted higher and higher aloft till its upper end grazed the maintop. The men at the windlass ceased heaving and a harpooner with a long, keen weapon sliced out a hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into this hole the end of the second great tackle was hooked so as to retain a hold upon the blubber. Then he severed it completely, so that while the short, lower part was still fast, the long, upper strip, called the blanket piece, swung clear, and was all ready for lowering. The heavers renewed their chantey, and, while the one tackle was peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other was slowly slackened away, and down went the first strip through the main hatchway, right beneath, into the blubber room. This gloomy place was about thirty feet each way and between six and seven feet high. From a beam swung a lamp, which gave a dull light. Blanket pieces weighed a ton or more each, and, as they were coiled away, they looked like hideous serpents.

While the floor of the blubber room was slippery at all times, it was particularly so when a heavy sea was on. Two men with short-handled spades hewed off blocks from the blanket pieces, called horse pieces, and pitched them up into a trough secured to the upper edge of the hatch. Then they were loaded into tubs and dragged away. The mincing of the horse pieces was performed at a wooden horse, placed endwise against bulwarks, the pieces falling into a tub.

The beheading of the whale required skill similar to that involved in the treatment of the carcass. He had no neck, and, as a fact, where the neck might have been was the thickest part of him. It was necessary to cut deep into the flesh and divide the spine at the point where it was inserted into the skull, not an easy task, as the whale tossed and rolled in the sea. If the whale had been a small one, the head would have been hoisted on deck, but, as it was a large one, it was held against the ship’s side and partly out of the sea. The upper part of the head is called the “case.” A block was arranged so that it hung down from the yardarm, and a man dropped down to the head. A light tackle called a “whip” passed through the block. Then came the task of beheading the whale, which was no easy one.

It is to be noted that the other boat which I have mentioned as fast to a whale succeeded in killing the creature—a cow—and towing her to the ship. She was secured astern to await the disposal of our cachalot. I have forgotten to say that while cutting in the first whale, the sea was full of sharks and the air thick with birds. This was not peculiar to our case, but was common wherever a sperm whale was cut in. Sharks! Sharks! Sharks! Squirming, darting, wiggling, showing their white bellies as they turned this way and that and displaying rows of huge teeth as they opened their hideous mouths. Their efforts to tear off pieces of blubber were not very successful, but the fact that they remained by the whale and showed no disposition to depart seemed to indicate that they knew that a treat awaited them when the carcass was to be cut from the ship and to drift away.

“Isn’t there any danger from these creatures?” I asked Kreelman.

“Not very much. A shark is an awful coward, unless he’s sure he’s got the better of you. I’ve seen one of ’em jump clean out of water to try to get a man on the whale’s back, but, instead of that, a man on deck got the shark with a spade, and, as he fell back in the water with the blood flowing, the other sharks got him. Now and then one of ’em will jump out of water and fall back among the others, not so much for exercise but to show how hungry he is. Then it isn’t always easy to get him with a spade, but I’ve seen it done.”

The birds hovered about twenty feet above the carcass. They were of all varieties, sizes and colors. Their screaming and screeching were enough to drive one distracted. I had read of the wild pigeons, that flew in such great flocks a hundred years ago, that for a time they shut off the light of the sun, and, as I gazed at the winged vampires, I could not help thinking that a not very large increase in their numbers would serve the purpose of a dense cloud. Just then there was a great commotion in the water.