The waist of the ship was cleared of riffraff and dunnage; a strong whale tackle was rigged between fore and mainmast, one line of this tackle being wound about the foreward winch. The other end was carried down the cutting-in stage and hitched to a slice of blubber which had been peeled from the whale's neck. This slice of blubber was called the blanket piece.
Kanakas climbed then over the slippery body and started work with blubber spades and axes. They severed the strip, as the winch was started, the whale rolled over and exposed an open cut which banded its neck. Into this the crew slashed until the backbone was reached. They then climbed aboard, after rigging a second line through a purchase in the upper jaw.
"Hoist away!" ordered Stirling. A watch tackle creaked, the line tightened, and the upper jaw of the monster came aboard and was swung over a spot in the waist, lowering to position when the tackle was slacked. The carcass, useless now, was cast adrift by cutting the lines. It drifted to leeward where it was soon surrounded by polar bears and screeching sea gulls.
Marr appeared at the quarter-deck rail and sent down a huge jug of whisky, which the crew shared with boisterous shouts. The skipper watched them, then shrugged his slight shoulders, glanced at the ice to the northward, and disappeared as Stirling gave the order to clear decks and cut the bone from the upper jaw.
This baleen, as it was called, had to be split from a white gristle by blubber spades and knives. The bone ran from sixteen feet in length down to little whiskers, and its value was all of five dollars a pound.
The last of the slabs was taken below to be stored in the forehold, and the great jaw, after the cook had removed a barrel of muck tuck, was hoisted overboard. This sank to the bottom of the Bering. The decks were then swabbed and squeegeed, and the watch on duty finished cleaning up. It was midnight before Stirling turned toward Whitehouse and reported that all was clear.
The cockney mate climbed from the dark poop, took a turn about the ship, ran his fingers over the planks and pinrails, and peered down the forehold.
Then he came to Stirling and asked: "'Ow much do you think that 'ead of bone will weigh?"
"All of twenty-two hundred pounds. It's as big as I ever cut in."
Whitehouse glanced aft. "The old man wasn't figurin' on that," he said, reflectively. "I think it was out of 'is calculations. 'E's just confided in me—not a watch below—that 'e is up North for trade stuff. Also, 'e said there's a firm of Dundee & Grimsby owners interested in the voyage. I thought all along 'e owned the ship."