The crew had tumbled up and were getting the boats ready. Only four were going out, but the skipper stayed us until we had had breakfast.
“We’re going into a man’s job this morning,” he grunted. “We want to be prepared for it.”
It might be that some of the boat crews wouldn’t be back at the ship for eighteen hours. It often happened, and pulling a heavy ash oar on an empty stomach is not an inspiring job.
Inside of five minutes after the first hail the whales spouting from one end of the skyline to the other. We had run into the biggest herd of sperms that the oldest whaleman on the Scarboro had ever seen. Maybe we didn’t feel excited! At such times as this one forgets the “grind.” There was both money and excitement ahead of us. We actually sloughed off the weariness we had felt after a steady twenty-four hours’ spell at the try-out kettles.
We lowered and spread out, fanwise, from the bark and made for the whales. No need of racing this morning. As Tom said, it looked as though a harpoon thrown into the air in almost any direction would hit a whale when it came down!
I was eager to throw an iron myself. I had the physique for it, being such a stocky fellow. And the hard life I had lived since being swept out to sea in my Wavecrest had agreed with me. My muscles were like wire cables, I was burned as black as a negro, and there was scarcely a man aboard the bark whom I could not have flung in a fair wrestle.
“Give Clint his chance, Tom,” said Mr. Gibson, as the boat-steerer came forward. “If he misses, you can throw a second iron.”
I was tickled enough at this. Old Tom had given me plenty of advice before about the handling of the harpoon, and I tried to remember all of his teaching as I released my bow oar and took up the first iron.
Perhaps it would be interesting to my readers if I told them something about this weapon of the whaleman. The bomb-lance and gun are all very well; but the harpoon is the real weapon on which the whaleman must depend. This iron must be right and the line attached to it must be right, or the best of harpooners will make a poor tally.
The whale line is a fine manila rope 1-1/2 inches thick. It is stretched and coiled with the greatest care into tubs, some holding two hundred fathoms, some a hundred fathoms. The harpoons are fixed to poles of rough, heavy wood, every care being taken to make them as strong as possible. And their weight necessitates a harpooner being chosen from among the biggest and strongest men in the ship.