I have already touched on the interesting subject of meals on a whaler; I have known one begin at five P.M. and finish at eleven P.M., the prolongation being the result of frequent dashes from the minute mess-room to the gun platform in bows or to the bridge, in the immediate prospect of getting alongside a whale. To-day we begin our midday meal at the sweet end—why, the Norse only know!—prunes and rice, winding up with tinned herrings and coffee. After food we studied Art, did bits of sea from the bridge and pretty faces from fancy, the skipper played on the melodeon, and we exhibited in the chart-room, and each of the unshorn Vikings as he came to the bridge for his trick at the wheel or on one excuse or another came in and looked long and admiringly. Of course I had painted to the gallery—the girls had blue eyes and fair hair, the colours of birch bark, the silvery harmonies of nature beloved by the Norse and the artist.
At three in the afternoon we got sight of the Shetlands and Flugga to the west, and made a new departure to the N.W. We were only three miles south of our dead reckoning; not so bad, after several days lying hove to, and dodging about in all directions, with neither sextant nor chronometer; a chronometer gets knocked out of time in such a small craft with the shock from the gun. Towards night the Haldane’s engines slowly stopped in accordance with orders; which orders our friend the stutterer at the wheel did not know about, and his muttered imprecations on the lazy engineer stopping, as he thought, for a rest, made us all on the bridge, skipper, steward, and two of the crew, laugh till the tears came! a little goes such a long way at sea in the way of a jest (in fine weather).
So we lash the wheel to windward and roll about just over that scandalous limit line—forty miles N. of Shetland—inside of which any foreigner may whale, but we may not! We have seen nothing for twenty-four hours and the sea is as empty as the Sahara of herring-boats; the crew have three hours’ sleep.
Monday, 4th July, three A.M. A most bilious morning, enough to make a seagull ill or upset the hardiest shell-back; the world seems just a bag of hard wind and cold water, squalls, and scraps of rainbow, and tossing seas, with the eerie sough in our scanty wire rigging. We bury our bows. For five minutes our faces pour with rain and spray, the next five we dry and shiver in the cold and early sun, and vainly search the horizon for a whale. We think, almost with regret, of warm rooms in town in the South. There is no rest anywhere, aft or forward, or on the bridge, and we plug on northwards, and there’s never a blow anywhere in this useless bit of the world. It requires extreme æstheticism to see beauty in such cold water and sky, and hope to see sunshine through these squalls. We peg away in silence; yesterday, we could talk; to-day it is too cold. We bury our hands in our pockets and weep with the sting in our eyes. Yesterday, we discussed, as far as we could, the reason why whales suddenly will not rise; like trout, they do so one day and not the next, but unlike the trout-fisher, who is usually ready with a theory to explain the lethargy of trout, our Norse whaler simply says: “I doan know; der yesterday now gone; vee go vest hoondred twenty mile p’r’aps vee find ’em der.”
By midday we are thirty miles beyond the limit and are going west, and the day seems to have regretted its angry rising and is now making amends to us by putting on all its best things. The colour of the water has turned from dull lead to sunny emerald-green with belts of purple, and over it all is a lacework of lavender, the tracery of reflected sky, picked here and there with white sea caps. A jolly exhilarating sea occasionally comes on board, and rollicks sparkling round our deck, full of good intention, and we make it welcome and enjoy it, and let bygones be bygones and pretend to forget it is not always in such a jolly mood.
I knew we would get sun and warmth out N.W.; there is a space of ocean if you can only find it just between W. and E. that is always sunny and full of whales. I know it, but cannot give exact latitude and longitude; that is why it is so hard to find, but you are sure to strike it in time; so probably we will do so again to-day. We are getting the sun now, we only need the whales, and a little less sea for pleasure and comfort.
Leaving Our Two Whales at the Station
A Finner Whale Being Cut Up