Altogether that was one of our unlucky days. Mr. Wallet let the Annie Battles herself get between him and his whale, and take it away from him. He did not exert himself or his men to get it, it seemed to us, and Captain Nelson’s displeasure was clear enough. I have no doubt it was clear to Mr. Wallet, for I saw the captain talk forcibly to him when he came aboard, although I do not know what he said. Mr. Snow being on the end of the line farthest from the Battles, got his whale without molestation.
Mr. Brown’s boat fared the worst. He was waiting for his whale to rise, and the second boat from the Battles came up opposite him, and waited also. When the whale rose, Starbuck struck him first. There could be no doubt about it. I saw it all clearly through my glass. Notwithstanding, the Battles’ boat pulled up at once, and sunk an iron in him. At that third iron—Starbuck had two irons fast—the whale started to run, and we had to give him line. While the line was snaking out, rather slack, somehow or other, for the second time on that voyage, it kinked and caught a man in the kink. It was Kane who was caught, about his arm or shoulder. He had not far to go, for Mr. Brown had put back his kicking-strap immediately after the accident to poor Wright; but his going those few feet was rather sudden. The kicking-strap stopped him. That might have been as unfortunate for him as being taken overboard, but Mr. Brown, who had changed places with Starbuck, saw it almost before it happened, and reached for the hatchet and cut. His action was lightning-like in its quickness. Although Kane brought up on the kicking-strap, he did not have to start the heavy boat, or quite possibly his arm might have been torn out. As it was, he got off with a severe wrench to his shoulder, and with a badly bruised arm. His arm turned black where the kink had caught it, and showed the lay of the line plainly.
That was the end of that whale for us. The Battles’ boat got him.
CHAPTER XVII
Our officers were all highly indignant at the conduct of the Battles, which was contrary to all the ethics of whaling, if not to the law of the high seas. I overheard Captain Nelson talking with Mr. Baker, who got very vehement about it, and wanted to take Starbuck’s whale away from them by force.
Captain Nelson was quiet for a moment, stroking his beard, which had got pretty ragged.
“Some excuse, perhaps,” he said at last. “Kind of a row with Fred three or four weeks before we sailed. My house. Maybe I was a little trifle hasty, but so was he. Both got mad, and I said more than I meant to. Never thought he ’d—well, I ’ll go aboard of him in the morning, and see if I can’t fix it up.”
So Lizzie Nelson was at the bottom of it all! At our house we always spoke of her as “that Nelson girl,” a rather pretty girl in a buxom, loud, Nelsonish sort of way; “pleasant-spoken” the best that people said of her, and the worst much worse than that. I had the feeling that I was warned against the wiles of Lizzie Nelson, although my mother never actually said anything against her. You would think it unnecessary to warn a boy of fifteen against the wiles of a girl of twenty, but you did not know Lizzie Nelson, and my mother did. However, I did not fancy her, nor any of her stripe. Ann McKim was the idol of my boyhood, as she was the idol of my youth. I had no room for fancy for the Lizzie Nelsons of the world, but there were plenty of those who had.
We were not to know the results of Captain Nelson’s visit, for he did not make it. The Annie Battles had finished cutting-in during the night, and at dawn her topsails were just dropping over the horizon to the eastward. We followed. There was no chance of our catching her, of course, unless she hove to to try out, and we could creep up on her unbeknownst, like ’Zekiel. We soon lost her; and although we kept on to the eastward for a couple of days, Captain Nelson was not yet ready to leave those cruising grounds. He would not be ready for that, with average luck, for weeks, and it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, with the additional disadvantage that, even if we found the needle, it would slip away at the first sight of us. At the end of the second day we came about, and worked back across the grounds.
While making a passage from one cruising ground to another the distribution of duties is much the same as on a merchant vessel. When whaling grounds have been reached, however, all this is changed. Each boat’s crew constitutes a watch, and the night, from four bells to four bells—from six in the evening to six in the morning—is divided among them. The officer of the watch is the boatheader, or mate. A watch, for a four-boat ship, is thus three hours long, and for a five-boat ship, such as ours, two hours and forty minutes. This easing up on the men is in order that they may be as fresh as possible for the chase and taking of whales, which is their first and most important business. For the same reason the crew has only the most necessary duties during the day; and except for the necessary change of sails morning and night, and washing down and scrubbing the decks each morning, the day is passed in utter idleness, so far as regular ship’s duties are concerned. The men are allowed to do what they please: read—if they can read—play cards, mend clothes, scrimshaw, sleep.