CHAPTER XXII
The day before we got into Cape Town I wrote a short letter home, and enclosed my journal. We came to in Table Bay the next morning, with the mass of Table Mountain looming to the eastward, and Devil’s Peak and the Lion’s Head and Signal Hill enclosing the town. The crew had liberty ashore, in relays, and the first boatload of liberty men were off within an hour. I do not know how the men spent their precious liberty.
We laid in a stock of fresh provisions, and got off our mail, and found some mail for the ship, but there was nothing for me. The captain attended to some other business, but I do not know what. He did not ship a man to take the vacant place, and we had two vacant places when we left in the afternoon of the second day, for a green hand, a Portuguese named Silvia from Mr. Macy’s boat, turned up missing. Mr. Tilton made a brief search for him, but did not find him, and we could not wait. Most of the other men were rounded up drunk, or just recovering from that happy state, and really not responsible.
Mr. Snow, our fourth mate since the promotions after Mr. Wallet’s defection, a nervous, irascible little man, became very much enraged at one of the men from his own boat. The man’s name was Silver—perhaps unfortunately resembling Silvia, the name of the man who was missing. He was a green hand too, if a man is still green after eight months at sea. Mr. Snow addressed a sarcastic remark to Silver—or Silva—bearing upon that resemblance of names, and Silver, as might have been expected, answered him in a surly manner, calling him a fussy little busybody, or less agreeable words to the same effect. Of course it was no fault of Silver’s that his name was like Silvia’s, or that Silvia was not to be found, but he would not have answered Mr. Snow as he did if he had been feeling like himself, or if he had been to sea long enough to know the unwisdom of it.
Mr. Snow hesitated and sputtered and got red in the face, but said nothing after all, and fumed off aft. The rest of the men rather expected that Silver might be put in irons, but nothing came of the matter then, except that Silver had the permanent ill-will of his boatheader. That is not a state of affairs generally cultivated.
We stood around the Cape, keeping well out to sea to avoid the current which sets to the southwest and west along the shore of the African continent and for about a hundred and fifty miles from it, more or less. The surface currents all through the Indian Ocean are strong and tricky. Off Durban or Port Natal the current runs southwesterly at very nearly three or four knots at this season, and it was worth while not to get into it, especially for a ship like the Clearchus, which could not be depended upon to sail faster than five or six knots. By keeping a couple of hundred miles to the southward we got into the easterly drift and the west wind, and we held that course to about 35° east longitude, gradually turning to the north for the Mozambique Channel.
The mastheads were kept manned all this time, but it was hardly expected that we would sight any whales, and I suspect that there was little desire to see any. The wind held generally strong from the westward until we were on our way north. We sighted the southwest coast of Madagascar, but it got no nearer than a low-lying purple line, and we swung away to the northwest until we sunk it.
Madagascar is nearly a thousand miles long, and from three to five hundred miles from the coast of Africa, the narrowest part of the Mozambique Channel, opposite Mozambique, being about two hundred and sixty miles broad. We were therefore well out of sight of land almost all the time that we cruised in those waters. Although the wind was southerly—the southeast trades—and by all the rules we should have run directly through the Channel and beat slowly back again, we did not do so, but steered a zigzag course, wearing ship as we approached either side of the Channel. The captain was so certain of seeing whales there that he did not want to miss the first chance, and that chance was as likely to come one way as another.
The chance came when we had been in the Channel four days and were on the second leg of our zigzag. I was busy in the cabin, but I heard the faint musical cry, “Ah—bl-o-ows!” I dropped everything, and ran on deck. It was early, breakfast being just over. There they were to the east of us, three beautiful plumes rising together, shining in the sun, drifting for a moment, and dissolving gradually into nothing. We manœuvred for position—if it is proper to speak of anything as clumsy as the Clearchus as manœuvring—and waited for the whales to sound. They took their time about it, at which I did not wonder. It was very pleasant at the surface in the sun, and they lay lazily at their length, spouting now and then. We got to windward of them, and as near as the captain thought was safe—a gallied whale is hard to get. Still they did not go down, and we lowered four boats; all but Mr. Macy’s. The boats were put into the water carefully, so as not to make a splash that the whales would hear, they cast off in silence, and the men took to their paddles. I counted as a man, for I was at what was getting to be my usual place in Mr. Brown’s boat.
We were next to Mr. Snow in the circle in which the boats were spreading, and a little ahead of him. I did not look at Mr. Snow, for my eyes were otherwise occupied. I was aware of him, however, and knew that he was alternately looking briefly at the whales and glaring malevolently at the back of Silver, who rowed tub oar. Silver, although he wielded his paddle industriously, was aware of it too, and it made him nervous, so that he became awkward. Mr. Snow had put in his time since leaving Cape Town largely in gazing malevolently at Silver. He was a little thunder-cloud, threatening always, but doing no damage, except to haze Silver—haze meaning to punish by hard work, unnecessary usually, and as hard as possible—whenever he had the chance. This attitude had resulted in his becoming overbearing to the rest of his crew, and he was fast getting to be the most unpopular officer on the ship. Silver was not a little frightened, for he did not know what he might have said or done to Mr. Snow. He had been in a condition of irresponsibility at the time, and he could not remember. I had overheard him asking one man after another what it was, but they were in no better case for remembering, and could give him no comfort.