The Red Eric

Had an observant man been seated at the time in the forecastle, he would have noticed that from out of the ten or fifteen hammocks that swung from the beams, there suddenly darted ten or fifteen pairs of legs which rose to the perpendicular position in order to obtain leverage to “fetch way.” Instantly thereafter the said legs descended, and where the feet had been, ten or fifteen heads appeared. Next moment the men were “tumbling up” the fore-hatch to the deck, where the watch had already sprung to the boat-tackles.

“Where away?” sang out Captain Dunning who was among the first on deck.

“Off the weather bow, sir, three points.”

“How far?”

“About two miles. Thar she blows!”

“Call all hands,” shouted the captain.

“Starboard watch, ahoy!” roared the mate, in that curious hoarse voice peculiar to boatswains of men-of-war. “Tumble up, lads, tumble up! Whale in sight! Bear a hand, my hearties!”

The summons was almost unnecessary. The “starboard watch” was—with the exception of one or two uncommonly heavy sleepers—already on deck pulling on its ducks and buckling its belts.

“Thar she breaches, thar she blows!” again came from the crow’s-nest in the voice of a Stentor.

“Well done, Dick Barnes, you’re the first to raise the oil,” remarked one of the men, implying by the remark that the said Dick was fortunate enough to be the first to sight a whale.

“Where away now?” roared the captain, who was in a state of intense excitement.

“A mile an’ a half to leeward, sir.”

“Clear away the boats,” shouted the captain.

“Masthead, ahoy! D’ye see that whale now?”

“Ay, ay, sir. Thar she blows!”

“Bear a hand, my hearties,” cried the captain, as the men sprang to the boats which were swinging at the davits. “Get your tubs in! Clear your falls! Look alive, lads! Stand-by to lower! All ready?”

“All ready, sir.”

“Thar she blows!” came again from the masthead with redoubled energy. “Sperm-whales, sir; there’s a school of ’em.”

“A school of them!” whispered Ailie, who had left her post at the mizzen-shrouds, and now stood by her father’s side, looking on at the sudden hubbub in unspeakable amazement. “Do whales go to school?” she said, laughing.

“Out of the road, Ailie, my pet,” cried her father hastily. “You’ll get knocked over. Lower away, lads, lower away!”

Down went the starboard, larboard, and waist-boats as if the falls had been cut, and almost before you could wink the men literally tumbled over the side into them, took their places, and seized their oars.

“Here, Glynn, come with me, and I’ll show you a thing or two,” said the captain. “Jump in, lad; look sharp.”

Glynn instantly followed his commander into the starboard boat, and took the aft oar. Tim Rokens, being the harpooner of that boat, sat at the bow oar with his harpoons and lances beside him, and the whale-line coiled in a tub in the boat’s head. The captain steered.

And now commenced a race that taxed the boats’ crews to the utmost; for it is always a matter keenly contested by the different crews, who shall fix the first harpoon in the whale. The larboard boat was steered by Mr Millons, the first mate; the waist-boat by Mr Markham, the second mate—the latter an active man of about five-and-twenty, whose size and physical strength were herculean, and whose disposition was somewhat morose and gloomy.

“Now, lads, give way! That’s it! that’s the way. Bend your backs, now! do bend your backs,” cried the captain, as the three boats sprang from the ship’s side and made towards the nearest whale, with the white foam curling at their bow.

Several more whales appeared in sight spouting in all directions, and the men were wild with excitement.

“That’s it! Go it lads!” shouted Mr Millons, as the waist-boat began to creep ahead. “Lay it on! give way! What d’ye say, boys; shall we beat ’em?”

Captain Dunning stood in the stern-sheets of the starboard boat, almost dancing with excitement as he heard these words of encouragement.

“Give way, boys!” he cried. “They can’t do it! That whale’s ours—so it is. Only bend your backs! A steady pull! Pull like steam-tugs! That’s it! Bend the oars! Double ’em up! Smash ’em in bits, do!”

Without quite going the length of the captain’s last piece of advice, the men did their work nobly. They bent their strong backs with a will, and strained their sinewy arms to the utmost. Glynn, in particular, to whom the work was new, and therefore peculiarly exciting and interesting, almost tore the rowlocks out of the boat in his efforts to urge it on, and had the oar not been made of the toughest ash, there is no doubt that he would have obeyed the captain’s orders literally and have smashed it in bits.

On they flew like racehorses. Now one boat gained an inch on the others, then it lost ground again as the crew of another put forth additional energy, and the three danced over the glassy sea as if the inanimate planks had been suddenly endued with life, and inspired with the spirit that stirred the men.

A large sperm-whale lay about a quarter of a mile ahead, rolling lazily in the trough of the sea. Towards this the starboard boat now pulled with incredible speed, leaving the other two gradually astern. A number of whales rose in various directions. They had got into the midst of a shoal, or school of them, as the whale-men term it; and as several of these were nearer the other boats than the first whale was, they diverged towards them.

“There go flukes,” cried Rokens, as the whale raised its huge tail in the air and “sounded”—in other words, dived. For a few minutes the men lay on their oars, uncertain in what direction the whale would come up again; but their doubts were speedily removed by its rising within a few yards of the boat.

“Now, Rokens,” cried the captain; “now for it; give him the iron. Give way, lads; spring, boys. Softly now, softly.”

In another instant the boat’s bow was on the whale’s head, and Rokens buried a harpoon deep in its side.

“Stern all!” thundered the captain.

The men obeyed, and the boat was backed off the whale just in time to escape the blow of its tremendous flukes as it dived into the sea, the blue depths of which were instantly dyed red with the blood that flowed in torrents from the wound.

Down it went, carrying out the line at a rate that caused the chocks through which it passed to smoke. In a few minutes the line ceased to run out, and the whale returned to the surface. It had scarcely showed its nose, when the slack of the line was hauled in, and a second harpoon was fixed in its body.

Infuriated with pain, the mighty fish gave vent to a roar like a bull, rolled half over, and lashed the sea with his flukes, till, all round for many yards, it was churned into red slimy foam. Then he turned round, and dashed off with the speed of a locomotive engine, tearing the boat through the waves behind it, the water curling up like a white wall round the bows.

“She won’t stand that long,” muttered Glynn Proctor, as he rested on his oar, and looked over his shoulder at the straining line.

“That she will, boy,” said the captain; “and more than that, if need be. You’ll not be long of havin’ a chance of greasin’ your fingers, I’ll warrant.”

In a few minutes the speed began to slacken, and after a time they were able to haul in on the line. When the whale again came to the surface, a third harpoon was cleverly struck into it, and a spout of blood from its blow-hole showed that it was mortally wounded. In throwing the harpoon, Tim Rokens slipped his foot, and went down like a stone head-foremost into the sea. He came up again like a cork, and just as the boat flew past fortunately caught hold of Glynn Proctor’s hand. It was well that the grasp was a firm one, for the strain on their two arms was awful. In another minute Tim was in his place, ready with his lance to finish off the whale at its next rise.

Up it came again, foaming, breaching, and plunging from wave to wave, flinging torrents of blood and spray into the air. At one moment he reared his blunt gigantic head high above the sea; the next he buried his vast and quivering carcase deep in the gory brine, carrying down with him a perfect whirlpool of red foam. Then he rose again and made straight for the boat. Had he known his own power, he might have soon terminated the battle, and come off the victor, but fortunately he did not. Tim Rokens received his blunt nose on the point of his lance, and drove him back with mingled fury and terror. Another advance was made, and a successful lance-thrust delivered.

“That’s into his life,” cried the captain.

“So it is,” replied Rokens.

And so it was. A vital part had been struck. For some minutes the huge leviathan lashed and rolled and tossed in the trembling waves in his agony, while he spouted up gallons of blood with every throe; then he rolled over on his back, and lay extended a lifeless mass upon the waters.

“Now, lads; three cheers for our first whale. Hip! hip! hip!—”

The cheer that followed was given with all the energy and gusto inspired by a first victory, and it was repeated again and again, and over again, before the men felt themselves sufficiently relieved to commence the somewhat severe and tedious labour of towing the carcase to the ship.

It was a hard pull, for the whale had led them a long chase, and as the calm continued, those left aboard could not approach to meet the boats. The exhausted men were cheered, however, on getting aboard late that night, to find that the other boats had been equally successful, each of them having captured a sperm-whale.

Chapter Six.

Disagreeable Changes—Sagacious Conversations, and a Terrible Accident

A striking and by no means a pleasant change took place in the general appearance of the Red Eric immediately after the successful chase detailed in the last chapter.

Before the arrival of the whales the decks had been beautifully clean and white, for Captain Dunning was proud of his ship, and fond of cleanliness and order. A few hours after the said arrival the decks were smeared with grease, oil, and blood, and everything from stem to stern became from that day filthy and dirty.

This was a sad change to poor Ailie, who had not imagined it possible that so sudden and disagreeable an alteration could take place. But there was no help for it; the duties of the fishery in which they were engaged required that the whales should not only be caught, but cut up, boiled down to oil, and stowed away in the hold in casks.

If the scene was changed for the worse a few hours after the cutting-up operations were begun, it became infinitely more so when the try-works were set going, and the melting-fires were lighted, and huge volumes of smoke begrimed the masts, and sails, and rigging. It was vain to think of clearing up; had they attempted that, the men would have been over-tasked without any good being accomplished. There was only one course open to those who didn’t like it, and that was—to “grin and bear it.”

“Cutting out” and “trying in” are the terms used by whale-men to denote the processes of cutting off the flesh or “blubber” from the whale’s carcase, and reducing it to oil.

At an early hour on the following morning the first of these operations was commenced.

Ailie went about the decks, looking on with mingled wonder, interest, and disgust. She stepped about gingerly, as if afraid of coming in contact with slimy objects, and with her nose and mouth screwed up after the fashion of those who are obliged to endure bad smells. The expression of her face under the circumstances was amusing.

As for the men, they went about their work with relish, and total indifference as to consequences.

When the largest whale had been hauled alongside, ropes were attached to his head and tail, and the former was secured near the stern of the ship, while the latter was lashed to the bow; the cutting-tackle was then attached. This consisted of an arrangement of pulleys depending from the main-top, with a large blubber-hook at the end thereof. The cutting was commenced at the neck, and the hook attached; then the men hove on the windlass, and while the cutting was continued in a spiral direction round the whale’s body, the tackle raised the mass of flesh until it reached the fixed blocks above. This mass, when it could be hauled up no higher, was then cut off, and stowed away under the name of a “blanket-piece.” It weighed upwards of a ton. The hook being lowered and again attached, the process was continued until the whole was cut off. Afterwards, the head was severed from the body and hoisted on board, in order that the oil contained in the hollow of it might be baled out.

From the head of the first whale ten barrels of oil were obtained. The blubber yielded about eighty barrels.

When the “cutting out” was completed, and the remnants of bone and flesh were left to the sharks which swarmed round the vessel, revelling in their unusually rich banquet, the process of “trying in” commenced. “Trying in” is the term applied to the melting of the fat and the stowing of it away in barrels in the form of oil; and an uncommonly dirty process it is. The large “blanket-pieces” were cut into smaller portions, and put into the try-pots, which were kept in constant operation. At night the ship had all the appearance of a vessel on fire, and the scene on deck was particularly striking and unearthly.

One night several of the men were grouped on and around the windlass, chatting, singing, and “spinning yarns.” Ailie Dunning stood near them, lost in wonder and admiration; for the ears and eyes of the child were assailed in a manner never before experienced or dreamed of even in the most romantic mood of cloud-wandering.

It was a very dark night, darker than usual, and not a breath of wind ruffled the sea, which was like a sheet of undulating glass—for, be it remembered, there is no such thing at any time as absolute stillness in the ocean. At all times, even in the profoundest calm, the long, slow, gentle swell rises and sinks with unceasing regularity, like the bosom of a man in deep slumber.

Dense clouds of black smoke and occasional lurid sheets of flame rose from the try-works, which were situated between the foremast and the main-hatch. The tops of the masts were lost in the curling smoke, and the black waves of the sea gleamed and flashed in the red light all round the ship. One man stood in front of the melting-pot, pitching in pieces of blubber with a two-pronged pitchfork. Two comrades stood by the pots, stirring up their contents, and throwing their figures into wild uncouth attitudes, while the fire glared in their greasy faces, and converted the front of their entire persons into deep vermilion.

The oil was hissing in the try-pots; the rough weather-beaten faces of the men on the windlass were smeared, and their dirty-white ducks saturated, with oil. The decks were blood-stained; huge masses of flesh and blubber lay scattered about; sparks flew upwards in splendid showers as the men raked up the fires; the decks, bulwarks, railings, try-works, and windlass were covered with oil and slime, and glistening in the red glare. It was a terrible, murderous-looking scene, and filled Ailie’s mind with mingled feelings of wonder, disgust, and awe, as she leaned on a comparatively clean spot near the foremast, listening to the men and gazing at the rolling smoke and flames.

“Ain’t it beautiful?” said a short, fat little seaman named Gurney, who sat swinging his legs on the end of the windlass, and pointed, as he spoke, with the head of his pipe to a more than usually brilliant burst of sparks and flame that issued that moment from the works.

“Beautiful!” exclaimed a long-limbed, shambling fellow named Jim Scroggles, “why, that ain’t the word at all. Now, I calls it splendiferous.”

Scroggles looked round at his comrades, as if to appeal to their judgment as to the fitness of the word, but not receiving any encouragement, he thrust down the glowing tobacco in his pipe with the end of his little finger, and reiterated the word “splendiferous” with marked emphasis.

“Did ye ever see that word in Johnson?” inquired Gurney.

“Who’s Johnson?” said Scroggles, contemptuously.

“Wot, don’t ye know who Johnson is?” cried Gurney, in surprise.

“In course I don’t; how should I?” retorted Scroggles. “There’s ever so many Johnsons in the world; which on ’em all do you mean?”

“Why, I mean Johnson wot wrote the diksh’nary—the great lexikragofer.”

“Oh, it’s him you mean, is it? In course I’ve knowed him ever since I wos at school.”

A general laugh interrupted the speaker.

“At school!” cried Nickel Sling, who approached the group at that moment with a carving knife in his hand—he seldom went anywhere without an instrument of office in his hand—“At school! Wal now, that beats creation. If ye wos, I’m sartin ye only larned to forgit all ye orter to have remembered. I’d take a bet now, ye wosn’t at school as long as I’ve been settin’ on this here windlass.”

“Yer about right, Sling, it ’ud be unpossible for me to be as long as you anywhere, ’cause everybody knows I’m only five fut two, whereas you’re six fut four!”

“Hear, hear!” shouted Dick Barnes—a man with a huge black beard, who the reader may perhaps remember was the first to “raise the oil.” “It’ll be long before you make another joke like that, Gurney. Come, now, give us a song, Gurney, do; there’s the cap’n’s darter standin’ by the foremast, a-waitin’ to hear ye. Give us ‘Long, long ago.’”

“Ah! that’s it, give us a song,” cried the men. “Come, there’s a good fellow.”

“Well, it’s so long ago since I sung that song, shipmates,” replied Gurney, “that I’ve bin and forgot it; but Tim Rokens knows it; where’s Rokens?”

“He’s in the watch below.”

In sea parlance, the men whose turn it is to take rest after their long watch on deck are somewhat facetiously said to belong to the “watch below.”

“Ah! that’s a pity; so we can’t have that ’ere partickler song. But I’ll give ye another, if ye don’t object.”

“No, no. All right; go ahead, Gurney! Is there a chorus to it?”

“Ay, in course there is. Wot’s a song without a chorus? Wot’s plum-duff without the plums? Wot’s a ship without a ’elm? It’s my opinion, shipmates, that a song without a chorus is no better than it should be. It’s wus nor nothin’. It puts them wot listens in the blues an’ the man wot sings into the stews—an’ sarve him right. I wouldn’t, no, I wouldn’t give the fag-end o’ nothin’ mixed in bucket o’ salt water for a song without a chorus—that’s flat; so here goes.”

Having delivered himself of these opinions in an extremely vigorous manner, and announced the fact that he was about to begin, Gurney cleared his throat and drew a number of violent puffs from his pipe in quick succession, in order to kindle that instrument into a glow which would last through the first verse and the commencement of the chorus. This he knew was sufficient, for the men, when once fairly started on the chorus, would infallibly go on to the end with or without his assistance, and would therefore afford him time for a few restorative whiffs.

“It hain’t got no name, lads.”

“Never mind, Gurney—all right—fire away.”

“Oh, I once know’d a man as hadn’t got a nose,    An’ this is how he come to hadn’t—One cold winter night he went and got it froze—    By the pain he was well-nigh madden’d.        (Chorus.) Well-nigh madden’d,            By the pain he was well-nigh madden’d.“Next day it swoll up as big as my head,    An’ it turn’d like a piece of putty;It kivered up his mouth, oh, yes, so it did,    So he could not smoke his cutty.        (Chorus.) Smoke his cutty,            So he could not smoke his cutty.“Next day it grew black, and the next day blue,    An’ tough as a junk of leather;(Oh! he yelled, so he did, fit to pierce ye through)—    An’ then it fell off altogether!        (Chorus.) Fell off altogether,            An’ then it fell off altogether!“But the morial is wot you’ve now got to hear,    An’ it’s good—as sure as a gun;An’ you’ll never forget it, my messmates dear,    For this song it hain’t got none!            (Chorus.) Hain’t got none,                For this song it hain’t got none!”

The applause that followed this song was most enthusiastic, and evidently gratifying to Gurney, who assumed a modest deprecatory air as he proceeded to light his pipe, which had been allowed to go out at the third verse, the performer having become so engrossed in his subject as to have forgotten the interlude of puffs at that point.

“Well sung, Gurney. Who made it?” inquired Phil Briant, an Irishman, who, besides being a jack-of-all-trades and an able-bodied seaman, was at that time acting-assistant to the cook and steward, the latter—a half Spaniard and half negro, of Californian extraction—being unwell.

“I’m bound not to tell,” replied Gurney, with a conscious air.

“Ah, then, yer right, my boy, for it’s below the average entirely.”

“Come, Phil, none o’ yer chaff,” cried Dick Barnes, “that song desarves somethin’ arter it. Suppose now, Phil, that you wos to go below and fetch the bread-kid.”

“Couldn’t do it,” replied Phil, looking solemn, “on no account wotiver.”

“Oh, nonsense, why not?”

“’Cause its unpossible. Why, if I did, sure that surly compound o’ all sorts o’ human blood would pitch into me with the carvin’-knife.”

“Who? Tarquin?” cried Dick Barnes, naming the steward.

“Ay, sure enough that same—Tarquin’s his name, an it’s kuriously befittin’ the haythen, for of all the cross-grained mixtures o’ buffalo, bear, bandicoot, and crackadile I iver seed, he’s out o’ sight—”

“Did I hear any one mention my name?” inquired the steward himself who came aft at that moment. He was a wild Spanish-like fellow, with a handsome-enough figure, and a swart countenance that might have been good-looking but for the thickish lips and nose and the bad temper that marked it. Since getting into the tropics, the sailors had modified their costumes considerably, and as each man had in some particular allowed himself a slight play of fancy, their appearance, when grouped together, was varied and picturesque. Most of them wore no shoes, and the caps of some were, to say the least, peculiar. Tarquin wore a broad-brimmed straw hat, with a conical crown, and a red silk sash tied round his waist.

“Yes, Tarquin,” replied Barnes, “we wos engaged in makin’ free-an’-easy remarks on you; and Phil Briant there gave us to understand that you wouldn’t let us have the bread—kid up. Now, it’s my opinion you ain’t goin’ to be so hard on us as that; you will let us have it up to comfort our hearts on this fine night, won’t you?”

The steward, whose green visage showed that he was too ill to enter into a dispute at that time, turned on his heel and walked aft, remarking that they might eat the bottom out o’ the ship, for all he cared.

“There now, you misbemannered Patlander, go and get it, or we’ll throw you overboard,” cried Scroggles, twisting his long limbs awkwardly as he shifted his position on the windlass.

“Now, then, shipmates, don’t go for to ax it,” said Briant, remaining immovable. “Don’t I know wot’s best for ye? Let me spaake to ye now. Did any of ye iver study midsin?”

“No!” cried several with a laugh.

“Sure I thought not,” continued Phil, with a patronising air, “or ye’d niver ask for the bread—kid out o’ saisin. Now I was in the medical way meself wance—ay, ye may laugh, but it’s thrue—I wos ’prentice to a ’pothecary, an’ I’ve mixed up more midsins than would pisen the whole popilation of owld Ireland—barrin’ the praists, av coorse. And didn’t I hear the convarse o’ all the doctors in the place? And wasn’t the word always—‘Be rigglar with yer mails—don’t ait, avic, more nor three times a day, and not too much, now. Be sparin’.’”

“Hah! ye long-winded grampus,” interrupted Dick Barnes, impatiently. “An’ warn’t the doctors right? Three times a day for sick folk, and six times—or more—for them wot’s well.”

“Hear, hear!” cried the others, while two of them seized Briant by the neck, and thrust him forcibly towards the after-hatch. “Bring up the kid, now; an’ if ye come without it, look out for squalls.”

“Och! worse luck,” sighed the misused assistant, as he disappeared.

In a few minutes Phil returned with the kid, which was a species of tray filled with broken sea-biscuit, which, when afloat, goes by the name of “bread.”