The tide dragged at the hem of my skirt as we stood there eating. A crowd of wee ones came to greet us. Figgie tossed the empty shells to them as if they were gold coins. I towered over the whole group as our procession headed into the village. Figgie guided us to a lodge in the center of the camp. He called it the Tjungu. It looked like a meeting hall.
Inside, coals from a circular fire pit glowed orange and green. An occasional flame grabbed toward the sky, spitting gold embers harmlessly toward a hole in the roof. A lone figure sat in a rattan fan chair. He wore a colorful kimono and dark knickers. His hair and beard were as white as mountain snow. Sitting cross-legged, he motioned us to him.
Figgie approached, greeting the old fella warmly in his own tongue. They nodded in agreement as the old bloke waved for me to sit next to him. “This is Uncle,” said Figgie, respectfully. “He is a cure man. Please…” Figgie motioned me to move closer to the old man. “He can no longer see with his eyes, but his mind remembers you.”
Well, fancy that. I knelt next to him so he could touch my face. He talked to Figgie in rapid sentences. The tips of his fingers felt like croc skin.
“He says you have high cheekbones and a slender nose,” said Figgie, embarrassed by the observations, “but wants to know why your hair is so short.”
“So I can work the whaleboats someday,” I said, crossing my arms.
Figgie looked surprised as one might be catching the scent of something awful that passed.
Uncle nodded his head repeatedly and wanted to know if I had green eyes. “She does,” Figgie said, matter-of-factly in their tongue and in English. The old man nodded in recognition as he rubbed the back of his hand on my right cheek where the pockmarks gullied my skin. I looked away, ashamed of my disfigurement.
“Uncle thinks your Dreaming is very strong,” Figgie said.
Before I could say anything, Uncle clapped his hands. A group of men entered the Tjungu. Two of them carried a sea tortoise shell and placed it upside down on the coals. They shoved heated rocks into the neck hole and tuffed grasses in the other openings so it cooked in its own juices. We sat in a circle and listened as Figgie translated Uncle’s tales of Prince Jimmy and the ancestors. With each spoken word another coal glowed until the whole fire pit flickered blue.
The simmering sweetness escaping the shell made me hungry. Uncle shouted and two older women entered the hut. They quietly scoffed at me as they cut blocks of the chalk-white meat and strips of bright green fat from the shell. One of them slapped my hand away as the steaming coolamon passed my way. Figgie grabbed the long, flat plate and held it before me. Uncle chastised the women. They knew I didn’t belong with the men, yet where was my place? Where were my table and ancestors? We drank kava tea as the afternoon sun drifted toward the mountains. Everyone seemed so content and relaxed.
I had to ask.
“Does Uncle know any stories about my family?”
Figgie looked at Uncle, who sat motionless absorbing what Figgie translated. He threw his hands in the air. I wondered if he was reacting to the whispering among the other men. Uncle held a shaky finger aloft as if he were about to proclaim something and slumped into his chair.
“Uncle grows tired,” said Figgie, “he must rest now.”
“What was he going to say?” I asked Figgie, rising to my knees.
All the loud chatter in the room dribbled to a stop. Figgie looked confused by my question so I asked it again. “We must go,” he said. “It has been a long day.”
Uncle reached for help to stand. I stretched across the fire pit, grabbing his hand before any of the others did. The heat seared my arm as I solicited him again. I squeezed his palm as hard as I could, but his grip lashed my fingers, crushing them together.
“He knows what you want, Savannah,” said Figgie. “The question is, do you know what you are asking for?”
“I just want to learn something about my life,” I said, looking at Uncle’s weathered face.
“But not today,” said Figgie, looking at Uncle. “I’m sorry, Savannah.”
Figgie walked me back along the shore in silence. Soon we reached the river mouth. I’d never realized how close his village was to Loch Bultarra. I heard the men in the bunkhouses singing and carousing as their oil lamps flickered in the dusk. Farther away, Abe’s settlement was finishing a day of worship while a few Arab whalers prayed facing northwest. The next morning church bells would ring. We stopped at a grove of trees. Papa angered if I didn’t return before dark. I felt most peculiar that day. Yet I wanted to see this perplexing boy again.
“Might you be coming about from time to time?” I asked.
“Unquestionably,” Figgie said, disappearing into the trees.
I glanced at the darkening cemetery. There were no ghosts. Although I could barely see, I knew that from now on everything would look different.
I rolled the pencils over again in my pocket to make sure they all made it through the journey. These woods and graves aren’t so silent after all. At least now I knew there were some secrets buried about my past. Yet I couldn’t let them deter me.
I had much to do if I ever expected to draw wages on a whaleboat. It all started with Abraham Hobson.
7.
We didn’t waste any time getting the boats refitted.
Papa, Abe, Warrain, and Lon did a top-to-bottom inspection of the whaleboats. For good measure, they pawed over the try works, too. One of the boats wasn’t seaworthy and needed the hull planking removed down to the ribbing because of woodworms. The other three had to be repacked, sealed, and painted. If you added in the one that went missing after the storm last season, we were down two boats. They also found split oars, two ripped sails, and broken thwarts. Frayed ropes, rusty irons, bent lances, and missing buckets were among the other things that needed fixing.
The try works had its problems, too. Three courses of brick holding the pots broke loose. It seemed to agitate Papa more than any brick should. He kicked the loose ones off with his boot and started pawing at the cracked mortar with his hands.
The history of Reflect Bay was holed up in those layers, Papa earbashed to anyone listening. I’d never paid his talk any mind before. But now that I knew that Figgie’s and my grandpops, Prince Jimmy and Pop Alex, were partners, the story took on a whole new meaning. Papa said they both dragged the lower stones for the try works here when whaling was just a side business for them. They made lime for the mortar by burning oyster shells. Convicts shipped here on the Castle Forbes made all the bricks with the arrows on them. The next five rows of brick had come from abandoned buildings in Doddstown.
“This place isn’t worth whale scat,” Papa said to no one in particular as he smacked two bricks together. “Well, there’s no time for wallowing, work’s to be done after the Sabbath.”
Sometimes the best way to get a history lesson is to witness it.
Everyone at the station was set with chores to put the place in Bristol fashion. I was to seal and paint the boats with the children from the village while Papa and the crew prepared to do the heavy lifting. I held my breath as he went down the list, praying he wouldn’t bring up cooking. I let out a deep sigh as Papa headed back toward the house.
“Don’t forget we have meals to plan, Savannah!” he yelled, without turning around.
Well, that made it as good a time as any to go visit Abe. His cottage was just down the hill from the bunkhouses where the orchard began. Eight other Jewish families had settled there along with a blacksmith and a tanner. Abe had been Papa’s first mate for as long as I could remember. If you talked to Abe, it was as good as gamming with Papa himself.
Abe and Frieda lived in a whitewashed wattle-and-daub house with their five smiling poddies. I gave a heavy knock to their dark blue door so they’d know I meant business. Inside I could see the stringybark beams holding up the thatched roof.
“Oh, Savannah, it�
�s you. Come sit at the table and let me look at you,” Abe boomed from the fireplace.
He invited me to an afternoon repast of damper bread, mutton stew, and a pot of sassafras tea. Frieda rolled her eyes and shook her head with a smile as she set another plate.
“Can she get any taller or prettier, Frieda?” Abe asked, without expecting an answer.
Abe smothered me in compliments the way Frieda smothered the mutton with onions. In both cases, I found the recipes to my liking. He mentioned he’d seen three killers moving up the inlet that morning. I wanted to say, If we relied on me instead of those Blackfish, we wouldn’t need their blood money and my brothers could rest easy. Before the words came, Abe mentioned how tasty the stew had been the previous day.
It was a mistake right away.
“I ain’t meant to be no cook, Mr. Hobson,” I said, pounding the table.
Abe knew full well that I’d wanted to be a whaler ever since I could walk. He’d imagined I would outgrow my fancy for it, but I hadn’t.
I wouldn’t.
“I am no cook,” I told him again. “I got a right to choose what I do as much as the next person.”
Abe laughed, then muttered something in Hebrew as he looked skyward. “What under Yahweh’s vaulted blue sky does this have to do with me?” he asked as he offered more bread.
I threw myself on his mercy. “All I want is a chance to prove myself, no better no worse,” I said, grabbing his rough hands. Abe asked me what I had in mind. “Tub oarsman would be the first step,” I added, knowing that everyone started at the bottom. I already knew how to wrap rope in the boat tub. All I had to do was wet the line once the whale was harpooned so it wouldn’t burn while being pulled out.
“Hmm,” he added, stroking his beard as if he were trying to see the sense of it. “Those lines are fickle,” he said. “Doubtless there’d be broken fingers, burns, and worse. You’ve not chosen an easy path for yourself.”
“I know the ropes from lugging, storing, and rewinding the tubs every spring,” I said.
“You know it’s not rope I’m talking of,” said Abe. “A crew’s a superstitious lot; they’ll blame you for every misery and mistake they make.”
“A wee bit of sailor wind won’t get the best of me,” I declared, thumping my chest.
“Well, if that don’t stone the crows. You’re a Dawson if there ever was one,” he said, laughing. “There’s no lack of starch in you. Your papa and me were near your age when we took our first whale. There’s danger to it, for sure,” he said, “but there’s danger in plain living, too.”
“Think you might be answering your own question,” I said.
Abe nodded and agreed to have a gam with Papa on my behalf. I jumped out of my chair and bear-hugged him with a forehead kiss. Frieda and the wee ones laughed at their pa’s red face as I smoothed myself out proper and sat again. With the meal ending, we sang the Birkat in Hebrew as Abe had taught me when I was younger.
And so, I set to practicing a tub oarsman’s ways.
Over the next few days, I took a tub of old rope and a bucket of water out behind the bunkhouses and sat down next to it as if I were in a whaleboat. I grabbed Quilp and tied him to the open end of the rope. This didn’t mean much to that lounging cat until I whistled for Ulysses, the sandgropers’ border collie. He came running and Quilp took off like a whale during a hunt. I practiced wetting the line so it didn’t burn or break. I did this until Ulysses and Quilp were too tired to chase each other and just lay there with tongues wagging. I rewarded them with water and bones. By the time we were finished, neither of those animals wanted to come near me.
Bringing the line and buckets back to the storage barn, I heard muffled voices. I didn’t recognize them until they were right on top of me. It was Papa and Abe. I could stroll by with a nice friendly greeting, but instinctively, I ducked behind the half-stable door to the tool room. Holding my knees to my chest, I sat there quietly.
Abe reminisced about how his family had come to Paradise some sixty years earlier. His father’s whaler, the Coracini, had been caught on the rocks off the Camel Spit. I never knew that or any of what had transpired. Pop Alex had offered his father, Solomon Ben Hobson, food and shelter while Prince Jimmy and the villagers repaired the hull. It got so that Sol loved Reflect Bay so much that he and twelve of his crew decided to stay. The try pots, whaleboats, and all the salvageable parts from the Coracini had launched the whaling station. I’d always wondered where those big iron pots had come from.
“That day a partnership was formed between three peoples,” Abe said softly. “A bond I trust that will never be broken.”
“Sounds serious, Abe,” said Papa. “What’s eating you?”
“Not me, Caleb, you,” said Abe.
“Well,” said Papa. I heard the two men moving about crates to sit down. During a long stretch of silence, I didn’t dare take a breath. “You’re not gonna lecture me on the orchards again, are ya?” asked Papa.
“No, no,” said Abe. “It’s about Savannah.”
“I see,” said Papa as the bracing on one of the crates creaked.
“I believe no man has the right to interfere with another’s family,” said Abe. “So I say this as a member of our station family.”
“Say yer piece, Abraham. You always do,” Papa said in his firm voice.
“You should consider her for the boats,” Abe said. “On merit alone, she deserves it. She’s got the gift.”
“Maybe so,” answered Papa, “but there’s more to whaling than wanting.”
“Did we have much more than that when we were her age, casting about in that old rowboat when the crews went on without us?” Abe asked.
“Different time, mate,” said Papa with salt in his voice.
“Not so different in these matters,” said Abe.
“There’s nine hundred fathoms of line sizzling through that loggerhead,” said Papa, raising his voice, “and the limbs and lives of six crew that go with it.”
“Caleb, the lads aren’t coming back to whaling the way they used to,” said Abe, his voice weary. “They’re off to the clean new factories in Sydney and Melbourne.”
“She’s a girl, blast it all,” snapped Papa, slapping his hands together.
“In clothing only,” said Abe. “In her heart, she’s more whaler than the both of us.”
“Let her on board and it’s Rafferty’s Rules,” said Papa as a crate thumped flat.
“Listen, Caleb,” added Abe, again lowering his voice. “I know what you’ve lost and what you’re afraid of losing. But if you deny her a chance to be something she really wants, it will eat away at the both of you as surely as those worms ate the innards out of those whaleboats.”
“You’re a good man, Abraham Hobson, and a better friend,” said Papa.
“And another thing,” added Abe. “The men can’t take much more of this diarrhea from the cooking. We’ll both end up in the pots over that.”
I heard the two of them laughing and slapping shoulders in a steely hug.
“Join me for a smoke-o on the porch?” asked Papa.
When their voices trailed into vapor, I stood up and dusted myself off. It was hard hearing yourself talked up like a sheep going for shearing. It was even harder trying to figure which way the wind would take this. I was indignant about Abe slighting my cooking. It was one thing not to want to be a cook; it was quite another to hear you were unfit for the task.
One thing was for sure. Quilp wasn’t a whale and I wasn’t a whaler—yet.
Maybe there was more to whaling than the wanting. The wanting had always been about Papa and me doing something together that mattered. Mattered to him. Only I couldn’t say I knew what mattered to Papa anymore, outside of counting barrels of oil and keeping those black beasties happy. There were others in the boats too—Abe, Warrain, Lonny, the Gretch brothers, and now F
iggie. We’d all be relying on each other.
As Abe said, I’d thrust a heavy load upon myself. All the stories from the last two days buzzed around me like mosquitoes. Figgie, Abe, Papa, and Uncle were telling me about the past and how the present got to be. It was a lot for my bloated brain to digest. And I hoped to handle it far better than the crew did my last supper.
On Sunday nights, Papa invited the crew over for draughts tournaments. Bring your own boards, pieces, and spirits if need be. Papa had a fancy board made of mahogany and oak that Pop Alex had given him when he was my age. He polished it with oil and kept the black and red pieces in a velvet-lined box. Before the lads arrived, Papa always took out his big tin of tobacco and box of matches and put them on the fireplace mantle.
He gave me fair warning. “Be scarce. Gambling and girls don’t mix.”
It was no different that night.
To entertain myself, I often snuck behind the bunks where the lads ran a shebeen. Once they dipped their tins into the homebrew, I’d blow a walloper’s whistle and watched them cursing and flopping about looking for blue uniforms. The next day, when I knew the druth was chasing them, I’d swap their water bucket for an old leaky one and watched the thirsty crew snipe the day away.
I had done that twice already and couldn’t chance getting caught at it.
I resigned myself to sitting in my room with those eight scruffy cats jumping on me. Since I’d gotten the pencils, if I couldn’t make sense of something, I sketched to calm my brain fever. With no paper around, I looked for anything to scribble on. Above my bunk a picture of the good Lord hung. I took it off the wall and, sure enough, the back had some nice white illustrating room. I removed the frame and started drawing, unsure of where it was taking me.
Slowly, the figures from my feast in the village with Figgie took shape. I rubbed yellow and blue together for the fire pit and used red for the faces of the sneering women. I sketched myself all pale and out of sorts with oyster shell eyes. I was inspecting the drawing when I heard Lon, Warrain, and a bunch of the other crew barge through the front door like cattle after corn.
The Whaler's Daughter Page 4
