Book 10 - The Far Side Of The World

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Because it is only sperms that are concerned with ambergris,' said Allen, 'and they do not go up into the northern waters. The whales you see there are a few right whales and all the rest are those wicked old finners.'

  'Perhaps the sperms find the ambergris on the sea-bed and eat it,' said Jack. 'The right whales or the finners could never manage such a thing, with all that whalebone in the way.'

  'Perhaps so, sir,' said Allen. 'Our surgeon rather fancied it originated in the whales themselves, but he could not really make it out. The fact that it was waxy and as he said un-animal puzzled him to the end.'

  'And did you find any, when you inspected the whale's intestines?' asked Stephen.

  'Only a little, I am afraid,' said Allen, 'and that only in one fish. It was rare that we could search thoroughly, since we flensed 'em all, or nearly all, at sea.'

  'I have never seen ambergris,' said Mowett. 'What is it like?'

  'A smooth rounded mass of no particular shape,' said Allen. 'Dark mottled or marbled grey when first you take it out, rather waxy and strong smelling, not very heavy: then after a while it grows lighter-coloured and much harder and takes to smelling sweet.'

  'Eggs and ambergris was Charles II's favourite dish,' observed Martin, and Pullings said, ' I believe it is worth its weight in gold.' They reflected upon this for a while, slowly passing the brandy-decanter round, and then Allen went on. 'So since we opened the whales in any case when the weather allowed it Mr Leadbetter took the opportunity of looking into their anatomies.'

  'Excellent. Very good,' said Stephen.

  'And as he and I were particular friends I used to help him: I wish I could remember a tenth part of the things he explained to me, but it was all a great while ago. Teeth in the lower jaw only, I recall; the two nostrils uniting to make a single valved blow hole and therefore an asymmetrical skull; scarcely more than a trace of pelvis, no clavicles, no gall-bladder, no caecum—'

  'No caecum?' cried Stephen.

  'No, sir, none at all! I remember how on one calm day with the whale floating easy by the ship we passed the whole length of the intestine through our hands, a hundred and six fathoms in all—'

  'Oh no,' murmured Jack, pushing his glass from him.

  '—without finding even a hint of one. No caecum: but on the other hand an enormous heart, a yard long. I remember how we put one in a net and hoisted it aboard; he measured and calculated that it pumped ten or eleven gallons of blood a stroke—the aorta was a foot across. And I remember how soon we got used to standing there among the huge warm guts, and how one day we opened one that had a calf in her and he showed me the umbilicus, placenta, and . . .'

  Jack abstracted his mind from Allen's account. He had seen more blood shed in anger than most men and he was not unduly squeamish; but placid butchery he could not bear. Pullings and Mowett were of much the same frame of mind and presently Allen became aware that upon the whole the cabin did not relish his discourse and he changed the subject.

  Jack came out of his reverie, hearing the word Jonah; and for a confused moment he thought they were speaking of Hollom. But then he realized that Allen had just said that in view of their anatomy it was no doubt a sperm whale that had swallowed the prophet—they were sometimes to be found in the Mediterranean.

  The sailors, happy to be released from Fallopian tubes and biliary concretions, spoke of sperms they had seen within the Straits, Jonahs they had known, the horrible fate of ships in which Jonahs had sailed, and Jack's party ended in an even more civilized way, moving from the sea to the land—plays seen, balls attended, and a furlong by furlong account of a fox-chase in which Mowett and Mr Ferney's hounds would certainly have come up with their quarry if he had not plunged into a field-drain as darkness came on.

  But although the cabin escaped more grisly details, the gun-room did not: here the master, unawed by the Captain's presence and supported—indeed spurred on—by the surgeon and chaplain against the disapproval of his messmates, might deliver all the anatomy his powerful memory had retained; and in any case Mr Adams the purser, who was of a hypochondriacal cast, liked to hear; while anything that even remotely touched upon sexual matters fascinated Howard of the Marines.

  Not all the details were grisly, however, nor even anatomical. 'I have read accounts of northern voyages, and of the pursuit of the whale,' said Martin, 'but I have never been able to form any clear notion of the economy of whaling. From that point of view, how would you compare the northern and southern fisheries?'

  'When I was young,' said Allen, 'before the Greenland waters fell off, we used to reckon that five good fish would pay the voyage. On the average we might take thirteen ton of oil from each, and close on a ton of whalebone; and in those days a ton of whalebone fetched about five hundred pound. The oil was twenty pound a ton or a little better, and then there was the bounty of two pound a ton for the ship, so you would end up with perhaps four thousand five hundred. It had to be divided among some fifty people, and of course the ship had to have her share; yet even so it was a reasonable voyage. But now although the oil has risen to thirty-two pound the bone has dropped to no more than ninety, and the whales are smaller and fewer and farther off, so you need nearer twenty fish not to lose by the trip.'

  'I had no idea whalebone could be so costly,' said the purser. 'What is it used for?'

  'Fripperies,' said Allen. 'Milliners' and dressmakers' fripperies: and umbrellas.'

  'And how does that compare with the southern fishery?' asked Martin. 'For if the only quarry is the sperm, there can be no question of whalebone in the south. The voyage must be made for the oil alone.'

  'So it is,' said the master. 'And when you consider that taken one with another sperms give no more than two tons of oil, whereas a good Greenlander gives ten times as much and prime bone too, it seems a foolish venture; for although sperm whale oil fetches something like twice as much as ordinary oil and the head-matter, the spermaceti, fifty pound a ton, that does not compensate for the lack of bone. Oh damn my—that is to say, oh dear me, no.'

  'Please to explain the apparent contradiction,' said Stephen.

  'Why, Doctor,' said Allen, smiling on him with all the benevolence of superior knowledge—nay, superior wisdom, 'don't you see it lies in the time available? In the Arctic Ocean—in the Greenland fishery—we set out in early April to reach the edge of the ice a month later: in the middle of May the whales arrive and in the middle of June they are away, leaving nothing but those wicked finners behind them, and a few bottle-noses that are neither here nor there. If you have not filled half your barrels you may steer westward for the Greenland coast and try your luck along the drift-ice for what it's worth until August; but by then 'tis getting so cold and dark you must go home. It is much the same in Davis Strait, though you may stay a little longer in the sounds if you don't mind the risk of being frozen in till next year, your ship being crushed maybe and you eaten up by the ice-bears. Whereas the sperm lives in the temperate and tropical waters, do you see, and you may hunt him as long as you please. Nowadays most southern whalers reckon on staying out three years, killing perhaps two hundred fish and coming home with a full ship.'

  'Of course, of course,' cried Stephen, clapping his hand to his forehead. 'How foolish of me.' He turned to the servant behind his chair, saying, 'Will you fetch me my cigar-case, now, Padeen?' and to the master, 'Mr Allen, do you choose to take a turn upon the deck? You have twice mentioned the finner with strong disapprobation, and Mr Martin and I would be most grateful, were you to develop your views at greater length.'

  'I will be with you in five minutes,' said the master, 'as soon as I have clean-copied my noon observation and pricked the chart.'

  They waited for him by the starboard hances, and after a while Stephen said, 'Were there so much as a blade of grass in view or a sheep, you might call this a pastoral scene.' He exhaled a waft of smoke that drifted forward, a coherent body, over the waist of the ship, for the breeze was still right aft, blowing with so even a breath that th
e countless shirts, trousers, jackets and handkerchiefs hanging on the complex system of lines rigged fore and aft all leaned southward together in an orderly manner, like soldiers on parade—no wanton flapping, no irregularity. With much the same sobriety their owners sat here and there upon the forecastle and among the maindeck guns: this was a make-and-mend afternoon, and for the new hands at least it meant turning the yards and yards of duck they had been given that morning into hot-weather clothes. It was not only the foremast jacks who were busy with their needles, either: on the larboard gangway one of the new youngsters, William Blakeney, Lord Garron's son, was learning how to darn his stockings under the eye of the lady of the gun-room, a bearded hand who had served under his father and who in the natural course of events was now acting as his sea-daddy, a capital darner who had attended to the Admiral's tablecloths in his time; while Hollom sat on the larboard ladder, showing yet another squeaker the best way of sewing on a pocket, singing quietly to himself as he did so.

  'What a beautiful voice that young man has,' said Martin.

  'So he has, too,' said Stephen, listening more intently: it was indeed wonderfully melodious and true, and the tired old ballad sounded fresh, new and moving. Stephen leant over and identified the singer. 'If he goes on improving like this,' he reflected, 'the men will soon stop calling him Jonah.' For the first days Hollom had eaten wolfishly, filling out with remarkable speed; he no longer looked graveyard-thin nor absurdly old for a master's mate—in fact he might have been called handsome by those who did not require a great deal of masculine determination and energy—and poverty and ill-luck no longer stared from his clothes. He had obtained an advance on his pay, enough to unpawn his sextant and to buy a fairly good coat, and since these were duck pantaloon and round jacket latitudes—no officers wearing uniform except for visits to the cabin or taking the watch—he looked as well as any of them, being exceptionally clever with his needle. He messed with Ward, Jack's conscientious, quiet, somewhat colourless clerk, a man who had been saving for years to put down the surety required before he could become a purser, his highest ambition, and with Higgins, Stephen's new assistant. He had not distinguished himself by any extraordinary display of skill or effectual drive during the furious days of fitting out, but on the other hand he had done nothing to make Jack regret taking him aboard. 'All in the lowland sea ho,' he sang, bringing the verse and the seam both to an end. 'There,' he said to the youngster, 'you finish it off by running it through half a dozen times and casting a round knot in the last turn.' He cut the thread and handed the boy the spool and scissors, saying, 'Run down to the gunner's and give these back to Mrs Horner with my best compliments and thanks.'

  Stephen felt a gentle nuzzling at his hand, and looking down he saw that it was Aspasia, the gun-room goat, come to remind him of his duty. 'Very well, very well,' he said testily, taking a final draught from his cigar: he quenched the glowing end on a belaying-pin, wiped the pin over the side, and gave Aspasia the stub. She walked quietly back to the shade of the hen-coops by the wheel, chewing it, her eyes half-closed, and as she went she crossed the path of the master hurrying forward. 'I am sorry to have kept you waiting,' he said. 'I was obliged to mend my pen.' 'Not at all,' they said, and he went on, 'Well now, as for these old finners, gentlemen, you have four main kinds, and there is nothing to be said for any of 'em.'

  'Why is this, Mr Allen?' asked Martin in a disapproving tone: he did not like to hear so large a branch of creation condemned.

  'Because if you plant your harpoon in a finner he is apt to knock your boat to matchwood or sound so deep and run so fast he either tows you under or takes out all your line; never was a creature so huge and fast—I have seen one run at thirty-five knots, gentlemen! A hundred foot long and God knows how many tons running at thirty-five knots, twice as fast as a galloping horse! It is unbelievable, was you not to see it with your own eyes. And if by any wild chance you do kill him or far more likely if you come upon him stranded, his whalebone is so short and coarse and mostly black the merchants will not always make an offer; nor will he yield you much above fifty barrels of indifferent oil.'

  'He can scarcely be blamed for resenting the harpoon,' said Martin

  'I remember my third voyage,' Allen went on, not attending. 'We were over by the Greenland shore, late in the year, since we had not filled even half our hold. Thick weather, a northern swell making the ice creak loud, a bitter cold evening coming on, and one of our boats got fast to a finwhale. How they came to do it I cannot conceive. Edward Norris, the harpooner, was an experienced whaler and even a first-voyager can tell a finner by his spout—quite unlike a right whale's. And you can see his back fin as he rolls over and goes down again. Any gate, you see him plain when you are close enough to plant your iron. But however it happened, with fog or waves, or wind in the harpooner's eyes, there they were, fast to a finner. Up went their flag for more whale-lines and they clapped 'em on one after another: a tricky job, with the line running out so fast that it makes the bollard char and hiss as you keep pouring water on it. He carried out four full tubs and part of a fifth, close on a mile of line; and he stayed down a great while, maybe half an hour. When he came up old Bingham, the headsman, lanced him directly, and that was the end. He spouted red, threw up his flukes, and set off south by west like a racehorse. They all screeched out for help—we saw the boat tearing along, throwing white water far on either side, going fast away into the murk—what they had done we could not tell—maybe a kink in the line round a man's leg and him half over the side so they dared not cut, or maybe a hitch round a sprung plank—but anyhow a moment later down they went, towed under among the ice, six men and we never found trace of them, not so much as a fur hat floating.'

  'The sperm whale is not quite so swift or so formidable, I collect?' said Stephen after a pause.

  'No. He could be, with that terrible great jaw. He could snap you a whale-boat in two and scarcely notice it. But he hardly ever does. Sometimes he beats you to pieces with his flukes, sounding or lashing in his death-agony; but he does not go for to do it. There is no vice in him. Why, in those early days, when no whalers had ever been in the great South Sea almost, he would lie there awash looking at you quite kind and inquisitive with his little eye. I've touched him before now, touched him with my hand.'

  'Do any whales attack, unprovoked?' asked Martin

  'No. They may bump into you, and start your backstays; but that is because they are asleep.'

  'What are your feelings, when you kill so huge a creature—when you take so vast a life?'

  'Why, I feel a richer man,' said Allen laughing: then after a moment, 'No, but I see what you mean; and I have sometimes thought—'

  'Land ho,' called the lookout from on high. 'On deck there. High land one point on the starboard bow.'

  'That will be the Peak,' observed the master.

  'Where? Oh where?' cried Martin. He leapt on to the fife-rail, but insecurely, falling back with his heel and much of his weight on the first and second toes of Stephen's left foot.

  'Follow the line of the bowsprit,' said the master, pointing, 'and a little to the right, between the two layers of cloud, you can see the middle of the Peak, shining white.'

  'I have seen the Grand Canary!' said Martin, his one eye gleaming with brilliance enough for two. 'My dear Maturin,'—with a most solicitous look—'how I hope I did not hurt you.'

  'Not at all, not at all. There is nothing in life I like better. But allow me to tell you, that it is not the Grand Canary but Teneriffe, and that it is of no use your springing about like that. If I know anything of the service, you will not be allowed to land. You will not see the canary-bird, grand or small, upon her native heath.'

  Prophets of doom are nearly always right, and Martin saw no more of the island than could be made out from the maintop as the Surprise stood off and on while the launch ran in, coming back through the crowded shipping with a cheerful fat brown man hung about with his own copper saucepans and warranted capable of Christm
as pudding and mince pies by Captain Aubrey's very old acquaintance the present governor of the town.

  'Never mind,' said Stephen. 'The great likelihood is that we shall water at some one of the Cape Verdes. How I wish it may be St Nicolas or St Lucy. There is a little small uninhabited island between them called Branco, and it has a puffin peculiar to itself, a puffin distinct from all other puffins, and one that I have never seen alive.'

  Martin brightened. 'How long do you suppose it will take us to get there?' he asked.

  'Oh, not above a week or so, once we pick up the trade wind. Sometimes I have known it begin to blow north of the Canaries and so waft us down with a flowing sheet past the tropic line and on almost to the equator itself: something in the nature of two thousand miles with a flowing sheet!'

  'What is a flowing sheet?'

  'What indeed? I seem to recall Johnson defining a sheet as the largest rope in the ship, and perhaps it is desirable that such a rope should flow. Or perhaps it is no more than one of the poetical expressions the seamen use: at all events they employ it to give the general impression of a fine free effortless progress. Their language is often highly figurative. When they reach the broad zone of calms and variable winds that lies somewhat north of the equator, between the northeast and the south-east trades, the zone that the French mariner so emphatically calls the pot au noir, the pitch-pot, they say that the ship is in the doldrums, as though she were low-spirited, profoundly melancholy, and she lying there with idly flapping sails in the damp oppressive heat, under a cloudy sky.'

  At this point however the sky was perfectly clear, and the Surprise, although not yet quite her joyful self again, having too many right awkward bastards to deal with, was far from sad or despondent. In 28°15'N. she picked up the trade wind, and despite the fact that it was by no means wholehearted, all hands began to look forward to the modest delights of the Cape Verdes, those parched blackened intolerably hot and sterile islands. The ship had settled down to the steady routine of blue-water sailing: the sun, rising a little abaft the larboard beam and a little hotter every day, dried the newly-cleaned decks the moment it appeared and then beheld the ordered sequence of events—hammocks piped up, hands piped to breakfast, berth-deck cleaned and aired, the new hands piped to the great-gun exercise or reefing topsails, the others to beautifying the ship, the altitude observed, the ship's latitude and her progress determined, noon proclaimed, hands piped to dinner, the ceremony of the mixing of the grog by the master's mate—three of water, one of rum, and the due proportions of lemon-juice and sugar—the drum-beat one hour later for the gun-room meal, then the quieter afternoon, with supper and more grog at six bells, and quarters somewhat later, the ship cleared for action and all hands at their fighting stations. This rarely passed off without at least some gunfire, for although the usual drill of running the great guns in and out had great value, Jack was convinced that nothing could possibly equal the living bang and leap of the genuine discharge in preparing men for battle, to say nothing of teaching them to point the muzzle in the right direction. He was a great believer in gunnery: he had laid in a personal store of powder (the official allowance being far too meagre for real training) to keep his gun-crews in practice; and since few of the ex-Defenders knew anything of the matter at all, much of this private powder went to them, so that often as the first dogwatch drew to an end the evening would be lit by fierce stabbing flames, the ship a little private storm lost on the vast face of the smooth calm lovely ocean, a little storm that emitted clouds, thunder and orange lightning.