Barney and the Secret of the Whales

by Jackie French

  ‘Where away?’ yelled Captain Melvill.

  ‘About three miles off lee beam.’

  The commotion below me changed. The ship’s course shifted again. Sailors climbed the masts to furl the sails. Our ship seemed to hang between the sea and the sky, letting the waves toss it at will.

  The sailors lowered two boats over the side. Almost before they hit the water some of the men jumped over the side, not using the ladder, just leaping like they were grasshoppers on the hillside.

  I peered down as the boats pulled away, the sailors straining at the oars. ‘Pull, you living hearts! Pull! A thousand pounds is waiting for us! Pull!’

  I wondered if I should climb down from the foremast. But no one had told me to, and I still didn’t know what to do on deck, so I just kept watching. The boats sped even faster now, but not fast enough for the men who stood at each prow. ‘Come on, ye rapscallions! Are you all asleep? Quit snoring! Pull! Pull!’

  Up and down the boats went, climbing the waves then swinging down them, surging through the smaller ones.

  And the whales had seen them! The black heads parted, going in all directions. The sailors up on the masts unfurled the sails. The Britannia began to move again. The boats’ course changed too, heading for the nearest.

  Around me the positions of the sails changed yet again. The Britannia began to chase both whales and boats now, her sails full and taut, her timbers creaking, Captain Melvill cheering from the quarterdeck, and me clinging like an o’possum up above and in front of him.

  The boats were closer to one of the whales now. They looked tiny compared to its black bulk. The great beasts of the ocean, I thought, remembering Captain Melvill’s words. Suddenly I could feel it too — the thrill of being part of this great chase.

  Those small open boats were going to capture that monster there and bring it back to the ship, so small compared to the whale’s vastness. Us, against the kings of the ocean. And we would win!

  The harpooner in the boat nearest the whale stood, his harpoon in one hand. He didn’t throw it though: instead he reached into his pocket, then threw something almost too small to see.

  A rock! I saw it bounce off the whale’s hide.

  That must have been the sign the harpooner wanted. If a stone could hit the whale, so could his harpoon. He raised it high, a rope dangling from the end, and threw!

  ‘Hurrah!’ I yelled as the spear with the rope attached was hurled towards the whale.

  It missed. The man began to haul it back.

  ‘Stand and give it to him!’ I heard the words borne faintly on the wind.

  The other harpooner stood. He raised his own harpoon. It flew, swifter than a seagull, and more deadly.

  Had it hit its target? Suddenly whale and boat alike were swallowed in a foaming, boiling white. The whale had rolled or dived. For a long moment I could see neither boat nor men. Then there they were again, the boat near swamped, half the men bailing out the water, the others still pulling at the oars.

  Another throw! I gasped. The whale had been hit! By both boats! The ropes stretched between the monster and the boats.

  But the whale still strained to get away. The rowers pulled at their oars, closer, closer. The harpoonists stood back. Two men with giant lances took their places. They speared the whale, hard and deep. Blood spurted. The black whale turned red, and the sea about it too.

  But still the men struggled with their lances, forcing them deeper, and deeper still, wriggling them, pushing them, to reach the whale’s heart. The blood became a great fountain. It changed colour, not bright red now, but dark, almost purple. But still that whale lunged for freedom, pulling on the ropes, while the rowers struggled to keep up. The Britannia followed them.

  We were almost at the whale now. I could see its eyes, massive as a giant in Mr Johnson’s storybooks, but looking tiny in its bulk.

  But it was not a storybook giant. This was real. A great eye gazed at me as if to say, ‘Why are you doing this?’

  Because we want money, I thought. Riches. But Mr Johnson had said that the love of money was the root of all evil. We hunt the kings of the sea for money. And because they are kings, they know what we are doing, and fight us for their lives.

  I had killed roosters in the past couple of years, and eaten them too, and felt nothing but the blessing of a good dinner. But this . . .

  I had been on my tiptoes in my excitement. Now I sat back down, leaning on the mast, as if it could comfort me, or the whale below. I wanted to shut my eyes. But if I was going to be part of this whale’s death, I could at least face its killing. I stared at its eyes again. For the first time I knew another creature felt pain. Not just pain but agony, and the surety of death at the hands of men.

  The whale twisted, but the harpoons from each boat held.

  The oarsmen backed their oars.

  ‘Wet the lines! Wet them, ye laggards!’ Sailors dashed seawater onto the ropes that stretched between the small boats and the monster. They were pulled tight now.

  I think I prayed as men and whale struggled below me. I think what I did then was praying, although I used no words, nor did I even know what I prayed for.

  The whale would not give in. A red tide poured across its back. The sea around the boats was red too. But still the whale surged forwards. Now there was no need to row, for the whale dragged the boats with it, four men holding the ropes, the others bailing as waves from the ocean and the great beast’s wake filled the little craft.

  Our ship followed. The wind howled and licked at us, seeming to grow as the battle below me grew too. Again and again the whale tried to dive, as the boats bucked and heaved above it. The water grew darker with its blood.

  Another harpoon struck, another!

  The whale slowed. It rolled again, surging back and forth, and turned.

  I saw its anguish.

  I looked into the eyes of the whale again, and I saw death and majesty. I remembered how that other whale had played in our blue harbour, its beauty, like the beauty of the bush before the convicts had cut it down, to build their feeble stinking huts. I saw no glorious battle here, just pain and yelling men . . .

  It was as if the harpoons had ripped inside me as well. For in those eyes I saw no mindless beast. For a moment I was the whale too. I saw the glory of the endless route across the oceans, felt the currents against my hide, heard strange songs deep in the water. And that whale knew all I had suffered too. A ship like this had caught us both. But one of us had the chance to live, to stay in the daylight and be free.

  Please, let it escape, I prayed. Let it swim away. For it was still so big, despite the lance holes, and the blood; the boats were so small. Surely it could heave away from those small ropes . . .

  The spout hole opened and closed, sending forth dark clotted gushes. And I knew that the men had won, even before another great purple gush fired up forwards and down, onto whale and sea and boats and men.

  The water quietened, except for the rolling waves. The whale was dead.

  CHAPTER 9

  Hauling in the Whale

  It took the rest of the day to drag the whale to the Britannia, even though it was so close. The bell clanged and I came down from the mast. No one climbed up after me; there seemed to be no need for a watch now. Down in the churning water the men in each boat strained and hauled on the oars, while the boat captains screamed encouragement: ‘Row, me hearties! Put your backs into it! Many sons of sea curs! Row, ye mongrels, row!’

  Captain Melvill stayed up on his quarterdeck, shouting orders across to the boats and to sailors on the ship. Men hauled chains, dragging them across the deck then down below, pushing them out of the portholes so they hung down into the sea.

  No one ordered me to help with the hauling. No one even cuffed me. It was as if I wasn’t there. No one had time to teach me what was needed now.

  The wind muttered and growled about us. The storm hit, a flash of water, rain as hard as a bucketful thrown against us. The rain was over in fiv
e minutes, but the wind stayed, filling the air and making the sea leap and froth.

  I gazed out at the two tiny boats, and at the massive prize they hauled. For long minutes the boats would vanish in the waves. Then they would appear again, atop a wave, the men’s heads crowned with froth. Seconds later they were gone again.

  The wind carried rags of orders: ‘Pull, me valiant hearts! You want Davy Jones to eat us all? Row, you dog-faced sons of monkeys. Row!’

  Shadows grew into darkness, and still the boats had not reached the ship. Lamps were lit all along the deck, guiding the boats to us. I leaned over the gunwale, watching them lurch closer, slowly, so slowly. No matter how they pulled at the oars, the wind and waves would always be more powerful than them, and they had the massive bulk of the whale to shift as well.

  But the waves had not swallowed them yet, nor did anyone on board seem to think they would. Behind me, men lashed barrels to the mast to stop them rolling overboard with the waves that washed the deck. The carpenter and his young assistant were fixing something on the great brick platform. They were all busy, except for me, and the whale, who was dead.

  I cried a little then. I cried for the whale and for myself. I think I cried for all upon that ship too, and in the boats, who saw only money, and the challenge of the chase, but were blind to the beauty they had captured.

  Finally the boats drew close to the ship. A few cheers erupted from around the deck, swallowed by the wind.

  Captain Melvill dropped lanterns over the bulwarks and the sailors below caught them. By their light and that from those on the ship, I could see the whale more clearly, the giant head, the tiny eyes, but only compared to its size. The carcass swayed and wandered with the waves, so unlike the steady course I had seen from my masthead.

  ‘Good capture!’ called Captain Melvill. ‘Look sharp. The storm is rising!’

  ‘Aye, Captain.’ Sailors grabbed the dangling chains. As I watched, their scrambling figures wrapped the chains around the vast head, tying it to the stern of the ship, then putting more chains around the tail till it was tethered to the bows, the whole great corpse bobbing next to us.

  ‘You! Boy! Go aloft again!’

  It was Captain Melvill. ‘And well sighted,’ he added.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Sir . . .’ I hesitated to speak to him now. ‘What should I look for?’

  To my relief he didn’t cuff me for impertinence. ‘Watch that the chains stay tight about the carcass. Apart from that, use your common sense. Call if you see the lights on another ship, or white spray that might be rocks or islands. This coast has been charted, but not this far from land. If aught changes, you yell down. Understood?’

  ‘Understood, sir.’

  He nodded.

  And so I clambered up again, and buckled myself to the mast. What had been a paradise that morning was fearsome now. Each time the ship lurched the mast swayed down with it. The wind bit at me with teeth of ice. Another squall of rain passed, soaking me. The wind whipped higher. Spray lashed me, even so high. But the vast dead whale stayed secure at our side.

  My toes and fingers had lost all feeling. All I could do was huddle up there, and hope the buckles held and that the night might finally end.

  I gazed up at the sky, but there were no stars to tell me how much night had passed, just blackness even darker than the sea. If one night creeps like a snail, I thought, how long will three years take?

  At last another bell sounded. In the swaying lamplight I could see a sailor beckoning below. I fumbled at the buckles. My arms and legs were so stiff they felt like broomsticks that I had to push to move.

  I grabbed the mast, glad to find my fingers worked, that I could even feel the mast a little. I grasped hard, with my knees, as Birrung had taught me, hoping they could do the work that my fingers couldn’t.

  Halfway down the ship swayed again, awkward with the vast whale at her side. I grabbed the mast tighter, finding strength I didn’t know I had, and slid faster, so fast the heat chafed my legs. I stood on the deck, still clutching the mast, my breath heaving.

  To my surprise the sailor who’d beckoned me down grinned at me this time. ‘You wear oilskins next time you go aloft, matey, or you’ll be losing your toes to frostbite. There’s plenty below.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Call me Bob. You know why?’

  I shook my head, shivering.

  He bent and whispered above the wind. ‘’Cause it’s my name.’ He made it sound like a great joke.

  I managed a smile. He wasn’t much older than me, sixteen perhaps. But already the wind and sun had leathered his skin. He clambered up the mast almost as fast as I had.

  I made my way carefully across the deck. It was slippery with spray now, and tilting this way and that, and my feet were so cold I could hardly feel the wood under them.

  Someone had left a pile of blankets on the empty hammock. They were still warm when I crawled into them, so I reckoned Call-Me-Bob had been sleeping there before me. That warmth was good.

  I hadn’t eaten all day, I realised. My stomach hurt from hunger. My hands and feet stung now the feeling was back in them. But I slept, from exhaustion, and knew nothing till someone shook me awake.

  Call-Me-Bob grinned, holding up a lamp. ‘You goin’ to sleep all day?’

  I blinked. It was still dark down there, but I could see dim light in the hatch above me, which meant that outside it was beginning to grow light.

  ‘Better haul yourself up or you’ll get no breakfast.’

  Breakfast! That got me up like a cat off a bull ants’ nest. I clambered onto the deck, then stared.

  The brick platform was now a fire, with the ship’s carpenter feeding it chips and blocks of wood, left over from repairs to the masts I supposed, and firewood brought on board from the colony. And there by the fire, Peg-Leg Tom held out a great steel harpoon with vast steaks dangling from it. The deck was full of the smell of smoke and charring meat.

  I stepped forwards cautiously. I was so hungry my tummy felt like it was caving in, hungrier than I’d been since Ma died and Elsie and I had to share my rations. But I knew what those steaks were. Whale.

  The whale was dead. It wouldn’t help it to refuse to eat now.

  Peg-Leg Tom saw me staring. He frowned. ‘Away out of it, boy!’ he yelled above the wind. ‘You think these are for you? When you can wield a harpoon or wrestle an oar, then you might get a steak of whale. Your breakfast’s down in the galley.’

  I nodded and ran for it, down the hatch again. No fire in the galley, but plenty of the cold stew we’d had on my first night on the ship, and a pile of twice-cooked biscuit, hard as a rock so I had to gnaw away at it like a mouse. All better than whale steaks, and at least I still had my teeth. I’d seen the other men soak their biscuits in the stew to soften before they could swallow them.

  No one seemed to notice how much I ate. They didn’t even notice me at all, busy gulping their food too, then heading off to jobs I knew nothing of. I filled myself up well. I had a feeling I mightn’t get another chance to eat for a while. Then I ventured back up.

  CHAPTER 10

  Harvest

  Again the deck looked like a mob of ants rushing back and forth, but here each ant knew its job. A cluster of sailors at the masthead hauled along a giant bundle of machinery with massive red rusted chains and a hook that looked big enough to hang a ship from. Others rolled more barrels up the ladder from the hatch and lashed them to the mast or gunwales, while the cooper checked each one to see if it needed a plank replacing and whether the bungs were put in tight.

  Captain Melvill gazed at it all from the quarterdeck, now and then barking an order I didn’t understand.

  ‘Set the grumblebumble! Splice the fimblebee! To work, you sluggards! At it now!’

  I understood that last bit. I made my way to the sailors by the mast, but the one called Two-Tooth Harry waved me back. Suddenly they all stood aside in a line, and I realised that they had a chain in their hands. At last,
something I understood how to do. I ran to hold it too.

  It was strange, holding that big chain, the deck heaving and rolling under us. For the first time since the gale began to blow I was held steady by the chain and the men, though the deck swayed under my feet.

  And then I saw what we were doing. The chain was attached to a series of wheels and somehow our pulling lifted up the mass of machinery the men had been working on. It looked like a giant harness, and had the enormous hook dangling from it.

  Slowly, slowly, swaying all the time so I was afraid it might swing back and hit us, the harness was lowered onto planks suspended just above the vastness of the dead whale. The first and second mate let go, while the rest of us kept hold. When I looked again, the two mates had grabbed great spade-like tools. The blades looked axe-sharp, and were attached to poles a good twenty feet long at the other end.

  They ran to the gunwale, their balance unaffected by the heaving of the deck, and leaped over it, almost too fast to see, their sword-like tools still in their hands.

  ‘Ye can let go of the chain now!’ shouted Call-Me-Bob over the noise of wind and waves and cracking sails. I ran to the ship’s side and looked over. Half the crew was there too, so many that the ship listed over and the deck half lurched towards the whale.

  There stood the two mates on the platform, stabbing their tools like daggers into the carcass, while the harness hovered and swung above them, and the great hook too. First a small hole, and then bigger, and bigger yet, then slashes across its body. At last one of the mates waved to the crew above.

  Two of the crew ran to the chain again. They grabbed a long iron handle and cranked it. The harness lowered with a jolt and the big hook with it. I was afraid it would knock the two men off the platform and into the water, but instead it dropped neatly onto the whale’s great back, almost at their feet.

  They grabbed the hook and began to push. And then I saw what they were doing. That vast hook plunged deep into the hole they had dug.