by Philip Roy
Ever since he swam with the whales, Merwin had taken to calling me captain all the time, and he wasn’t joking.
“Thanks for waking me.” I climbed out of bed, and shuffled over to the screen. The tanker had crossed the invisible 60th latitude line, and there were two vessels coming to meet her. They were still eight miles away. They must have been whalers planning to rendezvous, to siphon oil from her belly. I wished we had come up with some way to stop that from happening, but we hadn’t. Merwin was full of ideas, but none of them was the least bit realistic. I wanted to stop the transfer of oil just as much as he did, but I didn’t think he believed me, because I had shot down all of his ideas.
“We could ram her propeller, and break it.”
“Way too dangerous. Besides, we don’t want to disable her, or prevent her from sailing out of the area.”
“We could sail ahead of her, turn around and play chicken with her at night. With lights and flares we could make her think we are much bigger than we are, and frighten her crew into turning around.”
“She couldn’t turn around quickly, even if she wanted to. We might make her alter her course a little, but she’d figure out it was us soon enough. She knows we’ve been following her.”
“We could ram her sideways, punch a small hole in her that would force her to sail back to Australia as soon as possible.”
I had to wonder what Merwin thought we were sailing. If we rammed the tanker at full speed, we would simply bounce off, and probably not even leave a dent. And if we were able to put a hole in her hull, she’d leak oil all the way back to Australia. I could tell how passionate Merwin felt about the situation by how crazy his ideas were.
“We have to try something, Captain. We didn’t come all this way to do nothing.”
“I know, but we didn’t come down here to commit suicide either, or to cause an environmental disaster. Let’s wait until the whalers attempt to pump oil from her; maybe we can do something then.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
Merwin shook his head. “It’ll be too late. We have to do something now.”
But there was nothing to do except wait. When the two vessels were five miles away, the tanker cut her engines. She had to; they were coming directly towards her, without veering, which left her little choice. They would have picked us up on radar also, so there was no point in trying to hide, but I decided to submerge to periscope depth anyway, and swing in a wide arc around the tanker so that they wouldn’t know exactly where we were. Taking turns at the periscope, Merwin and I stared without blinking as the two vessels sailed into sight, and boy, did we get a surprise!
The first ship wore a large skull and crossbones right across her bridge, and was painted black and blue. It was the Steve Irwin! The second ship was called the Bob Barker, and was a sister ship. These were not whalers; these were the ships of the Sea Shepherd Society. They had come to prevent the tanker from entering the Southern Ocean. And they were not fooling around. Their sailing manoeuvres left the tanker no option but to shut her engines and drift to a stop.
“Yay!” Merwin and I both shouted.
The Steve Irwin and Bob Barker parked themselves in front of the tanker’s bow like two dogs cornering a bear. Then, they must have had a radio exchange, because the tanker fired up her engines, the ships gave way, and the tanker started moving again, in a very wide arc—it took her more than a mile to make it—and headed back the way she had come, with the ships on either side of her. They were escorting her back above the 60th parallel, and sending her back to Australia. We followed. Merwin was ecstatic.
“Do you see, Captain? Do you see why I admire Captain Watson and his society so much? Other groups work for change; the Sea Shepherd Society makes it happen.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Watching the ships force the tanker around astonished me. I knew we were witnessing something remarkable. The Sea Shepherd Society was not part of any navy, coast guard, or police force; they were just a group of courageous people standing up for the whales, telling the tanker to take her bloody oil and get the heck out of here; these are protected waters. Merwin and I both had tears of joy in our eyes as the tanker turned on her tail, and headed north.
But she didn’t go far. And our excitement was soon mixed with suspicion. The Shepherd ships accompanied the tanker across the 60th parallel, turned around, and sailed back south. They had whalers to chase. As the Steve Irwin passed about quarter of a mile away, Merwin and I waved and cheered from the hull, and she returned our greeting with a few blasts of her horn. We wanted to let them know we were here, and that we would follow the tanker all the way back to Australia.
But that was not what happened. Once the Shepherd ships had disappeared from radar, the tanker slowed to a mere five knots. So we did, too. This was very suspicious. What was she doing? Against the current it felt as though we weren’t even moving. A few hours later, she made a very gradual turn portside. That was sneaky. Now, she was heading very slightly south of west. Why? There was nowhere to go but Africa, which was unbelievably far away. What was she up to?
We found out about ten hours later, when two lights appeared on the radar screen once again, coming from the Southern Ocean. Had the Shepherd ships discovered that the tanker had stayed in the area, and were coming back to chase her away?
I watched the screen closely, and stared through the periscope. But we were not in range, and I couldn’t see anything, so I climbed the portal with the binoculars. It was nighttime now, though not actually dark, just a lingering twilight. Merwin was sleeping. At five miles, I spotted the lights of one of the ships, and then the other. As before, the tanker cut her engines and drifted to a stop. I closed our distance to a quarter of a mile, went back inside, shut off the engine, and watched through the periscope. As darkness fell, I couldn’t see the approaching ships, only their lights. From two miles away, they appeared to be the same size as the Shepherd ships. But at half a mile, even in the dark, I could tell that they were whalers. Thirsty for oil, they had come north of the 60th parallel to refuel.
I woke Merwin. He was very groggy. “What is it, Captain?”
“The whalers have come. They’re going to refuel. I don’t know if there’s anything we can do, but I thought you’d like to know.”
“I sure would. Thanks for waking me.”
“You’re welcome.”
Once again, we took turns at the periscope. This time, Merwin tried harder to come up with realistic ideas. He knew I wouldn’t agree to anything that wasn’t, even though I wanted to stop the whalers from refuelling just as much as he did. If they couldn’t refuel, they’d have to sail back to Japan, which would mean that more whales would live. We had to try something.
“We simply have to sail between them,” Merwin said. “That’s what Captain Watson does. I’ve seen it on TV.”
I shook my head. The tanker, although it was a small one, was at least five hundred feet long. Each of the whalers was about half that size, which meant that they were still ten times bigger than we were. If we sailed between them, we’d get crushed. But that didn’t seem to concern Merwin at all.
“They’ll back off if we do it. They’ll get frustrated, and back away.”
“In the dark, they won’t even see us!” The whalers had chosen to refuel in the dark, probably in the hope that no one would see them from the air.
“We’ll use the floodlights. They’ll see us then. And we can shoot flares.”
I hesitated. I turned and looked at Hollie and Seaweed. I didn’t want to put their lives at risk.
“Captain, when they refuel, they’re going to kill whales. You know that. We have to do something.”
I felt such a dilemma. I didn’t want to risk the lives of my crew, yet wanted to save the whales. There was no easy solution. “Yah, okay. We’ll give it a try. But the moment it feels too dangerous to me, we’re out of here.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. I stand at the ready.”
So we m
otored around the stern of the tanker, and waited until one of the whalers came alongside her. I stayed inside at the controls, and stole quick glances through the periscope. Merwin climbed the portal with the flare gun, and put the harness on. He got ready, on my command, to blast them with light and flares.
The channel of water between the two ships was very narrow, and the movement of the sea uneven. The ships didn’t want to bang into each other, but had to be close enough to transfer oil. I watched as they started to pass heavy hoses from one deck to the other, and then I gave the command.
“Lights!”
Through the periscope I saw our floodlights beam across the hulls of the two ships, but they weren’t high enough, and wouldn’t interfere with anything. All they accomplished was to let them know we were suicidal enough to put ourselves in between two vessels that could easily squash us. Our hull sat at sea level. From their perspective, it must have seemed as though we weren’t even here. In fact, the threat we brought to them was not a threat to either ship; it was the threat of causing the deaths of a couple of crazy environmentalists, which would look bad on TV. Merwin explained that both the Japanese and Shepherd ships carried film cameras, and that their skirmishes in the past had often found their way onto TV. As desperate as our action seemed, it had to be taken seriously in a time when environmental issues were always in the news. The Japanese whalers, after all, were catching whales under the pretence of using them for research, which was a lie. If they were seen to act so aggressively as to damage another vessel, and kill people, they surely wouldn’t look very scientific. This battle wasn’t taking place only at sea, but on television, too.
“What do you call a person who dies for a cause?” I yelled up to Merwin. I knew that there was a word for it but couldn’t remember it.
He yelled back. “A martyr.”
“Right. Be careful. We’re not here to become martyrs.”
My heart was racing as we motored about a third of the way between the two ships. Then, I heard the bang of the flare gun. I told Merwin to shoot straight up, and try not to hit anyone. If they wouldn’t notice our floodlights, they certainly would see our flares.
And they did, because the next thing we knew, a powerful burst of water pounded down on us, gushed inside the portal, and started to flood the sub. I heard Merwin yell. I shouted as loudly as I could over the noise. “Water cannon! Merwin, get inside! Shut the hatch! Shut the hatch!”
“I can’t! The water’s too strong!”
Whoever was aiming the water cannon knew exactly what they were doing. They were trying to sink us. The force of the water was so strong it was rocking the sub back and forth. We banged into one ship, then the other. This was insane. I hit the engine switch and cranked it up full blast. We started to move forward between the two ships. The water cannon followed us, but not as accurately as before.
“I’ve got it!” Merwin yelled as he shut the hatch. I switched from engine power to batteries. As we cleared the bow of the whaler, I hit the dive switch, and we went under.
“Are you all right?” I said, as the sub grew suddenly quiet.
“Yah, I’m okay, Captain.”
But he wasn’t. When he climbed down the ladder, there was blood all over his face.
Chapter Twenty-six
MERWIN SUFFERED A broken nose when the water cannon threw him against the hatch. He also had a small but deep gash on one cheek. I brought out the first aid kit, and attended to his wounds. His nose wasn’t broken badly, in that it wasn’t deformed, but it started swelling immediately, and grew into the size of a tennis ball on his face. I cleaned his cut with hydrogen peroxide, and wrapped ice in a towel for him to hold against his nose, then refilled the ice tray and put it back in the freezer. Merwin didn’t want to sit still for all of this treatment; he wanted to have another run at the tanker and whalers. He was one of the gentlest people I had ever met, until he got riled up over environmental issues. Then he became like a bulldog. No wonder he had gone to jail back in the 1970s.
“We have to go after them again!” His voice had changed because his nose was plugged with blood.
I shook my head. “If I thought we could change anything here, believe me, I would. But all we’ll do is get killed. We’ll be more effective in the future if we stay alive.”
He dropped his head and nodded. He knew I was right. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Does it hurt a lot?”
He nodded again.
“I’ll give you some painkillers, and you’ll have to make yourself as comfortable as you can. Keep your nose higher than your heart, and hold ice against it to try and keep the swelling down.”
“But what are we going to do now, Captain? We’ve got to stop the tanker from refuelling the Nisshin Maru.”
“What’s that?”
“The big whaling factory ship. The whalers bring their whales to her, and she cuts them up and prepares them for the market right on the ship. Without her, the whalers have to go back to Japan with only the whales they can carry, which is a lot fewer. We can’t let the tanker refuel the Nisshin Maru, we just can’t. Please tell me we’re not returning to Tasmania.” Merwin pleaded as though it were life and death. For the whales, it was.
“We’re not going back yet. We’re either going to follow those whalers south, or stay and watch the tanker. I’m not sure which.”
Merwin smiled with relief behind the ice pack. “I knew you had it in you, Captain. And I know you’ll make the right decision.”
I wished I felt as confident as he did. I didn’t see how we could make any difference here at all. But I wasn’t ready to leave yet either.
Once the whalers finished refuelling—which took several hours—they headed out on the hunt again. It was light now. As I watched them turn around and face south, I had to fight down feelings of hatred towards them. They were on their way to kill whales. I wanted so much to stop them. Should we follow them, or stay with the tanker? What was the smartest thing to do? I looked at Merwin. He had fallen asleep again. His head was propped up on pillows, his nose completely plugged, and his snoring sounded like a clogged drain. I had to decide. The tanker hadn’t refuelled the Nisshin Maru yet, and if she didn’t refuel, she would have to return to Japan without more whales, and the smaller ships would have to return, too.
I decided to stay with the tanker, just hoping we might find a way to keep it from refuelling the Nisshin Maru. Besides, the whalers were smaller and faster, and we probably couldn’t keep up with them.
All of the time that Merwin slept, the tanker slowly sailed slightly south of west, getting closer to the Southern Ocean all the time, and perhaps she had crossed the 60th parallel already, I wasn’t sure. We stayed half a mile away, on the surface, and I spent a lot of time watching her through the binoculars for any sign of activity. There was none. Then, after five hours or so, we had visitors. Welcome ones. Through the open portal I heard a blast of air. Our whales had returned.
It amazed me they could find us so easily. It amazed me even more they would want to. They must have become fond of us, too, mother and calf. It was too bad Merwin was sleeping, because it would have picked up his spirits to see them. But I really didn’t want to wake him. He would need rest to recover from his wounds. In his absence, I did my best to sing to the whales. I put on the harness, climbed onto the hull, and sang “Frères Jacques” until I couldn’t stand hearing it anymore. Then I tried “Scarborough Fair,” and a few other songs that I knew. At first, I felt silly, and was afraid I’d just scare them away. But when I saw the mother whale look more closely at me, I realized she was really listening. I could tell. She seemed to like “Scarborough Fair” the most. There was a sparkle in her eye when I sang it, and she slapped her tail, so I sang it over and over again. I wondered if she realized there were ships down here that wanted to kill her and her baby. I think she did. Yet she never swam away. I wondered why she never did.
Everything that happened after that happened as if in a dream, where nothing an
yone did could have stopped it or made any difference. It sure felt that way, perhaps because it was so violent, and perhaps because it happened so fast.
I heard a beep on the radar—a single vessel in the water, coming north towards us—and I knew in my heart that it was the Nisshin Maru even before I could see her through the binoculars. I spotted her at five miles because she was so big, and sat high in the water. I went back inside and looked at Merwin. He was still sleeping. His face was black and blue; he was exhausted. He might not forgive me later, but I decided not to wake him.
I went back outside and watched as the hulking factory ship approached. There was nothing I could do to prevent her from refuelling. She was as long as the tanker but sat higher in the water. There was blood on her bow. I didn’t realize she did more than slaughter the whales that other ships caught for her. She caught them, too. Had I known that, I would have sailed away as fast as possible, and led the mother and calf away. But it didn’t occur to me. Now, it was too late.
The sailors on the Nisshin Maru saw the mother whale snorting, and decided to catch her before refuelling. It didn’t take them long. Their weapon was a powerful gun that shot an exploding harpoon. The harpoon was tied to a rope. Once a whale was shot with the harpoon, there was no escape. By the time I realized what they were doing, and tried to put the sub in their way, they had turned around and positioned themselves for a strike. Their ship was amazingly agile for her size, nothing like the tanker. To my horror I heard a loud bang, and right before my eyes the harpoon shot out from the bow of the ship, and I heard it strike and explode inside the head of the mother. She attempted to dive, but couldn’t. She was dying. I heard her cry, and my heart broke. A wave of pain flooded through me, and suddenly I knew that what Sheba had foretold, had come to be.
Desperately, the mother whale turned towards me, and I saw her enormous eye, and the pain in it, and the worry that she had for her baby. How I wanted to tell her that it would be okay; that I would protect her baby. But I knew I couldn’t promise it. I could only promise that I would try.
