Harper's Round Table, June 11, 1895 Part 1

Harper's Round Table, June 11, 1895.

by Various.

SAVED BY A CARCa.s.s.

A WHALEMAN'S YARN.

BY W. J. HENDERSON.

"Han'some," said Farmer Joe, having stretched himself on the shady side of the forecastle-deck and set his pipe going, "it 'pear's to me that it's about time we heard what happened to you after you got back to your own ship."

"You mean on my whaling voyages, I suppose," said Handsome.

"That's a right peert guess," responded Farmer Joe.

Handsome blew a whirling cloud of smoke that went swiftly out to leeward under the swelling foot of the fore-staysail. He watched it in a meditative manner until it disappeared, and then said:

"I was pretty glad to get back to my own ship, the _Ellen Burgee_, because, in spite of the fact that they treated us very well aboard the _Two Cousins_, you see I had a pretty good lay on the _Ellen_, and I didn't want to lose it. Of course n.o.body ever gets rich by going to sea, but a fellow likes to stick fast to all he gets. Well, we didn't stay very long in the bay in company with the _Two Cousins_. We got to sea again, and laid our course for a bit of cruising-ground away to the southward, where our Captain said he believed the whaling was good. The voyage down there was as stupid as a Sunday-afternoon sermon in hot weather, and for the matter of that so was the cruising for two days, because we didn't raise a single spout. On the third day, however, we were gladdened by the welcome cry of 'There she blows!' There were half a dozen whales in sight, and the old man had great hopes of getting at least two of them. But that was not to be our luck that day. The first mate got fast to one big fellow, and killed him, but the rest of us returned to the ship empty-handed.

"Now I haven't told you anything about what's done with a whale after you get him; but as this story depends on that, I'll have to explain.

The first job is to get the whale alongside the ship."

"Why not sail the ship alongside the whale?" asked one of the listeners.

"That ain't wholly practicable," answered Handsome, "because you might run into him and sink him. The ship does sail as close as she dares, but the boats must do their share. Two boats take the ends of a light line, with a weight slung on the bight so as to sink it, and they pa.s.s this under the whale's tail and around his 'small,' as the slimmest part of him is called. By means of this line, the ends being pa.s.sed aboard the ship, a chain is run in a slip-noose around the 'small,' and Mr. Whale is hauled alongside and kept there. Next comes the business of cutting-in, which means cutting off the blubber and bone that are wanted. Stages, such as ships' painters use, are slung over the side of the vessel, and the first-cla.s.s cutters, generally the ship's officers, stand on these stages with long-handled spades. The cutting-in begins at the place where the backbone joins the head, and the first strip taken off there is called the blanket piece. The pieces of blubber are hauled up with tackles, and these rip them off while the spades cut. It's a long and tough job, and it makes a new hand pretty sick. But it's child's play to what comes next, which is the trying-out. Say, I'd rather be a green hand again than have another job at trying-out."

"Well, tell us about it, anyhow," said Farmer Joe.

"It ain't any use to make a long yarn of that," continued Handsome. "The try-works, as they call them, are a sort of Dutch oven, built of bricks, and situated amidships. A couple of big iron pots stand on top of the oven, and the blubber, minced up, is put into them. You start a fire in the oven, and that boils out the oil, which is ladled out into casks, and then all hands turn to and pick out the pieces of fat and sc.r.a.ps so as to have nothing put pure oil. Well, to heave ahead with the yarn, we had our whale alongside overnight, and the next morning we started at cutting-in. About the time we'd got ready for trying-out, and started the fires, the breeze began to freshen up, and it looked rather dirty up to windward. The Captain said we must shake a leg with the trying-out.

"'Boys,' says he, 'we got to boil this oil with stu'ns'ls set, because before we get it done we'll be under a close-reefed maintops'l.'

"Well, bless you, he hadn't much more than got the words out of his mouth than the mast-head fellow lets out a yell:

"'There she blows! And there she breaches!'

"Now it wouldn't make any difference to a whaler if he thought the world was a-going to come to an end in ten minutes, he'd lower away if he saw a spout. So the Captain gave orders for two boats to get under way in chase of the new whales. One of the boats was the one I belonged to, and the next thing I knew I was sitting on my thwart. The sail was hoisted, and we went scudding down to leeward at a rattling gait. Say, it wasn't altogether agreeable to sit in that boat and notice the width and height of the sea that was getting up. But we soon forgot all about it in the excitement of going on.

"'It's a-going to be a tough job getting this whale alongside,' says one of the crew.

"'Wait till we get him first,' says Bacon.

"Well, it was our chance, and Bacon slung the iron into him with a vim.

Up went flukes and down went whale. He soon came up and began to swim to windward at a fearful speed. The seas thundered against the bow of our boat, and great sheets of water came tumbling inboard.

"'Bale there, bale!' yelled Bacon, 'or the boat'll fill and sink!'

"You can bet we didn't need to be told twice. We hadn't fairly got started when the whale sounded, and we could tell by the trend of the line that he was coming back toward the boat.

"'Look out!' shouted Bacon.

"The next second the brute shot clear out of the water not fifty feet off the starboard beam of our boat, and raised such a wave when he fell back into the sea that he nearly swamped us.

"'For goodness' sake," says one of the men, 'cut the line and let him go.'

"'We'll never get back to the ship alive,' says another; 'look at the sea. It's blowing a gale.'

"Well, it was blowing in a bit of a squall just then, but Bacon's blood was up, and he was bound to have that whale.

"'Pull me up to him!' he shouted.

"We obeyed orders, and Bacon drove the lance right into his life.

"'Starn all!' he yelled, and we didn't get out of the way a second too quick, for the monster went into his flurry, and beat the sea into an acre of foam with his immense flukes. However, there he was dead enough, and in the mean time the ship had worked down to leeward of us, and was close at hand. It was a pretty troublesome piece of work to pa.s.s the line around his small in such a nasty sea; we managed to do it after four or five trials, and he was hauled alongside the ship just as it began to grow dark. Now I tell you what, lads, it was a very uncommon sight. There was the ship beginning to roll uneasily in the rising sea, with a blazing, smoking furnace amidships, looking for all the world as if she was on fire, and a whale on each side of her. The boats were hauled up, and then the Captain looked about him.

"'Cut the old whale adrift,' says he; 'we can't tow the two of them in this weather, and we've got about the best of his oil.'

"So we cut the carca.s.s adrift, and it went rolling off down to leeward.

It hadn't got fifty yards from the ship before all the water around it was black with sharks' fins, and the next instant a dozen of these wolves of the sea appeared, leaping and thrashing the water in their mad struggles to get at the remains of the whale. They seemed like regular demons, so fiercely did they attack the carca.s.s, ripping away the remaining shreds of flesh, and smashing the bones in their powerful jaws. In five minutes the body was torn to pieces and the sharks disappeared, leaving us to imagine what would have happened to some of us if a boat had happened to capsize in the chase. Well, the gale increased in strength, and the sea rose more and more. The Captain didn't want to lose the whale, so he hove the ship to with the dead monster under our lee, where he rode pretty well, except that once in a while when we rolled heavily he would come up against the side of the ship with a thump that threatened to shake the timbers apart. However, the Captain said he was going to hang on till he found it was a case of life or death. All of a sudden we were startled by a terrible cry,

"'Fire!'

"Every man looked in the direction from which the cry came, and we saw a small but lively flame stealing up near the foot of the mainmast.

"'It's from the try-works!' shouted Bacon.

"Sure enough the gale had taken up every one's attention so that we all forgot about the fire in the try-works. It hadn't been put out, and now a coal or a spark or something had fallen on the deck, and the damage was done."

"'Why didn't you put it out?' asked one of the listeners.

"Put it out!" exclaimed Handsome: "why, man alive, don't you know the condition a whale ship is in when trying-out is going on? She was simply afloat with whale oil. The deck was running with it; every plank and bit of loose rigging was soaked with it. Put it out! Why, we did all that mortal man could think of. The Captain ordered us to get up all the tarpaulins and spare canvas, and try to smother it, but, bless you, as soon as we threw them over the fire they soaked up the oil and began to burn. We fought the fire with the energy of desperate men, for we knew that if we had to take to the boats the chances of our ever seeing land again in such a sea would be pretty slim. Finally the Captain said he would try a desperate scheme. As yet the flames were around the decks and lower masts. What he proposed to do was to let the ship fall off into the trough of the sea in hopes that a big wave would sweep her deck and drown out the fire. Everything was made ready, and then with a face full of sorrow he gave the order to cut loose the carca.s.s of the whale.

He was afraid to let it hang there with the ship broadside on. We cut it loose, and then he ordered the helm to be put up, and all hands to take to the rigging. We went up with a good deal of misgiving. The ship fell off into the trough and wallowed there. The seas broke over her here and there, but not in sufficient volume to drown the fire, which was gaining headway all the time, and was now beginning to send tongues of flame up the rigging, as if in a mad attempt to drive us poor fellows out of our refuge.

"'It won't do,' says the Captain; 'we must lay down, lads, and take to the boats.'

"We all started for the deck, when suddenly Bacon uttered a fearful cry:

"'Look! Look!'

"He was pointing to windward, and looking in that direction, we all saw a tremendous wave rolling down upon the ship with the speed of an express train. We stopped where we were, and clung with an intense grip to the rigging. The wave came. It pitched the vessel up as if she were a chip of wood, and flung her over on her beam ends. There was a crashing and rending of wood, and several wild shrieks from the men as the foremast went by the board. There were half a dozen fellows on it, and they were plunged into that raging sea. I never saw them again. The rest of us were hanging on as best we could, when the very next wave that came put out the fire sure enough, for it turned the _Ellen Burgee_ bottom up."

Handsome paused for a moment, as if overcome by the dreadful recollection.

"Well," he continued, "when she went over, I let go of the rigging and threw myself into the sea. I made up my mind it was all over with me, yet it turned out that this was not to be the case. I was buried under a ton or two of foaming water, but I came to the surface again, and found myself a long distance off from the overturned ship, which was fast settling in the water. I struck out, as a man will even when he doesn't know what use it is, and kept myself afloat for several minutes, the waves all the time driving me to leeward. Suddenly I saw a dark ma.s.s tumbling on the seas a short distance away. I thought it must be one of our boats that had got loose when the ship went over, and so I struck out for it. I was growing weak, blind, and dazed in the heavy seas, when I was caught up by a wave and flung squarely on top of the floating object. I grabbed wildly, and caught hold of something hard and slimy. I clung to it, though, and to my great amazement I found I was hanging to the flipper of the dead whale. You know they float on their sides when dead, with one flipper up in the air and the other under water. Well, it wasn't much of a life-raft, as you may well suppose, but a man in such a fix as I was will take anything he can get. I hung on there all right, the dead whale jumping and tumbling under me like a live fish. Toward morning the wind shifted, and at sunrise the gale broke. The sea began to go down right away, but a great swell was running. When the sun got fairly up I realized what a terrible position I was in. The heat was intense, and the gases from the carca.s.s nearly overwhelmed me. But that was nothing. The air was filled with the discordant cries of hungry sea-birds. They swooped down from every direction, and pecked at the carca.s.s. They beat at me with their wings, and acted as if they knew I was a doomed man, and the sooner they could drive me into the sea the better for me. But I fought them off, and sitting with one leg on each side of the flipper and clasping it with one arm, I clung to my dreadful life-buoy.

"And now came a new horror. Sharks appeared and began to fight around the whale, snapping and biting and tearing off pieces of the flesh. I realized that if this continued my life-buoy would be destroyed; but I was helpless. Then thirst began to torture me. All day long I tossed on that dead whale, with the birds and the sharks around me. At nightfall a gentle shower came, and by holding my mouth open I managed to relieve my thirst a little. As soon as it became dark the birds and the sharks left me, and presently, utterly exhausted, I fell asleep, leaning against the flipper. I remember that I was quite conscious of the danger of falling off my perch into the sea and drowning; but I didn't care. How long I slept I do not know. It must have been five or six hours. I was awakened by a heavy shock, and I found myself plunged into the sea. Involuntarily I uttered a scream for help.