The Ice Pilot Part 12

For a second time a bore of white water showed. This was followed by a plume of soft spray which spurted up into the frosty air and vanished to leeward. The whale was rising for breath.

"All 'ands to the boats!" This order was given by Whitehouse who stood at the top of the lee p.o.o.p steps.

There sounded a rush along the deck, and a snarl of excited men tumbled over each other in their haste to reach the boats. It was for all the world like being submarined in war time.

Stirling scowled down on the untrained crew, then glanced toward the little skipper. He feared that the noise would gally the quarry; a whale has remarkable hearing in certain circ.u.mstances. The Ice Pilot had known of failure to fasten with a harpoon on account of the striking of a paddle against the inner skin of a boat.

He called a warning and pointed toward the sea where last a spout had shown. The crew heeded this call, and stood silent by the falls of each boat.

"Lower away!" called out Whitehouse.

The boats splashed into the sea, the falls were loosened from their eyebolts in bow and stern, and long oars were thrust out as the crews swarmed downward.

Led by the second mate's boat, the tiny fleet swung like a covey of pigeons and ran before the wind with their single sails billowed out over the lee rails and their centerboards raised.

Skipping from sea to sea, as light as spindrift, they a.s.sumed a fanlike formation and closed about the position where the whale had been seen.

The leading boat, guided by Cushner, gained slightly and drew away, the big mate, with his white beard, standing erect in the stern. His hand was closed over the tiller, his eyes glued on a spot to leeward.

Stirling and Marr, who had remained as ship keepers, with the cook and engineers, watched the arena like spectators at a battle. The Ice Pilot had hastened to many bowheads and realized that Cushner had taken the proper direction and would most likely intercept the whale upon its next appearance.

A short wait followed, and Stirling fastened a small red flag to a signal halyard which could be raised from the crow's-nest. This was in the event that the whale was sighted from the ship. Two jerks would be the signal that the fleet should go to leeward; one jerk, into the wind.

Across the whale slick the mate's boat darted, then came up and held its position with sail flapping. Cushner drove farther to the south where he, too, brought his boat in the wind and waited.

Marr lowered his gla.s.s and stared up at the Ice Pilot. "It's time, isn't it?" the captain asked.

"Almost," replied Stirling. "That old bull's been down eighteen minutes."

The Ice Pilot replaced his watch and waited like a hunter in a jungle tree. His were the highest eyes on those waters. He swept them across the sea and somewhat ahead of Cushner's boat, then he stiffened and jerked up his flag. He held it at the masthead, then jerked again. The whale had showed white water not a cable's length from the second mate's boat.

"He's up!" called Stirling in his excitement. "Sam's right there!"

Cushner caught the signal from above the crow's-nest of the _Pole Star_.

He swung his body and allowed the boat to run before the wind, peering under the bulging sail with its lifted boom. He pointed and pressed the tiller handle.

The harpooner of Cushner's boat was a giant Kanaka. He was whale wise, and had once been known to fasten to a whale over the sail of another boat. Stirling saw him reach downward, lift a heavy harpoon, with its bomb-gun attachment, and poise rigidly in the bow of the whaleboat. His bronzed arm was raised inch by inch. The small boat drove on and into the smothering plume of vapour which rose out of the sea and slick as the whale emerged and exhaled its breath.

Cushner's boat drove onward. The Kanaka straightened, drew back his arm, and then hurled the heavy harpoon down and into the waves as the whaleboat mounted the first of the bore set up by the pa.s.sage of the monster.

The mast of the boat came down on the run, oars were thrust outboard, Cushner unshipped the tiller and hurried forward. The Kanaka pa.s.sed him, stooped, and lifted up a long steering oar which he placed in the oarlock aft.

Stirling watched the second mate as he poised in the bow with a bra.s.s bomb gun under his arm and his eyes glued upon the coil of hemp which was floating on the surface of the sea. The whale had been struck, and it was sulking just below the boat, but had not yet sounded.

Seconds pa.s.sed, while the watchers on the ship remained mute with expectancy. Then, and suddenly, the white boat swung, almost upsetting Cushner, and started into the wind with the speed of a swift launch. The whale had come to life, had recovered from the stunning blow of the harpoon and the bomb, and was "carrying the mail" for the great North pack, with the boat dragging after it.

Cushner motioned aft with the flat of his right hand, dashed the spray from his eyes, stooped, and felt of the whale line where it disappeared over the bow. He then straightened and motioned aft for a second time.

Stirling interpreted the signal. It was for the sheet tender to throw water into the tubs. Already smoke was rising from the round wooden b.u.t.t in the bow about which the line was coiled.

The sheet tender, a Frisco dock rat, scooped a dipper overside, stumbled forward, and dashed sea water into the rapidly uncoiling hemp. He slipped as the boat swung over a wave, and the dipper flew from his hand, dropping into the larger of the two tubs.

There followed a leaping snarl of inch rope. A slender python seemed to reach and coil about Cushner in the bow, who flung up his arms and dropped the bomb gun. A noose fastened about his waist, and he was drawn forward and downward as the whale surged onward. Fighting with all his giant strength, he went over and then into the depth of the sea.

"Heavens!" shouted Marr. "Did you see that, Stirling?"

The Ice Pilot was over the edge of the crow's-nest and down the rigging within the s.p.a.ce of five seconds. He struck the deck and dashed aft.

"He's done for!" he shouted. "Get up steam and hurry. There's only one chance."

Marr stared at the Ice Pilot. "Who's giving orders here?" he asked, cuttingly. "Let the fool take care of himself. He picked out that sheet tender."

Stirling gulped, then clenched his fists and held them out under the skipper's chin. He drew them back inch by inch. His emotion was a compelling thing. He could crush the little skipper with one blow, but held himself in hand and turned, his eyes filled with the fire of battle.

"Follow me!" he shouted to two of the engineers who stood in the waist.

"Help lower the dinghy. The whale's coming to windward. I can get it!"

The tiny boat was lowered in clumsy fashion. Stirling shoved off and sat down to the oars. Over his shoulder he saw the sneering figure of the little skipper standing by the taffrail, but only bent his back and dug the oars deeper into the sea. He brought the boat directly into the pathway of the onrushing whale which had risen and was showing a bent harpoon in its foam-coiled hump.

Dropping the oars, Stirling sprang to the bow of the boat and lifted a bomb gun from its position on the starboard side. He c.o.c.ked this, and waited, peering into the sea. He straightened, took aim, and fired a tonite bomb full into the ma.s.s which was rushing in his direction.

The acrid smoke from the gun drifted to leeward, and the low report of the bomb's explosion shook the sea. Particles of flesh flew upward, the whale milled and rose, then splashed down, with its giant flukes beating the surface of the water in a death flurry. The small boat was drawn into the vortex and as both engineers called a warning, Stirling opened a pouch under a seat, drew out another bomb and cartridge, fitted them to the breech of the gun, then waited grimly, tensely. He no longer resembled the placid pilot who had come aboard the whaler at Frisco.

The other boats of the fleet drove into the wind with their centerboards lowered and their sheets close drawn, waiting until the whale's efforts died, stroke by stroke. They took Stirling's signal to haul in on the line which was still fastened to Cushner's boat. Foot by foot it was drawn upward and coiled in the tubs. The whale was dead upon the bottom of the sea.

Stirling waited until the ship bore down upon the fleet and thrust her sharp prow over the spot where the quarry had sunk. He gave the order to rig the line over a yardarm and to attach it to a foreward winch. Steam was turned on and the stout hemp held, although it was drawn to pencil thinness. The carca.s.s of the whale was sucked from the mud and silt and lifted surfaceward. Foot by foot-fathom by fathom-the line was scanned.

There sounded a low cry, and a boat steerer pointed downward. Stirling and the engineers leaned over the rail of the dinghy.

They saw why the boat steerer had called their attention, and they blanched-strong men that they were. Then they stood erect and removed their caps.

Cushner's body, looped in a bight of the whale line, dangled before their eyes, all life throttled out by the whale's mad strength.

One thing showed the manner of man the second mate had been. He had drawn a long knife from a sheath on his belt and held this gripped firmly in his left hand. But it had not been used. The rope was unhacked. Cushner had preferred to go to his death, rather than sever the hemp and allow the whale to escape.

CHAPTER XIII-INTO THE ICE

They buried the second mate in the conventional sea manner, Marr reading the simple service from the Bible.

Stirling saw the sack-sewn body plunge into the icy waters of the Bering Sea, and replaced his cap when the last ripples had died. He turned and glanced upward at Marr, watching the skipper fold the Book and look over the rail. The whale lay alongside with only a slight hump to mark its bulk, and in the centre of this hump a harpoon had been thrust. The stout iron, of Swedish construction, was bent and twisted, and to it was fastened a bight of inch hemp which had held throughout the struggle.

Purple night was falling when Stirling had the whale's body in a position for cutting in. More irons had been driven home, lines were brought aboard and fastened to cleats, a strong hawser was pa.s.sed about the giant flukes.

Cutting in a whale to Stirling was like peeling an apple. It had been one of the greatest joys the seas had granted to him. It was the culmination of months of preparation and searching. The value of a head of bone was well up in the thousands, and Stirling estimated the length of the whale to be all of seventy feet. The bone, therefore, being in proportion, he expected slabs from the upper jaw to reach fifteen feet.

The waist of the ship was cleared of riffraff and dunnage; a strong whale tackle was rigged between fore and mainmast, one line of this tackle being wound about the foreward winch. The other end was carried down the cutting-in stage and hitched to a slice of blubber which had been peeled from the whale's neck. This slice of blubber was called the blanket piece.