The Ice Pilot Part 13

Kanakas climbed then over the slippery body and started work with blubber spades and axes. They severed the strip, as the winch was started, the whale rolled over and exposed an open cut which banded its neck. Into this the crew slashed until the backbone was reached. They then climbed aboard, after rigging a second line through a purchase in the upper jaw.

"Hoist away!" ordered Stirling. A watch tackle creaked, the line tightened, and the upper jaw of the monster came aboard and was swung over a spot in the waist, lowering to position when the tackle was slacked. The carca.s.s, useless now, was cast adrift by cutting the lines.

It drifted to leeward where it was soon surrounded by polar bears and screeching sea gulls.

Marr appeared at the quarter-deck rail and sent down a huge jug of whisky, which the crew shared with boisterous shouts. The skipper watched them, then shrugged his slight shoulders, glanced at the ice to the northward, and disappeared as Stirling gave the order to clear decks and cut the bone from the upper jaw.

This baleen, as it was called, had to be split from a white gristle by blubber spades and knives. The bone ran from sixteen feet in length down to little whiskers, and its value was all of five dollars a pound.

The last of the slabs was taken below to be stored in the forehold, and the great jaw, after the cook had removed a barrel of muck tuck, was hoisted overboard. This sank to the bottom of the Bering. The decks were then swabbed and squeegeed, and the watch on duty finished cleaning up.

It was midnight before Stirling turned toward Whitehouse and reported that all was clear.

The c.o.c.kney mate climbed from the dark p.o.o.p, took a turn about the ship, ran his fingers over the planks and pinrails, and peered down the forehold.

Then he came to Stirling and asked: "'Ow much do you think that 'ead of bone will weigh?"

"All of twenty-two hundred pounds. It's as big as I ever cut in."

Whitehouse glanced aft. "The old man wasn't figurin' on that," he said, reflectively. "I think it was out of 'is calculations. 'E's just confided in me-not a watch below-that 'e is up North for trade stuff.

Also, 'e said there's a firm of Dundee & Grimsby owners interested in the voyage. I thought all along 'e owned the ship."

Stirling studied the face of the mate in an endeavour to ascertain if he were speaking the truth. Whitehouse was far from stable in his statements.

"That's news," said Stirling. "I thought you, or somebody else, told me he was the sole owner."

"Maybe Cushner told you that."

"Maybe! It settles a point or two I was trying to fathom."

Stirling glanced at the p.o.o.p, and in fancy he thought a figure appeared there. He stepped to one side of the galley house and stared aft. A shadow moved against the canvas screen, a light shot skyward, then was blotted out as the companion closed.

"Marr?" he asked, striding over to Whitehouse.

The mate grinned and reached in his pocket for a plug of tobacco.

"Sure," he said. "W'o else could hit be? The old man is very irregular in 'is 'abits. Never saw any one like 'im. You never know where 'e is.

All the time walking around."

Stirling crammed his hands into his pockets and turned away from the mate, but he paused at the door leading into the alleyway and his cabin.

Whitehouse, believing Stirling had pa.s.sed inside, jerked his elbows, b.u.t.toned up his coat with care, smoothed down his hair, and otherwise spruced himself up. Then he started aft and mounted the p.o.o.p steps, his whistle merging into a low song. Stirling heard it and wondered:

"England, oh, my England!

Gone for many a day; I never knew I loved you Until I sailed away."

The Ice Pilot raised his brows and closed his mouth in a firm line. The mate had revealed another side of his character. He had come down into the waist of the ship in order to make an inspection, and was returning like a man who expected to meet with a cheerful welcome. Perhaps, decided Stirling, he had gone aft and below in order to create an impression. The impression could hardly be made upon Marr. That little skipper was no more interested in whaling than in cob fishing. He had treated the entire chase of the day as a diversion which would answer until the ice opened and allowed the _Pole Star_ to drive northward toward some coast where bigger game was waiting.

The morning dawned, warm, gray, and cloud-shrouded. An east wind swung over the North pack and loosened the lighter floes. They drifted toward the south, as the seals gave the warning of the first breaking up of the ice, and loud reports were heard to windward.

Stirling rolled from his bunk and sniffed the air, pressed his face to a porthole, then rapidly dressed. Taking coffee from the galley boy, he hurried to the deck and stared about him. The ship was hove to in a position that commanded a view of the pack ice and the sea to the south and west.

Climbing hand over hand, Stirling reached the Jacob's ladder, and then the crow's-nest. He settled down and clapped the gla.s.ses to his eyes.

A voice rose from the quarter-deck, and increased in volume as Stirling still stared to leeward.

"Aloft, there!" Marr shouted, angrily. "Hey, you aloft!"

Stirling leisurely removed the gla.s.ses from his eyes and glanced downward. He said nothing.

"How's the ice?" asked the skipper, jerking his thumb toward the north and east. "What do you make of it?"

Stirling turned and lifted the gla.s.ses. "She's breaking," he called. "I see a few lanes to the east. This wind will clear things in a day or two. We can go then!"

Marr paced the deck, bringing up against the rail on the ice side of the ship. "We'll go now!" he shouted. "Right now, if there's any possible route open. I want to be at Indian Point within the week. Can you do it?"

"I can!" said Stirling. "I'm--"

"A blow!" called a foremast hand from the forepeak. "A blow! There she blows!"

Stirling turned and darted his eyes out over the sea to leeward. He squinted slightly and saw the white vapour of a huge whale's spout. He closed his lips and shaded his brow. Another blow showed to windward of the first. A school of bowheads was approaching an open lane to the north and the Arctic.

"Stand by the boats!" shouted Stirling, eagerly. "Call both watches and stand by!"

Marr stiffened in his position close by the rail, turned, and glided forward until he stood at the weather steps which led to the waist of the ship. He darted a savage glance out over the sea then fastened his eyes upon Stirling. "Countermand that order!" he shouted.

Stirling stared over the edge of the crow's-nest. "What's that?" he asked. "Don't you know there's whales to leeward? They're making for the ice. There's a--"

"I don't give a darn if there's a million whales. I told you what to do.

Do it! I'm captain of this ship!"

"A blow!" repeated the foremast hand.

Marr reached and s.n.a.t.c.hed up a bra.s.s belaying pin from the pinrail. He leaned forward after grasping the step rail with his left hand, and brandished the weapon out over the waist of the ship in the direction of the cry. "'Vast that!" he snarled. "'Vast with you! There's no need of yelling your lungs out! This ship is going into the ice. D'ye get me?"

CHAPTER XIV-A WHISPERED WARNING

Stirling climbed over the edge of the crow's-nest and reached for a line. He dropped to the deck like a plummet, strode aft and mounted the p.o.o.p, where Marr stood with the pin in his hand.

The hastily dressed crew had rushed aft and were gathered in the waist as Stirling thrust his jaw forward and locked glances with the little skipper. An explosion was brooding; the foremast hand, who had whaled for ten years, kept repeating, "A blow! A blow!"

"What d'ye mean?" snapped Marr. "What d'ye mean by coming up here without orders?"

Stirling's eyes flashed dangerously, the brown in them changing to hazel and red. His fists clenched into great b.a.l.l.s of hate; he was seeing fire.

"What do I mean?" he asked. "Why, what do _you_ mean? What's the answer to letting that school of whales escape? I never saw more in these waters."

Marr toyed with the belaying pin, lifted it, and swung his arm. "I don't intend to argue the case with you!" he declared. "I want my orders obeyed! I am in command of this ship. I order you to make for the ice. I command you to take me to Indian Point on the Siberian coast."