Robert Michael Ballantyne - The Red Eric

But this is by the way, and was merely suggested by the fact that, while all other creatures were enjoying either partial or complete repose, Nikel Sling was washing out pots and pans and kettles, and handling murderous-looking knives and two-pronged tormentors with a demoniacal activity that was quite appalling.

Beside him, on a little stool close to the galley-fire, sat Tim Rokens—not that Mr Rokens was cold—far from it. He was, to judge from appearances, much hotter than was agreeable. But Tim had come there and sat down to light his pipe, and being rather phlegmatic when not actively employed, he preferred to be partially roasted for a few minutes to getting up again.

“We ought,” remarked Tim Rokens, puffing at a little black pipe which seemed inclined to be obstinate, “we ought to be gittin’ among the fish by this time. Many’s the one I’ve seed in them ’ere seas.”

“I rather guess we should,” replied the cook, pausing the midst of his toils and wiping the perspiration from his forehead with an immense bundle of greasy oakum. “But I’ve seed us keep dodgin’ about for weeks, I have, later in the year than this, without clappin’ eyes on a fin. What sort o’ baccy d’ye smoke, Rokens?”

“Dun know. Got it from a Spanish smuggler for an old clasp-knife. Why?”

“Cause it smells like rotten straw, an’ won’t improve the victuals. Guess you’d better take yourself off, old chap.”

“Wot a cross-grained crittur ye are,” said Rokens, as he rose to depart.

At that moment there was heard a cry that sent the blood tingling to the extremities of every one on board the Red Eric .

“Thar she blows! thar she blows!” shouted the man in the crow’s-nest.

The crow’s-nest is a sort of cask, or nest, fixed at the top of the mainmast of whale-ships, in which a man is stationed all day during the time the ships are on the fishing-ground, to look out for whales; and the cry, “Thar she blows,” announced the fact that the look-out had observed a whale rise to the surface and blow a spout of steamy water into the air.

No conceivable event—unless perhaps the blowing-up of the ship itself—could have more effectually and instantaneously dissipated the deep tranquillity to which we have more than once referred. Had an electric shock been communicated through the ship to each individual, the crew could not have been made to leap more vigorously and simultaneously. Many days before, they had begun to expect to see whales. Every one was therefore on the qui vive , so that when the well-known signal rang out like a startling peal in the midst of the universal stillness, every heart in the ship leaped in unison.

Had an observant man been seated at the time in the forecastle, he would have noticed that from out of the ten or fifteen hammocks that swung from the beams, there suddenly darted ten or fifteen pairs of legs which rose to the perpendicular position in order to obtain leverage to “fetch way.” Instantly thereafter the said legs descended, and where the feet had been, ten or fifteen heads appeared. Next moment the men were “tumbling up” the fore-hatch to the deck, where the watch had already sprung to the boat-tackles.

“Where away?” sang out Captain Dunning who was among the first on deck.

“Off the weather bow, sir, three points.”

“How far?”

“About two miles. Thar she blows!”

“Call all hands,” shouted the captain.

“Starboard watch, ahoy!” roared the mate, in that curious hoarse voice peculiar to boatswains of men-of-war. “Tumble up, lads, tumble up! Whale in sight! Bear a hand, my hearties!”

The summons was almost unnecessary. The “starboard watch” was—with the exception of one or two uncommonly heavy sleepers—already on deck pulling on its ducks and buckling its belts.

“Thar she breaches, thar she blows!” again came from the crow’s-nest in the voice of a Stentor.

“Well done, Dick Barnes, you’re the first to raise the oil,” remarked one of the men, implying by the remark that the said Dick was fortunate enough to be the first to sight a whale.

“Where away now?” roared the captain, who was in a state of intense excitement.

“A mile an’ a half to leeward, sir.”

“Clear away the boats,” shouted the captain.

“Masthead, ahoy! D’ye see that whale now?”

“Ay, ay, sir. Thar she blows!”

“Bear a hand, my hearties,” cried the captain, as the men sprang to the boats which were swinging at the davits. “Get your tubs in! Clear your falls! Look alive, lads! Stand-by to lower! All ready?”

“All ready, sir.”

“Thar she blows!” came again from the masthead with redoubled energy. “Sperm-whales, sir; there’s a school of ’em.”

“A school of them!” whispered Ailie, who had left her post at the mizzen-shrouds, and now stood by her father’s side, looking on at the sudden hubbub in unspeakable amazement. “Do whales go to school?” she said, laughing.

“Out of the road, Ailie, my pet,” cried her father hastily. “You’ll get knocked over. Lower away, lads, lower away!”

Down went the starboard, larboard, and waist-boats as if the falls had been cut, and almost before you could wink the men literally tumbled over the side into them, took their places, and seized their oars.

“Here, Glynn, come with me, and I’ll show you a thing or two,” said the captain. “Jump in, lad; look sharp.”

Glynn instantly followed his commander into the starboard boat, and took the aft oar. Tim Rokens, being the harpooner of that boat, sat at the bow oar with his harpoons and lances beside him, and the whale-line coiled in a tub in the boat’s head. The captain steered.

And now commenced a race that taxed the boats’ crews to the utmost; for it is always a matter keenly contested by the different crews, who shall fix the first harpoon in the whale. The larboard boat was steered by Mr Millons, the first mate; the waist-boat by Mr Markham, the second mate—the latter an active man of about five-and-twenty, whose size and physical strength were herculean, and whose disposition was somewhat morose and gloomy.

“Now, lads, give way! That’s it! that’s the way. Bend your backs, now! do bend your backs,” cried the captain, as the three boats sprang from the ship’s side and made towards the nearest whale, with the white foam curling at their bow.

Several more whales appeared in sight spouting in all directions, and the men were wild with excitement.

“That’s it! Go it lads!” shouted Mr Millons, as the waist-boat began to creep ahead. “Lay it on! give way! What d’ye say, boys; shall we beat ’em?”

Captain Dunning stood in the stern-sheets of the starboard boat, almost dancing with excitement as he heard these words of encouragement.

“Give way, boys!” he cried. “They can’t do it! That whale’s ours—so it is. Only bend your backs! A steady pull! Pull like steam-tugs! That’s it! Bend the oars! Double ’em up! Smash ’em in bits, do !”

Without quite going the length of the captain’s last piece of advice, the men did their work nobly. They bent their strong backs with a will, and strained their sinewy arms to the utmost. Glynn, in particular, to whom the work was new, and therefore peculiarly exciting and interesting, almost tore the rowlocks out of the boat in his efforts to urge it on, and had the oar not been made of the toughest ash, there is no doubt that he would have obeyed the captain’s orders literally and have smashed it in bits.

On they flew like racehorses. Now one boat gained an inch on the others, then it lost ground again as the crew of another put forth additional energy, and the three danced over the glassy sea as if the inanimate planks had been suddenly endued with life, and inspired with the spirit that stirred the men.