Fighting the Whales, R. M. Ballantyne [story reading txt] 📗

he entirely gave up the habit of swearing. He also forbade working on Sunday. Many a whale have I seen sporting and spouting near us on that day, but never did we lower a boat or touch a harpoon on Sunday. Some of the men grumbled at this, and complained of it to each other, but they never spoke so as to let the captain hear, and they soon gave up their grumbling, for the most of us were well pleased with the change, and all of us had agreed to it.

The first Sunday after Fred’s death, the captain assembled the crew on the quarter-deck, and spoke to us about it.

“My lads,” said he, “I’ve called you aft to make a proposal that may perhaps surprise some of you. Up to this time, you know very well, there has been little difference aboard this ship between Saturday and Sunday. Since our poor shipmate died I have been thinkin’ much on this matter, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we shall rest from all work on Sunday, except such as must be done to work the ship. Now, lads, you know me well enough by this time. I have never been a religious man all my life, and I don’t pretend to say that I’m one now. I’m not very learned on this matter, and can’t explain myself very well; but what think you, lads, shall we give the whales a rest on Sundays?”

We all agreed to this at once, for the effect of the captain’s speech was great upon us. It was not so much what he said, as the way in which he said it. He was by nature a bold, determined man, who never flinched from danger or duty, and when we heard him talking in that way we could scarcely believe our ears.

This was all that was said about the matter between us and the captain, but we had many a hot discussion in the forecastle amongst ourselves after that. Some were in favour of the new move, and said, stoutly, that the captain was a sensible fellow. Others said he was becoming an old wife, and that no luck would follow the ship. In the course of time, however, we found the benefit of the change in every way; and the grumblers were silenced, because in spite of their wise shakings of the head, we filled the ship with oil as full as she could hold, much sooner than we had expected.

Shoregoing people have but little notion of the ease with which the heart of a jack-tar is made to rejoice when he is out on a long voyage. His pleasures and amusements are so few that he is thankful to make the most of whatever is thrown in his way. In the whale-fisheries, no doubt, he has more than enough of excitement, but after a time he gets used to this, and begins to long for a little variety—and of all the pleasures that fall to his lot, that which delights him most is to have a gam with another ship.

Now, a gam is the meeting of two or more whale-ships, their keeping company for a time, and the exchanging of visits by the crews. It is neither more nor less than a jollification on the sea,—the inviting of your friends to feast and make merry in your floating house. There is this difference, however, between a gam at sea and a party on land, that your friends on the ocean are men whom you perhaps never saw before, and whom you will likely never meet again. There is also another difference—there are no ladies at a gam. This is a great want, for man is but a rugged creature when away from the refining influence of woman; but, in the circumstances, of course, it can’t be helped.

We had a gam one day, on this voyage, with a Yankee whale-ship, and a first-rate gam it was, for, as the Yankee had gammed three days before with another English ship, we got a lot of news second-hand; and, as we had not seen a new face for many months, we felt towards those Yankees like brothers, and swallowed all they had to tell us like men starving for news.

It was on a fine calm morning, just after breakfast, that we fell in with this ship. We had seen no whales for a day or two, but we did not mind that, for our hold was almost full of oil-barrels. Tom Lokins and I were leaning over the starboard bulwarks, watching the small fish that every now and then darted through the clear-blue water like arrows, and smoking our pipes in silence. Tom looked uncommonly grave, and I knew that he was having some deep and knowing thoughts of his own which would leak out in time. All at once he took his pipe from his mouth and stared earnestly at the horizon.

“Bob,” said he, speaking very slowly, “if there ain’t a ship right off the starboard beam, I’m a Dutchman.”

“You don’t mean it!” said I, starting with a feeling of excitement.

Before another word could be uttered, the cry of “Sail ho!” came ringing down from the mast-head. Instantly the quiet of the morning was broken; sleepers sprang up and rubbed their eyes, the men below rushed wildly up the hatchway, the cook came tearing out of his own private den, flourishing a soup-ladle in one hand and his tormentors in the other, the steward came tumbling up with a lump of dough in his fist that he had forgot to throw down in his haste, and the captain bolted up from the cabin without his hat.

“Where away?” cried he, with more than his usual energy.

“Right off the starboard beam, sir.”

“Square the yards! Look alive, my hearties,” was the next order; for although the calm sea was like a sheet of glass, a light air, just sufficient to fill our top-gallant sails, enabled us to creep through the water.

“Hurrah!” shouted the men as we sprang to obey.

“What does she look like?” roared the captain.

“A big ship, sir, I think,” replied the look-out, “but I can only just make out the top of her main t–gallan’ s’l.”—(Sailors scorn to speak of top-gallant sails).

Gradually, one by one, the white sails of the stranger rose up like cloudlets out of the sea, and our hearts beat high with hope and expectation as we beheld the towering canvas of a full-rigged ship rise slowly into view.

“Show our colours,” said the captain.

In a moment the Union Jack of Old England was waving at the mast-head in the gentle breeze, and we watched anxiously for a reply. The stranger was polite; his colours flew up a moment after, and displayed the Stripes and Stars of America.

“A Yankee!” exclaimed some of the men in a tone of slight disappointment.

I may remark, that our disappointment arose simply from the fact that there was no chance, as we supposed, of getting news from “home” out of a ship that must have sailed last from America. For the rest, we cared not whether they were Yankees or Britons—they were men who could speak the English tongue, that was enough for us.

“Never mind, boys,” cried one, “we’ll have a jolly gam; that’s a fact.”

“So we will,” said another, “and I’ll get news of my mad Irish cousin, Terrence O’Flannagan, who went out to seek his fortin in Ameriky with two shillin’s and a broken knife in his pocket, and it’s been said he’s got into a government situation o’ some sort connected with the jails,—whether as captain, or leftenant o’ police, or turnkey, I’m not rightly sure.”

“More likely as a life-tenant of one of the cells,” observed Bill Blunt, laughing.

“Don’t speak ill of a better man than yerself behind his back,” retorted the owner of the Irish cousin.

“Stand by to lower the jolly-boat,” cried the captain.

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“Lower away!”

In a few minutes we were leaping over the calm sea in the direction of the strange ship, for the breeze had died down, and we were too eager to meet with new faces, and to hear the sound of new voices, to wait for the wind.

To our joy we found that the Yankee had had a gam (as I have already said) with an English ship a few days before, so we returned to our vessel loaded with old newspapers from England, having invited the captain and crew of the Yankee to come aboard of us and spend the day.

While preparation was being made for the reception of our friends, we got hold of two of the old newspapers, and Tom Lokins seized one, while Bill Blunt got the other, and both men sat down on the windlass to retail the news to a crowd of eager men who tried hard to listen to both at once, and so could make nothing out of either.

“Hold hard, Tom Lokins,” cried one. “What’s that you say about the Emperor, Bill?”

“The Emperor of Roosia,” said Bill Blunt, reading slowly, and with difficulty, “is—stop a bit, messmates, wot can this word be?—the Emperor of Roosia is—”

“Blowed up with gunpowder, and shattered to a thousand pieces,” said Tom Lokins, raising his voice with excitement, as he read from his paper an account of the blowing up of a mountain fortress in India.

“Oh! come, I say, one at a time, if you please,” cried a harpooner; “a feller can’t git a word of sense out of sich a jumble.”

“Come, messmates,” cried two or three voices, as Tom stopped suddenly, and looked hard at the paper, “go ahead! wot have ye got there that makes ye look as wise as an owl? Has war been and broke out with the French?”

“I do believe he’s readin’ the births, marriages, and deaths,” said one of the men, peeping over Tom’s shoulder.

“Read ’em out, then, can’t ye?” cried another.

“I say, Bill Blunt, I think this consarns you,” cried Tom: “isn’t your sweetheart’s name Susan Croft?”

“That’s a fact,” said Bill, looking up from his paper, “and who has got a word to say agin the prettiest lass in all Liverpool?”

“Nobody’s got a word to say against her,” replied Tom; “but she’s married, that’s all.”

Bill Blunt leaped up as if he had been shot, and the blood rushed to his face, as he seized the paper, and tried to find the place.

“Where is it, Tom? let me see it with my own two eyes. Oh, here it is!”

The poor man’s face grew paler and paler as he read the following words:—

“Married at Liverpool, on the 5th inst, by the Reverend Charles Manson, Edward Gordon, Esquire, to Susan, youngest daughter of Admiral Croft—”

A perfect roar of laughter drowned the remainder of the sentence.

“Well done, Bill Blunt—Mister Blunt, we’ll have to call him hereafter,” said Tom, with a grim smile; “I had no notion you thought so much o’ yourself as to aim at an admiral’s daughter.”

“All right, my hearties, chaff away!” said Bill, fetching a deep sigh of relief, while a broad grin played on his weather-beaten visage. “There’s two Susan Crofts, that’s all; but I wouldn’t give my Susan for all the Admirals’ daughters that ever walked in shoe-leather.”

“Hallo! here come the Yankees,” cried the captain, coming on deck at that moment.

Our newspapers were thrown down at once, and we prepared to receive our guests, who, we could see, had just put off from their ship in two boats. But before they had come within a mile of us, their attention, as well as ours, was riveted on a most extraordinary sight.

Not more than a hundred yards ahead of our ship, a whale came suddenly to the surface of the water, seeming, by its wild motions, to be in a state of terror. It continued for some time to struggle, and lash the whole sea around it into a white foam.

At once the boats were lowered from both ships, and we went after this fish, but his motions were so