Hawaii (39 page)

"Got him!" Captain Hoxworth shouted, as the third whaleboat moved in to attach its line to the second, and in this manner the three crews slowly began to tow the whale back to their mother ship. The Carthaginian, meanwhile, manipulated its sails so that it could move with equal caution toward the oncoming whale.

Aboard ship there was much activity. Along the starboard side a section of railing was lifted away, and a small platform was lowered six or eight feet above the surface of the sea. Men brought out razor-sharp blubber knives with twenty-foot handles. Others laboriously lugged huge iron hooks, each weighing almost as much as a man, into position for biting into the blubber and pulling it aboard. Where Abner was to have preached, the cook and his helper piled dry wood for firing the try-pots in which the whale oil would be rendered, while forward the scar-faced cooper supervised the opening of the hatch and the airing of barrels into which that blubber would be stowed that could not be immediately cooked. Jfust as these preparations were completed, with John Whipple noting each step in the process, and Abner Hale trying not to do so because all was being done on a Sunday, the whale was brought alongside and Whipple cried, "It's longer than the Thetis," but Captain Hoxworth, who like all whalers never referred to the length of a whale, growled, "He'll make eighty, ninety barrels. A monster."

When the great sperm was lashed to the starboard side of the Carthaginian, and when the frail platform was adjusted, a black Brava sailor, from the Cape Verdes, nimbly leaped onto the whale's body and with a slashing knife tried to cut at the blubber so as to attach the giant hooks that were being lowered to him. Deft as he was, he could not make the enormous hooks fast, and when the Carthaginian took a sudden shift to windward, the Brava was struck in the chest by one of the swaying hooks and swept off the whale's flank and intp the ocean, whereupon a dozen sleek sharks who had been following the blood stormed down upon him, but the men on the platform slashed and cut at the raiders and drove ithem off, so that the Brava climbed back on the whale, cursing in Portuguese, and this time, dripping in blood from whale and shark alike, he caught the brutal

hooks into the blubber, and the unwinding was ready to begin. But before it could start, the whale's great head�twenty-six feet long and weighing tons�had to be cut away and fastened to the after end of the ship.

"You, Braval" Captain Hoxworth shouted. "Tie this hook into the head!" And the sinewy black man leaped nimbly onto the whale's head, securing the hook, after which his mates with extra sharp knives on long poles sawed away the mammoth head.

When it drifted clear, they directed their knives to the body of the whale, slashing the thick blubbery skin 'in sloping spirals that started from where the head had been and ran down to the huge tail hanging limp in the sea. As the skilled workmen cut, they frequently paused for sport and skshed their deadly knives deep into some shark that had come to feed upon the carcass, and when the knife was withdrawn the shark would twist slightly, as if a bee had stung him, and continue feeding.

Now the men on the lines leading to heavy hooks began to haul, and slowly the whale rolled over and over upon itself while the blanket or blubber unpeeled in a huge spiral and was hauled aloft, When more than a dozen feet hung over the deck, one iron hook was cut free from the top and hooked into position lower down. Then the other was cut away and fastened beside the first, allowing the end of blubber to fall free upon the deck, where it was cut away, hacked into pieces, and thrust at first into the boiling try-pots, and when they were full, into the temporary barrels. Then the lines were hauled tight once more, and the thick blanket of blubber continued to unwind and swing aboard, as men on the swaying platform cut it free from the body of the slowly revolving whale.

At last the tail was reached, and in the final moments, before the monstrous carcass was set free for the sharks, the Brava leaped back onto it and cut away a dozen steaks of fresh whale meat. "Get some liver, too," a sailor shouted, but the Brava felt himself slipping toward the sharks, so he grabbed a line and swung himself back aboard the platform. With a final slash of their scimitar-like knives, the workmen cut the whale loose and he drifted away to the waiting sharks.

Next the giant head was cut into three sections and hauled aboard, where near-naked men scooped out of its vast case more than two dozen precious barrels full of spermaceti, which would be converted into candles and cosmetics.

At dusk, when the head sections, now empty of their treasure, had been dumped back into the sea where twelve hours before they had held a tiny brain which had steered the goliath through the waves, Captain Hoxworth shouted, "Through the generosity of the Lord, our prayers have been delayed. Let the try-pots tend themselves. We'll pray." And he assembled all hands onto the oily deck, but Abner Hale would not participate in the services, so John Whipple conducted both the prayers and the singing and delivered an in—

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: spired sermon on a passage from the 104th Psalm: "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! . . . The earth is full of Thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom Thou hast made to play therein. . . . The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever." In his peroration he preached quietly: "From the turbulent deep God has raised up leviathan. From the wastes of the ocean He has brought us His riches. But from the wastes of the human ocean constantly He provides us with riches greater still, for the leviathan of man's spirit is immeasurable and its wealth is counted not in casks or spermaceti. It is counted in love, and decency, and faith. May we who have trapped the great whale trap in our own lives the greater leviathan of understanding."

Captain Hoxworth was visibly moved by Whipple's sermon and shouted, "Cook! Break out some good food, and well celebrate!"

"We ought to be getting back to the Thetis," Abner warned.

"Forget the Thetis/" Hoxworth boomed. "We'll sleep here tonight." and he led the missionaries down into his quarters, and they were stunned. The cabin was spacious, with clean green cloth npon the table. The captain's retiring room was finished in fine mahogany and decorated with numerous examples of carved whale bone, while his sleeping quarters featured a commodious bed, furnished with clean linen and hung on gimbals, so that even though the Carthaginian rolled in a storm, its captain slept in a steady bed. Along the wall was slung a bookcase, filled with works on geography, history, the oceans and poetry. Compared to the mean and meager Thetis, this ship was luxurious.

And the food was good. Captain Hoxworth said, in a low strong voice that carried his magnetism through the cabin, "We fight hard for our whales. We never finish second best, and we eat well. This is a lucky ship, and, Reverend Whipple, at the conclusion of this voyage I'll own two thirds of her, and at the end of the next, she'll be mine."

"These are fine quarters," Whipple replied.

"I had the mahogany put in at Manila. You see, I'm bringing my wife aboard on the next trip." He laughed apologetically and explained, "When a captain does that, the crew calls the ship a 'Hen Frigate.' Some whalers won't ship aboard a 'Hen Frigate.' Others prefer it. Say the food and the medicine are apt to be better."

"Do captains' wives ever get seasick?" Whipple asked.

"A little, at first," Hoxworth boomed. "But on a bigger ship, like this, they get over it quickly."

"I'd like to see Amanda and Jerusha as captains' wives," Whipple laughed.

"Did you say Jerusha?" the captain asked.

"Yes. Jerusha Hale, Abner's wife."

"Excellent!" the big man cried. "It's Jerusha I'm marrying, too."

And he reached out to grab Aimer's small hand. "Where's yours from, Reverend Hale?"

"Walpole, New Hampshire," Abner replied, unhappy at mentioning his wife's name in a whaling cabin.

"Did you say Walpole?" Hoxworth asked.

"Yes."

Big Rafer Hoxworth kicked back his chair and grabbed Abner by the coat. "Is Jerusha Bromley aboard that brig out there?" be asked menacingly.

"Yes," Abner replied steadily.

"God Almighty!" Hoxworth cried, shoving Abner back into his chair. "Andersonl Lower me a boatl" With fury clouding his face he grabbed his cap, jammed it on the back of his head, and stormed aloft. When Abner and John tried to follow he thrust them back into the cabin. "You wait herel" he thundered. "Mister Wilsonl" he bellowed at his mate. "If these men try to leave this cabin, shoot "em." And in a moment he was on the sea, driving his men toward the brig Thetis.

When he swung himself aboard, refusing to wait for a ladder, Captain Janders asked, "Where are the missionaries?" but Hoxworth, dark as the night, roared, "To hell with the missionaries. Where's Jerusha Bromley?" And he stormed down into the smelly cabin, shouting, "Jerushal Jerusha!" When he found her sitting at the table he swept all the other missionaries together with his giant arms and roared, "Get out of here!" And when they were gone he took Jerusha's hands and asked, "Is what they tell me true?"

Jerusha, with an extra radiance now that she was both recovered: from seasickness and in the first happy flush of pregnancy, drew back from the dynamic man who had wooed her four years ago. Hoxworth, seeing this, slammed his powerful fist onto the table and shouted, "Almighty God, what have you done?" j

"I have gotten married," Jerusha said firmly and without panic.

"To that worm? To that miserable little . . ."

'To a wonderfully understanding man," she said, drawing herself against a small section of the wall that separated two stateroom doors.

"That goddamned puny . . ."

"Rafer, don't blaspheme."

"I'll blaspheme this whole goddamned stinking little ship to hell before I'll let you .. ."

"Rafer, you stayed away. You never said you would many me ..."

"Never said?" he roared, leaping over a fallen chair to grab her to him. "I wrote to you from Canton. I wrote to you from Oregon. I wrote from Honolulu. I told you that as soon as I landed in New Bedford we'd be married, and that you'd sail with me on my ship. It'll be my ship soon, Jerusha, and you're sailing with me."

"Rafer, I'm married. To a minister. Your letters never came."

T

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"You can't be married!" he stormed. "It's me you love, and you know it." He crushed her to him, and kissed her many times. "I can't let you go!"

"Rafer," she said quietly, pushing him away. "You must respect my condition."

The big captain fell back and looked at the girl he had been dreaming of for nearly four years. It is true that he had not, on that first wild acquaintance, asked her to marry him, but when the whales were good and his future known, he had written to her, three separate times, cautious lest any one letter not be delivered. Now she said that she was married . . . perhaps even pregnant. To a contemptible little worm with scraggly hair.

"I'll kill you firstl" he screamed. "By God, Jerusha, you shall never remain married . . ." And he lunged at her with a chair.

"Abner!" she cried desperately, not knowing that he was absent, for she was certain that if he were aboard the Thetis, somehow he would rescue her. "Abner!" The chair crashed by her head and the wild sea captain was upon her, but before she fainted she saw Keoki and the old whaler leaping down into the cabin with hooks and clubs.

Later, the missionaries comforted her, saying, "We heard it all, Sister Hale, and we hoped not to intervene, for he was a madman and we trusted he would recover his senses."

"I had to club him, Mrs. Hale," Keoki apologized.

"Where is he now?"

"Captain Janders is taking him back to his ship," one of the wives explained.

"But where's Reverend Hale?" Jerusha cried in deep love and fear.

"He's on the other ship," Keoki explained.

"Captain Hoxworth will kill him!" Jerusha wailed, trying to get onto the deck.

"That's why Captain Janders went along," Keoki assured her. "With pistols."

But not even Captain Janders was able to protect Abner that night, for although Rafer Hoxworth quieted down on the cooling trip to the Carthaginian, and although he was a model of politeness to John Whipple, when he saw Abner, and how small he was and how wormy in manner, he lost control and leaped screaming at the little missionary, lifting him from the deck and rushing him to the railing of the ship, where the blubber had been taken aboard, and possibly because he slipped unexpectedly on grease, or possibly by intention, he raised Abner high into the night and flung him furiously into the dark waves.

"You'll not keep her!" he screamed insanely. "I'll come back to Honolulu and rip her from your arms. By God, I'll kill you, you miserable little worm."

While he was shouting, Captain Janders was desperately maneuvering his rowboat, warning his men, "After they cut a whale there's

bound to be sharks." And the rowers saw dark forms gliding in the water, and one brushed Abner, so that he screamed with fear, "Sharks!"

From the dark deck of the Carthaginian, Captain Hoxworth roared, "Get him, sharks! Get him! He's over on this side. Here he is, sharks!" And he was raging thus when John Whipple reached into the vast Pacific and pulled his brother aboard.

"Did the sharks get you, Abner?" he whispered.

"They took my foot . . ."

"No! It's all right, Abner. A little blood, that's all."

"You mean my foot isn't . . ."

"It's all right, Abner," Whipple insisted.

"But I felt a shark . . ."

"Yes, one hit at you," Whipple said reassuringly, "but it only scraped the skin. See, these are your toes." And the last thing Abner could remember before he fainted was John Whipple pinching his toes and from a dark distance Rafer Hoxworth screaming futilely, "Get him, sharks! He's over there. Get the stinking little bastard and chew him up. Because if you don't kill him 111 have to."