Night Birds On Nantucket (2 page)

‘Maybe some other ship did.' Dido was still hopeful. ‘When'll we get to port?'

‘'Bout eight months from now. Maybe nine.'

‘Eight
months
? Are you crazy? There ain't that much sea atwixt England and Hanover.'

‘That's not where we're bound, chick. Back to Nantucket, that's where we'll be heading, soon's our casks are all full. That'll set you a step on your way, anyhows. Guess you can find some packet out o' New Bedford that'll take you to England.'

Plainly these names meant nothing to Dido.

‘Where are we now, then?' she asked.

‘Somewhere north o' Cape East. Just got to raise another whale or two and we'll be homeward bound. Then all the casks'll be full.'

‘Full of what?'

‘Spermaceti o' course – whale-oil. What d'you think you've been living on for the last ten months?'

‘Ten months? I've been aboard this ship for
ten months
?'

‘Guess so. And pretty scrawny you'da been by now if I hadn't kept pouring whale-oil and sulphur and m'lasses down your gullet.'

Dido looked quite dazed. ‘Ten months,' she repeated, half to herself. ‘How did you come to pick me up, then? Where was it?'

For the first time the boy Nate appeared slightly embarrassed. ‘Well,' he explained hesitantly, ‘we was a mite off course. It was thishow, you see. Cap'n had fixed to go after sperm-whales in the western grounds, so we was a-cruisin' off Madeira. And then the Old Man – he's a fine captain, just old pie on knowing
where they're running, could raise you a whale in a plate o' sand, but he's funny in one way, awful peculiar–'

He stopped, his mouth open.

‘Go on,' said Dido. ‘How's he funny?'

A voice from behind made her start.

‘What is thee doing up on deck, Nate?' it said sternly. ‘Thee should be in thy bunk at this hour.'

Dido turned and saw a tall man, dressed all in black. He had a long black beard almost covering his white shirt-front; his face was severe but two great mournful eyes in it seemed as if they paid little attention to the words he spoke; they were fixed elsewhere, on vacancy.

‘I – I'm sorry, sir, Cap'n Casket,' Nate said, stammering a little. ‘I was taking a hot drink to Uncle 'Lije when I saw the little girl had wakened up.'

‘So she has. So she has. How strange,' murmured Captain Casket, bending his eyes on Dido for the first time. ‘Does thee feel better for thy long sleep, my dear?'

‘Yes, thank you, mister,' Dido answered bashfully.

‘Nate, since the little one has woken, thee had better fetch her some slops.'

‘Yes, sir, cap'n. Shall I fetch some o' Miss Du–'

‘Don't be a fool, boy!' Captain Casket said sharply. ‘Thee knows it is impossible. They – they would be too small. There must be some boys' gear in one of the slop chests, fetch out a bundle. And shears: that long hair won't do aboard a whaler.'

‘Yes, sir.' Nate ran off in a hurry. Captain Casket fixed his sad wandering eyes on Dido but they soon moved back to the horizon and, heaving a deep sigh, he seemed to forget her. She was in too much awe of him to speak.

At length, turning to her again, he said:

‘Has thee family and friends in England, my child?'

‘Y-yes, sir!'

‘Poor souls. This will have been a sorrowful time for them. No matter, the joy when thee is restored to them will be all the greater.'

‘Yes, sir. Thank you for picking me up,' Dido said bravely.

‘Providence must have ordered that we should be sailing by. His ways are strange.' Captain Casket's grave face lightened in a smile of rare sweetness and simplicity; he added, ‘Now thee has wakened up, my child, thee can be of considerable help to me in thy turn.'

‘Yes, sir. H-how?'

‘Tomorrow will be soon enough to explain the task I have in mind for thee. I will not burden thee tonight. Here comes Nate now, with the clothes. When thee has put them on, thee had better sleep again.'

He moved away silently over the deck.

Nate came running with an armful of clothes and a great pair of shears. He proceeded to chop off most of Dido's hair.

‘That feels better,' she said, shaking her head. ‘Can't think how it come to be so long, it never used. It musta growed while I was sleeping. Why won't long hair do aboard a whaler?'

‘Why? Because o' the gurry,' Nate said grinning. ‘Now, can you fix yourself up in them things?'

‘What's gurry?'

‘Slime. You'll see at cutting-in time, if the men have had greasy luck.'

Nate had brought nankeen breeches, a shirt, a
monkey-jacket, red drawers, Falmouth stockings, and a pair of leather brogans.

‘These'll be too big for me,' Dido said. But she soon found they were not. ‘Great snakes! I ain't half growed since I been a-laying here.'

‘Guess that'll be all the whale-oil. We could see it was doin' you good. You used to cough considerable, at first, but you haven't done so for months.'

Dido looked round to make sure they were not overheard. ‘What were you going to tell me about Captain Casket? And why does he talk in that queer way?'

‘He's a Friend – a Quaker – that's why. And what I was going to tell you –' Nate in his turn glanced behind him and, seeing the deck was clear, went on, ‘He's allus had a kind of an uncommon fancy, you see – ever since he was a boy, Uncle 'Lije says. First-off on this trip it warn't so noticeable. His old lady, Mrs Casket, she sailed along with us because she warn't well and they reckoned sea air would do her good. But it didn't. She took sick and died, poor soul, afore we ever sighted Santa Cruz. When she was on board he kept to plain whaling. But when she died and –' Nate came to a halt and started again. ‘She was a mite solemn-like and fussy in her ways, and scared to death of the sea, but there warn't no real harm in her. She used to make gingerbread and molasses cookies sometimes, afore she was took ill. Can you bake cookies?' he asked Dido.

‘No.'

‘Oh. Well, after she died Cap'n Casket got quieter and quieter. Never smiled – not that he was ever much of a one for a joke – never spoke. One day he said he saw the pink whale.'

‘What's queer about that?' asked the ignorant Dido.

‘What's queer? Well, they don't
come
pink whales, that's all! But Uncle 'Lije says Cap'n Casket for ever had this notion that one day he
would
see one. No one liked to say anything, but they thought he was a bit touched. Anyway, he swore he'd seen it and it was making north'ards and we was bound to follow it. Then Mr Slighcarp, he's the first mate, he allowed as
he'd
seen it too. Some thought he was just humouring the Old Man but anyways we chased it, up past Finisterre and Finistère and Ushant and Land's End, and next thing we was squeezing through the North Sea past London River. Clean lost the pink whale but that's where we picked
you
up. Only you was fast asleep and wouldn't wake to tell us where your home port was. For all we knew you mighta been a Fiji Islander. So I adopted you, kind of like a mascot because I'd lost my pet mynah bird. Then Cap'n Casket he sees the pink whale again, off John o' Groats, and she leads us a fair dance first south right round the Horn and then north again up past the Galapagos and Alaska to where we are now.'

‘Did you ever catch her?'

‘Not likely! No one's ever seed her but Mr Slighcarp and the Old Man. Still, we had good luck, we caught plenty other whales after that first little dummy run. But some o' the men was a bit ashamed of getting so far off the whaling grounds as we was when we picked you up.'

Suddenly Dido's lip quivered.

‘I wish you hadn't! I wish some English ship had picked me up!'

‘Well, there's ingratitude!' Nate said indignantly. He added in a gentler tone, ‘We couldn't leave you to drown, now, could we? You'll get home soon enough.'

But, for Dido, the dreamlike strangeness of her surroundings, the huge dark frosted ship, the blazing Arctic sky across which mysterious arches and curtains and streamers of red and green now flickered – most of all the fact, only half understood, that she was an immense distance, half a world away, from home – all this was suddenly too much to be borne. She flung herself down on the pile of sheepskins and cried as if her heart would break.

‘There, there!' said Nate uncomfortably. ‘Come now, don't take on so, don't! Supposin' somebody was to see you?'

‘I don't care!' wept Dido. ‘I wish I was at home. Oh, I wish I was at home
now
!'

WHEN DIDO WOKE
once more dawn had broken, wild and red and dim. The ice-covered ship gleamed like a Christmas tree. What had roused her was the shouts of the men, who had returned towing a large sperm-whale; their three boats spread around it like tugs. Dido was astonished at the sight of this huge, mouse-coloured monster, almost as big as the ship, it seemed, with its steep face, flat and featureless as the side of a house. At first, in alarm, thinking it was still alive, she scrambled out of her straw bed and retreated to the far side of the deck. But then she realized that it was dead and the men were making it fast to the ship.

‘What are they going to do with it?' she asked Nate, who ran along the deck with five mugs of hot coffee in each hand. By day he was revealed as a long, lanky redhead, with friendly grey eyes and a great many freckles.

‘Cut-in, o' course. I can't stop now, chick. Why don't you step down to the camboose and get some breakfast? Doctor'll be astonished to see you.'

Dido guessed that the camboose must be the kitchen, but she was too interested in what the men were doing to leave the deck for a while. Several men had gone over the side and now stood on stagings like painters' cradles slung from ropes between the ship and the whale. They were armed with long-handled, sharp-edged spades. Meanwhile a huge hook, lowered from the rigging, had been sunk into the whale's side. At this point the rest of the crew all combined their strength to turn a massive windlass, while they encouraged each other by singing:

Now, to Dido's amazement, while every timber of the ship seemed to strain and strive, the body of the whale slowly began turning over in the water as the men wound the windlass-handle and pulled on the rope attached to the hook. While the whale turned, the cutters on the hanging planks skilfully sliced round its body so that the blubber, or skin, was peeled off in a spiral like orange-peel. When a considerable length of this great blubber-strip had been drawn up on the hook, sections of it as large as blankets were cut clear by the men on deck and lowered through a forward hatchway.

‘What do they do with it down there?' Dido asked a passing man. He scowled at her. It was Mr Slighcarp, the first mate.

‘Ho!
You've
woken up to plague us, have you? Don't you go near the try-works or I'll spank you with a deck spade.'

‘They mince it up, ready to be boiled down for oil,' another more good-natured man told her. ‘There's a blubber-room down there, I dessay Cap'n Casket'll let you have a look some time. Mr Pardon, the second mate, will maybe show you; he's right pleased to know you've woken up at last; he's down below cutting-in now.'

Dido wondered what the angry-looking Mr Slighcarp had meant by the try-works. Then she saw that an iron door had been opened at one side of the square brick structure in the middle of the deck; a fire roared inside it and men ran to and fro feeding the flames with bits of tarred rope and frizzled scraps of whale, poking the blaze with long-handled fire pikes. Two huge metal pots were built in above and into these were being tossed chunks of blubber, sliced most of the way through into
paper-thin slices so that they looked like books. The brew in the try-pots began to melt and bubble; thick, black, greasy smoke rolled over the deck.

‘Cor, love a lily-white
duck
!' gasped Dido, as a murky bank of the smoke surged towards her and almost smothered her. ‘I never in all my born days smelt such a smell,
never
! It's enough to make a bad egg burst out crying and go home to mother.'

Nate, who was passing with the empty mugs, laughed. ‘You'd better get used to it,' he said. ‘There's going to be plenty more afore we're through.'

At noon a little old bow-legged Negro whom everybody addressed affectionately as Doctor came on deck with a steaming cauldron of something that smelt very appetizing, and the men helped themselves from it when they could snatch a moment from their labours.

‘Go and help yourself!' Nate called to Dido – he was sharpening tools on a grindstone.

Rather timidly she approached the cook who gave her a flashing white grin and handed her a tin pannikin of hash.

‘You like lobscouse, eh? Best lobscouse from here to Christmas Island, eh Mr Pardon? Make a change from whale-oil, I b'lieve?'

Mr Pardon, the white-haired, kindly-faced second mate, who was also gulping down a bowlful of food, had his mouth full and couldn't speak. But he smiled at Dido and as soon as he could, said: