The Stolen Heart (6 page)

 

 

“Aye, Captain,” she shouted, and waved. Then she continued to watch
the spouting in gleeful fascination.

 

 

They all scrambled into the whaleboats, which were secured on both
sides of the ship. His boat was on the larboard side, furthest ways
from the whale, so Jared didn't waste any time grabbing a line tub
and getting the boat loaded.

 

 

He mopped the remaining soap from his face and dropped his towel. He
yanked on his shirt without pausing to button it, and slid down the
davit ropes as the boat splashed into the water.

 

 

They rowed out around the bowsprit and over to the whale pod in
record time. This was not surprising, though, as the whale boat
crews had been selected at the start of the voyage, with the Captain
getting the best of the men.

 

 

He did sometimes try to rotate some of the weaker ones from the
Mate’s and Second’s boats into his in order to improve them and get
them used to working as a team no matter who they were assigned to,
but speed was of the essence now. Especially since Mate had ignored
the call, he remembered with gritted teeth as he manned the tiller
of the whaleboat.

 

 

Mate maintained the discipline of the crew at all times. Jared knew
he was a good officer, a stickler for protocol and routine. But he
could be too harsh, and was feared, not respected or admired.

 

 

Still, it was only fair to give him his due, for Jared had been
given him when he had got the command of the
Trident
. Mate
had been passed over for promotion. It had to have galled the older
man, but he had not passed all the tests that were insisted upon by
the Starbuck Whaling Fleet.

 

 

Jared had had Dare’s tutoring as well as his own native
intelligence. He had sailed through the tests easily. He’d been made
up to captain at a young age, though not as young as Dare had been,
at only twenty. Mate would probably make a good captain one day, but
he also needed to learn from his mistakes.

 

 

Yet Mate acted as if there was nothing Jared could teach him. As
much as Jared hated to admit it, the attitude rankled. He knew he
was no genius like his cousin or younger brother, he thought
modestly, but he
was
the Captain. He had paid his dues at
sea and earned his command, and did deserve a bit more respect than
Mate afforded him.

 

 

But Jared turned his thoughts to more urgent matters as they drew
closer and closer to the pod. He was delighted to be in the boats at
last in frantic pursuit, steering at the back while his boatsteerer,
also known as the harpooner on non-American whaleships, was at the
bow.

 

 

The boatsteerer was readying his two irons to stab them into the
hide of the whale and fasten on the lines which would help capture
and eventually kill the great creature.

 

 

But first they had to get safely attached and underway. Next they
would have to wear out the great leviathan and lance him
successfully.

 

 

That was where Jared came in. He flexed his muscles and rubbed his
arms, loosening himself up. The tension had him strung as tautly as
a bow. But it was the thrill, the excitement of the hunt, and the
knowledge of a quick clean kill and a job well done.

 

 

He did not believe in prolonging their suffering. Nor did he believe
in slaughtering the infants in an attempt to kill the mother whale
as well.

 

 

He and Dare both agreed they had seen far too much of that practice
in recent years, as more and more men, greedy and ambitious, had
decided that anything they came across was fair game.

 

 

But a baby whale did not produce anything worth having, No, the king
of the sea was the elusive full-grown male sperm whale coming up to
the surface to swim as part of a family group, and breathe, before
diving into the uncharted depths to eat the giants squids it was
believed were its diet.

 

 

Jared had found squid beaks and some huge tentacles in the stomach
and intestines of the whales he had inspected for ambergris, the
incredibly valuable waxy yellow substance inside some whales which
was used in the perfume industry, and worth four times its own
weight in gold.

 

 

He had never seen a giant squid himself, but he knew they existed
from this evidence, and was fascinated by the creature he hunted for
a living.

 

 

It was while the whales were on the surface completing a special
breathing cycle that the whalemen would sneak up behind them,
bringing the boats in so close that they actually touched the huge
backs. ‘Wood on blackskin’ was what they commonly called it.

 

 

Some of the whales were the length of his own three-masted,
ninety-foot ship, he thought in awe. No matter how many times he saw
a whale, he did not take them for granted, nor underestimate the
danger of what he was undertaking.

 

 

Ever since the story of the
Essex
, attacked and sunk by a
sperm whale, had hit the newspapers in the United States many years
before, every whaler captain with any ounce of sense had to pause
and wonder if it could indeed happen to them.

 

 

But most of the time the main danger was to the three whaleboats,
rather than the entire ship itself. There the dangers were all too
common.

 

 

But not today,
Jared decided.

 

 

It was a glorious day, these were their first whales of the season,
and life was good aboard the
Trident
. He had a superb crew
with him, for the most part, especially Perkins the second mate and
little Al, his new friend.

 

 

And truth be told, they couldn't afford to fail. They desperately
needed oil to cook and heat the ship as they rounded the frigid Horn
in the next few weeks. Today they were going to get it.

 

 

He signaled to the boatsteerer Mr. Wright. The man put all his
considerable weight and strength behind his weapons. He thrust down
hard twice with his great irons, penetrating the thick blubber as
best he could with the razor-sharp harpoons.

 

 

The whale shuddered for a moment and then took off swimming. Within
ten seconds the line was hurtling out of the tub, and they were
picking up speed in the boat.

 

 

“Nothing like a Nantucket sleigh-ride,” Jared laughed to one of the
men as he cautiously made his way to the front, swapping places with
the boatsteerer.

 

 

Jared moved to the bow of the boat, the better to see the line. He
had his axe at the ready to cut it in case anything happened to make
him fear for the safety of the small craft. Anything could go wrong:
a man overboard, an injury, a sounding whale trying to drag them
under.

 

 

And of course, the further they got dragged away from the
Trident,
the more danger there was. It was a big ocean, and they had to make
their way back to the ship no matter what.

 

 

Otherwise it would be like hunting for a needle in a haystack, for
the whale could go in one direction for miles, or swerve all over
the Atlantic or Pacific erratically. The bigger beasts could go as
fast as twenty-five miles an hour, leaving them a long pull back.

 

 

He certainly didn’t want one of those today. He knew the men were a
bit out of practice, and he was eager to get back to the ship. He
wanted to see Al and share his impressions of the hunt with him, and
give him the gold which was to be his reward for spotting the first
whale of the voyage.

 

 

He tamped down his irritation with the first mate for not believing
Al. He hadn't even bothered to look for himself to see if the boy
had been correct and really had seen a whale.

 

 

He didn't like friction amongst his crew, and the boy would never
learn if he wasn't taught. But he had performed his task perfectly.
What was there to complain about?

 

 

Jared chewed over their conflict as he sat in the boat waiting for
the whale to tire, getting soaked to the skin as the waves churned
up by the leviathan crashed into the little thirty-foot boat.

 

 

He picked up one of the bailers and began to try to diminish the
water level in the prow; a bit of water in the boat helped slow the
whale down, but too much water and they would sink.

 

 

He was delighted to see the
Trident
come back into view
about half an hour later. The whale had dragged them almost in a
full circle. They shot past it, though, and their second line came
into play as the huge sperm whale kept on pulling.

 

 

“Loop the rope around the logger head. Let’s see if we can’t bring
him to a halt before we run out of line,” he instructed the man
behind him.

 

 

Another five minutes saw the whale still near the ship, so Jared had
Wright throw their drag out the back, a large wooden board attached
by ropes which would, as the name suggested, slow the whale down
even further.

 

 

Soon the whaleboat was in position for Jared to lance the exhausted
creature. He aimed carefully at his optimum target, the join of the
great fin and side of the sperm whale.

 

 

He gathered all of his considerable strength, thrust the razor-sharp
lance in through the thick, tough blubber, and twisted mightily.

 

 

“Fire in the chimney!” Wright the boatsteerer called, as huge gouts
of blood began to gush from the whale’s spout.

 

 

It began to thrash about wildly, fins and flukes flailing. They
rowed back a safe distance to await the end, ever watchful in case
it should decide to thrash or sound, or begin its run anew.

 

 

This time, the whale was remarkable calm, much to Jared's relief. He
had struck hard, and well, and prayed he had caused as little pain
as possible.

 

 

After a half an hour, Jared declared, “Fin out!”

 

 

The newly expired whale was floating on it side, and they secured a
strong rope to his tail, and began to row him in.

 

 

“Gosh, he was a lively one up until you lanced him,” Bob the
strapping former farm boy commented to the captain, awed by what he
had just seen.

 

 

“Aye, lively enough, but you'll see far more fighting ones before
this voyage is through, I'll be bound. The main thing is that we're
all safe, and we got him. Now comes the trying out, and the oil.”

 

 

Bob wrinkled his nose. “It sounds terrible.”

 

 

“It’s how we all make our money, lad, even if it isn’t pretty.”

 

 

“Aye, it could be worse. We could be miners buried underground all
day every day, or--”

 

 

“Or prostitutes having to put up with stinking whalers like us!”
Luke Peterson, one of the most experienced of the senior men,
guffawed.

 

 

“You said it, not me,” Jared remarked with a grin. “Anyway, we have
no cause for complaint. We'll get more oil for the ship, and Cook
will be making up doughnuts for the try pots even as we speak.”

 

 

“And we'll get fresh whale steaks, and crackling,” Bob said
enthusiastically. At his size and as a teenager, he was constantly
hungry.

 

 

“
When
we get to eat at all, you mean,” Wright the boatsteerer
reminded him.

 

 

“The doughnuts and crackling are coming, but not just yet,” Jared
said. “We're going back out as soon as we get this one secured and
cut off its head. I can still see that pod out there.”

 

 

“Aye, Captain.”

 

 

"And extra helpings for Al for spotting our first whales," he said,
feeling as fond and proud as any parent about his young protégé, and
wishing he were there in the boat with him to share in his soaring
triumph.

 

 

 

CHAPTER SIX

 

 

After about half an hour, the captain's whaleboat had pulled back to
the
Trident
.

 

 

Jared jumped onto the deck to grab another line tub while the men
secured the whale. He handed the tub down into the boat and heaved
back up the spent one, then went back for the second spare.

 

 

The rest of the men wrestled with the chains around the flukes of
the whale while their captain looked over the whaleboat one more to
make certain they had all they needed.

 

 

Once the carcass was secure, Jared supervised the cutting off of the
valuable head, which came up onto the deck.

 

 

Then he shouted to the smith to get started with the cutting in of
the blubber, and got back into the whaleboat. “Where's the pod?”

 

 

“Four points off starboard, sir,” came the shout from aloft.

 

 

“Very good, lads. Down you come, before you bake up there. Go
sharpen the knives.”

 

 

“Aye, Captain,” Almira called.

 

 

He gave Al a huge wave and smile, feeling that strange burst of
sensation in his chest again which almost choked his breath.

 

 

Then he loaded the second tub, dragged out the spent one, and
gripped another lance to test it.

 

 

"All ready, men?"

 

 

"Aye, sir," they chorused.

 

 

"Then cast off."

 

 

With the tang of salt brine in his nostrils and the brisk breeze at
his back, he manned the tiller eagerly as they got underway once
more. This was the life indeed. He only hoped Al and his brother
would come to love it as much as their father Jed had.