The Whaler
My sixteenth birthday was accompanied by the restlessness common to young men of that age along with a growing discontent with anything my coastal New England home had to offer. So, it was natural then, in that autumn of 1843, that I should turn my attention to the sea. As a boy, I had played along the timbered docks and piers and I was known to the whalers and fishermen there. Then, as an adolescent, I turned from childhood play to the more serious work of mending nets, unloading holds of haddock, whiting, flounder, and perch, as well as flensing and rendering the carcasses of humpbacks, sperms, and rights in the bubbling dockside try pots. Having no special attachment to any particular vessel or crew, I signed on as a green hand with the first that would have me — the Patricia-Marie, a whaler of moderate size consisting of a captain, three mates (each of whom commanded a whaleboat), boatsteerers, harpooners, and an ordinary crew comprised of a blacksmith, a carpenter, a cook, a cooper, a steward, along with a host of foremast hands. As was the custom, I would not earn a wage; rather, my lay would be a minuscule percentage of the ship’s profits, befitting my status as a green hand on his first voyage. Moreover, because I was given a cash advance by the shipowners to purchase tobacco, boots, and a heavy jacket, I set sail with the Patricia-Marie simply endeavoring to pay off my debt to the ship’s store. Nonetheless, I headed to sea nonplussed by my indebtedness, buoyed by the exuberance of youth and the prospect of adventure. I vividly remember that chilly autumn morning when we slipped loose from our mooring and made for open water. I remember the smell of the sea, at the same time fishy and salty; I remember the caws and squawks of gulls circling over the fishing boats; I remember the froth-topped blue-green water lapping at the hull of our ship, as well as the forests of brown kelp visible beneath the surface; and I most clearly recall that when I left for sea, I was sane.
Life aboard our whaler was a mix of tedium and exhilaration. Between sightings, our days were spent washing the deck, setting the sails, and standing watch. In the evenings, most of the hands went above deck to socialize, smoke their pipes, mend their clothes, and etch whale teeth, baleen, and tortoise shells. We subsisted on salted meat and fish, hard biscuits, peas, and potatoes, as well as the occasional sea turtle or dolphin, eaten above deck when the weather permitted it; and at night, we each retired to quarters befitting our status: the captain to his stateroom, the mates to their cabins, the craftsmen and seasoned crew midship, and us ordinary hands to bunks lining the walls of the fo’c’sle. By and large, the tightly packed crew (a mix of Yankees, Cape Verdeans, and Kanakas) tolerated one another; and when a man misbehaved, his punishment was swift and severe and usually in plain sight of the rest of us. All the while, from sunrise to sunset, we took turns aloft, scanning the ocean for the telltale spout of a whale surfacing to exhale; and calls of “There she blows!” were met with shouts of “Where away?” and “How far off?”. Once the captain determined that the whale was worth pursuing, we thundered to launch the whaleboats, with each boat racing to be the first in the water and the first to get to it. Bridling our eagerness, we rowed gently at first to sneak up on the beast, for they are good of hearing, and any noise could gally them and make them sound away from us. But once we were upon the leviathan, the harpooner, bracing himself against the bow of the whaleboat and with the shout of “Give it to him!” from the boatheader, would plunge his harpoon deep into the creature’s back. Then, with calls of “Stern all! Stern all for your lives!”, we’d quickly back away from the thrashing beast lest it splinter our boat and spill us into the sea. This was usually followed by a Nantucket sleigh ride, with us tethered to the wounded beast by harpoon and line, bouncing along behind the whale through a mist of sea spray and pink froth until it eventually went into its “flurry”, in which it tired, beat the water with its tail, shuddered, and rolled over dead on its side. Sometimes the leviathan pulled us leagues from our ship before its frantic death, and then sore and exhausted, we fastened a hawser around its flukes and towed it back to the ship. There, we chained the carcass to the starboard side and with cutting-in tackle, long-handled spades, and mincing knives, set about the hard work of stripping, cutting, and rendering. Occasionally, the whales we took bore large hooked and circular scars on their heads, testimony to their battles with the colossal cephalopods said to live in the frigid depths, and it wasn’t unusual for us to find a beak or two inside the stomach of a sperm, typically encased in ambergris. Some men would keep these as souvenirs, although they were generally too hard to be scrimshawed.
And so, my days passed on the Patricia-Marie, the monotonous shipboard routine occasionally interrupted by the exhilaration of the hunt and chase; and, when our hull sat low in the water, weighted by a hold full of oil, spermaceti, and ambergris, and when there were no more empty casks to fill, the captain announced that we would return home. That night, with a belly full of lobscouse and duff cakes (specially prepared for the occasion) along with a young throat made sore from too much tobacco smoke and rum, I climbed onto my bunk, and like a stone tossed overboard, I quickly sank into darkness. Although the sea was calm, my sleep was tempestuous, made fitful by dreams of fabulous serpents, and squids, and octopuses that buffeted and rocked our ship, monsters that grabbed and swept men overboard, pulling them deep into icy water towards gaping maws.
And then, I awoke.
On my bunk, with my hands clenched at my sides and my nails furrowing into my palms and clammy from a sweat that had drenched my clothes and was pooling beneath my neck and the small of my back, I reassured myself that I had only been dreaming. However, my relief was short-lived, replaced with a growing disquietude as I realized that I was unquestionably alone in the dimly lit foc’s’le. Absent were the nocturnal sounds to which I had grown accustomed — the snores, the grunts, the farts, and the somniloquys that predictably commenced every night as crewmen clomped down from above, climbed onto their bunks, and collapsed into sleep. For some time, I lay still, listening for some sound in the dark other than my own respiration, but there was none. Then, with a gnawing dread, I climbed off my narrow bunk and ascended the steep, narrow ladder between the foremast and bulkhead leading topside. Grabbing the coaming, I pulled myself through the hatch and stood with stockinged feet on the slippery foredeck of the Patricia-Marie. The evening moon, a waning gibbous, was partially obscured by clouds; and the nighttime autumn air, chilled by the ocean over which it passed, further cooled the sweat that clung to me, causing me to shiver irrepressibly. I slowly looked round in every direction and strode the ship with deliberation from her bow to her stern and from her portside to her starboard, and I found no one. Standing on legs shaking so violently that I feared they would buckle, I grabbed the gunwale to steady myself and stared into the vast nighttime sea. Save for the foam made where it smacked against the hull, it was void; the offing where it touches the horizon, imperceptible.
Then, in stark contrast to the expansive black of the nighttime sea, a milky luminescence appeared in its depths. Initially, I judged it to be about the size of a tea cup saucer, but it was expanding, and I realized it for what it was. The orb stopped ascending several fathoms beneath the surface, its iridescent vitreous body seeming to swirl around a pupil larger than the largest try pot and black even against the backdrop of the dark sea. And there the kraken remained suspended, several fathoms beneath the ocean’s surface, staring dispassionately at me with one of its two large unblinking eyes, its enormous mantle billowing. I backed away but then, with a spray of sea water, several of the creature’s massive arms rose out of the water and entwined themselves around the ship’s three masts, causing it to list so severely that I feared it would keel over and capsize. I fell to the deck, slick with sea spray, and slid on my bottom forcefully into the bulwark, now at such an angle that I was standing upon it. With the deck at my back and my wet, stockinged feet braced upon the bulwark, I saw the creature at the same time pulling the ship towards it and pulling itself almost entirely out of the water; and then I tumbled into the sea. I flailed desperately, trying to avoid the massive swells made when the creature released the ship, and at the same time, trying to avoid sinking into its beaked maw. However, as the beast wrapped one of its mighty arms around my waist, I despaired.
And then, I awoke.
On my bunk, with my hands clenched at my sides and my nails furrowing into my palms and clammy from a sweat that had drenched my clothes and was pooling beneath my neck and the small of my back, I reassured myself that I had only been dreaming. However, my relief was short-lived, replaced with a growing disquietude as I realized that I was unquestionably alone in the dimly lit foc’s’le.