Part 10

The latter unshipped his oar and looked to his harpoons to see that all was clear.

A second iron was attached by a “short warp” on a running bowline to the whale line, and lay handy, alongside number one.

The boatsteerer did not lift his harpoon and stand poised in readiness. In the excitement attending the crucial moment, he might succumb to buck-fever and be unable to let go.

Instead--he flexed his fingers or rubbed his hands up and down his legs, his eye on the whale, waiting for the command.

“GIVE IT TO HIM!”

Like a flash he grasped his iron, and with every ounce of his strength darted it “up to the hitches.”

Then the second iron if possible.

If the second could not be used, it was at once thrown overboard, out of the way, to be retrieved later.

SOUNDING

The instant command was “Stern all!!”--and the boat was backed out of range of the great flaying tail.

Many things might happen in the next few moments.

The whale might “run”--he might turn and attack the boat with open jaws, or “sound.”

The boatsteerer and the officer exchanged places.

The line ran out at such speed that water had to be thrown into the tub to prevent the line setting fire to the loggerhead.

A BREACH

Should the whale sound, he would stay down an hour or longer, taking out at times all the line of one or more boats.

If he took all from one and no neighbouring boat was handy to supply more, a wooden contrivance for retarding his speed called a “drug” was made fast to the end of the line and cast loose.

The men peaked their oars, waiting for the whale to reappear.

His reappearance was not a modest drifting to the surface. He was thoroughly enraged, and he came up in a manner dramatic and picturesque.

Suddenly, with the speed of an express train, he rose from the bottom, often making a clean leap out of the water and coming down with a mighty splash.

Lucky the boat’s crew that was not caught underneath.

A “CHAWED” BOAT

A fighting bull sperm would often turn and attack the boat, and only the skill of the boatsteerer kept it out of range of the snapping jaws and thrashing flukes.

Boats have been destroyed at one mouthful, and those of the crew as were unable to leap clear. Such was the rage of some whales that they returned again and again to the broken fragments until they were reduced to matchwood.

“A NANTUCKET SLEIGH RIDE”

Should the whale run the crew unshipped their oars and faced forward, a turn of the line was made round the loggerhead, and “playing the fish” began. The boat’s tub and loggerhead were the equivalent of the reel on the trout fisherman’s rod, and the same tactics were employed as in trout fishing, except that the boat followed the whale at a speed of fifteen or more knots an hour.

The boatsteerer snubbed the line by the loggerhead and the crew at each indication of slackening of speed hauled in. Shorter and shorter the line grew as the whale tired, and closer to his flank drew the boat’s bow, where the mate stood ready to exercise his time honoured privilege of delivering the final thrust.

A Nantucket sleigh ride, as it was called, often took the boat miles beyond the horizon, and the crew were often obliged to wait many hours, even days, to be picked up by the ship,--indeed in cases of storm or fog there are tragic instances of boats never having been found.