The Red Eric by R. M. Ballantyne (world of reading txt) 📖

A striking and by no means a pleasant change took place in the general appearance of the Red Eric immediately after the successful chase detailed in the last chapter.

Before the arrival of the whales the decks had been beautifully clean and white, for Captain Dunning was proud of his ship, and fond of cleanliness and order. A few hours after the said arrival the decks were smeared with grease, oil, and blood, and everything from stem to stern became from that day filthy and dirty.

This was a sad change to poor Ailie, who had not imagined it possible that so sudden and disagreeable an alteration could take place. But there was no help for it; the duties of the fishery in which they were engaged required that the whales should not only be caught, but cut up, boiled down to oil, and stowed away in the hold in casks.

If the scene was changed for the worse a few hours after the cutting-up operations were begun, it became infinitely more so when the try-works were set going, and the melting-fires were lighted, and huge volumes of smoke begrimed the masts, and sails, and rigging. It was vain to think of clearing up; had they attempted that, the men would have been over-tasked without any good being accomplished. There was only one course open to those who didn’t like it, and that was—to “grin and bear it.”

“Cutting out” and “trying in” are the terms used by whale-men to denote the processes of cutting off the flesh or “blubber” from the whale’s carcase, and reducing it to oil.

At an early hour on the following morning the first of these operations was commenced.

Ailie went about the decks, looking on with mingled wonder, interest, and disgust. She stepped about gingerly, as if afraid of coming in contact with slimy objects, and with her nose and mouth screwed up after the fashion of those who are obliged to endure bad smells. The expression of her face under the circumstances was amusing.

As for the men, they went about their work with relish, and total indifference as to consequences.

When the largest whale had been hauled alongside, ropes were attached to his head and tail, and the former was secured near the stern of the ship, while the latter was lashed to the bow; the cutting-tackle was then attached. This consisted of an arrangement of pulleys depending from the main-top, with a large blubber-hook at the end thereof. The cutting was commenced at the neck, and the hook attached; then the men hove on the windlass, and while the cutting was continued in a spiral direction round the whale’s body, the tackle raised the mass of flesh until it reached the fixed blocks above. This mass, when it could be hauled up no higher, was then cut off, and stowed away under the name of a “blanket-piece.” It weighed upwards of a ton. The hook being lowered and again attached, the process was continued until the whole was cut off. Afterwards, the head was severed from the body and hoisted on board, in order that the oil contained in the hollow of it might be baled out.

From the head of the first whale ten barrels of oil were obtained. The blubber yielded about eighty barrels.

When the “cutting out” was completed, and the remnants of bone and flesh were left to the sharks which swarmed round the vessel, revelling in their unusually rich banquet, the process of “trying in” commenced. “Trying in” is the term applied to the melting of the fat and the stowing of it away in barrels in the form of oil; and an uncommonly dirty process it is. The large “blanket-pieces” were cut into smaller portions, and put into the try-pots, which were kept in constant operation. At night the ship had all the appearance of a vessel on fire, and the scene on deck was particularly striking and unearthly.

One night several of the men were grouped on and around the windlass, chatting, singing, and “spinning yarns.” Ailie Dunning stood near them, lost in wonder and admiration; for the ears and eyes of the child were assailed in a manner never before experienced or dreamed of even in the most romantic mood of cloud-wandering.

It was a very dark night, darker than usual, and not a breath of wind ruffled the sea, which was like a sheet of undulating glass—for, be it remembered, there is no such thing at any time as absolute stillness in the ocean. At all times, even in the profoundest calm, the long, slow, gentle swell rises and sinks with unceasing regularity, like the bosom of a man in deep slumber.

Dense clouds of black smoke and occasional lurid sheets of flame rose from the try-works, which were situated between the foremast and the main-hatch. The tops of the masts were lost in the curling smoke, and the black waves of the sea gleamed and flashed in the red light all round the ship. One man stood in front of the melting-pot, pitching in pieces of blubber with a two-pronged pitchfork. Two comrades stood by the pots, stirring up their contents, and throwing their figures into wild uncouth attitudes, while the fire glared in their greasy faces, and converted the front of their entire persons into deep vermilion.

The oil was hissing in the try-pots; the rough weather-beaten faces of the men on the windlass were smeared, and their dirty-white ducks saturated, with oil. The decks were blood-stained; huge masses of flesh and blubber lay scattered about; sparks flew upwards in splendid showers as the men raked up the fires; the decks, bulwarks, railings, try-works, and windlass were covered with oil and slime, and glistening in the red glare. It was a terrible, murderous-looking scene, and filled Ailie’s mind with mingled feelings of wonder, disgust, and awe, as she leaned on a comparatively clean spot near the foremast, listening to the men and gazing at the rolling smoke and flames.

“Ain’t it beautiful?” said a short, fat little seaman named Gurney, who sat swinging his legs on the end of the windlass, and pointed, as he spoke, with the head of his pipe to a more than usually brilliant burst of sparks and flame that issued that moment from the works.

“Beautiful!” exclaimed a long-limbed, shambling fellow named Jim Scroggles, “why, that ain’t the word at all. Now, I calls it splendiferous.”

Scroggles looked round at his comrades, as if to appeal to their judgment as to the fitness of the word, but not receiving any encouragement, he thrust down the glowing tobacco in his pipe with the end of his little finger, and reiterated the word “splendiferous” with marked emphasis.

“Did ye ever see that word in Johnson?” inquired Gurney.

“Who’s Johnson?” said Scroggles, contemptuously.

“Wot, don’t ye know who Johnson is?” cried Gurney, in surprise.

“In course I don’t; how should I?” retorted Scroggles. “There’s ever so many Johnsons in the world; which on ’em all do you mean?”

“Why, I mean Johnson wot wrote the diksh’nary—the great lexikragofer.”

“Oh, it’s him you mean, is it? In course I’ve knowed him ever since I wos at school.”

A general laugh interrupted the speaker.

“At school!” cried Nickel Sling, who approached the group at that moment with a carving knife in his hand—he seldom went anywhere without an instrument of office in his hand—“At school! Wal now, that beats creation. If ye wos, I’m sartin ye only larned to forgit all ye orter to have remembered. I’d take a bet now, ye wosn’t at school as long as I’ve been settin’ on this here windlass.”

“Yer about right, Sling, it ’ud be unpossible for me to be as long as you anywhere, ’cause everybody knows I’m only five fut two, whereas you’re six fut four!”

“Hear, hear!” shouted Dick Barnes—a man with a huge black beard, who the reader may perhaps remember was the first to “raise the oil.” “It’ll be long before you make another joke like that, Gurney. Come, now, give us a song, Gurney, do; there’s the cap’n’s darter standin’ by the foremast, a-waitin’ to hear ye. Give us ‘Long, long ago.’”

“Ah! that’s it, give us a song,” cried the men. “Come, there’s a good fellow.”

“Well, it’s so long ago since I sung that song, shipmates,” replied Gurney, “that I’ve bin and forgot it; but Tim Rokens knows it; where’s Rokens?”

“He’s in the watch below.”

In sea parlance, the men whose turn it is to take rest after their long watch on deck are somewhat facetiously said to belong to the “watch below.”

“Ah! that’s a pity; so we can’t have that ’ere partickler song. But I’ll give ye another, if ye don’t object.”

“No, no. All right; go ahead, Gurney! Is there a chorus to it?”

“Ay, in course there is. Wot’s a song without a chorus? Wot’s plum-duff without the plums? Wot’s a ship without a ’elm? It’s my opinion, shipmates, that a song without a chorus is no better than