Into That Forest (14 page)

But he could be a pest, that Specky. One day he found me below deck getting a pineapple for Captain Lee. He came up behind me, held me tightly and said he wanted to play a game. He made me watch him pull down his trousers, then asked me to do a rude thing. I said no. He threw himself on me, kissing me roughly. The pineapple was still in my hand so I smashed it on his head. He fell to his knees and passed out, his face and hair splattered with pineapple gunk and juice. The rest of the crew called me
Little Man Harry
and would make jokes ’bout me and Captain Lee I didn’t understand but cos I were the best whale-spotter by far they knew they had to treat me good or I would tell the Captain.

Captain Lee drank by himself. When he were in a good mood he would talk and talk to me, not expecting an answer but telling me of times, years before, when the oceans were filled with whales and fortunes were made just from one voyage. The best times were when he spoke about me father and how he were a great whaler with a deadeye-dick aim with the lance. There were one time when me father got tangled up with the rope attached to the lance and he found himself being whipped out of the boat and for a few terrible moments he were pinned to the whale’s back as it were frothing in agony before submerging. He only survived cos he had a knife and cut himself free of the rope just as the whale dived down into the deep. When he had drunk too much Captain Lee would fall into a black mood and tell himself why did he bother any more and what was the point - the oceans were huge, the number of whales tiny. He said it were like looking for a diamond in seven seas of shit.

One morning I woke up and seen Captain Lee, not in his bed, but curled up in the corner of the cabin covered in his own vomit. He were so still I thought for a moment he were dead but he were snoring softly, the empty whiskey bottle rolling back and forth across the cabin floor. It were two hours before dawn and, after filling me pockets with bread, I grabbed me trumpet and inched me way up into the sky.

It were near dawn and the sun were creeping up from the grey sea when the first rays spread over the water and me heart suddenly went ping! A few miles ahead I thought I seen the black hull of an overturned boat. I peered closer and seen it were moving. I knew what that meant. I were so excited that I instead of shouting out I found meself making warning coughs. Then I seen the trumpet in me hand and I yelled into it,
There she blows!
There were only a couple of blokes on the deck. They looked up at me. I pointed and shouted down at them again:
There she blows!
In a blink, men poured out from below deck, running, shouting, stumbling.
Where away?
I heard Captain Lee call out to me. I pointed ahead of me just as another tiny puff rose up from the whale.
How far?
he cried out. Captain Lee looked through his telescope at where I were pointing. He started to bark orders,
Calling all hands! Get the boats ready.
Even now I can hear me excited voice -
There she blows!
- really loud, really shrill, so shrill it cut the muggy air so everybody below heard it.

Captain Lee ordered the helmsman to keep the ship steady in the direction I were pointing out.
Can you make
out more than one whale?
Captain Lee shouted. I seen the flukes of two other whales near the first one. The ship bore down on the whales. Me body was tingling and me heart were beating fast like I were back with the tigers hunting down our prey. The chase had begun.

As we neared the beasts I counted five of them. Captain Lee’s were the only voice coming from the deck as he shouted his orders,
Keep her steady! Steady at the helm!
There steady . . . ’bout half a mile off.
Then he went silent. I could feel the excitement and keenness of the crew as they stared at the giants just ahead. Captain Lee cried out,
Hoist
and swing the boats!
Three boats were lowered into the water and the men rowed silently, creeping up on their prey. Captain Lee were in the first boat. As he neared the whales, they saw him, snorted loudly, slapped the sea with their flukes and dived. The crews stopped rowing and waited for the whales to reappear. Captain Lee smoked his pipe and watched the water for half an hour, then there were a ripple of white water, a loud sighing, whistling spouts, the air trembling, the water troubled. There were a hollow roar and a black mass rushed up only a few yards from Captain Lee’s boat, bouncing it like it were a bath toy. The whale were ’bout twice the size of the boat, maybe more. I seen the barnacles and white blotches of sea lice on its skin. Captain Lee jumped up after tumbling down and aimed the harpoon. He threw it and it sunk deep into the creature’s back. The whale dived again and cos the lance were attached to a rope it towed the Captains boat over the horizon and out of sight. We set off after it.

By the time we caught up with the boat the poor monster were rolling, tumbling in a flurry of its own blood. It seemed mad with pain and its flukes lashed out at the boat, as if trying to smash it. Its spout hole were opening and closing til finally there were a rush and gush of clotted red blood that shot into the air - like its heart had burst.

It took hours to tie the dead animal up to the side of the ship, which groaned at the weight of the beast. Sharks attacked the whale and the men standing on the monster’s back drove their whale spades deep into the shark skulls. There were gore, blood and frenzy as sharks turned on their own kind, and tore out the intestines, livers and stomachs of each other while the seabirds screamed overhead as if they too were crazed by the killing and gore. The thick blubber were cut off in long strips like peeling an orange. There were men, blubber, gunk, blood and grease sloshing back and forth cross the deck. There were constant shouting and men sliding across the deck like they were skating across the blood and muck. The cutters tried to stay perched on the whale’s slippery back as it hanged on the side of the ship while they hacked into the blubber and all the time keeping an eye on the ferocious sharks foaming up the sea and snapping at the whalers just a few feet away.

Two great try-pots were set up on the deck as twilight came and with it the cry of
Fire the works!
The bowls became two furnaces and by the time it were night they were aflame as the crew throwed the chunks of blubber into the burning pots, the blubber burning with a hiss as if the whale were protesting his death piece by piece. Soot and smoke rolled across the decks and out onto the ocean. Everyone were sweaty and black with soot. The smoke burned our throats. The hunks of blubber were boiled down into oil and poured into casks. The din of the hissing, shouting, laughing and yelling were deafening. Far into the night the spouts of flames soared up into the yardarms, warming me into the very marrow of me bones. More blubber were chucked into the fire and the whole ship were hazy with clouds of greasy black smoke. The men’s faces and clothes were coated in soot, smoke, grease and blood and they stinked of cooked blubber. They looked like they were savages or demons dancing round two sacrifices. From me eyrie up top, the burning pots looked like two demon’s eyes. Even with the bloody horror, the smell and the rancid smoke, I were happy cos we had finally made a killing.

I were watching all this when I seen a bloodied crewman hand Captain Lee something he had found in the whale. It were about the size of a football. He smelt it. I knew immediately what it were and I scrambled down the rigging as fast as possible. By the time I were on deck Captain Lee had gone to his cabin. I rushed there only to see him come out, closing the door behind him. When he seen me he smiled and tapped me on the shoulder.
Good
work, Harry
, he said and went back up on deck. I made sure no one were watching and I crept into the cabin and seen what I were after on his desk. It were ambergris. I sniffed it. It smelt both of stink and something spicy and sweet. I knew I were stealing, but I didn’t care. I ripped off a piece about the size of an egg and returned to my possie on top of the mast. There, while the men toiled below me, I slowly chewed a small piece of the ambergris; it were awfully smelly but underneath that stink I smelt the scent of flowers.

And as I nibbled at it the past came back to me - a storm of memories, good and bad. There were Mr Carsons telling me that me mother and me father were dead. And in remembering that terrible moment - like me flesh were pierced with the lance of truth - I knew that I would not find me father. He were dead. He were a ghost. But all the smells, the whale, the try-works - it all seemed to be saying to me that me father’s ghost were part of the ship. When I thought that his ghost were part of the ship it became a big comfort to me. There were other memories: me, me mother and father and Becky in the boat on the Munro river, the picnic and almost drowning. But there were also good stuff of Becky and me and the tigers, hunting down prey, running barefoot through the snow, sleeping together, lazing in the sun, tasting fresh blood and Becky and me, like two kids in a fairytale, following the tigers to their den and safety. And us on the beach, our minds tingling as we ate the ambergris, our flesh alive as it could ever be. And then, one memory came back that still stanged me like the first time - Becky turning round in the gig to wave goodbye to me as she headed off into the mist, leaving me in that Hobart hotel room. Maybe the ambergris made me giddy, but up there above the smoking, fiery deck I felt closer to the heavens, closer to her, almost as if she were beside me, inside me, and she thinking of me at that moment. And I had this feeling deep in me that we were bound together forever and I would see her again.

I only ate a bit of the ambergris and hid the rest in a tobacco tin, knowing Becky would like it and I’d give it to her once I tracked her down.

I were good at me job and we killed several more whales. When we were returning to Hobart I seen one of the Maori crew tattooing his mates. He were real good at it, and at scrimshawing too. I asked him if he would tattoo me. He laughed and said that I were just a kid and I’d cry if he cut me skin. I said I wouldn’t and I didn’t. How I put up with the pain is a mystery but I were determined to show them I were a man. He gave me a piece of bone to bite on, which were just as well as I were in lots of pain. But I weren’t going to show it. I were so proud when he finished. My arm were sore but the crew knew I were no coward. Me tattoo may be a little fainter now but you can easily see her name -
Becky.
Later I were pissed off when I found out the mistake the Maori made but I got to laugh. I didn’t know how to spell and the Maori didn’t either. What can I do? B E K C Y is there on my left arm til I kick the bucket. I knew it said Becky, though, no matter it were the wrong spelling.

When we were heading back home I were glad. P’raps I could find her back in Hobart. We docked one summer morning. I don’t know what I expected. I s’pose I thought Becky would be waiting for me. But there were only the wives and friends of the crew. No Becky. No Mr Carsons. I were sorely down in the dumps when I seen a sulky arrive and in it were Ernie, plump as a cow bloated with cloverleaf. He waved to me. I were happy to see someone I knew. I ran down the gangplank and into his warm arms. He hugged me and then stepped back to examine me.
Hannah, how
you’ve grown
, he said. He told me that Mr Carsons couldn’t come cos it were sheep-shearing time. He asked me some questions but I only had one thing on me mind and I asked him where Becky were. He frowned, which threw me. Why were he frowning? Was something wrong?
You will hear
her when we’re back at my place
, he said.

Ernie had a long meeting with Captain Lee while I waited in the sulky, jiggling with impatience, for I had got it in me silly young mind that Becky were at Ernie’s house. I thought it were going to be a surprise. It didn’t take us long to get to Battery Point where Ernie lived. When he pointed out his house I jumped from the sulky and ran up to the door and tried to get in. But it were locked. I knocked and knocked and called Becky’s name til Ernie arrived, panting with effort as usual, to open the door for me.

I ran inside, whirling in and out of rooms, but she were not there. I kept on asking where she were. Ernie put his finger to his lips to shhhh me and told me to follow him. He went to the end of the corridor, and opened a narrow side door. Me heart were pounding in excitement at the thought of seeing Becky. I followed Ernie down the stairs into the basement. At the bottom of the stairs he turned on a switch. Dozens of globes lit up, like it had become high noon, it were that bright, but what astonished me were all the machines and technical equipment he had: wiring, screws, bells, saws, piping, copper plates, cylinders of all sizes, metal boxes. I were stunned by all these strange objects, but I also had Becky on my mind and she didn’t seem to be in the basement. I were looking under a table in case she were hiding when Ernie led me to a bench. I recognised the machine. It were like the one at Mr Carsons’s farm. He turned a tiny brass handle and placed a needle on the hollow black cylinder. There was the sound of a girl’s voice, as if she were singing from a faraway room. It were Becky’s voice and she were singing a song without words I had never heard before. It were a simple tune but sung in a throaty way, where you make more than one pitch at a time. It sounded ancient like a dark green forest full of tree ferns at twilight, their fronds catching the last rays of the pale sun.