Jamrach's Menagerie (14 page)

‘Growl you may but go you must, for if you don’t your head they’l bust’, and we were al joining in on the chorus: ‘Go down you blood red roses, go down. Oh’ – this a great tipsy roar – ‘you pinks and posies – go down you blood red roses, go down.’

No one but me, for I was sitting next to him, noticed when Skip slammed down his tin cup, put his arms round himself and started rocking from side to side.

‘What’s up?’

Ignoring me, he got up, walked to the rail and stood gazing across at our ship. Something peculiar in him made me fol ow. ‘What’s up, Skip?’ I said. His eyes were wide. That was strange. Skip didn’t have wide eyes. He was staring up at her sails. ‘What?’ I looked up too and saw nothing.

Then he looked at the black waves washing against
Lysander
’s side, and his throat clenched loudly.

‘You not wel , Skip?’

His lips were drawn back like a dog’s. ‘Can you see them?’ he said.

‘See what?’

‘Snakes.’ He was shivering.

I stared at the sea, the ordinary sea, and our ship, just as she ever was. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I wondered if I should go and tel someone.

‘Of course, you don’t know what I’m talking about.’ He sighed, wearily impatient. His hands were shaking on the rail. It was a beautiful night. The singing was growing melancholy and the lights swung out on the water.

‘Don’t go mad on us, Skip,’ I said, ‘for God’s sake.’

He smiled. ‘It’s al right,’ shaking his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s just something.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Nothing.’ He laughed, turning his head to look at me. His eyes were stil too big.

‘Skip,’ I said, ‘are you real y seeing things down there?’

He nodded sadly, returning his gaze to the sea, once more drawing back his lips from his gums in that peculiar dog-like way.

‘
I
can’t see anything,’ I told him pointlessly, and we stood for a while, both of us gazing down as if hypnotised.

‘Don’t worry. Look at your hands.’ I tried to prise one off the rail. ‘It’s just the sea playing tricks. It’s worse when the moon’s out. Does funny things with your eyes.’

‘Snakes from out of the sea,’ he said, but his hands loosened and fel down by his sides.

‘Listen, if you’re scared witless by a bit of moon on water,’

I said, ‘what’l you do when we get to dragon land?’

‘That’s different.’

‘How?’

‘Because that’s real. I’m not scared of what’s real.’

He turned from the rail and I saw that his eyes were narrow again. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said. ‘Gone back down into the sea.’

Normal, or as normal as he could ever be.

‘But they’re not real,’ I reminded him. ‘You said it yourself.’

‘So?’ And he just walked away as if nothing had happened.

I told Gabriel about this and he said, ‘There’s a word for it, Jaf. Mad. You meet a lot of mad people at sea, particularly on a whale ship. Long as he can do his job.’

‘True, but what if it happens while he’s out in a whaleboat?

What if he’s supposed to be pul ing along with everyone else and he sees something that isn’t there and starts watching that instead? I wouldn’t want to be in a boat with him. Do you think he’s al right?’

‘Look,’ he said, ‘if they laid off al the mad sailors there’d be no one left to man the ships.’

But later he gave me a nudge and said, ‘Keep an eye on him though.’

I told Dan about it too, and he said much the same.

So, there we were keeping an eye on Skip as we crossed the Equator. I was thinking of Ishbel. I was thinking of Ma. I was thinking how when I got home, I’d never be able to tel them, never be able to describe al this, the way it felt, the miles and miles of empty sea and never a sail and never a sight of a whale or anything, and al of us rubbing along together like we did, with the timbers groaning and the smel s of oak and pine and the murkier smel of men. How to explain how safe and good the fo’c’s’le? Home with the hatch down. That’s how peaceful it was when at last, six weeks after leaving home, we encountered our first whales.

It was Tim sighted them. God caused the great glory of the deep to appear for Tim – who else? – and Tim seized his moment joyful y.

‘
There she blo-o-ows
!’

Loud and clear. His voice broke a little, but what matter?

We were so thoroughly prepared, we al knew exactly what to do, yet for a moment or two we greenies froze.

‘Where away?’ Rainey cried, and Comeragh cal ed al hands.

‘Right ahead – a school of sperms.’

‘Haul up the mainsail and spankers – helm down – back –

clear away boats – lower away!’

Sam and Gabriel and Dan and Yan set about the boats calmly. Captain Proctor came up and stood on the quarterdeck with his telescope to his eye, and the dog sat at his side, wagging its tail.

‘Flukes!’ yel ed Tim.

We ran to the rail. I saw nothing, only the sea and the endless horizon. Bil , my friend of the sick bucket, was on one side of me and on the other was Dag Aarnasson, a big strong boy with white-yel ow hair. He must have had better eyes than me. ‘I see it!’ he cried.

Then Bil started jumping up and down and pointing.

‘There! There!’

I couldn’t see anything.

A cheer went up.

‘Keep it down, you fools!’ Proctor roared in a voice we’d never heard before, a real captain’s voice ful of command that must have been kept in reserve al this time for just such an occasion as this. We jumped to. Ours was the waist boat.

The line was already in and Simon stood sharpening his harpoon. Far above, Tim leaned out over empty air.

‘She breaches!’

‘A shoal of sperm,’ Captain Proctor cal ed out sharply,

‘twenty at least.’

We ploughed on. Rainey walked about the deck sticking his big nose in everywhere and swearing al the time as if there were no other words would do it. Henry Cash always seemed to be striding about everywhere too, always looking as if he was in control of some very important situation.

‘White water!’ cried Tim.

A mile from the shoal we hove to. A ghostly feather appeared, far, far out on the sea, just for a second, and my heart was beating very very fast. Tim, down from his eyrie, ran over to me, out of breath. ‘This is it.’ He could hardly get it out. ‘This is it, this is it, Jaf,’ he said and gripped my hand hard. My mouth had gone dry.

Dan pushed in between. ‘Let’s go and catch a big fish,’ he said.

We set the whaleboat down as gently as a baby on the waves, with Comeragh in the stern and Simon in the bow, then we slid down the fal s each to his place, me and Tim and Dan and Sam. The boat bobbed lightly like a feather. I looked up and saw the ship keepers, Wilson Pride’s wide, black face impassive, sulky Joe Harper, Abel Roper slouching to the helm as if a burden was on his wiry shoulders. Joe and Abel were jealous. They’d have loved to have been going out with us. I’d not have swapped with either, but at that moment there was a great longing for the solid deck beneath my feet and a safe height from which to look down. The boat was nothing, an old matchbox waiting to be capsized by a black island of whale flesh, turned to matchwood floating on the water by the careless flick of a massive tail. Show fear? Not a bit. I looked over my shoulder at Simon sitting in the bow. If
I
was scared, he must be terrified. It was his first time with the harpoon. He’d been practising. Take aim. Throw. Take aim. Throw. If he arsed it up and made the creature angry – ha, wel . He didn’t look scared though. He was inspecting the tip of his harpoon with a frown, his cheeks very flushed.

The captain’s and Rainey’s crews floated nearby. There were voices, laughter. Comeragh was the only one of us in our boat could see where we were going. I was next to him, facing him. He smiled at me. ‘We’re going to pul like fucking hel , lads,’ he said, and his long fingers closed round the steering oar. ‘We’l beat those bastards.’

And the race began. Because that’s what it was, a race to win. We pul ed, we pul ed like fucking hel towards an unseen quarry. Comeragh stared over our heads with flaring nostrils, never blinking, cal ing which way to pul . We flew. I saw another boat from the corner of my eye, the captain’s bulky form astern, the blond head of Dag like a beacon, the crew bent-backed, straining. A mile or more and my shoulders burned. Jesus. Comeragh laughed. ‘Get ready,’ he said, and made a sign for silence. I looked up. His eyes were fixed on something beyond. He had a way of cal ing a whisper, loud enough for us al to hear, but not loud enough to gal y the whales. He leaned forward at the steering oar and cal ed us to pul two, pul three in his whisper command, eyes stil fixed on what we could not see. My back and shoulders were on fire. When at last he cal ed ‘avast’ and we rested, I was drenched and al a-tremble and my palms were scorched.

I blinked sweat from my eyes. My nose streamed.

Lysander
, three great masts and white sails, my home, was far away.

‘Simon,’ said Comeragh.

And then I looked.

A whale. Black, gleaming in the sun. Block-shaped head out of the water, high as a cliff. Too close.

‘There she is, a beauty,’ Comeragh said.

I sensed the other boats, other whales further away, the sea churning and living, but al I saw was our whale. Her ridged tail, a lovely shimmering thing like a moth, flourished, slapped down and went under. She was gone. The sea heaved, the wash lifted us high.

Simon stood up with his harpoon. One leg was bent and his knee was shaking.

‘Any minute, any second,’ Comeragh murmured, ‘she’l be up and – here, here, here, where are you, my love? Up you come now for Daddy – get steady, Simon, she’l take you by surprise, she wil , she’s a little teaser she is, she’s a little –

where are you, darling? It’s a lovely day, come up and talk to me, don’t be shy, come up and—’

She exploded through the surface in a cascade of silver, further away, thank God. She was the length of two of our boats.

Simon relaxed slightly. ‘Pul two,’ said Comeragh, and we slid along the water, creeping like a beetle towards an elephant. Down she went again, sudden as before. We crept. She resurfaced, further away. This seemed to please Comeragh, whose eyes had been worried, but who now smiled. ‘I have you, madam,’ he said, and we fol owed.

I lost sense of time. We went far from the boats, but there were other whales, playing like kittens about us. We ran with them, rainbows of spray on the air, always fol owing the same whale, which sounded and breached, sounded and breached, drawing us on for miles. God knows how Comeragh always knew just where she’d breach. Our aching backs had turned to water and no longer mattered by the time we closed on her. She was tired too, sitting on the water, a smal sad shining eye watching us, interested. What a peculiar place for an eye, I thought, right down on the side like that. What kind of a face is that? Like an elephant’s eye, the elephants in Jamrach’s yard. Good old elephants! Her white mouth opened on sharp little teeth al along the lower jaw.

Simon stood with harpoon poised, leg braced against the cleat, broad shoulders knotted. She spouted a thick mist-cloud of stench that covered my face, stinging my eyes. I closed them.

‘Now!’ said Comeragh.

Opened them.

Simon froze, a ridiculous smal thing trembling before the blunt black head. The harpoon shivered and flew and fel short. Sam pul ed it in immediately, the veins thick and knotted on the backs of his hands, and Comeragh cursed.

‘Take the oar, baby,’ he said to Simon, moving forward with an agility that scarcely moved the boat, ‘get back there.’

Simon passed me with tears streaming down his face and took the steering oar, wiping his sleeve roughly across his eyes.

A whale sees nothing before or behind. It sees two worlds, either side. I don’t know what the whale saw. To me it seemed she was looking at me al the time, that’s what it was like. As if she was curious. I dare say there were wiser whales. Comeragh darted and she was struck. She pitched, turned the front of her head at us in a soundless scream, thrashing her tail three or four times and causing the sea to boil, then fled along the slippery surface of the sea with the harpoon quivering in her side, dragging us after. We jumped and bounced, teeth clashing, bones rattling. No fighting it.

When she sounded, I thought we’d go under for sure, but we flew on, the elements screaming in our ears and the whale line singing and vibrating, til she surfaced in front of us, making the sea pitch us high.

She rol ed, open-jawed. Salt stung my eyes. Comeragh rose steady in the bow with the lance. ‘Pul in, pul in’, a voice said, and we hauled hand over hand nearer and nearer to her, Sam leading. Her eye was stil bright. It blinked slowly, once. Then the stabbing began. The lance was twice the length of Comeragh but he handled it with such skil that al my fear evaporated. She rol ed over, snapping her jaws. She twisted. The sea turned red. He stabbed her again and again, seven, eight, nine times, probing determinedly for the heart which, when found, caused her to spout a dark spume from the blowhole, a fountain of blood that burst up and rained down from on high al over us.

‘Back! Back!’ cried Comeragh and Sam, and we took oars and got away and watched her die.

It was then I truly realised the whale is no more a fish than I am. So much blood. This was not like the fish on the quay, fresh caught, lying flipping and flopping, death on a simmer.