The Corvette (22 page)

Opening up upon their larboard beam was a great channel in the ice shelf. Quilhampton realised the extent of his preoccupation in not noticing it before. Apart from loose floes he estimated the opening was several miles wide, partly hidden by a low raft of hummocked ice. In the channel the water appeared greener, forming a eutrophid strait between great continents of ice. Here was the reason for the whales' mysterious migration, a krill and plankton-rich sea which they had sensed from a distance.

Already
Narwhal
had two boats in the water.
Provident, Earl Percy
and
Faithful
were heaving to.
Diana
had still to come up and
Truelove
, fallen off to the eastward, had seen
Narwhal
's signal and altered to the west.

Quilhampton swung himself through the trapdoor and hurried down the mainmast rigging.

Drinkwater realised the significance of the great ice-free lead as soon as he reached the crow's nest. He was perceptive enough to know that the strange channel that seemed to exist as far as the eye could see to the westward was unusual. Entering the channel the right whales had slowed. He could see twenty or thirty at any one time on the surface, their spouts so numerous as to form a cloud above them as they vented through their spiracles. From time to time a great, blunt head would appear, the baleen gleaming in a rigid grin while seawater poured from the corners of the gaping mouth as the fibrous whale-bone strained the tiny organisms from the sea.

He sensed, too, a change of tempo from the pursuing whalers. As he swung his glass on the two nearer ships he counted the boats already in the water.
Narwhal
and the nearer ships had all their boats out,
Diana
, a little to the east was lowering, while
Truelove
had hoisted her topgallants in her haste to join the great hunt.

Surprisingly he saw a boat from
Narwhal
turn away from the whales towards the sloop and through the glass he could see Harvey himself standing in the bow. He swung his glass once more to the west. The open lead, with hardly a floe loose on its extraordinary surface, beckoned them to the westwards. It seemed to Drinkwater that the ice shelf had suddenly split, moved by some elemental force, and pulled
apart. Momentarily he wondered whether that force might be reversed, that if they entered the channel they might be trapped and crushed. Shaking off his apprehension he made his way below, arriving on the quarterdeck as Harvey's boat came up under the quarter and Lieutenant Rispin, at a nod from Drinkwater, invited Harvey on board.

Harvey's eyes were shining with excitement, illuminating his snub-nosed face and eradicating the disfigurements of the small-pox. Drinkwater immediately warmed to him. ‘Good morning, Captain Harvey, I am surprised you are not in hot pursuit of the fish.'

Harvey grinned and dispensed briefly with the formalities. ‘There will be enough pickings here, Captain, if we can hold the whales, to fill all our empty casks and send us safe back to Hull, but we want your assistance.'

‘How so?'

‘Well, the whales will likely follow th'krill and all into yonder lead. Once we get amongst them they'll swim to west, like. If you'd put this ship ahead of the fish and drop cannon fire ahead of them it'll slow them like, stop them escaping . . . will you do it?'

A quick kill, a short voyage, the success of a task that had seemed once so very difficult and French privateers a figment of the First Lord's overworked imagination. He had only one reservation, and his inexperience in ice nagged him.

‘How far into the lead will they go, Captain Harvey? That looks like dense shelf ice to me, if it closes you may survive but this ship will be crushed like an egg-shell.'

Harvey shook his head. ‘I've heard of this happening once before, Captain Drinkwater, in my father's day, sixty-eight or nine, I think. Happen if the whales take themselves into the lead then it'll not close.'

Drinkwater could see Harvey's argument, but it was imperfect. The whales might turn and swim back faster than a ship could beat to windward, the wind might shift and blow the ice to the south-west of them to the north again. He said as much to Harvey and watched the disappointment in the Yorkshireman's eyes.

‘The ice'll not close, not for a week at least, and we'll have our casks full by then . . .' The lust of the hunter was strong in him. Drinkwater could sense his sudden impatience to be gone, to be pointing the harpoon gun that gleamed dully in the bow of his whale-boat.

A short voyage. Home and an end to the ache in his shoulder. Elizabeth . . .

‘Very well, three days, damn you.' He grinned and Harvey grinned
and smacked him painfully upon his shoulder. The
lèse-majesté
caused the waiting officers to hide their grins and the instant Harvey had regained his boat Drinkwater called for all hands. He would make them pay for their impertinence, damn it!

‘Set the t'gallants, Mr Rispin!'

‘Set t'gallants, sir.' He watched Rispin pick up the speaking trumpet as the watch below tumbled up the hatchways. The lieutenant launched into his customary stream of largely superfluous orders.

‘After guard to hoist the main t'garns'ls. Bosun's mate, send the after guard to man the main t'garns'l halliards, there! Corporal of marines, send the marines aft to man the mizen t'garns'ls halliards. Master at arms! Send below and turn up the idlers, stewards and servants, messmen, cooks-mates, sweepers and loblolly boys!'

This volley of orders was answered by the petty officers who thumped the fife-rails for good effect with their starters, cursing and shouting at the men.

‘Topmen aloft, aloft . . .' Rispin's strange, hysterical system seemed to galvanise the hands, as though they were all suddenly aware that the hunt for whales had taken on a new, more primitive flavour. And yet, watching from the larboard hance, one foot upon the slide of Palgrave's fancy brass carronade, Drinkwater once again received the strong impression that they were engaged upon a yachting excursion. Perhaps it was just the excitement, perhaps the extravagance of Rispin's fancy orders that had about it that ritual quality he had observed aboard such craft as the Trinity House Yacht back in eighty-eight, or perhaps it was the fantastic cake-icing seascape that surrounded him that induced the Arctic calenture.

‘Let fall! Sheet home!' The yards rose as the canvas fell.

He shook off the ridiculous feeling. ‘Mr Quilhampton!'

‘Sir?'

‘Aloft with you, we shall run into the ice lead and work ahead of the whales.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.' Drinkwater looked at the compass.

‘Steer west by north.'

‘West by north, sir . . . west by north it is, sir.'

‘Sheet home there! Belay!' Rispin at last pronounced topgallants hoisted.

‘Square the yards, Mr Rispin, course west by north.'

Rispin acknowledged the order and his voice rose again as he bawled through the trumpet.

‘After guard and marines to the weather mainbrace! Forebrace there! Bosun's mate start those men aft here! Haul in the main brace, pull together damn you and mind the weather roll! That's very well with the main yard! Belay there! Belay! Belay the foreyard, don't come up any . . .!'

It went on for some minutes before Mr Rispin, fussing under his captain's eye, was satisfied with the trim of the yards and
Melusine
had already gathered way. From her leeward position she was up among the whalers and their boats now. Two boat-flags were already up, with
Narwhal
's colours on them, Drinkwater noticed. He raised his hat to Harvey's mate who conned the whaler while his commander was out after the fish. He saluted Abel Sawyers as
Melusine
swept past the Quaker in his boat, his men pulling furiously to catch a great bull whale a musket shot on the sloop's starboard bow. Then they were in among the whales, the air misty with their breathing, a foetid taint to it. The humps of the shining backs, the flick of a great tail and once a reappearance of that great ugly-noble head as it sluiced the water through the baleen in an ecstasy of surfeit.

‘Beat to quarters, Mr Rispin,' Drinkwater said it quietly, watching the young officer's reaction. He noted the surprise and the hesitation and then the acknowledgement.

Pipes squealed again and the marine drummer began to beat the
rafale
. Men ran to their stations and knelt by the guns, the officers and midshipmen drew their dirks and swords and the gun-captains raised their hands as their guns became ready.

‘Sail trimmers, Mr Hill. We'll heave-to and fire a broadside ahead of the leading whales!' Hill was at his station and had relieved Rispin. There was now an economy of orders as Hill deployed the men chosen to trim the
Melusine
's sails and spars in action. Bourne too was beside him, ready to pass orders to the batteries. ‘Load ball, Mr Bourne, all guns at maximum depression, both broadsides to be ready.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

Melusine
had entered the lead now. On either side the backs of whales still emerged, their huge tails slowly thrusting the water as they drove majestically along. Beyond the whales, close to larboard and some miles distant to starboard, the ice edge glittered in the sunlight, full of diamond brilliants shading to blue shadows with green slime along the waterline.

He was aware of Mr Singleton on the quarterdeck. ‘Should you not be at your station?' he asked mildly.

‘I beg your pardon, sir, I took it to be another of these interminable manoeuvres that . . .'

‘Never mind, never mind. You may watch now you are here.'

Singleton turned to see Meetuck pointing excitedly from the fo'c's'le as a female whale rolled luxuriously on her side, exposing her nipple for her calf. ‘It seems scarcely right to kill these magnificent creatures,' he muttered to himself, remembering the
Benedicite
. The mother and calf fell astern.

‘Down helm, Mr Hill, you may heave the ship to . . .' There were more orders and
Melusine
swung to starboard, easing her speed through the water to a standstill.

‘Larboard battery! Make ready!' The arms went up and he nodded to Bourne.

‘Fire!'

The broadside erupted in smoke and flame with a roar that made the ears tingle. The balls raised splashes, a cable to leeward where two big whales had been seen. Through the drifting smoke Drinkwater saw one huge fluke lift itself for a moment as the whale dived, but he had no idea whether he had reversed its course.

‘Reload!' There was a furious and excited activity along the larboard waist. There was nothing to compare with firing their brute artillery that so delighted the men, officers and ratings alike.

‘You may give them another broadside, Mr Bourne.'

Again the arms went up and again the shots dropped ahead of the whales. Drinkwater turned to starboard, to look back up the strait. The whalers were three miles away and between them and the
Melusine
was a most extraordinary sight. The sea seemed to boil with action. He could see more than a dozen boats. Three were under tow by harpooned whales, others were in the act of striking, their harpooners up in the bows as the tense steersmen brought their flimsy boats into the mass of whales that had now taken alarm and were swimming south-west, along the line of the lead. Beyond these two boat's crews were lancing their catches, probing for the lives of the great beasts as their victims rolled and thrashed the water with their great tails. Through his glass Drinkwater could see the foam of their death agonies tinged with blood. A few flags were up on dead carcases and these were either under tow to the whalers or awaiting the few boats that could be spared for this task.

Drinkwater saw at once that he could not fire his starboard guns without endangering the boats but their crews were excitedly awaiting the order that would send their shot in amongst the whales.

‘By God,' he heard Walmsley mutter to Glencross, ‘this is better than partridge.'

‘Secure the starboard guns, Mr Bourne, and draw the charges!' He heard the mutter of disappointment from the starbowlines. ‘Silence there!'

A new danger suddenly occurred to him. The sloop lay in the path of the advancing animals. The death of some of their number had communicated an alarm to the others and their motion was full of turbulent urgency. He did not wish to think what effect one of those bluff heads would have upon
Melusine
's hull. ‘Haul the mainyard, Mr Hill and put the ship before the wind . . .' Hill grasped the sudden danger and
Melusine
turned slowly to larboard as she again gathered headway. She had hardly swung, presenting her stern to the onrushing whales when their attention was attracted by shouts to the south, to larboard. One of the boats that had been fast to a fish had been dashed to fragments on the ice edge two miles away as the tortured beast had dived under the ice. The alarm had been raised by another boat, towing past
Melusine
's stern, who hailed the sloop to request her rendering assistance and allowing them to hold onto their whale. It was while clearing away the quarterboat that a whale struck them. A large gravid female in the last stages of her pregnancy had been terrified by the slaughter astern of her. The ship shook and the stunned animal rolled out from under the quarter, almost directly beneath the boat. Her astonished crew, half-way down to the water's surface looked down into the tiny eye of the monster. The whale spouted, then dived, her flukes hitting the keel of the suspended boat but not upsetting it.

A few minutes later, under the command of Acting Lieutenant Gorton the boat was pulling across a roil of water, avoiding the retreating whales with difficulty, on her way to rescue the crew of the smashed whale-boat. It did not appear that
Melusine
had suffered any damage from the collision.

The whalers hunted their quarry for fifty hours while the sun culminated and then began its slow unfinished setting, its azimuth altering round the horizon to rise again to each of two successive noons.
Melusine
was quite unable to stem the escape of the whales and in the end Drinkwater agreed to the boats securing their captured whales to her sides.