William John Hopkins

The water actually boiled with sharks, feasting and fighting. There was a multitude of them, big fellows, from six to twelve feet long, and they took bites about the size of a football right out of the whale’s side. It was hard to see how they could do it, with their projecting snouts, and I did not make it out very well with all my watching. A shark would glide directly at the whale, about a foot or two under the surface, there would be the flash of whitish belly as he turned over, and he would glide on under, or turn without stopping; but there was always the neat, round hole where he had scooped out his mouthful. Two of the biggest sharks repeatedly threw themselves up on the carcass, from which, of course, they slipped off immediately; but they always left smooth, round holes behind them.

“And they take a good quart of oil at every mouthful,” said Peter’s voice at my elbow. I had been so intent on the sharks that I had not heard him come. “Those big fellows take more. Three of their bites would make a gallon of oil.”

I seized the chance to get from Peter the story of the capture of the whale. It was a short story in the telling, possibly because he saw that I was as much interested in the sharks as I was in the story; but I think Peter would have made no long story of it in any case.

“ ’Tis soon told,” he said. “He ran for four or five hours, twelve knots or more at first, then ten, and then less, but faster than the ship sails. A nice kind of a sleigh-ride, Timmie. We had a good deal of trouble heaving close to lance him, for he was cunning and knowing, and managed to keep out of the way. He turned fin out about sunset, and we burned flares now and then while we pulled to windward. Raised the ship about four bells, but the sea was so high we had trouble getting the fluke-chain fast, and it was nearly midnight before we had the boat on the davits. Look at that, now! Would n’t it surprise you the life there is in a shark?”

He pointed to a shark whose bowels were protruding from a cut in its belly. The shark was so intent on feasting while the feast was good that he paid no attention to an injury which, one would think, was disabling. The intestine gradually came out, and trailed in a long, wriggling line as he swam. Other sharks attacked and tore at it.

For the sharks were not having it all their own way. The cutting-stage had been rigged and lowered, and George Hall and Miller, the boatsteerers for the second mate and the fifth mate, were stationed on it with sharp spades, and were doing what damage to the sharks they could. A shark has as many lives as a cat. An enormous shark came at great speed, and threw himself fairly upon the carcass of the whale.

“Pin him through the nose!” Peter shouted. “Pin him through the nose!”

I did not know what he was talking about, but Hall and Miller did. At the same instant they threw their spades with all their force. The aim was true, and while the shark was still wriggling on the whale both spades struck him on the projecting snout, pierced it and went through deep into the whale’s body, pinning him there. The projecting snout of the shark is the one sensitive place in his whole body. The struggles of this shark were terrific. He thrashed the water with his tail, sending up sheets of spray which drenched Hall and Miller on the cutting-stage; then the sea receded, and his tail thrashed the bare blubber with noises like explosions. The crew quickly gathered at the rail, laughing at Hall and Miller, and at the struggles of the shark. But his struggles were not fruitless, for they freed the spades from the body of the whale, and the shark slipped back into the sea. Here his struggles were more violent than ever, and the spades quickly drew out of his nose, and he made off.

Both Hall and Miller had let go the handles of their spades in the surprise of the drenching, but there were light lines attaching them loosely to the railing of the cutting-stage. They now recovered them, and were preparing to resume the slaughter, when they were called in. Cutting-in was about to begin. Hall offered me his spade, and suggested that I see if I could not get a shark or two. I was very willing to try, as I would try anything. I did not make a success of it. I might have improved if I had had time to practise, but I was called in almost immediately. I did not become a really good shot with a spade until I had my growth and strength.

Attached to the head of the mainmast—the top of the lower mast, where I had sat in the crosstrees—were two great tackles, just alike. The blocks in each of these “cutting-tackles,” which are used to strip off and hoist in the blubber, are enormous and clumsy, reaching well above a man’s knee as they rest on end on the deck. It is possible that they use wire rope now, and iron blocks, which would be lighter and less clumsy, but wire rope and iron blocks were not used, in my time, for any such purpose. The gangway, from which two men were taking out the removable section of bulwarks, is forward of the mainmast. As all the blubber is hoisted in at the gangway, it is desirable that the pull of the tackles shall be in line with the gangway. Each of the falls, therefore, ran through a loop or eye in a large cable running to the foremast; and by hauling in on this cable the tackle could be pulled forward to a point over the line of the gangway.

As I came inboard I met the men carrying these heavy, clumsy blocks to the side, two men to each block, and staggering at that; and the artists who were to do the cutting were waiting for me to get off the stage. These artists were the mates, four of the five. The Clearchus was a five-boat ship, and had five mates to head her five boats. The fifth mate was named Snow, a little man, but of tremendous energy. Each of the four mates carried his spade, and as soon as they had reached their places on the stage the cutting-in began.

The whaling-spade is perhaps the implement most used in whaling, and for a surprising variety of purposes, but its primary purpose is for cutting. Spades are made in many sizes and shapes, or the shape of a spade may be changed by continual sharpening, or to suit the individual taste of the user. The typical blade is usually about four inches wide and a foot or so in length, with straight sides, and, normally, a straight edge. It tapers in thickness from half an inch or more at the top of the blade to about an eighth of an inch on the line where grinding off for the edge begins; but in an old spade which has been much ground, this line is not definite or distinct, and such a spade is more like an old axe-head. Indeed, the spade is much like an axe designed to do its cutting by being pushed or thrown endwise instead of swung. Above the head of the spade is the socket for the handle, and the socket and the head are connected by a shank which may be several feet long, or may be reduced almost to nothing.

When spades are used for the purpose for which they are intended, they must be kept very sharp, and the grindstone is always in service on deck. A blow upon a bone destroys the edge of the spade, and mates are usually careful to avoid the bones; but the cutting-in is often done in a heaving sea, by a man on a single plank which may not heave in time with the body of the whale, and the spade is heavy, with a flexible sapling handle perhaps eighteen feet long, and he may not be able to see what he is cutting, three or four feet within the body of the whale; when the head is being cut off, for instance, or when cutting between the junk and the skull. Accidents will happen to the best of us. Then he throws his spade inboard, and roars for a sharp one.

Strangely enough, Mr. Wallet was the most skilful cutter we had, and he put his heart into his work, and took great interest in doing it well and quickly. He kept the others on the jump to keep up with him, and nothing put him out more than to see that any other man did not have to hurry. He was not at all of that temper in any other work that he did. In fact, he was pretty nearly a flat failure as an officer, and I often wondered whether it was not his great skill with the spade that held his position.

The order of the different operations in cutting-in is always necessarily about the same, but some slight variation in them is found in different ships, in accordance with the ideas of the men who do the cutting. It is usual to begin with cutting off the head at the same time that the blanket strip of blubber is unrolled. Mr. Wallet varied this practice by cutting out the tongue first, which, in the sperm whale, is moderately large, thick, and soft; then he cut off the jaw, and then severed the head from the body.

Before any cutting was done, the whale was hauled forward until his eye was opposite the gangway. Then Mr. Wallet stepped proudly out on the cutting-stage, and fastened his monkey-rope loosely to the railing of the stage. The monkey-rope is about a man’s waist, the other end fast to any convenient thing, or held by another man on the ship. Its purpose is to prevent a man’s falling into the sea. After Mr. Wallet came Mr. Brown, who disdained the use of the monkey-rope, as did almost all of those for whose benefit it was intended. Mr. Wallet and Mr. Brown were to be engaged in cutting the head, tongue and jaw. Mr. Tilton and Mr. Snow, the fifth mate, the little man of prodigious energy, then went on. Mr. Baker did no cutting on this whale, probably thinking that enough was enough.

The body of a dead whale, as I have said, floats on its side, with one fin uppermost. Mr. Tilton and Mr. Snow went to work at once, cutting a hole clear through the blubber, just above the fin; in fact, this hole was so near the head that it was partly through the “white horse,” which they call the extremely tough layer of integuments surrounding the eye and most of the head. They worked together, and the spades rose and fell in alternation, one driving his spade down on one side, then the other driving down his spade on the other side, as two axemen cut a scarf in a tree. Thus, at every stroke, there was a V-shaped piece cut out. The heavy spade is almost thrown at the place where the cut is to be made, with great accuracy, and the scarf progresses with surprising speed.

Meanwhile Mr. Wallet and Mr. Brown were busy, cutting out the tongue. Mr. Wallet found, for the first time in his career, I guessed, that he had a working partner whom he was unable to hurry. Mr. Brown matched stroke for stroke, however fast Mr. Wallet worked; and his strokes were delivered with as great accuracy as Mr. Wallet’s, and with greater force. Remember that this was the first chance there had been on that voyage to match powers. I saw Mr. Wallet glance up with annoyance, and put on more speed. Mr. Brown met the increase in speed without turning a hair. Mr. Wallet nearly doubled his speed, and Mr. Brown again met it, driving his spade in with greater force than before. I had never, up to that time, seen a stamp mill, but I saw one at the Centennial, after my return from that voyage, and it reminded me so exactly of Mr. Wallet and Mr. Brown, cutting out that tongue, that I stood before it, and laughed aloud, much to the astonishment of the others who stood there. Both the men labored and sweated, but Mr. Wallet sweated more, while there was the flicker of a smile on Mr. Brown’s lips.

“Too fast for you?” Mr. Wallet asked.

“Go as fast as you like,” said Mr. Brown.

It was a great waste of energy, and too much of a strain for Mr. Wallet, who was then delivering strokes of his spade at the rate of fifty or more a minute, while the greatest normal rate is twelve to fifteen. Mr. Tilton and Mr. Snow were almost convulsed with laughter, so that their blows fell to eight or less, and there was no strength in them. I heard a snicker from one of the crew, and I could not forbear a snicker of my own. Mr. Wallet may not have heard the snickers; he affected not to, but he lowered his rate at once to fifteen a minute.

They finished the cut on that side of the tongue before Mr. Tilton and Mr. Snow had quite done cutting the hole; and, without a word, Mr. Wallet transferred his attention to the uppermost hinge of the lower jaw, probably relying on his superior knowledge of the anatomy of the whale to enable him to get the better of Mr. Brown. Mr. Wallet’s knowledge, in that respect—and in that respect alone, as far as I was ever able to see—was very exact and complete. Mr. Brown’s, however, if not quite equal to Mr. Wallet’s, was sufficient for the occasion, and they finished their work like the artists they were, before the fourth and fifth mates had done that allotted to them.

It was the duty of these men, when the hole was cut, to cut a semicircular scarf, or deep groove, above it, and to continue this scarf at each end of the semicircle, down past the hole, and past the side fin, making this scarf not perpendicular to the axis of the body, but slightly inclined to it, like the thread of a screw. The rearmost scarf—that toward the whale’s flukes—which is the only one which is continued after the carcass has made one revolution, describes a spiral about the carcass, and the blubber unrolls in a continuous strip, about three feet wide.

The neck of a sperm whale, if he can be said to have a neck, is about the thickest part of him. It may be eleven or twelve feet through, or even more. It is here that his head is to be cut off, and the junction of the vertebra with the head must be found far within the mass of flesh; found very exactly, if the mate is to make a good clean job of it. The foremost scarf, if the cutting has been done as it should be done, marks the place where the mate must begin his cut to sever the head. Mr. Wallet, having paused ostentatiously, for the purpose of showing his righteous annoyance at the slowness of Mr. Tilton and Mr. Snow—they did not seem put out by this show of annoyance, but amused—Mr. Wallet, I say, having thrown out his chest for a minute or two, took up the cutting of the foremost scarf, and Mr. Brown joined him at it. The cutting was soon done as far down as the men could get at it.

Azevedo, Mr. Tilton’s boatsteerer, was then lowered on one of the blocks of the cutting-falls, and stepped off upon the carcass. He had woolen socks upon his feet, I noticed. I noticed this, as he was accustomed to go barefoot, as were the crew pretty generally. I learned that woolen socks were supposed to give him a surer footing than anything else. He had a monkey-rope also, although he would have gone without it if the captain would let him; but if he slipped in between the whale and the ship he would be a goner. He stood or stepped about on the body with apparent carelessness, although he did not let go his hold on the falls. My heart was in my mouth for fear that he would slip off among the swarming sharks, but he paid no attention to them, except to push aside with his foot one which had come too close. He had had long experience, and told me afterward that there was little to fear from the sharks as long as the whale was there. The gulls, too, and other scavengers of the air, had gathered, and there was a wheeling, screaming flock of them over my head. We were not so very far offshore.

Attached to the lower end of the cutting-falls was a gigantic iron hook. This hook Azevedo fitted into the hole cut through the blubber. The blubber of a whale is his skin, a peculiar cellular and fibrous structure containing the oil, and it is from five to twelve inches thick, varying with the size of the whale and the place on his body that it comes from. The blubber of the right whale is thicker. It is thickest on the back, less thick on the sides, and thinnest on his belly. On the shoulder it is very tough. Although the sea was not high, it was hard work getting the hook in place, and Azevedo grunted and sweated as he squatted or kneeled on one knee on the carcass, and the seas washed over his legs and wet him to the waist. But he got the hook in place at last, with the help of a long knife. Then he rose to his feet, holding to the falls with one hand, and gave the word to heave.

This duty of the boatsteerer is unpleasant enough at best, but when the sea is rough I have seen a man almost drowned by the water which continually swept over him. Under such conditions the enormous hook is jerked and swayed by the roll of the ship; and he has to be constantly on the lookout that the heave of the ship and the heave of the whale, which usually will not be in the same direction at any instant, do not catch him between them.

Two men were at the gangway, to steer the sheet of blubber—called the blanket piece—as it came up, and twenty men at the windlass. When Azevedo gave the word, “Haul taut and heave away,” the whole twenty of them pumped at the windlass, which clanked merrily at first, then more slowly as the falls took the strain; then more slowly still, with the men singing out, and puffing and grunting. The ship slowly heeled over toward the whale. Then, suddenly, there was a ripping, rending sound, the ship righted and rolled a little, and there was the hook with the end of the blanket piece of blubber in the air, clear of the carcass, which had turned part way over in the bight of the fluke-chain. I may not have said that the body is held by a loop or bight of heavy chain at the “small,” just forward of his flukes, so that it will turn freely. In addition to this there is a chain about the lower jaw at first, but that, of course, does not hold the carcass after the jaw is cut off, which is one of the earliest operations.

Mr. Tilton and Mr. Snow continued cutting the rear scarf, Mr. Brown kept at the forward scarf, or necklace, where the head was to be cut off, and Mr. Wallet again attacked the tongue and the other hinge of the jaw as the turning of the carcass gave him opportunity. The heavy strip of blubber rose slowly as the crew pumped at the windlass, and the spades of the mates rose and fell regularly. The tongue and the jaw were hoisted in by the second cutting-falls. That jaw looked enormous as it came in over the side. When the tackle was tight up, block to block, it was not quite clear of the gangway, and they had to swing the other end around, and heave it in. When it was on deck, it was pushed over into the port scuppers, out of the way. They then resumed work upon the blanket piece of blubber, the work of cutting off the head being carried forward at the same time.

The blanket strip was soon high in the air, the falls block to block. The steady clanking of the windlass stopped, and the men had a breathing spell of a few minutes, as Mr. Baker called “Chock-a-block. Board blanket piece.”

Mr. Tilton stood at the gangway with a boarding-knife in his hands, and took the attitude of a man about to take part in a bayonet charge. That was virtually what he did. The boarding-knife is a sword-like blade, nearly straight, thirty inches long, and it is fixed in the end of a stout wooden handle, about three feet long. With this formidable weapon Mr. Tilton made violent lunges and plunges at the strip of blubber just above the break of the gangway, and soon had a hole through it. Through this hole an “eye-strop”—a loop of heavy rope, through one end of which the blubber-hook passes—was passed, and its oak toggle pounded into place on the other side and lashed, to make its hold on the blubber secure.

Meanwhile the fall of the first tackle had been secured and the strain put on the second tackle. There are two drums on the windlass, and one fall leads to each drum. The man with the boarding-knife again attacked the strip of blubber, this time a little above the hole, and by a series of stabs and slashes he cut it across, and the upper piece swung in over the open hatch, and was lowered to the blubber room, where it was stowed, the outside—“black skin,” as it is called—down. This proceeding surprised me, for I had supposed, without giving the matter any thought, that it would be dumped upon the deck and cut up there. I did not know what a mountain of blubber it would make, and the deck well cluttered up with the jaw and the junk and the small, as you will see. One or two of the last strips of blubber they did dump there. My surprise, I found, was justified somewhat. No more blubber is put between decks than is necessary to provide working space on deck. A big whale can be tried out in thirty-six hours, and it would only mean hoisting out almost immediately. But in this case there was a threat of rain, and rain spoils blubber.

The cutting-in proceeded rapidly. Mr. Wallet and Mr. Brown were engaged upon various dissections of the head at the same time that the blanket piece was being stripped off, and from time to time there were interruptions in the regular progress of the blanket pieces to enable them to finish certain stages of the operation in the order that has been found to be proper. It is necessary that the head should be dissected into its parts and cut off before the stripping of the blanket pieces has gone very far. This is the most important operation in cutting-in, as the head of the sperm whale contains the most valuable of his products.