Rich Man's Coffin (14 page)

         
“Dig in, boys!
 
I’ve got the sights on her!”
 
Sam shouted as he slapped the steering oar into the salty spray.

         
Black Jack scarcely had time to consider the fantastic speed of the boat, as he was soon racked with searing pain and gasping for breath from rowing.
 
The other men rowed methodically and swiftly, tight-lipped and silent with stone faces in their precise motion.
 
Their steely-eyed glint reflected determination as they pounded incessantly and efficiently on the blurred surface of the sea, all in perfect unison as the boat picked up tremendous speed.
 
The fury of their stroke combined with the barking of the Headsman to create a hypnotic marine opera that held the aching aft-oarsman spellbound.
 
Before the entire effect of the rapidly unfolding scene could settle completely upon Black Jack, the boat glanced off the back of the whale.
 
The oarsmen stopped and the boat fell silent, save for its gurgling wake.

         
“Alongside, boys!”
 
Sam yelled.
 
The whale floated calmly in the water.
 
It seemed to be resting, almost waiting for its hunters; not at all like the frenzied beast that Arthur had imagined.
 
Sam parked his oar and picked up the harpoon.
 
He looked around to see the other boat still struggling to reach its catch, about a half mile away. He slowly swung the heavy harpoon above the heads of the crew.

         
To Black Jack, the great animal seemed docile:
 
Much like the cows back home.
 
The whale did not seem anything like the great beast that Sam had used so many choice words to describe.

         
“She’s got a calf! Stand by!” shouted Sam.

Black Jack thought about the cows with calves back home, and how easy it was to lead the mother once the calf was in tow.
 
That did not seem to be the case here.
 
Still, he thought, there had to be an easier way than attacking the whale head on:
 
Even a gentle cow will turn into a raging banshee if you run it through with a sharp stick
, he thought.

         
Suddenly, the Headsman tensed his grip on the cumbersome harpoon.
 
Sam said, “All right, it’s on!
 
Ready!”
 
He leveraged his weapon into position, the attached line trailing behind to its coil sitting just in front of Black Jack.
 
The oarsmen simultaneously brought in their paddles with the synchronized execution of gunmen in a firing squad.
 
They grabbed the rail tightly just inside the gunwale, and braced their feet against the cross boards on the floor of the boat.
 
Black Jack sensed their urgency and copied their movements.
 
Sam braced his back foot, and said,
 
“All right, Jack.” His strain from holding the harpoon overhead for so long was beginning to show in his quivering arms.
 
He asked Black Jack, “Do you see where the line comes over the loggerhead and into the boat at your feet?”

         
“Yes.”

         
“Good.
 
That is where you will see smoke.
 
You are to pour water on the line, and keep pouring no matter what, or the line will part and we will lose the whale, understood?”

         
Black Jack nodded.

         
“Excellent.”
 
Hissed Sam, like an excited snake. Without hesitation, he turned his head toward the wet, gray mound in the water and launched his harpoon, thrusting all of his worldly strength into a spot just behind the blowhole.

         
To Black Jack, it all seemed to happen in slow motion:
 
The blade glinted as it met the shiny, black skin, with the hooked razor disappearing beneath the slick flesh making a sickening slicing sound.
 
Within a split second, thick, purple blood began to weep from the wound, forming a large dome-shaped droplet around the shaft of the harpoon.
 
Black Jack watched in terror as if the cut were his own.
 
He envisioned the pain of past childhood scars:
 
How the horrible sensation hesitated before flooding the mind with fiery alarm.
 
It must have been the same for the whale.

         
When Black Jack’s head returned upright from bouncing off his back, the smell of smoke and the burning in his neck gave him an immediate bearing on reality which helped to quell his urge to vomit his heart out through his nose.
 
He vaguely made out the line and the loggerhead, but nothing else within the tunnel of water would consent to focus as it rushed by.
 
Black Jack, scarcely able to hold onto the rails, could not pick up a pale to dowse the hot, smoking rope.
 
Luckily, he was relieved from his duty of bucket brigadier by the wave that broke in from behind him as the whale suddenly stopped and the boat continued.
 
The skiff, filling with water, crashed into the back of the whale with great force, and the impact sent everyone who had lost their grip on the rail reeling forward in the boat.
 
Black Jack found himself sitting among a pile of his comrades, drenched in blood and salt water. All of them looked and felt as though they had fallen together as a mob from a great height.

         
Sam stood up and shouted,
 
“Ready, ready, Lads!
 
Hold fast!”
  
He sprung from his seat at the bow and surveyed the whale,
 
waiting for its next move.
 
The blood from the wound was oozing out. No spray emanated from the whale’s spout.
 
It floated motionless in the water as its ends began to sag lower in the waves.
 
Sam yelled out, “Yes, boys!
 
This looks like it will be an easy one.
 
Hurrah!”
 
The boat broke into cheers from men who had hardly had the strength to breathe not seconds before; and much waving of arms and slapping of backs took place.
 
As they all looked around, the men saw the second whale, roughly a mile in the offing, slap its fluke menacingly at a skiff full of struggling men.
 
Sam looked back into his boat, and said, “They’ll be right, mates.
 
That one is just about to meet this one in whale hell!”
 
The men laughed and cheered wildly again, over the prospect of two whales being brought back to the beach together.
 
Black Jack stared, wild-eyed at the entire scene, taking it all in.
 
His head buzzed and his blood coursed. He felt as if his very soul was on fire.

         
“Black Jack, you all right?”
 
Sam shouted to him over the cheering mob.

         
“Oh yes, oh yes!”
 
He shouted, his face sweaty and tingling as he smiled.

         
“Good!”
 
Sam said.
 
“Everyone ready for the tow home?”
 
He asked.
 
The men yelled wildly.
 
“Right then!
 
We’ll wait ‘til she rolls over, and then and off we go.
 
Everyone have a biscuit!”

         
A half hour passed, and the fever pitch of the hunt evaporated from the boat as the men and their muscles stiffened in the cool ocean breeze.
 
Bloody hell
, a few exclaimed, as they stretched their arms and rubbed their legs.
 
Goddamn
, some grumbled, as they vomited their pain over the side.
 
Black Jack shivered as he shared in their agony.
 
His legs cramped, and a torn feeling ripped across his clammy chest.
 
A cold southerly wind picked up, and dark clouds moved in front of the sun.
 
The whale had yet to turn over.

         
“All right, boys.
 
Me thinks someone is telling us something here.
 
This one’s not going to roll, so let’s get her moving.”
 
Sam said.
 
“Black Jack, let me show you something.” Black Jack crossed the wobbly skiff slowly, carefully placing his hands on men’s shoulders for support as he stepped.
 
“Step up here with me.”
 
Sam said calmly as he leaned out over his foot planted on the broad slope of the leviathan’s back.
 
“C’mon then!” he said, turning back to look at Black Jack in the skiff still rocking from his leap.
 
Black Jack warily placed a foot on the gunwale, paused, and then all at once sprung onto the back of the whale, gingerly trotting up to meet Sam at the spine.
 
“Good on ‘ya, mate.
 
Now look at this. This is your classic dead whale.
 
No worries
.
 
See how easy it is when you make a clean kill?
 
No mucking around with flying fish!” He put his arm around Black Jack’s shoulders and pointed at the whale’s back. “Now!
 
This is unusual:
 
I’ve seen a whale or two that doesn’t roll; mind you, but not that often.
 
We’ve just got to be careful on the tow. There can be fins flippin’ about, or undertow if she finally does pitch, or any number of dangers. You get the drift!”
 

Black Jack nodded, too exhausted to speak.
 

Sam went on,
 
“Right!
 
Now, before we go, I want you to examine the classic signs of a post-mortem whale.
 
Note the limp, dangling posterior, with associated oblique lateral wrinkles.
 
That tail has had it.
 
Note how the blood has ceased to issue from the wound.”
 
Sam pointed to the place where the harpoon sat mired in a mound of thick, clotted, brown gel.
 
He finished his lecture by saying, “And if you concentrate
real
hard, you will already feel the little fishies and sharks tapping away at the sides of her belly!”
 
Sam looked around confidently and pointed alongside, as Black Jack surveyed the scene with him.

         
“I don’t see no fish or sharks down there, Sam.”

         
Sam froze; and then his eyes turned to the harpoon.
 
He stared hard at it for a couple of seconds, watching it rise in synchrony with the waves bobbing the beast.
 
The large pole suddenly twitched.
 
“Hang on!”
 
Cried Sam, as he ran to the rigid, upright, wooden weapon.
 
He dropped to his knees at the base of the harpoon and thrust his hands into the crusty, wet wound.
 
He pried back the sides of the slit and put his head down to peer into the gap. A second passed, and then suddenly a solid column of bright, red blood gushed into his face, blowing his head back with its force.
 
He opened his mouth, as if to speak, and another hot, bloody geyser shot into his face and down his throat.
 
He choked and gurgled as he pulled away, struggling to yell through his bloody spit, “Set to, boys!”
 
He stumbled wildly down the whale’s back, springing backward into the boat, sputtering and coughing.
 
“Jack!
 
Get in, Jack!
 
She’s not done yet!”
 
He yelled.

         
The men watched in horror as Black Jack took one step toward them on the undulating back of the beast. Then, he disappeared into a torrential vortex of blue, gray, and black water that ripped him violently and swiftly from their view.

Chapter 11

         
Foam swirled around Arthur’s head as he bobbed in the open ocean.
 
Tidal swells churned the waves and carried him up and down through areas of smooth and rough undulating sea.
 
Cold rain pelted his face, as froth and fog played havoc with his eyes. The wind howled in his wet ears.
 
Brine filled his mouth and washed his nose like a strong, salty drink.
 
He could only defend himself by treading water faster and harder.

         
He could see the misty outline of a distant, hilly coast.
 
He was rushing along, as if carried on a large, swift offshore river. He sensed that he was speeding south.
 
Further and faster he sped within the torrent helping to keep him afloat.
 
He saw features of land as they appeared through fog.
 
There were jetties giving way to bays, alternating with bluffs and beaches.
 
Looks all right from here
, he thought,
if I could just break free and swim
.