Why the ULV Never Came Back

by J. J. Bell

 

Why the Ulv Never Came Back

By J. J. Bell

Modern whalemen, though they now operate in a steamship and no longer leave the ship in small whaleboats to harpoon by hand, have never been able to eliminate the supreme danger of the eighty-ton whale charging the steamship. The wounded whale charges to-day as he did seventy-five years ago when Melville wrote of “Moby Dick.” In our last number Mr. Bell told the story of the Thorgrim which was thus attacked. Here we have an intense dramatic story of another kind.

SVENDSEN reached the station determined to resign his command and take passage home to Norway in the first available steamer; and doubtless he would have done these this but for the wise firmness of Herlof.

“No,” said the manager; “you are bound to the company for the season. I cannot let you go.”

“You could explain to the company that I was no longer fit to kill a whale.”

“That would be nonsense. But I will not argue with you, Svendsen——”

“Sigurd Lund could take my place. He. is a good navigator, and I promise you that he will soon be a good gunner.”

“Sigurd Lund may take your place when the time comes. That is not yet.” Herlof got up and looked out of the office window. “Thorgrim has coaled, and is now at the pier.” He turned, holding out his hand. “Things here are not bright. Bring me whales, my good Svendsen.”

Svendsen took the proffered hand, and left the office without a word. Ten minutes later he was in the steering-box, his fingers on the familiar handle of the telegraph. Before nightfall he was thanking Herlof in his heart.

Within four days he brought the Thorgrim back, three fat fin-whales astern.

“The beginning of the second thousand!” remarked Herlof, after a brief sentence of congratulation. “I will let you go home to Norge now, if you still wish it,” he added.

“I will see the season out,” was the stolid reply. “There are more whales about now. We may make it a good season yet.”

His next trip covered five days, but a goodly portion of that period was spent in towing his four captures—“blues” and “fins” at the rate of barely three knots an hour. He reached the station in something like his old good spirits, only to find Herlof grave. The season seemed fated to be one of trouble.

Ten days had passed without sign of the Ulv, and Herlof, after learning that Svendsen had no news of her, reluctantly admitted his anxiety. The company's third steamer, the Orn, had, within the week, called twice at the station, each time with a pair of heavy carcasses alongside, but her skipper, too, had seen nought of the Ulv. This, however, was less disturbing to Herlof's mind than the knowledge that since the Ulv's departure the weather had continued generally fine—neither windy nor foggy—while whales had been plentiful. There was, therefore, no satisfactory reason for the Ulv's detention somewhere in the stretch of the Arctic Ocean between the northern coast of Iceland and the rim of the Greenland ice, and the manager was driven to the conclusion that mischance had overtaken her.

On the morning of the eleventh day the Orn unexpectedly reappeared with another couple of blue-whales. This was capital hunting, but Herlof's satisfaction was more than damped when the skipper again reported fine weather and no trace of the Ulv. There was nothing for it but to dispatch the Orn and Thorgrim—the latter had been detained a day in port for the cleaning of her boiler—to search for the Ulv, which, the skippers agreed, had probably met with an accident to her propeller. Wherefore tow-ropes were put in readiness, in order that no precious minutes might be wasted after finding the crippled whaler. At the mouth of Isafjörd the Orn and Thorgrim separated. Failing to meet at an appointed spot, after a certain time had elapsed, they were to return to the station.

 

Bjarnison, skipper of the Ulv, was in cheerful humor. Leaving his bunk at four a.m., he had killed two fin-whales before breakfast. To be sure, he would have preferred blue-whales, but the fin-whales had appeared after a four-day search for their huger cousins, and he had taken them dutifully and not ungratefully. Moreover, the whales had died easy, having received but one harpoon apiece, and Bjarnison was always inclined to be not a little pleased with his own smart shots.

He was tapering off his morning meal with a few sardines and shavings from a square brown cheese, when Nils, the mate, clattered down to inform him that more whales were in sight, directly ahead. The brisk rumble and thump of the propeller would have told any occupant of the little cabin that the Ulv was already being driven at top speed; but with a couple of whales alongside she was making but five knots.

Now the fin-whaler is one of the swiftest of whales, besides being the most easily scared. So Bjarnison set about casting the two carcasses adrift, preparatory to securing a third. It was a weighty job, but each man on board knew his share and performed it smartly. Before parting from the carcasses the skipper proceeded to flag them. (At this period the whalers did not always carry flag-buoys.) An old lance, fifteen feet long, was brought him, and to its wooden shaft he bound a Norwegian ensign. Many a time,had the old lance done duty as a flagstaff, but on this occasion it was to fail in its service. Grasping the shaft, the skipper and one of the crew essayed with all their might to drive the six feet of iron into the white, grooved belly that quaked alongside. The rusty metal, entering a little way, bent and snapped. Then it was that Bjarnison recollected having left his other and newer lances at the station to be sharpened. By nature a careful, methodical man, he was annoyed with himself. He had now no means of marking the whales so that they should be sighted from a distance, and although the sea was calm, and the air clear, he did not care about risking the two carcasses as they were.

At this juncture Nils, the mate, offered a suggestion. Let the pram be lowered and moored to the whales, and he would stay in it and from time to time show the flag on the remaining twelve feet of lance.

Bjarnison at first demurred, then, after a shrewd look at the weather, assented, and, the smaller of the two boats having been lowered. Nils dropped blithely into it and took up the oars. Some one tossed his oilskins and muffler after him. On the Ulv the bow-chains were let go, and the two carcasses, shackled tail to tail, set adrift. The Ulv drew astern, leaving the whales floating side by side, and Nils made the pram fast to the chain connecting them. This done, he settled himself as comfortably as he might, and lit his pipe. He was not a man who shirked his work, but he rather liked the prospect of escaping, for once in a while, his share of the hard labor that followed the killing of a whale. To the cook, who mocked him by flourishing a yard-long loaf of new-baked bread, he waved a languid, patronizing adieu. The Ulv turned on her heel and sped upon her business. '

Nils followed the course of the whaler with interest. He had spent several seasons at the whaling, yet had never seen the gun fired save from the narrow deck behind it. He hoped the hunt would not take the Ulv too far away; he was eager to witness the killing as an idle spectator.

His wish was to be granted. Before the Ulv came within half a mile of the whales—there were three of them—they changed their course, going off at a right-angle to hers.

Sounding, they remained below for fully ten minutes. They must have again altered their course under water, for when they came up, blowing off their exhaust breath that drifted a while like silvery mist over the blue sea, they were between the steamer and the pram, moving in the direction of the latter. They swam very leisurely, taking brief, shallow submersions every other minute. Nils told himself that Bjarnison would have small difficulty in securing his third finhval. He swung the flagpole aloft, and the gunner waved his hand in response, pointed to the leading whale, and extended his arms to indicate that it was a large one.

Nils stood up, the better to view the chase, which promised to be short. The rorquals continued to approach him, and soon he could sight the tops of their heads as they spouted, and afterward their long slaty-gray backs, with the curved low fins set far aft. He perceived also that the Ulv was stalking the whale at which the gunner had pointed.

The whales swung round to the left, letting the Ulv come almost within shooting distance. Nils grinned. All was as if the spectacle had been specially arranged and produced for him. The Ulv was broadside to his gaze; he could see the skipper grip the stock of the scarlet gun and plant his feet firmly on the sparred platform.

Only a dozen yards ahead of the steamer a puff of vapor went up with a drowsy sound. Slowly the slaty back, so like in color to the sea on a dull day, heaved above the surface and glided forward.

The gunner slewed the weapon a trifle to one side. With a spurt of ruddy flame the ponderous harpoon flew forth and downward, and the bang of the explosion split the silence. By the sharp eyes of Nils the harpoon was clearly seen to strike and bury itself in the blubber; then the whale went down in a tumult of waters, under a cloud of smoke. The forerunner—the sixty fathoms of line coiled on the tray under the muzzle of the gun—was whisked away, describing in air curious figures which the mate had never observed from shipboard. As the whale sounded, he imagined he heard a faint thump—the bursting of the embedded bomb. All this happened within a few seconds of time.

To the clatter and clank of the winch the main length of the cable began to pour over the bow-wheel. When about one hundred fathoms had gone into the depths, the brake was applied. Gradually the angle made by the line with the surface decreased, and Nils noticed that the Ulv was moving slowly ahead, though her propeller was at rest. Every moment he expected the whale to appear, but half an hour passed without sign of the creature. A long submersion for a rorqual. Nils could not see quite clearly all that followed, but he saw enough.

The finhval shot up and blew violently. Then for a long time he struggled, rolling to and fro, lashing out with flukes and flippers, making the sea “to boil like a pot.”

Zoölogists put the limit of this rorqual's length at seventy feet. Nils, the whaleman, judged this particular finhval to be longer than the Ulv, which would mean over ninety feet. Excitement, however, is a strong magnifier.

Nils had come to the conclusion that, for once, at any rate, his skipper had made a very poor shot, and would certainly require to try another—the gun was then being reloaded—when the victim suddenly ceased to fight and turned upon his side. Whereupon the Ulv began to steam slowly ahead, while the winch absorbed the slackening line.

Thirty fathoms, perhaps, had been recovered when, as suddenly as he had collapsed, the rorqual revived. And now he was more furious than ever. Propeller and winch were stopped, the latter unbraked to allow of the line's running free, if necessary. But instead of fleeing from the enemy, the finhval made toward the Ulv, his speed increasing till a white wave rushed from his head.

Only once before had Nils seen such a thing happen. Once a blaahval bull had charged so near to the whaler on which he stood that men cried out, beholding the small bluish eyes glaring—so they afterward declared—at them; but the blaahval had dived at the last moment—at the last moment, indeed—for the whaler with her ghastly crew had shuddered as his back rubbed her keel.

The memory of that experience, and of the more recent escape of the Thorgrim, flashed upon Nils, yet did not greatly disturb him. The Ulv was already going astern. Her skipper would dodge the attack easily enough. But Nils had not made allowance for fear—for panic. He was not close enough to realize all the danger. The rorqual was bounding through the water, half of his body now and then exposed. Blind terror, perhaps, more than rage was driving those eighty tons at fifteen miles an hour.

One can only speculate as to what happened on board the Ulv during those tremendous moments—— An order wrongly repeated—gasped wildly into the tube and promptly acted on by the engineer—a turn of the wheel in the wrong direction—who can tell? Or did some demon of vengeance, after all, so possess those tons of animal life, so direct them in their headlong course, that human wit and energy were of no avail?

The presage of disaster which came to Nils was this: Men moving hurriedly on the deck, the lookout gesticulating frantically from the crow's-nest, the skipper leaping upon the platform, swinging the gun to port as far as it would go, firing it, and flinging up his arms in an abandon of despair. And next Nils beheld the finhval, instead of diving, heave out of a welter of foam and ram the Ulv amidships. He screamed a foolish, futile warning, then stood with mouth agape and horrified eyes, like a man in a catalepsy. A rending noise culminating in a crash shocked his ears. A fountain of condensed steam sprang from the whaler. A confusion of shouts followed.

The finhval, his head jammed fast in the engine-room, writhed fearsomely and collapsed. The Ulv listed heavily to port. Her crew struggled to launch the second pram, but the deck bursting up under their feet sent them hurtling against and spinning over the rail; and in the next breath the vessel heeled over helplessly, exhibiting a great bulge on her starboard plates.

Nils sank in a heap and covered his face. A dull explosion caused him to look again—it might have been a minute later.

He peered—and there was naught to be seen save a troubled patch of water with a few dark objects floating thereon. Casting loose from the dead whales, he rowed madly toward the place of disaster.

Some spars and fragments floated on the surface, also a man's fur cap, which he recognized as the skipper's, and somebody's pipe—and that was about all. Of his nine shipmates there was no sign.

 

Afternoon had come when he pulled back to the dead whales and refastened the pram to their shackles. He returned to the dead whales because he knew not where else to go. He was, he believed, nearly one hundred miles from Iceland, but exactly where the land was he could not be certain. Hopeless to attempt the voyage in the frail pram; he must stand by the carcasses, which would catch the eyes of whalemen long before a small solitary boat could do so. Besides, as he realized, the whales meant food. At the same time, he knew he would endure hunger until absolutely compelled to eat. For drink, a world of ice gleamed within a mile of him. The weather looked like remaining fine; yet no man can tell what an hour may bring forth along the shores of the Greenland ice, where bitter winds and sodden, blinding fogs swoop from the north with scarce a warning of their approach.

But on this summer day the air was clear and mild, and Nils knew that there would be a full moon at night. Whalers would be hunting throughout eighteen of the twenty-four hours, so that his chances of being sighted were the best possible in the circumstances. At intervals he supported the flagpole. Now and then he took a few puffs at his pipe, husbanding his small store of tobacco; luckily he possessed a couple of boxes of matches. Sometimes, too, he bowed his head and, shuddering, sobbed for the tragedy of his mates.

Flocks of gulls wheeled and screeched above the carcasses; theirs was the only sound save the lapping of the water against the boat and the sigh of the light swell on the ice-pans near him. Had his mind not been half-stunned, Nils would probably have gone wholly crazy.

Late in the day he secured a large lump of ice. In the bottom of the boat it melted rapidly, but yonder was a continent of it when he wanted more. He became hungry, but could not bring himself to cut into the mountains of food ready to his hand. About midnight, having put on his muffler and oilskins, he sank into a doze.

A few hours later he awoke, ravenous and chilled. The sun's rays dispersing the thin ice-fog promised him another fine day. He stood up and swung his stiffened arms and gazed about him. With the carcasses he had drifted during his sleep, parallel with the ice, eastward. How far he could not tell, but a small berg he had noted in an ice-bay the previous night was no longer visible.

The dead whales had begun to swell, and he approached the nearer of the two with repugnance, yet also with a certain eagerness. The water around the carcass, though ruddy, was almost clear. Peering downward he could see ghostly wicked shapes slipping to and fro, and once something rasped the planks under his feet. But he had seen sharks feasting on dead whales before now.

In the pram was an old flensing knife—a twelve-inch blade on a four-foot shaft. With this implement he set awkwardly to work to remove a square of blubber from the monstrous flank. As the first fragment of the creamy-white substance plopped into the sea an ugly blunt snout rose at it. Nils stabbed at the shark, which sank, bleeding, perhaps to be torn to pieces by its fellows. Another shark got the blubber. After that. Nils let them have what he cut off. There was surely enough for all.

When he had exposed more than sufficient flesh for his needs, he proceeded to dig out several large hunks. These he afterward sliced into strips. Fresh whale beef, when cooked, is no worse eating than a somewhat greasily prepared steak, and Nils was used to having it for breakfast at least once a week, during the whaling season. But despite his acute hunger, the raw meat revolted him. His first attempts at making a meal of it need not be described. Yet an hour came when he would have been glad of more of it.

Aware that the carcass would shortly become unfit for food, he made a rough attempt to preserve some slices by dipping them in the sea till thoroughly soaked in the brine, afterward laying them on the thwarts in the sun. In carrying out the first part of this plan, he sacrificed many slices, and once nearly lost his life. Thenceforth he kept the flensing knife ready, and found some satisfaction in lacerating the horrid thieves. They were not large sharks, their lengths ranging from eight to twelve feet, and they were supreme cowards. Had he fallen among them, they would probably have retired to what they considered a safe distance until the last of life was out of him.

The hours passed with dreadful slowness. At least once in every hour he hoisted his flagstaff, holding it upright until his muscles ached. He made several vain attempts to support it by mechanical means. At meal times he cast to the clamoring sea-birds small scraps of blubber, which floated on the water and were too trifling for the sharks to notice. Now and then he made a trip to the ice. And so, hoping desperately, he went through two days and two nights.

Early on the third morning he was startled out of a drowse—a nightmare in which, as on the screen of a cinematograph, he beheld the tragedy of the Ulv repeated—by the blowing of whales. And the blowing was of that kind of whale which the whaleman recognizes without much interest—so long as he is aboard a sturdy craft.

Nils drew up his body, rubbed his eyes, and beheld the latest horror. Two black fins, each standing a yard above the surface, skimmed toward him.

"Spaekhugger!” he muttered—which in English is “blubber cutter”—the whaleman's name for the Orca Gladiator or killer whale, or grampus. It is a toothed whale ranging up to thirty-five feet in length, and the sea holds no creature more savage. One has been taken with thirteen porpoises and fourteen seals in its stomach.

Had those whales been hungry, the pram would have been no protection—so, at least, Nils believed. He sat there, stiffening with cold terror.

The high, sharp-pointed dorsals disappeared, and Nils, gazing downward, could descry the black bulks with their curious blotchy white markings prowling about, inspecting the dead rorquals, while the sharks scattered. He could even see the serrated jaws gape and withdraw without biting. Evidently the food was too stale. Orca must be hungry indeed to devour what he has not slain.

The twain rose to the surface; the one bumped lightly against the pram, the other flung itself half out of the water, brandishing a small shark in its jaws. Nils saw the blood spurt from the wriggling victim, and heard the scrunch on its smashed vertebræ, ere the killer plunged from sight, raising a surge that set the pram rocking.

To the lonely man's relief the tall dorsal fins reappeared at a distance, moving rapidly away.

Yet one danger had passed only to let him realize another. His head ached, a sickly sensation pervaded his being. By this time the dead whales, thanks partly to the unmitigated sunshine, had become amazingly blistered and distended. Standing up in the pram. Nils failed to see over the carcasses. From the cavity he had dug in securing his supply of meat came a purring sound, as the vile gases escaped under enormous pressure. From the bristling jaws of the same whale protruded the ton-weight tongue, livid, swollen, it seemed, to bursting point. Bubbles rose through the ruddy water from the wounds made by the harpoons and also by the lance—the lance whose breaking had ended nine lives.

Nils understood that he must cast loose from the whales without delay. The still atmosphere about him was reeking with poison. He crawled dizzily to the bow of the pram and fumblingly untied the painter that was literally binding him to death. Seizing the oars, he succeeded in putting a hundred yards between himself and the mountains of pestilence.

The clean, crisp air revived him. He sucked a scrap of ice and drew a few precious puffs from his pipe. His supply of whale beef was still fairly fresh, yet he began to ask himself if he had enough food. When next renewing his stock of ice he endeavored to kill a seabird by tempting it with a piece of meat and then flinging the flensing knife. He thought of striking it with the flagpole, but could not manipulate that weapon with any dexterity. A bird was tempted, but the flensing knife missed its mark, and skimming across the ice shot down a crack. So Nils lost his knife as well as his piece of meat. He cursed—and stormed at the bird.

Still, he did not utterly despair. His plan was to keep the whales in sight. They were now bound to attract the notice of any whaleman within five miles, and Nils knew that if he could live for a week he would have a good chance of being picked up by the searchers whom the station manager would surely send out. So he ate as little as possible, and hoisted his flag frequently, and occasionally sculled the pram in order to keep within a safe distance of the whales. Thus another day and night went by.

 

On waking he was alarmed to see the whales, drifting faster than the pram, far away. He toiled toward them, telling himself that he must in future take briefer spells of sleep. He saw many live whales that day—blaahval and finhval, also a humpback—and the sight of them cheered him with the thought that in such clear weather a lookout would espy them from afar off, for the blue-whale in particular emits a lofty spout.

While the sun was yet high he dropped into a doze, from which he came to himself, wet and shivering, in the midst of a dense moist fog. Neither the dead whales nor the ice were visible; he could not be sure of his bearings, though he did not think he had slept for more than a couple of hours, and could not therefore have drifted far. He decided to await the clearing of the fog, rather than risk all by blind searching.

He felt hungry. He would eat a portion of one of the strips of meat which he had recently redipped in the sea and spread on the thwarts, deeming that such treatment would continue to preserve them. Yes, he would eat.

The meat was gone, every strip of it. The gulls, grown bolder, had taken it while he slumbered. For a time Nils was out of his mind. In the gray loneliness and deathly silence he yelled—and yelled—and yelled.

The fog-bank hung there for many hours. Ere it lifted Nils had sunk into a stupor. When he returned to consciousness, the sun was low, but shining gloriously, a light breeze was ruffling the sea.

He raised himself upon his knees on the thwart—he was feeling weak and sick—and gazed about him. Nothing but water—water on every hand.

Then, indeed, he despaired.

Yet the life in him still strove, cried out against the end. If only he could find the ice and the whales again! Drink and meat! He thought not of the condition of the carcasses by this time. His whole being ached and groaned for food.

The whales! If he rowed toward the sinking sun, he would arrive at the ice; if on sighting the ice he went eastward, he would reach the whales. So his reeling brain judged the matter.

Getting out the oars, he began to row toward the glory. In a little while he had to desist. He tried his pipe, but somehow it failed to comfort, and he bit a tiny piece from his remaining inch of tobacco and chewed it. He rowed again, keeping it up till his arms could do no more.

He looked around. Still nothing but the sea, and the sun setting in ineffable splendor. Then a strange superhuman energy came to him. For a long time he pulled furiously.

All at once he ceased, the oars slipping from his nerveless grasp. He twisted himself round as though for a last look for salvation, struggled in vain to rise, cried croakingly, “Isen! Isen!” (“The ice, the ice!”), and lurched sideways into the bottom of the pram.

 

About sixty miles from Isafjörd the man in the crow's-nest of the Thorgrim reported a sail. At closer range the craft turned out to be a French fishing schooner, one of the many beautiful white ships that put out from Brittany ports and others, in the early spring, to take the cod from the teeming banks in the nearer Arctic waters. Svendsen decided to speak to her, and the course of the Thorgrim was altered. In time the schooner was seen to be flying a distress signal, and before the steamer was within a mile of her, one of her boats was being lowered.

The boat was manned, and what looked like a long bundle was careful handed down to the fishermen in it. The boat was rowed to meet the Thorgrim. As it neared her, the bundle in the stern-sheets was seen to be human.

There was a deal of talk in Norwegian and French, but the understanding came chiefly through signs. The mate of the Ulv was still alive—little more. He had not spoken since the fishermen found him adrift in a small open boat, within sight of the ice, two days previously. He appeared then to be in the last stages of exhaustion, due to exposure and starvation, and they had done what they could for him. They did not think he would live long. They were sorry. At the same time, they hoped for some little reward for having saved the pram, which at that moment a fisherman was pulling toward the whaler.

Nils half-opened his eyes as the Norwegians lifted him aboard, but evinced no recognition for any of the familiar faces. Sigurd and Johan conveyed him, tenderly enough, to the cabin, and laid him in one of the bunks, asking him if he wanted for anything, and putting questions, which they could not suppress, as to his plight. But he made neither sound nor sign. Sigurd, having gazed a while upon the weather-seamed face, as if to read therein some message, drew back suddenly, for the lids had flickered and lifted, uncovering eyes fixed in a stare of agonized terror.

“He has surely gone mad, poor Nils!” the mate said to old Svendsen, who ordered the engineer to make all speed possible for the station.

Happily, Nils did not die, and in a few weeks his reason returned with his strength. It was not until then that Herlof learned why the Ulv had never come back.