IX
January 1908 Alaska Current, California Current
Slowly, they journeyed south past St. Lawrence Island, Seventy-Two Pass, the Fox Islands. In the mystical belief that a symbol could influence reality, the owners had had the shipwrights paint a series of depth indicators on the Lydia Bailey's hull much like the Plimsoll lines on freighters. Now, as the damaged whaler made its way through the Strait, the marks that showed the weight of their load barely touched water. Had she been a freighter, she would have 'turned turtle' for lack of ballast.
Morale was as low as the ship rode high--the perfect atmosphere for vengeance.
There were a number of Portuguese sailors on board whom Chandry had hired off a Balearic bumboat. They had a fondness for duff, a strange-tasting dumpling of dubious Iberian heritage. William Pegg tried it once and spent the rest of the day gagging. He much preferred the balls of ground porpoise and salt pork which were the staple among the rest of the crew. At least you didn't have to drown the balls in a special sauce to make them palatable, the way the Portuguese did their duff.
The third mate was one of the Portuguese. Offended by the boy's extreme reaction to his favorite food, he ordered William into the galley. There he was forced to stand watch over the evil brew that comprised duff sauce. Made out of sour molasses and colored yellow by the saleratus the third mate insisted on adding, the mixture summoned visions of a sulphurous Hell as he heated it in a huge saucepan.
The Portuguese were not allowed to eat their duff amidships. "Damn dagos must've been raised in shit to like that stuff," Captain Chandry had fumed. He'd banished the Portuguese mess to the poop deck where the wind would carry off the stench. This was where Pegg had to deliver the sauce once it was heated.
One day, while carrying the sizzling pan aft, he heard a too-familiar voice. Angling towards the cargo well, he spotted the purser below, sitting on a crate and swapping lies with the Lydia Bailey's boatswain.
It took Pegg about three seconds to decide what to do next. The purser let out a screech of pain and wrath as the boiling sauce spilled through the open hatch onto his head.
Naturally, no one believed Pegg had tripped over a coil of hemp, for he was a strapping lad known for his nimbleness. The deckhand expected a thrashing from the captain and steeled himself to meet the pain in manly silence, but much to the purser's chagrin and Pegg's astonishment, Captain Chandry did not lay a finger on him. Instead, as a rich coaster of aguardiente rolled off his breath, the captain blithely informed him that he was making him the boatsteerer of the lead whaleboat.
A strange and benevolent reaction.
While William had shipped aboard the Lydia Bailey as a common deckhand, a clause in the articles he signed also made him a 'preventer boatsteerer'. A boatsteerer's job was to stand on the bow of a whaleboat and strike a whale with the first harpoon. The 'preventer' was simply his replacement in case he was sick or injured. Pegg's only experience had been to strike a few small whales off Martha's Vineyard, but his muscular girth had impressed the ship's owners and they added the codicil the moment before William signed. Thus, the promotion was legal.
The boatsteerer of the lead boat was getting on in years and, three days before Pegg dumped sauce on the purser's head, the aging harpoonist was laid low by the lumbago. By replacing him with William, Chandry was allowing the boy to reap all the benefits that accrued from being a boatsteerer. He worked with the other boatsteerers in the waist of the Lydia Bailey, while the ordinary seamen remained respectfully forward of the tryworks.
There could be little doubt what was on the captain's mind. For all the honors, a boatsteerer's job was dangerous in the extreme. Still, William found it hard to believe his offense had been so heinous that Chandry wanted him to pay for it with his life. Over the next three weeks, he began to accept his promotion as a mysterious gift from the sea, if not from Chandry.
During those same weeks, however, there was not a single whale sighting. Chandry had resigned himself to returning to San Francisco for repairs, but he still counted on a bit of luck stumbling across their path. A hundred or so barrels more might at least hold the owners at bay. So he struck a zigzag course to the south, gradually moving away from the mainland. There were whales out here. He knew there were whales out here. Everyone knew there were whales out here.
So... where were they?
Luck remained a stranger. The further south they went, the less chance they had of hitting upon whales coming the opposite direction, heading towards the Arctic feeding grounds.
The barren sea also mocked William's promotion. The boy's presence among the boatsteerers piqued Chandry and it finally grew too much to bear. Any notion Pegg might have had about being honored was knocked out of his head the day they smoked the rats.
Rats were a nuisance on whaling ships because of their appetite for whale bone and baleen. With such a meager haul, the need to smoke them out was not urgent. But nearly a month after the sauce-pouring incident, Chandry informed the crew he was going to fumigate the Lydia Bailey. The men accepted this in the vein it was given. It was the captain's prerogative to keep the crew busy. There could be as much whim as method in how this was done. But when he made his announcement, Chandry gave William a glance that sent a worm of queasiness through the boy's stomach.
That night, the boilers were filled with charcoal, as were the stoves in the captain's cabin and the forecastle. William was given the task of closing the cracks in the crews' quarters. Ironically, he used duff sauce, extremely sticky once it cooled, to paste the paper and rags in place. The following morning an iron pot of water was set next to one of the hatches.
"They always run for the water," Lead Foot told William as he took up a club and stood near the pot.
The fires were lit, the final seals checked, and the crew mustered on deck. Their names were called out and, once it was ascertained that everyone was out in the open, Captain Chandry allowed the stoves and boilers to be lit.
"I don't think there's smoke in the fo'c'sle," the purser announced an hour later. Dropping to his hands and knees, he gently lifted one of the seals and whiffed extravagantly. "No, by Godfrey, I don't smell a thing. We'd better send someone in to look or this is all for nothing."
"Pretty dangerous," the captain fretted with a yawn.
"Don't want the crew idling all day, then have to do the same tomorrow," the purser asserted.
"Damn dangerous." Chandry took a sip from his mug.
"I'll go in myself, then," the purser all but thumped his narrow chest. "We can't afford to waste time."
"I can't risk losing you. Uh.... You! Boatsteersman Pegg! I think Mr. Hodges is wrong about all this, but why don't you go in and take a look?"
There was murmuring from the other boatsteerers. This was shabby treatment of one of their own. The captain was finally exposing his vengeful streak and it was a wee bit too wide for their liking. He silenced them with a glare. Had the old souse attacked them, the tough boatsteerers could have dealt with him handily enough. They were, however, afraid that he would find a way to drag them down with him when they reached port and the owners, with an army of deputies, began waving their writs and warrants.
William interpreted their murmurs to mean they would not allow Chandry to go too far. A confident look from Lead Foot reinforced this feeling. Of course, he had to go through with the deadly farce. The other crewmen would protect his life, but not his rank--something he was sure to lose if he refused a direct command.
They broke the seal and opened the hatch. Smoke billowed out. Before William could give the captain a knowing glance, he was shoved gruffly into the passageway.
The hatch was shut behind him.
He began to cough. A rat jumped out of the smoke and wrapped itself around his ankle. He shouted and kicked it away. He was about to turn and pound on the hatch when it dawned on him he was being presented a golden opportunity.
Struggling through the bunks in the forecastle, it took him several minutes to find the stove. He was already feeling faint. Gagging and coughing, he took a rag off a cot, using it to protect his hand as he took hold of the stove's handle and twisted the door open.
Reaching inside, he gingerly pried several briquettes out of the glowing clump. The rag smoldered but did not catch fire. This encouraged him to improvise the rag into a pouch for the coals.
He dashed for the door, only to trip blindly over a sea chest. "Oh Mother, I'm dying." But the thought of Chandry delivering a somber, if not sober, funeral oration just before dropping his corpse overboard gave him the dose of hatred he needed.
Struggling to his feet, he bashed this way and that until he found the hatch. He kicked it open... and found Lead Foot and the boatsteerers getting ready to kick it in from the other side.
There was a brief cheer as he straggled out.
He held up the rag, only to discover the coals had burned through, leaving him with a smoky hank of cloth.
"Fire's up, after all!" Chandry said cheerfully. "Seal the hatch!"
The crew had clumped up tight for a mutiny. They would not have let William die. But the knot of unity unraveled quickly when they saw him alive. Well done... brave fellow.... But there was a latent anger directed at the boy. They'd gone so far as to challenge Chandry--made their sympathies apparent and were ready to storm past the captain and the purser to rescue him. And here he'd come out bright as you please--nearly asphyxiated, to be sure, but a happy hero for all that.
Now they were all in the shit house.
It would have been better had they brought him out gasping, eyes rolling--even better had they carried him out dead. Then Chandry's wagon would have been fixed for certain. As it was, they felt nothing thankful for the newest boatsteersman.