No sooner had the black whale risen to the surface than a whole gale rose also from the south-west, sweeping the bloated carcass before it and causing it to break free of its anchors. Now the huge body was bowling out to sea unrestrained, its marker buoys crashing along behind it. The whale men set after it, their thoughts focused solely on their vanishing prize: twelve hundred pounds worth of blubber and whalebone, now apparently en route to New Zealand. Once they had made it out of the bay, however, they were struck by seas so vertiginous that the headsmen began to experience great difficulty in handling their boats.
‘Pull, for God’s sake, men!’ cried my father as he grappled with the steer oar. ‘Pull! Pull!’
As they bent to the oars, their weary muscles burning, one or other of the men would throw a look over his shoulder and snatch a glimpse of the marker buoys, then turn back to my father in disbelief. Not only were the buoys a great distance away, but the two small boats were pursuing them further and further out to sea. Even if they managed to catch the breakaway whale, they still had to face the prospect of the long and perilous journey back, towing a mountain of blubber. As this new horror dawned upon them, the precarious morale of the new chums began to waver, and the second boat staggered fitfully up each new precipice of water. Even the hardened men of the first boat found their resolve flagging when they realised they had now lost sight of land.
‘Keep going!’ cried my father. ‘Why do you slow down?’
I imagine it can only have been out of loyalty to my father that the men continued to pull at all, for the chase must have surely seemed hopeless.
‘I can’t see her,’ cried Salty from the other boat. ‘Where’s she gone?’
My father gripped the steer oar for support and squinted against the spray. It was true: the marker buoys and carcass seemed to have vanished.
‘Darcy!’ he cried. ‘Stop rowing and look. Can you see anything?’
Darcy had the best eyes of all the whale men; it was extraordinary what he could see. Where we could see a tree on a distant hill, he could identify the birds that sat in it. He rose to his feet now and stood looking for several minutes. Then he turned and faced my father.
‘I see her, boss,’ he said. ‘She’s too far.’
My father stared at him. Darcy was Percy Madigan’s boy, cheeky and good-humoured and well-liked by all. But to tell my father that he deemed the whale too far was an act of unheard-of defiance. The other men kept their heads down, even Bastable. In their hearts, they agreed with Darcy; the whale was too far away to catch, and had been from the beginning.
‘How far?’ said my father, eyeing Darcy steadily.
‘Miles.’
‘How many miles? Two? Three?’
‘Four maybe.’
‘But the marker buoys –'
‘Those marker buoys have come loose, boss.’
My father reeled. Albert Thomas Senior leapt up to support him, but he regained his equilibrium and motioned him aside, instead leaning heavily upon his steer oar. (We wanted that the steer oar be buried with my father. It was of course twenty-two feet long and would not fit in the grave; but the fact that it seemed appropriate will give an indication of how much a part of him it was.) The men stared up at him. They had been chasing after marker buoys that were no longer even attached to the whale? Then where in God’s name was the whale?
‘Home,’ said my father hoarsely. ‘Turn your boat, Salty. We’re going home.’
Turning the boats around, the long journey back now confronted them. At best reckoning, they were seven miles out. The wind was against them and every wave that rose up threatened to engulf their frail crafts. There was no choice except to tackle it; their only other option was to sink and drown. It was all too terrible to contemplate. And yet, as they rowed, calling upon every last ounce of energy from their exhausted reserves, the boats seemed to barely progress. Instead, they slid sickeningly up each new wall of water, only to be dashed into the trough below. Then the next wave presented itself. It seemed impossible that both whaleboats and men could continue to withstand such a battering.
‘This isn’t funny anymore,’ said Robert Heffernan, not that at any point he had shown signs of amusement.
Salty looked at his exhausted men, rowing as if already dead, their faces haggard with disbelief.
‘A prayer! That’s what we need!’ cried Salty. ‘Give us a prayer, Father, now as we row! Is there not a special prayer for whale men in distress?’
John Beck looked up at him in dismay. A prayer? When it was all he could do to keep his hands on the oars, he must suddenly come up with a prayer – and not just any prayer, but one appropriate to the dire circumstances in which they found themselves? The fact that the hardened whale man and self-proclaimed Professor of Whales felt it necessary to appeal to the Almighty surely meant that things were worse than he could imagine. The other oarsmen turned to him now, feebly hopeful. They needed something perhaps he alone could give them, some small words of encouragement, some promise of salvation.
‘O God,’ John Beck began tentatively. ‘Give to the wind our fears –'
‘Speak up, Father!’
‘O God,’ he repeated, raising his voice. ‘Give to the wind our fears. Hear our sighs –'
‘We can’t hear you back here in the cheap seats!’
‘Hear our sighs and count our tears!’ He had to shout to be heard above the elements. ‘Lift up our heads and carry us through waves and clouds and storms!’
‘Yea, O Lord,’ cried Salty.
‘Yea, O Lord!’ agreed the whale men.
‘Dispose our hearts that death may not be dreadful to us –'
‘Not that prayer, Father!’ cried Salty abruptly.
‘No. No, of course,’ said John Beck. They were riding up an especially vertiginous wave. The boat hovered horribly at its crest, causing their bellies to lurch with fear, then smashed down bow first into its trough.
‘Oh Jesus,’ whimpered Robert Heffernan, and nobody blamed him.
‘Yes, Jesus, hear us now!’ cried John Beck. All this shouting against the elements and rowing at the same time was making him short of breath, and the words came out in staccato bursts. ‘You have – taken from us – the great Leviathan – whose empty carcass must now rot – uselessly – upon the ocean floor –'
In fact, he was quite pleased with this style of delivery. It seemed to suggest a passion and urgency that had perhaps been lacking in his sermons, and his straining voice was acquiring a commanding timbre.
‘Where once – its precious bounty – might have lubricated – cogs – of great machinery,’ he continued. ‘Or served perhaps – in the construction of umbrellas – or indeed corsets – to enhance the silhouettes of our womenfolk –'
‘Not a sermon, Father, just a prayer if you would!’
‘Right, yes,’ said John Beck. ‘O God,’ he commenced afresh, ‘who hath embarked our souls in these frail boats – preserve us from the dangers that on all sides assault us – give Your oarsmen the strength to pull against this tempest – that we might arrive at last in the haven of eternal salvation –'
‘Haven of eternal salvation, Lord,’ cried Salty.
‘Yea, O Lord,’ cried the whalers, who would welcome a haven of any description.
‘Hear the cry of our hearts, and have mercy upon us, Lord. Have mercy upon whale men who have lost their cargo –'
‘Yes, Lord!’
‘– and seek only to return home.’
And just as these last words blew away on the wind, by all accounts of those who were present, the dark clouds above broke apart just enough to permit a shaft of pale crepuscular sunlight to shine down upon the two small boats. The men gazed up to the heavens in amazement, and none more so than John Beck.
‘Amen,’ he said.
‘Amen, Father,’ said Salty.
‘Amen,’ said the whalers.