Chapter XII: The Personal Element

It used to be the custom--certainly among the whalers of the Greenland and Davis Straits--after the whale had been brought alongside the ship for the harpooners, before getting to work on the animal’s dissection, to arm their feet with spurs. This was in order to prevent their slipping, and Scoresby relates a curious accident which he once witnessed in this connection.

Attending on these men were usually a couple of boats with one or two boys, who would be ready to pass along the harpooners’ knives, blubber-spades and so on. Boat-hooks would naturally be used for holding on to the dead animal. Now whilst these harpooners were busy flensing, and one of these men was standing on the whale’s jaw-bone, a lad in the boat clumsily and accidentally, whilst keeping the craft alongside, thrust the point of his boat-hook through the ring of the harpooner’s spur and simultaneously hooked on to the jaw-bone. The harpooner presently found himself in the water and held by the foot. He managed to catch hold of the boat’s gunwale, but by this time the point had been reached when the blubber and whalebone had been extracted and the carcase was just being let go. And the position now was that the unfortunate expert was fastened to this sinking carcase.

It seemed only a question of a few seconds before carcase would pull man below the surface of the sea, and he was just about to let go the gunwale when some of his shipmates threw a rope round his body. With all that weight suspended from him, the harpooner was in great agony, but what he feared most was that he might be dragged below: so in spite of his pain he shouted to his pals to haul away at the rope, and this was the actual means of saving him, for eventually the carcase was hooked with a grapnel and the man was freed. But he had been quite as near to death as it is possible for any human to approach.

These harpooners at work separating the blubber fat worked under the direction of the specksioneer, or head fat-cutter, the expert of experts on the subject of whales. But if in the seventeenth-century Dutch whalers the specksioneer (or more correctly the “specksynder”) was in supreme control of a whaler, and the captain was a mere sailing master, just as in the sixteenth century expeditions were under the leadership of a landsman, the British Greenland whaling ships of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were under the command of seafaring captains and the specksioneer was merely a senior harpooner and not in supreme command. It is interesting as showing that the handling and navigation of the ship were considered of greater importance than expert knowledge of the whales themselves. But it is also a fact that in the course of years the sailing master had amassed all the available information about whales, their cruising grounds, and their habits, and the methods of hunting them. In the American early nineteenth-century whalers the specksioneer was of greater authority than in contemporary British ships and sometimes took charge of the deck. For this reason, as support to his authority, the specksioneer lived apart from the crew. In the modern steam whalers, dealt with towards the end of this volume, we find that the twentieth-century practice is rather to give back to the harpooner, or gunner, that supremacy of place which he occupied three hundred years ago. Divided authority always has its drawbacks, and so long as the sailing master is responsible for his ship and the harpooner cares only for getting the maximum of whales it is conceivable that there will be a clashing of wills sooner or later. On the grounds of discipline and unity of purpose there is everything to be said for the principle of captain and specksioneer being one and the same person.

For the purpose of overcoming the jealousies and arguments, the disputes and violent quarrels on the whaling grounds it became necessary for the Dutch during the seventeenth century to impose on their ships drastic regulations, which had to be subscribed to by every captain, specksioneer and officer. In the British Arctic whalers the official Government regulations were not necessary, for the custom of the industry was usually respected, although litigation did sometimes arise, of which an instance has been given in another chapter. But there were two plain and simple traditions which in actual practice had the value of laws. Firstly, there was the question of a whale which had been harpooned or fastened. This was the most fruitful source of animosity: for harpoons from two or more boats, all of different ships, might penetrate the whale, especially in the case of a long and difficult hunt. The first boat would naturally claim the whale as his, and the last boat of all, who finally had brought about the animal’s death, might insist that the prize was his. In order to avoid such disputes the British custom of the sea was that a whale which had been fastened, or in any way was in possession of a boat, belonged to that boat which maintains connection or possession, no matter whether the whale were dead or alive. Secondly, a whale that was loose and unfastened, dead or alive, was fair game for all; but there were occasions when this last-mentioned custom presented difficulties. Supposing, for example, that a ship’s boat had been hunting a certain whale all day, harpooned him, been towed for many miles by him, and then with the oncoming of night and owing to the distance from the ship, it had become necessary to cut the line. What then? Next day, or perhaps weeks later, some other ship might find that whale many miles away but with the harpoon still in him, and the name of the ship on that harpoon. Perhaps the whale might be harpooned again and chased for a long while and then killed. Whose was that whale? Did it belong to the ship whose harpoon had been identified? Or did the spoil go to the final vessel?

The following is an instance which occurred in the Greenland fishery. Several whalers were beating to windward along the edge of the ice, the vessels being under easy sail, for it was blowing a gale accompanied by snow. But when the wind and snow eased up and the ships made towards the ice, two vessels, distant from each other about a mile, both sighted a dead whale within some loose ice. Now, since this whale was not “fastened” she was fair game for either ship, and there ensued a keen race as to which should reach the animal first. But the two vessels were most evenly matched, and there was no such thing as superiority in their sailing ability. So keen was the contest that each captain had hopes of harpooning without lowering boats, and in the bows of both ships was standing an officer ready to let drive his harpoon so soon as the whale was reached.

Now it must have been apparent that two evenly matched sailing ships both heading for the same small object in a big sea would converge and collide. This indeed happened when within a few yards of the whale, and actually the shock was so violent that bow struck bow with such force that the two craft rebounded. Harpoons were hurled at the whale but fell short. And then a keen seaman who was second mate of the lee ship dived overboard into those bitterly cold waters, swam off to the whale, seized its fin and announced to the world that the prize was his. It was a plucky if somewhat foolish act: for he found himself unable to climb up and had to remain shivering in that Arctic water. Somehow in the excitement and joy that the other vessel had been outwitted, this second mate’s captain neglected to worry about his officer’s unpleasant predicament hanging on to the dead whale. Instead of at once lowering a boat, the skipper was more concerned with mooring his whaler to a suitable piece of ice.

But in the meantime ship number two had tacked and the master of her had lowered a boat, got into it and rowed off to the solitary mariner still hanging on to the dead whale. So he called to the mate, whose shivering hand was still on the fin. “Well? You’ve got a fine fish there,” said the skipper. “Yes,” agreed the unhappy mate. “But don’t you find it very cold?” asked the captain, beholding the livid lips. “Yes, I do,” answered the mate. “And I’m almost starved: I wish you’d let me come into your boat until ours arrives.” “Certainly,” approved the charitable but wide-awake skipper. The boat was rowed alongside the whale, and, in fact, the man was assisted on board the boat with the greatest enthusiasm.

But immediately afterwards the clever old skipper struck a harpoon into the carcase of the whale, hoisted his flag and claimed it as his prize; for it was now loose and was anyone’s property until this moment. There was no question as to the right of the new owner, nor was it even disputed. But skipper number one was wild with anger when he realized the trick which had been played. There remained nothing to be done except to see several hundred golden sovereigns’ worth of whale going aboard his rival ship, and then he turned round and cursed his over-gallant mate for having been such a fool as to let go of that fin. There are, indeed, times when one is praised less for bravery than for astuteness. But I presume that mate would in future leave daring enterprise to others who thought nothing of the encouragement by gratitude.

Whaling could not be learnt in a few weeks or even a season: and especially was this true of the Greenland industry, where the conditions of ice and weather were difficult problems. Experience, judgment, perseverance, seamanship, good navigational ability and that indescribable special fisherman-sense which is able to know where the fish are: these were the qualities which went to make the successful whaler captain. Seamanship was perhaps more important than at first consideration you might imagine. When there was such similarity of build in these more or less standardized ships, there was not a great deal of difference in the respective speeds: therefore the personal element came into the matter. After the fleet had penetrated up the Davis Straits, for example, and been prevented from advancing owing to the obstructing ice, there might one day show itself a narrow opening just big enough for a skilful skipper to work his ship through. If he could do this before the sea was ready for the general advance, then he would have the pick of the sea, he would get whales and possibly fill up his holds before the other ships could sail through. Taking whaling as a whole, success depended far more on the captain’s character and skill, and next on his harpooners, than on the ship herself. The first thing requisite was whaling knowledge: but when the captain had brought his ship to the right area, the rest depended on the look-outs and the harpooners.

Seamen are singularly child-like: and whaler crews were of this sort, too. If they began to lose confidence in the “old man” or in the harpooner’s skill, they would lose all heart in the cruise, become discouraged, lack spirit, and consequently would allow golden opportunities to pass by. Thus, bad officers would ruin any whaling vessel, and she would come home, if not “clean,” at any rate with an indifferent cargo. On the other hand, nothing succeeds like success, and nothing gave the men greater confidence than the capture of several whales by clever harpooning. It satisfied them that the harpooner knew his business and was worthy of their assistance, it encouraged them as they reflected on the monetary reward which was accumulating; and it assured them that should the animal’s tail one day give them a stove boat, it would be just one of those inevitable accidents of their calling. If one of the boat’s crew had the misfortune to get his foot foul of the harpoon line after the whale had been struck, then it was just a case of “his own b----y fault” that for the rest of his life he would not have a complete pair of feet.

But had this happened in a boat whose harpooner was “gallied,” nervous or inexperienced, then that crew would have been ruined for the rest of the voyage, the incident would be discussed in the fo’c’sle, and even the best of the other boats’ crews would become infected with just that spirit which prevents success. Thus it was the personal element which mattered most in whaling.