Ahab's Wife, or the Star-Gazer

  And there was the urine barrel. I turned my eyes away. The pressure on myself for relief was sudden.

  “I must go below,” I said, thinking of the captain’s private head. I should have used it sooner. I told Chester he should let his thoughts wander while I was gone and then give me an account of how one thought had led to another. I knew it was a strange assignment, a kind of game almost, but one I had played whenever I lay awake on the Island, wanting home.

  I was lucky again in that the captain was not in our quarters, and I started my return with the satisfaction of feeling comfortable and safe, when whose passing shoulder should I bump on the deck but Kit’s. For a moment his tan-gold eyes, his mountain lion eyes, looked straight into mine. I hurried on.

  CHAPTER 27: Captain Coffin’s Story—Secondhand

  I WAS GLAD whenever I was cloistered in the steward’s pantry belowdecks, peeling potatoes, for in there I would be entirely safe from encounters with Kit and Giles. They being common seamen, their quarters were the forecastle, in the bow of the Sussex, and though both their quarters and those kept by the captain, the mates, and the carpenter, cook, etc., were all belowdecks, they were separated by a bulkhead with no door in it and also by the huge, low-ceilinged blubber room. We entered our separate quarters from entirely separate staircases; even on deck we were unlikely to meet, as they were consigned to that area entirely “before the mast.” There were only two occasions when my realm and that of Kit and Giles might overlap. The galley was aft of the mast, and they did come there to get the victuals passed out by the cook. And in our morning perambulation Chester and I circled around the entire deck, including around the carpenter’s bench and the abutting tryworks, and around the quarterdeck. In order to stay cloistered in the pantry, at least till we had crossed the Line, I resolved to make myself agreeable. As I slipped my knife along under the brown skins of the potatoes, which were of a fine quality except for being uncommonly knobby, I glanced around to see what other tasks I might volunteer to do.

  The cook, whose red face had startled me in the captain’s bedroom, was shy of middle age but he had the comportment of an older man, one with crotchets and manners that seemed the habit of many years. Perhaps living and working in so confined a space as a ship’s galley had condensed his mannerisms prematurely. Yet, as it turned out, the content of his speech, if not his style, was unpredictable, and he surprised me almost every time he spoke.

  Wooden boxes, many drawers and cabinets, crockery pots, barrels, hinged wooden boxes were stored all around the cook’s larger galley and its pantry on deck. The smaller steward’s pantry (belowdecks, next to the captain’s dining room) overflowed with storage boxes of the nicer foodstuffs, some labeled as strawberry jam, capers, crackers, fig preserves, smoked herring, tinned beef tongue. Positioned on a high shelf so that the contents would flow down were two large casks, both labeled water.

  One of the casks, toward which he seemed to gesture, had a sealed bunghole at the bottom.

  “Have you a taste for wine, my lad?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve not had any.”

  “Not had wine,” he said. “Not even the communion wine?”

  “No.”

  “Are you not a Christian?”

  He seemed so full of wonder that I decided not to shock him. “My family did not hold with wine.”

  “But now,” he said, “you have aught of them a-looking over your shoulder.”

  Then he took a small pail and told me to hold it under the bunghole. From a kitchen drawer he produced a spigot. In short order, he broached the tun, losing not a precious drop, and installed the spigot.

  “Now I must draw a sample,” he said. “We must drink to the wind. A proper toast guarantees good winds. Neither weak nor overly strong. Isn’t that what you pray for, lad?”

  Two cups were whisked out, the spigot was opened, a wine of lovely golden color flowed out. “Muscatel,” he announced.

  I watched him take a tiny sip, his eyes fastened on mine over the rim of the cup. “Taste it, lad. It’s the gift of the gods. What was the first miracle of Jesus? He turned water into wine. Well, not meaning to blaspheme—oh, no, not that at all—I have done the same.”

  I took a sip and found it good.

  “Not too fast, lad. But this is the drinking time of day. I’ve been waiting for you. No one drinks in the morning—oh, no—and no one suspects anyone else to imbibe then. Oh, there are secrets on a ship, lad. Make no doubt about that. And this is the finest one I know.”

  I quickly resolved that he should not know my secret.

  “Now, say it with me: To the winds! All of ’em, bless ’em.” Then he solemnly took a sip. “Now, to the North Wind. Let him love us like an old man—not too often. Heh!” We drank. “To the East Wind. Let her blow warm and smiling from Africa.” For each of the four cardinal winds, we sipped our wine cups. What can I say—by the time we reached the West Wind a glow was spreading through me like a golden sunset. The flavor of the grape was in this muscatel wine, and I thought of the berry teas and jellies I had so enjoyed on the Island and how Aunt had said they were good for the body.

  “Now to the ordinal winds,” he said. And after toasts to the nor’east, the sou’east, the sou’west, and the nor’west (I had begun to giggle, which delighted the cook, for he felt I was happy), he proposed that he drink to our names. “I didn’t proper introduce myself: Prince Harry, I am. That’s what the captain calls me.”

  “He calls me Billy. But my name is Ulysses.”

  “Is it really?” he said. “A Bible name, I believe. And which do you prefer?”

  “Which do you prefer?” I asked with silly deference.

  “I think Billy is the preferable name,” he answered. “And here’s to you, Billy Green, for I’ve never seen a lad so green as you.”

  “And here’s to you, Prince Harry, for I’ve never seen a cook so red as you.” And we laughed as though the idea made some sense. I felt full of swagger. So this is what it was to be a man! Well, a certain kind of sailor man. One who was help to a drunken steward.

  “Now, above all,” Harry said, “we must get the captain’s lunch ready on time. And it won’t do to keep the crew waiting either. What, my Billy Grin, do you think is the watchword of my kitchen?”

  “Punctuality,” I answered confidently.

  “No, no,” he said. “Economy. Economy. So what does it mean we do with the peels you’ve accumulated?”

  “Put in crew’s stew,” I pronounced.

  “Now you catch my drift. That’s the way I always uses the peels. Now that being the case, lad, you can peel more generously in regard to what’s left with the skin. You see this potato?”

  All the time we sipped. He seemed the most entertaining companion I had ever had.

  “What’s your opinion of him?”

  “A fine potato.”

  “Yes, but ain’t he a bit unusual?”

  “Very unusual.”

  “In what regard, lad?”

  “Well, in regard to lumps and bumps.”

  “Well spoke. Now, we peel him straight. The knife just slips along, and, you see, it’s quicker that way and what’s left under the bump, well, that’s good potato meat for the crew’s stew. Now you understand me.”

  “Tell me,” I said confidentially, “are there ever any women among the crew?”

  His face became very solemn, his eyes spread round as pennies. “Not so as I’ve heard,” he said. “Have you heard of any?”

  “Well, where is Chester’s mother?”

  “New Bedford! Not the captain’s bed. Oh, no. New Bedford, lad. Her bed’s the grave. She gave her life for Chester of the darling curls.” He paused to see how I was taking all this in. I lowered my eyes to the rim of my cup. “The next Chester’s mother? The old mother’s sister, housekeeper to the captain. Look for her in Union Street in the shops that’s got the bounty of the world. Look for her on the wide avenues of County Street, where the mansions are. Never look on board the
Sussex.”

  “They have a fine and happy house?”

  “À la mode, lad. Absolutely à la mode. Only one thing—when you go in the gate you must walk through the jawbones of a sperm whale ’cause he’s got them reared up there like an arch. Otherwise, strictly à la mode, à la Paris, France. You’ve felt his sheets?”

  I nodded affirmation.

  “Aha, that’s good. Don’t try to tell me you haven’t.”

  “Have you sailed long with Captain Fry?”

  “I was his cabin boy. Like you. You might turn into me, lad, given patience.”

  “What else for the stew, Harry? And should we start the water boiling?”

  He opened a cabinet door and threw out a bouquet of dirty spinach and two large bunches of carrots, again remarkably knobby. “Now you know how to peel ’em, don’t you?”

  “Which ‘water’do I use to wash the spinach?”

  Again, he stopped stock-still, as he had when I asked about women aboard. His eyes grew round. Finally he sucked in his breath in a wet whoosh and began to laugh. “You surprise me, boy,” he finally said. “I like that in a buddy. Well, my surprising boy, never waste the better water. That’s my advice to you.”

  I busied myself washing the gritty spinach leaves. Harry seated himself on a low three-legged stool, his cup—replenished with the better water—in his hand.

  “You ask about women. I’ll tell you a story of women. Of one who went a-whaling with her captain husband and what became of her.”

  “What happened to her?” I kept my back to him. I felt my attention focus. It was as though I drew myself up from wading in a pool of golden, grapey nectar. I lugged my mind onto a hospitable slanting rock.

  “She survived. That’s what. Not her husband, not a single member of the crew. She proved the adage: a woman on board is bad luck. She had no need of a cook, I can tell you that. But let me tell the story right. This I heard from Captain Roland Coffin, which happened to him in the South Seas.”

  “Captain Coffin?”

  “The name startles you. You’ve not been yet to Nantucket. It’s populated with Coffins. When you get to Nantucket, note that I told you so. Remember this very moment when I taught you how to enjoy the golden syrup of life. Muscatel. I drink no other. I have my own vineyard, or I will someday. Oh, you’ll go to Nantucket. Have no doubt of that. When you see Coffin, when you see Starbuck and Swain, think how I told you it would be so.”

  “I met a woman with Swain in her name in New Bedford.”

  “Yes. They spread about. But that’s mainly what’s in Nantucket.”

  Content that I had washed out the grit and the little black beetles from the spinach, I began to peel the carrots. I had always been taught to cut a peel paper-thin, and it went against the grain to take long swipes with the knife and leave the carrot square-edged, but I meant to do as I was told, and for the crew, whose stew would be stocked with peelings, there was an advantage.

  “Let me tell the story right.” He plopped upon a high stool, his red face shining.

  “Captain Coffin was a young man, and as a youth, he was in a whaleboat towed off by a whale. Yes, they do that. A Nantucket sleigh ride. Slap, slap, slap—you fly over the waves like the whale was a horse and you was in a runaway sleigh. But a whale ain’t no little horse, is he, lad? Put a hundred horses together, put ten elephants together—then you have a whale. So off this harpooned whale runs, like a hundred horses, off from the ship. Off goes Captain Coffin in the whaleboat, till there’s no ship to be seen.

  “Now’s the time to cut free. Yes, there comes a time, and he did. So they in the whaleboat wait for the ship. They wait a day. After that, lad, don’t wait. Set sail. That’s what they did, provisions being low. They set sail and made a lucky island. Why lucky, lad? Because there was water, fresh water, on the island, and there ain’t on every South Sea island—oh, no. And even better, there’s no horde of howling savages ready to eat them.

  “The cannibal stories are real. I’ll tell you some myself sometime. Let me tell you, it’s a relief not to live amongst cannibals. But this island with its pleasant spring, it appeared deserted. There’s some sort of little scurrying animal around the spring pool, but that’s not cannibals.

  “But, hark ye, there’s a native. But it ain’t no native.

  “It’s a tattered-up, suntanned American woman, a Nantucket woman, wife of a whaling captain. She sailed with him, but no luck brought she. Oh, no. Where are they? Dead. All lost on a reef. But how long has she been on the island a-making do? Five years, lad. Five years. Could you or I live on an island five years?”

  Of course I had lived on an island four years, but, I had to admit, the circumstances were very different.

  “She gathers up boards and bits from the wreck and she makes do.”

  “Like Robinson Crusoe,” I say. I am delighted, for this is a true story, and of a woman.

  “You can believe she was excited. Captain Coffin said she commenced to hollering, ‘It ain’t no dream, you’re real, you’re real!’ and to pinching each of them to make sure. ‘Thank God Almighty, I’m saved!’ After a bit, she promises to cook for them a stew, a capital stew.

  “She was good as her word. These is Captain Coffin’s words: ‘She looked on quite delighted for to see us eat, and a-fillin’ each chap’s dish as fast as it was empty. After she done helped us round for the fifth or sixth time, says she, “Now you don’t any of you know, I’ll warrant, what you been eatin’ up so hearty.”’

  “The captain says again how powerful good it was, but, no, he couldn’t say what was in it. Says she, ‘That there was a rat stew.’

  “The rats from the ship had come ashore. They, like the woman, survived that wreck. They had bred, and for five years that is the meat she lived on.

  “Now the captain and the crew had admitted she made them rats taste good. I don’t know what she found on the island to make ’em sweet. The men would have preferred not to eat more rat, but their vessel was slow in finding them, and they must keep body and soul together. She was a cooking woman, and Captain Coffin said they had rat fixed every which way—roast rat, broiled rat, fried rat, rat fricassee, and rat stew. Finally the vessel did come, and the woman and all the men, well fed, went aboard, leaving the island to the rule of the rats.”

  “I should hope,” I said, “that if we wreck on a reef and get marooned on an island, it’s chickens that come with us.”

  CHAPTER 28: A Whaleboat by Moonlight

  THAT NIGHT, as I lay in my hammock, I couldn’t sleep for thinking of Aunt and Uncle and how good they were. And Frannie, who loved me. And how was my mother? Finally, I was almost asleep when Chester announced impatiently that he could not sleep.

  “Let’s pretend,” he said.

  “In what way?”

  “Follow me.”

  Without putting on his shoes, he tiptoed to the small staircase called the companionway, and I followed him, sleepily. On deck, Chester made his way to one of the whaleboats, which was not hoisted on its davits, but sat open in braces on the deck. He stepped inside. I hesitated.

  “Pretend we’re on the water,” he whispered. “We’re on the chase.”

  “I’ve never been on the chase,” I replied.

  “I’ll tell you how. I, the harpooner, stand in the bow. You, the mate, in the stern.” Chester waited imperially for me to join his drama. Somewhat reluctantly I climbed into the stern, grasping first the upright brace for the steering oar to support me and then a sort of stubby post. “What’s this?” I asked.

  “The loggerhead. The line from the large line tub”—I saw the tub lodged between the near seats of the whaleboat—“goes aft to the loggerhead, circles round, and then goes forward toward the harpoons. They connect by their own cords to the line.”

  From nowhere Chester lifted a harpoon. He almost staggered under the weight of it. The implement consists of a very stout wooden holster and an iron. In later years, the irons were developed with a toggle point, but ours were
barbed like a simple arrowhead.

  “Pretend we’re at sea,” he said, rocking the boat a bit for realism. “The harpoon should rest here,” and he erected a stick, divided at its top into two compartments, perpendicularly into the starboard gunwale. Through one compartment he rested his harpoon, the barb leaning out beyond the prow, like a projection eager to do its duty. “Usually, there’re two,” he said. And he lifted another harpoon to rest in the second compartment of the upright crotch, for so this harpoon stand was named. “The first iron, and the second iron.”

  The whaleboat was some sixteen feet long, with struts across the width to reinforce the boat and serve as seats for the six oarsmen, two on each.

  “What must I do?” I asked, being a rather ignorant mate.

  “You must sing out, ‘Break your backs! Break your backs, my hearties!’ For that’s what the mate says to the crew.”

  “Break your backs! Break your wrists, and arms!” I improvised, and, like Chester, made the boat rock in the moonlight. Our pretense did not seem to progress much. Maybe Chester envisioned whales ahead, and we were approaching them. He stood crouched and ready. Abruptly I asked, in a normal tone, “What are these other casks and implements?”

  Chester relaxed his posture. “I’ll tell you about it,” he said. And he proceeded to name parts methodically, from bow to stern, in a clear and authoritative manner. He leaned forward and put a finger in a small vertical groove near the chocks; the cut was used for straightening harpoons. Another larger notch, like the half-moon that sailed in the sky above us, cut into the horizontal bracing across the prow, was called the clumsy cleat, and there the harpooner might wedge his thigh as he reared back to heave the iron. Besides the harpoons the whaleboat carried other sharp implements: a boat spade, a boat hook, and lances and knives. “Suppose we were towed away?” Chester asked. “We have our supplies.” Standing on the gunwale, he pointed out the lantern keg, used to carry candles and hardtack, which had its own line to retrieve it, should so precious an item be swept overboard; we also had a water keg and a compass aboard. There was a bucket for bailing.