Rídan The Devil And Other Stories

  THE 'KILLERS' OF TWOFOLD BAY

  Enbosomed in the verdure-clad hills of the southern coast of sunny NewSouth Wales lies a fisherman's paradise, named Twofold Bay. Its fameis but local, or known only to outsiders who may have spent a day therewhen travelling from Sydney to Tasmania in the fine steamers of theUnion Company, which occasionally put in there to ship cattle from thelittle township of Eden, which is situated upon the northern shoreof its deep and placid waters. But the chief point of interest aboutTwofold Bay is that it is the rendezvous of the famous 'killers' (_Orcagladiator_) the deadly foes of the whole race of cetaceans other thanthemselves, and the most extraordinary and sagacious creatures thatinhabit the ocean's depths. From July to November two 'schools' ofkillers may be seen every day, either cruising to and fro across theentrance of the bay, or engaged in a Titanic combat with a whale--a'right' whale, a 'humpback,' or the long, swift 'fin-back.' Never havethey been known to tackle the great sperm-whale, except when one ofthose mighty creatures has been wounded by his human enemies. Andto witness one of these mighty struggles is worth travelling many athousand miles to see; it is terrible, awe-inspiring and wonderful. The'killer' ranges in length from ten feet to twenty-five feet (whalemenhave told me that one was seen stranded on the Great Barrier Reef in1862 which measured thirty feet). Their breathing apparatus and generalanatomy is much similar to that of the larger whales. They spout,'breach.' and 'sound' like other cetaceans, and are of the samemigratory habit, as the two 'schools' which haunt Twofold Bay alwaysleave there at a certain time of the year to cruise in other seas,returning to their headquarters when the humpback and fin-back whalesmake their appearance on the coast of New South Wales, travellingnorthwards to the feeding-grounds on the Bampton Shoals, the coast ofNew Guinea and the Moluccas.

  The head of the killer is of enormous strength. The mouth is armed inboth jaws with fearful teeth, from one and a half inches to two incheslong, and set rather widely apart. In colour they show an extraordinaryvariation, some being all one hue--brown, black, or dull grey; othersare black, with large, irregular patches or streaks of pure white oryellow; others are dark brown with black and yellow patches. One,which I saw ashore on the reef at the island of Nukulaelae in the SouthPacific, was nearly black, except for a few irregular blotches of whiteon the back and belly. This particular killer had died from starvation,for nearly the entire lower jaw had decayed from a cancerous growth.

  The whaling station at Twofold Bay is now, alas! the only one in thecolony--the last remnant of a once great and thriving industry, which,in the early days of the then struggling colony, was the nursery of boldand adventurous seamen. It is now carried on by a family named Davidson,father and sons--in conjunction with the killers. And for more thantwenty years this business partnership has existed between the humansand the cetaceans, and the utmost rectitude and solicitude for eachother's interests has always been maintained. _Orca gladiator_ seizesthe whale for the Davidsons and holds him until the deadly lance isplunged into his 'life,' and the Davidssons let Orca carry the carcassto the bottom, and take his tithe of luscious blubber. This is theliteral truth; and grizzled old Davidson, or any one of the stalwartsons who man his two boats, will tell you that but for the killers, whodo half of the work, whaling would not pay with oil only worth from L18to L24 a tun.

  Let us imagine a warm, sunny day in August at Twofold Bay. The manwho is on the lookout at the old lighthouse, built by Ben Boyd on thesouthern headland fifty years ago, paces to and fro on the grassy sward,stopping now and then to scan the wide expanse of ocean with his glass,for the spout of a whale is hard to discern at more than two milesif the weather is not clear. If the creature is in a playful mood and'breaches,' that is, springs bodily out of the water and sends up awhite volume of foam and spray, like the discharge of a submarine mine,you can see it eight miles away.

  The two boats are always in readiness at the trying-out works, a mileor so up the harbour; so, too, are the killers; and the look-out man,walking to the verge of the cliff, looks down. There they are, cruisingslowly up and down, close in-shore, spouting lazily and showing theirwet, gleaming backs as they rise, roll and dive again. There's 'Fatty,'and 'Spot,' and 'Flukey,' and 'Little Jim,' and 'Paddy,' and 'Tom Tug.'Nearly every one of them has a name, and each is well known to his humanfriends.

  Presently the watchman sees, away to the southward, a white, misty puff,then another, and another. In an instant he brings his glass to bear,'Humpbacks!' Quickly two flags flutter from the flagpole, and a fire islit; and as the flags and smoke are seen, the waiting boats' crews atthe trying-out station are galvanised into life by the cry of 'Rush, ho,lads! Humpbacks in sight, steering north-west!' Rush and tumble into theboats and away!

  Round the south head sweeps the first boat, the second following moreleisurely, for she is only a 'pick-up' or relief, in case the first is'fluked' and the crew are tossed high in air, with their boat crushedinto matchwood, or meets with some other disaster. And as the leadingboat rises to the long ocean swell of the offing, the killers close inround her on either side, just keeping clear of the sweep of the oars,and 'breaching' and leaping and spouting with the anticipative zest ofthe coming bloody fray.

  'Easy, lads, easy!' says the old boat-header; 'they're coming right downon us. Billy was right. They're humpbacks, sure enough!'

  The panting oarsmen pull a slower stroke, and then, as they watchthe great, savage creatures which swim alongside, they laugh in themirthless manner peculiar to most young native-born Australians, forsuddenly, with a last sharp spurt of vapour, the killers dive anddisappear into the dark blue beneath; for they have heard the whales,and, as is their custom, have gone ahead of the boat, rushing swiftlyon below full fifty fathoms deep. Fifteen minutes later they rise to thesurface in the midst of the humpbacks, and half a square acre of oceanis turned into a white, swirling cauldron of foam and leaping spray. Thebull-dogs of the sea have seized the largest whale of the school, andare holding him for the boat and for the deadly lance of his human foes.The rest of the humpbacks raise high their mighty flukes and 'sound,'a hundred--two hundred--fathoms down, and, speeding seaward, leave theunfortunate bull to his dreadful fate.

  (And, in truth, it is a dreadful fate, and the writer of this sketch cannever forget how one day, as he and a little girl of six watched, froma grassy headland on the coast of New South Wales, the slaughter of amonstrous whale by a drove of killers, that the child wept and shudderedand hid her face against his shoulder.)

  Ranging swiftly alongside of him, from his great head down to the'small' of his back, the fierce killers seize his body in their savagejaws and tear great strips of skin and blubber from off his writhingsides in huge mouthfuls, and then jerking the masses aside, take anotherand another bite. In vain he sweeps his flukes with fearful strokes fromside to side--the bulldogs of the sea come not within their range; invain he tries to 'sound'--there is a devil on each side of his jaws,their cruel teeth fixed firmly into his huge lips; perhaps two or threeare underneath him tearing and riving at the great tough corrugations ofhis grey-ribbed belly; whilst others, with a few swift vertical strokesof their flukes, draw back for fifty feet or so, charge him amidships,and strike him fearful blows on the ribs with their bony heads. Roundand round, in ever-narrowing circles as his strength fails, the torturedhumpback swims, sometimes turning on his back or side, but failing,failing fast.

  'He's done for, lads. Pull up; stand up, Jim.'

  The boat dashes up, and Jim, the man who is pulling bow oar, picks uphis harpoon. A minute later, it flies from his hand and is buried deepinto the body of the quivering animal, cutting through the thick blubberas a razor would cut through the skin of a drum.

  'Stern all!' and the harpooner tumbles aft and grips the steer oar,and the steersman takes his place in the head of the boat with hiskeen-edged lance. But 'humpy' is almost spent, and though by a mightyeffort he 'ups flukes,' and sounds, he soon rises, for the killersthrust him upwards to the surface again. Then the flashing lance, two,three swift blows in
to his 'life,' a gushing torrent of hot, dark blood,he rolls over on his side, an agonised trembling quivers through hisvast frame, the battle is over and his life is gone.

  And now comes the curious and yet absolutely truly described final partthat the killers play in this ocean tragedy. They, the moment the whaleis dead, close around him, and fastening their teeth into his body,by main strength bear it to the bottom. Here--if they have not alreadyaccomplished it--they tear out the tongue and eat about one-third of theblubber. In from thirty-six to forty hours the carcass will again riseto the surface, and as, before he was taken down, the whalemen haveattached a line and buoy to the body, its whereabouts is easilydiscerned from the lookout on the headland; the boats again put off andtow it ashore to the trying-out works. The killers, though they have hadtheir fill of blubber, accompany the boats to the head of the bay andkeep off the sharks, which would otherwise strip off all the remainingblubber from the carcass before it had reached the shore. But once theboats are in the shallow water the killers stop, and then with a final'puff! puff!' of farewell to their human friends, turn and head seawardto resume their ceaseless watch and patrol of the ocean.

  The killers never hurt a man. Time after time have boats been stove-inor smashed into splinters by a whale, either by an accidental blow fromhis head or a sudden lateral sweep of his monstrous flukes, and thecrew left struggling in the water or clinging to the oars and piecesof wreckage; and the killers have swum up to, looked at, and _smelt_them--but never have they touched a man with intent to do him harm. Andwherever the killers are, the sharks are not, for Jack Shark dreads akiller as the devil is said to dread holy water. Sometimes I haveseen 'Jack' make a rush in between the killers, and rip off a piece ofhanging blubber, but he will carefully watch his chance to do so.

  On some occasions, when a pack of killers set out whale-hunting, theywill be joined by a thresher--the fox-shark (Alopias vulpes)--and thenwhile the killers bite and tear the unfortunate cetacean, the thresherdeals him fearful blows with his scythe-like tail. The master of awhaling vessel told me that off the north end of New Caledonia, therewas, from 1868 till 1876, a pack of nine killers which were alwaysattended by two threshers and a sword-fish. Not only he, but many otherwhaling skippers had seen this particular swordfish, year after year,joining the killers in attacks upon whales. The cruising ground of thispack extended for thirty miles, north and south, and the nine creaturesand their associates were well known to hundreds of New Bedfordwhalemen. No doubt many of these combats, witnessed from merchant ships,have led to many sea-serpent stories; for when a thresher stands histwenty feet of slender body straight up on end like a pole, he presentsa strange sight, as his long body sways, and curves, and twists in air,as he deals his cutting blows upon his victim. Then, too, the enormouslength of the pectoral fins of a humpback whale, which show dazzlinglywhite as he rolls from side to side in his agony, and frantically beatsthe water with them in his struggles, or upends one after the other likea mast, might well be mistaken for the uprearing of a serpent'sbody. But any South Sea whaleman will smile when he hears talk of thesea-serpent, though he has not forgotten the awe and fascination withwhich he was filled, when he first saw a whale in the agonies ofcombat with _Alopias vulpes_ and _Orca gladiator_, and the serpentineevolutions of the former creature.

  The whaleman in the Pacific sees very strange and wondrous sights; andnever, since Herman Melville wrote his strangely exciting and weirdbook, 'The Whale,' nearly fifty years ago, has any writer given us sucha vivid and true picture of whaling life and incident as Mr Frank T.Bullen in his 'Cruise of the _Cachalot_ published this year.