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  Rarely have I seen my father so despondent as when he returned that night. He sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands and would take no supper. By all accounts, these two whales had been the largest seen in this vicinity for many years. Furthermore, they were right whales, the most greatly sought after owing to the immensity and value of their whalebone. These two whales, for their whalebone alone, were together worth possibly as much as three thousand pounds. This is without even taking into consideration the quantity of oil, which could be reasonably estimated at about sixteen tonnes. Hence it is not difficult to appreciate my father’s disappointment.

  The next day, the Killers were back, having a grand old time chasing a couple of worthless finbacks, right under the noses of the men on lookout, who cursed them bitterly. Shortly thereafter, my father was forced to disperse his disgruntled crews. He and Harry kept lookout a while longer; however no more whales of any commercial value were sighted, and the fruitless season was closed by the middle of November.

  Fastidious Diet of Whale Men

  My own feeling of anxiety regarding the onset of whaling season was exacerbated by the fact that it seemed I was expected to be Cook again. It is true, my mother had cooked for the whalers along with all her other duties, but as I was only thirteen when she died, my father had gone on to employ a series of cooks. None of them lasted long at the post; it seemed they were either addicted to drink or inclined to run off with the first person who glanced at them sideways (usually one of the whalers). Three seasons ago, our cook (a bad-tempered redhead by the name of Ginnie) complained of tiny insects burrowing out of her skin and promptly took herself into town on a drinking spree with the money my father had given her to buy provisions. After two days she fell down dead in the back room of the Great Southern – a fitting end. However, I had little cause to celebrate, as I was thrown in at once to replace her.

  I have read that cooking for shearers is a thankless job, yet I would volunteer for it happily if offered a choice between that and cooking for whalers. Naturally, whalers are ill-mannered as a rule and boast enormous appetites – that is to be expected. What is less to be expected, however, is their extreme finickiness as regarding their ‘slops’. It seemed that each one of them suffered from some manner of digestive imbalance which required the most fastidious tending. Bastable could not tolerate any form of marsupial, so kangaroo and wallaby were out of the question. Albert Thomas Junior complained that oysters gave him a terrific bellyache, which was unfortunate because oysters were abundant, and useful for stretching out many of their stews. Although rabbit was reasonably plentiful and cost nothing, the whalers became disgruntled when I served it too frequently; canned rabbit was out of the question. Mutton was tolerated if roasted in goose fat or fashioned into rissoles with finely chopped bacon and parsley. Stewed ibis, attempted once, was deemed unpalatable. Further, the whale men were extremely particular about seasoning and would pull me up sharply if they considered a dish under-salted. All meals were doused in vast quantities of Worcestershire sauce or golden syrup, with little thought as to the expense of such condiments.

  Although I had no wish to add to his worries, I gathered my courage and asked my father if he would not hire a cook this season.

  ‘They are too much trouble,’ he responded. ‘Besides, you are old enough now to take on the responsibility, and Louisa will help you.’

  ‘Louisa!’ I scoffed. ‘She will be a lot of help, I must say. You might as well ask the cat.’

  ‘Then get the younger ones to help you.’

  ‘But they are completely useless!’

  It was generally considered at the time amongst the immediate family that Annie and Violet, our youngest two, were not quite right in the head. For many years now, they had communicated mostly through a language they called ‘Whinny’, which consisted of grunting and snickering and pawing the ground. This had been mildly amusing when they were small children, but now that they were nine and ten years of age it had frankly become rather tiresome. Oddly, they had little interest in our actual horse, Two Socks, but then he was always a very difficult horse to get along with.

  ‘Well, Mary, it is up to you,’ said my father, rising to his feet. ‘You are the little mother of the household now. You will have to organise the younger ones accordingly. I have enough to deal with regarding the whales.’

  What a burden it is to be the firstborn daughter when your mother has died! It was not as if I was unused to work – I did almost all the cooking and all the washing (with some assistance from Louisa, admittedly) and cleaned the house and darned their clothes; I even taught the little ones their lessons as best I could. But to cook for the whalers seemed to push me to the very limit of my forbearance. As I say, it was not even the fact of the extra mouths to feed – it was the lack of appreciation for my efforts. Not enough salt? Then here, sir – have the entire container, upended over your fat head.

  Another difficulty we faced in feeding the whalers was that in order to carry down their slops from the kitchen each evening, we were required to ‘run the gauntlet’ of a pair of masked plovers known to us as Mr and Mrs Maudry. These plovers had for some years staked their claim to our front garden and, by unhappy coincidence, timed the great drama of their annual nesting with our whaling season. I cannot say for sure why we came to know them by these names, or even if it was the same Mr and Mrs Maudry who year after year tormented us; it is entirely possible, since they are indistinguishable from each other, that succeeding generations took over the roles. Suffice to say, these ill-tempered birds provided a wholly unwelcome element of annoyance to the short but dreary journey down to the sleeping huts each evening – and back.

  For that part of the year when they were not preoccupied with matters nesting, Mr and Mrs Maudry contented themselves with stalking broodingly about the garden and glowering at us. Mr Maudry in particular possessed a malevolent air similar to that of a Land and Tax officer or Customs agent, an effect enhanced by the plovers’ plumage, in which nature appeared to be imitating the black-collared suit coats of the kind favoured by my late paternal grandfather. By all accounts entirely capable of flight, the Maudrys for the most part elected not to, preferring to spend their days instead lurking ominously amongst the jonquils. Occasionally they might materialise suddenly out of ‘thin air’ where previously they were not, prompting the thought that wings may have been utilised in some fashion in order for them to do so. For reasons of their own, however, Mr and Mrs Maudry felt it necessary to maintain the illusion that they were solely ground dwellers.

  Soon after whaling season commenced each year, Mrs Maudry would get broody, and from that moment on, any interloper (by which I mean any person who ventured foot in the front garden) was set upon at once by Mr Maudry and summarily issued with his marching orders. First he would charge towards the hapless wanderer, emitting a series of short staccato cries (I mean Mr Maudry would emit the cries, not the wanderer); all the while, Mrs Maudry urging him on shrilly from the sidelines. Should the unhappy party not immediately desist from his or her intended journey, then Mr Maudry would launch at them with his wings extended, revealing a fearsome kind of spur he had hitherto concealed in his plumage and which he wielded wildly, all the time with a look in his eye that meant to say he would have no compunction in using it if pressed. No amount of stick-waving or shouting at Mr Maudry would discourage him, and this is what we faced every evening in carrying down the pots to the ungrateful whalers. If one of us was assigned the task of distracting Mr Maudry whilst the other scurried past, then Mrs Maudry would willingly abandon her nest to tackle the other party, proving herself every bit as spirited as her husband. Nor were the dogs of any assistance to us: alas, cruel experience had taught them well, and in the height of nesting season they simply refused to accompany us at all.

  Eventually the Maudrys stepped up their campaign to the point where we had no choice but to take an alternative route around the back of the house
and through the blackberry bushes, the last section of which journey required sliding perilously down a steep set of rocks onto the beach. Thus we arrived scratched, bruised and pulling off leeches; scant wonder the whalers received short shrift if they complained that their slops had gone cold.

  Commencement of Whaling Season, 1908

  I had risen early to make the damper, and now I hurried down the hill to the boat ramp with tuckerbags for the whale men. They stood about beside the boats, flapping their arms in a bid to warm themselves and grumbling as usual about their conditions. Our Aboriginal crew members had recently returned, as they did annually, from Wallaga Lake: Arthur Ashby, my father’s long-standing harpooner; Albert Thomas Senior and Albert Thomas Junior; and Percy Madigan and his son, Darcy. We were always relieved to see them, for without them my father would have struggled to continue. They were stronger oarsmen overall; Darcy especially had extraordinary eyesight, and their nerve was better in a pinch. Consequently, my father preferred to use them on the Number One boat, which saw most of the action. As well, electing to return finally after protracted consideration was Salty Mead, one of my father’s longest serving whale men (in fact, he had served as an oarsman for my father’s father), and Walter Bastable, a veteran of the Great Shearers’ Strike of 1891, who now considered himself the ‘whale man’s shop steward’. I spotted John Beck almost immediately; he was standing to the side with two other new chums.

  ‘And what brings you here to try your hand at whaling?’ asked my father of one of these newcomers, a tall, stooped man with a drooping moustache.

  ‘Well, sir, not a soul on this earth cares whether I live or die, so I suppose I have naught to lose,’ responded the man in a thick Scottish brogue.

  ‘We haven’t lost a man in thirty years, Mr Shankly,’ said my father, glancing up from his ledger book. ‘So I’d be pleased if you’d adopt a more optimistic outlook. Can you row hard?’

  ‘I can,’ said Mr Shankly.

  ‘All right then, I’ll try you out as oarsman in the pick-up boat. You’ll get a seventieth lay, less board and slops, take it or leave it as you please.’

  ‘I’ll take it, sir, thank you kindly.’

  ‘And you?’ said my father, turning to a callow, pimpled youth of seventeen.

  ‘Yes, sir, Mr Davidson, my name is Robert Heffernan, I’m a mate of Harry’s.’

  ‘I know who you are,’ said my father. ‘Why are you so keen to go whaling all of a sudden?’

  ‘Well, sir, I thought as a way of meeting girls.’

  Harry gave Robert a shove in the ribs, but it was too late. The whale men stared at him; Bastable, removing the pipe from his mouth, surveyed the young man balefully.

  ‘There are no girls whaling, lad,’ he said. ‘I believe you’ve been a labouring under a terrible misapprehension.’

  ‘I’ve worked on whaleboats forty years and never met a girl yet!’ cried Salty, and judging from their responses, it would seem that this had been the experience of most of the whale men.

  ‘No, you want to be trying the Presbyterian Sunday school picnics,’ offered Uncle Aleck. ‘Now there’s a way to meet ladies of all shapes and sizes.’

  ‘That’s right,’ concurred Salty. ‘Or the Plain and Fancy Dress Balls up at the School of Arts, though it will cost you five shillings to get in.’

  ‘I haven’t got five shillings,’ said Robert.

  ‘Ah well then, I see your point. You might as well try the whaling.’

  My father held up his hand to indicate that that was enough on the subject.

  ‘Listen to me, young man,’ he said. ‘If you’ve volunteered for whaling in the hope of getting yourself better acquainted with Louisa, then I had better put you out of your misery. She won’t be courting till she’s eighteen years of age.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said young Robert, his cheeks aflame.

  ‘So, in light of that information, are you still keen?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m still keen, sir,’ he replied.

  My father nodded, and signed him on. The young man did not look very keen. I imagine the prospect of having to go out in all weather and row back and forth across the bay in endless pursuit of enraged leviathans must have seemed exceedingly grim, especially now any chance of courting Louisa on the side had been discounted. He threw a dirty look at Harry; it seemed this might have been all his idea.

  I have the ledger book in front of me now, and in my father’s handwriting is the following, inscribed on that blustery morning:

  Boat Number One

  Boat Number Two

  Headsman: Geo. Davidson

  Harpooner: Arthur Ashby

  Oarsmen: Walter Bastable

  Albert Thomas Senior

  Albert Thomas Junior

  Percy Madigan

  Darcy Madigan

  Headsman: Harry Davidson

  Harpooner: Salty Mead

  Oarsmen: John Beck (Rev.)

  A. Shankly

  Robert Heffernan

  ‘Right, men,’ cried my father, handing the ledger to Uncle Aleck. ‘Let’s get the boats in the water. We’re off to the Lookout!’

  ‘And here’s to a prosperous season, this nineteen hundred and eight!’ cried Salty.

  There were general grunts of ‘Hear, hear!’ as the men dragged the boats into the water.

  ‘And let’s hope it’s a damned sight better than last year,’ I heard someone mutter.

  Urged on by my father now, the men bent to the oars and the two dark-green whaleboats pushed past the first line of breakers. My father stood at the stern of the first boat, wielding the mighty steer oar with expert authority; he was much practised at negotiating the moods of the bar, and his crew had a better time of it than those in the second boat. On the jetty, Violet and Annie jumped up and down, shouting goodbyes and whinnying. Our two dogs, Patch and Bonnie, raced up and down the beach, barking in excitement. Bonnie even had the notion of swimming after the boats in a show of enthusiasm, and leapt into the shallows determined to do so; once testing the temperature of the water, however, she thought better of the idea and clambered out again, shaking herself miserably at my feet.

  ‘Louisa!’ cried Salty. ‘How old are you now?’

  ‘Sixteen!’ she called back. ‘Why?’

  ‘No reason! None at all!’ Over the water, we could hear him chortling. ‘Two years of whaling, you poor hapless b-----d!’

  Once the boats had rounded the Point, we headed back to the house. Glancing back, I saw that Uncle Aleck was standing in the shallows, clutching the ledger, unaware that water was now washing around his knees. I called out to him, and as he turned and came towards me, I saw that tears were streaming down his cheeks. This was not unusual; he had only stopped whaling a few years ago, and it was on occasions such as this that he seemed to miss it most keenly. Knowing better than to offer any soothing words, I put my arm through his and together we made our way back up to the house, the children galloping on ahead, all mad with the cold and excitement.

  Once inside and warmed by the fire, Uncle Aleck soon recovered himself and was within half an hour berating me over the consistency of the oatmeal. In fact, he only ate a few spoonfuls before pushing it away and stomping off down to the try-works to see that things were in order for the men’s return. The oatmeal was not wasted, however; Louisa applied the rest of it to her face and throat as she had read in the newspaper of its improving effects upon the complexion.

  A Most Prepossessing Young Lady

  I shall now pause a moment and describe my sister Louisa, as I notice she is creeping into my story and perhaps warrants an explanation. At that time (I have decided to confine my literary endeavours to an account of the whaling season of 1908), Louisa was sixteen years of age and widely a
dmired for her appearance. Her hair was a pale straw yellow in colour, her features dainty and her figure slender, with an overall effect which many found pleasing. (I myself value qualities such as kindness and consideration for others above mere symmetry of form; however, it seems I am out of step with public taste in this regard.) That same year, I had painted Louisa’s likeness in a bid to try my luck in the Portraiture section of the Eden Show. While it too failed to secure a ribbon, the portrait nonetheless attracted a great deal of interest. Certainly, I had captured a reasonable facsimile of her appearance, even in spite of the fact that, at Louisa’s insistence, I had elongated her neck untruthfully and painted out a small blemish on her chin. But beyond the relative accuracy of its physical representation, I felt that the portrait also indicated something of her character; a glassy vacancy about the eyes, perhaps, and a sullen insolence in the pouting of her lips. For whatever reason, whether in admiration of Louisa’s pleasing physiognomy or the skill that I had demonstrated with my brush, there seemed always to be a small assembly of men gathered about this portrait as it hung in the Exhibits Pavilion. After several offers were made to me, I finally agreed to sell the painting for the sum of ten shillings to Mr Caleb Cook, a sheep farmer from Burragate. Mr Cook then went on to award Louisa the prize of Best-dressed and Most Prepossessing Young Lady, a sum of one pound in the form of a gold sovereign which he himself had personally donated.

  It is true that, even at this young age, Louisa seemed to exert a mysterious power over the opposite sex. If I was down at the try-works, for example, perhaps bringing the men their evening slops, the whalers might manage to restrain themselves for fully five minutes before they reverted to blasphemy and expectorating. My father was often forced to rebuke them on this matter, with little lasting effect. And yet if I succeeded in having Louisa accompany me, they would come over all quiet and queer and generally conduct themselves with far greater decorum. It seemed they were mesmerised by the aforementioned dainty features and the will-o’-the-wisp way she floated about, avoiding anything that might look like work. The various flaws of her character seemed to pass undetected by these fellows.