Rush Oh! Page 6

  I now attempted to adopt this lightness of manner when speaking with John Beck, to the extent that I became quite nervous and excitable in his company and had even been cultivating what I had hoped to be a gay and tinkling laugh. However, my brother Harry took me aside one evening and said to me, in his surly fashion: ‘Stop with this dreadful false merriment you’ve been assuming of late. You’re greatly embarrassing me.’ Admittedly, as my brother and closest sibling, Harry was the least forgiving of my foibles; be that as it may, I was nonetheless aghast that I had perhaps been creating an unfortunate impression of myself. I now seemed to lose what little self-confidence I possessed; I began to find it difficult to simply look at John Beck in a casual, nonchalant fashion, or even to meet his gaze when he spoke to me. The responses I gave to his queries seemed to suffer, at best, from a stilted quality. In trying not to be falsely gay my conversation became overly self-conscious and strained. It soon reached the stage (over a period of two to three weeks) where, in my anxiety not to offend, I seemed to be losing the capacity for speech altogether. And what was the reason for all this agony? Because I had bandaged John Beck’s hands and he had smiled at me.

  I had suffered a similar experience before, in fact during the previous season, with a man called Charley Burrows. He had been one of my father’s best oarsmen; in fact, my father thought so well of him that he had elevated him to the position of headsman of the second whaleboat. Burrows was a ruddy-faced young man, well-liked by all for his readiness with a joke or a quip. He was at first very amiable towards me; we had a little joke together where he would call me ‘Curly’ or ‘Curly-Top’ (owing to my hair) and I would call him ‘Ginger’ or ‘Gingernut’ (owing to his hair). He would often volunteer to carry the pots and dishes up to the house for me after dinnertime, and it was always ‘Curly, let me get the door’ and ‘Curly, have we got any jam for our bread and butter?’ and ‘Curly-Top, tell us what’s new in the newspaper’.

  Flattered by his attentions, I found myself rapidly developing feelings towards him. As with John Beck, these feelings manifested themselves in my becoming rather nervous in his company, and unable to converse with him any longer in a relaxed fashion. The other whalers noticed this and began to tease me, making a great joke of my blushing and so forth. Hoping that Burrows would speak up for me, I found that his manner seemed instead to become increasingly cool towards me. He no longer called me Curly, nor would he volunteer to carry the pots and pans for me. When I attempted to engage him in conversation (and I was careful to keep my subjects general, some topical issue in the newspaper perhaps), he would respond in a surly fashion if he responded at all. One night, as I passed him his meal, I said to him, ‘Here you are then, Gingernut,’ and he scowled at me and told me not to call him that. Needless to say, I was exceedingly hurt and bewildered by this apparent change of heart: after all, he had been very civil towards me at first. However, I was soon to discover the true reason behind it all.

  It transpired, in fact, that Burrows was a drinker. One evening, on bringing down their meal, I found that several of the men had procured a quantity of rum. Burrows in particular was intoxicated and reeling about the sleeping huts, singing a song about a jolly tinker which contained several lewd verses. He followed me up to the house on the pretence of helping me with the pots; instead he lunged at me and attempted to kiss me. I broke free and scrambled away, whereupon he hurled insults at me and accused me of having encouraged him and led him on unfairly. Horrified, I returned to the house, saying nothing of this at all to my father.

  Instead, I took myself off to my bed, and lay there wide awake, going over and over in my mind this dreadful development. Although I had many times tried to imagine myself being kissed, even somewhat roughly, by Burrows, the reality had in fact been most unpleasant and rather upsetting. His breath had smelled of liquor and his beard had scratched my face; also his tongue had become involved, which I had not expected and found alarming, as if a sea slug was flailing about in my mouth. Perhaps I should not have been surprised by his behaviour; whalers were inclined to imbibe heavily, especially if they had recently captured a whale (which had not been the case in this instance). Well aware of their propensity towards ribaldry when inebriated, my father usually ensured that we kept well away from them if there was any sign of them carousing in the sleeping huts. However, on this occasion, my father had been preoccupied with his own concerns (brooding on the absence of whales and so forth), and had thus unwittingly allowed me to venture down to the sleeping huts alone.

  However, even more upsetting to me than his intoxication was the fact that Burrows had so rudely attempted to make love to me after lately treating me with such coldness. If he liked me well enough to want to kiss me, why had he been treating me with such indifference? Could it be that he drank more than I realised, and the drink was causing him to behave in such a way? I sat down and wrote Burrows a long letter, in which I discussed my bewilderment at his conduct towards me. I suggested as delicately as I could that this might be a consequence of his dipsomania and that, if he could adopt a more abstemious way of life, then indeed there might be a chance of our friendship developing into something deeper. I indicated that if he was prepared to embrace a life of abstinence, then I was certainly prepared to overlook the unfortunate incident of the previous night and start afresh.

  The next day, the crews were away early as usual to spend the day on lookout at South Head. Realising I would not have an opportunity to see Burrows until evening, I worked all day on polishing and refining my letter. I crossed out entire paragraphs and reinstated them; I fretted over misspellings and attempted as far as possible to improve my childish, back-sloping handwriting. By evening, I had completely rewritten the entire five pages several times over.

  That night, the crews returned later than usual; in fact, Dan and I had been waiting for them at the jetty for some time. We had hoped that their late return might be a consequence of them capturing a whale; however we soon learned that this was not the case. It seems they had rowed over to Eden for the purposes of letting Burrows off; he had ‘had a gutful’ of whaling (according to Harry) and was not coming back. Whether he had indeed given up in disgust at the shortage of whales or had been released from his duties by my father, I was never able to discover. I had certainly said nothing of the incident the previous evening to anybody, and yet my father instructed my brothers to accompany me to the sleeping huts that night and from thenceforth. The men were exceedingly subdued that evening; I felt a tension in the atmosphere that I could only surmise contained a degree of resentment towards me. As I say, Burrows had been well-liked by the men; I imagine they were sorry he had gone. But I was also sorry, and I kept my letter in the hope that he might return.

  The reason I go on at such length about this unpleasantness is in part because Harry himself had introduced the subject of Burrows on the occasion that he had taken me aside to berate me for my false merriment and for being an embarrassment to him. ‘Don’t be doing to the Reverend what you did to Burrows,’ he had cautioned me. When I asked him to explain more fully what he meant, he indicated that I knew very well what he meant, and on that note ended our conversation. I can only conclude by this that my personal feelings for Burrows had been so plainly evident that they were somehow construed as granting him permission to make improper advances to me.

  ‘Why don’t you talk to me anymore?’ asked John Beck one night, as I gathered up the dirty dishes outside the sleeping huts. ‘Have I offended you in some way?’

  ‘No,’ I stammered. ‘You have not offended me.’

  ‘Because you used to like to talk to me, and now you don’t.’

  ‘That’s because I am busy with my chores,’ I said.

  ‘Did you not want to see how my blisters have healed?’ he asked, with a smile coming over his face again.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I replied quickly, and scurried away just as fast as I could.

  Tom Raises the Alar
m

  I awoke suddenly to hear a distant but determined smack! It was a Killer whale flop-tailing, surely? Smack! There it was again, and no doubt about it this time. I jumped out of bed and hurried out to the verandah – my father was running stiff-legged down to the sleeping huts, shouting, ‘Rush oh! Get up, boys! Rush oh!’

  Hurrying around the side of the house, I climbed up the ladder to where the boys slept inside the roof. Both Harry and Dan were sound asleep – what heavy sleepers boys were as a rule! I sometimes thought it might be necessary to detonate the whale gun in order to rouse them. ‘Harry, get up, there’s a whale!’ I cried, shaking him vigorously. He opened his bleary eyes, and lay there inert for a moment; however, upon poking him sharply and reiterating my point, he finally seemed to rouse fully and started groping for his trousers.

  I clambered down the ladder and rushed to the kitchen now to hastily fill two waterproof canvas bags with yesterday’s damper and some salted beef. I thrust these at Harry as he scrambled down the ladder. ‘Don’t forget the kegs!’ I cried, and he scooped up a keg of water with his free arm. ‘Dan, take the other!’ I instructed, as Dan jumped down off the last few rungs. He picked up the second keg and set off down the hill at a gallop, although with some difficulty as the keg was heavy for a small boy.

  Back on the verandah, I could see the men now rushing for the whaleboats. There was John Beck, scrambling to jump in. Annie and Violet were awake now, and at my side. ‘Come on, girls, let’s see them off,’ I cried. We ran for our coats, which we pulled on over our nightgowns, and we raced up the hill to where we could gain a reasonable vantage point of the bay.

  ‘It’s Tom!’ cried Annie, and there he was, our famous Killer whale, leaping out of the water and crashing down his tail, impatient for the whalers to join him. As ever, I felt something of a shock when I saw him. He was so crisply illustrated, as it were; his black head so shiny and his white patches so luminous that he struck me as absurdly cheerful in his appearance as a carousel horse at a fairground. He had none of the dismal, barnacled grey of the humpback: no, he was a portly and dapper fish in white tie and dinner jacket. How homely and dull humpbacks seemed in comparison, I thought to myself. (Or at least they certainly seemed so as the men at the capstan prepared to haul off their blubber, which is when I had had most occasion to observe them.) Sometimes, at night, when we heard the anguished cow-like moan of the humpback, my sister Louisa would say: ‘Listen! A humpback has just seen its own reflection,’ which set the younger ones to giggling. My father told us that on several occasions he had witnessed younger humpbacks bedecked in seaweed, as if in a bid to improve their appearance.

  The girls occupied themselves by calling out excitedly to Tom, in the hope that he might somehow acknowledge them. He paid us no direct attention, except to perform more spectacular breaches; perhaps he was showing off for our benefit. Meanwhile, I scoured the bay in the hope that I could spot the whale, and thus assist my father. Was that a plume of smoke rising up near Snug Cove? My eyesight was not reliable at a distance, but yes, I felt certain that that was smoke. Somebody had obviously sighted the whale, perhaps a fisherman at Eden wharf, and had lit a fire in order to alert my father as to its whereabouts. Now my father’s boat appeared below, his men pulling hard at the oars. ‘Smoke!’ I cried out. My father, at the steer oar, looked up at me; I pointed towards Snug Cove and cried out, ‘Smoke at Snug Cove!’ I could see him squinting in that direction. He called out to me, ‘Where?’

  ‘Snug Cove!’ I cried again. Was there smoke at Snug Cove? I wondered suddenly. It was certainly quite difficult to see at the moment, given the heaviness of the clouds.

  ‘I don’t see any smoke,’ said Annie, standing beside me.

  ‘Smoke at Snug Cove!’ my father was now calling to Harry. Harry was headsman of the second boat, which was coming up quickly behind my father’s boat. I could see every head turn in the direction of Snug Cove, straining to see. Where had it gone, that plume of smoke? Perhaps the fire had been accidentally extinguished?

  ‘Where did you say?’ cried Harry.

  ‘Snug Cove!’

  ‘I don’t see any smoke at Snug Cove!’

  ‘Nor me!’ This from Darcy, who had the best eyes of all.

  ‘Mary thought she saw smoke!’

  ‘Mary?’ riposted Harry. ‘She’s blind as a bat, for Christ’s sake!’

  I could see John Beck look up towards me now and felt suddenly mortified. I had leapt out of bed in such excitement that I had not considered my appearance and my hair was now blowing about wildly in the stiff breeze. Just then, providing a welcome distraction, Tom rushed up suddenly out of the water and flop-tailed directly between the two boats, thoroughly drenching the occupants. The men cursed the Killer whale vehemently.

  ‘Stop your complaining!’ I heard my father cry. ‘At least now you might wake up a bit! Come on, put your backs into it!’

  The men leaned into their oars and took off in pursuit of Tom, all talk of smoke now forgotten. I felt a rush of excitement as I watched the two dark-green boats fighting their way through the breakers. A hard north-easterly wind ripped across the bay; it was not at all a good day for small boats such as these, and now as I gazed upon the churning sea I wondered that they were going out in it at all.

  ‘Good luck!’ I cried to my father, and also to John Beck, although they were well past the breakers now and could not hear me. The girls jumped about in excitement; also in a bid to keep themselves warm. Uncle Aleck staggered up the hill to join us; Dan bounded up as well, anxious to see them off. Together, our little group watched until Killer whale and whaleboats had rounded the point and disappeared from view.

  ‘Godspeed,’ said Uncle Aleck. ‘Bring us back a humper, Georgie boy.’

  We spent the rest of the day trying to occupy ourselves with the usual mundane chores; however, I doubt that many minutes passed between one or other of us scampering up the hill in the vain hope of witnessing our warriors engaged in battle. I should add that Tom had led them off towards Honeysuckle Point, which is in the opposite direction to Snug Cove, so perhaps I had been wrong about the smoke.

  Canst Thou Draw Out Leviathan with a Fish Hook?

  My father and his crew returned at about four in the afternoon, covered in whale blood, weary but triumphant. The second boat returned some forty minutes later with Harry in a foul temper and his crew looking exceedingly shame-faced. A humpback had been captured; however, another had somehow managed to escape. The crew of the second boat had been found sadly wanting.

  In short, from what I could glean, the chase and ensuing capture had gone as follows: Tom had led the men to where the Killers were engaged in harassing two whales; they succeeded in separating the whales just as the boats arrived and the Killers subsequently applied their attentions to the smaller of the beasts. My father and his men immediately set off in pursuit of the larger whale. It zigzagged desperately in a bid to shake them off, and considerable time elapsed before my father was sufficiently close for his harpooner to throw his iron. My father always used Arthur Ashby in this capacity; he was one of our longstanding Aboriginal whalers, and tremendously accurate with his aim. From this point, I will quote from the Eden Observer and South Coast Advocate, in which an account of the chase appeared several days later:

  ‘The Killers had been engaged with the smaller whale, but no sooner had the larger animal been harpooned than they were present, attacking it with desperate energy; and its loud and continuous bellowing told clearly the deadly battle that was being waged beneath the troubled waters of the bay. The spray flew continuously over the frail craft, in quantities sufficient to dampen the ardour of any but George Davidson and his plucky men, who don’t seem to understand the meaning of the word danger or have a total disregard for it.’

  We were fortunate to have such a fine writer as Mr Phillips, the editor of the Eden Observer and South Coast Advocate at the time. Although the men would of
ten mutter that he’d got some small detail wrong here or there, his accounts nonetheless offer a tremendous record of my father’s work. We made sure to cut out every article and preserve them in a scrapbook, sometimes making small annotations in ink on the side. Uncle Aleck would often have me read aloud his favourites by the fireside of an evening, and although my father acted like he didn’t much care, you could tell he was listening intently.

  ‘Crowds of people occupied the different headlands, and, notwithstanding the bitterly cold wind which was blowing, watched the chase with keen interest. From the heights of Cattle Bay could be seen almost every movement of the whale as it tore onwards from Quarantine Bay, from time to time rising above the surface of the water and throwing great bodies of foam in all directions, as attack after attack was made upon it by the Killers, whose persistent onslaughts were witnessed with great wonder by visitors. While a number of Killers always remained close by the head of the whale, tearing at its jaws and impeding its progress by many methods, others were acting as sentinels well ahead and in its wake, and as they rose to the surface, spouting up the water, exhibiting their bodies and long black fins, they presented a sight never to be forgotten.

  The roughness of the water prevented a free use of the lance for some time, and then one of the Killers, being in a frolicsome rather than a business mood, caught the whale line in its mouth and hung on to it for considerable time . . .’

  Although Mr Phillips has refrained from naming the guilty party, clearly this was Tom up to his usual tricks.

  ‘. . . and as the whale turned in the middle of the bay and steered a course for the open sea, it was feared the crew might suffer a loss; but nearing the lookout, George Davidson, standing in the bow of the boat, was seen to be using the lance with great effect. Just here the whale made a quick turn and for a minute or so whale, Killers and boats seemed to be an inextricable mass, and the crowds of people on shore looked on with feverish excitement lest an accident should happen. It is such a position as this that coolness, seamanship, and complete knowledge of the tactics of the whale show out to great advantage, and all these qualifications are possessed by George Davidson. Another turning movement and the whale was bound seawards again; but his life was a short one for, as it rose to the surface, upwards went a volume of blood, and the whole surface of the water was seen to be dyed with the crimson fluid. Onwards, however, the whale went until off Lookout Point, when suddenly it collapsed, and a few final thrusts of the lance and the first whale of the season was killed.’