Gus Openshaw's Whale-Killing Journal (13 page)

It started out when Nelson gave George an old magazine. George
stayed up real late looking at the pictures by flashlight. This
didn’t bother his cabinmate, Duq. What bothered Duq was that
George wouldn’t let him look too.
So Duq said, “Stupid George, I bet you twenty dollar you
will get out of your bunk before I tell you to do it.”
Thinking his willpower up to this test, George agreed.
Duq then snatched the magazine away from him and ambled
out. When George shot up to follow, Duq reminded him that if
he left the bunk, he owed him the twenty clams.
By morning it was clear Duq had no intention of letting
poor George ever get out of his bunk. George, meanwhile, didn’t
want to lose the dough. So he challenged Duq to a duel to the
death. A duel being one of the few instances when Duq is bound
by honor, he accepted.
I found the two men ready to hurl harpoons at one
another from opposite sides of the stern. George was seconded
by Flarq, Duq by Thesaurus. Nelson was the ref. Per the local
version of the ancient dueling rules, the Code Duello (which all
of these guys, who barely know the alphabet, know by heart, and
also revere), each man would throw a harpoon. If they were both
standing after that, it was up to George whether they’d continue
dueling—unless Duq restored George’s honor by apologizing and
giving back the issue of Nursing Mother.
The way I saw it, one or maybe both of my crewmen
would die. Worse, both might miss and we’d lose the precious
harpoons overboard.
“Guys, can’t we settle this peacefully?” I asked.
My crew of traditionalists looked at me as harsh as I
would’ve at them if they’d said, “Dickhead’s just a big dumb fish,
Cap, can’t we go to the beach instead?”
Nelson ushered me aft and the duel began. Like a pitcher,
Duq wound up to throw. George too reared back, but his
harpoon’s head had pinned the cuff of his left pant leg to the
deck. He was stuck in place.
Duq is a small man, not someone you’d think capable
of hurling a big-assed harpoon as if it was a dart. But like those
moms who can lift cars off of their kids, the chance to inflict
pain drives Duq well beyond his ordinary capabilities. The
harpoon left his hand like it was shot from a rocket launcher.
It zoomed toward George at head level. George’s eyes bulged so
wide it looked they might pop out and bounce around the deck.
No one, even a guy with a noggin thick as his, can take a shot
like that and not be talking about it at Davy Jones’s that night.
The harpoon veered wide of him, though, and flew
directly at Flarq’s heart.
Flarq shot up a hand and snagged it from the air by the
shaft, as if someone had simply passed him one of those little
relay race batons. He planted it on deck and turned to George.
“Now you throw yours,” he said.
With time now, George freed his pants, then took up his
harpoon, ran at the now-defenseless Duq, and flung with all his
might.

The weapon zoomed cross deck and struck Duq smack
in the nose. Fortunately for Duq, George had thrown it handle-
first. Still, Duq dropped like
a felled shrub and lay on the
deck unconscious.
George was elated. I
figured that’d be the end of
it. “Okay, breakfast ho,” I
said, heading for the galley.
Downside was with Duq out,
it’d have to be cold cereal.

I noticed that none of the crew were following me. Also,
anybody sailing by would’ve likely described them as mutinous-
looking.
“According to the provisions we made per the Code,”
Nelson explained, “the duel has yet to be decided. Duq hasn’t
apologized and there hasn’t been a deadly blow—or anything
even respectable—struck by the aggrieved party. For sure George
ain’t enough of a nancy boy to claim victory with honor now.”
Thesaurus, Flarq, and Moses loudly concurred. Even Bob
appeared to nod. “The Code,” they all chanted over and over so
that George would take up the harpoon again.
George was no nancy boy, but I knew he wasn’t as
heartless as Nelson (and in this case, Bob) or a stickler for the
rules like the others.
“You can claim victory with honor,” I told him. “You have
delivered a deadly blow.”
“Beg pardon, Cap, but Duq’s still alive. See, his nose is
bleeding blood.”
“Yes, his nose is broken. And if you break someone’s nose,
they die.”
“Beg pardon, Cap, but—”
“Do you know anyone who’s broken their nose and lived
forever?”
Along those lines I convinced Stupid George to claim
victory. Finally, I hoped, we could have breakfast—I was hungry
enough to eat the anchor cable.
Suddenly though, the rest of the crew stormed up. No
doubt I’d done like eight things which violated their Code
Duello and authorized them to force me to swallow the anchor
along with its chain.
Thesaurus bellowed, “Captain, ahoy!” and flung forth one
of his anvil-sized hands.
Less than a hundred yards off the bow swam the blubbery
bastard.

Dickhead reared out of the sea and glared at our brig. Clearly he
thinks this is personal. And on that we agree.
Flarq and Thesaurus ran to the bow and awaited my
orders to lower the whaleboats. I didn’t even notice. Rage was
boiling my brain. I lunged for the harpoon laying in the pool of
Duq’s nose blood. Failing to hear Stupid George of all people’s
reminder that the harpoon wasn’t tied down to anything, I
reared back and flung it hard as I could. Call me Stupid Gus!
We’ve got precious few whale irons and the chances of doing
significant damage from so far away are hardly any. Plus you’ve
got to be tied to your harpoon to ride your bastard and tire him
out—that’s the whole whaling game.
Still, the harpoon felt good rushing out of
my hand, and true. And
as it arched toward the
bastard, it shone in the sun
as if destiny was smiling
on it—and as you all would
agree, if there is any sort of
providential scorekeeping,
I was due for a miracle.
My only hope was Bulbus
wouldn’t have a say.

My harpoon fell like a bolt from the heavens and struck
Dickhead in the snoot, a few feet below his B-shaped scar.
He barely flinched. This is the same bastard, after all, who
rammed a superyacht with his face and was no worse for the
wear. The harpoon was no more than a toothpick in his sixty
tons. Only good news was it stuck out like half a cartoon-French-
guy’s mustache, which would make him easier to identify in the
future. Still in rage’s grip, I was determined to throw again and
give him the other half of the mustache.
Flarq took me aside though and proposed a plan that,
unlike mine, wasn’t idiotic.
First, for any greenhorns—and that includes myself—
you’ve got to understand that old-school harpoons like ours are
supposed to be used from much closer up—at most at a quarter
of the distance I was hucking from—as a way to attach lines more
than anything. Later on, when your bastard’s tuckered out from
dragging your whaleboat, you reel yourself in and finish him
with lances. With a modern harpoon gun, it’s another story
altogether—you pretty much just blast away. The presence of
Stupid George notwithstanding, a new one of those harpoon
guns had been on my shopping list, but there was nothing like
that to be had on the whale-worshipping island of Conch.
For now all we’ve got are nine old-school harpoons, plus a
couple twenty-five-foot motorized launches—not nearly as quick
as our old ones but still suitable for use as whaleboats. According
to Flarq’s plan, however, it’s more than plenty to get the bastard.
All I had to do was give the command to lower the boats.
“What is that command exactly?” I asked Flarq. These
guys are always way more into it when the captain uses the right
salt terms.
“‘Lower the boats,’” he said.
“I was just making sure,” I said, covering myself, “since
we’re in the Southern Hemisphere now.”
Upon reflecting, Flarq seemed impressed.
Then I shouted, “Lower the boats,” to the entire crew,
and, for Stupid George’s benefit, added, “into the water.”
P.S. Please paste this revision onto to your Wanted Posters.

We needed to put some metal into Dickhead before he either
had time to get enough air to dive or, worse, had a shot at
ramming our brig.
We lowered our pair of whale boats into the drink (saving
me the trouble of describing these craft for you, Flarq’s done up
a scrimshaw (see below)). Then we had to quickly choose up a
three-man team for each.
Each boat got a harpooner, of course. Flarq leapt into
the first with his four buckets. Coiled up in each was a mile of
line connected to a harpoon. He picked Duq as his assistant,
figuring the sadistic cook would be an all-star once we tuckered
Dickhead out and reeled ourselves in close enough for lancing.
Thesaurus agreed to take Moses, which meant I’d be Thesaurus’s
pilot—largely so I could keep an eye on Moses (the harpoon lines
are made of hemp). That put Nelson at the wheel of Flarq’s boat.
As a point of interest, us one-armed guys are doing the job four
oarsmen did in the old whaleboat days (I guess the hundred and
change horses in the motors deserve some credit too).
As for Stupid George, he wanted to come, but I decided
for obvious reasons that he’d best stay on deck—“to guard against
pirates” was how I put it to him. I also told him that he could
have the run of the brig so long as he stays off the bridge and
doesn’t touch the controls. I know, I know: You’re thinking
this may not be the wisest move. Still, as I told George as we
shoved off, I’m confident in him. And I am. No fooling, he’s an
important part of our plan.

The advantage of the small motorized whaleboats is they’re quick
enough to sidestep an attacking whale. Or so the manual said.
Dickhead loomed ahead of us, a low-lying thundercloud,
eyeing our pair of boats as if they were his dinner trays. He
snapped his bus-sized jaws a couple times. “Warm-ups,”
explained Flarq.
Next thing I knew, the bastard had shot through the waves
like they weren’t there at all. He reared up high above our heads.
Suddenly the sea was dark and the air was full of his breath—
and, put it this way, a tanker full of Listerine couldn’t have
helped this guy. Then he dove at the boat with me, Moses and
Thesaurus in it.
Thesaurus tightened his grip on his harpoon.
(Quickly, here’s the Whale Killing 101 Flarq and
Thesaurus taught me: Tied to the harpoon you’ve got hemp line
just two-thirds of an inch thick, but tough as wire. Its woven
through your railing, blocks, and crap, from stem to stern—twice
around the boat—then fed into a big bucket where a mile of it’s
coiled. When your harpoon strikes him, it sends your bastard
scampering away but quick. Thanks to the line, you ride like your
boat is a sleigh he’s pulling. Eventually he gets plum tuckered
out. Then you reel yourselves up close and finish him off.
Now, you may be wondering: Say my bastard tears away
like a dragster, taking the whole mile’s worth of line with him?
Well, what happens then is the non-harpoon end of the line
simply plops free into the water. Then your companion boat
ties a line onto it. So you don’t lose your bastard. It’s why the
line isn’t fastened to anything in the first place. It’s also a safety
thing—if your bastard gets it into his fat brain to dive straight
down, if you’re fastened to him, you’ll be at the ocean bottom
for much, much longer than you’d like.
Getting back to my bastard, he came down on us like a
building collapsing. I mashed the throttle and cut the wheel to
starboard so hard I thought it might snap off. If our stern had
been just a foot longer, his jaw would’ve crushed us. Instead
he thundered down onto the sea, creating fifteen-foot walls of
water on both of his fat sides. One of the walls of water smacked
me and Moses to the deck. Somehow, the mighty Thesaurus
managed to stay afoot. He turned toward the stern and reared
back with his harpoon.
But by then Dickhead was too far past us.
Another bit from Whale Killing 101: You want to steer
your harpoon clear of your bastard’s wing-like side flippers—
Thesaurus likes to always stay ahead of them. Otherwise the
iron hits bone and the bastard goes bananas, thrashing around
unpredictably with his tail—and even a partial whack from one of
the flukes can turn your whaleboat into matchsticks.
For the first time I’d seen, Thesaurus was flustered. “This
whale isn’t like no other on the whole of the Earth,” he said. I
suspected Thesaurus was thinking Bulbus was pulling the strings
from on high.
The second boat pulled up alongside us. Flarq too was
puzzled. “Whale Killing 101 ain’t gonna cut it, Captain,” he said.
“It don’t cover whales that do the things this one do.”
“Well then let’s have a crash course in 102,” I said, turning the wheel so
that we were positioned for another go at Dickhead.
That was unnecessary. Having slammed on his whale
brakes, the bastard was turning round for another run at us. I
looked to Thesaurus for advice.
“Pray,” he said.