Authors: K Martin Gardner
From a certain perspective, the bones frame the simple outline of the grog shop up the hill, with the din of its seafarers quelled by the strong beating of the wet tympani outside.
Across the bay, the fluid chorus pauses momentarily, as the rain ceases. A woman bolts from the house onto the runny deck and cries, “Suns breaking!
Whale Watch, post!”
The white door of the one-room grog shop springs open as the pounding of many pairs of greasy, muddy boots upon its slick wood nearly drowns the shattering sound. A glass pane perched precariously in the path of a poorly placed doorknob crashes to the ground in pieces.
“I’ve told you about that door, mate, about a thousand goddamn times!”
Yells the shopkeeper.
The whalers take no notice of him in their ruckus, fleeing from their dim, dank den and carrying on loudly down the slope toward the beach.
One man remains behind to fill the day’s honorary position of
Watchman
, considered a fortuitous role by many because of its easy access to free grog and tobacco for the duration of duty.
Leisure or not, the job comes with the onerous responsibility and expectation that any whale within eyesight will immediately be spotted and promptly and called out.
To keep him on his toes, there are many horror stories about the proverbial neglectful and unproductive Watch, who when at the end of the day had spotted nary a whale, was sharply castigated and ostracized by his
mates
for days on end; so that by the completion of the roster rotation, his senses had been keenly honed and sharpened by his sympathetic cohorts; and he was once again deemed
fit for duty
with the condition that a second fruitless watch would result in a verdict of his total failure, whether there had actually been any whales about or not. Black Jack simply referred to this practice as,
making fun of the poor bugger until he went barking mad.
Such was the pressure placed on this focal member of the whaling team; and the average leviathan chaser had no problem with it after one or two weeks following his arrival at the bay, so that most of the men enjoyed the trust and faith of their fellow flensers, save for the odd loser or two.
But by-and-large, everyone kept a keen eye out for the Black Whales that roamed the bay.
Chapter 19
Black Jack awoke before dawn.
From his hut, he could still hear the revelry of the shore-whaling party down the beach.
The conversation was unintelligible from his distance. The pattern of sounds was a continual repetition of the same things, with low muffled bantering and occasional highs of grumbling, followed by a peal of laughter and various hoots and hollers for a period of time, falling back to more low grumbling. Black Jack likened it to listening to a rainstorm blow in and out of the harbor. Ironically, this particular morning was clear, calm, and warm. It was Summer, and the whalers had stayed up all night celebrating.
Other than the sailors, there were no other sounds throughout the pa.
The dawn was close to breaking. The light blue hue was beginning to obscure the stars. The landscape was becoming visible to those who cared to look around.
The beach gang’s bonfire was dying down. The party was showing signs of disbanding for the night.
It was the off season for whales. An unwary passerby would be guilty of overestimating the amount of work that the whalers did during these days.
That is to say, absolutely none, except for the barest minimum of effort required for survival.
Gathering food, shifting goods, and perhaps occasionally doing odd jobs around the hut for their wives; such were the lives of the whalers now.
Other than that, summer was a time of leisure and recreation between arduous and dangerous hunting seasons. Everyone treated it as such with no exception, lest they be banished down the beach.
As the party broke up, Black Jack heard silence return to the bay.
There was no wind, only vague sounds from small breakers on the beach, and men’s shoulders occasionally brushing low branches as they made their way through the winding foot paths leading to their respective huts.
The cove was like a large amphitheater facing the ocean, with huts arranged randomly along the paths up the side of the bowl.
The hill was covered with scrub brush that grew from its ridge down to the sea: A perfect place for a small, peaceful whaling village.
The quiet lasted only a few moments. Suddenly, the silence was pierced by the singing of several birds. Their melodious wild music emulated small silver bells. The whalers called them Bellbirds. These were followed by the crowing Kaka birds, who added an element of baritone to the arrangement.
Then, the Kakapo chimed in with their intermittent mid-range notes. The entire symphony was completed by the staccato interjections of the Takahe as they strutted around the yards of the villagers.
It was a beautiful cacophony of natural sound. Black Jack lay there enjoying it in the early morning light.
This concert continued uninterrupted for many minutes.
Suddenly, Black Jack heard a different sound mingling with the others.
It was a bird he could not readily identify.
Among the bell sounds, between the low crows and the middle warbles, came a soft murmuring sound in starts and stops.
It began to come in regular intervals, eventually becoming quite rhythmic.
Sounds like heavy breathing
, thought Black Jack.
The sound became like the moaning of a large animal. It did not sound like the distressed groans of a dying beast.
The mysterious sound had a pleasant, pulsating feel.
Then came another set of shorter, higher tones, from further up the hill. The two sets of sounds faded in and out, intertwining with one another in differing tempos but with similar timber.
Finally, a third such sound, this one deeper in quality, began emanating from a spot a few yards below Black Jack’s hut.
He sat up, straining his ears to listen between the singing of the birds and the playing of the strange bellows.
With his ear perched at the window, he heard a fourth and different sound altogether, echoing throughout the cove in the clear dawn air.
Coming in waves, it increased in volume along with its frequency.
It became faster as it got louder.
Black Jack listened intently in all direction. He seemed to be surrounded by the beast. For a time, he imagined the sounds were bird beaks softly striking the trunks of trees. Then he was reminded of children running softly on stone floors.
Slap, slap, slap
, went the sound. Then,
whap, whap, whap
, louder.
Lastly,
slap, slap, slap
, softer again.
All the sounds were intermingled with the moans. They all ranged up and down the hillside in various tones.
Is someone getting flogged?
Black Jack asked himself.
That is when Black Jack realized the sounds had a voice-like quality. He recognized one of the voices making the low, throaty sounds.
It’s the wife of one of the whalers!
Black Jack thought. And then it all dawned on him as the sun broke the back of the ridge and brilliant, orange light rushed into the bushy valley. All the moans simultaneously gave way to an orchestra of loud shrieks and flutters as the excited and confused birds took flight all at once. The village became silent once again.
Moments later, Black Jack heard giggling outside the door of his hut.
He got off his mat and pulled back the leather drape. Just outside, a row of women sat along the hillside.
They looked at him and laughed quietly. The first one stood up and moved closer.
He recognized the unmarried Maori girls of the pa, twelve in number aged from sixteen to twenty.
The first one motioned her desire to come in. Bewildered, Black Jack let her pass.
Once inside, she hastily disrobed and made her way under his wool blanket. She smiled, beckoning for him to join.
Black Jack hesitated. He peered out the doorway at the long line of ladies waving him while they cackled coyly.
Seeing no other eyes about the hill, he ducked back in and started the task at hand.
I reckon it would be rude to wreck their honor and refuse them all
, he thought. Time was of the essence if he were going to finish the job before the rising sun exposed his unplanned scheme.
II
What started as a favor soon became Black Jack’s job. Hurriedly pressing on, Black Jack would push weekly to complete his duties with the unloved women of the pa.
It was always an uncelebrated affair, of which he made no fanfare nor any attempts at elaborate posturing.
He merely pleasured each one in turn discretely in the most direct manner, while the others sat along the walls of his hut.
The women would chat and laugh, seemingly uninterested at times with the primary activity in progress.
They would gibber on excitedly about the ordinary, using animated hands, frequently breaking into long trills of heightening tones, as a piano keyboard being run in scales from bass to treble.
Other times they would sound like birds, chirping in a cacophony of conversation between groups of twos and threes criss-cross around the room, cutting sharply into catty banter apparently pertaining to topics of harmlessly negative connotation.
All the while Black Jack kept a methodical and modest pace atop the current quarry beneath his blanket.
There was never any time for luxury.
With the burden of his work continually threatening to outrun his enjoyment of the task at hand, he scarcely managed to restrain himself throughout runs that frequently extended to a dozen customers.
He became extremely shrewd and adept at detecting even the more reserved partner’s displays of satisfaction. He would prudently require their resignation and withdrawal from the race after only one rack of shudders.
It going without saying, come the final contestant, he often pounced and finished her with a confident sprint, both hound and hare deriving pleasure from the proverb of the
lucky last
.
“What is sovereignty?” a deep male voice asked, sending Black Jack bolting upright beneath his blanket and silencing the gallery.
Robulla stood at the door peering in.
He seemed unconcerned with the internal affairs of the hut.
Black Jack scrambled to throw his clothes on. He stepped outside with Robulla.
The old chief cracked a smile as he asked, “How are things going my friend?
Quite well, it would seem, from the looks of it.”
“Yes.
Well, I’ve been a bit tired lately.”
“Ah, that is fine, my son. Summer is supposed to be a time of rest for you whalers.”
Now further from the hut, they did the hongi.
Black Jack asked, “Now, my friend, what is it that I can help you with?”
“What is sovereignty?”
Robulla asked again.
“That is an English word.
Why on Earth are you asking me about that?”
“The white man is here in great numbers out on the bay today.
Myself, Te Rangiarata, and other chiefs of Cloudy Bay are meeting with them to discuss an agreement between the Pakeha and Maori. They are talking about signing a treaty.”
“A treaty?
What is all this about?
It is the first I have heard of it.”
“Well, that is what you get for living with the Pakeha.
You expect them to tell you anything?”