Voyage of Ice (5 page)

In the midst of all this dashing along, Briggs and Sweet exchanged places, stem to stern. They staggered with the motion of the whaleboat, a hand on this shoulder, a hand on that head to steady themselves. Half covered my eyes, Briggs did. About broke my neck with his weight. Briggs would now steer the boat, while Sweet would make the kill. It was tradition.

Finally, the whale began to slow. With two irons in him already, he was tiring.

“Haul in! Haul in!” cried Sweet from the bow.

We grabbed the line and pulled hand over fist. Inch by inch, foot by foot, gaining back every thread of rope the whale had
taken. Hundreds of feet, it seemed. My muscles screamed. I left blood on the line. Then, finally, our boat thumped against the whale's back. Wood to blackskin, as they say.

Sweet went to work with his lance. Monster or not, it was gruesome. I gripped the gunwale, sweating, nauseated, as man and beast struggled. Seemed forever.

Then, with a final bloody blast from its spout, showering us with gore, the creature stopped thrashing. The foamy water settled and all became still.

“It's dead,” said Sweet, wiping blood from his eyes.

Everything, every one of us was soaked crimson. Like murderers, we looked. The blood was hot and horrible and I wanted to cry.

Whaling was nothing like I'd imagined.

I sat forward on the windlass, eating, shaking with exhaustion.
What a day.

Dexter shoveled food into his mouth with his knife and fingers. His palms were raw, crusty with blood, his wrists swollen. Garret sat on my other side, but he was turned away, telling everyone for the fourth or fifth time how the whale had blasted out of the water, how it had swamped our boat, and such. Aye, it made for good telling, but I was full of it.

As the sun began to dip beneath the horizon, the waters aglow, a shadow fell across me. I looked up, my mouth full of doughboy. 'Twas Captain Thorndike. I stopped midchew. He was outlined with sunset, cast in shadow, smoke from his pipe wisping round him. The pipe looked like a child's toy in his giant hand. Garret and Dexter stopped eating too. All round me it seemed everyone held his breath, and what had been a ship filled with noise was now dreadful silent. I swallowed my doughboy with a gulp.

“Nicholas Robbins?”

“Aye, sir.”

Thorndike took a puff from his pipe. The tobacco glowed orange. The smell pinched my nose. “I've no mind to put up with sloppy work and greenies who don't know their job. Ye were careless, and it cost us a day's work and 'most cost us a whale.”

I looked down. Studied my feet.

The pipe hissed as Thorndike took another puff. Above me a sail flapped. Then the captain brought his face level with mine. I shrank back. His voice was calm yet threatening, as if a storm brewed inside him. A monstrous storm. “Let it happen again, boy, and I'll yank your arms from their sockets. Aye, that I will.” He blew smoke in my face and straightened to face everyone. “Now, normally I would be of a mind to give everyone a night's rest and start cutting in the whale in the morning. But we've lost a whole day, and I've no mind for rewarding carelessness. Finish your supper and get to work, boys. There'll be no rest till it's done.”

As Thorndike strolled aft, I stared at my plate, my appetite blown away like tobacco smoke, feeling everyone stare at me.
If my shipmates didn't hate me before
, I thought,
they hate me now. Blast it, I should never have come.
For the millionth time that day, hot tears pressed against my eyelids.

Then, just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, another shadow blocked the sinking sun. “Why, if I didn't know better, I'd say Bones be crying.”

I tensed.

It was Adam Briggs, our harponeer. He was broad-shouldered, pimple-faced, about twenty years old. I didn't like him much—he seemed arrogant and big-mouthed, even if he could toss an iron within an inch of a target. I wished he would just shrivel up and blow away. I looked up, wanting to tell him
that, but the three other harponeers stood behind Briggs, arms crossed, and I thought I might get my face smashed.

Beside me, Dexter said, “It was a simple mistake. Could have happened to any of us.”

“But it didn't.” Briggs stepped closer.

“Aw,” said Garret. “Leave him alone. I reckon anyone's a mite scared on his first hunt. And like Dexter said, he didn't mean nothing by it.”

“Shut up, Carrot Sticks. Besides, anyone with eyeballs could tell that Nick here wasn't
a mite
scared. He was a sniveling baby. Most yellow-livered coward I ever saw. What about it, boys?” He glanced over his shoulder as the other harponeers nodded and grunted and echoed, “Sniveling baby” and “Yellow-livered coward.”

“I'm sorry,” I mumbled. “Sorry I hit the boat with my paddle. Sorry I ever came along.”

“There. Satisfied?” said Dexter. “He said he was sorry. Now why don't you fellows go along and leave us be?”

Just then, Briggs shoved my plate into my face. Beans, rice, and doughboys smeared my cheeks. Rice plopped from my eyelashes. I stared stupidly, wondering what to do. Should I fight? Should I ignore him? Should I beat it to the fo'c'sle? But before I could do anything, Dexter tossed his plate aside and jumped to his feet. He waved his fists in front of Briggs' face. “You touch him again and I'll bust you!”

“Dexter, no!” I cried.

But I was too late. Briggs wound up and punched Dexter in the gut. In a flash they were on the deck, fists and curses flying, going at it hammer and tongs. I launched myself on top of Briggs, trying to pull him off of Dexter, screaming something, I don't know what. Garret was in there too, red hair flashing in the sunset. Someone boxed my jaw. I fell flat and saw stars.

Then, almost as soon as it had begun, it was over. The mates kicked us apart and yanked to our feet those of us who were flat out. My chest heaved and I still saw stars. Then Captain Thorndike was there, bellowing, demanding to know what had happened. Everyone talked at once. Accusations flew. I swayed on my feet, trying not to fall over.

Suddenly, there was silence. That terrible silence I was learning to hate so much.

“Trice Dexter Robbins thumbs up to the rigging,” thundered Thorndike, his voice splintering the stillness. “I'll not have a greenie making trouble aboard my ship. I warned all of ye that there'd be no fighting aboard the
Sea Hawk.
And if ye can't abide the rules, ye must abide the consequences. As for Briggs, send him to the fo'c'sle as a regular hand—”

“The fo'c'sle!” exploded Briggs. “You can't demote me! I'm the one who—”

Captain Thorndike's giant fist slammed into Briggs' face. I heard the crunch of bone. Blood spurted. Briggs dropped to his knees and gave a strangled cry. A gurgle. He gasped. “Ye broke my nose! Ye broke my nose!”

Thorndike watched Briggs awhile, saying nothing. Then, without moving, he barked, “Garret Hix!”

Garret's eyes flew open wide. “Aye, sir!”

“You're the new harponeer for your boat. Do ye think you're up for the task?”

“Aye, sir!”

“Move your things to steerage. And as for the rest of ye,” screamed Thorndike, his scar purple as a bruise, “get to work before I trice all of ye!”

Trice.

I hadn't known what it meant before.

They tied a rope round each of Dexter's thumbs and hoisted him until his toes just skimmed the deck. As the
Sea Hawk
rocked to starboard, he could no longer touch the deck and hung by his thumbs alone. Pain flashed across his face like a cloud passing the sun. He hung motionless, silent, toes scraping back and forth with the movement of the ship.

After a time, I left the windlass, where I'd been put to work.
By fire, I'm a man, aren't I? And men don't leave their brothers triced by their thumbs in the rigging!
I found Captain Thorndike looking over the ship's gangway, where the mates were cutting in the whale. Sharks snapped and the water frothed with blood. The
Sea Hawk
heeled to starboard, quivering and groaning with the weight of the whale's blubber.

The captain had his back to me.

“Captain Thorndike—”

“Return to your station, sailor.”

I bit my lip while my heart went off to the races. “But—but Captain Thorndike—”

He turned, eyes narrowed. “Obey me, sailor, before I make ye sorry.”

My stomach flipped. I wanted to dash back to the windlass. “It was all my fault. Dexter was protecting me. You see, we're brothers. He shouldn't be—”

Suddenly, the captain grabbed my shirtfront and slammed me into the bulwarks. I winced as my ribs crunched against the wood.
What the—
Thorndike lowered his face into mine. Garret had told me that the captain had been chewed in the mouth of a sperm whale and then spat out because he tasted so bad, and that's how he got his scar. Near tore his head in half. I didn't believe it then, but I believed it now. His scar throbbed. His eyes bulged. I smelled his supper. “Captain, sir, please—”

“Say one more word, Robbins, and not only will I trice ye by
your thumbs alongside your brother, but your brother will hang an hour longer, aye, that he will. Now I have one thing to say to ye, and one thing only. Ye be a sorry excuse for a whaleman. Ye be no more than a blubbering girl that needs her hand held and her nose wiped. Either learn your job and learn it fast or I'll toss ye overboard as a waste of grub. Now get out of my sight. Ye make me sick to look at ye.”

He flung me away and I stumbled to my knees.

Then, to my horror, I saw Elizabeth standing by the steerage companionway, watching, handkerchief over her nose and mouth, her face drained of color.
Why, she heard everything Thorndike said to me!
As the familiar heat blazed in my cheeks, I stumbled to the windlass and put my back to the work. My teeth ached from clenching my jaw.
By fire, I hate that man. I hate Thorndike. I hate the
Sea Hawk.
I hate whaling. I wish I'd never come.

inally, long after night had fallen and under the light of a few dim, soot-coated lanterns, Thorndike lowered Dexter to the deck.

He took a wobbly step and then, with a look of defiance, threw his head back and swaggered toward us as if nothing were the matter and he'd merely been hoisted for some fresh air. His thumbs told the tale, though. They were swollen and reddish purple, marked deep with hemp burn.

“A brave lad,” said Irish as he approached. “Got guts of iron, so he does.” Dexter said nothing, just put his weight to the windlass bar, and to the cry of “Heave pawl!” started back to work. Heavy chains clanked on the deck, iron pawls rattled, and the windlass groaned.

After the blubber was aboard, and after
the crew hurrahed and cried, “Five and forty more!” the trypot fires were lit and the carcass released, already covered with screaming birds. Earlier, the whale's head had been severed from the body, and now it was lashed to the gangway. In the dim lantern light, it looked eerie, a ghost of a whale.

“You, Bones.” Cole, the first mate, pointed at me. “Strip naked and climb in. You're skinny. You'll fit like a stick in a barrel.”

“What?” I gaped at him.
Is he joking? Strip naked? Climb in? Into what? The head?

All round me I saw men nudging each other with their elbows, grinning, as if to say,
Look at the yellow-livered coward. Won't climb into a whale's head.

The second mate, whose name was Samuel Walker, laughed. “Stupid greenie, what do ye think we're going to do? Sew ye up inside and drop ye into the ocean? Besides, ye won't be doing it alone.”

Horrified, I saw Garret stripping naked beside me. I mean
naked. God almighty.
With a sympathetic glance at me, Garret slipped and slid onto the head and down into a hole that had been cut. His head poked out.

Climb? In there? Naked as the day I was born? In front of everyone?
An awful flush started at the base of my neck and burst upward to the roots of my hair. Aunt Agatha always said I was the fastest flusher this side of the Mississippi. I glanced around furiously, wondering how I could get out of this. But when I saw clouds gathering on Cole's face, I knew I had about two seconds to follow orders or else.