captain, “and that is based on the fact that they have less hearing ability than other species. So you can get within harpoon distance of them. By and large, any whale you catch sight of, you can catch, period. Well, unless bad weather takes over. Unfortunately, storms are just as numerous as they are fearsome in these seas.”
“Agreed,” Mr. Hawkins replied,” someday we’ll outfit for whaling …”
“With some other captain, then, my friend. Each has his own way, and I’m no whaler.”
“With some other captain, fine, Gibson, and with some other ship too, for it takes a special outfitting that the James Cook wouldn’t allow for.”
“No doubt, Hawkins, a ship that can take on two thousand barrels of oil during some campaign that might last as much as two years, and longboats for pursuing the beasts, and a crew numbering as many as thirty or forty men, harpooners, coopers, blacksmiths, carpenters, sailors, apprentices, at least three officers and a doctor.”
“Father,” affirmed Nat Gibson, “Mr. Hawkins would not neglect anything that this type of outfitting requires.”
“It’s an expensive undertaking, my boy,” answered the captain, “and in my opinion, in this part of the Pacific, coastal trade yields more dependable results. Some of these whaling expeditions have been ruinous. I might add that whales have sometimes been hunted out, so they tend to move toward the polar seas.3 To find them, you have to go to the Bering Straits, the Kourile Islands,4 or the Antarctic seas. These make for long and perilous trips, and more than one ship has never returned.”
“After all, my dear Gibson,” the shipowner said, “this is only an idea. We’ll see about it later on. Let’s just stick to coastal waters, since they have always turned out well, and then sail the brig back to Hobart Town with a good cargo in its hold.”
Toward six o’clock in the evening, the James Cook crew came in sight of the coastline along the Waimah Bay and across from the small ports of Ohawe.5 A few clouds appearing on the horizon made the captain decide to lower the topgallant sails and take reefs in the topsails. It is moreover a precaution taken by all ships sailing in this area, where the gusts of wind are as sudden as they are violent, and every night the crew pulls in the sails for fear of being surprised.
And, in fact, the brig was fairly well buffeted until dawn. It had to move out a few miles, having noticed the lights of Cape Egmont.6 When day had come, the brig passed by the harbor of New Plymouth, one of the important cities of North Island.
The wind had grown during the night. It was now a stormy gale. The crew was unable to use the topgallant sails, which had been tightened the day before, and Mr. Gibson had to be content to shake out the reefs from the topsail that had been drawn the night before. The brig was moving at a speed of twelve knots, leaning to starboard, rising slowly over the open sea. Sometimes the waves, striking its side, covered the bow with foam. The bow plunged so deep as to submerge the ship’s figurehead, then immediately rose back up.
This pitching and rolling didn’t worry Mr. Hawkins or Nat Gibson. Having many years of sailing experience, they were used to it. They breathed with gusto this air impregnated with the salty tang of the ocean, filling their lungs with it. At the same time, they took great pleasure in contemplating the infinitely varied sites along the western shore.
This shore is perhaps more curious than that of the southern island. Ikana-Maoui, meaning in Polynesian “The Maoui Fish,” offers a greater number of creeks, bays, and harbors than Tawaï-Pounamou, a name that the natives give to the lake where green jade can be collected.7 From a distance, one’s view extends over the chain of mountains that are covered with green and where, in the past, volcanic eruptions had occurred. They constitute the skeleton or rather the backbone of the island whose average width is some thirty leagues. All in all, the surface of New Zealand is no less than that of the British Isles and resembles a second Great Britain owned by the United Kingdom in the antipodes of the Pacific. But if England is separated from Scotland only by the narrow stream of the Tweed, here it is a sea channel that separates North Island from South Island.8
From the time the James Cook had left the port of Wellington, the chances of the ship being successfully taken over had assuredly decreased. Flig Balt and Vin Mod often discussed this subject. And that day, at lunchtime, when Mr. Hawkins, Nat Gibson, and the captain were together in the officers’ quarters, they discussed it once again. Vin Mod was at the helm, and they were not running any risk of being overheard by the sailors on duty up forward.
“Ah, that wretched packet …,” Vin Mod kept repeating. “That’s what stopped our plan! For a whole day that confounded ship hung across our path. If its commander is ever sent up to the yardarm, I demand the right to haul on the rope that’ll grip his throat! Couldn’t he just have continued on his way instead of cruising along beside the brig? Without his interference, the James Cook would now be rid of the captain and his men! It would be sailing the eastern seas with a good cargo for the Tonga or the Fiji.”9
“All that’s … just words!” observed Flig Balt.
“We console each other the best we can!” Vin Mod replied.
“The question is to know,” continued the bosun, “whether the presence on board of the shipowner and Gibson’s son might oblige us to give up our plans.”
“Never!” cried out Vin Mod. “Our companions won’t ever listen to such a tune as that! Len Cannon and the others would have certainly figured out some way to slip into Wellington, if they had thought that the brig would just come back peacefully to Hobart Town! What they want is sailing for their own profit, and not for Mr. Hawkins’s benefit.”
“All that’s … just words, I repeat,” Flig Balt said, shrugging his shoulders. “Can we hope that the proper moment will turn up?”
“Well, of course,” affirmed Vin Mod, angered at seeing the bosun’s discouragement, “and we’ll just have to take advantage of it. And if it’s not today or tomorrow, then later on in the neighborhood of Papua10 in the middle of those archipelagoes where the police hardly ever bother you. Let’s suppose, for example … the shipowner and a few others, Gibson’s son, two or three sailors don’t show up some evening … We don’t know what became of them … The brig continues on, right? …”
And Vin Mod, speaking in a low voice, whispered these criminal thoughts into Flig Balt’s ear. Determined not to let him weaken, resolved to push him to the end, he could not restrain himself from uttering a powerful curse, when the bosun tossed out, for the third time, this less than encouraging reply:
“Words, words, nothing but words, all that.”
Vin Mod shouted out another curse, which, this time, was heard as far as the officers’ dining room. Mr. Gibson, having risen from the table, appeared at the after doorway.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked.
“Nothing, Mr. Gibson,” replied Flig Balt, “a sudden pitch that almost stretched Vin Mod out flat on the bridge …”
“I thought I was going to be tossed over the rail!” added the sailor.
“The wind is strong, the seas are unforgiving,” said Mr. Gibson after having examined with a rapid glance the brig’s sails.
“The breeze tends to pull to the east,” observed Flig Balt.
“True. Pull closer in, Mod. No trouble about getting closer to land.”
Then, that order being given and executed, he returned to his quarters.
“Ah!” murmured Vin Mod, “if you were in command of the James Cook, Master Balt, instead of letting the ship do the carrying, you’d let it luff.”
“Sure … but I’m not the captain!” replied Flig Balt, heading toward the bow.
“He’s going to be one, though,” Vin Mod repeated to himself. “He has to be … should I be hanged!”
During