The Last Harpooneer

I

ONE winter’s night a raging northeaster hit Nantucket as if an angry storm king had cut the string and let it out of a bag. It struck us in all directions at once, lashing down the trees, tearing off large branches and somersaulting them through the cobbled streets. It tore down the telephone wires, ripped shingles from the roofs, blew bricks off old chimneys, and snatching awnings from the shops sent them flying into the night like flapping nightmares.

Though I wore hip boots and was wrapped in oilskins with a sou’wester, I was defenseless against the horizontal rain which stung my face, blinding my eyes, sending icy spears of water up my sleeves. Main Street was dark and deserted as I struggled down to post a special-delivery letter. Seeing a steady light in Mr. Brown’s hardware store I fought my way across the slippery cobbles, wading through gutters roaring like mountain torrents. After a frantic hand-to-hand struggle with the heavy front door I managed to dive in, wet and breathless, to find the store afog with tobacco smoke. Shadowy old whalemen sat on kegs of nails, rolls of barbed wire, and coils of new Manila rope. A Civil War monument of a stove rose red-hot almost to the ceiling, giving forth a taste of hell-fire. Everyone was shouting at once, the air was charged with lost tempers.

Mr. Brown, cool and serene, met me at the door calmly combing his immaculate white beard with one hand as he wiped away tears of merriment with the back of the other.

‘For heaven’s sake, what’s up, Mr. Brown?’

‘They’re killing whales,’ he whispered. ‘There’s been more whales killed in this store than ever was at sea.’

There on the counter, in the centre of the uproar, sat George Grant, the last harpooneer alive on the Island. Straightbucked, superb in his wary strength, he looked like some angry albatross caught at bay on a ship’s deck. His white hair and beak of a nose gave him a wild free look; strange lights played behind his deep-set eyes — eyes full of old sunsets and sea dawns.

A passionate man with the unruly soul of an artist, he could throw a harpoon farther and truer than most of the boat steerers of his day. He was a champion killer of whales who played his part with the finesse of a dandy, with the histrionic dignity of some ocean toreador. In dungarees or arctic furs he always achieved style; neat, slim, he stepped sure-footed, almost daintily through his turbulent years of greasy blubber, bloody decks, and wild battles with sea monsters. But loneliness had laid a heavy hand on his spirit and silenced him during the interminable slow-creeping voyages which ate away the precious years of his manhood. Therefore I was surprised to hear him breaking through his reserve, shouting in a harsh untamed voice over the angry tumult.

‘What I say is true! I’ve seen it time and time again. I tell you sperm whales are mysterious animals. When they dive they always turn on their left side first, and whether it’s dawn, noon, or sunset they always head to the sun before they go down. I’ve never seen it fail. Another thing, you’ve got to be mighty careful, when chasing a sperm whale, to keep to windward of her wake, for if you cross it even a quarter mile astern of her she’ll know it and she’ll instantly sound!’

A mangy little coot of a man with a snaggletooth leaped to his feet, upsetting a nest of rakes, and squawked: —

‘’T aint so — don’t believe a word of it!’

George Grant slowly rose to his feet and stood looking with unblinking eyes through and beyond the little Edgartowner. There was something of Melville’s Captain Ahab about the old boat steerer, something wild and menacing about his scorched face. Like Captain Ahab ‘he seemed made of solid bronze shaped to an unalterable mould.’ Sensing danger and to save the Edgartowner’s hide, I stepped forward and deliberately changed the subject.

‘George Grant, I’ve been told that you were the best scrimshawrer in the whaling fleet.’

He turned a baleful eye on me.

‘I was,’ he admitted reluctantly and turned back to deal with the Snaggletooth.

‘Wait a minute,’ I insisted. ‘What was the finest thing you ever made out of whalebone?’

By a lucky shot I had struck the bull’seye. He whirled on me, shouting as if it were my fault.

‘The bird cage!’ he roared.

‘Bird cage? I never heard of a bird cage made of whalebone.’

‘ I guess I made the only one that ever was made. It took four years away from my life, and all I got was the fag end of nothing!’

There was pain in his voice as he told a tale I have never forgotten.

II

‘I was engaged to a girl who lived on Joy Street — you know, that little street that leads up to the Cemetery. She was always pestering me to bring her home a parrot that could talk — and, of all fool things, she wanted it to spout the Lord’s Prayer. She wanted it the worst way and got me to promise to build the bird a white whalebone cage. She wanted it on an ebony base and to stand three feet high.

‘I never would have started the damn thing if I knew what I was letting myself in for. I sailed from Edgnrtown as first officer of the Mary Frazier, Captain Dexter. It was in the seventies and we cruised the South Atlantic for two years. Whenever we caught sperm whales I’d save ivory from the jaws and slit it into strips thick as a pencil and round them off with a file. I bought ebony in St. Helena and made a baseboard round the cage six inches high, setting the bars in the upper edge; then I drew them all together at the top into a manrope knot through which I had carved a Turk’s Head to use for the ring. Then right up the centre of the cage I rigged a white whalebone mainmast with topmasts, stun’sl booms — I even had weather clew garnets, leech lines and buntlines, and all the parts. I took Mexican dollars, beating them into silver wire for the ropes. No two ways about it, it was beautiful to see the standing and running rigging, even the footropes and futtock shrouds all shining silver.

‘Then on either side of the cage I made ivory davits and slung two little whaleboats, one to starboard and the other to port, all fixed out correct, with tubs, oars, harpoons, lances: and in the middle of each boat I cut out a well, one for water and the other for birdseed.

‘This took me two years, sweating, filing, scraping. When we caught tortoise sleeping on the surface of the sea I kept their shells and polished them up, then cut and inlaid, on the surface of the ebony, tortoise-shell compass roses, fouled anchors, Southern Crosses, and such stuff.

‘Then I carved four whales biting their tails in their death agony and used them for the feet to keep the cage off the floor. When we got into Cabinda on the African coast on the north side of the Congo Iliver I bought the parrot. A good little fellow, smart and green as the inside of a wave just before she breaks. They breed the best talkers on the Gold Coast and she was no exception. She was the knowingest bird I ever saw, bright as a button, clean, shipshape, always cheerful. She had a way of putting her head sideways and flirting at you. She was cute that way and hardly bigger than your fist.

‘I cut off the toe of my sock and sewed it into a little cap which fit snug over her head. You’ve got to keep them blindfolded if you want to teach them to talk a long piece. I rigged an inside pocket with battens to protect her from being crushed and I sewed it snug to fit over my heart under my jacket. Many a time when I was reefing, laying out on the yard with the wind trying to blow the very thoughts out of my head, I would reach in my jacket and lift up her hood and there was that bright eye, cheerful and trusting; looking at me as if to say, “Hello, Sailor Boy!”

‘Well, sir, all the way round the Cape of Good Hope to the Madagascar whaling grounds I taught that bird the Lord’s Prayer. I was at it day and night, on and off duty, even when I ate or stood my watches up in the lookout hoops. Come fair weather or dirt, there was I agoing it — repeating the Our Father, till sometimes I thought I’d bust or go eight buttons to the dozen. But she was quick and clever, I’ll say that for her; from the very start she seemed to know what was wanted of her and she did her damnedest. She’d rattle it off, never missing a word, but what made it comical was to hear out of that dainty bunch of feathers my voice speaking. It certainly sounded sacrilegious to hear my sin-ridden, tarpot voice speaking those sacred words.

‘I had a hell of a time, too, with my shipmates, who all tried to snitch her away from me and teach her foul words and fancy cussing. I had to sleep with one eye and ear open — say, they had me sweating to keep that bird pure. I had to keep her uncontaminated for my sweetheart on Joy Street. But it was worth all the work and grief. You had to see it with your own eyes to know what I’m telling you is God’s truth, when I say there never was anything so beautiful as to sec that little green bird tripping aloft on that shining silver rigging. Up she would go, claw over claw, sailorfashion, even, by golly, dodging round the futtock shrouds to slip up through the lubber’s hole. Out she’d go on the snow-white yard, stick her tail up in the air, bow low and reverently; then slyly cocking her head to one side she’d shoot you a wicked gleam from her eye as she’d roar the Lord’s Prayer in my foghorn voice.

‘The bird and cage soon got famous throughout the whaling fleet, so whenever we hailed a sister ship and their captains with their wives came aboard for a “gam” the first thing they’d ask for was to see the bird cage. The Old Man would order me to bring it to the afterhatch, where I’d set it down and take off the canvas cover I’d made to protect the cage. Then the bird would go through her performances; she was very obliging that way, you never had to coax her, she was always ready, willing, and seemed to get as much fun out of it as the rest of us. I thought the captains’ wives would go crazy.

‘Funny thing, though it took me over four years to teach her the Lord’s Prayer she never could get to the finish. She would start out fine with all courses drawing till she got afoul of the “trespasses” — there she’d kind of fade and lose her bearings and, like me, peeter out and go aground on “not into temptation.”

‘Yes, sir, the whole business took me four years. That shows you what damn fool things a man will do for a woman. Well, sir, when I got back at last to America I was broke. I’d spent all my lay and was in debt to the slop chest; riotous living and St. Helena rum had taken all my money and I came aboard the Nantucket steamboat at New Bedford with nothing to show for my fouryear whaling voyage but a little green parrot and a white bone bird cage.

‘I met old friends on the boat; they’d all heard about the parrot, so I had to set the cage up on the baggage truck, remove the canvas cover, and put the bird through her piece. She never let you down, always gay. She was excited that day; she knew she was coming to her home port. I’d told her all about her new mistress and the house on Joy Street. She went way up on the top, out on the royal yard, teetered her tail in the air, bowed her head low like a parson, and cocking it to one side without closing her beady eye she let fly the Our Father! Laugh? I thought my friends would have died, they fairly rolled on the deck. She was comical and no mistake!

‘Then I began to notice a tall Westernlooking man with a long frock coat, a wide-awake hat, and pants stuck in the tops of his boots. He had a big pasty face with a cigar stuck in it.

‘“Say, Mister,” he said, “that’s the only beautiful thing I ever saw in my life. Make her do it again!” Well, sir, he had that bird agoing till we got off West Chop, then he says, “I just can’t believe I’m seeing what I’m seeing, it’s just too beautiful. I’ll give you fifty dollars cash for the bird and cage.”

‘Fifty dollars! Say, dollars in those days were as big as cartwheels and could roll farther. Fifty dollars to a poor busted sailor, flat broke on his tail, looked stupendous I can tell you, but I thought of Joy Street and I just couldn’t head up to the thought of seeing my girl without keeping my promise.

‘“No,” I said, “it’s not for sale. This is a present I made for a particular friend of mine in Nantucket.”

‘He didn’t hear me, just kept looking and looking into that cage, chewing his cigar around in his mouth. When we tied up at the Vineyard to let off some passengers, he came up to me again.

‘“Mister, you don’t know it, but you made that just for me. I never hope to see a thing as beautiful as that and I’ve got to have it. I’ll give you one hundred dollars in silver! What do you say?”

‘Say? What could I say? One hundred dollars — hell, it was more than most whalemen ever brought back from a voyage. So I let him have it. I even helped him put on the canvas cover. He was the happiest man I ever saw as he went laughing down the gangplank carrying that bird cage in his arms.

‘My insides were heavier than those silver dollars weighing down my pockets. I loved that bird. I watched that cage go down the wharf; I could see it bobbing over the heads of the people getting off. I watched and watched till I could see it no more and I don’t mind telling you I was crying inside. Four years gone up the spout, four years slaving to make something beautiful, and now nothing to show for it but pockets full of silver.’

George Grant stood still. No one moved. I broke the silence gently.

‘ What did you say to your sweetheart when you got to Nantucket?’

‘Would you believe it,’ he laughed, ‘it worked out all right. Soon as I landed I made a beeline for Joy Street, knocked on her door to find she’d gone to the Cape and got spliced! She couldn’t wait for me and she got married, by God, and I was one hundred dollars in!’

George Grant still lives, one of the last iron men reared on wooden ships. For almost ninety years his strong heart has ticked like a good ship’s chronometer quietly and steadily through all his stormy, battered life, and now in his old home port, with both anchors down, he patiently waits the pilot.