Rush Oh!

by Shirley Barrett

Genres: Coming of Age; Family Life; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

When the eldest daughter of a whaling family in Eden, New South Wales, sets out to chronicle the particularly difficult season of 1908, the story she tells is poignant and hilarious, filled with drama and misadventure. Swinging from her own hopes and disappointments, both domestic and romantic, to the challenges that beset their tiny whaling operation, Mary's tale is entirely relatable despite the hundred-odd years that separate her world from ours. Chronicling her family's struggle to survive the season and her own attempts to navigate an all-consuming crush on an itinerant whaleman with a murky past, Rush Oh! is also a celebration of an extraordinary episode in Australian history when a family of whalers formed a fond, unique allegiance with a pod of Killer whales – and in particular, a Killer whale named Tom.

Release date: March 22, 2016

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 368

Sample

OUR HOUSE WAS SITUATED UP THE HILL FROM THE TRY-WORKS, which meant not only were we enveloped in the stench of boiling blubber for five months of the year, but also that our garden must needs incorporate various vestiges of dead marine life. The jaws of a large white pointer shark, in which the children liked to pretend they were being eaten, formed an ornamental feature near the front gate, while the path leading up to the house was laid with the pulverized remains of whale vertebrae, creating an effect not unlike pebbles, although considerably sharper underfoot. The towering rib cage of a ninety-foot blue whale sat amidst a winter display of jonquils; my father had had the men haul it closer to the house that he might contemplate its grandeur while enjoying his evening pipe. In a bid to soften its stark appearance (and incidentally create a kind of pergola), I had attempted to train a wisteria over it; however the wisteria had never taken to the task and its gnarled tendrils did nothing to dispel, in fact seemed generally to enhance, the somewhat gloomy aspect of the mammal’s parched remains. Certainly they cast an impression upon the visitor now standing before them, for he issued a low whistling sound through his teeth and shook his head slowly.

Before proceeding further, I should pause to mention that at the time my sisters and I were slave to a great many “kitchen superstitions,” some of which we had learned from others, and many of which we had simply invented ourselves. For example, if when washing dishes a cup or a plate is overlooked, then that is a sign that you will soon hear tidings of a wedding. This particular superstition had failed us many times, but was later to come true in circumstances so close to home that we have persisted in believing in it, even in spite of the frequency with which we forget to wash things and the relative infrequency of hearing about weddings. Perhaps owing to our distance from the township of Eden, we had developed a whole series of superstitions regarding the impending arrival of visitors. If the kettle was accidentally placed on the fire with the spout facing backwards, then a stranger was coming to see us. If, after sweeping a room, the broom was left in a corner, then the sweeper would shortly meet her true love. Of course, as can be imagined, this led to a greater interest in sweeping and a good deal of leaving brooms about in corners, until we decided that the leaving of brooms had to be accidental or the effect was otherwise null and void. I convey this information simply for the purpose of setting the scene, for late that particular afternoon in June 1908, I had almost finished sweeping out the bedrooms when I glimpsed from the window the visitor gazing solemnly at the rib bones as I have just described. Throwing off my apron, I hurried out to the veranda, and in doing so, I left the broom in the corner of that bedroom.

“Good afternoon,” the visitor called out to me. “I’m looking for George Davidson.”

“He’s in town,” I responded. “He should be back before sundown.”

“I hear he’s putting together crews for his whaleboats,” said the stranger, stooping to pluck a jonquil, which he proceeded to place in his buttonhole. (The jonquil display had been another of my attempts at “softening” the rib cage, yet in truth the effect was not entirely harmonious.) “Does he need another, do you know?”

“He does,” responded my younger brother Dan, who had joined me on the veranda. “Tell me, can you row hard?”

“I can.”

“Have you chased a whale before?”

“I’ve not,” confessed the stranger, strolling up the path towards us, whale bones crunching underfoot. “But I can fish.”

“They’re bigger than fish.”

“Much bigger?”

“Oh yes, quite considerably. Have you never seen a whale up close before?”

“I’ve not.”

“Well then, you’re in for quite a surprise.” Dan took an old clay pipe from his pocket now, and tapped at it thoughtfully. “Mary, perhaps if you showed our visitor your artwork, it might convey more clearly some sense of their dimensions?”

At this, the stranger turned to me, and his face broke into a broad grin. I’m not sure what prompted this; perhaps Dan’s lofty manner amused him (Dan was a small boy and looked younger than his twelve years).

“You sketch?” inquired the stranger.

“Yes, somewhat; mainly whaling scenes,” I replied. My cheeks reddened. How dreary and bluestocking it seemed suddenly, to enjoy such a pastime. Nor was this impression helped by the fact that I was indeed wearing my blue stockings.

“One of Mary’s depictions received a Highly Commended at the Eden Show just past,” said Dan stoutly. “Go and fetch it, Mary,” he encouraged, giving me a shove.

Although I am not usually one to put myself forward, I did as I was bid, for I felt an urge to cast an interesting impression of myself upon this gentleman. When I returned, I saw that Dan had perhaps been affected by a similar impulse, for he was now engaged in the act of demonstrating to the stranger the action of my father’s whale gun. Dan had been expressly forbidden to so much as touch the whale gun since he and one of the Aboriginal children had used it for shooting minnows in the creek and only with the greatest good fortune avoided blowing away their own legs. Calmly I wrenched it from his grasp and placed it aside.

“My father rarely uses it,” I explained to the stranger. “It scares the Killers away. Besides, it has a powerful kick that can knock you clear out of the boat and into the water. Dan here tried it once and had a bruise the size of a dinner plate on his chest.”

“Show him your picture for God’s sake, Mary,” muttered Dan, having no wish for me to go into further details on the subject.

“Very well,” I replied.

“Stern All, Boys!” (which, as formerly mentioned, had received a Highly Commended in the Eden Show just past) depicts the moment when the whale receives the fatal lance and lashes the water in its death flurry. My father, the headsman, is standing at the bow of the boat applying the lance, and it is he who is calling out for the men to row hard astern in a bid to escape the fury of the tormented monster. You can see from the position of the whale’s enormous flukes that its tail will crash down upon the boat at any moment. It is spouting blood; also, there is a fountain of blood issuing from the point where the lance enters the whale’s vitals, spraying over the men and giving them a most ghoulish appearance. One of the striking features of the painting is the look of abject terror on the faces of the crew, with the exception of my father, who is known locally by the sobriquet of “Fearless.” My brother Harry is the most terrified of them all. He is gazing up beseechingly at the giant flukes and wringing his hands like a girl (in fact, he was quite annoyed with me about this representation, and the subject was to remain a sore point between us). Amidst the commotion, one of the men has fallen into the sea and is in the throes of drowning, while another is depicted struggling valiantly for life in the grip of the whale’s mighty jaws. Meanwhile, in the water circling the thrashing leviathan, are the Killer whales Tom, Hooky, Humpy, Typee, Jackson, Charlie Adgery and Kinscher—each of them identifiable by the distinguishing characteristics of their dorsal fins. Hooky is pushing at the whale from below to ensure it does not sound. Tom is jumping across the creature’s blowhole. Jackson is endeavoring to force open the jaws of the whale in a bid to tear out a portion of its tongue, while Humpy looks on approvingly.

All in all, it is quite a dramatic representation, and a great favorite with the children. Some considered it ought to have been awarded first prize; however, for reasons of their own which remain mysterious, the judges deemed otherwise. Admittedly, there were some small inaccuracies (the whale I have depicted started off as a humpback but, after some difficulty rendering the head, it ended up as a sperm whale; truth be told, however, sperm whales have never been sighted in Twofold Bay). It was rumored that the judges may have found the painting too gruesome—if this was the case, then I consider it curious, as I know that one of these judges was to be seen on the cliff tops cheering heartily whenever such a scene unfolded in real life. In truth, I suspect that the real reason “Stern All, Boys!” was deemed unworthy of a prize is that the subject matter was considered unsuitable for a young lady. Far better that I had employed my talents depicting three cows in a paddock at sunset, as did Miss Eunice Martin of Towamba, for which effort she received the coveted blue ribbon.

“Whales eat folk?” asked the stranger finally. He had been gazing steadily at the painting for some moments.

“Not commonly,” I replied. “I have embellished a few small details.”

“There’s nothing to say a sperm whale wouldn’t eat a man,” said Dan. “Didn’t Moby Dick eat Ahab?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember,” I said. “He may have done.”

“Well, in any case, there’s nothing to stop a fellow from falling into a whale’s mouth,” said Dan. “The whale may be just about to spit him out as so much gristle.”

The stranger continued to study the painting in silence. I could see his brows knit and the muscles of his jaw tighten, and for a long time he gazed at it and said nothing. Evidently it was the first time he had seen whaling depicted in detail, and given that he had just volunteered for the job, perhaps he was experiencing misgivings.

“There’s a lot of blood,” he said finally. “Perhaps you could have shown less of it.”

I stiffened. A surge of indignation rose up within me.

“Forgive me, but I felt it my responsibility to deliver an accurate pictorial representation. There is a lot of blood. Isn’t there, Dan?”

“Oh yes,” agreed Dan. “Whaling’s not for the queasy.”

“I never said I was queasy,” said the visitor, seemingly slightly annoyed at the implication. “I just said how there’s a deal of blood.”

“Then perhaps you would prefer I confine my pictorial efforts to pastoral settings,” I responded. “A cow or two in a paddock—would that be a more suitable subject for a young lady?”

“Leave it, Mary,” said Dan.

“Never mind that one of Miss Martin’s cows seemed for all the world to have five legs! I’ve never heard of a five-legged cow, have you?”

“There was a calf born in Bega with five legs,” said Dan.

“That story was completely apocryphal!”

Just at that moment, our youngest sisters Annie and Violet cried out from the bottom of the garden—my father’s motor launch, Excelsior, had rounded the headland and could be seen approaching. They galloped down to the jetty to meet him, followed by our dogs hot on their heels, anxious to convey the impression that they had remained vigilant and not spent the entire afternoon dozing in the sun. Forgetting his worldly manner, Dan stashed his pipe in his pocket and took off down to the jetty also. My father had been into Eden to pick up stores, and there was always the chance that he had thought to include some small confectionery or trifle.

“Well, sir,” I ventured at last, turning to the stranger. “Are you still up for adventure, or has my painting put you off?”

“No,” he said. “I mean, yes. In truth, it has scared the bejesus out of me.”

A wave of alarm overtook me. I may not have yet mentioned that our visitor was remarkably handsome, and whalers as a rule were not celebrated for their good looks.

“Oh no, you mustn’t let my picture deter you,” I entreated. “Whaling is generally considered no more dangerous than fishing, albeit whales are larger than fish.”

“Yes,” he replied. “I think I am clear on that point now.”

“Also, to be perfectly honest, we don’t catch that many whales,” I continued. “Oh, enough to get by certainly, and make a decent—well, a living of sorts, but…” Here I trailed off, for he glanced at me curiously. “The truth is, sir, my father could certainly use an extra hand at the oars.”

I gazed at him imploringly and hoped that my spectacles were sitting straight. So often they sat askew, which gave me the appearance of a character in a musical comedy.

“This comment I made regarding the amount of blood,” he said. “That was unwarranted. Forgive me.”

“There’s no need,” I replied, surprised and, in truth, greatly pleased. “Your comment was perfectly understandable. However, I think you’ll soon find that there is a lot of blood, perhaps more than one would reasonably expect.”

“Yes,” murmured the stranger, gazing off. “That is so often the case.”

He fell silent now, apparently absorbed in his own thoughts. I strained to think of some additional remark that would assist my cause but could think of nothing, so instead stood sucking my lower lip between my teeth, a habit of mine when nervous. The dogs were barking furiously as my father maneuvered the Excelsior alongside the jetty; my brother Harry, at the bow of the vessel, tossed the rope to Dan, who jumped at it eagerly and missed. It ended up in the water. Harry pulled it out again, cursing Dan freely.

“Well, then,” said the stranger at last. “Here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost.”

And with that, he smiled at me, tipped his cap and strolled off down the hill to meet my father.

I stood for a moment and watched him go, then turned and hurried back inside. An odd feeling of distraction overcame me: I proceeded to sweep again with great thoroughness several rooms I had previously swept.

WHILST IN TOWN, MY FATHER TOLD US, HE HAD HAD occasion to stop in at the Great Southern Hotel, where a gentleman recounted to him an amusing incident. It seems that very morning the gentleman had been fishing for snapper in the bay when all of a sudden he experienced a different “bite” to that which he had been anticipating. A group of Killer whales had materialized alongside his dinghy and, amidst the general spouting and breaching, one of their number had grasped the boat’s kellick between his teeth and proceeded to tow the vessel at speed in the direction of the open sea. The man clung to the gunwales and began to weep, for he feared he might never again see his loved ones; yet just as they passed South Head, the kellick was dropped as summarily as it was taken and the Killer and his entourage departed. Finding himself thus abandoned, the unhappy fellow was then forced to row a distance of some several miles back to his starting point. “Whereupon I discovered that the snapper had long ago dispersed,” he concluded, amidst general laughter in the front bar of the Great Southern.

When the good-natured joshing had subsided, my father asked the gentleman if he could describe to him the appearance of the particular Killer whale who had taken the kellick.

“Why yes,” the fisherman responded. “He was of about twenty-five feet in length, in rude good health, shiny black in color with gleaming white marks around his middle.”

My father nodded thoughtfully. “And tell me, did you observe any peculiarity of the dorsal fin?”

“Well, sir, it was probably six feet in height and boasted a small knob or protuberance about midway up its trailing edge,” replied the fisherman.

At this, many of the surrounding drinkers at once erupted into knowing chuckles.

“Then you should count yourself privileged,” my father said, smiling. “For that was Master Tom himself who took your kellick.”

Tom was the leader of the Killers, and his age was calculated to be upwards of sixty years old, for he had been my grandfather’s lieutenant, just as he was my father’s. In spite of his distinguished years, his demeanor was ever that of a cheeky schoolboy, the sort that might steal your apples or throw rocks at you from across the street, but nonetheless a good boy in his heart and loved by all who knew him. As well as his duties as Chief Scallywag and Rouseabout, it was Tom who would generally take it upon himself to alert my father and his men whenever he and his companions had herded a whale into the bay. Leaving his team to keep the hapless beast in check with their usual antics, he would make haste across the bay to our whaling station at Kiah Inlet, whereupon he would flop-tail vigorously in a bid to attract the attention of the whalers. There was no more welcome sound than the resounding smack! as Tom’s mighty tail crashed down upon the water. The men would cry, “Rush oh!” and run to the whaleboats. Once the boats were put out, Tom (an impatient fish by nature) would lead them directly to the spot where his chums had corralled the whale. Occasionally, if engaged in a particularly exciting scrap that demanded his full attention, Tom would send an offsider to rouse us, but mostly he preferred to take this task upon himself. Rather like my father in this way, Tom was the sort of fish who liked to see a job done properly, even if it meant doing it himself.

Any account of Tom and the wonderful assistance he and his team provided our whalers, however, should not exclude the fact that this mischievous Killer whale could at times be as much hindrance as help. Several times over the years, we had experienced a number of incidents involving Tom and the whale line, resulting in the loss or near-loss of the whale. I shall endeavor to explain.

When stuck with a harpoon, a whale’s natural response is to set off at great speed in a bid to escape the sting of the iron. The men chock their oars and are thus towed along behind it, great walls of water rising up on either side of their boat. Much skill is required to ensure that the whale has rope enough to run (and thus exhaust itself) without pulling the whale line out of the boat entirely. There is no more disheartening sight to a whale man than that of a whale swimming out of the heads with an iron in its side and fifty fathoms of rope trailing after it.

In all the danger and uproar of this hair-raising “sleigh ride,” the last thing that is needed is for a Killer whale to suddenly attach himself to the whale line and hang on for grim life, and yet this is exactly what occurred on several occasions. As if losing his head in the excitement, Tom would throw himself upon the taut rope and hang there by his teeth, thus causing himself to be towed rapidly through the water along with the whaleboat. (I have never had the good fortune to witness this, but have had it described to me in detail; I had even attempted to re-create the scene in oils for the Eden Show the year previous, once again with little success.) Why Tom engaged in this behavior, no one could say; whether it was a bid to slow the whale’s progress by adding his own body weight; or simply for the enjoyable sensation of being pulled forcibly through the water. Whatever the reason, his antics were not well appreciated by the whale crew, as the sudden application of his weight could result in the line being pulled entirely from the boat and the whale subsequently lost. On several occasions, a stoush ensued between whale man and Killer whale; once a boathook was brought into play in a bid to dislodge the errant cetacean, but this annoyed Tom considerably and he hung on all the more tenaciously.

Another story involving Tom, and somewhat of an infamous one, concerns the time the Hon. Mr. Austin Chapman (the federal member for the region at the time) was hosting a pleasure cruise on the bay. Various visiting parliamentarians were on board, including the Hon. Mr. G.H. Reid and the Hon. Mr. Joseph Carruthers, the purpose of the excursion being to persuade the assembled dignitaries that, with its beautiful bay and natural harbor, the township of Eden was the obvious location in which to establish the national capital. With good fortune, they had chanced to witness the closing moments of a particularly exciting whale chase. Now that my father and his men were securing the carcass, Mr. Chapman took the opportunity to bring the pleasure craft over so that his guests might inspect the dead whale more closely. The visitors had a great many questions to ask of my father, and my father, a shy man but anxious to promote the attractions of Eden, responded to the very best of his ability. Yet all the while he was aware of the Killer whales’ increasing agitation, and the growing urgency of securing the whale with anchors and marker buoys before they dragged the carcass to the depths below. As it was, they were already circling impatiently and tugging at its side fins.

“You certainly put on a fine show for us,” said Mr. Chapman, after the initial introductions were made across the vast expanse of whale flesh.

“Yes, she led us on a bit of a dance, the old girl,” said my father, with characteristic understatement. The chase had in fact been a desperate one and taken almost five hours, the men rowing from South Head to North Head and back again, with multiple diversions along the way.

“They call Mr. Davidson ‘Fearless’ in these parts, and I think you can now see why,” Mr. Chapman remarked to his party. “I hope he won’t mind me telling you that he has a wrought-iron constitution and a heart like a blacksmith’s anvil!”

My father was always embarrassed by this sort of talk, but his men raised a hearty “Hear, hear!”

“Tell me, Mr. Davidson, what kind of whale is this?” asked the Hon. Mr. Reid, later to become the Prime Minister of Australia, if only for a period of eleven months.

“This is a southern right whale, sir, the most valuable of all on account of the whalebone.”

“Is that so? And what would you estimate to be its worth?”

“Well, sir, the whale oil on a whale this size would be in the order of two hundred pounds, and the whalebone itself—well, we’re talking in the league of a thousand pounds, sir.”

The whalers raised an even louder cheer at this news, but my father could tell by the threshing of the water that the Killers were none too happy about the hold-up in proceedings.

“And tell me, Mr. Davidson—may I call you Fearless?—tell me, Fearless, what are you up to here with the anchors and buoys and suchlike?” inquired the Hon. Mr. Carruthers.

“Well, sir, we let the Killers here have first dibs at the whale.”

“It truly is quite remarkable,” explained Mr. Chapman, eagerly. “The Killer whales will now take the carcass underwater and feast upon its tongue and lips—am I right, Mr. Davidson?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“How extraordinary,” exclaimed Mrs. Reid. “I was not aware that whales had lips.”

“Oh yes, ma’am,” said my father. “A whale has lips all right.”

“Then, some twenty-four hours later,” continued Mr. Chapman, “after the Killers have enjoyed their repast, the remains of the carcass will fill with gas and rise to the surface, whereupon our stout-hearted friends here will tow the brute home and begin the process of rendering its blubber into whale oil.”

“So you share the bounty, as it were,” said Mr. Reid.

“That’s right, sir. Well, the Killers help us catch the whales, and have done for sixty years. Also, to be honest, sir, I doubt we could get the whale off them now if we wanted to.”

And just at that moment, as if to demonstrate this last point, Tom surged up out of the water and grabbed hold of the rope my father had in his hands, hanging on to it with his teeth for twenty seconds or thereabouts and crushing several of my father’s fingers in the process. The assembled dignitaries cried out in horror; the whalers—terrified that the Killer would pull my father into the water—threatened Tom with whatever implements they had at hand until finally he relinquished his grasp and slid silently back into the water. Throughout the ordeal, my father’s expression remained impassive, nor did he utter a sound; a slight wincing as he . . .