Corder learned his part in the boat as readily as he had about the decks and masts of the Dolphin. He was assigned the position of stroke oarsman in the third mate’s crew, from which place he bent to pull his oar at the mate’s command, assisted with handling the small mast, and when the lightweight, sharp-ended craft took in water in rough seas it was his allotted task to bail her out with a canvas bucket stowed for that purpose among the copious whaling gear. The rest of the paraphernalia looked threatening enough to William – there were the tubs with their great coiled lengths of line, the razor-edged harpoon and long lances to be plunged deep into the creature’s innards, and the cutting spades with which great incisions could be sliced in the blubber for holding the whale fast while it was towed back to the ship’s side.
The boat was headed by the mate, who directed their turns and twists with the steering oar while the boat steerer pulled from the forward thwart until they could draw close enough to their target for him to jump up in the bow and throw his harpoon. The four oarsmen rowed for their livelihood, but always with their backs blindly turned to the scene in front, for they were forbidden even to glance over their shoulders at what might lie ahead of them. Their only clues were the headsman’s guttural commands and imprecations, and the light of terror or exultation in his eyes.
Even in practice it was deadly hard work, and William and the other green hands were in no doubt that the difficulties would multiply when there were whales in the offing. They listened with apprehension to the able seamen’s tales of closing in on their quarry – the great sperm whales. They heard how an ugly whale could stove in a boat with one thrash of his flukes and of the perils of a ‘Nantucket sleigh ride’ – when a running whale would drive across the surface of the water, dragging the boat and its occupants in a wild dash in its wake.
The third mate was named Matthias Plant, a Nantucket native and a great veteran for a whaleman, being almost forty years of age, swarthy from the sun and with a body like one of his own barrels of whale oil. Matthias had been married for twenty years and out of that span of time he had lived just weeks, in all totalling barely thirteen months, at home with his wife. The rest of the time he had been at sea. It was Matthias’s pleasure to regale William with stories of the chase and the catch, embellished with the most vivid and gory of details. William heard him out with his invariable courtesy, and tried manfully to hide his fears behind an expression of calm unconcern.
In truth, the rowing and paddling and hauling on the mast and sail under Matthias’s brutal direction was an exhausting trial for William. His narrow shoulders and slender arms were racked with the effort, and when the order came at last to row for the Dolphin, riding a mile or so distant like an ivory ship on a sapphire sea, he would have uttered a cheer if he had possessed sufficient voice for the task.
‘We’ll make a whaleman of you yet, my little parlour-maid,’ Matthias would roar and clap the boy heartily on his aching back.
After these expeditions William returned almost with pleasure to the shipboard routine of two-hour turns at the helm and as look-out at one of the three mastheads. He was keen-eyed, and it was one of the few joys available to him to stand at the high vantage-point and scan the glassy miles of water for a whale’s spout. In his commanding position, with the ship beneath him riding along under easy sail, he felt like a giant striding across the waves. He could even lean forward, his eyes stinging with the lick of the salt wind, and believe he wished for the spout of a whale as much as for the sight of another ship that might contain his true quarry.
The Dolphin was just two days short of a full two months out of Nantucket when Captain Gunnell took the observation and worked up the latitude before announcing to the second mate that the ship would cross the Line, or the equator of the Earth, at about sundown that evening.
The mate sagely nodded his head, then spoke to the helmsman who happened to be one of the green hands. ‘Do you hear the Captain? I believe that Old Neptune himself will be coming aboard tonight. Every whaler who passes through his empire must pay homage to him and from every first-timer he extracts the proper dues.’
‘What dues may these be?’ the sailor asked, thinking anxiously of his supplies of tobacco and other small luxuries safe in his sea-chest in the forecastle.
‘That’s not for me to predict,’ the mate answered. ‘All I know is that the old man will be aboard this ship tonight.’
As soon as the wheel was relieved, the man scurried below to spread the news to the other first-timers. William sat tight in the narrow space of his bunk, the curtain partly drawn, as was his habit, to afford the smallest protection from the squalid conditions of the forecastle. He heard the rumours and assertions of the other hands with misgiving. At sundown, as the last watch came down from the mastheads, the green hands heard the hatch over their heads slammed closed. They were shut tight in their living quarters until such time as Old Neptune came aboard.
‘I see a ship,’ the mate loudly cried out overhead. ‘The Emperor himself!’
Up on the deck, the biggest and broadest of the able seamen had padded his chest with mats, wrapped himself round in a white sheet from the Captain’s cabin and pulled on top of the whole a great dark coat blackened with smoke from the try-pot. He had a wild nest of hair made of frayed yarn decked with seaweed, whiskers of the same, and a cloth mask that covered all but his eyes and nose. In his hand he held a four-pronged harpoon. Against the dimming sky and the limitless horizon he made an alarming sight.
In the meantime the other hands dragged up from below decks the largest of the blubber tubs, a great vessel they filled to the brim with salt water. Over the lip of it, secured at the other end to the summit of the brick furnace where the whale-oil was boiled out of the blubber, a broad plank was fixed. The Captain’s own chair was brought from his cabin and set next to the near end of the plank, and Old Neptune took his seat upon the throne.
In a great roar he demanded that the first of the youngsters be brought up without delay.
In the forecastle the young men had heard the tramping and thumping over their heads, and waited with great trepidation for what would happen next. At the command they hustled forward the boldest of their company and sent him up the steps to the deck, and whatever fate was awaiting him. There were a few long moments before there came some confused shouting and the sound of splashing, and the call for the next victim.
One by one, they put their reluctant heads out into the night air. When it came to William’s turn he had no sooner appeared from the forecastle scuttle and tried to see around him in the blaze of lanterns than he was seized from behind and blindfolded. He caught no more than a second’s glimpse of Old Neptune towering on his throne, but it was enough to send a thrill of fear through him. He was hustled up the ladder and set in front of the sea’s Emperor. William’s common sense told him that all this was no more than a sailors’ prank, but still he could not stop his limbs from trembling.
‘What is your name?’ Neptune roared into his face, sending a great wave of tobacco and rum breaking over the boy, which would have knocked him backwards if he hadn’t been pinned by both arms.
‘William Corder, sir.’
‘And why do you travel through my domain, William?’
The young man hesitated for a long moment, as if debating with himself the best answer to give.
Neptune roared at him, ‘I have a dozen ships to visit tonight.’
‘I… I am hoping to catch a whale, sir.’
Amid a great roar of laughter Neptune said, ‘Aye, you and Captain Gunnell also. I have a piece of advice for you, William, before we make a sailor
