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The Whaling Debate Bloody Business (cont.)
I'M OUT COLD when a loud clank, clank jolts me awake. It's the whale alarm. Edvardsen launches out of his bunk, dresses in a flash, and hustles up the ladder. When I take a position next to Karlsen and Sommerseth on the flying bridge, everybody is craning their necks. It's 3:30 a.m. A low amber sun has burned off the haze; visibility is perfect as we skim across a glassy sea. Edvardsen joins Olsen in the crow's nest, and for the first time I see Skarheim crouched behind the cannon. He's wearing hard-shell protective earphones that can block out the noise from a blast while amplifying low-intensity sounds like speech, allowing him to hear the crew if they see something. Almost immediately, Olsen yells, "Right!" Every man swings his head, and Skarheim whips the cannon around. I see a dark form amidships to starboard, about 30 yards from the boat. It's a small, hooked dorsal fin, but it vanishes before Skarheim gets off a shot. Over the next 20 minutes, the whale appears randomly, exhaling loudly and exposing a black, shiny back, causing Skarheim to jerk his cannon around. Then . . . nothing. The whale is always too far away, spotted too late, or positioned at an angle that would require an ill-advised shot across the deck. But after several frustrating peekaboos, the whale starts moving north in a consistent line, surfacing twice. Karlsen moves Sofie closer, shadowing the whale's relaxed movements, until we're within about 15 yards and . . . boom! The cannon's powerful six-ton recoil jerks the ship. I hear the muffled whump of a grenade going off. Skarheim has scored a direct hit just behind the whale's left flipper. The harpoon is lodged deep inside the chest cavity.
"All right!" Olsen yells. Karlsen throws the boat into reverse and the whale is winched in. During the next few minutes, all five crew members gather at the bow and teeter dangerously close to the unrailed edge. "That's a portly gentleman," Olsen proclaims. The men take turns looping a noose around the flukes, a difficult maneuver that no one gets right on the first try. A dead whale will sink if it slips off the harpoon, so the urgency is palpable. When it's finally secured, the whale is left to dangle, and the crew changes into bright-orange coveralls. Skarheim stays behind to clean and reload the harpoon cannon. "They say we're the best cannon shots in the world," he says, beaming. "The shot window is only 1.5 seconds, you know." Out of the water and held with steel cables, the four-ton whale rests on the elevated hold cover at Sofie's center. Standing on the bow, I look with awe at the creature's beauty and majesty. The whale's black backside fills my field of vision, and its wet sheen reflects the sun, throwing off prismatic colors. It's painful to watch it die, and I'm not usually sanctimonious about mankind's carnivorous ways. I can't be: My ancestor and namesake was Philip D. Armour, the 19th-century Chicago meatpacker whose infamous factories inspired Upton Sinclair to write The Jungle. Still, there's no denying it: A dying whale grabs my heart like nothing else can.
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