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Updated: May 21, 2025
Her side curtains were waving in ribands, the forward flag-pole held nothing but one tiny rag of blue bunting and the tender, torn from the chocks, was jammed between the stanchions ahead. "But she's still whole," said Steve from between blue lips. "And the storm's going down. If she isn't sprung too much, and we could only get her off of there "
An autumn morning at dawn, the beach at Dover, the tide at flood, and a hundred half naked sailors launching a long, black Norman sea-boat bows on, over chocks through the low surf to the grey swell beyond.
I ordered the top-masts to be struck and unrigged, in order to fix to them moveable chocks or knees, for want of which the trestle-trees were continually breaking; the forge to be set up, to make bolts and repair our iron-work; and tents to be erected on shore for the reception of a guard, coopers, sail-makers, etc.
Punctually at five o'clock the order, "Start up!" passed down the long line of machines. The flight-commander's engine began a loud metallic roar, then softened as it was throttled down. The pilot waved his hand, the chocks were pulled from under the wheels, and the machine moved forward.
Then the men began to haul, and as the ropes tightened the heavy boat was lifted out of the chocks in which she lay, and with a good deal of creaking was swung out over the bulwarks quite clear of the steamer's side, and then lowered down with her bows much lower than the stern, so that it looked as if the boat we had trusted to for taking us many a long journey was about to dive down under the sea.
And, as we rapidly backed from the whale, he flung his tremendous fluke high in the air, covering us with a cloud of spray. He then sounded, making the line whiz as it passed through the chocks. When he rose to the surface again, we hauled up, and the second mate stood ready in the bow to dispatch him with lances. "Spouting blood!" said Tabor, "he's a dead whale! he won't need much lancing."
At last as I lay there, for minutes which seemed to be hours, I heard my enemy talking loudly, and I knew that he must be speaking to the men in the forecastle. That would do. He could see nothing now, for between us there were the main and foremasts, and plenty besides the galley and water-cask, and the long cabin-like range upon the top of which our boat had lain in the chocks.
The log-book was gone, so we got no information from that. Moreover, every boat was in its chocks or under its own davits. It was as though some mysterious power had come down from above and wiped out the crew, besides killing the rats in the hold. She was a grain ship from 'Frisco, and grain ships are full of rats. "I was the prize-lieutenant that took her into Queenstown.
The girl looked forward. Over them the bottom plates of the Burdock made a great sloping roof; her rolling chocks stood out like galleries. Her lines bulged heavily out, and the girl saw the immensity of the great fabric, the power of the tool her husband should wield. "She's big, indeed," she answered. "Five thousand tons and forty lives in one man's hands. It's splendid, uncle.
With a grating rush, the three lines flew round the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them; while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would soon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they caught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at last owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of the boats, whence the three ropes went straight down into the blue the gunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three sterns tilted high in the air.
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