Canada

An instant, breathlessness held us all in its vise. Then confusion burst like a shell. Cap’n, bosun, carpenter, master watches, all jumped up. The checkerboard was overturned; pieces rolled to the floor; no matter. On deck, louder yells summoned. Keen with the blood lust, all who could go on ice began heaving on their gear. Such a shouting, such a leaping to arms, such a buckling-on of sheath knives, steels, belts; such a grabbing of tow ropes and murderous gaffs you never could imagine.

     Young Cyril, the Cap’n’s grandson, with flying leaps shot through the cabin, ducked into the cubicle I shared with him and Skipper Nat, snatched his gaff and nearly impaled me as I ran for my “oppers” (spyglasses) and camera.

     Even though I had no purpose to imbrue my hands in blood, my heart was drumming a bit, my temperature rising. For now the kill was close upon us.

     Up tumbled all hands and out upon the coal-blackened decks. Spiked boots ground the planking. Forward, streams of hunters came milling from the to’gal’n’ house, the ‘tweendecks, the dungeon. A rapid spate of cries, questions, cheers, troubled the frozen air. Grimed faces appeared at galleys, at engine-room scuttle. Sealers lined the broad rails gesticulating out toward the illimitable plain of arctic ice that blazed, dazzling white, under the March sun.

     The thrill that comes but once a voyage had arrived. For now we were to have “a rally at de young fat.” We, first of all the fleet, had struck the longed-for whitecoats.

     Already Cap’n Kean had gained the bridge. He seemed more like a “gert, bear-lookin’ stick of a man” than ever, as, bear-like, his furry arms waved over the weather-cloth.

     “Overboard, me sons!” he shouted. “Make a pier-head jump [a quick start], an’ get into ’em! Over, me darlin’ b’ys!”

     But the men needed no urging. Even before the ship had bucked and ground, rearing, into the edge of the groaning floe they had escaladed the rail — dozens, scores of them.

     They seemed now to have no organization. There was no gathering of “goes,” or gangs, under command of master watches, as later in the old-fat kill. This was just a free-for-all scramble.

     First of all actually to make the ice was Cyril. Not more than sixteen, he; but boys are daring in those hardy latitudes. He led the leaping, yelling crowd that jumped to the loose-broken pans; that scrambled with goat-like agility to solid floes, and in heavily spiked skinny woppers ran like mad demons, yelling, across that fantastic confusion.

     At the rail, meantime, I watched; I, who by the grace of Bowring Brothers had been permitted to go “to the ice.” My first interest was less with the hunters than the hunted. At the beginning of it all, the whitecoats looked to me like great white or whitish-yellow pincushions, woggling along, lying still, taking their blobby and full-fed ease, heaving around, blatting with a sort of puppy-like, kitten-like, lamb-like bawl, mew, bark, or what you choose to call it.

      As the whitecoats passively awaited the attack, some of the old seals raised inquiring heads, began to get under way with a peculiarly sinuous motion. The dogs, to their shame be it said, were first to make for rifters and bobbing holes; for these were harps, and not the fighting hoods. Open waters thrashed with escaping seals. Up, down, and up again the old ones surged, with a startled and anxious air; glorious, sleek, brown-eyed creatures, gleaming and glistening. They seemed inquisitive, willing enough to find out what manner of thing this swift, two-legged animal might be that ran and laughed and yelled.

     Some of the females lingered, but not long. They had to go, one way or the other — into the sea or under the sculping knife. I was astonished at the mother seals’ lack of maternal devotion. Perhaps half fled. With a farewell wave of the scutters, scores of them vanished. But the young, the coveted whitecoats, still remained.

     “Dere’m de fat, sir!” a grizzled old Notre Dame Bay man exulted to me. “Ondly a little larry string, but dat’m a beginnin’!”

      The kill was in full cry. Swiftly the men ran and leaped over rough ice. They caught seals, struck with their heavy, cruelly pointed and hooked gaffs. Cyril later boasted that he had slaughtered the first seal.

     I beheld Cyril’s feat. A fat dog was his prey. The dog faced round at him, raised its head, flashed sharp teeth — the sort of teeth that sometimes work havoc on incautious hunters. It flung a throaty “Rrrrr-r-r-r-r-r!“

      Whack!

     The seal’s head dropped. Far from dead the seal was; still thrashing; but never mind about that! Cyril jammed his gaff into the ice, flung off his coil of tow rope, jerked out his flensing knife and whetted it, all with the correct technique of a finished sealer. He rolled the seal over; with a long gash split it from throat to scutters, and, amid perfectly incredible floods of crimson, began skinning it. Colour? The ice glowed with it!

     Everywhere men were going into action. Everywhere the gaffs were rising, falling; tow ropes being cast off; sealers bending over their fat booty of both young seals and old. Everywhere the seals were being rolled over and sculped.

      Almost invariably the seals met death head-on. They might flee at man’s approach, but once he was upon them, they would stand and show fight. Nearly always they would rear up, fling their growl, make show of biting. But one or two slashes with the long-handled gaff usually fractured the skull; the seal dropped, dying; and the knife expedited his departure to some world where perhaps polar bears, sharks, and men were not.

      The actual work of blood at first — though later I grew used enough to it! — was rather shuddering to me. A seal is so extremely bloody, and that blood so extraordinarily hot. The fleshy whack-whack-whack, dully drifting in over the ice, isn’t an agreeable sound, either. Nor is it pretty to watch seals die.

      All over the ice, near, far, among clumpers and pinnacles and in sheltered seal nurseries, the hunters were shucking seals out of their sculps as deftly and almost as quickly as you would shell a peanut. Every sculp — the sculp is the skin with the fat adherent — had one flipper cut out, one retained. Spots of red dotted the ice-scape. Fwitt-fwitt-fwitt sounded the whetting of blades on steels; and rather horrifically the hunters wiped their dripping knives on their sleeves. Their clothing and the ice, alike, blossomed vividly. Their hands looked like gloves of red that dripped. All about pelted carcasses sprawled, twitched, steamed in crimson pools.

      Afar off men were still running. From distances beyond leads dusked by catspaws, where seals were leaping, echoed shouts of the kill. Along the rail, those who had borne no hand in the exploit were gathered and tumult arose. Men clung in rig and ratlines. Officers peered from the bridge. Gibes, cheers, laughter rang into the thin and shining air.

      Somebody yelled that this was the southeast “carner” of the main patch; but in this wilderness, how could anybody know?

       Now some of the hunters, having slain all they could make shift to get aboard, were returning. Open came the loops of the lines; swiftly the nimrods laced their “tows.” They cut holes in the edges of the sculps, passed the ropes back and forth through these, and made a peculiar, complicated knot. A turn of rope served as a grip for the left hand. The long end was passed over the right shoulder, wrapped round the arm, and firmly held by the right hand. Lacing a tow is something of a trick in itself.

      Through ice defiles and around pinnacles they toiled, each “scotin’ his tow,” bending far forward with the weight of the load. From every man’s shoulder, thus toiling, swayed and swung his gaff. Over plaques of virgin white — white no longer when they had passed! — the hunters came labouring shipward. Long, wavering lines of colour formed; they joined to broader roads, all converging on the Terra Nova. Crimson trails, these, such as no otherwhere on earth exist. Man’s mark and sign and signal in the North.

     On and on, over the glazed, shining surface the red trails lengthened. A few whitecoats were still bawling, wopsing their puffy, furry bodies about, but now only a few. And even those would very presently be attended to.

     The whole world lay beaten by a drenching surf of wind that paralyzed; but still I stood and watched as who would not? In came the sculps, fur side to the ice, flesh side quivering like currant jelly — quivering and smoking. The thin steams of life departing, not yet quite gone, hung tenuously. And on those sculps the flippers wagged and waved like little hands, bidding farewell for ever to the world of ice. No longer white, the whitecoat sculps had become redcoats. Red indeed! Here, there, a “round-swile,” which is to say one as yet unskinned, was trailing at the end of a gaff.

      Some of the seals, appallingly vital creatures, are not at all dead as they are hauled in on gaffs. They writhe, fling, struggle. Here comes a baby with a gaff point jammed through its jaw. Here, a mother seal, bleeding in slow and thick runnels. Both, at the ship’s side, are rolled belly up and slit. They gush.

      On the bridge Cap’n Kean jubilantly makes oration:

     “Out with them straps, now! Look alive an’ throw out them straps. You, there, come on aburd now, b’ys. John, kill y’r seal — don’t sculp ’em alive. Now, ‘aul out y’r whipline! Stand by with that whipline, you over with it. Take ’em on the after winch. Lots of ’em there, to winnard, now. Jump overboard, some o’ you fellers! There you are, me sons; there’s a great lead. Turn to y’r left, you two! An’ you, there, don’t putt y’r gaff p’int dowa! Remember, arr hole in a skin, aft o’ the fippers, is ten cents out o’ y’r pocket. Now then, aburd with ’em. Look yary!”

      Out go the straps, ropes with the ends spliced together. The gory-handed fellows on ice haul the tow lines from the sculps and run the straps through the hole in each sculp where the flipper has been cut out. Bitter cold means nothing to them. Hard work and the wine of excitement warm them; I, meanwhile, shiver in heavy overcoat and cap of fur.

      The straps passed through a bunch of sculps, and the “wire” or rope from the winch dragged out from its pulley on a spar, by the whip-line, eager men hook the strap of seals to the wire.

       “Go ‘eed de winch!” shouts a huge-booted, thin-faced man standing precariously on top of the rail. With a roar and rattle, a hissing of steam, the winch snakes up its quivering load. Shouting men tug at the whip-line, holding back the sculps as best they can from catching on the side-sticks. Up, up the ship’s side the sculps drag and then swing free, a heavy, dripping pendulum of hair, fat, skin, blood.

        “Walk back on de winch!” “Go ‘eed de winch!”

       Swiftly the sculps swoop, and plop! they fall on deck. Joyous hands grab, unhook, twitch out the now bright-red whip-line and fling it all a-sprawl once more far over the rail. The ship’s first bit of wealth is “aburd o’ dis-un.”.

      Again the same process. Exultation runs high. The rail reddens; so, too, the coaly deck. Lusty toilers are meantime, with “seal-dog” hooks and ropes, hauling the round-seals up and in. Once on board, the men pelt these in a jiffy.

     “More in the scoppers, me sons,” warns the Cap’n. “Take ’em down in the scoppers more. Don’t get blood ahl over the deck!”

      A comfortable pile of fat accumulates, smoking. Meantime, work is still under way on ice, alongside. Men are sculping there, bent double. The oppressive, sickly sweetish smell of fresh blood drifts up. Bright cascades flood the deck. Milk spurts, mingles with the blood; gutters away.

      One round-seal is so big they have to winch it up; and thereat they cheer. Men on ice are jabbing their gaffs into pans, winding up their tow ropes around foot and knee; making the ends fast; heaving them, still a-drip over their shoulders. Every carcass, I see, has the scutters left on it. This gives each skinned body the appearance of wearing fur boots.

     A few more round-seals come dragging on gaffs. The ice grows spotted with disjecta membra. Some of these twitch and quiver. One can see the ripple of muscles in carcasses that, dead, still protest death.

     Men jostle and crowd along the rails, flecked with red snow. On the rails, blood freezes.

       Those who have had no hand in the slaughter envy their more fortunate brethren. Alas, that there are not seals enough to go round; enough to warrant everybody “goin’ away!” The disappointed ones grip their gaffs, adjust their tow lines. Next time, perhaps— ?

      Lest anything be left alive, the Old Man looks abroad; with loud and joyful shouting directs the tag-ends of slaughter. From high up on a step at the end of the bridge, he gesticulates, bellows:

      “Go get evverythin’ with hair on it, me sons! Here, Skipper Tom, can’t you cross that lead? Jump on that piece o’ slob, man — it’ll hold — it’s broad as Paddy’s blanket! I’d like to putt on skin boots, meself, an’ try me luck! You two men, there’s a scattered one off to winnard. Get ’em! Rate behind that wad of ice — there, there! Jump out there, Moores, an’ bat that one! There, now,” as someone falls ker-splash! into the waters of an open lead, “what ye mean, makin’ a hole in the ocean that way? Look where y’re at, man! Wait, now,” as the unfortunate scrambles out on a drifting pan, “bide where y’re to. Don’t jump, yet. Now, now-ah, knew y’d make it! Go on; more seals! Go on, me lucky b’ys!”

           Along the rail:
          “Dey ahl deed, now, cl’ar o’ one young un, a-dere. Deed as a dick.”
          “An’ dat un deed, now. Picco, ‘e bat un, ahl rate.”
          “What was they, mostly, brud? Ole harps or beddamers?”
          “A wonnerful fine rally, sarnly, fer de first-off!”
           From the bridge I hear the Old Man again: “I hate to kill these seal, I do, indeed. It fair pains me!”
           Astonishment! Has the Cap’n gone mad or turned tenderhearted? Neither. For now he adds:
          “They’re so wonderful small; some of ’em ‘ardly worth the bother. If they could only have been let grow another week — “
          I understand and mentally apologize to the excellent Cap’n for having misjudged him.

      The kill draws to its close for lack of killable material. Odd bits and random observations: Three men running for a pan with a trio of whitecoats thereon, and one bitch. She escapes, hunching herself along with a speed truly amazing. All three whitecoats are killed and sculped in a minute. The swiftness of it amazes. Yet the technique is perfect. Two or three very swift cuts open the whole body, exposing the rich white fat. Niagaras of blood cascade. A seal appears to be merely a bag of blood and fat. The head of the skin is rapidly but perfectly dissected off. How the enormous eyeballs stare!

     The body itself looks surprisingly small and thin; a mere muscular core to all that huge obesity. Yet I am told that a seal, hard put, can for limited distances swim at the rate of 100 miles an hour; and this, too, using only the scutters.

     One very small whitecoat is stabbed, dying; but, after all, is overlooked. Too small, perhaps. The men leave him. Not worth bothering with, after all. He welters and dies. Wasted. Somehow this saddens one. Not so bad when used!

    The cook issues from his galley with a sharp knife and begins cutting flippers from sculps.

      “Fipper f’r tea,” he smiles at me. “An’ wonnerful fine meat dat is too, sir, widout ye l’ave a bit o’ fat on it. Evvery laysses’ little bit ‘ve got to be skun off. De Ole Man got to ‘ave fipper. Ah, ain’t ‘e de b’y to eat un, dough?”

    I wonder if I, too, am going to eat flipper? Probably. Nothing astonishes one, here.

   Now “Marky” is bidden to his labours, and the wireless begins to whine. It shoots the glad news to others, that the Terra Nova is “into the young fat.”

    Men bring a “jig,” or steelyard, up on deck, and weigh four of the old-fat sculps. One tips the yard at ninety pounds. At this, all rejoice. Such heavy fat augurs a big bill.

     A pandemonium of jubilation bursts forth as now the hated Thetis (she whose boat we carried off) comes crashing through ice on our port hand, and rams into the now depleted seal nursery. Too late! Dejectedly she ploughs on and away, without getting so much as a smell of young fat. Howls of derision, catcalls, gibes pursue her. Our own spirits soar in unison with the depression of those aboard the rival.

     “Come ashore now, ahl hands!” orders the Cap’n; the word “ashore” in Newfoundland ship talk meaning “aboard.” “We’re goin’ on, now. Maybe goin’ to get another rally ‘fore night!”

     Night is approaching. The west is beginning to flame with gold and scarlet. But still enough light may endure for a bit more slaughter. The men cheer and laugh as they swarm in. Up ropes and over side-sticks, red-painted now, they escalade with the agility of apes. They catch the rail with gaffs, haul themselves to the rail, leap over to the reeking deck.

      “Easy ‘starn!” from the Old Man. The engine-room bell jangles. Out backs the Terra Nova from the bottom of the “bay” where she has lain. The archaic engines begin to thud and thump again, like a tired heart. Away the ship surges, away from that red-blotched place of desolation where, save for some few frightened survivors still surging in sunset-glinted waters, all seal life has vanished. The first “whitecoat cut” has been made. Man has passed.

      Away the ship grinds, crushes, shudders through the floes, but now with how exultant a spirit! Her men are different men. For the first honours of the spring are the Terra Nova‘s. She is now, as till the end she remains, “high-liner” of the fleet.