05 Whale Adventure Read Free Page B

same procedure. Then they returned their pans at the galley window.
    ‘You’ll soon get the hang of it,’ said the sailor who had supplied them with the rope-yarn. ‘My name’s Jimson. Any time you get stuck, perhaps I can help you out.’
    ‘Thanks a lot,’ said Hal, and introduced himself and his brother. ‘But I don’t understand it. Here we are still in harbour - there surely ought to be plenty of fresh water on board.’
    “And so there is,’ agreed Jimson. ‘But you never know when you leave port on one of these sailing tubs how long it will be before you make port again. You’re pretty much at the mercy of wind and weather. ‘Course, you could fill up the hold with tanks of water, but then what would you do for space to store your whale oil? And, believe me, the skipper puts whale oil before water. Whale oil means money, water only means lives. If it came right down to it, I’m sure he’d rather have a few of us go raving mad o’thirst than crawl back into port with a light load o’ oil.’
    ‘But you must use water to wash your clothes,’ Hal said.
    ‘We do - but not fresh water. Come back and I’ll show you. There’s our clothes-line.’ He pointed to a coil of rope beside a barrel. ‘Once we get moving we’ll soak our dirty clothes in that barrel - it contains a weak acid solution - then we’ll tie them to the end of that line and throw it overboard. We’ll drag that bundle of clothes through the sea for two or three days, and when we haul it out I’ll bet the clothes will be as clean as if you had put them through one of those newfangled washing-machines. Of course, there may be a few holes in them where the sharks have closed then’ jaws on them.’
    “Do the sharks ever tear them off that line?’
    “No. One taste, and they let them go. That’s what usually happens. But a couple o’ months ago one fool of a shark swallowed the whole bundle. Probably there was some blood on the cloth that made him think it was edible. That shark must have been real surprised when be found he couldn’t get away. He was towed behind the ship nobody knows how long until someone noticed him floundering about and hauled him in. We opened him up and there were our clothes. They had to be dragged another three days to get the shark-smell out of them.’
    The boys did very little sleeping that night. They could not make their bones comfortable on the hard boards of their bunks, and they were too excited by their new surroundings and the trip before them.
    There were about twenty other men in the room, some trying to sleep, others sitting on the edges of their bunks talking and smoking. The smoke from their cigarettes and pipes, the fumes from the whale-oil lamps, the smell of blood and blubber and bilge-water - all this plus the heat made breathing difficult. The boys were not sorry when at four in the morning the second mate bellowed down through the hatch:
    ‘All hands on deck!’
    In the grey light of dawn the Killer sailed from Honolulu. On the right lay Pearl Harbor, scene of death and destruction when Japan entered the Second World War. As if to balance this place of terrible memory, on the left was one of the loveliest and happiest spots in the world -the long curve of Waikiki Beach and bold Diamond Head wearing the pink halo of approaching sunrise.
    Roger, standing by the rail enjoying the view, was roused by a kick in the rear that almost lifted him from the deck. He turned, fighting mad, clenching his fists for battle. The bulging eyes of Captain Grindle glared down at him.
    ‘I’ll have nobody loafing on this ship,’ growled the captain.
    ‘Sorry, sir, I was just waiting for orders.’
    ‘You’ll get your orders in the seat of your pants if you don’t step lively.’ He looked round with a sly grin. ‘I’ll find you something to do.’ He scanned the deck for a job that would be hard enough, something that would tax the strength and courage of a young boy. Finally he glanced up the