Chapter 18
We Hunt In The Vicinity Of The Permanent Camp

I studied the waters carefully.

“It will be soon now,” said Imnak. It was not that he had been consciously counting, but rather that he had, doubtless from his experiences in such matters, a sensitivity to the rhythms involved, and the increase in their intensity, given the stress of the beast.

The chill waters seemed very quiet. Here and there pieces of ice drifted in them.

The pebbled shore lay some half pasang away, behind us.

I could see smoke from the permanent camp.

Five men, besides myself, waited in the large skin boat, the umiak. It was some twenty feet in length and some five feet in its beam. The skins which were sewn over its frame, interestingly, were those of tabuk and not sea sleen. The skins were stretched over a framework, lashed together with sinew cord, of driftwood and long bows of bone.

The waters did not stir.

Usually such a boat is paddled by women, but no women were now within it. One would not risk a woman in our current work, even a slave beast.

“It is nearly time now,” said Imnak.

Many times the umiaks, or the light, one-man vessels, the kayaks, do not return.

“Be ready,” said Imnak.

The waters seemed very still.

I grasped the long harpoon. It was some eight feet in length, some two and a half inches in diameter. Its major shaft was of wood, but it had a foreshaft of bone. In this foreshaft was set the head of the harpoon, of bone, drilled, with a point of sharpened slate. Through the drilled hole in the bone, some four inches below the slate point and some four inches above the base of the head, was passed a rawhide line, which lay coiled in the bottom of the boat. As the hole is drilled the line, when it snaps taut, will turn the head of the harpoon in the wound, anchoring it.

Suddenly, not more than a dozen feet from the boat, driving upward, rearing vertically, surging, expelling air in a great burst of noise, shedding icy water, in a tangle of lines and blood, burst the towering, cylindrical tonnage of the black Hunjer whale.

I hurled the harpoon.

“Now!” cried Imnak.

Four feet of the shaft disappeared into the side of the vast mammal.

The line, uncoiling, snapping, hurtled past me, upward. The monster, as though it stood on its flukes, towered forty feet above us, the line like a tiny thread, billowing, leading downward to the boat.

“Look out!” cried Imnak.

The beast, grunting, expelling air, fell downward into the water. There was a great crash, that might have been heard for pasangs. The line was now horizontal. The boat was half awash. We were drenched. My parka began to freeze on my body. With leather buckets four men began to hurl water from the boat. The air was thick with vapor, like smoke, the condensing moisture in the monster’s warm breath, like a fog, or cloud, on the water. I saw the small eye of the monster, that on the left side of its head, observing us.

“It is going to dive,” said Imnak. As he pointed ice broke from his parka.

Imnak and another man began to draw on the line, to pull us to the very side of the monster.

The other hunters in the boat, discarding their buckets, seized up their lances, slender hunting tools, with fixed heads, commonly used not in throwing but in thrusting.

I reached out with my hand and pushed against the side of the mammal. The Hunjer whale is a toothed whale.

Beside me now Imnak and the other hunters, ail with lances, began to drive them, like needles, into the side of the animal, again and again.

Its flesh shook, scattering water. I feared the side of the umiak would be stove in.

It grunted.

“Hold the line!” cried Imnak.

I held the line, keeping the umiak at the beast’s side, so that the hunters could thrust into it at point-blank range.

Then the animal’s eye disappeared under the water. I saw the flukes rearing up.

“Give it line!” cried Imnak.

I threw line over the side.

The flukes were now high above us, and the animal’s body almost vertical. The line disappeared under the water.

It was gone.

“Now we will wait,” said Imnak. “And then it will begin again.

I looked down at the placid waters. We would wait, until it began again.

The waters seemed very calm. It was hard to believe that we were attached, by a thin line, to that great form somewhere below us. There was some ice in the water about us. The wind scattered the breath of the monster, dispelling the cloud of vapor.

On the pebbled shore, some half pasang away, behind us, I could see smoke from the permanent camp.

I was very cold. I would like some tea when we returned to camp.