Heaven Is a Place (A Place Where Nothing Ever Happens)

Remarks Sunday 13th of September 1868, 462nd Day

Strong winds from the S all day cloudy. Saw two spm. whales and lowered boats but caught nothing. We have not caught something in quite some time but we do see the whales often which makes us all anxious. Tobey says they are playing a game with us and I said Well I would not want to play a game where someone might end up killing me at the end and Tobey said Isn’t that what we do. He is right but o if I were a whale I would stay as far away from ships as I could I wouldn’t ever let men see me I would go down to the deepest part of the ocean as soon as I saw their sails. It’s a pity for them and a mercy for us that whales have such poor eyes it seems. They haven’t even necks to turn to look behind them or above them out of the water. But still they manage to run away! 

It is a sad and funny little game that we play together the whales and us. I sometimes like to think that at the end of all this when I leave this world I’ll find all the whales I’ve darted waiting for me and well what will I have to say to them. Should I say I’m glad to see you my friends I’ve missed you and I’m sorry if it hurt. Well I shouldn’t say if as I know that it did. But o would you like to play it again? I’ll play fair this time. I’ll give a shout when I’m on my way. Olli-olli-olli-olli-oxen-free.

On bad days I do think that this ship is Hell for us and not just the whales. The only way I know that it’s not is that when I keep my journal I write the date at the top and it marches forward day by day. But in Heaven there’s no more time to measure just the long voyage that goes on forever…

There comes a point when you’re sailing where you stop being so homesick because you’ve forgotten what home is like and all your life is the ship. You pace from fore to aft and you look out at the water and you say Yes this is the whole world and I am content with it.

And when that day comes I’ll let you know!

But the whales are running not because they know that we’re here but because they have their own business to attend to somewhere far away though I do not know what it is. I imagine them all packing their bags and nudging their children to get moving as they have to go pay a visit their aunts and uncles and grandmothers off the coast of Japan. It’s a long way for a social call! But there must be a great feast waiting for them up there.

We may stop in port on our way following them as we are heading up north back towards the equator and even higher than that but we may not. We have plenty of supplies and the master does not have as much good news to report back home as he might like. I would like to stop in port but it isn’t up to me of course.

Barometer 29.9 and falling.

Remarks Monday 14th of September 1868, 463rd Day

Terrible wind from the SW and rain all day. Saw a whale even though we could barely see anything in this weather. Lowered the boats and chased but lost it and all were worse for trying. Barometer 29.7.

Remarks Tuesday 15th of September 1868, 464th Day

Heading N with the whales hopefully we will not be outrun by them and will keep pace to catch as many along the way as we can. There are many sails in this area we have seen but most are merchant vessels coming out of Australia’s ports on their own business. Even if they were whalers we would not have time to stop and gam all are in too great of a hurry to follow the whales. Weather has been very bad but not bad enough to make us pull down our sails and wait it out. One year into this voyage we have only 350 bbls of oil not much as many of the whales we have caught have been small ones and so even the master who is a calm man is anxious about arriving at the right whaling grounds at the right time of year. 

I have been working on a little whale figurine carving from some of the wood I collected some time ago. I would have done it out of ivory but I gave all my teeth to Tobey and besides wood is easier to whittle so I don’t mind. I don’t know if I should give my whale a spout or not though maybe I should put a hole in him where the spout goes and make it big enough to hold a pencil so that it can act as the spout. I would hate to make a mistake and have it be ugly but I have plenty of wood and more than enough time to carve another if I do it wrong. Though perhaps this one is too small to hold a pencil it would look too odd it is only about as big as my palm since I was as tight with the wood as I am with anything else. I should make a larger one next and then this one can be its baby.

Tobey has been carving down teeth into dominoes it is a tedious task but all are eager for him to finish it and several other people have furnished him with their teeth so that we can all benefit by having a new set to play with. The first mate in a fury threw several decks of cards overboard some time ago and we have been suffering that loss ever since. I tried making more out of my paper but even when you paste two pages together it does not play as well as a real deck of cards does so it was a poor substitute. I shall be glad when we make it to a real port and someone buys more as someone surely will. 

Gambling may be a sin but it does entertain us. And unless you gamble away your tobacco which will be smoked up faster than you can blink what was lost one day may be won back the next. I have gained and lost the same carved comb some five or six times. It is convenient to play a man at cards every time I want to fix my hair it’s one less thing taking up space in my own trunk! I just say O who has my comb shall we play for it and we do and I win it back and fix my hair and then I say Alright let’s play again and I lose it again. 

I have a terribly even-handed kind of luck that way.

Barometer 29.6.

Remarks Wednesday 16th of September 1868, 465th Day

Bad weather rough seas continue caught a whale mid afternoon commenced cutting but o it is hard. It is dirty and evil work but it must be done.

Remarks Friday 18th of September 1868, 467th Day

O we are in dire trouble. I should write down what happened yesterday as I can barely sleep. No one else here in the steerage can sleep either nor I’m sure in the officers quarters and probably not in the fo’c’sle either.

As I said we caught a whale at 6 P.M. on the 16th and as soon as it was fastened to the side of the ship we started cutting. The seas were terribly rough and when the mates were all on the stage planks cutting away the blankets from the whale they tied themselves down extra tight so they wouldn’t be carried away every time the ship got hit with a wave.

We cut until around midnight and then the master gave us some reprieve and told us to get some sleep aside from the watch. We did but by 4 A.M. we were back up even though with the clouds even when the sun came up we could hardly see. With all the grease on the deck and the way the waves were hitting us we were all almost flying off the sides of the ship.

Commenced boiling quickly and all was going well for a time we were making good progress still despite the weather being terrible.

The master was on deck as he usually is when there is work to be done. He is a hardworking man and for that he has had the respect of all of us. He was near the cooling tanks and KJ was bailing the oil into them I think the master was helping with the hose fittings or I don’t know what he was doing. But for just a moment a huge wave and gust hit us and the hot oil slopped out of the cooling tanks and KJ’s bailer and it got all across the master’s right side from his chest down to his foot his leg got the worst of it.

O I have seen and heard many awful things but this was one of the worst. His clothes were all covered in the boiling oil and they stuck to him so badly that the oil burned right down through his skin. I don’t know what he could have done aside from jump in the ocean to cool it but he’d have been drowned or eaten up by a shark right away if he did that and so he just tried to pull off his shirt and pants but he couldn’t or couldn’t fast enough and the damage was done. 

The first mate laid him out in his bed in his room but we all saw when he carried him in there how badly burned he was his leg was all red and bone white and the skin peeled off when they got his clothes off him. 

I do not know if he will survive I have never seen a man get burned like that before. He is awake now and says only his chest hurts his leg isn’t in much pain but o he must be lying because he can barely move when he bent his knee the flesh ripped right open you could see all the way down to the muscle the fat has peeled back like we were cutting into him like a whale.

All of us are keeping a kind of watch though what will happen we do not know.

Remarks Saturday 19th of September 1868, 468th Day

The master does not want to alarm anyone so he has not said aloud that he believes he is going to die but he is writing letters to the agent and to his wife and children and everyone else. Well his right hand is too badly burned for him to hold a pen he cannot curl his fingers around it even if he took his bandages off so he is dictating letters. He dictated the business letters to the first mate but then sent him out and asked if there were any among the crew who had a good enough hand to take dictation aside from the mates whose time he did not want to waste. I am well known for keeping a tidy journal as everyone has seen me writing in it every day so my name was put forth and I came in to the captain’s rooms to take his letters down for him.

Someone had moved the picture of his wife from over the table in the main cabin to right by his couch in his day cabin and he was looking at it when I came in. He should have been in his bed I think but there is no desk for someone to take dictation at in his bedroom. With the bandages on him no one could put any clothes on him they had tried but he just had a blanket over him covering his legs when he lay on the couch. 

I said Hello Sir I hope I can help with what you need. He said to me I never did ask you how you came to know how to read and write Amos. And I said Well my family was free for a long time even before the war and it was important that I was educated I got taught at the first Baptist church in New Bedford. He said That’s good.

I wrote down his letters for him and of course I will not rewrite them here. He told me to sign his name for him and I said Sir do it with your left hand so they know it was just dictation and I held out the papers for him and he did. 

He thanked me for my help and then he asked me if I thought the ship would be alright for the rest of the journey. I had to be very careful what I said I said Sir the first mate is a very capable sailor he knows everything about this ship and the crew will not give him any trouble. I think he knew that I was being cautious everyone knows what is thought of the first mate. I asked Do you really believe you are going to die and he said Well it is whatever God decides if it is just a burn it may heal but if it starts to rot there will be no saving me. He asked How many bbls of oil have we gotten from this whale and I said 40. Did you dart her he asked and I said Yes sir but I wish that I had not. He asked me why and I said 40 bbls of oil is not worth a good man’s life and he said Many more good men have gone for much less a price. He said I have been lucky I started as a cabin boy and I have survived many voyages so far but there is a time when every man’s luck runs out. 

He asked me if this was my second voyage or my third and I said second But I do not plan to go to sea again. He asked me why not as I could be third mate for the rest of this voyage and then second or even first on my next. It is a good way to advance for a negro. I said Yes but I wanted to stay home and marry and that I would find some other kind of work. This made him very sorrowful and he looked at his picture of his wife she really is a beautiful lady. I tried to make a joke to cheer him and so I said And besides in 4 or 5 more years I do not know if there will be any whales left in the ocean it seems like we are coming close to getting the very last ones. He just closed his eyes and said There will always be whales and there will always be a need to fish them. And besides you will miss the sea if you do not go back to it as I always did.

Yes sir.

Well since his eyes were closed I thought I should get up and go and let him sleep but I did not think I would have another chance to speak with him like this and I felt very odd and bold and I asked Sir may I ask a question that you will think is ridiculous. He said of course and I asked Do you think the whales will be there in heaven. And he said You’re a good man for making me laugh. Amos if the whales go to heaven then I’ll be heading to Hell. I’ll be sure to send a letter back on a mail packet to let you know how the weather is when I get there. I’ll check the barometer for you.

Our ship keeps heading N the first mate will have us keep moving regardless of anything else and I’m sure the master would never say to delay anything for his sake. Spent some of the day carving my figurine. Tobey’s dominoes are coming along well. O I am miserable.

Remarks Sunday 20th of September 1868, 469th Day

Continued sailing N. Weather improving.

Remarks Monday 21st of September 1868, 470th Day

Headwind has stopped us. No sails around if there were we would hail another ship and ask if they have a doctor. The master has a fever I suspect his leg is going septic though I have not seen it.

Remarks Tuesday 22nd of September 1868, 471st Day

We are still stopped with the headwind. The first mate gathered the crew and asked Has anyone performed an amputation. No was the answer. Then he asked Has anyone seen one be done. Several people raised their hands including Tobey which surprised me but all the rest had been soldiers during the war which I knew I had heard them talk about it. 

I have always been the odd one out on this ship because I was on a whaler all through the war which I sometimes feel terrible about but I signed on to a whaler and shipped out before the war started and I didn’t think much of it and then by the time we came back from the Pacific whaling grounds years later it was over. So I missed it all. Maybe I was lucky or maybe I was not I do not know.

The first mate said Is there any man who feels capable of doing one. No one said a word. I sometimes feel like I should have said something as the first mate then said Then I will do it and the boatsteerers will assist me. I do not know why he chose us and not David as the cook or John as the carpenter or even the second or third mates but Alfred had at least seen it done and Antonio has a good steady hand so maybe the three of us are fine choices of a bad lot.

Alfred asked Will it happen today and the first mate said No we will wait one more day and pray that we see another ship with a doctor. But this is a small hope.

I asked Tobey what it is like and he said You get him as drunk as he’s ever been and then some and then you give him some cloth to bite on so he doesn’t bite off his own tongue and then you hold him down so he doesn’t try to run away or kick and then you feel happier than you’ve ever felt in your life that it’s him and not you.

I think well 

O who cares what I think.