The End of Greasy Luck

Remarks Wednesday 25th of September 1868, 474th Day

Anchored off a small island I don’t know its name or even if it has one it’s not even two miles wide nothing but rocks and sand not even trees. There’s other islands like it around but they’re just as bare as this one. Only the second mate and a few others to watch the ship stayed on board the rest of us we rowed out in the boats and beached them up on the sand o it was the loneliest sight in the world. Dug a hole and laid him in it.

The whale’s jaw is his gravestone. We dug it a little into the sand and stood it up with a pile of rocks to hold it straight. In it we carved 

PAUL WILLIAMS MASTER OF THE BARK *WAMPANOAG* NEW BEDFORD BORN 1826 DIED SEPTEMBER 23RD 1868 22 YEARS AT SEA

The first mate well he is now the master he said some words. I don’t know what he was thinking all during it he is such a hard man to understand. He is a Quaker too so anyone else who wanted to say something before we put the dirt over him they could. I didn’t have anything to say what would I have to say. 

Well when we carried his body to the island he was in our boat so I had a chance to slip my little whale figure in the cloth he was wrapped in so that got buried with him too. Maybe it’s a pagan thing to do and maybe he wouldn’t have wanted me to put it there with him but o I could not stop thinking about what he said to me. If there are no whales in heaven Well I think he would want one there with him so he doesn’t miss the sea. And if there are Well I hope when this one starts heading its way up there he grabs on as tight as he can holds the line as long as he can hold it and gets towed right along. He was a boatsteerer once. He knows how it’s done.

KJ and Charlie shovelled the dirt back in the hole and most other people gathered rocks to stack over the grave or just walked around. Me and Tobey walked together. What did he say to me o he said he was surprised I was so sad. I said It’s a shame for any man to die. Tobey asked if I would cry if the first mate— well as I said he is now the master it will be hard to think of him that way. He asked if I would cry if he died. And I said I probably would.

He told me You’re too soft on people. I wouldn’t cry for him I hate him.

Maybe I am too soft I don’t know.

He said I saw you put your little whittling in his pocket when we were rowing over. You’re always giving people little things like that. Did you write something on it.

No I said. And he said You are a liar Amos I know it. 

Well how could I prove it either way and what did it matter he was buried now. But I just said And you will have to forgive me if I am.

He said Willie laughed at what you wrote on my tooth that time. He said I asked him what it said and why he was laughing and he told me.

I didn’t want to fight about it with Tobey. I just said Then sand it down and have Willie carve something else there. Or put another picture on the back yourself.

He didn’t say anything after that. 

It was windy and the whole sky was grey with low clouds I thought it might start storming before we got back to the ship but it didn’t. When we heard the call to come back and board the boats to leave this place I saw the grave at the top of the hill of sand that makes up this little island. I thought that the next storm that comes through here this will all be gone. Or even if it lasts that out all I can imagine is the sea rising up over this place covering it up drowning it all. And the whales swim over top of it and we look up at them from below. 

Remarks Thursday 26th of September 1868, 475th Day

Well now Master Paul is buried and we are sailing again we all have to go about the business of the ship. The master picked Alfred of the three of us boatsteerers to be third mate and KJ is a boatsteerer now rather than just a foremast hand. Tobey is more burned by this than I am he said that I should have been third mate. Well I don’t know. It isn’t up to me. I shouldn’t have told Tobey what Master Paul said to me that day. He must not have said what he did meaning to leave instructions for who would be promoted to what position because I do not think he would have been disobeyed even after he died.

The third mate asked me to show him how to read the barometer and what it meant. He had never done it before. I’m happy to help.

Remarks Friday 27th of September 1868, 476th Day

Heading ENE. Sunny early part of the day rain at noon cloudy until nightfall.

I eat with the foremast hands even though I have a place in the main cabin at the table. I just don’t like to be much in there. Master Paul’s wife’s photograph is still hung up above the table we put it there so that he could look at it while we were cutting. I just don’t like to be in there anymore.

Tobey said I should be happy to not be the one dying and maybe I should be grateful to the Lord for my good luck but you know I’ve never been able to watch a man in pain and not wish there was something I could do for him some way I could take it on for myself.

Remarks Saturday 28th of September 1868, 477th Day

Heading NE fine breeze. Rain midday clear by evening.

Antonio called me into the steerage earlier while no one else was there which I think was something of a miracle it is tight quarters. He said Amos Well I don’t know what to say to you but you are a sorry son of a bitch. Which may be true I am and I had nothing I could say to him aside from that. So I just said Well I am homesick and I think I have a touch of the scurvy. He said Open your mouth and he looked at my teeth and he said You don’t have scurvy. Well how would he know.

But he opened up his trunk and in there was the bottle of fine whiskey that came from Master Paul’s room that we had given him to drink. There was about half of it left and he said Let’s not let it go to waste.

It made me feel sick more than it made me feel happy but we passed that bottle back and forth until we had toasted to all there was to toast to. To Master Paul and the whales and all us poor devils here out on the ocean and to everyone else back home too. 

Antonio said I talked less about You these days and he asked me if I’ve given up on marrying You. I said no or I hope I haven’t given up but I think I only recently realized how long three more years is going to be. And every time I mention You Tobey says If she wanted to marry you and be faithful to you she would have done it before you left.

So I try to think about You less because even if Tobey is angry and he doesn’t know You there have been plenty of other men like me and God knows they have been as hopeful and faithful as I am. But of faith and hope and charity the greatest of the three is the third and I do not know my dear…

Antonio asked what I would do if You get married to someone else while I’m away. I said I don’t know. He asked if I’d forgive You and I said yes of course but I don’t know if I’d forgive myself for leaving. And would I find someone else to marry or what would I do with myself afterwards? Well I said I’d probably go back whaling until my luck runs out or the whales do. He laughed at me and raised the bottle to me and to You and to us until the end of all our greasy luck.

We were still drinking when KJ came in and he looked at the both of us and if he had asked for a drink o no man could have said no to passing him the bottle but instead he said Where did you get that and of course there is no way for that question to end in anything but trouble. Antonio said From my dear mother who loves me. And I said It’s mine. And KJ left.

When I was on watch later at night I tossed the rest of the bottle over the side. It’s a sin to waste but it belonged to Master Paul anyway. Let him enjoy the rest of it.

Remarks Sunday 29th of September 1868, 478th Day

Heading ENE. Light rain early but clear skies afterwards. Fair winds which make the journey much more pleasant.

The master said that there had been accusations of theft on board and he wanted to get to the bottom of it so he made everyone turn out their trunks and show him all they had. It must just have been an excuse to demonstrate his command or something like that because if there had been trouble in the crew about stealing from each other o none of us would have heard the end of it. If Antonio and I with our bottle provided that excuse to go through then I’m sorry for bringing it on everyone else.

There was plenty that he disapproved of in all the trunks but I was glad I had got rid of our bottle. Last thing Antonio and I need is trouble. What did KJ think he was going to gain or maybe he just doesn’t like me much I don’t know.

Tobey’s dominoes would have been something the master didn’t approve of he thinks gambling should be forbidden but Tobey luckily hadn’t carved the faces on all them yet just had been carving down the blanks. The master came to Tobey’s trunk and paid extra attention to it because of the trouble with the eggs last year. When he saw the dominoes he said What are these and Tobey took up all his ivories and he stuck them up in between his lips and his gums like little tombstones and clacked them together and said Well sir I’m making myself a new set of teeth. Or he tried to say so anyway. It was very funny but the master didn’t laugh he hates Tobey and he seemed ready to knock the teeth out of his mouth. I will have to be very careful I do not want any trouble for Tobey or myself but o three more years is a long time!

Remarks Monday 30th of September 1868, 479th Day

Winds from the SSE. Dull and cloudy all day but at least no bad weather.

Tobey is still angry about being searched yesterday and furthermore he told me that he’s out of tobacco which means that every time he feels the itch to light up a pipe he gets angrier. It’s a dangerous state of affairs so I will have to give him some of mine and tell him to not smoke it too fast. I will tell him to keep his hands busy so he thinks about it less it’s the kind of thing my mother used to say to me when I had something on my mind. I don’t know what good it ever did me since all I do is think even when I have my hands busy whittling or fixing sails or anything like that. Even when we’re rowing after a whale I have too much in my head. 

But I don’t know what I’ll do when I run out of tobacco. I don’t smoke too often I save it for just this reason. But it is a real comfort and when it’s gone it’s like you’re being smoked up from the inside to miss it. Another man would buy some more from the slop chest but Tobey can lean on me and I don’t mind him doing so. I’d rather him keep as much of his lay as he can since he’ll be glad to earn some money and if I can stop him from gambling away his clothes to try to get some more I’ll do that. 

If we end up at the Sandwich Isles there’s bound to be a place I can buy more tobacco for less than what the master charges on board. But all ports are made to trap sailors so I don’t know. And the master doesn’t seem inclined to go to port any time soon since we have whales to catch.

It is now 9 ½ P.M. When I gave Tobey the tobacco he looked at me very funny and he said Amos I think you are beginning to scare me. I asked him why he said that and he said Last man I knew who started giving away all his valuables and worldly goods well he went off and hanged himself not even a week after. 

This surprised me more than anything else I’ve heard in my life and well that is quite a surprise because I came back from my last voyage and heard about two years of news in one day. O I have been miserable but every whaleman gets this way at some point in the voyage I think. Some of them desert but I keep my lay fixed right in my mind and you don’t get your pay if you desert either to some tropical port or Hell. 

So I said And you think I’m likely to hang myself? He said No I think you’d jump into the ocean. I said Well you know I can swim so that would be a very stupid way to try to do it. I would just be swimming there in the water like a seagull until a shark got me and I don’t like the idea of that. And he said Yes hanging would be easier but the master would charge for the rope. 

Tobey is funny he does make me laugh. 

I asked him why he said all that and he said that he saw me tossing away my bottle overside (it was Master Paul’s but I didn’t say that) and I give half my meals to whoever wants it and I am here giving him enough tobacco to last two or three months. Four if he’s careful.

I said Well faith hope and charity. What is any good to other people but the third. Probably it’s good for me too.

Tobey said You don’t even check the barometer any more.

That is a silly thing for him to say since he knows very well why I don’t. But I said Alright I’ll check it right now if it will make you happy. He said Well I don’t care. But it is nice that he does I have said many times it is good to have a brother on this ship.

Barometer 30.1.