I was on the tarpaulin, wrapped in a blanket, sleeping anddreaming and awakening and daydreaming and generallypassing the time. There was a steady breeze. From time totime spray was blown off the crest of a wave and wet theboat. Richard Parker had disappeared under the tarpaulin. Heliked neither getting wet nor the ups and downs of the boat.
But the sky was blue, the air was warm, and the sea wasregular in its motion. I awoke because there was a blast. Iopened my eyes and saw water in the sky. It crashed downon me. I looked up again. Cloudless blue sky. There wasanother blast, to my left, not as powerful as the first. RichardParker growled fiercely. More water crashed against me. It hadan unpleasant smell.
I looked over the edge of the boat. The first thing I sawwas a large black object floating in the water. It took me a fewseconds to understand what it was. An arching wrinkle aroundits edge was my clue. It was an eye. It was a whale. Its eye,the size of my head, was looking directly at me.
Richard Parker came up from beneath the tarpaulin. Hehissed. I sensed from a slight change in the glint of the whaleseye that it was now looking at Richard Parker. It gazed forthirty seconds or so before gently sinking under. I worried thatit might strike us with its tail, but it went straight down andvanished in the dark blue. Its tail was a huge, fading, roundbracket.
I believe it was a whale looking for a mate. It must havedecided that my size wouldn't do, and besides, I alreadyseemed to have a mate.
We saw a number of whales but none so close up as thatfirst one. I would be alerted to their presence by their spouting.
They would emerge a short distance away, sometimes three orfour of them, a short-lived archipelago of volcanic islands. Thesegentle behemoths always lifted my spirits. I was convinced thatthey understood my condition, that at the sight of me one ofthem exclaimed, "Oh! It's that castaway with the pussy catBamphoo was telling me about. Poor boy. Hope he hasenough plankton. I must tell Mumphoo and Tomphoo andStimphoo about him. I wonder if there isn't a ship around Icould alert. His mother would be very happy to see him again.
Goodbye, my boy. I'll try to help. My name's Pimphoo." Andso, through the grapevine, every whale of the Pacific knew ofme, and I would have been saved long ago if Pimphoo hadn'tsought help from a Japanese ship whose dastardly crewharpooned her, the same fate as befell Lamphoo at the handsof a Norwegian ship. The hunting of whales is a heinous crime.
Dolphins were fairly regular visitors. One group stayed withus a whole day and night. They were very gay. Their plungingand turning and racing just beneath the hull seemed to haveno purpose other than sporting fun. I tried to catch one. Butnone came close to the gaff. And even if one had, they weretoo fast and too big. I gave up and just watched them.
I saw six birds in all. I took each one to be an angelannouncing nearby land. But these were seafaring birds thatcould span the Pacific with hardly a flutter of the wings. Iwatched them with awe and envy and self-pity.
Twice I saw an albatross. Each flew by high in the airwithout taking any notice of us. I stared with my mouth open.
They were something supernatural and incomprehensible.
Another time, a short distance from the boat, two Wilson'spetrels skimmed by, feet skipping on the water. They, too, tookno notice of us, and left me similarly amazed.
We at last attracted the attention of a short-tailed shearwater.
It circled above us, eventually dropping down. It kicked out itslegs, turned its wings and alighted in the water, floating aslightly as a cork It eyed me with curiosity. I quickly baited ahook with a bit of flying fish and threw the line its way. I putno weights on the line and had difficulty getting it close to thebird. On my third try the bird paddled up to the sinking baitand plunged its head underwater to get at it. My heartpounded with excitement. I did not pull on the line for someseconds. When I did, the bird merely squawked andregurgitated what it had just swallowed. Before I could tryagain, it unfolded its wings and pulled itself up into the air.
Within two, three beatings of its wings it was on its way.
I had better luck with a masked booby. It appeared out ofnowhere, gliding towards us, wings spanning over three feet. Itlanded on the gunnel within hand's reach of me. Its roundeyes took me in, the expression puzzled and serious. It was alarge bird with a pure snowy white body and wings that werejet-black at their tips and rear edges. Its big, bulbous head hada very pointed orange-yellow beak and the red eyes behind theblack mask made it look like a thief who had had a very longnight. Only the oversized, brown webbed feet left something tobe desired in their design. The bird was fearless. It spentseveral minutes tweaking its feathers with its beak, exposing softdown. When it was finished, it looked up and everything fellinto place, and it showed itself for what it was: a smooth,beautiful, aerodynamic airship. When I offered it a bit ofdorado, it pecked it out of my hand, jabbing the palm.
I broke its neck by leveraging its head backwards, one handpushing up the beak, the other holding the neck. The featherswere so well attached that when I started pulling them out,skin came off – I was not plucking the bird; I was tearing itapart. It was light enough as it was, a volume with no weight.
I took the knife and skinned it instead. For its size there wasa disappointing amount of flesh, only a little on its chest. Ithad a more chewy texture than dorado flesh, but I didn't findthere was much of a difference in taste. In its stomach, besidesthe morsel of dorado I had just given it, I found three smallfish. After rinsing them of digestive juices, I ate them. I ate thebird's heart, liver and lungs. I swallowed its eyes and tonguewith a gulp of water. I crushed its head and picked out itssmall brain. I ate the webbings ‘of its feet. The rest of the birdwas skin, bone and feathers. I dropped it beyond the edge ofthe tarpaulin for Richard Parker, who hadn't seen the birdarrive. An orange paw reached out.
Days later feathers and down were still floating up from hisden and being blown out to sea. Those that landed in thewater were swallowed by fish.
None of the birds ever announced land.