Chapter-5
This is the story of a place called Novastoshnah, or North East Point, on the Island of St. Paul, in the Bering Sea.
Only people who have regular business visit Novastoshnah as, for them, there are seals. They come in the summer months in large numbers as Novastoshnah beach has the finest accommodation for seals of any place around the world.
Sea Catch was a fifteen-year-old grey fur seal who used to swim every spring to Novastoshnah and spend a month fighting with his companions for a good place on the rocks, as close to the sea as possible. He had wicked dog teeth. When he heaved himself up on his front flippers he stood more than four feet clear of the ground. He was nearly seven hundred pounds. He was already to fight and had scars all over him from the previous fights. He would put his head on one side, as though he were afraid to look his enemy in the face; then he would shoot it out like lightning. When the big teeth were firmly fixed on the other seal’s neck, the other seal might get away if he could, but Sea Catch would not help him. But chasing a beaten seal was against the rules of the beach, so Sea Catch too never did that.
There was a small hill called Hutchinson’s Hill from where one could look over three and a half miles of ground covered with fighting seals.
The wives of the seals used to come till late May or early June as they never liked to be a part of the fighting. The young two-, three-, and four-year-old seals were called the holluschickie—the bachelors—and there were perhaps two or three hundred thousand of them at Novastoshnah.
One day, Sea Catch had just finished his forty-fifth fight when Matkah, his soft, sleek, gentle-eyed wife, came up to him. He caught her by the scruff of the neck and dumped her down.
It was not the fashion for Sea Catch to eat anything during the four months he stayed on the beaches. So, his temper was generally bad. Matkah knew better than to answer back. She knew that he would be angry at his wife as she was late this season in arriving. He was scratched and bleeding in twenty places; one eye was almost out, and his sides were torn to ribbons.
Matkah knew she had a chance to save herself from the anger of her husband. She said, “Why can’t you be sensible and settle your places quietly? You look as though you had been fighting with the Killer Whale.”
“I haven’t been doing anything but fight since the middle of May. The beach is awfully crowded this season,” replied Sea Catch.
“I often think we will be much happier if we leave this crowded place and go to Otter Island,” said Matkah.
“Only the holluschickie go to Otter Island. If we went there, they would say we were afraid,” said Sea Catch.
Sea Catch sank his head proudly between his fat shoulders and pretended to go to sleep for a few minutes, but all this time he was preparing himself for his next fight and looking for one too.
Sometimes all the old seals, mother seals, tiny babies and holluschickie would get on the beach fighting, scuffling, bleating, crawling, and playing together. It was noticed that there were thousands of seals that used to find their places on the beach of Novastoshnah.
Kotick, Matkah’s baby, was born in the middle of that confusion. He was all head and shoulders, with pale, watery blue eyes, as tiny seals must be. But there was something peculiar about him as he was white in colour. Matkah went and told this to Sea Catch.
“There never has been such a thing in the world as a white seal,” she replied. Sea Catch got surprised with what his wife had just told him.
“I can’t help that,” said Matkah, “He is white in colour.”
Then Matkah started talking to her son, “You must not swim till you’re six weeks old, else your head will be sunk by your heels.”
The little fellow did not understand the words and paddled about by his mother’s side, and learnt to scuffle out of the way when his father was fighting with another seal. Matkah used to go to sea to get things to eat, and the baby was fed only once in two days.
The first thing the white baby seal learnt was to crawl inland, where he met tens of thousands of babies of his own age and used to play with them. The first time that Kotick went down to the sea, a wave carried him out beyond his depth, and his big head sank and his little hind flippers flew up. If the next wave had not thrown him back again, he would have been drowned.
After that, he learnt to lie in a beach pool and let the wash of the waves just cover him and lift him up while he paddled, but he always kept his eyes open for big waves that might hurt him.
The seals began to leave St. Paul’s for the deep sea in late October and there was no more fighting over the nurseries. The holluschickie played anywhere they liked. Next year, Kotick would be a holluschickie but this year, he had to learn how to catch fish.
They set out together across the Pacific, and Matkah showed Kotick how to sleep on his back with his flippers tucked down by his side and his little nose just out of the water.
Matkah used to teach him how to follow the cod and the halibut along the under-sea banks; how to dance on the top of the waves when lightning was racing all over the sky; how to jump three or four feet clear of the water like a dolphin; how to leave the flying fish alone because they are all bony; how to take the shoulder-piece out of a cod at full speed ten fathoms deep. She also advised him never to stop and look at a boat or a ship, particularly a row-boat. At the end of six months what Kotick did not know about deep-sea fishing was not worth knowing. And all that time, he never set flippers on dry ground.
One day he was lying half asleep in the warm water off the Island of Juan Fernandez. He was feeling faint and lazy and remembering the good firm beaches of Novastoshnah seven thousand miles away and everything he did over there. Kotick’s fur was almost pure white and he always felt proud of it.
The same night, Kotick was dancing with the yearling seals. The sea was full of fire on summer nights all the way down from Novastoshnah to Lukannon. Each seal left awake like burning oil behind him and a flaming flash when he jumped, and the waves broke in great phosphorescent streaks and swirls.
Suddenly, a couple of black-haired men with flat red faces came from behind a sand dune. Kotick, who had never seen a man before, coughed and lowered his head. The men were no less than Kerick Booterin, the chief of the seal-hunters on the island, and Patalamon, his son. They came from the little village half a mile from the sea. They were deciding what seals they would steal to the kill to be turned into seal-skin jackets later on.
Suddenly, Patalamon said, “Look! There’s a white seal!”
Kerick Booterin said at once, “Don’t touch him, Patalamon. There has never been a white seal since I was born. Perhaps, it is old Zaharrof’s ghost. He was lost last year in the big gale.”
“I’m not going near him,” said Patalamon. “Do you really think he is old Zaharrof who has come back?”
“Don’t look at him,” said Kerick.
Patalamon rattled a pair of seal’s shoulder bones in front of a herd of holluschickie and they stopped dead. Then, he stepped near and the seals began to move. Kerick headed them inland, and they never tried to get back to their companions. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of seals watched them being driven, but they went on playing just the same. Kotick was the only one who asked questions, and none of his companions could tell him anything, except that the men always drove seals in that way for six weeks or two months of every year.
“I am going to follow those men,” he said. His eyes nearly popped out of his head as he shuffled along in the wake of the herd.
“The white seal is coming after us,” cried Patalamon. “That’s the first time a seal has ever come to the killing-grounds alone.”
“Don’t look behind you,” said Kerick, “It is Zaharrof’s ghost! I must speak to the priest about this.”
The killing grounds were just half a mile away from the sea. But it took an hour to cover because if the seals went too fast Kerick knew that they would get heated and then their fur would come off in patches when they were skinned. So, they went on very slowly. Kotick was still following them.
Within a few minutes Kotick could not recognize his friends any more as their skins were ripped off from the nose to the hind flippers, whipped off and thrown down on the ground in a pile. That was enough for Kotick. He turned and galloped back to the sea. On his way back at Sea Lion’s Neck, he met the great sea lions sitting on the edge of the surf.
“What happened?” asked a Sea Lion to Kotick.
“They’re killing all the holluschickie on all the beaches!” replied Kotick.
The Sea Lion turned his head in shore, “Nonsense! Your friends are making as much a noise as ever. You must have seen old Kerick polishing off a drove. He’s done that for thirty years.”
“It’s horrible,” said Kotick, backing water as a wave went over him.
“If you seals will come here year after year, of course, the men get to know of it. Unless you can find an island where no men ever come, you will always be driven,” said one of the Sea Lions.
“Isn’t there any such island?” began Kotick.
“You can go to Walrus Islet and talk to Sea Vitch. He may know something. It’s a six-mile swim, and if I were you I should haul out and take a nap first,” suggested the Sea Lion.
Kotick thought that was a good advice, so he swam round to his own beach, hauled out, and slept for half an hour and started his swim straight for Walrus Islet, a rocky island almost due northeast from Novastoshnah.
He reached the old Sea Vitch and found several big and ugly looking long-tusked walruses asleep.
“Wake up!” barked Kotick, for the gulls were making a great noise.
One of the walruses woke up by surprise and struck the next walrus a blow with his tusks and woke him up. The next struck and the next struck, and so on till they were all awake and staring in every direction but the right one.
They all looked at Kotick as they too had never seen a white seal. Kotick did not care to hear any more about it and said out loudly, “Isn’t there any place for seals to go where men don’t ever come?”
“Go and find out,” said Sea Vitch, shutting his eyes, “Run away. We’re busy here.”
“Will you tell, please?” said Kotick.
“Go and ask Sea Cow,” said Sea Vitch, “If he is living still, he’ll be able to tell you.”
“How will I recognize a Sea Cow even if I meet him?” said Kotick, sheering off.
“He’s the only thing in the sea uglier than Sea Vitch,” a voice came out from back.
Kotick swam back to Novastoshnah. There he found that no one sympathized with him in his little attempt to discover a quiet place for the seals. They told him that men always killed holluschickie and that if he did not liked seeing ugly things he should not have gone to the killing grounds. Even Sea Catch and Matkah didn’t support their son’s attempt to save all the seals.
This autumn he left alone with a motive to find Sea Cow. He wondered if there was such a person in the sea, and if he was going to find a quiet island with good firm beaches for seals to live on, where men could not get at them. So, he explored and explored by himself from the North to the South Pacific, swimming as much as three hundred miles in a day and a night but he never met Sea Cow. He never found an island that he could fancy.
Once he found an old stumpy-tailed albatross who told him that Kerguelen Island was a very peaceful and quiet place. When Kotick went to the place, it did not come up to his expectations.
For the next five seasons he kept exploring several places with four months’ rest each year at Novastoshnah. But everywhere, the people of the sea told him the same things. Seals had come to those islands once upon a time, but men had killed them all off.
One day on his way back to his own beach, he found an old seal which was dying. Kotick caught fish for him and told him all his sorrows. Now, he thought of ending his search after so many failures.
The old seal said, “Try once more. I am the last of the Lost Rookery of Masafuera. In the days when men killed us in large numbers and there was a story on the beaches that some day a white seal would come out of the North and lead the seal people to a quiet place. I am old, and I shall never live to see that day, but others will. Try once more.”
Kotick said, “I am the only white seal that has ever been born on the beaches, and I am the only seal, black or white, who ever thought of looking for new islands.”
When he came back to Novastoshnah that summer, Matkah, his mother, begged him to marry and settle down, for he was no longer a holluschick but a full-grown sea-catch. But he requested his mother to give him one more season for his search.
Soon he set off on his last exploration. This time he went westward and he needed at least one hundred pounds of fish a day to keep him in good condition. He chased them till he was tired, and went to sleep. After days of travel, he found Sea Cows at last.
Kotick asked them questions in every language that he had picked up in his travels but the Sea Cows did not answer because a Sea Cow cannot talk. Each of the Sea Cows had only six bones in the neck where it ought to have seven. They stay under the sea that prevents them from speaking even to their companions.
Kotick kept on waiting for some reply. Then, the Sea Cows began to travel northward very slowly. Kotick followed them. He just wished that he would get success this time. The herd was too slow as they never went more than forty or fifty miles a day. After some time, they stopped to feed at night.
One day Sea Cows suddenly increased their speed and travelled long miles at one stretch. Then suddenly, they passed through an underwater tunnel and then separated, and were browsing lazily along the edges of the finest beaches that Kotick had ever seen. There were long stretches of smooth-worn rock running for miles, exactly fitted to make seal-nurseries. There were play-grounds of hard sand sloping inland behind them, and there were rollers for seals to dance in, and long grass to roll in, and sand dunes to climb up and down. Best of all, Kotick knew by the feel of the water, which never deceives a true Sea Catch, that no men had ever come there.
The first thing he did was to assure that the fishing was good. Away to the northward, out to sea, ran a line of bars and shoals and rocks that would never let a ship come within six miles of the beach. Between the islands and the mainland there was a stretch of deep water that ran up to the perpendicular cliffs. Somewhere below the cliffs there was the mouth of the tunnel.
He began to think of the seal he had left behind him, and was now in a hurry to reach Novastoshnah as fast as possible. After a little rest, he started his way back and he knew that he had thoroughly explored the new country, so that he might be able to answer all questions.
Then, he dived and made sure of the mouth of the tunnel, and raced through to the southward. It would take him six days to reach home, and he swam as fast as he could. Finally, it could be seen by the look in his eyes that he had found his island at last.
When he reached back, Sea Catch, his father, and all the other seals laughed at him when he told them what he had discovered.
One of the young seals said to Kotick, “Remember we’ve been fighting for our nurseries, and that’s a thing you never did. You preferred exploring about in the sea.”
“I’ve no reason to fight for,” said Kotick, “I only want to show you all a place where you will be safe. What’s the use of fighting?”
A young seal said, “We have to win a fight for our nurseries. What have you fought for?”
Kotick then challenged the seal for a fight and if Kotick won the fight then the young seal would go with him.
He had no time to change his mind. Soon a fierce fight began. He threw himself back on his haunches and hauled his enemy down the beach, shook him, and knocked him over.
Then Kotick roared to the seals, “I’ve done my best for you for these five seasons past. I’ve found you the island where you’ll be safe.”
He flung himself at the biggest Sea Catch he could find, caught him by the throat, choked him, bumped him and banged him till he grunted for mercy. Then he threw him aside and attacked the next. Old Sea Catch, his father, saw him tearing past, hauling the grizzled old seals about as though they had been halibut, and upsetting the young bachelors in all directions.
Sea Catch gave a roar and shouted, “He may be a fool, but he is the best fighter on the beaches! Don’t tackle your father, my son! He’s with you!”
It was a gorgeous fight, for the two fought as long as there was a seal that dared lift up his head.
At night, just as the Northern Lights were winking and flashing through the fog, Kotick climbed a bare rock and looked down on the scattered nurseries and the torn and bleeding seals. “Now,” he said, “I’ve taught you your lesson.”
“Who comes with me to the Sea Cow’s tunnel? Answer me quickly or I shall teach you again,” roared Kotick.
“We will come,” said thousands of tired voices, “We will follow Kotick, the White Seal.”
Then Kotick dropped his head between his shoulders and shut his eyes proudly. He was not a white seal any more, but red from head to tail. All the same, he would have scorned to look at or touch one of his wounds.
A week later, he and his army went away north to the Sea Cow’s tunnel. Kotick led them, and the seals that stayed at Novastoshnah called them idiots. But next spring, more and more seals left Novastoshnah.
Kotick sat all the summer through, getting bigger and fatter and stronger each year, while the holluschickie played around him, in that sea where no man came.
