Codes of Survival -Scripts - a series of short factionalized stories based on historical events in the Subantarctic Islands written by Lloyd Godman to accompany the exhibition and installation - 1993 - © Lloyd Godman

Codes of Survival - Scripts

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1809 -  THE BROKEN LINKS OF A SEALER'S CHAIN

Strike it had been an apt day.

A man loses a sense of time in the frenzy of the kill,with gudgeon in hand and the haste of work to be done there is no twinkling to revere the splendour of the domain about one. These beasts, not long ago alive on the rocks, they now be dead from our work. The seals that escaped the confusion of the kill by a swim to sea, shall have to wait another day, for so intent on our kill were we, their escape raised hardly the brow of an eye. 

But the kill had been a bountiful one, with over one hundred and twenty fully grown seals, and but a few young pups, now dead on the rocks and sand red with blood. It was a sly and secret location, a place not known to another, out of a ships eye on Bristow's land.  It was an easy one to get to, not by ropes dangled down a hundred  feet or more, from a rocky cliff top as we had been lowered before for less than a dozen beasts. ( That was hard and treacherous work that any man could well do without). Nor was it  through some wretched track that had to be cut through the tangles of brush by force of hand. No, here, a ship could anchor less than a chain away from the shore and be safe in all weathers, though we'd still been left for a month or more there's about before the ship's return.

We were in the relative silence of the islands lee so now that the noise and intensity of the kill was over we could sense that outside the island confines was a real wild storm we wished not once to best be in. But it was sheltered here, even warm and the roar of the wind in the bending branches above on the hill mattered not. Nor did the turmoil of wind driven water that pounded the windward coast and beat  about the shores amid the rock cliffs, from  where we had sailed the day before. Our shore boat was high up the bank, though it  was as safe as any sailor in church from the waters of this cove. We were sheltered for the time and the challenge of the ocean  could wait until we were ready before we would have to find another bay further down the curve of coast.

The smell of these blubbery beasts enticed the large blue flies into a frenzy and we cursed everyone of them for they can blow a woollen garment in the space of ten minutes or  the turn of ones back. The carcasses of  these beasts lay, in places three deep  where they had died and it would be some work to render them down at  the "Hall of smells". The over awing stench of this process was the worst  of it all.  Though this at least was a place we  could set up the try, and with some  effort could yield them down, unlike the places where they were left to rot and as the old hands reckoned, then no seal would  return to this foul place for years to come.

Tired though we were, we all knew there was ample to do before our catch could be counted  in rolled, salted skins and prime barrels of oil below in the hold of our barque, when she did at last returned. First we would begin the skinning with the sharpest of knife while later the other gang could finish the rendering down of the carcasses, for this would take time enough. But here we may be for weeks, just with this hand- some lot. As we worked the sun even broke through the thick vaporous clouds and small  green parrots called with curiosity above in the twisted limbs of the iron wood trees that seem to litter the land and all the sky above. The brown  sea hawks that are a plague to this place, following us everywhere we go in these parts, became a  large group that set about devouring everything we cast aside. They squawked and skirmished over the slightest morsel in a clumsy display with manners worse than our own.

About 3 O'clock in that afternoon the gang leader signaled a stop for a break and well  earned drink. We had chosen a place just in side the forest canopy with our gaze out through the curving trees toward the ocean and a spot from where we could survey the fine catch of seals on the rocks. I remember, there was the crack of burning logs amid the rich glow of embers and flames, and showers of smoky sparks as we poked the camp's fire in conversation. The beads of sweat hung thick on our brows as covered in a mix of this human grind and seal blood we passed the grog bottle from one set of chaffed lips to the next for a well earned swig. We wiped our brows with a forearm, sniffed back the snot and joked the wickedness from before the mast. I remember as Jones pulled the bottle away from me the liquid spilling; the cold trickle running  down my stub bled chin and right down my chest to the grey mat of hair.

At this point there was a crash in the  undergrowth and an enormous roar as a large  bull or wig as we call them came charging from the thickets through the trunks and fallen branches of the iron wood towards us on his  way to the ocean. Initially this was a startling  fright to us all, even though we had killed so many of them earlier in the day. Upon gathering some sense, I reached out for my stick and by the time the handle was raised to enforce a kill on the beast saw it crash into Jones sending him and the bottle in opposite directions. With a smash of green glass on the rocks and a bemoaning cry from Jones I beat the beast across the skull with the whipping chain. 

The first blow was off the mark and it took several strong well directed blows of the gudgeon before it lay dead on the forest floor with all of us panting and laughing at Jones, still moaning with pain. The man swore and  cursed as we laughed at his plight. We reeled on the ground, us in jest and him in pain. 

It was no joke as a matter of fact, as his brother had been killed by a heard of wild seals that  were trapped in a cave, during a kill and came charging out on top of three men in the hunting party. All were trapped and then cut or crushed by these rampaging beasts, with  only but one alive to tell the sad tale.  After the joke had passed and we were sober enough to stand upright, Jones had told us the tale and it was then that I realised that this was no joke, not one at all. 

I went to lift the gudgeon to find to my dismay that the chain had broke and must have flown  far into a thicket of scraggy undergrowth, perhaps on the last stroke. Most men here use a stout  stick for the kill, but I had made this gudgeon  with the chain on the end which worked more than well enough for me.
We searched for an age, but the secret spot where the chain concealed itself eluded all our efforts and the entanglement of ferns claimed its possession in the end. The direction to which it  had gone was hard to tell. For this forest is thick with a growth on the ground that is protected by the branches above. For a place to hide is easily found in any a tight nook and cranny and for all I know, the fragments and splinters of dark  green glass from the broken bottle and the oiled links of chain may still lie there as I write, for we found or removed neither