They scanned the ocean in silence, with just the hoarse cries of a few black-backed gulls wheeling overhead on dawn patrol. Suddenly, Rollo’s arm shot out. A patch of whorls and eddies ruffled the still surface of the ocean a hundred yards directly offshore. A few moments later, the whale broke water and blew – two distinct jets, fanned by the wind, caught in the sun’s earliest rays.
‘Right whale,’ observed Rollo, identifying the species from its forked spout. But Conrad was already gone, padding down the side of the dune on to the beach. The whale blew four more times before sounding.
For over an hour they tracked the leviathan on its journey eastwards, their faces warmed by the rising sun. They walked in silence, not needing to share their thoughts.
Right whales hadn’t been sighted off Amagansett for decades. Hunted to near extinction, they had once been a cornerstone of life on the South Fork. Three hundred years previously, when a straggle of English families first appeared in the woods a few miles to the west, they found the local Montaukett Indians already preying on the migrating schools that roamed the ocean beach, going off through the treacherous winter surf in their dugout canoes. With the crude geometry of a child, those first white settlers pegged out a community around a slender marsh, fashioning cellar-shelters from the trees they had felled, naming their new home Maidstone after the English town in the county of Kent where most had sprung from.
Fourteen years later, when the hamlet rechristened itself East Hampton, the dwellings had crept above ground, the early ‘soddies’ replaced by New England saltbox houses clad in cypress shingles and insulated against the sharp winters with seaweed and corncobs; the marsh had been excavated to create the Town Pond; and the townsmen were in effective control of a small, burgeoning and highly profitable shore-whaling industry.
‘Away with you. Hoooo. Woooo.’
Conrad was dimly aware that they’d passed the Napeague Coast Guard station. Now Rollo was striding towards the water’s edge waving his arms in front of him. The whale had altered its course and was heading inshore at an angle to the beach. With a lazy flick of its giant flukes it sounded.
‘She’s goin’ to beach,’ cried Rollo. He started running, set on heading the whale off.
When Conrad caught up with him he was standing in the wash, oblivious to the waves breaking around him, scouring the ocean. Without warning, the whale surfaced beyond the white water to their left. At this short distance, the sheer bulk of the creature was overwhelming. It filled their field of vision, deadening all other senses.
‘Hooo. Woooo. Yaaaaa. YAAAA –’
A rogue wave caught Rollo broadside, slapping the wind from his lungs, sending him sprawling. Conrad hauled him to his feet, dragging him up the beach, but Rollo pulled free, stumbling back into the wash. The waves became clouded with rile, churned sand where the whale had grounded.
Conrad was struck by the bitter irony of the sight – Rollo Kemp, grandson of the legendary whaleman Cap’n Josh Kemp, the last man to take a whale off the ocean beach; Rollo Kemp pathetically hurling handfuls of wet sand in a vain bid to save a creature his grandfather had devoted a lifetime to slaughtering. Laughter filled his head. It was a few moments before he realized the sound was coming from behind him.
Gabe Cowan, Chief Boatswain’s Mate of the Napeague Coast Guard station, stood chortling uncontrollably, his creased face like weathered oilskin. A good-natured man, and a first-rate fiddler till arthritis turned his hands to gnarled claws, Conrad’s reproachful look seemed only to amuse him further.
‘It’s them krill,’ said Gabe.
‘What?’
‘Come up on the Gulf Stream then pushed inshore. She’s feedin’, off of the krill.’ He laughed some more.
Beyond the prancing figure of Rollo, the whale had turned parallel to the beach, sieving its breakfast from the ocean.
Conrad hurried over to Rollo. ‘Rollo, she’s feeding …’
Deaf to his words, Rollo’s face was wet with spray and tears. Conrad seized him, binding his arms to his sides, holding him tight.
‘It’s okay, she’s just feeding on krill,’ he said gently. Rollo’s struggles subsided, his eyes searching Conrad’s face.
‘Never seen it before,’ muttered Gabe, appearing beside them. ‘Sight to behold, boys, sight to behold.’
Conrad only released Rollo when he started to laugh. ‘Go get ’em,’ he yelled. ‘Go get ’em krill!’
Maybe his cries startled the whale, more than likely she had had her fill, but with some difficulty she swung herself around and headed offshore, presenting first her small end and then the giant fan of her tail as she kicked below the surface. They waited, watching. She showed briefly just beyond the outer bar, blowing only once before disappearing for good.
A summer flounder flapped weakly at the edge of the wash, stunned by its encounter with the whale.
‘Well, what do you know …’ said Gabe, taking two nimble strides and stamping down with the heel of his boot. ‘Lunch.’
They accompanied Gabe back to the Coast Guard station, reflecting on what they’d just witnessed. As far as any of them knew, the coastal wanderings of right whales had always been confined to the colder months, June at the very latest. What was it doing here at this time of year? Had it been alone? Where was it headed? Conrad contributed his share of idle banter, but his thoughts were elsewhere. The episode was somehow emblematic of the times. It was as if the turbulence of the past years had infected the ocean as well, disturbing the natural rhythms, disorienting its occupants.
‘You boys figure on haulin’ down?’ asked Gabe.
Rollo looked to Conrad to reply. They had planned to take the morning off, treat themselves to a well-earned rest, maybe set a gill net off Shagwong later in the day.
‘Seeing as we’re up,’ said Conrad, and Rollo beamed.
‘Set’s on the turn. Be one hell of a chop out there come noon.’
‘How else we going to make you earn that wage?’
‘That ain’t no wage, it’s a goddamn insult.’
‘Man your age, scavenging for his lunch?’ said Conrad. ‘The shame of it.’
Gabe glanced at the dead flounder and laughed. ‘That’s the truth.’
Everyone knew that Gabe had squirreled away a small fortune over the years, largely thanks to a case of temporary blindness contracted during Prohibition.
‘Wouldn’t bank on much of a haul,’ said Gabe. ‘When the wind’s from the east, the fish is least.’
He wandered up the beach to the Coast Guard station, a grandiose weatherboard affair perched high on the frontal dune.
Conrad turned to Rollo. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘Huh?’
‘For waking me.’
Rollo smiled. ‘Told you it was good.’
They ate a full breakfast on the front deck of Conrad’s house as they did every morning, weather permitting. The menu never changed – pork belly and eggs fried side-by-side in a skillet, sourdough bread smeared with butter, and strong coffee, black as caulking tar, thick enough to float a nail. Afterwards, over a smoke, they would discuss the fishing prospects for the day ahead, trading the little hearsays that were the lifeblood of the fishing community. ‘Old Emmett took a full charge of cow bass on the Two Mile Hollow set, none of them under thirty pound,’ Rollo would say, or ‘Lindy says the bluefish is running off of Cedar Point.’
To Conrad there was something deeply pleasing about the mundanity of his morning routine with Rollo, its repetitive, unchanging nature. He would