How the Whale Freed his Throat

Who knows of what a whale sings when he opens his throat and releases that deep, sonorous sound. If you hear it, then feel it, shivering over your skin as you stand on a windswept shore, you will be struck by its resonance: a force which passes all human understanding. But this is not a story of whales in the general: behemoths of the ocean; symbols for salt-shriven sailors everywhere. No, this tale is about a very particular whale and one mariner who had been, for a while, this giant’s lunch. 

The swallowing and regurgitating of the mariner had happened many tides before the one which propels our story forwards, on a frothy, wind-tossed wave. If truth be told the mariner had half-forgotten the intricacies of his brief sojourn, swallowed deep into the belly of the sea. Whenever he told his tale, to whichever newcomer came to raise a jar in The Crown and Anchor seeking to escape the driving surf which battered that stretch of Albion’s coast, regulars would lift their shaggy eyebrows and shake their salt-encrusted beards: there goes Bert, spinning that old yarn once more. Over the years, the mariner himself half thought his clever escape, the return to the land he longed for, might be a porkpie lie, baked with a bigger crust than the one his missus served him most nights for his supper. Only at night did the Whale return, swimming into his dreams, opening its cavernous throat to sing his haunting song, asking why the wooden raft the mariner had tied, all those moon-pulled tides ago, was still hooked fast, restricting his great gullet so?

It was regrettable he thought, tugging on his windcheater, stepping into his galoshes, day after rain-drenched, wind-beaten day, that it had to be so. But such an appetite as that Whale had, well he’d have emptied the seas at the rate he was going; yes, his actions were remedial and more than justified. For now, didn’t the seas teem with fish? Weren’t the boats set to sea at night, returning every morning with a plentiful haul? With such a catch in the nets, there couldn’t be another. He shook his head and let the wind whip the door from his hand; calling for Shep to come for his walk, he stepped into the blast of another day, the Whale snagging, as always, at the edge of his mind.

Far away, the Whale swam. With yawning mouth, he trawled the ocean, thousands of tiny krill filtering past the mariner’s raft, still stuckfast, a barb in his throat. His constant companion, the little Stute fish, kept him company. 

“Oh the things I could swallow, if only this barbarous hook was plucked from my throat,” he thundered at the little Stute fish who, luckily, was used to this canon of sound booming at his side. 

“Your throat this; your throat that. All you do is mope, mope, mope. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself: what sort of company are you, for me?”

“I’m sorry little Stute fish. I know what a big bore I must seem. But really, more and more, I wonder at all the things I could swallow."

“Have you forgotten where that great, guzzling appetite of yours got you last time? All the dace and the plaice you gorged on, not to mention your snacks on all those crabs and dabs. And where did it get you, that hunger of yours?” The Whale opened his mouth to speak, but the Stute fish spluttered on, “it got you that rather nasty morsel of the mariner; even when you’d retched him up on England’s shore, still he left that bitter after taste!” 

And he pointed with one shiny fin at the grating in the Whale’s throat: the mariner’s lifeboat-raft, still firmly fixed after all these years. 

The Whale sighed. “Still, the things I could swallow, with only half a chance.” 

And his song was a sob that the whole sea shuddered to hear. With a quiver it grew, wave upon wave, to a crescendo, pulsating out from the Whale and the little Stute fish. It carried them both on a swelling spring-tide the likes of which had never been seen before, in the small seaside hamlet where it broke. Old sea-dogs, who had lived the time-true adage “worse things happen at sea,” battened down the hatches, pulling their bed sheets over their ears and willing the howling in their chimneys to abate. 

Bert, the old mariner, out walking Shep the dog, didn’t head for home. While others heard wrack and ruin in the roar of the waves and the thunder of the wind, he thought he caught the strain of another sound: the song of the Whale who had swallowed him- yes- but spoken to him too, all those tides ago. 

“Do you hear that, Shep old boy? He’s come to find me at last, just like I knew he would.”

Shep looked back longingly, at the warmth of home, glinting hearth-fire lights from its windows, high on the headland.

“Come Shep. Call yourself a sheepdog? Just think there’s a lost lamb out there, needing a brave dog to bring him home to his flock.”

Shep whined, cocking an ear at the mad ramblings of his master. What sheep had he ever rounded up, owned as he was by an old mariner; an oar, not a shepherd’s crook, to be found in his hand. 

Bert forgot the dog and stepped onto the surf-drenched stones that shifted with each new pummeling wave. It was louder now, part cry, part song, beckoning him down to where the white horses galloped onto the shore. 

And there he was: a colossus, waves breaching from his back, breaking from the immense curve of his tail. The Whale had indeed returned, as his song had hinted he would. 

The mariner fell to his knees and wept. He had seen this moment before in his dreams; he would watch himself from the sandbanks of sleep, raging at his mighty visitor, perceiving him to be his greatest foe: for hadn’t he swallowed him whole; stalked his dreams; and caused his neighbours to whisper “ senile” under their breaths, every time he opened his mouth to recount his tale? But now, seeing him at last, he saw what the Whale truly was: a friend. One who had returned him safely to the land he longed for and loved the best: his home.

“You have come, come at last!” He cried, eager to hear the giant of the deep speak once more.

The Whale opened his colossal mouth and the mariner saw his boat, still floating in the raging pool of water, trapped within.

“Greetings mariner. I have often thought of returning to your shore."

“I have so much to thank you for!” gushed Bert, “ because of you, I have been able to grow old in my homeland, walking the shores I know and love. I am well. Oh, so well! And you?”

“Here it comes,” muttered the little Stute fish, who was still swimming resolutely through the broiling mass of the waves, “just wait for it.”

“I wish I could say the same,” replied the Whale, mournfully, “but truth be told the hunger you sought to curb has returned, a thousand fold. On my travels, the things I long to swallow, but my throat is blocked.”

Bert shifted in his galoshes. “Is my boat still bothering you? Perhaps you could try a salt gargle; my wife swears by them.”

The little Stute fish blew bubbles of laughter, adding to the frothing seas, but the Whale answered sadly. 

“Oh I know what you and my little Stute fish friend think. What laughs! But I could gargle the salt seas and it would make no difference. This hunger is new: gnawing and urgent, like the wind you once told me bites you to the bone."

From beneath his barnacle-encrusted brows, the Whale’s piercing eyes stared at Bert.

“Climb aboard, mariner. I took you on the voyage of your life once before, trust me again now; and when you have seen these sights, a hunger will grow in you too, believe me.”

He extended a fin, lowering it to the mariner’s feet like a gangplank. Shep whined, but Bert only patted him on his shaggy head before stepping resolutely onto the gigantic walkway, crossing the waves to the Whale’s back.  

“I returned before boy; you wait for me here, I’ll come home. I promise.”

Away from the shore they swam and sailed. Out into a vastness of water, mirroring the infinity of the skies. Time emptied its net, spilling seconds, minutes and hours; before casting a new one, halved into sections of light and dark, marked only by the chimes of the Whale’s song or the little Stute fishs’s chatter. 

On the long journey, as the waves whipped higher and the wind blew colder, flashes of a story illuminated the mariner’s mind; memories of a boy named Max, sailing in and out of weeks and almost over a year. Where would he find himself, Bert the old sea dog; for surely he too was heading for the land where the Wild Things are. 

And when he awoke to an icy chill that even the Cornish coast in the depths of the cruellest winter couldn’t rival, he saw he was indeed in that land, for here was the Wild, mighty and majestic, ruling on high, clad with her mantle of ice and snow. Poor mortal mariner, he shivered, pulling his meagre windcheater about him; wondering how long it would take the frost to bite his toes. 

“It was here I first felt the pang of hunger stir,” said the mighty Whale. “Here it was that I first thought: if only I could open my throat wide and swallow.”

The mariner looked at the sheer faces of ice, staring impenetrable; he searched for a seal that might justify the Whale’s hungry reverie, but could see nothing that he thought would tempt an appetite, not even the Whale’s.

The Whale seemed to interpret his confusion.

“Just wait,” he said, “and you’ll see.”

Soon enough, there was an earsplitting roar; a great crevice like an open mouth, yawned in the ice cliff, towering before them. The mariner held his breath, then in a blast of sheer fury, a huge chunk of the glacier collapsed, hurtling to the sea, towards both Whale and man. The little Stute fish wisely ducked under the wave that leapt at the glacier’s punch. Although the Whale would have liked to do likewise, he remembered the mariner, quaking on his back. 

“Hold tight mariner,” he roared as the wave swept towards them and it was all Bert could do to stay atop the Whale, clinging on for his dear life. Then, it was over; the wave swept on and the mariner watched it tearing away, wondering which poor souls were about to feel its force. 

“Now you understand my hunger,” said the Whale as he began to slowly swim, searching for the little Stute fish. “Just think, if my throat were free, just how much of this ice, now crashing into the sea, I could swallow.”

The Stute fish chose this moment to pop up and say hello. 

“No rich pickings here, unless one fancies ice cubes for lunch!” he chattered. “Where to next on our gastro-voyage of discovery, my barnacle buddy? I’m sure Bert here is ready to eat his windcheater, he’s so hungry.” 

“We head to warmer climes,” replied the Whale, “just off from California and Hawaii: an island of tropical colours; a sea teeming with plenty.” 

“California, here we come! Party all day, under the sun!” chirped the Stute fish. 

The mariner searched in his pocket and found a rather soggy packet of Fisherman's Friends. Sucking on one, pleased to leave the icy-blast of the glaciers behind, he wondered why, as the winds blew warmer and the equatorial sun beat down, he shivered still, as if that carving chunk of ice had left a frozen shard in his heart. 

Light folded into dark and spilled out again with the dawn, heralding day after new day; the mariner slept on the sun-drenched back of the Whale, dreaming of his wife creaming butter and sugar in their cottage kitchen. He groaned and woke up. 

“Guess what’s cooking, Bert?” laughed the Stute fish. 

“BBQ chicken in sticky honey sauce?” asked the mariner hopefully. 

“Sounds good, but we’re serving you up a juicy, big slice of…nothing!” Giggling, he dipped once more beneath the waves. 

“Ignore him,” said the Whale, “he’s worse than a clown fish. Here, feast your eyes on that.” And he gestured with his fin.

The mariner had heard of desert wanderers, famished, parched and sun stroked, swearing on the veracity of mirages, shimmering before their eyes. Could such a thing happen to old sea dogs too? Was there something in the salt-spray that addled the sense, for he could swear he saw a new island before him, like none he had ever seen in all his long life at sea, for this was made of plastic. One long arm after another extended out as far as the eye could see: bottles, coffee cups and containers; another reached out with its trails of twine, nets and fishing hooks; yet another was made of diapers, an all-sorts mix of garishly coloured toys.

The mariner rubbed his hot head and wondered what a rubbish dump was doing out in this pristine sea? 

“Now you understand my hunger,” said the Whale as he began to slowly swim, searching for the little Stute fish who must have been diving under the island of trash. “Just think, if my throat were free, just how much of this plastic, choking our seas, I could swallow.”

The little Stute fish finally surfaced, heaving a deep sigh of relief.

“Phew! Glad to be out of there. No pickings whatsoever; the seas cleaned out every pot, tub and bottle long ago,” he said. “So where to next, my lovely leviathan?” He addressed the Whale. “After so many days at sea, I’m sure Bert is ready to gobble his galoshes, he’s so hungry.” 

“One final destination, “ said the Whale, turning tail and swimming away from the impenetrable mass which pulsated slowly in the ocean’s current, as if it had a life of its own. 

After so much swimming, the mariner sensed both the little Stute fish and Whale were tired as they swam doggedly on. He missed the Whale’s sonorous song and the chimes of the Stute fish’s chatter. He wished for words, bright and light, to cast into the depths of this silence; to hook out a flash of laughter, but he felt that he knew none. 

Soon there was no chance for talk as the sea shifted its Janus face, turning a cheek on all things light, glowering with ghastly intent at the low-lying land where the Whale brought the mariner to. Bert gripped his flapping windcheater and wished his galoshes weren't full of water. 

“What a storm is here!” gasped the little Stute fish, “time for me to seek calmer water- adieu!” 

The mariner clung to the Whale as he had when the ice had calved. Another sickening sound broke through the cymbals of the crashing waves and the mariner wiped the streams of water from his eyes in time to see the angry surf snap the stilts of the wooden houses. Soon the waters filled with the floating debris: people’s homes, lives, reduced to sticks floating on a raging sea. 

“Take me away, Whale,” cried the mariner. The wind stole his words, but still the wise old Whale knew what the cry meant, and carried his forlorn cargo away, back to his natal shore. 

“Now I know what you meant,” spoke the mariner at length, when he saw Albion’s cliffs loom once more into sight. “There is a hunger here the likes of which I have never known: a hunger for clean seas and waters which do not rise and fell.”

“Then we share the same hunger, although we feed on different things,” said the Whale. “A colossal appetite, for the world we both once knew- unpolluted and whole.”

“But this is why you came, Whale,” said the mariner with new-found excitement, “this is why you sang your song, swam to me once more, bore me aloft to see these sights, for you knew what must be done. If I free your throat, unleash your appetite, just think what can disappear down to that cavernous larder. One sip and that plastic soup will be gone! A gulp and the ice blocks are history! An after dinner snack on the flood waters, and all will be well!”

The Whale extended his fin and the mariner stepped with shaky legs on to solid land once more. He bent down and patted Shep who was leaping like a hare at the sight of his old wandering master, home once more. 

“So, old friend, open wide. It is time to free you of that pesky boat, that unwanted curb, once and for all!”

Sadly, the Whale shook his head. 

“If only it were that easy. I would need a throat as wide and deep as the night’s sky to swallow all that poisons and pummels these wide waters. I was not sure when I heard your cry whether I should follow your summons; what the purpose would be of this voyage we have just taken, but now I know.”

The mariner looked to his onetime foe turned friend, a smile of hope etched deep into the time-worn lines of his face. 

“My throat is as free as it will ever be, to sing the song of these waters. Listen to my song: deep as the ocean’s depths, wide as the whole world. Sing it to your fellow man and perhaps they too will feel this hunger for a free sea and land; one we can all call home.”