THE CUTTER

The master had made clear that he wanted to circumnavigate the great mass of Cape Barren Island, examining the offshore islands as we went. This was a plan he had devised in consultation with my father, and I found them early the next morning deep in conversation, the master explaining the nuances of the chart to him. I felt a strange resentment at this: over the entirety of the voyage so far, I had struggled to extract any conversation from Argyle, and here he was, engaged with my father, who had done little but make a buffoon of himself. Was I not an adult, possessed of intelligence and ideas?

The easterly light of dawn glowed pastel on a great cone that rose from the flat sea. Chappell, said the chart. By the time we neared it, the sun was strong and I could see the fat bodies of the seals hauled out on its rocky base. ‘Snakes there,’ said the master. ‘Big ones. We won’t be landing.’

The seals lolled and basked in their hundreds, perhaps thousands, and as I watched them my father settled beside me, his face angled in their direction.

‘No mistaking that smell,’ he said, and before long, their grunts were audible also. The beasts covered the rocky flats, some even resting in the seaward margins of the tussock grass where room on the rocks was unavailable. Beyond them the ground was bare and speckled with burrow entrances that must have belonged to seabirds. The greatest of the mammals were perhaps eight feet long, and so thick in the body that any movement looked like a great effort. But even as I watched, battles broke out between the largest ones. Their agility under duress surprised me, their way of rearing up, barrel chests presented in belligerence, until they collided and shook, blubber rippling away from the impact.

These chieftains—I could not see them as other than males—wore great manes of loose fur around their necks and bared long yellow tusks in their roaring. They were blond and grey and bronze, and some had different faces—extraordinary bulbous cheeks spotted with sprouting whiskers, and long, drooping noses. These, explained the master, were sea elephants. Upon hearing this Declan, who had not said a word since his brother’s interment, looked up from his work at the sheave block and muttered dick noses. His eyes caught mine: the words had fallen into an unhelpful silence that made them audible. I tried to keep a stern face as he grunted an apology.