Cutting In — Moby-Dick

It is Saturday night, and a wild Sabbath follows. Ishmael says all whalemen are experts at breaking the Sabbath. The Pequod turns into a slaughterhouse. Every sailor becomes a butcher. It looks like they are offering ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods.

First, the huge cutting tackles go up. These are heavy blocks and ropes painted green. No one man can lift them alone. They are hoisted to the top of the main mast and tied tight. A thick rope runs from the tackles to the windlass. A big hook, weighing about one hundred pounds, hangs over the dead whale.

Starbuck and Stubb stand on platforms over the side. They use long spades to cut a hole in the whale just above its fin. They cut a wide half-circle around the hole. The hook goes in. The whole crew grabs the windlass and starts pulling together, singing as they work.

Right away the whole ship tips sideways. Every bolt in the hull creaks like nails in a frozen house. The masts shake and lean toward the sky. With each pull, the waves help lift the whale. Then comes a sharp snap. The ship rolls back upright. The first strip of blubber rises out of the water.

Blubber wraps the whale the way orange peel wraps an orange. The windlass keeps the whale rolling in the water. The blubber peels off in one long spiral strip along the cut line. The strip rises higher and higher until it nearly touches the top of the mast. The bloody mass swings back and forth. Everyone must dodge it or it could knock them overboard.

A harpooner steps forward with a long sharp sword. He cuts a hole in the lower part of the swinging blubber. A second set of tackles hooks on. He makes quick slicing cuts and cuts the long upper strip free. That piece is called a blanket-piece. It is ready to be lowered.

The crew pulls again. While one tackle peels a new strip from the whale, the other lowers the first strip down through a hatch into a dark room below called the blubber-room. Down there, quick hands coil the long strips like snakes.

The work goes on with both tackles moving at once. The whale rolls, the windlass turns, the crew sings, the mates keep cutting, the ship strains, and now and then everyone swears to ease the tension. Sabbath or not, the strip work does not stop.