Island of the Lost (9 page)

Male and female sea lions looked so different from each
other that even professional sealers had trouble realizing that they were the same species, calling the males “sea lions” and the females “sea bears.” Two or three times bigger than the cows, the bulls can grow to a length of twelve feet, and weigh a thousand pounds. As the name suggests, sea lion bulls have a mane, which, with the moustache, further distinguishes them from the cows. “The upper lip, thick and fleshy, is fringed on either side with thirty hairs, hard as horn, each about four inches in length, and terminating in a point,” wrote Raynal, who was a precise and astute observer. “Some of these hairs are marked with transparent veins, like those of the tortoise shell.”

Since Musgrave's day, the sea lions of the Auckland Islands have been studied in much more detail, though his observations are still considered valuable and interesting. While the sea lions are present about the shores throughout the year, it isn't until the breeding season that they start to gather on the rookeries. In October or November, the fully mature bulls haul their massive bodies out onto the rock platforms, and immediately start fighting for the best territory, each battling for a shelf from which he will greet the heavily pregnant cows when they arrive about the beginning of December.

At first it seems a waste of time, because the incoming cows haughtily ignore the questing bulls, their minds being otherwise engaged. The moment each one is clear of the surf she rises up on her fore flippers, and looks about for her friends. As a scientific observer noted in 1972, “A plump, wet female sea lion would emerge from the sea, survey the scene, and then hurriedly gallop towards a group of cows as if she were late for an appointment.” Presumably, these other cows are her cousins, her sisters, and her aunts, and include her mother and grandmother,
too, because she knows them so very well. Having joined the mob, she settles down, often rubbing herself against one of her friends to dry herself off.

For the next seven days or so they huddle together companionably, going into the sea to fish every now and then, and the rest of the time sleeping so heavily their snores can be heard from many yards away. Sea lions have no sense of hygiene at all, freely vomiting and defecating all over each other, as well as indulging in a lot of sand-throwing, but few fights develop, and those are mostly settled with a threatening yawn. Then, about the third week of December, the pupping begins.

When she goes into labor the female shifts away from the mob and twists about, obviously uncomfortable. As the moment of birth approaches she swings her hindquarters vigorously, working so hard that the pup is virtually hurled out of her body, landing some feet away. Mother and calf then get to know each other by sound, taste, and smell, though the calf has to learn how to suckle the thick, creamy milk, which is five times as rich as dairy cow's milk. There are few more contented sights, one scientist observed, than a well-fed sea lion pup sleeping on his back alongside his mother, his brown fur dry and fluffy, his flippers limply extended, and his little stomach bulging.

When the pup is one week old his mother is ready for mating. If the beachmaster does not make any overtures, having given up by now, she will initiate the courting by snuggling up to him, arching her neck against his, and spreading her hind flippers to display her genitals. The bull responds by snuffling and licking that area, and then mounts her, their coupling being a muscular and protracted process that can last as long as forty minutes before she tires of it and starts to bite his neck and tug
at his mane. After that, she is not interested in mating anymore, and will take to the forest with her pup, often trekking several miles inland to avoid further attentions.

B
Y
J
ANUARY
19, the date of the castaways' excursion, the rutting season was almost over. However, a pitched battle was in progress as the small boat drew up, probably between a beachmaster and a Sam who was trying to usurp his rookery. The contestants paid no attention to the
Grafton
sailors, who paddled to keep the boat still in the water while they gazed in fascination. “We watched them about half an hour, and left them still hard at it,” wrote Musgrave; “they fight as ferociously as dogs, and do not make the least noise, and with their large tusks they tear each other almost to pieces.”

They had seen several of these fights, because during the month of December and the first ten days or so of January, the bulls skirmish constantly to keep dominance over both territories and wives. Musgrave observed that when annoyed, a bull would raise his mane: “It is from three to four inches long, and can be ruffled up and made to stand erect at will, which is always done when they attack each other on shore, or are surprised.” With their enormous teeth bared they looked like lions indeed, with “all the ferocity and formidableness which their name seems to imply.” He sighted one from the boat whose “neck and back were lacerated in a most fearful manner; large pieces of hide and flesh were torn off, perhaps a foot long, and four or five inches wide.”

Up until this day, the sea lions hadn't usually bothered the men, but this situation rapidly changed when they rowed toward the southern shore where the subadult males were assembled.
Instead of shying away, the young bulls gathered and tried to seize the oars in their teeth. Most were easily beaten off with those same oars, but one large specimen became so enraged that he attacked the boat. Horrified at the sight of the great bull clawing his way up the bows with his jaws gaping wide and his moustache bristling above his huge tusks, the men cringed back. Then Alick seized up the boat hook and slammed it down on the snarling head, and, uttering a furious roar, their attacker disappeared beneath the waves.

This fright didn't deter the men from landing the boat on the opposite beach, where they cooked and ate a midday meal while the beachmaster watched from a respectful distance. After exploring the immediate scenery, they returned to the shore and slaughtered a couple of newborn pups, Raynal writing that they considered their flesh “much superior to that of the young who, having given over suckling, have begun to feed on fish.”

They also shot a dozen widgeon and some ducks, so they could look forward to a more varied menu than usual. Then, tired but relaxed, they rowed back to their own beach, by now aptly named Shipwreck Cove. There they plucked the birds, cooked what they needed, and then hung the others in pairs on the highest branches of the trees, “to place them out of the reach of the attacks of the flies,” as Raynal wrote. For some reason the loathed bluebottles did not rise very high, “probably on account of the wind.”

SEVEN

T
he day after the outing, Wednesday, January 20, the weather turned foul, but the men didn't allow this to bring their work to a standstill. They had a good store of meat, and so could concentrate on the cabin—and right now, the building of the fireplace and chimney was the project at hand. It was crucial that they get it right. Not only would the fire provide vital heat in the winter to come but it had to be safely contained. If the cabin burned down, it would spell the end for them all, so Raynal planned a long way ahead, and the men worked with care.

Because of the danger of the peat beneath the fireplace alighting, they dug out a deep hearth between the two fireplace posts, and filled the cavity with stones. Then they painstakingly chose flat, large rocks for the sides and rear, laying them carefully on top of each other and bracing them with wooden pegs pushed into the ground on the outer side. The next problem was that there was no clay to make an adobe-style mortar to stick the stones together. What they needed, Raynal decided, was cement.

After thinking about it, he went down to the beach and collected a great quantity of seashells. “These,” he stated matter-of-factly, “we calcined during the night.” In the process called “calcining,” calcium carbonate—the hard substance of the shells, in this case—is converted into calcium oxide (lime). It requires intense heat, and is normally done in a kiln. A roaring fire was made, the shells piled on top of the red-hot embers, and the whole covered over and then left to roast.

It was successful, because when the makeshift oven was opened in the morning, Raynal found that he was now “provided with a supply of lime.” Normally, to make cement, this lime would be mixed with clay. As there was no clay available, Raynal turned to a process the ancient Roman engineers would have recognized, by mixing the calcium oxide with sand. It was a slow process, and a painful one—by the time Raynal had made enough mortar to cement the fireplace stones together, the lime had burned right through his fingertips.

“This lime, mixed with the fine gravel we found under the rocks of the beach, made a capital mortar for our mason's work. But when the latter was finished,” he ruefully wrote, “though I had used a palette of wood as a substitute for a trowel, I found the tips of my fingers, and nearly all of my right hand, burned to the quick.” He was gratified by Musgrave's approval, but the most effusive compliments “could not make me forget the intense pain I suffered. However,” he added, “constant application of fresh water, and a few dressings with seal-oil, soon cured my wounds.”

Getting the materials together for the chimney pot took still more ingenuity. The hull of the
Grafton
had been sheathed with a thin layer of copper below the waterline, a customary precaution
because unprotected wood is vulnerable to teredo, the wood-boring shipworm that can reduce hard timber to something as fragile as lace in a matter of weeks. Luckily, the moon was full, and so Alick and George took advantage of the very low tides to wade into the surf and strip sheets of this copper from the sides of the wreck, using a pry bar Raynal had made out of a flat metal rod—a “tringle,” which had been salvaged from the foremast shrouds—by splitting it a little way at one end, and then curving up the split ends to make a claw.

Considering that they were standing waist deep in cold salt water, and were forced to duck under the surface at regular intervals to detach the lower edges of the copper plates, the two men were surprisingly efficient. “Though they could not work above two hours at a time, in three tides George and Alick had stripped off enough copper to enable us to finish our chimney pot,” wrote Raynal. At the same time, the two seamen carefully collected all the tiny nails that had held the copper to the hull. This was a fiddly job that dragged out the work but was essential because the tacks were necessary for pinning the copper sheets to the chimney framework.

Four poles had been fastened to the walls of the fireplace, leaning toward each other to form a broad pyramid that was open at the top. Crosspieces were bound to these rods, and the sheets of copper were nailed first to the inside of this truncated pyramid, and then on the outside, to make a double lining. With that, the fireplace was finished, and the men could look forward to roaring fires in the winter ahead. However, it was lucky that winter lay many weeks in the future, because the framework of the cabin was still open to the weather.