I had read about the “killers” and of their fierce attacks upon right whales and bowheads, and assumed, as these battles were rarely witnessed, that I might sail the seas for a life time without ever beholding one. And yet the spectacle was presented soon after we passed the Strait. The “killer,” also called the orca or thresher, is a small whale with a complete set of teeth on both jaws. He isn’t worth anything, and hence is never pursued by man. His favorite victim is the bowhead and what he is after is the bowhead’s tongue. Now it is to be noted that the tongue of a large bowhead is said to weigh as much as a good many oxen. These killers are as cunning and intelligent as they are cruel. Sometimes a pack of them will engage in the attack on a whale, but frequently only three. In our case we saw ahead of us a great splashing of water and an object that would leap up into the air and disappear, and then reappear and repeat the performance. When we got nearer we saw that a fight was going on between a huge bowhead and three killers. The object we had seen was a killer which again and again sprang into the air and descended on the whale’s back with the design apparently of tiring him out. Then we noticed that two creatures had fastened their teeth to the whale’s lips with the purpose of forcing his mouth open. There are few things in the world so powerful as the flukes of a bowhead. The old saying was to beware of a sperm whale’s jaw and a right whale’s or bowhead’s flukes. This unfortunate leviathan was pounding the sea with his great flukes, but not to the injury of his assailants, for they were well out of the way. The flukes were now less active. Soon they ceased to operate; the exhausted bowhead opened his mouth, and the ravenous trio proceeded to feast upon his tongue.
We were now near the whale and, just as a boat was lowered, Kreelman said to me, “That poor fellow is about gone, and it’ll be an easy job to kill him. See the shape of him; he ain’t so long as a sperm, but he’s bigger round and plumper, has thicker and richer blubber and makes more oil, even if it don’t bring so much. But let me tell you this, Fancy Chest, them killers don’t fool much with sperm whales. A sailor told me once of a sight he see. He said two killers and a swordfish tackled a big bull sperm. The killers come on in front and went for the bull’s jaw, and the swordfish come up from below to go for the bull with his sword. He said the bull grabbed one of them killers and made mince meat of him and the other left. One prick of the sword was all the whale needed. He rushed ahead a little and then brought them flukes of his down with tremendous force, and there wasn’t no part of the swordfish left. Better let a sperm whale alone.”