"Anthony Wall - The Eden Mission (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wall Anthony)

body of the sambur. Suddenly she was devoid of grace and strength, her life
switched off like an electric current.

The poacher lowered his gun. A pity to spoil the pelt with a second shot. He'd
wait until he was sure the big cat was dead. But not too long--the wardens
might catch him. Still, it was worth the risk when a tiger-skin coat could
fetch ┬г63,000 in a Tokyo shop.

That same day, eight thousand miles away, another armed man was preparing to
pursue his quarry. He was perched on a boat's seesawing bow. Cursing the cold,
he stared ahead at the sullen blue-black swell of the Southern Ocean. Sooner
or later he would spot what he was looking for--a tell-tale spout that
signalled the coming battle. Then there would be no time to feel cold, no time
to feel at all. Meanwhile he should give thanks that he wasn't on the
Antarctic mainland, where the temperature had been known to fall as low as
minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

Far to starboard an iceberg loomed. Miles long, a hundred feet high,
glittering like a gigantic diamond. The man still scanned the horizon. To help
him locate his target, the boat had echo-sounders and a look-out up on the
masthead, but the man trusted his own eyes and instincts more than anything
else.

On a nearby ice-floe thousands of Adelie penguins, like spectators, stood in
rows.

A shout came from the look-out. Already the gunner below was manoeuvring the
harpoon cannon into position, his attention focused on the slanting jets that
rose from the sea half a mile ahead. The whale had just surfaced and was
spouting, at fifteen-second intervals, before taking breath for another deep
dive.

With engine racing, the catcher boat closed in ... 800 yards, 400, 200. The
gunner licked his lips. One good clean shot should do it. He looked down on
the enormous wrinkled body, took aim--behind the head--and fired. A loud
report was followed by a whine of running rope as the six-foot, 160-pound
steel harpoon arrowed through the air at sixty miles an hour. It hit home with
terrific force. The tip exploded deep inside the creature, sending out barbs.
Threshing its tail flukes, the whale began an ordeal of panic and pain.

The gunner surveyed the red streamers trailing from his tethered victim. It
would die soon enough.

But not everyone who witnessed the gory spectacle remained as unmoved as the
harpoonist. The medical officer, watching from the factory ship where the
carcass would eventually be processed, felt shame and disgust. A sperm whale,
he noted, adjusting his binoculars. Officially protected by international
agreement. That didn't stop these men. The whole business of whaling sickened
him. As a doctor he was trained to save life, not take it, and he sympathised
more with the whales than with the whalers whose health he was employed to