WHALES, SEALS AND WALRUSES 



ing it with his underwater torch when the mouth of the 

 cave had been suddenly darkened. He turned round. 

 Blocking the entrance was a full-grown killer whale. The 

 entrance was narrow and Crockett had only just man- 

 aged to squeeze through some minutes before. The killer 

 could only get his snout through, but he retreated again 

 and again and hurled himself forward, trying to smash 

 his way in ; and kept biting at the coral to try to enlarge 

 the opening. 



Meanwhile Crockett discussed the situation with those 

 above. They told him to remain calm and wait for the 

 killer to go. After a while the beast did leave. Those on 

 deck saw him break water 150 feet away, to "blow". 

 He had a four-foot dorsal fin. Craig's worst fear was that 

 the animal would see Crockett's air tube, which led from 

 the sea on to the deck. If it had, it might have rushed 

 madly at it and bitten it through — killers have shown an 

 uncanny understanding of the purpose of air-tubes on 

 many occasions — resulting in Crockett's death under- 

 water or horrible mutilation if he had risen to the 

 surface. 



But the killer seemed unaware of the tube — he dived 

 and came up to "blow" several times, and seemed to be 

 waiting for Crockett to emerge. Craig decided that if he 

 could only drive the seals from the beach into the water, 

 the killer might follow them. He jumped into a skiff and 

 pulled for the shore — not a little nervously, for he knew 

 the killer whale's fondness for upsetting small boats. 

 Others on the ship were waving frantically to distract the 

 killer's attention from Craig. He reached the shore and 

 the seals, panicking, threw themselves into the sea. 



At that moment the killer came up for another "blow" 

 — saw the seals diving in and shot at them like a thunder- 

 bolt. In less than a hundred yards' run he had snapped 

 three of the seals in halves and had them inside him, 

 scarcely slackening speed as he gulped them down. The 

 herd of seals zigzagged desperately — curved, retreated, 



213 



