l80 THE WHALE HUNTERS 



presence of whale. To his surprise a helicopter appeared 

 from out of the blue sky and dropped a smoke marker 

 amongst the screaming birds. Hull down over the 

 horizon he saw through his binoculars the three islands' 

 of a strange factory ship and on the stern island a big 

 structure which was obviously an aeroplane hangar. 

 Bustling across the water with a white bone in her teeth 

 was a rival catcher. She was making for the smoke 

 marker, guided no doubt by radio-telephone directions 

 from the helicopter. 



A school of fin whales broke surface near the marker and 

 for the next hour Carl was too busy trying to outwit both 

 whales and the rival catcher to think of much else. But 

 when with justifiable pride he had stuck his flags on two 

 dead whales to the stranger's one and was leaning on the 

 windbreak of the bridge enjoying a pipe he found that the 

 incident had made a deep impression on his mind. 



That helicopter had only been spotting whales. Was 

 there any reason why some time in the future it should not 

 be able to kill them as well ? 



The traditional whaleman in Carl fought in vain to 

 banish this idea which, nourished by earlier rumours 

 heard in the Wanderer, persisted in his imagination. 

 During the war he had seen planes firing rockets at 

 submarines. Why could not a helicopter do the same 

 to whales but with all the added advantage of being able 

 to hover at point blank range? The whale could be 

 killed quickly. No need for a harpoon line to stop it 

 from going down. Carbon dioxide released by the 

 explosion could inflate the whale and prevent it from 

 sinking. It might be used, not for the purpose of killing 

 more whales — the Commission would see to that — but to 

 cut the costs of an expedition if the price of whale oil 

 dropped. A half-dozen helicopters housed in hangars on 

 a factory ship would probably be much cheaper to man, 

 equip and operate than a dozen catchers and yet be able 



