Generally they had an easy life, rarely straying out of the shallow water which supported the small shellfish on which they fed. Never very active, they lazed in the sun, protected from the intense cold by their massive layers of fat. When they were hungry they swam to the ocean floor, stirred up the pebbles and sand with their tusks, eating huge amounts of the creatures which they disturbed. In winter, this particular herd lived in the general area of the Aleutian Islands; in May they ran up through the Bering Straits to the rich banks off the north of the Chukotskiy Peninsula, the eastern point of Russia. This particular summer, as they were on their way past St. Lawrence Island, the Eskimoes from Gambell town on the north coast had come out after them in unusual force in their umiaks, or large open boats, each man armed with three or four powerful hunting rifles, and began a slaughter which had panicked the herd. Every year for possibly ten centuries the Eskimo had come against the walrus, but this year for some reason, the herd panicked. Perhaps the Eskimo were unusually numerous, unusually accurate; perhaps the walrus were more easily scared than of old. Whatever the reason, this particular herd, made up mostly of young family units, began to run north at unusual speed, tending to the east, towards Alaska as opposed to Chukotskiy, leaving behind nearly one hundred young females stripped of skin and tusks, their flesh hacked into round chunks, their intestines hanging in the sun to dry. Gambell town would make it safely through the rest of the year, and some of its citizens might even make a profit. The herd, however, had followed the coast of Alaska until they had uneasily joined the breeding rookeries on the North Alaskan coast.
They had remained there for little longer than a fortnight when the storm had hit. Storms are not unusual in the High Arctic even in summer, but this one was of rare ferocity. Coming from the east along the coast from the Beaufort Sea it swept huge chunks of ice before it. The walrus herd, unhappy with the unfamiliar breeding grounds, had been easily disturbed, and had plunged as a body, more than a thousand of them, into the wild water. The massive waves, throwing chunks of ice around like unbelievable jugglers, split up the herd into several smaller units. The smallest of these new herds was driven far north, out of the storm, on to the edge of the pack-ice. They had waited until the storm had passed, and then were forced to move, for they were in an area of water more than three hundred feet deep and they could no longer dive to the bottom for their food.
There was much of the summer left and so they struck south west, following the drift, to their usual breeding ground on the Chukotskiy Peninsula.
The herd, consisting of many family units, and a number of old females past the age of breeding, was led by a vanguard of old males, also without mates. The unusual activity, the great distances they had been forced to swim, and the lack of food had all contributed to a general weakening of the whole herd. They were near their destination now, however, and they were swimming with the last of their strength in order to reach it as soon as possible. Their usual policy was to ride slowly on the floes, piled in ungainly hills of maroon flesh, but at the moment, hungry and still in deep water, they were swimming just below the surface with easy sideways swipes of their rear flippers, as fast as they were able.
The group of old males led the herd; every now and then one of them would hook his great straight tusks into the edge of a floe and haul himself on to the ice for a breather and a look round. Immediately behind the old males came the family units, the young calves, very tired now, riding on their mothers’ backs. To the rear came the old females, performing the functions of a rear-guard, although there was nothing in the ocean near enough to pose a serious threat.
The tension on the floe, tightened briefly by Kate’s panic, relaxed again. Job was disturbed to see the walrus herd so far from their accustomed breeding ground, but he said nothing to the others. As the herd came closer, they were able to distinguish individuals. The old bull who rose most often on to the many small floes which lay scattered on the flat grey ocean, whom they could recognise easily by the fact that his right tusk was broken off about a foot shorter than his left, seemed to be the leader of the herd. Several younger males, two with only one tusk, also rose occasionally. Only one female, an old cow whose tusks curved so much that they crossed against her massive chest, was in evidence, and they did not see her clearly in the distance until the old bull with his uneven tusks was well past them.
“Are they dangerous?” asked Kate, surprised by their bulk. They were nearly fifteen feet long, able, when they sat on the ice, to raise their heads more than six feet in the air.
“Probably not,” answered Job, “at least not if we keep clear of them. They’re strange animals; slow, lazy, very hard to kill.”
“Could we kill one? For food?” asked Simon.
Job shrugged. “We could kill one, I suppose. A couple of shots from the Remington should do it, but the rest of the herd might well attack us if we did; and even if we managed to kill it and get it up on the ice, we haven’t any knives sharp enough to butcher it. They have incredibly tough hide, and their blubber’s five or six inches thick.”
The bell-like sounds had been growing louder as the herd neared, and they were joined now by the slapping and squealing sounds with which the walrus explored their environment and performed their elementary communications. Their heads were big, but the bones were so thick that their brains were very small.
Kate, entranced by the grace which the water lent to these bulky, seemingly ungainly animals, went as near to the edge as she dared and strained to see more clearly.
They were anything up to fifteen feet in length, and so fat as to be almost ten feet in girth. Their blubber gathered up above their faces in thick cowls. Their heads sat squarely on their powerful shoulders, the shoulders faded to narrow hips and truncated rear flippers without shape or semblance of frame, bone, even muscle. And yet there was muscle beneath the maroon velvet of the skin, beneath the six solid inches of blubber, muscle in those massive shoulders which ran directly over the tiny neck to the back of the massive, thick-boned head, muscle in that huge barrel chest which could pull down those tusks with terrible force.
Even as she considered the members of the first section of the herd, Kate heard a sudden roar from behind her at the far end of the floe. She turned, surprised. Beyond the camp, at the edge of the floe, nearly thirty yards away, the leader of the walrus herd had reared out of the water. He had swum back from his position at the front of the herd to explore the floe. Now he hooked his tusks into the soft ice and dragged his great bulk forward until his front flippers could grasp and pull him further forward. He lumbered, streaming, on to the blue-flame ice, and paused, his breath coming in great clouds. He faintly discerned the shapes on the far end of the ice so he roared a challenge and drew himself up to full height.
Kate drew a little nearer to Ross, just in case there was any danger, but the old bull only looked at them, flaring its nostrils to their scent. Shortsighted even in water, it was almost blind in the air, but its nose was keen enough. Satisfied that there was no threat, it roared again, turned, gave out the two-note bell-like tone, and dived into the water. They stood at the edge of the ice then, and watched as the rest of the herd pushed slowly past into the flat grey expanse of the western ocean, moving darkly among the bright ice-floes.