Vessels

The story is about a rock penguin
It's a small penguin, not a king penguin
You can see thousands of them breeding
When the warm season startsAnd they only lay one egg at a time
And if you take one away they'll lay another egg but no more
But I want to tell this story really about
One incident, one day it was a gray misty dayWith the wind blowing hard and there was a heavy smell running
And a whale factory was pitching and yawing
Not really a very good day to pick up the whales
Over the stern of the factory shipThere were one or two dead whales at the stern of the vessel
And the whale catchers were coming in with their whales
And in the distance you could see the icebergs
Quite a number of themAnd the men were trying to get ready
To pull the whales over the stern of the vessel
There was a pack of killer whales around
Which came tearing towards the factory ship
And they tore chunks out of the whalesAnd there were a number of men at the stern of the vessel
With guns shooting at the killer whales
The minute they hit a killer whale the rest of the pack went after him
And tore him to piecesBut let's get back to the story of the penguin
I'd say there were about 6 or 7 whales
Some of them blue, some of them fin at the stern of the vessel
And there was that small rock penguin sitting on top of the whale backAnd as we were pulling up the whales one after another
Over the stern of the vessel
It was rather difficult with the heavy swell runningThe penguin hopped from one whale to another
The killer whales were all around the dead whales
They were tearing into them and the sea was red with bloodAnd by that time there was a number of men
From the whale factory coming astern and watching
The penguin at the back of the whaleAnd the men where shooting as fast as they could
To stop the killer whale from getting, getting the penguin
Which was sitting or trying to hold on to the back of the whale
But as the whale was pulled up they'd shootIt was difficult for the winchman to regulate
And he had to watch very carefully not to, with the swell of the vessel
With the swell of the sea running and the vessel moving
To stop the penguin from slipping off its backThe chute was quite steep, it was about I would say, 30 degrees
And the little penguin climbed close to the tail of the whale
From which the whale was pulled up the chute
And the men were all standing around and watching
And hoping that that penguin would finally get up, get up on deckIt took a long time to lift that last whale up
If there was a swell the winchman up on top had to watch
And be as careful as possible not to jerk and increase the movement
So that the little penguin could stay on topWe got him to the stern of the chute
At the beginning of the chute and he got saved
We kept on, we kept on slowly pullingAnd as we pulled the little penguin slowly but surely
Went along the back of the whale from the tail
Of from the tail to the middle of
To the middle of the backBut at that time the sea was running heavy
And the movement at the stern was rather erratic
Finally when we got him up about three quarters of the way
I don't think there was a man working on the stern of the factoryThey were all watching and hoping too
That the little penguin would get up on top
As the killer whales were just waiting down below and just watching
And the men were shooting and trying to kill these killer whales
And therefore they were afraid
That the little penguin might slip in the waterFinally when we got it really all the way up
Everybody started to breathe a sigh of relief
But there was a heavy, heavy swell which came under the factory
And rolled the whale on the side and the little penguin slipped off
And as it went down the chute the killer whales got itMost of the men were not happy that day
There were also there's millions of penguins
That was one of the sights which they did not care to see again
But that's the way in Antarctic, there's no give and take
It's a hard, hard place to be in but, c'est la vie