Chapter 49 44．Strategize

That night, after Captain Ahab had sworn all the sailors, he returned to his cabin. At this time, the sea was windy, and the sailors were reveling on the deck. Captain Ahab could hear their shouts, and then Pip's snare drum began to beat. Captain Ahab was content with his agitation and guidance. He went to a chest, took out a large volume of charts, and laid them on the table. The nautical charts were crumpled and yellowed. Captain Ahab sat down next to the table, and began to study the scroll with all his attention. He looked at it, thought about it, and made marks on the map from time to time.

On the table is a large stack of sailing diaries, which are the crystallization of his hard work sailing all over the world's oceans for many years. So he went on with his lessons, forgetting everything but the chart. The pewter lamp hanging above his head was shaking constantly. The dim light shone on his wrinkled forehead, and those wrinkles were like airline lines painted on his forehead. Captain Ahab shut himself up in his cabin almost every night, studying these charts, which were his old lessons. He must make all preparations so that he can find his enemy. For a person who doesn't know much about sea beasts at all, if you let him find a whale in the vast sea, it will be harder than letting him go to the sky.

But for Captain Ahab, for this captain who has been in the ocean almost all his life and has made a living as a whale hunter, he can use all methods to find his opponent. He can study the conditions of the tides, the drift of the sperm whale's food, and infer where the sperm whale should be at a certain time. In fact, the activities of sperm whales have their own rules, which is well known to a veteran whaling man. Therefore, based on experience, whalers have determined the fishing grounds for catching sperm whales in various oceans of the world, and mapped the migration routes and timetables of sperm whales.

Experienced whalers operate according to the above-mentioned laws. Here is an amazing skill of the sperm whale. When a sperm whale migrates from one feeding ground to another, it can travel long distances, sometimes across oceans.However, the route it swims in is quite straight, as straight as we draw it with a ruler on the map. It is astonishing how precise the course is, during a migration of thousands of nautical miles, and only a few nautical miles wide. We still don't know what kind of navigation system sperm whales rely on, maybe it's just instinct. In this way, the channel with a width of several nautical miles provides an opportunity for the whaler, because, for the lookout on the whaler, the sea area of ​​​​a few nautical miles is completely within his range of observation.

Because the spray water of the sperm whale greatly expands the visible range of its own tracks. It is precisely because of the above reasons that Captain Ahab is quite sure, not only that, because he scientifically arranged his own route, so that even when his boat crosses the fishing ground, it is possible to encounter Moby Dick. . Although the hunting plan and hunting route designed by Captain Ahab are feasible, they are inevitable in terms of the inherent laws of one thing. Take Moby Dick, for example, it has its own inherent laws of action, and for itself, this law is iron-clad and unchanging, just like the sun is constantly moving.

The sun stays around the Tropic of Cancer for a while every year. For Moby Dick, it has a striking similarity with the sun, except that the place where it stays is not near the Tropic of Cancer, but the equator, and the time is ——Before and after the summer solstice. That's the specific time and place to capture Moby Dick. Moby Dick had been at this time and this place for several years, and Captain Ahab had long taken that into his mind. According to the situation collected by Captain Ahab, all the tragedies caused by Moby Dick are exactly the same without exception, including Captain Ahab himself.

That was Moby Dick's pride, that was his domain, his inviolable domain. That's where Captain Ahab suffered disgrace. That will also be the final battle between Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. Or bury Moby Dick, or bury Captain Ahab, right there, it's irrevocable. When Captain Ahab led the "Pequode" out of Nantucket, according to Captain Ahab's calculation, it should be the season when Moby Dick appeared in the equatorial fishing ground. It's a pity that the "Pequode" was unable to round Cape Horn and reach the equator in such a short period of time. "Let that damned bastard have another summer of fun."

Captain Ahab thought bitterly in his heart. The Pequod must wait for the next season. Why didn't Captain Ahab spend more than half a year on the shore calmly, and then rush to the Equator Fishing Ground to join Moby Dick? Captain Ahab really couldn't survive the half a year on land. Rather than saying that, he might as well start his sailing life first, do some other hunting, and wait for the decisive battle to come. Maybe, in the Persian Gulf, the Bay of Bengal, or the South China Sea, we will meet Moby Dick who has left the equatorial fishing ground and is doing a round-the-world transfer.

"If that's the case, the decisive battle will start early. This is not good news for the one of us who is about to pass away." Captain Ahab thought about it all the way. Nearly all the winds were in Captain Ahab's favor at this season, for such winds would have brought Moby Dick to the encounter with Captain Ahab. However, will everything come true as planned by Captain Ahab? Just like on the bustling streets of a huge city, can you recognize your enemy who has been separated for a long time at once? "I can!" Captain Ahab thought so in his own heart. "I will never forget Moby Dick's snow-white forehead, that snow-white back, and all those white shadows have been entrenched in my mind for a long time, and I can't get rid of them."

That white color often stimulated Captain Ahab to wake up from his dreams. He dreamed that it swam past his eyes and was about to break free from his vision. "Grab it, don't let it get away!" cried Captain Ahab. "It can't run anymore, look at its big fins, I have already pierced it last time, it has lost its direction, the only thing waiting for it is death, come on, come this way, Moby Dick .” In the dream, Captain Ahab's mind was fighting Moby Dick to the death, fighting Moby Dick all the way until he woke up exhausted. Captain Ahab woke up, and he felt that his strength was gone.

He came to the quarterdeck, struggling to regain his strength. What a painful dream this is! His nails pinched the palm of his hand to the point of blood. Many times, he had to get up from his bunk to escape from that dream that no one could escape. His bed seemed to be on fire, and all kinds of monsters were dancing and screaming in the fire. They beckoned to him, almost calling his spirit back. He stared blankly at his hanging bed, the pain and exhaustion in his heart crazily impacting his body. However, Captain Ahab did not shake his will. The motive for this escape from the dream was not horror, nor the exposure of Captain Ahab's inner weakness, but merely a temporary separation of his soul and his spirit. However, his eternal motivation has not changed. On the contrary, after experiencing the torment of these dreams, his belief has been strengthened. It was as if a weapon had been quenched.