There was always a crowd gathered when the Dundee whaling fleet sailed to the Arctic. Men, women, and children gathered along the quays of Victoria Dock and Camperdown Dock. They clustered in excited groups in every corner of the shore to watch the ships depart. Some were merely casual observers who liked to watch the spectacle, but most were wives and family, knowing they would not see their menfolk for months and may never see them again. The whaling industry was cruel to men and ships, with accidents and sinkings common. Barely a year passed without some whaling vessel lost to the ice.
Standing in the deck of Lancelot, Watters knew that death could claim him in a hundred different ways on a whaling voyage. It could come with a fall from a frost-slippery yard high above the deck or when
