CHAPTER V
Then it’s hey! and it’s ho! for Scotland, chilly Lerwick and the Shetlands and kindly English-speaking people. My heart warms at the prospect of seeing our western hills and heather and relatives and a language we know.
It rains again, tropical rain. We stand and bid farewell in the homestead, round the little dining-room table, each with a liqueur glass in hand. Suddenly I see eyes are wet, and the stranger nearly pipes an eye too, for it is a bit harrowing even to cold hearts to see married people with children still lovers. My host has been, for him, at home so long, nearly eleven months now! So the parting from wife, children, homestead, farm, woods, horse and hound, all of which he loves, must be sore for however hardened a seafarer.
Our last cargo from home goes to the ship on a hand-cart towed by the children and Rex the collie in great glee—curious luggage—Japanese wicker-work baskets and parcels of foreign-looking clothes for their father. The writer goes ahead with them, leaving the lovers to follow their lone, past the little home they built after Henriksen’s first success at whaling, on a three months’ spell from sea, down the road and past the school in the birches where they played as children together, down to the brig or rocks where their fathers before them careened their ships and made the same sad partings.
Perhaps the captain is the only sad man to-day. From first mate downwards eyes are sparkling, in spite of the dull day of rain, at the prospect of the rough, bracing, salt seas in front of us. We think nothing just now of cold, wet, dark, dangerous nights; the future is all couleur de rose, whale-hunting, new lands and people, sea-elephants, movement and life for us, death to them and profit for us all!
Was it lucky or unlucky that our anchors held to Norway and the sea-maids’ hair or grass, like grim death? A sailor would be interested, perhaps, in a description of how the two chains were fouled or twisted, how one shackle opened and the starboard chain went slap into the water. I thought, we are in for more delay, trying to pick it up. But Henriksen spotted that it had caught on the port chain, and his young brother, our mate, promptly slid down it—a nice muddy slide down and to his waist in water—got a rope through its links and stopped it on the port chain, and so we got both back. All the sea fairies of Norwegian seas could not have given us more trouble in taking our British ship from the Norse anchorage.
As we motored from sheltered Knarsberg to Christiania fiord we passed Faarman Holme and the yacht club and dipped our Union Jack, and saw the Norse flag dipped in return, no doubt by old Henriksen, who had stopped the night there to flag us adieu in the morning.
There was more heart-string-breaking before we left. Mrs Henriksen and the children, and Hansen the steward’s newly married wife, came part of the way, and we dropped them a few miles down the fiord in a motor-launch we had in tow. There are tender hearts in Norway, tender and brave.
And now we are out of the great Christiania fiord or firth, passing Færder Light that marks its entrance, Norway faint on our right and Sweden over the horizon to our left, the sun shining for the first day this summer. The sea has a silky swell. We have shaken off all things earthy except a little mud on our anchors now being stowed away, and three or four green oak leaves and moss on the hole of the oak-tree brought for the anvil.
Henriksen and I stand for a little on the bow and rejoice in the heave and send, and compare the movement of St Ebba with that of the Haldane and other whalers we know, and we think that she makes good. There is sun, sea, cloud-land, rippling swell and fresh, cold air, with a luxurious roll; and we feel an hour of such a day at sea is reward for all the months of worry and waiting and planning on shore.
A pleasure in store for us will be setting our new sails. But even now, with the motor alone and fully loaded—with sixty tons of fresh water alone—we make nine and a half knots! but with our canvas unloosed and a light breeze behind us might even reel off eleven to twelve.
Not many miles out at sea a Killer (or Orca gladiator) appeared coming from starboard. Our guns were all covered with canvas so we did not clear for action, and the Killer is not of much value. He came towards us and passed forty yards astern, a fact which greatly comforted us, for “those who know” on shore informed us a motor would drive away whales, but how they knew it is hard to say. Then it was said so often, and with such a sense of conviction, that without acknowledging it, we had a slight sense of chill. This Cetacean, a whale of, say, thirty feet, took not the least notice of our crew, and as our fortunes depend on being able to approach the leviathans of the ocean, without frightening them, the incident, though apparently small, gave us considerable encouragement.
Our first day at sea has passed very busily and we go below for a spell to our blankets, early, and tired, but with a joy beyond words at turning in again to a cosy bunk with everything at hand—pipe, books, paints, even music (practice pipe chanter), all within arm’s-reach, an open port and chilly, clean air, and the faintest suggestion of movement; such luxuries you may not have on shore.
The sea did not hide its teeth for long. After sundown skirts of rain appeared from threatening clouds on the distant Norse coast. Gradually they spread across our track, bands of little ripples, like mackerel playing, appeared on the smooth swell, and these spread and joined till all the sea was dark with a breeze, which in a few hours grew to a strong wind against us.
As we passed Ryvingen Light on the south of Norway the night grew dismal and rough; we watched its revolving four-flash light, which seemed to be answered by the three flashes we saw lit up the sky from the light on Hentsholme in Denmark, over forty miles to our south, and the gloomy sky over the Skagerak was lit with occasional angry flashes of lightning.
Unpromising weather for our first night at sea!
By two in the night we were digging into the same hole, making little or no way, with more than half-a-gale from sou’-west.
In the morning we were a very sad lot of whaler sailors. Fore and aft all were sick, or at least very sorry for themselves. All but Henriksen and the mate and the writer and one man were really ill, and we, I believe, only pretended to be well—such is the effect of the motion of a small whaler vessel on even old sailors on their first experience of them. I have known Norsemen who have been at sea all their lives on large craft refuse to go on a modern whaler at any pay.
We aim at getting up the Norse coast as far as Bergen, then going west towards north of Shetlands and, given fine weather, we ought to pick up a whale or two before putting in to Lerwick, where we must re-register our vessel.
But the wind increases to a full gale. All the sea is white and the sky hard, and rain and sun alternate and our nine-and-a-half-knot speed is reduced to about four.
But St Ebba is a dry ship. She proves that at least. Any other vessel I have been in, whaler or other, would ship more water than we do.
There is no use trying to steam or motor against this N.E. gale, so it’s up close-reefed fore and mainsail and staysail; only four men to do it, and that for the first time of this ship at sea, and in a gale. Reef points are made and all got ready; then it’s “Haul away on throat and peak” and up goes the scrap of sail, and what clouds of spray burst over the oilskin-clad figures as they haul away cheerily! The writer, at the wheel on the bridge, even comes in for a bit of the rather too refreshing salt spray.
Now the after or main sail is set like a board, and we are transformed into a sailing-ship.
A ring on the bell and the engine and sick engineer get respite; a point or two off the wind and there is the silence of a sailing-ship—no engine vibrations. True, we make little or no progress and some leeway, but the motion is heavenly compared to the plugging away of an engine into a head sea.
A Dead Seal on the Floe Edge
The decks get dry though the sea is very rough, another proof of the St Ebba quality. We wish, however, we were further on our road to “our ain countrie.”
The mess-room of St Ebba is not extensive, a little iron house built round the foremast. One third of it is the steward’s or cook’s galley. He acts both parts. He is almost like a fair Greek, rather thin, with golden hair and a skin as white as his jacket; poor fellow, he is sick, but sticks to his pans, and tries to forget the young wife he left behind him.
His galley is about three feet by six feet beam, and his stove and pans and coal-box just leave him room to stand in. Our mess-room is what I consider a very cosy room for a whaler; it is fully five feet by six feet beam of iron, grained yellow oak—iron ties and bolts grained like oak. It may not be æsthetic, still in some ways it is the best part of the ship. It seems to be the pivot of our movements. There is a round port-hole or bolley to port, and two looking aft towards our stern and a little round-topped iron door on the starboard. Through the two ports astern comes the sunlight and the iron door keeps out sea and wind, so in this stormy weather our mess-room has its points. There is another round-topped door from it to the galley. So Hansen (cook and steward) has merely to stretch his arm round to us to hand the coffee-pot, or sardines.
Sardines and brown bread are on the table this morning. I notice about two sardines have been eaten by our after-guard, so even if we claim not to be sea-sick we cannot claim any great appetite. Poor cook—he has upset a pail and dishes in the galley. I help him with his stores a bit, but it is no use—he is a bit on edge, so the bridge is the place to sit on and sketch, for one must do something to keep the mind occupied in rough weather. And it is precious cold and comfortless. You have to twist a limb round something to prevent being flung about, steering requires gymnastics.
There is a pale wintry sun, but the air is cold and clammy—all right on shore, I should say, for a September day.
Two masts and a funnel go driving across our track, almost hull down before the gale, a wreath of black smoke dispersing to leeward in wind and spray. I almost regret I am not on board, with steam and the wind aft. I’d be in Leith before many hours, then with Old Crow and the dogs on dry stubble. Just the day this for shore, and partridges, or to look for hares on St Abb’s Head.
One or two of the crew are reviving this afternoon, though it is still very rough, but the first engineer, a Swede, is still very sick.
One of the crew this morning told me as he steered: “Dem mens forward all seek, but me no seek, so I have six eggs to mineself”; but he looked pale, and in a minute or two he gave the wheel to me and went to the side of the bridge and came back wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and took the spokes again, muttering: “Fordumna, now I’se loss dem.” Such details of life at sea you find in the Argonautica; they give colour and conviction; only the Argonauts in their days were laid out on the beach with too much purple wine.
Yesterday morning about four we tried the engine, but the Swede could not start it. Either he had let the compressed-air supply run out or water had collected and blew into first cylinder or—or—anyway, sick or well, all hands had to pump on till late last night, and only raised pressure to over sixty pounds and it requires to come up to one hundred and fifty.
Henriksen has been saying the wind is going to moderate by such and such a time; when I see a sky such as this round the horizon, with haze and cold, I give several days of gale.
It is very wearisome; Henriksen is pretty quiet. At breakfast we have each half-a-cup of coffee! We are simply drifting across this shallow and somewhat dangerous sea, sometimes called the German Ocean, a crablike course to Yorkshire coast, or will it be St Abb’s Head we are to knock against if the wind does not change or the engine go?
It would be an interesting point to get wrecked at, for I’ve a bet on that the lifeboat a lady started there won’t save ten lives in the next ten years. It is only allowed out if the wind is off shore and if the cox first gets her leave. It costs £700 yearly to keep it up, for motor-slip, man’s house and storehouses. Seven hundred pounds per year for a lady’s whim seems an extravagant way of running the Lifeboat Fund.
With a few hours’ lull the engineers would get well, and possibly get the engine air-starting apparatus to work; meantime it is a bit trying having the elements against us, plus engine difficulty, as no engine, no success to our whaling. Thank heaven we have sails; but we must be absolutely sure of our powers of starting the motor, and that at short notice, or St Ebba dare not venture into certain anchorages we hope to visit, such as the east of Crozets and other islands.
Wind always N. by W.; we are drifting close hauled S.W.
There was watery sunlight this forenoon, now in the afternoon the wind is even stronger, and it is dull with spits of rain, and spindrift; everything is quivering, and throbbing, with the strain, and we shall have to take in staysail. I think of my first whaling voyage many years ago, when for twenty days we lay hove to, out west of Ireland about Rockall. Days of gale are totting up for this trip now! And yet our waist is full of water only now and then! On that old Balæna, barque-rigged, and twice as big as this little St Ebba, it was knee-deep on an average, and waist-high at times. This boat is marvellously dry; of course we planned her from a very seaworthy type of boat, the Norsk pilot-boat shape such as those we saw come into Balta Sound last year; after they had been three months north of Shetland, they had never taken a drop of sea-water on board, and we think we have improved on them.
As afternoon wore on the wind grew very heavy indeed, and the sea was very high. It was Henriksen’s worst experience of the North Atlantic. We watched on the bridge all afternoon, and took in the reefed foresail, so we have only the close-reefed mainsail, and we watched it anxiously lest it should burst. But it is of new strongest sailcloth, Greenock make, and it held.
The watch taking in foresail was a pleasant sight to see. The young fellows, all deep-sea sailors, sprang at the boom like kittens and struggled with the billowing hard wet canvas, tooth and nail, till it was brailed up. I was too cold and wet to get my camera, but what a scene, say, for a cinematograph—figures on deck swaying at the halyards and figures clinging pick-a-back to the sail on the boom!
Oh, it was a beast of a day! even though the wave effects were fine; of about five or six I thought each would be our last. But we lay so far over with gunwales under so that we simply shot to leeward with a heavy sea, so there was much “keel water” which, rising from under us to windward, seemed to prevent the waves breaking over our beam.
The crew are all taking turns at air-pumping; they kept at it all day yesterday, and till one o’clock to-day, and we are soon going to see if the pressure will start the engine—it is rather critical.