'How do you know about Herdla?' I asked him.
'I worked there,' he answered. 'For three months I helped to dig one of the gun positions. Then we were moved to Finse.' He nodded in the direction in which our bows were pointed. 'Straight ahead of us is Fedje. That's the island we were taken to after our escape from Finse. We waited there two weeks for the arrival of a British M.T.B.'
He fell silent again. Nobody spoke. The only sound was the throb of the engine and the swish of the water slipping past. The sun was warm in a clear blue sky and beyond the low, rocky islands the mountains stood cool and white in their cloak of snow. We slid diagonally across Hjeltefjord and ran up the coast of Nordhordland. Little landing stages showed here and there among the rock, and above them always a huddle of wooden houses, each with its inevitable flag staff flying the red and blue of Norway. White-painted churches with tall, wooden steeples were visible for miles on the high ground on which they had been built. The tall chimneys of the fish canneries showed here and there in the narrow fjords. Up and down the coast motor fishing boats moved lazily, their hulls white and black and an ugly little wheelhouse aft. 'Tock-a-tocks,' Dahler said. 'That's what your Shetlanders called them.' And tock-a-tocks exactly described the sound made by their little two-stroke engines.
We cleared the first northward pointing finger of Nordhordland and under Dahler's direction I turned a point to starboard. We ran past tiny islets white with the droppings of the seabirds that wheeled constantly about us. A fjord opened up, leading, he,said, to Bovaagan itself where there was a fish factory. Cairns, chequered black and white, indicated that it was a shipping route.
And then suddenly we saw the whaling station. It was half hidden in a fold of rock and protected from the north by low islands. The corrugated tin of its ugly factory buildings and the tall iron chimneys belching smoke were a black scar in the wild beauty of the islands, as ugly as a coal pit in a Welsh valley. Not another building was to be seen. The fjord leading to Bovaagen was astern of us now, the friendly black and white shipping guides lost behind a jutting headland. We were in a world of rock and sea — not dark granite cliffs topped with grass as in the west of England, but a pale, golden rock worn smooth and sloping in rounded hillocks to the water. It reminded me of Sicily. These rocks had the same volcanic, sunbaked look. And they were bald — bald to the top of the highest headland — save for wisps of thin grass and big rock plants. And the sea-birds wheeled incessantly.
A minute later and we had opened up the channel leading into Bovaagen Hval. I ordered half speed and we drifted quietly into the quay. The water became oily and streaked with a black, viscous excretion. Pieces of grey, half-decayed flesh slid by. The smell of the place closed in on us like a blanket. A Norwegian tock-a-tock moored to the quay was loading cases of whale meat. Beyond was the slipway leading to the flensing deck. The place was littered with the remains of the last whale. Long, straight-bladed steam saws were tearing through the gigantic backbone, slicing it into convenient sections. A little group of men stood at the end of the quay, watching us.
Jorgensen came on deck and stood by the starboard rail, gazing out towards the factory. I ran alongside the quay just beyond the meat boat and we tied up. An elderly man detached himself from the group of watchers and came towards us. He was tall and lean with a face that was the colour of mahogany below thick, white hair. 'God dag, herr direktor,' he called to Jorgensen. He had small, impish features that puckered into a smile and the corners of his eyes were lined with a thousand little crinkles.
I climbed over the rail and jumped on to the quay. 'This is Mr Keilland, the station manager,' Jorgensen said curtly by way of introduction. And then still speaking English, he said, 'Well, Kielland, what have you found out about that consignment of whale meat for England. How did the message get into it?'
Kielland spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. 'I am sorry,' he said. 'I have found out nothing. I cannot explain it at all.'
'You've questioned all the men?'