'Ja,' came the reply., 'In here, please.' Lovaas pushed open a door. 'My cabin,'
he said. 'Always a damn' disorder. No woman, you know. Never have a woman on board. Have 'em ashore, but never on board, eh? Here they are.' He pointed to the photographs pinned to the wall above his bunk. 'Hilda. Martha. Solveig.' He slapped his deck. 'I have one whole drawer full. You would not believe that, eh — a man as big as me?' And he patted his stomach. 'Now. You like aquavit, eh? Or brandy? I have French brandy — no duty, good stuff.'
'What's aquavit?' I asked. I'd always heard of it as a Norwegian drink, but I'd never had it.
'Never had aquavit, eh?' He roared with laughter and slapped my arm. 'Then you will have aquavit.'' He stooped down with a grunt and brought a bottle and two glasses out of a cupboard below the desk. Above our heads the engine-room telegraph rang and the engines throbbed into life. 'There' he said, holding up the bottle. 'Real line aquavit. See the inside of the label? The name of the ship it crossed the Line in, going south, and the name of the ship that brought it back. All good aquavit must cross the equator twice.'
'Why?' I asked.
'Why? Good God! How should I know? That is the job of the men who make the damn' stuff. All I know is that it does good to it. Well — skoal.' He raised his glass and drained it at a gulp. 'A-ah!' he breathed. 'That is good, eh? Very good if you eat much fat, you know.' And he patted his stomach again and roared with laughter. I remembered what Dahler said and noticed that his little bloodshot eyes did not laugh. The fat round them creased into wrinkles of laughter, but the eyes themselves were blue and steely and were watching me all the time. 'Now, sit down,' he said. 'Sit down.' And he kicked a chair over to me. 'You wish to know about Schreuder, eh?'
'Yes,' I said.
He sat on his bunk. 'So does herr direktor Jorgensen.'
The way he said herr direktor it sounded like a sneer. 'I was expecting you, you know.'
'Expecting me? Why?' I asked.