'Fine,' I said. 'We'll make for Austrheim then. If we're right, we should meet the divers coming back to their work here.'
Shortly afterwards a breeze sprang up and the mist cleared to bright sunshine. But we saw no sign of the divers' boats. They weren't in Austrheim, nor was there any sign of them in any of the inlets along the coast. Reluctantly we put about.
On the way back to Bovaagen Hval something occurred which, in a strange way upset me. Austrheim was disappearing in the haze astern. I went down to the saloon to fix drinks for the crew. But outside the door, I stopped. It was not properly shut and through the crack I could see Jill and Curtis standing close together. Jill's eyes were wet with tears. Curtis held a watch in his hand — the same gold watch that I had seen him with when he first came aboard. 'I'm sorry,' he was saying. 'I should have given it to you before. But I wasn't certain he was dead. Now I am certain. So' — he thrust the gold timepiece into her hands — 'It was his father's. When he gave it to me, your address was inside the back. I opened it foolishly in the assault craft. The wind swept the piece of paper with your address overboard. Only your picture remained. That's why I recognised you at once.'
She had clutched hold of the watch. 'You — saw us, that time in Bergen, didn't you?'
'Yes.'
'That was the last time I saw him.' She turned away. She was crying quietly. 'Was there any message — when he gave you this?'
'Yes,' Curtis answered. 'A line from Rupert Brooke-'
I turned quietly away then and went back on deck. Why was she crying? Was she still in love with him? I took the wheel from Carter. I didn't want to think about her being in love with Farnell.
It was midday by the time we got back to the whaling station. Two catchers lay at the quay. And as we landed the winches were clattering and a huge white whale was being dragged up the slipway by its tail. We stood and watched for a moment. It was all strange and exciting. When the winches stopped, the great animal stretched the whole length of the flensing deck. Its gigantic tail lay by the winches. Its mouth, wide open to show the finners and the huge pink tongue, overhung the slipway. In an instant half a dozen men, armed with flensing knives, set to work. The winch hawsers were attached to the flaps of the hide cut out from either side of the head behind the jaw. Then flensing began, the winches tearing at the blubber whilst the flensers cut it clear with their knives. This exposed the meat along the backbone. Then the winch hawsers were re fixed, run through blocks and the whale was winched over to expose the grey-white belly of the animal to the flensing knives.
Kielland came up as we stood watching. He was dressed in ex-German jackboots and an old khaki shirt. 'Ah, you have returned, eh?' He shouted instructions to one of the men and then said, 'I hear this man, Schreuder, jumped into the sea. You did not recover him, eh?'