Such bad luck after such good luck! This second Christmas present was not so amusing. But now for our test.
"Hustle you non-Norwegian chaps. Get below deck! Throw water everywhere to explain why our papers are blurred and wet. The storm we just passed through will make it seem the more natural. Schmidt, get into your finery. Remember, from now on you are the shy 'Josefeena' (Josephine), the Captain's wife. If they put a prize crew aboard, we will capture the prize crew. If they suspect we are an auxiliary cruiser, bombs fore, midship, and aft, and we blow up the ship!"
Now for a big quid of tobacco in my mouth. I have never had the habit of chewing tobacco, but a Norwegian skipper would not be true to type without his quid. Besides, a chew of tobacco gives you time to think. If somebody asks you an embarrassing question, you can roll your quid around in your mouth, pucker up your lips slowly, and spit deliberately and elegantly. I had practised rolling the quid and spitting until I thought myself a past master at the art.
But that smell, by Joe! The unexpected always happens to mar the best-laid plans—and help the worst. We had been running our motor full open. Because of the cargo of wood that sealed the deck, there had not been enough ventilation to get rid of the fumes. The characteristic reek of crude oil burning in a Diesel engine seeped up through the secret entrances placed in my cabin, and everything smelled of it. What will the search officer think when he smells a Diesel engine aboard a sailing ship? No use to burn punk or sprinkle eau de cologne.
"Stuff a rug in the chimney of the kerosene stove," I yelled, "and turn up the wicks of the oil lamps as high as you can."
Stench against stench, kerosene smoke against the fumes of the motor. In five minutes my cabin smelled to high heaven of kerosene smoke.
The Britisher had hove to now, and we saw that she was the Avenger, an armed merchant cruiser of some 15,000 tons.
"How's that?" I thought. "Why are the guns pointing? We are a peaceable Norwegian sailing ship. Why the guns?"
She had her big guns trained on us, and her officers were on the bridge looking us over with their glasses.
"Can we have been betrayed?" I asked myself. "Of what use is the best mask, of what use are the best men, if a traitor has done his dirty work?"