"Oh, don't worry, Captain, I'll give you a memorandum explaining the condition of your papers. You are lucky to have saved your ship."
That memorandum was just what I wanted. There was no telling when we might be searched again.
I had the papers scattered all over the cabin to dry, and each time I handed one to him I spat a stream of tobacco juice on the cabin floor. He examined the papers with a practised eye and made entries in his notebook. Each page in his book was for a ship, and I could see that thirty or forty pages had been used already. Yes, he was an experienced officer.
When he came to the last document, the one signed with the false signature of the British Consul at Copenhagen and sealed with a false British Imperial seal, and read the formal statement that the Irma's cargo of lumber was destined for the use of the British government in Australia, he turned to me suddenly.
"These papers are all right, Captain."
In the excitement of the moment I suddenly swallowed my chew of tobacco. I was afraid this might give our whole sham away. So I coughed and coughed as though with a bad cold, trying to cover up what had happened. What would a British search officer think if a Norwegian skipper got seasick? My mate Leudemann was standing next to me holding the log book. I had told him to have it ready in case the Britisher should want to examine it. Leudemann saw there was something wrong with me, and was quick-witted enough to divert the search officer's attention, by handing him the book.
"Oh, yes, the log," exclaimed the officer, and opened the wet pages.
The quid of tobacco seemed to be moving up and down my gullet. I struggled with myself, and to show an outward calm I said to Leudemann in Norwegian:
"I wish I'd had that officer's camel's hair cape and hood. It would have been fine to keep a fellow warm while up there north of the Circle."
"For rain and spray, too." The Englishman spoke up in Norwegian to show that he knew the language.