Round we come with the wind out of shelter into rougher sea—half-speed ahead—full speed—and away we go, our first trip with no one but ourselves aboard, no pilot or town ties—ready for a year at sea.
But we have arrangements to make on board yet, arranging lines, and guns, and testing them, and a lot of small work with wood which we will do ourselves down the fiord opposite Henriksen’s home, a sheltered nook with fir-trees round, five miles from Tonsberg. Knarberg they call this little bay or arm at Kjolo, in Nottero, where long ago Viking ships were built, where Henriksen’s father sailed from, and his father before him in the days before steam. Now we revive the past glories with a split-new up-to-date six-cylinder Diesel motor-whaler!
We slide down the fiord before the wind and rain and squalls, smiling with pleasure at our freedom from the wharf-side. With a foremast tackle the port anchor is heaved up and hung over the side—the chain stopped by a patent catch; it is the first time we have gone through the manœuvre in the St Ebba, so even anchoring is full of interest. And in a few minutes more we swing to windward in the narrow Knarberg and drop port anchor and swing to starboard and drop starboard anchor, drop astern and lie where all the winds can blow and never move us.
One anchor might have been enough. But, as Henriksen said to his young brother: “Styrmand, you remember, father always put down two anchors, we will do the same.”
Then we open out the foresail and spread it over the boom above the main hatch, and our little crew gets to work, sheltered from the rain, shifting and arranging our goods and chattels below, laying timber balks over the tanks under our main hold so as to form a flooring to support the weight of casks and spare gear, furnace, anvils, lance shafts, etc., that must lie on top.
A glow comes up from the red-painted ironwork on to the faces of the crew that is almost like the effect of sunlight.
Our whaling lines we have to stow away carefully; it takes eight men with a tackle to lift one hank of line on deck, one hundred and twenty fathoms of five-inch rope. And there are stacks of fascinating harpoons, large and small, to be arranged.
We have adjusted the compass to-day by bearings, a long process requiring a specialist down from Tonsberg. The operation gave us a good chance to test our engines—so much backing and going ahead and turning in small circles, just the manœuvres we will require in pursuit of whales.
More homely work consisted in getting potatoes on board from Larsen’s farm—a retired American naval man—whose farm adjoins Henriksen’s. He has cut the spruce shafts in our wood for lances, light and pliable, carefully chosen for the quality of each stem, and so as to leave room for growth of the younger trees. And we have cut down a venerable oak, for we need a stout hole for our anvil, and other smaller pieces for toggles for whale-flensing. Anvil and forge are of goodly size, for we shall have heavy ironwork making straight the big harpoons (three-and-a-half-inch diameter) after they have been tied into knots by some strong rorqual. A turning lathe we must have, and an infinity of blocks, bolts, chains, and shackles. Veritably our little one-hundred-and-ten-foot motor, sailing, tank, whaling, sealing, cookery ship is multum in parvo, and parva sed apta.
We have got our ammunition on board. We brought it from Tonsberg yesterday ourselves, on our Bolinder launch, so saved freight and fright! for the local boat-owners were a little shy. Henriksen packed the powder in tins on the floor of our launch in the stern sheets, rifles and cartridges on top, and he himself with his pipe going sat on top of all. I think he smoked his pipe to ease my mind, to make me feel quite sure that he thought it was quite safe, now the ammunition is being stowed away under my bunk! Two thousand express rifle cartridges with solid bullets we have, for we will call on the sea-elephants at a seldom-visited island we know of just north of the Antarctic ice. One load we should surely get in a few weeks’ time: their blubber is about eight inches thick, and is worth £28 per ton; a load of one hundred and sixty tons (I think we could carry as much as that at a pinch) at £28 per ton will equal £4480, not a bad nest egg, and why not two or three loads in the season, not to speak of the excitement of landing through surf and the struggle through tussock grass. Man versus beast, with the chances in favour of man, but not always; men I know have been drowned, and others nearly drowned, in the kelp and surf that surrounds these islands in the far South Atlantic. Once I had to swim in it, and do not wish to do so again, and it’s one bite from a sea-elephant or sea-leopard and good-bye to your arm or leg.