I paused for half-a-second—I couldn’t advise—Henriksen is in command.
So I waited for this fraction of a second—it felt like a whole minute.
He thought and must have thought hard; for there are many things to put together in such a moment—owners’ risks, personal risk, honour, risk of fines or imprisonment for leaving a Portuguese port without clearance, the chance of saving lives; and last and least—salvage.
“Yes,” said Henriksen, “we goes help—we’s British ship!” and we turned and ran; he blew on his whistle as we ran, and our engineer and some of the crew, who had just come on shore and were entering a café along the promenade, recognised the whistle, and before we were up to them they were back into our boat and we jumped in and pulled off. We got on board, slipped our anchor and chain, marked with line and lifebelt for a buoy, got out side lights and started the engine, and were round the outer end of the breakwater within thirty minutes from the moment we left the café! and I say we felt proud of St Ebba. The big town clock on the church was striking eleven P.M.
No other vessel in harbour was under steam so we congratulated ourselves on having a motor-engine and so being able to get under way so rapidly.
The Arcades at the Inner Harbour, Ponta Delgada, Azores
Tunny on the Beach at Madeira