It does not surprise me that the Vikings of the olden days used to leave
the southern coast of Norway for summer visits to our Highlands and
western isles, for the climate in this Southern Norway in August is most
relaxing; there is absolutely nothing of that feeling of “atmospheric
champagne” that you expect to enjoy in Northern Norway in summer.
We drive into Tonsberg from Henriksen’s farm every morning, and after
spending the day in the shipyard, come out again in the evening with our
ears deafened with the rattle of steam-hammers on iron bolts, rivets and
plates. And at night in the quiet of the country we pore over Admiralty
charts of the world, especially those of islands down in the South
Atlantic, about which we have special knowledge, where we hope our new
whaler will pick up cargoes of whales and of seals.
Our first Sunday off work, 4th August, came as quite a relief, the
quiet of the country was so welcome. We wandered through the fields of
Henriksen’s farm with his wife and their jolly children, and Rex, the
liver-and-white collie, smuggled into Norway from Shetland, then through
woods and heather till we came by an ancient road to the summit of a
little hill and the remains of a Viking watch-tower, where we lay amongst
blaeberries and heather and enjoyed the wide view of sea and islands at
the entrance to Christiania Fiord, a pretty place to dream in and plan
raids to the Southern Seas. As we rambled homewards through the pine wood
that belongs to the farm we selected fir-trees to be cut down later for
boat masts, lance shafts and flensing blades.
By the end of August we realise that our small ship is rapidly
approaching completion. What a little while ago was only unkindly iron
ribs and plates, with the added woodwork of the deck and masts, has now
become a little more personal, and more homelike. We have had our engine
hoisted from the slipside by a great crane and slowly and tenderly sunk
into the engine-room, a very modern six-cylinder Diesel motor made in
Stockholm. The fo’c’sle is well aired and lighted, and is fitted up with
comfortable bunks and mattresses on wire stretchers. Each man has a long
chest beside his bed, for we believe in making the men as comfortable as
the after-guard.
The binnacle is now on the bridge, in front of the wheel; its bright new
brass looks resplendent; and two hermetically closed boilers we have
fixed on deck on either side under the bridge for boiling down whale
blubber at sea.
Our hull forward of the engine-room is made up of iron tanks, and in
these we hold crude oil for the engine. They will be filled, we hope, by
whale oil and whalebone as we use up the crude oil for the engine’s fuel.
Above the most forward tanks is the hold, where we shall stow our whale
lines—light lines for sperm or cachalot, or the small Right whale,
Australis, of the Southern Seas, and our heavy lines for the great
fighting finners will be in two bins to port and starboard. Forward of
the hold there is the fo’c’sle and men’s quarters, with more space under
their floor in the peak for more spare lines and sailcloth, and many
other necessaries for a prolonged whaling cruise.
We have a small cabin aft, below deck, with four little cabins off it—to
starboard, the captain’s; the writer’s temporary berth is to port, to
be used later for any extra officer or pilot or for stores; the first
mate’s and first engineer’s cabin are a little aft on either side of the
companionway.
The iron galley with its small cooking-stove is forward, on deck, and
attached to it we have a mess-room, into which four or even five of us
can squeeze at one time for meals.
Aft of this mess-room and the foremast we have a very important part of
our gear, a powerful winch driven by a donkey steam-engine. This is our
reel, to wind up or let out our line, the five-inch cable when we play a
finner. The line passes five or six times round two grooved barrels of
the winch, and with it we haul up to the surface the dead whale. But
more about this winch when we tackle a whale.
The 9th of August was a great day for us, for we started our 200 h.p.
engines, and drove them at half-speed for an hour and never moved an
inch, for the very good reason that our bows were still against the
quayside. How quietly and simply they work. We then got our big traveller
fixed across our deck for the sheet of our foresail. We are schooner
rigged, foresail and mainsail both the same size, and count on doing
eight to ten knots with engine, and six or seven with a fine breeze and
sails alone.
In the morning we look at our guns in the harpoon factory. The gun or
cannon for the bow weighs about two tons. It is already in position; the
bollard on which it pivots is part of the iron structure of the bows
and goes right down to our forefoot. Its harpoons weigh one and a half
hundredweight: we shall take twenty-five of these, and forty smaller
harpoons for sperm or cachalot or Right whale. On either side of the bows
there is a smaller gun pivoting on a bollard to fire these harpoons.
These two small guns and our twenty-five big harpoons and forty of the
smaller size we find arranged in order at the works—a charming sight to
us. Harold Henriksen, the builder of our ship, takes us to these works,
where his brother Ludwig and his father make the harpoons and guns that
are now sent all over the world. The father is very greatly respected
in Tonsberg; he is called the “Old Man Henriksen,” to distinguish him
from the younger member of his family. I have already mentioned him as
being co-partner with the famous Svend Foyn, the inventor of the new big
harpoon for finner whales.
He has made many inventions for marine work on all kinds of ships,
for which he has received many medals, and only lately he received a
decoration from the hands of his king, which is shown in the portrait
given by him to the writer, a rare and highly appreciated gift.
He is seventy-eight years old and sails his own cutter single-handed.
I wish there were space here to tell of his experiences whilst working
with Svend Foyn developing the big harpoon. He takes us round the works,
where forty years of fire and iron have made their mark; remains of
failures are there; of burnt building and scrapped metal, but, besides,
there are these fascinating stacks of modern harpoons and piles of their
shell points to be used for great hunting in all seas.
The “Old Man” chuckles as we wander from forge to forge and out
amongst the geraniums in the yard as he tells me how the first harpoon
they tried went over the walls of the works and landed through the
umbrella of an old lady in the street, and stood upright between the
cobblestones. You may believe they practised out of town after that!
Though old—seventy-eight years to-day—he is enthusiastic about our new
plan of whaling. He has formed a yacht club; everyone yachts at Tonsberg.
It is on a small island of little plots of grass between boulders and
small fir-trees. We were invited there to-day for the celebration of his
birthday. There were ladies in pretty summer dresses in groups, cakes,
teas, fruit and pleasing drinks, coffee and cigars, and wasps by the
thousands. Norwegian ladies cultivate coolness, and merely brush these
away as they hand us cakes and wine; and they would be greatly offended
if a man were to attempt to hand tea cakes. For the carpet knight there
is no show. I wish he could be exterminated at home. Do the gods not
laugh when they see our menkind in frock coats or shooting kit handing
tea and cakes to females?
These pretty groups of summer-clad figures amongst lichen-covered rocks
and rowans, fir-trees, oaks and honey-suckle were all reflected in the
still water. As the sun sank low and a mosquito or two began to sing,
fairy lamps were lit amongst the trees, and softly shone on groups of men
and women in light raiment in leafy bowers. The light from the yellow
and red lamps contrasted with the last blue of day. There was warm air
and moths, cards and smokes, and then came music, and a perfect ballroom
floor and blue eyes and light feet—a kindly welcome to the stranger in
Gamle Norge.
In the dark before dawn, with lighted Japanese lanterns, ladies and
men threaded their way over the flat rocks to motor launches and bade
good-bye to the hosts. I shall not soon forget the long walk home across
our island, the low mist, the warm, dark night, and wringing wet fields.
There is one place in Tonsberg of which I must make a note before I come
back to our shipbuilding. It is the Britannia. Anyone who wishes to
learn all there is to know about modern whaling must get an introduction
to that cosy, old-world club. It is a low-roofed wooden house, with
low-roofed rooms; one big room adjoins a kitchen, in which broad, kindly
Mrs Balkan, wife of my friend the engineer on the whaler Haldane, sits
behind a long counter and rules supreme. You leave the shipyard and drop
in there for _middag-mad_, or shelter if it rains. It seemed to rain
very often in August. The “old man” Henriksen’s portrait and one of the
great Svend Foyn are, of course, in evidence, and Svend Foyn’s whaling
successors come there for _middag-mad_ or _aften-mad_, and some of them
drink, I dare say, a silent skaal of gratitude to the memory of Svend
Foyn, who gave them the lead to success, to become small landholders,
each with his home, farm, and family.
Burly fellows are his successors, the pick of Norse sailor captains. One
is just home from the South Shetlands. I saw these desolate, unhabitated,
snow-clad islands many years ago, and saw there finner whales, thousands
of them! and knew they must some day be hunted, but I did not calculate
to a penny that there would be over a million pounds sterling invested
in whaling stations there to-day; in one bay alone in Clarence Island,
and that round these islands in 1911, twenty-two whalers would bag 3500
whales. So whaling here is an assured _industry_. In Britain the few who
hear about it call it a _speculation_.
Another ruddy-faced, broad-shouldered, fair-haired captain comes from
South Georgia and tells me of my friend there, Sorrensen, the bigger of
two big brothers, both great harpooneers—they are both quite wealthy men
now. They whaled with us from our Shetland station a few years ago, and
between hunts we talked of a whaling station we were going to start in
South Georgia; two or three years at this station has set them up for
life.
Most of the men who come into the Britannia have been over all the
world; half-a-life’s experience of any of them would fill a book. But
of them all I think I’d sooner have my friend Henriksen’s experiences.
Young as he is, he has perhaps had more experience in whaling than any
of them. He was whaling for the Japanese when they opened fire on the
Russian fleet. At least he had been—he stopped when the guns began to
fire, and took his little whaling steamer behind an island, and he and
another Norsk whaling skipper climbed to the top of it and viewed the
fight from shelter. I believe they were almost the only Europeans besides
the Russians who saw that spectacle. Henriksen has a red lacquered cup—a
present from the Mikado in recognition of his services for supplying food
in shape of whale to Yusako during the war. In time of peace there they
eat the whole whale, paying several dollars a kilo for best whale blubber
and as much or little less for the meat.
We in the Shetlands turn the fat oil into lubricants, etc., and the meat
into guano for the fertilisation of crops. I suppose it comes to the same
thing in the end, if “all flesh is grass.”
So the talk, as can be imagined, wanders far afield in the Britannia. I
heard a skipper asked by a layman what corners of the world he had been
in, and he paused to consider and replied: “Well, I’ve not been in the
White Sea.” From Arctic to Antarctic he’d sailed a keel in every salt sea
in the world bar the White Sea and the Caspian. The telephone interrupts
many a yarn; perhaps Jarman Jensen, our ship’s chandler, calls up someone
about provisioning a station, say for three years—food, etc., for one
hundred men for that time or longer; or perhaps there is a less important
order from Frau Pedersen ringing up her husband from their little farm,
telling him to call at the grocer on his way home, and he perhaps tells
her he thinks he may not get out in time for dinner, and “Oh, buy a house
in town, Olaus” is possibly the jesting answer—a great saying here in
Tonsberg, where men sometimes are said by their wives to dawdle away the
afternoon in the Britannia, when they are really deep in whaling finance,
planning whaling stations for islands known, or almost unknown down south
on the edge of the Antarctic, or on the coast of Africa or the Antipodes.
Here is the 12th of August, day of Saint Grouse, and we should be
treading the heather at home, but we are still on the island of Nottero,
with rain every day; and every morning the same slow drive behind
Swartzen into Tonsberg, longing all the time for our ship to be ready for
sea. We hoped to have had it ready in June!
We have, however, made almost our last payment, and have her insured.
What a lot it all costs!
We tried to console ourselves to-day with the interest of our first
trial run of our engine as against loss of pleasant company and grouse
at home, also we have the pleasure of seeing the last of our whale lines
being made and we get our chronometer on board, stop watch, etc., and
spend hours in Jarman Jensen’s little back shop with three skippers
giving us advice, as we draw up lists of provisions for the St Ebba for a
twelvemonth.
In the rope factory run by Count Isaacksen we watched the last of our
great whale lines being spun; three five-inch lines we have to port and
three to starboard, one hundred and twenty fathoms each—that is, we can
let a whale run out three times one hundred and twenty fathoms on our
port lines, three hundred and sixty or two thousand one hundred and sixty
feet. I have seen that length run straight out in a few seconds at the
rate of sixty miles per hour, with engine going eight knots astern and
brakes on, and then it snapped; for some big blue whales five of these
lines are attached to give greater weight and elasticity, because, you
see, there is no rod used in whale-fishing.
The rope factory and Jarman Jensen’s store are two wonders of Tonsberg.
The store is a small front shop, generally pretty full of townspeople
making domestic purchases, butter, potatoes, coffee. Jensen, with perfect
calm and without haste, weighs out a pound of butter, wraps it in paper
and hands it with a bow to some customer, gives a direction to one or
two heated assistants, and comes back to us in the den behind the shop
and continues to tot up the provisioning for our ship for a year, or the
stores for some far bigger whaling concern running to thousands of pounds.
So much business done in so small a space and with such complete absence
of fuss! Jensen in his leisure hours is antiquarian and poet. He
possesses a valuable library in Norse antiquities and will write a Saga
while you wait. He must have burned a good deal of midnight oil over the
splendid saga he wrote about our St Ebba which was rich with historical
reference to the amenities between Scots and the Norwegians in ancient
days.
The slowest part of the outfitting for our whaler was, for me, the
customary expressions of hospitality. I hope my Norwegian friends will
understand and forgive my criticism. It is the result of my being merely
British, with only a limited knowledge of Norse and a comparatively
feeble appetite. A quiet little dinner given to us as a visitor and
representative of our Whaling Company would begin at three P.M. and wind
up at ten—eating most of the time—plus aquavit and the drink of my native
land, which seems to be almost as popular in Norway as it is in England.
Think of it—five or six hours’ smiling at a stretch, pretending to
understand something of the funny stories in Norsk and joining in the
hearty laughter! I could have wept with weariness. They are to be envied,
these Norse, with their jolly heartiness, the way they can shake their
sides with laughter over a funny story. The world is still young for
them. I remember that our fathers laughed and told long stories like
these people.
One chestnut I added as new to their repertoire. I believe it has
spread north as far as Trömso, about the man with a new motor who, when
asked about its horse-power, drawled in reply it was said to be twenty
horse-power, but he thought eighteen of the beggars were dead! And as to
speed, it had three—slow—damned slow—and stop! It seemed to translate
all right—_saghte_—_for-dumna-saghte_, and, _Stop!_ fetched the audience
every time. At least it did so when Henriksen told the story, but he is a
born raconteur, and infuses the yarn with so much of his own humour and
jollity that everyone, especially the womenfolk, who are very attentive
to him, laugh till they weep.
A perfect wonder to me is the way in which women here can prepare meals
and entertain a lot of people single-handed, or with, say, the help
of one maid, at a couple of hours’ notice; have a spise-brod ready—a
table covered with hors-d’œuvres at which you can ruin the best appetite
with all sorts of tasty sandwiches, aquavit, liqueurs and beer till the
Real dinner is ready, say, of four substantial courses and many wines,
custards and sweets. Between times she will possibly see her own children
off to bed, probably alongside some of the visitors’ children; then she
will sing and play accompaniments on the piano, and join heartily in the
general talk, and later will serve a parting meal and a deoch-an-doris,
and walk a Scotch escort of a mile or two with the parting guest as the
morning sun begins to show.
They seem very jolly though they are so busy. Everyone on this island
knows everyone else: they were all at school together, as were their
parents before them. Most of the married people have a little farm. The
wife looks after this when the husband is at sea-whaling. The women have
the vote too! They voted solid a year or two ago for a neatly dressed,
plausible young orator who came round the island, and when their husbands
came home after the whaling season was over, found he was a Socialist;
and if anyone’s interests are damaged by the Socialist in Norway, it is
the whaler’s. So the vote for some time was not a favourite subject of
conversation here when ladies were present. I think the wealthiest family
in Tonsberg, a millionaire’s household, runs to two maidservants.
But this is dangerous ground; let us upstick and board the St Ebba. “Once
on board the lugger” we cast off wire hawsers, let on the compressed air
with a clash in the cylinders, then petrol, then crude oil, back her,
stop her, then motor ahead easily.
The St Ebba’s first journey! We passed down between Nottero and the
mainland, rapidly passing the small motor craft that seemed to be timing
us, travelling at nine and three quarter knots. She seems to go as
quickly as our steam-whaler the Haldane—less “send” in calm water. The
Haldane and her like pitch a little, St Ebba makes no turn up behind to
speak of at half speed, which is fast enough for actual whaling. She
seems particularly quick in turning, and in a very small circle.
We had charts out all the morning planning our southern route, possibly
to the Crozets, possibly the Seychelles or the Antipodes. We have
information about whaling in these waters; I wrote our directors about
the possibility of running a shore station with St Ebba, and painted the
St Ebba flag.
[Illustration]
Then we went by our launch, a Berlinda motor-boat fitted with bollard
or timber-head at the bow for small harpoon gun for killing sperm or
Australis. We found St Ebba’s engineer very busy, and worried. The
cooling water inflow was stopped by something from outside. The British
engineer was also very busy with our Cochran steam boiler for our winch.
This winch seems very satisfactory—a sixty-horse-power salmon reel, with
ratchet and noise in proportion.
We continued working at the engines till seven P.M., then motored in the
St Ebba launch down the side of the island, and got home in the dark at
ten-thirty.
I must cut down these day-to-day notes. “Launching a whaler” sounds
interesting enough till you come to read about details. Little troubles
and big troubles and worries arose to delay the getting afloat, signing
on men took time, signing off an engineer who got drunk, and getting
another in his place caused another delay; and delays occurred getting
our papers audited. They had all to be sent back to Christiania to
get a “t” crossed or an “i” dotted. Rain came and helped to delay
getting our lines on board. Then we had to have an official trip, with
representatives of Government, etc., etc., on board, a curious crowd all
connected with the sea, most of them captains, a Viking crew on a British
ship, still with the Norwegian flag astern!
At the next trip, however, given by us, when we had accepted deliverance,
we unfolded the Union Jack and had what I’ve heard called a cold
collation on our main hatch. There were the captain’s and friends’
relatives, photographers, reporters and skippers all intensely interested
in our new type of whaler.
On page 36 are depicted figures looking into the engine-room, because
there was no room inside! There our engineer is discoursing to whaling
and mercantile skippers, showing how he can be called from his bunk and
have the engine going full speed ahead in less than four minutes; and all
the wonders of a modern Diesel motor.
And one by one the carpers climb down, each in his own way—for you see
almost all the “men-who-knew” said something or other would happen or
wouldn’t work. But once they saw our engine work and the arrangement of
harpoons, guns, lines, and oil tanks, all of them prophesied success.