Then it’s hey! and it’s ho! for Scotland, chilly Lerwick and the
Shetlands and kindly English-speaking people. My heart warms at the
prospect of seeing our western hills and heather and relatives and a
language we know.
It rains again, tropical rain. We stand and bid farewell in the
homestead, round the little dining-room table, each with a liqueur glass
in hand. Suddenly I see eyes are wet, and the stranger nearly pipes an
eye too, for it is a bit harrowing even to cold hearts to see married
people with children still lovers. My host has been, for him, at home
so long, nearly eleven months now! So the parting from wife, children,
homestead, farm, woods, horse and hound, all of which he loves, must be
sore for however hardened a seafarer.
Our last cargo from home goes to the ship on a hand-cart towed by the
children and Rex the collie in great glee—curious luggage—Japanese
wicker-work baskets and parcels of foreign-looking clothes for their
father. The writer goes ahead with them, leaving the lovers to follow
their lone, past the little home they built after Henriksen’s first
success at whaling, on a three months’ spell from sea, down the road and
past the school in the birches where they played as children together,
down to the _brig_ or rocks where their fathers before them careened
their ships and made the same sad partings.
Perhaps the captain is the only sad man to-day. From first mate downwards
eyes are sparkling, in spite of the dull day of rain, at the prospect of
the rough, bracing, salt seas in front of us. We think nothing just now
of cold, wet, dark, dangerous nights; the future is all couleur de rose,
whale-hunting, new lands and people, sea-elephants, movement and life for
us, death to them and profit for us all!
Was it lucky or unlucky that our anchors held to Norway and the
sea-maids’ hair or grass, like grim death? A sailor would be interested,
perhaps, in a description of how the two chains were fouled or twisted,
how one shackle opened and the starboard chain went slap into the water.
I thought, we are in for more delay, trying to pick it up. But Henriksen
spotted that it had caught on the port chain, and his young brother, our
mate, promptly slid down it—a nice muddy slide down and to his waist in
water—got a rope through its links and stopped it on the port chain, and
so we got both back. All the sea fairies of Norwegian seas could not have
given us more trouble in taking our British ship from the Norse anchorage.
As we motored from sheltered Knarsberg to Christiania fiord we passed
Faarman Holme and the yacht club and dipped our Union Jack, and saw the
Norse flag dipped in return, no doubt by old Henriksen, who had stopped
the night there to flag us adieu in the morning.
There was more heart-string-breaking before we left. Mrs Henriksen and
the children, and Hansen the steward’s newly married wife, came part of
the way, and we dropped them a few miles down the fiord in a motor-launch
we had in tow. There are tender hearts in Norway, tender and brave.
And now we are out of the great Christiania fiord or firth, passing
Færder Light that marks its entrance, Norway faint on our right and
Sweden over the horizon to our left, the sun shining for the first day
this summer. The sea has a silky swell. We have shaken off all things
earthy except a little mud on our anchors now being stowed away, and
three or four green oak leaves and moss on the hole of the oak-tree
brought for the anvil.
Henriksen and I stand for a little on the bow and rejoice in the heave
and send, and compare the movement of St Ebba with that of the Haldane
and other whalers we know, and we think that she makes good. There
is sun, sea, cloud-land, rippling swell and fresh, cold air, with a
luxurious roll; and we feel an hour of such a day at sea is reward for
all the months of worry and waiting and planning on shore.
A pleasure in store for us will be setting our new sails. But even now,
with the motor alone and fully loaded—with sixty tons of fresh water
alone—we make nine and a half knots! but with our canvas unloosed and a
light breeze behind us might even reel off eleven to twelve.
Not many miles out at sea a Killer (or Orca gladiator) appeared coming
from starboard. Our guns were all covered with canvas so we did not clear
for action, and the Killer is not of much value. He came towards us and
passed forty yards astern, a fact which greatly comforted us, for “those
who know” on shore informed us a motor would drive away whales, but how
they knew it is hard to say. Then it was said so often, and with such a
sense of conviction, that without acknowledging it, we had a slight sense
of chill. This Cetacean, a whale of, say, thirty feet, took not the least
notice of our crew, and as our fortunes depend on being able to approach
the leviathans of the ocean, without frightening them, the incident,
though apparently small, gave us considerable encouragement.
Our first day at sea has passed very busily and we go below for a spell
to our blankets, early, and tired, but with a joy beyond words at turning
in again to a cosy bunk with everything at hand—pipe, books, paints, even
music (practice pipe chanter), all within arm’s-reach, an open port and
chilly, clean air, and the faintest suggestion of movement; such luxuries
you may not have on shore.
The sea did not hide its teeth for long. After sundown skirts of rain
appeared from threatening clouds on the distant Norse coast. Gradually
they spread across our track, bands of little ripples, like mackerel
playing, appeared on the smooth swell, and these spread and joined till
all the sea was dark with a breeze, which in a few hours grew to a strong
wind against us.
As we passed Ryvingen Light on the south of Norway the night grew dismal
and rough; we watched its revolving four-flash light, which seemed to be
answered by the three flashes we saw lit up the sky from the light on
Hentsholme in Denmark, over forty miles to our south, and the gloomy sky
over the Skagerak was lit with occasional angry flashes of lightning.
Unpromising weather for our first night at sea!
By two in the night we were digging into the same hole, making little or
no way, with more than half-a-gale from sou’-west.
In the morning we were a very sad lot of whaler sailors. Fore and aft all
were sick, or at least very sorry for themselves. All but Henriksen and
the mate and the writer and one man were really ill, and we, I believe,
only pretended to be well—such is the effect of the motion of a small
whaler vessel on even old sailors on their first experience of them. I
have known Norsemen who have been at sea all their lives on large craft
refuse to go on a modern whaler at any pay.
We aim at getting up the Norse coast as far as Bergen, then going west
towards north of Shetlands and, given fine weather, we ought to pick up a
whale or two before putting in to Lerwick, where we must re-register our
vessel.
But the wind increases to a full gale. All the sea is white and the sky
hard, and rain and sun alternate and our nine-and-a-half-knot speed is
reduced to about four.
But St Ebba is a dry ship. She proves that at least. Any other vessel I
have been in, whaler or other, would ship more water than we do.
There is no use trying to steam or motor against this N.E. gale, so it’s
up close-reefed fore and mainsail and staysail; only four men to do it,
and that for the first time of this ship at sea, and in a gale. Reef
points are made and all got ready; then it’s “Haul away on throat and
peak” and up goes the scrap of sail, and what clouds of spray burst over
the oilskin-clad figures as they haul away cheerily! The writer, at the
wheel on the bridge, even comes in for a bit of the rather too refreshing
salt spray.
Now the after or main sail is set like a board, and we are transformed
into a sailing-ship.
A ring on the bell and the engine and sick engineer get respite; a point
or two off the wind and there is the silence of a sailing-ship—no engine
vibrations. True, we make little or no progress and some leeway, but the
motion is heavenly compared to the plugging away of an engine into a head
sea.
[Illustration: A DEAD SEAL ON THE FLOE EDGE]
The decks get dry though the sea is very rough, another proof of the St
Ebba quality. We wish, however, we were further on our road to “our ain
countrie.”
The mess-room of St Ebba is not extensive, a little iron house built
round the foremast. One third of it is the steward’s or cook’s galley. He
acts both parts. He is almost like a fair Greek, rather thin, with golden
hair and a skin as white as his jacket; poor fellow, he is sick, but
sticks to his pans, and tries to forget the young wife he left behind him.
His galley is about three feet by six feet beam, and his stove and pans
and coal-box just leave him room to stand in. Our mess-room is what I
consider a very cosy room for a whaler; it is fully five feet by six
feet beam of iron, grained yellow oak—iron ties and bolts grained like
oak. It may not be æsthetic, still in some ways it is the best part of
the ship. It seems to be the pivot of our movements. There is a round
port-hole or bolley to port, and two looking aft towards our stern and
a little round-topped iron door on the starboard. Through the two ports
astern comes the sunlight and the iron door keeps out sea and wind, so
in this stormy weather our mess-room has its points. There is another
round-topped door from it to the galley. So Hansen (cook and steward) has
merely to stretch his arm round to us to hand the coffee-pot, or sardines.
Sardines and brown bread are on the table this morning. I notice about
two sardines have been eaten by our after-guard, so even if we claim
not to be sea-sick we cannot claim any great appetite. Poor cook—he has
upset a pail and dishes in the galley. I help him with his stores a bit,
but it is no use—he is a bit on edge, so the bridge is the place to sit
on and sketch, for one must do something to keep the mind occupied in
rough weather. And it is precious cold and comfortless. You have to twist
a limb round something to prevent being flung about, steering requires
gymnastics.
There is a pale wintry sun, but the air is cold and clammy—all right on
shore, I should say, for a September day.
Two masts and a funnel go driving across our track, almost hull down
before the gale, a wreath of black smoke dispersing to leeward in wind
and spray. I almost regret I am not on board, with steam and the wind
aft. I’d be in Leith before many hours, then with Old Crow and the dogs
on dry stubble. Just the day this for shore, and partridges, or to look
for hares on St Abb’s Head.
One or two of the crew are reviving this afternoon, though it is still
very rough, but the first engineer, a Swede, is still very sick.
One of the crew this morning told me as he steered: “Dem mens forward
all seek, but me no seek, so I have six eggs to mineself”; but he looked
pale, and in a minute or two he gave the wheel to me and went to the side
of the bridge and came back wiping his mouth with the back of his hand,
and took the spokes again, muttering: “Fordumna, now I’se loss dem.” Such
details of life at sea you find in the Argonautica; they give colour and
conviction; only the Argonauts in their days were laid out on the beach
with too much purple wine.
Yesterday morning about four we tried the engine, but the Swede could not
start it. Either he had let the compressed-air supply run out or water
had collected and blew into first cylinder or—or—anyway, sick or well,
all hands had to pump on till late last night, and only raised pressure
to over sixty pounds and it requires to come up to one hundred and fifty.
Henriksen has been saying the wind is going to moderate by such and such
a time; when I see a sky such as this round the horizon, with haze and
cold, I give several days of gale.
It is very wearisome; Henriksen is pretty quiet. At breakfast we have
each half-a-cup of coffee! We are simply drifting across this shallow and
somewhat dangerous sea, sometimes called the German Ocean, a crablike
course to Yorkshire coast, or will it be St Abb’s Head we are to knock
against if the wind does not change or the engine go?
It would be an interesting point to get wrecked at, for I’ve a bet on
that the lifeboat a lady started there won’t save ten lives in the next
ten years. It is only allowed out if the wind is off shore and if the cox
first gets her leave. It costs £700 yearly to keep it up, for motor-slip,
man’s house and storehouses. Seven hundred pounds per year for a lady’s
whim seems an extravagant way of running the Lifeboat Fund.
With a few hours’ lull the engineers would get well, and possibly get the
engine air-starting apparatus to work; meantime it is a bit trying having
the elements against us, plus engine difficulty, as no engine, no success
to our whaling. Thank heaven we have sails; but we must be absolutely
sure of our powers of starting the motor, and that at short notice, or St
Ebba dare not venture into certain anchorages we hope to visit, such as
the east of Crozets and other islands.
Wind always N. by W.; we are drifting close hauled S.W.
There was watery sunlight this forenoon, now in the afternoon the wind
is even stronger, and it is dull with spits of rain, and spindrift;
everything is quivering, and throbbing, with the strain, and we shall
have to take in staysail. I think of my first whaling voyage many years
ago, when for twenty days we lay hove to, out west of Ireland about
Rockall. Days of gale are totting up for this trip now! And yet our waist
is full of water only now and then! On that old Balæna, barque-rigged,
and twice as big as this little St Ebba, it was knee-deep on an average,
and waist-high at times. This boat is marvellously dry; of course we
planned her from a very seaworthy type of boat, the Norsk pilot-boat
shape such as those we saw come into Balta Sound last year; after they
had been three months north of Shetland, they had never taken a drop of
sea-water on board, and we think we have improved on them.
As afternoon wore on the wind grew very heavy indeed, and the sea was
very high. It was Henriksen’s worst experience of the North Atlantic. We
watched on the bridge all afternoon, and took in the reefed foresail, so
we have only the close-reefed mainsail, and we watched it anxiously lest
it should burst. But it is of new strongest sailcloth, Greenock make, and
it held.
The watch taking in foresail was a pleasant sight to see. The young
fellows, all deep-sea sailors, sprang at the boom like kittens and
struggled with the billowing hard wet canvas, tooth and nail, till it was
brailed up. I was too cold and wet to get my camera, but what a scene,
say, for a cinematograph—figures on deck swaying at the halyards and
figures clinging pick-a-back to the sail on the boom!
Oh, it was a beast of a day! even though the wave effects were fine;
of about five or six I thought each would be our last. But we lay so
far over with gunwales under so that we simply shot to leeward with a
heavy sea, so there was much “keel water” which, rising from under us to
windward, seemed to prevent the waves breaking over our beam.
The crew are all taking turns at air-pumping; they kept at it all day
yesterday, and till one o’clock to-day, and we are soon going to see if
the pressure will start the engine—it is rather critical.