Sails bellied and motor humming, we parted the waves and left a path
of foam in our wake. On deck we devoted all our spare time to more
dress rehearsals. My boys took a particular relish in putting me
through the "third degree," as you call it. One of them played the
part of a British search officer.
"Now, Captain, what is the name of your ship?" he bellowed.
"She is the _Irma_, and as good a full-rigged ship as ever crossed
the North Sea."
"Have you any brothers and sisters, Captain?"
"Oh, yes, a lot of them. There are Olga, Ingaborg, and Oscar who
live in Hatfjelddalen. Dagmar and Christian are seamen like myself.
Lars runs a salmon cannery in British Columbia, Gustaf and Tor are
lumbermen somewhere in America. And then we have another brother,
Eric, whom we've lost track of."
While trying to make the narrow channel of Norderaue we hit a sand
bank. The ship creaked and the masts trembled, but somehow we pushed
across--further proof that the Scots of Glasgow still know how to
turn out a sturdy clipper ship.
At ten o'clock we passed the Horns reef and continued along the
Danish coast. At eight bells we hoped to reach the Skagerrak, and
then turn her west to give the enemy the impression that we had come
from a Scandinavian port. Shortly before daybreak, the wind shifted
abruptly from southwest to due north. Against such a stiff breeze,
we could make little headway. On our right were the low rocky fjords
and reefs along the coast of Ringkjobing and Thisted. To the left
were British mine fields. We didn't dare run into a Danish harbour
for fear of being interned. So we must either turn back or take a
chance on slipping through the mine fields. It is always possible to
sail through a mine field--provided you sail under a lucky star with
a guardian angel at the helm.
"Hard aport! We'll risk it, boys." With a full spread of sail, we
turned straight west.
Now, a tacking ship heels over. The more sail you carry the more she
lays over, and the less water she draws. That was our chance. The
mines were nearly always planted several feet under water, just out
of sight. Perhaps we could slide right over them. Lifeboats were
lowered, and every man adjusted his lifebelt. Before the mast, the
sailors; aft, the captain. But we all kept to the foreship. We were
lower aft than fore, and if a mine went off it probably would be aft.
But our luck held and we got through in safety.
Our course lay around the northern end of Scotland, along the usual
shipping route from Norway to the Atlantic. To be sure, we could
have hugged the Norwegian coast, but the blockade was even tighter
there. That was the natural course for one of our raiding armoured
cruisers to take, so, if she were headed off by Beatty, she could
turn quickly into a neutral Norwegian port and accept internment
rather than capture. We didn't even keep to the middle of the North
Sea, but with the idea that our one path of safety lay right under
John Bull's nose, followed the coast of England and Scotland.
There were three lines of the blockade. The first lay across the
North Sea from the Scottish to the Danish coast. We must run this
one first.
The wind grew stronger. The barometer fell. Anyone on the North Sea
on the twenty-third of December, 1916, will remember the hurricane
that came. It was one of the worst storms of years. The wind was
cyclonic in force, and lashed the shallow North Sea into a cauldron.
Running before it we carried every foot of sail we dared, every
stitch except the royals and gallantsails and smaller staysails. We
could take chances. We had no shipowner to answer to. Every mile
through the storm now meant a mile through the blockade. The ship
lay over so far that all our leeboard was under water. Every plank
quivered from the strain on the rigging. The rigging sang like a
violin. Heavy waves swept over us. It looked at times as if Niagara
Falls were descending upon us. Two men were needed to hold the helm,
and had to be lashed there. Some of our stays broke and some of our
canvas ripped. But we made fifteen knots, and that hurricane was a
godsend to us, for we knew no British cruiser could search us or even
keep track of us in such a heavy gale.
We sped right through the first line of the blockade without sighting
a ship and as though the whole North Sea were ours. Instead of going
up, the barometer continued to fall. Louder roared the storm, and
more and more mountainous became the waves. We passed the second
line of the blockade. Still not a ship in sight.
"At twelve o'clock, boys, we will know whether we are going to get
through or not. At this speed, we will pass through the third and
most important line. Half the Grand Fleet is said to guard this
third stretch from the Shetlands to Bergen."
Midnight grew near, and still that wild heaven-sent hurricane kept
up. We ran before it like a frightened bird, fearing every minute
that our sails and masts would go overboard. We lay on the yards and
scanned the horizon with our glasses. Half-past eleven! We were in
the midst of the blockade line. Where were the cruisers and
destroyers? All we could hear was the whistling of the wind and the
rushing of the water beneath our bows. All we could see, the
blackness of the night. Twelve o'clock and still no sign of the
enemy. Even our binnacle and compass lights were out, for any ray of
light might betray us. By one o'clock we knew we had passed the last
line.
The British, warned by the falling barometer, had taken their guard
ships to shelter in the lee of the islands. There was nothing else
for them to do in such a storm. Even if they saw a ship, it would be
hopeless to try to board her. And if Beatty's fleet had kept to sea,
there would have been grave danger of their running one another down.
We couldn't help recalling the old saying that it is indeed an ill
wind that blows no one any good.
I thought now that, under cover of darkness and with the aid of the
storm, we might shorten our voyage to the Atlantic by cutting through
the channel between the Orkney Islands and the Shetlands. I was
about to order the helm changed, when the hurricane shifted abruptly
from southwest to southeast. The change came so suddenly that the
twisting winds nearly ripped our masts out by the roots. Somehow,
that seemed to be a warning to us, a warning not to go through that
channel.
A sailor believes in signs. And something told me to take a more
northerly course, nearer the Arctic Circle and the Faroes. Later, we
learned that the German submarine _Bremen_ had tried to pass through
that channel and was never seen again. The channel had recently been
mined. But for that sudden shift of the storm, we too would have
shared the fate of the _Bremen_. With sails still full spread, we
continued north, nearer and nearer the Polar zone. It grew bitterly
cold. The waves dashed over us, and the water froze where it fell.
Our timber cargo was so coated with ice that not a stick of lumber
could be seen. The deck was like a skating rink, and the ship's bow
one huge cake of ice. Everything froze, including the sails. The
ropes became coated and would no longer run through the blocks. We
tried to thaw them with oxygen flame, but they froze again the moment
the flame was removed. Unable to change the sails, we were helpless.
To turn on the motor would only make matters worse, because that
would carry us toward the Pole all the faster. We knew that unless
the Hand of God intervened within a few days we would be hopelessly
caught in the Polar pack and probably never heard of again. So long
as the wind blew from the south, we were sure to continue on north.
We were in the region of eternal night now, except for a few minutes
each day. The sun rose at eleven and set at half-past eleven. If we
continued this crazy, frozen voyage to the North Pole we would be
smashed in the ice, by Joe.
Christmas Eve came, and we prayed God to send us the one Christmas
present, the only one that could save us--a north wind to blow us
south. My men in the hold, my fighting crew, huddled together to
keep from freezing. They were prisoners, for the waves and spray had
swept over everything until our secret hatches were frozen as solid
as concrete. My false Norsemen on deck slid about on the icy planks,
and every man suffered from frostbite. No one tried to turn in to
sleep. The tension on our nerves was too great. Only one thing was
warm and steaming--the kettle of grog. You landsmen have no idea of
what grog means to a sailor under such conditions. No wonder seamen
call a glass of schnapps "an ice-breaker!"
At heart every sailor is a child, and he has a child's love of
Christmas. And how he enjoys a Christmas present! He turns it
around in his hands, and says:
"By Joe, it's good to have Christmas."
And surely the present that came to us was the finest that any sailor
ever had.
As suddenly as it had come, the south wind died down and a breeze
sprang up in the north. Our frozen ship creaked, laid over, and came
around with the new wind, and our hearts sang for joy. Each day we
seemed to thaw out a bit more. Soon we passed to the east of Iceland
and reëntered the Atlantic. Axes and picks were busy chipping away
the ice. It was hard work, but who cared now that we were getting
warm again? We were through the blockade and out of the Arctic--and
now to test the "Freedom of the Seas" and give the Allies a touch of
high life.
"By Joe," I said to my boys, "and they call it a blockade!"
You would have thought the fellow in the lookout was answering me.
"Steamer ahoy," he sang out.
What? A steamer in these parts?
I climbed aloft with my glasses. Sure enough, there was a British
armoured cruiser steaming toward us at full speed. She had the
signal flying:
"Stand by or we fire!"
Such bad luck after such good luck! This second Christmas present
was not so amusing. But now for our test.
"Hustle you non-Norwegian chaps. Get below deck! Throw water
everywhere to explain why our papers are blurred and wet. The storm
we just passed through will make it seem the more natural. Schmidt,
get into your finery. Remember, from now on you are the shy
'Josefeena' (Josephine), the Captain's wife. If they put a prize
crew aboard, we will capture the prize crew. If they suspect we are
an auxiliary cruiser, bombs fore, midship, and aft, and we blow up
the ship!"
Now for a big quid of tobacco in my mouth. I have never had the
habit of chewing tobacco, but a Norwegian skipper would not be true
to type without his quid. Besides, a chew of tobacco gives you time
to think. If somebody asks you an embarrassing question, you can
roll your quid around in your mouth, pucker up your lips slowly, and
spit deliberately and elegantly. I had practised rolling the quid
and spitting until I thought myself a past master at the art.
But that smell, by Joe! The unexpected always happens to mar the
best-laid plans--and help the worst. We had been running our motor
full open. Because of the cargo of wood that sealed the deck, there
had not been enough ventilation to get rid of the fumes. The
characteristic reek of crude oil burning in a Diesel engine seeped up
through the secret entrances placed in my cabin, and everything
smelled of it. What will the search officer think when he smells a
Diesel engine aboard a sailing ship? No use to burn punk or sprinkle
eau de cologne.
"Stuff a rug in the chimney of the kerosene stove," I yelled, "and
turn up the wicks of the oil lamps as high as you can."
Stench against stench, kerosene smoke against the fumes of the motor.
In five minutes my cabin smelled to high heaven of kerosene smoke.
The Britisher had hove to now, and we saw that she was the _Avenger_,
an armed merchant cruiser of some 15,000 tons.
"How's that?" I thought. "Why are the guns pointing? We are a
peaceable Norwegian sailing ship. Why the guns?"
She had her big guns trained on us, and her officers were on the
bridge looking us over with their glasses.
"Can we have been betrayed?" I asked myself. "Of what use is the
best mask, of what use are the best men, if a traitor has done his
dirty work?"
The thought of treachery always makes the fighting man tremble. I
went into my cabin, and like the drowning man who grasps at a straw,
I remembered how before leaving port a friend gave me a parcel,
saying:
"My boy, take this package with you. But never open it unless you
are in a tight fix. Then it may save you."
Well, we were in a tight fix all right, so I opened the package. I
took off one wrapper after another. Ah! It was a bottle of rare old
Napoleon brandy, almost priceless, made more than a hundred years ago.
"What was good for Napoleon ought to be good for me. He fought
against the British, too. Maybe this is just what we need."
I took sixteen or eighteen swallows, and with each gulp felt my cares
getting lighter and lighter. Never did I thank God so much that I am
not a teetotaller.
The cruiser had put out a small boat. Two officers and sixteen
sailors were rowing toward us. We must receive them cordially, I
thought. Going to the gramophone I put on, "It's a Long Way to
Tipperary." That will make the officers feel good. I also told the
cook to stand in the door of the galley with a bottle of whisky in
his hand. I know the British! I know what they like, and I guessed
that while the officer proceeded with his job, his jack-tars would go
poking about to see if they might find anything suspicious. I also
suspected that they would go to the galley and sing out:
"'I there, Cookie, got any grog?"
Always give a British sailor a drink, or a German sailor, or an
American sailor, or any kind of a sailor, for that matter.
The boat was alongside. I began to swear at my men. It was hard for
them to forget their naval habits, and, with an officer coming
aboard, they were standing as stiffly as if at attention.
"Take the line, by Joe. Give a hand, by Joe. Don't stand there like
wooden men, by Joe."
Then, too, it would sound natural to hear a Norwegian skipper
swearing at his men.
The search officer clambered aboard.
"Merry Christmas, Captain."
"Merry Christmas, Mister Officer," I replied, using the kind of
broken English I thought a Norwegian skipper would use. I talk
English with an accent, luckily about the same brand you would hear
in a Scandinavian port. "But," I continued, "if you want to see what
kind of Christmas we have had come along down to my cabin."
"A bit of a nasty blow this past week, eh, what!" agreed the officer,
"and from the look of your deck you've had more than your share of
it. We went in behind the islands and waited for her to blow over."
"Yes, luckily for us," I thought to myself.
"I must see your papers, Captain." He got right down to business.
Just then the gramophone struck up "Tipperary," and he began to
whistle the tune while his men made for the galley. I ushered the
two officers to the cabin. The one who stuck his head in first
retreated holding his nose.
"What a hell of a smell!"
"Excuse me, Mister Officer, but my stove is out of order. I could
not know you gentlemen were giving me a visit to-day."
"Oh, never mind, Captain, that's all right, that's all right."
I had purposely hung my underwear up to dry so it would be in their
way and so that, in stooping to get under it, they would see the name
"Knudsen" embroidered on it. As the chief search officer crossed the
cabin he suddenly saw my charming wife Josephine, with her blonde
wig, her swollen jaw, and the rug hiding her big feet.
"Oh, excuse me."
"That is my wife, Mister Officer. She has been having a bad go with
the toothache."
He was chivalrous, just as most Englishmen are. He might have been
talking to a court lady, instead of that rascal Schmidt.
"Sorry, madam, to intrude like this, but we must do our duty."
"All right!" said my lovely but somewhat distorted better half in a
high falsetto voice out of one corner of her mouth.
"By Joe, Captain, you haven't much cabin left, have you? You have
been through some rough weather!"
"I wouldn't mind the rest, Mister Officer, but look at my papers.
They are soaked, too."
"I can understand that, after the weather you've had."
"Yes, Mister Officer, it's all right for you to see them in this
condition, because you saw the storm yourself, but later, if I meet
some of your comrades who didn't hit the blow that we had, they may
not take my word for it. That's what's worrying me."
"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.
You must admire how careful those English are. The officer examined
every page of the log.
"How is this, Captain?" he exclaimed. "You were laid up three weeks
and a half?"
There was a discrepancy in dates which represented our wait after the
Admiralty had ordered us not to sail because of the return of the
submarine, _Deutschland_, and the consequent increased vigilance of
the blockade. I had not thought of it. Here was the one detail that
we had neglected to provide for in our elaborately detailed
preparations. Even if I had been in the best of health, I should not
have known what to reply. With that tobacco quid running around
inside of my body I could only pray to God for help.
Again Leudemann saved the situation. He was a little fellow and
simple-hearted, but a great character. When bad times came,
Leudemann was at his best.
"We didn't lie there for pleasure," he said in his dry way as he
looked up at the big Englishman. "We had orders from our owner not
to sail until we got word."
"How so?"
"Haven't you been warned then about German cruisers?"
"What's that?"
"Haven't you heard about the _Moewe_ and the auxiliary cruiser,
_Seeadler_?"
The search officer turned to me.
"What about this that your mate is saying, Captain?"
My stomach felt much better, now that Leudemann had spoken. So I
thought I might as well give the Englishman a good dose.
"There were rumours at home in Norway that two cruisers and sixteen
German submarines had put out of port."
The search officer's comrade, who had been looking around the cabin,
came over to us when he heard all this.
"I think we had better be going," he spoke up suddenly.
"Yes," replied the other, and they went on deck.
They made no attempt at questioning the sailors or investigating the
sailors' belongings.
"Your papers are all right, Captain," said the search officer, "but
you will have to wait here for an hour until you get a signal to
proceed."
"All right, Mister Officer."
One of my boys, who was of a pessimistic turn of mind, heard this.
As he walked away from my cabin he said out loud to himself:
"Everything is lost."
Down below were the members of my other crew, waiting in the dark.
They were right beneath the floor of the deck, straining their ears
to catch any word that might give them an idea how things were going
on deck. They heard the exclamation, "Everything is lost," and took
it for the official word that we were discovered and for the command
to do what was to be done in that case. They lit the fuses of the
three bombs that were to blow up the ship, and waited for the hatches
to be opened to let them on deck to the boats. The fuses would burn
for fifteen minutes.
The British were in their boat now, trying to push off. But you
can't hold a sailing ship in one place like a steamer. She keeps
drifting. And the suction of the _Seeadler_ as she drifted held
their boat so it couldn't get away. What was still worse, it kept
slipping aft, and if it got under our stern, they would have been
sure to see our propeller. A sailship with a propeller? Yes,
sometimes, but we would have been done for, as there was nothing to
that effect in our papers. Seizing a rope, I tossed it overboard
toward them.
"Take the rope, Mister Officer, take the rope," I shouted as though
clumsily trying to help them.
That made them look up, so that the rope might not fall on their
heads. I heaved the rope just as they were sliding around our stern
and away. The officers thanked me, and one of them, angry with his
men for not being able to push the boat off, exclaimed:
"I have only fools on my boat."
"Yes, maybe you have," I thought, "and maybe you are the worst-fooled
one of all!"
My stomach was quite normal now. I was so happy that I even felt as
though I could digest that quid of tobacco. The men on deck felt
like cheering and singing, but they had orders to go on about their
jobs as though nothing unusual had been going on, until the cruiser
was far and away. They just grinned, but so broad were the grins
that I thought they would split their faces.
My first thought was to bring the happy news to the boys in the
darkness down below. I went to one of the secret hatches, which they
had fastened from within.
"Open," I shouted.
There were vague sounds below.
"Open up," I called again.
Then I heard a muffled voice say:
"Open the flood valves."
"What's that?" I yelled. "What's the matter? Open the hatch!"
The hatch opened. I saw troubled faces. I could hear water rushing
into the ship.
"By Joe," I shouted, "are you trying to sink my boat?"
I could hear men running below to all parts of the ship. I climbed
down roaring. One of the men spoke up.
"They are cutting the fuses and closing the flood valves."
"Fuses, flood valves, by Joe. How's that happen, by Joe?"
Then one of the men said: "But someone called down that all was lost!
Afterward you called 'open' and we thought you meant open the flood
valves."
The fuses had been burning for eight minutes out of their fifteen,
and hundreds of gallons of water were pouring into the ship.
By Joe, I looked for the fellow who said: "All is lost." He came
forward at once and confessed.
"I wasn't calling to the men below. I merely said it to myself."
"Why do you say 'all is lost,' by Joe, just when everything is fine?"
"Well, Captain, when the Englishman said that we would have to wait
for an hour, I thought to myself that the game was up. It means that
he is keeping us waiting while he sends a wireless to Copenhagen
asking about the _Irma_, when there is no _Irma_."
"By Joe," I said, "that's right."
In our excitement, neither I nor my officers had thought about the
wireless. It had not occurred to us to ask ourselves why we had been
ordered to stand by for a whole hour. We didn't even think of
Lloyd's Register. The search officer might have gone back to his
ship to look up the _Irma_ in the Register, where there was no _Irma_.
For days I had been on deck in the storm and in the ice regions. For
the past half hour I had gone through worse turmoil even than that.
And now, when everything seemed clear, the sky looked black again and
that quid of tobacco started getting in its dirty work. I went to
the rail and hung there on my elbows, staring through my binoculars
at the _Avenger_ and watching for the flag signal. My hand shook,
and instead of only one I could see three cruisers in my glass. I
handed it to Leudemann and while he took a look I leaned there with
the code book in my hand, ready to decode the signal when it came.
I don't know how long it was, fifteen minutes or an hour, but finally
three little flags went up the signal rope. Old imperturbable
Leudemann steadied his glass. At last he made out the signal:
"T-M-B."
I thumbed the book clumsily. It seemed as though I would never find
T-M-B. But there it was. It meant "Planet." Nonsense. Read the
signal again.
I was getting weaker and weaker, whether from the anxiety or from
that quid, I don't know. This time he read:
"T-X-B."
Pages, columns, and then the right place.... Continue voyage.
I felt as though my heart had two valves instead of one and was
pumping madly through both. I sat down and breathed heavily.
Instead of going about their ordinary tasks, my men wanted to yell
like Indians.
Hello, what's this? The _Avenger_, with her 15,000 tons driven by
100,000-horsepower engines, was racing straight at us. Huge streams
of smoke and great flames like torches poured out of her three
funnels as her safety valves blew out from the over-pressure of her
boilers. Just as she got on top of us she swerved off. At her stern
flew a signal. I did not need a code book. I knew that signal by
heart--Happy Voyage. We raised the signal--thanks--and dipped our
Norwegian flag three times.
The British had behaved like gentlemen toward us. I think the way
they pointed their guns at us when they came up to us was a bit of a
joke. The hour they made us wait was, I think, to enable them to
make wireless inquiries about the story we told of German cruisers
and submarines. The search officer did his work courteously and
well. No seaman should try to make another seaman ridiculous. We
were disguised so well that he could have suspected nothing. In his
place, I should have been fooled exactly as he was, and so would any
other officer.
"And now, boys, let's celebrate Christmas!"
We dumped our deck load of lumber into the sea, and cleared the deck
for a big time. I had a Christmas tree that I had brought from home.
We set it up. Before the _Seeadler_ left port, Fraulein Bertha Krupp
had sent us a huge box full of Christmas presents, something for
every man. We opened it and found clothing, cigars, pipes,
cigarettes, cigar holders, knives, liquor, soft drinks, and musical
instruments.
It was the merriest Christmas of our lives. Singing "Yo-ho" and
cheered up with many good bottles of rum, we headed south to play our
rôle as buccaneers.