I noticed then that we were close in to the islands. They were bare, salt-scored rock without sign of habitation. A narrow gap with sheer cliffs like the Corinth canal cut through to Hjeltefjord. I checked with the chart and then ordered Carter, who was at the wheel, to alter course. As we glided into the gap the wind died away. I took the wheel and sent Carter below to start the engine.
The sea was smooth as glass. The gap was like a street paved with water. The rock cliffs on either side threw back the sound of our engine. We passed a brief inlet with a little wag or wharf. Beside it lay the bones of a barge, weed-grown and slimy. Above, a white wooden cottage, perched precariously under the cliffs. The flag of Norway flew lazily from a flag-pole. Children waved to us, their shrill voices mingling with the sound of the engine. We glided out into the wide thoroughfare of Hjeltefjord. Here, too, the sea was a mirror, broken only by the long ripples of our wash trailing out on either side from the bows. And in the continued absence of any wind we lowered the sails. We turned north then, following the distant wake of a coastal steamer. Dahler touched my arm and pointed to the land over the stern. 'That is Herdla,' he said. 'The Germans built nearly five hundred gun positions round the coast of Norway. The island of Herdla was one of the strongest — sunken batteries, torpedo positions, even an airfield.'
'How do you know about Herdla?' I asked him.
'I worked there,' he answered. 'For three months I helped to dig one of the gun positions. Then we were moved to Finse.' He nodded in the direction in which our bows were pointed. 'Straight ahead of us is Fedje. That's the island we were taken to after our escape from Finse. We waited there two weeks for the arrival of a British M.T.B.'
He fell silent again. Nobody spoke. The only sound was the throb of the engine and the swish of the water slipping past. The sun was warm in a clear blue sky and beyond the low, rocky islands the mountains stood cool and white in their cloak of snow. We slid diagonally across Hjeltefjord and ran up the coast of Nordhordland. Little landing stages showed here and there among the rock, and above them always a huddle of wooden houses, each with its inevitable flag staff flying the red and blue of Norway. White-painted churches with tall, wooden steeples were visible for miles on the high ground on which they had been built. The tall chimneys of the fish canneries showed here and there in the narrow fjords. Up and down the coast motor fishing boats moved lazily, their hulls white and black and an ugly little wheelhouse aft. 'Tock-a-tocks,' Dahler said. 'That's what your Shetlanders called them.' And tock-a-tocks exactly described the sound made by their little two-stroke engines.
We cleared the first northward pointing finger of Nordhordland and under Dahler's direction I turned a point to starboard. We ran past tiny islets white with the droppings of the seabirds that wheeled constantly about us. A fjord opened up, leading, he,said, to Bovaagan itself where there was a fish factory. Cairns, chequered black and white, indicated that it was a shipping route.
And then suddenly we saw the whaling station. It was half hidden in a fold of rock and protected from the north by low islands. The corrugated tin of its ugly factory buildings and the tall iron chimneys belching smoke were a black scar in the wild beauty of the islands, as ugly as a coal pit in a Welsh valley. Not another building was to be seen. The fjord leading to Bovaagen was astern of us now, the friendly black and white shipping guides lost behind a jutting headland. We were in a world of rock and sea — not dark granite cliffs topped with grass as in the west of England, but a pale, golden rock worn smooth and sloping in rounded hillocks to the water. It reminded me of Sicily. These rocks had the same volcanic, sunbaked look. And they were bald — bald to the top of the highest headland — save for wisps of thin grass and big rock plants. And the sea-birds wheeled incessantly.
A minute later and we had opened up the channel leading into Bovaagen Hval. I ordered half speed and we drifted quietly into the quay. The water became oily and streaked with a black, viscous excretion. Pieces of grey, half-decayed flesh slid by. The smell of the place closed in on us like a blanket. A Norwegian tock-a-tock moored to the quay was loading cases of whale meat. Beyond was the slipway leading to the flensing deck. The place was littered with the remains of the last whale. Long, straight-bladed steam saws were tearing through the gigantic backbone, slicing it into convenient sections. A little group of men stood at the end of the quay, watching us.
Jorgensen came on deck and stood by the starboard rail, gazing out towards the factory. I ran alongside the quay just beyond the meat boat and we tied up. An elderly man detached himself from the group of watchers and came towards us. He was tall and lean with a face that was the colour of mahogany below thick, white hair. 'God dag, herr direktor,' he called to Jorgensen. He had small, impish features that puckered into a smile and the corners of his eyes were lined with a thousand little crinkles.
I climbed over the rail and jumped on to the quay. 'This is Mr Keilland, the station manager,' Jorgensen said curtly by way of introduction. And then still speaking English, he said, 'Well, Kielland, what have you found out about that consignment of whale meat for England. How did the message get into it?'
Kielland spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. 'I am sorry,' he said. 'I have found out nothing. I cannot explain it at all.'
'You've questioned all the men?'
'Yes, herr direktor. They know nothing. It is a complete mystery.'
'What catchers were in at the time?' I asked.
'Was it Hval Ti?' Jorgensen's voice was sharp, precise. He was dealing with a subordinate now and I suddenly knew I wouldn't like to work for the man.
But Keilland was unperturbed by his director's tone. 'Yes, he answered, a shade surprised. 'Yes, it was Hval Ti. Lovaas brought that whale in. It was the first of the season. How did you know?'
'Never mind how I knew,' Jorgensen answered. 'Come up to the office and we will talk.' And he went off through the packing sheds.
Kielland turned to me and smiled. 'We had better follow,' he said.
Jill and Curtis had both come ashore. They joined me as I moved off after Jorgensen. 'What a horrible smell,' Jill said. She had a handkerchief held to her nose. The delicate scent of it was obliterated by the overpowering stench.
'That is money,' Keilland chuckled. 'Money always smells on a whaling station.'
'Thank God I don't possess much of it then,' Curtis said with a laugh. 'I've never smelt anything as bad as this — not even in the desert, and the smell was pretty bad there sometimes.'
We went through the packing sheds where whale meat was stacked on deep shelves, tier on tier, from floor to ceiling. Then we emerged into the charnel house of the flensing deck. This was a wood-floored yard surrounded by the factory buildings. To our left the slipway dropped into the sea. To our right were the winches, their greasy hawsers littering the deck. And opposite us was the main part of the factory with the hoists for raising the blubber to the vats for boiling. Great hunks of backbone, the meat hanging in red festoons from the enormous bones, were strewn all over the deck. Men in heavy boots slithered on the blood-soaked planking as they dragged the sections of bone on long steel hooks to the hoist. The wooden boards were covered in a thick film of oily grease. Jill caught my arm. It was very slippery. We went past the winches and up a cindered slope by the boiler house and the oil storage tanks to a huddle of wooden buildings perched on a flat rock.
In the office the smell was less penetrating. The windows looked out to the smoking chimneys and over the corrugated iron roof of the factory to the sea. 'So it was Lovaas who brought that whale in.' Jorgensen seated himself at the desk by the radio equipment. 'Was that on the 8th or 9th?'