The Red Book Magazine/Volume 8/Number 6/The Thousandth Whale

by J. J. Bell

 

The Thousandth Whale

BY J. J. BELL

Author of “Mr. Donald MacDonald,” etc.

Upon the moderate swell rolling into the ice-formed bay from the open Arctic sea the Thorgrim lay and swung in a sullen fashion, her ninety feet of dingy green hull dipping into the gray water till the scuppers gurgled. Across her narrow deck the clammy mist was blown like smoke, while the bitter wind drew long sustained tenor notes from her slim ochre funnel. To starboard the shape of a small berg, perhaps thirty feet in height at its highest point, was dimly visible, and Sigurd the mate, in the steering-box of the Thorgrim found no other object as he slowly turned his keen eyes round the narrow circle which the fog left to them.

[Illustration: Without a look to right or left he walked swiftly aft]

Yet less than five hundred yards away rose the sound of breakers, the rhythmic crash of the surf against the edge of the ice, the moaning echo from the icy waste that stretched through scores of miles to Greenland. The moaning echo is a weird thing, but Sigurd the mate was used to it. He listened for nigh a minute, then sharply jerked the cord of the fog-horn.

“S—s—toot!” cried the horn shortly, and the ice gave back echoes innumerable.

Almost immediately the captain appeared at the door of the tiny deck-house above the cabin, and made his way to the steering-box. He received his mate’s report, verified it by listening for himself, and nodded.

The mate took the wheel, and called down the speaking tube to the engineer. For five minutes the Thorgrim moved slowly ahead, then came to rest and resumed her rolling.

“Tell Ove to take your place, and come you to the cabin,” said the captain as he descended the perpendicular steps to the deck. “Tell Hausen to bring coffee,” he added. “We shall soon have work to do. The weather will clear within an hour.”

“In an hour, kaptan!” exclaimed the mate, staring.

But the other was already entering the deck-house.

The time was two o’clock on the last afternoon of August, and the Thorgrim had lain in and cautiously dodged about the ice bay since the evening of the twenty- third. Storm had forced her to seek that precarious shelter; fog had helped to imprison her there. She was about seventy miles north of the mouth of Isafjord, the great indentation in the great northwest promontory of Iceland, so the captain guessed, and the mate hoped he was right. The business of the Thorgrim and the eleven Norwegians on board her was to chase, kill, and capture finner whales and tow the carcasses to the company’s station, with its flensing slips and oil factory, in Isafjord. But the hunting season, which begins in mid-April or early May, was now at its fag-end. Indeed, the fifteenth of August had seen its close, so far as the majority of the competing companies were concerned.

When Sigurd the mate came into the cabin, which was heated to a high temperature by the almost red-hot stove, he flung himself without a word on the port locker, loosened his muffler, set his pipe going, and began to read a Norsk illusrated journal, ragged and stained and four months old. Captain Svendsen did not like to be disturbed when he was playing “Patience,” for he gained inspiration as well as mere amusement from his well-thumbed pack of cards. Now his strong, steady hand laid down card after card, while his fine blue-gray eyes, under their heavy, almost white brows, watched each one as if for some important development. Presently Sigurd threw aside the journal, every word of which he had read twenty times, and began to watch also, resting his forearms on the edge of the small triangular table with its peg-holes for use in rough weather.

A puff of cold air rushed into the cabin, and the cook came cautiously down the steep and narrow stair, bearing a tray.

“Coffee, kaptan,” he said, handing a large mug half-filled with the fluid to the card player.

“Tak!” briefly returned the old man. “Sigurd!” he said without looking up.

The mate took the mug, laid it within reach of the captain’s hand, and secured it on the table with four wooden pegs which he found on the ledge of the bunk at his back. Then he took in turn his own mug, a basin of sugar, and a tin of condensed milk from the tray, pegging each to the swaying table.

“Biscuits,” murmured the captain, holding out an impatient hand.

“The fine biscuits are finished, kaptan. I have nothing but these,” said Hausen, laying a wooden bowl of ordinary ship’s biscuits on the table.

“What?”

“We have been at sea twelve days. It is not usual,” replied Hausen, sulkily. “The milk also is finished, all but what is in that tin. There is also but little beef left, and you cannot have any more sweet soup—nothing but brown bean, and the beans also will soon be done.”

But Captain Svendsen had gone back to his cards.

“It is all right, Hausen,” he said pleasantly, without looking up. “We shall be at the station in time for dinner to-morrow. It will be clear weather in less than one hour.”

The cook took his own mug of coffee and a biscuit, and seated himself on the locker beside the mate.

“So, kaptan?” he said inquiringly. “But if we leave in an hour we shall be at the station in time for breakfast.” He spoke as if the captain required to be humored. “For breakfast, kaptan?” he repeated.

Sigurd nudged him to be silent. The old man appeared to be making a calculation from the rows of cards in front of him.

At last he looked up and bundled the cards together, laughing as he did so. He put sugar in his coffee, added milk from the jagged hole punched in the top edge of the tin, and took a long draught of the almost cool mixture.

“For dinner, Hausen,” he said quietly, “the 'Thorgrim'' will have a whale in tow.”

“Kaptan,” said Hausen, respectfully enough, “we saw no whales all the four days before we came into the ice. Are not all the whales gone south by now? Besides, it is ill weather for hunting. And—and the food grows scarce. Ten—eleven days—it is unusual. I—I was not warned.”

Sigurd nudged him admonishingly.

But Captain Svendsen took his cook’s remarks calmly.

“You have food for all for eight days yet, according to the rules of the company,” he said, “have you not?”

Hausen began to stammer. He had known that this was to be the last trip of the season. He had been led to understand, also, that it was to be a run to the ice and back, only one day to be allowed for looking for whales. He had considered one half of the usual stores more than sufficient. He said a great deal more, but all to the same effect.

The old man let him finish.

“So!” he said softly, and turned to the mate. “Sigurd, go on deck, and bring me word of the weather.”

“Ja, kaptan,” answered Sigurd, and knotting his muffler left the cabin.

“Hausen,” said the captain, gazing earnestly at the sullen, middle-aged man opposite him, “do you sail on a whale steamer next year?”

“Unless anybody prevents me,” muttered Hausen.

“I will not prevent you, but I require your promise—your oath—that you will never again break the rules of the company. You promise? You swear? Good. I know you will not fail again.”

“I am sorry, kaptan,” murmured the cook, honest regret in his voice and expression.

[Illustration: “What, mutiny on my last trip?”]

“That is finished, Hausen. We speak of it no more. It is our last trip together.”

“Ah! You do not come again to Island, kaptan?”

“Nej! I retire,” answered the old man, smiling. “I stay at home with my children and grandchildren in Sandefjord. I kill no more whales—but one. One more. My—Well, Sigurd?”

The mate entered quickly, beaming. “The weather clears, the wind falls, kaptan!”

Svendsen nodded with a pleased air. “I shall soon kill my last whale—my Thousandth Whale! May he be a great bull—a king Blaahval!”

“A thousand whales!” gasped the cook.

“Nine-hundred and nintey-nine have I killed for my company,” said the old man proudly. “Shall I go home to rest and tell my grandchildren of my life before I kill the thousandth? Sigurd? Hausen?”

He held out his great hand.

Sigurd shook it, laughing. “The glory will be mine also, kaptan. I have told you so before.”

“Ah, yes, you knew it was to be the Thousandth Whale this trip, my Sigurd. But you, Hausen—you will wish me luck?”

But the cook smote his hand on the table and cursed himself. What if his carelessness in the matter of provisions should force a return to the station ere the Thousandth Whale could be captured?

“Have I not told you that I will kill my whale before night?” said the old man, still holding out his hand.

Shame-facedly, Hausen took it. “I have plenty of flour. I will bake extra bread, now,” he muttered, as he rose.

“If you like, Hausen, if you like. But it will not be required.”

For a moment the cook looked at the mate. Then he saluted the captain and left the cabin.

“Let us go on deck,” said Svendsen five minutes later. “You and I will load the gun. Do you get forward the new harpoon that we took on board last week. I will not use an old one on my Thousandth Whale.”

The wind had dropped, and the sun was already piercing the mist which was thinning so rapidly that bergs and sheets of ice came into view like objects on a photographic plate in the developing bath. The crew appeared on deck smiling, but the smiles vanished when they saw the preparations for loading the gun. They had counted on a quick run back to Isafjord.

Captain Svendsen, fondling a cotton bag containing about a kilogram of powder, nodded pleasantly as he passed them on his way to the bows. To two of them he gave instructions to remove the tarpaulins from the powerful double-winch just in front of the foremast and to see that the machinery was in perfect working order.

Sigurd was already waiting on the foot-high-platform in the bows beside the short, thick-set, scarlet-painted cannon, the horrible harpoon on his left shoulder, a ramrod and a supply of wads in his right hand. Captain Svendsen examined the harpoon—every inch of its four-foot grooved shaft, in which ran the ring for carrying the cable, each one of the four-hinged barbs, now lying against the shaft, but ready to open, umbrella-wise, within the victim. So far the harpoon was without a point.

The captain expressed himself satisfied, and Sigurd laid the hundred-weight of metal on the platform. Then the gun was uncovered and unlashed, and slewed round on its pivot for loading. Lastly Sigurd went below, to return speedily, bearing something resembling a torpedo in shape, but about twelve inches in length and sharp-nosed. This was screwed on to the end of the harpoon now projecting from the gun’s muzzle; and the harpoon was complete—pointed with a bomb that would explode shortly after striking.

 

At four o’clock the Thorgrim left her refuge, dodging the larger fragments of half-rotten ice, shouldering aside the smaller. Outside the bay and for several miles from the ice-sheet, ice-pans from one to a hundred square yards in extent heaved on the still heavy swell, their surfaces gleaming white, their sides glowing sapphires above the water line and pale cold green just below it.

The wave-tops were brilliant in the sunshine, and at every plunge great clouds of spray burst over the Thorgrim’s bows, battering the canvas shelter of the steering-box, rattling and hissing upon the funnel, and flooding the deck to the very stern. Old Svendsen laughed aloud as he guided the little steamer among the pans, southward. Ove, the second mate, who was steering, caught the infection of high-spirits and came out of his sulky silence.

“The sea falls, kaptan,” he remarked cheerfully. “‘We have luck with us.”

Sigurd, muffled to the eyes, his hands in heavy woollen mittens, was already in the long narrow barrel high up on the foremast. No eyes but his could be trusted to detect the rising or “spouting” of a finner on that tumbling expanse. While he had little hope of seeing another pearly gray “sprout” rising from the water that season, despite his captain’s confidence and enthusiasm, he yet searched the surface of the sea as he had never searched it before. For surely the Thousandth Whale would be a very great thing for the old man to tell of to his children and grandchildren.

And even as he thought of it, behold! Two miles distant a column of watery vapor rose twenty feet in the air, and as it began to drift away, there appeared above the surface, moving leisurely westwards, a huge, glistening, dark object—the back of a whale. It sank.

Sigurd turned, if, the crow’s nest and roared “Hval!” at the steering-box, following up the word with directions to the steersman. Then his eyes went back to the sea.

Almost immediately the whale came up again, showing first the crown of its head, which was submerged ere the back appeared. It appeared as if melting into the water, only to reappear three minutes later. At each of these risings it blew, but not so heavily as on its first appearance. Then it went down once more, and Sigurd did not expect to see it again for fifteen or twenty minutes. But he had judged its course, and already the Thorgrim was doing her twelve knots and executing a flanking movement.

Svendsen had taken his stand on the gun platform, and was making final tests of the bearings upon which the weapon rested. He smoked in an unemotional fashion.

“Kaptan!”

The old man looked up.

Sigurd was grinning over the edge of the barrel. “It is the Thousandth Whale!” he cried. “And it is as you desired; a Blaahval, sure! A great Blaahval! A solitary—a bull!”

“So!” commented Captain Svendsen contentedly.

The cook came forward, and saluted apologetically.

‘Well, Hausen. How goes the baking?” inquired Svendsen merrily.

“I come to wish you good luck, kaptan,” said the other. “Also there is little coffee and no sugar for the men. I—I am afraid of some of the men, kaptan.”

“Are you afraid to tell them that there is no sugar and that there is also ten kroner for each man from myself when we reach the station? I ask you to tell the men that, Hausen.”

Hausen’s reply was incoherent.

“Tell the men also,” said the old man, “that yonder is my Thousandth Whale. They will understand and have patience with their kaptan. Go now, Hausen.”

Hausen obeyed, and having done so retired to the galley and resumed the manufacture of bread as if his life depended on turning out so many loaves ere nightfall. He was thinking of all the whales he had seen escape.

The whale rose again, but he had quickened his pace during his submersion, and appeared farther west than the mate had anticipated. The course of the Thorgrim was altered, and the engineer managed to cram another half knot on to her speed, whereat her excited quivering was increased to frantic quaking, and the waves burst heavily over her bows, drenching Svendsen to the waist. It was no weather for hunting, thought Sigurd as he described great irregular arcs in the air, but one could not expect to choose the weather when fortune had sent the Thousandth Whale.

An hour passed, and still the Blue unconsciously dodged his pursuers, changing his course or speed, so that once Sigurd thought him lost and five minutes later beheld him in such a position that the Thorgrim must have actually passed over him. Moreover, it was a race with time, for the light would soon be failing and Sigurd sniffed snow.

The captain kept his stand on the bow platform, his drowned pipe in his teeth, his face running with spray. From time to time Hausen brought him dry gloves, for a numbed finger at the critical moment might mean a bad shot. The men attending the winches stood stolidly at their posts, thinking perhaps of the “ti kroner” which each would receive, and perhaps, not so selfishly, of the old man and his Thousandth Whale.

Suddenly Sigurd shouted and pointed. The Blue was rising not a hundred yards away on the port bow. The wind dissipated the cloud of gray vapor from his blow-hole as his head went down and his enormous back heaved up amid the waves, slid forward, and was submerged. Already the captain’s left hand had shot up, and the steersman had called to the engineer for “dead-slow.” The course was altered ever so little, and the Thorgrim moved slowly forward, and then lay wallowing, awaiting the second rising of the Blue.

Captain Svendsen’s gloves were gone; his big hand gripped the short stock of the gun, his fore-finger was crooked on the trigger. His pipe was still between his teeth.

And then, not five yards distant and almost straight ahead, with a snorting hissing sound, the head of the Blue broke the surface. Two seconds later the gunner let fly, aiming—if that were possible in such a sea—for the most vital region, six to ten feet behind the flipper. A whale stricken nearer the tail may give trouble for many hours.

So the gun cracked out its dreadful bolt, and the monstrous tail of the Blue rose high in the air, fell, and disappeared in a boiling whirlpool. And almost at the same instant Captain Svendsen turned on his heel in the smoke, signed to the men to clap the brakes on the winches, and left the platform. Without a look to right or left he walked swiftly aft.

Sigurd came down from his perch, his face set, and took charge. He had seen the harpoon glance across the Blue’s back and plunge into the sea fifty feet beyond, the bomb bursting like a silly rocket. Somehow he had never dreamed of the captain missing his Thousandth Whale—not even in a hurricane.

[Illustration: He resumed the manufacture of bread as if his life depended upon it]

In silence the men hauled the cable and spent harpoon on board, while Sigurd saw that the gun was covered and lashed in position. On his way to the cabin he looked into the galley. Hausen was sitting with his face in his floury hands, weeping.

“Bring coffee,” said Sigurd quietly, and passed on.

He found the old man playing “Patience,” and sat down without speaking.

Presently, with his eyes on the cards, the captain said casually: “If the weather does not change, we shall be at Isafjord for dinner tomorrow.”

“Ja, kaptan.”

Svendsen laid out another row of cards, and Sigurd picked up his tattered journal.

“The course is sou’-sou’-east,” remarked the captain after a silence. “Order full speed now. I will come on deck soon.”

The mate left the cabin. At the top of the stair he met the cook.

Twenty minutes later the twain, accompanied by the engineer, entered the cabin. The old man was still fingering his cards.

“Why have you not ordered full speed?” he asked. Then noticing the engineer: “Is anything wrong?”

The engineer shook his head. “The engines are all right,” he said, “and there is coal for twenty-four hours.”

“Kaptan,” said Sigurd, “the men say that they do not wish to return to the station yet. And we say it, also.”

“I—I do not understand,” said the old man, staring at a ragged queen.

“Ah, kaptan, kaptan,” cried the cook, his voice fluttering, “your Thousandth Whale—you must have it yet, kaptan.”

The cards dropped from the old man’s fingers.

“So!” he said very softly.

“I go to bring coffee,” said Hausen abruptly and fled from the cabin.

“So!” murmured the captain again, and a pleased smile came to his lips. But the smile faded. “The risk is too great,” he said gravely.

The engineer spoke. “If the Thorgrim does not reach the station tomorrow they will send the other whaler or the big steamer to look for us. It is quite safe.”

“And when would they find us, my good Olaf? In many days, perhaps.”

“Hausen has bread for about four days,” put in Sigurd. “We are all content with bread.”

“But, if the bad weather comes, and we have to wait in the ice—”

“Let us hunt for one day more, kaptan.”

The old man wavered. The temptation was very strong.

“I will speak to the men,” he said at last, rising and gathering up his cards methodically.

Ere the long twilight ended in black night the Thorgrim was once more idly rolling in an ice bay, waiting for another chance. And that chance, thanks to a grievous change in the weather, was full three days in coming.

“They will be searching for us now,” said the men to one another, and scanned the sea anxiously, for bread and water is depressing diet within the arctic circle.

During the fourth night the wind died, and early the following morning the Thorgrim left the ice for comparatively calm water. The captain went into the steering-box to relieve the mate.

“Turn in, Sigurd,” he said. “There will be nothing to do on deck. Hausen will give you the last cup of coffee. I thought it was finished, but he found enough for two cups this morning. He is like a baby, is Hausen.”

“I do not need coffee. I will turn in there,” the mate replied, pointing to the crow’s nest.

Svendsen lifted a protesting hand. “It is no use—no use,” he said sadly. “We go as straight as we can to the station. We shall all be starving when we get there. May the fog keep away.”

Sigurd descended to the deck. As if it were an afterthought he remarked, “I will look out for the steamer and the other whaler,” and went forward.

“That,” said the old man, “is a wise thought, Sigurd.”

He gave a direction to the steersman and sat down in the corner of the box, gazing listlessly ahead.

But Sigurd, in the crow’s nest, kept his eyes on the near waters.

 

At midday the sun came forth, and Svendsen took it and worked out the Thorgrim’s position. He was forty miles farther from home than he had guessed. The discovery annoyed rather than alarmed him, and he was about to summon the mate from the mast-head, when the latter threw up his arms with an exultant yell—

“Hval! Hval!”

In less than a minute the old man was on the platform, uncovering and unlashing the gun. To his surprise, it was already loaded. He heard Sigurd’s laugh, and he looked up and laughed in return.

“My good Sigurd!”

Hausen, looking like a ghost, peeped from the galley, and the men took their places by the winches.

The whale rose again and Sigurd yelled that he was bigger than the one escaped. The hungry men at the winches grinned. They were used to whale-hunting, but this—

Captain Svendsen set his pipe going. He was himself again. He fondled his gun.

At Sigurd’s direction the steersman had sent the Thorgrim to right about, and she was now running before the smooth waves. On board excitement gave way to patience. The captain called Hausen, and despatched him to a locker in the cabin, there to find a tin of cocoa—the last food on the Thorgrim.

“A mug for every man,” said the captain.

About two o’clock the whaler had been maneuvered to within striking distance of the whale. The Blue rose on the starboard bow, sank, rose again nearer, sank, and finally rose so close under the Thorgrim that the gun when it was fired tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees.

The cable flashed over the bow wheel for thirty seconds; then its speed slackened and the brakes were gradually applied to the winches, until it stopped running. The cable between the winch and the bow-wheel was rigid as steel, but the Thorgrim moved not. Her nose was deep in water, and her propeller showed a dry blade. Death hung deep in the sea at the end of the cable; no wounded life struggled there. The shot had been a sure one.

A hundred tons, perhaps, of living matter had plunged madly for the depth, and plunging had died, heart and lungs wrecked by the exploding shell.

Three hours were occupied in hoisting the carcass to the surface, lashing it alongside, cutting the mighty flukes from the tail, and inflating the body with air pumped by the engine through a hollow lance. Then a chain was run through and round the tail stump, and the carcass was cast astern attached to the Thorgrim by thirty fathoms of a twelve inch hawser. Already hundreds of sea-birds were screeching above the dead, while Greenland sharks took their toll beneath.

“Full speed!” cried the captain down the tube, and immediately the homeward run began.

But the old man’s triumph flickered out.

He went down to the cabin, after summoning the engineer.

“How many hours’ coal have you now?” he asked.

“Fourteen-and-a-half, kaptan,” answered Olaf, who had just been figuring it out.

“And we are about twelve hours from the station.”

“Good!” said the engineer.

“Twelve hours going at full speed, Olaf.”

“I have full speed now, kaptan.”

“Ja. Your engine is doing full speed, but the Thorgrim is doing little more than half. It is the whale—”

The engineer’s face fell.

The mate looked out of his bunk.

“We are farther from the station than you thought, kaptan?” said he.

“I meant to tell you, Sigurd,” returned Svendsen, “but the whale came. When the whale came I forgot everything else. I was foolish to take the whale, and now I must let it go. It is no use. We cannot take the whale to the station. Let it go now, and do you take charge, Sigurd.”

“But, kaptan—” began the mate.

“I say it is no use,” interrupted Svendsen. “Do as I tell you—now. Leave me. I am tired. I am an old man and an old fool. I have been risking my men and my ship for my own conceit. I tell you that, Sigurd, and you also, Olaf. I thank you and everyone for standing by this silly old man, but I will take no more risks. Go now. I would sleep. It is long since I have slept well.”

“I beg to know what distance we are from the station, kaptan,” said the engineer respectfully from the doorway.

Svendsen told him shortly, and waved him and the mate away.

In a little while the Thorgrim stopped and the old man in his bunk heard the tramping of feet above him.

“They are casting off my Thousandth Whale,” he said to himself. “So!” And soon with sheer weariness he fell asleep.

 

Sigurd the mate, stood in the crow’s nest. It was growing dark and the wind was bitter though the sea was calm. Sigurd had been up there for four hours, which is a long spell for a well-fed man. For the third time he sent for the engineer, who for the third time came to the foot of the mast.

“How long now, Olaf?”

“One hour—no more, Sigurd.”

“Kaptan is still sleeping?”

“Ja. Hausen watches him. Wonderful Hausen! He has discovered one more cup of coffee for the kaptan. It is cold up there?”

"Ja."

“But no one else has your sight. I will tell you when the time is up.”

The engineer departed, shivering.

Sigurd drew his muffler over his mouth and resumed his search. The stars came out, and a fine, dry snow drifted down. It soon ceased, but Sigurd knew there was much more to come ere long.

The time, despite his miserable situation, passed all too quickly, and the engineer’s voice came up to him, saying:

“The hour has gone.”

“Can you not allow half-an-hour longer, Olaf?”

“Nej.”

“Quarter?”

[Illustration: He gained inspiration from his well-thumbed pack of cards]

“Nej, nej! We can do no more.”

“Then it must be,” said Sigurd, struggling with his cramped limbs, and taking a last look about him.

A cry broke from him. “Quick, Olaf! The blue light! I am frozen here. I cannot move, yet. Fire the light, and help me afterwards!”

Soon the Thorgrim and the sea around her were bathed in a ghastly glare. The engineer swarmed up the rigging to assist the mate, and even as he reached him an answering flare, small but certain, appeared away in the east.

“It is the steamer!” yelled Sigurd. “Tell the kaptan. Do not wait.”

But the engineer insisted that it was Sigurd’s duty, and so five minutes later the latter staggered into the cabin where the old man was sleeping, watched by the cook.

“Kaptan, the steamer comes. I have signaled her and she has replied.”

“So!” said Svendsen getting up slowly. “If I had been sure of the steamer I would not—”

The cook could contain himself no longer.

“You have the whale still!” he cried. “Oh, kaptan, you have your Thousandth Whale!”

“Mutiny on my last trip!” said Captain Svendsen, when he learned from Sigurd how his officers and crew had arranged, against his orders, to keep the whale in tow till the last possible moment. “Mutiny on my last trip!” But his eyes were kind.

As the Thorgrim steamed to meet the rapidly approaching steamer the old man stood on the after deck peering at the huge dun shape wallowing astern.

Hausen approached.

“The last of the coffee, kaptan,” he said, presenting a steaming mug.

“Then you will drink it yourself, Hausen.”

The cook protested.

“I have now drunk the last of the coffee five times,” said Svendsen. “When did you taste coffee last?” he suddenly demanded.

“Four days ago, kaptan. It is nothing.”

“So! Then you have saved your own coffee for me. Have you any more left?”

Hausen looked guiltily miserable. “Enough for two mugs,” he stammered at last.

“For me?”

“Surely, kaptan.”

“Then I drink this, and you will go now and take the two mugs yourself. The steamer will give us plenty. Now, go. No more mutiny.”

The cook went, but halted half way to the galley and retraced his steps.

“Kaptan, you—you will soon be telling your children and grandchildren about your Thousandth Whale—”

“My Thousandth Whale,” said Captain Svendsen smiling reflectively. He laid his hand on the other’s shoulder. “Yes, it will be a fine story to tell. But I think, my good Hausen, the finest part of the fine story will be about my men on the Thorgrim.”

And Hausen retired, rubbing his eyes, yet so pleased with all things, that he divided the last of the coffee between Sigurd and the engineer.