Seven Icelandic Short Stories Part 7

Hrolfur straightened up, putting his hand to his back.

Oh, no, d.a.m.n it, he said. There's an offsh.o.r.e wind and the sea's not bad, and anyway we'll probably get there with the incoming tide.

It isn't going to take you out of your way? I asked.

We won't argue about that. We'll get there all the same. We often give ourselves a rest in the old creek when we have to row.

Immediately afterwards I said good-bye to the doctor and slid down into the boat. The man on the jetty cast off, threw the rope down into the boat and jumped in after it.

One of the crew thrust the handle of an oar against the breakwater and pushed off. Then they rowed for a short spell to get into the wind, whilst old Hrolfur fixed the rudder.

The sail filled out; the boat heeled gently over and ran in a long curve. The islets at the harbour mouth rushed past us. We were making straight for the open bay.

On the horizon before us the mountainous cliffs, dark blue with a thick, ragged patch of mist at the top, towered steeply over the waves. In between, the sea stretched out, seemingly for miles.

Hrolfur was at the rudder. He sat back in the stern on a crossbeam flush with the gunwale, his feet braced against the ribs on either side and in his hands the rudder lines, one on each side, close to his thighs.

I was up with the crew near the mast. We all knew from experience that Icelandic boats sailed better when well-loaded forward. All four of us were lying down on the windward side, but to leeward the foam still bubbled up over the rowlocks.

If you think we're not going fast enough, lads, you'd better start rowing--but no extra pay, said old Hrolfur, grinning.

We all took his joke well, and I felt that it brought me nearer to the old man; up to then I'd been just a little scared of him. A joke is always like an outstretched hand.

For a long time we hardly spoke. In front of the mast we lay in silence, whilst old Hrolfur was at the stern with the whole length of the boat between us.

The crew did all they could to make me comfortable. I lay on some soft sacking just in front of the thwart and kept my head under the gunwale for protection. The spray from the sea went right over me and splashed down into the boat on the far side.

The boy who had come for me to the doctor's settled himself down in the bows in front of me. His name was Eric Ericsson, and the more I saw of him the more I liked him.

The second member of the crew sat crosswise over the thwart with his back to the mast. He too was young, his beard just beginning to grow, red-faced, quiet and rather indolent-looking. He seemed completely indifferent, even though showers of spray blew, one after another, straight into his face.

The third member of the crew lay down across the boat behind the thwart; he put a folded oilskin jacket under his head and fell asleep.

For a long time, almost an hour, I lay in silence, thinking only of what I saw and heard around me. There was more than enough to keep me awake.

I noticed how the sail billowed out, full of wind, pulling hard at the clew-line, which was made fast to the gunwhale beside Hrolfur.

The fore-sail resembled a beautifully curved sheet of steel, stiff and unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails on the model ships in Rosenborg Palace. The mast seemed to bend slightly and the stays were as taut as fiddle-strings. The boat quivered like a leaf. The waves pounded hard against the thin strakes of the boat's side. I could feel them on my cheek, though their dampness never penetrated; but in between these hammer blows their little pats were wonderfully friendly. Every now and then I could see the white frothing of the wave-crests above the gunwale, and sometimes under the sail the horizon was visible but, more often, there was nothing to be seen but the broad back of a wave, on which, for a time, the boat tossed before sinking down once more. The roll was scarcely noticeable, for the boat kept at the same angle all the time and cleft her way through the waves. The motion was comfortable and soothing to the mind; quite unlike the violent lunging of bigger ships.

Gradually the conversation came to life again. It was Eric who proved to be the most talkative, though the man on the thwart also threw in a word here and there.

We began to talk about old Hrolfur.

We spoke in a low voice so that he shouldn't hear what we said.

There was, indeed, little danger of his doing so--the distance was too great and the storm was bound to carry our words away; but men always lower their voices when they speak of those they can see, even though they are speaking well of them.

My eyes scarcely left old Hrolfur, and as the men told me more, my picture of him became clearer and clearer.

He sat there silent, holding on to the steering ropes and staring straight ahead, not deigning us a single glance.

The crew's story was roughly this.

He was born and bred in the village, and he had never left it. The croft which he lived in was just opposite the weir in the river which flowed through the village, and was named after it.

He went to sea whenever possible; fished for shark in the spring and for cod and haddock in the other seasons. He never felt so happy as when he was on the sea; and if he couldn't go to sea, he sat alone at home in the croft mending his gear. He never went down to the harbour for work like the other fishermen and never worked on the land. Humming away and talking to himself he fiddled about in his shed, around his boat-house or his croft, his hands all grubby with tar and grease. If addressed, he was abrupt and curt in his answers, sometimes even abusive. Hardly anyone dared go near him.

Yet everyone liked him really. Everyone who got to know him said that he improved on acquaintance. His eccentricity increased as he grew older, but particularly after he had lost his son.

His son was already grown-up and had been a most promising young fellow. He was thought to be the most daring of all the skippers in the village and always went furthest out to sea; he was also the most successful fisherman of them all. But one day a sudden storm had caught them far out to sea, well outside the mouth of the fjord.

Rowing hard, in the teeth of wind and tide, they managed to reach the cliffs, but by that time they were quite exhausted. Their idea had been to land at Mular Creek, but unfortunately their boat overturned as they tried to enter. Hrolfur's son and one other on board had been drowned, though the rest were saved.

After the disaster Hrolfur ignored everybody for a long time. It wasn't that he wept or lost heart. Perhaps he had done so for the first few days, but not afterwards. He just kept to himself. He took not the slightest notice of his wife and his other children, just as if they were no longer his concern. It was as though he felt he'd lost everything. He lived all alone with his sorrow and talked of it to no one. n.o.body tried to question him; no one dared try to comfort him. Then, one winter, he started talking to himself.

Day and night, for a long time, he talked to himself, talked as though two or more men were chatting together, changing his tone of voice and acting in every way as though he were taking part in a lively and interesting conversation. There was nothing silly in what he said, although the subject matter was often difficult to follow.

He would always answer if anyone spoke to him, slowly to be sure, but always sensibly and agreeably. Often, before he could answer, it was as though he had to wake up as from a sleep, and yet his work never suffered from these bouts of absentmindedness.

He never talked about his son. The conversations he held with himself were mostly concerned with various adventures he thought had befallen him; some were exaggerated, others pure invention.

Sometimes he would talk of things he was going to do in the future, or things he would have done or ought to have in the past, but never about the present.

It wasn't long before the rumour spread that old Hrolfur was crazy, and for a long time hardly anyone dared to go to sea with him.

Now, that's all a thing of the past, said Eric and smiled. Nowadays there are always more who would like to go with him than he can take.

And does he catch plenty of fish?

Yes, he rarely fails.

Isn't he quite well-off then?

I don't know. At any rate he's not dependent on anyone else, and he's the sole owner of his boat and tackle.

He's rolling in money, the old devil, said the man at the mast, wiping the spray from his face with his hand.

Then they began to tell me about Mular Island and the life they would lead there in the coming week.

The island was a barren rock beyond the cliffs, and, in the autumn storms, was almost covered by the waves. The first thing they'd have to do, when they arrived, was to rebuild their refuge from the year before, roof it over with bits of driftwood and cover them with seaweed. That was to be their shelter at night, no matter what the weather. Nature had provided a landing-place, so that they'd no trouble with that, though the spot was so treacherous that one of them would have to stand watch over the boat every night.

Each evening they would row off from the island with their lines to some well-known fishing bank, for it was after midnight that the shark was most eager to take the bait. Savouring in his nostrils the smell of horse flesh soaked in rum and of rotten seal blubber, he would rush on the scent and greedily swallow whatever was offered.

When he realised the sad truth that a huge hook with a strong barb was hidden inside this tempting dish and that it was no easy matter to disgorge the tasty morsel, he would try to gnaw through the shaft of the hook with his teeth. Very occasionally he might succeed, but usually his efforts failed. Attached to the hook was a length of strong iron chain; and sometimes, though defeated by the hook, he would manage to snip through the chain. Then, in his joy at being free, this creature with the magnificent appet.i.te would immediately rush to the next hook, only to be caught there when the lines were drawn in. If the shark failed in his efforts to gnaw himself free, he would try, by twisting and turning, to break either the hook or the chain; but man had foreseen this possibility and had made the hook to turn with him. With exemplary patience 'the grey one' would continue his twisting until he had been drawn right up to the side of the boat and a second hook made fast in him. His sea-green, light-shy, pig-like eyes would glare malevolently up at his tormentors, and in his maddened fury he would bite, snap and fight until he almost capsized the boat.

For centuries our forefathers had hunted the shark like this in open boats, but nowadays men preferred to use decked vessels. No one in the district still used the old method, apart from old Hrolfur.

He had dragged in many a 'grey one'. From the bottom of the boat Eric picked up one of the hooks and pa.s.sed it to me; it was of wrought iron, half an inch thick, with a point of cast steel. But the spinning joint was almost chewed through and the hook shaft bitten and gnawed--the 'grey one' had fought hard that time.

The crew told me so much about their fishing adventures that I longed to go to the island with them.

Suddenly Eric gave me a nudge.

The conversation stopped, and we all looked back at old Hrolfur.