Seven Icelandic Short Stories Part 8

Now he's talking to himself.

We all held our breath and listened.

Hrolfur sat like a statue, holding the rudder-lines. His eyes wore a far-away look and a curious smile of happiness played over his face.

After a short silence, he spoke again--in a perfectly normal voice.

When I was on the frigate--

For the time being that was all.

There was a touch of vanity in his smile, as though in memory of some old, half-ludicrous story from the past.

Yes, when I was on the frigate, my lad--

It was just as if there were someone sitting next to him beside the rudder, to whom he was relating his adventures.

Has he ever been on a warship? I whispered.

Never in his life, said Eric.

Our eyes never left him. I can still remember the curious twitching and working of his features. The eyes themselves were invisible; it was as though the man were asleep. But his forehead and temples were forever on the move, as if in mimicry of what he said.

I couldn't utter a sound. Everything was blurred before my eyes, for it was only then that the full realisation came upon me that the man at the rudder--the man who held all our lives in his hands--was half-crazed.

The crew nudged each other and chortled. They'd seen all this before.

She was running aground--heading straight for the reef,--a total loss, said Hrolfur, a total loss, I tell you. She was a beautiful craft, shining black and diced with white along the sides--ten fighting mouths on either side and a carved figure on her prow. I think the king would have been sorry to lose her. She was far too lovely to be ground to pieces there--they were glad when I turned up.

The crew did their best to smother their laughter.

'Top-sails up,' I shouted.--'Top-sails up, my lad.' The officer, for all his gold braid, went as pale as death. 'Top-sails up, in the devil's name.' The blue-jackets on the deck fell over themselves in fear. Yes, my lad, even though I hadn't a sword dangling by my side, I said, 'Top-sails up, in the devil's name.' And they obeyed me-- they obeyed me. They didn't dart not to. 'Top-sails up, in the devil's name.'

Hrolfur raised himself up on the crossbeam, his fists clenched round the steering-ropes.

Eric was almost bursting with laughter and trying hard not to let it be heard; but the man at the mast made little attempt to stifle his.

She's made it, said Hrolfur, his face all smiles and nodding his head.--Out to sea. Straight out to sea. Let her lie down a bit, if she wants to. It'll do her no harm to ship a drop or two. Let it 'bubble up over her rowlocks,' as we Icelanders say. Even though she creaks a bit, it's all to the good. Her planks aren't rotten when they make that noise. All right, we'll sail the bottom out of her-- but forward she'll go--forward, forward she shall go!

Hrolfur let his voice drop and drew out his jet words slowly.

By now we were far out in the fjord. The sea was rising and becoming more choppy because of tide currents. Good steering became more and more difficult. Hrolfur seemed to do it instinctively. He never once looked up and yet seemed to see all around him. He seemed to sense the approach of those bigger waves which had to be avoided or pa.s.sed by. The general direction was never lost, but the boat ran wonderfully smoothly in and out of the waves--over them, before them and through them, as though she were possessed with human understanding. Not a single wave fell on her; they towered high above, advanced on her foaming and raging, but somehow--at the last moment--she turned aside. She was as sensitive as a frightened hind, quick to answer the rudder, as supple in her movements as a willing racehorse. Over her reigned the spirit of Hrolfur.

But Hrolfur himself was no longer there. He was 'on the frigate'. It was not his own boat he was steering in that hour, but a huge three- master with a whole cloud of sails above her and ten cannon on either side--a miracle of the shipwright's craft. The mainstays were of many-stranded steelwire, the halyards, all cl.u.s.tered together, struck at the mast and stays; they seemed inextricably tangled, and yet were in fact all ship-shape, taut and true, like the nerves in a human body. There was no need to steer her enormous bulk to avoid the waves or pa.s.s them by; it was enough to let her crush them with all her weight, let her grind them down and push them before her like drifts of snow. Groaning and creaking she ploughed straight on through all that came against her, heeling before the wind right down to her gunwale and leaving behind her a long furrow in the sea.

High above the deck of this magnificent vessel, between two curved iron pillars, Hrolfur's boat hung like a tiny mussel sh.e.l.l.

Once upon a time this had been a dream of the future. But now that all hope of its fulfilment had been lost, the dream had long since become a reality. Hrolfur's adventure 'on the frigate' was a thing of the past.

For a long time he continued talking to himself, talked of how he had brought 'the frigate' safely to harbour, and how he had been awarded a 'gold medal' by the king. We could hear only anppets of this long rigmarole, but we never lost the drift of it. He spoke alternately in Danish and Icelandic, in many different tones of voice, and one could always tell, by the way he spoke, where he was in 'the frigate': whether he was addressing the crew on the deck, or the officers on the bridge, and when, his fantastic feat accomplished, he clinked gla.s.ses with them in the cabin on the p.o.o.p.

The wind had slackened somewhat, but now that we had reached so far out into the bay the waves were higher; they were the remains of the huge ocean waves which raged on the high seas, remains which, despite the adverse wind, made their way far up the fjord.

Hrolfur no longer talked aloud, but he continued to hum quietly to himself. The crew around me began to doze off, and I think even I was almost asleep for a time. To tell the truth I wasn't very far from feeling seasick.

Soon afterwards the man who had been asleep in the s.p.a.ce behind the mast rose to his feet, yawned once or twice, shook himself to restore his circulation and looked around.

It won't be long now before we get to Mular Creek, he said with his mouth still wide-open.

I was wide awake at once when I heard this, and raised myself up on my elbow. The mountain I had seen from the village--which then had been wrapped in a dark haze--now towered directly above us, rocky and enormous, with black sea-crags at its feet. The rocks were drenched with spray from the breakers, and the booming of the sea as it crashed into the basalt caves resounded like the roar of cannon.

There'll be no landing in the creek today, Hrolfur, the man said and yawned again. The breakers are too heavy.

Hrolfur pretended he hadn't heard.

Everybody aboard was awake now and watching the sh.o.r.e; and I think he was not the only one amongst us to shudder at the thought of landing.

On the mountain in front of us it was as though a panel was slowly moved to one side: the valleys of Muladalir opened up before us.

Soon we glimpsed the roofs of the farms up on the hill-side. The beach itself was covered with rocks.

The boat turned into the inlet. It was quieter there than outside, and the sea was just a little another.

Loosen the foresail, Hrolfur ordered. It was Eric who obeyed and held on to the sheet Hrolfur himself untied the mainsail, whilst at the same time keeping hold of the sheet. I imagined Hrolfur must be thinking it safer to have the sails loose as it was likely to be gusty in the inlet.

Are you going to sail in? said the man who'd been asleep. His voice came through a nose filled with snuff.

Shut up, said Hrolfur savagely.

The man took the hint and asked no more questions. No one asked a question, though every moment now was one of suspense.

We all gazed in silence at the cliffs, which were lathered in white foam.

One wave after another pa.s.sed under the boat. They lifted her high up, as if to show us the surf. As the boat sank slowly down into the trough of the wave, the surf disappeared and with it much of the sh.o.r.e. The wave had shut it out.

I was surprised how little the boat moved, but an explanation of the mystery was soon forthcoming: the boat and all she carried were still subject to Hrolfur's will.

He let the wind out of the mainsail and, by careful manipulation of the rudder, kept the boat wonderfully still. He was standing up now in front of the crossbeam and staring fixedly out in front of the boat. He was no longer talking to himself, he was no longer 'on the frigate', but in his own boat; he knew well how much depended on him.

After waiting for a while, watching his opportunity, Hrolfur suddenly let her go at full speed once more.

Now the moment had come--a moment I shall never forget--nor probably any of us who were in the boat with him. It was not fear that gripped us but something more like excitement before a battle. Yet, if the choice had been mine, we should have turned back from the creek that day.

Hrolfur stood at the rudder, immovable, his eyes shifting from side to side, now under the sail, now past it. He chewed vigorously on his quid of tobacco and spat. There was much less sign now of the twitchings round his eyes than there'd been earlier in the day, and his very calmness had a soothing effect on us all.

As we approached the creek, a huge wave rose up behind us. Hrolfur glanced at it with the corner of his eye. He spat and bared his teeth. The wave rose and rose, and it reached us just at the mouth of the creek, its overhanging peak so sharp as to be almost transparent. It seemed to be making straight for the boat.

As I watched, I felt the boat plummet down, as if the sea was s.n.a.t.c.hed from under her; it was the undertow--the wave was drawing the waters back beneath it. By the gunwale the blue-green sea frothed white as it poured back from the skerries near the entrance to the creek.

The boat almost stood on end; it was as if the sea was boiling around us--boiling until the very seaweed on the rocks was turned to broth.