CHAPTER IV 



AT last ! on the 23rd of August, the St Ebba was ready 

 to be taken away from the slip, and the town, and the 

 noise of the builders' yard, and one morning, with 

 rain blotting out the grey stone hills and threshing the trees, 

 and the country a swamp, Henriksen, Mrs Henriksen and the 

 writer went into town for the last time about St Ebba's 

 affairs, motoring in our whale-launch nine knots through the 

 spray. It shows how hard some people are to please, for Mrs 

 Henriksen vowed she preferred her recollection of the motion 

 of a Rolls Royce in Berwickshire on a dead smooth road. 

 Fancy comparing metal springs and the hard high road to 

 the silky rush over spuming surge down the fir-clad fiord, the 

 wind right aft, and each wave racing to catch us. 



So we took St Ebba from town and the grime of the quay- 

 side and cleaned her decks and laid her alongside a wooden 

 pier a few miles from Tonsberg, brought a flexible pipe on 

 board and filled her tanks with sixty tons of solar oil from an 

 oil refinery, enough to take her at one ton a day to Australia 

 without a call ! That went on board in eight and a half 

 hours, one man on watch with his hands in his pockets. 

 How different from the work and dirt of coaling ! 



Then clang goes the bell for stand by let go, fore, and aft 

 half-speed astern and we back away from the pier, with 

 Henriksen on the bridge, our crew young and nimble as 

 kittens and our young mate or styrmand forward alert 

 and the picture of smartness. He is twenty -one, is 

 Henriksen's brother, and has held master's certificate for 

 three years. 



Round we come with the wind out of shelter into rougher 

 sea half-speed ahead full speed and away we go, our first 

 trip with no one but ourselves aboard, no pilot or town ties 

 ready for a year at sea. 



But we have arrangements to make on board yet, arranging 



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