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?’
‘The 9th,’ Kielland answered. He had pulled forward a chair for Jill. Curtis and I seated ourselves on the edge of a desk. ‘He came in at dawn. The meat was cut out, packed and away on the meat boat by the evening.’
‘When did Lovaas leave?’ Jorgensen asked.
‘Not till the evening. He required water and fuel.’
‘So the message could have been placed in the meat by any one on the station or any of the crew of Hval Ti?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about your head packer? Why doesn’t he keep an eye on things?’
‘He does. But the packing sheds are too big to watch everyone who comes and goes. Besides, there is no reason for him to watch the men coming through from the deck to the quay.’
‘They might steal meat.’
‘They have no need. I allow them to take as much as they wish back to their homes.’
