I must have been dead beat, for I fell asleep at once and the next thing I remember is Curtis shaking me. I sat up at once, listening to the sounds of the ship. We were canted over and moving fast through the water, cutting through a light sea with a crash and a splash as the bows bit into each wave. ‘When do we reach Leirvik?’ I asked.
He grinned. ‘We left Leirvik an hour ago,’ he said.
I cursed him for not waking me. ‘What about Sunde?’ I asked.
‘He made his call.’
‘Is he back on board?’
‘Yes. I saw to that. I went with him.’
‘You don’t know what place it was he rang?’
He shook his head. ‘No. He wouldn’t let me come into the call box with him.’
‘Has Dahler come round?’
‘Yes, he’s all right. Got a hangover, that’s all.’
I got up and went into the saloon. Dahler and Sunde were there facing each other over the remains of a rice pudding. And again I heard the name Max Bakke mentioned — this time by Sunde. His voice was nervous and pitched a shade high. He glanced round as I entered and I was aware of a sense of relief at my interruption.
‘Who is Max Bakke?’ I asked as I settled myself at the table.
Dahler rose to his feet. ‘A business acquaintance of Mr Sunde,’ he said quietly. And then to the diver: ‘We will talk of Max Bakke later.’ He turned to me. ‘Has the weather cleared yet, Mr Gansert?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been up top.’
He went out then and I was left alone with Sunde. ‘Who is Max Bakke?’ I asked again as I helped myself to bully beef.
‘Just somebody Mr Dahler and I know,’ he replied. Then with a muttered excuse he got up and hurried out of the saloon.
When I had finished my lunch, I went up on deck. It was raining. The ship was shrouded in a thick mist. The mountains on either side were a vague blur. The wind was abeam, coming in gusts as it struck down invisible gullies in the mountain sides. Dick was at the wheel, his black oilskins shining with water and little beads of moisture clinging to his eyebrows. Jill and Dahler were standing in the cockpit.
‘Had a good sleep?’ Jill asked. Her face was fresh and pink and wisps of fair hair escaped from below the peak of her black Norwegian sou’-wester. Her grey eyes smiled at me teasingly. She looked little more than a kid.
‘Fine, thanks,’ I answered. ‘Has it been raining all the time?’
‘All the time,’ she said.
‘It always rains in the entrance to the Sognefjord,’ Dahler said. ‘It is a very wet place.’ He glanced up at a leaden sky. ‘Soon it will be fine. You will see.’
He was quite right. By the time we were off Kvamsoy the sun was out. The wind changed and blew straight down the fjord. We took the sails in and started up the engine. The mountains had receded. They were higher and more massive. But they were not impressive. Deep snow capped their rounded tops, but thickly wooded slopes dropped gently to the quiet waters of the fjord. They basked in the sun, a symphony of bright green and glittering snow, and somehow I felt cheated. They should have been towering and black with precipitous cliffs falling sheer 4,000 feet to the water with the white lacing of giant falls cascading down their granite cliffs. This smiling land seemed much too kindly.
The wind died away. The surface of the fjord flattened out to a mirror. The ship steamed in the noonday warmth and, sitting at the wheel, I found I was hot even with nothing on but a short-sleeved shirt. Dick had turned in and Dahler had also gone below. The rest of the crew lay stretched out on the deck, sleeping in the sun. Jill came aft and sat beside me in the cockpit. She didn’t speak, but sat with her chin resting on one hand, gazing ahead towards a wide bend of the fjord. She was waiting for her first glimpse of the Jostedal.
I often think of that afternoon. It was the beginning of something new in my life. As I sat there at the wheel watching the bend of the fjord slowly open up ahead of us, I was conscious for the first time of someone else’s feelings. I knew what she was feeling, felt it as though it were myself. She was dressed in a deep scarlet jersey and green corduroy slacks and her fair hair stirred in the breeze, glinting in the sunlight like spun gold. Neither of us spoke. The only sound was the rhythmic beat of the engine and the gentle stirring of the water thrust aside by the bows.
Gradually the great headland on our port bow slid back, revealing more and more of the mountains to the north. And then suddenly we were clear of the enclosing mass and looking right up to Balestrand and Fjaerlandsfjord. It was a breath-takingly beautiful sight. The mountains rose in jagged peaks, tier on tier for miles inland, crag over-topping crag till they seemed tilted up into the blue bowl of the sky. The dark green of the pines covered the lower slopes and there was emerald in the valleys. But higher up, the vegetation vanished and sheer precipices of grey-brown rock piled up like bastions holding back the gleaming masses of the snow-fields.
