The Blue Ice (10 page)

He nodded. ‘Yes, I can understand that,' he said slowly. Then he frowned. ‘What puzzles me,' he went on, ‘is how Farnell was able to produce samples of ore. I can understand that a good metal diviner can locate a seam. But to produce samples – I should have thought that would have required machinery.'

It was a good point. ‘That puzzled me at first,' I said. ‘I can only suggest that the ore itself had been uncovered by ice erosion. His samples may even have been found in the rubble at the foot of a glacier.'

‘I see,' he said. ‘But it still seems to me that you and Jorgensen are placing too much reliance on discoveries that are quite unproved.'

‘No,' I said. ‘No, I don't think so. Farnell was in a class by himself. Before dispatching samples he would have taken into account the geological nature of the ground as well as his own divining results. He won't have slipped up on anything. Jorgensen knows that. If we combined, he and I could clear up a lot of money.'

He looked at me with a lift of his eyebrows. ‘You don't mean to say you're going to accept his offer?'

‘No,' I said, laughing. ‘But the choice is not as clear cut as it would be in your case. I don't owe allegiance to anyone. I'm my own master.'

‘What will you do, then?'

‘Oh, I'll play the hand in my own way – if my cards are good enough.' I got up and went out on deck. I'd let my thoughts run away with me. I stood by the rail and looked out across the darkening sea towards Norway. Go west, young man. Well, I'd been west and found nickel. Now I was looking east and wondering whether this cold, snow-clad country might not be the land of opportunity. Farnell had had that urge. He'd let nothing stand in his way – he'd stolen and deserted and fought because of the call of the minerals there under the mountains. The same urge was in me – the same thrill of excitement. And I had something more than Farnell – I had the ability to organise and develop the mineral when I found it.

I was still standing by the rail in this mood of elation when Jorgensen came up from below. ‘It's eight o'clock,' he said. ‘I'll get Bovaagen Hval now. Doubtless you'll want to have Miss Somers up to check on what I say.' He smiled and went down into the chartroom.

He was right. I certainly did want to know what he said. I called Jill up from below and we settled ourselves in the chartroom. Jorgensen had already tuned in and a voice was speaking what I presumed was Norwegian. But suddenly it concluded with – ‘Twa bloody baskets, an' that's all, Johnnie.'

‘Scotch trawlers,' Jorgensen said. And then, ‘Here we are.' A deep voice had suddenly broken in across the fainter voices of the trawlermen: ‘
Ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo. Ul-lo Bovaagen Hval. Ul-lo Bovaagen Hval. Dette er Hval To. Ullo-ullo-ullo
–
Bovaagen Hval.
' There followed a double whistle and then another voice came in: ‘
Ullo-ullo-ullo Hval To. Bovaagen Hval her.
' The double whistle again and the first voice came back with a stream of Norwegian.

‘Whale Two – that's one of the catchers – reporting a seventy-foot whale,' Jill whispered.

When he had finished another voice came in – Whale Five. ‘He's seen nothing,' Jill murmured in my ear. ‘He says the weather's still bad up there – that's about two hundred miles farther north, I think.'

As soon as Whale Five had signed off, Jorgensen switched on to the transmitting set and holding the mike close to his mouth said, ‘
Ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo Bovaagen Hval. Det er direktör Jorgensen. Er stasjonmester Kielland der?
' The double whistle and then a voice on the loudspeaker: ‘
Ullo-ullo-ullo direktör Jorgensen. Det er Kielland. Hvor er De na?
'

‘
Jeg er embord pa den britiske yachten
Diviner,' Jorgensen answered. ‘
Vi ankrer opp utenfor Bovaagen Hval imorgen tidlig. Vaer sa snild a sörge for vann og dieselolje. Og na har jeg –
'

‘What's he saying?' I asked Jill.

‘He's arranging for water and oil for the boat on our arrival,' she whispered back. ‘Now he's explaining about the message in the consignment of whale meat. He's asking the station manager, Kielland, to make inquiries and report on how the message got into the whale meat when we arrive.'

‘
Javel, herr direktör
,' replied the manager's voice. ‘
Jeg skal ta mea ar saken.
'

‘
Utmerket
,' answered Jorgensen. He gave the signing-off whistle and then turned to us. ‘Tomorrow we will know the answer to this little mystery – I hope,' he said.

And then our attention was called back to the radio with a voice calling, ‘
Ullo-ullo-ullo. Hval Ti anroper direktör Jorgensen.
'

Jorgensen picked up the microphone again. ‘
Ja, Hval Ti. Det er Jorgensen her.
'

‘
Dette er kaptein Lovaas
,' replied the voice.

Jill gripped my arm. ‘It's the captain of the catcher, Whale Ten. I think he knows something.'

The conversation went on in Norwegian for a moment and then Jorgensen turned to me. ‘Lovaas sounds as though he has some information. He wants a description of Farnell.' He thrust the microphone towards me. ‘He understands English.'

I leaned down to the microphone and said, ‘Farnell was short and dark. He had a long, serious face and wore thick-lensed glasses. The tip of the little finger of the left hand was missing.'

Jorgensen nodded and took the microphone. ‘Now what's your information, Lovaas?' he asked.

‘I speak English now.' There was a fat chuckle over the loudspeaker. ‘She is not very good, my English. So please excuse. When I leave Bovaagen Hval two days before one of my men is sick. I take with me another man – a stranger. His name, he said, is Johan Hestad. He is very good to steer. But he has magnetise the compass and when I think I am near the whales I find I am off the Shetlands. He offered me many monies to go to the Shetlands. He says to me that he was with a man called Farnell seeking minerals on the Jostedal and that an English company will pay him money for his discoveries. I remember how this man Farnell is discovered dead on the Boya Glacier and I lock him in the cabin. When I search his clothes I have found papers showing his real name to be Hans Schreuder. Also some little pieces of rock.'

At the mention of the man's real name, Jorgensen's grip on the microphone tightened. ‘Lovaas,' he interrupted. ‘Did you say – Schreuder?'

‘
Ja, herr direktör.
'

‘Put about at once and return to Bovaagen Hval at full speed,' Jorgensen ordered.

Again there was the fat chuckle over the loudspeaker. ‘I have done this six hours before,' Lovaas replied. ‘I thought you will be interested. See you tomorrow,
herr direktör.
' The double whistle as he signed off was almost derisive. Silence settled on the chartroom. The fat, jovial voice with the sing-song intonation of Eastern Norway had left me with the impression of a big man – a big man who enjoyed life and was also a rogue. I was to get to know that voice too well in the days that followed. But I was never to revise my first impression.

‘Who was Schreuder?' I asked Jorgensen.

He looked up at me. ‘I do not know,' he said.

But he did know. Of that I was certain.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE WHALING STATION

That night I hardly slept at all. The voice of Captain Lovaas and the information he had broadcast dominated my mind. Why had he wanted a description of Farnell? Why had he spoken in English and not Norwegian? Above all who was Hans Schreuder? These questions kept hammering at my tired brain. Jorgensen had recognised the name Hans Schreuder. I was certain of it. And if he recognised the name – recognised the significance of it in the mystery of Farnell's death – then he had shown that Farnell was not alone on the Jostedal. Had Farnell been murdered? Had this man Schreuder killed Farnell for the information he had? How else to explain those ‘little pieces of rock' Lovaas had discovered among the man's things. I had no doubts about what those little pieces of rock would prove to be. They would be samples of thorite. As soon as Jorgensen obtained those from his whaling captain, then he would know as much as I knew.

My watch took over at four in the morning. The ship was heeling to a warm sou'-westerly breeze. The moonlight showed a long, flat swell marching northwards and the surface of the sea ruffled and corrugated by the new direction of the wind. Dahler came up with us. He sat on the chartroom roof gazing out towards Norway. He sat there without moving, a little hunched-up figure, watching the moonlight fade and the dawn come up out of the east, waiting for the first sight of his homeland. Jill was silent. She, too, had her face turned to the east and I wondered again what Farnell had meant to her.

I began to feel a sense of excitement. It was a mood that increased as the pale, cold light strengthened. Jill put her hand on my sleeve. ‘There,' she said. ‘Do you see it, Bill? It's nearer than I expected.'

A low, dark line emerged on the edge of visibility. It grew rapidly sharper and blacker. From a vague blur it took shape and became small hills and rock-bound inlets. It was the islands of Norway about five miles away on our starboard beam. And then behind, in great serried lines, emerged the shape of Norway's mountains. The light strengthened and then we saw that the huddled masses of the mountains were topped with snow.

The light grew from ghostly grey to cold blue and then changed to an orange glow. The hot rim of the sun rose and for a moment the mountains were a sharp black line like a cross-section marked on a map. Then the sun was up, the snow was pink, rimmed with crimson, and I could see the white-painted wooden houses on the islands.

I glanced at Dahler. He hadn't moved. He sat perched there like a little troll, his gaze fixed on the coastline. In the early sunlight it seemed to me his face had softened. The lines were not so deep and the set of his mouth was kinder.

Curtis came on deck and stood for a while by the rail, gazing out towards the land. A ship was steaming along the coast – a little, painted thing, trailing a wisp of smoke. A fjord had opened up – a long rift between the islands. A small town gleamed fresh and clean on a headland. It was Solsvik. Beyond lay the Hjeltefjord and the way to Bergen. Curtis came aft. ‘First time I saw Norway,' he said, ‘was from the deck of a destroyer.'

‘Where was that?' I asked.

‘Farther north,' he answered. ‘Andalsnes.' He was gazing out again to the islands. He sighed and shook his head. ‘It was a bad business. The Norwegians had nothing. We weren't properly equipped. Jerry had it all his own way in the air. They hadn't a hope. But they kept on fighting. We were driven out. But they wouldn't give up. We gave 'em help up in the north, in Finnmark, and they started to fight back. We got as far as Tromso, pushing Jerry back all the way, then the break-through in France came and we had to go. All that effort wasted.' He was still staring out towards Norway. ‘Still,' he said, ‘there were sixty thousand less Germans.'

‘You came back later – after the war, I mean – didn't you?' Jill asked.

He turned and looked at her steadily for a second. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘I was in Norway from the beginning of 1945 until the middle of the following year. In Bergen,' he added.

They stared at one another for a moment. And then Jill looked away. She picked up the glasses and began sweeping the coast. Curtis turned to me. ‘When will this Captain Lovaas get in?'

‘I don't know,' I answered. ‘Jorgensen said last night that he'd be able to get in touch again by radio at nine this morning.'

‘We'll be at the whaling station by then, won't we?' Curtis said.

‘Just about,' I replied.

‘What is this about Kaptein Lovaas?' I turned. It was Dahler. He had got down from his perch on the chartroom roof and was standing over me where I sat in the cockpit. His hand was plucking agitatedly at the cloth of his jacket.

‘He's the captain of one of the Bovaagen catchers,' I said. ‘He has information for us that may have a bearing on Farnell's death. Why – do you know him?' I asked.

‘Yes, I know him.' I watched his hand slowly clench into a fist. ‘Kaptein Lovaas!' He hissed the name out between clenched teeth. Then suddenly he caught at my shoulder. ‘Be careful of him, Mr Gansert – he is dangerous, you know. He is a violent man, and he is not straight.' He turned to Jill. ‘He worked for your father once, Miss Somers. But not for long. I remember your father saying at the time, “If there was not a
skytter
in all Norway, I would not employ Paal Lovaas.”'

‘Why?' Jill asked.

‘For many reasons. But chiefly because he killed a man. Nothing was proved. His crew were all so frightened of him, they said the fellow was washed overboard. But your father was certain Lovaas had killed him. He had his sources of information. Lovaas had violent rages. Once, on a factory ship in the Antarctic, he was said to have chased a man with a flensing knife for bungling the winching up of one of his whales.' He gripped my shoulder. ‘What does Lovaas know about Farnell's death?'

There was no point in not telling him. ‘He says he's got a man on board who was with Farnell at the time of his death. This fellow, Hans Schreuder, was trying to get to—'

‘Hans Schreuder?'

I looked up in surprise. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘Does that name mean anything to you?'

‘Was he a metallurgist?' he asked.

‘Quite possibly,' I replied, ‘if he was with Farnell.' Actually I was thinking of the samples of ore Lovaas said he had found among the man's possessions. ‘Why?' I asked. ‘Who was he?'

I felt him stiffen. His hand relaxed on my shoulder. I looked up. Jorgensen was emerging from the main hatch. His face was tired and grey in the early sunlight and little pouches showed under his eyes. I wondered how long he'd lain awake during the night. ‘Well?' I inquired, looking up at Dahler.