Chapter VII: The Captain Makes a Suggestion

When, two days later, Dick Jervoise rose, dressed with difficulty owing to the heavy sea, and ascended to the deck, he found they were approaching a small bay where, through the drifting fog could be distinguished a line of low wooden houses, painted various colours, brown, white and blue, behind which, upon a small eminence, stood a tiny white church with pointed spire, while away on the horizon showed a range of low bare hills.

A dispiriting scene, ineffably sad. A grey, wintry sky, a grey sea, a grey land, while so chill was the wind that even though he wore a heavy leather-lined motor-coat, he shivered. And it was the height of summer. They were far away now from the haunts of the twenty-guinea midnight-sun tourists—away in the great lone land.

The _Mercur_ was approaching the little fishing station of Vadso, a lonely desolate little place on the Norwegian and Russian frontier. On the bridge stood Captain Martin, smart and spruce in his uniform, and without an overcoat, chatting to the big-bearded Norseman who had piloted them through the many dangerous channels beyond the Nordkap, and who was now keeping a wary eye upon the difficult course they were taking.

For a ship to approach Vadso closely is impossible, therefore, while still a mile from the long breakwater, the pilot pulled three times at the cord of the siren, sounding the Morse-code signal, and then drew over the engine-room lever. The answering bell sounded, and the engines suddenly stopped.

A shout, and down plunged the anchor with whirr and rattle.

Owen had not yet risen. While Dick had remained on board all the previous day, pleading a slight indisposition, the young doctor and the Captain had been ashore at Vardo and spent the evening with the Berentsens. They had come on board again about four o’clock in the morning, and sailed at once, eastward for Vadso.

Before turning in, Owen had come into his friend’s cabin to inquire how he was, and to explain how they had spent the evening at the harbour-master’s hospitable little house.

“Thyra was there, of course?” asked Dick, suddenly interrupting him.

“Certainly. And the young Russian too. It appears that their engagement was formally announced to-day, and it has created as great a sensation among the fisher-folk of Vardo as a similar announcement in the _Morning Post_ does in Mayfair. She’s being congratulated everywhere.”

“And what sort of fellow is he?” inquired the man.

“A gentleman, I believe,” replied the young doctor carelessly. “Speaks English as well as most educated Russians, is rather good-looking, but slightly disfigured by a white scar against his left ear. He’s evidently devoted to her, and seems quite a decent sort of fellow.”

Dick turned over in his narrow berth without a word. He only sighed. Truth to tell, however, he had turned his head away lest his friend’s curiosity should be aroused by the expression upon his countenance.

“Well,” exclaimed Owen after a slight pause; “you’re tired, old chap. I really ought not to have disturbed you, only—well, I thought you’d like to know all the news.”

“Thanks, old chap. I’m not disturbed. But I’ll just have an hour or two longer.”

“Right. We’re due off Vadso at nine,” Owen said cheerily, and he left the cabin, closing the door after him, and struggling unsteadily to his own berth, for the ship was already on her way, rolling heavily outside the harbour.

After that, Dick Jervoise had slept but little. So it was really _the_ Paul Grinevitch! The white scar that he remembered so well—the mark of Cain upon him—proved his identity.

He was glad that after Martin had told him of Thyra’s engagement, he had not set foot in Vardo again. Surely he had pursued the only course possible?

Yet the discovery had utterly staggered him.

Even now, as he stood upon the black, greasy deck, slippery with the cod-liver oil which oozed from the many barrels lashed to the bulwarks, the strange and unexpected truth filled his mind. The Captain, from the bridge above, shouted a merry “Good-morning”; but he only replied mechanically.

He was thinking of Thyra, and that man, her lover—of all men.

Again he shivered, and even while half-frozen by that biting wind he was at the same time asphyxiated by the horrible effluvia wafted from the cod-curing and boiling-houses and poisonous odours from guano factories.

A big, high-prowed boat rowed by six Lapp fishermen in furs with leather mitts upon their hands, came alongside, and into it was flung the small, half-filled mail bag from the south. Then the Captain, Dick and Owen Odd, together with the two officers, the engineer and mail officer—the same merry little company who had met there every morning for the past month—assembled for breakfast.

“Well, Mr. Jervoise,” inquired the Captain cheerily from the head of the table, “what have you decided? We sail at ten to-night for Archangel. Shall you come with us, or do you intend taking a trip inland for a fortnight, and we’ll pick you up again at Kjelvik on our way south? As I said yesterday, you’d have a most interesting journey with the Lapps. Of course you’d perhaps be compelled to rough it a little, but you, as a traveller, wouldn’t mind that.”

“I think it would be jolly good fun,” declared Odd enthusiastically. “I’ve been looking up the route on the map. Of course, Captain, you wouldn’t fail to call in for us? We don’t want to be left up here all the winter,” he added with a laugh.

“We shall be at Kjelvik fifteen days from to-day,” answered the Captain. “The voyage from here along the Murman coast and up the White Sea is not at all interesting. You’d find much more enjoyment in a journey across country. Mr. Ackerman, your British consul here, would no doubt find you a reliable Lapp guide, and you wouldn’t have much trouble. The steward can give you some tinned food, and I daresay you can buy a little cooking-stove ashore. I did the journey once across to Kistrand, on the Porsanger Fjord, and had a most excellent time.”

“How far is it?” inquired Jervoise.

“About four hundred kilometres—the last two hundred through a magnificent mountain range. The country is a very wild one, and quite unknown to travellers. But you’ll find the Lapps exceedingly friendly,” the Captain said. “There are two routes from here to Kistrand. One is by road to a little place called Nyborg, across the Tana River, and then due east by the track in the valley of the Mats and over the Borgavarre to a tiny place called Laxelven, at the extreme head of the Porsanger Fjord and thence north for fifty kilometres to Kistrand. From there you can go in a boat down the fjord to Kjelvik, where we will pick you up. The other, which is longer, but more interesting, is to ascend the Tana from Seida to Karasjok in a Lapp boat for about two hundred kilometres, and drive thence due north to Laxelven and on to Kistrand. I should certainly recommend the latter route as less tedious. The Tana, as you know, divides Norwegian Lapland from that of Finland. Besides you’ll be able to see the Laplander at home.”

Captain Martin’s description appealed to the adventurous spirit of Dick Jervoise. He had roughed it in many odd corners of the world, and his main object in going so far north now was in order to see the Lapps and their mode of life, to study a people about whom scarcely anything has ever been written.

So there and then he and his friend decided to take the Captain’s advice and go by the longer route of Karasjok and up the Fjelma valley. The journey by road and river would occupy them about thirteen days, the Captain estimated. The _Mercur_ could not be in the Magerosund—behind the island of Magero on which the North Cape is situated—for at least eighteen or nineteen days, being compelled to call at all the tiny fishing stations between Vardo and the North Cape, those clusters of wooden huts sheltered beneath the bare rocks, such as Makur, Mehavn, Gamvik and Finkongkjeilen. Therefore they would have five or six days to spare, in case of untoward circumstances.

The big map of Lapland was brought from the chart-room, spread upon the table of the saloon, and eagerly examined by the ship’s officers and the two Londoners. Then, when the route was decided, the steward was interviewed, and tinned provisions obtained from the store-room. There being no fresh food in the north, all the victuals on board the _Mercur_, including the vegetables, were preserved. The only thing fresh was the ever-present codfish, the very smell of which permeated everything on board.

A couple of reindeer skin sleeping sacks were brought out of the store-room, as well as a tea-kettle, a cooking-pot or two, matches, a couple of drums of petroleum, and other necessaries.

For several hours Dick and his friend were thus occupied in their preparations, packing warm clothing into two canvas mail-sacks. After luncheon they went ashore to interview the British consul, Mr. Ackerman, and to purchase a cooking-stove.

The doctor was delighted. It was his first experience of travel upon an unbeaten track. Hammersmith and Hammerfest were indeed widely separated. He recollected the dust and stuffiness of King Street, Hammersmith, with its working-class crowds, now, as he gazed upon the quaint though evil-smelling little town of Vadso, so far removed from the bustle of the world.

On landing at the breakwater, the Captain accompanying them, they found that the population of about a couple of thousand were mostly Laplanders. The few Norwegians occupied a central group of houses, one tiny street, while all around, in the rows of ramshackle sheds built of odds and ends of driftwood, old petroleum-tins and slabs of stone, lived the Lapps, or Kvaen, as they call themselves.

Alongside the water stood a row of little wooden houses painted in bright colours, interspersed by old boats transformed into various uses, and black wooden sheds for the drying of the cod.

In the centre of all was the little _torv_, or market, which at the moment of their arrival presented quite a picturesque scene. Around the stalls, where various wares were displayed, notwithstanding the cutting wind, was an unwashed crowd of all the races of the far North—Norwegian fishermen, Russian sailors, Finns, Russian Lapps in four-cornered caps, tunics of dark blue homespun ornamented by heavy embroideries in red and yellow cloth, Lapps of the Finmarken, short of stature, in ragged furs, with knitted blue caps with scarlet tassels, and knives in their belts, while Samoyeds from Archangel were distinguishable by their long caftans of reindeer hide. Truly a most remarkable crowd—a _melange_ of a dozen different languages and a dozen different costumes.

Consul Ackerman proved to be a shipping-agent and agent of the universal Lloyd’s. Upstairs, in his comfortable wooden house, where stunted roses and geraniums struggled for life behind the double windows, the two Englishmen were introduced by the Captain, the usual glass of vodka was offered as sign of the hospitality of the North, and the conversation soon drifted to the ways and means of the projected journey across the Kistrand.

Mr. Ackerman, a pleasant middle-aged man who had spent his life in the Arctic, and who had travelled in various parts of Lapland and also out across the terrible country of the Kola, sat for a full hour and gave them a number of useful hints regarding their proposed route.

Eventually they descended to the ground floor, where a funny, bead-eyed little man wearing ragged furs, and whose face was of distinctly Mongol type, was introduced.

“This is Henkela,” explained the consul. “You may place every reliance in him. He is a Lapp of the Finmarken, and has travelled your route several times. He often does odd jobs for me, for he speaks Russian as well as a little English.”

At this, the brown-faced aborigine of those inhospitable tundras of the North grinned, nodded, and exclaimed:

“Yes.”

In Norwegian the consul explained the route which the travellers desired to take, and to every word Henkela listened most attentively. His age it was impossible to guess, for the average Laplander begins to look old at twenty-five.

Both Dick and Owen noted that he was not particularly clean-looking, but the consul had already warned them that they must expect dirt in travelling so far from European civilisation. Dick was used to it, and possessed the practised traveller’s instinct of being able to keep himself clean under almost any circumstances. Odd, as medical man, however, regarded uncleanliness with horror.

The remainder of that short grey day was occupied mostly in preparations, the wizened-faced Henkela being particularly active in adding to the stores various articles of necessity which had been forgotten.

On the road from Vadso to Nyborg reindeer are only used with the sleds in winter, therefore Henkela obtained horses with two very shaky vehicles, while at the general store Dick and Owen each purchased, at the Lapp’s request, pairs of leathern mitts, and from a house in the Lapp town each a _pesk_, or huge coat of reindeer skin with the fur outside.

That evening the pair, together with the Captain, dined with the consul, and afterwards Captain Martin bade them farewell and went off in the ship’s boat, promising to call for them at the little fishing station of Kjelvik within eighteen days.

Half an hour later the siren, echoing across the dark fjord, announced the departure of the _Mercur_ for Archangel.