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overheard her complaining to the cook, describing how the first mate had driven at breakneck speed along precipitous mountain roads with the sea a thousand feet below, and claiming that she never wanted to set foot on Norwegian soil again. After this the woman sighed, rested her hand on the cook’s shoulder and laid her head on his breast.
    Oho, I thought as I watched them unobserved from the galley door that stood open into the saloon. But the cook laid his hand between the woman’s shoulder blades, simultaneously moving backwards, while she took what looked like a clumsy dance step past him to the kitchen sink where she proceeded to throw up into the potato pan, which was sitting there waiting to be washed up by the galley hand.
    From the ship one can glimpse a road clinging to the mountain on the other side of the fjord. It runs diagonally up the slope and for a long stretch appears to be little more than a ledge on the sheer rock wall, so it seemed only natural to me that the woman should have been car sick after being driven along it at break-neck speed.
    But still I thought:
    ‘Oho ...’

     
    ‘Looks like it’s only the two of you this evening.’
    With a deft swivel of the wrist the steward placed the dish containing the entrée on the table and began to serve up on to our plates.
    ‘The first mate is on watch. The others are fagged out after their trip and say they’re still stuffed with Norwegian food. You two could stay here till the early hours and enjoy the same meal three times over ...’
    He laughed at his own joke, as young men will. Although I did not join in, I indicated by my response that I found his cheeriness far from unwelcome. It was the first sign of life in the saloon that Shrove Tuesday evening in Mold Bay. We two – Mate Caeneus and I – had been sitting there waiting for the others without saying a single word beyond the conventional greetings. He was, in fact, as taciturn as the day we met on deck (though I have to admit that his clean, pressed uniform lent the occasion a silent dignity).
    However, I felt the steward’s fooling had gone far enough so I raised my brows and gestured to the centre of the table:
    ‘In that case, would it not be more appropriate for us to sit there?’
    The steward and mate looked at me enquiringly. I moved my hand slightly to the left, just enough to indicate the empty seat at my side:
    ‘In Captain Alfredson’s absence.’
    ‘Oh, that’s what you’re driving at!’
    ‘Yes, he is our host, is he not?’
    ‘Well, of course ...’
    I need hardly explain that this exchange was with the steward since my dining companion remained persistently mute. I lost my temper with the young man:
    ‘You have still not deigned to inform us why the commanding officer’s seat is unoccupied this evening.’
    ‘Oh, I, er, he was ...’
    ‘That is no concern of ours!’
    I gave the table a sharp rap with my index finger. The steward flinched from the blow as if I had struck him.
    ‘You cannot evade your duties by gossiping about your superior officer!’
    The steward rolled his eyes like a negro, stammering something incomprehensible in his Fynen dialect. At this point Mate Caeneus spoke up:
    ‘What Mr Haraldsson means – with respect, sir – is that it’s not at all clear who has the role of host this evening. Isn’t that so, Mr Haraldsson?’
    I nodded to the mate who looked the boy straight in the eye, his expression stern:
    ‘You should of course have begun by bidding me good evening first and then Mr Haraldsson. That would have made it clear from the start that in the absence of Captain Alfredson and the first mate, I stand in the place of host.’
    The tip of the steward’s tongue protruded from between his dry lips:
    ‘Thank you, Caeneus, sir, thank you, second mate. I shall remember that next time, thank you, thank you ...’
    He approached the table, gabbling his thanks and fumbling with a shaking hand for the crystal carafe, presumably with a view