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"Lift up that end there, damn you! What the hell's the matter with you?" They elevated the end of the hatch-cover with pitiful haste, and, like a dog flung overside, the dead man slid feet first into the sea. The coal at his feet dragged him down. He was gone. "Johansen," Wolf Larsen said briskly to the new mate, "keep all hands on deck now they're here.
For we always had to take them off on the journey; if one left one's bindings out for a night, they were gone in the morning. The dogs looked upon them as a delicacy. The toe-strap also had to be removed in the evening; in other words, the ski had to be left absolutely bare. Johansen, besides his packing, was occupied in making weights and tent-pegs.
They had thrown away the tent, and instead they crept in between the sledges covered with the sail. Once Nansen came down when on skis, and would have been drowned if Johansen had not helped him up in time. The snow lying on this ice was soaked with water. They had always to keep their eyes open and look for firm ice. The provisions came to an end, but the sea swarmed with walruses.
The captain of the Sophie Sutherland had a story to tell, also, and he told it well so well, in fact, that when all hands were gathered together on deck during the dog-watch, Emil Johansen strode over to Chris and gripped him by the hand. "Chris," he said, so loudly that all could hear, "Chris, I gif in.
Next day Johansen, the new mate, was routed from the cabin by Wolf Larsen, and sent into the steerage to sleep thereafter, while I took possession of the tiny cabin state-room, which, on the first day of the voyage, had already had two occupants. The reason for this change was quickly learned by the hunters, and became the cause of a deal of grumbling on their part.
He kept this place on all our journeys the leading sledge. I knew him well from our previous work together, and regarded him as the most efficient dog-driver I had met. He carried the standard compass on his sledge and checked Prestrud's direction. After him came Johansen, also with a compass. Lastly, I came, with sledge-meter and compass.
It was, of course, a matter of life or death, so he told Johansen to take a day or two to think it over before he gave his answer. But the latter said "Yes" at once without a moment's hesitation. "Then we will begin our preparations to-morrow," said Nansen. All the winter was spent in them.
They dreamed of sledges and dog teams, and Johansen would call out to the dogs in his sleep, urging them on. Then they would wake up again in the bitter morning, rouse up the dogs, lying huddled up together and growling at the cold, disentangle the trace lines, load the sledges, and off they would go through the great solitude.
Get in the topsails and jibs and make a good job of it. We're in for a sou'-easter. Better reef the jib and mainsail too, while you're about it." In a moment the decks were in commotion, Johansen bellowing orders and the men pulling or letting go ropes of various sorts all naturally confusing to a landsman such as myself. But it was the heartlessness of it that especially struck me.
"But you are unfair, Emil!" cried Chris Farrington, his sensitive face flushed and hurt. He was a slender though strongly built young fellow of seventeen, with Yankee ancestry writ large all over him. "Dere you go vonce again!" the Swedish sailor exploded. "My name is Mister Johansen, und a kid of a boy like you call me 'Emil! It vas insulting, und comes pecause of der American ship!"
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