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Hassel was great at new inventions; he wore nose-protectors all over him. These patents are very good things for passing the time; when one actually takes the field, they all vanish. They are useless for serious work. The sleeping-bags were also a great source of interest. Johansen was at work on the double one he was so keen on. Heaven knows how many skins he put into it!
In truth, it was a joke to me, that I, the veriest landsman, should be filling the office of mate; but to be taken as a joke by others was a different matter. I made no complaint, but Wolf Larsen demanded the most punctilious sea etiquette in my case, far more than poor Johansen had ever received; and at the expense of several rows, threats, and much grumbling, he brought the hunters to time.
It was caused by remarks of Latimer's concerning the noises made by the mate in his sleep, and though Johansen was whipped, he kept the steerage awake for the rest of the night while he blissfully slumbered and fought the fight over and over again. As for myself, I was oppressed with nightmare. The day had been like some horrible dream.
The nausea overpowered me, and I managed to crawl to the side of the vessel. But Wolf Larsen did not follow me up. Brushing the ashes from his clothes, he had resumed his conversation with Henderson. Johansen, who had seen the affair from the break of the poop, sent a couple of sailors aft to clean up the mess. Later in the morning I received a surprise of a totally different sort.
Had it been some other hunter's boat-puller, he, like them, would have been no more than amused. But to return to Harrison. It took Johansen, insulting and reviling the poor wretch, fully ten minutes to get him started again. A little later he made the end of the gaff, where, astride the spar itself, he had a better chance for holding on.
Nansen was about to take up his gun when the kayak slipped out into the water, and while he was hauling and pulling at it he heard Johansen say quite quietly, "You must look sharp if you want to be in time." So at last he got hold of his gun, and the bear received his death-wound.
The winter duties were assigned as follows: Prestrud, scientific observations; Johansen, packing of sledging provisions; Hassel had to keep Lindström supplied with coal, wood, and paraffin, and to make whip-lashes an occupation he was very familiar with from the Fram's second expedition; Stubberud was to reduce the weight of the sledge cases to a minimum, besides doing a lot of other things.
On that occasion he was officially christened "Fatty." The tent-pegs Johansen made were the opposite of what such pegs usually are; in other words, they were flat instead of being high. We saw the advantage at once. Besides being so much lighter, they were many times stronger. I do not know that we ever broke a peg on the trip; possibly we lost one or two. Most of them were brought home undamaged.
Rendered curious by this new direction of ideas, I talked with Johansen last night the first superfluous words with which he has favoured me since the voyage began. He left Sweden when he was eighteen, is now thirty-eight, and in all the intervening time has not been home once.
After the boats had come safely into port the roll-call showed that twenty boats with their crews were missing." "How sad!" I exclaimed; and as Captain Johansen was speaking I wondered how many people thought, when they ate fish, of the hard life of the poor and brave fishermen and of the gales they encounter.
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