The Ring Is Closed (Translated by Robert Ferguson 2010) by Knut Hamsun

Author:Knut Hamsun [Hamsun, Knut]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
ISBN: 9780285638686
Publisher: Souvenir Press
Published: 1936-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

Everything went really well on board, not that you’d expect anything else. An experienced crew, a good Mate, and the Captain in a new uniform with gold buttons and three gold bands round his sleeves. Top notch. Abel could say to his helmsman: Steady as she goes, then leave the bridge himself and mingle with the passengers and be Captain of the ship. And five minutes later be back on the bridge again making sure the boat didn’t end up in someone’s potato fields.

It was past the lighthouse and along the coast the whole way. Abel wasn’t the Mate, no, terrestrial and celestial navigation were beyond him, but he had more than enough seamanship to captain the Sparrow. He never needed to give an order, never a reminder, each man knew what he had to do and he did it to the very best of his ability.

During Captain Ulrik’s time things did go wrong now and then, it wasn’t unknown. He was a man who used unfamiliar methods and sometimes completely ignored the rules. As when one morning on the outward-bound trip he tossed an empty milk-churn ashore. The Captain tooted and tooted, but they’d overslept up on the farm and no-one appeared. So then Captain Ulrik got hold of the milk-churn himself and tossed it banging and crashing onto the stones. Sure it gave everyone on board a big laugh, but on the return trip the farmer stood there with his churn and showed him what a mess he’d made of it, so you better give me another one, he said. Some hope! said the Captain. Give me another churn! the man said again. Now it so happened they had a sack of flour on board that they’d forgotten to put ashore and as far as the Captain was concerned it was just a leftover. You can have this sack of flour, he said. You can’t be serious, said the farmer. Oh you bet I am, answered the Captain. Heave the sack ashore, lads! he called to the crew.

See, that was good old Captain Ulrik’s way of taking charge and getting things done on board. But it was all changed now, things were done properly now, nothing was left undone, everything was where it should be, not a bucket out of place not even for a second. There stood the farmers’ milkchurns all neatly lined up in rows in the big ice-locker, and any water that leaked out from it was immediately swabbed up. Spic and span. All shipshape and tidy.

The crew’s working days were good, with little to do and plenty of time off-watch, and they could go ashore and home to their loved ones in the evenings. There were two of them. But two weren’t crew enough for a hand of poker, because the Mate would never join them, and the galley-boy was never free when they needed him. So they got the Third Hand to help them out with their poker: Alex, signed up by the Captain himself.

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