to our deck without so much as a by-your-leave to the captain. For a moment I feared we’d been boarded by pirates, but seeing the sailors exchanging covert grins with one another, I gathered that they had been expecting this.
The men stood back to back in a little circle on deck, thick staves grasped tightly in their hands. They were ragged, sullen-looking fellows, but tall and tolerably well-favoured. All of them had light brown hair and eyes of such a similar shade of grey, I supposed them to be cousins at least, if not brothers. A few onlookers had gathered on the rickety wooden wharf, more it seemed because they had nothing better to do than because they had any real business concerned with our arrival.
For a few moments the sailors and the Icelanders simply eyed one another as if each side was daring the other to make the first move. Then a small man pushed his way through the little circle. He was so much shorter than the Icelanders, I hadn’t even noticed him board the ship behind them. In contrast to the dull browns and greys of the Icelanders’ coarse woollen clothing, this little clerk, for that is what I assumed him to be, resembled one of those ridiculous puffin birds, dressed in a black and orange doublet and massively padded breeches which only emphasized the scrawniness of the little legs that stuck out beneath them. The outfit was crowned with an over-sized green cap decorated with a huge bunch of lace, which he had to hold in place to prevent the sea breeze snatching it off like a mischievous schoolboy and tossing it into the water.
The captain gave an exaggerated bow, which seemed to please the little man, though from the sly grins of the seamen, it was plain they thought he was taking the piss.
‘Woher kommen Sie?’ the clerk demanded, but was met only with blank stares.
He decided to attempt another language. ‘Hv … ’ He coughed. The remainder of the word was plainly lodged in the back of his throat like a fishbone. ‘Hvadan ert pú?’
The captain shook his head. ‘We’ll be here all night at this rate. Where’s that brat Hinrik?’
The ship’s boy who had christened Dona Flávia with pudding on our first night aboard was dragged forward by the cook. He stood trembling as if he’d learned long ago that the only reason any officer might send for him was to thrash him.
The captain laid a hand on the cringing lad’s shoulder.
‘Did you understand what the man said? Is he speaking Icelandic, your tongue?’
The lad nodded cautiously.
‘Then tell us what he is saying, boy,’ the captain snapped, barely able to contain his exasperation.
‘He wants to know where we are coming from.’
‘Portugal,’ the captain said, looking at the clerk. ‘PORT … U … GAL. We are Portuguese,’ he added, his hand sweeping around the crew.
The clerk’s face flushed angrily, though whether it was the captain’s exaggerated tone or nationality he took offence at was impossible to say. He barked something at young Hinrik, who dutifully translated it.
‘He says, only ships from Hamburg can trade in this port.’
‘Port, is that what he calls it?’ The captain gave a wry glance at the few squalid little wooden and turf huts scattered haphazardly along the edge of the shore in such disarray it looked as if some drunken giant had hurled them about as he lurched past. None of the crew was bothering to disguise their amusement.
The clerk sensed the mockery and puffed his chest up like an enraged toad, and muttered furiously to Hinrik.
The lad nodded gravely. ‘He says, the port is new. Soon it will be as good as Lisbon … better.’
Nothing could quell the bellow of laughter that erupted from the sailors.
Hinrik translated the clerk’s next furious diatribe.
‘He says, what business have you here? It is forbidden to land cargo or take on goods. Not even fish.’
‘Does this ship look like a stinking cod-boat?’ the captain said. ‘Tell that donkey’s arse that I’m here merely to discharge passengers. Once they are safely ashore, I intend to sail for the isle of Guernsey where they welcome any chance to trade, no matter whose colours the ship sails under.’
Whatever Hinrik said to the clerk seemed to send him into a fit of near apoplexy. His gaze darted wildly about the deck like a fly trapped in a bottle.
‘Passengers! What passengers, how many?’ he demanded through Hinrik.
The captain gestured vaguely to where the four of us stood,