He pushed her aside, placed a hand on the clutch lever and caught her eye, waited until she had found her balance and said calmly that she should put her right hand on his. Her head was whirring as she felt his cold knuckles beneath her fingertips while the bow plunged into another trough, he pulled the lever towards him, the engine eased, then the propeller left the sea again, he shoved the lever forwards once more as soon as the propeller bit, repeated the procedure through three more breakers, then stared enquiringly at her. She nodded mechanically and wanted to say yes, instead she said:

“I can’t go home.”

“What?”

He fixed her with his eyes.

“I can’t go home.”

She turned around, ran out and hung onto the bar outside the door, her feet dangling above the deck. A breaker washed over her, the keel was perpendicular to the crest of the waves, there was another scream from the engine, they were tilting from side to side. Ingrid let go of the bar and hit the deck, which was on the rise, she didn’t attempt to get to her feet and clung to the bottom rung of the ladder and heard a voice somewhere in the spray above her:

“Go to the engine room and tell Ole to come up here.”

She wanted to ask where the engine room was, but the wheelhouse door had already been slammed shut. She got up on her knees, was hurled against the rail and back towards the wheelhouse, grabbed a door handle, twisted it and her face was met by hot air from the pumps. She shouted into the darkness, and a face appeared, a young lad with a broad grin:

“How’s it going?”

Ingrid yelled that he was to go to the wheelhouse, and concentrated on her next move. A long, quivering tremor shook the hull; the deck rose, listed and fell. She edged her way aft between six bodies lying on the deck banging off ice with wooden mallets, reached the back end of the stern, forced open the door of the bait house and saw Anja’s terrified face, crawled in and lay with her arms around the girls, Anja hugged the boys to her.

“You’re wet,” Sara said.

Another tremor shook the hull, the arhythmic banging stopped, the Salthammer balanced on top of a new crest, the bait house veered towards port, before it slowly straightened up again, and a heavy slumber descended over the boat, a gasping for breath, which sounded like groans. Anja looked at her, panic-stricken.

“What is it now?”

Ingrid shook her head. The door opened and Magnus stuck his head in.

“We’re on a stable keel now, we can probably make it to Arnøy, where there’s a good harbour.”