We, the Drowned

by Carsten Jensen

  "Helmer!" Bager roared. "Where's that blasted boy? We need to get that roast in the oven."

  They all looked toward the door and then back at Vilhjelm. He'd turned his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. He'd fallen asleep again.

  Rikard and Algot retrieved the dead first mate and captain from the Ane Marie, carried them across the ice on laths, and laid them out on the deck of the Kristina. Dreymann wrapped the bodies in canvas and left them there, face-up, waiting for the ice to break so they could be buried at sea. Captain Hansen had once been a hefty man, and his body still looked big under the canvas. Cold and hunger alone couldn't have finished him off; age and the physical weakness it entailed must have played a part too. He'd been in his late fifties, far too old for the North Atlantic.

  The first mate, twenty-seven-year-old Peter Eriksen, didn't take up much room next to his skipper. He had a wife and two little girls back in Marstal, and there they were, not knowing what had happened to him. Why had he succumbed and Vilhjelm survived? The first mate of the Ane Marie lay on the deck like a great unanswerable question. Knud Erik looked at the contours of his face, which you could faintly make out through the canvas, and thought of his father.

  Bager also stood there, contemplating the dead. He'd known Captain Hansen well and was probably asking himself a similar question. Why him? Why not me? The two ships had left Iceland roughly a week apart. It could just as easily have been Bager brought to rest on Captain Hansen's deck. As he gazed at his friend he held the Book of Sermons in his hand, and from time to time he read it. Vilhjelm had given it to him, and he was presumably rehearsing the ceremony for burial at sea.

  By now Vilhjelm had recovered enough to leave the berth and take a walk on the deck. He even asked if he could help out in the galley. For the time being there were sufficient provisions, and when Vilhjelm and Knud Erik wanted some time alone, they'd give Helmer a break and send him to the fo'c'sle. But he was reluctant to leave: apart from the skipper's cabin the galley was the warmest place on the ship. Besides, he was convinced that the two older boys would begin to share secrets the moment he was gone, and he had the young boy's appetite for tales of experience.

  However, little was said about Vilhjelm's time alone on the Ane Marie. Whenever Knud Erik asked about it, Vilhjelm fell silent and looked down at the floor. Knud Erik feared he might even start stammering again.

  Vilhjelm, who was keen to change the subject, noticed that something was troubling his friend and made Knud Erik tell him about his meeting with Miss Sophie. What bothered him, Knud Erik admitted, wasn't her rejection of him, or the stinging contempt in her voice that night on Signal Hill when she told him to stop chasing her like a dog, but the mystery of her fate and his own part in her disappearance. He was haunted by vague, nagging guilt.

  When he'd finished telling the story, Vilhjelm looked at him directly.

  "You think everything's about you," he said in his new, clear voice. "She was just crazy. That's all."

  Knud Erik objected. "But—"

  "I know what you're about to say. You can't remember what happened that night, so you think you might've done something bad. But that's rubbish. She's run off with someone, that's all."

  Vilhjelm didn't have a mind superior to Knud Erik's, but in the matter of Miss Sophie, his was a more open one. He wasn't the one in love with her so he could see things objectively—which put him in a better position to judge what had happened.

  Knud Erik was greatly relieved.

  Having got this far, Vilhjelm started asking in detail about the kiss and its effect.

  "I've never tried that." He pondered it, his curiosity finally satisfied.

  "You will." Their roles had been reversed. Knud Erik suddenly felt like the wise, experienced one.

  "Well, I nearly missed out on it altogether." It was the closest Vilhjelm ever came to admitting that his life had been in danger.

  They kept waiting for the ice to break. Finally, the current turned south, the thaw arrived, and with it promise of the first open water. Soon they could say goodbye to their dead passengers. Water started raining down from the rigging: huge icicles came loose and crashed onto the deck. The sails, which had been too rigid to take in, dripped constantly, soaking everything on deck, as if the Kristina were an island with its own climate.

  A sudden wind began to blow: a sure warning that the ice would soon break. Then a shower came, and they donned their oilskins. A huge crack split the ice close to the hull, followed by another. It was time to bury the dead.

  Bager stayed in his cabin and refused to join them. He mumbled through the closed door that he was feeling ill and that they should leave him alone.

  Dreymann went to fetch the Book of Sermons. They used boards to build a ramp against the rail and placed the bodies on top, so they could glide over the side and disappear into the sea. Soberly they lined up, clasping their sou'westers in their hands.

  Dreymann turned to the final pages of the book. The lines were set in old gothic type and he had to squint to see them. The rain was pouring down his cheeks. "Damn it," he muttered. "I'm too old. I can't read those tiny letters. Could one of you young boys do it?" He held the book out toward Rikard and Algot.

  "Let me, please," Vilhjelm said. "I know it by heart anyway."

  Dreymann stared at him. "Are you telling me that you read aloud the rite for burial at sea on the Ane Marie?"

  "Yes," Vilhjelm said. "I know the entire Book of Sermons by heart." Without waiting for Dreymann's reaction, he started reciting. "Our Lord Jesus Christ says: The hour shall come when everyone in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they shall go forth—those who have done well, to their resurrection, but those who have done ill, to their judgment."

  Helmer stepped forward. In his hand he held a small shovel with ashes from the oven in the galley. This had to serve as the soil, to be scattered over the wrapped bodies before they were surrendered to the sea.

  "Earth to earth," Vilhjelm said in his new voice, which Knud Erik still hadn't grown accustomed to. Helmer scattered ashes over the deceased. The rain was falling hard now, and the ashes dissolved and spread in a huge stain across the gray canvas.

  "Ashes to ashes."

  Another shovelful. The ashes landed in a new place; the canvas grew dirtier.

  "Dust to dust."

  Rikard and Algot stepped up to the boards and raised them, one after the other. The laced-up canvas bundle that contained the mortal remains of Skipper Hansen fell vertically into the water and disappeared with a splash, muted by the falling rain. Peter Eriksen followed.

  The sea was black beneath the gathering storm clouds, and the surrounding ice had taken on a yellow glare. Then suddenly, as if the sea had finally lost patience with its forced burden and now shook its enormous back with irritation, the ice sheet shattered into an infinite number of pieces that shot out sideways and smashed against one another. In the distance, the Ane Marie slowly keeled over and sank down on her side: the ice had supported her damaged hull, but now the sea reclaimed her from its grip, to wreck her fully.

  Dreymann ordered them on deck immediately. Overhead they saw a nimbus cloud like a huge granite fist, clenched and ready to strike. They were being freed from the ice, but now that very freedom posed a new threat to their survival. They took in the reefs until they were using only the forestay and a close-reefed gaff. A hailstorm hammered them, and the sea raged, with waves mounting on all sides and ice floes riding atop their foaming crests. When the ice broke across the deck, the huge shards collided with everything in their path, and the sound of their crashing fought against the devils' chorus that howled up in the rigging.

  They watched the pattern of the waves as they swept the deck: three huge ones were usually followed by several smaller ones, and they chose those quieter moments to slosh their way across the flooded deck to the fo'c'sle.

  Bager was still lying down in his cabin. Dreymann took the first shift, together with Knud Erik. Rikard and Algot were se
nt below to get some sleep. In the galley Helmer clung as tenaciously as a monkey on a falling tree: he'd already proved himself able to provide coffee even if the ship were on her head. Dreymann had ordered Vilhjelm down to his own cabin.

  "How hard's it blowing?" Knud Erik shouted. He was clinging to the wheel next to Dreymann, who was practiced enough to keep his balance on the madly veering deck.

  At intervals the stern would be lifted by a mountain of water while the bow dove into the foaming sea. Then the bow would rise until the entire ship aimed at some distant point high in the sky. Knud Erik's stomach lurched horribly each time. It was as if the sea, which had so often challenged and not yet conquered them, now demanded one final, decisive rematch.

  He'd already learned that in a North Atlantic storm, expert seamanship went a long way, but not the whole way. No sailor could guard against the freak wave that cleared the deck and wiped off the masts. So much depended on luck. Some called it Providence, others God, but luck and God had one thing in common when it came to these waters: their intervention was always arbitrary. Peter Eriksen and Skipper Hansen, whose bodies they'd just given to the sea, were probably no better and no worse seamen than those who'd survived the worst storms. There was no point in trying to make sense of it. Nor were prayers of any use, except to calm and encourage the person praying. He didn't believe they had any influence over whether a ship reached her port safely or not. He understood very well what Vilhjelm had been doing when he'd read aloud from the Book of Sermons, all alone on the Ane Marie. It was his inner stammer he'd wanted to overcome: that stammer of the soul that sapped his will to survive. But Knud Erik didn't have Vilhjelm's ability to let the word of God work for him.

  "How much is it blowing?" Knud Erik shouted again.

  "Gale force twelve," Dreymann said.

  They reached Newcastle ten days later. Bager reappeared from his cabin, sullen and withdrawn. There was a fear in his eyes that had nothing to do with the hurricane.

  Together with Dreymann he surveyed the damage to the ship. They'd lost the lifeboat, the cabin door had been smashed to pieces, the collar on the mizzenmast had snapped, two water barrels had gone overboard, a gaff had broken, the sails were torn, 190 feet of bulwark had been warped, the name board aft on the starboard side had been smashed, and so had the starboard lantern board.

  The damage had to be repaired, but that wasn't the only reason they'd called at Newcastle. Bager's daughter, Kristina, was expected on board. She'd sail with them to Setúbal, in warm and sunny Portugal.

  Knud Erik found his fountain pen and wrote a letter to his mother. He asked her to give his best to everyone before describing the fair weather that had followed them right across the Atlantic. There was no need to worry her unnecessarily. He also wrote that he was looking forward to the voyage to Portugal.

  Later he admitted that if he'd known what lay ahead, he'd have signed off in Newcastle.

  WHEN HERMAN HAD recounted the story before, it had always gone down well. But with Miss Kristina it had the completely opposite effect. Something about it frightened her. Well, that had been his intention, but it had frightened her too much and she'd got up, turned her back on him, and gone to the cabin. With a slight sway of her hips. Damn it, that woman confused him!

  Women should never get what they ask for, he thought. Ideally they should be weeping and pleading in front of a locked door. Never be nice to them, even though you might be tempted. That's what made it all so damned difficult. You had to scare them a bit. Not too much and not too little. Too much and they'd panic, and you wouldn't get what you wanted. Too little and they'd wipe their dainty little feet all over you. It took experience to get the balance right. You had to feel your way.

  Women liked a man who could make them laugh. But they loved a man who made them cry. They respected only what they didn't understand. Respect was what it was all about. He'd seen enough of the world to know that it wasn't a woman's love that made life bearable for a man. It was her respect, and respect always contains an element of fear.

  Knud Erik and Vilhjelm had been there on the hatch, listening to him tell the story about Ravn, the car mechanic who'd sailed with a German U-boat during the war and sunk Danish ships, and who late one night in a doorway in Nyborg had got what was coming to him. Miss Kristina had listened with interest too, until he got to the part about the punishment in the doorway. Then she had left without saying a word.

  Afterward Herman had sounded off to Knud Erik and Vilhjelm about the awkward and fundamentally incomprehensible nature of women. They'd laughed at his remarks but remained guarded, as they always were when he was around. When he'd first come on board, he'd scrutinized them as though trying to retrieve something from his memory. They'd both looked away and he'd brushed it aside.

  "There's the Seagull Killer," Vilhjelm had said, when he saw Herman board the Kristina.

  Everything had gone wrong in Newcastle. Dreymann received a telegram from home, informing him that his wife was gravely ill and might not have long to live.

  "I hate to leave my post before the job's done," he said. "I've got four children. Three of them were christened and I wasn't there. Two were confirmed, and one was married—and I wasn't there either. I can't bear the thought that Gertrud might kick the bucket when I'm not around to hold her hand."

  Rikard and Algot signed off and made no effort to hide the reason why. They'd had their fill of ships from Marstal that did nothing but sail into one storm after another, and if they'd wanted to be undertakers, they'd have sought a different apprenticeship. The Kristina could get along without them, and good luck to her.

  They grabbed their kits and half-empty sea bags, stuck their Polish cigarette holders in their mouths, and left.

  Bager offered Knud Erik the job of ordinary seaman. He hadn't sailed for quite long enough to merit it, but he knew the job, broadly. And the sail mending that was part of a crewman's duties he could surely pick up. He couldn't increase his wages, though.

  "What about me?" Vilhjelm asked.

  He and Knud Erik had agreed that they wouldn't be parted.

  Bager thought for a long time.

  "You'll get your food," he said.

  They still needed a first mate. There was none to be had, but Herman, who'd fallen out with the skipper of the Uranus, happened to be in Newcastle and was broke. He had the experience and plenty of sailing time, but not the exams: he'd never pulled himself together enough for Navigation College. Bager offered him the job.

  When Herman demanded the same wages as a qualified first mate, Bager did the mental arithmetic. He'd already saved the wages of two seamen and had some money to spare. "Your papers aren't in order," he said. "So I'm actually doing you a favor. But I'll add twenty-five kroner to what you usually get as an able seaman."

  "Forty kroner," Herman said.

  They agreed on thirty-five.

  In fact it was Bager, not Herman, whose papers weren't in order—something that Mr. Mattheson at the shipping office in Waterloo Street pointed out to him. All right, they were prepared to overlook the situation with Herman. After all, they'd failed to find him a first mate for the Kristina and they wouldn't want to stand in the way of a man trying to make his living. But he couldn't have two boys running around pretending to be seamen. He'd need to sign on at least's one qualified man. If he didn't, they'd report him.

  That was how Ivar came on board.

  The Kristina had barely left Newcastle before the first clash occurred.

  Knud Erik and Vilhjelm had instantly warmed to Ivar. He came on board wearing his shore clothes, a tailor-made, double-breasted cheviot suit, with French cuff links, a white collar, and a silk tie that he'd bought in Buenos Aires. Ivar was a man of the world. He didn't need to tell them all the places he'd been, from South America to Shanghai: they could tell just by looking at him. He'd gained his experience on steamers and had signed on to a sailing ship only out of curiosity. He was the son of a captain from Hellerup and had yet to decide if the sea life
was for him. He was tall and well built, with a mass of raven hair, and he carried himself with the assurance of a man who's left more than one fight victorious.

  Ivar had a talent for things mechanical. He brought along a radio that he'd built himself and could take apart and reassemble any way he wanted. He settled it on the hatch when they were in port and attached the antenna to the rigging.

  "You'll never get that thing to work," Herman said, the first time Ivar set it up. Which made Herman look a fool because of course the radio had worked. They heard fragments of foreign languages, voices from different parts of the globe, and dance music, the kind you normally got to hear only in the French Channel ports.

  Even Herman couldn't stay away when Ivar hooked up the radio. Ivar glanced over and smiled at him. "Right, the first mate's come to join us," he said.

  Herman spun on his heel and left.

  When they were sure he was out of earshot, they laughed at him.

  Knud Erik and Vilhjelm always referred to Herman as the Seagull Killer, though Vilhjelm had learned the true extent of Herman's crimes long ago. One day Ivar, overhearing the odd nickname, asked about it, but they immediately deflected him. It was just a name. Anyway, didn't he look just like someone likely to strangle seagulls with his bare hands? Ivar shrugged. Their explanation didn't really make sense, but he didn't probe further.

  Later they regretted not telling him the truth. They knew what Herman had done: they'd held the skull of his victim in their hands. They used the nickname like a counterspell, to dampen the terror they constantly felt in his presence.