We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [121]
Albert's gift was not one that everyone possessed. He knew he must keep it to himself. We've read about that in the notes he left us, along with his other papers. He wrote that if the premonitions in his dreams were to become public knowledge, they would almost certainly harm him, or at least tarnish his reputation.
How often have we sat in a fo'c'sle, listening to tales of the klabautermann, the grim reaper who hangs in the mizzen shroud, with his white face and his dripping oilskins? Or of the Flying Dutchman, or the ship's dog that howls in the night, searching for its lost ship? Albert too, when he was a ship's boy, had listened and been terrified and strangely fascinated, yet deep down he'd remained a skeptic. An explanation existed for every unusual event: science simply hadn't discovered it yet. That was always his conclusion, as we sat there in the dusk, exchanging tales that illustrated how there was more between heaven and earth than we could dream of.
If he'd revealed his ability to see the future in his dreams, most of us wouldn't have hesitated to accept that he had supernatural powers. His reputation on board ship would have been strengthened, and possibly his authority too. But the awe would have been mixed with fear, and he didn't want that. Albert believed a captain's authority should be based on trust in his skills, not on mumbo jumbo.
In the period that followed the unveiling of the memorial stone, a gray emptiness opened up in front of Albert. He had dreams in which people he knew died, and the next day he'd be startled to see them walking around in the street, as large as life. His dreams were full of riddles: he didn't know the times of the deaths he visualized, but the visions were always dramatic and terrifying. He saw people shot down on the deck, he saw ships burst into flames, he saw black shadows in the sea, and he understood nothing of what he saw.
But he never doubted that these dreams were telling the truth. He knew that all the people he'd just greeted, whose hands he'd shaken, to whom he had spoken recently but now increasingly tried to avoid, would die in horrifying and inexplicable circumstances. And they didn't have a clue.
He was walking around in a town of doomed men.
ALBERT'S FIRST DREAM about future disasters occurred the night between the 27th and the 28th of September, in 1913.
He saw a ship he knew, the Peace, a three-masted schooner from Marstal—and then he heard a shot. The crew appeared on the deck immediately, bracing the yards and lowering the topgallant sails, then preparing to launch the lifeboat. For reasons he didn't understand, they seemed to have attached huge importance to that one shot. But there was no visible damage to the ship.
Then more shots rang out and one of the men suddenly clasped his shoulder. His arm was dangling. The head of another was blown backward as though an invisible hand had pulled his hair, sending a jet of blood gushing from his forehead as he collapsed on deck. The shooting was constant now. Several projectiles hit the descending lifeboat, and when it reached the sea's surface, it started to leak. The men were soon up to their waists in water as they worked to seal the leaks. Intense firing continued. Then one by one the masts went overboard, and the ship itself disappeared into the deep.
The weather was stormy and the sea was heavy. Clouds raced across the sky. The lifeboat lay low in the water. The men worked the oars hard. At first there was terror in their faces, then exhaustion. The light was dimming. It grew dark, and a long time passed before the light returned. Albert realized that it had been night and now it was