We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [16]
"It's like the Resurrection." The soldier gawked.
"Hogwash," Laurids snorted brusquely. "Jesus never wore sea boots."
"And Saint Peter didn't flash his bare ass at him either," Little Clausen added.
"Too right," Laurids said, offering the bottle around.
The soldier too was offered a drop. Glancing quickly over his shoulder, he took a big swig.
But our merriment soon abated. It was thirty kilometers to Rendsburg and we had to walk all day to get there. When the farmers came out to stare at us, we didn't look back at them; our bravado had faded. As we staggered on, most of us just kept our eyes on the highway dust. A leaden weariness had us all in its grip, but whether it stemmed from our sore feet or from our sunken spirits we couldn't tell. Past caring, we jostled one another like drunken men, though only Laurids was enjoying the privilege of actual intoxication. He, for his part, was unmoved by our predicament. He marched along, humming tunes to himself—despite his visit to the Lord, none of the songs he chose were godly. Finally even he too fell silent and trudged on with his eyes turned inward, as if beginning to sleep off his inebriation while on foot.
From time to time we would stop at a pond for a drink of water. The soldiers would keep an eye on us, bayonets at the ready, while we filled our caps with water and passed them around. Then the marching resumed. Halfway to Rendsburg, our guards were relieved, and Ejnar and Little Clausen bade goodbye to the friendly soldier. Laurids was still in a world of his own. The soldier took one last look at him and swapped a few words with his replacement, a Prussian. The Prussian threw Laurids a doubtful look and shook his head. But throughout the rest of the march, he kept eyeing him.
We reached Rendsburg at dusk. Rumors of the battle had preceded us, and the highway and ramparts were teeming with people who had come out to gawk at the prisoners. We passed through the town gate and crossed a bridge before going through the inner portal, then found ourselves in the narrow streets of the town center. Here thousands more had gathered to stare, and our guards had to show their guns to make way for us and keep curious onlookers at bay. There were plenty of pretty girls among them, and it was an ugly thing to know that their eyes rested on us with contempt.
They held us in a spacious old church whose floor had been strewn with so much straw that it looked more like a barn than a house of God. We had eaten nothing all day, but now they distributed sacks of biscuits and warm beer. The biscuits must have been several years old, they turned to dust in our mouths, but the beer was welcome, and soon we lay scattered across the broad church floor, fast asleep.
The next day, Holy Saturday, we milled about, assessing the accommodations and sleeping options, rediscovering some friends, and noting the loss of others. There were men from both the Gefion and the Christian the Eighth. Some rooms in the church had chairs, and curtains in the windows; these quarters were quickly occupied, and possessing one was considered a privilege. We men from Marstal gathered in a room by the chancel. The others stuck with those from their hometowns too: men from Ærøskøbing here, men from the island of Funen there, men from Lolland, men from Langeland. There in the straw-carpeted church, we redrew the map.
We knew nothing of discipline. We hadn't been in the navy long enough to value any formal systems of order beyond those we'd come up with ourselves. When our battleship had been set alight beneath our feet, we'd been separated from our officers. Now we obeyed only one command: that of the stomach. When the church door opened in the morning for the guards bringing bread, there was a stampede, each man thinking only of his own hunger. In the end the soldiers flung the bread over our heads and we fought over it like wild animals. Someone tore Ejnar's loaf from his hands, and Little Clausen got kicked in the shin. It was a shameful episode, but whatever discipline the navy had instilled