We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [18]
When we woke up, it was Easter Sunday—and we were to spend it locked up in a church without a clergyman in sight. We lay on our backs on the straw, gazing up at the soaring, pinnacled arches high above us. All around were dark paintings with heavy gilded frames, and carved wooden figures, and from the ceilings, which were as high as masts, hung chandeliers: all a far cry from Marstal's church, with its blue-painted pews and plain, whitewashed walls. But we weren't in any mood for worship, lying there in the straw. Straw was for farmyard animals, and we felt like pigs in a sty: the church's grandiose arches prompted not so much a feeling of religious contemplation as a sense of humiliation and mockery. For we were beaten men, robbed not only of our freedom but also—far worse—our pride. We hadn't fought with honor. Later we would probably be informed otherwise—and perhaps one day some of us might end up believing it. But right now, the events of Eckernförde Fjord were fresh in our minds, and they told the story straight. We'd been confused and panicky—and yes, even drunk too—and those of us who were skilled sailors weren't trained as soldiers, and those with military expertise knew nothing of seafaring.
Captain Krieger had been blown up, together with his wife's portrait (and the Lord have mercy on his soul, the poor bewildered wretch) while Commander Paludan had been the first to board the lifeboat and be rowed ashore to safety. Was this conduct becoming of a commander? An act an honest seaman could respect?
Sitting there on the straw like the pathetic creatures we were, we gazed up at the arches. And from high above, they jeered back.
Pails of schnapps could be found in several corners of the church, and we were offered all we could drink, for free. The hawkers didn't sell strong liquor, but from the very first day of our captivity, the German army doctor had decreed schnapps to be good for the health, and we headed for the buckets like pigs to the trough. Yes, we were indeed like pigs, sleeping and rolling around on the straw: pigs that had temporarily avoided the butcher's knife. We might be alive, but we were no longer human.
And we stank too. We'd soiled our clothes during the battle, and we reeked of fear and uncontrolled bowels. For isn't it a secret common to all men that if you go to war, you'll fill your pants like a frightened child? As seamen, we'd all feared drowning, but none of us had ever crapped his pants when a gale ripped off the mast and rigging, or a wave crushed the rail and cleared the deck.
What was the difference? The difference was that the sea respected our manhood. The cannons didn't.
"Hey, heavenly traveler," we called out to Laurids, and pointed to the pulpit. "It's Easter Sunday. Give us a sermon! Tell us about Saint Peter and his bare ass!"
Stumbling slightly, Laurids climbed the stairs to the pulpit. His elation had subsided and he was drunk again, like the rest of us. The pulpit was no mast top, but once up there he grew dizzy all the same. It was the schnapps. He'd been shipwrecked twice in his life. The second time he'd stood a whole night on a flat rock in the sea off Mandal, where his ship had gone down. There he'd felt both grief and terror, and he'd been within an inch of death. The water had slapped at his feet until dawn, when a pilot boat came and threw him a line. He'd felt no shame on that occasion, for it was no shame to be defeated by the sea. He wasn't a bad sailor. He knew that. The current, the wind, and the dark had simply got the better of him. But in the battle on the fjord, where