We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [23]
We stared at one another, slack-jawed. Was this supposed to be the enemy? The German, who had blown the deck from under our feet and was now holding us prisoner?
The next few days passed quietly. The pails of schnapps were kept full and we carried on drinking. Jørgen Mærke never missed an opportunity to needle the guards. Monkey asses, he called them. Dogshit. Snakes in the grass. Prickless pygmies. He insulted them with impunity, protected by his entourage who, if a guard approached, instantly formed a protective shield around him.
One day the soldiers finally decided they'd had enough. They'd been keeping an eye on Mærke, and two of them came up to the loft to nab him at the table where he was sitting with his gang. They were arresting him, they said, for drunkenness.
Jørgen Mærke's men laughed out loud at the charge and offered their wrists.
"Better arrest all six hundred of us, then."
One guard grabbed Mærke by the shoulders. He clung to the edge of the table, yelling the usual insults and adding a few fresh ones for good measure. Leaping up, his men jostled the two soldiers, rendering their guns useless, then started shoving them toward the stairs. Scared, the soldiers made little resistance. One stumbled and fell backward down the steps, while the other got a shove that sent him flying. He lost his gun as he fell. It landed a few stairs down.
The rebels looked at one another, then at the gun, then back at one another.
No one moved. It had all gone very quiet.
The soldier on the landing scrambled to his feet. He was too dazed from his fall to notice that he'd lost his gun. When he looked up there was no menace in his eyes, only confusion.
Jørgen Mærke took a step forward.
"Boo!" he shouted, tugging at his caveman beard.
The guard jumped, then turned and hurtled down the stairs. His companion got to his feet and followed him. The men laughed and slapped their thighs. Then their eyes rested on the gun and they fell silent. It was lying so near them! All they had to do was walk down a few steps and pick it up.
"Take me." It seemed to beckon. "Shoot, kill, be a man again!"
The men stood spellbound, mute, listening to the gun's whisper.
Then one of them broke the silence.
"We could—" he began, taking a step toward it.
He looked at Jørgen Mærke. He was waiting for a nod, approval, an order: Yes, do it!
But Mærke's eyes were empty, and the mouth behind the caveman beard stayed closed.
The man who'd spoken began to waver. The others took a step back, as if he were no longer one of them. Then he bent down and picked up the gun. He didn't look at anyone as he walked down the stairs, bearing the weapon in outstretched hands with the greatest of care, as it if were a sacrifice. When he reached the lowest landing, he leaned the gun against the whitewashed wall. Then he turned and went back up.
We drank heavily that night and shouted "Hurrah!" countless times. The cadets came out of their room and joined us. We were all brothers now.
The next day we made more model ships, decorated them with tiny paper flags in the Danish colors, and launched them. Bobbing there proudly on the scum of the pond, they reminded us of our nation's power.
We started doing drills in the yard, marching in closed ranks as though preparing for a major battle. Holding three fingers high, we swore that we would never "retreat or desert," but "preserve and defend"—puzzling phrases we barely understood. Nonetheless, they sounded impressive, and we proclaimed them out loud, there in the middle of the yard. Anxious-looking faces appeared above the wooden fence from time to time. They belonged to the townsfolk of Glückstadt, who were spying on us. It was in their honor that we staged these little dramas.
And sure enough, the rumor soon started spreading in Glückstadt that the Danish prisoners were gearing up to conquer the town, and the commandant informed us that from now on we were banned from equipping our model ships with the Danish colors. The people of Glückstadt were upset, it seemed, by the sight of the enemy flag.
We regarded