We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [253]
Would their lashes freeze their eyes shut too? Would that be the cold's last gesture, to close their lids so they didn't freeze to death staring up at the gray sky?
BUT IN THE END, the ice that threatened to kill them was their salvation. They'd reached new subzero waters: not pancake ice this time, but a compact layer that in the course of a few hours enclosed them, lifting the Kristina's laden hull half out of the water. For the moment the danger of sinking had passed. The ship's heavy timbers groaned in the ice's powerful grip. If the Kristina had been steel, the hull would have cracked from the pressure and they'd have been doomed. Now, while the ice toyed with them, they were granted a stay of execution.
For days they'd been so caught up in struggling to survive that they'd barely glanced at the horizon. Now they spotted another ship far off, also stuck in the ice: a badly damaged schooner with a broken mainmast and sagging rigging.
Dreymann fetched his binoculars and directed them at the distressed ship, trying to read the name on her bow. "Damn it to hell. It's the Ane Marie."
"Anyone on board?" Bager sounded hopeful. Knud Erik's heart started pounding. He was thinking about Vilhjelm.
"Not that I can see."
"Let me take a look." Bager snatched the binoculars and began scanning the ice. "Am I seeing things or what?" he exclaimed. "Penguins live at the South Pole, don't they?"
"Yes," Dreymann said. "Penguins live at the South Pole. There aren't any around here."
"That's what I thought. Call me crazy or whatever you want. But there's an emperor penguin out there on the ice, right in front of the Ane Marie."
The binoculars were passed around. Sure enough, an emperor penguin was rocking back and forth on the vast icy plain in front of the battered schooner.
"It's coming this way," Knud Erik said.
They crowded together by the rail. The penguin approached them slowly, with that unique waddle, dragging and swaying as though pulling a heavy burden across the ice.
"Poor little bastard, you're going to be disappointed," Dreymann said. "What grub we've got left we'll be keeping for ourselves. You won't get a crumb."
Knud Erik stood completely silent, not listening to the others. He was squinting. "That's not a penguin," he said.
Dreymann raised the binoculars again. "Boy's right. If that's a penguin, it's grown old and gray." He scratched his head under his cap. "God only knows what it is then."
"Penguins have a white chest," Algot said. He'd once visited the Zoological Gardens in Copenhagen.
"It's a human being!" shouted Knud Erik. He leapt over the rail and landed with a thud on the ice below, then started racing in the direction of the strange creature, which continued its awkward waddle toward the ship without seeming to notice him. Bager shouted for him to come back, but he didn't hear. He ran like the wind. He could see that what they'd taken for a penguin was a man wearing a winter coat that reached all the way to his feet, completely concealing his legs. He must have been wearing several layers of clothing underneath because the buttons barely held. The sleeves stuck out on the sides like two flippers. A scarf was wrapped around his head, and an oversize flat cap was pulled deep down over his wool Elsinore hood so the brim almost hid his face. From a distance it had looked like a beak.
Knud Erik was closer now, and the man in the coat made an attempt to wave his arms up and down, just like a penguin. Then the two men stood in front of each other. Knud Erik couldn't make out the face; it was buried in clothing. The man had stopped moving and stood as if he had a key in his back and was waiting to be wound up. Knud Erik's hand shook as he removed the flat cap, whether from impatience or fear of what he might find, he barely knew. A small face with sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes appeared. The skin, red-veined from the cold, was marked by frostbite. On the chin grew a fine blanket of down—not a big manly brush, but enough to be called a beard. The hoarfrost hung from