We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [285]
All of the seventeen crewmen on board the Dannevang agreed to continue on to England, out of sheer defiance more than anything else. They'd made the decision to go to sea. And now no one was going to frighten them off deck.
They sensed it was this same defiance that would pull them through and keep them alive, rather than patriotism, or love of the motherland, or ideology, or indeed any understanding of what the war was about. Doubtless these motives played some part, whether large or small, in each crewman's decision, but they weren't being asked to offer their opinion on the war. They were being asked to make a choice that would have unforeseen but crucial consequences for the rest of their lives. In what way they couldn't know, but their sailor's instinct told them it was a matter of life and death. They felt all of the sailor's stubbornness when faced by an overpowering force—a hurricane or a Messerschmitt 110—and they said yes, not to the war that raged this year, but to one that had raged for eons; not to England, but to the road to England: to the sea, and to a challenge that made them feel like men.
They arrived at Methil, in Scotland, on April 10 and were immediately ordered to sail to Tyne Dock in Newcastle, where their ship would be assigned to the British Admiralty. There was no ceremony to mark the transfer. An officer from the British navy stuck a note to the aft mast: a brief text stating that the ship had been requisitioned by the British in the name of King George VI. The Dannebrog was lowered, and the Red Duster, a scarlet cloth with a Union Jack in one corner, was raised in its place.
They'd never taken very good care of their Danish flag. It was frayed around the edges, and its white cross was blackened by soot from the funnel. But it was theirs. Among strangers, it was half of their identity. Now they'd lost the right to display it. Their country had surrendered to the Germans without a fight, and so their flag was taken away. From now on, they counted only if they no longer considered themselves Danes. They'd be fighting the war stark naked: their stripping had just begun.
The second engineer asked what wages they'd get under the British flag.
"Three pounds, eighteen shillings a week and one pound, ten shillings for victuals," the officer replied.
The second engineer did a quick mental calculation. He glanced around at the rest of the crew and shrugged. They could do the math too. The pay was a quarter of what they'd been getting. That said, they wouldn't be providing for their families anymore: they'd been severed from them indefinitely.
"Don't worry, you'll be home for Christmas," the officer said. He'd observed their faces closely.
They forgot to ask which Christmas.
***
They were ordered to paint the Dannevang gray, as gray as a winter's day on the North Sea. Not even the varnished oak doors and window frames around the wheelhouse escaped. This was their ship. That winter they'd scraped off the rust and painted every square centimeter of her: the black hull, red below the waterline, the white superstructure, the red and white stripe that ran like a ribbon around the funnel. They'd lovingly traced the white letters on the bow, and they'd kept the Dannevang so clean you could walk about on her in shore clothes even after loading coal. They'd maintained the steamer in the old sailing ship style, as they called it, with a scrubbed deck and washed-down bulkheads.