We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [287]
On the other hand, it was hard to feel honorable on board the Dannevang. You'd behaved honorably, all right, but you'd been stripped of dignity for your pains.
They might be in a pub in Liverpool, Cardiff, or Newcastle, downing as much Guinness as they could manage between two air-raid alarms. And always there'd be someone who noticed their accent and asked them, "Where are you from, sailor?" That was the killer moment.
They learned quickly. The one thing you never did in that situation was tell the truth. If you said you were from Denmark, the information was received with cold silence or open contempt. You'd be called a "half-German."
In the Sally Brown, a pub by Brewer's Wharf, a girl with a low-cut blouse and remarkably red lips had approached Knud Erik, and he'd bought her a drink. They'd raised their glasses and she'd looked deep into his eyes across the rim of her glass. He knew the routine and how the evening would end. That was all right with him. He needed it.
Then she'd asked. Back then he hadn't heard the question often enough to know the effect the word Denmark would have.
"Why aren't you in Berlin with your best mate Adolf?"
He was furious. Hell, because he was here, in a pub where half the windows were broken, in a bombed-out city, risking his life for measly wages, cut off from his family and friends! He could have been lying under his eiderdown back in Denmark. Instead, by way of payment for his willingness to face an abrupt end to his miserable life, he daily confronted every kind of explosive devilry ever invented. She wiggled her bottom as she walked off in her tight skirt, determined he should know what he was missing out on, for having the wrong nationality.
When news came of Denmark's fall, Danish shipowners and the government had encouraged Danish sailors to seek neutral ports right away. But the crew of the Dannevang had done the opposite, risking homes, families, safety, everything. It didn't help. There was no free Guinness from the barman, no sympathy pussy from women with low-cut blouses and red lips.
Instead, they were reduced to watching the good fortune of others from a distance. Down there, at the other end of the bar, for instance: the underage boy with blue eyes and a lock of blond hair falling across his forehead. For him there was no end to the backslapping, the flirtatious looks, the free beer, the invitations to an all-expenses-paid night in a room where a mattress with broken springs would squeak the night away. The kid didn't even speak English, apart from the crucial words "I'm from Norway."
They were fighting the Germans in Norway; the king and the government were in exile in London; thirty thousand Norwegians sailed in the service of the Allies, and they sailed under their own flag. The Norwegian merchant fleet had been assigned to the state, and the king was now its official owner.
Scandinavians were popular wherever they went. But to English ears, Scandinavian meant Norwegian. Denmark had dropped off the map, and if a sailor mentioned that was where he came from, it sounded as if he was offering a shameful reminder of the past. On April 9, 1940, the crew of the Dannevang had become stateless. They were in the line of fire, but they were buck-naked.
They downed their Guinness in silence.
The end came the following January, one day at around four o'clock in the morning. The Dannevang was on her way from Blyth to Rochester, with coal. Afterward they were unable to decide whether it had been a vibration mine, an acoustics mine, a magnetic mine, or just an old-fashioned horn mine—but her bow was ripped apart. The ship started to take in water immediately, but she didn't sink right away. They'd been blacked out during their voyage, and when they climbed into the lifeboats, Captain Boye ordered the lights turned on. They rested on their oars as they bid farewell to their ship, and a bottle of rum was passed around. They'd rarely drunk on board. On New Year's Eve, Boye had held long discussions