We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [290]
They returned to Consul Nielsen and told him that they'd take over the ship. He looked relieved.
"These are our terms," Knud Erik said. "We won't be needing all that ventilation on the Atlantic, so we want the holes mended. We want some decent tackle on board so we can defend ourselves. And we'll be in charge of the hiring. We want to decide whom we sail with."
The Nimbus was taken to the shipyard to be repaired, and Knud Erik and Helge returned to the Danish Seamen's Club to find her a crew. On the chalkboard under VACANCIES they wrote a list of the crewmen they needed. Then they settled themselves in a corner near the pool table and waited.
Within a few days they'd hired a first mate, a mess boy, a donkey-man, and a couple of able seamen. They were still looking for a second mate, a steward, a chief engineer, and a few more able and ordinary seamen. It would be a crew of twenty-two.
Knud Erik hadn't expected to become a captain this early in his career. He didn't doubt his abilities, but he wasn't sure he had the necessary authority. Could he judge a man well enough to make the most of his strengths and help him forget his weaknesses? And what about twenty-two men all at once?
On the fourth day Vilhjelm stepped through the door and asked to sign on as second mate. It was two years since he and Knud Erik had last seen each other, and that had been in Marstal. Vilhjelm had a family now: a son and a daughter with a woman of his own age, who was the daughter of a fisherman from Brøndstræde. His stammer had never come back, and whenever he was in Marstal he went to church every Sunday. He kept the Book of Sermons from the Ane Marie at home. He didn't need it with him on board. He still knew it by heart.
"How's your father?" Knud Erik asked.
Vilhjelm's father had stopped his hard job as a sand digger a long time ago. Now he fished instead, though he was actually too old for that as well. But he persisted doggedly, trapped in his own deaf world.
"He was fishing over at Ristinge when the Germans came. He couldn't hear the sound from the aircraft, of course. He looked up because shadows were crossing the water, one after the other, too fast for clouds. Apart from that, he didn't give it a second thought. He was more interested in how many shrimp he'd caught. That's the war, as far as he's concerned."
The next man to turn up was also from Marstal: Anton. He was appointed chief engineer on the spot, and he wanted to know everything about the engine.
When he heard that the Nimbus had only eight hundred horsepower, he said, "I have my doubts," and fiddled with his black horn-rimmed glasses. "Don't think there's much top steam in that old tub." He wanted to know what type of coal they'd be using. "I'd like it to be Welsh coal," he said. "Coal from Newcastle gives off too much soot."
"You'll get all the coal you want," said Knud Erik.
It was a joke, of course: he didn't know the first thing about coal, and he had no idea what they'd be able to get hold of.
Anton sulked over this for a while, and Knud Erik suspected he'd get up and leave. They'd been friends once and they still were, though they were often on opposite sides of the globe. But Anton wasn't sentimental; he was a professional and wanted a decent vessel on which to exercise his talent for mechanical work. So his answer took Knud Erik completely by surprise. "Well, what the hell," he said. "We Marstallers should stick together. I'll take the job. I'll get this old tub to shift."
The third man to approach the corner table that day had applied for the job of able seaman. Under his open shirt he wore a white T-shirt that emphasized his gleaming black skin. They assumed he must be an American.