We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [291]
"Fritz says hello," he said in Danish.
Knud Erik's jaw dropped. Fritz! He didn't even notice that the man had addressed him in his own language. "I thought Fritz was in Dakar?"
"He is," said the man. "Or at least he was the last time I saw him." He stuck out his hand. "I'd better introduce myself. Absalon Andersen from Stubbekøbing. Yes, I've heard it all before. I'm a Negro. Black Sambo and all that. But I grew up in Stubbekøbing and if you promise not to ask me where I learned Danish, then I promise not to ask you where you did."
He smiled at them as if pleased that introductions were now out of the way and they could get down to business. "I was in Dakar with Fritz," he went on. He pulled out a chair and made himself comfortable. Knud Erik offered him a cigarette. "Well, that bit of the story you're familiar with, I suppose?"
Knud Erik nodded. Dakar, in French West Africa, was every sailor's nightmare. There was nothing wrong with the town itself. But when France fell to Germany, the governor of Dakar proclaimed, initially, that he was on the side of the Allies. A few days later he changed his mind, and the many ships that had come to the port to enter Allied service were interned instead, dooming the sailors who had been willing to sacrifice themselves in battle to months of idleness on their own sun-baked decks. Vital engine parts were confiscated to prevent them from escaping. And when the British bombarded the port, they'd suddenly found themselves on the wrong side. It was one hell of a situation. One Norwegian ship managed to escape: the crew claimed that the ship's engines would rust unless they were run from time to time, so the idiot French handed over the missing engine parts and the crew gave them back replicas, then made their getaway in the middle of the night. The other ships—six Danish ones among them—were still rotting there. The war was calling out for them and they couldn't go. They must be feeling absolutely and utterly useless.
"But you're not Norwegian," Knud Erik said. "So how did you get out?"
"I'm something even better than Norwegian," Absalon Andersen said with a self-assured grin. "I'm black. I just walked out of Dakar. No one tried to stop me. I looked like all the other Negroes. After various detours I ended up in Casablanca. By the way, Captain Grønne says hello too. You boys from Marstal, you're just about everywhere."
"How did you manage to get here?"
"I have beer to thank for that."
"Beer," Helge said. "You're telling me you paddled from Casablanca to Gibraltar in a beer crate?"
"That's not the whole story," Absalon said. "But almost. Many try to escape, but only a few succeed. The French don't miss a trick. A few of us found this rotten old dinghy upriver. The French knew about it, but they never suspected a thing. It would have been sheer madness to try to go to sea in a tub like that. The problem was water for the crossing. We couldn't just stroll through town with a whole water cask. The French would have seen what we were up to right away. So Grønne gave us a couple of crates of beer. The French just grinned when they saw us carting them along. They thought we were off on a picnic. We rigged a mast and some sails and set off late at night. We had to bail out the whole voyage. That tub took in water like a herring crate. We reached Gibraltar after four days. The dinghy sank right under our feet as we sailed into the harbor."
"So you made it at the very last minute." Knud Erik said. He was impressed.
"Damn right we did," Absalon said, nodding gravely. "Damn right it was at the last minute. We'd just run out of beer."
When the next man appeared, Knud Erik gave him a curious look, and raised a hand before he could open his mouth.
"Let me guess your name. It's Svend, Knud, or Valdemar."
"Valdemar," the man said, without batting an eye.
"How can a Chinese end up being called Valdemar?" Helge asked, looking him up and down. He was young and slender, with the high cheekbones and narrow eyes of the East. A mocking smile played on his well-formed lips. He was handsome, in