We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [294]
When the convoy was attacked, he appeared on the bridge with a face that was frozen and hard. He didn't think about the U-boats. Nor did he think that the ships taking a direct hit might just as easily be the Nimbus. He simply braced himself for the little red lights. If they came, he'd push the helmsman aside without a word and take the wheel himself. He had the bridge cleared. He wanted to be alone, not only when he tried to avoid the bobbing distress lights ahead, but also when he plowed straight into them because there was nothing else he could do. He was the captain. He set the course. It was his responsibility.
He shielded his crew from it, determined that their hands, at least, would stay clean. If they wanted to, they could point him out as the guilty one.
He didn't know what they thought. He never discussed it with them.
When it was over, he'd go to his cabin, open a bottle of whiskey, and drink himself unconscious. It was his substitute for penance; he knew no real penance was possible. He'd done something irreparable. There on the bridge he'd forfeited the right to his own happiness. Any thoughts about the purpose of his life faded away. He watched himself from the outside, but he could no longer make anything out. His soul had turned to dust, pulverized on the grindstone of war.
He isolated himself. He never went to the mess. Nor did he fraternize with the first or second mates. He didn't even speak to his boyhood friends from Marstal anymore. He took his meals alone and opened his mouth only to give orders.
No one tried to coax him out of his solitude. No one addressed him with jocular remarks or asked him a question that didn't relate directly to daily duties on board. And yet they helped him. They helped him maintain his solitude, as if they knew that the price he was paying was on their behalf too.
An outsider might have thought that the crew was behaving coldly—ungratefully, even—by keeping their distance. But the contrary was true. They knew that the smallest sign of sympathy—a pat on the shoulder, a kind word, a glance—would have made him break down. Instead, they kept him going. They shielded him so he could get on with the job of shielding them. They needed a captain and they gave him the chance to be that man.
Dear Knud Erik,
I am writing to tell you about a dream I had last night.
I was standing on the beach, staring across the sea, as I used to do when I was a child. I felt the same mixture of fear of the sea and longing to sail on it that I used to feel back then. Then suddenly the sea started to withdraw. The pebbles on the beach rattled as they were sucked out by the pull. The water lay flat as though a huge wind was passing across it. This went on for a long time, and finally there was nothing left but bare seabed all the way to the horizon.
If you knew how I have longed for a moment like that! You know how much I hate the sea. It has taken so much from us. But I felt no triumph, though I saw my most ardent wish come true at long last.
Instead, I was filled with a premonition of something terrible.
I heard a roaring. Far out, a wall of white foaming water had risen and it was approaching at speed. I made no attempt to escape, even though I knew that I would be swept away in a moment.
There was nowhere to escape to.
What have I done? What have I done?
This question screamed itself inside me when I woke up.
You might think this sounds insane, but I feel a terrible guilt when I wander the streets. I see boys and girls, I see people out shopping, I see the women—and there are many women—I see the old people. But I see so few men, and I feel that I am the one who chased them away when I deliberately ruined the seafaring business here.
Marstal is not in the habit of counting those who are missing. But I am. Somewhere between five and six hundred men are no longer among us—sons, fathers, brothers. You are on the other side of the wall that the war has built around Denmark. You sail in the service of the Allies, and the outcome of the