We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [3]
By now we'd reached the open fields. It was half an hour's march to Vejsnæs, but our pace was brisk and our blood was up. At Drejbakkerne, the sight of the flaming beacons further fueled our fighting spirit. But at the sound of horses' hooves in the darkness we froze. The enemy was upon us!
***
We had hoped to surprise the German on the beach, but here on the hill the terrain still favored us. Laurids positioned himself for battle with his broom and we followed suit.
A voice rang out behind us. "Wait for me!"
It was the little carpenter, who'd gone home for his gunpowder.
"Shhhh," we warned. "The German is closing in."
The hoofbeats grew louder—and it became clear that there was only one horse. When the rider appeared out of the darkness, Laves Petersen raised his gun and took aim. But Laurids pushed down on the barrel.
"It's Bülow, the controller," he said.
The horse was dripping with sweat, its black flanks pumping in and out. Bülow raised his hand.
"You can go home. There's no German at Vejsnæs."
"But the beacons were alight," Laves called out.
"I've spoken to the coast guard," Bülow said. "It was a false alarm."
"And we left our warm beds. For what? For nothing!"
Madam Weber folded her arms across her chest and fired us all a warning glance as though looking for a new enemy, now that the German had failed to show.
"At least we've proved that we're ready for him," the controller said soothingly. "And surely it's good news that he's not coming at all."
We mumbled in agreement. But although we saw his logic, we were sorely disappointed. We had been ready to stare the German in the face, and death too—but neither had made it to Ærø.
"One day that German will be sorry," Lars Bødker said.
Starting to tire, we decided to head home. A chilly shower had started to fall. In silence we reached the mill, where Madam Weber parted company from us. Turning to face our miserable flock, she placed her pitchfork on the ground as though presenting a rifle.
"I wonder," she said in an ominous voice, "which one of you jokers got decent folks out of their beds in the middle of the night to go to war."
We all stared at Laurids, towering there with his broom on his shoulder.
But Laurids neither flinched nor averted his eyes. Instead he looked straight at us. Then he threw his head back and started laughing into the rain.
SOON WAR BROKE OUT in earnest and we were called up for the navy. The naval steamer Hekla anchored off the neighboring town of Ærøskøbing to pick us up. We lined up on the wharf and as our names were called, one by one we jumped into the launch, which took us to the steamer. We'd felt cheated out of war that evening in November, but now the wait was over and we were in high spirits.
"Make way for a Dane with his life, his soul, and his sea bag!" yelled Claus Jacob Clausen.
He was a small, sinewy man who liked to boast that a Copenhagen tattoo artist called Frederik the Spike had once told him he had the toughest arm he'd ever stuck a needle into. Clausen's father, Hans Clausen, had been a pilot, as had his grandfather, and Clausen wanted to follow in their footsteps; what's more, the night before we embarked he'd had a dream that told him he'd emerge from the war alive.
In Copenhagen we were inspected on board the frigate Gefion. Laurids was separated from the rest of us and was the only one to join the Christian the Eighth, the ship-of-the-line, whose mainmast was so tall that from top to deck, it stood one and a half times the height of the church tower in Marstal. We had to crane our necks to take it in, but the dizziness it induced filled us with pride about the great deeds we'd been summoned to perform.
Laurids watched us as we left. After a year on the American man-of-war Neversink, the Christian the Eighth suited him. He'd soon feel at home on her deck—though when he saw the rest of us disappear up the gangway to the Gefion, he must have briefly felt abandoned.
So off we went to war. On Palm Sunday we sailed along