We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [315]
On the deck of the Hopemount's rear end, still afloat, a half-naked figure appeared. The sailor had managed to fasten his life jacket around his heavy belly, but his legs were naked. He climbed up on the rail and let himself fall into the water. Knud Erik saw him surface and make brisk strokes to escape the suction from the half-upright stern, which was rapidly taking in water and would soon plunge to the bottom of the sea. The distress light on the life jacket glowed red against the gray waves.
He'd seen it so many times before and he already knew what it meant: yet another betrayal, yet another piece of his already wrecked humanity sinking to the ocean floor along with the Hopemount.
Then he snapped.
Shoving the helmsman aside, he ordered full speed ahead and simultaneously pulled the wheel hard to port. They quickly approached the sinking stern. Knud Erik kept his eyes fixed on the struggling man in the water.
The swimmer threw back his head toward the overcast sky as if fighting for breath. A heavy wave lifted him up and hid him from sight. When he resurfaced, he seemed to be screaming, though the racket from the engines prevented Knud Erik from hearing anything. Then the water around him turned red.
For a moment Knud Erik thought the trawler had released its depth charge, and he expected to see the drowning sailor shoot out of the sea with his chest exploding, but nothing happened. Had he been attacked by a shark? It was unlikely. Perhaps he'd been injured before he jumped into the water?
By now a couple of minutes had passed, and the sailor was very close. But his time was nearly up. No one survived that long in the icy water.
Knud Erik ordered full stop and ran out of the bridge. He climbed the rail and stood on it for a moment, swaying as though hesitating.
Then he jumped.
Later, when he tried to explain it to himself, he'd say, I did it to restore the balance in my life. But when he jumped, he didn't have a single thought in his head. He jumped the way you rub your eye with your finger when something irritates it. A red distress light was on, and it was bothering the hell out of him.
He'd broken the most basic rule of convoy sailing: a ship must never stop to pick up survivors. The rule wasn't there just to prevent them from becoming an easier target for the U-boats, but also to stop the ships behind from colliding with them. In plenty of cases a single deviation from course had set off a chain of collisions, often with fatal consequences for the ships involved.
But the Nimbus was at the rear of the convoy, so no one would run into them from behind. When Knud Erik leapt into the sea from the bridge wing, it was only the lives of his own crew he was risking. Like every other act committed during a war, it confirmed one rule only to break another. It was simultaneously right and hideously wrong.
The icy water hit him like a kick to the head. He instantly felt the cold soak through his clothes. He got his head out of the water, gasped, and looked around wildly, already half panicking. He couldn't see the drowning sailor. Then a wave lifted him up and he spotted him. He swam toward him with furious strokes that made his blood pump faster. The drowning man's mouth was still open, and now he heard his scream, full of pain and ecstasy. Then, as the distress light threw its red glow across his face, Knud Erik saw that the sailor wasn't a man at all, but a woman with short black hair and narrow, Oriental-looking eyes, of which only the whites were visible. If it hadn't been for her scream, he'd have assumed she was dead.
Then he reached her. Her eyes returned to normal, but her gaze was oddly elsewhere, as if she was concentrating on something happening inside her. He thought she must be in shock. He started dragging her back to the ship. He had to hurry now. The cold spreading through his body was beginning to paralyze him. He'd have to give up soon, and he had no life jacket to keep him buoyant.