We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [330]
"We aren't like Odysseus," he said. "We're more like his men."
"What do you mean?"
"Have you read the story?"
She shrugged. "Not properly."
"It's depressing reading, actually. Odysseus is the captain, right? He has fantastic adventures. But he doesn't bring back a single one of his crew alive. That's the part we sailors play in this war. We're Odysseus' crew."
"Well, you'd better get moving, Captain Odysseus," she said, looking at him. "Because this particular crew member happens to be pregnant."
THEY SAILED AT half speed and switched off the boat's lights at night. The closer they came to their destination, the more they feared they'd never reach it. Until now they'd existed only in the present, as all who put their trust in the vagaries of luck are obliged to. Now that they dared to believe in the future, they were terrified of losing their lives. The old daily dread from the time of the convoys returned. Again, the sky above and the sea beneath seemed packed with hidden's menaces.
The sea was like dark blue silk, and the bright spring night was cloudless. There was a warmth in the air that heralded summer, and had it not been for the tugboat's pervasive smell of coal and tarred hemp rope, they'd have caught the scent of apple blossom coming from the shore. But the water was cold. Winter clung to its depths, and all they could think about was that chill: it felt as if they were still sailing the Arctic, still on the lookout for the foam stripes that signaled torpedoes and the red distress lights that had once bankrupted their souls and could do so again. Again, they listened for the sound of oars or cries for help. Again, they enacted an eternal dress rehearsal of death by exposure. Spring welcomed them, but the memory of the five-year winter they'd endured still held them in its grip.
In the bay they'd left behind that morning, eight thousand Allied prisoners of war were incinerated when their transport ships were bombed. Earlier, another ten thousand refugees had drowned in the same sea the Odysseus was now crossing. But her crew knew nothing of this either. They'd seen ships go down before, but they'd never seen a refugee ship sinking with ten thousand passengers trapped on board, or heard the collective scream as the water gushed in from all sides and sent the ship down to the bottom, or the wail that followed the final plea for help, when those still living realized that rescue is just a word. No, they'd never heard that vast cry, and yet it entered them that night.
They spent the night on deck; they dared not go below. They wrapped themselves in blankets they'd found on board and sat awake, watching the sea with restless eyes, and listening.
Bluetooth didn't sleep either. He lay silently, watching the fading stars. As dawn broke, he was the first to hear the deep whoosh of wings. "The stork" was all he said.
They looked up. There it was, flying low above them, still heading northwest. Far away they could see Kjeldsnor Lighthouse in the early morning light. They were approaching the southern point of Langeland.
Ærø appeared in the late afternoon after they'd sailed along the Langeland coast for most of the day. Trying to save coal, Anton kept the tug at half speed: they were running out. They saw Ristinge Hill rise to the north. Open water followed. Farther out to the west lay Drejet and the hills at Vejsnæs. In the midst of it all rose the red roofs of Marstal, with the copper church spire, now green with verdigris, towering high above. There were still a few masts in the harbor, looking like the remains of a stockade that had been overrun by some unknown force. From here they couldn't see the Tail and the breakwater that embraced the town like a useless arm.
Some distance outside the harbor, they saw black masses of smoke pouring into the calm air. Coming closer, they saw flames. Two steamers in Klørdybet were ablaze. The war had beaten them to it. Knud Erik had been so sure that it would all end the moment he set eyes on the Marstal