We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [335]
We'd count them tomorrow. And in the years to come we'd mourn them as we'd always done.
But tonight we danced with the drowned. And they were us.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We, the Drowned is fiction. The novel is inspired by and largely adheres to the history of the town of Marstal in the years 1848 to 1945. I have made use of the town's traditional family names, but I have shuffled the deck so that any resemblances to people living or dead are purely coincidental.
The historical parts of the novel are based on my research in the archives of the Maritime Museum in Marstal and on its many publications. I also found valuable material in the newspapers Ærø Folkeblad and Ærø Tidende as well as the quarterly publication Ærøboen.
I have found inspiration and gained essential knowledge from—among others—the following writers and publications: Henning Henningsen (Crossing the Equator, Sømanden og kvinden, Sømandens våde grav, Sømandens tøj), Ole Lange (Den hvide elefant, Jorden er ikke større), H. C. Røder (Dansk skibsfarts renæssance, vols. 1, 2, and 4), Joseph Conrad (The Shadow-Line), H. Tusch Jensen (Skandinaver i Congo), Adam Hochschild (Kong Leopolds arv), Søndagstanker—kristelige Betragtninger på Søn—og Helligdage af ærøske Præster, Sømandspostillen, Knud Ivar Schmidt (Fra mastetop til havneknejpe), Harriet Sergeant (Shanghai), E. Kroman (Marstals søfart indtil 1925, Dagligliv i Marstal og på Ærø omkring år 1900), Hans Christian Svindings ("Dagbog vedrørende Eckernførdetogtet og Fangenskabet i Rendsborg og Glückstadt," Danske Magazin, series 8, vol. 3), Marstalsøfolkenes visebog, J. R. Hübertz (Beskrivelse af Ærø 1834), C. T. Høy (Træk af Marstals Historie), Victor Hansen (Vore Søhelte: Historiske Fortællinger), "Salmebog til Kirke—og Husandagt 1888," Anne Salmond (The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas), Homer (The Odyssey), Nordahl Grieg (Skibet går videre), W. Somerset Maugham (The Trembling of a Leaf), Herman Melville (White Jacket), Robert Louis Stevenson (Tales of the South Seas, A Footnote to History), Mark Twain (Roughing It in the Sandwich Islands), Victor Hugo (Les travailleurs de la mer), F. Holm Petersen (Langfarere fra Marstal), Knud Gudnitz (En Newfoundlandfarers erindringer), Rauer Bergstram (Kølvand), Per Hansson (Hver tiende man måtte dø), Martin Bantz (Mellem bomber og torpedoer), Andrew Williams (Slaget om Atlanten), Richard Woodman (Arctic Convoys), Claes-Göran Wetterholm (Dødens Hav: Østersøen 1945), Edward E. Leslie (Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls), Anders Monrad Møller, Henrik Detlefsen, Hans Chr. Johansen (Dansk søfarts historie, vol. 5, Sejl og Damp), Mikkel Kühl (Marstallerne solgte væk), "Marstals handelsflåde 1914–1918" in Maritim Kontakt 26, Karsten Hermansen (Søens købmænd), Karsten Hermansen, Erik Kroman a.o. (Marstals søfart 1925–2000), H. Meesenburg, Erik Kroman ("Marstal—et globalt lokalsamfund," in Bygd, vol. 17, no. 4), Tove Kjærboe (Krampebånd og Klevesnak), Finn Askgaard (ed., Fregatten Jylland), "Samling af søforklaringer over forliste danske Skibe i Årene 1914–1918," Christian Tortsen (Søfolk og skibe 1939–1945), Ole Mortensøn (Sejlskibssøfolk fra Det Sydfynske Øhav), and Poul Erik Harritz (Rundt om Selma fra Birkholm).
APPRECIATION
I wish to thank the people of Marstal who turned up at my evening readings at the Navigation College and at the public library in Skolegade, as well as the following individuals, each of whom in their own way provided invaluable assistance: Lis Andersen, Iben Ørum, Henning Therkildsen, Jens and Hanne Lindholm, Henry Lovdall Kromann, Knud Erik Madsen, Connie and Martin Bro Mikkelsen, Lars Klitgaard-Lund, Nathalia Mortensen, Annelise and Poul Erik Hansen, Astrid Raahauge, Pulle Teglbjerg, Leif Stærke Kristensen and Berit Kristensen, Regitze and Ole Pihl, Hjørdis and Kaj Hald, Erik and Lillian Albertsen, Hans Krull, Karla Krull, Erna Larsen, Adam and Anne Grydehøj, Søren Buhl and Marjun Heinesen, Gunnar Rasmussen, Pastor Emeritus Finn Poulsen, Lars Kroman, Lone Søndergaard, Frans Albertsen, and