A harsh glint appeared in Valdemar Jørgensen's dark eyes. "I was born in Siam," he said. "I have a Siamese passport and a Danish passport. The Danish one I cheated to get. I'm a member of the Seamen's Union of the Pacific. Is that good enough for you guys?" He gave them a combative look.
Knud Erik laughed. "The job's yours, if you want it."
"I want to know if we're going to America."
"Ask the British. If I were you, I'd prepare myself for the North Atlantic."
"I want to give you a piece of advice. Just the one. Don't marry an American girl."
"And what's wrong with American girls?"
"They're up for anything. Real hot chicks. But then they want to get married. I've been on ships where the guys were boasting of their conquests: wedding rings, wedding photos, true love, happily ever after—the whole shebang. And then two of them discover they've married the same girl. Know why? Those broads get ten thousand dollars in widow's pensions if a sailor's lost in Allied service. Pain in the ass. Get my drift?"
"Sure do." Knud Erik was finding it hard to keep a straight face. But the guy didn't appear to notice.
"You should, because you're not married, are you? You old guys are easy pickings for them. Take care, buddy!"
The kid really didn't miss a thing. He'd noticed Knud Erik wasn't wearing a wedding ring. Knud Erik leaned forward. "Listen to me," he said. "I'm not your buddy. I'm the captain of the Nimbus, and if you want to go to sea on my ship, you'll have to change your tone. Is that clear?"
"Aye, aye, Captain," he said. He was halfway across the room when he turned and addressed Helge. "Listen. If you've got a problem with Valdemar, then just call me Wally."
THEY SAILED IN convoy, first from Liverpool to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and back, and then to New York via Gibraltar. They sailed in ballast westward and returned with timber, steel, and iron ore. They had mounted four 20-millimeter machine cannons, one fore and one aft. The remaining two, placed on the bridge wings, pointed menacingly out to sea. These weren't manned by the crew but by four British gunners who sailed with them.
The Nimbus wasn't built for the North Atlantic. In fact it was hard to identify what she was built for. Anton did his best in the engine room, but he could never get her above nine knots. When they sailed in convoy and the U-boat alert sounded, they had orders to zigzag to avoid the torpedoes. The forty ships in the convoy left Liverpool in a straight line, then regrouped into a square, four by four. It was hard to maintain position, as the Nimbus wasn't sufficiently maneuverable; they inevitably fell astern.
Captain Boye had once told Knud Erik that in any situation that threatened the ship's destruction, the captain must forget rules, regulations, and ship's insurance, and follow a single unwritten law: treat people the way you'd like them to treat you.
Boye's words summarized Knud Erik's experience as a sailor. Later he heard that Boye drowned after giving his life jacket to a stoker who'd panicked and left his own behind. More than once he'd seen a captain risk his ship to come to the aid of another vessel. And he'd seen sailors in the navy do the same for one another.
Sailors were neither better nor worse than other people. It was the situation they found themselves in that encouraged loyalty. In the finite world of the ship, mutual dependency overrode individual survival instinct. Every man knew he'd never make it alone.
Back then he believed, naively, that the war had turned the whole world into a ship's deck and that the enemy they were united against resembled the sea in its brutal, uncontrolled power. He didn't know that war had different rules, or that those rules would break his loyalty and the strong sense of fellowship that the years at sea had rooted in his soul. He sailed ballast one way across the North Atlantic and timber and steel the other way, under armed escort, and he risked his life, and he did it because he'd learned on deck that no human being can turn his back on the fate of another. Yet the day would come when his commitment to the war would reduce him to a lesser human being, and he wouldn't realize it until it was too late. A time would come when he'd feel his existence was dictated by little red lights rather than the torpedoes that sought to end it. And the effect of the lights would be far worse.
There were rules for sailing in a convoy. A meeting was held ashore before departure, and each time the order from the convoy's commodore was the same: maintain speed and course. Every ship had her position, which she must stick to at all costs. And another order would come to balloon in their consciousness like a tumor: never go to the aid of a stricken ship; do not stop to pick up survivors. A ship that was stationary even for a moment would become a target for U-boats and bombers, and risk losing cargo essential to the war effort. They sailed to deliver that cargo, not to rescue drowning sailors.
This rule sprang from bitter necessity. Although Knud Erik recognized this, he still felt it was an assault on his whole identity. It wouldn't be a torpedo that destroyed him, he suspected, but an order that forced him to ignore drowning men crying out for help.
Escort vessels sailing at the rear of the convoy were tasked with picking up survivors, but they were often prevented from doing so by the wrath of the bombers or forced to divert their course to avoid torpedoes. Then the shipwrecked men would drift behind and disappear on the vast sea. The last trace of them would be the red distress lights on their life jackets.
They were the lucky ones. As their body temperature dropped, they'd drift into sleep, and then death. Or they'd give up, undo their life jackets, and let themselves slip into the darkness that was awaiting them. The red lights glowed on for a while longer. Then they too went out one by one.
When a ship was torpedoed, the destroyers would speed over to the attacking submarine and drop their depth charges. Any survivors in the water would implode from the enormous pressure, strong enough to rip away the U-boat's armored steel plates, or be propelled into the air on a powerful geyser of water, with their lungs forced out through their mouths: tattered human remains of which not even a scream was left.
He'd seen it happen on the voyage back to Halifax.
They had orders not to deviate from course because the danger of colliding with the other ships in the convoy was greatest when they sailed at top steam while attempting to flee the U-boats. He'd stood on the bridge, his hands on the wheel, and sailed right into a whole poppy field of red distress lights in front of the Nimbus's bow. He'd heard the frantic pummeling against the ship when the life-jacketed survivors drifted alongside and desperately tried to push off, so as not to be caught by the screw propeller. The ship's wake foamed red with blood from the severed body parts being churned around, while he stood on the bridge wing, looking back.
Don't look back was the rule for moments like this. Having done it once, he never did it again. But something inside him still watched what a moment ago had been men, and it kept watching until it turned to stone. No one, no one willingly did this to another human being. And yet he'd done it. Treat other people the way you'd like them to treat you. If he couldn't believe in that, what was he left with?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
He counted the little red lights from his captain's cabin. Their glow stripped him bare. He'd lost his last point of reference. He'd got his cargo to its destination. Yet he was doing the wrong thing. He'd done damage to others and in doing so, did damage to himself. He felt that close to the men in the water, screaming out for help.
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 cr
ew 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 war will determine whether you can ever return home. But even victory is no guarantee that you will survive.
The flood of my nightmare is upon us, and I was the one who provoked it.
I wanted to banish the sea from men's hearts, but I achieved the opposite. You looked for work elsewhere because there were hardly any ships registered in Marstal. You sailed farther away. The time you were home with us became even shorter than it used to be. Now you are all gone indefinitely. Some of you, many, I fear, forever. The only proof we have that you are still alive is the letters we receive. There are long intervals between them. When letters fail to arrive, we are left guessing why.
Dear Knud Erik, I once said that you were dead to me, and this is the most dreadful thing a mother can do to herself. I know so little about you, only what I hear from other people, and they fall silent in my presence. I feel they regard me as something unnatural. I do not know if they have forgiven me for what I have done to this town. Maybe they do not even realize that I was behind what has happened. But no one has forgiven me for disowning you, and I have grown even lonelier than I was to begin with.
You will not get to read this letter. I will not send it. When the war is over and you have returned, I will give it to you.
I ask for nothing more than that you read it then.
Your mother
KNUD ERIK DIDN'T go ashore in New York. The land scared him more than the sea did. He suspected that once his feet touched the pier, he'd never be able to walk up the gangway again. And that would be a failure of duty. He'd no longer be part of the war—but men who stayed in it were failing in their duty too. The red lights had taught him that. So the choice the war offered him was a choice between two failures. Alone on the bridge, he honored his duty to the Allies, to the war, to the victory to come, to the convoy, and to the cargo. But he didn't honor his duty to the men who screamed for his help. It felt as if every single one of them was calling out his name.
When Vilhjelm went to the Upper East Side to visit Isaksen and Kristina, Knud Erik was briefly tempted to go with him. The last time he'd seen them had been at Klara's confirmation, and he'd been invited to dinner afterward. Then he shook his head. He preferred the solitude in the cabin. He huddled inside it as though it were an air-raid shelter.
There were men who, when they feared they were losing their nerve, started counting women, as though recalling their conquests in foreign ports made them feel stronger: women on one side of the scale, death on the other. It gave them a sense of balance.
Knud Erik could have gone ashore and tipped his own balance. He was thirty-one and unmarried. It wasn't too late, but—as he often told himself—neither was it too early. He was restless, and he'd known many women. It wasn't immature lust that prevented him from making a final choice. His indecisiveness was caused by something he could neither pin down nor articulate. At times he still thought of Miss Sophie, the crazy girl who'd turned his head at the age of fifteen. Surely she couldn't be what was stopping him? He'd barely known her. And her behavior, which he'd found enigmatic and compelling at the time, had been nothing but youthful pretentiousness. And yet it was as if she'd laid a curse on him. By suddenly vanishing into thin air—a disappearance that might have been anything from an amorous adventure to death by foul play—she'd tied him to her. It wasn't her he was seeking in the harbor bars or in Marstal's down-to-earth girls. But he was missing something, and every time he reached out for it, it vanished.
He'd managed one engagement in Marstal, to Karin Weber, who'd later broken it off. "You're always so distant," she'd said, and she wasn't referring to the normal absences of a sailor. He was well aware of that.
Something inside him longed desperately for a family. He needed to have a human being to miss. He needed a counterbalance to the terrible things the war had done to him, and he couldn't find that in port bars. He was a ship with no moorings.
He sat in his captain's cabin like a monk in his cell, but there was nothing edifying about his solitude. He counted the red lights. He counted his soul into tiny pieces. His dreams about the life he could have had crumbled like a child's sandcastle.
IN LIVERPOOL he deserted. He was running away from his sense of duty. The same whiskey that had helped him maintain a balance could also make him lose it. And in Liverpool he lost it.
Even shaving every day had become an ordeal. How do you shave without looking in the mirror? Shaving was the last struggle before the final rot set in. He knew this was an unwritten law for prisoners of war in the German internment camps. And that was how he felt: like a prisoner of war. He'd fallen into enemy hands. Only the enemy was inside him.
On the last voyage they'd sailed with ammunition in the hold.
A hit would have meant total annihilation: no men in the water with their pleading little red lights. Not even the captain's cap would have survived if the Nimbus had disappeared in a gigantic spurt of flame. He'd caught himself fantasizing about the relief that death would bring. But no torpedoes struck them. Nor did any bombs drop through the deck and hit the cargo.
Yes, the Nimbus was a lucky ship. She kept a steady course through the drowning men and he cursed it all.
The ship's radio could pick up the frequency of the Royal Air Force, and when they approached the English coast after crossing the Atlantic, they'd gather on the bridge to listen to the conversations between the flight command and the RAF pilots. They heard the words "Good luck and good hunting," which signaled the start of a radio transmission of a life-or-death battle. They cheered and shouted in support of their team. They cursed the enemy whom they could not hear but sometimes saw, because the fights took place in the sky right over their heads. They clenched their fists; the veins bulged in their foreheads. They rooted for the pilots, who shouted their warnings or triumphs out into the ether. And then sometimes suddenly slumped in their seat, shot to pieces. These men sacrificed themselves for the ships, and yet the sailors all wished they could swap their eternal waiting position on the deck for the pilot's exposed cockpit. There wasn't one of them who didn't long to deliver death, instead of waiting for it. They got so worked up during these transmissions that if someone had handed them revolvers, they'd have been hard-pressed not to gun one another down like dogs.
Knud Erik was the only one who didn't fantasize about firing a gun. He'd have preferred to be the target of one. They were welcome to pull the trigger on him. He'd be happy to oblige.
He stopped Wally as he made his way down the gangway, suitcase in hand. He'd heard Wally boasting about its contents, which he'd acquired in New York: nylon stockings, salmon-pink satin brassieres, and lace panties.