Until now he had known the sea as a pleasant splash against the hull at night. But the kind, friendly sea was changing: a beast with thousands of high, seething humps coiled around the ship. He heard the first mate’s command: Batten down the main hatch!
He had been about to wring the water from his wet trouser legs when suddenly the whole deck became a steep, slippery downhill. The brig Charlotta listed to one side. He grabbed the rail with both hands so as not to slide away, and there he hung, waiting anxiously for the Charlotta to get back on an even keel — which she did, only to roll over on the other side: downhill became uphill.
Robert wanted to remain on deck, he didn’t want to appear cowardly. But a feeling of dizziness took hold of him, and he had a sensation as though his stomach were rolling about loose inside him. What was this? What was the matter with him? Hadn’t he read in his History of Nature about that which overcame him: “This rolling movement of ships at sea causes inexperienced people who voyage on them. .”? And now he noticed that only a couple of passengers were left on deck; he was not the most cowardly. Then he had gone below and lain down in his bunk.
A great hue and cry was heard from the other side of the sailcloth, where the women were. One of them had been badly burned by scalding water while she was preparing her evening meal in the galley. A pot with boiling water had fallen over her foot as the rolling began. The woman had cried out loudly: “I shall complain to the captain! The captain shall hear about this!” But from the men’s side was heard a rough voice: “Damned hens, those women! Must the captain hold their pots? Why in hell can’t they be more careful?”
The young girl who was ill with an abscess in her throat often moaned softly — tonight Robert could not hear her.
Then he had gone to sleep, but the word had penetrated his brain like an auger, working away inside: dead sea—dead sea—DEAD SEA!
It was night, and the darkness impenetrable. He lay on the inside of the bunk, and his brother’s heavy body had rolled over him so he could not move. Karl Oskar slept. Robert could hear men turn in their bunks — snore, groan, puff, vomit, fart, talk in their sleep, pray, swear and curse.
Karl Oskar rolled back to his place, their mattress seemed to sink. Robert grabbed hold of his brother’s shoulder — their bunk was sinking! Nothing stopped it — now he was lying on top of his brother and they sank together, toward the bottom of the sea!
He clung to his brother’s shoulders and was able to whisper: “Karl Oskar—”
Then their bunk stopped sinking — it rose. And again his brother’s body rolled over onto his. Now it was his turn to sink, with his brother on top of him. No bottom hindered — they sank and sank. Now they must be deep under the water—they must be going down!
He heard himself cry out: “We are sinking!”
Karl Oskar seemed to waken — he mumbled, half asleep: “It’s only storming. Keep quiet!”
It stormed. An uninterrupted roar was heard from the sea on the other side of the hull, like thunder after a bolt of lightning. The mass of water outside, which until this evening had carried their ship on its back calmly and patiently as a docile beast of burden, had now become a wild beast with frothing, foamy jaws, and it heaved with all its pliant humps as if to throw off its burden. Already it had snapped at Robert — his wet trousers hung near the bunk: the sea had licked him with its wet tongue.
And now he lay there and sank: the sea had swallowed him. It had licked his legs in the evening, tonight it had swallowed him.
He wanted to throw up. There seemed to be no air around him, he could not breathe.
“Karl Oskar! Have we sunk? Has the ship gone down?”
The water had not yet come in to them. But as soon as the hull broke, when the planks splintered, when there were holes in the bulkhead — then the sea would rush in and drown them.
“Karl Oskar! Can’t you feel we are sinking?”
“It’s only seasickness.”
The two brothers kept rolling over each other. Their bunk went up and down. The older one explained: in a storm a ship rocked like a cradle.
“But it is stifling in here tonight,” panted Karl Oskar, and turned over on his other side.
One could hear that he, too, suffered. He had not yet been seasick, every morning regularly he drank his wormwood-seed brännvin on an empty stomach; he was sure this kept his body in good order.
Now the crew had battened down the hatch, as the waves were constantly washing over the deck. In so doing they had also closed all the small holes which let air in to the hold. That’s why it’s so stiflingly thick in here tonight, Robert thought. The air he inhaled had already been used. His fellow passengers had used it, men and women had sucked it in through their throats, old men and hags had held it in their filthy mouths. It was not air any more, there was no air. Robert inhaled — this is the last, there is no more air — it does not suffice for all, there isn’t air for one more breath, this is my last one in life. Perhaps one more — if I use very little only. This is my last breath — next time I cannot. .
The air dried in his throat, and he became faint from fear: he was dying.
He gasped for breath in short, weak jerks: “Karl Oskar — I’m choking to death—”
“You have as much air as I. Keep quiet!”
A light fluttered above them; Jonas Petter had lit a tallow candle.
An angry voice was heard through the darkness: “Don’t start a fire, you bastards!”
“I can’t see to puke,” panted Jonas Petter. “It runs beside the bucket.”
But he blew out the light before he was through vomiting.
Robert kept on breathing; the air seemed to give out at each breath he took, but there was always enough for one more. People around him puffed, groaned, swore, vomited, prayed, moaned, and cried.
The brig Charlotta sailed on with them all, through the night, over a sea with hissing, wet tongues licking the vessel on all her sides. The night was dark and starless with low sweeping clouds. Two lanterns were burning on deck: the green on starboard and the red on port. But they gave out poor light, these kerosene burners, hemmed in by darkness and the storm. Two fragile little lanterns on a black, raging sea, two lights in a little world that moved above the depths of a great tempestuous water.
Yet in this little world lived nearly a hundred people, cramped and crowded.
Robert listened to the sounds of the breaking waves: they roared, splashed, and flowed as they broke over the deck above him. Mighty masses of water came rushing, crashing tumultuously, and falling. When a wave broke against the deck the sound increased to a thunder-roar, deafening as a big box on his ear. Surging and splashing, the water ran in small runnels over the deck planks, flowing like a swollen spring back to its home. A wave rose, broke itself against the ship, and fell back into the sea. The next one followed — a hard thud, the water threw itself over the deck, then followed the roar, the soughing, the purl of running water. He lay there and listened to wave after wave, and each time he could hear how the ship freed herself from the lashing tongue of the sea, and escaped the yawn of the wild beast. The brig Charlotta was still afloat.
A baby cried incessantly on the other side of the hanging. It sounded like the mewing of a tortured cat. A cat — it wasn’t a child he heard cry, it was a cat! It was the old cat which he once had drowned in the mill brook, the cat in the sack that wouldn’t sink. The cat was in here and she was being choked slowly, she mewed pitifully, the sack would not sink before he had thrown many stones at it. And the cat mewed, she mewed incessantly, she had mewed for many years, ever since she was drowned. And now she mewed here, behind the hanging, while he himself lay here and was being choked, tied in a sack, sinking—