“But — not only is it too cold, but the water’s at least eighty feet deep there!” Jens was almost frantic. “It’s insane, don’t you understand?”
“If you say so. I’ll try to get my gear from the house as quickly as I can,” Christensen said, and moved away from the wheel, walking stolidly to the stern of the boat, hands deep in pockets, staring back at the spot he had marked during the somber ceremony. That service was for you, Niels, he said silently to the waves. Somewhere in this vast sea you are resting, and that service was for you. But Gustave shall rest in Gedser cemetery, beside our mother and father. I know you would both want that. I shall recover his body and see he has a proper burial, that I promise all of you. One brother for the sea is enough. Gustave shall be properly buried on land with the Christensens, in a place where I can go and mourn when I want...
The boat tacked, the engine was cut, the boat coasted with practiced precision into the dock, nudging it quietly. Christensen stepped to the dock, warped the ship’s rope to the bollard there, turned and walked quickly toward the house. Jens Krag stared after him, frowning. The man was patently mad, totally insane! Should he go off and leave him? Go and get men from the village to subdue him, get the doctor to give him a hypodermic, put him in hospital, maybe in restraint, until he regained his senses? Or maybe the man simply wanted to commit suicide, to join his two brothers in the sea. That, of course, was his prerogative, but making Jens Krag his accessory, his accomplice, was vastly unfair!
On the other hand, if Krag should take his boat and leave, he had no doubt that Knud Christensen would find him and make him sorry he had not waited. And his far greater age would not prevent the younger man from beating him unmercifully. There was nothing to do but to obey and wait. But it was truly insane! In that freezing water? My God, they had ice in parts of the Baltic farther north! And at that depth? And he, Krag, could have been a hundred yards or more off in his estimate of where the Kirsten Christensen had gone down! How would he ever explain that when Knud came up empty-handed? If he ever came up...
He watched with a feeling of dread as Knud Christensen came tramping down the path, heavily laden with his gear. He dumped it over the rail, untied the boat, and jumped in. Krag hesitated in starting the engine, trying desperately to think of some further argument that might dissuade the other from the dive. Christensen seemed to read the other’s mind. He took partial pity on Krag.
“Jens, I’m not committing suicide,” he said quietly. “I have compressed-air equipment, not oxygen. It’s good for well below a hundred feet. I’ve worked deeper with it myself. And I’ve worked in cold water. I’ve got a wet suit and a good lamp. I’ll be all right.”
“But, Knud—”
“Get moving.” There was no longer any understanding in the big man’s voice, only implacable command. Jens Krag sighed and started the engine. The best thing to do was to get the affair over with. If Knud Christensen didn’t come up, he refused to take the slightest blame. He started the engine and headed out to sea, aware that he was probably being watched with curiosity by villagers along the shore, and possibly from the tower itself. At the approximate location he slowed and allowed the boat to drift, checking the position of the lighthouse tower and the harbor entrance, trying to picture their relative locations as they had appeared the night of the storm. The truth was he was far from sure, but would Knud Christensen accept that statement if he dove and failed to locate the Kirsten Christensen? Undoubtedly not. The man had gone completely crazy! He sighed and became aware of Knud’s harsh voice.
“Well? This is where we held the service.” The large man had climbed into his wet suit; he was strapping on the compressed-air equipment.
“I think — I think it was about here...”
“You think?” He glared at a subdued Krag. “You think?”
Krag swallowed. “It was a storm, a bad one, don’t you understand?” he said helplessly. “One minute we were halfway up to the sky, the next down in a trough like a mine! We were bouncing all over. Who could try and see—?”
Knud Christensen took a deep breath and held back his temper. There was only one solution to the problem. He pulled on his flippers, picked up his lamp and walked to the railing, putting his back to it.
“Be here when I come back,” he said quietly, and put the breathing tube in his mouth. One enigmatic look at Krag’s unhappy face, and he leaned over backwards, falling into the water.
Chapter Eight
The water was cold, shocking, numbing, deadly cold, and despite his wet suit, and despite his great strength, his iron resolution, and his almost fanatical stubbornness, Knud Christensen realized he had only minutes in that icy water in which to locate his brother’s body. He sank like a plummet, brought to the bottom by the heavy weights he had attached to his belt, front and back. They would have to be jettisoned for him to rise quickly when his search was finished, but they were there to enable him to reach the bottom as rapidly as possible, and give him that much more time underwater for the job he had given himself.
The beam from his electric lamp cut weakly through the dark waters as he sank, and when at last he was on the bottom it illuminated only a small patch before him as he began a circular search, widening the arc of his path with each succeeding circuit. He had never before explored this particular section of sea bottom, but he was not surprised to find it a mass of broken rock, in sharp contrast to the chalk, sand, and marl so common elsewhere in the area. His brothers and the other fishermen had always avoided deep trawling here; a history of torn nets lay in the past experience of the older men.
Knud pushed ahead, hoping that by the very effort needed to propel himself through the freezing waters he might generate enough body heat to keep him going a few extra minutes, give him that much more time before he would be forced to abandon the search. The rocky bottom displayed only the normal detritus of an area within sight of land; discarded food tins, the remains of broken and discarded fish crates, an abandoned skiff, its torn bottom the reason for its being there. Christensen forced himself on.
The deadly cold suddenly seemed to be abating. He almost had a feeling of increasing comfort, of warmth, in fact, and he realized he was rapidly coming to the end of his endurance. Many more seconds of the satisfying torpor and he would lose all control and quickly die. One final circuit, he promised himself sleepily, and then came awake with a start, staring into the gloom. Ahead of him, looming out of the darkness, was an obvious wreck, but it was much larger than the small fishing vessel, the Kirsten Christensen. It was only as he approached it that he saw he had come upon the wreckage of two boats, locked together on the rocky bottom. He circled, seeking some identification. The nearest boat had obviously been down for many years; the other was beyond, and he swam about the first, sweeping his lights from side to side. A small case momentarily blocked his path, perched between two rocks, forming a slight barrier. He held it in the beam of his lamp as he swam about it, pushing against it to hold his turn to a minimum. The rotten wooden cover fell away, almost disintegrating, revealing a metal inner shell, rusty but apparently still solid. He swam past it, pushing himself to the other side of the combined wrecks. There, faintly seen in the dimness, was his brother Gustave. The body hung from the shrouds, seemingly relaxed, still in the still waters, as if it had come to terms with its grave beneath the sea and was waiting patiently for Armageddon.