The Emigrants (35 page)

The brig
Charlotta
had at last cleared the harbor and was in the open sea. The captain sniffed the wind—it seemed even calmer than before; all sails were set but hung limp and dead; they were depressed and wrinkled, waiting for the wind.

The second mate, a Finn, approached the captain. He was responsible for the passengers in the hold, and in his Finnish-accented Swedish he reported that they all had found their allotted bunks and turned in; all was well. There had of course been the usual complaints that it was too crowded and too uncomfortable down below. It was always so at first. They kept on jostling each other in the hold, until they realized that they couldn’t make the ship roomier or gain more space by pushing with their hands and elbows. As soon as they understood this they tired of their noise and settled down. And it looked as if they had fairly decent folk on this voyage; only one of the peasants appeared refractory, a man with the biggest nose he had ever seen. He and one other married man had been unable to find sleeping room within the partition set aside for families. Perhaps new bunks could be built for them near the family bunks, but for the time being they had been put up with the unmarried men, and this made the big-nosed man furious and hard to handle; he insisted on staying with his wife and children. He—the mate—had told him to pull in his big nose if he wished to remain on board with his huge elephant feet. My God, the boots these peasants wore! That man had such big underpinnings he no doubt could sail dry-shod across the Atlantic in his boots.

Captain Lorentz chewed his pipe while he listened to his mate. The peasants crawled over his ship this time like grasshoppers in the fields of North America. Hell and damnation! Perhaps he had allowed too many of them aboard. He hoped they would be manageable, as his mate predicted. The first few days of the voyage, while they were still on inland seas and had calm waters, the emigrants usually kept quiet enough and busied themselves in their curious way inspecting the ship. But when they reached open waters and began to feel the sea, even the most tractable of men sometimes went berserk. A peasant who on land was the most docile of creatures could, in a storm at sea, become the most ferocious beast, impossible to handle.

The
Charlotta
’s captain felt sorry for the pathetic earth rats who had been lured from their safe holes to spend weeks at sea. Perhaps these poor devils had never been in even a flat-bottomed skiff, or seen a larger body of water than a wash pan; and now suddenly they were off on an ocean voyage. The poor creatures could never take to the sea, and were as much afraid for their lives as old maids. But after all, what business of his was that? It was not his fault. He hadn’t advised these farmers to leave their peaceful cottages in their home parishes, he hadn’t persuaded them to exchange the sturdy fold-bed of the farm for the rolling bunk of a ship under sail. They could blame only themselves.

The drizzling rain thickened, the southeast wind died down. This time of year the winds shifted suddenly in the Baltic Sea, and even an old skipper would not predict the weather; but it seemed at the moment that the night would be calm. Captain Lorentz might as well turn in and rest for the remainder of the evening watch.

On the way to his cabin the captain almost fell over one of the passengers, who was down on his knees near the rail. Lorentz grabbed the man by the shoulder and raised him up. He was a rather short peasant, his face covered by a bushy, brown beard; his long, round-cut hair fell on his jacket collar.

“Keep your eyes open,” warned the captain. “Don’t fall overboard!”

The little peasant kept his hands folded across his chest, as if he were protecting something under them.

“I did not fall. I was kneeling and praying to God.”

“Why do you pray your prayers up here?”

“It’s noisy down in the ship. I wish to thank the Lord in peace.”

“Oh—so that’s it, my good man.” Lorentz looked at him and added: “You’d better wait awhile to thank God for a safe voyage.”

The farmer looked up and met the captain’s gaze with two mild, frank eyes. He wished to thank the Lord already—he had been permitted to board a good ship, sailing under an honest, conscientious captain, manned by a capable, orderly crew. Now he could leave all to God. He knew the Almighty would do what He could to help them cross the dangerous sea.

“Hm—hm,” mumbled the captain. “Be careful you don’t fall. The deck is awash and slippery.”

Lorentz continued toward his cabin, musing over his discovery. So he had religious cranks aboard. He knew that sort, and didn’t like them. A few years ago he had sailed to North America with fifty of the creatures. They had embarked at Gävle; some of them had been so sorely taken by the religious bug that they had tramped on foot from their homes to the harbor town, walking many miles, day and night, to board ship and escape the country. Their feet were bleeding when they arrived, and they had compared this to the blood in Christ’s wounds.

Immediately he had recognized them as fanatics, and these sectarians had, indeed, been the most difficult passengers he ever had had on board. They did not consider him master of the ship, but insisted that the Lord God was in command. What is more, as soon as they reached the open sea they insisted that God ordered them to steer; the crew were hired by the devil, they said, and steered the ship to destruction. Many of the peasants, from Helsingland and Dalecarlia, had never seen the sea before, much less been near a helm. If God had meant passengers to steer, He no doubt would have chosen someone accustomed to the sea—even Captain Lorentz relied on the Lord to that extent. But when the sectarians had interfered to the extent of wanting to change the ship’s course, he had at last been forced to read the law of the sea to them. To be on the safe side, he also had had to tell them he had guns on board. They were full of crazy notions. It had been a hellish trip with them aboard.

But he had done his fatherland a great service that time, when he shipped out fifty crazy Swedes and deposited them in North America. There were so many madmen there before them that this new load would be lost in the mob.

This brown-bearded fellow he had just encountered praying on deck seemed, however, a decent soul. He had thanked God for the capable captain; and as long as his religious nonsense took such expression, he might be considered harmless.

In his small cabin below the poop deck Captain Lorentz now brought out a jug of Bavarian ale which he kept wedged beside his table. He poured the foaming drink into a tremendous earthen stoup which held almost half a gallon. The handle of the stoup was in the shape of a female figure, the naked body of a young girl. She hung over the edge of the mug and dipped her hands and arms into the ale, bending her head as though she were drinking. Her back, a slender young girl-body, formed the handle.

This drinking stoup had been the gift of a ship’s chandler in Barcelona to his good friend, the
Charlotta
’s captain. Many times the friend had helped Lorentz find girls with softer bodies than burnt clay; but that was long ago, that was when this old bachelor was younger and livelier. Now the siesta in a woman’s arms—if one called it siesta—belonged to needs which Captain Lorentz had gradually left behind him. He led a quiet life, these days, where woman played no part. But the big earthen mug with the girl’s body he used daily in his cabin. Many a time he had satisfied his thirst with ale from this vessel, his hand holding the young, well-shaped woman. At regular intervals during the day he would caress her waist with his old, rough, seaman’s hands. Nowadays she was his only girl, and she remained his constant and devoted mistress whether the brig
Charlotta
sailed inland seas or the open oceans.

The captain took a firm hold of the girl’s body and raised the ale stoup to his mouth. When he had drunk he stretched his legs out under the cabin table and sighed deeply with pleasure: good thirst and good ale, two exceedingly fine things when one had both at the same time!

The captain was mellow this evening—he had the keel in clear water. Long days of open sea lay ahead; the entire spring would be spent at sea. He would not give the slimy Hudson—the entrance to New York Harbor—a single thought until the day he was actually there. He had set his ale stoup on a piece of paper, and the foam had wet it. He now picked it up, holding it close to his eyes. He recognized a comic prescription, written in a neat hand and given to him last night by the Karlshamn apothecary, at their farewell drinking party in the Hope Tavern.

“For Cholera

“(To my friend Captain Lorentz of the
Charlotta
)

“Temperately you must live.

Not be afraid, nor worries give.

Cheerful be, and every day

Throw all your medicines away.

Downhearted you must never be

Nor let your tempers disagree.

Eat a little, drink the more,

Forget the girls and let them snore,

Sleep every night and work each day.

This is the rule that keeps you gay.”

The apothecary had wanted to cheer him with these verses, which he had copied from some paper. But Lorentz was not cheered by them tonight—quite the contrary. And this because twice during his long voyages across the ocean he had been visited by the disease for which the verses suggested advice. Now, sitting in his cabin with his evening ale in front of him, these lines reminded him of all the troubles and difficulties he had encountered as captain of this ship during earlier voyages with emigrants to North America.

In front of him on the table lay the ship’s
Medical Adviser for Seafarers,
printed in Danish; as yet there was no good Swedish handbook for captains sailing without a doctor. This
Medical Adviser
was a most useful book. On one of the very first pages he had underlined in red pencil a few sentences: “If so many passengers are aboard that they must be treated as cargo, this is of course the most unhealthy cargo possible. A great deal of attention is then required of the captain. . . .”

Attention
—in that one word was included all the responsibility resting on the captain of an emigrant ship like the brig
Charlotta.

Captain Lorentz sighed again, this time not from the satisfaction which came from good ale. What did a captain’s attention avail? Lorentz was sure he could sail his ship to her destination in North America. This time, as always before, he would sail her undamaged into port. But he was equally sure that not all of the passengers who had embarked today would still be aboard when he tied up at the pier in New York. Before the voyage was over he would have to read funeral prayers for one or more of the emigrants; one or more would have to be lowered into the sea.

What was printed in the book was true: he was ship’s master to the unhealthiest cargo imaginable—human beings.

He had reason to regret that the
Charlotta
no longer sailed as freighter only. He preferred dead cargo in the hull to this unpleasant, living cargo; there was never need to read funeral prayers for ordinary freight. Of all his duties as captain, the one of minister was most repulsive—burying those who died. A freighter captain need seldom perform this duty, which the master of an emigrant ship on an unfortunate voyage might find almost a daily task. How many days had he been on deck and acted the priest that time when they had the cholera aboard! How often during that voyage had he thrown the three shovelfuls of earth over the canvas-shrouded bodies—only he had had no earth in the hold, not a handful, even. At first he had been at a loss what to use for the funerals, but finally had taken ashes from the galley—there was, after all, little difference between ashes and earth.

That was the time the idea had come to him to take along Swedish earth to be used at funerals: a bushel of Swedish earth. It was little enough.

The
Charlotta
’s captain had thought: I will take along earth for these emigrating peasants. They are covetous of earth, they are bound to the earth, they love the earth above all in this world. And when they die they will want their mouths full of earth. Let them have it. Their mouths are filled with earth when they rot in the churchyard. To die on the ocean is different—then they are lowered into water—so why begrudge the poor devils three shovels of earth over their bodies when they have to be buried at sea, far from home—just three shovelfuls of their own earth?

After that voyage Captain Lorentz did not use ashes from the galley for his sea burials. He had a bushel of Swedish earth ready on his ship. One provision for the passengers of which they had no knowledge—a bushel of earth to be used when needed at sea.

And he knew that bushel would be used on the brig
Charlotta’s
seventh voyage to North America.

XIV

FORTY PACES LONG AND EIGHT PACES WIDE

—1—

In the hold enormous pieces of canvas had been hung to separate the space into three compartments: one for married couples and children, one for unmarried men, and one for unmarried women. The family bunks were toward the stern, partitioned off by bulkheads of rough boards nailed together. The small cells looked like cattle pens or horses’ stalls. Beds were made on the deck of the hold with mattresses and loose straw. Unmarried passengers slept in bunks, strung longships between the stanchions. There were one-man and two-man bunks, “upper and lower berths.”

Dust rose from unaired mattresses, blankets, and skins as the emigrants spread their bedding and made up their bunks in the hold of the
Charlotta
—berths for seventy-eight people. Each passenger kept his belongings at the foot of his bunk. The overhead was low, and the air thick and choking. The three small compartments with canvas bulkheads seemed even smaller than they were, with this cargo of knapsacks, food baskets, bedding, and bundles. Here and there stood crude little tables or food boards, where people could sit and eat. These also were crowded with baskets and tubs, which must be put somewhere. At last there was hardly a spot left for the people to step on.