The Discovery Of Slowness. Sten Nadolny

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СКАЧАТЬ rarely helps, and especially not in the navy.

      Whether the captain would even read the letter before their departure … It was John himself who was determined to go to war. And he was too slow, and only fourteen years old … What could he write? Misfortune sits in its own shoes, he thought. He crumpled the letter and tossed it into the wastebasket, propped his chin on his hand, and began to mourn.

      John Franklin lay awake at night and replayed the fast events of the day at his own slow speed. There were many of them. Six hundred men on such a ship! And everyone had a name and moved about. Then the questions! Questions could come at any time. Question: What’s your assignment? Answer: Lower gun deck and sail practice in Mr Hale’s department.

      Sir. Never forget to say Sir. Dangerous!

      All men aft for ex … exe-cu-tion of punishment. That should be pronounceable! Execution of punishment.

      All hands to the sails!

      Receive arms.

      Clear for action: a hard job to grasp the whole picture.

      All guns loaded, sir. Run in to gunports. Secure guns.

      Lower gundeck cleared for action! Anticipate everything exactly without question.

      Take that man’s name, Mr Franklin! Aye aye, sir – name – write – fast!

      The red paint in the quarters below was supposed to prevent spattering … the spattering of blood. No, to make it inconspicuous. The sand spread on the floor was supposed to keep people from slipping on blood. All part of combat. Trim sails aft, and so forth, that much was clear …

      Compliments of the captain, sir. Please come below deck. Sails: mizzen topgallant royal, main topgallant royal, fore topgallant royal. One sail farther down and there was already a hitch. He knew how to calculate the height of the stars at night, their angles of elevation – knowledge he didn’t need at all. That kind of thing nobody wanted to know. But which line belongs where? Where does the jib-boom fit on the martingale, or vice versa? Shrouds and backstays, halyards and sheets, that endless pile of hemp, mysterious as a spider web. He always joined others in lashing things where they also lashed them, but what if they were wrong? He was a midshipman; that meant he was considered an officer. Now then, once more: mainsail, topsail, topgallant …

      ‘Quiet,’ a voice hissed in the bunk next to him. ‘What’s all that whispering about in the night?’

      ‘Reefing-point,’ John whispered. ‘Gaff jigger.’

      ‘Say that again,’ said the other, very quiet.

      ‘Forestay, martingale, martingale guys, martingale stays.’

      ‘Oh, I see,’ growled his neighbour. ‘But that’s enough for now.’

      He could do it with his lips closed: only his tongue moving behind them remained indispensable. For example, he visualised in this way how to get from the bottom of the foremast to the maintop by way of the foretop, the fore topmast cap, and the fore topgallant, by climbing up the ratlines and outside the futtock shrouds, because only that was considered proper seamanship.

      Would he be able to notice mistakes? For example, could he discover why the ship lost momentum and stopped moving? And what would he do if part of the running rigging tangled up?

      He also noted all the questions that had so far remained unanswered. It was important to ask them at precisely the right moment, and therefore they had to wait. A jib was something very special; why? They were moving against the Danes; why not against the French? He also had to recognise those questions that might be asked of him, John Franklin. Question: what’s your assignment? Or, question: what’s the name of your ship, Midshipman? The name of the captain? When they went ashore after the capture of Copenhagen, there’d be lots of admirals running about, perhaps even Nelson himself. HMS Polyphemus, sixty-four guns, sir. Captain Lawford, sir. Everything in order.

      He had memorised entire fleets of words and batteries of responses so as to be ready with answers. In speaking, as in acting, he had to be prepared for anything that might come up. If he had to get it through his head first – that would take too long. If a question addressed to him became only a signal allowing him to rattle off the requested response without hesitation like a parrot, there would be no reprimand and the answer passed. He had done it! A ship, bounded by the ocean, could be learned. To be sure, he couldn’t run very fast. And yet the entire day was filled with running, transmitting orders, running from one deck to the other – all narrow passages! But he had memorised every route; he had even drawn them and had repeated them to himself every night for two whole weeks. Running was all right if nobody came at him unexpectedly. Then, of course, there was nothing to be done, and he kept to his route without agile manoeuvres; the appropriate formula for apologies had to be well rehearsed. Soon the others learned that it was better to get out of his way. The officers took the lesson with displeasure. ‘Please see it this way,’ he had said three days before to the fifth lieutenant, who actually listened to him as a result of a hefty rum ration. ‘Every ship’s hull has its own maximum speed, which it can never exceed, no matter what the rig or the wind velocity. And so it is also with me.’

      ‘Sir. I must be addressed as “sir,”’ answered the lieutenant, not unkindly.

      Explanations were usually followed by orders. On the second day, he had made clear to another lieutenant that for his eye all quick movements left a streak in the landscape. ‘Climb up to the foretop, Mr Franklin. And I want to see a streak in the landscape.’

      Meanwhile, things got better. John stretched out contentedly in his bunk. Seamanship could be learned. What his eyes or ears couldn’t manage, his head did during the night. Intellectual drill balanced slowness.

      Only the battle remained. That he couldn’t imagine. Determined, he fell asleep.

      The fleet had already passed through the Sound. They would soon be in Copenhagen. ‘We’ll show ’em,’ said a tall man with a high forehead. John understood the sound of these words very well, since they had been repeated several times. The same man told him, ‘Go, cheer the men on.’ Something was up with the mainsail; there was a delay. Then the crucial words: ‘What would Nelson think?’ He marked both sentences for the night. He also included difficult words, like those Danish landmarks Skagerrak and Kattegat, or words like cable gat and colour vat. In response to a carefully phrased question asked after they had received their rum ration, he also found out that the Danes had been busy for weeks strengthening their coast fortifications and equipping their ships for defence. ‘Or do you think they’ll wait till we can join their council session?’ John didn’t understand this at once. But he had fallen into the habit of automatically acknowledging any answers couched in the form of questions ending on a rising intonation with ‘Of course not,’ which instantly satisfied the person who always countered with a question.

      They arrived in the afternoon. That night, or early in the morning, they would attack the Danish gun emplacements and ships. Perhaps Nelson might still come aboard their ship that day. And what would he think? So the day ended hectically, with shouting, gasps and bruised joints, but without fear or rage. John felt he could keep up, for he always knew what was coming. An answer was yes or no, an order went up or down, a person was sir or not sir, his head banged into running or standing rigging. All that was altogether satisfying. A new difficult word had to be memorised: Trekroner. It was the most powerful coastal battery defending Copenhagen. When it started to fire, the battle had begun.

      Nelson didn’t come СКАЧАТЬ