October, equinox, south-westerly gale, dreadful weather.
The town lies there blinded and deafened in a fog of foam; jetties and fish-drying grounds are under water, and in many places the whitish green, foaming waters go right up into the streets and turn them into raging torrents. And even at midday it’s so dark that you can only vaguely make out the outlines of the dismantled fishing boats moored out in the roads, tugging at their anchor chains. If their mooring lines don’t hold they will be hopelessly lost in this onshore gale.
The ‘bedroom’ on the top floor in the end of the Green Storehouse is full of men dressed in greatcoats and fur caps standing at the window because that is the place with the best view, and Father is there with his long telescope. Everyone is shouting because of the din from the wind and the sea. The air rings with the names of all the ships threatened with destruction – Only Sister, Sumburgh Head, Realist, Goodwoman (all of them British ships bought in Scotland).
Inside, on the great sail loft there is such a howling and whistling of wind and clattering of shutters that Little Brother and I have to make signs to each other instead of shouting while, with the help of a rope hanging there, we try to get on to one of the crossbeams supporting the roof. All the woodwork in this great building is complaining and creaking and cracking and a mainsail lying stretched out on the floor is now and again overcome by dreadful convulsions.
I finally manage to get onto the beam. Up here under the roof I can lie on my stomach like some sort of god and look down on the vast landscape of the floor, where Little Brother is dancing up and down in fury at not being able to climb up here, the place he knows as the supreme dwelling place of earthly bliss and happiness.
But then something happens: men come rushing out of the bedroom door and disappear with a great rumbling down the stairs… and then you have to go down to see what is going on out in the world. And something dreadful is going on, for the sloop the Goodwoman has broken its moorings and is in danger of being driven ashore!
It was dreadful to see the well kept, newly painted ship running in on the breakers and finally coming to rest on its side, overcome, pressed violently against the rocks and with its masts sticking obliquely up into the air. And almost worse was the sight of Father’s distorted face – he stood there with open mouth and showed all his big teeth in a massive smile, but it was a smile of fury and pain, and his eyes showed he was not far from tears.
From out in the surf there came some penetrating sounds sharp like shots; this was the ship’s bowsprit being broken and shattered. But now it was already so dark that it was almost impossible to distinguish the poor vessel, which was now no longer a ship, but a wreck.
Not until morning was about to arrive did the gale abate. In the growing light it was possible to see the pitiful stripped remains of Goodwoman’s tortured hull, without masts and bowsprit and with a bared frame behind the splintered bows. Flotsam was being rocked everywhere on the great swell, and far up among the houses there lay bits of wreckage scattered among pieces of sea wrack and ramalia and dead fish.
***
There was not much to be saved from the wrecked ship, which had “met its fate” and now lay overturned and firmly fixed among seaweed-covered cliffs, with its keel sticking out of the water so that from the shore you could see the empty interior of the hull through gaps and cracks in the smashed deck.
The gale that night had wreaked havoc elsewhere as well; a lighter and two smaller boats had suffered the same fate as the sloop, and out on one of the drying grounds near the Ring one of the storehouses was without a roof. But all this was as nothing compared with the catastrophe that had occurred that same night off the steep mountainsides on the southern coast of the island, where a large foreign ship had gone aground and been wrecked – losing everyone on board.
It later turned out that it was a Dutch merchant vessel, the Moorkerken that had met this grim fate; but no one knew that at the time. In general, no one knew anything at all until wreckage from the lost ship and the first bodies of the drowned sailors began to wash ashore.
During the following days and weeks ever more broken bodies were washed ashore. They were sewn into sacking and taken to the porch of the church.
It was a time of dark days and pale faces and the slow ringing of church bells. The first of the drowned men to be buried were accompanied by a large gathering at the graveside; on the next occasion the assembly was smaller, and as for the last two burials, which took place in rain and sleet, the priest and the grave digger were the only ones present in the churchyard apart from the six pallbearers; but both Father and Michelsen and the two navigation instructors were among the pallbearers, as they wanted to do the “final honours” to the unknown drowned sailors.