Depths - By Henning Mankell & Laurie Thompson Page 0,12

uneasy. He scratched at his forehead, which showed traces of red spots.

Tobiasson-Svartman left the captain's quarters. The October evening was chilly. He paused on the compan-ionway and listened. The sea was booming away in the distance. He could hear somebody laughing in the gun room. He thought he recognised Anders Höckert's voice.

He closed the door of his cabin and thought about his wife. She always used to go to bed early when he was away, she'd told him that in a letter the same year they were married.

He closed his eyes. After a few minutes of trying, he managed to conjure up her smell. It was soon so strong that it filled the whole cabin.

CHAPTER 26

It rained during the night.

He slept with his lead clutched tightly to his chest. When he got up, shortly before six, he had a nagging headache.

He wanted to run away, escape. But it was only that he was impatient at still not having embarked on his mission.

CHAPTER 27

At dawn on 22 October, Lars Tobiasson-Svartman transferred to the gunboat Blenda.

The waiting was over.

He was welcomed at the end of the gangway by the commanding officer, Lieutenant Jakobsson, who had a squint in his left eye and a deformed hand. He spoke with a pronounced Gothenburg accent, and despite his squint his expression seemed friendly and sincere. Tobiasson-Svartman could not help thinking that Jakobsson reminded him of some character he had seen in one of those newfangled films, or whatever they were called. One of the police officers, perhaps, who were forever chasing the star but never managed to catch him?

Lieutenant Jakobsson inspired him with confidence. To his surprise, he was allocated the captain's cabin.

'This isn't necessary,' he insisted.

'I'll bunk with my second in command,' said Lieutenant Jakobsson. 'It's a bit cramped and crappy on these gunboats, the more so as we've had to take on extra crew because of the particular nature of the mission. And my orders include that you have the best possible conditions in which to carry out your task. As I see it, a good night's sleep is one of the cornerstones of human existence. And so I'm prepared to put up with my cabin-mate grinding his teeth in his sleep. It's like sharing a cabin with a walrus. Assuming walruses grind their teeth, that is.'

He asked Jakobsson to tell him the history of the ship.

'Parliament voted for it in 1873. She was the first of a series of gunboats, and none of the farmers who dominated parliament in those days had any idea about how many there should be. We have room for eighty tonnes of coal in the bunkers, and that's enough to see us through 1,500 nautical miles. The engines are horizontal compounders, in accordance with the Wolf system. I'm not at all sure what's special about the Wolf system, but it seems to work. She's a good ship, but getting on in years. I suspect they'll soon retire her.'

Tobiasson-Svartman went to his cabin. It was bigger than the one he'd had on the Svea. But it had a different smell to it. Like an anthill, he thought. As if there had been an anthill in the cabin, but it had been removed during the night.

He smiled at the thought. He imagined explaining to his wife about his first impressions of his cabin, and the smell of formic acid.

He went up on deck and asked Lieutenant Jakobsson to assemble the crew. It was a fine day, with a southerly breeze.

The crew consisted of seventy-one men. Eight of the ratings and a naval engineer had joined the ship to help with the expedition. What they knew about the work in store was little enough.

The crew assembled following a whistle from the second in command, whose name was Fredén.

Tobiasson-Svartman was always nervous when required to address a crew. To conceal his unease, he came across as strict and liable to lose his temper.

'I will not stand for any slapdash work,' he began. 'Our mission is important. These are unsettled times and battle fleets are sailing round our coasts. We shall be remeasuring the depths of parts of the shipping route used by the navy, to the north and south of where we are now. There is no margin for error. A sounding that is out by even one metre could result in disaster for a ship. Shallows that are overlooked or wrongly positioned on a chart could wreak devastation.'

He paused and surveyed the crew, standing in a semicircle before him. Many