Depths - By Henning Mankell & Laurie Thompson Page 0,19

the bottom.'

Jakobsson thought that over for a while.

'That ought to be enough to save my crew from worrying if he'll be coming back up to the surface again. Sailors can be as superstitious as hell. But the same applies to commanding officers if things are really bad.'

He poured himself another drink, and Tobiasson-Svartman did not say no.

'I shall spend a lot of time wondering about why he drowned,' Jakobsson said. 'I know I'll never know the answer, but I won't be able to forget him. Our meeting was brief. He lay on the deck of my ship under a piece of grey tarpaulin. Then he departed again. Even so, he will be with me for the rest of my life.'

'What will happen to his belongings? The miniature, the picture of the dog? His pay book?'

'I'll send them to Stockholm together with my report. I assume they'll eventually be sent to Germany. Sooner or later Frau Richter will find out what happened to her son. I know of no civilised nation where the procedures for dealing with dead soldiers and sailors are not meticulously observed.'

Tobiasson-Svartman stood up to prepare for resuming work. Lieutenant Jakobsson raised a hand to indicate that he had something more to say.

'I have a brother who's an engineer,' he said. 'He has been working for a number of years at the German naval yards in Gotenhafen and Kiel. He tells me that the German shipbuilders are considering making incredibly big vessels. With a deadweight of getting on for 50,000 tonnes, half of which is accounted for by the armour-plating. In some places that will be thirty-five centimetres thick. These ships will have crews comprising two thousand men and more, they'll be floating towns with access to everything you can think of. Presumably there'll be an undertaker or two on board as well. I suppose one of these days ships like that will come into being. I wonder what will happen to the human race, though. We could never have skin thirty-five centimetres thick, a skin that could withstand the biggest shells. Will the human race survive? Or will we end up fighting wars that never end, with nobody able to remember how they started, and nobody able to envisage them ending?'

Jakobsson poured himself another drink.

'The war that's being fought now could be the beginning of what I'm talking about. Millions of soldiers are going to die simply because one man was murdered in Sarajevo. Some insignificant Crown prince. Does that make any sense? Of course it doesn't. The bottom line is that war is always a mistake. Or the result of absurd assumptions and conclusions.'

Jakobsson did not appear to expect any comment. He replaced the bottle in its cupboard, then left the mess.

Just as he stepped out on to the deck he swayed and stumbled. But he did not turn round.

Tobiasson-Svartman remained in the mess, thinking over what he had just heard.

How thick was his own skin? How big a shell would it be able to resist?

What did he know about Kristina Tacker's skin, apart from the fact that it was fragrant?

For a moment he was overcome by utter panic. He was transfixed, as if poison were spreading all over his body. Then he got a grip on himself, took a deep breath and went on deck.

CHAPTER 37

They started work again and managed to complete eighty soundings before dusk.

That evening they were served baked flounder, potatoes and a thin, tasteless sauce. Lieutenant Jakobsson was very subdued and did no more than poke at his food.

Tobiasson-Svartman copied the day's notes into the main record book. When he had finished he felt restless and went on deck.

Once again it seemed to him that there was something glinting on Halsskär. As before, he put it down to his imagination.

That night he slept clutching his sounding lead. He cleaned it thoroughly every day, but he thought it smelled of mud from the bottom of the sea.

CHAPTER 38

He woke up with a start. It was dark in the cabin. The lead was next to his left arm. Water was lapping gently against the hull as the ship slowly rolled. He could hear the nightwatchman coughing on deck. It did not sound good, it had a rattling quality. The man's footsteps faded away as he moved aft.

He had been dreaming. There had been horses, and men whipping them. He had tried to intervene, but they ignored him. Then he understood that he was about to be whipped himself. At that point he woke