with a hand that looks like a club. I still prefer to think that I came by it from a swarthy knave and his bloodstained cutlass, but it goes against the grain to tell lies to a fellow officer.'
The snow was now falling very heavily. Welander's launch was already on its way to the greyish white buoys that marked where the previous day's soundings had finished.
Tobiasson-Svartman boarded his launch, the ratings started rowing and he prepared his lead. As it was snowing he had his chart, notebook and pens in a waterproof oilskin wallet.
The ratings were shivering in the snow. Two of them had bad colds and their noses were running. Tobiasson-Svartman was furious. He hated people with runny noses. But, of course, he made no comment. He was one of the disgraceful cowards Lieutenant Jakobsson had recently referred to.
They rowed towards the buoys. He stood in the stern, gazing at Halsskär and thinking about Sara Fredrika. The thought of her husband made him jealous.
The snow continued falling.
He felt as if the sea were keeping watch on him, like a sharp-eyed animal.
CHAPTER 41
Shortly after ten o'clock Welander shouted that he had come across a significant underwater peak. Over twenty metres the depth of water had decreased from sixty-three metres to nineteen. It was like coming upon a cliff wall that had risen unnoticed beneath the surface of the sea. Tobiasson-Svartman sank his own lead. The last sounding, a mere ten metres astern, had been fifty-two metres. He held his breath, hoping for the same measurement again. But his lead came to a stop after only seventeen metres. What he had feared had come to pass. They had hit upon an underwater ridge that had not previously been marked on charts.
The sea had raised its voice and refused to cooperate.
Instead of continuing along the transit line, he requested readings at right angles to the course the launches had been following so far. They must find out if the ridge was a long one or just an isolated stack. They took soundings every three metres and shouted the results to each other. Welander found depths of 19, 16, 16, 15 and then suddenly 7 metres, thereafter 7 again, then 4, followed by another jump to 2 metres. For a further stretch of a hundred metres the distance to the seabed was between 2 and 3 metres.
Tobiasson-Svartman had the same result. This was no minor irregularity: they had come across a stretch of shallow water that for some reason had hitherto been missed. Off the top of his head he could not remember it being mentioned as a good place for herring fishing in old documents describing the best fishing grounds around the Sandsänkan lighthouse.
The snow was falling even more heavily. He felt disappointed. The sea had tricked him.
He shouted to Welander, instructing him to stop work for the day. The thoroughly soaked ratings came to life. One of them yawned noisily as he took hold of his oar. A lump of yellowish-green snot was trickling down his upper lip. Tobiasson-Svartman stood up abruptly and hit the sailor in the face with the chart pouch. It was a hard blow, and blood appeared immediately on the rating's lip.
It all happened so quickly that nobody had time to react.
Weakness, Tobiasson-Svartman thought. Now I have made myself vulnerable. I lost control.
The ratings carried on rowing. He sat with his eyes fixed on Halsskär. Nobody spoke.
Over dinner, which consisted of roast beef, potatoes and pickled gherkin, he told Lieutenant Jakobsson about the invisible cliff wall.
'What are the implications?' Jakobsson asked.
'I shall be able to relocate the navigable channel closer to the mainland, but it will not be as wide as I had hoped.'
'So it hasn't been a complete failure?'
'No.'
He went on to speak of the other incident.
'I gave a rating a good dressing-down today. It was necessary. He wasn't rowing as he should have been. I hit him with the chart pouch.'
Needless to say, Jakobsson knew about it already. He smiled.
'Naturally, the crew has to be punished if they don't obey orders or fail to carry out their work properly. I must ask you, though, from curiosity purely, what are you doing when you are not "rowing as you should be"?'
'He was lazy.'
Jakobsson nodded slowly, and eyed him quizzically.
'I didn't think a shipping lane could be such a personal matter,' he said. 'I can understand that a ship might be. I have seen old captains and bosuns weep when their ship has been towed away to