Depths - By Henning Mankell & Laurie Thompson Page 0,44

the diaries inside it, together with some steel edging he had kicked loose from the floor.

He went out on deck, walked to a point by the rail where none of the lookouts could see him, and dropped the diaries into the sea.

Somewhere in the distance one of the watchmen started coughing. The moon was half full, and its reflection formed a path over the water between the ship and the Sandsänkan lighthouse.

He remained by the rail for a long time. Even if he did not recognise himself in what the diaries had said about him, he could not get away from the fact that, as far as Jakobsson was concerned, it was the truth. It was what he had taken with him into death. No one could bring it back.

CHAPTER 68

On 2 December an easterly gale was blowing over the sea to the north of Gotland.

The Svea had appeared on the horizon at about nine in the morning. That afternoon Tobiasson-Svartman packed his bags and said goodbye to the officers. He thanked the ratings who helped him with his work the previous day. Mats Lindegren did not put in an appearance, however; but Tobiasson-Svartman had not ordered him to turn up.

Later in the evening he was invited to a little party in the gunroom. Fredén, the new commanding officer, had given his permission on condition that they were not too noisy, in view of the fact that they had a dead man on board. One of the petty officers and the chief engineer had good singing voices and performed some sea shanties. They had drunk punch laced with liberal quantities of aquavit. When they were all drunk, of course, they started talking about the dead man. Several of the officers present maintained that Lieutenant Jakobsson had approved of and been impressed by Tobiasson-Svartman's work. He did not need to make an effort in order to appear surprised. But he did not feel up to staying long at the impromptu party and withdrew, saying he had some reports to finish.

The last he heard before dropping off to sleep was the deep but unclear male voices singing, possibly in Italian.

When he left the gunboat and walked along the gangway for the last time, he glanced over his shoulder, as if to make sure that Jakobsson had not returned to life.

Two ratings helped carry his bags to the same cabin as he had occupied at the beginning of his mission.

He stood quite still in the cabin. He was back at the beginning once more.

Captain Rake welcomed him on board. He had shaved off all his hair and gave the impression of being very tired. His left eye was infected and running. His eczema was in full bloom.

They sat down. Captain Rake served brandy, despite the fact that it was not yet noon.

'I'm a man who lives in accordance with strict routines,' Rake said. 'I hate any form of lax discipline. People can never achieve dignity if they don't recognise the importance of obeying both themselves and others. But now and then I allow myself one little step from the straight and narrow. One example is the occasional indulgence in a glass of spirits before lunch, and possibly even two.'

They drank each other's health.

'All these dead bodies,' muttered Rake out of the blue. 'On the way here my bosun Rudin died. Then you fished up that corpse wearing the uniform of a German sailor. And now Lieutenant Jakobsson. Was it his heart?'

'His heart or his brain.'

Rake nodded and stroked his shaven head. Tobiasson-Svartman noticed that Rake's finger was shaking.

'It's the tiny blood vessels we can't see that can be our weakest point,' Rake said. 'When they burst we are sent into free fall, which leads to death and the grave, or paralysis and an iron lung, to an instant's agony or long-drawn-out and horrific suffering.'

He screwed up his eyes and stared hard at Tobiasson-Svartman.

'What is your weakness? You don't need to tell me if you don't want to, of course. It's a man's right not to reveal the misery he is saddled with. Weakness and misery are the same thing in my book. It's merely a question of which word you choose.'

It seemed to Tobiasson-Svartman that his weakness was a woman who lived alone on a skerry half a nautical mile south-west of the destroyer he was on. But he did not say so. Rake was somebody he was now looking forward to saying goodbye to for ever.

'I have many weaknesses,' he said. 'It's