Depths (5 page)

The evening before Lars Tobiasson-Svartman started on his mission, a petty officer came to his cabin to tell him that Captain Rake wanted to give him the final instructions.

He put on his naval jacket and hurried up the slippery companionway. The crescent moon kept appearing through the clouds. The
Svea
was anchored to the northeast of the Häradskär lighthouse.

He paused halfway up the stairs and gazed out over the dark sea to where the lights of gunboats could be seen. The Häradskär light had been turned off. He thought about all the shells, all the torpedoes out there. Every vessel was laden with the man-made fury known as dynamite or gunpowder.

The hardest place to estimate distances was over open water, but not when it was dark. He judged the nearest gunboat to be 140 metres distant, with a margin of error no greater than ten metres either way.

Before entering the captain's quarters, he removed his dark blue naval cap.

Rake offered him a brandy. Normally, Tobiasson-Svartman never touched alcohol when he was working, but he could not bring himself to refuse it.

Rake emptied his glass and said: 'They are very much concerned in Stockholm, and rightly so. They say on the wireless that Russian and German naval vessels have been sighted to the east of Gotland. But there haven't been any reports of action. The whole of the Gotland coastline is crammed full of people with good hearing, straining to detect the sound of guns or torpedoes.'

'There's no concern worse than the sort you feel when you don't know what's going on,' said Tobiasson-Svartman. 'Concern based on knowledge is always easier to handle.'

Rake handed him the sheet of paper he was holding.

'Nobody knows if any of these nations intend attacking Sweden. We are going to switch off all our lighthouses and creep down into our burrows.'

'Are people worried more about the Russians or the Germans?'

'Both. You don't need to be one of the navy's most experienced officers or even the Minister of Defence to know that. On the one hand both Germany and Russia have an interest in Sweden being kept out of the war. On the other hand both of them probably suspect that Sweden won't be able to hang on to its neutrality in the long run. That could lead to either or both of them launching a pre-emptive strike. The other possibility, of course, is that they decide to leave us alone. Being an insignificant country can be both an advantage and a drawback.'

Tobiasson-Svartman read through the list of lighthouses that had been switched off, and which other navigation marks had been covered up or hastily dismantled. He could picture the sea charts. At night in total darkness it would be very difficult for a foreign warship to sail through the archipelago.

Rake had rolled out a chart on his table and placed an ashtray on each corner. It covered the area between Gotska Sandön and the southern tip of Gotland. He pointed at a spot out to sea.

'A German convoy – comprising a couple of cruisers, a few small destroyers, torpedo boats, minesweepers and probably some submarines – has been seen here, travelling north. They are said to be travelling at speed, around twenty knots. They were on a level with Slite when they were spotted by a fishing boat from Fårösund. At four o'clock this afternoon they vanished into a belt of fog north-east of Gotska Sandön. At about the same time another fishing boat discovered a number of Russian ships also on their way north, but a bit further to the east. The skipper of the fishing boat was not sure of their exact course. He wasn't sure about anything, in fact. He might well have been drunk. Even so, he can't very well have imagined it all. In my view – and the Naval HQ in Stockholm agrees – the two convoys can hardly have been in contact with each other. We can assume that they are not cooperating and have different intentions. But what? Who are they aiming at? We don't know. They could be diversionary moves, intended to create confusion. Uncertainty is always more difficult to cope with at sea than on land. But the lighthouses have been switched off anyway. Those in charge in Stockholm evidently don't dare to take any risks.'

Rake picked up the bottle and looked questioningly at Tobiasson-Svartman, who shook his head and then regretted it immediately. Rake filled his own glass, but not to the brim this time.

'Does this affect my mission?'

'Only in that from now on, everything has to proceed at great speed. In wartime you can never assume that there will be plenty of time available. And that's the situation we're in now.'

The conversation with Rake was at an end. The captain seemed 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.

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.

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 of them were young, barely twenty. They eyed him expectantly.

'We'll be looking for what cannot be seen,' he went on. 'But because it cannot be seen, that doesn't mean it isn't there. There could be sandbanks just below the surface that have not previously been discovered or charted. There might also be unexpected depths. We shall be looking for both of these features. We'll be mapping out a route along which our warships can proceed in safety. Any questions?'

Nobody had a question. The gunboat rocked up and down in the swell.

The rest of the day was spent establishing the necessary routines and organising reliable procedures. Lieutenant Jakobsson plainly had the confidence of his crew. Tobiasson-Svartman could see that he had been lucky. A naval officer forced to hand over his cabin to a colleague on a temporary, confidential mission could easily have reacted sourly, but Lieutenant Jakobsson did not seem put out. He gave the impression of being one of those rare people who do not conceal their true character behind a false front. In that respect Lieutenant Jakobsson was the opposite of himself.

The routines were duly established. Every fourth day he would report to Captain Rake. It was estimated that in ideal weather conditions the destroyer would pass their position every ninety-sixth hour. Rake had at his disposal cryptographers who would encode Tobiasson-Svartman's reports and transmit them to Naval Headquarters. Within a few days the changes that needed to be made to the charts would be with the cartographers in Stockholm. The work would proceed at tremendous speed.

Late that afternoon Lieutenant Jakobsson fixed an exact bearing. They were three degrees north-north-east of the Sandsänkan lighthouse. According to the latest charts the depths around the Juliabåden buoy were twelve, twenty-three and fourteen metres.

Tobiasson-Svartman gave the order that the
Blenda
should stay where it was until the following day. This was where the measuring work would begin.

He studied the sea through his telescope, scrutinising the distant horizon, and the lighthouses within view. Then he closed his eyes, but without taking away the telescope.

He dreamed of the day when only in exceptional circumstances would he need the help of various instruments. He dreamed of the day when he himself had become the only instrument he needed.

The following day. Three minutes past seven. Lars Tobiasson-Svartman was on deck. The sun was hidden behind low clouds. He was dressed in uniform. It was plus four degrees, and almost dead calm. A musty smell of seaweed was coming from the sea. He was tense, nervous about the work that was about to begin, afraid of all the mistakes waiting in store for him, mistakes he hoped not to make.

A submerged sandbank long used by herring fishermen, marked on the charts as Olsklabben, was 150 metres to the west of the ship. He had in one of his suitcases an archive that he always carried around with him. He had read in an old tax roll that this sandbank had been 'used by fishermen and seal hunters since the sixteenth century and belonged to the Crown'.

The sun broke through the clouds. He noticed a drift net, gliding through the water. He did not realise what it was at first. Perhaps some tufts of seaweed had been disturbed by the anchor? Then he realised it was a net that had broken loose. There were dead fish caught in the mesh, and the carcass of a duck.

It occurred to him that he was looking at an image of freedom. The drift net stood for freedom. A prison that had broken loose, with some of its dead prisoners still clinging to their bars that were the mesh.

Freedom is always taking flight, he thought. He watched the net until it had drifted out of sight. Then he turned to Lieutenant Jakobsson, who had come to stand beside him.

'Freedom is always taking flight,' he said.

Jakobsson looked at him in surprise.

'I beg your pardon?'

'Oh, nothing. Just a line from a poem, I think. Maybe something of Rydberg's? Or Fröding?'

There was a long pause. Then Lieutenant Jakobsson clicked his heels and saluted.

'Breakfast is served in the wardroom. Somebody who is used to the space available on a destroyer will find that everything is much more cramped on a gunboat. Here we cannot have crew members who make sweeping gestures. You can speak loudly, but not wave your arms about.'

'I don't expect special privileges, and very seldom do I wave my arms about.'

When he had finished breakfast, which consisted mainly of an over-salty omelette, it was a quarter past eight Two grey-painted launches, each seven metres long, were lowered into the water. Sub-Lieutenant Welander, the naval engineer, took command of one of the launches, and Tobiasson-Svartman the other. Each of the boats carried three oarsmen and a rating selected to take charge of the sounding lines.

* * *

They started sounding along a line leading south-west from Sandsänkan lighthouse. Tobiasson-Svartman's aim was to find out if it were possible for ships with a bigger draught than the ones given on the present chart to pass this far into the archipelago, shielded by the surrounding skerries and rocks.

Sounding lines were lowered and raised, depths established and compared with the figures on the charts. Tobiasson-Svartman was in overall charge, giving instructions when necessary. He took some measurements himself as well, the brass of his instrument gleaming as it glided up and down through the water. Readings were noted down in a diary.

The sea was calm. There was a strange atmosphere of peace around the boats, the sounding leads sinking and rising, the figures being called out, repeated then noted down. The oarsmen rowed as noiselessly as they could. Every sound bounced back and forth over the water.

On board the
Blenda
Lieutenant Jakobsson smoked his pipe and talked non-stop to one of the stokers about a leaking cooling tube. It was a friendly chat, like good-natured conversation outside church after a service.

Tobiasson-Svartman squinted into the sun and estimated the distance to the
Blenda
as sixty-five metres.

They progressed gradually westwards. The two launches proceeded with slow, steady strokes of the oars, on a parallel course, five metres apart.