The Emigrants (55 page)

“Are you in pain?” asked Karl Oskar of his wife.

“No. No pain. I’m only tired—so tired.”

“It’s because of the blood you’ve lost. We must stop the bleeding.”

Kristina moved her head slowly to look at Johan, who was sitting at the foot of her bunk. The red runnels from her nostrils increased from this little movement.

“Lie quiet—please. Still!”

A weak whisper came like a gentle stir of air from her mouth: “If it doesn’t slow down I suppose I’ll die.”

“It must slow down.”

“But if there is no help?”

“There must be help somewhere.”

Johan listened attentively to his parents and gazed at them with large eyes. He was not old enough to understand everything, but he had a child’s intuition. He began to cry: “I don’t want Mother to bleed any more. I don’t want her to.”

“Keep quiet, boy!” said the father. “Lie down and go to sleep!”

Lill-Märta and Harald were sleeping peacefully on the inside of the bunk against the hull. Outside the sea wailed, the waves broke and crashed against the ship. There had been a storm again during the day, and tonight it blew harder than before. A child cried in its sleep, somewhere in its pen. A woman snored noisily. Between the woman’s snorings the rolling masses of water could be heard breaking against the side of the ship.

The ship rolled heavily. Kristina lay there and rolled on her bunk, they all rolled—the sick and the healthy.

Someone shouted angrily because a light was lit: could one never sleep in peace? But Karl Oskar was oblivious to sounds, he heard neither the sea outside nor the people around him. He stood bent over his bleeding wife: this flow of blood could not go on for very long. If it didn’t stop she would die; if it weren’t stopped very soon, he would be a widower before the night was over.

He stood at the side of his fellow worker, his bedmate, his children’s mother, and life was ebbing away from her—from her who was the most indispensable human being in the world. Was God going to take her from him—as He took Anna? What must he do? Must he stand by, completely at a loss, wretched and helpless? He must do something. One must always do what one could, use one’s senses to the best of one’s ability, never believe matters were hopeless. He had never given up, and he could not give up now when Kristina’s life was at stake.

At home in the parish there had been many blood-stanchers; here on the ship he knew of none. But perhaps there was one human being here who could help.

“I’m going to call the captain.”

“We dare not—” Kristina’s voice was hardly audible. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“The captain must help us. He cannot refuse!”

Their captain had charge of the medicine chest on board, and was supposed to take a doctor’s place. He was austere and brusque and the passengers were afraid of him; the seamen too held him in awe. He had never shown feelings of compassion for the sick or dying in the hold. The sick obtained medicines from his chest until they recuperated or died, and when they died he officiated at their funerals and lowered the corpses into the sea. The emigrants thought he was a hard, unfeeling person. But Karl Oskar decided to seek him out. He could not deny help when one of his passengers was in the throes of death.

“Don’t go, Karl Oskar,” entreated Kristina. “It’s no use.”

Yes, he knew that Kristina thought it preordained that she was to die here on the ship, that she was never to reach America. But he did not agree. His thought was always that nothing was so definite as to be unchangeable. If one tries, perhaps one can change things. One is forced to try.

“I’ll be back at once.”

Karl Oskar rushed away. After some trouble he was able to open the hatch, and reached deck, feeling his way in the darkness. The weather was rough tonight. Heavy waves washed over and broke against the deck. He immediately became drenched to his waist. But he hardly noticed it. He must get to the afterdeck. He skidded and fell on the slippery deck planks, he rose and fell again. Tonight the whole ship was in danger, but he did not care: the ship might go down, anything might happen, but they must stanch Kristina’s blood.

He held on to ropes and lines and found his way to the hatch on the afterdeck through which a ladder led down to the captain’s cabin.

He knocked heavily on the door. Only at his third knocking could he hear a powerful, penetrating voice: “What in hell do you want?”

Karl Oskar opened the door and stepped inside. Captain Lorentz had been asleep, and was now sitting upright in his bunk. He had been sleeping with his trousers on. His gray hair was tousled and stood straight out over his forehead like the horns of a ram. If any man ever looked ready to gore, it was the
Charlotta
’s captain at this moment.

“My wife is bleeding to death. I wanted to ask you to do something for it, Mr. Captain.”

Captain Lorentz had thought that some one of the crew was calling him for urgent reasons of duty—for other reasons no one on the ship would dare to disturb him—but nevertheless he had given out an angry grunt. When he now discovered that the trespasser in his cabin in the middle of the night was one of the passengers, his astonishment was so great that he could only glare at the intruder.

“She’s bleeding. We can’t stanch it—I’m afraid she’s giving out!”

The captain yawned, opening his ugly pike-mouth. He needed his sleep more than any other person on the ship. This God-damned weather—because of this weather he had been forced to stay awake more than anyone on board these last days. The damned peasants could take a snooze whenever they pleased, they were not responsible for anything on board. He ought to tell this big-nosed farmer to go to hell. He thought he would—but he didn’t.

The man stood there and repeated that his wife was dying. To this the captain couldn’t answer that he himself was sleeping. Lost sleep a person might regain, but once he had lost his life it was not easy to get it back.

Lorentz had recognized Karl Oskar by his big nose: the Finn had spoken of him, he was supposed to be one of the more smart-aleck peasants. Hadn’t the mate been forced to tell him off?

Yet he might need help if his wife were lying at death’s door. She couldn’t be too old, the man himself was rather young.

“Has your wife been bleeding long?”

Karl Oskar gave a description of what had happened, and the captain listened.

“Hm, from the scurvy, no doubt. I recognize it.”

“You see, she is with child also.”

“Hm, that too. Well, it doesn’t sound good.”

The captain stepped down from his bunk. Then he pulled on boots and a slicker. Karl Oskar followed his movements with a grateful look.

“We’ll see if we can’t stanch the blood.”

Lorentz searched for his
Medical Adviser for Seafarers.
He found it among the papers on his table and opened it:

“Bleeding from mouth or nose can in some cases be so strong and last so long that it becomes dangerous.

“Treatment: If the bleeding becomes strong enough to weaken the sick person, one may attempt to stanch the blood flow by bringing the patient out into fresh and cool air, then make packs from sea water and place over forehead, nose, back of the neck, and if this does not help, also around the sexual organs. In very severe cases one may bind a towel around each of the four limbs, above the elbows and the knees, so as to stop the blood in these parts.

“If there is suspicion of scurvy . . .”

It had been a long time since the
Charlotta
’s captain had last stanched blood—he had had to refreshen his knowledge. From a chest he pulled out some clean rough linen towels which he threw over his arm. Then he lit a small hand lantern and followed the young farmer up the ladder.

While crossing the deck Karl Oskar nearly fell down twice as the
Charlotta
dove into the waves; both times the captain grabbed hold of his shoulder and steadied him. “Hell of a choppy sea tonight.”

The captain himself followed the movements of the ship as if his feet had been nailed down with seven-inch spikes to the planks of the deck.

Kristina lay with closed eyes as they approached her bunk.

“Here comes the captain—”

Slowly she opened her eyes.

Captain Lorentz took one look at her face, then at the pan with the blood, and he thought to himself: This has gone too far; anyone who has lost such a pool of blood must also lose life. This woman had suffered from scurvy for a long time, that he could see.

And now the end was near. He felt sorry for the bleeding woman; she was still in her youth, no doubt she had been good-looking in her healthy days. Her husband would need her to get along in North America. And a pity about the three brats, too, lying there curled up together in the family pen; the lot of the motherless was doubly hard in life. And this woman was supposed to have another child inside her—they were regular rabbits, these peasants, dropping offspring like that. This whole emigration to North America was caused by crowded conditions, the result of constant spawning and multiplying in their cottages and bed-pens.

How much better it would have been for this poor young couple had they not attempted to cross the ocean. Then the wife’s young life might have been spared, the youthful husband would not have needed to become a widower, the three children motherless.

The captain looked from the wife to the husband: poor devil!

To Karl Oskar the face of the captain was as hard as if carved from a piece of wood. He thought: That man can never have any sympathy for other creatures.

“We will try to stanch.”

Lorentz was, after all, going to do what he could. He sent Karl Oskar after a bucket of fresh sea water, soaked his towels, and laid them as cold packs around the head of the sick woman. He had still a few towels left which he did not soak; he tied these around Kristina’s limbs, near elbows and knees. He tied the knots as hard as he could; she groaned faintly, and he knew it hurt, but they must be tight if what blood was still left in these limbs was to remain.

When a patient bled so profusely a cold pack should be laid around the sexual organs as well. But Lorentz omitted this: the women of the peasantry had a deep-rooted shame for that part of the body, and Kristina might have become frightened and tried to defend herself if he had as much as uncovered her stomach. When he touched her body her eyes opened wide and full of fear, as if he were trying to kill her. He was sure that no man other than her husband had ever laid hands on or come near this young farm woman.

What he could do here was soon done—no doctor in the world could do more. Before he left he gave Karl Oskar his instructions: Kristina must remain absolutely still in this position on her back, and the wet towels about her head must be changed every hour so as to keep them cool.

It sounded brusque and final, it was an order from the commander of the ship. Karl Oskar would have liked to know how to manage in keeping his wife’s body still in the bunk with the heavy rolling of the seas.

Captain Lorentz returned to his cabin. Now there would be no more sleep for him tonight. If this storm kept on increasing they must reef down to the very rigging. A skipper could never take his rest when he needed it, only when he could get it. But first he must sit for a moment and squeeze his girl on the ale-stoup, his most pleasant occupation while resting. Her muscles were hard, hard as stone, and she did not warm the hands of a man, but she was always there, always to be relied on. The girls with the soft flesh, the fickle ones, had belonged to his younger years; the girl on the stoup was a woman for a seaman’s old age.

The young peasant and his dying wife lingered yet for a moment in the mind of the
Charlotta
’s captain. He wondered if the loss would break the man. But most of these greedy, earth-hungry peasants hardly cared about the human being in their wives: when they mourned them they mourned mostly their loss of labor. And the farmer with the big nose would soon find comfort and another female beast of burden in America. He seemed a capable man, and capable men went without women less than others. It was the men with strong natures who did most of the things in this world. What a pity this fellow was a peasant—had he been born near the coast, instead of inland, he would no doubt have made a very able seaman.

Now they were nearing the end of their voyage—the seventh for the
Charlotta
as emigrant ship. It had been a pleasant voyage with moderate storms. The mortality on board had also been moderate: seven deaths among seventy-eight passengers; there had been more among fewer on other crossings. Apparently the eighth death was to take place; for the eighth time this voyage he must fulfill the duties of minister.

It was indeed true—people were the most unhealthy cargo a vessel possibly could carry: “. . . a great deal of attention was then required from the captain . . .” Who knew this better than the captain on the brig
Charlotta
?

Happy those captains who carried other cargo across the seas! They might sometimes get a wink of sleep, even on a stormy night.

—2—

Karl Oskar had changed the cold pack once; but the bleeding from Kristina’s nose was continuing as before.

Johan had at last gone to sleep. He lay across the bunk, over his mother’s legs. Lill-Märta was dreaming and talking in her sleep about a cake which someone wanted to take away from her. From the neighboring bunks came groans and puffs. The woman who had already snored for hours snored still louder. And outside, against the side of the ship, the Atlantic Ocean heaved as it had heaved during all tempests since the day of creation. Kristina lay there and rocked on her bunk, as she had rocked many nights and days. The ship rolled, and Karl Oskar grabbed hold of the bunk planks now and then so as not to fall off the stool on which he was sitting.

Now and again he lit his piece of taper and looked at his wife. She lay mostly with her eyes closed, but at times they would open and then he tried to gain her recognition. But she was away from her eyes, he could not find her there. He sat by her but she was not with him. Another woman snored. Some people snored, while others lay at death’s door. And from the pen of the Kärragärde people an even, monotonous mumble was occasionally heard. It was prayer; Danjel was praying. He must, then, be awake now. Inga-Lena lay very sick, but she denied her illness and insisted she was well—who could fathom these Åkians?