Wednesday 29 May 2013

The convoy sailed to deliver that cargo, not to rescue drowning sailors

"shipwrecked men would drift behind and disappear on the vast sea. The last trace of them would be the red distress lights on their life jackets. They were the lucky ones. As their body temperatures dropped, they'd drift into sleep, and then death [...] The red lights glowed on for a while longer [...] Knud Erik stood on the bridge, his hands on the wheel, and sailed into a whole poppy field of red distress lights [...] He'd heard the frantic pummelling against the ship when the life-jacketed survivors drifted alongside and desperately tried to push off so not to be caught by the screw propeller. The ship's wake foamed red with blood from the severed body parts"

- Carsten Jensen, We, the Drowned     

No comments:

Post a Comment