Between Two Seas Read Online Free PDF

‘You have a long woyage. Someone is meeting you?’
    I can’t help smiling at his mistake, though I wish I spoke his language half as well as he speaks mine.
    ‘No. I don’t know yet how I’ll travel.’
    Jens looks at me, and I think I see some admiration in his eyes. For the first time, I’m slightly less afraid of my journey. I feel instead a little like an intrepid explorer, setting out alone to undiscovered corners of the world.
    ‘There’s a train,’ he tells me. ‘From Esbjerg. But I think it cost a lot of money.’
    I’m about to ask him more, but Jens is watching his father loudly reprimanding Torben for some ill-done piece of work. Torben has been sullen since the incident in the cabin. Jens scowls as he watches him. He leans towards me and speaks in a lowered voice.
    ‘It’s the first time he fishes with us,’ he tells me. ‘My father says the last. He’s lazy, and not a good fisher.’
    I want to thank Jens for continuing to shield me from Torben, but I don’t know how, and I can feel myself blushing as I try to find the words. Even as I draw breath to begin, he moves away from me to help his father with the sail.
    I lean back against the mast, wrapping my cloak more closely about me, and take a deep breath of the fresh air. It fills me with courage.

SIX
     

Esbjerg, September 1885
     
    I don’t know what I expected Denmark to look like. Beautiful and magical perhaps, as it does in my dreams. But at first sight it’s not so very different to Grimsby. There are sand flats outside the harbour with wading birds and seagulls. As we come closer, I see the houses look unfamiliar. They are lower, and mainly thatched.
    What strikes me as most different is an indefinable change in the quality of the light. It is stronger, bluer, and the sky looks bigger somehow. I tell myself I’m being fanciful, but the impression remains.
    Captain Larsen hands me off the ship and onto the quayside. My legs tremble beneath me as I stand on solid ground at last, waiting for Torben to carry my trunk off the Ebba. The boat looks battered by the storm: her paintwork has suffered and her mainsail is torn.
    Torben dumps the trunk ungraciously at my feet and climbs back on board without so much as looking at me.
    I’m glad to see the last of him.
    ‘Where shall you go?’ the captain asks me brusquely.
    I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.
    This is a busy harbour, much like Grimsby. There is a huge amount of building work being done. I’ve seen them extending the docks in Grimsby over the years, and the same thing is happening here.
    This part is the fishing harbour, and mainly filled with boats similar to the Ebba . In the distance I can see freight ships being unloaded, and I can hear the clang of metal on metal, drowning the nearer sound of the seagulls. I’m aware that I’m in a country where I don’t speak the language. I feel small and alone, but don’t want to show it.
    ‘I need to find an inn,’ I tell him firmly. ‘Can you recommend one? Not too expensive … ’ I add self-consciously.
    The captain calls out something to Jens who is helping the other men unload the crates of fish packed in ice, and then he nods in my direction.
    ‘My son will show you,’ he says.
    Jens steps off the boat, lifts my trunk onto his shoulder, and begins to walk along the quayside. I pick up my carpet bag and turn to follow him. To my horror, what I had thought was firm ground beneath my feet suddenly sways and lurches and I stagger. The three men on board the Ebba laugh. Jens turns to see what the joke is and grins to see me attempt another unsteady step.
    ‘It strange on the land again,’ he says. ‘You soon be used to it.’
    I struggle after him, swaying on my feet. I’ve barely eaten for days and the effort of walking is making me shake. I look around me at the buildings, the boats, and the people, and it all seems so real, so solid. I can smell fish and machinery. Gulls are fighting over discarded fish