The Last Grain Race

I slipped into my bunk dressed in my soaking long underwear with two pullovers on top. On my head was a very hairy balaclava helmet, so that I looked like the subject of some hitherto unpublished photograph of a military man in the lines about Sebastopol. The fo’c’sle no longer seemed a human habitation. There were several inches of water on the floor, and trousers, seaboots and oilskins that had slipped from their hooks were moving gently backwards and forwards the whole length of it with a sucking sound.

Besides being my birthday, the 6th of December was a Finnish National Holiday. ‘Noh work,’ said Sedelquist. ‘Why?’ ‘Själfständighetsdagen – freedom from Russia.’ ‘Noh work,’ said Taanila. ‘Itsenäisyyspäivä.’ ‘Say that again.’ Taanila mouthed it happily several times. ‘What’s that in aid of?’ ‘Freedom from Russia too, but Finnish word,’ said Sedelquist. ‘If I was a Russian I’d be celebrating too,’ said Kroner who was passing. ‘You are a focking Bolscheviki,’ said Taanila, heatedly. ‘I am not a focking Bolscheviki,’ Kroner replied with good humour, ‘I’m a focking Fascist. But if I was, and you and Karma were living next door, I’d help you to liberate yourselves.’ Nothing else happened to mark the occasion, and Själfständighetsdagen, Itsenäisyyspäivä and my birthday were celebrated without rapture.