There came the dull glow of a lamp lit somewhere in the steerage, and enough light seeped through for me to see that I was surrounded by beams. The top bunk occupied by my father and brother, as well as the berths on either side of theirs, had partially collapsed onto the lower bunks, pinning my foot as it hung out into the walkway. The planks had stopped only a few inches from my face, caught by the barrier dividing my berth from the Geschkes’。
‘Hanne? Are you hurt?’
There was a shuffle and confusion of voices as the plank was lifted off my foot. More lamps were being lit amidst a rising chorus of exclamation, and shadows were thrown as people rose from their sleep. I saw my father’s face peer into the bunk.
‘Where’s Mama?’ I could not feel her next to me.
‘She is here with me and Matthias. Hermine also. We are all safe. Can you move your foot?’
‘I think so.’
‘We have sent someone for an iron to pull apart the rest of the planks. The bunk collapsed. It is too heavy for us to lift as a whole. It shouldn’t be long now.’
I attempted a smile, although alarm rose in me.
‘Good girl. It won’t be long.’
I felt Papa’s hand reach in and squeeze my undamaged foot.
It took some time for the right tools to be found, not least because many of those searching had to stop to retch and vomit. By the time the nails had been pulled from the broken bunk and the whole mess of wood lifted away, it seemed that every passenger had woken, crowding the walkway as the men examined the construction of their own families’ berths. After the final plank was lifted from my face and I was freed, Mama helped me out, limping, and I was finally able to see the extent of the damage. By lamplight I saw that an entire row of upper berths had buckled, swooping down like a wave and finally breaking over the place I had lain.
‘Why were you not trapped?’ I asked Mama.
‘I was unwell. I had stepped out to empty the bucket.’
The tween deck looked chaotic. Splintered wood and bent nails lay heaped upon the central table, and while most of the bunks remained aloft, it was clear that they, too, risked collapse. Most possessions had been hauled out and away from the berths, and children sat upon the bags and sheets and piles of clothes, blinking back into sleep as their parents worked themselves up into a state of quiet indignation and prayerful relief that no one had been killed. Everyone looked pallid, anxious. Knowing that we were at sea now, with no recourse to solid ground, or even adequate space to address the calamity, made the atmosphere fraught.
By the time I had found a space at the table, my injured foot raised on my mother’s lap, I noticed that the captain had entered the tween deck to survey the damage, recoiling a little at the smell. He said little, but his lips were thin with anger, and when my father showed him several bent nails gathered in evidence of poor workmanship, he closed his eyes, as if trying to control his frustration. I watched as they spoke to one another, the captain occasionally glancing at my father’s spoiled eye before shaking his hand and leaving.
My father picked his way through the crowd and dropped the nails on the bench beside us. They clattered onto the floor as the ship rose and fell.
‘Captain Olsen has given us permission to pull apart the beds and rebuild them. He will give us new nails at first light, when they might be sourced with less difficulty.’
Mama’s voice was small. ‘Where shall we sleep until then?’
Papa ran a hand through his hair. ‘We have permission to find space on the upper deck.’
‘In the cold and open.’
My father nodded and turned to me. ‘Are you badly hurt?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
‘It could have been her head, Heinrich.’
‘Praise God it was not.’
He tapped Matthias on the shoulder and together they began to wrench the nails out of the planks so that no one might be accidentally injured by their exposed ends. I lay along the bench, my head cushioned by Papa’s bundle of clothing. For all my foot throbbed, I relished the warmth of my mother’s lap beneath it and, when she believed me asleep, her hand gently sweeping its length.
My father spent the following day directing men on how best to repair the berths, growing increasingly frustrated as the hours passed. Matthias explained to me that it was proving useless.
‘Papa thinks the ship was not intended to carry emigrants: the berths have just been cobbled together without thought as to how they might bear the weight of sleeping men.’
After prayers at last light, the elders crowded around Dr Meissner and demanded a solution be found. Few wanted to risk nights atop a berth that might suddenly give way, and those who said they would not mind were soon drowned out by those who possessed the lower beds.