"Death of a Captain"

"Death of a Captain"


Our month at anchor on the road of Africa port was lasting horribly long.
There was a war somewhere far away from the ship, but we could sometimes hear shooting sounds. We did not have a valuable cargo, so we had not been visited by pirates until now, but the atmosphere of expectation was very heavy.
Nobody knew how long we would have to wait for entry to the port.
The crew was not sleeping well in the hot cabins, and waited for a pirate attack.
One day the captain came to the bridge, carrying a piece of line and stated:
"I am going to hang myself."
The Second Officer, a Filipino, answered with a smile:
„Yes, sir."
But after a few hours we found out the captain was not joking, and he hanged himself in his bath.
The Filipino steward, who found him, was running like mad around the ship shouting: "The captain hanged himself!!! The captain hanged himself!!!"
When we cut down the captain, the story got out. We couldn’t rescue him because he was already gone.
"Jesus, Mary," groaned the weeping Filipino steward, "what will we do now??"
As Chief Officer, I took over command of the ship and began informing everybody concerned about what had happened. The captain's family was living in Hamburg. They asked for the body to be sent to them. The ship owner and I tried to settle this through the local agent. A few days passed with no success.
After 5 days of pressing, the agent declared he could not settle deportation of the body.
"There is a war; plenty of bodies lie on the streets. I cannot get the special metal coffin," lamented the agent.
The captain lay in his hot cabin because we could not put the body into the provisions refrigerator together with the meat. We had a small refrigerator, but it was not large enough for the captain.
One day the Filipino cook proposed to me that he cut the body into small parts so that it would fit into the refrigerator, but I would not agree.
The captain should remain in one piece- I said –I thought, maybe he wants prepare Captain’s soup...
But the stinking smell of the body was spreading throughout the ship.
At last, Hamburg sent a recommendation: to arrange a burial at sea.
I did not have any experience or practice with such a ceremony. So I called on the Filipino fitter and instructed him to make a coffin.
"But captain," he said,” we have no material to make a coffin!"
"Perhaps we have a tarpaulin?" I asked.
"No Sir, we do not have that either!" he responded.
"So just tear out a piece of the wall from the spare cabin and nail it together as a coffin, only load him well in the legs."
"Yes sir," answered the fitter with a smile.
After two days the coffin was finished. I heaved up the anchor and we sailed to the open sea. After an urgent study of the Bible, I chose a fragment which seemed to be appropriate under the circumstances. Loaded with heavy shackle and covered with a German flag, the coffin stood on the port side of the main deck.
All the crew was on the ship's side. I began the ceremony by praying for our captain. I read a suitable Psalm from the Bible and then ordered:
"Let go the coffin!!" just as I would for dropping anchor.
The coffin hit the water and broke into small parts. The captain floated out onto the surface of the water.
"Jesus, Mary," the steward swore to himself hysterically, and the rest of the crew became alarmed.
"Alarm! Boat Drill! Let's save the captain!" I shouted.
Filipinos threw themselves into a lifeboat and lowered it into the water very quickly. They caught the captain with a boat hook and drew the body into the lifeboat. We picked up the lifeboat and the captain was with us again.
"What do we do with him now?" asked the boatswain.
"Put him on the deck and let him dry," I said, confused.
We returned to anchorage. The captain lay on the deck and dried quickly in the tropical sun. Covered by a white sheet, his body was not disturbed.
The Filipinos walked on the other side of the ship, frightened that he would wake up. During the next few days I thought intensely about how to make a coffin, when suddenly the fitter knocked on my door.
"Captain, I have a good idea how to hide the Captain," he squeaked.
"Fucking shit!!! You already did one coffin. I told you to put heavy shackles in the captain's legs!" I shouted angrily.
"Sir, I put on shackles, but unfortunately I did not fasten them to the captain's legs. But this time captain I have a really good idea."
"OK. Go ahead."
"Captain, in hold number two we have in our cargo one steel pipe. I will cut that pipe and we can put the „Old Man” into this pipe."
"Not a bad idea," I thought. "OK," I agreed, „but after you cut, you have to weld both sides."
"Of course captain, we will make some holes in the pipe, so that it will sink."
"OK,” I said,” take some people and do it that way."
Just like the first time, we repeated the ceremony.
"Let the pipe go!" I ordered. But the pipe did not sink.
We sailed about two hours following the drifting pipe.
The frightened Filipinos said the captain would not sink, he would swim to Hamburg. Finally, water started to penetrate the pipe through the small holes and the Captain sunk into the Atlantic Ocean, far from his own country, close to an unfriendly African land.
Everything can happen at sea...and that is the sailor's life..