Sven and his Friends

Hans K. Maeder

Copyright © 2014 Gunter Nabel

Published in English 2014 by Gunter Nabel

Verlag: epubli GmbH, Berlin, www.epubli.de

ISBN 978-3-8442-9249-7

CHAPTER I

Sven was standing by the telegraph office in the big main railway Station at Copenhagen. That was the agreed meeting place, by the telegraph office, but Sven had arrived much earlier than the others because he had had to come in from the suburbs. He looked rather a forlorn little boy as he stood there all alone, with his luggage beside him. He was wearing his holiday clothes - shorts and an open-necked shirt, and he had untidy hair and bony knees. He felt a little lonely, too. He knew it was only a passing feeling, because the station was so large and empty in the morning. He knew that soon he’d be eager and excited again just as he had been when his grandmother told him he could go on this trip. For the first time in his thirteen years he was going out of Denmark. He was going to visit Germany. More than that, he was going to a camp where there would be boys from 14 different countries; France, England, Hungary, Italy, all sorts of countries; that to Sven were just patches of red and blue and green on the map. He took another look around the Station. If only Börge would arrive!

Sven wondered what they’d be like, those foreign boys. Would he be able to understand them? Would he like them? Would they all be a lot bigger than he? He hadn’t thought of asking any of these questions before. A man had come to his school in Copenhagen to tell the boys about this summer camp. At once he knew he wanted to go. And so did his best friend Börge. He was a fine person to do things with. He could handle a sail boat, he knew how to fish. He could swim faster and further than anyone in Sven’s class. Of course he wanted to go to the International camp. As the two boys walked through the busy streets of Copenhagen that afternoon on their way to the Station where Sven took his train to Gentofle, they had talked about it.

"I wonder if mom and dad will let me go," sighed Börge. "You know, Sven, I think I will point out what a lot of good it will do to improve my language skills." Börge certainly wasn’t a shining success at languages in school.

"That’s a good idea," said Sven seriously. “What languages do you suppose we’ll speak there?"

"Well, I don’t think many of the kids will know Danish. We’ll probably have to use English, French or German most of the time. English, ugh! It’s all right for you, Sven, you’re good at it."

Sven was calculating. "It’s a long way to go, isn’t it?" he asked.

"Oh, not really," replied Börge, in his best grown-up voice, as if he’d been travelling all over the world most of his life. "It only takes a day and a half."

The camp was on one of the Frisian Islands - that long string of flat low pieces of land, some of them reclaimed from the sea, that border the North Seacoast of Germany and Denmark. Suederoog was the name of the island where the camp was located. The boys had looked for it in their school atlases but it was much too small to be marked. Sven had made a little penboard ocil mark where he thought it was; well out to sea amongst the southern group of islands which are part of Germany.

Sven could see that bit of map in his mind’s eye now as he watched the paperboys rush out of the Station with the first editions. He had studied it so often, especially since he knew he was going to Suederoog. He could see just how the coast curved, how the islands lay parallel with it as though they had been nibbled off by a huge sea monster that didn’t stay to gobble them up. More likely nibbled off by the sea thought Sven.

"Hello kid, what are you looking so worried about," boomed a hearty voice in his ear; and there was Edvard. He was from Sven’s school, too, and his father had come along to see him off. Soon Sven was surrounded by boys with their parents and friends. A moment later he caught sight of Barge’s red head coming through the Station door. Sven just had time to say hello to him when the group leader arrived and started counting up the boys. They were all there, twenty-one of them, so everyone trooped off to the platform.

The train was waiting and they all piled in. Suddenly everyone seemed to have something important to say. A group of mothers surrounded the counselor reminding him of their sons’ particular needs in diet and clothing, others were calling instructions to their boys through the train window, fathers suddenly pulled out their pocketbooks and produced extra kroner’s for pocket money, and there was a last minute handing over of candy and cookies for the journey. Sven hardly noticed that he had no one there to see him off, for Börge’s mother was chatting with him. She had made him a boxful of his favorite almond-brittle. She knew that Sven had lost his mother and father when he was quite small. He had lived with his grandmother since he was two years old.

At last there was a jolt, and amidst shouts of goodbye they were off. It was a long journey without any interesting scenery or remarkable places to pass through, but Sven wasn’t bored. He soon found himself talking to a group of boys from other schools in Copenhagen. Then there was the fun of having lunch on the train. After that the excitement of crossing the frontier.

This was the summer of 1939 when you had only to show your passport and baggage to cross the border from one country to another, but for Sven it was an adventure even to do that. As soon as the train pulled out of the frontier station he peered eagerly out of the window. He was secretly a little disappointed to find that the landscape had not suddenly changed. Even the people didn’t look so very different from those he had seen from the train in Denmark.

By the time they reached Husum, Sven was getting tired of the train. It was late afternoon as the boys climbed out and assembled on the quay for the next stage of the journey. Husum was a tiny seacoast town and here they were to take a boat out to the island. A large fishing boat was already waiting for them and in it Sven could see a crowd of hoys, all sizes. Some looked about his own age, some 16 or 17.

"On board you go." called the counselor and they all swung their knapsacks over their shoulders and jumped down on to the roomy deck of the trawler.

Sven and Börge had only just found somewhere to sit near the stern, when a bell clanged three times. The old bearded fisherman in charge of the boat shouted an order, the engines started up, and soon they were out of the harbor and heading out to the North Sea. There was so much to take in that for the first few minutes the boys were all eyes and ears. Presently Börge leaned across to Sven.

"The boys over here on my right are speaking French," he whispered.

"Why don’t you talk to them?" replied Sven.

"I don’t think I dare - yet. I’m sure I should make a fool of myself." However, Börge did at last venture a smile and a rather timid "bonjour".

Just at that moment everyone started looking out to sea and pointing at something. Sven and Börge jumped up to get a better view. There was a low flat piece of land ahead.

"Is that Suederoog?" Börge asked one of the crew.

"No," replied the man, "That’s Suedfall."

Sven took another look at it. He could just make out a house and a single willow tree and something that looked like a flock of sheep.

"This island, has been flooded every hundred years or so for the past four centuries," remarked the fisherman.

"But what happened to the people who were living there?" asked one of the French boys excitedly.

"They were all drowned," he replied calmly.

"But - but I don’t understand," the boy said again, "do you mean that people go back again to live there when they know it’s so dangerous?"

"You don’t know the island people. They love these small islands. And the island folk are all related to each other. So if one of the islands gets flooded - like Suedfall here, - some other member of the family will come from another island when the storm has passed. He’ll bring a flock of sheep with him and build a new house and settle down, and then the island is his. He marries and has children and they grow up and build new houses, and then perhaps another storm comes and the whole family is swept away again. That’s so natural around here; we don’t think anything of it."

The boys strained their eyes to try and see some of these strange people on the island, but they were too far away.

Another half hour and a larger island came in sight. They made straight for it and the fisherman brought them skillfully alongside the pier. All the boys jumped up and made for the gangway. They all poured across. Suederoog at last!

But it wasn’t! Through the wild babble of voices Sven at, last heard the counselor explaining that they had landed at Pellworm. The boat couldn’t moor at Suederoog. They were to go across on foot by a causeway.

So they all trooped off, knapsacks on their backs, behind the old fisherman who was in charge of this part of the journey. He led them to a little old house with a steep gabled roof and many-paned windows. Rather like a gingerbread house in a fairy story, thought Sven, with its brown wood-shingled walls.

This was where the island’s postman lived, and he would take them across to Suederoog. He came out of his house to meet them. Sven was so interested in looking at him that he hardly listened to what he was saying. He looked about sixty years old, but tremendously tough and strong. His blue dungarees were rolled up above his knees, and his legs were completely brown. So was his face. It was furrowed, too, with the strong sun and the salty winds. And the same strong light and air had bleached his fair hair almost white. Sven was to see many more people like him during his visit to the Frisian Islands.

"Too bad," said Börge. Sven woke up.

"What is it? What did he say?"

"We can’t get across tonight. It’ll be high tide in two hours and we’d be swamped. Got to spend the night here and start off early tomorrow,"

So all the fifty-odd boys trooped off again behind the postman. He led them to his stable where they were to spend the night.

"Gosh, fancy sleeping in a stable!” muttered Börge as he and Sven trailed along behind.

"Do you think there are horses in it?" whispered Sven. He rather hoped there were.

They came to a large old building thatched with straw. The dark red bricks of its walls were set between huge wooden beams, and the same sort of red bricks had been used to make the floor. All along one side ran a wooden manger filled with sweet-smelling hay. Deep gold shafts of evening sunshine streamed through the openings set high in the walls. The group leaders called to the boys to help and soon Sven and Börge were busy hauling the hay out of the manger. The postman brought more hay and straw and so everyone got a share for making a bed on the floor. There were lots of laughing discussions about the best way to make a comfortable hay-bed, and over in one corner a group of Swedish boys had discovered that you could have a very good pillow fight with hay - and what’s more you could push hay down your opponent’s neck as well!

"Come on fellows, what about supper?" shouted the leader. They had all got to know him now and call him by name, Herman. He was just the right kind of man to be their camp leader, Sven decided. Young and energetic but wise-looking, too, and with a merry twinkle in his dark eyes. He was half Danish and half German.

They sat on the grass outside to eat their sandwiches, leaning against the sun warmed brick wall of the stable. The postman’s wife brought them a large white pail of frothing milk from the dairy beside the house.

From where the boys sat the flat meadowland sloped gently down to the sea. There were no clouds in the sky - just a light mist lying above the horizon with the great red sun shining through it. A few more minutes and the sun was gone. The sea turned a cold grey, the green grass looked bluish and even the warm red brick of the stable walls seemed to grow softer and paler. A cool breeze started to blow in from the sea.

Herman jumped to his feet and brushed the crumbs from his khaki shorts. "Bed, boys!" he called, and into the stable they went.

As Sven burrowed down into his bundle of soft hay he looked across the stable at the boys all around him. In the soft grey light he could see the dark heads of the Italian boys all together in the far corner. Next to them were some French boys, some dark, some fair, many of them not looking a bit like Sven thought French boys would. Three tall boys with brown curly hair and tanned faces formed another small group. Börge said he thought they were Swiss. And so it was all round the stable. Each little national group had camped close together and from each came the sound of excited talk and laughter.

Above it all resonated Hermann’s friendly voice again: "Boys, I think you’d better go to sleep now. We shall have to make a very early start in the morning to catch the tide. We must be off before sunrise, and it’s a long walk to Suederoog. So now good night, go nat, gute nacht, bon soir, and sleep well!"

Everyone laughed at this effort, and one of the Italian boys raised himself on his elbow and called "Buona Notte".

"Here goes," thought Sven, and in a determined though rather shaky voice he replied "Buona Notte".

"Good for you," whispered Börge.

Sven, glad it was too dark for anyone to see his red face, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

CHAPTER II

"Let’s build the Kronborg castle” Börge proposed.

"Fine” answered Sven, "if you can remember how it looks."

It was the next day, and the boys were on the beach at Suederoog. After the long walk from Pellworm they rested for a few hours, eaten a huge meal, and then rushed down to the sea. Sven thought this was the loveliest beach he had ever seen. There was sand for miles - fine and pale silver grey. It was firm and hard down near the sea, but above the high-water mark it was soft and shifting, and coarse grasses had been planted in clumps to hold it together.

The sun was hot and sparkling that afternoon and all along the beach were little groups of boys in their bathing trunks, digging busily, for Herman and the other leader had announced that they would award prizes next day for the best three sandcastles.

Sven started to dig the moat, and Börge went down to the sea with his pail for water to keep the sand moist and firm.

"I say Sven” he called, as he came puffing up the beach, "Francois is making the Eiffel Tower."

Francois and two other French boys were now in the same group as Sven and Börge who were the only Danish boys left in it. The boys had all been divided into new groups that morning so that in each there would be boys from every country. There was now an English university student in charge of Sven’s group; who was called Jim Hutchinson.

Börge squatted down beside Sven and began modeling the sand with his hands and patting the walls smooth with his spade. He worked fast. Already Sven could recognize the great courtyard, and the tower at the corner.

"What are the Czech boys making, Börge?" asked Sven.

"Oh, you know that castle in Prague. I never can pronounce it."

"The Hradcin?" suggested Sven.

"That’s it, though I still can’t say it," laughed Börge. "And the English boys are at work on Westminster Abbey, I think. Pity we haven’t any Americans here. I’d love to see some sand skyscrapers!" Börge threw himself back on the sand and lay with his eyes closed enjoying the sun on his face. Suddenly he was up on his feet again.

"Come and have a swim Sven; I’m so hot."

Sven sat back on his heels. "You know Börge, I don’t think I will. I want to do some more building."

"All right. See you later." And Börge was off and into the sea.

Sven worked on. Presently two shadows fell across the castle and he looked up to see the English boys from his group. Sven smiled shyly, and said hello. This was the first time he had spoken to them.

"Hello" said the shorter boy. "I’m Fred Roberts. What’s your name?"

Sven told them, and after they had each practiced saying the foreign names Fred asked Sven what he was building.

Sven stood up and began to explain, very seriously, trying hard to get his English right.  “This is the castle of Kronborg in Denmark. It was the castle of Hamlet. "

"Hamlet?" said George, the other English boy. ”I thought his castle was called Elsinore.”

"Oh no," replied Sven, "It is certainly Kronborg. I have been there with Börge and his father. I saw the tower where Hamlet poisoned his father."

"But I’m just doing Hamlet at school" George persisted. "Shakespeare, I mean" he added just a little condescendingly, in case Sven didn’t know. Sven shook his head. George began to get excited. "Dash it all Sven, I’m English. I should know what Shakespeare wrote."

This was too much for Sven’s patience. “And I’m Danish. I should know where Hamlet lived. He was a real Danish prince before your old Shakespeare ever heard of him." The words came tumbling out, and it didn’t make very good sense to George and Fred because it was half in English and half In Danish.

None of the boys noticed Jim Hutchinson join the group, till they heard a hearty laugh. "Can I help in this international dispute?" he inquired still laughing.

Suddenly the boys all felt very awkward. George spoke first. "Jim....of course it ‘really doesn’t matter, but Hamlet’s castle was called Elsinore, wasn’t it?"

"That’s what Shakespeare called it," replied Jim, "and the real historic Hamlet’s castle in Denmark is called Kronborg. Haven’t you ever heard of the same thing having two names, you young idiots?"

Everybody began to laugh and Jim grabbed Sven and George each by a tuft of hair and gave it a playful pull. "Let’s all go and have a swim," he suggested.

"Oh yes" said Sven, "and we’ll find Börge and he can explain all. He built most of the castle, you know," he explained to Fred as they ran down the beach.

* * *

By noon the following day all the castles were finished. The boys were sitting in a large semi-circle on the beach waiting for the judges to announce the prize-winner. Three of the counselors had formed the committee of judges, and they had spent most of the morning walking round the beach looking at the castles with a swarm of excited boys on their heels. Now they were consulting their notes and adding up the points.

Sven wished they would hurry up. He was beginning to get hungry. George, who was lying beside him on the sand, pulled at his shirt sleeve. "Look Sven, Pierre Dernier’s just going to speak — he’s going to say you and Börge have won first prize!"

"Sh-sh George, you know we haven’t a chance. Listen!"

Monsieur Dernier, the chief judge, was beginning to talk: "Well, boys, first I want to congratulate you on the splendid buildings you have made in the sand. We cannot all visit each other’s country, but I feel that this morning on this beach here I have been to Rome and London, to Budapest, Vienna ..... “Sven looked across at Börge. He was sitting with his eyes shut and Sven couldn’t decide whether he was listening intently to Monsieur Dernier or taking a nap. Suddenly Börge opened his eyes, caught Sven’s glance, and gave him a sly wink. But Pierre Dernier’s voice was going on: "..... And so I am happy to tell you that we have decided first prize should go to" — a maddening pause —"Anton Hnatuk and his friends from Czechoslovakia, for their building of the Hradcin in Prague!"

Everyone clapped and cheered and the boys near Anton leaned across to pat his back and shake his hand. At last they were quiet again and Pierre Dernier went on:

"Second prize, Sven Hansen and Börge Lingstrom for their model of the Kronborg Castle."

George let out a cheer and gave Sven a thump that nearly knocked him flat on his face. Just what happened after that he hardly knew. He heard everyone clapping and laughing but somehow all the noises and color around him melted into a haze through which he suddenly saw Börge’s face grinning at him. He was too excited even to hear who had won third prize.

Now all the boys were scrambling to their feet and Herman was leading the way back to the camp for lunch.

There was always a lot of noise at mealtimes. The boys ate in a large building with a high thatched roof supported by rafters. It was originally built as a barn, and during this lovely summer weather the wide double doors always stood open. The sunshine streamed in on the boys as they sat on forms at long wooden tables. Some martins had built a nest under the eaves and sometimes they flew into the barn and circled swiftly round, high up in the shadows. Then they would fly twittering out into the sun again.

Somehow everyone seemed to talk very loudly at mealtimes, perhaps in an effort to be heard above the clatter of mugs and plates on the bare tables, perhaps because they were all talking different languages, and when people don’t quite understand you, it’s always a temptation to shout.

George was shouting now, across the table; "I say Sven, Herman told me some of the fellows are going haying this afternoon.”

"What is "haying”?" inquired Sven.

"You know, gathering up hay."

"I don’t know what is ‘hay’." That was a new English word for Sven.

George explained and also told him the other things he had heard about the haying. Hay was almost the only crop on the little island of Suederoog, as it was on all the Frisian Islands. But it was a very important crop, because the islanders needed it to feed their cattle during the winter. The island houses, like the one house on Suederoog where the boys had their camp, were built with high roomy attics and these were used to store the hay. In a good summer the islanders cut the hay as often as three times. "Do you want to go haying, George?" inquired Sven. He was so fond of the beach that he wasn’t sure he liked the idea.

"Oh yes, Sven," replied George, "It’s really good. You’ll see. They have quite a special way of doing it here. I was watching them this morning."

The boys took it in turns to help with the haymaking, and it was several days before Sven and the rest of his group had their first taste of it.

Hans Koenig, who lived on the island, was in charge, and he led the boys off to a meadow where the hay had been cut several days before and had been spread out to dry. First he chose six boys, gave them large wooden rakes, and showed them how to rake the hay into long heaps running the whole length of the meadow, like walls of hay. Then he led the other boys over to a corner where the horses were standing. The horses were harnessed together in pairs, and attached to their harness were two long stout ropes. The ropes were fastened to each end of a heavy pole which lay on the ground behind them. It was long and thick, almost as big as a telegraph pole.

Hans explained to the boys what they were all going to do. He himself would drive the horses forward, making them walk one on each side of the wall of hay.’ They would drag the pole along behind them, and so all the hay would collect in front of it into a huge pile.

"Now this is where you boys come in," went on Hans in his slow German, "I want you to ride on the pole and keep it down on the ground. Will you do that?"

Sure they would!

"And one other thing." Hans stepped inside the triangle formed by the pole and the two ropes, and took hold of a third rope which was also fastened to the harness but hung loosely in the center. He walked back to the pole and looped it underneath. "Now I want a strong boy to volunteer to hold the rope."

Börge’s hand shot up at once. Hans explained that this rope in the center was for holding the hay down, and as the pile of hay got higher and higher Börge must pay it out slowly, always keeping it taut.

Well, at last they were off. Börge got on to the pole and held the rope. Sven jumped on beside him and hung on to him, while George, Anton, Francisco and two others found spaces on the pole and clung to each other and the side ropes.

Hans called to the horses and they started up. The pole slid and bumped over the short grass and Börge clung desperately on to the rope while the rest of the team clung on to him. It wasn’t very easy to stay on the pole and there were shouts of laughter as one after another toppled off and ran to catch up and jump on again.

By the time they had reached the end of the row the hay had piled up level with their faces. By now too, they were quite good at staying on the pole and even at moving to and fro along it so as to hold the hay in place. Soon they were riding the pole like tight-rope walkers and shouting to Hans to go faster. Sven thought it was rather like water-skiing. He volunteered for extra duty at hay making whenever another boy dropped out.

He didn’t have to wait long. Next morning at breakfast, Jim Hutchinson, the leader of Sven’s group, told the boys that Hans Koenig needed a lot of help that day – as many teams of boys as he had pairs of horses.

"Why, Jim?" asked Francisco.

"Well, as a matter of fact," replied Jim rather slowly, "I think Hans is afraid we may have a spot of bad weather."

Sven’s mind flashed back to the journey on the boat and the old fisherman’s yarns.

"Oh Jim!" he gasped, "do you mean a storm?"

Jim laughed. "Well, maybe."

As soon as the sun had cleared away the last wisp of morning mist, the boys went racing across the meadow to meet Hans. After the first chorus of good mornings, Sven asked the question he had been wondering about ever since breakfast.

"Hans," he asked, "are we going to have a storm?"

Hans screwed up his light blue eyes and looked out to sea.

"Yes, I think so, but not for some hours yet.”

"But what will happen to us, Hans? Will the sea come right over the island?"

Hans’ voice sounded very calm and reassuring. "Oh no, I don’t think we’ll have a bad storm. We hardly ever do, in the summer. In fact, it may not come to anything at all, if the wind changes. But I don’t like the looks of it, and if we get some rain and a rather high sea, all this good hay will get wet and then we’d have to start spreading and drying it all over again. So come on boys, let’s get to work!"

And work they did. Load after load was piled up beside the house and pitched up into the attic, or made into a neat haystack and covered with a tarpaulin.

It was a terribly hot day, still and sultry. As Sven bumped along on the pole, he could feel little trickles of sweat running down his back, and soon prickly little bits of hay had got inside his shirt too. He longed to rush down to the beach and dash into the cool blue water. Instead he threw himself down for a few moments, on a soft pile of hay. That felt hotter still, but it was so soft and comfortable that Sven would soon have been asleep if George hadn’t called out to him: "Come on Sven, you old slacker, it’s your turn with the rope!"

At last Hans called a halt. Most of the hay was in and the dew was falling, so they had to stop. Sven looked away across the acres of bare meadow and turned to Börge.

"Now the storm can come if it wants to!" he cried, "We’ve got our hay in."

That evening after supper the boys all begged Herman to tell them a story. He was a splendid story-teller. They all sprawled out on the floor and waited for him to begin.

Herman had been out all day haymaking with the boys, but he didn’t seem tired. While he was considering which story he should tell he looked all round the room. They were in a place everybody called the "lamp-room"; its wooden beams were hung with old lamps and gleaming brass lanterns from ships - many of them from ships that had been wrecked. Herman pointed to a heavy round lantern hanging in one corner. "That lantern belonged to a Swedish coasting vessel, the "Christiania," he began, "and I’m going to tell you her story. It happened about ten years ago....”

Herman spoke slowly, in German. Now and then he would put in a sentence of French or English to help all the boys to understand. There was a tense silence in the lamp-room as Herman told of the Christiania. One wild night she was stranded on the sand bar which runs out from Suederoog towards the open sea. The pounding waves soon turned her over and cast her crew of seven into the sea.

The men had nothing but their lifebelts to keep them afloat and in the darkness they couldn’t tell which way the land laid. Enormous waves swept over them and their shouts were drowned in the whistling wind. Just as they began to lose all hope of being saved one of the men saw a light and they all struggled towards it. When they got nearer they found they were at the foot of a sort of tower. All they could make out in the darkness was a ladder leading upwards. They pulled themselves up, the stronger helping the exhausted ones, until they found themselves in a little wooden room. It stood there above the storm like a little house on stilts, and the light from its lantern streamed out in all directions across the tossing water. Here Herman paused.

"Can you guess where that house is?" he asked. Anton spoke up; "I think I saw it yesterday when I walked across to the other side of the island.”

"That’s right, Anton" replied Herman, "and one day when it’s calm we’ll ask Hans if we may go and see it. We’ll have to walk across the sand spit at low tide." And Herman went on to tell the boys how the people of the island always kept this little safety-tower stocked with food and candles for shipwrecked sailors, and how one of the islanders went out every few days to fill the lamp and make sure it was still burning.

As Sven fell asleep that night he thought he heard the wind howling in the rigging and his comfortable little bunk seemed to sway and toss on an angry sea.

CHAPTER III

When Sven looked back on it all afterwards, the morning of the storm seemed to mark a turning point in that summer. Before the storm everything was perfect; after it, everything seemed to go wrong.

That morning the bugle which always sounded as a signal to get up woke Sven with a start. He felt as if he had only been asleep a few minutes. He called sleepily across to Börge, and asked the time. But before Börge could answer Jim Hutchinson came into the dormitory.

"Wake up, boys!" he shouted. "We’ve got a busy morning ahead of us. Hurry up and come outside."

Everyone started to talk and ask questions but Jim had already disappeared. As Sven struggled to rouse himself from sleep he suddenly remembered everything - what Hans had said about a storm coming, the rain and wind he had heard, half in his dreams, half awake, during the night. He jumped up from his bunk, struggled into his clothes, banged the comb through his hair and dashed down the wooden staircase with Börge at his heels.

As he ran out of the house he could hardly believe the strange sight that met his eyes. The island seemed to have shrunk to the size of a football field. The house and farm buildings which formed the camp were built on a sort of platform of earth. Now this platform was almost all of the island that the sea had not covered. There was no wind, no high waves, but as Sven watched he could see the water creeping up, inch by inch. All the farm animals had been brought in from the flooded meadows. It was milking time and the mooing of the cows mixed with the shouting and excited chatter of the boys as they came pouring out of the house.

Presently Herman’s tall figure appeared, striding across towards the house. He hoisted himself on to a windowsill so that everyone could see him and clapped his hands for silence. All the boys stopped talking but a large cream-colored cow let out a protesting bellow that sent everyone off into gales of laughter. When they were quiet again Herman began to speak.

"Boys, there’s nothing to be alarmed about. In a half hour it will be high tide and then the water will start to go down. There’s no danger of our being swamped. But there is danger of our water supply being spoiled. As you know, all our drinking water comes from that well." All heads turned to look at the well, with its wooden hand-winch for winding up the buckets. Sven noticed that the sea was only about ten feet from it. Herman went on: "If the sea comes as high as that our water won’t be fit to drink. Now over to the left there" - and he pointed - "there’s a small patch of sand still uncovered. Hans will give you sacks and shovels from the barn. I want you to work at top-speed. Fill the sacks and pile them around the top of the well. Do whatever Hans tells you. Now just a minute. “- as they began to move off - "one more thing. Pierre Dernier, I want you to get your boys together and draw water from the well. Carry it into the kitchen and fill the tanks that have been set out. Now off you go!"

There was a wild scramble. Sven found himself working with a Hungarian boy he had never met before. He always said afterwards that it was the only time he ever understood Hungarian. They were both far too busy and excited to speak anything but their own languages, but somehow they understood each other perfectly as they shoveled the sand and carried the heavy sacks into place. Slowly the wall of bags grew, but by now Sven was paddling in grey sea-water as he struggled to help put them in place.

Suddenly Herman blew his whistle and shouted. "It’s all right boys. The water’s going down. You can stop work. Now we can have breakfast, -or rather, lunch!”

There was a cheer from all the boys. Sven suddenly realized how hungry he was. He looked at his Hungarian companion. "Race you to the barn?" he said in Danish. There was an answering gleam in the other boy’s eye, and without another word the two took to their heels.

Halfway through the meal Börge came over to where they were sitting. He looked serious. "Say Sven," he said, "Anton’s hurt himself."

"What’s happened?"

"Is it bad?"

"Where is he?"

All the boys stopped eating and leaned forward to listen. Börge told them, "He slipped and fell somehow, piling up the sandbags” he says “It’s not too bad but Jim Richardson thinks he may have broken his leg. He can’t walk on it. He’s lying down in the lamp room but Jim says not to disturb him.”

Late that afternoon Sven and Börge and a few other friends of Anton’s were allowed into the lamp room to talk to him. Anton lay on a folding bed with his leg in splints. He looked rather pale but very cheerful. In fact, he seemed to regard the whole thing as a new adventure. The other boys clustered round while he described how the accident had happened and told them about the plans for getting him to a doctor.

"We’ll have to go all the way back to Husum. Jim says he can’t get across the causeway to Pellworm till four o’clock tomorrow morning, at low tide. The boat leaves Pellworm at eight o’clock, so that fits in very nicely."

"But Anton, how can we get you across to Pellworm?" asked Börge. "You certainly can’t walk!"

"That’s all been taken care of, too," answered Anton. "Hans is going to drive us in one of the farm wagons. I wish some of you fellows could come too," he added.

"Good idea," said Börge. "Let’s go and ask Jim."

Finally it was agreed that Sven and Börge should go to Husum with Anton as well as Stanislaus, another Czech boy. The three of them were sent off to bed at once to be ready for their early start.

There is something almost magic about being up very early in the morning while everyone else is asleep. Sven and Börge dressed in the dark, speaking only in whispers so as not to disturb the others. Then they tiptoed down the creaking stairs. There were steaming cups of coffee ready for them in the kitchen. They breakfasted quickly and went out into the soft cool morning air. It was still dark but the sky was clear and the stars were shining. Sven could see Hans moving about with a lantern and he heard the old farm-horse stamp its feet and shake its harness. He walked across to it. The heavy wagon had been swept clean and a bed of fresh hay put in for Anton to lie on. Soon Stanislaus came along, yawning and rubbing his eyes, and Jim came out to see if they were all ready.

"Hello, boys" he greeted them quietly. "Börge, will you hold the horse? I want Hans to help me bring Anton out."

Börge didn’t need asking twice. He loved horses. Soon Jim and Hans came slowly out of the house with Anton between them, hopping on his good leg. They hoisted him up into the wagon and wrapped him in blankets. Jim said one other boy could ride and the others must walk, so they decided to take it in turns. Hans didn’t want the wagon to be too heavy or the wheels would sink into the soft sand and move very slowly.

At last they were all ready. Hans took the bridle from Börge, clicked his tongue in the language all horses recognize, and with a jingling of harness and a creaking of old wood, they were off.

After about ten minutes they had left the island behind and were out on the causeway. The islanders called it a "watt". It hadn’t been made; it was simply a strip of sand and pebbles which appeared every time the tide went down and then was covered again as the water rose. Sven marveled at the way Hans led them across it in the dark by the light of his lantern. The watt was by no means straight, in some places it was wide, in others narrow, and all the way along there were holes and channels still full of water.

Gradually the sky began to turn from dark blue to a soft grey. Now Sven could see the water stretching away on each side of them and a low bar on the horizon ahead which he hoped was Pellworm and not just a cloud. Somehow he felt very small out here in the middle of the sea on a very narrow strip of land. He put out his hand and grasped the side of the wagon.

The first sign of morning came from the seagulls. Suddenly they came swirling overhead with their mournful mewing and settled in a flock on the watt. As the light strengthened Sven could see what they were doing. They were finding food in the little pools of sea water on the watt. Next time the wagon passed near one Sven stooped and peered into it.