Hans K. Maeder - Sven and his Friends

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

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?"