Friday 2 January 2015

The bargeman's mate by Hans van den Bos


The bargeman's mate

On 18th October, 1951,
a barge was moored midstream,
close to the Mallegat,
on the river Meuse in Rotterdam,
waiting for a towboat to sail
back to the Ruhr region
to load a new cargo of coal.

The mate was cleaning the deck
using a metal bucket on a rope.
He had been living for half a year
in the fore-cabin of the ship,
together with his wife,
who was 6 months pregnant
and their three year old son.

Dropping the bucket back
into the river to refill it,
he lost his balance
and disappeared under water,
while, at that very moment,
his little son was playing
on the roof of the deckhouse.

After eighteen days searching
and dragging the river downstream,
the river police found him under the ship,
at almost exactly the same place
as he had fallen in,
with the rope of the bucket
still wound around his hand.

In 1958, the primary school,
attended by the mate's little boy,
tried to teach him to swim
in the floating swimming pool
close to the place
where his father had drowned.


Original title: De schippersknecht - 2014
Hendrik van den Bos
[15th Jan. 1922 - 18th Oct. 1951]


The barge 'Wisand' 


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