“Many of those whom we lost in the Gulf of Finland came back to us in the autumn. We found them under the walls of Sveaborg Fort, beneath the batteries. Those of us who had escaped the fever were sent to pull them out. Codfish and crabs had eaten what they could. Often they would start to move and that was the worst. Sounds came out of them, belches and moans. The bodies were full of eels that had eaten themselves fat in there and that reluctantly wriggled away across land when we interrupted their feast.”
