The Riddle of the Sands

by Erskine Childers

  VI. Schlei Fiord

  I MAKE no apology for having described these early days in somedetail. It is no wonder that their trivialities are as vividly beforeme as the colours of earth and sea in this enchanting corner of theworld. For every trifle, sordid or picturesque, was relevant; everyscrap of talk a link; every passing mood critical for good or ill. Soslight indeed were the determining causes that changed my autumnholiday into an undertaking the most momentous I have everapproached.

  Two days more preceded the change. On the first, the southwesterlywind still holding, we sallied forth into Augustenburg Fiord, 'topractise smartness in a heavy thresh,' as Davies put it. It was theday of dedication for those disgusting oilskins, immured in whosestiff and odorous angles, I felt distressfully cumbersome; a day ofproof indeed for me, for heavy squalls swept incessantly over theloch, and Davies, at my own request, gave me no rest. Backwards andforwards we tacked, blustering into coves and out again, reefing andunreefing, now stung with rain, now warmed with sun, but never withtime to breathe or think.

  I wrestled with intractable ropes, slaves if they could be subdued,tyrants if they got the upper hand; creeping, craning, straining, Imade the painful round of the deck, while Davies, hatless andtranquil, directed my blundering movements.

  'Now take the helm and try steering in a hard breeze to windward.It's the finest sport on earth.'

  So I grappled with the niceties of that delicate craft; smartingeyes, chafed hands, and dazed brain all pressed into the service,whilst Davies, taming the ropes the while, shouted into my ear thesubtle mysteries of the art; that fidgeting ripple in the luff of themainsail, and the distant rattle from the hungry jib--signs that theyare starved of wind and must be given more; the heavy list and wallowof the hull, the feel of the wind on your cheek instead of your nose,the broader angle of the burgee at the masthead--signs that they havetoo much, and that she is sagging recreantly to leeward instead offighting to windward. He taught me the tactics for meeting squalls,and the way to press your advantage when they are defeated--the ironhand in the velvet glove that the wilful tiller needs if you are togain your ends with it; the exact set of the sheets necessary to getthe easiest and swiftest play of the hull--all these things and manymore I struggled to apprehend, careless for the moment as to whetherthey were worth knowing, but doggedly set on knowing them. Needlessto say, I had no eyes for beauty. The wooded inlets we dived intogave a brief respite from wind and spindrift, but called into use thelead and the centreboard tackle--two new and cumbrous complexities.Davies's passion for intricate navigation had to be sated even inthese secure and tideless waters.

  'Let's get in as near as we can--you stand by the lead,' was hisformula; so I made false casts, tripped up in the slack, sent riversof water up my sleeves, and committed all the other _gaucheries_ thatbeginners in the art commit, while the sand showed whiter beneath thekeel, till Davies regretfully drew off and shouted: 'Ready about,centre-plate down,' and I dashed down to the trappings of thatdiabolical contrivance, the only part of the _Dulcibella_s' equipmentthat I hated fiercely to the last. It had an odious habit whenlowered of spouting jets of water through its chain-lead on to thecabin floor. One of my duties was to gag it with cotton-waste, buteven then its choking gurgle was a most uncomfortable sound in yourdining-room. In a minute the creek would be behind us and we would bethumping our stem into the short hollow waves of the fiord, andlurching through spray and rain for some point on the opposite shore.Of our destination and objects, if we had any, I knew nothing. At thenorthern end of the fiord, just before we turned, Davies had turneddreamy in the most exasperating way, for I was steering at the timeand in mortal need of sympathetic guidance, if I was to avoid asudden jibe. As though continuing aloud some internal debate, he helda onesided argument to the effect that it was no use going farthernorth. Ducks, weather, and charts figured in it, but I did not followthe pros and cons. I only know that we suddenly turned and began to'battle' south again. At sunset we were back once more in the samequiet pool among the trees and fields of Als Sound, a wondrous peacesucceeding the turmoil. Bruised and sodden, I was extricating myselffrom my oily prison, and later was tasting (though not nearly yet inits perfection) the unique exultation that follows such a day, when,glowing all over, deliciously tired and pleasantly sore, you eat whatseems ambrosia, be it only tinned beef; and drink nectar, be it onlydistilled from terrestrial hops or coffee berries, and inhale asculminating luxury balmy fumes which even the happy Homeric gods knewnaught of.

  On the following morning, the 30th, a joyous shout of 'Nor'-westwind' sent me shivering on deck, in the small hours, to handlerain-stiff canvas and cutting chain. It was a cloudy, unsettled day,but still enough after yesterday's boisterous ordeal. We retraced ourway past Sonderburg, and thence sailed for a faint line of pale greenon the far south-western horizon. It was during this passage that anincident occurred, which, slight as it was, opened my eyes to much.

  A flight of wild duck crossed our bows at some little distance, awedge-shaped phalanx of craning necks and flapping wings. I happenedto be steering while Davies verified our course below; but I calledhim up at once, and a discussion began about our chances of sport.Davies was gloomy over them.

  'Those fellows at Satrup were rather doubtful,' he said. 'There areplenty of ducks, but I made out that it's not easy for strangers toget shooting. The whole country's so very civilized; it's not _wild_enough, is it?'

  He looked at me. I had no very clear opinion. It was anything butwild in one sense, but there seemed to be wild enough spots forducks. The shore we were passing appeared to be bordered by lonelymarshes, though a spacious champaign showed behind. If it were notfor the beautiful places we had seen, and my growing taste for ourway of seeing them, his disappointing vagueness would have nettled memore than it did. For, after all, he had brought me out loaded withsporting equipment under a promise of shooting.

  'Bad weather is what we want for ducks,' he said; 'but I'm afraidwe're in the wrong place for them. Now, if it was the North Sea,among those Frisian Tslands----' His tone was timid and interrogative,and I felt at once that he was sounding me as to some unpalatableplan whose nature began to dawn on me.

  He stammered on through a sentence or two about 'wildness' and'nobody to interfere with you,' and then I broke in: 'You surelydon't want to leave the Baltic?'

  'Why not?' said he, staring into the compass.

  'Hang it, man!' I returned, tartly, 'here we are in October, thesummer over, and the weather gone to pieces. We're alone in acockle-shell boat, at a time when every other yacht of our size islaying up for the winter. Luckily, we seem to have struck an idealcruising-ground, with a wide choice of safe fiords and a goodprospect of ducks, if we choose to take a little trouble about them.You can't mean to waste time and run risks' (I thought of the tornleaf in the log-book) 'in a long voyage to those forbidding haunts ofyours in the North Sea.'

  'It's not very long,' said Davies, doggedly. 'Part of it's canal, andthe rest is quite safe if you're careful. There's plenty of shelteredwater, and it's not really necessary----'

  'What's it all _for?_' I interrupted, impatiently. 'We haven't _tried_for shooting here yet. You've no notion, have you, of getting theboat back to England this autumn?'

  'England?' he muttered. 'Oh, I don't much care.' Again his vaguenessjarred on me; there seemed to be some bar between us, invisible andinsurmountable. And, after all, what was I doing here? Roughing it ina shabby little yacht, utterly out of my element, with a man who, aweek ago, was nothing to me, and who now was a tiresome enigma. Likeswift poison the old morbid mood in which I left London spreadthrough me. All I had learnt and seen slipped away; what I hadsuffered remained. I was on the point of saying something which mighthave put a precipitate end to our cruise, but he anticipated me.

  'I'm awfully sorry,' he broke out, 'for being such a selfish brute. Idon't know what I was thinking about. You're a brick to join me inthis sort of life, and I'm afraid I'm an infernally bad host. Ofcourse this is just the place to cruis
e. I forgot about the scenery,and all that. Let's ask about the ducks here. As you say, we're sureto get sport if we worry and push a bit. We must be nearly therenow--yes, there's the entrance. Take the helm, will you?'

  He sprang up the mast like a monkey, and gazed over the land from thecross-trees. I looked up at my enigma and thanked Providence I hadnot spoken; for no one could have resisted his frank outburst of goodnature. Yet it occurred to me that, considering the conditions of ourlife, our intimacy was strangely slow in growth. I had no clue yet asto where his idiosyncrasies began and his self ended, and he, Isurmised, was in the same stage towards me. Otherwise I should havepressed him further now, for I felt convinced that there was somemystery in his behaviour which I had not yet accounted for. However,light was soon to break.

  I could see no sign of the entrance he had spoken of, and no wonder,for it is only eighty yards wide, though it leads to a fiord thirtymiles long. All at once we were jolting in a tumble of sea, and thechannel grudgingly disclosed itself, stealing between marshes andmeadows and then broadening to a mere, as at Ekken. We anchored closeto the mouth, and not far from a group of vessels of a type thatafterwards grew very familiar to me. They were sailing-barges,something like those that ply in the Thames, bluff-bowed,high-sterned craft of about fifty tons, ketch-rigged, and fitted withlee-boards, very light spars, and a long tip-tilted bowsprit. (Forthe future I shall call them 'galliots'.) Otherwise the only sign oflife was a solitary white house--the pilot's house, the chart toldus--close to the northern point of entrance. After tea we called onthe pilot. Patriarchally installed before a roaring stove, in thecompany of a buxom bustling daughter-in-law and some rosygrandchildren, we found a rotund and rubicund person, who greeted uswith a hoarse roar of welcome in German, which instantly changed,when he saw us, to the funniest broken English, spoken with intenserelish and pride. We explained ourselves and our mission as well aswe could through the hospitable interruptions caused by beer and thestrains of a huge musical box, which had been set going in honour ofour arrival. Needless to say, I was read like a book at once, andfell into the part of listener.

  'Yes, yes,' he said, 'all right. There is plenty ducks, but first wewill drink a glass beer; then we will shift your ship, captain--shelies not good there.' (Davies started up in a panic, but was wavedback to his beer.) 'Then we will drink together another glass beer;then we will talk of ducks--no, then we will kill ducks--that isbetter. Then we will have plenty glasses beer.'

  This was an unexpected climax, and promised well for our prospects.And the programme was fully carried out. After the beer our host waspacked briskly by his daughter into an armour of woollen gaiters,coats, and mufflers, topped with a worsted helmet, which left nothingof his face visible but a pair of twinkling eyes. Thus equipped, heled the way out of doors, and roared for Hans and his gun, till agreat gawky youth, with high cheek-bones and a downy beard, came outfrom the yard and sheepishly shook our hands.

  Together we repaired to the quay, where the pilot stood, looking likea genial ball of worsted, and bawled hoarse directions while weshifted the _Dulcibella_ to a berth on the farther shore close to theother vessels. We returned with our guns, and the interval forrefreshments followed. It was just dusk when we sallied out again,crossed a stretch of bog-land, and took up strategic posts round astagnant pond. Hans had been sent to drive, and the result was a finemallard and three ducks. It was true that all fell to the pilot'sgun, perhaps owing to Hans's filial instinct and his parent's cannyegotism in choosing his own lair, or perhaps it was chance; but theshooting-party was none the less a triumphal success. It wascelebrated with beer and music as before, while the pilot, an infanton each podgy knee, discoursed exuberantly on the glories of hiscountry and the Elysian content of his life. 'There is plenty beer,plenty meat, plenty money, plenty ducks,' summed up his survey.

  It may have been fancy, but Davies, though he had fits and starts ofvivacity, seemed very inattentive, considering that we were sittingat the feet of so expansive an oracle. It was I who elicited most ofthe practical information--details of time, weather, and likelyplaces for shooting, with some shrewd hints as to the kind of peopleto conciliate. Whatever he thought of me, I warmed with sympathytowards the pilot, for he assumed that we had done with cruising forthe year, and thought us mad enough as it was to have been afloat solong, and madder still to intend living on 'so little a ship' when wecould live on land with beer and music handy. I was tempted to raisethe North Sea question, just to watch Davies under the thunder ofrebukes which would follow. But I refrained from a wish to be tenderwith him, now that all was going so well. The Frisian Islands were anextravagant absurdity now. I did not even refer to them as we pulledback to the _Dulcibella_, after swearing eternal friendship with thegood pilot and his family.

  Davies and I turned in good friends that night--or rather I shouldsay that I turned in, for I left him sucking an empty pipe andaimlessly fingering a volume of Mahan; and once when I woke in thenight I felt somehow that his bunk was empty and that he was there inthe dark cabin, dreaming.