 Preface of The Riddle of the Sands A word about the origin and authorship of this book In October last, 1902, my friend Carothers visited me in my chambers and under a provisional pledge of secrecy told me frankly the whole of the adventure described in these pages. Till then I had only known as much as the rest of his friends, namely that he had recently undergone experiences during a yachting cruise with a certain Mr Davies, which had left a deep mark on his character and habits. At the end of his narrative, which from his bearing on studies and speculations of my own, as well as from its intrinsic interest and racy delivery, made a very deep impression on me, he added that the important facts discovered in the course of the cruise had, without a moment's delay, been communicated to the proper authorities, who after some dignified incredulity, due in part perhaps to the pitiful inadequacy of their own secret service, had he believed, made use of them, to avert a great national danger. I say he believed, for though it was beyond question that the danger was averted for the time, it was doubtful whether they had stirred a foot to combat it. The secret discovered being of such a nature that mere suspicion of it on this side was likely to destroy its efficacy. There, however that may be, the matter rested for a while, as for personal reasons which will be manifest to the reader, he and Mr Davies, expressly wished it to rest. But events were driving them to reconsider their decision. These seemed to show that the information rung with such peril and labour from the German government and transmitted so promptly to our own, had had none but the most transitory influence on our policy. Forced to the conclusion that the national security was really being neglected, the two friends now had a mind to make their story public, and it was about this that Carothers wished for my advice. The great drawback was that an Englishman bearing an honoured name was disgracefully implicated, and that unless infinite delicacy were used, innocent persons, and especially a young lady, would suffer pain and indignity if his identity were known. Indeed troublesome rumours containing a grain of truth and a mass of falsehood were already afloat. After weighing both sides of the question, I gave my vote emphatically for publication. The personal drawbacks could, I thought, with tact be neutralised, while from the public point of view nothing but good could come from submitting the case to the common sense of the country at large. Publication, therefore, was agreed upon, and the next point was the form it should take. Carothers, with the concurrence of Mr Davies, was for a bold exposition of the essential facts, stripped of their warm human envelope. I was strongly against this course, first because it would aggravate instead of allaying the rumours that were current, secondly because in such a form the narrative would not carry conviction and would thus defeat its own end. The persons and the events were indissolubly connected. To evade a bridge suppress would be to convey to the reader the idea of a concocted hoax. Indeed, I took bolder ground still, urging that the story should be made as explicit and circumstantial as possible, frankly and honestly for the purpose of entertaining and so of attracting a wide circle of readers. Even anonymity was undesirable. Nevertheless, certain precautions were imperatively needed. To cut the matter short, they asked for my assistance and received it at once. It was arranged that I should edit the book, that Carothers should give me his diary and recount to me in fuller detail and from his own point of view all the phases of the quest, as they used to call it, that Mr Davies should meet me with his charts and maps and do the same and that the whole story should be written as from the mouth of the former with its humours and errors, its lights and its dark side, just as it happened with the following few limitations. The year it belongs to is disguised. The names of persons are throughout fictitious and, at my instance, certain slight liberties have been taken to conceal the identity of the English characters. Remember also that these persons are living now in the midst of us and if you find one topic touched on with a light and hesitating pen, do not blame the editor, who, whether they are known or not, would rather say too little than say a word that might savor of impertinence. EC March 1903 Note The maps and charts are based on British and German admiralty charts with irrelevant details omitted. End of Preface Read by Gesine in April 2007 Chapter 1 Of The Riddle of the Sands This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recorded by Gesine The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers Chapter 1 The Letter I have read of men who, when forced by their calling to live for long periods in utter solitude, save for a few black faces, have made it a rule to dress regularly for dinner in order to maintain their self-respect and prevent a relapse into barbarism. It was in some such spirit, with an added touch of self-consciousness, that at seven o'clock in the evening of 23 September in a recent year I was making my evening toilet in my chambers in Palmael. I thought the date and the place justified the parallel to my advantage even. For the obscure Burmese administrator might well be a man of blunted sensibilities and coarse fibre, and at least he is alone with nature, while I, well, a young man of condition and fashion who knows the right people, belongs to the right clubs, has a safe, possibly a brilliant future in the foreign office, may be excused for a sense of complacent martyrdom. When, with his keen appreciation of the social calendar, he is doomed to the outer solitude of London in September. I say martyrdom, but in fact the case was infinitely worse, for to feel oneself a martyr, as everybody knows, is a pleasurable thing, and the true tragedy of my position was that I had passed that stage. I had enjoyed what sweets it had to offer an ever dwindling degree since the middle of August when ties were still fresh and sympathy abundant. I had been conscious that I was missed at Morvan Lodge Party. Lady Ashley herself had said so in the kindest possible manner when she wrote to acknowledge the letter in which I explained with an effectively austere reserve of language that circumstances compelled me to remain at my office. We know how busy you must be just now, she wrote, and I do hope you won't overwork, we shall all miss you very much. Friend after friend got away to sport and fresh air with promises to write and chaffing condolences, and as each deserted the sinking ship, I took a grim delight in my misery, positively almost enjoying the first week or two after my world had been finally dissipated to the four bracing winds of heaven. I began to take a spurious interest in the remaining five millions and wrote several clever letters in a vein of cheap satire indirectly suggesting the pathos of my position, but indicating that I was broad-minded enough to find intellectual entertainment in the scenes, persons, and habits of London in the dead season. I even did rational things at the instigation of others. For though I should have liked total isolation best, I of course found that there was a sediment of unfortunates like myself who, unlike me, viewed the situation in a most prosaic light. There were river excursions and so on after office hours, but I disliked the river at any time for its noisy vulgarity, and most of all at this season. So I dropped out of the fresh air brigade and declined H's offer to share a riverside cottage and run up to town in the mornings. I did spend one or two weekends with a cate's piss in Kent, but I was not inconsolable when they let their house and went abroad, for I found that such partial compensations did not suit me. Neither did the taste for satirical observation last. A passing thirst which I daresay many have shared for adventures of the fascinating kind described in the new Arabian Nights came on a few evenings into some shady haunts in Soho and farther eastward, but was finally quenched once sultry Saturday night after an hours immersion in the reeking atmosphere of a low music hall in Ratcliffe Highway, where I sat next to a portly female who suffered from the heat and at frequent intervals refreshed herself and an infant from a bottle of tepid stout. By the first week in September I had abandoned all palliatives and had settled into the dismal but dignified routine of office, club and chambers. And now came the most cruel trial for the hideous truth dawned on me that the world I found so indispensable could after all dispense with me. It was all very well for Lady Ashley to assure me that I was deeply missed, and the letter from F, who was one of the party, written in haste just starting to shoot, and coming as a tardy reply for one of my cleverest, made me aware that the house party had suffered little from my absence and that few sighs were wasted on me, even in the quarter which I had assumed to have been discreetly eluded to by the underlined All in Lady Ashley's We Shall All Miss You. A thrust which smarted more, if it bit less deeply, came from my cousin Nesta, who wrote, It's all horrid for you to have to be baking in London now, but after all, it must be a great pleasure to you, malicious little wretch, to have such interesting and important work to do. Here was a nemesis for an innocent illusion I had been accustomed to foster in the minds of my relations and acquaintances, especially in the breasts of the trustful and admiring maidens whom I had taken down to dinner in the last two seasons, a fiction which I had almost reached the point of believing in myself. For the plain truth was that my work was neither interesting nor important and consisted chiefly at present in smoking cigarettes, in saying that Mr So-and-So was away and would be back about 1st of October, in being absent for lunch from 12 till 2, and in my spare moments making pre-see of, let us say, the less confidential consular reports and squeezing the results into cast iron schedules. The reason of my detention was not a cloud on the international horizon, though I may say in passing that there was such a cloud, but a caprice on the part of a remote and mighty personage, the effect of which ramifying downwards had dislocated the carefully laid holiday plans of the humble juniors and in my own small case had upset the arrangement between myself and Kay, who positively liked the dog days in Whitewall. Only one thing was needed to fill my cup of bitterness and this it was that specially occupied me as I'd rest for dinner this evening. Two days more in this dead and fermenting city and my slavery would be at an end. Yes, but irony of ironies I had nowhere to go to. The Morphin Lodge Party was breaking up. A dreadful rumour as to an engagement which had been one of its accursed fruits tormented me with a fresh certainty that I had not been missed and bred in me that most desolating brand of cynicism which is produced by defeat through insignificance. Invitations for a later date which I had declined in July with a gratifying sense of being much in request now rose up spectrally to taunt me. There was at least one which I could easily have revived but neither in this case nor in any other had there be any renewal of pressure and there are moments when the difference between proposing oneself and surrendering as a prize to one of several eagerly competing hostesses seems too crushing to be contemplated. My own people were at ease for my father's gout to join them was a pizale whose banality was repellent. Besides they would be leaving soon for our home in Yorkshire and I was not a prophet in my own country. In short, I was at the extremity of depression. The usual preliminary scuffle on the staircase prepared me for the knock and entry of withers. One of the things which had for some time ceased to amuse me was the laxity of manners proper to the season among the servants of the big block of chambers where I lived. Withers demulely handed me a letter bearing a German postmark and marked urgent. I had just finished dressing and was collecting my money and gloves. A momentary thrill of curiosity broke in upon my depression as I sat down to open it. A corner on the reverse of the envelope bore the blotted legend very sorry but there's one other thing a pair of rigging screws from Cary and Nielsen's size one and three eighths galvanized. Here it is. Jot Dulce Bella, Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein 21st September Dear Carothers I dare say you'll be surprised at hearing from me as it ages since we met. It is more than likely too that what I'm going to suggest won't suit you for I know nothing of your plans and if you're in town at all you're probably just getting into harness again and can't get away. So I merely write on the off chance to ask if you would care to come out here and join me in a little yachting and I hope duck shooting. I know you're keen on shooting and I sort of remember that you have done some yachting too though I'd rather forget about that. This part of the Baltic, the Schleswig-Fjords is a splendid cruising-ground a one scenery and there ought to be plenty of duck about soon if it gets cold enough. I came out here via Holland and the Frisian Islands starting early in August. My pals have had to leave me and I'm badly in want of another as I don't want to lay up yet for a bit. I needn't say how glad I should be if you could come. If you can, send me a wire to the PO here. Flushing and on by Hamburg will be your best route I think. I'm having a few repairs done here and we'll have them ready sharp by the time your train arrives. Bring your gun and a good lot of number fours and would you mind calling at Lancaster's and asking for mine and bringing it too? Bring some oil skins. Better get the eleven-chilling sort jacket and trousers, not the yachting brand and if you paint bring your gear. I know you speak German like a native and that will be a great help. Forgive this hail of directions but I've a sort of feeling that I'm in luck and that you'll come. Anyway, I hope you and the FO both flourish. Goodbye. Yours ever, Arthur H. Davis. Would you mind bringing me out a prismatic compass and a pound of raven mixture? This letter marked an epoch for me but I little suspected the fact as I crumpled it into my pocket and started languidly at the voie douloureuse which I nightly followed to the club. In Palmel there was no dignified greetings to be exchanged now with well-groomed acquaintances. The only people to be seen were some late stragglers from the park with a perambulator and some hot and dusty children lagging fretfully behind. Some rustic sightseers draining the last dregs of daylight in an effort to make out from their guidebooks which of these reverent piles was which? A policeman and a builder's cart. Of course the club was a strange one. Both of my own being closed for cleaning a coincidence expressly planned by providence for my inconvenience. The club which you are permitted to make use of on these occasions always irritates with its strangeness and discomfort. The few occupants seem odd and oddly dressed and you wonder how they got there. The particular weekly that you want is not taken in. The dinner is execrable and the ventilation a-fast. All these evils oppressed me tonight and yet I was puzzled to find that somewhere within me there was a faint lightning of the spirits causeless as far as I could discover. It could not be Davis's letter yachting in the Baltic at the end of September. The very idea made one shudder. Cows with a pleasant party and hotels handy was all very well. An august cruise on a steam yacht in French waters or the Highlands was all very well but what kind of a yacht was this? It must be of a certain size to have got so far but I sort of remembered enough of Davis's means to know that he had no money to waste on luxuries. That brought me to the man himself. I had known him at Oxford not as one of my immediate set but we were a sociable college and I had seen a good deal of him liking him for his physical energy combined with a certain simplicity and modesty though indeed he had nothing to be conceited about liked him in fact in the way that at that receptive period one likes many men whom one never keeps up with later. We had both gone down in the same year three years ago now. I had gone to France and Germany for two years to learn the languages. He had failed for the Indian civil and then had gone into a solicitor's office. I had only seen him since at rare intervals though I admitted to myself that for his part he had clung loyally to what ties of friendship there were between us but the truth was that we had drifted apart from the nature of things. I had passed brilliantly into my profession and on the few occasions I had met him since I made my triumphant debut in society I had found nothing left in common between us. He seemed to know none of my friends he'd dressed indifferently and I sought him dull. I had always connected him with boats and the sea but never with yachting in the sense that I understood it. In college days he had nearly persuaded me into sharing a squalid week in some open boat he had picked up and was going to sail among some dreary mud flats on the east coast. There was nothing else and the funerial function at dinner drifted on but I found myself remembering at the entree that I had recently heard at second or third hand of something else about him exactly what I could not recall. When I reached the savoury I had concluded as far as I had centered my mind on it at all that the whole thing was a culminating irony as indeed was the savoury in its way. After the wreck of my pleasant plans and the fiasco of my martyrdom to be asked as consolation to spend October freezing in the Baltic with an eccentric non-entity who bored me yet as I smoked my cigar in the ghastly splendour of the empty smoking room the subject came up again was there anything in it? There were certainly no alternatives at hand and to bury myself in the Baltic at this unearthly time of year had at least a smack of tragic thoroughness about it. I pulled out the letter again and ran down its impulsive staccato sentences affecting to ignore what a gust of fresh air high spirits and good fellowship this flimsy bit of paper wafted into the jaded club room. On reaperusel it was full of evil presage a one scenery but what of equinoctual storms and October fogs every sane yachtsman was paying off his crew now there ought to be duck vague, very vague if it gets cold enough cold and yachting seemed to be a gratuitously monstrous union his pelts had left him, why? not the yachting brand and why not? as to the size, comfort and crew of the yacht all cheerfully ignored so many maddening blanks and by the way why in heaven's name a prismatic compass? I fingered a few magazines played a game of fifty with a friendly old fogey too importunate to be worth the labour of resisting and went back to my chambers to bed ignorant that a friendly providence had come to my rescue and indeed rather resenting any clumsy attempt at such friendliness End of Chapter 1 Recorded by Gesine in April 2007 Chapter 2 of The Riddle of the Sands All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Gesine The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers Chapter 2 The Dulce Bella That two days later I should be found pacing the deck of the flushing steamer with the ticket for Hamburg in my pocket may seem a strange result yet not so strange if you have divined my state of mind you will guess at any rate that I was armed with a conviction that I was doing an act of obscure penance rumours of which might call attention to my lot and perhaps awaken remorse in the right quarter while it left me free to enjoy myself unobtrusively in the remote event of enjoyment being possible The fact was that at breakfast on the morning after the arrival of the letter I had still found that inexplicable lightning which I mentioned before and strong enough to warrant a revival of frozen cons An important pro which I had not thought of before was that after all it was a good-natured piece of unselfishness to join Davis for he had spoken of the want of a pal and seemed honestly to be in need of me I almost clutched at this consideration it was an admirable excuse when I reached my office that day for a resigned study on the continental Bradshaw and in order to Carter I enrol a great creaking wall-map of Germany and find me Flensburg The latter labour I might have saved him but it was good for Carter to have something to do and his patient ignorance was amusing With most of the map and what it suggested I was tolerably familiar for I had not wasted my year in Germany whatever I had done or not done since its people, history, progress and future had interested me intensely and I had still friends in Dresden and Berlin Flensburg recalled the Danish war of 64 and by the time Carter's researches had ended in success I had forgotten the task set him and was wondering whether the prospect of seeing something of that lovely region of Schleswig-Holstein as I knew from hearsay that it was was it all to be set against such an uncomfortable way of seeing it was the season so late, the company so unattractive and all the other drawbacks which I counted and treasured as proofs of my desperate condition if I were to go it needed little to decide me and I think Kay's arrival from Switzerland offensively sunburnt was the finishing touch his greeting was Hello, Karathas, you there? Thought you had got away long ago Lucky devil though to be going now just in time for the best driving and the early pheasants the heat's been shocking out there Carter, bring me a Bradshaw a next ordinary book, Bradshaw turned to from habit even when least wanted as men fondle guns and rods in the close season by lunchtime the weight of indecision had been removed and I found myself entrusting Carter with the telegram to Davis P.O. Flensburg Thanks, expect me 9.34 p.m. 26 which produced three hours later a reply Delighted, please bring a number 3 Ripping Guild Stove a perplexing and ominous direction which somehow chilled me in spite of its subject matter Indeed, my resolution was continually faltering it faltered when I turned out my gun in the evening and sort of the grouse it ought to have accounted for it faltered again when I contemplated the miscellaneous list of commissions sewn broadcasts through Davis' letter to fulfil which seemed to make me a willing tool where my chosen role was that of an embittered exile or at least a condescending ally however I faced the commissions manfully after leaving the office at Lancaster's I inquired for his gun was received coolly and had to pay a heavy bill which it seemed to have incurred before it was handed over having ordered the gun and number 4s to be sent to my chambers I bought the raven mixture with that peculiar sense of injury which the prospect of smuggling in another's behalf always entails and wondered where in the world Cary and Nielsen's was a firm which Davis spoke of as though it were as well known as the Bank of England or the Stores instead of specialising in rigging screws whatever they might be they sounded important though and it would be only polite to unearth them I connected them with the few repairs and awoke new misgivings at the Stores I asked for a number 3 ripping-gill stove and was confronted with a formidable and hideous piece of iron mongery which burned petroleum in two capacious tanks horribly prophetic of a smell of warm oil I paid for this miserably convinced of its grim efficiency but speculating as to the domestic conditions which caused it to be sent for as an afterthought by Telegram I also asked about the rigging screws in the yachting department but learnt that they were not kept in stock that Cary and Nielsen's would certainly have them and that their shop was in the minories in the Far East meaning a journey nearly as long as to Flensburg and twice as tiresome they would be shut by the time I got there so after this exhausting round of duty I went home in a cab omitted dressing for dinner an epoch in itself ordered the chop up from the basement kitchen and spent the rest of the evening packing and writing with a methodical gloom of a man ordered for the last time the last of those airless nights passed the astonished withers saw me breakfasting at eight and at nine thirty I was vacantly examining rigging screws with what wits were left me after a sulphurous ride in the underground to Aldgate I laid great stress on the three eighths and the galvanism and took them on trust ignorant as to their functions for the eleven shelling oilskins I was referred to a villainous den in the back street which the shopman said they always recommended and where a dirty and bejeweled Hebrew chaffered with me beginning at eighteen chillings over two reeking orange slabs distantly resembling moieties of the human figure their odour made me close prematurely for fourteen chillings and I hurried back for I was due there at eleven my office was my two disreputable brown paper parcels one of which made itself so noticeable in the close official air that Carter attentively asked if I would like to have it sent to my chambers and Kay was inquisitive to bluntness about it and my movements but I did not care to enlighten Kay whose comments I knew would be provokingly envious or wounding to my pride in some way I remembered later on the prismatic compass and wired to the minor ways to have one sent at once feeling rather relieved that I was not present there to be cross-examined as to size and make the reply was not stopped try surveying instrument maker a reply both puzzling and reassuring for Davis' request for a compass had given me more uneasiness than anything while to find that what he wanted turned out to be a surveying instrument was a no less perplexing discovery that day I made my last pressy and handed over my schedules pro-crustian beds where unwilling facts were stretched and tortured and said goodbye to my temporary chief genial and lenient M who wished me a jolly holiday with all sincerity at seven I was watching a cab packed with my personal luggage and the collection of unwieldy and incongruous packages that my shopping had drawn down to me two deviations after that wretched prismatic compass which I obtained in the end second hand Fort de Mieux near Victoria at one of those showy shops which look like jewelers and are really pawnbrokers nearly caused me to miss my train but at eight thirty I had taken off the dust of London from my feet and at ten thirty I was, as I have announced pacing the deck of a flushing steamer adrift on this fatuous holiday in the far Baltic an air from the west cooled by a midday thunderstorm followed the steamer as she slid through the calm channels of the Thames estuary past the cordon of scintillating light ships that watch over the sea roads to the imperial city like pickets round a sleeping army and slipped out into the dark spaces of the North Sea stars were bright summer scents from the Kent cliffs mingled coyly with vulgar steamer smells the summer weather held immutably nature for her part seemed resolved to be no party to my penance but to be imperturbably bent on shedding mild ridicule over my wrongs an irresistible sense of peace and detachment combined with that delicious physical awakening that pulses through the nerve-sick townsmen when city heirs and bold routine are left behind him combined to provide me, however thankless a subject with a solid background of resignation stowing this safely away I could calculate my intentions with cold egotism if the weather held I might pass a not intolerable fortnight with Davis when it broke up, as it was sure to I could easily excuse myself from the pursuit of the problematical ducks the wintry logic of facts would, in any case decide him to lay up his yacht for he could scarcely think of sailing home at such a season I could then take a chance lying ready of spending a few weeks in Dresden or elsewhere I settled this program comfortably and then turned in from flushing eastward to Hamburg then northward to Flensburg I cut short the next day's sultry story past dyke and windmill and still canals onto blazing stubbles and roaring towns at the last, after dusk through a quiet level region where the train potted from one lazy little station to another and at ten o'clock I found myself stiff and stuffy on the platform at Flensburg exchanging greetings with Davis it's awfully good of you to come not at all, it's very good of you to ask me we were both of us ill at ease even in the dim gaslight he clashed on my notions of a yachtsman no cool white ducks or neat blue surge and where was the snowy crown yachting cap that precious charm that so easily converts a landsman into a dashing mariner conscious that this impressive uniform in high perfection was lying ready in my Port Montau I felt oddly guilty here on an old Norfolk jacket muddy brown shoes, grey flannel trousers or had they been white and an ordinary tweed cap the hand he gave me was horny and appeared to be stained with paint the other one which carried a parcel had a bandage on it which would have borne renewal there was an instant of mutual inspection I thought he gave me a shy hurried scrutiny as though to test past conjectures with something of anxiety in it and perhaps save the mark a tinge of admiration the face was familiar and yet not familiar the pleasant blue eyes, open, clean cut features unintellectual forehead were the same so were the brisk and impulsive movements there was some change but the moment of awkward hesitation was over and the light was bad and whilst rolling down the platform for my luggage we chatted with constraint about trivial things by the way he suddenly said laughing I'm afraid I'm not fit to be seen but it's so late it doesn't matter I've been painting hard all day and just got it finished I only hope we shall have some wind tomorrow it's been hopelessly calm lately I say, you've brought a good deal of stuff he concluded as my belongings began to collect here was a reward for my submissive exertions in the Far East you gave me a good many commissions oh I didn't mean those things he said absently thanks for bringing them by the way that's the stove I suppose cartridge is this one by the way you got the rigging screws all right I hope they're not really necessary of course I nodded vacantly and felt a little hurt but they're simpler than lanyards and you can't get them here it's that portmanteau he said slowly measuring it with a doubtful eye never mind we'll try you couldn't do with a Gladstone only as boat you see the dinghy hmm and there's the hatch way too he was lost in thought anyhow we'll try I'm afraid there are no cabs but it's quite near and the porter will help sickening forebodings crept over me while Davis shouldered my Gladstone and clutched at the parcels aren't your men here I asked faintly men he looked confused oh perhaps I ought to have told you I never have any paid hands it's quite a small boat you know I hope you didn't expect luxury I've managed a single-handed for some time a man would be no use and a horrible nuisance he revealed these appalling truths with a cheerful assurance which did nothing to hide a naive apprehension of their effect on me there was a check in our mobilization it's rather late to go on board isn't it I said in a wooden voice someone was turning out the gas lights and the porter yawned ostentatiously I think I'd rather sleep at a hotel tonight a strained pause oh of course you can do that if you like said Davis in transparent distress of mind but it seems hardly worthwhile to cart this stuff all the way to an hotel I believe they're all on the other side of the harbour and back again to the boat to-tomorrow she's quite comfortable and you're sure to sleep well as you're tired we can leave the things here I argued feebly and walk over with my bag oh I shall have to go aboard anyhow he rejoined I never sleep on shore he seemed to be clinging timidly but desperately to some diplomatic end a stony despair was invading me and paralyzing resistance better face the worst and be done with it come on I said grimly heavily loaded we stumbled over railway lines and rubble heaps on the harbour Davis let the way to a stairway whose weedy steps disappeared below in gloom if you'll get into the dinghy he said all briskness now I'll pass the things down I descended gingerly holding as a guide a sodden painter which ended in a small boat and conscious that I was collecting slime on cuffs and trousers hold up shouted Davis cheerfully as I sat down suddenly near the bottom with one foot in the water I climbed wretchedly into the dinghy and awaited events now float her up close under the key wall and make fast to the ring down there came down from above followed by the slack of the sodden painter which knocked my cap off as it fell all fast any not'll do as I grappled with his loathsome task and then a big dark object loomed overhead and was lowered into the dinghy it was my Port Montau and placed a swat exactly filled all the space of midships does it fit was the anxious inquiry from a loft beautifully capital scratching at the greasy wall to keep the dinghy close to it I received in succession our straws and stowed the cargo as best I could while the dinghy sank lower and lower in the water and its precarious superstructure grew higher catch was the final direction from above and a damp soft parcel hit me in the chest be careful of that it's meat now back to the stairs I painfully acquiesced and Davis appeared it's a bit of a load and she's rather deep but I think we shall manage he reflected you sit right aft and I'll row I was too far gone for curiosity as to how this monstrous pyramid was to be rowed or even for surmises as to its foundering by the way I crawled to my appointed seat and Davis hit the buried skulls by a series of tugs which shook the whole structure and made us roll alarmingly how he stowed himself into rowing posture I have not the least idea but eventually we were moving sluggishly out into the open water his head just visible in the boughs we had started from what appeared to be the head of a narrow loch and were leaving behind us the lights of a big town a long frontage of lamplit keys was on our left was here and there the vague hull of a steamer alongside we passed the last of the lights and came out into a broader stretch of water when a light breeze was blowing and dark hills could be seen on either shore I'm lying a little way down the fjord you see said Davis I hate to be too near a town and I found a carpenter handy here there she is I wonder how you like her I roused myself we were entering a little cove encircled by trees and approaching a light which flickered in the rigging of a small vessel whose outline gradually defined itself keep her off said Davis as we drew alongside in a moment he had jumped on deck tried the painter and was rounded my end you hand them up he ordered and I'll take them it was a laborious task with the one relief that it was not far to hand them a doubtful compensation for other reasons distantly shaping themselves when the stack was transferred to the deck I followed it tripping over the flabby meat parcel which was already shown with a lot of disintegration under the dew hastily there floated through my mind my last embarkation on a yacht my faultless attire the trim gig and obsequious sailors the accommodation ladder flashing with varnish and brass in the august sun the orderly snowy decks and basket chairs under the awning aft what a contrast with this sordid midnight scramble over damp meat and littered packing cases the bitterest touch of all was a growing sense of inferiority and ignorance which I had never before been allowed to feel in my experience of yachts Davis awoke from another reverie over my Port Montau to say cheerily I'll just show you round down below first and then we'll stow things away and get to bed he dived down the companion ladder and I followed cautiously a complex odor of paraffin past cookery, tobacco and tar saluted my nostrils mind your head said Davis striking a match and lighting a candle while I groped into the cabin you better sit down it's easier to look around there might well have been sarcasm in this piece of advice for I must have cut a ridiculous figure peering awkwardly and suspiciously around with shoulders and head bent to avoid the ceiling which seemed in the half light to be even nearer the floor than it was you see where Davis is reassuring words there's plenty of room to sit upright which was strictly true but I am not very tall and he is short some people make a point of head room but I never mind much about it that's the centre-board case he explained as in stretching my legs out my knees came into contact with a sharp edge I had not seen this devilish obstruction as it was hidden beneath a table which indeed rested on it at one end it appeared to be a long low triangle running lengthways with a boat and dividing the naturally limited space into two you see she's a flat-bottomed boat drawing very little water without the plate that's why there's so little head room for deep water you lower the plate so in one way or another you can go practically anywhere I was not nautical enough to draw any very definite conclusions from this but what I did draw were not promising the latter sentences were spoken from the forecastle with the Davis had crept through a low sliding door like that of a rabbit-hutch and was already busy with a kettle over a stove which I made out to be a battered and disreputable twin brother of the number three ripping-gale it'll be boiling soon he remarked and will have some grog my eyes were used to the light now and I took in the rest of my surroundings which may be very simply described two long cushion-covered seats flanked the cabin bounded at the after-end by cupboards one of which was cut low to form a sort of miniature sideboard with glasses hung and a rack above it the deck overhead was very low at each side but rose shoulder-high for a space in the middle where a coach house roof with a skylight gave additional cabin space just outside the door was a fold-up washing stand on either wall were long net-racks holding a medley of flags, charts caps, cigar boxes hanks of yarn and such like across the forward bulkhead was a bookshelf crammed to overflowing with volumes of all sizes many upside-down and some coverless below this were a pipe rack an aneroid and a clock with a hearty tick all the woodwork was painted white and to a less jaundiced eye than mine the interior might have had an enticing look of snugness some Kodak prints were nailed roughly on the after-bulkhead and just over the doorway was the photograph of a young girl that's my sister says Davies who had emerged and saw me looking at it now let's get the stuff down he ran up the ladder and soon my Portmanteau blackened the hatchway and a great straining and squeezing began I was afraid it was too big came down I'm sorry but you'll have to unpack on deck we may be able to squash it down when it's empty then the wearisome tale of packages began to form a fresh stack in the cramped space at my feet and my back ached with stooping and moiling in unfamiliar places Davies came down and with unconcealed pride introduced me to the sleeping cabin he called the other one the saloon another candle was lit and showed two short and narrow berths with blankets but no sign of sheets beneath these were drawers one set of which Davies made me master of evidently thinking there were princely allowance for space for my wardrobe you can chuck your things down the skylights onto your berths as you unpack them he remarked by the way I doubt if there's room for all you've got I suppose you couldn't manage no I couldn't I said shortly the absurdity of argument struck me two men, doubled up like monkeys cannot argue if you'll go out I shall be able to get out too I added he seemed miserable at this ghost of an altercation but I pushed past mounted the ladder and in the expiring moonlight unstrapped that accursed portmanteau and brimming over with irritation groped among its contents sorting some into the skylight with the same feeling that nothing mattered much now and it was best to be done with it repacking the rest with guilty stealth air Davies should discover their character and strapping up the hole again then I sat down upon my white elephant and shivered for the chill of autumn was in the air it suddenly struck me that if it had been raining things might have been worse still the notion made me look round the little cove was still as glass stars above and stars below a few white cottages glimmering at one point on the shore in the west the lights of Flensburg to the east the fjords broadening into unknown gloom from Davies toiling below there were muffled sounds of wrenching pushing and hammering punctuated occasionally by a heavy splash as something shot up from the hatchway and fell into the water how it came about I do not know whether it was something pathetic in the look I had last seen on his face a look which I associated for no reason whatever with his bandaged hand whether it was one of those instance of clear vision in which our separate selves are seen divided the baser from the better and I saw my silly egotism in contrast with a simple generous nature whether it was an impalpable air of mystery which pervaded the hill enterprise and refused to be dissipated by its most mortifying and vulgarizing incidents a mystery dimly connected with my companion's obvious consciousness of having misled me into joining him whether it was only the stars and the cool air rousing atrophied instincts of youth and spirits probably indeed it was all these influences cemented into strengths by a ruthless sense of humor which whispered that I was in danger of making a mere commonplace fool of myself in spite of all my labored calculations but whatever it was in a flash my mood changed the crown of martyrdom disappeared the wounded vanity healed that precious fund of fictitious resignation drained away but left no void there was left a fashionable and disheveled young man sitting in the dew and in the dark on a ridiculous portmanteau which dwarfed the yacht that was to carry it a youth acutely sensible of ignorance in a strange and strenuous atmosphere still feeling sore and victimized but with all sanely ashamed and sanely resolved to enjoy himself I anticipate for though the change was radical its full growth was slow but in any case it was here and now that it took its birth grog's ready came from below bunching myself for the descent I found to my astonishment that all trace of litter had miraculously vanished and a cosy neatness reigned glasses and lemons were on the table and a fragrant smell of punch had deadened previous odours I showed little emotion at these amenities but enough to give intense relief to Davies who delightedly showed me his devices for storage praising the roominess of his floating den there's your stove you see and he ended I've chucked the old one overboard it was a weakness of his I should say here to rejoice in throwing things overboard on the flimsiest pretexts I afterwards suspected that the new stove had not been really necessary any more than the rigging screws but was an excuse for gratifying this curious taste we smoked and chatted for a little and then came the problem of going to bed after much bumping of knuckles and head and many giddy writhings I mastered it and lay between the rough blankets Davies moving swiftly and deftly was soon in his it's quite comfortable isn't it he said as he blew out the light from where he lay with an accuracy which must have been the fruit of long practice I felt prickly all over and there was a damp patch on the pillow which was soon explained by the heavy drop of moisture falling on my forehead I suppose the deck's not leaking I said as mildly as I could I'm awfully sorry said Davies earnestly tumbling out of his bunk it must be the heavy dew I did a lot of caulking yesterday but I suppose I missed that place I'll run up and square it with an oil skin what's wrong with your hand I asked sleepily on his return for gratitude reminded me of that bandage nothing much I strained it the other day was the reply and then the seemingly inconsequent remark I'm glad you brought that prismatic compass it's not really necessary of course but muffled by blankets it may come in useful End of Chapter 2 Recorded by Gesina in May 2007 Chapter 3 of The Riddle of the Sands This is the LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Gesina The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers Chapter 3 Davies I dosed but fitfully with a fretful sense of sore elbows and neck and many a drafty hiatus among the blankets it was broad daylight before I had reached the stage of Torpo in which such slumber merges that was finally broken by the descent through the skylight of a torrent of water I started up, bumped my head hard against the decks led and eyed upwards Sorry, I'm scrubbing decks come up and bathe slept well I heard a voice saying from a loft fairly well, I growled stepping out into a pool of water on the oil cloth thence I stumbled up the ladder dived overboard and buried bad dreams stiffness, frowsiness and tormented nerves of the fjord of the lovely Baltic a short and furious swim and I was back again and searching for a means of ascent up the smooth black side which, low as it was was slippery and unsympathetic Davies in a loose canvas shirt with the sleeves tucked up and flannels rolled up to the knee hung over me with a rope's end and chatted unconcernedly about the easiness of the job when you know how aduring me to mind the paint and talking about an accommodation ladder he had once had but had thrown overboard because it was so horribly in the way when I arrived my knees and elbows were picked out in black paint to his consternation nevertheless as I applied the towel I knew that I had left in those limpid depths yet another crust of discontent and self-conceit as I dressed into flannels and blazer I looked round the deck and with an unskilled and doubtful eye took in all that the darkness had hitherto hidden she seemed very small in point of fact she was seven tons something over 30 feet in length and nine in beam as I was very suitable to weekends in this island for such as like that sort of thing but that she should have come from Dover to the Baltic suggested a world of physical endeavor of which I had never dreamed I passed to the aesthetic side smartness and beauty were essential to yachts in my mind but with the best resolves to be pleased I found little encouragement here the hull seemed too low and the main mast too high the cabin roof looked clumsy and the skylights saddened the eye with dull iron and plebeian graining what a brass there was on the tillerhead and elsewhere was tarnished with sickly green the decks had none of that creamy purity which cows expects but were rough and grey and showed tarry exhalations run the seams and rusty stains near the bows the ropes and rigging were in mourning when contrasted with a delicate buff manila so satisfying to the artistic eye as seen against the blue of a dune sky at south sea nor was the hull effect bettered by many signs of recent refitting an impression of paint, varnish and carpentry was in the air a gaudy new bird G.E. fluttered loft there seemed to be a new roper too especially around the diminutive mizzen mast which itself looked altogether new but all this only emphasized the general plainness reminding one of a respectable woman of the working classes trying to dress above her station and soon likely to give it up that the ensemble was business like and solid even my untrained eye could see many of the deck fittings seemed disproportionately substantial the anchor chain looked contemptuous of its charge the binocle with its compass was of a size and prominence almost comically impressive and was moreover the only piece of brass which was burnished and showed traces of reverend care two huge coils of stout and dingy warp lay just above the main mast and summed up the weather beaten aspect of the little ship I should add here that in the distant past she had been a lifeboat and had been clumsily converted into a yacht by the addition of a counter deck and the necessary spars she was built as all lifeboats are diagonally of two skins of teak and thus had immense strength though in the matter of looks all are hybrids failings hunger and teas made from below brought me down to the cabin where a found breakfast laid out on the table over the centreboard case with Davies earnestly presiding rather flushed us to the face and sooty us to the fingers there was a slight shortage of plate and crockery but I praised the bacon and could do so truthfully for its crisp and steaming shavings would put to shame the efforts of my London cook indeed I should have enjoyed the meal heartily were it not for the lowness of the sofa and table causing a curvature of the body which made swallowing a more lengthy process than usual and induced a periodical yearning up and stretch a relief which spelt disaster to the skull I noticed too that Davies spoke with a zest sinister to me of the delights of white bread and fresh milk which she seemed to consider unusual luxuries though suitable to an inaugural banquet in honour of a fastidious stranger one can't be always going on shore he said when I showed a discreet interest in these things I lived for ten days on a big rye loaf over in the Frisian islands and it's died hard I suppose very hard but gravely quite good after that I taught myself to make rolls had no baking powder at first so used Eno's fruit salt but they wouldn't rise much with that as for milk condensed is I hope you don't mind it I changed the subject and asked about his plans let's get underway at once he said and sailed down the fjord I tried for something more specific but he was gone and his voice drowned in the focusle by the clatter and swish of washing up thence forward events moved with bewildering rapidity humbly desirous of being useful adjoined him on deck only to find that he scarcely noticed me save as a new and unexpected obstacle in his round of activity he was everywhere at once heaving in chain hooking on halyards hauling ropes while my part became that of the clown who does things after they are already done for my knowledge of a yacht was of that floating and inaccurate kind which is useless in practice soon the anchor was up a great rusty monster it was the sails set and Davies was darting swiftly to and fro between the tiller and jib sheets while the dulcy beller bowed a lingering farewell to the shore and headed for the open fjord erratic puffs from the high land behind made her progress timorous at first but soon the fairway was reached and a true breeze from flansberg and the west took her in its friendly grip steadily she rustled down the calm blue highway her beauty was the introduction to a passage in my life short but pregnant with molding force through stress and strain for me and others Davies was gradually resuming his natural self with abstracted intervals in which he lashed the helm to finger a distant rope with such speed that the movements seemed simultaneous once he vanished only to reappear in an instant with a chart which he studied whilst deering the success that its reluctant folds seemed to render impossible waiting respectfully for his revival I had full time to look about the fjord here was about a mile broad from the shore we had left the hills rose steeply but with no rugged grandeur the outlines were soft there were green spaces and rich woods on the lower slopes a little white town was opening up in one place and scattered farms dotted the prospect the other shore which I could just see framed between the gunnel and the mainsail as I sat leaning against the hatchway and sadly missing a deck chair was lower and lonelier though prosperous and pleasing to the eye spacious pastures led up by slow degrees to ordered clusters of wood which hinted at the presence of some great manor house Flensberg was settling into haze ahead the scene was shut in by the contours of hills some clear some dreamy and distant lastly a single glimpse of water shining between the folds of hill far away hinted at spaces of distant sea of which this was but a secluded inlet everywhere was that peculiar charm engendered by the association of quiet pastoral country and a homely human atmosphere with a grant of the great ocean that bathes all the shores of our globe there was another charm in the scene due to the way in which I was viewing it not as a pampered passenger on a fine steam yacht or even on a powerful modern schooner as the yacht agents advertise but from the deck of a scrubby little craft of doubtful build and distressing plainness which yet had smelt her persistent way to this distant fjord through a new knot watt of difficulty and danger with no apparent motive in her single occupant who talked as vaguely and unconcernedly about his adventurous cruise as though it were all a protracted afternoon on Southampton water I glanced around at Davies he had dropped the chart and was sitting or rather half lying on the deck with one bronzed arm over the tiller gazing fixedly ahead with just an occasional glance and a laugh he still seemed absorbed in himself and for a moment or two I studied his face with an attention I had never since I had known him given it I had always thought it common place as I had sought him common place so far as I had sought it all about either it had always rather irritated me by an excess of candour and boyishness these qualities it had kept but the scales were falling from my eyes and I saw others I saw strength to obstinacy and courage to recklessness in the firm lines of the chin an older and deeper look in the eyes those odd transitions from bright mobility to detached earnestness which had partly amused and chiefly annoyed me hitherto seemed now to be lost in a sensitive reserve not cold or egotistic but strangely winning from its paradoxical frankness sincerity was stumped on every liniment a deep misgiving stirred me that clever as I thought myself nicely perceptive of the right and congenial men to know I had made some big mistakes how many I wondered a relief scarcely less deep because it was unconfessed stole in on me with a suspicion that little as I deserved it the patient fates were offering me a golden chance of repairing at least one and yet I am used the patient fates have crooked methods besides a certain mischievous humour for it was Davies who had asked me out though now he scarcely seemed to need me almost tricked me into coming out for he might have known I was not suited to such a life yet trickery and Davies sounded an odd conjuncture probably it was the growing discomfort of my attitude which produced this backsliding my night's rest and the ascent from the bath had in fact done little to prepare me for contact with sharp edges and hard surfaces but Davies had suddenly come to himself and with an I say are you comfortable have something to sit on jerked the helm a little to windward felt it like a pulse for a moment with a rapid look to windward and dived below whence he returned with a couple of cushions which he threw to me I felt perversely resentful after these luxuries and asked can't I be of any use oh don't bother he answered I expect you're tired aren't we having a splendid sail this must be eckon on the port bow peering under the sail where the trees run in I say do you mind looking at the chart he tossed it over to me I spread it out painfully for it curled up like a watch spring at the least slackening of pressure I was not familiar with charts and this sudden trust reposed in me after a good deal of neglect made me nervous UC Flensburg don't you he said that's where we are dabbing with a long reach at an indefinite space on the crowded cheat now which side of that boy off the point do we pass I had scarcely taken in which was land and which was water much less the significance of the boy when he resumed never mind I'm pretty sure it's all deep water about here I expect that marks the fairway for steamers in a minute or two we were passing the boy in question on the wrong side I am pretty certain for weeds and sand came suddenly to view below us a comfortable distinctness but all Davis said was there's never any sea here and the plates not down a dark utterance which I pondered doubtfully the best of these stress wig waters he went on is that a boat of this size can go almost anywhere there's no navigation required why at this moment a faint scraping was felt rather than heard beneath us aren't we a ground I asked with great calmness oh she'll blow over he replied wincing a little she blew over but the episode caused a little naive vexation in Davis a related as a good instance of one of his minor peculiarities he was utterly without that didactic pedantry which yachting has a fatal tendency to engender in men who profess it he had tossed me the chart without a thought that I was an ignoramus to whom it would be Greek and who would provide him with an admirable subject to drill and lecture just as his neglect of me throughout the morning had been merely habitual and unconscious independence in the second place master of his metier as I knew him afterwards to be resourceful skillful and alert he was liable to lapse into a certain amateurish vagueness half irritating and half amusing I think truly that both these peculiarities came from the same source a hatred of any sort of affectation to the same source I traced the fact that he and his yacht observed none of the superficial etiquette of yachts and yachtsmen that she never for instance flew a national ensign and he never wore a yachting suit we rounded a low green point which I had scarcely noticed before we must drive said Davies just take the helm will you and without waiting for my cooperation he began hauling in the mainsheet with great vigor I had rude notions of steering but driving is a delicate operation no yachtsmen will be surprised to hear that the boom saw its opportunity and swung over with a mighty crash with the mainsheet entangled round me and the tiller I had all standing was his sorrowful comment you're not used to her yet she's very quick on the helm where am I to steer for I asked wildly oh don't trouble our taker now he replied I felt it was time to make my position clear I'm an utter duffer at sailing I began you'll have a lot to teach me or one of these days I shall be thanking you you see there's always been a crew crew with sovereign contempt why the whole fun of the thing is to do everything oneself well I felt in the way the whole morning I'm awfully sorry his dismay and repentance were comical why it's just the other way you may be all the use in the world he became absent we were following the inward trend of a small bay towards a cleft and the low shore that's Ecken Sound said Davies let's look into it and a minute or two later we were drifting through a dainty little straight with a peep of open water at the end of it cottages bordered either side some overhanging the very water some connecting with it by a rickety wooden staircase or a miniature landing stage creepers and roses rioted over the walls and tiny portraits for a space on one side a rude key with small smacks floating off it spoke of some minute commercial interests a very small tea garden with neglected looking bowers and leaf-strewn tables hinted at some equally minute tripping interest a pervading hue of mingled bronze and rose came partly from the water mellowed woodwork of the cottages and stages and partly from the creepers and the trees behind where autumn's subtle fingers were already at work down this exquisite sea-lane we glided till it ended in a broad mirror where our sails, which had been shivering and complaining filled into contented silence ready about said Davies callously we must get out of this again and round we swung why not anchor and stop here I protested for a view of tantalizing loveliness was unfolding itself oh, we've seen all there is to be seen and we must take this breeze while we've got it it was always torture to Davies to feel a good breeze running to waste while he was inactive at anchor or on shore the shore to him was an inferior element merely serving as a useful annex to the water a source of necessary supplies let's have lunch he pursued as we resumed our way down the fjord a vision of iced drinks tempting salads white napery and an attentive steward mocked me with past recollections you'll find a tongue said the voice of doom in the starboard sofa locker under the floor in the bilge I'll see her around that boy if you wouldn't mind beginning I obeyed with a bad grace but the close air and cramped posture must have been numbed my faculties for I opened the portside locker reached down and grasped a sticky body which turned out to be a pot of varnish recoiling wretchedly I tried the opposite one combating the embarrassing heel of the boat and the obstructive edges of the centreboard case a medley of damp tins of varied sizes showed in the gloom exuding a mouldy odour faded legends on dissolving paper like the remnants of old posters on a disused hoarding spoke of soups, curries, beefs potted meats and other hidden delicacies I picked out a tongue re-emprisoned the odour and explored for beer it was true I suppose that bilge didn't hurt it as I tugged at the plank on my hands and knees but I should have myself preferred a more accessible and less humid wine cellar than the cavities among slimy ballast from which I dug the bottles I regarded my hard-worn and ill-favoured pledges of a meal with giddiness and discouragement How are you getting on? shouted Davies the tin-openers hanging up on the bulkhead the plates and knives are in the cupboard I doggedly pursued my functions the plates and knives met me half-way for being on the weatherside and thus having a downward slant its contents when I slipped the hatch slowed affectionately into my bosom and overflowed with a clatter and jingle onto the floor That often happens, I heard from above Never mind there are no breakables I'm coming down to help and down he came leaving the dulcibella to her own devices I think I'll go on deck I said Why in the world couldn't you lunch comfortably at Ecken and save this infernal pandemonium of a picnic Where's the yacht going to meanwhile and how are we to lunch on that slanting table I'm covered with varnish and mud and ankle-deep in crockery There goes the beer you shouldn't have stood it on the table with this list on said Davies was intense composure but it won't do any harm it'll drain into the bilge ashes to ashes dust to dust I thought you go on deck now and I'll finish getting ready I regretted my explosion though rung from me and a great provocation keep her straight on as she's going said Davies I stumbled up out of the chaos brushing the dust off my trousers and varnishing the ladder with my hands I unlashed the helm and kept her as she was going we had rounded a sharp bend in the fjord and were sailing up a broad and straight reach which every moment disclosed new beauties sights fair enough to be barmed to the angriest spirit a red-roofed hamlet was on our left on the right an ivied ruin close to the water where some contemplative cattle stood knee-deep the view ahead was a white strand which fringe both shores and to it fell wooded slopes interrupted here and there by low sandstone cliffs of warm red colouring and now and again by a dingle with cracks of greenswood I forgot petty squallows and enjoyed things the coy tremble of the tiller of air from the dingy mainsail and with a somewhat chastened rapture the lunch which Davies brought up to me and solicitously watched me eat later as the wind sank to lazy airs he became busy with a larger topsel and jib but I was content to doze away the afternoon drenching brain and body in this sweetened novel foreign atmosphere and dreamily watching the fringe of Glen Cliff and cool white sand as they passed ever more slowly by end of Chapter 3 read by Gesine in May 2007 Chapter 4 of The Riddle of the Sands this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by Gesine The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers Chapter 4 Retrospect Wake up! I rubbed my eyes and wondered where I was stretched myself painfully too for even the cushions had not given me a true bed of roses it was dusk and the yacht was stationary in glassy water coloured by the last afterglow a roofing of thin upper cloud had spread over most of the sky and a subtle smell of rain was in the air we seemed to be in the middle of the fjord whose shores looked distant and steep in the gathering darkness close ahead they faded away suddenly and the sight lost itself in a grey void the stillness was absolute we can't get to Sonderberg tonight said Davies what's to be done then I asked collecting my senses oh we'll anchor anywhere here we're just at the mouth of the fjord I'll tell her inshore if you'll steer in that direction he pointed vaguely at a blur of trees and cliff then he jumped into the dingy cast off the painter and after snatching at the slack of a rope began towing the reluctant yacht by short jacks of the skulls the menacing aspect of that grey void combined with the natural preference for getting to some definite place tonight combined to depress my spirits afresh in my sleep I had dreamed of Moorwen Lodge of heather tea parties after glorious slaughter of grouse of salmon leaping in amber pools and now just take a cast of the lead will you came Davies' voice above the splash of the skulls where is it I shouted back never mind we're close enough now can you manage to let go the anchor? I hurried forward and picked impotently at the bonds of the sleeping monster but Davies was aboard again and stirred him with a deft touch or two until he crashed into the water with a grinding of chain we shall do well here said he isn't this rather an open anchorage? I suggested it's only open from that quarter he replied if it comes on to blow from there we shall have to clear out but I think it's only rain let's stow the sails another whirlwind of activity in which I joined as effectively as I could oppressed by the prospect of having to clear out who knows wither at midnight but Davies' son foie was infectious I suppose and the little den below bright lit and soon fragrant with cookery pleaded insistently for affection yachting in this singular style was hungry work I found steak tastes none the worse for having been wrapped in newspaper and the slight traces of the day's news disappear with frying and onions and potato chips Davies was indeed on his metal for this his first dinner to his guest for he produced with stealthy pride not from the dishonoured grave of the bear but from some more hallowed recess a bottle of German champagne from which we drank success to the d'Alsabella I wish you would tell me all about your cruise from England I asked you must have had some exciting adventures here are the charts let's go over them we must wash up first he replied and I was tactfully introduced to one of his very few standing orders that tobacco should not burn nor post-prandial chat begin until that distasteful process had ended it would never get done otherwise he sagely opined but when we were finally settled with cigars a variety of which culled from many ports German, Dutch and Belgian Davies kept in a battered old box in the net rack the promised talk hung fire I'm no good at description he complained and there's really very little to tell we left Dover Morrison and I on 6th of August made a good passage to Ostend you had some fun there I suppose I put in thinking of well of Ostend in August fun a filthy hole I call it we had to stop a couple of days as we found a boy coming in and carried away the Bob's Day in a tidal dock and there was nothing to do on shore well what next we had a splendid sail to the east shelled but then like falls decided to go through Holland by canal and river it was good fun enough navigating the estuary the tides and banks there were appalling but farther inland it was a wretched business nothing but paying locked dues bumping against skites and towing down stinking canals never a peaceful night like this always moored by some key or tow-paths with people passing and boys heaven shall I ever forget those boys a perfect moraine of them in fests Holland they seem to have nothing in the world to do but throw stones and mud at foreign yachts they want a herod with some statesmen like views on infanticide boy Jove yes but the fact is that you want a crew for that pottering inland work they can smack the boys and keep an eye on the skulls a boat like this should stick to the sea or out of the way places on the coast well after Amsterdam you've skipped a great deal haven't you I interrupted oh have I well let me see we went by Dordrecht to Rotterdam nothing to see there rooms of tugs buzzing about and shaving one's bows every second on by the Fecht river to Amsterdam and thence lord what a relief it was out into the North Sea again the weather had been still in steamy but it broke up finally now and we had a rattling three resale to the Zidersay he reached up to the bookshelf for what looked like an ancient ledger and turned over the leaves is that your log I asked I should like to have a look at it oh you'd find a dull reading if you could read it at all it's just short notes about winds and bearings and so on he was turning some leaves over rapidly now why don't you keep a log of what we do I can't describe things and you can I've half a mind to try I said we want another chart now and he pulled down a second yet more stained and frayed than the first we had a splendid time then exploring the Zidersay its northern part at least and round those islands which bound it to the north those are the Friesian islands and they stretch for 120 miles or so eastward you see the first two of them Texel and Fleeland shut in the Zidersay and the rest border the Dutch and German coasts what's all this I said running my finger over some dotted patches which covered much of the chart the latter was becoming unintelligible clean cut coasts and neat regiments of little figures had given place to a confusion of winding and intersecting lines and bald spaces all sand said Davies enthusiastically you can't think what a splendid sailing grant it is you can explore for days without seeing a soul these are the channels you see they are very badly charted this chart was almost useless but it made it all the more fun no towns or harbours just a village or two on the islands if you wanted stores they look rather desolate I said desolate's no word for it they're really only gigantic sandbanks themselves wasn't all this rather dangerous I asked not a bit you see that's where our shallow draft and flat bottom came in we could go anywhere and it didn't matter running aground she's perfect for that sort of work and she doesn't really look bad either does she he asked rather wistfully I suppose I hesitated for he said abruptly anyway I don't go in for looks he had leaned back and I detected traces of innocent mindedness his cigar which he had lately been lighting and relighting feverishly a habit of his when excited seemed now to have expired for good about running aground I persisted surely that's apt to be dangerous he sat up and felt round for a match not the least if you know where you can run risks and where you can't anyway you can't possibly help it that chart may look simple to you simple I thought but at half flood all those banks are covered the islands and coasts are scarcely visible they are so low and everything looks the same this graphic description of a splendid cruising ground took away my breath of course there is risk sometimes choosing an anchorage requires care you can generally get a nice burst under the lee of a bank but the tides run strong in the tunnels and if there's a gale blowing didn't you ever take a pilot I interrupted pilot why the whole point of the thing he stopped short I did take one once later on he resumed with an odd smile which faded at once well I urged for a sorrow reverie was coming oh he ran me ashore of course serve me right I wonder what the weather's doing he rose glanced at the anoroid the clock and the half closed scarlight with a curious circular movement and went a step or two up the companion ladder where he remained for several minutes with head and shoulders in the open air there was no sound of wind outside but the dulce Bella had begun to move in her sleep as it were rolling drowsily to some taint the sand of the sea with an occasional short jump like the start of an uneasy dreamer what does it look like I called for my sofa I had to repeat the question rain coming said Davies returning and possibly wind but we're safe enough here it's coming from the southwest shall we turn in we haven't finished your cruise yet I said all right he agreed with more readiness than I expected after ter shelling here it is the third island from the west I potted along eastward I oh I forgot Morrison had to leave me there I missed him badly but I hoped at that time to get blank to join me I could manage all right single-handed but for that sort of work two are much better than one the plates beastly heavy in fact I had to give up using it for fear of a smash after ter shelling I jogged his memory well I followed the Dutch islands Armeland Schiermonicog Rotem outlandish names aren't they sometimes outside them sometimes inside it was a bit lonely but grand sport and very interesting shocking but I worried out most of the tunnels I suppose those waters are only used by small local craft I put in that would account for inaccuracies did Davies think that Admiralty's had time to waste on smoothing the road for such chaotic little craft as his in all its inquisitive rumblings but he fired up that's all very well he said but think what folly it is however that's a long story and will bore you to cut matters short for we ought to be turning in I got to Borkum that's the first of the German islands he pointed at a round bare lozenge lying in the midst of a welter of sandbanks Rotem, this queer little one it has only one house on it is the most easterly Dutch island and the mainland of Holland ends here, opposite it at the Ems River indicating a dismal cavity on the coast sewn with names suggestive of mud and wrecks and dreariness what state was this I asked about the 9th of this month why, that's only a fortnight before you wired to me you were pretty quick getting to Flensburg wait a bit, we want another chart is this the next yes, but we scarcely need it I only went a little way farther on to Nordenai in fact the third German island then I decided to go straight for the Baltic I had always had an idea of getting there as night did in the Falcon so I made a passage of it to the Eider river there on the West Triswick coast took the river and canal through to Kiel on the Baltic and from there I made another passage up north to Flensburg I was a week there and then you came and here we are and now let's turn in we'll have a fine sail tomorrow he ended with rather forced vivacity and briskly rolled up the chart the reluctance he had shown from the first to talk about his cruise had been for a brief space forgotten in his enthusiasm about a portion of it but had returned markedly in this bold conclusion I felt sure that there was more in it than more disinclination to spin nautical yarns in the hardy-corinthian style which can be so offensive in amateur yachtsmen and I thought I guessed the explanation his voyage single-handed to the Baltic from the Frisian islands had been a full hardy enterprise with perilous incidents which rather than make light of he would not refer to at all probably he was ashamed of his recklessness and wished to ignore it with me and inexperienced acquaintance not yet enamoured of the dulce bella's way of life whom both courtesy and interest demanded that he should inspire with confidence I liked him all the better as I came to this conclusion but I was tempted to persist a little I slept the whole afternoon I said and to tell the truth I rather dread the idea of going to bed it's so tiring look here you've rushed over that last part like an express train that passage to the Schleswig coast the Eider River did you say it was a longish one wasn't it well you see what it was about 70 miles I suppose direct he spoke low bending down to sweep up some cigar ashes on the floor direct then you put in somewhere I stopped once anchored for the night oh that's nothing of a sale with a fair wind by jove I've forgotten to cork that seam over your bunk and it's going to rain I must do it now he'd turn in he disappeared my curiosity never very consuming was banished by concern as to the open seam the prospect of a big drop remorseless and regular as fate falling on my forehead throughout the night as in the torture chamber of the inquisition was alarming enough to recall me wholly to the immediate future so I went to bed finding on the hole that I had made progress in the exercise though still far from being the train contortionist that the occasion called for hammering ceased my head just as I was stretched on the rack and tucked up in my bunk I mean I say when he was settled in his and darkness reigned do you think you'll like this sort of thing if there are many places about here as beautiful as this I replied I think I shall but I should like to land now and then and have a walk of course a great deal depends on the weather this rain drops had begun to patter overhead doesn't mean that the summer's over for good oh you can sail just the same said Davies unless it's very bad there's plenty of sheltered water there's bound to be a change soon but then there are the ducks the colder and stormier it is the better for them I had forgotten the ducks and the cold and suddenly presented as a shooting box in inclement weather the dalsabella lost ground in my estimation which she had laterally gained I'm fond of shooting I said but I'm afraid I'm only a fair weather yachtsman and I should much prefer sun and scenery scenery he repeated reflectively I say you must have thought it a queer taste of mine to cruise about on that outlandish how would you like that sort of thing I should loathe it I answered promptly with a clear conscience weren't you delighted yourself to get to the Baltic? it must be a wonderful contrast to what you described did you ever see another yacht there? only one he answered good night good night end of chapter 4 recorded by Gesine in May 2007