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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Briefe aus der Schweiz"

Elizabeth Gaskell - "Mary Barton"

Jerome K. Jerome - "The Angel and the Author and others"

Jules Verne - "Michael Strogoff"

Riddle of the Sands

E >> Erskine Childers >> Riddle of the Sands




and awoke new misgivings. At the Stores I asked for a No. 3
Rippingille stove, and was confronted with a formidable and hideous
piece of ironmongery, 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 rigging-screws in the yachting
department, but learnt that they were not kept in stock; that Carey
and Neilson'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 a chop
up from the basement kitchen, and spent the rest of the evening
packing and writing, with the methodical gloom of a man setting his
affairs in order for the last time.

The last of those airless nights passed. The astonished Withers saw
me breakfasting at eight, and at 9.30 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 3/8's, and the
galvanism, and took them on trust, ignorant as to their functions.
For the eleven-shilling oilskins I was referred to a villainous den
in a back street, which the shopman said they always recommended, and
where a dirty and bejewelled Hebrew chaffered with me (beginning at
18s.) over two reeking orange slabs distantly resembling moieties of
the human figure. Their odour made me close prematurely for 14s., and
I hurried back (for I was due there at eleven) to my office with 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 K--was inquisitive
to bluntness about it and my movements. But I did not care to
enlighten K--, 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
Minories 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 stocked; try surveying-instrument maker'--a reply
both puzzling and reassuring, for Davies's 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 _précis_ and handed
over my schedules--Procrustean beds, where unwilling facts were
stretched and tortured--and said good-bye 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 on me. Two deviations after that wretched prismatic
compass--which I obtained in the end secondhand, _faute de mieux_,
near Victoria, at one of those showy shops which look like jewellers'
and are really pawnbrokers'--nearly caused me to miss my train. But
at 8.30 I had shaken off the dust of London from my feet, and at
10.30 1 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,
passed the cordon of scintillating lightships 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
townsman when city airs and bald 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 Davies. 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
programme 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, on to blazing stubbles and roaring towns; at the last, after
dusk, through a quiet level region where the train pottered 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 Davies.

'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 serge;
and where was the snowy crowned 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 portmanteau, I felt oddly guilty. He wore 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,
while strolling 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 to-morrow--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; cartridges,
this one, by the weight. 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 the Gladstone only, I suppose? You see, the
dinghy--h'm, and there's the hatchway, 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'll help.'

Sickening forebodings crept over me, while Davies 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 her 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 gaslights, and the porter yawned
ostentatiously. 'I think I'd rather sleep at an hotel to-night.' A
strained pause.

'Oh, of course you can do that, if you like,' said Davies, in
transparent distress of mind. 'But it seems hardly worth while 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-morrow.
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 paralysing 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, and
came on the harbour. Davies led 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 Davies, 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 quay 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
knot'll do,' I heard, as I grappled with this loathsome task, and
then a big, dark object loomed overhead and was lowered into the
dinghy. It was my portmanteau, and, placed athwart, exactly filled
all the space amidships. 'Does it fit?' was the anxious inquiry from
aloft.

'Beautifully.'

'Capital!'

Scratching at the greasy wall to keep the dinghy close to it, I
received in succession our stores, 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 Davies 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 Davies extricated the buried sculls
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 bows. 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 lamp-lit quays
was on our left, with 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 fiord, you see,' said Davies. 'I
hate to be too near a town, and I found a carpenter handy here--There
she is! I wonder how you'll 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 Davies, as we drew alongside.

OTE

In a moment he had jumped on deck, tied the painter, and was round at
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
showing ghastly signs of disintegration under the dew. Hazily 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.

CKQUOTEDavies awoke from another reverie over my portmanteau 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 a companion ladder, and I followed cautiously. A
complex odour of paraffin, past cookery, tobacco, and tar saluted my
nostrils.

'Mind your head,' said Davies, striking a match and lighting a
candle, while I groped into the cabin. 'You'd better sit down; it's
easier to look round.'

There might well have been sarcasm in this piece of advice, for I
must have cut a ridiculous figure, peering awkwardly and suspiciously
round, 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,' were Davies's 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 knee came into contact with a sharp
edge.

I had not seen this devilish obstruction, as it was hidden beneath
the table, which indeed rested on it at one end. It appeared to be a
long, low triangle, running lengthways with the 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 headroom. 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, whither Davies 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 No. 3 Rippingille.

'It'll be boiling soon,' he remarked, 'and we'll 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 in 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, banks of yam, 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,' said 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 tail 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 them a princely allowance of space for my wardrobe.

'You can chuck your things down the skylight on to your berth 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 ere Davies should discover
their character, and strapping up the whole 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 fiord 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 instants 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 whole 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 strength
by a ruthless sense of humour which whispered that I was in danger of
making a mere commonplace fool of myself in spite of all my laboured
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 dishevelled 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 withal 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,' 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 a 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
oilskin.'

'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.'



3 Davies

I DOZED but fitfully, with a fretful sense of sore elbows and neck
and many a draughty hiatus among the blankets. It was broad daylight
before I had reached the stage of torpor 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, and blinked leaden-eyed upwards.

'Sorry! I'm scrubbing decks. Come up and bathe. Slept well?' I heard
a voice saying from aloft.

'Fairly well,' I growled, stepping out into a pool of water on the
oilcloth. Thence I stumbled up the ladder, dived overboard, and
buried bad dreams, stiffness, frowsiness, and tormented nerves in the
loveliest fiord of the lovely Baltic. A short and furious swim and I
was back again, 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,
adjuring 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 plied
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 thirty feet in length and nine in beam, a
size very suitable to week-ends in the Solent, for such as liked that
sort of thing; but that she should have come from Dover to the Baltic
suggested a world of physical endeavour 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
mainmast too high; the cabin roof looked clumsy, and the skylights
saddened the eye with dull iron and plebeian graining. What brass
there was, on the tiller-head and elsewhere, was tarnished with
sickly green. The decks had none of that creamy purity which Cowes
expects, but were rough and grey, and showed tarry exhalations round
the seams and rusty stains near the bows. The ropes and rigging were
in mourning when contrasted with the delicate buff manilla so
satisfying to the artistic eye as seen against the blue of a June sky
at Southsea. Nor was the whole effect bettered by many signs of
recent refitting. An impression of paint, varnish, and carpentry was
in the air; a gaudy new burgee fluttered aloft; there seemed to be a
new rope or two, especially round 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.

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