“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 stationary1 in glassy water, coloured by the last after-glow. 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 fiord, whose shores looked distant and steep in the gathering2 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 Sonderburg to-night,” 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 fiord; I’ll tow her inshore if you’ll steer4 in that direction.” He pointed5 vaguely6 at a blur7 of trees and cliff. Then he jumped into the dinghy, cast off the painter, and, after snatching at the slack of a rope, began towing the reluctant yacht by short jerks of the sculls. The menacing aspect of that grey void, combined with a natural preference for getting to some definite place at night, combined to depress my spirits afresh. In my sleep I had dreamt of Morven Lodge8, of heather tea-parties after glorious slaughters9 of grouse10, of salmon11 leaping in amber12 pools—and now——
“Just take a cast of the lead, will you?” came Davies’s voice above the splash of the sculls.
“Where is it?” I shouted back.
“Never mind—we’re close enough now; let—— 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 deft13 touch or two, till 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 prospect14 of having to “clear out”—who knows whither?—at midnight. But Davies’s sang froid was infectious, I suppose, and the little den3 below, bright-lit and soon fragrant15 with cookery, pleaded insistently16 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 in onions and potato-chips. Davies was indeed on his mettle17 for this, his first dinner to his guest; for he produced with stealthy pride, not from the dishonoured18 grave of the beer, but from some more hallowed recess19, a bottle of German champagne20, from which we drank success to the Dulcibella.
“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 sagely21 opined. But when we were finally settled with cigars, a variety of which, culled22 from many ports—German, Dutch, and Belgian—Davies kept in a battered23 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 the 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 filthy24 hole I call it; we had to stop a couple of days, as we fouled25 a buoy26 coming in and carried away the bobstay; we lay in a dirty little tidal dock, and there was nothing to do on shore.”
“Well, what next?”
“We had a splendid sail to the East Scheldt, but then, like fools, decided27 to go through Holland by canal and river. It was good fun enough navigating28 the estuary—the tides and banks there are appalling—but farther inland it was a wretched business, nothing but paying lock-dues, bumping against schuyts, and towing down stinking29 canals. Never a peaceful night like this—always moored30 by some quay31 or tow-path, with people passing and boys. Heavens! shall I ever forget those boys! A perfect murrain of them infests32 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 statesmanlike views on infanticide.”
“By Jove! yes; but the fact is that you want a crew for that pottering inland work; they can smack33 the boys and keep an eye on the sculls. 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 good deal, haven’t you?” I interrupted.
“Oh! have I? Well, let me see, we went by Dordrecht to Rotterdam; nothing to see there, and swarms34 of tugs35 buzzing about and shaving one’s bows every second. On by the Vecht river to Amsterdam, and thence—Lord, what a relief it was!—out into the North Sea again. The weather had been still and steamy; but it broke up finely now, and we had a rattling36 three-reef sail to the Zuyder Zee.”
He reached up to the bookshelf for what looked like an ancient ledger37, and turned over the leaves.
“Is that your log?” I asked. “I should like to have a look at it.”
“Oh! you’d find it 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 frayed38 than the first. “We had a splendid time then exploring the Zuyder Zee, its northern part at least, and round those islands which bound it on the north. Those are the Frisian Islands, and they stretch for 120 miles or so eastward39. You see, the first two of them, Texel and Vlieland, shut in the Zuyder Zee, and the rest border the Dutch and German coasts.” [See Map A]
“What’s all this?” I said, running my finger over some dotted patches which covered much of the chart. The latter was becoming unintelligible40; clean-cut coasts and neat regiments41 of little figures had given place to a confusion of winding42 and intersecting lines and bald spaces.
“All sand,” said Davies, enthusiastically. “You can’t think what a splendid sailing-ground it is. You can explore for days without seeing a soul. These are the channels, you see; they’re 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 draught43 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 a............