CHAPTER XII.

My Initiation

The yacht lay with a very slight heel (thanks to a pair of small

bilge-keels on her bottom) in a sort of trough she had dug for herself,

so that she was still ringed with a few inches of water, as it were

with a moat.

For miles in every direction lay a desert of sand. To the north it

touched the horizon, and was only broken by the blue dot of Neuerk

Island and its lighthouse. To the east it seemed also to stretch to

infinity, but the smoke of a steamer showed where it was pierced by the

stream of the Elbe. To the south it ran up to the pencil-line of the

Hanover shore. Only to the west was its outline broken by any vestiges

of the sea it had risen from. There it was astir with crawling white

filaments, knotted confusedly at one spot in the north-west, whence

came a sibilant murmur like the hissing of many snakes. Desert as I

call it, it was not entirely featureless. Its colour varied from light

fawn, where the highest levels had dried in the wind, to brown or deep

violet, where it was still wet, and slate-grey where patches of mud

soiled its clean bosom. Here and there were pools of water, smitten

into ripples by the impotent wind; here and there it was speckled by

shells and seaweed. And close to us, beginning to bend away towards

that hissing knot in the north-west, wound our poor little channel,

mercilessly exposed as a stagnant, muddy ditch with scarcely a foot of

water, not deep enough to hide our small kedge-anchor, which perked up

one fluke in impudent mockery. The dull, hard sky, the wind moaning in

the rigging as though crying in despair for a prey that had escaped it,

made the scene inexpressibly forlorn.

Davies scanned it with gusto for a moment, climbed to a point of

vantage on the boom, and swept his glasses to and fro along the course

of the channel.

“Fairly well boomed,” he said, meditatively, “but one or two are very

much out. By Jove! that’s a tricky bend there.” He took a bearing with

the compass, made a note or two, and sprang with a vigorous leap down

on to the sand.

This, I may say, was the only way of “going ashore” that he really

liked. We raced off as fast as our clumsy sea-boots would let us, and

followed up the course of our channel to the west, reconnoitring the

road we should have to follow when the tide rose.

“The only way to learn a place like this,” he shouted, “is to see it at

low water. The banks are dry then, and the channels are plain. Look at

that boom”—he stopped and pointed contemptuously—“it’s all out of

place. I suppose the channel’s shifted there. It’s just at an important

bend too. If you took it as a guide when the water was up you’d run

aground.”

“Which would be very useful,” I observed.

“Oh, hang it!” he laughed, “we’re exploring. I want to be able to run

through this channel without a mistake. We will, next time.” He

stopped, and plied compass and notebook. Then we raced on till the next

halt was called.

“Look,” he said, “the channel’s getting deeper, it was nearly dry a

moment ago; see the current in it now? That’s the flood tide coming

up—from the _west,_ mind you; that is, from the Weser side. That shows

we’re past the watershed.”

“Watershed?” I repeated, blankly.

“Yes, that’s what I call it. You see, a big sand such as this is like a

range of hills dividing two plains, it’s never dead flat though it

looks it; there’s always one point, one ridge, rather, where it’s

highest. Now a channel cutting right through the sand is, of course,

always at its shallowest when it’s crossing this ridge; at low water

it’s generally dry there, and it gradually deepens as it gets nearer to

the sea on either side. Now at high tide, when the whole sand is

covered, the water can travel where it likes; but directly the ebb sets

in the water falls away on either side the ridge and the channel

becomes two rivers flowing in opposite directions _from_ the centre, or

watershed, as I call it. So, also, when the ebb has run out and the

flood begins, the channel is fed by two currents flowing to the centre

and meeting in the middle. Here the Elbe and the Weser are our two

feeders. Now this current here is going eastwards; we know by the time

of day that the tide’s rising, _therefore_ the watershed is between us

and the yacht.”

“Why is it so important to know that?”

“Because these currents are strong, and you want to know when you’ll

lose a fair one and strike a foul one. Besides, the ridge is the

critical point when you’re crossing on a falling tide, and you want to

know when you’re past it.”

We pushed on till our path was barred by a big lagoon. It looked far

more imposing than the channel; but Davies, after a rapid scrutiny,

treated it to a grunt of contempt.

“It’s a _cul de sac_,” he said. “See that hump of sand it’s making for,

beyond?”

“It’s boomed,” I remonstrated, pointing to a decrepit stem drooping

over the bank, and shaking a palsied finger at the imposture.

“Yes, that’s just where one goes wrong, it’s an old cut that’s silted

up. That boom’s a fraud; there’s no time to go farther, the flood’s

making fast. I’ll just take bearings of what we can see.”

The false lagoon was the first of several that began to be visible in

the west, swelling and joining hands over the ribs of sand that divided

them. All the time the distant hissing grew nearer and louder, and a

deep, thunderous note began to sound beneath it. We turned our backs to

the wind and hastened back towards the _Dulcibella_, the stream in our

channel hurrying and rising alongside of us.

“There’s just time to do the other side,” said Davies, when we reached

her, and I was congratulating myself on having regained our base

without finding our communications cut. And away we scurried in the

direction we had come that morning, splashing through pools and jumping

the infant runnels that were stealing out through rifts from the

mother-channel as the tide rose. Our observations completed, back we

travelled, making a wide circuit over higher ground to avoid the

encroaching flood, and wading shin-deep in the final approach to the

yacht.

As I scrambled thankfully aboard, I seemed to hear a far-off voice

saying, in languid depreciation of yachting, that it did not give one

enough exercise. It was mine, centuries ago, in another life. From east

and west two sheets of water had overspread the desert, each pushing

out tongues of surf that met and fused.

I waited on deck and watched the death-throes of the suffocating sands

under the relentless onset of the sea. The last strongholds were

battered, stormed, and overwhelmed; the tumult of sounds sank and

steadied, and the sea swept victoriously over the whole expanse. The

_Dulcibella_, hitherto contemptuously inert, began to wake and tremble

under the buffetings she received. Then, with an effort, she jerked

herself on to an even keel and bumped and strained fretfully, impatient

to vanquish this insolent invader and make him a slave for her own

ends. Soon her warp tightened and her nose swung slowly round; only her

stern bumped now, and that with decreasing force. Suddenly she was free

and drifting broadside to the wind till the anchor checked her and she

brought up to leeward of it, rocking easily and triumphantly.

Good-humoured little person! At heart she was friends alike with sand

and sea. It was only when the old love and the new love were in mortal

combat for her favours, and she was mauled in the _fracas_, that her

temper rose in revolt.

We swallowed a hasty cup of tea, ran up the sails, and started off west

again. Once across the “watershed” we met a strong current, but the

trend of the passage was now more to the north-west, so that we could

hold our course without tacking, and consequently could stem the tide.

“Give her just a foot of the centre-plate,” said Davies. “We know the

way here, and she’ll make less leeway; but we shall generally have to

do without it always on a falling tide. If you run aground with the

plate down you deserve to be drowned.” I now saw how valuable our walk

had been. The booms were on our right; but they were broken reeds,

giving no hint as to the breadth of the channel. A few had lost their

tops, and were being engulfed altogether by the rising water. When we

came to the point where they ceased, and the false lagoon had lain, I

should have felt utterly lost. We had crossed the high and relatively

level sands which form the base of the Fork, and were entering the

labyrinth of detached banks which obstruct the funnel-shaped cavity

between the upper and middle prongs. This I knew from the chart. My

unaided eye saw nothing but the open sea, growing dark green as the

depths increased; a dour, threatening sea, showing its white fangs. The

waves grew longer and steeper, for the channels, though still tortuous,

now begin to be broad and deep.

Davies had his bearings, and struck on his course confidently. “Now for

the lead,” he said; “the compass’ll be little use soon. We must feel

the edge of the sands till we pick up more booms.”

“Where are we going to anchor for the night?” I asked.

“Under the Hohenhörn,” said Davies, “for auld lang syne!”

Partly by sight and mostly by touch we crept round the outermost alley

of the hidden maze till a new clump of booms appeared, meaningless to

me, but analysed by him into two groups. One we followed for some

distance, and then struck finally away and began another beat to

windward.

Dusk was falling. The Hanover coast-line, never very distinct, had

utterly vanished; an ominous heave of swell was under-running the short

sea. I ceased to attend to Davies imparting instruction on his beloved

hobby, and sought to stifle in hard manual labour the dread that had

been latent in me all day at the prospect of our first anchorage at

sea.

“Sound, like blazes now!” he said at last. I came to a fathom and a

half. “That’s the bank,” he said; “we’ll give it a bit of a berth and

then let go.”

“Let go now!” was the order after a minute, and the chain ran out with

a long-drawn moan. The _Dulcibella_ snubbed up to it and jauntily faced

the North Sea and the growing night.

“There we are!” said Davies, as we finished stowing the mainsail, “safe

and snug in four fathoms in a magnificent sand-harbour, with no one to

bother us and the whole of it to ourselves. No dues, no stinks, no

traffic, no worries of any sort. It’s better than a Baltic cove even,

less beastly civilization about. We’re seven miles from the nearest

coast, and five even from Neuerk—look, they’re lighting up.” There was

a tiny spark in the east.

“I suppose it’s all right,” I said, “but I’d rather see a solid

breakwater somewhere; it’s a dirty-looking night, and I don’t like this

swell.”

“The swell’s nothing,” said Davies; “it’s only a stray drain from

outside. As for breakwaters, you’ve got them all round you, only

they’re hidden. Ahead and to starboard is the West Hohenhörn, curling

round to the sou’-west for all the world like a stone pier. You can

hear the surf battering on its outside over to the north. That’s where

I was nearly wrecked that day, and the little channel I stumbled into

must be quite near us somewhere. Half a mile away—to port there—is the

East Hohenhörn, where I brought up, after dashing across this lake

we’re in. Another mile astern is the main body of the sands, the top

prong of your fork. So you see we’re shut in—practically. Surely you

remember the chart? Why, it’s——”

“Oh, confound the chart!” I broke out, finding this flow of plausible

comfort too dismally suggestive for my nerves. “_Look_ at it, man!

Supposing anything happens—supposing it blows a gale! But it’s no good

shivering here and staring at the view. I’m going below.”

There was a _mauvais quart d’heure_ below, during which, I am ashamed

to say, I forgot the quest.

“Which soup do you feel inclined for?” said Davies, timidly, after a

black silence of some minutes.

That simple remark, more eloquent of security than a thousand technical

arguments, saved the situation.

“I say, Davies,” I said, “I’m a white-livered cur at the best, and you

mustn’t spare me. But you’re not like any yachtsman I ever met before,

or any sailor of any sort. You’re so casual and quiet in the

extraordinary things you do. I believe I should like you better if you

let fly a volley of deep-sea oaths sometimes, or threatened to put me

in irons.”

Davies opened wide eyes, and said it was all his fault for forgetting

that I was not as used to such anchorages as he was. “And, by the way,”

he added, “as to its blowing a gale, I shouldn’t wonder if it did; the

glass is falling hard; but it can’t hurt us. You see, even at high

water the drift of the sea——”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t begin again. You’ll prove soon that we’re

safer here than in an hotel. Let’s have dinner, and a thundering good

one!”

Dinner ran a smooth course, but just as coffee was being brewed the

hull, from pitching regularly, began to roll.

“I knew she would,” said Davies. “I was going to warn you, only—the ebb

has set in _against_ the wind. It’s quite safe——”

“I thought you said it would get calmer when the tide fell?”

“So it will, but it may _seem_ rougher. Tides are queer things,” he

added, as though in defence of some not very respectable acquaintances.

He busied himself with his logbook, swaying easily to the motion of the

boat; and I for my part tried to write up my diary, but I could not fix

my attention. Every loose article in the boat became audibly restless.

Cans clinked, cupboards rattled, lockers uttered hollow groans. Small

things sidled out of dark hiding-places, and danced grotesque drunken

figures on the floor, like goblins in a haunted glade. The mast whined

dolorously at every heel, and the centreboard hiccoughed and choked.

Overhead another horde of demons seemed to have been let loose. The

deck and mast were conductors which magnified every sound and made the

tap-tap of every rope’s end resemble the blows of a hammer, and the

slapping of the halyards against the mast the rattle of a Maxim gun.

The whole tumult beat time to a rhythmical chorus which became

maddening.

“We might turn in now,” said Davies; “it’s half-past ten.”

“What, sleep through this?” I exclaimed. “I can’t stand this, I must

_do_ something. Can’t we go for another walk?”

I spoke in bitter, half-delirious jest.

“Of course we can,” said Davies, “if you don’t mind a bit of a tumble

in the dinghy.”

I reconsidered my rash suggestion, but it was too late now to turn

back, and some desperate expedient was necessary. I found myself on

deck, gripping a backstay and looking giddily down and then up at the

dinghy, as it bobbed like a cork in the trough of the sea alongside,

while Davies settled the sculls and rowlocks.

“Jump!” he shouted, and before I could gather my wits and clutch the

sides we were adrift in the night, reeling from hollow to hollow of the

steep curling waves. Davies nursed our walnut-shell tenderly over their

crests, edging her slantwise across their course. He used very little

exertion, relying on the tide to carry us to our goal. Suddenly the

motion ceased. A dark slope loomed up out of the night, and the dinghy

rested softly in a shallow eddy.

“The West Hohenhörn,” said Davies. We jumped out and sank into soft

mud, hauled up the dinghy a foot or two, then mounted the bank and were

on hard, wet sand. The wind leapt on us, and choked our voices.

“Let’s find my channel,” bawled Davies. “This way. Keep Neuerk light

right astern of you.”

We set off with a long, stooping stride in the teeth of the wind, and

straight towards the roar of the breakers on the farther side of the

sand. A line of Matthew Arnold’s, “The naked shingles of the world,”

was running in my head. “Seven miles from land,” I thought, “scuttling

like sea-birds on a transient islet of sand, encircled by rushing tides

and hammered by ocean, at midnight in a rising gale—cut off even from

our one dubious refuge.” It was the time, if ever, to conquer weakness.

A mad gaiety surged through me as I drank the wind and pressed forward.

It seemed but a minute or two and Davies clutched me.

“Look out!” he shouted. “It’s my channel.”

The ground sloped down, and a rushing river glimmered before us. We

struck off at a tangent and followed its course to the north, stumbling

in muddy rifts, slipping on seaweed, beginning to be blinded by a fine

salt spray, and deafened by the thunder of the ocean surf. The river

broadened, whitened, roughened, gathered itself for the shock, was

shattered, and dissolved in milky gloom. We wheeled away to the right,

and splashed into yeasty froth. I turned my back to the wind, scooped

the brine out of my eyes, faced back and saw that our path was barred

by a welter of surf. Davies’s voice was in my ear and his arm was

pointing seaward.

“This—is—about where—I—bumped first—worse then—nor’-west

wind—this—is—nothing. Let’s—go—right—round.”

We galloped away with the wind behind us, skirting the line of surf. I

lost all account of time and direction. Another sea barred our road,

became another river as we slanted along its shore. Again we were in

the teeth of that intoxicating wind. Then a point of light was swaying

and flickering away to the left, and now we were checking and circling.

I stumbled against something sharp—the dinghy’s gunwale. So we had

completed the circuit of our fugitive domain, that

dream-island—nightmare island as I always remember it.

“You must scull, too,” said Davies. “It’s blowing hard now. Keep her

nose _up_ a little—all you know!”

We lurched along, my scull sometimes buried to the thwart, sometimes

striking at the bubbles of a wave top. Davies, in the bows, said

“Pull!” or “Steady!” at intervals. I heard the scud smacking against

his oilskin back. Then a wan, yellow light glanced over the waves.

“Easy! Let her come!” and the bowsprit of the _Dulcibella_, swollen to

spectral proportions, was stabbing the darkness above me. “Back a bit!

Two good strokes. Ship your scull! Now jump!” I clawed at the tossing

hull and landed in a heap. Davies followed with the painter, and the

dinghy swept astern.

“She’s riding beautifully now,” said he, when he had secured the

painter. “There’ll be no rolling on the flood, and it’s nearly low

water.”

I don’t think I should have cared, however much she had rolled. I was

finally cured of funk.

It was well that I was, for to be pitched out of your bunk on to wet

oil-cloth is a disheartening beginning to a day. This happened about

eight o’clock. The yacht was pitching violently, and I crawled on all

fours into the cabin, where Davies was setting out breakfast on the

floor.

“I let you sleep on,” he said; “we can’t do anything till the water

falls. We should never get the anchor up in this sea. Come and have a

look round. It’s clearing now,” he went on, when we were crouching low

on deck, gripping cleats for safety. “Wind’s veered to nor’-west. It’s

been blowing a full gale, and the sea is at its worst now—near high

water. You’ll never see worse than this.”

I was prepared for what I saw—the stormy sea for leagues around, and a

chaos of breakers where our dream-island had stood—and took it quietly,

even with a sort of elation. The _Dulcibella_ faced the storm as

doggedly as ever, plunging her bowsprit into the sea and flinging green

water over her bows. A wave of confidence and affection for her welled

through me. I had been used to resent the weight and bulk of her

unwieldy anchor and cable, but I saw their use now; varnish, paint,

spotless decks, and snowy sails were foppish absurdities of a hateful

past.

“What can we do to-day?” I asked.

“We must keep well inside the banks and be precious careful wherever

there’s a swell. It’s rampant in here, you see, in spite of the barrier

of sand. But there’s plenty we can do farther back.”

We breakfasted in horrible discomfort; then smoked and talked till the

roar of the breakers dwindled. At the first sign of bare sand we got

under way, under mizzen and headsails only, and I learned how to sail a

reluctant anchor out of the ground. Pivoting round, we scudded east

before the wind, over the ground we had traversed the evening before,

while an archipelago of new banks slowly shouldered up above the fast

weakening waves. We trod delicately among and around them, sounding and

observing; heaving to where space permitted, and sometimes using the

dinghy. I began to see where the risks lay in this sort of navigation.

Wherever the ocean swell penetrated, or the wind blew straight down a

long deep channel, we had to be very cautious and leave good margins.

“That’s the sort of place you mustn’t ground on,” Davies used to say.

In the end we traversed the Steil Sand again, but by a different

swatchway, and anchored, after an arduous day, in a notch on its

eastern limit, just clear of the swell that rolled in from the

turbulent estuary of the Elbe. The night was fair, and when the tide

receded we lay perfectly still, the fresh wind only sending a lip-lip

of ripples against our sides.