CHAPTER III.

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 æsthetic 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 emphasised 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 businesslike 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

binnacle 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 reverent care. Two huge coils of stout

and dingy warp lay just abaft the mainmast, 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 a hybrid’s failings.

Hunger and “Tea’s made!” from below brought me down to the cabin, where

I found breakfast laid out on the table over the centreboard case, with

Davies earnestly presiding, rather flushed as to the face, and sooty as

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 have 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 to get 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 he 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 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 under way at once,” he said, “and sail down the fiord.” I

tried for something more specific, but he was gone, and his voice

drowned in the fo’c’sle by the clatter and swish of washing up.

Thenceforward events moved with bewildering rapidity. Humbly desirous

of being useful I joined 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 _Dulcibella_ bowed a lingering farewell to the

shore and headed for the open fiord. Erratic puffs from the high land

behind made her progress timorous at first, but soon the fairway was

reached and a true breeze from Flensburg and the west took her in its

friendly grip. Steadily she rustled down the calm blue highway whose

soft beauty was the introduction to a passage in my life, short, but

pregnant with moulding 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, while

steering, with a success that its reluctant folds seemed to render

impossible. Waiting respectfully for his revival I had full time to

look about. The fiord 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 gunwale 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. Behind us, Flensburg 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 branch 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 fiord through I knew not what 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 round 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 around and aloft.

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 commonplace, as I had thought him

commonplace, so far as I had thought at 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 stamped on every lineament. 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 the suspicion that, little as I

deserved it, the patient fates were offering me a golden chance of

repairing at least one. And yet, I mused, 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 of these

luxuries, and asked:

“Can’t I be of any use?”

“Oh, don’t you bother,” he answered. “I expect you’re tired. Aren’t we

having a splendid sail? That must be Ekken 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.

“You see Flensburg, don’t you?” he said. “That’s where we are,” dabbing

with a long reach at an indefinite space on the crowded sheet. “Now

which side of that buoy off the point do we pass?”

I had scarcely taken in which was land and which was water, much less

the significance of the buoy, 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 buoy in question, on the wrong

side I am pretty certain, for weeds and sand came suddenly into view

below us with uncomfortable distinctness. But all Davies said was:

“There’s never any sea here, and the plate’s not down,” a dark

utterance which I pondered doubtfully. “The best of these Schleswig

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 aground?” I asked with great calmness.

“Oh, she’ll blow over,” he replied, wincing a little.

She “blew over”, but the episode caused a little naïve vexation in

Davies. I relate it 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 _métier_, as I knew him afterwards to be,

resourceful, skilful, 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 jibe,” said Davies: “just take the helm, will you?” and,

without waiting for my co-operation, he began hauling in the mainsheet

with great vigour. I had rude notions of steering, but jibing is a

delicate operation. No yachtsman 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.

“Jibed 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, I’ll take her 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 wrecking 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’ve 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 in

the low shore.

“That’s Ekken Sound,” said Davies; “let’s look into it,” and a minute

or two later we were drifting through a dainty little strait, 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 porches. For a space on one side, a rude

quay, 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 weather-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 mere, 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 tantalising

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

annexe to the water—a source of necessary supplies.

“Let’s have lunch,” he pursued, as we resumed our way down the fiord. 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; beer under the floor in the bilge. I’ll see her round that

buoy, if you wouldn’t mind beginning.” I obeyed with a bad grace, but

the close air and cramped posture must have benumbed my faculties, for

I opened the port-side 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-imprisoned the odour, and

explored for beer. It was true, I supposed, 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-won and ill-favoured pledges of a meal with giddiness and

discouragement.

“How are you getting on?” shouted Davies; “the tin-opener’s 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 weather side, and thus having a downward slant, its

contents, when I slipped the latch, slid affectionately into my bosom,

and overflowed with a clatter and jingle on to 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 Ekken 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, with 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 wrung from me under great provocation.

“Keep her straight on as she’s going,” said Davies, as I clambered 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 fiord, and were sailing up a broad

and straight reach which every moment disclosed new beauties, sights

fair enough to be balm 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 fringed 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 greensward.

I forgot petty squalors and enjoyed things—the coy tremble of the

tiller and the backwash 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

topsail and jib; but I was content to doze away the afternoon,

drenching brain and body in the sweet and novel foreign atmosphere, and

dreamily watching the fringe of glen cliff and cool white sand as they

passed ever more slowly by.