The Riddle of the Sands Part 13

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 sh.o.r.e. 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 gla.s.ses 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 compa.s.s, 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 ash.o.r.e' 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 compa.s.s 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, splas.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+n-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 pus.h.i.+ng 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 b.u.mped 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 b.u.mped 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 pa.s.sage 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 p.r.o.ngs. 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 compa.s.s'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 Hohenhorn,' 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 a.n.a.lysed 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 Hohenhorn, 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 Hohenhorn, where I brought up, after das.h.i.+ng across this lake we're in. Another mile astern is the main body of the sands, the top p.r.o.ng 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 s.h.i.+vering 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 gla.s.s 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 centre-board 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.