We were busier than usual that night, reckoning stores, tidying lockers, and securing movables. “We must economise,” said Davies, for all the world as though we were castaways on a raft. “It’s a wretched thing to have to land somewhere to buy oil,” was a favourite observation of his.
Before getting to sleep I was made to recognise a new factor in the conditions of navigation, now that the tideless Baltic was left behind us. A strong current was sluicing past our sides, and at the eleventh hour I was turned out, clad in pyjamas and oilskins (a horrible combination), to assist in running out a kedge or spare anchor.
“What’s kedging-off?” I asked, when we were tucked up again. “Oh, it’s when you run aground; you have to—but you’ll soon learn all about it.” I steeled my heart for the morrow.
So behold us, then, at eight o’clock on October 5, standing down the river towards the field of our first labours. It is fifteen miles to the mouth; drab, dreary miles like the dullest reaches of the lower Thames; but scenery was of no concern to us, and a south-westerly breeze blowing out of a grey sky kept us constantly on the verge of reefing. The tide as it gathered strength swept us down with a force attested by the speed with which buoys came in sight, nodded above us and passed, each boiling in its eddy of dirty foam. I scarcely noticed at first—so calm was the water, and so regular were the buoys, like milestones along a road—that the northern line of coast was rapidly receding and that the “river” was coming to be but a belt of deep water skirting a vast estuary, three—seven—ten miles broad, till it merged in open sea.
“Why, we’re at sea!” I suddenly exclaimed, “after an hour’s sailing!”
“Just discovered that?” said Davies, laughing.
“You said it was fifteen miles,” I complained.
“So it is, till we reach this coast at Cuxhaven; but I suppose you may say we’re at sea; of course that’s all sand over there to starboard. Look! some of it’s showing already.”
He pointed into the north. Looking more attentively I noticed that outside the line of buoys patches of the surface heaved and worked; in one or two places streaks and circles of white were forming; in the midst of one such circle a sleek mauve hump had risen, like the back of a sleeping whale. I saw that an old spell was enthralling Davies as his eye travelled away to the blank horizon. He scanned it all with a critical eagerness, too, as one who looks for a new meaning in an old friend’s face. Something of his zest was communicated to me, and stilled the shuddering thrill that had seized me. The protecting land was still a comforting neighbour; but our severance with it came quickly. The tide whirled us down, and our straining canvas aiding it, we were soon off Cuxhaven, which crouched so low behind its mighty dyke, that of some of its houses only the chimneys were visible. Then, a mile or so on, the shore sharpened to a point like a claw, where the innocent dyke became a long, low fort, with some great guns peeping over; then of a sudden it ceased, retreating into the far south in a dim perspective of groins and dunes.
We spun out into the open and leant heavily over to the now unobstructed wind. The yacht rose and sank to a little swell, but my first impression was one of wonder at the calmness of the sea, for the wind blew fresh and free from horizon to horizon.