My steamer lay to starboard. I wanted to bide my time until the flow of the tide made it possible for me to get across.
I was already bubbling over with cock-sureness when the necessary damper was administered. Dawn was breaking, the outlines of the anchored ships became clearer and clearer. At last the sun rose, and still the water ran out so strongly that it was impossible even to contemplate getting away. Anyhow, it was impossible to carry out my flight just then. But at last, happy in the possession of the long-desired boat, I slid downstream and, after an hour, pulled up at a crumbling old bridge on the right bank of the Thames. I pushed my boat under it, took both sculls with me as a precautionary measure, and hid them in the long grass. Then I lay down close to them, and at eight o’clock I saw my steamer, the Mecklenburg, vanishing proudly before my eyes. My patience had still to undergo a severe test. I remained lying in the grass for the next sixteen hours, until, at eight o’clock that night, the hour of my deliverance struck.
I again entered my boat. Cautiously I allowed myself to be driven upstream by the incoming tide, and fastened my boat to the same coal-tender near which I had been stranded the night before. Athwart to me lay the Princess Juliana moored to her buoy.
As I had time to spare, I lay down at the bottom of my boat and tried to take forty winks, but in vain. The tide rose, and I was once more surrounded by the rushing water.
At midnight all was still around me, and when at one o’clock the boat was quietly bobbing on the flow, I cast off, sat up in my boat, and rowed, with as much self-possession as if I had been one of a Sunday party in Kiel Harbour, to the steamer.
Unnoticed, I reached the buoy. The black hull of my steamer towered high above me. A strong pull—and I was atop the buoy. I now bade farewell to my faithful swan with a sound kick, which set it off downstream with the start of the ebb. During the next few minutes I lay as silent as a mouse. Then I climbed with iron composure—and this time like a cat—the mighty steel cable to the hawse. Cautiously I leaned my head over the rail and spied about. The forecastle was empty.
I jerked myself upwards and stood on the deck.