Part 5 (1/2)

V Wanted, a North Wind

NOTHING disturbed ht, so adaptable is youth and so masterful is nature At ti of rain and a hu of the little hull, and at one ht of Davies, clad in pyjaantic proportions But the apparition mounted the ladder and disappeared, and I passed to other dreams

A blast in alvanizedand tousled, was at horn to his lips with deadly intention 'It's a e have in the 'Dulcibella',' he said, as I started up on one elbow 'I didn't startle you much, did I?' he added

'Well, I like the _ of yesterday

'Fine day andwere vastly livelier than those of yesterday at the saain andwind could e down to sers and looked through a el-pure, that you see in perfection only in the heart of ice Up again to sun, wind, and the forest whispers from the shore; down just oncethe sand's soft boso, deaf and inert to the 'Dulcibella's' puny efforts to drag hi by the cable as a rusty clue froeois_ little maiden's bows; back to breakfast, with an appetite not to be blunted by condensed milk and somewhat _passe_ bread An hour later we had dressed the 'Dulcibella'

for the road, and were foarey void of yesterday, now a noble expanse of hipped blue, half surrounded by distant hills, their every outline vivid in the rain-washed air

I cannot pretend that I really enjoyed this first sail into the open, though I was keenly anxious to do so I felt the thrill of those forward leaps, heard that persuasive song the foa harmonies of sea and sky; but sensuous perception was deadened by nervousness The yacht looked s of the foah The novice in sailing clings desperately to the thoughts of sailors--effective, prudent persons, with a typical jargon and a typical dress, versed in local currents and winds I could not help rasping his beloved tiller, looked strikingly efficient in his way, and supres; but he looked the ah, as with one hand, and (it seemed) one eye, he wrestled with a spray-splashed chart half unrolled on the deck beside him All his casual ways returned to e to the Baltic, and the suspicions his reticence had aroused

'Do you see a monument anywhere?' he said, all at once' and, before I could answer; 'We o of the tiller and relit his pipe, while the yacht rounded sharply to, and in a twinkling was tossing head to sea with loud claps of her canvas and passionate jerks of her boo to hay, with redoubled force The sting of spray in my eyes and the Babel of noise dazed me; but Davies, with a pull on the fore-sheet, soothed the tor with the waves while he shortened sail and puffed his pipe

An hour later the narrow vista of Als Sound was visible, with quiet old Sonderburg sunning itself on the island shore, and the Dybbol heights towering above--the Dybbol of bloody memory; scene of the last desperate stand of the Danes in '64, ere the Prussians wrested the two fair provinces from them

'It's early to anchor, and I hate towns,' said Davies, as one section of a lue But I was firot ht stores as well, and returned in tie' Never did I step on the solid earth with stranger feelings, partly due to relief from confine, which, for those who go down to the sea in small shi+ps, can make the foulest coal-port in Northu, with its broad-eaved houses of carved ork, each fresh with cleansing, yet reverend with age; its fair-haired Viking-like men, and rosy, plain-faced wo still Danish to the core under its Teuton veneer

Crossing the bridge I climbed the Dybbol--dotted with memorials of that heroic defence--and thence could see the wee for of the 'Dulcibella' on the silver ribbon of the Sound, and was reht So I hurried down again to the old quarter and bargained over eggs and bread with a dear old lady, pink as a _debutante,_Gerlish, being chiefly nautical slang picked up on a British trawler, were peculiarly useless for the purpose

Davies had tea ready when I ca it on deck, we proceeded up the sheltered Sound, which, in spite of its ier than an inland river, only the hosts of rainbow jelly-fish rehway of ocean There is no rise and fall of tide in these regions to disfigure the shore with ravel bank; there a bed of whispering rushes; there again young birch trees growing to the very brink, each wearing a stocking of bright olden leaves and scarlet fungus

Davies was preoccupied, but he lighted up when I talked of the Danish war 'Gerreat nation,' he said; 'I wonder if we shall ever fight her' A little incident that happened after we anchored deepened the impression left by this conversation We crept at dusk into a shaded back-water, where our keel alravel bed Opposite us on the Alsen shore there showed, clean-cut against the sky, the spire of a littlefrom a leafy hollow

'I wonder what that is,' I said It was scarcely a hy, and when the anchor was doe sculled over to it A bank of loa aside sorey stone, inscribed with bas-reliefs of battle scenes, showing Prussians forcing a landing in boats and Danes resisting with savage tenacity In the failing light we spelt out an inscription: 'Den bei de von Alsen aefallenen zum ehrenden Gedachtniss' 'To the honoured me of Alsen' I knew the German passion for commemoration; I had seen similar memorials on Alsatian battlefields, and several on the Dybbol only that afternoon; but there was so in the scene, the hour, and the circu As for Davies, I scarcely recognized hilanced from the inscription to the path we had followed and the water beyond 'It was a landing in boats, I suppose,' he said, half to hi_ efallenen,' he repeated, under his breath, lingering on each syllable He was like a schoolboy reading of Waterloo

Our conversation at dinner turned naturally on war, and in naval warfare I found I had come upon Davies's literary hobby I had not hitherto paid attention to the medley on our bookshelf, but I no that, besides a Nautical Al Directions, there were several books on the cruises of s volu painfully at them I saw Mahan's Life of Nelson, Brassey's Naval Annual, and others

'It's a tre down (in two pieces) a volued (and froze) while he illustrated a point by reference to the es He was very keen, and not very articulate

I knew just enough to be an intelligent listener, and, though hungry, was delighted to hear hi you, am I?' he said, suddenly

'I should think not,' I protested 'But you ht just have a look at the chops'

They had indeed been crying aloud for notice for solect when they appeared The diversion they caused put Davies out of vein I tried to revive the subject, but he was reserved and diffident

The untidy bookshelf rebook, and when Davies had retired with the crockery to the forecastle, I pulled the ledger down and turned over the leaves It was a mass of short entries, with cryptic abbreviations, winds, tides, weather, and courses appearing to predoe from Dover to Ostend was dismissed in two lines: 'Under way 7 pm, wind WSW moderate; West Hinder 5 am, outside all banks Ostend 11 aes very technical and _staccato_ in style Inland Holland was given a contemptuous summary, with some half-hearted allusions to windmills, and so on, and a caustic word or two about boys, paint, and canal sain, and a brisker tone pervaded the entries, which becaressively fuller as the writer cruised on the Frisian coast He was clearly in better spirits, for here and there were quaint and laboured efforts to describe nature out of h to discourage the most brilliant and observant of writers; with an occasional note of a visit on shore, generally reached by a walk of half a mile over sand, and of talks with shop people and fisherhter relief was rare The bulk dealt with channels and shoals eird and depressing names, with the centre-plate, the sails, and the wind, buoys and 'boo off' appeared to be a frequent diversion; 'running aground' was of al, and I turned the leaves rapidly I was curious, too, to see the latter part I ca out like small shot, ceased abruptly It was at the end of 9th Septe', was filled in with the usual detail

The log then leapt over three days, and went on: '_13th Sept_--Wind WNW fresh Decided to go to Baltic Sailed 4 ae E

S to ht under Hohenhorn Sand _14th Sept--Nil 15th Sept_--Under way at 4 am Wind East moderate