Racundra's First Cruise

by Ransome, Arthur; Hammett, Brian ;

  However, when we had begun to think that we should have to run back to Reval, lay the yacht up there and get back to work, we were released in cat-and-mouse fashion and allowed to get a little farther S. Late in the night of September 16th there was a breath of wind from the W. We hardly dared to trust it, but, with faint hope, set alarm-clocks to wake us early. At half-past six next morning the wind freshened from the W. again, and ten minutes later we were swinging from the end of the pier on a single warp while we hoisted sail. Five minutes after that, with main and mizen set, we cast off, rejoicing like prisoners released, and running up our staysail when we were already under way. By half-past seven we were well out into the Sound, and bore up on the starboard tack to pass about a mile E. of the island of Heinlaid. Thence we steered S. by E. and ¾ E., looking for the bell-buoy in the middle of the Sound.

  The wind was one to stir the blood and we were all in the best of spirits, taking it in turns to go below and eat great quantities of porridge, when we sighted a biggish steamer coming up from the S., with buff funnel and black top to it, and the peculiar bows that belong to our friend the Baltabor. As she came nearer, however, the Ancient, whose eyes are usually better than mine, decided that she was not the Baltabor but a German. “Yet her bows are awfully like,” I said, “though she has hardly had time to go to England and back since she steamed out of Reval harbour with the Pelorus she had promised to lend us still on board.” These words I said as I turned to go below, but I was not half-way down the companion steps when I was stopped by the Baltabor’s siren. I had gone down for the strong binoculars, but did not need them now. Yes; the Baltabor it was, and ... quick with that ensign Whalley has sent a man to the jack staff. Up goes our ensign, flutters at the mizen top, dips half-way down and up again, while our big friend’s ensign, about as broad as our mainsail, does the same. It was the very pleasantest of greetings between the big and little British ships meeting each other on this cold, sunny September morning on a sea so utterly unlike the seas of England. Moreover, we were doing 5.6 knots at the time, and that was a mighty satisfaction, as the last occasion on which Baltabor had seen us under sail was when we were slowly tacking through the Mühlgraben by Riga, and we were afraid she might have been given a poorish notion of our speed.

  We sighted our bell-buoy close on the port bow, just where it should have been, and this, together with Baltabor and the sun and the blue water and the keen ah and the wind that suited Racundra from truck to keel, all combined to make us delighted with ourselves and Fate. But we patted Fate on the back too soon. “We shall be in Riga tomorrow,” we cried, as we saluted the bell-buoy triumphantly, and steered southwards to bring the beacons of the island of Moon in a line. But, just as we did so, we found we were standing nearly close-hauled. The wind was backing to the S. again. We were now retracing the course we had followed when running up from Paternoster on the outward voyage, and at 10.45 passed the Moon light-buoy, finished with the Moon beacons and steered for those of Shildau Island. An hour later we were past Shildau, and at noon, the wind having gone definitely to S.W. and strengthened very much, were steering for the Kuivast anchorage, to bring up there and see what was going to happen next. The aged cutter that plies as ferry-boat between Kuivast and the mainland passed on the port tack close across our bows and then went about. We raced them for the anchorage and beat them, anchoring at 12.30 close off the pier at Kuivast in two fathoms, stiff clay bottom, and getting our sails down in time to watch the cutter bring up to the pier. Here were a number of cattle awaiting it, and we saw for the first time the fiery orange petticoats and black bodices which are the national costume of the women of Moon. We watched the women go on board with their cattle, and then, as it was clear that we were in for another southerly storm, put the covers on the sails. We had made good something over twenty-five miles.

  THE GATES OF MOON.

  THE GATES OF MOON TODAY.

  There is no harbour at Kuivast, nothing but a short pier, crooked at the outer end, but enclosing so small a space that even the little steamers never attempt to enter it. The ferry-cutter tied up inside to load cattle, but had only just room, the rest of the space being occupied by two small waterlogged barges. The anchorage immediately off the pier is very good, as far as holding-capacity goes, but very bad as regards protection. We learnt later that we had dropped our anchor in the best possible place, as farther south the rock is very near the surface. Indeed, a schooner that anchored there dragged her hook and had to spend the night beating. The protection is even worse than appears, as we were to learn to our cost. On the chart the place would seem to be perfectly sheltered from all winds between S.W. and N.W. This is not so. With both southerly and northerly winds, owing perhaps to some trick of the variable current, the swell rushes across the wind and breaks over the Kuivast pier. Both English and German charts mark this place as the best anchorage. For smaller vessels, however, there is now a very much better stopping-place on the other side of the Sound. Of that, however, we knew nothing when we arrived.

  The orange-petticoated women drove their cattle into the cutter, and for some time a few of the men of Moon watched us from the pierhead, but presently, as it began to blow harder, men and women alike went off to the shelter of the tumble-down houses. It was not till late in the afternoon, when the wind slackened, that the cutter thought fit to sail, when it made straight across the Sound to some landing-place on the other side. Then, not wishing to lose the chance of saying that I had at least talked with some of the people of Moon, I made up my mind to go ashore. The Ancient helped me to sling the dinghy overboard with the fore-halyard, and I tumbled in with the milk-can and pulled for the landing place.

  Under the wall of a half-rained cottage close to the shore was a bench, and on it were four of the men of Moon, or rather, three men of Moon and a policeman in a neat grey uniform, who told me that he, too, was a foreigner in this place, since he had not been born on Moon, but on the larger island of Oesel. I greeted them with “Tere, tere” as I approached, and was answered in the same way. Then I tried English on the policeman. He knew what it was, though he could not speak it, and I heard him announce his discovery to the others. Then I tried Russian and found he could talk Russian just about as badly as I talk it myself. The others knew only two or three words of the language, but, unlike the patriots of Heltermaa, they were willing enough to use the words they knew, and, indeed, put them eagerly, by way of punctuation marks, into the conversation between the policeman and myself.

  The policeman was a delightful fellow: asked where we were going, praised the speed of our little ship as compared with that of the ferry-cutter, told me not to use the water from the well by the pier, because it and everything cooked with it would taste of seaweed, but to take water from the other well by the inn. “At least,” he said, lest he should raise false hopes, “it used to be an inn.” When I asked for milk, he volunteered at once to take me to this ci-devant tavern, and, in case the man there or his wife did not understand to translate for me. With that we sauntered up the muddy lane together and passed without ceremony through the stone Gates of Moon.

  From Racundra’s deck I had seen these two strange stone columns on either side of the road leading inland from the pier and had asked the Ancient what he made of them.

  “Those,” said he, “mighta be the Gates of Moon, of which I have often heard tell. The barons that lived here did all for themselves as themselves liked best, and would allow no one to land on Moon without he went through those gates, and no one through those gates without he paid what the barons thought they could get from him.” This sounded a little too much like Huck Finn’s account of kings, so I had gone ashore with an open mind.

  I asked the policeman what the pillars were.

  “There are a lot of fairy tales about them,” said he, “but I think myself that they were set up in honour of the Emperor Nicholas 1 when he visited the island of Moon.”

  That explanation at least was one of the fairy tales. The Ancient had
been nearer the mark. Beside the pillars I now noticed a stone cross. Cross and pillars alike seemed to be of about the same age, something near 1600, I should think, but fixed on one of the pillars was a stone placard of later date, perhaps eighteenth or early nineteenth century. This placard was in German and Russian and set out a tariff of tolls – so much for a carriage, so much for a cart, so much for a peasant’s cart, so much for a cow, so much for a peasant’s cow, so much for a man, and, finally, so much for a dog. There must have been some lively incidents in the attempted collection of tolls from sportive, energetic dogs, who might run in and out ten times in as many minutes while the toll-keeper was dealing with larger folk. The actual sums demanded had been obliterated. On the other pillar, opposite the tariff, was a coat-of-arms, I believe that of the old German castle town of Arensburg, a fat and bloated bird with upstretched neck, standing on two straight legs. No. It was clear enough that the Ancient’s story was nearer the truth and that the gates are the last memorials of the German rulers of Moon, who transferred their allegiance from Sweden to Russia on finding that the Russian Empire left them a freer hand in exploiting the Esthonians than was given them by the more liberal-minded Swedes.

  THE OLD RUSSIAN INN AT KUIVAST.

  RUSSIAN INN AT KUIVAST TODAY.

  The Gates were the last symbol of the German civilization. The inn was the last symbol of the Russian. It was a typical Russian posting-station, a low, one-storied building, with pillars along the front of it, where, as throughout Russia only seven crowded years ago, it was possible to get bad food and good horses and a night’s lodging, the quality of which depended on the thickness of your skin. The Russian stoves were still there. So were the great beds, where from a dozen to twenty people could sleep together on straw or hay. The little counter, where the Imperial vodka was once sold, remained. But there were no horses, no vodka, no sleepers – nothing, in fact, of former glory. The innkeeper, who seemed to be also harbour-master, told me that he had once had some beer, but that there was none left. Once upon a time, he said, he had had some local kvas. Now he had nothing except ... he pointed to a few packets of cigarettes. He had no tobacco. The policeman and I drank a couple of glasses of clear cold water, handed by the innkeeper over the counter where so many gallons of vodka had passed in days gone by. He then showed me the well, the only one, as both innkeeper and policeman enthusiastically agreed, where the water is fit for humans. And meanwhile the innkeeper’s daughter, a young woman whose round, flat jolly face might well be placed on the Gates of Moon as the emblem of her island, instead of that toll-fattened bird, went off and milked a cow, and gave me my can full of admirable milk, two quarts of it, for some Esthonian marks, the value of which in English money would be about fourpence. With this I returned to the ship.

  KUIVAST TO WERDER

  I had a hard job not to spill the milk as I pulled back to Racundra. The wind was piping up again from the S.W. and the swell of which I have already spoken was beginning to come in. Racundra was jerking about in so lively a manner that I decided to put out our larger anchor (sixty-seven pounds) and the stout coir cable. The Ancient and I, hauling together, had as much as we could do in pulling the ship up towards the first anchor. We did this with the tiller lashed over, giving her something of a sheer, so that we should not be dropping the second anchor on the chain. We then let go and veered out fifteen fathoms or more of cable and chain. We lay in two fathoms, ample, for we draw only a little over half a fathom with our centreboard up. We then had supper and turned in.

  But we got little rest that night. The wind increased to a gale, and, sheltered though we were, the current kept Racundra across both wind and swell, with the result that she rolled me out of my hunk on the top of the big iron pump that was stowed on the floor, sent things adrift that we had considered fast till doomsday, including a water-cask, fortunately empty, and used every loose thing in the ship to make a noise like a negro band. It was impossible to sleep. All that could be done was to sit on the bunks, wedge one’s knees firmly against the centreboard-case and count how many rolls Racundra could accomplish in a minute. Again and again the Ancient and I crawled over the deck to see if we were dragging. We took the covers off again, and had everything ready to make sail in a moment, but did not wish to do so unless obliged, as we did not then know where to seek shelter without going right back to Heltermaa. Racundra rolled until she took water on her decks over the railings, in spite of her notable freeboard. But the anchors held and morning found us still desperately rolling, in a swell that was splashing over the pier and made us glad that we had, according to our custom, taken the dinghy inboard for the night. It was too rough to launch the little boat again. The motion was such that we could not cook, nor even make tea. So we lived on cold bacon, tinned herrings and beer, and relieved our feelings by punching the barometer.

  In the afternoon there was less wind. The barometer had fallen to 29.2, but now showed just the faintest inclination to rise, and at four o’clock, as there were patches of sunshine, I went ashore and took photographs, though it was still blowing in gusts that made it very hard to keep the camera steady. An hour later, however, the wind dropped suddenly, and the Ancient and I shouldered water-tank and barrel and went half a mile inland for the water that was fit for humans, as we began to hope that we should be off for Riga in the morning. I further took the opportunity of asking where the cutter lay at the other side of the Sound. She had not reappeared, so I was sure that she had on the other side a better shelter than was to be found here. I learnt that during the war a new harbour had been built at Werder, of which all my charts were ignorant. I got rough sailing directions. “Steer straight across for the southernmost of three white ruined houses, and when you come near you will see the harbour and can go into it. There are twelve feet of water, and tugs have wintered there.”

  This sounded promising, so when in the morning, after a rather better night, we found a bright day, but with wind and strong current still against us from the S., I had the sails up soon after breakfast and we went across the Sound in plenty of time to come back if we should be disappointed in what we should find there. The cutter, held up yesterday by the bad weather, had returned to Kuivast, taken on board more red cattle and orange petticoats, and set sail on her way back just after we started. There was enough wind, however, to make Racundra a fast boat, and we had the wind on our beam, so we kept them well astern until we had gone far enough to see a decent-looking harbour with a schooner’s masts above it, but nothing to show on which side was the entry. When I can use local knowledge, I always prefer it to my own ignorance, so, much to the cutter’s astonishment, I brought Racundra to the wind, hove her to, and waited for them to catch us. But such was the modesty of the cutter’s crew that they never guessed why we were waiting, and themselves hauled up to the wind and proceeded extremely slowly, as if they thought we had perceived some special danger ahead. They stared with all their eyes. At last, however, they went on, and giving them a fair start, we let the staysail draw and proceeded after them. Just as we did so, the wind, which had been moderate, strengthened with a sudden squall, so that cutter and Racundra alike fairly foamed across the remaining distance. We saw that the cutter steered to northwards of the harbour mole, so we did the same, and a minute or two later, had rounded into as fine a little harbour for small ships as ever I hope to see. We anchored and then, deciding to stay, ran a warp out to the pier and berthed ourselves under the shelter of a huge stack of birch logs, which, since they were much weathered, I concluded had been there some time and were not likely to fly about our heads.

  THE NEW HARBOUR AT WERDER.

  THE HARBOUR AT WERDER TODAY.

  We had found this harbour of Werder, or Wirtsu, as the Esthonians call it, just in time. That night the wind came from the N.W. with rain and such violence that the waves breaking on the mole flung great bits of themselves not only over the mole but clean over the woodpile, fifteen feet across and as many high, and down with heavy splashes on Racundr
a’s cabin roof on the other side. A big open cutter, rather like the ferryboat, lying beside us was half filled during the night by the water tossed across the mole. At six in the morning the wind was blowing from the N. with similar force, but swung round to S. again at eleven, giving us a comparatively calm afternoon and evening.

  I spent the better part of that day fishing on the sheltered side of the pier, and caught upwards of fifty little fish – killos, boneless little creatures like sardines, extremely good to eat. I also had a pleasant talk with an elderly Robinson Crusoe, master and owner of a little open boat, smaller even than Racundra, who was doing his best to get his things dry after the tempestuous night. He had spent the summer carrying stones at Reval, and now was sailing home for the winter in his own little boat to a bay some half a dozen miles south of Werder. His boat was filled with all manner of treasure acquired during the summer – bits of old iron, empty bottles, a lump or two of good oak, salt, tobacco and other valuables. The salt and such things he stowed in a cuddy forward. He slept under his sails and cooked on a little open stove in the stern. He was plucking a duck for his dinner when I got into talk with him. He had shot it the day before, while sheltering behind a little rocky island farther north. He showed me his gun, a fowling-piece that might have been the envy of Man Friday. He knew a little English, having sailed three years on English ships. He also knew Lettish, a rare accomplishment among Esthonians, in whose folklore devils talk Lettish to each other, which is also the language spoken in hell. He had travelled enough to lose such national prejudices, and sat there, plucking and cooking his duck, talking with obvious pride with the Ancient and me, with each in his own language. In the calm of the evening he put to sea, and the last we saw of him was the dark blot of his sail as he rowed and poled his boat over the shallows and into the Gulf, in this way avoiding the current. At night, when the storm rose again, with fierce rain-squalls, we feared for him, but there was no need. He knew the coast, as he had told us, like the palm of his hand; and the lighthouse-keeper, who visited us in the morning, told us that he had seen the little boat both at dusk and dawn, and that our friend had spent the night snugly in smooth water behind some rocks, with white waves on every hand.