The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow

by A. J. Mackinnon

  The decision was taken out of my hands. A blast of a hooter sent me scuttling across the Moselle to avoid the gleaming iceberg prow of a cruiser looming up behind. A churning whirl of a reversing barge sent me zigzagging back to the left-hand bank of the river all too close to those black and bulky rocks. As I scooted along that inhospitable bank, I hauled desperately at the oars to avoid being washed onto the rocks by the wake of yet another passing leviathan, and the flimsy rowlock gave way at last with a splintery crunch. One heedless haul on the remaining oar sent me lurching towards the bank – just in time to see a narrow channel that led through to a dank lagoon off the main river. I paddled in and looked about me.

  I was in a basin surrounded by steep banks topped by serious-looking buildings. A solitary and rather rusty dredger was moored at a pontoon on the northern bank. The place was quite clearly not a public marina, but for now it was the only place where I could moor in safety. Tying up alongside the dredger, I climbed the steep flight of steps to the complex of buildings above. When I was halfway up, my heart quailed. At the top had appeared six or seven young men who were now staring at me with grim and unfriendly expressions on their faces. Crew-cuts. Tattoos. Short-cut black T-shirts with packets of fags tucked under the sleeves. This was not the local Oom-Pah-Pah band come to give me a hearty traditional welcome. They seemed to my eyes to be crew members of a local stevedore gang, or possibly inmates of a local borstal. To a man they seemed singularly unimpressed by the pith helmet and the jaunty little dinghy bobbing on their private pontoon.

  Just as they were preparing, I am sure, to charge down the steps and beat me senseless, a quiet voice floated down, and immediately the youths stopped, turned and skulked back up the steps like a pack of hyenas denied their carrion treat. As they vanished into a doorway, a figure approached me down the steps, a quiet neat figure in a trim beard and grey eyes behind big glasses. Five minutes later I knew that yet again that strange brand of serendipity had come into play. His name was Peter Pohl, and I was in the grounds of the Coblenz Waterways Management Training College. Here trainees fresh from school were taught all the rudiments of commercial waterways maintenance, maritime law, river navigation, lock engineering and, happily for me, boat repairs. Happier still was the fact that Peter was the lecturer in boat-building and himself a master carpenter. In fact, I had moored at the very brink of his workshop.

  And yes, of course, he would be more than happy to help me fix that broken rowlock, and while he was about it, tidy up the varnish work and the prow and one or two other jobs that his practised eye immediately picked out as necessary. Meanwhile, I could moor here as long as I needed and use the staff shower at the top of the stairs if I so wished. And now, he had a class, so if I would excuse him …?

  I was not terribly surprised actually. Since I had bumped into Alan Snell at the very start of my voyage just in time to share a bottle of chardonnay and have my rowlock fixed, I had grown accustomed to this sort of thing. The friendly boat shed in Bristol, the shipwreck at Whitstable and the wonderful Dunster family – it seemed that no sooner had Jack snapped off a vital part of her works than a friendly hand was reaching out of the sky with the offer of a drill, a bunch of screws and a load of expertise. My only concern was how to write this home in letters to friends and family without stretching credulity to breaking point.

  Peter not only fixed one rowlock but also reinforced them both with metal strips. Then between us we sanded off all the peeling varnish, applied several new coats to the decking, and did the same job for the rudder and centreboard. Finally he replaced the little flat prow section that had been smashed with a cut-out sheet of perspex, screwing it tightly to the gunwales where they met to make the bow. By the time we had finished, Jack de Crow was looking as neat and shipshape as she had when we had sailed away from Whitstable. These repairs were to carry her all the way to the Black Sea without a hitch. In the meantime I explored Coblenz and, more importantly, investigated the possibility of getting up the Rhine to Mainz and the confluence of the Main River.

  I soon realised that I had made a serious navigational error some weeks before. I should have continued along the French canals after Rheims and headed south-westward towards Strasbourg, hitting the Rhine further upstream. I had, however, been told that the prettiest section of the Rhine was the ninety or so kilometres upstream from Coblenz, so I had decided to come this way. What nobody had seen fit to add was that those scenic ninety kilometres of river were picturesque for a reason: the waters poured between precipices and gorge walls with a ferocity against which even fully powered barges struggled to make headway.

  On seeing the rolling brown surge of the Rhine, I realised that I had to abandon any notion of making it under my own steam and seek the aid of local shipping. Peter advised me that my best bet was to speak to Mick, the owner of the local Bunkerboot, a sort of floating petrol and supply station for the industrial barges. He knew all the bargees and was in constant radio contact with them. The problem was finding him, as he moved around a lot, sometimes mooring in the Moselle mouth, sometimes in the main Rhine River. Once Jack was fixed, I said my farewells and heartfelt thanks to Peter and rowed off to find Mick on his Bunkerboot. After some hot and fruitless oaring, I heard from a passing barge that he had moved over to the eastern bank of the Rhine and would be there for the next few days. There was nothing for it – I would have to risk crossing the Rhine.

  As soon as I hit the current, I knew that my fears were warranted. Facing diagonally upstream, I pulled valiantly to haul myself across the five hundred yards or so to the opposite bank. Despite my cracking limbs and straining shoulders, I moved crabwise across the river to eventually end up on the eastern bank but some two hundred metres downstream from where I had started. Mercifully I was not bothered by any major traffic. I think that every barge on the river was slewing wildly to avoid the idiot in midstream, but the effort and sweat in my eyes made me oblivious to all about me. Having reached the opposite bank, the real challenge began. I was now some seven hundred metres downstream from where the Bun-kerboot was moored, seven hundred metres of sheer bank fringed with large black breakwater rocks, with no place to tie up for a breather. Seven hundred metres does not sound very far … it didn’t look very far … but I was now rowing full into the current of the largest river in Western Europe. Those seven hundred metres took me two hours. For much of the time I seemed to be sitting perfectly still, yards from the bank, gazing at the same park bench or litter bin for what seemed an eternity. Then some extra effort on my part, or some mysterious slackening of the current, would allow me to crawl forward a couple of yards, barely enough to be gazing at the upstream end of the same bench.

  The only thing that kept me going through all this fruitless, neck-straining, heart-pounding exertion was the reaction of three old German men leaning on the riverside railing watching my agonies. I was, as ever, clad in my pith helmet, and, along with the utter futility and lack of progress, was fully and happily conscious of the eccentric picture I was presenting. To this end I kept grinning foolishly at the trio and calling out things like ‘Englische, ja!’ and ‘Ich bin ein dumkopf, nein?’ and other pidgin-German inanities, if only to let them know that I was aware of my own folly and didn’t mind if they wanted to break into howls of derisive laughter. They didn’t. They didn’t even flicker, not once in the whole hour I sat opposite them going nowhere. Their faces were set in a grim expression of stolid disapproval at the whole stupid enterprise. Buy a motor, you stupid little foreigner, they seemed to be saying. Don’t come here with your so-called charming English eccentricity and expect us to be impressed. A sour glance at the hat. Go home, in fact.

  I think it was as much a determination to see whether I could raise a smile in these three old cormorants as a desire not to be swept down to Rotterdam by nightfall that kept me straining away until I finally reached the Bunkerboot. There I introduced myself shakily to Mick, who immediately called the police. This rather threw me until he explained that he wan
ted them to tow me the remaining one hundred yards upstream to a little pontoon where I could moor for the night. For that I was grateful, as indeed for the fact that he then got onto the radio to start organising a tow for me right up to Mainz. Before long he had contacted the owner of an industrial barge called Barbara, who agreed to pick me up on Sunday morning.

  Meanwhile, the police had arrived and towed me upstream and handed me over to Wilhelm, the Hafenmeister. He, they assured me, would look after my every need. This I somewhat doubted. The grim unsmiling set of his jaw, the contemptuous iron in his eye and the baleful sighs and tuts with which he greeted every word of explanation by the police made my three aged friends from downstream look positively frisky and lambkin-like by comparison. I don’t know what the police were telling this sour old buzzard, but from his look of exasperated distaste I suspected that my Rhine crossing had been the cause of a major collision and the facts were even now being reported to Herr Wilhelm, chief shareholder. After the third baleful glance in my direction, I decided that I was not going to sleep aboard Jack tonight and asked about nearby accommodation. At this the Hafenmeister rapped out ‘Kom!’ and strode off down the road without a glance behind him. Fearing to disobey, I grabbed my pack and followed.

  Soon my grim guide was charging up some steps cut into the cliff , and on reaching the top he plunged into a tunnel carved into the rock. This looked nothing like a public thoroughfare – it seemed more like an abandoned mine, lit by a string of bare bulbs. Trying to catch my breath as I jogged after him, I attempted to re-phrase in my mind the request for accommodation: Nein, nein, mein Herr. Not the buried Nazi war treasures, please. Ein gasthaus, bitte.

  But by the time I had worked this out, he was a distant silhouette and I had perforce to hurry on after him. At times this tunnel branched off in various directions and the Hafenmeister unerringly plunged down one or the other, calling back over his shoulder ‘Kom!Raus! Raus!’ while I stumbled on through the darkness after him, wondering where in Hades we were headed. Then it was up some more steps, round a few bends and we emerged into a little wooded glade caught in the cleft of a hidden gorge. Here, half hidden in hazel trees, was the wheelhouse of an ancient chairlift – the cables soared up and out of sight overhead. My morose guide was engaged in a bad-tempered altercation with the man in the wheelhouse.

  ‘There seems to be some confusion, mein Herr,’ I started. ‘I was hoping to – ’ but he cut me off in mid-sentence.

  ‘My English, it is not good. But here, my friend, are tickets for this gondola, and this will take you where it is you want. You will see, yes. Now, on the Sunday this gondola it does not work so early, ja, so I come to pick you up in my car at six at the hour of the morning. This way, you will meet Barbara and be on your way.’

  When I started protesting at this unexpected display of helpfulness, he cut me short.

  ‘No, my friend. For me it is a great privilege. You, I think, are someone special, no? I have been telling my friend here all about your travels. We are all very proud, ja?’ At this the chairlift operator nodded vigorously. A faint tear gleamed in the corner of Wilhelm’s eye. ‘Very proud! So, I see you again on Sunday.’

  And at that he strode off into the tunnel and out of sight. As I took my seat on the chairlift, I reflected on how badly I was doing at reading the Germanic manner.

  As the chair soared up and out of the little gorge, I saw that I was heading for the top of a very steep cliffsurmounted by a vast wall of orangey-sandy stone. In this there was a great gate and it was at this gate that the chairlift gently deposited me. This was, it seemed, the local Youth Hostel. When I wandered in through the great arched gateway, I found myself on a huge terrace of reddish stone whose further edge was some fifty yards away. Here was a low balustrade and beyond that, nothing could be seen but sky. On reaching the balustrade I found myself looking straight down to the Rhine far, far below and beyond it to the great equestrian statue that sits at the confluence of the Moselle and the Rhine, known as the Corner of Germany. From that vantage point, too, I could see the Moselle directly opposite and could even fancy it winding away in my mind’s eye into its enchanted valley to Cochem and beyond. Almost directly below me, tiny as a buttercup petal, Jack bobbed at her mooring and I could see the tiny figure of Hafenmeister Wilhelm tidying her lines and securing her for the night.

  The next day I tried busking once more. It was going splendidly due to the response of a seven-year-old girl and her three younger brothers who had gathered to hear me play. They were, I thought, delightful in their waif-like way, and I was rather touched when they danced to one of my jigs and people stopped to look on and smile. I thought of the Pied Piper again, but not the rats this time. No:

  All the little boys and girls,

  With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,

  And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,

  Tripping and skipping,

  ran merrily after

  The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.

  When fifteen minutes later, however, they took it upon themselves to pass the hat around, my delight turned to uneasy embarrassment: ‘Nein, er, kinder, please leave the hat alone. Where is papa und mama, ja?’

  In response to my atrocious German, the youngest pointed a grubby finger at me and giggled ‘Papa!’ and they all simultaneously started playing at being puppy dogs and sitting up to beg. ‘Yap! Yap!’ they went, putting their tongues out and panting, and the good folk of Coblenz shot me a collective dirty look and turned away. To them it was evident that I had my own children out, forcing them to perform on the street, and the fact that the urchins looked none too clean or well shod served only to outrage the populace further. In vain did I try to shoo the children away. This merely excited their histrionic talents, and the oldest came and hugged my knees and burst into tears, begging me, I think, not to send her back to the mill. Eventually, spotting a police officer who was strolling nearer with questions in his eyes, I fled.

  On the day of my departure I was up early to meet Barbara and her crew at the Bunkerboot. After various trials we de-rigged Jack and hoisted her up on such a short towline that her nose was resting right up against Barbara’s stern rail and only Jack’s transom was in the water. In other words, she was nearly vertical. Then, after heartfelt thanks to Wilhelm and Mick, we were off . The crew of Barbara consisted of the Belgian skipper, his ox-like but amiable son, and a wretched black dog called Wulf that kept trying to bite me. After it defecated in a mustard-coloured smear all over my bundled mast and sail, I took it by the collar and threw it overboard. Well, no, I didn’t, but I would very much have liked to. The Captain and his son were kind enough, but as there is a limit to what you can get across with a fixed grin and a nod, I soon retired to the bow of the barge and played my tin-whistle. As the bow was several miles from the wheelhouse at the stern, I didn’t think I was in any danger of disturbing their concentration.

  For this I was grateful. The current was so strong along this stretch of the river that steersmen had to be extremely skilled. Barges approaching from upstream seemed to hurtle towards you, slewing their way across the water, sometimes seeming to turn almost broadside on as they swept downstream around a tight bend. On the other hand, barges like ours churning their way upstream hardly seemed to move against the current, although it raced by in torrents and frequently poured over the low gunwales. The scenery was itself distracting. Here the river raced through a broad gorge for mile after mile sprinkled with the usual Christmas decoration clutter of gilded castles and cuckoo-clock towers. Soon we passed beneath the fabled Lorelei Rock; not, as I had imagined, a siren-topped rock in midstream, but a tall promontory of cliffs around which the Rhine swept in a fierce bend. As we passed it, I thought at first I was dreaming, or transported back into the Wagnerian legends, for it seemed that I could hear the low sexy song of the Lorelei herself. Then a further golden cadence fell from the high cliffs above me and glancing up I saw the flash of sun on brass. It was a French horn player who
, I gathered later, went there every Sunday to play on the pinnacle, busking, no doubt, far from the reach of urchin children intent on adoption.

  This stretch of the Rhine is a sight that retired couples from all over the world pay a fortune to come and see, safely aboard one of the many gleaming river cruisers that ply their trade there. It is one of the great scenic trips of Europe. Unforgivably, once past the Lorelei Rock I slept through most of it. The ox-like son had shown me the forecabin right in the bows and indicated that I could make myself at home. There is nothing quite so cosy as the forecabin of a Rhine barge. It is dim, it is warm, it is slightly stuff y and smelling of blankets and rope. The whole thing vibrates and hums soporifi-cally and the only other noise is the endlessly comforting swirl and chuckle of water sluicing by an inch from your ear on the other side of the steel hull. I kicked off my shoes, lay down for a few minutes and woke up seven hours later some ten miles up the River Main.

  We were still progressing slowly into the dusk, and the skipper and his son calmly suggested I stay aboard for the night. It was too late to unhitch Jack, and, besides, there would be nowhere to stay on the banks, the skipper explained in mime and gestures. Meanwhile, Young Albert, as the son was called, was cooking supper for us – a first, I was told – and he, Old Albert as he was known, would carry on steering. Perhaps I would like a beer?

  And so it was settled. Supper was an extraordinary aff air, consisting as it did of burnt fried potato, burnt fried egg, burnt fried bread and what I think was burnt fried liver, which I usually hate but which had been rendered edible by the simple expedient of reducing it to carbon.

  And then to bed and another eight hours of warm, humming sleep while the Alberts took it in turn to steer the Barbara all through the summer night up the River Main and into the heartland of Old Germany.