The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow

by A. J. Mackinnon

  Soon I was finished with supper and sat enjoying the fall of glowing coals, the crackle of the tinder-dry wood and the sparks rushing up into the night sky. A night breeze sprung up and breathed cold on my back, but my front, my face, my outstretched palms were warm and glowing. I wondered that this was the first time I had made an effort to do this on the whole trip, now that it was so close to finishing. I pictured myself on a map of Europe, sitting alone in the forest on the very eastern edge, and marvelled at the fact that I was here. As I gazed into the falling caves and glowing grottoes of ash and ember, I saw the pictures of that day: an Orthodox priest in a church that morning with a long grizzled beard, reading from a great book while headscarfed women knelt and fingered the hem of his robe, weeping and crying, the whole scene a set-piece for Titian.

  The coals shifted and I saw another scene: a young man poling a reed-boat across the river, bare-chested even in the blue wind, leading a herd of swimming horses across the deep, broad river. Their rolling eyes and snuffling nostrils were close enough to be seen, an inch out of the water like a line of water-kelpies led by a naked brown Pan. A log fell and ashes flew up. I saw in them a great swirling dark cloud against a red sunset, which as I drew nearer resolved into a myriad of winged specks: a swarm of rooks flocking homewards to roost in a clamorous rookery, a thousand strong.

  The bottle was half gone now and the fire was dying. It was getting cold. I placed another log on the fire and stoked it up, but then went and climbed into my little boat. The mattress was laid out on its decking, the awning was up, but its open triangle was facing towards the fire. As I fell asleep, I could gaze out into the night and see my toes in the sleeping bag silhouetted against the rosy glow of the heaped fire. I wiggled them to get them warm, and listened to the gurgle and chuckle of the water around the willow roots. I was as happy as a king. No, I was as happy as Ratty and Tom Sawyer and Doctor Dolittle all rolled into one, and that is something better.

  I awoke the next morning to a grey ghostly mist over the river. It was as thick and blinding as wet wool, and it struck me that in a year’s travelling, this was the one classical story-book hazard I had not yet encountered. It had been saving itself for the one part of the trip where I was not following a single river-course but must find my way through a network of channels in the Delta’s maze.

  I set off rowing, hugging the southern bank so as not to miss the channel to Sulina, the small port at my journey’s end. If I ended up traversing the northern part of the Delta, I would pass into the Ukraine, and I had had enough of illegal frontier crossings. Phantom ships loomed up out of the fog, gaunt, rag-rigged things crewed by scrawny skeletal pirates jeering raucously as they approached – and then turned into drifting felled trees, their dead branches smothered in cormorants. My determination to stick to the southern bank soon led me down a side-arm, a very graveyard of ships and barges all rusting, derelict, broken-windowed, caved in, half-sunk under the overhanging boughs of the crowding forest – but not abandoned entirely. A chained dog, a draped line hung with grubby dishcloths, a flicker of an oil-lantern from behind yellowed glass showed that some at least of these hulks were inhabited. It was an eerie place, a Sheol of ships and their ghost masters, gibbering and squeaking in the mist.

  Soon the graveyard arm re-joined the main river, and the mist began to lift, burning off the water in spectacular wisps and curlicues of steam. A wind sprung up, on the nose this time, but it was such a splendid day, such a sparkling stretch of river, that beating down the river was sheer delight. Yet though the channel to Sulina runs through the very heart of the Delta, I must confess to being a little disappointed by it. I had expected reedy channels where the wildfowl nested in their thousands: geese and ducks, storks and ibis and egrets, and the croak of a million bullfrogs. I expected houses, if there were any, to be perched on long poles above the marsh and have nets drying on frames. I was fully prepared to put up with a constant swarm of midges and mosquitoes, gnats and flies, and horse-flies that could sting through leather. I was half hoping to contract malaria.

  As it was, this stretch recalled one of the drearier corners of Essex. There was the odd farmhouse, neither decrepit enough to be a gypsy hovel nor luxurious enough to be the ex-king of Romania’s shooting-lodge. There were a few villages, more ordinarily middle-class than anywhere else I had seen in Romania, and the most rustic thing I saw was an ox-cart being driven along the top of the dyke, but it was loaded with used tyres. There was not even the opportunity for a last camp-fire vigil that night, communing with the darkness. I arrived at a village called Maluc at dusk and could go no further, feeling suddenly rather dispirited and dreary.

  But when I woke the next morning, I was excited and apprehensive, nervous even. I knew that today I would reach the Black Sea. I put on clean clothes and shaved properly with soap and water, as though I were due to meet with royalty: the Dark Queen, the Mare Neagra herself.

  The morning was grey and still, even with the odd drizzle, very light and fine. The banks continued flat and dull, but as the day progressed gave way to reed-beds where the sedges grew almost mast-high. They rattled like sabres on either side. The famed wildfowl were conspicuous by their absence; the only birds were an ugly species of hooded crow and the odd heron. As I rowed, I pondered again a long-considered question: what would I do about Jack de Crow when I get to the end? Reluctant though I was to admit it, this would certainly be the end of our long acquaintance. I could not possibly arrange to take her back with me. Various plans had come and gone in my mind over the last year. The wildest and loveliest of these was to give her a Viking send-off . I had visions of standing on the edge of the Black Sea and loading her with cedarwood and sandalwood, and dousing her with scented oils. Then, gently, I would set her sails and her tiller and push her from the shore, letting the west wind fill her sails and take her out to sea. At the last minute, before she gathered speed, I would fling a burning brand into her from the shore and she would sail into the east all afire, blazing like a comet until she dwindled from sight.

  This vision had always in my dreams been swiftly followed by a vivid picture, however, of the burning Jack bumping straight into a Russian oil-tanker bound for Odessa, igniting it in one titanic explosion and precipitating World War Three. Perhaps I could do the whole thing without the fire, simply setting her off on a captain-less last voyage to sail to the land of the Golden Fleece, the far Caucasus.

  Another idea had been – and I am not joking – not to stop at all, but to keep sailing down the coast, round to Istanbul, across the Aegean, on and on and on, a restless Odysseus sailing on until the boat fell to pieces under him. Sometimes I still dream of that, and someday I may do it. But in fact Jack had already reached the falling-to-pieces stage. Her decks were flaky with old varnish, her gaff was splitting and she was no longer as dry and watertight as she had been. There was hardly a fitting on her that was not working loose; they had all been screwed on and re-tightened so many times that the wood was rotting away around them. She had done extraordinarily well, covering 4900 kilometres, traversing 282 locks and visiting twelve different countries, but I had been no careful, loving master, and she had suff ered breakages and bumps, rough handling and bodily dragging, frayings and chafings and scrapes. Mentally I was in a similar state, beginning to fracture at the edges and splinter into insane giggles every now and then. It was time to retire.

  The last six miles before Sulina saw a new idea creep into my mind. The sight of two small boys on the bank, their faces alight at the sight of me and Jack, and their excited waving and calling made me wonder whether I could not hand Jack back to the children. She had after all spent most of her thirty years as a teaching vessel for the young. There must be a school in Sulina, surely, and stuck between the river-marsh and the sea the inhabitants must lead a fairly waterlogged existence. Was it possible that Jack could end up as she had started? The more I pondered on the idea, the more I liked it. Even if Jack was used for nothing more exciting than allowing the local
school-teacher to get to outlying regions of the Delta where untaught children lived, she would serve a noble purpose. It was a splendid idea, and when I told it to Jack, she heartily agreed. She hadn’t wanted to hurt my feelings before, but she now confessed that she had never been too happy about the Viking funeral-pyre send-off . (Who would be?)

  In the mid-afternoon of that gentle grey day, the 26th of October, 1998, we sailed into the little town of Sulina on the Black Sea. It was pleasant: there were few Soviet-style buildings around and many of the older ones remained intact. There were classical edifices with pillars and curly architraves, including a beautiful domed church built by none other than our old friend King Ludwig who, for all his sanity, had clearly thought that he owned the entire Danube.

  I stopped at the river wharf in the centre of town a mile before the harbour and found the Harbourmaster, ready to see what he thought of my scheme to donate Jack to the local school. But I had reckoned without the cold hand of bureaucracy, deadening all in its grip, not only here but across Europe and Britain and the civilised world. The Harbourmaster was a fatherly man, a sort of avuncular dugong in looks, but his first response was much rueful head-shaking. ‘No. This is not possible. What about Import Tax?’

  I stared at him. ‘Import Tax? On the boat? What Import Tax?’

  ‘You bring a boat here, you say you want to leave it here? Then you have imported it. On this, there is a tax. It is simple,’ he said.

  I gaped.

  ‘And,’ he went on, warming to his theme, ‘what about insurance?’ ‘Insurance?!’

  ‘Yes, my friend, insurance. Who will pay that?’

  I didn’t know.

  ‘This is the law in our country, my friend. All boats must be insured. I am sorry.’

  ‘I really think that – ’

  ‘And another thing. You say you leave your boat here as a gift.

  Perhaps you change your mind, eh? You come back. In six months’ time you come back and you say, where is my boat, you thieves? What then?’

  ‘Look, I can assure you that I won’t be coming back, either in six months’ time or ever. I – ’

  ‘Ah, my friend, my friend. You say you are a school-teacher. Hah! I believe you. You are clearly not a businessman!’

  Having remained polite for fourteen months and across twelve countries, even when being threatened by pirates, I now allowed myself a moment of terseness.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but tomorrow I am walking out of here and not taking my twelve-foot dinghy in my rucksack with me. For me, a very simple solution to my problem is to get up early tomorrow morning, cut her adrift and walk away. But that I think is where your problem will start, with a vessel adrift in your main channel, a hazard to shipping and God knows what else besides. I won’t be here to fix it. You will be. Can’t we be sensible about this?’

  The Harbourmaster sat back in his chair and looked at me for a long, long time, his moustaches drooping. Then he came to a decision. ‘You are right. These laws are stupid, but I see a way around them. As Harbourmaster, I have certain … exemptions … from these laws. If I say I need a dinghy for my job, then I need a dinghy. No import tax, and the insurance is covered by the Harbour authorities. Even if I then decide in my wisdom to lend it to the local school, you understand? Which,’ he added, looking at me sternly, ‘I am not saying I will do. Maybe, maybe not. That is the best we can do, I think. Yes?’

  It seemed the only solution. I was in no position to argue. So a piece of paper was brought out, typed up to his dictation but translated into French for me, and then duly signed by me. It read something like this:

  I, Alexander James Mackinnon, owner and master of the sailing vessel Jack de Crow, do hereby give her unreservedly as a gift to the Harbourmaster of Port Sulina for his use in carrying out his duties, as of this day, 26th October 1998, and henceforth have no further claim on her or any part of her, nor expect any payment in hiring fees or purchase price from the aforementioned Harbourmaster.purchase price from the aforementioned Harbourmaster.

  Signed this day, 26th October 1998, Sulina, Romania.

  (I have no idea, by the way, whether the Harbourmaster later followed through on his hints that the dinghy would get to the school after all, no questions asked. I was sceptically aware that I had signed away my boat to an opportunist who had done rather well out of the deal – but then again, I had just spent an entire year proving the extraordinary generosity and goodwill of ordinary people from Shropshire to the Black Sea. He seemed a kindly man, after all. It seemed not only churlish and grudging of spirit to take the cynical view, but downright illogical to think thus. I saw no reason why the unexpected goodness of people should suddenly stop here at the furthest edge of Europe. I like to think therefore that Jack was of some use to the children of Sulina, but I am content never to know one way or the other.)

  Back in the Harbourmaster’s office I signed the contract – and then broke it immediately. I asked the Harbourmaster if I could borrow her for the next few hours. There was still something to be done and Jack and I had to do it together. We had not, after all, yet reached the Black Sea.

  Beyond the town, the land petered out into marshland and reed-beds. The main river-channel, widened and deepened for shipping, ran through this in a gently curving mile between built-up dykes of rock and earth, the left-hand one of which continued right out into the Black Sea itself as a long, sturdy breakwater. However, long before I got to this point, I noticed, as I rowed, a little break in this dyke, where the ruins of a stumpy little lighthouse stood overlooking a stunted willow. Beneath the very trailing fronds of this tree, the waters poured away in a smooth funnel, and on an instinct I allowed Jack and myself to go with them. There was a rush and a gurgle, a brushing of willow-wands on cheek and sail, and we found ourselves in a secret little world of reeds and pools and channels behind the dyke-wall. It was as though we had slipped out the scullery door of some grand house rather than out the front doors, and instead of finding ourselves on the broad bland gravel of the coach-drive, had found ourselves in the cabbage-and-nasturtium cosiness of the kitchen-garden, smelling of dew and turned earth.

  Here at last was what I had expected the Delta to be like. Tall reeds hemmed us in on either side, rustling with little birds that chipped and darted in their dry denseness. The channel we were on was barely ten yards wide and split into two ahead. Which way to take? Try the right-hand one. Ah, no, this was curving back towards the sea-wall so … but wait, here was another branch, and another. This one looked promising … but no, a few wiggling bends later and it stopped in a wall of sedges. The next half-hour was a blissfully happy hunt through the maze of reed-beds for the channel that would take me out to open water. Soon even the seawall and the top of the lighthouse were lost behind the screening reeds and I was alone in a secret world under the mild grey sky. And then an opening showed ahead in the wriggling channel, a glimpse of clear horizon and open water, and a minute later Jack de Crow and I rowed out onto the calm waters of the Black Sea. The reed-marsh was behind us, and visible a mile away was the dyke and the stump of the derelict lighthouse, but before us the sea stretched to the horizon.

  Back Door to the Black Sea

  It did not look like a sea. It was so flat, so grey-silver, so calm that it looked more like a vast freshwater lake under the steely sky. I dipped a finger in the water to taste it. It was fresh. A good steady breeze was blowing from the north-east, so Jack and I decided to spend our last few hours together sailing out to find where the real salt sea began.

  Well, we never found it, and I learnt later that such is the volume of water coming down the Danube that the Black Sea remains completely fresh for almost seven miles out from Sulina, but those last couple of hours were some of the happiest I have ever spent. We skimmed to and fro over the burnished water, this way and that, now skimming close to a reed-bed to investigate a likely coot’s nest, now sailing out again to clear waters. It suddenly struck me that for the first time in a year I wa
s sailing purely for pleasure. I had no course that I had to follow, no distant mark that I was trying to bring edging closer inch by inch, no hemming land to shift the wind at every turn. I could tack up into the wind purely for the pleasure of turning around and sailing downwind again. I could zig-zag here and there at a whim. For the first time in a very long time, I could sail on a reach – that is, across the wind rather than into or down it – and rediscovered that this is the pleasantest sailing of all. The boat is lightly balanced, the sails trimly set, and the tiller rests with a comfortable pressure from the fingertips.

  And here at last were the birds. Battalions of geese gathered on the glass-grey waters and paddled gabbling away as I approached. A fleet of white swans dipped and glided among the fringes of the reed-beds and then took flight, oaring overhead with silver necks outstretched, wings whistling and creaking into the East. Smaller birds, sandpipers and dunlins, turnstones and knots, pattered and whirred on the mudflats in the distance and a marsh-harrier hawked over the reeds. And everywhere, commoner than all the others, were the homely ducks, bobbing like toy boats among the rushes.

  After an hour or two the skies to the north and east had darkened to charcoal, but the west was watery yellow with the setting sun. A faint rainbow glimmered out in a far-off shower against the leaden sky; a brief thing, but as unearthly as they come. It was time to head back.

  One last adventure remained to us. Finding my way back to the ‘back-door’ by the lighthouse was easy enough, rowing through the winding channels between the tall reeds, but when it came to passing through that doorway back onto the main river, the difficulties began. The current pouring down either side of the willow tree on its tiny island was far too strong to row against. Time and time again I would aim Jack’s prow for one or other of the gaps, row like smoke and at the last minute be deflected sideways by the onrush of the stream. Back I would go, spinning down the channel like a leaf on the flood. After half-an-hour of this weary business I was beginning to get tired and a little panicky. The dusk was deepening and rain was threatening, and unless I could get beyond this miniature Charybdis, I would be spending the night out here on the marshes, with the Harbourmaster convinced I had absconded with what was now technically his boat.