From Raft to Raft

by Bengt Danielsson

  ‘The Santiago papers say we are to sail on February 15th,’ Eric replied with an ironical smile. ‘I’ve no idea who spread this baseless rumour. But let’s help the papers to be right for once in a way by making this our sailing date.’

  Of course, neither Juanito nor I had any objection to offer.

  As a rule, every new ship has a trial trip before she starts on a real voyage, and when we built our first raft we had adhered to this sensible custom. This time, unfortunately, we could not have any trial trips on account of the peculiar conditions in the port of Constitucion—a serious disadvantage, of which we had not been aware when we decided to build the raft there. The main obstacle was that the shipyard where we had built the raft, and all the other shipyards, lay on the bank of the broad and swift Maule river about three-quarters of a mile from its mouth. In the course of centuries the river had carried down huge quantities of sand and gravel, which had gradually formed a broad underwater barrier right across the mouth of the river. The river water streaming out and the heavy swell from the Pacific met at this barrier, which in places rose almost to the surface, and formed an unbroken line of foaming breakers. Just to get out through this infernal barrier was a risky business: to return through it against the stream was impossible. This was why we had at an early stage given up all idea of making a trial trip. Or, more correctly, Eric had solved the problem in his usual grand manner with this brief announcement:

  ‘Let us regard the first stage of the voyage, from here to Callao, as a trial trip. It will certainly be rather a long trial trip, for it is 1500 miles from Constitucion to Callao, but this is in a way an advantage, for we shall get to know the qualities of the raft much more thoroughly than if we had pottered about in the sea off Constitucion for a few days.’

  We had agreed with Eric as usual.

  About a week after Eric’s lightning visit Jean and his friend Hans Fischer (whom Eric had just taken on as a member of the expedition) arrived with a whole lorryload of oceanographical and meteorological equipment. My new comrade did not look at all like a Chilean, for he was fair and blue-eyed and had a ruddy complexion, so I was not in the least surprised when I heard that his parents were immigrants from Germany. Hans was extremely good-natured and pleasant, but fearfully unpractical, and what was worse an absolute landlubber, so I was anything but delighted at Eric’s choice. While I was still racking my brains over the apparently insoluble problem of where I was to find room on board the raft for all these queer instruments and apparatus, Jean dashed back to Santiago—to fetch more gear!

  We finished the last jobs a good week before the launching, which was fixed for February 12th. Everything else seemed to be according to time-table—with two exceptions. Jean was still away in Santiago, and as if it had not been enough to be one man short, Juanito suddenly disappeared. Eric, who had now come to live at Constitucion, seemed for once seriously worried: I never quite understood why, for there were hundreds of highly qualified people begging and praying to be allowed to come with our expedition. But only a few days later Juanito returned, utterly exhausted and with an expression of beatitude on his face suggesting that he had been paying a particularly thorough adieu to the delights of life ashore. Also, he had somehow acquired a fixed idea: he absolutely refused to continue to be cook to the expedition. So Eric had the bright idea of appointing him superintendent of food supplies, a position which the unsuspecting Juanito accepted with gratitude. Hard on Juanito’s heels Jean at last arrived with ten cases of empty bottles which he intended to fill with water and samples of plankton during the voyage. He declared with a grave face that he was a trifle late simply because it had been so difficult to find corks for the bottles. I almost believed him.

  The launching took place, as was right and proper, under Horacio Blancos supervision, and all the inhabitants of Constitucion and all the summer visitors seemed to have come to witness the remarkable event. Most ot them had evidently expected the worst, for when our imposing raft slid gracefully out on to the river, a cry of astonishment rose from a thousand throats to the blue summer sky: ‘She floats, she floats!’ The raft did not exactly float like a cork, but she sank no deeper than the third and last layer of trunks, and the deck was a good eighteen inches above the surface of the water. We were busy for the rest of that day and most of the following day embarking all our equipment and provisions, so that it was not till late in the afternoon of February 14th that we were able to summon the motor boat which was to tow us to a small harbour called La Poza, at the mouth of the river.

  Before we could stop them about fifty of our keenest supporters had jumped on board. As this was an excellent way of submitting the raft to a final test of endurance, we let them stay, and were glad to observe that despite this heavy load the raft sank only an inch or two deeper. We moored her to the concrete wharf at La Poza in an unusually optimistic frame of mind and directed our steps to one of the numerous restaurants in the town, where the owners of the shipyards had arranged a farewell dinner in our honour. Horacio Blanco alone was missing; unselfish and helpful as ever, he had preferred to remain on board the raft to look after her and to fill our six forty-gallon water drums with drinking water.

  When, at dawn on February 15th, we returned to La Poza from our most delightful farewell party, Blanco was still fiddling about with his water-hoses and looked worried. He told us that unluckily there had been a leak somewhere in the town’s water system, and that in consequence he had only been able to fill two of the six tanks. With his usual resourcefulness he proposed that we should ring up the fire brigade and ask for help, for even if the town was otherwise dry—which, it seemed, did happen sometimes—there ought always to be some filled hoses or reserve supplies at the fire station. We took his good advice, but the only result of our call was a sleepy voice that told us that the chief of the fire brigade had just gone off to La Poza with all his men to see if those crazy Frenchmen would get through the breakers with their clumsy raft. But if we rang up again in the afternoon, the telephone operator added, we would certainly get as much water as we liked. We thanked him heartily for his kind offer and hurriedly agreed that 100 gallons of water would be ample for the six or seven weeks we reckoned the voyage up the coast to Callao would take.

  The first spectators had arrived even before we did, and only half an hour later their numbers had increased so greatly that we were obliged to take refuge on board the raft to get a little elbowroom. But it was not long before the raft too was full of excited Chileans, who eagerly crowded round us to wish us buen viaje, shake hands with us, give us flowers, embrace us, kiss us and ask for our autographs. Many of our well-wishers, curiously enough, gave us their own autographs in exchange—a queer custom initiated several months previously at the shipyard by a boy who had once written his name on the cabin wall. Although we tried hard to stop it, it soon became quite usual for our visitors to treat the raft as an autograph book. I had thought that the book had been full for a long time, but I soon saw that I had been quite mistaken, for throughout the farewell ceremony we were continually stumbling over squatting figures inscribing their names on the cypress trunks or cabin walls.

  Despite the fearful crowd and the deafening noise we did our best to keep in touch with our guests of honour, who included, besides the incomparable Horacio Blanco and all the prominent people of the province, the French Ambassador to Chile and his teenage daughter. As a mark of gratitude for their kindness in making the long journey from Santiago just on our account, we invited these two to accompany us a little way out to sea, and to our surprise they accepted without a moment’s hesitation. Immediately afterwards our halting conversation was brutally interrupted by the two largest bands in the province, each of them more than fifty men strong, which together struck up first the Chilean national anthem and then the Marseillaise.

  Whether by agreement or not, at the same moment our tugs appeared—five open rowing boats, each manned by four or six sturdy fellows. As Horacio Blanco had assured us that rowing boats
of this kind were used whenever a cutter had to be towed through the river barrier, we made fast the ropes flung over to us without protest although this method of towing did seem to us a little primitive. As though reading our thoughts, the rowers explained that a cutter would take over the towing as soon as we got out into deep water, and that if we wished she could stand by the raft till we were sure that we could manage by ourselves. This information reassured us at once.

  A quarter of an hour later a cutter came along the coast before the wind and lay to outside the breakers which she had cleared without mishap a few hours earlier. At a sign from the commander of the teams of rowers we quickly cast off our moorings and slid away from the quay, while the thousands of spectators waved miniature Chilean and French flags, and cheered till the hills echoed. We had plenty of time to wave back, for our rowers rested on their oars as soon as they were a hundred yards from the quay and remained motionless with their faces turned towards the breakers which barred the way. We found it hard to wait as quietly and silently as they did, so much more was at stake. Our patience was nearly at an end when the men in the rowing boats suddenly grasped their oars, dipped them in the water and began to row with all their might. The raft, pitching and lurching, reluctantly approached the huge foaming breakers.

  ‘She can never do it,’ I heard someone mutter behind my back, when a few seconds later a gigantic wave towered up in front of us.

  But just when we seemed to be plunging right into the giant wave it sank as quickly and unexpectedly as it had risen, and we were sliding at top speed into a deep valley. The raft, rocking unsteadily, at last climbed slowly up again and checked herself abruptly. I looked quickly round me and heaved a sigh of relief. The breakers were astern.

  To our surprise, a fresh southerly wind was blowing, a fact of which we had been in happy ignorance because the quay at La Poza was under the shelter of a high rock. The raft, with her large cabin, naturally caught the wind much more than the small rowing boats, and it was not long before we were towing our tugs. To make matters even worse, the wind was driving us back rapidly towards the breakers. We looked eagerly for the cutter which according to plan was to take over the towing as soon as we were out into open water. She was not far off, but for some reason she was going away instead of approaching. So as not to drag any innocent persons to destruction along with ourselves, we quickly cut the entangled tow-ropes which connected us with the rowing boats. They fled from the breakers in every direction like unleashed dogs, while we ourselves continued to drift inexorably towards them.

  As we had counted on being able to hoist the sails and put in the centreboards in peace and quiet far out to sea, we had not yet agreed as to how the different manoeuvres should be carried out. For that matter we did not even know whether the sails and centreboards worked as they should. But clearly we had none to rely on in this critical situation but ourselves, so Eric did the only possible thing: he sprang up on to a packing-case and began to bellow orders like the toughest privateer captain. To tell the truth, the ambassador knew much more about sailing and was much quicker in his movements than either of the new arrivals, Jean and Hans, and I really do not know how we should have fared without this admirable extra hand. As it was we got the sails up and the centreboards down just before we reached the breakers, and after a few anxious seconds, to our indescribable relief the raft swung slowly round and moved slowly away.

  When soon afterwards a motor-boat came out to take off our gallant ambassador and his daughter we were already far out of the danger zone. The wind had freshened considerably, and we hoisted one or two more sails, joking and laughing, and steered straight out to sea, firmly convinced that the worst part of the voyage was over.

  1 Unfortunately, it appeared later that he was right on this point. This hook, recently published in Great Britain under the title Tahiti Nut, is also somewhat marred by serious inaccuracies and omissions, understandable if we keep in mind the conditions in which it was written.

  Chapter 4

  ALL WELL ON BOARD

  A glance at the chart suggests that it is the simplest thing in the world to sail up along the west coast of South America from Chile to Peru, for southerly winds predominate and the strong Humboldt Current helps the ship along. From whatever point along the Chilean coast a vessel puts to sea, she inevitably gets a set northward. Eric, however, apparently contrary to all reason, had decided long before our departure that we should cross the Humboldt Current at once and follow the coast at a distance of about 200 miles till we were approaching Callao.

  His reasons for this unexpected decision were four in number. In the first place, the current was in places so strong and capricious that a sailing vessel like ours, without a motor, might easily become impossible to steer. In the second, adverse winds often sprang up along the coast, and head winds we must avoid at all costs, since we could not beat up against them. Thirdly, there were dangerous whirlpools just north of Valparaiso which it would be safest to avoid. Fourthly and last, there was busy shipping traffic in the middle of the Humboldt Current, and Eric knew from dearly bought experience that large passenger ships and freighters seldom notice small, badly-lighted craft and therefore do not keep out of their way.

  For these reasons, which on closer consideration were very easy to understand, we steered right out to sea as soon as we were alone. Although it was full summer the wind was bitterly cold, the sky quite covered by black clouds and the sea so disturbed that the raft rolled and lurched violently, which had a devastating effect on the two newcomers’ morale and appetite. Eric, Juanito and I, as the hardened old salts we were, thoroughly enjoyed the freedom and the quiet from the very first and quickly resumed our old habits from Tahiti Nui I. Eric in particular adapted himself with amazing ease: he simply hung up his briefcase on a nail over his bunk and took out his beloved papers and books: then he felt at home at once. This matchless power of adapting himself was of course due mainly to the fact that he lived entirely in a private world of his own and seldom noticed where he was and what was going on round him.

  To my great delight the raft showed herself to be an excellent sea boat and almost steered herself. This made it an absolute pleasure to take a watch, for all one had to do was to sit down on the long bench which I had placed aft and keep an eye on the sails and the centreboards. Thus even Jean and Hans could soon take their turns with the rest of us, but it was naturally some while before they were experienced enough to see in time when the raft was threatening to swing round and learnt how to prevent it.

  Just a week after we sailed—immediately after we had passed the thirtieth degree of latitude—the sun broke through the clouds for the first time and began to thaw our frozen joints. At the same time, no doubt by pure chance, the rhythm of the waves became much quieter and more even. The spirits of the whole crew rose by several degrees, and both Jean and Hans at last got rid of their sea-sickness. Although they now had raging appetites after their long period of starvation, they had as much difficulty as the rest of us in swallowing the food which Juanito sulkily prepared. He had realized at last that his new post of ‘superintendent of food supplies’ bore an extraordinary resemblance to his old job as cook on board Tahiti Nui I. He took his revenge by providing scarcely anything but stale macaroni, half-cooked rice mixed with an enormous quantity of bitter onions and a kind of pancake which was regularly burnt on one side and sticky on the other. We were obliged to be very economical with our meagre supply of water, but luckily we had fifteen large demijohns of red wine which a kind Chilean lady had given us just before we sailed, and thanks to this we were able to wash down these peculiar and monotonous dishes. But not even Juanito could in the long run avoid being influenced by the lovely tropical sun which went on shining with undiminished strength, and at last he became the same tolerable cook and jolly shipmate which he had always been.

  Similarly only a few days of sunshine were needed to liven Jean up sufficiently to make a start on his oceanographical researches. What interest
ed him most was taking samples of water at different depths by means of a long line fitted with an ingenious gadget which shut the bottle before it was hauled up. By analysing these samples of water on our return it would, he declared, be possible to determine the direction and volume of the ocean currents. Eric, who had spend most of the sixty-eight years of his life in a successful study of the ocean currents with much simpler apparatus, could not help chaffing his colleague of twenty-five a little on his blind belief in the superiority of modem methods, and this wounded Jean deeply. The relations between the two men naturally became no better when, immediately afterwards, Jean quite innocently began to talk of his plan of capturing a giant squid and cutting off one of its tentacles. A well-known scientist had asked him to do this, he said, and he had even brought a special cask for the purpose. Eric, who was always as ironical at the expense of others as at his own, could not resist the temptation to make fun of this grotesque plan, in which Jean and Hans fully and firmly believed.

  A week or two later Jean tried to take his revenge in an unusually silly and thoughtless manner. The sea, till then empty and desolate, suddenly began to teem with dolphins (a brilliantly coloured fish which must not be confused with the small, toothed whale, which is also called a dolphin). They were, as usual, extremely inquisitive and playful: time after time they swam swiftly up to the side of the raft and took a look at us, after which they turned about quickly and leapt high out of the water for sheer astonishment at the strange sight. Their impudence naturally made us keener to catch them, so I immediately set about making a harpoon. This I did by carefully fastening an iron pin to one end of a long stick with a strip of plaster from the medicine chest. I had often watched Francis and Michel harpooning fish with simple contrivances of this kind during our outward voyage, but I had never managed to attain any degree of skill. As neither Francis nor Michel was now on board I did my best to replace them, but however hard I tried I could not catch the tiniest dolphin. Nor were Erics attempts to catch one on a hook baited with tinfoil any more successful. Jean watched us critically without saying anything, and waited till the next day before proceeding to action.