Racundra's First Cruise

by Arthur Ransome

  THE NEW LIGHTHOUSE AT WERDER BESIDE THE FOUNDATIONS OF

  THE OLD LIGHTHOUSE, WHICH WAS BLOWN UP DURING THE WAR.

  WERDER LIGHTHOUSE TODAY.

  The next day the wind was from the S.W. and for the next five days swung to and fro, blowing nearly all the time with tremendous force. For all that time the ferry cutter was unable to cross from Werder to Kuivast. Peasants from Werder and the mainland and men of Moon and their orange-skirted dames came to the harbour and day after day hung desolately about the cutter in wind and rain, at night getting what shelter they could in the forest. “This ‘is’ the Equinotion time,” said the Ancient philosophically, “and this is what musta be.” He, however, could afford to be philosophic, for he had made his berth tight and comparatively dry, and so was much better off than the unfortunate islanders waiting in the woods for the ferry to take them home.

  It was a wild time. Late one evening we watched a big schooner, close-hauled, trying to make the entrance of the Sound from the south. (This was during a north-wester.) As she came she pointed nearer the wind and made less and less headway, and it became clear that she could not make the entrance without tacking. They hung on till the last minute and then tried to go about. She would not stay. Again and again the sails flapped and filled again, while the schooner lost ground. Finally, with jibs wildly flogging, she let go her anchor. Down came the sails one after another, and we watched her heaving half her length out of the water, dipping her nose under and rearing again. The anchor held for ten minutes. Then, not slowly as with dragging anchor, but in a sudden rush, with parted cable, she was swept away southwards behind the point, broadside on, a helpless thing, just as dark fell. What became of her I do not know. The lighthouse-keeper told us that she did not go on the rocks, but was swept clear of them to the south. He saw no attempt made to hoist sail. “They were tired out,” he said, “tired beyond work, and seeing they were drifting clear, perhaps made up their minds to let her drift till forty miles south, when they would maybe be rested and have a chance of getting into shelter in the Pernau bight.”

  During that same blow, another schooner under jib and reefed foresail, coming from the north, swept at terrific speed into our harbour, let go her anchor without standing upon the order of its going, far too near the shore, and, while it dragged, rowed desperately in their small boat and made fast a warp to the pier with perhaps ten seconds to spare in saving her. The men from the other schooner that had been there when we arrived jumped to lend a hand, and she was presently berthed alongside the quay. The men of this schooner had brought with them a mixed cargo from the town of Reval, salt fish, kerosene and farming-tools; and during the next two days the people of the country brought them in exchange corn in sacks, four or five sacks stuffed into each rickety little springless cart. They also brought them a fine sheep, which was killed and skinned on the quay and its flesh then cut up, weighed, paid for and put into a barrel with salt, provision for their voyage. They were taking the corn to Petrograd. The other schooner here was loading firewood for Reval.

  There was nothing to be done with the weather, for though now and again the wind veered northwards it always backed swiftly to the S.W., while the sea remained in frothy tumult. It was as if the Equinox had amused himself by setting N.W. and S.W. to fight each other, and now one and now the other got the mastery in a struggle the tension of which hardly slackened for a moment. I made a curve of our barometer readings on squared paper during that week, but it might have been taken for a graphic record of the progress of a grasshopper. When we came to Werder the barometer was at 29.28. After that it bobbed up and down between 29 and 29.55. It had been 29.9 when we left Hapsal to get into this bout of bad weather. Often it was nearly impossible to stand on the quay, and we were thankful for our woodpile, behind which was comparative peace. There was no village nearer than six miles away, and we ran out of eggs, meat, potatoes, bread and, worst of all, tobacco. The few houses by the old pier that was used before the building of the harbour are in ruins, and we should have been in a very bad way if it had not been for the keeper of the Werder Lighthouse, which, by the way, is not in the least like the picture of it still reproduced on the English charts, but is a plain wooden framework replacing the old tower, which was blown up during the war. The lighthouse-keeper lives with his wife and three children in a wooden shanty close by, on a desolate spit of bare ground running out from the woods into the sea. He used to come and sit in the cabin of Racundra and I used to visit him in his shanty. The only blemish on his conversation was that, like his brother of Runö, similarly isolated from the world, he took an interest in politics, and wanted to know what we were doing about Egypt. However, he made up for that by selling us milk, butter and potatoes, and he also gave me some tobacco of his own growing, raw leaves not yet dry, which I hung over the cabin lamp till they crackled, and then broke them up and smoked them, and found them a very great deal better than no tobacco at all.

  CHART OF WERDER HARBOUR.

  Our most interesting visitors, however, were two seal-hunters from Runö. I saw them buffeting their way along the quay afar off, and knew at once what they must be. No other men wear pale homespuns bound with black and hairy sealskin shoes. No other men go abroad with long telescopes and crooked sticks. No other men on reaching our woodpile would climb upon the top of it, crouching low against the wind, and, steadying the end of the telescope by using the stick as a support, would search so patiently the distant rocks. Presently they were close to us, and stood there, one young man, one elderly, looking down at Racundra from the quay with eyes so simple that you would think they had never been troubled by a thought. The Ancient talked with them and told me that they begged ... for what? For glass bottles, the one thing they do not make upon their island. They needed bottles for oil, for carrying water, for what not? We gave them a lot of empty beer-bottles. They took off their caps and shook our hands. Then they asked if they might come on board. They came and went down into the cabin, fingering everything, enormously, inarticulately interested.

  “A strong ship,” said the younger, at last. “We too have a strong ship, with five little ones which she carries inside her.”

  “And where is your ship?”

  “Over there, a half-hour’s walk, in a better harbour than this.”

  “And are there five of you?”

  “Yes, five. Three we left on an island off the coast of Oesel, with their three boats. We are now two. In four weeks we shall sail back along the Oesel coast and find our men, and then we go to Runö again.”

  “Have you got many seals?”

  “Only one. The weather is too bad for them, but later we shall have more.”

  There was a little more simple question and answer of this kind. Then they saw my camera and asked what it was. I told them, and the younger one understood at once, and said that they had seen photographs that had been taken on Runö by some Swedish visitor, who had afterwards sent them to the island. They were delighted when I suggested making a picture of their ship. They wanted me to come at once, but I told them that for picture-making I needed a good light, and not a raging storm with wind and hail. If it should clear later I would come. With that we all gravely shook hands and they went off.

  SEAL HUNTERS FROM RUNÖ

  SEPTEMBER 24th. Last night we had a further taste of the Equinox in a northerly gale with heavy rain. This morning, however, though the wind continued, the sky cleared, the sun shone, and I made up my mind to sail this evening, if the weather held and the barometer, now slowly rising, did not take another dive. In the meantime I determined to use Sunday morning by repaying the visit of the men of Runö. I had promised to photograph their ship.

  I saw the men of Runö about a mile away on shore, conspicuous in their pale homespuns, and, slinging my camera on my back, was blown along the pier and almost off it as I hurried in pursuit of them. “These men live on a little island,” said I to myself, “therefore they cannot be good walkers. At any rate I, who have spent half my
life afoot on the fells of England, ought to be able to catch up with them.” Catch them I did, but after a long struggle, though they did not seem to be hurrying. The older, shorter man was using his carved stick as a staff, the younger was turning in his toes as he walked, and yet they kept up a steady pace, as regular as animals. Trotting beside them was a boy, whose dress proclaimed him of the mainland. The men of Runö were, I think, wandering round on this Sunday morning to see what they could gather from the people of the continent. When at last I caught them, they had stopped at one of the few inhabited cottages, and the young one, after greeting me with joy and agreeing at once to take me to then ship, bitterly complained that the house was shut up and no one was at home. He pointed to the sun and to my camera case, remembering that I had told him yesterday that I could photograph his ship only if there was a good sun.

  SEAL HUNTERS, THEIR BOAT AND SHIP.

  THE SEAL HUNTERS ON BOARD THEIR SHIP.

  (Note the flint-lock gun.)

  We set off across country, the men of Runö swearing that it was not far to the ship. We passed through the grounds of a mined country house, a fine place before the war, but now a desolate shell; then out over wide marshland, and, after half an hour’s walking, they pointed to a white mast against the shadow of a distant wood. The men of Runö and I walked our natural pace, and the Esthonian boy trotted at our heels. As we walked we talked, a sort of Volapuk or Esperanto, composed of German, Swedish and Russian words stirred well together with a lot of goodwill. We understood one another excellently. They explained that the rig of their boat was not like that of the Esthonians, but was a traditional rig from older times than man can remember, and peculiar to Runö. They told me that they had a fine gun, that there were pike in some water to the left of us, that they had shot good duck in a bight on the other side, and so on. I told them that we were sailing in the evening, but they both vehemently protested. “No, no! It will blow again a great storm in the night, but in the morning will be clear weather and a fair wind for Riga.” I pointed to the clear blue sky overhead, but they would have none of it. “Man fran Runö kens wetter. Bettra i morgen. Clockan fem segel. En gud wind till Riga,” and so on, with such insistence that I made up my mind to wait till morning and see if the men of Runö knew the weather as well as they thought they did.

  Talking so, we came through a little wood to a tiny natural harbour, where their ship lay at anchor, a strange ship indeed, bigger than Racundra, but not much, with a long bowsprit, a foremast with a high spritsail, and a mainmast of great length, exactly in the middle of the ship, with a marked rake towards the stern, a short gaff and a very long boom projecting far over the counter. Drawn up on the grassy shore were two little boats shaped like narrow spoons, that could, I should think, be used either with oars or with a single paddle like a canoe. I took a photograph of the ship as she lay there, with the little boats on the shore, and each man ran of his own accord to be photographed each by his own little boat, which, as they explained, each had made for himself. The Esthonian boy wanted to be photographed also, but they would have none of this and drove him away, saying that he was not from Runö and therefore should not be in the picture. He ran off angrily into the woods, and we saw him no more. Then we all three got into one of the little boats, and the younger man ferried us out to the ship. I sat in the stern, the younger man rowed in the bows, and the elder squatted in the bottom by way of ballast. The ship had her name in blue and white elaborately painted on her counter: “JUBA: RUNÖ”. They brought the boat stern foremost under the counter and I scrambled up and in.

  Whatever the Juba might want in cleanliness, and she wanted a good deal, she made up in strength. She was built in 1911 on Runö. The elder man had taken part in the building. Her planking was of oak, two inches thick, I judged, and her ribs – square-sided ribs of ash or elm, I could not be certain from their description which they meant – were enormously heavy. The counter was partially decked, the whole of the midships portion was open, while the forepart of the ship was decked over with a high curved roof, making a very roomy forecastle. In front of the mainmast were two big barrels, one full of seal-fat, the other of seal-flesh. A skin was drying in the sun. In the covered forecastle, a great space, bigger even than Racundra’s prided cabin, were stowed a great mass of sails and all kinds of gear. They burrow under the sails to sleep. There were shelves along the sides with rough wooden spoons and boxes which they decorate with fire, scraps of leather, partly made shoes, hanks of yarn and fishing-tackle. They brought out their seal-gun, a muzzle-loading flintlock that might have been used by the Jacobites. They had made a case for it of sealskin with the hair outside. The elder man had also a Japanese rifle, but they both agreed that the ancient flint was “bettra”. I asked them if they were going to sell the sealskin in Arensburg. “No,” they said; “the sealskins are wanted for the making of shoes for the people of Runö.” They showed me their own furry shoes, with up-pointed tips and worked leather borders, very fine shoes indeed, for this was Sunday, and just as today they were wearing the newest of pale homespun jackets, with trousers like straight tubes to match, so they were wearing new shoes, both shoes and clothes being identical with those they had worn yesterday except for their newness. Everything they wore they had made themselves on the island or in their ship, with the exception of their caps. The elder had a cap of plain blue, the younger a Newmarket check cloth cap, faded almost white, with holes through which shreds of pink silk lining showed, but still a fine thing from foreign parts and worn with Sunday clothes in simple pride.

  They told me they came every year to this particular little inlet. I asked how many years – twenty? Far more. The older man said that his father had brought him there the first time he came. I have no doubt that for not ten or twenty but for several hundred years a little ship of strange rig has anchored there and emptied out of its hold the little spoon-shaped sealing boats, and simple men in pale clothes bound with black, with ornamental shoes of sealskin. These men, perhaps better than any other Europeans except the Laplanders, continue into our times the life their forebears lived in the Middle Ages and earlier. Steam has meant nothing to them except a visit from a steamboat once a year. The Iron Age brought them knives and iron boat-fastenings (though even now they often build without). A flintlock gun, a Japanese rifle, that rare treasure of a Newmarket cap: what are these but trifles? They could kill seals and cover their heads without these things. One thing of real value to them dropped from civilization they had indeed upon the Juba, and they brought it to me in its box and opened its dark magic with proper reverence. It was an old dry compass from a maker in Wapping, taken, no doubt, from some ship wrecked fifty years ago on the rocky western shores of their island.

  We parted with high mutual esteem, expressed by an exchange. I gave them the old pipe I was smoking. The elder man gave me a worn tobacco-pouch. “Fran England till Runö. Fran Runö till England,” he said, carefully stowing my pipe upon his crowded shelf. Then there was tremendous handshaking and bowing and taking off of caps. After which the younger man took me ashore. I had got his name, and he begged me to send him the pictures, addressed simply “Arensburg for Runö.” “We shall get them next summer when the steamer comes”.

  WERDER TO RIGA

  THE men of Runö were so far right that it blew hard during the night, though the storm they had expected was reserved for us on the night after. In the morning of September 25th, at eight o’clock, the barometer was at 29.4, and at ten was half a point higher. For the first time for a fortnight it had been for forty-eight hours comparatively steady, and not on the upward or downward grade of a steep switchback. The wind was N.W. The little Russian steamer which, going south like ourselves, had waited by Kuivast all the previous day was getting her anchor. I had a feeling that now was our chance, and that we had better take it before, as it were, the Equinox got his second wind.

  “What about sailing?” said I to the Ancient, who was on the pier sheltering behind the woodpile and looking
through the glasses at the little steamer.

  “We can but try,” said he.

  And with that we began casting off the spider’s web of stout warps with which we had been keeping Racundra quiet during the last five days of mixed gales. Ten minutes later she was swinging to her anchor. Ten minutes after that we had the sails up and everything lashed down on deck and made snug below, and at 10.45 we had got our anchor and were beating out into the Sound under bright sunshine and a blue sky with racing clouds, the outlines of which encouraged us by being very much softer than the oily, knife-edged affairs of the last few days. At a quarter past eleven we were close to the mouth of the Sound. Paternoster Lighthouse on Virelaid Island, a compact little hummock with rocks all round it and rock-like haystacks on the low land behind it, bore W. by S. We were level with the second Werder buoy, the open sea was before us, and I set our course due S., which should give us a sight of Runö Lighthouse to help us in the night. Racundra was going a grand pace, and our faith in the men of Runö grew stronger every minute.