Racundra's First Cruise Read online

  We hurried back to the shore, Hinrikson being anxious to find his wood and set about loading it while the sea was comparatively smooth. Before we reached the ship, the skipper stood in the boat and yelled to the men to be getting the anchor up, and in a minute or two we had our staysail and jibs up, and were sailing eastwards again along the coast to Polli. Here again there were signs of houses to be seen from the ship, but a large schooner was anchored off the shore, and boats laden with timber till the water lapped the gunwale were being paddled off to her and then thrown chunk-by-chunk, overhand up on deck where they were caught and stowed by those aboard her. Considerable stacks of wood were arranged on the beach above high-water mark. Again we landed and after a couple of miles walk through the forest came to the forester’s cottage and, finding no one, ate wild strawberries which grew in great profusion, slept for a little, and were wakened by his wife who with much polite ceremonial of repeated handshaking directed us to follow a path through the trees till we should find him. We walked on and found the forester and his son stowing the last of their hay into a thatched hayshed in a clearing. The forester came down from the top of the hay where he was stamping into place the forkfuls tossed up by his son, and we all sat on the ground and lit pipes while he and Hinrikson discussed the question of our wood, which it appeared was not where we expected to find it, but beyond Ermuste, close under the point of Restna. We went back to the shore and while Hinrikson bargained with the men and girls who were loading the wood for the schooner lying off, I watched them at their work. The timber, sawn into short balks, was loaded on little rough carts which, pulled by horses were drawn out into the sea. Girls walked into the sea with them, and stood nearly waist deep in water while they transferred the wood to the little boats, which came alongside the carts. Then men and boys sitting on the bows of the boats invisible from the stern behind the pile of wood, rowed off to the ship and tied alongside flung the wood up and over so quickly that it was as if a continual fountain of wood spurted over the ship from each boat.

  While we had been in the forest the wind had risen and veered a little eastwards. Waves were breaking on the beach, and our boat had been swung round and was half full of water, getting finally swamped just as we got her off. However we got going and baled as we went. We rowed to the strange schooner, as our skipper had not been here before and wished to consult about anchorages. We were told it was unsafe to stay here for the night but that there was a sheltered anchorage at Luidja still further eastwards, in a bay on the western side of Takhona. After long-tacking we made this bay and ran in anchoring close to another vessel, which with the tack of her mainsail clewed up looked against the sunset like a big seabird with her head under her wing for the night.

  In the morning of Friday the wind had freshened from the east, and we ran before it, passed Polli and Ermuste to the place where our wood actually was, but standing in near the shore we found such waves breaking on the beach that it would have been impossible to go ashore, still less to land wood, and had shoal water visible close ahead of us, so that the skipper, a quiet fellow with a face usually without expression of any kind, showed visible and audible relief when we gave up the idea of landing, and bore up for open sea, only just in time, it seemed, as we could see the rocks which we should certainly not have been able to avoid had we held another minute on our course. There is no sea like the Baltic for shortness of temper. After a fine morning the wind rose and the waves with it, and we had to furl our topsails, and take in two jibs, and even so, had a heavy time of it. The Venera, unloaded, was blown to leeward like a basket, and, having found that she was a little uncertain in going about under such conditions, and not one of us knowing the coast, we stood right out to sea, to make Luidja in a single tack. We sailed closehauled till out of sight of land, and then, after one false start, awkward enough in such a wind, went about, one of the sailors and I holding the boomed staysail aback by brute force. After an hour or two, the skipper, very pleased and proud came into the cabin with the news that he had judged just right and that we could afford to bear away a little, since the masts of the ship we left at anchor at Luidja Bay were to be seen on the horizon over the starboard bow. Early in the afternoon we dropped anchor in fairly smooth water, though, with the wind blowing overhead we lowered all our sails, as had the other ship.

  There was then a serious consultation. With the wind as it was it would be impossible to load the wood. If the wind fell during the night it would only be possible to load on Saturday morning, even if it were possible to get the labourers together and they were at Ristna to meet us when we arrived. On Saturday afternoon the labourers would not work except for extra pay and Hinrikson would never give extra pay for anything, nor would he, on principle, regardless of the weather, allow work on Sunday. That meant that instead of returning by Sunday as we had hoped, the Venera would be here for another five days at least, perhaps longer. I decided to see more of Dago, by landing at Luidja, and making my way overland across the island. On the horizon I could see the spire of a church. Well, a church meant a pastor, and a pastor meant lodging for the night. I committed to memory the Esthonian for “Please may I sleep on your hay” “lubage mind henute piale magama”, in all these parts the hayloft being the best spare room for visitors, and indeed, as I found when I stayed with the fishermen at Harko, used sometimes as a sleeping place for the whole family At the point of the bay furthest from the church there were stacks of wood lying, and Hinrikson wanted to look at them and perhaps find somewhere near them someone who could tell him more about the wood he was looking for. So he took the boat and a sailor and I flung my sleeping bag into my knapsack and went with them.

  The shore where we landed was flat and deep in ooze, which came to our knees as we waded out pulling the boat with us. Close behind the woodpiles we found a good road, and beyond it a cottage and outhouses and a very pretty girl feeding hens. She saw us coming, and, like a good Esthonian, instantly pretended she had not and walked slowly off, at first taking no notice even of our shouts. At last however, when Hinrikson shouted a definite question in Esthonian she turned round. Hinrikson solemnly introduced himself, the sailor and me, and there was a great ceremony of handshaking. The pretty girl told him that her father was the wood-keeper, and would be back later in the evening, and then, on learning that I wanted to go to Heltermaa, she said that the very road that ran past the door would take me alike to Kardla and to Heltermaa, and that if only I had come half an hour earlier, people had driven by going to Kardla, who could have taken me with them. She proposed that I should wait in the cottage until others should drive by, but said there might he none as it was already six in the evening. She spoke a little Russian. I decided however to be getting on my way at once, and, after a double round of handshaking, and a farewell glance through the trees to that old pirate ship, looking more rakish and piratish than ever as she lay at anchor beside the other ship with the usual blunt bows of the Dago coasters, I got my knapsack, which was inexorably heavy, on my back and set off to make my way to the other end of Dago. The road lay through little woods, small birches, mountain ash, beeches, unfenced, the grass beneath them cut for hay and running to the side of the road. Then it opened out on wide sand flats, grass covered on which cattle and horses were grazing. The road cut away from the sea in a wide peninsula, but here and there on the landward side of it were wide shallow lakes, of salt water, which, when the wind raises the water on this side of the Baltic, are joined to the sea. I passed through a small village, but saw no living creature except a dog and two bulls who were trotting steadily through the village, on the way, I expect, from one sand flat to another where they thought the grass was better. I met however several people on the road in their little springless carts, a gay rug covering the hay, and here and there among the cattle were cowherds, small boys, or little girls, and an old woman knitting as she watched her beasts. I had thought of sleeping out, but in the only shop I passed I could not get either milk or eggs and I had only the last relic of a d
ry crust. So I pushed on, and late in the evening came to the parish church of Reigi.

  Now Reigi is close by the cape of Korgesaar, and is one of those innocent places which are making up by long years of blameless life for the wickedness committed in their lurid past. However many worthy farmers sleep in the pews on Sundays, however many prayers are said, nothing can undo the old evil that was done in this place when Baron Ungern Sternberg lived, just over there, under the woods on the cape, within sight of this place, and made a treacherous dangerous coast still more treacherous and dangerous by ingeniously setting lights among the rocks in such places that they would set sailors out of their reckoning, and bring ships on the rocks when Ungern Sternberg and his merry men, no doubt the ancestors of the present population, profited by the cargoes, and made short work of survivors lest these, spreading their wrongs abroad, should put an end to a means of livelihood almost as interesting as fishing, and with something of the same art of lure and profit by the trustfulness of others. Yet it is possible that they could have spared survivors freely, for tradition dies hard, and along the rocky Esthonian coast, from ancient times the people have counted wrecks as gifts from God and their own inalienable property. In 1287, the Governor of Reval refused to compensate Lubeck for a wreck on the Esthonian coast, and the cargo, which had been seized by Esthonians, alleging that it was “Strandgut”, and that it was the property of the finders. Ungern Sternberg lived just over a hundred years ago, and, at the present day, the islanders of Tutters look to make part of their living by wrecks, and those of Worms, only two years ago, pulled even the engines of a stranded British ship to pieces for the sake of the copper in it, which they wanted to make rivets for their boats, and the iron nuts, which are so much more convenient than stones as sinkers for fishing nets.

  The church, tall for its length, white, with a grey spire, stands among trees. It is a Lutheran church, and the Germans had a curious habit of building gin houses precisely opposite the church door (many such are to be seen in Esthonia), in old days making it possible to tie up one’s horse at the gin shop, go to church, and get drunk afterwards to lessen the tedium of the drive home. Many churches, where there is no gin shop, have a row of stout posts outside the church wall, with long timbers fastened on the top of them, for the tying up of horses. I have often seen ten, twenty, thirty little carts, each with the gaudy rugs that are the pride of the country, fastened up outside the churches on a Sunday, and the long timbers were nearly always falling to pieces with the steady gnawing of the horses. What the timbers were to the horse, I suppose the gin shop was meant to be to the parishioners. Here at Reigi, sure enough, exactly opposite the gate under the trees leading to the church was the characteristic low white building, and I went in at once, knowing that there at least I might be able to get something to eat.

  But the gin shop was a gin shop no longer. On the one time bar were newspapers. On the bottle shelves were books, and sitting on the deep window ledge were two young women, one of whom could talk Russian. She told me that neither milk, nor eggs nor beer nor anything else was sold there any longer, but that I could read the latest newspapers. I disguised my disappointment and my disgust on meeting newspapers, from which, throughout the summer, I had been most successful in avoiding, and asked where the pastor lived. I was told to turn behind the one time gin shop, when I would find a path leading directly to the pastor’s house. I then perceived another object in this strange continual juxtaposition of church and drinking shop. The straight path, from his house to the church and back again, led the pastor within three yards of the gin shop door. For a dour man, what ready material for sermons, for a humane, what constant reminder of the world in which his listeners lived. I saw hollow cheeked thin mouthed pastors turning the other way as they passed, to thunder from the pulpit on the proximity of hell’s mouth, and fat jolly ones, nodding to their flock as they went by, and luring the innkeeper, from bar to pew by their own good nature, and perhaps joining their parishioners in a friendly draught after preaching and listening to a dry sermon on a summer’s day. But the potato spirit of the country, which makes some cheerful and others pull out their knives, the vodka, with which, in old days, Esthonia supplied a considerable part of Russia, is not a thing for friendly draughts. A hot and hitter spirit, tossed hastily to the back of the throat, it has few virtues and a beastly taste.

  You should understand that there was no village by this church. Indeed, in this country of farmers, there seldom is. The church is set in a convenient place, somewhere in the middle of a vast parish, and the congregation drive to it from five, six, ten and even twenty miles round. A mile or so away, beyond an inlet of the sea, were houses among trees, one of them built on the site of Ungern Sternberg’s wrecker’s stronghold, and still containing his furniture. Far away over the fields were small wooden farms. But church, ex-gin shop, and the pastor’s house were alone.

  “RACUNDRA” AT REVAL, ESTHONIA.

  “RACUNDRA’S”

  FIRST CRUISE

  BY

  ARTHUR RANSOME

  TO

  “RACUNDRA’S” ESTHONIAN FRIENDS

  CHART OF THE FIRST CRUISE.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  More than once in the log of Racundra’s little voyage I have mentioned that I found changes made by the war unrecorded in the obtainable charts. I have just received from the Esthonian Admiralty, through Mr. Edward Wirgo, a set of charts they have recently issued which cover the whole of the delightful cruising ground among the islands, and should certainly be obtained by the skippers of any other little ships who think of visiting these waters.

  CONTENTS

  PAGE

  THE BUILDING OF “RACUNDRA”

  71

  THE CREW

  76

  THE START

  79

  RIGA TO RUNÖ

  87

  RUNÖ TO PATERNOSTER

  95

  THROUGH THE MOON SOUND

  99

  WORMS TO PAKERORT

  105

  PAKERORT TO REVAL

  110

  PORT OF REVAL

  115

  REVAL TO HELSINGFORS

  123

  HELINGFORS: SWINGING THE SHIP

  131

  HELSINGSFORS TO REVAL

  139

  REVAL TO BALTIC PORT

  147

  OLD BALTIC PORT AND NEW

  151

  THE ROOGÖ ISLANDS

  157

  THE SHIP AND THE MAN

  164

  BALTIC PORT TO SPITHAMN

  169

  SPITHAMN TO RAMSHOLM

  176

  RAMSHOLM TO HAPSAL THROUGH THE NUKKE CHANNEL

  180

  HAPSAL TO HELTERMAA (ISLAND OF DAGÖ)

  189

  “TOLEDO” OF LEITH

  197

  FROM THE ISLAND OF DAGÖ TO THE ISLAND OF MOON

  203

  KUIVAST TO WERDER

  214

  SEAL-HUNTERS FROM RUNÖ

  225

  WERDER TO RIGA

  230

  APPENDIX: A DESCRIPTION OF “RACUNDRA”

  239

  ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS

  CHARTS

  PAGE

  TRACK CHART OF THE CRUISE

  64

  MOON SOUND AND THE ISLANDS

  100

  HELSINGFORS, SHOWING NYLANDS Y.C. ANCHORAGE

  131

  THE NEW HARBOUR AT WERDER

  222

  PHOTOGRAPHS

  “RACUNDRA” AT REVAL, ESTHONIA

  62

  “RACUNDRA” ON THE STOCKS

  72

  “RACUNDRA” LAUNCHED

  72

  THE ANCIENT MARINER AT THE TILER

  80

  FIRST SIGHT OF LAND (RUNÖ ISLAND)

  80

  WOMEN OF RUNÖ COMING OUT OF CHURCH

  86

  INHABITANTS OF RUNÖ

  90

  GHOHARA ISLAND A
ND LIGHTHOUSE

  122

  NYLANDS YACHT CLUB, HELSINGFORS

  128

  “RACUNDRA” AT HELSINGFORS (AFTER SWINGING THE SHIP)

  136

  PORT OF REVAL

  142

  IN BALTIC PORT

  146

  FISHING BOATS AT BALTIC PORT

  156

  ONE OF THE ROOGÖ BOAT-HOUSES