'I was half-blinded by scud, but suddenly I noticed what looked like a
gap, behind a spit which curled out right ahead. I luffed still more to
clear this spit, but she couldn't weather it. Before you could say knife she
was driving across it, bumped heavily, bucked forward again, bumped
again, and— ripped on in deeper water! I can't describe the next few
minutes. I was in some sort of channel, Wholesale Belt Online, but a very narrow one, and the
sea broke everywhere. I hadn't proper command either; for the rudder
had crocked up somehow at the last bump. I was like a drunken man
running for his life down a dark alley, barking himself at every corner. It
couldn't last long, and finally we went crash on to something and
stopped there, grinding and banging. So ended that little trip under a
pilot.
'Well, it was like this— there was really no danger'— I opened my
eyes at the characteristic phrase.'I mean, that lucky stumble into a chan-
nel was my salvation. Since then I had struggled through a mile of sands,
all of which lay behind me like a breakwater against the gale. They were
covered, of course, and seething like soapsuds; but the force of the sea
was deadened. The Dulce was bumping, but not too heavily. It was near-
ing high tide, and at half ebb she would be high and dry.
'In the ordinary way I should have run out a kedge with the dinghy,
and at the next high water sailed farther in and anchored where I could
lie afloat. The trouble was now that my hand was hurt and my dinghy
stove in, not to mention the rudder business. It was the first bump on the
outer edge that did the damage. There was a heavy swell there, and
when we struck, the dinghy, which was towing astern, came home on
her painter and down with a crash on the yacht's weather quarter. I
stuck out one hand to ward it off and got it nipped on the gunwale. She
was badly stove in and useless, so I couldn't run out the kedge'— this
was Greek to me, but I let him go on—'and for the present my hand was
too painful even to stow the boom and sails, which were. whipping and
racketing about anyhow. There was the rudder, too, to be mended; and
we were several miles from the nearest land. Of course, if the wind fell, it
was all easy enough; but if it held or increased it was a poor look-out.
There's a limit to strain of that sort— and other things might have
happened.
'In fact, it was precious lucky that Bartels turned up. His galliot was at
anchor a mile away, up a branch of the channel. In a clear between
squalls he saw us, and, like a brick, rowed his boat out— he and his boy,
and a devil of a pull they must have had. I was glad enough to see
them— no, that's not true; I was in such a fury of disgust and shame that
I believe I should have been idiot enough to say I didn't want help, if he
hadn't just nipped on board and started work. He's a terror to work, that
little mouse of a chap. In half an hour he had stowed the sails, un-
shackled the big anchor, run out fifty fathoms of warp, and hauled her
off there and then into deep water. Then they towed her up the chan-
nel— it was dead to leeward and an easy job— and berthed her near
their own vessel. It was dark by that time, so I gave them a drink, and
said good-night. It blew a howling gale that night, but the place was safe
enough, with good ground-tackle.
'The whole affair was over; and after supper I thought hard about it
all.'
