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  From here they ran on behind the shield of the Frisian Islands. These low, mysterious islands are little more than huge sand dunes with lonely, windblown settlements huddling behind their desolate ridges. For a couple of months in the middle of summer, the peace is shattered as tourists descend upon them, but by September the islands and their whispering sands are once more alone and magnificently desolate. Along their shores, miles of white beaches and sandbars stretch in all directions at low tide and amid them lies a maze of narrow channels and deeps. Some are buoyed and others are marked with thin sticks driven into the sand. In the UK these are called withies or booms while locals in the Frisian Islands call them pricken. Naturally, they were often vague and misleading navigational aids, as this incident from Vixen’s logbook illustrates:

  Sighted a row of booms and thought we were safe as the water was deep. About ten yards from the first boom ran hard aground at six knots. Unfortunately it was about half an hour after high water. In two hours we found ourselves on a perfect Ararat [a reference to the resting place of Noah’s Ark]. Seemed the highest place for miles around, with the peccant boom atop of it.

  Childers often found his charts were inaccurate and so set about discovering the true nature of the coastline. To measure depth it was necessary to make repeated casts of the lead line (a weighted line marked off with knots). This was laborious work, but something the meticulous and patient Childers enjoyed greatly. He must have felt he had stumbled upon cruising heaven, for here he could spend days on end in splendid isolation. He soon picked up on the local trader’s knack of sheltering behind sandbanks to ride out a storm and frequently the Vixen was several days between visits to port. As their cruise progressed the weather deteriorated, but this simply served to push them inexorably on:

  The weather was now hopelessly demoralised, and the North Sea was out of the question … Whether this region [the Frisian Islands] is known to English yachtsmen I do not know; for our part, in default of better, we found it a delightful cruising ground safe in any weather and a novel and amusing mode of getting to the Elbe and so to the Baltic in a season when the North Sea would be highly dangerous to a small boat. A light [shallow] draught is indispensable, of course; ours of four feet is, I should think, the maximum for comfort, though the channels are navigated by local traders loaded down to as much as seven feet. Occasional running aground is inevitable, so that a centreboarder, which takes the ground comfortably when the plate is not in use is by far the best pattern for a boat.

  By late September, the Vixen had made it to the island of Borkum in north-western Germany, and Childers was delighted with the contrast to Holland: ‘No boys, no bother, no customs.’ From this point onward, the log is a constant record of groundings, gales, fogs and the thrill of discovery. This entry from 30 September is typical:

  Thick fog. Overslept and woke to bumping – dashed out in pyjamas and tried to kedge off – failed and dried. Bed again. Off about 10 and groped about for our channel in the fog.

  Heating was supplied by a rather smelly paraffin stove – a Rippingille No. 3 – which is immortalised by many sardonic mentions in The Riddle of the Sands. The discomfort on rainy days is almost tangible as you imagine the intrepid sailors huddled down below, drying out and trying to get warm after a long day of kedging and groping through the channels of this lonely part of the world. By 1 October, Henry was clearly starting to feel the strain, for Erskine noted: ‘Slight indisposition among the crew, so I landed and bought champagne and beef steak at the hotel.’

  Evidently this swift action served to quell any mutinous thoughts on his brother’s part. From here, Vixen pushed on to Cuxhaven and then through the Kiel Canal to the Baltic – a total contrast from the supremely tidal North Sea and its desolate sands. On 10th November, Henry headed back to England, his leave being up, but there was a chance he could return and Erskine determined to keep his plans vague. He was left on his own to enjoy the beauty of the Baltic coast and sailed up to Flensburg, all narrow inlets and gentle wooded hills sloping down to the water’s edge, golden brown in the late autumn sunlight. He was enchanted by the coastline, which he described as, ‘the finest yachting country I had seen yet.’

  All the time Childers was – unwittingly – gathering material for The Riddle of the Sands. One of the factors that sets the book apart from other novels is the extreme realism of the narrative. On first reading it is often hard to tell whether it is fact or fiction. This was, very simply, because most of the incidents were taken straight out of Vixen’s logbook and transposed into the novel. Exaggeration was rarely needed. In the characters of Davies and Carruthers, Erskine merely incorporated his own personality and that of some of his sailing friends. Basil Williams, who sailed with Erskine on many occasions, was later to observe that, ‘Davies was every inch Erskine’. It is also fair to argue that Davies’ own views on the threat of German invasion – so painstakingly outlined in The Riddle of the Sands – were much the same as Erskine’s, and that these views must have been distilled on this trip. There is mention of a visit to several war memorials commemorating the German – or specifically Prussian – invasion of this area, which had previously been Danish. Interestingly both Childers’ logbook and The Riddle are relentlessly complimentary about the Germans. As Davies observed: ‘Germany’s a thundering great nation, I wonder if we shall ever fight her?’ This was an interesting leap to make as, prior to the 1890s, France had always been perceived as the main threat, while Germany was traditionally Britain’s ally. After all, the two nations did share a royal family.

  Whatever his thoughts on the burgeoning German threat, Vixen was now a very long way from home and it was already November. Childers was therefore seriously in need of some help, and fortunately the faithful Henry was able to make a return, bringing another paraffin stove, some rifles for duck shooting, and a prismatic compass to help them thread their way back through the Frisian Islands. By now it was very late in the season, but the adventurers pushed mercilessly on. On 29 November they received a severe dusting, as related by Erskine:

  Got underway at light – determined to seek shelter at Bensersiel, a place approached by a boomed high water channel. Fearful job to get the anchor – found it bent! Groped three reefed into the Bensersiel channel and anchored outside awaiting the tide. Wind grew to an even worse gale, with heavy rain and a hurricane look to the sky. A waterspout passed us at a distance of about 400 yards. We were in the centre of a cyclone, we supposed, about 11, for the wind suddenly veered to the NE and blew a hurricane, making Bensersiel and our anchorage a lee shore. It was half flood, and we decided to start, but how to get up the anchor? Couldn’t get in a link in as it was. In view of slipping it [abandoning the anchor and picking it up later] we buoyed it ready; then got up sail, three reefed and tried to sail it out of the ground. Just giving it up when it came away and we got it up. Then bore away for Bensersiel. Got into channel, but found booms almost covered by abnormally high tide and very hard to see. Henry stood forward and waved directions. Soon got into breakers and found it a devil of a situation. Fearful work with the tiller under so much sail. One or two heavy gybes at turns in the channel. When close inshore sea less bad – missed booms altogether and grounded, but blew off again. Whole population on the beach yelling. Tide so high that all clues were obscured but Henry conned her skilfully on, and we were soon tearing into the mouth of the ‘harbour’, about 15 feet wide at about seven knots. It was a tiny basin with not even room to round up. Tried to get sail down but it jammed: Let go anchor with a run, luffed and just brought up in time with the bowsprit over the quayside, and received the bewildered congratulations of the people, who seemed to think we had fallen from the sky.

  This incident is related pretty much word for word in The Riddle of the Sands and one can almost feel the icy spray stinging their faces as they tear into this tiny, unlikely, port. For any yachtsmen reading this and feeling a little inferior, there is also a pleasing incident where the brothers ground their yacht near a sm
all port and wander in to get some stores. During their absence night falls and, as they stroll back to the beach, they realise that they forgot to set their anchor light, meaning they can’t locate Vixen. At this point they also realise, to their horror, that they forgot to drop the anchor altogether, and a frantic search reveals Vixen has washed some way down the beach. This incident suggests either that the brothers were getting a little complacent or, more likely, were exhausted by their adventures, and by 14 December, when Vixen arrived in the Dutch Island of Terschelling, the decision was taken that she should remain there until the spring, the brothers returning home by steamer.

  Thus ended a truly impressive voyage, which provided Erskine with all of the raw material for his one masterpiece. Yet it would be some time before he got around to writing his tale of amateur espionage, which didn’t appear until 1903. The main reason for this was that Childers was busy with other matters. In 1899 he and his friend Basil Williams had joined the City Imperial Volunteers and were sent to Africa to fight in the Boer War. Childers’ adventures at war do not belong in this book, but his memoirs, In the Ranks of the CIV, were published on his return and, thus encouraged, Childers started work on The Riddle of the Sands. He was urged on by his sister Dulcibella, and it was she who persuaded him to put in the rather stilted love affair between Davies and Frau Dollmann. Childers complained at the time that the affair had been rather ‘spatchcocked’ into the main text. Nevertheless, the romance has its own charm and Davies’ tongue-tied approach echoes an encounter during Erskine and Henry’s voyage when an enthusiastic Dutch innkeeper at the port of Anjum introduced the extremely shy pair of brothers to the most attractive girls in the village. As Erskine recalled: ‘They were pretty but it was rather an embarrassing visit as neither side knew the other’s language, and we could not do much more in the social way than sit dazzled at their beauty’.

  Awkward romance aside, The Riddle was a bestseller on publication and is still hugely popular today. Its warmth and wit, combined with intrigue and wonderful sailing sketches, have ensured its place in literary history. It wasn’t the first book to foretell of the dangers of German invasion (the wonderfully titled Battle of Dorking by George Tompkyns Chesney, published in 1871, earns that honour), but it helped that it was so prescient and its relevance grew as the world’s two great powers slowly wound up to the fateful declaration of war in 1914. Childers’ novel endures largely because of its wonderful feeling of realism. It was on this wave of success that Childers met his American wife, Molly, while on a trip to Boston in 1903. The two fell deeply in love with a devotion that was to last all their lives. Vivacious, passionate and caring, she proved the ideal foil for the more introverted but equally intense Erskine. ‘I’m so tremendously happy old chap’, Childers wrote to Basil Williams at the time.

  Marriage did not curtail Childers’ sailing adventures either. Vixen had been sold in 1899 and there was a brief experiment with part ownership of the Sunbeam, but marriage also brought Childers his final command. A wedding present from his in-laws, the Asgard, was a beautiful ketch designed by Colin Archer, whose sturdy designs have become world renowned. It is telling that Sir Robin Knox-Johnson’s famous Suhaili, the first vessel to circumnavigate the globe without stopping, was based on another Colin Archer design. The Asgard was elegant yet sturdy, comfortable, and well suited for cruising.

  By now, Childers was a consummate sailor and exuded confidence, as Molly later recalled following his masterly entrance into the port of Assens during a cruise in Denmark: ‘VERY tricky navigation. Erskine really has genius. It went perfectly. I was in terror and could not imagine how he knew the way. First time too. Chart no help. Absolutely without squeak.’

  Molly also proved herself a fine sailor and an excellent cruising companion and, under the careful tutelage of Erskine, she soon grew in confidence. Together, the pair explored many of Erskine’s old haunts and also headed deeper into the Baltic, making it all the way to Oslo. Perhaps understandably, none of these later cruises had quite the spice of his earlier adventures aboard Mad Agnes and Vixen, but still he continued to push boundaries and open up new cruising vistas. And there was one final sailing escapade to come for Childers; an adventure that was to have all the drama and suspense of The Riddle of the Sands. This was the Howth gun running of 1914 and, unlike The Riddle, the whole thing was utterly real and deadly serious. The premise behind the scheme was very simple; Erskine wanted to provide an illegal shipment of weapons to Irish Volunteers, who were agitating for an independent Ireland.

  Why had Childers gone from being a loyal civil servant and noted patriot to suddenly engaging in an extremely risky undertaking, which took him into unknown and dangerous political waters? To make sense of this shift it is important to understand a bit about his allegiances. The fact was that Erskine had become more and more drawn to Irish politics and the push for home rule. Even though he appeared to be as English as a cricket field, he was more Irish than anything else and found himself being slowly drawn into the injustices his people were forced to endure. Molly supported him in his beliefs and he gradually found himself deeply embroiled with the Irish campaign. All of that fervour and ‘strength to obstinacy and courage to recklessness’ was no longer being channelled into footling around in yachts but into a much bigger and more serious cause. An insight into this mindset can be seen in The Riddle of the Sands, when Davies says the following:

  ‘I can’t settle down’ he said: ‘All I’ve been able to do is potter around in small boats; but it’s all been wasted till this chance came. I’m afraid you wont be able to understand how I feel about it, but at last, for once in a way, I see a chance of being useful.’

  As the situation in Ireland started to reach boiling point in the summer of 1914, Erskine saw his own ‘chance’, and from that moment on, he was set upon the path that would eventually destroy him. The Howth gun running was a reaction to the successful Larne gun running, in which the Unionists had been armed. Now it was the turn of the Republicans and the plot involved two yachts: the Asgard, commanded by Childers and the Kelpie, commanded by an irascible young Irish sailor, Conor O’Brien, who was later to find great fame through his own cruising exploits aboard the Saoirse. The two vessels were to meet in Cowes on the Isle of Wight and from there make a clandestine rendezvous with a German tug off the Belgian coastline to load their shipment of weapons and bullets. From here, the two vessels would sail over to Ireland; Kelpie to Kilcoole and Asgard to Howth, a small port adjacent to Dublin. On a signal from shore, Asgard was to head in and unload the guns, handing them straight to the Volunteers who would be waiting at the quay. The plan was going to take some precision, due to the small window of opportunity in which a vessel of Asgard’s depth could get in and out of Howth. This would take skill and accuracy and there surely couldn’t have been a more suitable man than Erskine Childers for the job. He was not to know it, but this dangerous undertaking was to be his final cruise.

  Things started badly. The Asgard had been laid up in Conwy on the Welsh coast and was in a terrible state when Erskine stepped aboard. He had a tight deadline to make and the odds looked stacked against him, particularly as the Asgard’s mainsail was split and the vessel had not been properly commissioned that spring. Despite this delay, Childers managed to push Asgard hard on the long trip round from Wales to the Solent and made his rendezvous with O’Brien and the Kelpie only two days late, still with time to spare to get to their cargo tug off the Belgian coast. One can’t help but chuckle at the thought of Childers hobnobbing with the other yachtsmen in this most genteel of settings, all the time knowing that the Asgard was bound on a daredevil mission that many would have looked upon with horror. The trip had all the right ingredients to satisfy Childers: a smattering of romance, more than a hint of extreme risk, a ticklish piece of tidal calculation to ensure success, and a faintly surreal aspect. Not everyone thought the same, however. An acquaintance by the name of Colonel Pipon was invited on this cruise and emphatically declined. His reas
ons were as follows: ‘He [Childers] promised us there was no intention of using them [the rifles] as anything other than as a gesture of equality. I refused. I recognised Childers as a crackpot. Something always happens to crackpots. Something always goes wrong.’

  Yet, as it turned out, after its shaky start the cruise was actually going reasonably well. Kelpie and Asgard left the Solent on 10 July 1914 and sailed on to their rather grim appointment through glorious midsummer sun and gentle breezes that barely ruffled the water. They had arranged to meet with a German tug at noon on 12 July, but the weather had other ideas. Off Beachy Head, the vessels lay totally becalmed for several hours and the crew were presented with a perfect view down the English coastline, which glinted and smouldered in the glow of a beautiful July evening. All the while, Erskine sweated over the lack of progress; they were still many miles from their rendezvous spot of the Ruylingen Lightship, situated between Dover and Gravelines. Noon the next day found them still 22 miles from their goal, with the Asgard’s sails hanging limp and lifeless. How Childers must have wished for an engine at this point! Yet salvation was at hand, as the gentlest of breezes sprang up and whispered in the rigging. The listless yacht came back to life and crept forward again, giving renewed hope and purpose. Yet even as the crew peered eagerly about them for the tug, they were dealt a blow. With the wind came a fog and within minutes all landmarks had been enveloped in its cloying blanket. The Asgard now stole forward through an eerie world of grey with only the mournful mooing of foghorns for company. All aboard strained their eyes and ears for some sign of the tug; they were now right in the vicinity of their rendezvous point.