‘They have provided us with porridge this morning, I see,’ he said. ‘I hope you have no objection to such humble food.’
‘It is excellent on such a cold day.’ I said with a smile. ‘Just what I was thinking in the middle of the blizzard at Dover.’
As he was serving me a large bowl of porridge, Berden and the other officers came in and soon the cabin was filled with the steam from our bowls and from our breath. The captain brought out a large pot of honey from one of his cupboards and passed it round for us to stir into the porridge.
‘My sister and her husband have a farm in Kent,’ he explained. ‘Orchards, mostly, and some cows and sheep. They also keep bees, so whenever I am in Dover harbour, they send me over several pots of honey.’
‘It is excellent for your health,’ I said, ‘and also a sovereign treatment for wounds, should one of your men be injured.’
‘I will remember that,’ he said with a smile, ‘when we come to fight the Spanish. Good for you inside and outside, then?’
‘Aye.’ I ate several spoonfuls of the porridge, which was smoother than Joan’s and all the better for the addition of the honey. ‘Do you carry cochlearia officinalis for your men?’
He gave me a puzzled look. ‘Cochlearia officinalis?’
‘Aye, scurvy grass. If you regularly give your men scurvy grass infused in ale, it will prevent all the unpleasant effects of scurvy, which so often afflict sailors. Bleeding gums. Loosened teeth. Swollen and painful joints. All unnecessary. Or you may eat the leaves like a salad.’
‘I thought lemons were the preventative.’
‘Oh they are, but expensive and not always easy to obtain. Scurvy grass is plentiful and grows abundantly in coastal areas. You would find it everywhere around the shore in Kent.’
‘I will take note of that then, and see that we obtain a supply when we return to England. As you say, scurvy is a foul affliction. In my young days with Drake I remember many men suffering from it on our long voyages to the New World.’
‘Many illnesses can be avoided by a careful diet,’ I said ruefully, ‘but sadly, as physicians we mostly see the results of a poor one.’
Our discussion was interrupted by one of the sailors coming in to say that the tide had turned and was set fair for heading up the canal to Amsterdam. We all went out on deck, where the captain and officers were soon occupied in directing the preparation of the ship for the next stage of the journey. The anchor was raised and the oars run out to manoeuvre the ship from the harbour into the mouth of the canal.
‘Do you think they intend to row all the way?’ I asked Berden in a low voice. ‘It would be quicker to ride.’
‘I suppose it must depend on the direction of the wind.’
There was not much wind at the moment, but what there was blew from behind us as we entered the canal. The question was settled when we saw the mainsail hoisted, then the staysail, and finally the foresail. Captain Thoms was taking advantage of every scrap of wind that would help us on our way. Once the sails filled and the ship stirred with that innate life that sails engender, the oars were shipped. Much to the relief of the sailors, I imagined.
The darkness of the previous day had prevented our understanding of the true manoeuvrability of the pinnace, but today was clear and bright, the winter sun sparkling on the snow-covered fields on either side of the canal, and it was soon obvious how well the small ship handled. She slipped up the canal as gracefully as a swan, her sails held in taut curves like the wings of a soaring bird. The waters creamed under her forefoot, spreading out to the banks of the canal and marking our path into the low, marshy country which stretched ahead of us, dotted with pumping mills to drain water from the fields and here and there a neat village of a few houses encircled by pastures. Once he was satisfied with the ship’s trim, the captain came to stand beside us in the bows.
‘I thought the Dutch canals were straight,’ I said, ‘but this one winds like a river.’
‘That is because it is a river,’ he said, ‘or at least it was. It connects the German Ocean with the Zuiderzee, and the Hollanders have widened it and straightened it in places, but it silts up constantly as new sand banks form. And that causes it to freeze all the more readily in winter. When it’s navigable, it provides a much shorter access to the town, instead of sailing a good way north, then turning east round the islands and coming in to Amsterdam that way. You will see that when we reach the Zuiderzee. It looks as calm as a giant’s duck pond on a quiet day, but it’s a treacherous stretch of water.’
‘Why is that?’ I asked.
‘Again, shifting sand banks, which are the greatest danger to ships, but also it is notorious for terrible floods which rush in and break down the banks the Hollanders have built to try to hold it back. Thousands of people have died in the floods, but the farmland round about is so rich and profitable that they keep moving back. It is a strange country. Water and land constantly changing every year, sometimes every month.’
I soon realised that what both Captain Thoms and Sir Edward Walgrave had called a canal was far from what I understood by the term. It was in fact a series of interconnected waterways, some of them natural rivers which had been widened in places or reinforced by raised banks, others short lengths of straight canal dug through spits of land to connect the rivers. At times we seemed to wander aimlessly through a flat landscape where reed beds towered as high as the ship’s deck. How the captain found his way through this maze, I could not imagine. A larger ship than our pinnace could never have followed this route. Three or four times we encountered bridges, which forced the crew to furl the sails and lower the mast on to a kind of wooden crutch, so that we could pass under them, using our oars. In some places the canal wound so sharply that it was impossible to use our sails.
We were not the only vessel on the water, though by far the largest. We met barges moving both inland and down to the sea, loaded with boxes and barrels. Some had a single sail on a stumpy mast, some were rowed. There were others, flat as punts, which the captain said were called ‘trekschuiten’ and were pulled by men or horses walking along the path which followed the line of the waterway.
‘They call that the “jaagpad”,’ he said, pointing to the path, where a man and woman were plodding along, heads down, towing a flat barge loaded with piles of huge round cheeses. It had a tiny cabin in the stern, while perched on the very tip of the bow, in front of the cheeses, a small terrier barked encouragement to the labouring couple.
‘Hard work,’ I said.
‘Aye. But they are a strong and independent people, the Hollanders. They will not easily allow themselves to be crushed by Spain, however many victories Parma may win on the battlefield.’
At length we passed a small town, which Captain Thoms said was called Leiden, and after that the waterway opened out. Our sails were hoisted and we moved ahead with the water foaming under our bows. Ahead lay an area even flatter than the countryside we had already traversed, a wide area of inland lakes interspersed with marshes, half water, half tussocky muddy land.
‘Is this the Zuiderzee?’ I asked.
Captain Thoms laughed. ‘Not this. No, this is the Haarlemmermeer, one of the most treacherous areas in the Low Countries.’
‘Treacherous!’
‘More treacherous to the people who dwell round its margins than to us. It is a victim of what they call the “wolfwater”, the water which rises in these low-lying inland lakes – fast, unpredictable – and devours whole villages.’
I shivered. ‘But not treacherous for us?’
‘Treacherous enough. We must pick our way through it, where the water is deep enough. Shifting mudbanks here, not sandbanks. Easy enough for us to become stranded.’