May 2021 Value Read - The Riddle of the Sands, by Erskine Childers

[Bill]

Erskine Childers was a remarkable man, both a hero of the British Empire and an Irish Patriot. Besides being regarded as one of the very first spy novels, The Riddle of the Sands is a great sea story, a beautiful depiction of the pleasures of sailing a cruising yacht. If you have any nautical queries, post them and I’ll do my best to answer them.

[Bill]

So loving this one Whilst I never visited the Frisian coast, poking about East Anglia was similar. Remembering being moored in a cove sharing food and drink with good friends anticipating the next day’s sail to a new harbour, the boat gently moving to the swell

[Bill]

'Oh, as long as I get it, what matter? But I know what you mean. There must be hundreds of chaps like me - I know a good many myself - who know our coasts like a book - shoals, creeks, tides, rocks; there's nothing in it, it's only practice. They ought to make some use of us as a naval reserve. They tried to once, but it fizzled out, and nobody really cares. And what's the result? Using every man of what reserves we've got, there's about enough to man the fleet on a war footing, and no more. They've tinkered with fishermen, and merchant sailors, and yachting hands, but everyone of them ought to be got hold of; and the colonies, too. Is there the ghost of a doubt that if war broke out there'd be wild appeals for volunteers, aimless cadging, hurry, confusion, waste?’

That notion was to become the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, known jocularly as the ‘wavy navy’ from the zig-zag stripes on their sleeves showing rank. There was also a Royal Navy Reserve composed of merchant navy officers. The joke was that the RNR officers were sailors pretending to be gentlemen and the RNVR gentleman pretending to be sailors.

[JenniferAustin]

Thank you, Bill, for getting the discussion started! I am so delighted to see someone else is enjoying this book! So, you are a sailor? What a great background for reading this book! I am not (and think you do not need to be to enjoy The Riddle of the Sands).

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I really think this book is an unexpected gem, and hope a few other people enjoy it as well.

As Bill mentioned, the author, Erskine Childers, is an interesting character. He was a British patriot who fought in the Boer and First World Wars and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order medal. In World War I, he served as a British Royal Navy intelligence officer. As an intelligence officer, he had the job of drawing up a plan for the invasion of Germany by way of the Frisian Islands*, the North Sea archipelago off the coast of the Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Later, he was an Irish gun smuggler (the Howth gun running in 1914, and he used his own yacht). He also briefly served as Minister of the Sinn Féin Department of Propaganda in 1921. He died at just 52, in front of a firing squad on the order of the Irish Free State.

BBC Radio 3 broadcast A Flag Unfurled, a play based on his life, some years back.

The Irish Times has run some articles on him, including:
- Stories of the Revolution: The riddle of Erskine Childers
- Erskine Childers executed over possession of a pistol

You may well have seen this picture of his American-born wife, Molly, taken during the Howth gun running, which was organized to bring in arms the for the 1916 Easter Rising (see also Easter, 1916 by William Butler Yeats).

* The Frisian Islands continued to be of military interest, and evidently the last European battle of World War II was the Battle for Texel (Texel being one of the islands in the Friesian archipelago).

[JenniferAustin]

A few recommendations for those wondering whether to read this book:

“This is a book of great renown. . . . Its beautifully sustained atmosphere . . . adds poetry, and . . . real mystery.” — Ian Fleming

"One of the many books about the author of that ever-popular novel The Riddle of the Sands is entitled The Riddle of Erskine Childers, which comes as no surprise. Childers' novel ( The Riddle of the Sands ) is as English as a cricket bat and after its publication in 1903 the Edwardian public took the author to its heart as someone who embodied all that they thought was best about the adventurous English character.
... It's the first spy novel and established a formula that included a mass of verifiable detail, which gave authenticity to the story – the same ploy that would be used so well by John Buchan, Ian Fleming, John le Carré and many others."
— Sailing Today, 2003, Erskine Childers' log books

John Buchan (author of The Thirty-Nine Steps ) said:
“It is a tale of the puzzling out of a mystery which only gradually reveals itself, and not till the very end reaches its true magnificence; but its excitement begins on the first page, and there is a steady crescendo of interest.”

Buchan adds, “As for the characters, I think they are the most fully realized of any adventure story that I have met, and the atmosphere of grey northern skies and miles of yeasty water and wet sands is as masterfully reproduced as in any of Conrad’s.”
— Christian Science Monitor, Classic review: The Riddle of the Sands

[Bill]

JenniferAustin wrote: "Thank you, Bill, for getting the discussion started! I am so delighted to see someone else is enjoying this book! So, you are a sailor? What a great background for reading this book! I am not (and ..."

In my younger years I had the luck to do a good deal of coastal and offshore sailing, some off the south and east coasts of England. (I still have my old West Mersea Yacht Club and Royal Ocean Racing Club ties.) That was when I first read The Riddle of the Sands and fell in love with the story and the characters and indeed met men (and women) who could have been modelled on Davies. One was a quiet and unpretentious young (then) London solicitor named Mary Falk who sailed single-handed round Britain and Trans-Atlantic. By those standards, I've never been a sailor. But I did love it.

[JenniferAustin]

Bill wrote: "JenniferAustin wrote: "Thank you, Bill, for getting the discussion started! I am so delighted to see someone else is enjoying this book! So, you are a sailor? What a great background for reading th..."

Wow! I just found an obit for Mary Falk in the Tomes of London. I can only imagine it was delightful to meet her. That's a high standard for sailing.

I have done just a bit of sailing, and found The Riddle of the Sands a delightful chance to learn more!

[Bill]

Most book cover illustrations for The Riddle of the Sands are inaccurate, some totally. I posted one that I found on the web to our Facebook page that looks spot on for the Dulcibella as described in the book.

[Chris]

I gave it 2 stars - OK. I first read it decades ago. My edition this time had a forepiece by his grandson.

Although a good piece of coherent writing, with a military/political message pre WW1, I personally found all the meticulous detail of the sailing and the environment - shall we say less than totally gripping?

I still believe everyone should read it once before they die, though.

[JenniferAustin]

Bill wrote: "Most book cover illustrations for The Riddle of the Sands are inaccurate, some totally. I posted one that I found on the web to our Facebook page that looks spot on for the Dulcibella as described ..."

Hmm. I went to what I thought was the Facebook page for the group. but am not seeing this post. Facebook is a puzzle sometimes!

[Bill]

Thank you. Just checked and she looks quite nice.

[JenniferAustin]

Bill wrote: "Thank you. Just checked and she looks quite nice."

Yes, it does!

Your post led me to look up some of the book covers that have been put on The Riddle of the Sands. While doing that, I found an article that reproduces maps from an unnamed edition of The Riddle of the Sands. What a treat! (I had not seen these.) This article starts with a great comment: "​I know of no novel more cartographic than The Riddle of the Sands​."

For cinema fans, the article references a 1979 film of the novel, which appears to be currently available on Amazon Prime in the US. The film starred the often excellent Simon MacCorkindale and Michael York.

[Bill]

Thank you so much for these, Jennifer. Most editions of this book have Map A and Map B and Chart A and Chart B, but online one can zoom in and see the features better. It's important to distinguish the two: landsmen use maps, sailors charts. The distinction's not pedantic. Maps show travellers and soldiers topographic features like roads, towns, political boundaries, and elevations. Charts show hydrographic features of interest to navigators, especially depth of water (usually measured at mean low water for tides) and sea marks such as lighthouses, buoys, and sometimes church steeples. All those areas marked as Sands will be hidden when the tide is in, which makes avoiding running aground very dodgy.

[JenniferAustin]

I went ahead and tried watching the film version (1979 film starring Michael York and Simon MacCorkindale). It's a decent film, though it trims out some material, adds some items for visual drama, and tweaks the ending. Nice to see a film was made, though.

Bill, thanks for the note regarding charts versus maps. As a nonsailor, I had picked up some of this from usage, but was happy to get definitions from a sailor's point of view!

[JenniferAustin]

For those that enjoy The Riddle of the Sands, do you have other suggestions for similar reads (period, thriller, nautical adventure)? I may give a try to North Star by Hammond Innes next.

[Bill]

Marsali Taylor’s Shetland Sailing Series looks like a possibility Maybe I should nominate one for July.

[Bill]

Also loved Lucy Clarke’s The Blue, but though the author and some characters are English, I don’t think it quite fits our remit.

[Bill]

If you can find a copy of Aubrey de Selincourt’s A Family Afloat, it’s true classic. If Davies had been a schoolmaster and a classical scholar, he could have been de Selincourt.

[JenniferAustin]

Bill wrote: "If you can find a copy of Aubrey de Selincourt’s A Family Afloat, it’s true classic. If Davies had been a schoolmaster and a classical scholar, he could have been de Selincourt."
Well, that sounds like a really interesting read! I will have to hunt for it!
I went ahead and picked up the Lucy Clarke, and will watch to see if the Marsali Taylor gets looked at in June!

[JenniferAustin]

Oooh, thank you for all these lovely ideas! I just picked up the Lucy Clarke.

After that, I will look into Marsali Taylor's series!

[Bill]

As I was exercising on the rowing machine this morning I thought of that extraordinary passage by dingy in the fog across the sands. For a clerk in the FO Carruthers seems remarkably fit, even if he had pulled an oar for the college boat.

[Maureen]

Well that was a struggle for me. I finally pushed through today and finished the book. Perhaps maritime/nautical themes are just not for me. Although the maps were an added feature to the book I didn't feel the need to follow them. I did however look at the internet for additional insight. The good thing is I read a book I may not have tried had it not been included for Mays read. Only 2 stars.

[JenniferAustin]

Hey Maureen, thank you for giving it a try! I, too, like having groups like this to get me to stretch my reading horizons!

[Bill]

A yachting classic

Not only a great spy thriller, but a marvellous portrait of two English gentlemen and sailors at the apogee of Edwardian civilisation. I'd forgotten there is a wonderful American sailing expression for the kind of cruising Davies and Carruthers do, it's 'gunkholing'! Though definitely a classic, what kind of classic is Riddle of the Sands? A sailing story, to rank with Conrad's The Rescue surely. A spy novel to rival John Buchan's as well. And a marvellous portrait of a friendship between two unlikely people, a failed naval cadet messing about in a boat and a bored civil servant whose social connexions have dried up. Some readers complain of the nautical terms, but that is their problem. You can no more write about sailing in shallows without terms such a kedge and warp than you can figure drawing without arms and legs. Today's small cruisers are very different from the Dulcibella, but so long as there are sailors who love to poke about in coves, this book will find loving readers.