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The rain slanted in sheets that flicked and subsided, and between whiles Jim had threatening glimpses of the tumbling tide, the small craft jumbled and tossing along the shore, the motionless buildings in the driving mist, the broad ferry-boats pitching ponderously at anchor, the vast landing-stages heaving up and down and smothered in sprays. The next gust seemed to blow all this away.
Villas with charming gardens their tiny rickety landing-stages, bathing sheds, and tethered boats, adding fascination to the homely scene seem to welcome us to this land of fairy tales and the home of Hans Andersen. The many towers and pinnacles of Copenhagen, with the golden dome of the Marble Church, flash a welcome as we steam into the magnificent harbour of this singularly well-favoured city.
There was a crowd of shipping at anchor, and at the landing-stages and jetties. Among them Louis was the first to discover the Guardian-Mother. She was in the middle of the river, off Fort William. Half a mile below her they saw the Blanche. At the request of the commander, the carriages went down to the fort, where the passengers all alighted, and gathered together on the shore.
Above their laughter, and along every street or passage opening on the harbour from Cock and Pye Quay, from Lambard's stairs, the Castleport, and half a dozen other landing-stages came wafted the shouts of captains, pilots, boatswains, caulkers, longshore men; the noise of artillery and stores unlading; the tack-tack of mallets in the dockyard, where Sir Anthony Deane's new ship the Harwich was rising on the billyways, and whence the blown odours of pitch and hemp and timber, mingling with the landward breeze, drifted all day long into the townsfolk's nostrils, and filled their very kitchens with the savour of the sea.
Ships' port-holes cleared themselves in the darkness, ships' lights gleamed green and red in high stars up in the crows'-nests, or at the shapeless bulk of dark bows, and white sheets of strong electric clearness lay over one or two landing-stages where craft was moored alongside and overtime work still continued.
The body exhibited no traces of violence, and there can be no doubt that the deceased had been the victim of an unfortunate accident, which should have the effect of calling the attention of the authorities to the condition of the riverside landing-stages." We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and shaken than I had ever seen him.
Through this barrage an inner vista of the city was visible; towers, arcades, landing-stages and spider bridges a hundred feet or so above us; the lower levels beneath, and through a canyon of walls we could just make out a corner of the ground-plaza, with its trees and beds of flowers. A queerly flat little city tropical with banana trees and vivid foliage in every corner plot of the viaducts.
Men and women sit at the doors mending nets or preparing bait. The boats, with their black hulls and dark brown sails, move lazily up to the landing-stages, where a few small craft, trading along the coast, lie moored. Barges heavily laden with wood are pulled laboriously through the locks of the canals which connect the Yser with Ostend and Furnes.
Most of all, I was struck with the docks, crowded with ships of great size, and, indeed, craft of every description and nation; as also with its wide quays and wharfs, and floating landing-stages, and steamers dashing in and out, and running up and down the river in such a hurry, that they looked as if they were conscious that they had to struggle for their existence among the struggling human multitude of the place.
Between the Bednarska and the bridge which towers above the low-roofed houses fifty yards farther down the river are the landing-stages for the steamers that ply in summer. There is a public bath, and at one end of this floating erection a landing-stage for smaller boats, where as often as not Kosmaroff found work. It was to this landing-stage that Martin directed his steps.
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