On a windy and sunny day, the mind is happier
Then I run like a foal along the beach and jump into the waves to have fun with them. I am exactly twenty-one years old, and the will to live is fermenting over the edge like fresh sauerkraut juice in a full barrel under a load. Sometimes together with Vili we wear paddles, climb into kangaroos and, in between the past and the future of Purciems, we read and eat handfuls of raspberries and blueberries while our mouths turn red or blue. By the middle of August, the rails have been lifted, counted and brought to Riga. Five or six are missing. I can't find them, just like the two drowned sailors. No one worries about such trifles. The seagull itself does not float up. The father talks to the captain of the Neptune that he will try to pull it out of the muddy seabed, casting the bow of the Neptune as a crane.
The steel rope is wrapped in a four-fold twist, and it is lowered into the water, I rope the stern of the Seagull, because it is not broken like the bow, and Neptune, as the winches pull the ropes, sinks with its face down to the water, but - the Seagull does not rise. We wait, giving Kaija time to think. You can hear it crackle and crack under the water. Finally, Kaija can't stand it. With a cracking sound, the stern of the wreck breaks off and floats on top of the water with part of the deck and the steering wheel on it. Neptune hires alone. The seagull is stuck in the clay much tighter than its master. We remove the cabin, mast trunks and pumps. We break the bow of the wreck and highlight the chains and anchors on Neptune's deck. Neptune takes them to Riga together with other irons. We leave the broken trees to the waves and currents.
I go under the water again to look for the missing rails. I can't find it. I would sink into the wreck like the open mouth of a walrus and be sucked in, how easy it would be to raise the rails now! But there are no more tracks, only ribs overgrown with snails and broken planks, through the cracks of which small fishes flicker. They feed on algae and snails. The sea bull, fiercely throwing its stingers behind its big head, flapping its small tail, swims away to look for another home.
I, too, crawled out of the wreckage into the field to walk around the seabed once more. Empty bottles, shards of dishes, herring bones, cucumber peels and wrapping paper among the fragments of a soaked tree and lumps of algae show how badly we littered the bottom of the sea. My first knot has been brought out into the field by Neptune, complete with deck and shrouds. No more effort to untie it. Having given the usual signal, I still look down while sliding up. The open wreck of the Seagull disappears below me in the semi-darkness in a greenish-gray mist. I know I won't go back there again. The future will show whether deep romance, drownings and shipwrecks will have to be found elsewhere.
We are waiting for Neptune, we are piling up our belongings. I'm going to Riga, hoping to get new pants. I got it! After returning to Riga, I tried to forget the story of Kaija, because apart from bad dreams and new pants, I didn't get anything else. I wanted to get away from old iron, shipwrecks and my father's care. But - on September 25, I put on the same repaired Purciem's outfit again to lift the blasted irons in the field near the supports of the Riga bridge in the Daugava.
The work is very simple: you have to feel the irons stuck in the mud, scratch them and wait until the crane lifts them out of the water. The only misfortune was the old outfit, which was falling apart faster than I could mend it. Standing still nothing, the water collects in the suit only around the legs, but when digging out some irons from the mud, it was necessary to lie down, then the water flowed down the chest, into the helmet and into the mouth. You could spit it out, but how long will it last in water? I quit my job after a week.
In my notes, I depicted the following scene: The north-west wind drives up the green sea waves and mixes the brownish water of the Daugava into gray turbidity, whipping up streaks of white foam on the surface. Its light can penetrate only one or two meters into the water, but at a depth of ten meters, night reigns even on a sunny day. Feet sink into the mud and get tangled in barbed wire meshes. Stretching your arms forward, like a blind man, you have to grope for the support of the bridge, which seems to be looming right above your head, but is actually several meters away. A deep pit has been torn out by the stream around the support. There, barbed wires, ends of piles, splinters, branched trees carried away by the current lie in piles over the irons of the blown-up bridge.
You just have to let your imagination run wild a little to feel like you've been left behind in a swampy battlefield. It gets brighter as you go along the pillar higher up. Shadows slide quickly along the support, soon disappearing, soon thickening again in the most lurid forms. A mystic would say: the souls of the fallen in war, a poet - the play of raging waves, and a diver would spit. It's much more fun when you see again the level of the Daugava whipped into foam and the fast-moving clouds overhead." I left the irons to the shadows to continue studying and give lessons in mathematics, chemistry and physics for one lat per hour. At least in the dry season you can think about the future.
Father had already thought about it and called me to help with the demolition of the famous North Pole expedition ship Nordschild. I didn't have to go to the North Pole, because Nordschild was launched right behind the Daugava jetties. In February and March, we worked in the same way from above, cutting a hole in the ice. The Nordschild was strongly built - of wood with iron bars and plating, not yet shattered by waves and ice. Father wanted the steamer's boiler and engine, but most of all the copper and lead pipes that ran through the bowels of the ship. The water was very clear in winter, because the ice cliffs on the third bank protected Nordschild from waves and currents.
Leaning over the abalone, some tubes could be seen and hooked from above as well. We broke them out of the water with a hand winch and - our kopeck came out, selling them to a Jew. We made a small shelter against the wind, but in March there were such warm and sunny days that I could even take off my shirt while working and get a lot of sun. Father tried it too, but he got freckles on his back that never went away. Sun on ice is corrosive. April winds drove us off the ice. It was necessary to hurry to save Vilni. Father's friend, while working on laying a pontoon bridge, his tug Vilnis capsized in the current and sank. A friend complained that no diver would want to dive in such a stream, but his father reassured him: "My boy will do it!"
At least he would have asked me if I wanted to rain in such a stream!
But it was necessary to pour. I got the devices and assistants very well. I tied heavy chains around my boots so that they wouldn't float up, and near Vilnius they lowered a heavy anchor rope to the bottom of the Daugava River, which I could use to climb down. However, the hands did not last. The current pulled me from the rope and threw me out like a cork. I clung to the rope and tried to pull away, but the signal rope and hose held me shut. I wrapped more chains around my legs and around my middle, and - finally I got down, where the cables lowered by the crane to the tugboat awaited me. I was thrown out into the field a few more times, while the ropes managed to be tied to the tugboat and shackled properly. I fought with the current and the ropes for five hours, for which my father received eighty lats, and we were both treated to sausages and sauerkraut in a restaurant.
The bridge and Daugavmala were said to be full of spectators. I also saw it the other day in the newspapers, where a diver was also photographed, standing on a ladder and swimming in the current, and the crane was also setting up a tugboat with cables. In a long description, the harbor diver was praised and a little sung. I had used a harbor diver's suit, and no one looked into what was inside it. It was just as urgent to raise the sunken coal boat near Vollers, to repair the sail Ansis and to pull the sail Anna ashore.
I didn't have time to rest when we were again at Nordschild behind Daugavgriva. A monotonous job began with little profit and some complications that ate away at the same. We raised the boiler with a small floating crane, which, while the boiler was hanging on the ropes, sank so deep that it did not reach over the benches. It was necessary to climb out on the step: put the burden on the ground, step back and pull the pot closer again. The crane couldn't stand to travel on the banks of the boilers. The boiler overturned it on its side, broke the props and sank in the harbor. The planks flew through the air and one man, who did not notice in time to jump to the side, with them. The flight ended happily only in swimming. We lifted the boiler later with a bigger crane, and that's where the potential profit went.
Nearby, fishermen were pulling lines and asked me for help if the lines got caught on a catch. Then I could take a bucket or a bucket of smaller fish to my mother. It has been heard that a sailor, having sailed the seven seas, drowned with his mouth in a bowl. A diver can also ~drown in a mouth bowl' if they are not careful. I had trouble at Nordschild, where, as they say, the water is no deeper than a duck's belly. How it happened I have described in my notes: ~On Saturday morning we had intended to blow up the ship's deck above the engine rooms, in order to gain access to the steam engine. I applied a powerful charge. The deck fell apart, but the explosion tore a hole in the side of the ship as well. With that, the flowing sand of the sea began to flow into the engine rooms, which threatened to fill the entire wreck. I barricaded the punched hole with pieces of tin and hastened to blow up the car. I attached a brick of TNT to each leg of the car and let it fly. But the car does not run in the air! When I touch it in the dark, it stands as if standing on all fours. The one from the laundry when I pass it. The leg with part of the torso catches my left shoulder and presses it against the wall. I lie down and don't move because I'm afraid that a piece of my torso might get stuck on my helmet. You never know with cast iron. I would like to find out my condition, but how can I do it if the water is so thick? You may have to wait until the doomsday for the water to clear. I can hear the sand running past the helmet through the hole in the side of the ship. It won't be long until I'm buried.
Also, little air enters the helmet, because the hose is compressed under the cast iron block. Together with the signal rope, it remained on the other side of the leg. I try to move. My legs and right hand are moving, but my left is stuck in the mud, which has taken the impact like a soft pillow. How to release the air hose and get it on your side? I remember that I have placed a crowbar near my right hand, which I cannot reach. I grope through the mud until I feel the iron wire. I bent one end into a hook and started fishing for the rod. I find it, but it's hard to get it closer. The wire hook slides along the smooth iron. I have to cut it into a spiral so that it somehow wraps around the rod. The father starts pulling the signal rope worriedly. With the same wire hook, it is possible to feel the rope and pull it once.
It's a sign that I'm fine, so take it easy. He will start pulling and will put cast iron on top of me! I'm sweaty doing almost nothing, but the bar is finally in my hand. I touch the hose with its end and push it down. The hose is released and there is enough air again! Drinking air, I poke the leg of the car and the bottom of the wreck with a rod to know what to do next. It turns out that the leg of the car hit the wall of the ship directly above my head, leaving a gap in the curve of the wreck, where I could get out if there were no fear and mud. I'm already half in the sand and I have to act fast. I try to scrape the mud to free my left hand, I twist my body into the support of the car and move forward with my hands and feet, stirring the mud in my hands. I got the helmet and shoulders through, I can't go any further. The leads are stuck and won't let me go forward or back.
I'm sleeping and I think that a date was arranged for the evening, but I can't remember with whom: Isolde, Valentina, Erika, or someone else. It doesn't matter with whom and what was negotiated, but you have to get out and fulfill your promise. The sand doesn't think, it just flows in one flow, and my feet are already deep under it. ~Eureka!” — something hit my mind: if I took that support now, the car's leg wouldn't break mine! I press both hands against the ends of the arrows: the support moves, but it swings back. so what? — I wrap the signal rope around the arrows and give the signal — to pull! The rope stretches, I also push as hard as I can, the leg wraps around mine without touching, and - I am saved! Having come out of the graveyard of the ship, which was right there or was also mine, he threw off his clothes, he was surprised to see that the sun was already getting ready to sleep in the sea. I can see from my father's face that it was harder for him to do nothing than it was for me to wallow in the mud. I'm not going on a date anymore, but I'll forgive you if I tell you tomorrow. — Father understands without telling. The boy is up again. What more? We have barely managed to lift out the blasted cast iron when the wreck has completely flowed into the sand, and we have nothing left to look for in the famous North Pole racer.
