Part 5

I recovered consciousness in hospital in Ringkjobing, nine or ten miles away from Hvide Sander where I was given emergency treatment for exhaustion and cold. Complete exhaustion and almost fatal cold. I owe my life to those three brave men who risked their lives for the sake of a stranger, but they would not have been there to save me if Peder Sorensen, the skipper of the fishing vessel Tyrola (who has since become my friend for life) had not had the presence of mind to radio a distress call on my behalf, after his own heroic efforts to save me had failed.

Unknown to me at the time the Potter washed in and was hauled clear by other men I did not see. I found later that she survived almost undamaged. A lot of her equipment and my remaining provisions were washed out of her and never found. What did it matter? I am alive!

I was taken to the hospital on Saturday and released on Monday, fit and well, but stiff and aching in every muscle, and with a permanent memory of lavish kindness from doctors and staff. A few days later numerous large areas in various parts of my body turned blue, yellow, green and purple as unsuspected bruises came to the surface.

My first day out of hospital was a very busy one indeed. The police and C.I.D. detectives escorted me everywhere. They took me to see my poor beloved little Potter. What a dejected little thing she looked. Half filled with white sand (Hvide Sande), water, and the sodden remains of my gear, all tangled up with frayed ends of rope which I had had to slash and cut during the time in the breakers. I was delighted however, to find all the sails intact. The only structural damage, a minor break in the deck where the Samson post had been torn out of her.

In the evening I had to appear at a special Court before a Magistrate (or equivalent), to conform to Danish Law by explaining my presence in the country without money or passport! The Court-Room was the most pleasingly proportioned and decorated I have ever been in. But then I have only been in one before!

Apparently my excuses for diving into Denmark without a passport or money were accepted. I was released and told that I had been invited, by the Skipper of the fishing vessel who had initiated my rescue, to stay with him as long as I needed to do so. Peder Sorensen, a wonderful friend, who during the next few days was unbelievably generous in so many ways. He had visited me in hospital, and by outward appearances looked as tough and as hard as a man could possibly look. Short and square, with a vice-like grip, he struck me as a perfectly adapted man for his job.

His house was comfortable, clean and beautifully furnished. But there was no-one living there but he and his old father. So we lived roughly as a trio of "bachelors" should.

Most evenings we were invited out for an evening meal by one friend or another, and when we did not go out we went aboard Tyrola and had many bottles of Tuborg Lager to wash down fried eggs. Peder, speaking Danish in a loud rasping kind of thunder, and I English, till one o'clock in the morning, "skolling" furiously, shaking hands every few minutes or thumping each other on the back. We had a gloriously friendly time of it.

But many people were very kind indeed, and I now have numerous good friends in Denmark.