CHAPTER XIV

BEAUMONT QUAY

In May, when the sea-birds are hatching their young, the spring-tides are slack and do not cover the saltings. In a pretty figure of speech the fishermen call these tides the Bird Tides.

The lives of the fishermen are ruled by the tides. For them the working hours of the clock have no significance. On the first of the ebb, be it night or day, their work begins, and it is on the flood that they return to their homes. They have no leisure or liking for the time-devouring practice of sailing over a foul tide. The tide in the affairs of these men is absolute.

And although they do not confess in any recognizable phrase of lyrical sensation that the sea has cast a spell upon them, it is obvious that that is what has happened. On Sundays, when they are free from their labour, they will assemble on the hard—a firm strip of shingle laid upon the mud—and, with hands in pockets, gaze, through most of the hours of daylight, upon the sweeping tide and the minor movements of small boats and yachts with an air at once negligent and profound. The mightiness of the sea, like the mightiness of the mountain, draws mankind. Men have learned the secrets of these things in a way, and have turned them to their profit or amusement; but the mastery is superficial, and it is man who in these great presences is unconsciously and spiritually enslaved.

‘He was the mildest-mannered manThat ever scuttled ship or cut a throat.’

‘He was the mildest-mannered man

That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat.’

A great merit of a barge as a house is that when she is ‘light,’ or almost ‘light,’ as theArk Royalis, she can be sailed out of rough water on to a sand and left there, provided care be taken that she does not sit on her anchor. By the time there is only three feet of water the waves are very small, and thus, however strong the wind may be and however hard the sand, a barge will take the ground so gently that one can scarcely say when she touches. The explanation is simple enough, for, besides being flat-bottomed, a barge, owing to her length, strides many small waves at once.

We put the plan into operation on our way to Newcliff. We were running up Swin, and with the dark the breeze piped up; so instead of sailing all night or anchoring in the Swin, where there would have been a disagreeable sea on the flood-tide, we put theArk Royalon the sand between the Maplin Lighthouse and the Ridge Buoy, and there she sat as steady as a town hall.

This is, of course, an easy way of going to the seaside, so to speak. You simply sail on to a nice clean sand and stay there till the wind moderates. Whenever the tide ebbs away, you can descend on to the sands by a ladder over the side, and pursue the usual seaside occupations of building docks and canals and forts and catching crabs.

It was a memorable experience, this passage up the Thames estuary, house and furniture and family all moving together without any of the bother of packing up and catching trains, and counting heads and luggage at junctions. The children enjoyed every moment of it—the following sea and the dinghy plunging in our wake, the steamers bound out and in, the smacks lying to their nets with the gulls wheeling round them waiting for their food, the tugs towing sailing ships, the topsail schooners, the buoys, the lightships.

When we arrived at Newcliff we anchored off the town, intending to look for a good winter berth later in the year. After the quiet of Fleetwick, Newcliff struck us at once as over-full of noise and people. At all events, we had the satisfaction of knowing that we were not going to live on shore. The spot where we lay would have been well enough for the summer, though with a fresh breeze on shore it was impossible to take a boat safely alongside the stone wall. The boat, however, could be rowed up a creek half a mile away. Unfortunately,this meant the chance of being drenched with spray, and it was also a too uncertain way of catching trains and trams. Nine times out of ten we could row to the stone wall, and when the tide ebbed away and theArk Royallay high and dry (which, roughly, was for six out of every twelve hours) we could always walk ashore. The sand was hard under about an inch of fine silt. Here and there it was intersected by shallow gullies, but short sea-boots served our purpose of getting on shore dry.

Of course, we always had to think ahead, for if one went ashore in the boat and took no sea-boots, it might be necessary on returning to walk to theArk Royal; and if no one were on deck one might shout for sea-boots for a long time from the land before being heard. The most awkward time was when the flats were just covered with water, for then there was too much water round theArk Royalfor sea-boots and not enough to float a boat to the shore. Then one simply had to wait until it was possible to walk or row. Once we were caught in this way at one o’clock in the morning after going to a theatre in London. We waited a short time for the ebb, but were too sleepy to wait quite long enough. We put on our sea-boots; and then, slinging my evening shoes and the Mate’s round my neck, and cramming my opera-hat well on to my head, I gave the Mate my arm. The water itself was not too deep, but in the dark it was difficultto avoid the gullies, and the Mate nearly spoiled her new frock and my evening clothes by stumbling into a hole and clutching at me. This was the only occasion on which I should have been distressed if those who had disputed the advantages of living in a barge could have seen us. In anything like a gale of wind there was a nasty, short, confused, broken sea, and then one had either to row up to the creek and be drenched or wait till the tide had ebbed. It was evident that lying off the town for the winter was out of the question.

Soon we found a berth up the creek where yachts are laid up, and agreed to pay a pound for the use of it for a year. It was well sheltered, but as only a big tide would give us water into it we had to wait some days after we had found it.

Meanwhile Sam Prawle, who had remained with us all this time, had to return home. The children had rallied him a good deal on his yarn about ’Ould Gladstone’ and on the ethics of salvage generally. Salvage was Sam Prawle’s favourite subject; and we could never make up our minds whether he was more given to boasting of what he had done or to regretting what he had not done. The evening before he went away he was evidently concerned lest he should leave us with an impression that salvage operations were not invariably honourable if not heroic affairs. He therefore related to us thefollowing episode, and the reader must judge how far it helps Sam Prawle’s case:

‘In them days, afore it was so easy to git leave to launch the lifeboats as that is now, we allus used to keep a lugger for same as salvage work. The last wessel as ever I went off to on a salvage job my share come to thirteen pound and a bit extra for bein’ skipper, and if there hadn’t bin a North Sea pilot aboard that ship us chaps ’ud have had double. But then agin, if us hadn’t bin quick a makin’ our bargain us shouldn’t have had nawthen.

‘One night, after a dirty thick day blaowin’ the best part of a gale o’ wind sou-westerly, the wind flew out nor-west, as that often do, and that come clear and hard, so as when that come dawn you could see for miles. Well, away to the south’ard, about six mile, we seed a wessel on the Sizewell Bank; she was a layin’ with her head best in towards the land. There was a big sea runnin’, but there warn’t much trouble in launching the lugger with the wind that way, though we shipped a tidy sea afore we cast off the haulin’-aout warp.

‘We’d close-reefed the two lugs afore we launched the bo’t, and it warn’t long afore the fifteen of us what owned the lugger was a racin’ off as hard as we dare. You see, we den’t want no one to git in ahead of we. Us dursn’t put her head straight for the ship, for the sea was all acrost with the shift o’ wind, and us had to keep bearin’ away and luffin’ up.You see, them seas was all untrue; they was heapin’ up, and breakin’ first one side, then t’other, same as in the race raound Orfordness.

’As we drawed near the wessel, that fared to we as haow she were to th’ south’ard of the high part of the sand, and that warn’t long afore we knaowed it, cos we got our landmarks what we fish by, for we most knaows that sand, same as you do the back o’ your hand, as the sayin’ is. We laowered our sails and unshipped the masts and raounded to under the wessel’s quarter—a barquentine, she were, of about nine hundred ton—and they thraowed us a line. All her sails was stowed ’cept the fore laower torpsail, which were blown to rags, and the sea was breakin’ over her port side pretty heavy. There warn’t no spars carried away, and there den’t fare to be no other damage, and if she was faithfully built she den’t ought to have come to a great deal o’ hurt so fur.

‘Then they thraowed us another line for me to come aboard by, and we hauled our ould bo’t up as close as we durst for the backwash. I jumped as she rose to a sea, but missed the mizzen riggin’ and fell agin the wessel’s side; them chaps hung on all right, and the next sea washed me on top o’ the rail afore they could haul in the slack. That fair knocked the wind aout o’ me, and I reckon I was lucky I den’t break nawthen. I scrambled up, and found the cap’n houldin’ on to the rail to steady himself agin the bumping o’ the wessel.

‘Well, she was paoundin’ fairly heavy, but not so bad as other wessels I’ve bin aboard. Still, that’s enough to scare the life aout of anyone what ain’t never bin ashore on a sandbank in a blaow, and most owners don’t give a cap’n a chance to do ut twice—nor pilots neither. I could see the cap’n fared wonnerful fidgety, for the wessel had been ashore for seven hours and more, so I starts to make a bargain with him for four hundred pound to get his ship off, when up comes a North Sea pilot what was aboard. I was most took aback to see him there.

‘“What’s all this?” he says.

‘“Four hundred pound to get she off,” I says.

‘“Four hundred devils,” he says.

‘“No cure, no pay,” I says.

‘“No pay, you longshore shark!” he says.

‘Of course, he was a tryin’ to make out there warn’t no danger to the wessel and nawthen to make a fuss about. You see, he was afeared there might be questions asked about it, and he might get into trouble. Anyway, it don’t do a pilot no good to get a wessel ashore, even if that ain’t his fault which it warn’t this time, for the wessel was took aback by the shift o’ wind and got agraound afore they could do anything with her.

‘One thing I knaowed as soon as my foot touched them decks, and that was that she warn’t going to be long afore she come off. Sizewell Bank’s likemany another raound here; that’s as hard as a road on the ebb and all alive on the flood, and them as knaows, same as we, can tell from the way a wessel bumps what she’s up to. I could feel she warn’t workin’ in the sand no more, but was beginning to fleet, and ’ud soon be paoundin’ heavier than ever, but ’ud be on the move each time a sea lifted she. Howsomdever, I kep’ my eyes on the cap’n, and I could see he was skeered about his wessel, and ’ud be suthen pleased to have she in deep water agin.

‘“Cap’n,” I says, “three hundred and fifty pounds. No cure, no pay.”

“Too much,” says the cap’n, but I see he’d like to pay it.

‘“Too much?” says the pilot. “I should think it is! The tide’s a flowin’, and she’ll come off herself soon; besides, if she don’t we’ll have a dozen tugs and steamers by in two or three hours, and any of ’em glad to earn a fifty-pun’ note for a pluck off.”

‘“That’ll be high water in two and a half hours, and you’ll be here another ebb if you ain’t careful,” I says to the cap’n, “and this sand’s as hard as a rock on the ebb. The pilot’ll tell you that if you don’t knaow that already for yourself.”

‘“There ain’t no call to pay all that money,” says the pilot. “She’ll come off right enough.”

‘“Well,” I says to the cap’n, “if I go off this ship I ain’t a comin’ aboard agin ’cept for muchbigger money, and when she’s started her garboards and ’s making water you’ll be sorry you refused a fair offer!”

‘“I’ll give yer two hundred,” says the cap’n.

‘That fared to me best to take it, for she was bumpin’ heavier, and I laowed she’d begin to shift a bit soon. Then agin, the paounding was in our favour, for I see that skeered the cap’n wonnerful, so I starts a bluff on him.

‘“That ’on’t do, cap’n,” I says. “I’m off.”

‘I went to the lee side of the poop, where our ould bo’t was made fast, to have a look at my mates. The ould thing was tumblin’ abaout suthen, for there was a heavy backwash off the ship’s quarter. As she came up on a sea they caught sight o’ me and started pullin’ faces and shakin’ their heads, and next time I see them they was doin’ the same. I tumbled to it quick enough that they wanted to say suthen to me, and a course they couldn’t shaout it out, so I threw ’em the fall o’ the mizzen sheet, and me and one o’ the crew pulled ould Somers aboard.

‘“For ’eaven’s sake,” he says, close in my ear, “make a bargin quick! She’s a comin’ off by herself! We’ve got a lead on the graound, and she’s moved twenty foot already.”

‘I went back to the cap’n, and he was all on fidgetin’ worse’n ever, so I says, “Cap’n, my mates’ll be satisfied with three hundred paound.”

‘“Don’t you do no such thing,” says the pilot; “she’ll come off all right.”

‘“I’ll stick to my two hundred,” says the cap’n.

‘I dursn’t wait, so I closed on it, and the mate writ aout two agreements, one for the cap’n and t’other for me. Our chaps soon got the kedge anchor and a hundred fathoms o’ warp into the lugger and laid that right aout astern, and I give the order for the lower main torpsail and upper fore torpsail to be set.

‘Then our chaps come aboard, and what with heavin’ her astern a bit every time she lifted to a sea and them two torpsails aback, she come off in half an hour.

‘Yes, yes; we got thirteen pound apiece, and if it hadn’t been for that pilot we’d a got double.’

‘Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est là,Simple et tranquille;Cette paisible rumeur-làVient de la ville.’

‘Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est là,

Simple et tranquille;

Cette paisible rumeur-là

Vient de la ville.’

We engaged two men to help us up the creek, which is narrow and was full of small boats difficult for a large craft to avoid. Unluckily, there was no wind, and we had to punt. This made our difficulties greater, as theArk Royal, unlike her trading sisters, could not cannon her way cheerfully up the creek lest her stanchions should be carried away or her cabin tops be damaged.

The two men used the poles forward while I steered. A proud helmsman I was, knowing myself the owner and skipper of the largest yacht on the station, as we passed a quay thronged with longshoremen looking on. At that moment I had to put the wheel hard over, and as the barge’s stern swung towards the land her rudder touched the hawser of a smack moored at the shipyard. The pull of a ninety-ton vessel moving however slowly is enormous. The hawser tautened like a bar of iron;theArk Royal’srudder was banged amidships, wrenching the wheel from my hands; one of the spokes caught my belt, hoisted me off my feet, swung me right over the top of the wheel, and dropped me on the other side of the deck. The Mate and the children did not seem to understand that this accident to the Skipper reflected some ridicule on the whole ship’s company. They cackled with delight, and wanted me to do it again.

WALTON CREEK

When we came abreast of our berth there was not enough water for us to go in, so we lay on a spit of sand and mud for that day. On the next tide, which was higher, we moved in stern first, leaving our anchor well out in the creek ready to haul us off in the spring.

The ebbing tide left us in a shallow dock about three feet deep into which theArk Royaljust fitted, so that with a ladder on to the saltings we could easily get on and off the ship. From the road, seventy or eighty yards away, there was a path across the saltings right up to us, but as it was very muddy we bought forty or fifty bushels of cockleshells and spread them on it. We also made a bridge with planks over a small rill which cut across the path.

To the west of us was a sea-wall, and behind it marshes stretching away into dimness; to the north was the railway line; to the south, first saltings and then the open Thames. At high water we could seeall the ships beyond the saltings; at low water they were hidden from us. To the east there were gasworks, which we tried to forget, and the ancient end of the town with houses of many shapes and attitudes. One of the houses leaned over a quay against which smacks lay so close that you could have reeved their peak halyards from the top windows. There was only one house near by us, and in that lived a barge-owner, who welcomed us and lent us a broad teak ship’s ladder. Such was the place in which we settled down for the winter.

As soon as we had driven in posts and laid out spare anchors, with long warps to hold us in position, we began to establish our communications with the shore. We found tradesmen anxious to call every day for orders. The postmaster promised three deliveries of our letters. I took a season ticket to London, as the time had arrived for me to begin my new work. The station was about eight minutes’ walk from theArk Royal. The boy’s school could be reached in about twenty minutes by tram-car. We instructed the tradesmen’s boys when they came on board to go forward and conduct their business through the forehatch. For visitors we hung the ship’s bell in the mizzen rigging. I engaged a sailor-boy as handyman and crew.

The only thing that interrupted our traffic with the shore was the spring tides, which covered the saltings, for if Jack, the handyman, were not readywith a boat, a tradesman’s boy would have to shout until he was heard. Soon, however, the boys came to understand signals, and when a boat could not be sent at once they would leave the provisions on the grassy bank by the path, and someone from the barge fetched them as soon as possible. There were only about six days each fortnight on which the tides were high enough to make the use of a boat necessary.

Later we dismissed the boy, as a trusted family servant, Louisa, whom we had known for many years, came to live with us. As Louisa could not manage the boat, we set up a box on a post by the road in which tradesmen could leave our provisions.

If we had thought of the box sooner it would have saved us the robbery of a red sausage by a passing dog. The Mate and I were on deck, and saw the robbery committed. The time in which we launched the boat from the davits would have done credit to a lifeboat’s crew. It was rather a long, stern chase after we had landed, and would have gone on much longer but for the dog’s greed in stopping two or three times to begin his meal. As soon as we came near, off he went again, tearing over the grass between the saltings and the road with our flaming sausage in his mouth. It was a race between our endurance and his greed, and his greed won, for at last he lay down with the sausage between his paws and we fell on him from behind and capturedour own. The sausage had several dents in it, but it was not punctured. The dog had a good mouth.

As for mishaps to the food, more occurred on board when it was being actually delivered than when it was waiting on shore. Twice the milk-boy stumbled over the foreshore and spilt our milk on deck. A more serious matter was the butcher-boy’s fall. He came up the ladder with his wooden tray on his shoulder one blustering day, was caught by a gust as he reached the top, and was blown backwards into the mud. Our joint lodged in the mud, and the wooden tray travelled a long way like a sledge on the slippery mud before it stopped.

Our coal was brought along the road in a cart, and man-handled from there to the fore end of the ship. We took only four hundredweight at a time, as we did not use much coal—the inside of a barge is very easily heated—and we did not care to have the decks hampered.

That winter, when an old barge was being broken up near by, we bought a large quantity of small blocks of wood to use instead of coal in the saloon. The coloured flames this wood gave off were delightful. As there was no room for the wood on deck, we built a platform on the ground alongside theArk Royal. The platform sank a little, or perhaps it was never high enough; at all events, when we had used only half our stock an enormous tide came, and the remainder of the wood floatedaway. As soon as we saw that the tide was going to be abnormal we manned our boat and tried to salve as much of the wood as possible, but the tide rose too fast for us. First the blocks floated off in twos and threes, then in fives and tens, and at last in squadrons. We pursued them and half filled the boat, but a fresh westerly breeze scattered the Armada. We saw it spreading out and trailing down the creek as the tide turned. Nor was that all. Long before the blocks had reached the quay in their seaward flight they had been marked by eyes trained from childhood in the search for flotsam, jetsam, or salvage. Boats were launched, and our wood was picked up and carried off almost under our noses.

The annoyance of losing the wood was aggravated by the sootiness of the coal upon which we now had to fall back. Not only did soot lie about on deck in still weather, but the chimneys had to be swept once a week. Certainly this was a very easy job; one had only to remove the upper parts of the chimneys on deck, hold them over the side, and run a mop through them; then get someone inside the ship to hold some sacking below, and shove the mop down the lower parts of the chimneys.

Our supply of eight hundred gallons of water generally lasted about six weeks, for, as has been said already, we used chiefly salt water for the bath. To refill the tanks we could either move out of ourberth on a spring tide and take the water on board through a hose from a neighbouring shed where water was laid on, or we could have it carried on board by hand. On the whole, we decided to have the water carried on board, and our barge-owner friend kindly allowed us to take the water from his house.

As it did not much matter when the water was brought, or whether the carrier worked one hour or eight hours a day, we gave the appointment of water-carrier to a hairless, red-faced boy of twenty who lived in an old boat. As a matter of fact, he was a man of about thirty-five, of whom it was said by some that he was half-witted, by others that he was lazy, and by others that he was artful. Anyhow, he suited us very well, for in the circumstances he could not easily have suited us badly. He came when he felt inclined, and with a yoke and two three-gallon pails patiently, and at his own pace, fetched the water, emptied it into our tanks, and went for more. He generally made five round trips in an hour, thus bringing thirty gallons. He never worked more than six hours a day, at which rate he could fill our tanks in about five days; but he generally preferred to spread the work over ten days.

Even where we lay beyond the town theArk Royalwas an object of intense curiosity. Had we made a charge for showing people over her, we should have collected enough money to buy a new mainsail. Among the strangers who becameacquainted with her internal beauties the most enterprising and the most bewildered was a school-attendance officer. He called one Saturday afternoon, and was told we should not be back till the evening. We were waiting for dinner when Louisa announced that he had returned. We invited him to the saloon and inquired his business. He had heard that we had three children, and he had come to assure himself that they were being educated. Oh, the boys were at Mr. Jones’s, and were going on to Haileybury? Quite so. He was sorry to have troubled us. Then he, too, was shown round the ship, so that we trust he did not consider his visit wholly wasted.

Although our berth was more than a hundred yards from the railway, the trains—particularly the expresses—shook the ground on which theArk Royalsat. At first the noise disturbed us, but soon we became unconscious of it. For other reasons I was grateful to the railway for being where it was. On dark winter nights, when I was returning from London, it never failed to please me to look out of the train and see the warm radiance from theArk Royalstriking up into the blackness. Then the walk from the station along the narrow old street paved with cobbles was delightful, and I could not hurry because I must stop to watch an anchor or a trawlhead being forged in the blacksmith’s, or to look at the mops, buckets, oilskins, sou’-westers, compasses, foghorns, lamps, and tins of paint, in the marine stores. And particularly at high water—ifthe wind were on shore—as I came abreast of the openings between the houses I was drawn by the splashing of the waves against the quay. There I would peer at the dark forms of dinghies scuffling in the small ‘sissing’ waves (as they say in Essex), or watch a cockle-boat with ghostly sails come racing home, and listen for the click of her patent blocks as she lowered her long gaff in readiness to berth by the sheds farther up the creek near theArk Royal. I knew that unless I hurried she would be there before me, but then on the wide piece of quay facing the Flag Inn knots of fishermen would be pacing backwards and forwards, and civility or interest required that the time of night should be passed with them. Just then, perhaps, a green light close in would attract me, and forthwith the dark canvas of a barge towering above it would loom in sight. The short stiff walk of the fishermen would cease; all eyes would strain into the darkness, and a discussion as to which barge she was and for what quay she was bound would begin. At last the barge would settle the matter by becoming recognizable beyond dispute. We would watch the great mainsail grow smaller and smaller as it was brailed up, and wait for the mainsail and topsail to come down with a run. Then when the vessel seemed to be advancing right on to us there would be a splash and the sound of cable rattling out, and her stern would swing round towards the quay and she was anchored. A dark figure in a boat, glimpses of a line, a shout,‘All fast!’ the sound of more cable being paid out, and the barge’s bows would swing slowly in towards the quay and she was berthed. Then the fishermen in their sea-boots, and guernseys, and billycock hats, or jumpers and peaked caps, would resume their stiff short walk, and I was free to go on my homeward way.

With sailormen it seems as though they felt that the safety of a ship while being berthed depended on their not taking their eyes off her. But perhaps they have no thought of rendering telepathic aid; it may be that they are only hypnotized, like me.

A little farther along the road one came into the open and could see the shafts of light from theArk Royal. On dark nights the sailing directions to find our private path were very simple: go along the road until all light is obscured on the port side and begins to show on the starboard side; then you are abreast of the path. The richest moments of pleasure came when it was high water at night, and one could look over the saltings on to the business of the great river. Especially on Fridays and Saturdays large liners were bound out or in; there were always the clustered illuminations of the shore to the east and south-east, the avenue of lights on the pier, and the Nore flaring up and dying down; to the south the searchlights of Sheerness; and to the south of west the River Middle gas-buoys blinking industriously in the dark and guiding the sailor safely up to London.

‘Mon coeur, comme un oiseau, voltigeait tout joyeuxEt planait librement à l’entour des cordages;Le navire roulait sous un ciel sans nuagesComme un ange enivré du soleil radieux.’

‘Mon coeur, comme un oiseau, voltigeait tout joyeux

Et planait librement à l’entour des cordages;

Le navire roulait sous un ciel sans nuages

Comme un ange enivré du soleil radieux.’

On Saturdays, when I was always at home, there was plenty to be done. The mainsail, which we had not unbent, had to be aired and the blocks had to be overhauled; and there were arrears of carpentering which never seemed to be overtaken. At spring tides we used to sail about the creek in the dinghy. In their holidays the boys made and sailed model boats and invented ingenious and daring swinging games on board with the falls of the halyards. And of course they invited all their friends to see our floating home.

We spent Christmas on board in great jollity. That time was marked by one mishap, though it presented itself to the children as an entertainment appropriate to the season. TheArk Royalduring spring tides and a westerly gale blew partly out of her dock. As I was walking back from the station one evening something about her struck me as queer, though Iwas some way off and looking at her broadside on. When I came nearer I could see that she was listing over at a very steep angle.

The children were frankly delighted, and told me incoherently and all at once how their tea-things had slid off the table until books had been put under the legs, and how the saloon door would not shut and the kitchen door would not open.

After unhanging the doors and planing pieces off them, we were able to make shift all right till midnight, when the barge floated and I hove her back into her berth.

The wringing of the barge on this occasion led me to try definitely to solve the problem of keeping her decks, and particularly the joins between the decks and the coamings, perfectly watertight. It has been already mentioned that all barges, owing to their length and build, alter their shapes or ‘wring’ slightly according to the ground on which they lie. On this account, if I were to convert another barge, I should hang the doors at once with a certain margin. All our doors have been unhung and planed two or three times. The wringing throws an enormous strain on the coamings, tending to pull them apart from the decks. You may caulk the joins thoroughly with oakum and serve them with marine glue, but a fresh strain will pull them open again. At last I invented a successful method. A quarter-round beading was fastened along the decksabout a quarter of an inch from the coaming, and a hot mixture of marine glue and Stockholm tar was poured in between the beading and the coaming. The Stockholm tar gives the marine glue a permanent softness. We then covered the mixture with another mixture of putty and varnish, which protected it from heat, cold, and wet. The secret, in fine, is to caulk the joins with something that will expand and contract like the surrounding material without becoming detached from it. This something must remain soft and sticky. But if the mixture be not buried under something else it will melt and trickle across the decks like heavy treacle.

The decks themselves were less difficult to keep tight; nevertheless, we had some trouble at first. We began by painting or dressing them, but later we covered them with a buff linoleum, which will be cheaper in the long run. The puzzle was how to lay the linoleum on worn decks. There were edges and knots which would soon have worked through. However, we solved this problem, too. We spread half a hundredweight of hot pitch, mixed with some tar, on the decks, and laid tarred felt upon it. Above the felt we laid the linoleum, with more pitch and tar to stick it. When in the mournful order of things theArk Royalcomes to her end, and is sawed up, burned, or ground to pieces by the sea, that linoleum will perish as an integral part of the decks, for nothing will ever separate them.

The winter passed, and with the swelling of the buds and the gift of song to the birds our corner of the world woke, too, and the yachts in the saltings began to renew their plumage. On all sides were heard the sounds of scraping; masts and spars and blocks sloughed their dull winter skins and glistened with new varnish in the sun.

TheArk Royalalso was fitted out. The whole ship smelt of varnish and new rope; the headsails, topsail, and mizzen were bent, and she was ready to move out of winter quarters.

On Maundy Thursday we cast off the warps on shore, took our spare anchors on board, and waited for the tide. I had engaged a sailor-boy as crew, and also had a friend to help me. After five months’ silence we heard once more the exciting clank of the windlass as we hove in the muddy chain. The chain came easily at first, and then checked at the strain of breaking out the great bower anchor from the bed which it had made for itself in the sand. A little humouring, and away it came and up went our spreading red topsail. A fresh wind off the land carried us slowly out of the creek through the small fry. Clear of the creek we let the brails go, and the wind crashed out the mainsail. Up went the bellying foresail and then the white jib topsail, and theArk Royalwas snoring through the water alive from truck to keel. The great sprit scrooping against the mast spoke of freedom after prison; the windharped in the rigging; the rudder wriggled and kicked in the following seas, sending a thrill of pleasure through the helmsman. Even the dinghy seemed like a high-spirited animal that had been kept too long in the stable. She would drop astern with her head slightly sideways, and then leap and charge forwards at the tug of the painter. It was a translucent morning. The fleet of bawleys was getting under way, a topsail schooner was anchoring off the pier, a cruiser was coming out of Sheerness, a barque in tow was going up Sea Reach, there were red-sailed barges everywhere, and we were embracing ‘our golden uncontrolled enfranchisement.’

‘Where are we going to?’ was asked several times before we reached the Nore. The point was that I did not know. So long as might be I did not want to know, for there is a peculiarly satisfying pleasure in playing with the sense of uncontrolled enfranchisement.

At length it became necessary to decide. Meynell suggested Harwich; Margaret, West Mersea; and Inky, Fambridge. But as we had no time to go so far as any of these, I asked them to choose a place in Kent.

Kent was a new land to them, and when I mentioned the probability of seeing aeroplanes on Sheppey Island they were all for Kent. So we headed for Warden Point, and the fair wind and tide soon took us there; then hauling our wind we reached along the beautiful shelly shore to Shellness and let go our anchor well inside the Swale about six o’clock. On Good Friday morning, taking the young flood, we beat up to Harty Ferry, anchored, and went to church. Most of Saturday morning we lay on a hill watching the aeroplanes tear along the ground, rise, fly round, and settle again; and in the afternoon we sailed in the dinghy up to Sittingbourne and bought provisions. All Sunday the glass fell, and towards evening the rain set in with the wind south-east, and on Monday it blew such a gale that a return to Newcliff was out of the question.

LANDERMERE

On Tuesday I was obliged to go to London, and as it was blowing too hard for the dinghy to take me to the Sittingbourne side I had to hire the ferry-boat. The two men who pulled me across were nearly played out before they landed me. Luckily my friend was able to remain on board theArk Royaland look after things with the paid hand while I was away.

I rejoined the ship on Friday evening, and the next day in a fresh wind we sailed to Queenborough. We anchored near the swing bridge, and my friend went off in the boat to tell the men to swing the bridge for us. The bridgeman flatly refused, because,he said, theArk Royalwas a barge and could lower her mast. I then went to see the man myself, and asked him to look at our cabin-top and explain how the mast could be lowered. He admitted that it could not be done. As a matter of fact, it could have been done by taking off the furniture hatch and removing the upper part of the coamings, and spending the best part of a day over the job. But it was not my business to tell him that. Even then he seemed doubtful, so I suggested telephoning to Sheerness for instructions. He kept on repeating that theArk Royalwas a barge, and that he was not allowed to swing the bridge for barges.

Now I played my best card. I had brought my ship’s papers with me, and producing my Admiralty warrant to fly the Blue Ensign and one or two other imposing documents, I hinted that further delay would compel me to report the matter. I noticed that he wavered. Then, placing a shilling in his hand and begging him not to ruin a promising career, I left him standing by the levers ready to open the bridge.

For the passage through we took on one of the hufflers,[5]and we anchored on the other side, as wind and tide were against us for the next reach. While we were at anchor many barges shot the bridge, which had been closed directly we had passedthrough. It is one of the prettiest sights in the world to see them do it. As the barges’ topsails became visible over the sea-walls far off the hufflers recognized their clients and rowed off to meet them. The hufflers, the most curious brotherhood of all irregular pilots, live here in old hulks or built-up boats on the foreshore. The wind was straight across the river and fresh, and a barge would come tearing along towards the bridge with everything set. When she was quite close to the bridge—sometimes not a length away—down went everything, all standing, till the great sprit rested on deck; and then, with her mainsail trailing in the water and a perfect tangle of ropes and gear everywhere, the barge would shoot under the bridge. On the other side she would anchor to hoist her gear again; but if the conditions had been right she would have hoisted her gear under way and gone straight on. To witness the consummate skill of this feat is to respect the race of bargees for ever. Think of it! The gear aloft—mast, topmast, and sails—weigh about three and a half tons, and there are just three men—one nearly always at the wheel—to lower and hoist everything. There have been many accidents and still more narrow escapes, for, besides skill and nerve, foresight is required to see that everything on board is clear. At Rochester there are three bridges close together, and every day dozens ofbarges shoot them. It is well worth the return fare from London to watch the performance.

[5]See footnote onpage 24.

The next day we returned to Newcliff, moored off the town a little way outside the creek in which we had spent the winter, and resumed our familiar life.

‘Get up, get up; for shame! the blooming mornUpon her wings presents the god unshorn.See how Aurora throws her fairFresh-quilted colours through the air;Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and seeThe dew bespangling herb and tree.’

‘Get up, get up; for shame! the blooming morn

Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.

See how Aurora throws her fair

Fresh-quilted colours through the air;

Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see

The dew bespangling herb and tree.’

The coming of warm weather and long days proved to us that public interest in our floating home had not dwindled. We were a good deal disturbed by parties rowing round us the whole time we were afloat; and even when the tide had left us, sightseers in pathetically unsuitable boots would walk across the film of slime from the shore to look at us. In Newcliff we had evidently become a legend. Boatmen in charge of pleasure-boats would generally head for us; and as we sat on deck we often formed part of the audience as the boatmen delivered their peculiar versions of the details of our lives. But night would come and sweep away every annoyance; then boats were in the occupation only of professionals and yachtsmen, who would glide past us without stopping; landward noises were hushed, and the land itself was seen but dimly against thefaint northern light thrown up from the hidden midsummer sun.

Sometimes we came on deck to see the dawn; then we always felt ashamed that we had not more often watched that pageant. Men, indeed, know little of the dawn; there must be many persons of eighty who have not looked upon it more than a dozen times. And dawn at the mouth of a great river, or, indeed, anywhere on salt water, differs from dawn on the land, for the sailor, having to work the tides, will be off with the first streak of light, if the tide serves then.

One morning one of our anchors had to be shifted at daylight lest the ship should sit on it, and the Mate and I were present at the birth of a wonderful day. There was silence, save for the slight crepitation of the water being drawn between the leeboards and the hull of theArk Royal. The east was the grey of doves; the land was sunk in mist; then the mist began sliding away, and hills and houses grew by an imperceptible process out of the opaqueness like a photograph developing on a film. Seawards, the ruby lantern on the pierhead and the flaring Nore paled, pink wisps of cloud flooded across the sky, and the riding lights and buoy lights shrank to pin-points.

The Nore ceased to revolve, the shore lights guttered out, and indubitable daylight—how it had come one even then did not understand—fell upona fleet of long-gaffed bawleys mustering in the Ray, and on a string of barges from the Medway, spreading like a skein of geese along the Blyth sand. Half-way between the retreating mists of the two shores there lay a long black plume of smoke from a steamer, and the drumming of her propeller seemed to rise out of the water at our feet.

The day that followed was worthy of that dawn. The sky was without a cloud, and the mirage shivered on the water from shore to shore. Faint breezes off the land yielded before noon to a clock calm; then flaws of air from the eastward smeared the glassy surface; the cat’s-paws became dimples, and the dimples tiny waves, and at last the crests of the waves began to break prettily and playfully without malice. This sea breeze blew true and warm all the afternoon, and when it met the ebb the tideway was all sparkling till the evening. Later the land breeze came again, and blew fainter and fainter until it ceased, and

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