_Chantyman._ Leave her, Johnny, and we’ll work no more.
_Chorus._ Leave her, Johnny, leave her!
_Chantyman._ Of pump or drown we’ve had full store.
_Chorus._ It’s time for us to leave her.
The wind hung mostly west and south, and was southerly enough at the
end to make the _Will Arding’s_ passage a fast one, and bring her
early on the tide to Bridgend. There by noon next day we were looking
seaward with our glasses. Shortly after that time two specks appeared
beyond the river’s mouth, and long before they reached the point took
shape and became two barges. End on they came, heeling like one to the
spanking breeze; another half an hour would bring them to us.
The _Will Arding_ was one of them, and we rowed off to her, and with a
thrill watched her shoot up into the wind, while the mate let go her
anchor. Three hours later she was berthed on the blocks.
The shipwrights nominally started work the next day, and I actually
did so. I came by train in the mornings from Fleetwick and returned
home in the evenings. The first job was to raise the limber boards
and clean the barge out as far as we could reach, for hundreds of
cargoes had driven their contributions of dust through the cracks in
the flooring, and the dust, mixed with the bilge water, had formed a
black ooze. It was one of the dirtiest jobs imaginable, and while it
lasted my appearance as I went home in the evenings was so
disreputable that often I was not recognized by acquaintances. An
ardent Salvation Army man whom I met every day began to cast longing
eyes on me.
After the cleaning, the _Will Arding_ was tarred throughout inside,
and then my thoughts turned to the cabin aft, for I sorely wanted a
place where I could have my meals and keep my tools. Accordingly I cut
a doorway in the bulkhead between the hold and the cabin.
In removing the late crew’s bedding I came across an insect I had
never seen before. Yet I knew what it was by the instinct that is said
to guide men unerringly in those peculiar crises--like death--in which
experience is wanting. _Nomen infandum!_ To think that the creature
dared to be in my ship! And then the dread assailed me that it was not
likely to be the only one. Should we ever get rid of them? What would
the Mate say? Had we spent all this money and trouble only to provide
a breeding-ground for this horrible hemipterous tribe? I believe that
I trembled. I was sick with disgust.
What I should have done, had I been a strict Buddhist, I know not,
but what I did was to burn sulphur candles, gut the cabin of every
vestige of wood, and subject each piece removed to the flame of a
blow-lamp, while repeating to myself a kind of fierce incantation:
‘Let none of them escape me.’ After that I squirted the whole place
with a powerful disinfectant, then put on black varnish, then
lime-wash over the black varnish, and as a final precaution I had the
cabin sprayed with formaldehyde. As a matter of fact, the gutting must
have destroyed everything, but I did not mean to take any risks.
When my peace of mind was restored, I proceeded to match-line the hold
throughout.
All this time the shipwright, in spite of promises of the most binding
order, was not getting on with his work. At the end of each week he
would promise to put a hand on ‘in the forepart of the week’; and at
the beginning of each week he would promise again for ‘the latter part
of the week.’ I kept chasing him and worrying him, and this
distressing occupation seriously interfered with my own work.
Moreover, it became increasingly difficult to find him, for he
instructed a small boy on the quay to report my appearance on deck. I
bought the boy off with sweets, and told the shipwright what I thought
about him and his promises, while he scratched his head like an
Oriental tranquilly contemplating the decrees of destiny.
The next move on the old man’s part was to lend me an apprentice--this
with the twofold object of keeping me quiet by rendering me help, and
providing a messenger and intermediary who could be trusted never to
find him. The old man’s idea of business was never to refuse work, and
to do enough of each job to make it impossible for a vessel to be
taken away. For the rest he trusted to his excuses and his customers’
short memories to set things right.
It ought to be said that his excuses were not ordinary excuses. He was
always the victim, and never the master, of his own actions. He seemed
to think that this inversion of the normal course of things had only
to be stated to be perfectly satisfactory to his customers. On one
occasion he doubled the decks of a yacht belonging to a neighbour of
ours. When the work was done, the owner found a thicket of nails
sticking out under the decks in his cabin. He indignantly asked for an
explanation. The old man scratched his head and turned to his son.
‘They was ordin’ry deck nails, warn’t they, Tom?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Tom dutifully.
‘But damn it all, look at my cabin!’
‘They was ordin’ry deck nails,’ the old man said again, and added,
‘Well, to tell yaou the truth, sir, them blessed ould decks was too
thin.’
At last I presented the shipwright with an ultimatum, to which he
replied by putting a wheelwright on to my work, and a worse workman in
a ship I never came across. It was already six weeks after the date on
which the _Will Arding_ was to have been finished, and I now went on
strike. The rest of the work, I decided, should be done at home eight
miles farther up the river.
As ill luck would have it, it was blowing the better part of a gale
the next day, the wind being on shore and a trifle down the river. In
the yard it was said that the barge could not be moved. However, at
that time I knew more about shipwrights’ excuses and less about barges
than I do now, and I insisted that she should go, whatever the
weather.
‘That ain’t fit for she to goo,’ the old man kept saying. He was
right, but I was firm. And he, for his part, having spent his life in
measuring human patience, knew when it was impossible to hold out any
longer. So he gave orders for his men to get the _Will Arding_ off the
blocks. I cleared out of the way half a dozen dinghies, which she
might foul as she came off.
It certainly was a wild day; the wind shrieked in the rigging, the
waves curled and broke against the quay, the little boats close in
shore pitched and jarred, throwing the spray from them, and the masts
of the smacks and yachts in the anchorage waved jerkily against the
racing sky. There was no time to be lost, for the barge had to be got
off while the tide was still flowing, or not at all. An ex-bargeman
was in charge, and four hands helped on board. At the last moment it
was found that a new mainsheet was wanted, and this delayed us, but we
still had just enough time. The topsail slatted so fiercely as it was
hoisted that it had to be half dropped again until the squall passed.
The mainsail, half set, banged noisily and the mainsheet blocks lashed
terrifically to and fro. As the foresail filled and the head paid off
the anchor was broken out, and happily the barge quickly gathered way,
for under her lee was a mass of small boats that I had not been able
to move. Had she sagged appreciably to leeward she would have swept
them all.
The start was a truly exhilarating affair, more like that of a young
horse driven for the first time, and bolting down a crowded street,
than of an experienced barge getting under way. The sails were only
half set and slatting angrily; the running gear, from long disuse, was
all over the place; one gaunt figure like a Viking, with blue eyes and
long fair hair streaming in the wind, stood in the bows bawling which
way to steer; another man amidships shouted the orders on to the
helmsman; and thus, with two men at the wheel, the _Will Arding_ with
a foaming wake tore headlong through the small craft. She sailed right
over one dinghy, but luckily did not hurt it. Several times my heart
was in my mouth, for in that packed anchorage we might have done
enormous damage.
My tongue became less dry as the risks decreased, and never did the
shout, ‘Shove her raound!’ fall with a more welcome sound on my ears
than when, clear to windward of the anchored fleet, the _Will Arding_
swung round on the other tack and stood up the empty river. I would
not undertake that dash again to-day. One of the helmsmen remarked, ‘I
reckon that skeert some o’ they little bo’ts to see us thriddlin’
among ’em. That wind’s suthen tetchy to-day t’ain’t ’ardly safe, same
as goin’ as us did.’
At the end of the reach I dropped all my helpers, except one hand, who
remained on board as watchman. As the tide had turned I anchored, was
put on shore, and went home by train.
The next day the Mate and the hand and I brought the _Will Arding_ up
the rest of the way to Fleetwick and berthed her. She now lay within a
short walk of our cottage. Labour, though not skilled carpenter’s
labour, was to be got easily enough. It would, at all events, be
prompt and willing work. I had left professional assistance behind,
but I felt nearly sure that we should make better progress at
Fleetwick; and I even ventured to think that the quality of our
carpentering might not shame us after all.