’O, to sail to sea in a ship!
To leave this steady, unendurable land!
To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and
the houses;
To leave you, O you solid, motionless land, and, entering a ship,
To sail, and sail, and sail!’
One day only was left to me, before the return of the Mate, to examine
the gear and make sure that everything was ready for sea, as we
proposed to cruise for a few days before going to our new quarters.
The place we had chosen to live at was Newcliff on the Thames, where
there was a school at which the boys’ names had already been entered.
All the standing and running rigging and the canvas were in good
order; nevertheless the waterside pundits had plenty of sagacious
criticisms to offer. Public attention was now diverted from the
interior to life above decks. In particular there was not a new piece
of rope or a new spar on board that was not discussed till all its
merits or defects had been discovered or insinuated.
To a keen amateur seaman this reiteration is never wearisome. He
knows how to learn, because he knows that the most casual comment from
a bargee or a smacksman is charged with experience. Many of these men
have astonishing powers of memory and observation, powers as wonderful
in their way as the sight and hearing of American Indians. Recognition
of a vessel by the cut of her jib is easy enough, and has supplied our
language with an idiom; but bargees and smacksmen will recognize one
another’s vessels at great distances, though even at close range the
vessels may seem to other people to be indistinguishable. A few men
can recognize any craft they have ever seen if they catch sight of
only the peak of her sail. Barge skippers who have been in the trade a
lifetime will recall the details of almost every voyage they have
made--the time of starting, the shifts of wind, the margin of time by
which they saved their tide, what they saw on the way, and a dozen
other things--never confusing one passage with another.
When you sail by bargees or smacksmen at anchor you behold them
apparently staring aimlessly on to the sea or into the sky; but they
are watching. Perhaps they seem to be looking the other way, but they
have marked you pass and noticed, it may be, that your topping lift is
too taut. This or any other detail is duly entered in the unwritten
log of their memories. On shore they take their leisure on the quay,
walking up and down, never more than a few steps each way, with eyes
always on the anchorage. The arrival of a stranger, the way he
anchors, the coming and going of dinghies, the manner in which they
are brought alongside--everything is noted.
Now, the chief object of interest in the gear of the _Will Arding_ was
a new kedge anchor. To men accustomed to anchor near the shore and in
very narrow swatchways nothing is more important than their ground
tackle. They spend more anxious thought on that than on anything else.
My new anchor was lying on the quay, and I could hear the comments of
every passer by. I was flattered by an accumulation of approval.
Sometimes I was below, and did not know who was speaking; nor did it
much matter, since the language of all was interchangeable. I would
simply hear a voice; and soon another voice would be saying the same
thing over again. Imagine a succession of observations like this:
_First Voice_: ‘Yes, yes; that’s a good anchor, that is. As I was a
sayin’ to Jim this mornin’, “That’s got good flues, that has, and a
good stock. I lay she ’on’t never drag that,” I says, “if that git
aholt in good houldin’ graound. No more she ’on’t faoul that. That’ll
hould she in worse weather than what they’ll ever want to be aout in,”
I says. “Then agin, that’s a good anchor for layin’ aout, for that
ain’t a heavy anchor to handle in a bo’t,” I says. “None the more for
that, she ’on’t never drag that. The chap what made that anchor
knaowd what he was abaout.”’
_Second Voice_: ‘That’s a wonnerful good anchor, that is. That ’on’t
never drag that if they let that goo in good houldin’ graound. I allus
did like an anchor long in the stock, same as that. Yes, yes; that’ll
hould she. That ain’t a heavy anchor for same as layin’ off in a bo’t,
whereas them heavy anchors is wonnerful ill convenient. Yes, yes;
they’ve got a good anchor there; that was made at Leigh, that was, and
wonnerful good anchors that smith allus did make.’
_Third Voice_: ‘What do I think in it? I don’t want to think nawthen
abaout that. I _knaow_ that’s a good anchor. She ’on’t never drag
that, _do_, that’ll hev to be wonnerful poor houldin’ graound. That
anchor’s got good flues, that has, and she ’on’t never drag that nit
faoul it. They’ll want to be in harbour time that anchor ’on’t hould
she. That’s long in the stock, that is, but none the more for that
that ain’t a heavy anchor, and yaou can lay that aout in a bit of a
sea when maybe a heavier un ’ould be too much for yer.’
The next day the Mate and the elder boy returned, and the barge was
christened with a new name. _Will Arding_, no doubt, had had some
sufficient meaning for the late owner, but for us it meant nothing,
and we had decided to call the barge _Ark Royal_.
Before the christening we moved from the quay into midstream. The
warps ashore were cast off, and the clank, clank, clank, of the
windlass sounded like the music of other worlds calling. We slowly
hove off the barge until her stern swung round and she rode free to
the flood-tide and the east wind. Sam Prawle was on board, as I had
engaged him to come for our first cruise in order that I might learn
the handling of a barge under a good instructor. We could not start
till high water, because the wind was up river.
Meanwhile, the christening was performed. Several smacksmen came off
in their boats for the ceremony. A bottle of champagne, made fast to
the jib topsail halyards, was flung well outboard, and came back on to
the barge’s bluff bows with a crash and an explosion of foam as the
Mate said: ‘In the name of all good luck I christen you _Ark Royal_!’
Everyone cheered; other champagne (not the christening brand) was
handed round, and we all drank success and long life and happiness to
one another and the ship. The Royal Cruising Club burgee was hoisted
to the truck and the Blue Ensign at the mizzen peak.
Sam stowed the wine-glasses in their racks below; the good-byes were
said; the smackies clambered over the side, sorted themselves into the
cluster of dinghies astern, and lay on their oars to watch the start.
The tide was on the turn, the great topsail flacked in the wind,
the brails were let go, and Sam and I sweated the mainsheet home and
set the mizzen.
[Illustration: THE _ARK ROYAL_]
She was feeling the ebb now, and she sheered first one way and then
the other, gently tugging at her anchor as we hoisted the foresail and
made the bowline fast to port. Once more the clank, clank, of the
windlass; the short scope of the bower anchor came home sweetly, and
the _Ark Royal_ was free. I left Sam to get the anchor right up and
flew aft to the wheel as she slowly gathered way.
We were off! Good-bye to the land and houses and rates and by-laws! We
believed that we were entering on a better way of life. We have since
made sure of it.
I think of that first sail still. The newness to us of the _Ark
Royal’s_ great size; her height above the water; the grand sweep she
took as she came about; the march from the wheel to the leeside to
peer forward in bargee’s style to see whether there was anything in
our way to leeward; the size of the wheel itself, and the many turns
wanted to put the helm down or up, filled us with importance and pride
as we tacked down the river. If you would know what my feelings were
then you must think of your first boundary to square leg, your first
salmon, your first gun, your first stone wall with hounds running
fast.
That night we anchored at the mouth of the river, and when the sails
were stowed and the riding light had been hoisted, we ate our first
dinner on board and tucked our elder boy into his bunk for the first
time. Then beneath the stars, rocking gently on a scarcely perceptible
easterly swell, we walked our decks in the flood-tide of happiness.
‘None of our relations know where we are or where we are going to,’
said the Mate. ‘Here we are now, and to-morrow, perhaps, we shall get
to Mersea Island and pick up Margaret and Inky, and then we shall be
complete. Is it real? Is it true?’
We sat on deck very late, too much occupied with the pleasure of
existing to yield to sleep. The sky was continually changing as snowy
clouds drifted across it. In the distance the Swin Middle light flared
up like a bonfire every fifteen seconds. Here and there the lights of
barges drooped tremulous threads of gold on the water.
Sam Prawle was invited aft; and regarding us now as freemen of the
barge profession, he enlarged upon the advantages of barging
(comparing it with the sport of yachting, which he seemed to think we
had abandoned) with a confidential note in his voice that we had not
precisely detected before. But his opinions on these weighty matters
deserve a chapter to themselves.