‘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 the _Ark Royal_ is, 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 the _Ark Royal_ on 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 the
_Ark Royal_ lay 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 the _Ark 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 the _Ark Royal_ for 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 difficult to 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 the following 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 like many 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 much bigger 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.’