The easy unconventional fit of his calling settles that for him as
conclusively as the cryptic term “general dealer,” so often seen in
police-court reports, does a man’s status ashore, but with far less
reason. It must be admitted that he is not over-scrupulous or prone to
regard too rigidly the laws of _meum_ and _tuum_. The portable property
which occasionally finds its way into his boat is, however, usually
ownerless except for the lien held by the Crown upon all flotsam,
jetsam, and ligan; which rights, all unjust as he in common with most
seafarers consider them to be, he can hardly be blamed for ignoring.
But when the worst that can be alleged against the character of the
hoveller has been said, a very large margin of good remains to his
credit, good of which the general public never hears, or hearing of it,
bestows the praise elsewhere.
They are the finest boatmen in the world. Doubtless this seems a large
claim to make on their behalf, but it is one that will be heartily
endorsed by all who know anything of the condition of the English
Channel in winter, and are at the same time in a position to make
comparisons. And it must also be remembered that the harvest of the
hoveller is gathered when the wintry weather is at its worst, when
the long, hungry snare of the Goodwins is snarling and howling for
more and more of man’s handiwork to fill its for ever unsatisfied
maw, when the whole width of the strait is like a seething cauldron,
and the atmosphere is one weltering whirl of hissing spindrift; while
the hooting syrens, shrieking whistles, and clanging bells from the
benighted and groping crowd of unseen vessels blend their discord
with the tigerish roar of the storm in one bewildering chaos of
indescribable tumult.
Then, when the fishermen have all run for shelter, and even the hardy
tugboats hug some sheltering spit or seaward-stretching point, the
hoveller in his undecked clinker-built lugger, some thirty-five feet
long and ten feet beam, square-sterned and sturdy-looking like himself,
may be seen through the writhing drifts of fog and spray climbing from
steep to steep of the foaming billows like a bat hawking along some
jagged cliff.
She shows just a tiny patch of brown sail, a mere shred, but sufficient
to keep her manageable with her head within five or six points of the
wind and her stub-bow steadily pointed to the onrush of the toppling
seas. Every other wave sends a solid sheet of spray right over her,
hiding her momentarily from view, but the row of squat figures sitting
motionless along the weather gunwale heed it no more than as if they
were graven images. And thus they cruise, hungry and thirsty, their
eyeballs burning with sleeplessness, throughout the weary hours of
night and day, with every sense acutely strained and every moment
balanced upon the very scythe-edge of death. Long practice makes them
keen of sight as the wailing gulls overhead, and small indeed must be
the floating object that escapes their unremitting scrutiny.
Homeward-bound sailing ships from oversea ports are what they
principally lust after. The skippers of these vessels after their long
absence from home usually feel more or less anxious as they near the
narrows. The Trinity pilots in their trim cutters have their cruising
ground definitely fixed for them by authority, extending no further
west than Dungeness. But long before that well-known point, with its
dazzling spear of electric radiance reflected from the gloomy pall of
cloud above, is reached, the homeward-bound skipper’s anxiety becomes
almost unbearable if the weather be thick and he has as yet made no
landfall to verify his position. Then the sudden appearance of a
hoveller emerging from the mirk around, and his cheery hail, “D’ye
want a pilot, sir?” is heavenly in its relief. For these men, although
regarded with no small contempt and disfavour by the aristocracy of
pilotage licensed by the Trinity Brethren, know the Channel as a man
knows the house he has lived in for years, know it at all times,
whether in calm or storm, the blackness of winter midnight, the
brilliance of summer noon, or the horrible uncertainty of enshrouding
fog.
The hoveller can hardly be blamed if he take full advantage of the
foulness of the weather to drive as hard a bargain as he can with the
skipper of a hesitating homeward-bounder for the hire of his invaluable
local knowledge. Full well he knows that when the skies are serene and
the wind is favourable he may tender his services in vain, even at the
lowest price. No master, in these days of fierce competition, dare make
an entry of a hoveller’s fee in his bill of expenses, except under
pressure of bad weather, on pain of being considered unfit for his
post, and finding himself compelled to pay the charge out of his own
scanty salary.
So that fine weather to the hoveller spells empty pocket and hungry
belly. The long, bright days of summer bring to him no joy, though
thoughtless passengers lounging at their ease upon the promenade deck
of some palatial steamship may think his lot a lazy, lotus-eating way
of drowsing through the sunny hours. Neither would they imagine from
his wooden immobility of pose and the unbending appearance of his rig
what fiery energy he is capable of displaying when opportunity arises.
On one occasion, when I was a lad of eighteen, we were homeward bound
from Luzon to London. We sighted Corvo dimly through the driving mist
of a fierce westerly gale, before which we bowled along at the rate of
300 miles a day. For nearly five days we fled thus for home, seeing
nothing except an occasional dim shape of some vessel flitting silently
past. Not a glimpse of the heavenly bodies was vouchsafed us whereby to
fix our position, nor did we haul up once for a cast of the deep-sea
lead. At last by “dead reckoning,” we were well up Channel, but the
steady thrust of the gale never wavered in force or direction. The
mist grew denser, the darkness more profound. By the various sounds of
foghorns and whistles we knew that many vessels surrounded us, and that
it was scarcely less dangerous to heave-to than to run. Presently, by
the narrowest of shaves, we missed running down a light outward-bound
barque, the incident leaving us with yards swinging every way and a
general feeling of uncertainty as to what would happen next. Suddenly
out of the gloom to leeward came the hoarse cry, “Want a pilot, sir?”
It was the sweetest music imaginable. All eyes were strained in the
direction of the voice. In a minute or two the well-known shape of a
hovelling lugger became visible, under a double reefed lug, rushing
towards us. He rounded to by our lee quarter, and in reply to our
skipper’s query, “How much will you take me up to the Ness for?” came
the prompt answer; “Ten pounds.” “Ten devils!” yelled our skipper;
“why, you adjective hovelling pirate, it’s only about ten minutes’
walk.” “Better get out ’n walk it then, cap’n,” said the boatman;
“can’t take you up for no less to-night.” The usual haggling began, but
was cut short by the hoveller, who shouted, “So long, cap’n, time’s
precious,” giving at the same time a pull at his tiller which sent the
boat striding a cable’s length to leeward. “All right,” roared the old
man, “come aboard, and be dam’d t’you,” and at the word the lugger was
back alongside again. Launching his dinghy was out of the question in
such a sea, for at one moment the boat was level with our shearpoles,
the next she seemed groping under our keel. “Heave us a line, cap’n,”
shouted he, and the mate hurled a coil of the lee main-brace at him.
Quick as a wink he had cast a bowline round his waist with the end.
“Haul away aboard,” he cried, and as his boat rose on the crest of a
big sea he sprang at the ship and missed her. But he had hardly time
to disappear in the smother of foam, before he was being dragged up
the side like a bale of rags, and almost instantly tumbled on deck.
Springing to his feet, he dashed the water out of his eyes, and as
calmly as if nothing unusual had happened, said to the man at the
wheel, “Put your hellum up, m’lad, square away the main-yard, haul aft
the mainsheet,” and as if by magic the weather seemed to fine down and
a great peace reigned. “Steady as she goes, m’lad,” said he to the
helmsman, with a peep at the compass; and then turning to the skipper,
in a wheedling voice, “You couldn’t spare my mates a bit o’ grub, I
s’pose, sir, and a plug of terbacker?” “Oh yes,” replied the captain
with alacrity. “Stooard! get a couple o’ pieces of beef out o’ the
harness cask, and some bread in a bag, for the boatmen. I’ll go down
and get them some tobacco.” Already the lugger was closing in on us
again, and by the time the longed-for provisions were at hand, she was
near enough for them to be hove on board. A further plea for a drop of
rum could not be entertained, as we had none, but well pleased with
the result of their visit the rovers sheered off and were swallowed up
in the encircling darkness. Exactly three-quarters of an hour later we
rounded the Ness and hove-to for the pilot, the lugger popping up under
our lee again as if she had been towing astern, and receiving back the
lucky hoveller with his fat fee in his pocket.
Years after, in a much larger ship, of which I was second mate, we
were bound right round the coast to Dundee, and got befogged somewhere
off Beachy Head. As on the previous occasion, the wind was strong, and
blowing right up Channel. A hoveller came alongside and made a bargain
to take us up to Dungeness for ten pounds. By the time he had scrambled
on board, our captain began to wonder whether he might be available to
pilot us right round to Dundee, not feeling very confident in his own
knowledge of the navigation of the East coast. So he put the question
to our visitor, who replied that he himself was not qualified, and
indeed would not be allowed to take us if he were. But he could arrange
to have a North Sea pilot out in Deal Roads awaiting us on our arrival
there. This was too much for our skipper’s power of belief. That
cockle-shell of a lugger able to outstrip his 1400-ton ship, with this
breeze behind her, so much in forty miles! It couldn’t be done. “Never
mind, sir,” said the hoveller, “you make my money thirteen pound for
the whole job, and if you have to wait in the Downs for your pilot, you
needn’t pay me more than ten.” “It’s a go,” answered the captain, fully
satisfied.
Hailing his boat, the Dealman gave his instructions. Crowding on all
sail, away she went, sheering in for the shore, and soon was lost to
sight in the mist. Meanwhile we also set all the sail she could carry,
and made a fairly rapid run to the Downs. Sure enough, there was a
galley punt awaiting us, the men lying on their oars, and the pilot
with his bag lounging in the stern. The skipper said not a word as he
handed our hoveller his full money, but he looked like a man who had
been badly beaten in a contest of wits.
But if one would see the hoveller at his best, it is when some hapless
vessel has met her fate on the Goodwins during a gale. The silent
suck of those never-resting sands makes the time of her remaining
above water very short, without the certainty of her rapid breaking
up under the terrible battering of the mighty seas. Gathering around
the doomed fabric, like jackals round a carcass, the hardy beachmen
perform prodigies of labour. The work which they will do, wrenching out
cargo and fittings, and transferring them to their boats, while the
straining, groaning hull threatens every moment to collapse beneath
their eager feet, and the bitter tempest fills the air with salt
spray, to say nothing of an occasional breaker which buries wreck and
wreckers alike beneath its incalculable mass of foaming water, cannot
be adequately described--it must be seen to be realised. As if mad
with desire, they tear and strain and heave like Titans, apparently
insensible to fatigue. For they know that at any moment their prize may
vanish from beneath them, and with her all their hopes of gain. Weather
has for them no terrors. Let but the cry of “wreck” go up, and though
even the lifeboat be beaten back, the hoveller will get there somehow,
not under any pretence of philanthropy, but in the hope of earning
something, though it may be gratefully recorded that they never shirk
the most terrible risks when there is a hope of saving life.
Such sudden and violent transitions from utter idleness to the most
tremendous exertion as they continually experience do not seem to harm
these toughened amphibia. Plenty of them do of course “go under,” in
more or less distressing circumstances, but though their own tiny
circle laments their loss, their tragic fate makes no more disturbance
than the drop of a pebble outside of it. There are plenty to take
their place. For even in so precarious a calling as hovelling there
are grades. The poor possessors of only a four-oared galley hope to
rise to the dignity of a lugger, so that they may quit scrabbling along
the shores and get out to where, if the dangers are indefinitely
increased, the chances of a good haul now and then are proportionately
greater.
Another phase of their calling is the rescue of vessels who from
various causes are drifting to destruction. Many a craft reaches port
in safety with a couple of Dealmen on board, that but for their timely
help would never have been heard of again. I know of one case where a
large French _chasse-marée_, with a cargo of wine, lost her foremast
off the Varne shoal. In its fall it crippled the skipper and one of
the crew. Another one was frost-bitten, and the remaining two, both
boys, were so paralysed with fright that they were quite useless. So
in the grey of the New Year’s dawn, with a pitiless snowstorm raging
from the N.W., she was drifting helplessly along the edge of the sand.
Two hovellers saw her plight at the same time, and each strained
every nerve to get up to her first, for she was a prize well worth
the winning. At last they drew so near to her that it was anybody’s
race. But the head man of the foremost lugger tore off his oilskins,
sea-boots, and fear-nought jacket, and plunging into the boiling sea
actually battled his way to her side, climbing on board triumphantly,
and so making good his claim. It is satisfactory to be able to add that
the dauntless rascal was completely successful in bringing the _Trois
Frères_ into Dover, and shared with his four mates £120 for salvage
services. Not a bad twenty-four hours’ work, but for nearly two months
before they had earned less than five shillings per man per week, and
they all had wives and families dependent upon them.
Yet with all their hardships, they are free. No man is their master,
for they always sail on shares, varied a little according to each
individual’s monetary stake in the boat. And doubtless the wild life
has a certain charm of its own, which goes far to counterbalance its
severity and danger. “An’ anyhow,” as one of them said to me not long
ago, “ourn’s a bizness the bloomin’ Germans ain’t likely to do us out
of. There ain’t many left like that, is ther?”
XXII
THE LOSS OF THE ‘ST. GEORGE’
AN INCIDENT OF THE ANGLO-GERMAN WAR OF 19--
“Things is lookin’ pretty bad for the British sailor, Bill, don’t ye
think?”
“Well, fur’s I c’n see, they can’t look much wuss, Joe. I know one
thing: ’f I c’d a only got a billet ashore--even a bloomin’ dus’man’s
job--I’d a never even smelt salt water agen. W’y, there ain’t no
Henglish ships now ’ceptin’ fur the flag. But I will say this much; I
never seen it quite so bad’s this afore.”
The speakers were the only two British seamen before the mast on
board the four-masted steel sailing ship _St. George_, of Liverpool,
bound from London to Melbourne with a general cargo of immense value,
and nearly five thousand tons measurement. In the square of the main
hatch was carefully stowed forty tons of blasting and rifle powder
received at the “red buoy,” Gravesend, and earning a very high freight.
The master was a German of Rostock, Friedrich Schwartz by name,
who for the wage of £10 per month was filling this onerous position
to the exclusion of an Englishman, who thought such a post deserved
better pay. The chief officer, unfortunately for him, was a Liverpool
man, with a little money of his own, who could therefore afford to
cut rates as well as the Germans. Every other member of the ship’s
company, except the two worthies above-mentioned and a couple of
_Warspite_ lads, was a “ja-for-yes man” as Jack impartially denominates
Scandinavians and Teutons alike.
When the _St. George_ left the East India Docks, the managing director
(she belonged to a single-ship company whereof none of the shareholders
knew anything of the shipping business) chuckled to himself to think
how cheaply she was manned, and hurried back to Billiter Street to
calculate his commission on the outward passage. The political outlook
was very gloomy. Germany was growing more insolently aggressive every
day, and the omniscient Kaiser smiled grimly as he read the latest
report of the British Registrar-General of Seamen. He was naturally
delighted to see how completely the British nation was handing over
the control of its vast mercantile marine to foreign officers and
seamen, all of whom were trained naval men, and capable of immediately
utilising any sudden opportunity of dealing Britain a deadly blow.
At the time alluded to at the opening of this story, the _St. George_,
under a towering mountain of canvas, was bowling rapidly through the
north-east Trades towards the Line. Needless, perhaps, to say that the
Britons on board were having an uncomfortable time of it. The mate was
made to feel at every turn that he was an interloper. Although his
country’s flag sheltered him, Captain Schwartz’s contempt for England
and all that belonged to her was freely vented in his hearing. And all
conversation on board, as well as most of the orders, being in German,
Mr. Brown and his four compatriots felt that they were indeed aliens
on sufferance. Like the majority of their countrymen, they knew no
language but their own, which in the present instance was as well for
their small remainder of mental peace. The two A.B.s had at least one
advantage over the mate, they could talk to each other, though every
“workup” job was sorted out to them, their treatment being just the
same as the two boys.
So the days dragged wearily on until one morning a streak of smoke
on the northern horizon gradually resolved itself into a splendid
armoured cruiser that overhauled the _St. George_ as if she were at
anchor instead of logging twelve knots easy. With a bird-like swoop the
flyer sheered up under her quarter, showing the white ensign at her
standard. Up went the good old “blood and guts,” of Old England at the
_St. George’s_ peak in reply, and to the incisive sea-queries from the
cruiser’s bridge, Mr. Brown shouted back the information required as to
port of destination, length of passage, etc. Then came ringing across
the startling message, “War is declared between England and Germany.
But you’re all right, I hope. There is little danger to be apprehended
from German warships. Still, be careful, and crack on all you know if
you do see a suspicious-looking craft. Good-bye,” and the majestic
vessel sheered off at top speed for the westward.
“Ha, mein verdammt Englischer schweinhund, dot ju are, hou ju feel
yoost now, hein? Gott bewahr; ju haf komm to ein ent mit yourselluf,
aind id? Ve schou ju somedings now, und tond ju forkedd id.” Thus the
triumphant skipper, accompanying his jeers at the mate with a horrible
grimace at the brilliant flag floating proudly overhead, and an
emphatic expectoration on the white deck. Then, excited beyond measure,
he rushed to the break of the poop and yelled a summons in German for
all hands. Aft they came, tumbling over one another in their eagerness,
and ranged themselves before the saloon doors. On his lofty platform
above their heads the rampant skipper raved, stamped, gesticulated,
and finally burst sonorously into song, “Deutschland, Deutschland,
über alles,” all hands, with the miserable exception of the handful of
English, joining vociferously in his pæan of triumph.
Thenceforward, a further development of scurvy treatment took place.
The mate was no longer allowed access to the chronometer, or permitted
to “take the sun,” or work up the ship’s position. The log-book was
also taken from him, the young third mate given charge of his watch,
and he was made to take his meals alone in his berth. Neither he nor
the two English A.B.s were allowed to come on the poop any more, so
that they were completely in the dark as to the position of the ship
within hundreds of miles, as from never seeing the compass they could
only guess generally how she was steering. Spiritlessly the luckless
islanders wearily worried on from day to day, the butt of all their
exulting shipmates. When the Kaiser’s birthday came round, and the ship
was put _en fête_, they were bidden sarcastically to rejoice over the
change of affairs. But with the hoisting of an immense German flag at
the peak they lost all control of themselves, bursting into a fury of
passionate tears, mingled with curses upon their enemies. They were
immediately set upon by the whole crowd, and after a few minutes of
desperate fighting were overpowered, heavily ironed, and flung into
the forepeak on the coals, bruised from head to heel. Many and bitter
were their regrets as they lay on their easeless couch. Scarcely less
venomous were their curses on the fatuous folly of the rulers who had
suffered such an event as this to become possible than on their brutal
gaolers. For as Joe muttered scornfully, “Tain’t ’sif they hain’t been
told of it. It’s been drummed into their yeers long ’nough, God knows,
’n all they ever sed wuz, ‘Oh, yore ezaggeratin’. The pussentidge uv
furriners in the British mercantile marine ain’t anythin’ like so high
az you say.”
“’Seems ’bout’s high’s we want, anyway,” said Bill dreamily, while the
poor mate ground his teeth but never said a word.
What puzzled them all greatly was the length of time the ship seemed
to be getting into cold weather. From the time the cruiser spoke them,
when they were in about 15 degrees N., was now more than a month, and
with the winds they had carried they should have been running their
easting down in about 40 degrees S. But they were still in tropical
weather. At last the mate broke a long silence by saying: “I believe
he’s making for Walvisch Bay. ’Shouldn’t wonder if there’s some German
warships there or thereabouts. I only hope he _is_ trying to get there,
an’ one of our cruisers sights him. It’s about our only chance.”
Several days passed and still they were kept close prisoners in the
black, stifling hole, starving on a trifle of hard tack and water, and
sinking deeper every day into a very gulf of despair. At last, to the
practised senses of the captives, it was evident that something was
afoot. She had hove to. On deck the Deutschers were in trouble. As the
mate had surmised, they were bound for Walvisch Bay, carrying every rag
they could crowd on her, seeing that every hour they were out of port
now on this unusual course was brimful of danger. The skipper scarcely
ever left the deck, and his eyes were bleared and burning with
constant glaring through his glasses for a possible pursuer.