Probably Henty never so much enjoyed release from his workshop study as
when he could get on board his yacht, the _Egret_. He was especially
fond of this boat, which was really a most comfortable vessel, not built
upon racing lines, but somewhat reminding one of the small cruising
schooners which were fashionable at Cowes in the sixties and early
seventies.
He had an honest, plain-spoken skipper and crew, who knew their business
thoroughly, and they evidently looked upon the owner as more of a friend
than a captain. One of his favourite cruising-grounds was the estuary
of the Thames. The yacht would sometimes lie off Leigh, and sometimes
up the Medway. The locality is not one which many other yachtsmen would
choose, for there are shoals and tidal eccentricities that require a
watchful eye. Owner and skipper, however, knew every inch of that broad
waterway.
Henty's cabin lay aft, and was well lighted from the deck. It was
thoroughly roomy, and by an ingenious contrivance the luxury of a bath
could at any time be indulged in, through merely lifting a panel from
the floor.
To see Henty at his most peaceful stage was to watch him lying back high
upon the pillows on the deck of his yacht reading some favourite author.
This would generally be an old friend, for like many another, he was
fond of renewing his acquaintance with writers who had attracted him in
the years gone by.
The galley was in charge of a good substantial sea cook, who could turn
out a plain meal that was sufficient for any reasonable man's wants,
though it need not be explained in detail that in the appointments of
the state rooms and main cabin table there was no affectation of luxury.
The yacht would be always well provisioned with joints that not only
admitted, but invited a cut-and-come-again principle.
Of course, everybody who knew Henty could, all his life through, testify
to his perfect abstemiousness. In fact, one has known many instances in
which the serious warning spoken by Henty to young colleagues, who were
with him on journalistic expeditions, saved them from much mischief. He
would deliver his little lecture on a weakness which he had noticed, and
invariably finish with, "Pardon me for being so free, old chap, but if
you take my advice you will watch it."
Except when he went across the North Sea, the yachting cruises were of
fairly long week-end duration, but sooner or later the yacht would be
passing in review whatever naval operations were on the way at
Sheerness, while a favourite mooring for the night was up towards
Chatham at a spot where there was a wood on the northern bank.
Henty always seemed to the manner born when on board his yacht, and an
early cup of coffee, in pyjamas on deck, sometimes not a great while
after sunrise, was invariably indulged in. This was followed, of
course, by the faithful pipe, which, indeed, was in constant action from
morning to night.
He was a man who used to attribute his good health and spirits as much
to his yacht as to anything in the world, and more than once his
friends, in commenting upon his love for the sea, have declared that no
better representative of the old sea kings of England could have been
seen afloat than George Alfred Henty. No one really saw him at his best
who did not see him in rough weather, bare-headed, with the wind
whistling through his grey hair, and the foam torn from the waves
bedewing his big beard and making his sun-tanned, bronzed visage
glisten, as he stood at the wheel, firm of aspect, gazing defiantly
before him in a kind of rapture, and thoroughly enjoying life the while
he ploughed the waves. If any endorsement of this were needed by the
reader who never met the subject face to face, let him turn to the
photograph showing Henty reading the proofs of his last book aboard his
yacht. The portrait was taken not long before his death, and gives a
far better idea to the reader of the big, bluff, sturdy war
correspondent than would pages of writing.
For he was born to be a sailor, and the wonder is that he did not
develop into being the captain of some great liner, instead of a wielder
of the pen. One striking phase in his character that was developed in
his yachting pursuits was that, though he thoroughly enjoyed inviting
and having the company of some old friend on board, to whom he was the
most genial and hospitable of hosts, he was yet perfectly happy when
alone with his crew. At such times he would carry out various
manoeuvres, and quite contentedly occupy himself with his own thoughts.
One man will make friend and companion of a faithful dog; another is
never more content than when he is with his horse. To Henty, from quite
early in life, his yacht took the place of some living sentient being--
his yacht and its movement, whether driven forward under the pressure of
a light breeze, or throbbing beneath his feet as it bounded and leaped
from wave to wave in a gale. For he was no smooth-water sailor, but had
grown into a hardened and masterly mariner, who thoroughly understood
the varied caprices of the deep.
He would generally manage to be afloat somewhere about Easter, for a few
days each week, cruising, as has been said, about the mouth of the
Thames, and once in a way he would shoot across to Heligoland for the
Emperor's Cup race. He seldom studied much about the weather so long as
he could be well afloat; though at times he would encounter a furious
gale out in the open sea, and get what he himself termed a thorough good
knocking about.
He related to a friend that upon one occasion he passed through a
fearful gale, with the force of the wind so great that he and his crew
ran two hundred and sixty knots in twenty-seven hours, putting in at
Harwich without shipping a bucket of water in the run home.
One of Henty's greatest regrets when the weather was fairly fine was
that his literary avocations prevented him from being oftener afloat.
This was especially the case at times when there was war or rumour of
war, for then he would be on duty at the _Standard_ waiting for the
brief telegrams that came in at all hours from Reuter's and elsewhere.
These were brought to him, as before mentioned, to be expanded from
their key-like brevity into plain straightforward reading for the
printers to set up.
As already stated, in this favourite pursuit of yachting Henty heartily
enjoyed the companionship of friends who liked the sea, but at the same
time if men of similar tastes did not present themselves, he was well
content to be alone. A thoroughly social man, he had his own strong
ideas upon companionship. He set limits to such a means of enjoyment,
and he could speak out very strongly against excursion trips in which he
was asked to take part. "I like to see things," he said. "I like to go
into the country on a little trip to see some object of interest, or to
pay a visit to some historic town, but I don't like these excursion
trips, and I won't go!" Alluding to the parties of "trippers" so
numerous in summer weather, who make our railway stations unpleasant for
those who wish to travel, he denounced them in the most forcible way.
"I like to go," he said, "with a few fellows in a friendly way. What I
object to is going in a mob." In plain English, it touched Henty's
pride to visit some excursionist haunt where he felt that his party
would be classed as bean-feasters, or what is known as the members of a
wayzgoose, and he resented the whole position as unworthy of the dignity
of a literary man.
Henty's love of yachting began early in life, when he was holding a
commission in the army and stationed at Kingstown, where he owned a
ten-tonner called _The Pet_. It was his first craft, and very nearly
proved to be his last, for upon one occasion he had been out sailing
with his little crew for some distance, and had the misfortune to be
caught in a heavy gale, which gave him and his men a very severe lesson
in seamanship. There was a tremendous sea, and before they were able to
make the harbour, and anchor, their position was so perilous that a huge
crowd collected, in momentary expectation of seeing the yacht go down,
for it was impossible for her crew to land.
To make matters worse, and to add to the excitement, the officer's young
wife was one of those who joined the crowd, and she kept appealing in
her agony of mind to the seagoing men around to save her husband's life.
Finally a boat was manned by a sturdy party, and with great difficulty
the little crew were brought ashore in safety. This was early in the
sixties, and after that, enthusiastic yachtsman though he was, his
avocations and absence from England put a stop to his seagoing till
about 1887, when, opportunity serving, he bought an old life-boat and
converted her into a yacht. The buoyancy of her build attracted him,
and for some years this little thirteen-ton vessel, the _Kittiwake_ as
he called her (and well did she deserve her name), afforded him a long
series of pleasant runs.
But previous to owning the _Kittiwake_ Henty became possessed of a small
half-decked canoe, which afforded him an opportunity of bringing to bear
that inventive genius which at different periods of his career had
induced him to try his hand at various contrivances, any one of which
might have brought him fame and fortune such as came to a fellow-member
of his club in connection with a torpedo that was taken over by the
British government. At one time he constructed a spar torpedo. This
was during the American Civil War, and upon its completion he offered it
to the United States authorities. Another of his ideas, also of a
warlike character, was an invention the necessity of which he had
probably seen practically demonstrated. This was a contrivance for the
practice of long-range firing where opportunity did not serve, that is
to say, in a limited space of ground. By means of Henty's arrangement,
practice up to a thousand or twelve hundred yards range could be
indulged in, though only eighty to a hundred yards were available. When
finished, he offered the result to our own War Office, but, strange to
relate, this outcome of long and careful thought was allowed to join the
limbo of thousands of other inventions, good, bad, and indifferent, for
it was not accepted. He laid no more of his ideas before boards for
consideration, but after this devoted himself to his half-decked canoe,
which was tinkered and altered about in a pursuit which always afforded
him intense gratification. It filled a gap while he was waiting, and
toiling hard, to place himself in a position in which he could, without
pinching, purchase for himself an _Egret_--a yacht which he could enter
for an emperor's cup. Journalists who marry, and have sons to push
forward in the world, and who also have to meet ordinary expenses, have
not much money to waste, even if they are successful war correspondents.
Henty's yachting desires, therefore, for a long time were not wholly
gratified, and he had to occupy himself with the pen, which
industriously built up the long series of books that made his name so
well known to the rising generation. Nevertheless his yachting moved by
degrees, and he gave full vent to his inventive powers with this little
half-decked canoe. First, after much study, he lengthened her, to find
most probably that she was now what a sailor would call "crank." To
meet this difficulty, he took a lesson from the naive and clever notions
of the canoe-sailers of the South Seas, and fitted on outriggers with
gratings on the outrigger spars. His boat was then a great success when
used for sailing about the mouth of the Thames, for the scheme answered
admirably, and he was very proud of offering a sail therein to a friend
or brother journalist or editor. Still not content with his conversion,
and doubtless incited thereto by the leeway his little craft made, he
added to it what is known amongst boating men as a centre-board--a very
unusual addition this to a canoe--namely, a deep keel, which acted after
the fashion of the lee-boards of a Thames barge.
His ambition growing, he next bought the _Dream_, a thirty-two ton yawl.
But Henty was no dreamer, and he changed her name to the _Meerschaum_,
not after his pipe, but because of his love of sending her careening
over and through the sea foam.
The _Meerschaum_ only satisfied his desires, though, for about three
years, when he purchased a vessel better worthy of his attention as an
enthusiastic yachtsman, in the shape of the before-mentioned _Egret_, an
eighty-three ton schooner. This boat he sailed with a skilful crew for
years, indulging now and then in a handicap in the Corinthian or the
Thames Yacht Club, of both of which, as well as of the Medway Club, he
was a member.
He had various cups to show as the reward of his prowess. One of these,
a handsome trophy, of which he was very proud, he would display to his
friends with sparkling eyes, though the modest nature of the man stepped
in at once as he hastened to say, "That was won by my men of the _Egret_
at Cowes. They had the money prize, and out of it purchased this cup
for me,"--a little fact this which clearly showed the friendly feeling
existing between skipper and crew. The ambition to win what would be
looked upon as a greater prize was shown more than once in his crossing
the North Sea to enter the lists for the German Emperor's Cup. On one
occasion so brave a fight was made that the _Egret_ would have proved
the winner had not fate been against her; she was ready to battle with
the sea no matter how rough, but was helpless when the wind failed, and
this was what happened, to her owner's intense disappointment.
A propos of prize cups, the sideboard in Henty's museum-like study had a
pretty good display of silver trophies, many of which were the prizes
won during the time when he was a member of the London Rowing Club,
where his broad, deep chest, heavy muscles, long reach, and powers of
endurance made him a formidable competitor. And it was in this club,
oddly enough, that he first made the acquaintance of Mr J.P. Griffith,
who, being a very rapid scribe, became the amanuensis and writer to whom
he dictated every one of the books which, calf bound, all _en suite_,
made such an imposing show on the shelves of one large book-case.
In the summer of 1897, the Diamond Jubilee year, it fell to Henty's lot
to describe for the _Standard_ the passing of the procession along the
Piccadilly portion of the route, while a fellow correspondent for the
_Standard_, Mr Bloundelle Burton, described the Queen's journey along
the Strand. This gentleman in the same year was acting as correspondent
on board one of our battleships at the Naval Review off Portsmouth, and
Henty, taking advantage of his position as a yacht owner, stationed the
_Egret_ off the Isle of Wight, and there in hospitable fashion kept
"open house" for his friends.
He took a very keen and wholly natural pride in this graceful yacht, the
_Egret_, perhaps because in acquiring her he pretty well reached the
height of his ambition. He liked to talk about her prowess in sailing,
which he modestly veiled by setting it down to the skill of his men.
But his pride in the _Egret_ when she walked the waters like a thing of
life, shone out of his eyes, and he did what he could to make her fame
lasting by having her photographed. The accompanying admirable
representation, which was taken for him by Messrs. Kirk and Son, of
Cowes, shows the little yacht running free before a brisk breeze off the
coast of the Isle of Wight.