WHEN the Christmas holidays are over, and pantomimes and parties are
cleared away, there is usually a marked revival in a sport that has
languished during those exciting weeks. A child who wished to play at
boats, when the air was full of the smell of tangerine oranges and the
glamour of the footlights, would not be tolerated in any decent
schoolroom. But with the reappearance of lessons there comes a sudden
demand for walnut-shells and sealing-wax, and bath-night, a thing
undesirable while the house is noisy with new tunes, becomes the cause of
rivalry and passionate argument.
So at least it fell in the days when childhood was more than the kernel
of an article. The first symptom of the new movement was an eager
interest in dessert. We would entreat the Olympians to forego
nut-crackers and to use our new Christmas pocket-knives for the purpose
of opening their walnuts, and we would regard the results with a keen and
professional eye. Were they destined to be clippers, yachts notable in
history, or mere utilitarian tubs to be laden with tipsy tin-soldiers and
sunk ignominiously by brass cannon? We were all naval experts and our
judgments were not often wrong. But even if a walnut-shell had the right
racing lines, there remained the delicate operation of stepping the mast.
The “blob” of sealing-wax had to be dropped in exactly the right place,
and the whittled safety-match that served for a mast must be truly
perpendicular or the craft would be lopsided. The paper sail was as
large as safety would permit.
There followed regattas in a basin filled to the brim with water. The
yachts raced from one side to the other, and some one, assumed neutral,
blew with a level breath across the flood to supply the necessary wind.
The reward of victory was a little coloured flag that was gummed to the
sail of the successful boat. On a memorable day my _Swallow_ beat a
hitherto undefeated champion in my eldest brother’s _Irene_, a result the
more astonishing that Irene’s owner was himself filling the rôle of
Æolus. I am glad to think it was Irene that was flung out of the window.
Apart from these classic contests there were secret trials and naval
reviews in private waters, and that intimate kind of navigation that took
place in one’s bath. This last was spiced with an agreeable element of
risk, for a rash movement would send the whole fleet to the bottom of the
sea; but at the same time in no other way could an admiral have the
elements so much under his control. Like Neptune, he could raise a storm
at will, and when the ships had battled gallantly against terrible waves
and icebergs of patent soap, a pair of pink feet would rise above the
surface of the ocean, and the Fortunate Islands would greet the tired
eyes of the mariners. It is a fine thing to sail about the world, but it
is very good to be at home.
Later on, as the weather grew warmer, we indulged in more adventurous,
and let it be admitted, more enjoyable, sport. Walnut boats and paper
junks ballasted with shot might be well enough for the cold months or wet
afternoons, but when the summer called us out to play, our ambitious
hearts desired weightier craft than these. Then the yachts that uncles
had given us, which had been cruising peacefully on the playroom floor
during the indoor weeks, were brought out and considered in their new
aspect. There was always something at once thrilling and disappointing
about these stately ships. The height of their masts, the intricacy of
their rigging, and the little lines that marked the planks of their deck,
filled us with pride, and made us seek the nearest pond with quick,
elated steps. But these things might be as well admired indoors, and
somehow these boats never sailed as well on any wakeful pond as they did
on the waters of our dreams. There they were for ever tossing on the
crests of enormous waves, and all night long their great masts went
crashing by the board; but on Pickhurst Pond they behaved with a staid
monotony, and while we and the boats of our hands had as many moods as
the spring, these official craft were content to perform their business
of sailing with the conscientious precision of grown-up persons.
There was more to be said for the modest sort of boat you would buy for
sixpence or a shilling. They had a useless mast and sail (the boat
capsized if you set it), seats that were annoying but easily removed, and
sometimes, as a crowning piece of Philistinism, oars! We would have
scorned to give a moment’s consideration to a rowing boat at any time.
We wanted only craft that were fit to cruise with equal adroitness on
boundless oceans and unhealthy tropic rivers, and, lacking a hold, where
should we keep the rum and the pieces of eight? But if you threw away
everything but the bare hull, and painted that black, you had a very
sound basis for sensible boat-building. A tin railway carriage would
make a cabin, a wooden brick the quarter-deck, and if you could find some
lead for the keel you might give the vessel a real mast with which to
strike the southern stars.
But, after all, the best boats were the boats we built entirely
ourselves. Our favourite materials were corks, empty match-boxes, and
such wood as lies within the scope of a pocket-knife, and we would drive
tintacks into the craft until it looked like a nursery cake, crowned with
burnt currants. The resulting ships varied as to shape and size, but
could be trusted to conduct themselves in the water with a charming
eccentricity. Sometimes they seemed to skim the waves like birds,
sometimes the water leaped through them with a laugh, and they sank down
to join the minnows and the pebbles at the bottom of the stream. In the
latter case the owner would lie flat on the bank with a sharp stone
pressing into his chest, and feel for the lost craft in the cold,
slippery waters; for the rest of the morning his shirt-sleeve would cling
damply to his skin, while the assembled experts considered the failure
and made acute suggestions.
The stream—we called it a river—on which we sailed these ships passed in
its cheerful course through an iron pipe, and sometimes a vessel that had
disappeared merrily under the dark arch would be seen no more of our
eyes, though we waited at the other end of the passage perilous until our
bodies grew chill in our sailor suits, and the mists came rolling up from
the water-meadows. It was easy to crouch down by the mouth of the pipe,
and hear the water lap-lapping in the dark against the echoing sides of
the tunnel, but our ears could tell us nothing, and as we went home we
would speculate in whispers as to the fate of the missing vessel. Had it
foundered on some treacherous rock, or was there some mysterious outlet
unknown to man, through which it had escaped us? Even while we spoke it
might be nodding on merrily towards the night and the stars, through a
new, strange country that no one could find in daylight fashion.
In truth, there was no game like this, appealing alike to mind and body,
and fraught with surprises and enchanting side-issues of play. We might
launch our vessel at dawn for Babylon, and night would find it dreaming
by some South Sea isle, or lying a shattered wreck on the coast of
Brazil.
Doubtless to the grown-up observer, who had seen the great sea dotted
with little ships, our gutter mishaps and adventures on puddles were of
small importance. But as becomes the children of an island race, we
played this game with a strange earnestness, and though our boats were
small, we knew that they were large enough for little boys to go roaming
in through the long day. And that was all that mattered.