A Floating Home Part 5

This time the _Will Arding_ was on the blocks, and a gang of men had burned off the old tar and were busy tarring and blackleading her hull; her gear had been lowered, and our friend the owner was having a new topmast fitted to make all good. He had also turned his men on to replace a length of damaged rail. That was not the only thing which he did for us outside our agreement. Soon, indeed, he became almost as much interested in our scheme as we were ourselves, and we consulted him at almost every turn.

While the repairs were going on we completed the purchase; and we were profoundly conscious of the importance of the formalities which const.i.tuted us the recognized owners of 'sixty-four sixty-fourths' of the sailing barge _Will Arding_, with a registered number of our own.

Well, we were shipowners at any rate, and possessed the outer walls of our new home. And now the Mate and I found ourselves faced with a thousand unforeseen difficulties and problems, which crowded on us so thick that we scarcely knew where to begin to tackle them. This state of affairs compelled the drafting of rules of procedure, the chairman (myself) refusing motions on any point not mentioned in the agenda.

Members of the Committee (the Mate) were allowed to make notes during the authorized debates on subjects to be referred to in the time set apart for general discussion. In this way our sanity was saved.

The first and most important thing was to disinfect the ship. And here the luck was with us, for next door to the yard where the _Will Arding_ lay were some gas-works, the manager of which was a friend of the _Will Arding's_ late owner. Our requirements were disclosed to the manager, who not only told us what disinfectant to use, but most kindly offered to have it mixed in the right proportions in one of his boilers at a nominal cost. From the boiler it could be discharged direct under pressure into the _Will Arding_. After consultation we decided to have holes drilled through the lining of the hold at regular intervals. When this had been done the _Will Arding_ was berthed as near as possible to the boiler.

Eighty gallons of neat disinfectant were mixed with 800 gallons of boiling water, a hose was laid on board, and the fluid was squirted into each of the holes. By the time the last gallon was on board the disinfectant was just above the floor, but the bubbles of foam reached to the decks. This process caused intense curiosity in the yard, and there were many croakers who told us that we should never get her sweet.

The barge returned to the yard, where the various repairs went on for several days. In the meantime, being in the best market of the world, we bought the timber, panelling, bath, kitchen range, a hundredweight of nails, paint, varnish, hot-water apparatus, and the hundred and one other things we required to turn the barge into a tenantable house.

Now we enjoyed the advantage of all our work in the winter, for we had drawn up precise lists of the things to be bought.

We look back on those purchases with delight. It gives one a sense of real contact with the business of life to ask for the price of something f.o.b. London, on board one's own ship, and to order the goods to be sent to such and such a wharf to the sailing barge _Will Arding_. The summit of dignity was reached when I was able to tell a dealer, who was late in delivering his goods, that my ship with her general cargo on board was waiting to sail, and that if his goods were not on board that afternoon they would have to be sent by rail at his expense.

At last the repairs were finished, the general cargo was complete, and the hatches were on. As nothing would induce me to sleep in the cabin until it had been wholly cleaned, I decided not to sail the _Will Arding_ to the Ess.e.x coast myself, but to have her delivered at the shipwright's at Bridgend--a place a few miles below Fleetwick on our river.

We saw the _Will Arding_ get under way. She had improved vastly in appearance. The tide was on the turn, and the wind westerly; great clouds sailed across the sky. It was a brave wind with a touch of spring in it, and it made the _Will Arding's_ topsail slat furiously as the mate hoisted it to the music of the patent blocks. The brails were let go, the mainsail was sheeted home; both men went forward, and then the clank, clank, clank of the windla.s.s fell on our ears with the sound we knew so well both by day and night. The chain was soon 'up and down,' and the foresail was hoisted and made fast to the rigging with a bowline. The _Will Arding_ sheered slowly towards us with her sails full until the anchor checked her. Then swinging slowly round she came head to wind, her mainsail and foresail flapping loudly, and the mainsheet blocks crashing backwards and forwards on the main horse. When the foresail was aback the anchor was quickly broken out, and the barge filled on the other tack and gathered way.

We watched her standing over towards the opposite sh.o.r.e, until the mate got the anchor catted. Then bearing away with her great sprit right off and a white wave under her fore-foot, our home fled down the river.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRADWELL CREEK]

CHAPTER VII

_Chantyman._ Leave her, Johnny, and we'll work no more.

_Chorus._ Leave her, Johnny, leave her!

_Chantyman._ Of pump or drown we've had full store.

_Chorus._ It's time for us to leave her.

The wind hung mostly west and south, and was southerly enough at the end to make the _Will Arding's_ pa.s.sage a fast one, and bring her early on the tide to Bridgend. There by noon next day we were looking seaward with our gla.s.ses. Shortly after that time two specks appeared beyond the river's mouth, and long before they reached the point took shape and became two barges. End on they came, heeling like one to the spanking breeze; another half an hour would bring them to us.

The _Will Arding_ was one of them, and we rowed off to her, and with a thrill watched her shoot up into the wind, while the mate let go her anchor. Three hours later she was berthed on the blocks.

The shipwrights nominally started work the next day, and I actually did so. I came by train in the mornings from Fleetwick and returned home in the evenings. The first job was to raise the limber boards and clean the barge out as far as we could reach, for hundreds of cargoes had driven their contributions of dust through the cracks in the flooring, and the dust, mixed with the bilge water, had formed a black ooze. It was one of the dirtiest jobs imaginable, and while it lasted my appearance as I went home in the evenings was so disreputable that often I was not recognized by acquaintances. An ardent Salvation Army man whom I met every day began to cast longing eyes on me.

After the cleaning, the _Will Arding_ was tarred throughout inside, and then my thoughts turned to the cabin aft, for I sorely wanted a place where I could have my meals and keep my tools. Accordingly I cut a doorway in the bulkhead between the hold and the cabin.

In removing the late crew's bedding I came across an insect I had never seen before. Yet I knew what it was by the instinct that is said to guide men unerringly in those peculiar crises--like death--in which experience is wanting. _Nomen infandum!_ To think that the creature dared to be in my ship! And then the dread a.s.sailed me that it was not likely to be the only one. Should we ever get rid of them? What would the Mate say? Had we spent all this money and trouble only to provide a breeding-ground for this horrible hemipterous tribe? I believe that I trembled. I was sick with disgust.

What I should have done, had I been a strict Buddhist, I know not, but what I did was to burn sulphur candles, gut the cabin of every vestige of wood, and subject each piece removed to the flame of a blow-lamp, while repeating to myself a kind of fierce incantation: 'Let none of them escape me.' After that I squirted the whole place with a powerful disinfectant, then put on black varnish, then lime-wash over the black varnish, and as a final precaution I had the cabin sprayed with formaldehyde. As a matter of fact, the gutting must have destroyed everything, but I did not mean to take any risks.

When my peace of mind was restored, I proceeded to match-line the hold throughout.

All this time the shipwright, in spite of promises of the most binding order, was not getting on with his work. At the end of each week he would promise to put a hand on 'in the forepart of the week'; and at the beginning of each week he would promise again for 'the latter part of the week.' I kept chasing him and worrying him, and this distressing occupation seriously interfered with my own work.

Moreover, it became increasingly difficult to find him, for he instructed a small boy on the quay to report my appearance on deck. I bought the boy off with sweets, and told the shipwright what I thought about him and his promises, while he scratched his head like an Oriental tranquilly contemplating the decrees of destiny.

The next move on the old man's part was to lend me an apprentice--this with the twofold object of keeping me quiet by rendering me help, and providing a messenger and intermediary who could be trusted never to find him. The old man's idea of business was never to refuse work, and to do enough of each job to make it impossible for a vessel to be taken away. For the rest he trusted to his excuses and his customers'

short memories to set things right.

It ought to be said that his excuses were not ordinary excuses. He was always the victim, and never the master, of his own actions. He seemed to think that this inversion of the normal course of things had only to be stated to be perfectly satisfactory to his customers. On one occasion he doubled the decks of a yacht belonging to a neighbour of ours. When the work was done, the owner found a thicket of nails sticking out under the decks in his cabin. He indignantly asked for an explanation. The old man scratched his head and turned to his son.

'They was ordin'ry deck nails, warn't they, Tom?'

'Yes, yes,' said Tom dutifully.

'But d.a.m.n it all, look at my cabin!'

'They was ordin'ry deck nails,' the old man said again, and added, 'Well, to tell yaou the truth, sir, them blessed ould decks was too thin.'

At last I presented the shipwright with an ultimatum, to which he replied by putting a wheelwright on to my work, and a worse workman in a ship I never came across. It was already six weeks after the date on which the _Will Arding_ was to have been finished, and I now went on strike. The rest of the work, I decided, should be done at home eight miles farther up the river.

As ill luck would have it, it was blowing the better part of a gale the next day, the wind being on sh.o.r.e and a trifle down the river. In the yard it was said that the barge could not be moved. However, at that time I knew more about shipwrights' excuses and less about barges than I do now, and I insisted that she should go, whatever the weather.

'That ain't fit for she to goo,' the old man kept saying. He was right, but I was firm. And he, for his part, having spent his life in measuring human patience, knew when it was impossible to hold out any longer. So he gave orders for his men to get the _Will Arding_ off the blocks. I cleared out of the way half a dozen dinghies, which she might foul as she came off.

It certainly was a wild day; the wind shrieked in the rigging, the waves curled and broke against the quay, the little boats close in sh.o.r.e pitched and jarred, throwing the spray from them, and the masts of the smacks and yachts in the anchorage waved jerkily against the racing sky. There was no time to be lost, for the barge had to be got off while the tide was still flowing, or not at all. An ex-bargeman was in charge, and four hands helped on board. At the last moment it was found that a new mainsheet was wanted, and this delayed us, but we still had just enough time. The topsail slatted so fiercely as it was hoisted that it had to be half dropped again until the squall pa.s.sed.

The mainsail, half set, banged noisily and the mainsheet blocks lashed terrifically to and fro. As the foresail filled and the head paid off the anchor was broken out, and happily the barge quickly gathered way, for under her lee was a ma.s.s of small boats that I had not been able to move. Had she sagged appreciably to leeward she would have swept them all.

The start was a truly exhilarating affair, more like that of a young horse driven for the first time, and bolting down a crowded street, than of an experienced barge getting under way. The sails were only half set and slatting angrily; the running gear, from long disuse, was all over the place; one gaunt figure like a Viking, with blue eyes and long fair hair streaming in the wind, stood in the bows bawling which way to steer; another man amidships shouted the orders on to the helmsman; and thus, with two men at the wheel, the _Will Arding_ with a foaming wake tore headlong through the small craft. She sailed right over one dinghy, but luckily did not hurt it. Several times my heart was in my mouth, for in that packed anchorage we might have done enormous damage.

My tongue became less dry as the risks decreased, and never did the shout, 'Shove her raound!' fall with a more welcome sound on my ears than when, clear to windward of the anch.o.r.ed fleet, the _Will Arding_ swung round on the other tack and stood up the empty river. I would not undertake that dash again to-day. One of the helmsmen remarked, 'I reckon that skeert some o' they little bo'ts to see us thriddlin'

among 'em. That wind's suthen tetchy to-day t'ain't 'ardly safe, same as goin' as us did.'

At the end of the reach I dropped all my helpers, except one hand, who remained on board as watchman. As the tide had turned I anch.o.r.ed, was put on sh.o.r.e, and went home by train.

The next day the Mate and the hand and I brought the _Will Arding_ up the rest of the way to Fleetwick and berthed her. She now lay within a short walk of our cottage. Labour, though not skilled carpenter's labour, was to be got easily enough. It would, at all events, be prompt and willing work. I had left professional a.s.sistance behind, but I felt nearly sure that we should make better progress at Fleetwick; and I even ventured to think that the quality of our carpentering might not shame us after all.

CHAPTER VIII

'Ah! what a wondrous thing it is To note how many wheels of toil One thought, one word, can set in motion!

There's not a ship that sails the ocean, But every climate, every soil, Must bring its tribute, great or small, And help to build the wooden wall!'

It was a curious thing that the greatest of the advantages of living in a barge disclosed itself unexpectedly. When we made up our minds to buy a barge I was free to live where I pleased, but shortly after we had bought her I received an offer of an appointment which would require me to be in London every day. I could not afford to refuse this appointment, and we reflected what a pretty mess we should have been in if we had taken a house in the town where we had intended to send the boys to school. We should have had to get rid of the lease of the house, and probably have lost a good deal of money in the transaction. As it was, we had only to withdraw the boys' names from the school, choose another school within striking distance of London, and anchor our barge fairly near a railway station from which I could travel daily to London. The change of plan cost us nothing.

My work in London was to begin in September, but when I found it impossible to finish the barge in time, I applied for a month's postponement, and the partners in the firm, who were yachtsmen, admitted the propriety of my request and granted it like sportsmen.

The barge had now to be completed at breakneck speed. The haste robbed the entertaining labour of part of its joy; still, we experienced a good deal of that satisfaction which is presumably enjoyed in primitive societies where every man builds his own house and goes hunting for his dinner.

We could bicycle from our cottage to the quay at Fleetwick in five minutes. I engaged to help me two handy men: Tom, a sailor, and Harry, a landsman, both, like myself, rough carpenters. Of course, everyone in the place came to see the _Will Arding_; never before had there been so many loiterers on the quay. People came on board so freely to watch the floating house daily grow into shape under our hands that I grew expert at mechanically repeating my explanations with nails in my mouth while I kept to my work.