A Little Fleet Part 1

A Little Fleet.

by Jack B. Yeats.

A LITTLE FLEET

The following account of the Fleet, and of the various histories of the voyages of the vessels which compose it, has been written out by me at the request of the owners. I have also made for them the drawings and the chart which ill.u.s.trate the account.

The owners of this small merchant fleet had nowhere else handy to float their vessels in than the small and winding Gara river and a very small pond; the vessels when upon the river drove along with the stream, their sails, when they had any, only being of use to get them out of bad places, except occasionally when the current ran slowly; then, with a fair wind, the "Pasear" and the "Monte," at any rate, would walk along at a fine pace.

Long, light sticks were carried to steer the ships round dangerous corners, and through narrow and difficult channels like the Two Snags; and when I say she steered this way, or her skipper took such a course, you will understand it is just put that way because it sounds better.

The two longest voyages were those of the "Theodore" and the "Pasear,"

both of which vessels travelled about a mile along the river. The owners think that any other little boys who live near a stream sufficiently deep to float ships drawing so little water might like to follow their example and build a fleet, therefore I am to tell you how each vessel was built, as well as the story of its voyage.

The chart shows the winding river down which the clippers voyaged, and on it are marked the various snags, rapids, and other dangers.

JACK B. YEATS, _Gara River_.

THE "MONTE"

The "Monte" was the first of our vessels, and was made out of a flat piece of wood about five inches long, shaped at one end for the bow. She had two masts of very thin wood, and was rigged as a fore and aft schooner with paper sails, which had holes in them so as to fasten them to the masts.

She had a stone underneath her to keep her upright, and a piece of string tied round her, amidships, to keep on the stone. In the picture the stone is shown through the water, so that you can see how it was fastened on, but it did not really show like that.

THE "MONTE'S" VOYAGE

She started from No Name Strait with wind and tide; it was blowing a gale at the time--of course you will understand that it was not blowing a gale _to us_, but in proportion to the size of her, it must have been a gale to _her_.

She kept her course toward the land, going by the Round Channel, as we had not then discovered the pa.s.sage through the Two Snags she then put her helm to port and bore away for mid-stream to avoid the nifty Snags that lie at the foot of the bluff called Pirate's Leap, called that because a poet who had been a pirate, I expect, was thinking about a poem when he ought to have been shoving the vessel off the rocks, and so he fell in.

The "Monte" then put her head south-west by south, half south, a little southerly, sir, and tried to make the current called the Bully Bowline, but she kept too far to the west'ard, and so she got caught by the other current, the wrong one, called the Blackwall Hitch. The "Monte's"

skipper got excited then, and tried to cross the middle of the river, but she dashed round in the current under the cliffs, and was only saved by very good steering from running straight into the very dangerous snags called the Bad Snags.

However, she weathered them and dashed on over the Marbley Shallows; we called them that because the stones under the water used to roll along like a lot of little marbles. She kept a fine course from that on, and went at a great pace, about fifteen knots; once she stuck her nose in the bank, but the sails swung her round, so on she went and ran beautifully into Safety Cove. But, like a silly, her skipper came out of it again before we could tell him not to, and hit against, oh! such a nasty rock; it heaved her on her beamends, and then she turned very slowly round until her masts and sails were underneath, and her stone keel on top. And that was the end of her.

This was what the Pirate Poet made about her:

And now by Gara rushes, When stars are blinking white; And sleep has stilled the thrushes, And sunset brings the night;

There, where the stones are gleamin', A pa.s.ser-by can hark To the old drowned "Monte" seamen A-singing through the dark.

There, where the gnats are pesky, They sing like anything; They sing like Jean de Reszke, This is the song they sing:

Down in the pebbled ridges Our old bones sing and shout; We see the dancing midges, We feel the skipping trout.

Our bones are green and weeded, Our bones are old and wet; But the n.o.ble deeds that we did We never can forget.

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THE "MOBY d.i.c.k"

She sailed down Gara Valley, She startled all the cows; With touchwood in her galley, And green paint round her bows.

The "Moby d.i.c.k" was supposed to be a Mississippi River steamboat; she was built out of a flat piece of board almost fourteen inches long and six inches broad; on top of that she had a cardboard box with cabin windows drawn on it, and she had cardboard paddle-boxes with her name painted on them with ink; she also had an eagle painted on her deck-house. Inside her deck-house there was a cocoa tin with a cardboard funnel coming out of the top of it. The tin was there so that we could make a fire in it of paper and touchwood. At first, when we made our fire, it would not burn because there was no draught, so we made a large hole in front of the deck-house and another one abaft, also holes in the side of the cocoa tin; that made a draught, and then you should have seen the smoke coming out of her funnel!

THE FIRST VOYAGE OF THE "MOBY d.i.c.k"

She started from No Name Straits, but she had to put back again because her fire was not burning, so we stirred it up a bit and put in some more dry touchwood, then it smoked fine, and we let her go.

She was going the Round Channel when her Mate sung out to the Captain:

"She'll go through the Two Snags!"

"She'll never do it!" shouted the Captain.

"Let's try her!" yelled the Mate.

"Go ahead!" roared the Captain, and the Mate shoved the helm hard up, and she slid through without touching anywhere.

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_And so the "Moby d.i.c.k" was the first to use the Two Snags Pa.s.sage._ Since then all our vessels have used it.

After she had pa.s.sed through she bore away towards the easterly sh.o.r.e, and went easily along with the Bully Bowline current; but as she was not smoking properly, her Captain gave orders to beach her on Treasure Beach (we called it that name because it looked just the sort of beach pirates would choose to bury treasure in). When she came ash.o.r.e we stirred up her furnace until it burnt magnificently, then we shoved her off again, and she looked really great as her smoke and herself were both reflected in the water as clear as anything. She then continued her voyage over the Marbley Shallows on to Safety Cove.

The "Moby d.i.c.k" did so well that run that we thought we would send her down the river again at once, and we _did_ send her down, and no mistake, because we put an anchor on her stern, with lots of cable, and just when she was going through No Name Straits she let go her anchor, because we wanted to see how she would look when it brought her up all standing.

Well, she dragged her anchor for a few yards until it caught in a weed, and what did she do but get pulled right down to the bottom of the river, the stream was too strong for her.

She came to flying anchor At the twilight time of day, But the strain on the cable sank her, And her crew, oh, where were they?