A Floating Home Part 14

Thus, with intervals for meals, our curious neighbour pa.s.ses his days from one end of the year to the other.

Sometimes I have had the privilege of being present at the sessions of our neighbour and the pilot. One day the pilot described the sorrows of fishermen when the stinging jelly-fish are about, for he spends an odd day at sea in a smack.

'The water's full o' they blessed ould stingin' squalders, and every time us hauls aour net that's full on 'em, and they do make me swear suthen. That ain't a mite o' use tryin' to be religious, same as if you wants to be, with them stingin' squalders abaout. They're puffect devils.'

I remember the pilot's comment on our neighbour's account of a hailstorm. 'That was a wonnerful heavy hailstorm, that was,' said our neighbour, 'and the stones was most as big as acorns. And one come and hit me on the laower part of the thumb. Lor', that did hurt suthen!'

'Well, that come a long way, yer see,' said the pilot.

Another day the pilot, who is appreciably more mobile than our neighbour, described to me an errand of mercy he had undertaken.

'I've just been daown to see pore ould George what bruk his arm last week. Yaou know him, sir, don't ye? Him what's skipper of the _Nancy_.

I wonder who'll sail she while 'is arm's a mendin'. Wonnerful venturesome fellow is George, and that's haow 'e come to do ut. He took and bought one o' they bicycles. From what I can hear of it, 'e larnt to ride that well enough same as on the flat. They what taught he to ride tould he to shorten sail same as goin' daown hills and that, and maybe 'e did. But accordin' to what I can hear of it, that bicycle took charge daown the hill just past the railway, and George den't fare to knaow what to do, so 'e reckoned that were best to thraow she up in the wind. And they picked the ould fellow out o' the ditch with his arm bruk. 'E's gettin' on well, and is all right in 'is 'ealth. The doctor's a givin' of him some of that medicine aout o' one o' they raound bottles.'

Besides his boat our neighbour owns a shed. When he applied originally to the landowner for leave to put up the shed he was refused, because the landowner feared that it would be unsightly. The negotiations that followed are a model for diplomacy.

The old man next asked that he might be allowed to haul up an ancient sieve-like boat on to the bank. To this the landowner a.s.sented--if it could be done, which he doubted.

It was done.

But at very high tides the ground underneath the overturned boat was flooded, so that gear stored there could not be kept dry. The boat was then raised bodily a foot or so from the ground by planking. After a few weeks, to make more storage room still, the old man raised the sides of his boat some three feet more and put a roof over her.

This structure escaped objection from the landowner for a year, and so the following summer the roof was removed, the sides were raised another two feet, and the roof was put on again.

This also escaped criticism. Accordingly, the following year an annexe was built on at the bows, and eventually a cement floor was laid. Now there is a water-b.u.t.t at the junction of the annexe and the main building.

We await further developments.

We made the mistake once--if, indeed, it was not an offence--of offering our neighbour some work. He explained that he had too much to do already, and referred to a particular job which he did not begin till six months later. 'No sooner do I git one job done than I sees another starin' me in the face,' he often says.

Last summer he painted the inside of his yacht, and for ten days he slept in his boat-hut on sh.o.r.e. Sundown every evening was his time for 'bunkin' up,' as he called it, and we used to make a point of asking him what time he would be up in the morning. To this he would answer: 'Abaout five or six, I reckon. Last summer I used to get up at faour sometimes. Goo to bed with the ould hens and git up along of 'em--that's the way.'

Then we would watch him retire. There is no door on hinges to his hut, but a flap which fits in the opening. He had to disappear stern first, fit the flap in the bottom of the opening, and pull the top into position with a string. He withdrew from our gaze each evening in the following order: legs, body clad in a blue jersey, white beard, red face, and straw hat.

The next morning we would always be up first, and while we were busy on deck we kept an eye open for the first trembling of the flap. Then out would come the hat, the red face, the white beard, blue body, and legs, and another day had begun for our neighbour. We thought he would have made excuses for not getting up earlier, but we soon discovered that on most days he had no idea what the time was.

At the Happy Haven our water is brought to us by cart in a canvas water-carrier, which holds two hundred gallons. One day we had a panic about one of the tanks. The water-cart had brought four loads, and still the tanks were not full. We heard a sound of running water, which we took to be the water siphoning from one tank to the other.

When I returned from London the next evening, the sound of running water continued, but there was something worse--an audible splas.h.i.+ng.

And the water in the port tank had fallen. Friends were dining with us that night, but luckily they did not expect conventional amus.e.m.e.nts; they preferred tackling leaking water-tanks to bridge.

The first thing to be done was to break the siphon between the two tanks by letting air into the pipe. After trying in vain to unscrew a joint I decided to drill a small hole in the pipe; but, using more force than skill, I broke my only drill. This meant that all the water still in the tanks--six hundred gallons--might find its way into the bilge. We pulled up a floor-board aft, and discovered that the missing water was even then nearly level with the floor. I lifted the plug aft, but the water would not run out, as the barge was sitting on soft mud, which choked the hole. Pumping is back-breaking work, and I did not intend to do that if it could be avoided. I put on sea-boots and went over the side with a boat-hook and a kind of hoe to puggle about until there was a clear way for the water to run. The difficulty was to find the hole, but the ladies held lights and called out directions while the men shoved a stick through the plug-hole. The water began to run at last, and the _Ark Royal_ was soon dry.

The next day we emptied the port tank into the bilge, and the plumber got inside through the manhole and found the hole, which by a great piece of luck was in such a position that he could mend it by removing enough of the bathroom bulkhead to allow his hand to get through. What we should have done if the hole had been out of reach we hardly dared to think.

Many of our friends have said that they would like to live in the _Ark Royal_ in the summer, but most of them boggle at the thought of the winter. To me, somehow, the contrast between the comfortable interior of our home and the rigours of the winter scene pressing close in upon us is particularly satisfying. It is very agreeable at the end of a winter's day in London to come back to the barge; to leave an office with its telephone bells, and the hubbub of the streets; to come in little more than an hour to where the lane of thorns ends at the sea-wall. The faint glow ahead comes from the _Ark Royal_. Those piping cries are the redshanks calling in the dark. As I come nearer the separate columns of light from the windows and skylights beam like searchlights. And above the blaze stands up the mast and rigging, free from all burden and strain, resting the winter through. The cheerful chimneys pour out their smoke, which, blowing darkly to leeward, turns into clouds of misty gold as it crosses the belt of yellow light.

Even in our retired creek it is a joy to know that we are on the magic road, which is all roads in the world because it leads everywhere. Of course, we shall never sail out to the back of beyond; but when on summer nights we sit on deck under the pole star, and the phosph.o.r.escent water streams past our side like molten metal, we feel that the same sea that bears us laps equatorial islands and continents.

When the _Ark Royal_ lifts to the rising tide her timbers creak as though she were asking to be free; and her voice is high or low according to the wind. At night she speaks most clearly. In measure to the wind she reminds us of peaceful driftings under still skies, or of torn sails and dragging anchors. When a gale with all the weight of winter behind it bursts in squalls through the rigging, the tiny waves of our haven rip along our sides and the lamp in the saloon swings gently. Then we know, at a safe remove, what weather there must be 'outside' if we have such tumult in here. Heaven help us if we were out in the Swin with those clean-bowed fish-carriers that are racing in from the North Sea! Let us hope that the barges that have been 'caught' have reached such anchorages as Abraham's Bosom, or the Blacktail Swatch, sheltered from clumsy steamers by the lighthouse and from the weather by the sand.

Even my insurance policy recognizes that our life is not as life on sh.o.r.e. I am 'Master under G.o.d of and in the good s.h.i.+p or vessel called the _Ark Royal_.' And the policy deals with life in a large way. For example: 'Touching the perils whereof they, the a.s.surers, are content to bear, they are of the Seas, Men of War, Fire, Pirates, Rovers, Thieves, Jettisons, Letters of Mart and Countermart, Surprisals, Takings at Sea, Arrests, Restraints and Detainments of all Kings, Princes and People of what Nation, Condition, or Quality soever, Barratry of the Master and Mariners and of all other Perils and Losses.'

Several years have we spent in the _Ark Royal_, and let it be admitted that we feel the need for more room. Once more perceive the advantage of living afloat. We can add to our establishment in units. No builders will tear down our creepers, or excavate our garden, or mix mortar on the lawn. Nor shall we suffer the horrid noise of carpenters. When our additional rooms are ready they will be floated alongside. No District Council will have a word to say about the material of the new building or the nature of the roof.

The _Overdraft_, as our first addition under the unitary system is called--a name which is nautical in sound, and suggests both the overflowing of the s.h.i.+p's company and a certain financial operation at the bank--is an old lighter thirty-five feet long with a beam of twelve feet. We are raising her sides to a height of seven feet six inches and dividing her into three compartments. There will be a sleeping-cabin at each end, and the middle room will be a workshop and playroom, fitted with a carpenter's bench and a range for both cooking and heating. If our friends in the house among the poplars give a dance we shall be able to float the _Overdraft_ along to the foot of their garden to provide extra rooms for their guests. When she lies alongside the _Ark Royal_ there will be a covered-in gangway to her entrance-door.

Some day, by the unitary system, we may add other rooms, but the only plan in the offing which seems reasonably likely to reach port soon is a scheme for electric lighting by using our head of water to drive the dynamo.

The reader may permit, however, a vision of our ultimate development.

We have often desired to own a tug--having long been strong admirers of the indescribable fussiness and importance of tugs. We should keep steam up in our tug, and use her at moorings as a central heating plant. We should offer to tow the trading barges in and out of the creek, which would be one of the best pastimes imaginable, besides bringing us many devoted friends. And then when we wanted to s.h.i.+ft our anchorage! You should just be there to see us start: first the tug, then the _Ark Royal_, then the _Overdraft_, then the other extra rooms, then the _Perhaps_, then the sailing dinghy, and lastly the duck punt. When the moment came to anchor again there would be no orders in the manner of 'Let go the 'ook, Bill,' but a dignified signal from the tug in the way described by the best of English sea songs:

'Then the signal was made for the grand fleet to anchor.'

APPENDIX

DETAILS OF THE COST OF BUYING, ALTERING, AND FITTING OUT THE _ARK ROYAL_

_s. d._

Purchase 140 0 0

Wood, match-lining, and flooring 37 17 7

Three-ply veneers 15 3 11

Insurance during alterations, 2; Registration, 1 1s.; Changing name, 3 18s. 6 19 0

Galvanizing chain, stanchions, blacksmith's work 8 15 9

Two tanks of 400 gallons each 8 0 0

Six mahogany doors and other fittings from s.h.i.+pbreaker's yard 5 4 6

Pumps, bath, w.c., heating stove for bath 13 16 7

Bra.s.s fittings, tools, and sundries 4 15 11

Paint and varnish 6 5 8

Rope 5 8 8

Disinfecting at gasworks: formaldehyde, etc. 4 2 6