A great merit of a barge as a house is that when she is ‘light,’ or almost ‘light,’ as the Ark Royal is, she can be sailed out of rough water on to a sand and left there, provided care be taken that she does not sit on her anchor. By the time there is only three feet of water the waves are very small, and thus, however strong the wind may be and however hard the sand, a barge will take the ground so gently that one can scarcely say when she touches. The explanation is simple enough, for, besides being flat-bottomed, a barge, owing to her length, strides many small waves at once.

We put the plan into operation on our way to Newcliff. We were running up Swin, and with the dark the breeze piped up; so instead of sailing all night or anchoring in the Swin, where there would have been a disagreeable sea on the flood-tide, we put the Ark Royal on the sand between the Maplin Lighthouse and the Ridge Buoy, and there she sat as steady as a town hall.

This is, of course, an easy way of going to the seaside, so to speak. You simply sail on to a nice clean sand and stay there till the wind moderates. Whenever the tide ebbs away, you can descend on to the sands by a ladder over the side, and pursue the usual seaside occupations of building docks and canals and forts and catching crabs.

It was a memorable experience, this passage up the Thames estuary, house and furniture and family all moving together without any of the bother of packing up and catching trains, and counting heads and luggage at junctions. The children enjoyed every moment of it—the following sea and the dinghy plunging in our wake, the steamers bound out and in, the smacks lying to their nets with the gulls wheeling round them waiting for their food, the tugs towing sailing ships, the topsail schooners, the buoys, the lightships.

When we arrived at Newcliff we anchored off the town, intending to look for a good winter berth later in the year. After the quiet of Fleetwick, Newcliff struck us at once as over-full of noise and people. At all events, we had the satisfaction of knowing that we were not going to live on shore. The spot where we lay would have been well enough for the summer, though with a fresh breeze on shore it was impossible to take a boat safely alongside the stone wall. The boat, however, could be rowed up a creek half a mile away. Unfortunately, this meant the chance of being drenched with spray, and it was also a too uncertain way of catching trains and trams. Nine times out of ten we could row to the stone wall, and when the tide ebbed away and the Ark Royal lay high and dry (which, roughly, was for six out of every twelve hours) we could always walk ashore. The sand was hard under about an inch of fine silt. Here and there it was intersected by shallow gullies, but short sea-boots served our purpose of getting on shore dry.

Of course, we always had to think ahead, for if one went ashore in the boat and took no sea-boots, it might be necessary on returning to walk to the Ark Royal; and if no one were on deck one might shout for sea-boots for a long time from the land before being heard. The most awkward time was when the flats were just covered with water, for then there was too much water round the Ark Royal for sea-boots and not enough to float a boat to the shore. Then one simply had to wait until it was possible to walk or row. Once we were caught in this way at one o’clock in the morning after going to a theatre in London. We waited a short time for the ebb, but were too sleepy to wait quite long enough. We put on our sea-boots; and then, slinging my evening shoes and the Mate’s round my neck, and cramming my opera-hat well on to my head, I gave the Mate my arm. The water itself was not too deep, but in the dark it was difficult to avoid the gullies, and the Mate nearly spoiled her new frock and my evening clothes by stumbling into a hole and clutching at me. This was the only occasion on which I should have been distressed if those who had disputed the advantages of living in a barge could have seen us. In anything like a gale of wind there was a nasty, short, confused, broken sea, and then one had either to row up to the creek and be drenched or wait till the tide had ebbed. It was evident that lying off the town for the winter was out of the question.

Soon we found a berth up the creek where yachts are laid up, and agreed to pay a pound for the use of it for a year. It was well sheltered, but as only a big tide would give us water into it we had to wait some days after we had found it.

Meanwhile Sam Prawle, who had remained with us all this time, had to return home. The children had rallied him a good deal on his yarn about ’Ould Gladstone’ and on the ethics of salvage generally. Salvage was Sam Prawle’s favourite subject; and we could never make up our minds whether he was more given to boasting of what he had done or to regretting what he had not done. The evening before he went away he was evidently concerned lest he should leave us with an impression that salvage operations were not invariably honourable if not heroic affairs. He therefore related to us the following episode, and the reader must judge how far it helps Sam Prawle’s case:

‘In them days, afore it was so easy to git leave to launch the lifeboats as that is now, we allus used to keep a lugger for same as salvage work. The last wessel as ever I went off to on a salvage job my share come to thirteen pound and a bit extra for bein’ skipper, and if there hadn’t bin a North Sea pilot aboard that ship us chaps ’ud have had double. But then agin, if us hadn’t bin quick a makin’ our bargain us shouldn’t have had nawthen.

‘One night, after a dirty thick day blaowin’ the best part of a gale o’ wind sou-westerly, the wind flew out nor-west, as that often do, and that come clear and hard, so as when that come dawn you could see for miles. Well, away to the south’ard, about six mile, we seed a wessel on the Sizewell Bank; she was a layin’ with her head best in towards the land. There was a big sea runnin’, but there warn’t much trouble in launching the lugger with the wind that way, though we shipped a tidy sea afore we cast off the haulin’-aout warp.

‘We’d close-reefed the two lugs afore we launched the bo’t, and it warn’t long afore the fifteen of us what owned the lugger was a racin’ off as hard as we dare. You see, we den’t want no one to git in ahead of we. Us dursn’t put her head straight for the ship, for the sea was all acrost with the shift o’ wind, and us had to keep bearin’ away and luffin’ up. You see, them seas was all untrue; they was heapin’ up, and breakin’ first one side, then t’other, same as in the race raound Orfordness.

’As we drawed near the wessel, that fared to we as haow she were to th’ south’ard of the high part of the sand, and that warn’t long afore we knaowed it, cos we got our landmarks what we fish by, for we most knaows that sand, same as you do the back o’ your hand, as the sayin’ is. We laowered our sails and unshipped the masts and raounded to under the wessel’s quarter—a barquentine, she were, of about nine hundred ton—and they thraowed us a line. All her sails was stowed ’cept the fore laower torpsail, which were blown to rags, and the sea was breakin’ over her port side pretty heavy. There warn’t no spars carried away, and there den’t fare to be no other damage, and if she was faithfully built she den’t ought to have come to a great deal o’ hurt so fur.

‘Then they thraowed us another line for me to come aboard by, and we hauled our ould bo’t up as close as we durst for the backwash. I jumped as she rose to a sea, but missed the mizzen riggin’ and fell agin the wessel’s side; them chaps hung on all right, and the next sea washed me on top o’ the rail afore they could haul in the slack. That fair knocked the wind aout o’ me, and I reckon I was lucky I den’t break nawthen. I scrambled up, and found the cap’n houldin’ on to the rail to steady himself agin the bumping o’ the wessel.

‘Well, she was paoundin’ fairly heavy, but not so bad as other wessels I’ve bin aboard. Still, that’s enough to scare the life aout of anyone what ain’t never bin ashore on a sandbank in a blaow, and most owners don’t give a cap’n a chance to do ut twice—nor pilots neither. I could see the cap’n fared wonnerful fidgety, for the wessel had been ashore for seven hours and more, so I starts to make a bargain with him for four hundred pound to get his ship off, when up comes a North Sea pilot what was aboard. I was most took aback to see him there.

‘“What’s all this?” he says.

‘“Four hundred pound to get she off,” I says.

‘“Four hundred devils,” he says.

‘“No cure, no pay,” I says.

‘“No pay, you longshore shark!” he says.

‘Of course, he was a tryin’ to make out there warn’t no danger to the wessel and nawthen to make a fuss about. You see, he was afeared there might be questions asked about it, and he might get into trouble. Anyway, it don’t do a pilot no good to get a wessel ashore, even if that ain’t his fault which it warn’t this time, for the wessel was took aback by the shift o’ wind and got agraound afore they could do anything with her.

‘One thing I knaowed as soon as my foot touched them decks, and that was that she warn’t going to be long afore she come off. Sizewell Bank’s like many another raound here; that’s as hard as a road on the ebb and all alive on the flood, and them as knaows, same as we, can tell from the way a wessel bumps what she’s up to. I could feel she warn’t workin’ in the sand no more, but was beginning to fleet, and ’ud soon be paoundin’ heavier than ever, but ’ud be on the move each time a sea lifted she. Howsomdever, I kep’ my eyes on the cap’n, and I could see he was skeered about his wessel, and ’ud be suthen pleased to have she in deep water agin.

‘“Cap’n,” I says, “three hundred and fifty pounds. No cure, no pay.”

“Too much,” says the cap’n, but I see he’d like to pay it.

‘“Too much?” says the pilot. “I should think it is! The tide’s a flowin’, and she’ll come off herself soon; besides, if she don’t we’ll have a dozen tugs and steamers by in two or three hours, and any of ’em glad to earn a fifty-pun’ note for a pluck off.”

‘“That’ll be high water in two and a half hours, and you’ll be here another ebb if you ain’t careful,” I says to the cap’n, “and this sand’s as hard as a rock on the ebb. The pilot’ll tell you that if you don’t knaow that already for yourself.”

‘“There ain’t no call to pay all that money,” says the pilot. “She’ll come off right enough.”

‘“Well,” I says to the cap’n, “if I go off this ship I ain’t a comin’ aboard agin ’cept for much bigger money, and when she’s started her garboards and ’s making water you’ll be sorry you refused a fair offer!”

‘“I’ll give yer two hundred,” says the cap’n.

‘That fared to me best to take it, for she was bumpin’ heavier, and I laowed she’d begin to shift a bit soon. Then agin, the paounding was in our favour, for I see that skeered the cap’n wonnerful, so I starts a bluff on him.

‘“That ’on’t do, cap’n,” I says. “I’m off.”

‘I went to the lee side of the poop, where our ould bo’t was made fast, to have a look at my mates. The ould thing was tumblin’ abaout suthen, for there was a heavy backwash off the ship’s quarter. As she came up on a sea they caught sight o’ me and started pullin’ faces and shakin’ their heads, and next time I see them they was doin’ the same. I tumbled to it quick enough that they wanted to say suthen to me, and a course they couldn’t shaout it out, so I threw ’em the fall o’ the mizzen sheet, and me and one o’ the crew pulled ould Somers aboard.

‘“For ’eaven’s sake,” he says, close in my ear, “make a bargin quick! She’s a comin’ off by herself! We’ve got a lead on the graound, and she’s moved twenty foot already.”

‘I went back to the cap’n, and he was all on fidgetin’ worse’n ever, so I says, “Cap’n, my mates’ll be satisfied with three hundred paound.”

‘“Don’t you do no such thing,” says the pilot; “she’ll come off all right.”

‘“I’ll stick to my two hundred,” says the cap’n.

‘I dursn’t wait, so I closed on it, and the mate writ aout two agreements, one for the cap’n and t’other for me. Our chaps soon got the kedge anchor and a hundred fathoms o’ warp into the lugger and laid that right aout astern, and I give the order for the lower main torpsail and upper fore torpsail to be set.

‘Then our chaps come aboard, and what with heavin’ her astern a bit every time she lifted to a sea and them two torpsails aback, she come off in half an hour.

‘Yes, yes; we got thirteen pound apiece, and if it hadn’t been for that pilot we’d a got double.’