A Chapter of Adventures

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  WAITING FOR HELP.]

  A Chapter

  of

  Adventures

  BY

  G. A. HENTY

  Emblem]

  BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY

  BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

  George Alfred Henty was born near Cambridge in 1832, and educated atWestminster School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Hevolunteered for service in the Crimean War, and after some variedexperiences adopted a journalistic career. He served as warcorrespondent of the _Standard_ during the Austro-Italian campaign of1866, and was afterwards a correspondent in the Abyssinian War, theFranco-German War, the Ashanti War, &c. His first book for boys waspublished in 1868, and was followed by a long and very successfulseries, including _The Young Franc-Tireurs_ (1872), _In Times of Peril_(1881), _Under Drake's Flag_ (1883), _With Clive in India_ (1884), _TheLion of the North_ (1886), _Orange and Green_ (1888), _The Lion of St.Mark_ (1889), _By Pike and Dyke_ (1890), _By Right of Conquest_ (1891),_With Moore at Corunna_ (1898), _With Kitchener in the Soudan_ (1903),and _With the Allies to Pekin_ (1904). He died in 1902.

  CONTENTS.

  CHAP. Page

  I. A FISHING VILLAGE 5

  II. CAUGHT BY THE TIDE 15

  III. A RUN FROM HARWICH 27

  IV. THE WRECK 37

  V. THE RESCUE 46

  VI. ALTERED PROSPECTS 57

  VII. ON BOARD THE _WILD WAVE_ 69

  VIII. ALEXANDRIA 78

  IX. THE RIOT IN ALEXANDRIA 89

  X. PRISONERS 99

  XI. THE BOMBARDMENT 110

  XII. FREE 120

  XIII. AMONG FRIENDS 131

  XIV. A SET OF RASCALS 143

  XV. A THREATENING SKY 153

  XVI. OLD JOE'S YARN 163

  XVII. IN DANGEROUS SEAS 180

  XVIII. A CYCLONE 191

  XIX. CAST ASHORE 201

  A CHAPTER OF ADVENTURES

  CHAPTER I

  A FISHING VILLAGE

  OF the tens of thousands of excursionists who every summer travel downby rail to Southend, there are few indeed who stop at Leigh, or who,once at Southend, take the trouble to walk three miles along the shoreto the fishing village. It may be doubted, indeed, whether along thewhole stretch of coastline from Plymouth to Yarmouth there is a villagethat has been so completely overlooked by the world. Other places,without a tithe of its beauty of position, or the attraction afforded byits unrivalled view over the Thames, from Gravesend to Warden Point,ever alive with ships passing up and down, have grown from fishinghamlets to fashionable watering-places; while Leigh remains, or at anyrate remained at the time this story opens, ten years ago, as unchangedand unaltered as if, instead of being but an hour's run from London, itlay far north in Scotland.

  Its hill rises steeply behind it; there is room only for the streetbetween the railway and the wharves, and for a single row of housesbetween the line and the foot of the hill. To get into Leigh from thecountry round it is necessary to descend by a steep road that winds downfrom the church at the top of the hill; to get out again you must go bythe same way. The population is composed solely of fishermen, theirfamilies, and the shopkeepers who supply their necessities. The men whostand in groups in the street and on the wharf are all clad in blueguernseys or duck smocks and trousers of pilot cloth or canvas.Broad-built sturdy men are they, for in point of physique there are fewfishermen round the coast who can compare with those of Leigh.

  A stranger in the place would think that the male population had nothingto do but to stand in the street and talk, but night is for the mostpart their time for work; although many of the bawleys go out on theday-tide also, for at Leigh the tide is all-important. For five hours inthe day it washes the foot of the wharves, for seven a wide expanse ofmud stretches away to Canvey Island in front, and Southend Pier to theeast.

  At the wells--for Leigh still depends for water on its wells--are,during the hours at which water is permitted to be drawn, lines oftwenty women and girls with pails, each patiently waiting her turn.There are not many boys about, for boys require more sleep than men, anda considerable portion of their time on shore is spent in bed.

  It is ten o'clock in the day; the bawleys have returned from the fishinggrounds, and scores of them have anchored in the Ray--a deep stretch ofwater lying between the spit of sand that extends from the end of CanveyIsland close up to Southend Pier, and the mud-flats of Leigh. The flatsare still uncovered, but the tide is rising fast in the winding channelleading up to the village. In a few minutes there will be water enoughfor the boats, and already these can be seen leaving the bawleys andmaking for the mouth of the channel. The wind is fair, and each boathoists its sail, white or yellow or brown, and with the crew sitting upto windward comes flying along the shallow channel, making, as theyalways do, a race of it home.

  The boats are large and roomy, and are, as they need to be, goodsea-boats; for they have at times to live in rough water that wouldswamp lighter craft like cockle-shells. Each boat carries two men and aboy, that being the regular crew of a bawley; although, perhaps, forrough winter work, they may sometimes take an extra hand. In the bow ofthe first boat that comes tearing along up to the wharf sits agood-looking lad, about fourteen years old. His face is bronzed with thesun and wind, his clothes are as rough and patched as those of the otherfisher lads; but although as strong and sinewy as any of his companionsof the same age, he is somewhat slighter in his build, more active inhis movements, and has a more springy and elastic walk in spite of theheavy boots that he wears.

  He helps the others to land several baskets of shrimps, and carry themto the railway-station hard by. They are already boiled, for the bawleyscarry coppers, into which the shrimps are baled straight from the nets,so that they are in readiness to send off to town as soon as they arelanded. When the baskets are all piled on the platform he crosses theline, follows it along for some fifty yards, and then enters a neatcottage facing it.

  "Back again all safe, Jack?"

  "All right, mother! It's been a fine night, with just enough wind, andnot too much. I ought to have been in half an hour ago, but tide is latethis morning."

  "Lily brought word, just as she was starting for school, that the boatswere coming up the creek, so your breakfast is all ready."

  "And so am I, mother; though I had a piece of bread and cheese when wedropped anchor. I will just wash my hands, and be ready in a jiffey."

  Mrs. Robson was a native of Leigh. Her father had been a fisherman, whohad owned his own bawley; indeed, most of the boats at Leigh are theproperty of one of the men who work them.

  Bessy Tripper--not that her real name was Tripper, but Snow; but herfather for some unknown reason got the nickname of Tripper, and his sonsand daughters were also called by it, and would hardly have answered ifaddressed as Snow--was one of the prettiest girls in Leigh; so thoughtWilliam Robson, a young artist, who came down to Leigh to spend thesummer there, sketching the picturesque boats as they came in and out,or lay, with their heads pointing all round the compass, on the softmud.

  He had taken lodgings
at Tripper's house, and when not at work with hisbrush spent much of his time on board the _Enterprise_. Bessy Tripperwas a conspicuous figure in the foreground of many of his sketches, andoccupied as prominent a place in his thoughts. She was as sweet-temperedas she was pretty, and at last Will Robson made up his mind to marry herif she would take him. He was himself an orphan, and had no friends whohad any right to object to his marrying according to his fancy, and hecould therefore do as he pleased without question or comment. BessyTripper was quite ready to take him when he asked her, and they weremarried at the church at the top of the hill, and went to live at alittle cottage near Dulwich.

  William Robson was no genius; he had the knack of painting pretty marinesketches in water-colours. These sold readily, but at low prices; andalthough he was always talking of doing a great picture in oils that wasto make his fortune, the picture never was painted. He was always toobusy at what he called pot-boilers, which had to be sold to dealers fora trifle, in order to enable him to meet the butcher's and baker'sbills. He never repented his marriage; Bessy was an admirable housewife,and made a shilling go as far as many women would a half-crown. In thesummer they generally went down for a couple of months to Leigh, for herto see her friends, for him to gather a fresh stock of new subjects.

  He died suddenly from the effects of a chill, and when his affairs werewound up Bessy found herself mistress of the five hundred pounds forwhich he had insured his life, and the furniture of the cottage. It wasnatural that she should return to Leigh. She had no friends elsewhere;and she knew that money went much further there than in most otherplaces. Two hundred pounds were spent in purchasing the cottage in whichshe now lived, and another two hundred in buying a bawley. At Leigh, asat most other fishing places, the men work on shares--the boat takes ashare, and each of the men a share--the owner of a boat supplying netsas well as the boat itself. The bawley, therefore, brought Mrs. Robsonin a sum equal to that earned by a fisherman, with deductions, however,for damages to nets and spars.

  In good seasons the receipts sufficed to keep her and her boy and girlcomfortably; in bad seasons they had to live very closely, and she wasobliged in specially bad times to dip a little into her reserve of ahundred pounds. Upon the other hand, there was occasionally a windfallwhen the smack rendered assistance to a vessel on the sands, or helpedto get up anchors or discharge cargoes.

  At the time of her husband's death Jack was ten years old and Lilyeight. For two years the former attended the school on the hill, andthen went as a boy on board a bawley belonging to one of his uncles.

  The lad's own predilections were entirely for the sea; his happiesttimes had been spent at Leigh, and his father's work had kept thelonging alive at other times. He would have preferred going to sea inone of the ships of which there was always such a line passing up anddown the river, but he was too young for that when he first began hiswork on board the bawley; and as the time went on, and he becameaccustomed to the life of a fisherman, his longings for a widerexperience gradually faded away, for it is seldom indeed that a Leighboy goes to sea--the Leigh men being as a race devoted to their homes,and regarding with grave disapproval any who strike out from the regulargroove.

  "We did well this morning, mother," Jack said as he came downstairs in aclean guernsey and pilot trousers. "We had a fine haul off the lowerBlyth, and not a bad one higher up. I fancy most of the boats did well.The _Hope_ was close to us, and I expect she must have done as well aswe did."

  "That's good news, Jack. The catches have not been heavy lately, but nowthey have once begun I hope that we shall have a better time of it."

  The breakfast was fish, for fish is the chief article of diet at Leigh.

  "Are you going to bed, Jack?"

  "No, mother; I did not start until half-past one, and so I got a goodsix hours before I turned out. I am going to help Uncle Ben put a freshcoat of pitch on our boat. He is going to bring her in as soon as thereis water enough. Tom stopped on board with him, but they let me comeashore in Atkins' boat; and of course I lent them a hand to get theirfish up. We shall land our lot when the bawley comes up."

  "Then you won't go out again to-night, Jack?"

  "Oh, yes, we shall, mother. We shall go out with the tide as usual. Weshall only do up to the water-line, and the pitch will be plenty dryenough by night. We are going to fish over by Warden Point, I think."

  "I am glad to hear it," his mother said. "I always feel more comfortablewhen you are on that ground, as you are out of the track of steamersthere."

  "Uncle is talking of going down to Harwich next week."

  Mrs. Robson's face fell. She had expected the news, for every year aconsiderable number of the Leigh bawleys go down to Harwich and fish offthat port for two or three months. The absence of Jack was always agreat trial to her. When he was with her she felt that he was safe, forit is an almost unheard-of thing for a bawley to meet with an accidentwhen fishing in the mouth of the Thames; but off Harwich the seas areheavy, and although even there accidents are rare--for the boats aresafe and staunch and the fishermen handle them splendidly--still therisk is greater than when working at home.

  The Leigh men themselves attribute their freedom from accident in noslight degree to the fact that their boats never go out on Sunday. Theyare God-fearing men these fishermen, and however bad the times, andhowever hard the pinch, it is seldom indeed that a bawley puts out fromLeigh on Sunday, save to the assistance of a vessel in distress.

  The excursionists who go down in summer weather to Margate and Ramsgatescarcely think that ships could be cast away and broken up upon thehidden sands beneath the sparkling waters. They know not that scarce oneof these sands but at low water is dotted with low, black timbers, andthat there are few more dangerous pieces of navigation in the world thanthe passage up the mouth of the Thames on a wild night when a fiercegale is blowing and the snow and sleet driving before it, obscuring theguiding lights that mark the channels between the sands.

  The _Bessy_--for so Ben Tripper had named his bawley, after hisfavourite sister--was lying on the mud just above Leigh. A fishy smellpervaded the air, for close by were the boiling-sheds, with their vastheaps of white cockle-shells. These were dug by the cocklers eitherfrom the sand at the end of the Canvey Island or on the Maplin Sandssomewhere off Shoebury.

  The large boats often return deeply laden with them. On reaching Leighthe cockles are thrown out in great heaps by the side of the creek,where they are covered at each tide. Here they are left to cleanthemselves, and to get rid of the sand they have taken in whenburrowing. Two or three days later they are carried up to theboiling-houses and thrown into great coppers of boiling water. They openat once, and the fish drop from the shells. The contents of the coppersare passed through large meshed sieves, to allow the fish to passthrough and retain the shells, which go to add to the heaps outside.These heaps would in time rival in size the cinder tips of the Midlandswere it not that there is a use for the shells. They make splendid lime,and are sometimes taken away in barge-loads and carried to town, wherethey are used instead of gravel in the parks, making, when crushed, thewhitest and tidiest of paths.

  Before starting, Jack had put on a canvas jumper, leggings and highboots, and was soon at work with his uncle, ankle-deep in the mud. Thebawleys are boats almost peculiar to Leigh, although a few hail fromGravesend and the Medway. They are from thirty to forty-five feet long,and are divided into three classes of from six to fifteen tons burden.They are very broad in comparison to their length, some of them having abeam of fifteen feet, and they carry their width almost to the stern,which is square. This gives the boats a dumpy appearance, as they lookas if they had been cut short. They are half-decked, with a roomyfo'castle and a well, where the fish are kept alive. They carry onemast.

  The peculiarity of their rig is that they have no boom to theirmainsail, which in shape somewhat resembles a barge-sail, and, like it,can in a moment be brailed completely up. They carry a lofty topmast andlarge topsails, and these they seldom lower, even when obl
iged to havetwo reefs in the mainsail. They are capital sea-boats, fast, and veryhandy; and it requires a good yacht to beat a bawley with a brisk windblowing. The men are keen sailors, and when the trawls are taken up andtheir heads turned homewards it is always a race to be first back.

  Ten years ago all the bawleys were clinker-built--that is, with thestreaks overlapping each other, as in boats; but the new bawleys are nowall carvel-built, the planks being placed edge to edge, so as to give asmooth surface, as in yachts and large vessels. They now for the mostpart carry spinnakers, boomed out when running before the wind, andballoon foresails, thereby greatly adding to their speed in light winds.One peculiarity of the bawleys is that, when at anchor, the mainsail,instead of being stowed with its spars parallel to the deck, is made upon its gaff, which is then hoisted with the throat seven or eight feetup the mast, while the peak rests on the stern.

  This is done to give more room on deck, and enable the men to get moreeasily in and out of the fo'castle. It has, however, a curiousappearance, and a fleet of bawleys at anchor resembles nothing so muchas a flock of broken-backed ducks.

  Ben Tripper and his mate, Tom Hoskins, finished tarring the boat underher water-line soon after four o'clock in the afternoon, Jack's share ofthe work consisting in keeping the fire blazing under the pitch kettle.

  "What time shall we go out, uncle?"

  "Not going out at all, Jack. We will finish tarring her the first thingin the morning, and there are two or three odd jobs want doing."

  "Will you want me, uncle? because, if not, I shall go out early withBill Corbett cockling. His father has hurt his leg, and is laid up, sohe asked me to lend him a hand. I told him I didn't know whether youwere going out again to-night or whether you could spare me in themorning, but that if you didn't want me I would go with him."

  "You can go, Jack; besides, you will be in early anyhow. We will do thetarring without you."