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 phosphorescent 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 shore. I am ‘Master under God of and in the good ship or vessel called the Ark Royal.’ And the policy deals with life in a large way. For example: ‘Touching the perils whereof they, the assurers, 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 ship’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.