Adventures of Working Men. From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon

by George Manville Fenn

“Ours is a strange sort of life, and lots hardly know of our existence; but, bless you, there’d soon be some rum goings-on if our little row galleys were not always busy at work up and down the river. You take plenty of precautions on shore, don’t you, where there’s wealth? Well, don’t you think there’s as much need afloat, where there’s millions of pounds’ worth of stuff almost at the mercy of the thief? For though sailors are pretty good at keeping watch out at sea, get ’em in port, and watching with them means choosing the softest plank under the bulwarks, and having a good caulk. So that’s where we come in useful—working along with the Custom House officers to keep down the plundering and smuggling that, but for us, would be carried on to an awful extent. For, you see, there are gangs who make it a practice to work with lightermen and with sailors; and sometimes by night, sometimes in open day—they carry off prizes that are pretty valuable.

“River pirates you may call them, though they’ve got half a score of cant names, and tea chests, bags of rice or sugar, kegs of spirits, rolls of tobacco, all’s fish that comes to their net; and if they can’t get things of that sort, why they’ll go in for bits of sails, ropes and chains, or blocks, anything even to a sheet of copper or a seaman’s kit—once they get their claws into it, there’s not much chance of its being seen again.

“It used to be ten times worse than it is now, and in those days there was a fellow whom I’ll call River Jack, who was about the most daring and successful rascal that ever breathed. We knew his games, but we could never catch him in the fact; and at last of all I got so riled at the fault found with us, as robbery after robbery took place, that one night, after a row about a ship’s bell stolen off the deck of a large Swedish corn barque, I made up my mind that I’d never let things rest till I’d caught Mr River Jack at some one or other of his games, and had him sent out of the country.

“Now, talking was one thing and doing another, and just at that time I’d been making arrangements for putting a stop to my activity by hanging a weight round my neck. I needn’t mention any names, but there was a young lady there—my wife now—that I used to go and see, and as soon as ever it came to my time for going off to duty there used to be a scene, for she got it into her head that I should be sure to meet with some terrible accident on the river; and at last, from being rather soft after her, what with the talk and tears, I used to be in anything but a good trim for my spell.

“‘There, don’t be such a chicken,’ I used to say, when she’d laid her little head on my shoulder, and been talking a whole lot of unreasonable nonsense; but it was of no use to talk, she would be a chicken; and one night I went away, feeling as if I had caught the infection, for I never felt more chicken-hearted in my life.

“An hour after I was on the river, with three more, pulling very gently along in and out amongst the shadows of the great ships. But whether we were in the shadow or out, it did not make much difference, for a darker night I never saw, and one and all we came to the conclusion that if we were lucky, there must be something for us to do; for that some of River Jack’s gang would be at work we were one and all sure. You see, it was just the sort of night they would like; for looking out was no use, since we could see nothing four yards ahead; all we could do was to wait in the hope that our friends might come near us—and come they did.

“We had been paddling gently about for a couple of hours, and at last had pulled under the stern of a great vessel that had come up the river that evening, but had been too late to get into dock. She was fresh over from the East Indies; and besides saltpetre, and tea, and cochineal, she had on board a large freight of odds and ends—curiosities and such-like. Of course we did not know this then; but a big vessel like she was seemed very likely to prove a bait to the river pirates, and there we lay holding on to the rudder chains.

“‘I wish I was a-bed,’ says Jack Murray, one of the men under me that night.

“‘I wish I was over a pipe and a glass of grog,’ says Tom Grey, who was another.

“And then we sat still again, knowing that we should be sure to hear of something wrong in the morning, and knowing, too, that even if there was some game carried on within a dozen yards of us we should not hear it.