George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life

by George Manville Fenn

Probably Henty never so much enjoyed release from his workshop study as when he could get on board his yacht, the Egret. He was especially fond of this boat, which was really a most comfortable vessel, not built upon racing lines, but somewhat reminding one of the small cruising schooners which were fashionable at Cowes in the sixties and early seventies.

He had an honest, plain-spoken skipper and crew, who knew their business thoroughly, and they evidently looked upon the owner as more of a friend than a captain. One of his favourite cruising-grounds was the estuary of the Thames. The yacht would sometimes lie off Leigh, and sometimes up the Medway. The locality is not one which many other yachtsmen would choose, for there are shoals and tidal eccentricities that require a watchful eye. Owner and skipper, however, knew every inch of that broad waterway.

Henty’s cabin lay aft, and was well lighted from the deck. It was thoroughly roomy, and by an ingenious contrivance the luxury of a bath could at any time be indulged in, through merely lifting a panel from the floor.

To see Henty at his most peaceful stage was to watch him lying back high upon the pillows on the deck of his yacht reading some favourite author. This would generally be an old friend, for like many another, he was fond of renewing his acquaintance with writers who had attracted him in the years gone by.

The galley was in charge of a good substantial sea cook, who could turn out a plain meal that was sufficient for any reasonable man’s wants, though it need not be explained in detail that in the appointments of the state rooms and main cabin table there was no affectation of luxury. The yacht would be always well provisioned with joints that not only admitted, but invited a cut-and-come-again principle.

Of course, everybody who knew Henty could, all his life through, testify to his perfect abstemiousness. In fact, one has known many instances in which the serious warning spoken by Henty to young colleagues, who were with him on journalistic expeditions, saved them from much mischief. He would deliver his little lecture on a weakness which he had noticed, and invariably finish with, “Pardon me for being so free, old chap, but if you take my advice you will watch it.”

Except when he went across the North Sea, the yachting cruises were of fairly long week-end duration, but sooner or later the yacht would be passing in review whatever naval operations were on the way at Sheerness, while a favourite mooring for the night was up towards Chatham at a spot where there was a wood on the northern bank.

Henty always seemed to the manner born when on board his yacht, and an early cup of coffee, in pyjamas on deck, sometimes not a great while after sunrise, was invariably indulged in. This was followed, of course, by the faithful pipe, which, indeed, was in constant action from morning to night.

He was a man who used to attribute his good health and spirits as much to his yacht as to anything in the world, and more than once his friends, in commenting upon his love for the sea, have declared that no better representative of the old sea kings of England could have been seen afloat than George Alfred Henty. No one really saw him at his best who did not see him in rough weather, bare-headed, with the wind whistling through his grey hair, and the foam torn from the waves bedewing his big beard and making his sun-tanned, bronzed visage glisten, as he stood at the wheel, firm of aspect, gazing defiantly before him in a kind of rapture, and thoroughly enjoying life the while he ploughed the waves. If any endorsement of this were needed by the reader who never met the subject face to face, let him turn to the photograph showing Henty reading the proofs of his last book aboard his yacht. The portrait was taken not long before his death, and gives a far better idea to the reader of the big, bluff, sturdy war correspondent than would pages of writing.

For he was born to be a sailor, and the wonder is that he did not develop into being the captain of some great liner, instead of a wielder of the pen. One striking phase in his character that was developed in his yachting pursuits was that, though he thoroughly enjoyed inviting and having the company of some old friend on board, to whom he was the most genial and hospitable of hosts, he was yet perfectly happy when alone with his crew. At such times he would carry out various manoeuvres, and quite contentedly occupy himself with his own thoughts.