CHAPTER XIX.
Tide waiter—Beachy Head—Night Ghost—Man overboard—Ship ahoy!—Overfalls—Thoughts—Thunder—A question—Day—Good-bye, dingey!—Dungeness—A nap.
The barometer mounted steadily all Sunday, so we resolved to start next morning at break of day. But though the night was quiet the vessels near my berth were also getting ready, therefore at last I gave up all hopes of sleep, and for company’s sake got ready also after midnight, that we might have all the tide possible for going round Beachy Head, which, once passed, we could find easy ports all the way to London. So about two o’clock, in the dark, we are rowing out again on the ebbing tide, and the water at the pier-head looks placid now compared with the boiling and dashing it made there when the yawl passed in before.
Dawn broke an hour afterwards with a dank and silent mist skirting up far-away hills, and a gentle east wind faintly breathing as our tea-cup smoked fragrant on deck. The young breeze was only playful yet, so we anchored, waiting for it to rise in earnest or the tide to slacken, as both of them were now contrary; and meantime we rested some hours preparing for a long spell of unknown work; but I could not sleep in such a lovely daybreak, not having that most valuable capacity of being able to sleep when it is wanted for coming work, and not for labour past.
The east wind baffled the yawl and a whole fleet of vessels, all of us trying to do the same thing, namely, to arrive at Beachy Head before two o’clock in the day; for, if this could be managed, we should there find the tide ebbing eastwards, and so get twelve hours of current in our favour.
This feature—the division of the tides there—makes Beachy Head a well-marked point in the navigation of the Channel. The stream from the North Sea meets the other from the Atlantic here, and here also they begin to separate. After beating, in downright sailing, one after another of the schooners and brigs and barques in company, I saw at last with real regret that not one of us could reach the point in time, and yet the yawl got there only a few minutes too late; but it was dead calm, and I even rowed her on to gain the last little mile.
One after another the vessels gave it up, and each cast anchor. Coming to a pilot steamer, I hailed: “Shall I be able to do it?” “No, sir,” they said; “no,—very sorry for you, sir; you’ve worked hard, sir, but you’re ten minutes too late.” Within that time the tide had turned against us. We had not crossed the line of division, and so the yawl had to be turned towards shore to anchor there, and to wait the tide until nine o’clock at night, unless a breeze came sooner.
After three hours’ work she reached the desired six fathoms’ patch of sand, just under the noble white cliff that rears its head aloft about 600 feet, standing ever as a giant wall, sheer, upright, out of the sea.
Dinner done and everything set right (for this is best policy always), I slipped into my cabin and tried to sleep as the sun went down, but a little land-breeze soon began, and every now and then my head was raised to see how tide or wind progressed. Then I must have fallen once into a mild nap, and perhaps a dream, for sudden and strong a rough hand seemed to shake the boat, and, on my leaping up, there glanced forth a brilliant flash of lightning that soon put everybody on the qui vive.
Now was heard the clink of distant cables, as I raised mine also in the dark, with only the bright shine of the lighthouse like a keen and full-opened eye gazing down from the cliff overhead.