Once Is Enough

‘I think she had a pretty good idea,’ Beryl said, and we all laughed.

Later, when we were back in Tzu Hang, I said to Beryl, ‘Do you think she’ll be worried?’

‘Worried about what?’

‘Oh, about us and Tzu Hang, you know, when she’s not there.’

‘No, I don’t think so. As a matter of fact I asked her and she said she wouldn’t be.’

‘Good heavens. Why on earth not?’

‘Don’t be so silly. You don’t want her to worry, do you? She said that she reckoned that Tzu Hang would look after us.’

‘I hope she does.’

‘Who? Clio or Tzu Hang?’

‘Clio—or rather, both.’

In the wharf shed on the south wharf there was a small room with a telephone, which we were allowed to use. This was Beryl’s operations office, and she sat there in blue jeans and a checked shirt, ordering immense quantities of stores to be delivered to the ship. When they arrived, she and John filmed each other staggering along the wharf carrying big cartons of food. John was hoping to make a complete record of the trip with his ciné camera. In the afternoons she went up to a friend’s house, where she treated the eggs that we were taking with us by plunging them into boiling water for five seconds, and then into cold. It was the first time that we had tried this method of preserving eggs, and by the time we had eaten the last one it was over two months old. It still tasted good to me.

Soon after the Games were over Britannia left, and, as Melbourne began to reassume her workaday clothes for the few days left before Christmas, the smoke from workshops, tugs, and launches came drifting up the river, smudging the white sail-covers and making black marks on the deck. For the last few days we moved into the entrance to a little yard at the end of the wharf, as our berth was required for the dredgers, which were coming up from Port Phillip Heads. We were separated from the rest of the wharf by some high iron palings, so that casual onlookers no longer came to stand above us, and this seclusion was most appreciated by Pwe, who now spent some of the day, as well as of the night, ashore. Some shrubs grew along the palings, and there she assiduously hunted sparrows, but the Melbourne sparrows were too smart for her. Fortunately no quarantine officials found her—though there are few ships’ cats who don’t take a turn ashore when they get the opportunity, and no one is very fussy about them, as long as they are not mentioned.

We had one or two visitors in our new berth, and one of them was a tall elderly man, in a town suit, and a black hat, but one glance was enough to see that he was no city man. He was a sailor, and he knew a great deal not only of sail but also of the Southern Ocean. ‘Well,’ he said when he left, ‘Good luck to you. I think you’re going to need all of it, and I must say that I’d like to see another 7 feet off those masts.’

We thought that all small ship passages, at any rate long passages, had an element of luck about them—so is there about most things that are worth doing. But if we had thought that it was just a question of luck whether we would arrive or not, we wouldn’t have attempted the passage. We were most certainly not in search of sensation, and we believed that we had a ship and a crew that were capable of making the passage under normal conditions. We knew of course that we might meet with bad luck in all kinds of ways, but as long as we were prepared, as far as was possible, for anything that might turn up, there seemed to be no reason why we should not overcome it.

‘What on earth do you want a year’s supply of stores on board for?’ someone asked Beryl.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘there is always the possibility that we might get dismasted, and then heaven knows where we might end up, and anyway the passage would take much longer than we had expected. We could probably make do for water, but I like to be sure that we have all the food we need.’

Australia was a good place to buy all kinds of tinned food, and besides tinned food we had potatoes, onions, and two sides of bacon, as well as plenty of oranges; and after the oranges were finished, we had tinned orange-juice or grapefruit-juice in almost unlimited quantity.

Although there is plenty of stowage space on Tzu Hang, we were so well stocked that Beryl began to think of creating more by getting rid of Blue Bear. Blue Bear had become a ship’s mascot, and John and I wouldn’t hear of it. He had been given to Clio when we first left England. He was a blue teddy bear, inappropriate and too big, but no artifice of ours could persuade Clio to part with him. When we were crossing the Bay of Biscay, and beating down against a south-westerly wind, with Tzu Hang close-hauled and sailing herself, Blue Bear, in oilskin and sou’wester, was lashed to the wheel. Through the doghouse windows we had seen a steamer come away from her course and steam up alongside to investigate. The captain came out of his cabin without his jacket, dressed in trousers and braces, to peer through his glasses, and others of the crew lined the rail. Blue Bear was obviously the centre of all interest, and when they drew away they seemed still to be discussing the composition of the crew.

He had sailed with us on every trip, lolling in one of the bunks, often with the cat and dog keeping him company, and now I found a more austere berth for him on the shelf in the forepeak, where he could still keep his eye on what went on.

There was one major difficulty to overcome before we left, and that was to get John to have his impacted wisdom tooth pulled out.

‘Not likely,’ said John. ‘He said he’d have to dig it out, and anyway it’s not hurting.’

‘But you must have it done, it might blow up on the trip.’

‘Not me. I don’t want to have a tooth dug.’

‘But John,’ Beryl said, ‘you sail all the way from Canada in that tiny boat, and now you won’t have a tooth out. I do believe you’re frightened.’

‘Too true,’ he said, with his usual disarming frankness, but in the end he agreed. After all there was a very pretty girl there to hold his hand. When we came back from a visit to Tasmania it was out, and John had a swollen jaw and a smug look.

Next morning I went to the Customs Office to arrange for clearance. I got into the lift and pressed the button for the appropriate floor. The lift started up and then came to a shuddering halt half way up. I tried to peer through the grille, but I was right between two floors. I thought that if I waited for long enough someone was sure to want the lift and I should be discovered without the indignity of bawling for help. After about ten minutes I heard an angry voice from below shouting, ‘You up there: what are you doing in the lift?’

‘I’m stuck!’ I shouted indignantly.

‘Well, stand in the middle, then.’

I stood in the middle, and the lift began to climb creakily upwards again. A few minutes later I was shaking hands with the Customs Officer, with my clearance in my pocket for the following day.

‘I’ll let the Customs launch know,’ he said, ‘and they’ll meet you at the mouth of the river and give you a check up as you go. I remember the last chap we cleared for Montevideo was that Irishman, Conor O’Brien, some thirty years ago. He had a ship with a funny name.’

‘Saoirse.’

‘Yes, that’s right. He had a beard and a yachting cap. He was a rum chap, but he was a real sailor,’ and he looked at me doubtfully.

I hoped that I might be half as good, but I knew that he couldn’t have had so good a crew.

CHAPTER TWO (#u7839aa9a-8415-5170-b15d-45854b6f83f7)

FALSE START (#u7839aa9a-8415-5170-b15d-45854b6f83f7)

A TUG whistled down the river. Beryl sat up in her bunk as if this was the signal that she had been waiting for. She pulled a jersey over her pyjamas and went aft to the galley. I lay in my bunk. I thought that it would be the last time for days and days that I would lie in my bunk with the ship still.

John was also in his bunk, a quarter-berth that he had made in New Zealand, aft of the galley and doghouse. He had separated it from the rest of the cramped stowage space below the bridge-deck by a plywood partition running fore-and-aft from the cockpit to the bulkhead on the starboard side. Whenever I tried to get into this berth through an oval hole cut in the partition, in order to get to the stowage space aft of the cockpit, I stuck, either with my head in and my stern out, or my stern in and my head out. John used to go in stern first like a wart-hog going into its burrow. Although he was bigger than I, but not taller, he did everything with an effortless grace, and could even get in and out of his berth with no apparent difficulty. It was snug inside and removed from the rest of the ship. It was his quarter—a small piece of privacy which was never invaded.

I knew exactly what was going on in the galley, without looking aft through the ship to where Beryl was sitting in the cook’s seat behind the dresser and sink and beside the stoves: an oil stove and a primus on gimbals, so that they swung either way and remained steady when the ship pitched and rolled. There was an occasional rattle and clink, well-known noises which I could interpret from days of practice at sea, and then came the sudden welcome hiss of the primus burner and the sound of the primus pump. Soon the porridge was on the stove and Beryl came back to the forecabin to finish her dressing. I put on some clothes and went on deck by way of the forehatch.

It was a sparkling summer day, with a light wind blowing up the Yarra River. A little further down, a big cargo ship was docking. The tug, whose whistle had stirred us to movement, was pushing the steamer’s stern in to the wharf. ‘Today is the day,’ I thought, ‘today is the day.’ And then I remembered that Pwe had not yet returned from her night out. I called her, and she answered from the shrubs by the railing. She came trotting out, explaining as only a Siamese can, about being caught out by the daylight, and about the sparrows being so wary. When she got near to the edge of the wharf, she lay down and rolled, waiting for me to come and get her. I stepped on shore and picked her up, and Beryl called ‘Breakfast’ from the hatch.

That wonderful call to breakfast! I do not know whether it is because of its association with porridge and bacon and eggs, but her voice always sounds as young and exciting as ever it did, and the day seemed young and exciting too. It was an exciting day. It was the twenty-second of December, and we were starting off to England.

Our first job after breakfast was to move round to a water point on the main wharf, where we could top up our tanks. If a hose was not available we used 2-gallon plastic bottles. When we bought Tzu Hang, she had only one tank of 20 gallons, so that we had to fit in other tanks where we could. We put one under each bunk in the forecabin, one in the bathroom, one under the existing tank in the galley, and one in the after compartment, opposite John’s berth. It was the best we could do, and it is not a bad principle to have water well divided. It is easier to check consumption, and all is not lost if a tap is knocked on and not noticed.

We carried about 150 gallons of water in these six tanks. We found that half a gallon a day per person, at sea, was a fair allowance. When we washed, we washed in salt water, and whenever possible we used salt water for cooking. Water was never rationed, but we did not waste it, and now we reckoned that we had at least a three-months’ supply, and a little extra for washing if necessary.

Before we had set out on our first trip I had had a letter from Kevin O’Riordan, who had sailed across the Atlantic with Humphrey Barton in Vertue XXXV. He wrote, ‘You will be perfectly all right provided that you have a buoyant boat, plenty of water, and don’t mind being alone for weeks and weeks.’ It seemed that all three conditions were fulfilled.

The last days before leaving on a long trip are always a rush. The whole crew spin like dancing dervishes, the list of things undone seems to grow longer instead of shorter, and everything whirls faster and faster to the climax, the moment between preparation and departure, between planning and putting into effect, the climax when a starter button is pressed, and the engine starts … or doesn’t.

I always hate this moment as I’m a bad engineer, and I feel that some imp of fortune is going to decide whether we shall be permitted to cast off, or whether we shall become the harrowed and querulous prey of a thousand mechanical doubts and remain tied to the wharf that we want to leave. ‘Please, engine, please start,’ I beg of it in private, but on this occasion everything went well.

Beryl jumped into the cockpit and took the wheel. She put the engine astern, and we began to back out from the dock into the Yarra River. As the stream caught our deep keel it swung the stern round until we were facing upstream, Beryl then put the engine ahead and we moved slowly across to the water point on the wharf. John had walked across to catch our lines. Ever since he had joined us in New Zealand, he had taken every opportunity to work on Tzu Hang, making some improvement or other. Now, as she came out into the stream, he was able to look at her from a distance for perhaps the last time for many a long day. She looked fit for the sea in every way. The boom gallows could be improved; perhaps he would be able to fix it before he left the ship.

As soon as we had made fast, we began topping up the tank in use with the plastic bottles. Last of all, we filled the four bottles and stowed them below. Pwe was eager for a last run ashore, but the distance from the deck to the top of the wharf was too much for her. A tall young girl, about ten years old, with a mop of dark hair, was standing on the wharf with her father, looking down at the yacht. When she saw the cat, her eyes, which were as blue as the cat’s, went round with wonder. She looked as if, more than anything else in the world, she wanted to stroke it. I climbed on to the wharf with Pwe, and held her out to her. She was too shy to speak. She stroked the cat’s dark head, and longed after her when I handed her down again to Beryl.

It was time to be moving now. Beryl was at the wheel, John was ready to cast off the bowline, and the young girl’s father was hoping to be asked to cast off the stern-line.

‘All right, let go,’ I called to John, and ‘Would you mind casting off?’ to the eager father.

John jumped on board and, helped by the stream, Tzu Hang swung out into the river and pointed her head for the sea.