By first light we three young fellows had drunk ourselves sober again and made our way to the wharf where their little ship lay, anchor a-cockbill, their father pacing up and down. To me the ship looked like the ordinary kettle-bottomed Dutch smack but they told me it was an English craft, built on the Humber: what the York-shiremen call a “billy-boy”. Years later I came to realise that their trade was probably that of a hoveller: one who ranges about in bad waters in hopes of finding ships in distress. Sometimes, it was rumoured, helping ships to get into distress. But they were kind to me and kept their word faithfully and I remember them with much friendship.
We got my crate of Delft aboard with exaggerated care, then my dunnage. I bade farewell to Kees and left a silver coin — perhaps I was not so sober after all — for Old Gerrit. I also gave him the old blanket of my childhood — such things were foolishness now. It would make a bed for Kees, the little dog.
To my surprise, on board the old round-ended, ketch-rigged “buss” there was the lads’ Mama: a Mama just like mine but bigger and with a better-grown moustache. She gave me a pot of coffee all to myself and a big slab of honey-cake and a smile. As I bit into the honey-cake I heard a squeal behind me and jumped around, but it was only the Mama scratching “St II” on the slate. Such coffee and honey-cake I would cheerfully give two stivers for today; indeed, I think I would give more if I had to.
All I knew about ships in those days was to do as I was told — and quickly — not to meddle helpfully without being told and, in between that, to keep out of the way, with my head low because of the boom. A man could go through his life with three such basic pieces of wisdom; I sometimes wish I had never learned more.
Well, I did all these things: I helped with the brails and gaskets and the rest, then crouched low against the windward rail. The old-fashioned, flat-bottomed smack bounced on the water rather than floated and, when we came to the “gatt” of the Diep, and the wind was almost dead foul, she heeled over so far that I thought we were about to founder. The lads and their parents had oilskins but I had none: soon I was so drenched and cold that my chattering teeth would not have let me pray even if I could have recalled a prayer. The Mama was singing cheerily but this was of no help. After a while I crept into the “kajuit” or cuddy — a little sleeping-shed forward where my gear was stowed — and delved into my clothes-bag for some dry breeches. I also found a smelly old blanket in a hammock and wrapped myself up, feeling homesick, heartsick and, simply, sick.
Later, as I was almost becoming warm, the motion of the vessel abated and the deck became once more nearly horizontal. I came to believe that I would perhaps after all survive. One of the lads came in and hung up his streaming oilskins.
“We are clear of the Diep now,” he said cheerfully, “and we have a fair beam wind. We shall make a fast crossing. Have you been sick? No? Good. Have you any gin? You have? Very good!”
We drank a little. I had not realised that it was what I had been needing. We drank a little more. The sun began to shine, or at least it seemed so.
Later still the Mama came in with a splendid pot of coffee for me, this time with some thick slices of rye bread covered with thin, tasty slices of smoked beef. I made a face; a polite face, but a face.
“Eat!” she commanded in the very accents of my own Mama. I ate. To my surprise — and her satisfaction — I ate it all.
“That was good, mevrouw,” I said as I captured the last, errant crumb.
“For two stivers, jonge, it was very good. We are not thieves in this ship.” Seeing that I was somewhat abashed, she leaned forward and planted a great, noisy kiss on my mouth. Courteously, I did not wipe it off until she had left the “kajuit”. In a little while I went out onto the deck, where I smelled for the first time the true smell of the open sea, carried by a fresh breeze and enriched by a clean sunshine. Once again, it was good to be Carolus Van Cleef at that moment and in that year.
Dinner, early in the afternoon, was capitaclass="underline" it was the last old-fashioned Dutch dinner I ever ate. It was of thick pea-soup, so thick you could have built castles with it, served in pewter bowls. In each of our bowls there was a good piece of beef sausage, the trotter of a pig and all sorts of little bits of salted pork. Half a century later my mouth still waters at the memory of that simple meal. To tell the truth, so do my eyes, for I have grown sentimental and silly. (But not so silly as to be deceived when certain grandchildren and distant cousins kiss me sweetly because a rich old man may soon be writing a will.)
Dinner, as I have said, was very good and we all gobbled and belched in honest Dutch style, then lay back in the sunshine, listening to our bellies chuckling with the pleasure of it.
The wind backed into the East and soon we had almost a following wind; every stitch of sail filled and drawing to it. Now it was a lovely day; the Mama made me more pots of coffee, brought me more honey-cake and squeaked away at her slate.
Whenever she was out of earshot the lads told me more wonderfully dirty stories; some I can remember to this day, I am ashamed to say. (It is strange that only the English and the Dutch can tell stories which are both dirty and funny; the Germans and the Americans can only tell dirty ones, the French only funny ones, the Italians only pitifully bad ones. I have never heard a good story from an Italian. The Irish, the Scotch and the Jews are in a different category: they can only tell Irish, Scotch and Jewish stories.)
Towards the evening of that day everyone agreed that we had indeed made a splendidly fast passage and that, because the tide was foul for working up the Thames, we would drop our hook outside the town of Ramsgate. Soon we three lads were in the pram — a kind of a dinghy — and the elder cried “Vaart!”, a word which strikes strangely on an English ear but simply means “give way”. However, no sooner were we a cable’s length from the ship than the father hailed us to come back. A nasty, lumpy little lop was growing up in the sea and he feared that the anchor would not hold. He was vexed about this: he explained that to go into the inner harbour was expensive and I realised that this would cost him a good little piece out of my passage-money.
“Of course,” he mused aloud, “we could go round the North Foreland and get inside the Hook of Margate. There is a good jetty there, but we could not tie up for the night …”
They all looked at me. I was at first puzzled, then I understood. I was not, in those days, the ruthless old bugger who now writes these lines; that family had been kind to me and it seemed a small thing to accommodate them. I generously offered that, if they would put me and my crate and dunnage ashore in that beautiful city of Margate and buy me something hot and nice for supper, I would pay them the agreed passage-money in full and make my own way up-river to London Town in the morning. They all beamed at me, every one, and the Mama embraced me warmly and we all struck hands on the bargain.
Almost as soon as we had rounded the Foreland and were turning Margate’s Hook, the Margate itself appeared as a wondrous aurora of light which, as we drew in, resolved itself into a pearl-necklace of gas-lights: I had never seen anything so entrancing in my life, it seemed to be one of the fabled Cities of the Plain. Such a place was sure to be bursting with tasty dinners and young, sinful women: the sea-voyage, although short, had sharpened my appetite for both.