ike the breed
you strike on the Essex coast.

It was the fact that Schenk was really a deep-water sailor, and so a
novice to the job, that made me get on with him. He was a good fellow
and quite willing to take a hint, so before I had been twenty-four
hours on board he was telling me all his difficulties, and I was doing
my best to cheer him. And difficulties came thick, because the next
night was New Year's Eve.

I knew that that night was a season of gaiety in Scotland, but Scotland
wasn't in it with the Fatherland. Even Schenk, though he was in charge
of valuable stores and was voyaging against time, was quite clear that
the men must have permission for some kind of beano. Just before
darkness we came abreast a fair-sized town, whose name I never
discovered, and decided to lie to for the night. The arrangement was
that one man should be left on guard in each barge, and the other get
four hours' leave ashore. Then he would return and relieve his friend,
who should proceed to do the same thing. I foresaw that there would be
some fun when the first batch returned, but I did not dare to protest.
I was desperately anxious to get past the Austrian frontier, for I had
a half-notion we might be searched there, but Schenk took his
_Sylvesterabend_ business so seriously that I would have risked a row
if I had tried to argue.

The upshot was what I expected. We got the first batch aboard about
midnight, blind to the world, and the others straggled in at all hours
next morning. I stuck to the boat for obvious reasons, but next day it
became too serious, and I had to go ashore with the captain to try and
round up the stragglers. We got them all in but two, and I am inclined
to think these two had never meant to come back. If I had a soft job
like a river-boat I shouldn't be inclined to run away in the middle of
Germany with the certainty that my best fate would be to be scooped up
for the trenches, but your Frisian has no more imagination than a
haddock. The absentees were both watchmen from the barges, and I fancy
the monotony of the life had got on their nerves.

The captain was in a raging temper, for he was short-handed to begin
with. He would have started a press-gang, but there was no superfluity
of men in that township: nothing but boys and grandfathers. As I was
helping to run the trip I was pretty annoyed also, and I sluiced down
the drunkards with icy Danube water, using all the worst language I
knew in