A Channel Incident by W. Clark Russell — Read

The captains of the steamers which ply as passenger and cargo vessels / between London and the French ports are a class of men familiar in a / more or less degree to most of us, and it is probably this familiarity / that prevents us from dwelling, with the emphasis that is deserved, upon / the singular skill they exhibit, day after day, and year after year, in / carrying their ships through what may be fairly called the most / dangerous waters in the world, with scarcely a misadventure to vary the / chronicles of their little voyages. By night and by day they are / threading the intricacies of the crowded river Thames, groping through / white mists so thick that a buoy must be alongside before it can be / seen; struggling against sudden bursts of furious Channel weather, which / bring up the most abominable kind of sea that a sailor can tumble about / in -- short, roaring cross surges which seem to knock the very breath out / of the paddle steamer, sloping her funnel like the _bâton_ in the hand / of a band conductor, submerging one paddle-wheel to let the other / revolve like a windmill out of water, and blowing up in storms of snow / from the sponsons, whilst the worried vessel pitches savagely into the / narrow hollows, flinging up her stern like the hind legs of a colt that / takes fright at a passing train, her tarpaulins streaming with wet, the / escape-pipe blowing as she reels, a few sea-sick passengers wet through / aft, two or three seamen in oilskins dodging the seas forward, and the / skipper on the bridge holding on to the rail with both hands, and / wondering what that confounded old "Geordie" right ahead is up to, / coming along with square yards and his patched boom-foresail bellying / out like a sailor's shirt drying in the forestay, as if the whole of the / Channel were his private property, and it was his duty to run over / anything that got in his road.

Take the trip to Boulogne alone. In fine, clear weather it is all plain / sailing, no doubt. But if a passenger wants to appraise the merits of / these captains rightly, let him quit the pitch-dark deck, and a night so / black and thick that it is a positive relief to the eye when a shower of / sparks breaks out of the funnel and blows away into the ebony gloom to / leeward, and go below into the bright, warm cabin, and overhaul a chart / of the mouth of the Thames and the adjacent waters as far as the South / Sands Head Light. Why, the sight is bewildered by the mere look of that / chart. It is as though a spider had got foul of an ink bottle, and had / been cleaning its legs on a large sheet of white paper. West and East / Girdlers, Margate Sands, Long Sands, Sunk Sands, Goodwin Sands -- it seems / to be all sand; whilst the soundings are more alarming still -- eleven / fathoms here, and close against it, one fathom -- the English of which is / blue lights, rockets, hovellers, lifeboats, and Board-of-Trade / inquiries. Jones, asleep in his little state cabin, knows nothing of the / maze of perils through which he is being steered; he will rise in the / morning and take his seat at the breakfast-table, and in the composed / features of the brown-faced, hearty-looking captain who sits modestly / eating a rasher of bacon, he will find no trace or hint of a vigil / which began at London Bridge and which will not terminate until Boulogne / is reached, though perhaps -- the Goodwins being astern, and neither the / Varne nor the Ridge being very much in the road -- the hardest part of it / may be said to be over.