Strong Box Boat

Copyright Oggbashan December 2020

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

This story was inspired by an incident in my family tree. One of the ancestors, not on a direct line, but the daughter of a brother of one of the direct ancestors, was the sole survivor of a English shipwreck on the Dutch coast in the early 18th Century. She was washed ashore in a small boat after her father's ship was breaking up in a storm on the sand dunes off the coast. In the boat with her was the ship's strong box which meant although alone, she was rich. Later she was even richer because the vessel had been insured at Lloyds and as her father's heir she inherited the compensation.

She was barely in her twenties and married a local fisherman's son. The village where she landed was very small and had only a few families with about three surnames shared between all of them. Her husband and children took her surname (the same as mine) and for the next hundred years or so that part of Holland had people with that surname until they spread to other towns and cities and the name died out locally.

Even now, in the early 21st century, the village is still small but now miles inland. In the village church cemetery, most of the early much eroded gravestones bear my family name, because only her family could afford gravestones then.

But the following story is wholly fictional.

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I was helping to heave on a rope to haul out a cannon while our ship was under attack from a more heavily armed pirate. Our guns were the same size as theirs but initially only four on that side compared to the pirate's twelve. Now two of our guns were disabled and because they had fifty men to our twelve we were losing.

I was stuck by a falling block from the rigging and knocked semi-conscious. My father carried me down to the cabin and laid me on a bunk. I was beginning to come to when the ship was rocked by a heavy explosion. One of our cannon balls had hit the pirate ship's gunpowder store. I staggered on deck to see the two burning halves of the pirate ship sinking in flames. There were no survivors.

A very small boat had been flung clear as the pirate ship exploded. One of our seamen grappled it. All our boats had been wrecked by cannon fire and our ship was sinking.

Despite my protests my father and the mate put me in the boat. It had fitted lockers all around the gunwhales. My father put the ship's strong box in one of the lockers that had been swinging open.

"Ruth," He said urgently. "We are likely to lose the ship. We are sinking, half a mile from a lee shore and we are being pushed to shore by the gale. I will try to run us aground but I don't think we'll make it. In this boat? You should. The ship's papers are in the strong box. If we are lost, we are insured at Lloyds. If you contact them, the other part-owners can be compensated."

I tried to get up to rejoin him on the ship but he tied me to the mast laying across the boat.

"Ruth, I will stream this boat astern. If we are going down I will cut the rope and you should reach the shore. Pray for me and the crew..."

The boat drifted about thirty yards clear of the sinking ship. I could see the crew trying to raise a small sail on the stump of the foremast but it was pointless. The ship was sinking faster than their progress through the water. My father appeared at the stern, waved to me, and then cut the line. A minute or so later the ship had sunk. I saw a couple of heads in the boiling surf and then they were gone too. I was alone.

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I cried for my father and the crew who had been my friends. Even if I survived I had no relations left. My mother had died in childbirth, with her baby, twenty years ago. I was alone in this boat and alone in the world. Did I want to live?

Suddenly a row boat was alongside. A man picked up the length of rope still attached to the bow and started to row me ashore. A quarter of an hour later he heaved the boat, and me, up on to sandy beach. It was almost high tide. A group of men helped to pull the boat well above the high tide mark.

My rescuer spoke to me in Dutch of which I understood not a word. He untied me from the mast and helped me to get out of the boat. I made signs to indicate that I didn't want to be parted from the boat. They heaved it on to a two-wheeled trolley and we all went into the village to the minister's house. The minister came out to greet us. He too tried speaking to me in Dutch, then French, but I was able to understand him when he spoke in Latin even if he had a strong Dutch accent.

I explained that there were valuables in the boat that were important to me. I understood that he asked the men to empty the lockers and put them in a bedroom he would assign to me. Meanwhile his two maids prepared a tin bath, stripped and bathed me before dressing me in a Dutch woman's formal costume.

I was surprised that the men appeared to go up and downstairs many times. Surely the ship's strong box would only need one trip by one man? When the minister's wife showed me to the bedroom, instead of the single chest I expected, which was there, there were twelve other chests, all corded and with wax seals but the keys were in each lock.

We went downstairs for tea. My rescuer was still there. The minister introduced him as Hans. Through the minister I expressed my thanks to him and asked whether he would like the boat as a reward. He was surprised but delighted. I understood that the boat, with all its fittings, was far more sturdy than any local boat and he would never have been able to afford such a well-built boat.

Over the next few weeks I began to learn Dutch from the minister, the minister's wife and Hans. He regarded me as his special woman that he had saved from the sea and told me he wanted me to be his girlfriend. I didn't see why not? He was tall, blond, well-educated even if we didn't speak each other's languages at first. Our lips and hands made up for our lack of other communication.

I was able to write to Lloyd's reporting the loss of the ship, and also to forward the bills of exchange to the ship's agents in London for our cargo which had been unloaded in Le Havre. When the ship sunk, she had been in ballast. In the Spring, when there would be extreme low tides, some of the ship might be salvaged. After correspondence with Lloyds, I was able to buy the wreck for fifty guineas, taken from my share of the insurance. I explained, through the minister, that the village could salvage whatever they could and it would be a free gift from me for taking me in.

My father and all the crew's bodies had been washed ashore in the days after the wreck and had been buried in the churchyard. I had paid for the burials and the headstones. Why not? Apart from the money from Lloyds and my father's portion from the sale of the cargo, the twelve chests recovered from the small boat had been full of gold, silver and jewellery, the pirate ship's treasure. They must have been using that boat as their strong box, ready for a quick getaway if they lost to a more powerful ship.

Six months later I was reasonably competent in Dutch. I didn't tell Hans about the strong boxes. He thought I had money from the ship's insurance. I was afraid I might frighten him off if he knew I had more money than the whole village and perhaps more than all the villages in a five mile radius. But I asked him to take me to Amsterdam. I brought one of the pirate's boxes and went to the Jeweller's quarter. I sold half the contents for probably about three-quarter's of its real worth but more than enough for my purpose.

I knew no one in the village except the minister, owned their own house or land, and the minister's house belonged to the church. They all belonged to a property company in Rotterdam. I went with Hans to that property company. I left him at a coffee shop while I went in. After an hour of so of haggling I bought the whole village with what seemed to be to be small change from the single pirate's chest. If one chest was worth so much, and I had the money from Lloyds as well, I might have been the richest person ever to visit that village. I had also bought the empty landlord's house, the largest house in the village so I no longer had stay with the minister. I had the keys in my skirt pocket.

Once I was back in the village, I asked Hans and some of his friends to move the sealed pirate chests into my house. It was already furnished. I invited Hans into my kitchen and made some tea.

"Hans?" I said, "You saved my life. I gave you a boat for that. You helped me today. But I want more from you."

"More, Ruth? What more?"

"I want you to be my husband, please?"

"Your husband? But you are rich. Why would you want a poor fisherman?"

"I don't care what he does or what he thinks he is, Hans. I want the man I love, and the man I think loves me."

His answer proved I was right. He picked me up, sat me on his lap and kissed me.

"You will marry me, Hans?" I asked.

"Yes, but..."

"But?"

"There are two conditions, Ruth. The first, when we marry we use your surname, not mine. I am the sixth Hans with this surname in the village. I will be the only Hans with your surname."

"Agreed, Hans. The second condition?"

"That you use some of your money to benefit the village. We are all so desperately poor."

I laughed.

"Hans, what I did in Amsterdam today - Do you know what I did?"

"I know you sold some jewels, bought this house, and put some money in a bank. Was there anything else?"

"Yes, Hans. I bought the whole village. Except for the church and the minister's house, I own it all. I have bought the village from the landlords."

"So now, we'll pay you rent?"

"No, Hans. On Sunday, after the church service, I am going to give it away. Every tenant will now become their own landlord."

"Can you afford to do that? if so, you have more than met my second condition."

"Afford it? Even buying the whole village and this house? It was a tiny proportion of the monies I own, so little that I barely notice."

"You're that rich, Ruth?"

"And when you marry me, Hans, WE'LL be that rich. We'll have so much money we can't spend it all. We can buy new bigger fishing boats and give them away to the fishermen. We can buy more plough horses and ploughs - and give them away. We can build roads for free. We can make the harbour storm proof and, and..."

"All that? You are sure?"

"Yes, Hans. Even if we do all that and more we'll still be rich."

The evening we went to see the Minister and asked him to marry us - in a month's time. I also asked if I could make an announcement to the assembled villagers after Sunday's service. He agreed.

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On Sunday I stood up after the service, with Hans by my side, and announced that we would be marrying.

I went on:

"We don't want wedding presents. We have a present to give to the village to mark our marriage. As many of you know, I have bought the former landlord's house. That will be our home. But..."

I paused for effect.

"We have also bought the former landlord's total property. That includes the whole village, except the church. I own all the village. To celebrate our marriage we are giving all that away. Every current tenant will be a freeholder of the houses and land they currently rent. It will take a week or so for the lawyers to draw up the deeds of transfer but I hope they will all be complete when we marry. Our village is, or will be very shortly, YOUR village, as thanks for taking me in."

The strong box boat had saved me, brought me a husband and brought financial happiness to the whole village. I owe it a lot.