Fascinating story. Masefield was born the same year as my mother's father (1878), and my grandfather also spent time before the mast, sailing on collier brigs from Yarmouth to Newcastle and back. Unlike Masefield, he spent many years of his life at sea, sailing on the WW1 hospital ship HMHS Britannic - sister ship to the Titanic - which hit a mine in the Aegean (luckily he had left it by then).

Grandfather was - as was Masefield - an orderly in the RAMC, but in the Aegean, Gallipoli, the Middle East and India. Masefield was on the Western Front. Brave men both.