Chapter 4
Passage to a New World
The ex-prisoners adapted to sea life well, rarely getting sick. But as soon as it seemed they earned their sea legs, the fresh food ran out and then their diets only consisted of salty meats. Their knives scarred their pewter plates because salted pork and fish was so tough to cut. The ship was gripped with constipation and a constant, overwhelming thirst. To complicate matters, the fresh water was becoming scarce and the stores were dangerously low. Water was collected by any means possible. When rains came, any item that could hold liquid was placed topside to collect the precious run-off. Mandrik devised a very clever method to recover water out of the sails. Most mornings, dew would collect in the sails and he would instruct his rigger monkeys to tilt the cloth at just the right angle so that the dew would bead together and run down the sails into a waiting cistern, which was nothing more than a modified barrel. If the sails were shaken and rung out as well, they yielded an astonishing amount of water. The quartermaster proudly boasted to the crew it was an ancient Greek sailing trick to collect water. Most of the men ignored this claim since Mr. Mandrik was notorious for attributing credit to the Greeks for every single good idea on the ship. If a crewmember invented something as small and simple as a new knot, Mandrik would proclaim loudly in his awkward Greek voice, “Dah! The Greeks did this first!”
The longer at sea and the longer the crew sailed, the more efficient each man became at their jobs. Soon the crew had a fair amount of free time on their hands the gambling started and although it was against the captain’s policies, everyone gambled. Well, just about everyone. Isaac had finally learned his lesson from the debtors’ prison and swore it off for life.
Liar's Dice was the game of choice and Patrick watched some of his crewmates make and lose a small fortune flipping cups and making dubious claims. Too nervous to play a game he knew nothing about, Patrick watched his fellow sailors play for hours. When Patrick became familiar with the game, he still did not try his hand at Liar's Dice. The carpenter’s mate had no money, nor valuables. All he had to bid with was his rations of food. He was just starting to feel strong and look healthy again and considered his food too high of stakes to lose in a game of dice.
But Shamus saw things very differently. Except for his grog, the wild-eyed Irishman immediately started betting all his food in game. By betting large amounts of his food, Shamus somehow negotiated his way into a game with real silver. The Irish drunkard had a real gift for lying. He told Patrick in confidence he was descended from a race of storytellers, natural liars, and was quickly amassing a small fortune in silver.
Patrick watched in awe as Shamus entered a very high stakes game where the winner would walk out with one-hundred-and-fifty ounces of silver doubloons. Shamus had somehow won an exotic hat and clothing from his last few games and now wore them as trophies. To complete the image he now sported a small beard and mustache that he had grown with astonishing speed for an Irishman.
Shamus playing liars dice and Sam Scurvy watching
Pirates of Savannah Trilogy: Book One, Sold in Savannah - Young Adult Action Adventure Historical Fiction Page 11