Rough Passage to London: A Sea Captain's Tale

by Robin Lloyd

  “Is this your first voyage with Captain Champlin?” Morgan asked as he took a spoonful of the thick oatmeal mush covered with molasses, which the sailors called long-tail sugar. Hiram shook his head. He was a Penobscot boy from Thomaston, Maine. He confessed that he had left home when he was only fourteen years old. His mother had remarried and his stepfather used to beat him. One day down at the docks in Thomaston, he had spotted a small trading schooner that was sailing to New York. He decided to sneak on board where he hid in a dark corner in the bow of the ship. They never found him until they were well out to sea. Once they arrived in New York, they booted him ashore.

  “I didn’t know where to go,” Hiram said. “I had not a cent in my pocket and no clothes neither.”

  “What did you do?” asked Morgan.

  “Spent a couple of nights sleeping in a fish vendor’s cart down by Pine Street. That fishmonger discovered me when he came to hitch up his horse. He kicked me from here to kingdom come. Some sailors came and yanked me away. Took me to see Captain Champlin, and when he found out I was a New England boy, he put me to work on board the Cincinattus. He says New England boys work harder. That’s why he hired me. That was two years ago, and now I’m on this new ship.”

  Morgan told Hiram his own story, about how he had met Captain Champlin. His parents had gone upriver to Middletown to a baptism, and he had slipped away and taken the ferry over to Great Meadow. A new ship was being launched at Hayden’s Yard. Champlin had singled him out from a group of boys, and offered him a berth if he could get to New York. Then he told his new friend about the cryptic letter from John Taylor.

  “The letter didn’t even say for sure that my brother was dead or how he died.” Morgan hesitated. “Something strange there, don’t you think?”

  Hiram shrugged as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Could be, but then maybe not. What sailors do and what they say don’t always make sense. Your brother could be lying senseless in a street somewhere. Maybe he’s shipwrecked somewhere off the coast of Africa. You’ll probably never know, but if there was foul dealing, I understand you need to find out who done it.”

  Those conversations helped create a tie between the two cabin boys. Morgan even confessed to Hiram his love of reading and produced the book of poetry that Mrs. Carpenter had given to him. He hid the book under his mattress. If any of the other sailors saw him reading, he knew it would create an ugly scene, not just name calling, but possibly a fight. That was another reason why the friendship with Hiram was so important. Morgan sensed he had found a new ally who could help him learn the ropes, and he sorely needed one. The tobacco-chewing second officer was always looking for him to clean the farm area or to lower him from the catheads over the side of the ship to chip rust from the anchor.

  When Mr. Brown first ordered Morgan to slush down the masts, he replied he didn’t know what that meant. The mate flew into a rage, hitting him with the belaying pin. Morgan felt his hands drawing into fists as he thought about fighting back. Then he heard Hiram’s voice cautioning him, and he thought of how Josiah had always counseled him never to cry out when their father was in one of his rages. Mr. Brown handed him a heavy two-gallon bucket filled with thick gravy, which Scuttles had prepared from the remnants of the boiled salt beef. He then ordered him up the rigging.

  “If one drop falls, Morgan, you’ll be licking it off the deck. I want the masts to be thoroughly greased so the topsails, topgallants, and royal yards can be hoisted up and down easily.”

  Biting his lip in humiliation, Morgan held onto a rope attached to the pail with one hand, twisting it around his wrist. It was so heavy he felt like his hand would separate from his arm. With the other hand he pulled himself up the ratlines, squeezing through the narrow lubber’s hole, hauling up the heavy bucket behind him. The slush-filled pail scraped against the mast, tipping back and forth, its foul-smelling contents almost spilling over the edge. Gritting his teeth, Morgan pulled the bucket up the shrouds. His heart pounded as he kept climbing past the topgallant yards up into the royals, refusing to look down. The higher he climbed up the swaying mast the colder he felt. He held on tightly to the shrouds from his precarious perch, more than eighty feet above the deck on the three-foot-wide crosstrees. There he was able to set down the slush pail and gather his strength.

  Mr. Brown sent Hiram up to help him. The two cabin boys were busy slathering the masts with the thick grease when they first heard a commotion below them on deck. It sounded like a fight. They had worked their way down the mast so that they were now perched just below the upper topsail yard, about fifty feet from the deck. They could hear stomping and an angry voice shouting, “I’ll give you the toe of my boot and knock you all the way into the middle of next week.”

  “What’s going on, Hiram?”

  “Sounds like Mr. Brown is having a frolic with one of the sailors,” Hiram replied dryly. Morgan looked down through the spiderweb of the rigging until he spied the blue pea jacket and the black leather hat of the second mate, hurling abuse at a big sailor and shouting into his face.

  “Answer me, you great white monkey!” he yelled as he rained blow after blow on the big man’s back with the belaying pin. Morgan could recognize the sailor by his yellow hair tied back in a ponytail. He was a great hulk of a man with wide and broad shoulders, a big square face with thin whiskers, pale blue eyes, and thin lips that rarely smiled. His name was Olaf Rasmussen. Everyone just called him Icelander because that’s where he was supposedly from. The story was he’d gone to sea because he’d killed a man, or at least that’s what some of the crew whispered behind his back.

  Morgan watched, mesmerized as the shipboard drama unfolded directly underneath him. Another sailor came to Icelander’s defense, a small dark-haired man who spoke little English named Luis Ochoa. He was known as the Spaniard. He was a man near thirty, thin and bronze-skinned with a drooping black moustache and heavily tattooed arms. Morgan had already heard about his reputation of being quick with a knife. Some of the other sailors claimed he had once been a pirate sailing out of Havana. The ship’s officers didn’t like these two foreigners. Some of the river men took a special dislike to sailors who weren’t from New England.

  The second mate was striking both men now. Morgan could see the flat top of his hat and the thrashing motion of the belaying pin. Suddenly, the Spaniard drew his sheath knife and was about to lunge at Mr. Brown. Morgan held his breath and began to panic as he felt the rope holding the slush bucket slipping out of his grasp. Hiram had warned him that this could happen. He tried in vain to wrap it around his wrist, but his hands and arms were thick with grease and the rope kept slipping. He knew he couldn’t hold it any longer.

  “Hiram, help me!” Morgan cried out. “It’s slipping! The bucket, it’s falling!”

  Hiram was on the other side of the mast, but he was quick to react as he saw the impending disaster unfolding. He stepped over to Morgan’s side and sidled toward him, being careful to keep one hand on the shrouds. Morgan reached for the rope with his other hand, but he lost his balance, and started to fall backward. Hiram was close enough to grab him by his belt while he held onto the rigging with the other hand. Morgan was now precariously hanging in the air, his hands frantically trying to grab the shrouds, his feet barely touching the ratlines. By this time, the bucket with its foul and greasy contents was in free fall. The slobbery mess landed on top of the unsuspecting second mate’s head like generous dollops of pig fat on a skillet. The bucket hit the mate squarely on the shoulder. The blow was enough to knock him down onto the deck.

  Hiram called out for help. His hand on Morgan’s belt was beginning to slip.

  “Hurry!” Hiram yelled. “I can’t hold on much longer.”

  Like a nimble monkey, the wiry Spaniard was the first up the mast, climbing around the futtock shrouds for speed and then up the rope ladder to the topsail area where the boys were dangling. The taller Icelander was right behind him, carrying a thick hemp rope. Morgan’s
head was now facing downward, his hands clutching at thin air. He was attempting to grip the ratlines with his feet and legs, but to no avail. The Spaniard climbed up above the two boys, wrapped his legs around the topsail yard’s foot rope, and then like a monkey swung upside down to grab one of Morgan’s feet with both his hands, allowing Hiram to let go of his belt. At the same time, Icelander tied a bowline at one end of the rope and tossed the knotted loop to Morgan’s outstretched hands. He then passed the other end of the rope over the topsail yard and wrapped the line two or three times around the mast to secure it.

  “Put both your hands through the loop and hold,” he yelled. Morgan did as he was told and wrapped his wrist in and around the loop, grabbing the area above the bulging bowline knot. At a signal from Icelander, the Spaniard let go of his hold on Morgan’s foot, and his body catapulted downward toward the deck. His free fall was quickly arrested by the rope, leaving him dangling, swinging back and forth, hanging by his wrists and hands, but safe. Icelander slowly lowered him to the safety of the deck to the cheers of the onlookers down below.

  Captain Champlin came over to check on the condition of his second officer. Jack Brown’s pride was the gravest injury. He made sure that Morgan not only holystoned the decks but scrubbed the pigpen. This punishment went on for days until Brown’s wrath was eventually redirected to another greenhand.

  Because of Morgan’s miraculous escape from almost certain death, some of the more superstitious men now saw him as a lucky sailor. Sighting a pod of dolphins was considered a harbinger of good fortune. A black cat on board ship was good luck, and now young Morgan was finding himself accepted as a member of the crew because he was viewed as a good omen.

  Days later, Ely and Hiram were down on their knees, holystoning the cold decks late one morning when the cry came out from aloft that land was in sight. Earlier they’d already seen some black-and-white seabirds, their stiff wingtips dipping from one side to another as they skimmed the water in search of schools of herring or other small fish. They had been twenty-five days at sea.

  “Can’t be long now to Mizen Head,” cried out one old sailor who was pointing to the northeast. The man was tall and skinny, his bony shoulders drooping like the broken wings of a bird. Morgan couldn’t see anything but a white haze on the horizon. He looked at the man’s craggy features. His long, gray beard hung down like strands of Spanish moss from the limbs of a tree. The scarred and furrowed face and well-defined crow’s-feet at the corners of his light blue eyes were all a testament to a man who had been at sea for most of his life. His name was Jeremiah Watkins. Most of the sailors just called him Old Jeremiah. He was one of the veteran sailors on board who was both superstitious and religious. In his youth, he had attained the rank of a harpooner on one of the Nantucket whalers. He had traveled as far as China and Bombay. At night, when some of the men were off watch and spinning yarn in the forecastle, he would tell tales about the East India trade and “them Oriental monkeys in Bombay who don’t wear no togs, nothing but a white bandana around their privates.” Because of his knowledge of Scripture and legends, good and bad omens, the sailors on board the Hudson looked to him for guidance.

  “Why do you say we are close to Mizen Head?” Morgan asked respectfully.

  “See those black-and-white birds darting about?”

  Morgan nodded as he followed the direction of the sailor’s long extended arm and pointed finger.

  “Those are shearwaters, and they’re the first to welcome us across. They nest on the rocky cliffs of Ireland. That’s how I know we’re getting close to Mizen Head.”

  Jeremiah’s voice was hoarse with the cold weather, and Morgan detected that his breath was tainted with the smell of rum.

  “The Scripture contains considerable amount of teachings, but so do the old legends. Both harrow up important truths out here in the open sea. Who’s to say why storm petrels are said to protect sailors? Some believe these birds carry the souls of drowned sailors. Some say any sailor who kills one of them birds will die. Who’s to say?”

  The old sailor pointed again at one of the shearwaters, which twirled to one side, exposing its white underside, while its wings were rigid and unmoving.

  “You see, the shearwater looks like a flying cross, calling on all sinful sailors to repent.”

  Morgan’s eyes followed the bird as it flew out of sight, thinking how much he had to learn. He wasn’t superstitious by nature, or overly mystical, but he had enough respect for old sailors and their beliefs not to discount anything.

  As the Hudson began to heel sharply with a sudden gust of wind, Mr. Brown sent the two cabin boys aloft to check on some of the buntlines and clewlines. There, dangling from the stirrup with his arms draped over the topgallant yards on the main mast, Morgan looked down at the well-dressed cabin passengers gathered in the quarterdeck. The men sported their black top hats, their long overcoats, and their finely polished boots. There were only two women, both seated, bundled up with blankets pulled tightly around their shoulders. A steward was passing refreshments. It looked like hot cups of tea and a platter of small sandwiches. Captain Champlin was looking through his spyglass. He said something to one of the male passengers, and suddenly they were all gesturing wildly, pointing off to the northeast.

  Morgan swiveled around and in the far distance he caught his first sight of the cliffs of Mizen Head, the southwesternmost tip of Ireland. He looked across a meadow of whitecaps to the dark, windswept cliffs, and the tufts of green beyond. It had taken them over three weeks to cross the Atlantic, and the intensity of this moment left him without words. With an easterly wind, they were forced to tack back and forth along the south coast of Ireland, passing Glandore Harbor and Galley Head in the Celtic Sea. In the distance, they could see another prominent point of land with a lighthouse. He watched as Old Jeremiah poured a tot of rum over the side and asked Hiram what the sailor was doing.

  “That’s an offering to Neptune,” Hiram replied curtly. “Just six months ago one of the Black Ball packet ships, the Albion, went up on the rocks off this coast here in a terrible storm. Twenty persons were clinging to the wreck until finally the ship broke apart and the sea claimed her. The captain was lost along with almost all the crew and the passengers. They say the heavy surf and waves pounded the ship to pieces.”

  Morgan stared out at the inhospitable coastline and the rolling waves of the Atlantic crashing onto shore, the white foam of the sea swirling in whirlpools around the rocks. He thought of William, whose ship had gone down at sea and was never heard of again. His mind turned to the mystery of Abraham’s death, which he was determined to solve. It was too hard for him to accept that both his older brothers had been called away early from this life. Abraham must be alive. He thought of his smile, his cheery optimism, and some of his quirks, like his passion for collecting sailors’ pennywhistles. He pulled out a small one made of lead that his brother had given him before he left home, and fingered its smooth surface for good luck.

  “Why don’t you ask Jeremiah Watkins about it yourself,” Hiram said. “He’s heard the tale of the Albion.”

  Just then the mate called out to mind the braces. Morgan could feel the big ship veer off the wind. They were now on a southwesterly course toward the western edge of the Scilly Islands.

  A day later Morgan took Hiram’s advice. He walked over to Old Jeremiah and began first asking him about the wreck, and then decided to confide in the old sailor and tell him all about his quest to find his brother, and what he had heard about how Abraham had been a victim of “foul play of the worst kind, the Devil’s own mischief.”

  Jeremiah Watkins, his smoky blue eyes suddenly intense, looked down at Morgan.

  “It ain’t for me, an old sailor, to describe the ways of the Devil. He takes a grip on all of us and has many disguises. They say when a shark follows a ship someone on board will die. When rats leave a ship that’s a definite sign you have to look sharp because the Devil will have you afore morning.”

  M
organ persisted.

  “But this old salt who found me spoke with the sailor who sailed with my brother. He told me that this John Taylor quoted scripture, something from Jonah.”

  Old Jeremiah stroked the long strands of his gray beard. He said nothing as he continued to look out at the sea, his thin nostrils moving, sniffing the breeze like a dog.

  “Now that’s a different pannikin of wine altogether. There’s the Devil’s mischief in those hogsheads. Do you know what a Jonah is, son?”

  Morgan shook his head.

  “A Jonah is a sailor who brings bad luck. Sometimes the only way to overcome that misfortune is to sacrifice that sailor.”

  5

  1824

  Morgan looked around the darkness of the forecastle. The wet sailors dressed in their damp oilskins were silent, gathered in small groups under the glow of a single gimbaled lantern. The ship was pitching and heaving. The summer storm had pushed them far off course into the Bay of Biscay, and as a result the mood was grim. As he scanned the weathered faces of the men in the gloom of the dark forecastle, Morgan’s mind wandered back. Two years had passed since he first had stepped on board the Hudson. After eight voyages across the Atlantic, he was now an apprentice sailor. He was strong and nimble as a squirrel in the rigging. The bristly stubble on his face and the thickness of his neck were testament to his growth from boy to man. His muscular arms and shoulders were tattooed, a compass rose on his left shoulder and an anchor on his right. Two signs of hope, he had told Hiram. His friend had scoffed at him and proudly showed off the big-breasted mermaids he had tattooed on his two shoulders. “These doxies are all the hope I need,” he said. Like many of the sailors, they both chewed tobacco now, regularly sharing each other’s quids as a sign of their friendship.