Frank Brown, Sea Apprentice

by Frank Thomas Bullen

FRANK BROWN
SEA APPRENTICE

CHAPTER I
THE CALL OF THE SEA

“My dear boy, you are only feeling what I think most British boys feel at some period of their school days, a longing for an adventurous life, no matter what the outcome of it may be. Of course you can’t see one inch beyond your nose, that’s not to be expected, any more than that you should consider my feelings in the matter. You want to go to sea and that’s enough—for you; but, Frank, aren’t your mother and father to be thought of at all? I know of course that sailors are necessary and all that, but what little I know of a sailor’s life and prospects makes me feel that it is the last profession on earth that I should choose for my son, especially after I have impoverished myself to fit you to take your place in the great firm with which I have been honourably connected for the last thirty years. There will always be plenty of youngsters with unhappy homes and neglected education to take up the business of seafaring, boys who have got nothing else to look forward to ashore. But you’re not one of those, are you?”

The speaker, Mr. Frank Brown, was a man who occupied a responsible position in the counting-house of a great manufacturing firm in the North of England. Steady, faithful, if humdrum, service had raised him from almost the lowest position in the office to the post he had held for the last twelve years at a salary of £500 a year. He was happily married, and had three children, two daughters aged twelve and sixteen respectively, and a son, to whom he was now speaking, who came between them, that is, he was now fourteen; a fine, healthy, and intelligent lad.

But while Mr. Brown was almost a model member of that great middle class which, in spite of what sensationalists may say, is in very truth the backbone of our country, his horizon was exceedingly limited by his particular business. Outside of it he was almost densely ignorant of the world’s affairs. All his abilities, and they were undoubtedly high, had been always concentrated upon his duties at the office, and he had been repaid by a life devoid of care and external difficulties. It never even occurred to him what “going to sea” meant for his native land, namely, her existence as a nation. He did not know that there was any difference between the Navy and the Merchant service, only thought of the sailor as a picturesque, careless figure who led a life full of adventure but empty of profit to himself, a rolling stone who could never be expected to gather any moss.

And he was a perfect type of many thousands of his class, whom it is impossible not to admire, while bewailing the narrowness of their minds, the restriction of their intellectual boundaries. He had never contemplated the possibility of his son striking out an original line for himself, having in his own mind mapped out that son’s career, and now when in stammering accents and blushing like a girl that son had suddenly announced his determination to “go to sea,” he was filled with dismay. His mental vision showed him a hirsute semi-piratical individual reeking of strong liquors and rank tobacco, full of strange oaths and stranger eccentricities, but entirely lacking in the essential elements of “getting on,” which, to tell the truth, was to Mr. Brown the chief end of man.

Now Frank junior cared for none of these latter things, because he had never thought about them. Food and clothes and home comforts came as did the sunshine and the air. From his earliest recollection he had never needed to concern himself with any of his wants, because they were supplied in good time by the care of his dear mother. A perfectly healthy young animal, and free from vice because he had led a sheltered life, he had given no trouble, but having lately taken to reading stories of adventure, principally of the sea, he had suddenly felt the call of the wild, the craving of the bird reared in the cage to escape therefrom upon seeing a wild bird fly past or upon inhaling a breath from the forest or field. This primal need held him, and so, although he hardly knew how to express himself, he stood his ground, and to his father’s address only replied, “I feel I must go, Dad. I don’t know why, but I feel I shan’t ever do any good here. Do let me go.”

And that was all they could get out of him. The tears of his mother and the expostulations of his father were equally of no use, and besides, it must be admitted that he was secretly encouraged (which was needless) by his eldest sister, who said, “I glory in you, Frank; if I was only a boy I’d go, see if I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t stick on this mill-horse round day after day, never getting any further forward, not I. I’m proud of you, old chap.”

Many a private confabulation did these two hold together, the subject always being the glorious adventure of a sailor’s life, the splendid opportunity of seeing the world and of doing the things that stay-at-homes only read about and gape over, until the boy was ready to do anything, however foolish, to gratify his craving. But, like many other boyish fancies, I think this might have worn off, if it hadn’t been for a circumstance occurring accidentally just then which clinched matters.