I was seven years old when I first met Fear, and what happened at the meeting and what followed did more to shape my character and life than anything I can remember. For I learned the important lesson that if I stuck to the code of the sea never to squeal, no matter what happened, but to fight my own battles in my own way—I could win against odds, provided I licked Fear.
It all came about through Stitches teaching me to fish. Of course careful old Stitches had too much sense to start me after deep sea fish, for they are so heavy and powerful that one might have yanked me overboard before help could reach me.
“You can practice gettin’ little ones first, Skipper,” he said, as he baited a line with a cockroach for me. “If you get a pull, take your line in easy.”
I fished every day for weeks, and never got so much as a nibble. As I hadn’t had any luck deep sea fishing, I tried casting my line in the harbor at Sydney. Father was ashore attending to bills of lading, and the crew were cleaning up the ship, painting, chipping paint and reeving on new canvas.
I felt a nibble; the line twitched, and I pulled with all my seven-year-old strength on it. On the hook was a flat fish about six inches long with huge bulging eyes. He wiggled and squirmed, but I got him in my fist and called to anyone who could hear to come and see my catch. Alex Svenson, a Norwegian sailor, who was holystoning the poop deck, came over to look at my fish.
“Ain’t he a whopper?” I asked him, full of pride and enthusiasm. Svenson picked up the fish in his big paw and grunted a negative.
“This is a bloody bullfish. It ain’t no good to eat,” he said, and he ground the fish under his heel and laughed at my tears of disappointment.
No one ever fought my battles except myself, and this insult to my first catch was cause for war.
“That’s my fish, you bloody squarehead,” I shouted at him, as I grabbed my shining treasure and stuck it inside the bib of my overalls next to my skin.
“I’ll kill you for making fun of my fish,” and I kicked Svenson on the shins as hard as I could. But kicking a six foot Scandinavian on the shins with bare feet is not to be recommended. I only stubbed my toes and the more I kicked the more they hurt and the louder Svenson laughed. Ordinarily he was vile-tempered, but now my helpless rage seemed to please him.