"Well, then," quoth he, "it will be just the right thing if I appoint you chief inspector."
That sounded important, and I walked a little stiffly as he led me down the deck. We came to a pig pen where there were half a dozen large and particularly filthy porkers. The chief inspector's office was that of cleaning the pig sty.
"And besides," the helmsman added cordially, "I will appoint you superintendent of the starboard and larboard pharmacies." I promptly discovered that in the language of the sea a pharmacy was a latrine.
In cleaning the sty, I was not allowed to let the pigs out. I had to go in there with them, and it was very narrow quarters. The unspeakably dirty animals rubbed against me constantly while I laboured with pail and brush. The sewage was so deep that it filled my shoes. I had only two pairs of trousers. Soap and water were not to be wasted. I grew filthier than the pigs. And then there were the "clinics."
Everyone kicked me because I looked like a pig and smelled like one. They called me "Pig." For food I had to go around and eat what the sailors left on their plates. They said that was the way pigs were fed. For breakfast, instead of coffee and rolls, there was vodka with stale bread to soak in it. I got the leavings of this. The salted meat, of which I got the scraps, was so strong that I could scarcely force it down my throat. I often thought of that bill of fare from the Fuerst Bismarck, which had lingered in my thoughts. I had made a mistake there, by Joe.
I was afraid of the masts. I dreaded the thought of going aloft. But I said to myself that I must get used to it. So I climbed desperately every day, a little higher, a little higher, always practising. Finally, one day, I got to the crow's nest, halfway to the top. I thought that was fine. I felt so proud I called down for the others to see where I was.
"Any old sea cook can get that far," the helmsman shouted back scornfully.
That hurt me and made me all the more determined to learn how to go aloft as the sailors did. I kept trying, and I watched the other apprentices skipping nimbly high up in the rigging.
We had a storm rounding the Cape of Good Hope, followed by a heavy swell. All the sails had been reefed except the storm sail, and we were ready to set the main topsail. Eager to show how much I had learned about going aloft, I climbed up to help unfurl the canvas. I forgot old Peter's advice: one hand for the ship, the other for yourself. The sail, filled with a sudden gust of wind, blew out like a balloon. I fell. I grabbed hold of the gasket, the rope that holds the sail to the yard, but it burned through my hands. I dropped ninety feet on to the braces, the ropes that hold the yard. If I had struck the deck, I would have been killed. At that moment the ship heaved with a swelling wave, and I was thrown out into the sea.
The Niobe was tearing along with a speed of eight knots. I came up astern. The wash in her wake swirled me around, but I could see a sailor throwing me a life preserver. I couldn't find it. The waves were too high. I sank, and when I came up I saw the ship a long, long distance away, it seemed. I threw off my heavy oilskins and sea boots, although there seemed little use trying to save myself by swimming. Even if they did put out a lifeboat, they would never be able to find me in that heavy sea.