Ran Away to Sea

by Mayne Reid

I was not twelve hours on board—twelve minutes I might almost say—before I was completely cured of my sea fever; and I would have parted with the best tooth in my head to have set my legs once more on land again. Almost on embarking I was overhauled by sea-sickness, and in another hour it became so bad that I thought it would have turned me inside out.

Sea-sickness is a malady not pleasant under any circumstances—even to a first-cabin passenger, with a steward to wait upon him, and administer soothing prescriptions and consoling sympathy. How much more painful to a poor friendless boy treated as I was—sworn at by the surly captain—cursed and cuffed by the brutal mate—jeered and laughed at by the ruffian crew. Oh! it was horrid, and had the ship been sinking under me at that moment I verily believe I should not have made the slightest effort to save myself!

Forty-eight hours, however, gave me relief from the nauseous ailing, for this like many other diseases is often short-lived where it is most violent. In about two days I was able to stand up and move about the decks, and I was made to move about them with a vengeance.

I have above characterised the captain as “surly,” the mate “brutal,” and the crew a set of “ruffians”: I have spoken without exaggeration. With an exception or two, a more villainous gang I never encountered—of course not before that time—for that was not likely; but never since either, and it has several times been the fortune of my life to mix in very questionable and miscellaneous company.

The captain was not only surly, but positively ferocious when drunk or angry, and one or both he generally was. It was dangerous to go near him—at least for me, or any one that was weak and helpless—for it was chiefly upon the unresisting that he ventured his ill-humour.

I was not long on board before I incurred his displeasure by some mistake I could not possibly help—I had a taste of his temper then, and many a one afterwards, for his spite once kindled against anyone was implacable as the hate of a Corsican, and never became allayed.

He was a short, stout, “bluffy” man, with features perfectly regular, but with fat round cheeks, bullet eyes, and nose slightly upturned—a face which is often employed in pictures to typify good-nature, jollity, and an honest heart; but with little propriety is it so employed in my opinion, since under just such smiling faces have I, during a long life’s experience, encountered the greatest amount of dishonesty combined with dispositions most cruel and brutal. Such a man was the skipper into whose tender care I had so recklessly thrown myself.

The mate was an echo of his captain. When the one said “no” the other said “no,” and when either said “yes,” the other affirmed it. The principal difference between them was that the mate did not drink, and perhaps this lengthened, if it did not strengthen, the bond of friendship that existed between them. Had both been drinkers they must have quarrelled at times; but the mate never “tasted” as he affirmed, and when his superior was in his cups this enabled him to bear the abuse which not unfrequently the captain treated him to. In all matters of discipline, or of anything else, he was with the captain, for though brutal he was but a cowardly fellow and ever ready to fawn upon his master, “boot-lick” him as the sailors termed it.

There was a second mate, but this was a very secondary kind of a character, not worth description, and scarcely to be distinguished from the common “hands” over whom he exercised only a very limited control.

There was a carpenter, an old man with a large swollen rum-reddened nose, another crony of the captain’s; and a huge and very ugly negro, who was both cook and steward, and who was vile enough to have held office in the kitchen of Pluto. These were the officers of the ship, and for the men, they were, as already stated, as villainous a crew as I ever encountered. There were exceptions—only one or two,—but it was some time before I discovered them.