Mister Christian by William Kinsolving

Author:William Kinsolving
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

With the Royal Navy

1794-1797

I could not have known, as I gazed into the boy’s overflowing eyes reflecting the lantern light in the hold that night, I was seeing my future for the next three years. That is how long he and I served together on a variety of ships on a variety of seas. And not once in that time were we allowed to put foot to land. As pressed “volunteers,” we and those like us were looked on as necessary on the high seas but prisoners in port. We were kept aboard as others had their liberty, allowed only the pleasures brought to the ship on bumboats—rotten food, tainted rum, and infected whores, along with the maladies each provided. I’d previously learned my lessons about all three luxuries and respected a safe distance, such apparent righteousness earning my seaman’s nickname, “Pope.” It went well with the name I’d assumed for the ships’ rolls, John Gulliver.

My young friend, on the other hand, indulged in any excess that came his way as antidote for his longing. Such conduct only succeeded in keeping him on the ship’s surgeon’s venereal list, burning out his stomach, and introducing an unknown infection to his blood—they guessed—that caused the sudden loss of hair over his entire body. His nickname thus became “Egg.” A draper from Eastcheap, his bitterness at his fate turned to acid, particularly after the letter arrived announcing the birth of his son.

I of course received no letters, nor could send none. I tried on numerous occasions to beg shore leave, to no avail. Most maddening of all was when we returned to a home port after a long and wretched time on blockade or convoy escort and our ship headed for drydock, the crew being paid off. I never reached a quay. Before the ship dropped anchor, press-gangs from other ships would arrive, and those of us who’d been pressed would be turned over to yet another ship in search of its complement so it could sail on the next tide. Needless to say, our pay was overlooked and then forgotten, meagre though it was and evaporated by swollen prices that were deducted by the master for the necessary clothes and goods from his slop chest—storm cape, boots, needles, knives, tobacco. One does not accumulate his fortune rated as an able-bodied seaman in the Royal Navy.

On two occasions, I swam for shore. Once I nearly drowned, the other time I was nearly shot. Both efforts gained me a month in chains below the orlop deck, fighting with the rats for my biscuit. After that, I accepted my captivity and waited for the tiny chance that sometime I’d be set ashore. The frenzy for reaching Daphne gave way to despair, and all the conscious imaginings of what she’d done that night, what she’d thought having seen me there that day, and what had happened to her since sank into nightmare as I tried not to consider the questions when awake. I was not a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.