Confessions of a Preteen Powder Monkey - Part 4
Created | Updated Jul 2, 2006
After emerging from the storm we were apparently many miles from where we were before, becalmed, and surrounded by fog. We were stuck like this for three days; when there was suddenly, and against all expectations looming ominously out of the fog… nothing.
This is the kind of thrilling voyage I was on.
We must have spent several months on the ship, and I spent the time as the “hey you” and powder monkey. A powder monkey being someone who prepares canons, and us being miles from any sign of… well… anything really, I didn’t have that much to do. My duties as “hey you”, were pretty self explanatory, and kept me more than busy enough. These audacious tasks involved doing the crew’s laundry, and to be frank being told to “swab the decks, Jim lad” sounds a lot more fun on TV.
Many socks later, we finally caught site of… I can’t remember where the captain had said we were going, but at least it was land. We were approached by another ship flying “colours” (an actual sailors’ term for tiny flaggy things) unfamiliar to us. I saw it was covered in various colonial doodads, so there was no doubt they belonged to one of these New World countries being set up almost every day now. Then. Whatever. They send up some signal flaggy things, we sent up ours, and we stopped, allowing them to move closer. By the time by were side by side I had found out what the message had been from a member of the crew whose sole pleasure in life was being as unhelpful as possible to everyone he met. However, I fought down my better instincts (to reposition his features so he could see his back teeth with greater ease) as he was about nine feet tall, and built like Buckingham Palace. I suppose he would have made a good PE teacher at my school. He would probably have very soon become one of those people whose only reason not for being fired was that they were “like part of the furniture” (presumably meaning cold, cheap and steely).
Anyway, they (the ship) were asking for aid, and had an important message for all discovery ships leaving from England.
A tall, thin, almost gangly man was helped out of the extremely un-jolly boat that had moved up alongside us, and walked onto the deck. He introduced himself, saying his name was David Bernard Williamson. He was dressed in a frilled blue felt jacket, had brown hair, dark green eyes, and a permanent worried frown and guilty expression on his face.
“Terribly sorry about this old chap, but needs must and all that.”
“Wha’ ye tarkin’ abart ye prissy scum?” said our captain, ever the silver tongued conversationalist.
“I am the now owner of the new country in the far north of the New World, called-” he paused, and one of his sailors passed him a dirty scrap of paper, “Can-hardha, being no relation whatsoever to the highly inferior country Canada, and consisting of the independent Inupiaq speaking population of an area of land previously under illegally enforced control.”
Knew it.
“And so, in order to raise funds for our new economically challenged…” he went on like this for some time, and slowly people went back to work. One of “Dave’s” flunkies started to snigger. “And so, I and my associates are required to forcibly remove from you your cargo, your ship, and your lives.” I sat up with a start, along with some of the more alert crewmembers. Dave’s “associates” now had so many weapons sticking out that they looked like huge, sweaty, tattooed porcupines. Again I found myself longing for my desert island.
This is the kind of thrilling voyage I was on.
We must have spent several months on the ship, and I spent the time as the “hey you” and powder monkey. A powder monkey being someone who prepares canons, and us being miles from any sign of… well… anything really, I didn’t have that much to do. My duties as “hey you”, were pretty self explanatory, and kept me more than busy enough. These audacious tasks involved doing the crew’s laundry, and to be frank being told to “swab the decks, Jim lad” sounds a lot more fun on TV.
Many socks later, we finally caught site of… I can’t remember where the captain had said we were going, but at least it was land. We were approached by another ship flying “colours” (an actual sailors’ term for tiny flaggy things) unfamiliar to us. I saw it was covered in various colonial doodads, so there was no doubt they belonged to one of these New World countries being set up almost every day now. Then. Whatever. They send up some signal flaggy things, we sent up ours, and we stopped, allowing them to move closer. By the time by were side by side I had found out what the message had been from a member of the crew whose sole pleasure in life was being as unhelpful as possible to everyone he met. However, I fought down my better instincts (to reposition his features so he could see his back teeth with greater ease) as he was about nine feet tall, and built like Buckingham Palace. I suppose he would have made a good PE teacher at my school. He would probably have very soon become one of those people whose only reason not for being fired was that they were “like part of the furniture” (presumably meaning cold, cheap and steely).
Anyway, they (the ship) were asking for aid, and had an important message for all discovery ships leaving from England.
A tall, thin, almost gangly man was helped out of the extremely un-jolly boat that had moved up alongside us, and walked onto the deck. He introduced himself, saying his name was David Bernard Williamson. He was dressed in a frilled blue felt jacket, had brown hair, dark green eyes, and a permanent worried frown and guilty expression on his face.
“Terribly sorry about this old chap, but needs must and all that.”
“Wha’ ye tarkin’ abart ye prissy scum?” said our captain, ever the silver tongued conversationalist.
“I am the now owner of the new country in the far north of the New World, called-” he paused, and one of his sailors passed him a dirty scrap of paper, “Can-hardha, being no relation whatsoever to the highly inferior country Canada, and consisting of the independent Inupiaq speaking population of an area of land previously under illegally enforced control.”
Knew it.
“And so, in order to raise funds for our new economically challenged…” he went on like this for some time, and slowly people went back to work. One of “Dave’s” flunkies started to snigger. “And so, I and my associates are required to forcibly remove from you your cargo, your ship, and your lives.” I sat up with a start, along with some of the more alert crewmembers. Dave’s “associates” now had so many weapons sticking out that they looked like huge, sweaty, tattooed porcupines. Again I found myself longing for my desert island.
