Rough Passage to London(12)

It was Toothacher, with his chest thrown out in a disciplined military manner, who addressed the entire crew once they’d all come aboard. He and the second mate, Mr. Brown, divided the men into watches that first day. At the end of the selection process, Morgan was alone on the deck, a solitary figure and last to be chosen. He suddenly felt the unfriendly stares of his new shipmates. Who would have him? The first mate or the second mate? Did he care?

“What’s your name, boy?” the burly first officer asked. “I don’t think I know you.”

“Morgan, sir, Ely Morgan.”

“Morgan, Morgan.” He paused with a smile on his face. “Or did you say Organ?” At that, he began to laugh at his own joke, and most of the sailors joined in. “What do you say, my hearties? From now on we’re calling this young bumpkin over here monkey, the organ boy. Maybe I’ll just baptize ye monkey boy for short.”

Morgan’s face was petrified by this humiliation, but there was more to come. The second mate with the black porkpie hat strode over to him with a hostile swagger and began picking at his clothes with his large hands, his breath smelling of rum.

“Lookee here,” said the second officer with a gleeful smirk, “a piece of straw.” He picked it up and looked at it closely. “It appears like this yokel brought a bit of the farm with him on his duds.”

Mr. Brown walked around Morgan, inspecting him like he would a farm animal or a Negro slave. “Nobody wants you, it seems, boy.” He spit out a wad of tobacco juice over the side, then turned to his fellow officer in what seemed like a rehearsed bit of choreography. “I reckon I’ll do you a favor, Mr. Toothacher. I’ll take the young pup this time, but I don’t mind saying I don’t like his name. From now on I’m going to call him Hayseed.”

Morgan’s last memory of his former life was looking back at the fading outline of Staten Island as the ship coasted by the highlands of the New Jersey shore. He gazed ahead of him at the sandy strip of land called Sandy Hook and then out toward the wide ocean that lay beyond. He could see angry whitecaps and what looked like some rough seas ahead.





During those first few days, Morgan was sick as a dog. The water swashed over the decks and over him. The second mate amused himself by tormenting him, forcing him to walk on the deck as the ship was rolling. Morgan staggered like a drunk man, falling down on the slanted deck repeatedly. Mr. Brown beat him with the end of a rope and told him to stand. When he couldn’t get up, the mate threw buckets of cold water over him. Morgan was desperate for someone to save him. He looked over at the first mate, who was watching them as he walked by. Morgan thought for sure that Mr. Toothacher would put a stop to this abuse, but he just looked the other way.

The shipboard cruelty wasn’t just confined to the mates. Some of the veterans jeered at him, but one old sailor kindly offered to give him a remedy for seasickness. Morgan was sent to the center of the ship where the farm animals were kept and came back with the sailor’s medicine, a pail of fresh sheep dung. The old veteran told Morgan to wipe this all over his face, and if he did that, he would never get sick again. Morgan did as he was told, and soon the entire ship was laughing at him, holding their noses as they avoided getting too close to him.

A few days into the voyage, some of the sailors were muttering that heavy weather was coming. He remembered gray clouds and green seas. The ship had fallen into a deep valley between two ridges, hiding the horizon. Just then came the order from the second mate to shorten sail.

“All hands aloft! Reef the topgallants! Reef the topsails! That means you, Hayseed!” Brown lunged at him and pushed him up the ratlines.

Morgan clambered up the shrouds as best he could, squirreling his way through the lubber’s hole, the less risky way to climb to the topmast platform. The captain was driving the ship hard with all sails and gear taut and straining. Morgan looked around him at the hundreds of feet of heavy rope lines that wove their way through the masts like a spiderweb, and wondered how he would ever learn their names. The Hudson had more than fifteen sails, most of which were fastened onto the stout yards. Each of the three masts was divided into three sections. At the deck level was the lower mast, to which was fastened the topmast, which in turn supported the topgallant mast. That much he already understood. However, he knew nothing about the pulleys and blocks that ran to other blocks on the mast, and then further down to a row of belaying pins around the foot of the mast and extending out to the bulwarks.

He continued crawling upward, slowly and awkwardly, his hands clutching the shrouds, his feet treading on the ratlines. He couldn’t look down. It was too frightening. The wind felt much stronger now, and the roll of the ship was quite pronounced. His heart was pounding. He could hear the second mate yelling at him. He stepped out onto a rope slung under the yard, gingerly pulling himself out onto the swaying topgallant yard eighty feet or so above the deck. His arms were wrapped around the yard so tightly he could feel the pain from the pressure on his biceps. He had a knot in his stomach when he heard another order.