At Peck’s Slip, Captain Foster hired two wharf rats for five cents each to help unload the cargo. Ely swung his duffel over his shoulder as he said good-bye to the captain and his crew and stepped ashore. When he looked back to wave, Foster gave him one last word of advice.
“Remember what I told you, son: life shipboard ain’t near as nice as what it looks like from shore.”
Nearby at the new fish market on Fulton Street, a vendor yelled at him: “Heh boy, you want a job scalin’ fish?”
Morgan looked at the grinning face of the grizzly fish salesman and then down at the scaly table filled with fish heads. Flies were buzzing around the vendor. The lifeless eyes of one large, dull, gray codfish seemed to be staring at him. The fetid smell of the old fish overwhelmed him and he gagged. He quickly turned away. His destination was 68 South Street, the new address of the offices of Griswold & Coates. There at the corner of Pine Street, he was to meet Captain Henry Champlin, his new employer. For one awful moment he wondered what would happen to him if Champlin wasn’t there. He had no place to go and only a quarter in his pocket. He put that unpleasant thought out of his mind. His eyes scanned the docks, gazing at the long line of ships with their graceful bowsprits pointed upward over the walkways. There were so many ships he couldn’t even count them.
He wondered if Abraham’s ship had docked here before it left for South America. He began to reminisce about his brother. The truth was he still missed him. They were five years apart, but unlike the other brothers, they had enjoyed a special friendship. Ely was small for his age, smart and quick with his studies, and the bigger boys at school had constantly picked on him. They pushed and shoved him and called him names. Feisty and strong willed, he’d return their taunts. It was Abraham who had always stepped in to protect him. In return, Ely had frequently helped his older brother with spelling and punctuation, which Abraham hated. But it was their mutual fascination with the sea and the oceangoing sailors that had bonded the two boys; that, and the harsh treatment they had both received from their father, had served to pull them together. They saw each other as kindred spirits with a shared destiny.
Ely looked at a group of burly men heaving and hauling thick lines as they pulled their ship into dock. Maybe one of those men knew John Taylor. He ran up to one of them to ask if he’d ever heard of Abraham Morgan or John Taylor.
The bearded sailor, who towered over Ely, looked down at him with a scornful expression.
“Can’t say that I have, son. No, no Taylors or Morgans on this ship, boy.” Just then the man paused and started stroking his beard.
“Now hold on a minute, you say Taylor?”
“Yes, yes. John Taylor,” Morgan said excitedly.
“Why don’t you try over there,” the man said, pointing to an adjacent ship. “I hear tell they got a Taylor on board.”
Ely’s heart was beating rapidly as he rushed over to the ship. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. Maybe Abraham was alive after all. Taylor would know. The letter to his mother had been so cryptic, its words so puzzling. Now the mystery would be solved.
Those few moments of euphoria were soon cut short by the awful sound of deep belly laughter coming from behind him. He stopped and looked back at his helpful informant, who was now laughing and joking with his shipmate, pointing in Ely’s direction as he made fun of “that stupid country bumpkin boy yonder.”
“Need some stichin’, do you?” the man asked. “That why you lookin’ for a tailor?”
“Where’s your mother, boy?”
Ely turned away, suddenly feeling small and alone.
PART II
We were again set to work, and I had a vile commission to clean out the chicken coops, and make up the beds of the pigs in the long-boat. Miserable dog’s life is this of the sea! commanded like a slave, and set to work like an ass!
—Herman Melville, Redburn: His First Voyage
3
On a cold, drizzly November morning, Ely took the first tentative steps onto the gangway of the Hudson with great trepidation. Like many landlubbers, he was nervous and worried. The newly built 360-ton ship was sailing to London that same day on its inaugural voyage, and the seriousness of what he was about to do was just beginning to dawn on him. He looked around as he clambered aboard, awestruck at the smooth decks and the hundreds of feet of heavy lines that extended upward like intricate cobwebs. The ship was 106 feet long, about four times as long as it was wide. There were several hatches that led down below, but otherwise the decks were open spaces framed by the green bulwarks on the sides of the ship and the sweeping curve of the rails at the stern. The nine passengers in cabin class, all finely dressed, had already arrived with their crates and boxes. They were clustered together on the quarterdeck. Bundled-up stevedores wearing stained and patched woolen sweaters were loading barrels of apples and hogsheads of turpentine into the cargo hold at the center of the ship.