I LOVED THE FIRST BOAT I saw – a wrecked skiff, slowly sinking beneath the river mud at Cockermouth. Something about the wood, the lines, the way it seemed to still defy the water even though time, and probably rocks and shoals, had defeated it. In my childish way I think I wanted to be part of that struggle of man against the sea. This was not surprising as I spent my youth not far from sight and sound of the Irish Sea and crossed it to the Isle of Man many times to visit family who had property there, and later my mother. That good woman had had the misfortune to lose her husband while her children were yet young and suffered, as well as this grief, financial reversals that forced her to take refuge from her creditors on Man.
I will not dwell on this painful period as it hurts me to consider what her mental state might be now, given my apparent disappearance off the face of the world. Her pecuniary position I know to be secure as a result of my brother organising an annuity to keep her in reasonable comfort. But I am straying, being no experienced pen and ink narrator. As I say, I crossed to the island many times and more than once had the responsibility of bringing the boat to safe harbour, albeit under the watchful eye of a true boatman.
My crossings were made in calm weather, but squalls blew up sometimes and the passage became hazardous, for the rocks and shoals threatened at the best of times and more so in mist, wind and rain. But I was never seasick in my life and, with keen eyes, a strong arm and a willing heart, I was useful in these circumstances from an early age.
‘You’ll make a sailor, young Fletcher,’ old Claud Corkill, a kinsman and a boatman for fifty years, said in the Manx tongue and I glowed under his approval and bent my back to whatever task he allotted me.
I should account, at this point, for writing my story in the Manx tongue. I learned it young from the likes of Claud Corkill and also my father and older brother, Edward, who took an antiquarian interest in it as the language of our ancestors. There were signs around the island written in Manx and my father had documents in it that I perused with interest on days when the weather kept me indoors. I would not guarantee that my rendering of it is always accurate and some words and phrases escape me utterly. For this reason I will no doubt venture into English at some points and a sort of Otaheitean at others. My object is plain – to prevent others reading what I have written, for I plan to tell the truth about events and people and some may not like my depiction of them. How many of my fellows can read I am not sure, but Ned Young and Will Brown for certain and Alex Smith can at least read the Bible. Perhaps others as well.
Looking back over what I have written, and to my shame have much amended so as to be scarcely readable in parts, I see I have not made my character clear. Can any man do this with certainty? I say I could handle a tiller and master a language. What manner of man is this? Probably one who might come to glory or disaster, I fancy. To make plain; I was a fair scholar and stayed at school longer than most for want of a chance to do aught else. But I was a boy for the open air – for sports at which I held my own with the best and, I must admit it, a large measure of that pride of prick I spoke of above. Above all, from being out on the water and climbing high in the Lake District, I had a sense that the world was big and the way to see it, bird flight being impossible, was not on foot or by horse or carriage but by sea.
So it was that, with my older brothers prospering in the law and medicine and my mother, sister and younger brother provided for, I left school trained for nothing in particular. But with one ambition – to go to sea. England was at war and needed seamen. I joined the navy as a midshipman and served in the Far East upon the Eurydice. There was no seafaring tradition in our family and various members told me I would hate the navy.
‘It’s a brutal life, Fletcher,’ my brother Charles, the nearest to me in age, said. ‘Harsh discipline, filthy food, villainous companions. You’re a good horseman. Why not think of doing something in that line?’
Indeed I was a good rider, but currying, mucking out and tending to colicky nags had no appeal to me.
In many ways, Charles’ prediction was right. Life in the junior ranks at sea was hard. Farmers may complain about their work but on wild, wet, windy days they will mostly be found indoors whilst we seamen are out on deck. A midshipman could be flogged which was a worrying thought because I made several mistakes early on which would have incurred this penalty among the lower ranks. Luckily, such a punishment was rarely invoked on the gentlemen. Villains there were many on board among the officers, sailors and marines, but good fellows too, and food I never much worried about.
What Charles knew nothing about was the thrill of travelling to places the landlocked people never saw and feasting my eyes and memory upon Madeira, the Cape colony, Madras and the coast from Goa to the southern tip of India. The sight of the coolies labouring in the rice fields under a burning sun I can conjure up still, and it comforts me to think that our natives, however discontented they may sometimes be, endure nothing as harsh as those poor, black devils. Sitting here under a palm tree with a sea breeze at my back I remember Fort St George at Madras and the hectic activity taking place all around – the trading, the carrying, the shouting – and I am glad of the quiet. Madras, I learned, was a place fought over for years by other nations before Britain held sway. I wonder how many died there in its feverish climate.
A memory from this time comes back to me. I sat on a verandah after enjoying the favours of a Madras hoori, drawing on a cheroot and taking a peg of brandy, when I was approached by a strange figure I took at first to be an Indian.
‘Good morrow, young sir,’ he said, removing a stained and faded wide-brimmed hat. With his face thus revealed, I saw him to be a white man, though browned by the sun, and wearing the sandals, loose shirt and pants of a native. ‘Have I your permission to sit?’
I signalled no objection and he sat in a cane chair opposite my own and fanned himself with his hat. He had a face as old as any I’d ever seen, but keen blue eyes with it and, although his teeth were stained by the plant the natives chew, they looked sound. His thin hair was white and he wore a neatly trimmed white beard.
‘A mariner,’ he said.
I nodded.
‘As I was myself once. A drink?’
His tone made his words somewhere between a request and a command. In my happy state I was amused and gestured to the hovering servant to bring two more brandies. His name I have long forgotten and much of what he said, except that he warned me against becoming entrammelled by a woman in foreign lands.
I remark this memory now because in time to come, if the story of the mutiny on Bounty is told, I may be accused of precisely this failing. It was not so. The matter goes far deeper.
The great thing about the sailor’s life is that he may sample these strange sights, indulge in the local vices if he pleases, buy unusual items, and yet still return to where all is familiar, comfortable and safe. Not so now, although it is not to my purpose to entertain that thought lest it bring on the melancholy to which I am sometimes subject. The Eurydice saw no action on that voyage yet, as a ship of war, there were drills and exercises, and I gained some sense of what fighting at sea would be like. I yearned to experience it. On the voyage home I was given a watch, a rare honour for a midshipman on his first voyage.
So it was with great disappointment that I found myself land-bound again on my return to an England at peace. When questioned by my family about how I had endured the discipline and hardships, having been known as a rebellious and headstrong youth, I replied that it was easy to become respected, liked, even beloved on board ship – be ready to obey a superior’s orders and be kind to the men.