To ctj: a writer and friend who not only changes the lives of her characters, but has changed my life as well.
(Historical notes are at the end.)
Come loose every sail to the breeze.
The course of my vessel improve;
I've done with the toils of the seas,
Ye sailors, I'm bound to my love.
Ye sailors, I'm bound to my love,
Ye sailors, I'm bound to my love,
I've done with the toils of the seas,
Ye sailors, I'm bound to my love.
-Come, Loose Every Sail to the Breeze, Traditional Sea Shanty
What a routine.
There was possibly no more difficult way to awaken, nothing that could turn his eyelids to solid iron, better than the shout of the Botswain and the groan of sailors in their small hammocks. The icy thwack of his infamous cane against the walls, the sailor's legs, his earthy bellow commanding all to wake up, wake up, and rise from their hammocks like the undead, was the bane of Linebeck's existence, as it had been for both the better and worse part of nearly twenty years.
In accordance with routine, he scrambled from his hammock, slid into his boots and threw his thin coat over his clothes that desperately needed washing, and soon the day was in full swing- sails raised, ropes pulled, insults thrown, and course set. Linebeck was particularly involved in rope pulling and had the calloused, raw hands to prove it.
The night shift had it lucky, in his opinion: not much headway was ever made at night, and most sailors were allowed to sleep on deck. But Linebeck, in all his fortune, was the recipient of a morning shift, of the Lieutenants' verbal abuse and Botswain's cane, of lugging and loading and pulling all before breakfast.
Join the Navy, they'd all said, a voice of warped mockery of the past, You could make something of yourself.
Easy for them to say, a pair of farmers who could hardly scrape a few potatoes out of the ground. To them, all-you-can-eat oatmeal and sawdust biscuits must've been a dream. But it was the hard-truth of reality that made it difficult to get up in the morning: those farmers- his parents- had died fifteen years ago and he'd been boasting the same rank for the last eighteen years with no sign of a promotion in sight.
As an Able Seaman, his rank spoke of a man who had at least three years of naval experience, never mind that he'd been doing the same routine over six times that amount. Many were in his same position, it was true, but that didn't make it any less dejecting when he obviously could climb through the ranks, should someone let him.
Sure, he hadn't any true skills besides rope-pulling, but he could learn. Maybe one of the quarter-gunners would kick the bucket in some freak accident and they'd sense Linebeck's potential, pull him up the ladder to teach him something less mundane. Ah, what a dream.
It was nearly noon by the time Lieutenant Garrickson began stalking the decks, narrowly avoiding tripping over the little cabin boy in green vigorously scrubbing the decks before the clack of his boots halted, and Linebeck turned from his rope pulling as the deck fell silent.
"Attention sailors!" He bellowed, "This evening, we will be docking in Liverpool and Captain Lenzo has graciously allowed each sailor his own night of leave."
A roar of cheers threatened to burst through the seams of the sailors' silence; four weeks it'd been since they'd last touched land- a long span for a ship during peacetime.
"However," pressed Garrickson, raising a long, gangly finger in objection, "You may as well be warned now that if even a single man finds it within his will to flee his commitment to the Royal Navy, he will be found and severely punished."
It was the usual threat, then, promising hell on earth to those who dare desert. But it wasn't as if the Navy could search the entirety of Great Britain to find a single man, although Linebeck could hardly think of where he'd go or what he'd do if given the opportunity to flee.*
Garrickson was evidently finished speaking, but had barely made an about-face when his boot landed straight in the cabin boy's bucket, sending a spray of foul-colored water everywhere- in particular, the formerly pristine, white cotton of Garrickson's coat.
The puddle grew like a wound across the deck, stopping just before Linebeck's own boots. He might have ignored it, but a prepubescent squeal drew his attention elsewhere.
"You foul little beast!" Garrikson cried. With a powerful jerk of his arm, he seized the collar of the cabin boy's shirt and shook him vigorously. "In the presence of an officer, you will stand at attention. In no way are you to sabotage an officer's uniform nor dignity for your own pranks, boy!"
While it was clearly an accident, the boy said nothing, as he usually did in situations of scapegoat abuse like this. The previous cabin boy had been pretty mouthy, but this new one was of the utmost silent standard; Linebeck wondered if he could even talk at all. Behind his rat's nest of blonde hair, the boy was a frail and shaking mess, and if Linebeck didn't despise children so much, he might've pitied him.
Drenched in filth and seething with white-hot rage, Garrickson launched the boy towards the deck, where he landed with a resounding thud. "We'll take this to Captain Lenzo, boy, and then we'll see who laughs last."
Though the show seemed to be over, and Linebeck finally decided to return to his normal work besides enjoying any kind of stimulation as a spectacle-spectator, Garrickson barked out one last order: "You there!"
Out of the two hundred or so men on deck, the odds were quite slim, but Garrickson's glare of steel assured Linebeck that probability never truly sided with him.
"Clean up this mess! I want it done by the time I return or you've no leave this evening." Garrickson picked up the cabin boy by the thin collar of his shirt as he spoke, hauling him towards the Ward Room.
"But Lieutenant, I-" Linebeck protested reflexively.
"I said, get it done," Garrickson spat, "Bloody Irish filth."**
Well, there it was. If not for his lack of skill or political connections, his stagnant role on the ship may as well be attributed to one single factor: his blood.
Spiting the boy and his accident-prone bucket, the Lieutenant, and his ancestry all at once, Linebeck heaved up the overturned bucket, found the chipped and frayed brush, and began absentmindedly scrubbing away at the deck. With his leave hanging over his head like a carrot, his choice was simple, but not at all pleasant. On his hands and knees, scrubbing the deck like a common cabin boy, he figured he must've looked a fool, but it wasn't as if any other man would've denied the Lieutenant work in exchange for his leave.
"Poor Link," Came a grimy, accented voice from Linebeck's left. He blinked, wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and found Kreeb, his messmate and fellow Irishman, poised thoughtfully as Linebeck continued scrubbing diligently.
"Who's Link?"
"The cabin boy, you idiot." He added as an afterthought, "You can bet I would rather eat me own socks than be Garrickson's scapegoat."
"I didn't know he had a name," Linebeck droned, "Are you going to help me with this or not? I don't deserve this."
"No, I won't, not while I've got some breathing room myself. And you do deserve this, ye bloody Irish filth!" Kreeb bellowed.
"You're Irish, too," Linebeck retorted listlessly, "Any other day this would be you. Garrickson just so happened to see me first and I'm not about to surrender a night of leave just to keep me hands clean."
Evidently, Kreeb was struggling to listen to Linebeck's lament, because he continued to strut about Linebeck's slaving form and thought aloud.
"Joke's on Garrickson, though. Captain Lenzo couldn't punish any cabin boy if he tried. Man's about as cruel as a bundle o' kittens." He came to a halt, his boots merely inches from Linebeck's hands, "Coxswain told me Captain just sits in his quarters all day, looking at old drawings and the like. What d'ye think of that, Linebeck?"
"Right now," Linebeck leaned forward and scrubbed with more conviction than before, "I don't give a squid's arse about the captain's habits. Or the cabin boy."
"OI!" Cried a voice of higher rank from across the ship, "KREEB! QUIT LOLLY-GAGGNIG AND GET OVER HERE!"
"There's Dampa again," Kreeb sighed, looking onward, as if something beyond the horizon other than manual labor awaited him.
Linebeck dismissed him with a wave of his free hand, cursing this time all the aforementioned reasons of his obligation to the Navy and Keeb, who just so happened to be Linebeck's only source of human interaction. Scrubbing was hard on the knees, for sure, but it was nowhere near as taxing as rope-pulling, and for that he was admittedly thankful for this humiliating but temporary solace.
In particular, it was temporary, because after a dedicated ten minutes of scrubbing, another pair of boots- very, very small boots- appeared before his raw hands and bucket of filth-water. Shielding his eyes from the sun, which had peaked at its zenith in both location and potency against the raw, blue sky, Linebeck scowled at the cabin boy- evidently named Link- and stood, allowing the boy to pitifully replace his labor.
"They've got it in for you, huh, kid?" Linebeck mused aloud.
Link's shaggy locks of blonde hair shook as he scrubbed with fervor, however fruitlessly- a deck upon which men's boots trod will always boast grime and filth, but the punishment itself was far more symbolic: polishing something that is foul to its core is a vain attempt.
"What'd they give you? A week without food? Hand wash the sails?"
"Thirteen lashes tomorrow at sunrise."
Linebeck gaped- not only at the punishment in question, but at the fact that Link, the mute cabin boy whose silence absorbed even the most harsh of curses and insults, had a voice.
"Thirteen? Damn, are they allowed to do that to a kid?" Linebeck scratched the stubble on his chin in wonder, "How old are you?"
"Thirteen."
"Oh. I suppose that makes sense, then. I thought Captain was a bit softer than that," With an unapologetic huff, Linebeck took a step back- it wouldn't be long before his superiors would be calling for his return- "Just… uh… try and think of something else when they're doing it. Think of… treasure, or something. Whatever gets you through it."
"Have you ever been lashed?" The inquiry was laced thickly with acid.
"As a matter of fact, no, but I've seen it plenty of times," Swallowing thickly, Linebeck thought it'd be best to leave at that moment before the kid either decided Linebeck was a better deck-scrubber than he, or burst into tears. In either situation, he would still find no reason to either pity or respect Link.
With superb timing, Dampa shouted haughtily across the deck, his voice carrying as powerfully as his rank, "LINEBECK! UNLESS YOU WANT TO KEEP SCRUBBING THE DECK, GET OVER HERE AND DO YOUR SODDING JOB!"
As was expected, Linebeck abandoned his meager conversation with Link and returned to his post, pulling ropes and avoiding the force of those larger and stronger than he. Soon, the sun had run its due course and lay dangerously close to the edge of the horizon, the ocean threatening to swallow it whole until its freedom the next morning. But as night delivered its promise of darkness, Garrickson's promise held true as well, as a mass of glowing deliverance that grew in size and glory the nearer they sailed: land.
A/N: Thank you so much for reading! This is going to be a three-shot, I think. But before you go, please go check out ctj: a wonderful, talented author and dedicated and kind friend whose writing is as beautiful as the Legend of Zelda series itself! This is supposed to be her Christmas fic, but as you can see, I procrastinate. Happy…. Primary Election Season? St. Patrick's Day? Leap Year?
As promised, here are some historical notes for you nerds out there:
Important Terms:
Botswain- one of the standing officers on the ship, meaning he was permanently stuck with one particular ship his whole career. He was responsible for the maintenance of the ship's rigging, but was also a feared figure among the sailors, responsible for waking the sailors, as well as discipline.
Able Seaman- A sailor with three or more years of experience. Most sailors never get past this rank. Essentially, Linebeck and others like him are laborers.
Lieutenant- A commissioned officer. Lieutenants are trained from a young age as Midshipman- young boys whose careers in the Navy are funded and eventually take a test to become a Lieutenant. They are each in charge of one hundred or so men, and a very large ship might have six Lieutenants.
Coxswain- A petty officer technically in charge of the row boat that rows the captain to shore, but also the captain's right-hand man; he isn't very high in rank, but he serves as the captain's connection between the officers and the lower decks. This is why he both talks to Keeb, but also knows what the Captain's up to.
Ward Room- The dining and meeting room of the officers.
Cabin Boy- The lowest position on the ship; sometimes he was a servant to the captain, but in Link's case, he is merely a punching bag and laborer. Niko from the Wind Waker was probably the equivalent of this rank.
*If a sailor actually were to run away, groups known as Press Gangs, hired by the Navy, would actively hang around pubs and look for run-away sailors before "pressing" them into service again. This became known as impressment (one of the causes of the War of 1812) but also resulted in a lot of non-sailors mistakenly in the Navy.
** The Irish were not treated very well in the British Royal Navy, or at all. There were a few Irish captains during the nineteenth century, but for the most part, any Irishman was not going to get very high in the ranks.
I did quite a bit of research for this story, including reading "Life in Nelson's Navy" by Brian Lavery. It's a short, unpretentious, informative book that I read in one evening and provided me with a lot of historical details. If this kind of thing catches your interest, I suggest you read that for a bit of quick info! Wikipedia works well, too. There's a whole page dedicated to the ranks of the Navy of this era.