Stormy Seas: Part 1

I've started work on a new story recently. I'm calling it "Stormy Seas" for lack of a better title. I'm going to try to post pieces of it regularly, but I make no promises about what 'regularly' means right now. Basically, if you, my audience, likes the story I'll keep writing and posting more (and if you don't like it you won't be sad to see it go.) So here's Stormy Seas!

This was my first time back at port since I had set sail almost four months ago. The sun was high and bright above my head, it seemed so cheerful even though all it was shining light on was a dingy port town on the coast of England. The buildings were all of brown wood or stone with streaks where the rain had pelted them. A large airship flew silently by overhead and I saw another taking off from the airfield across the city. People herded around me and the air filled with the sounds of their voices and business.

“Got your land legs back Eldon?” Ray asked from behind me.

I was sitting down on a crate near the dock. For once he was taller than me, with light red hair and very freckled skin from so much time in the sun. “The Captain wants us back to work.”

“I'll be fine now,” I said. I was so used to the sway of the boat upon the water that the ground felt shaky and made my head swim. I stood and ignored the bowing my feet still felt in the ground.

“We've got a day or so at port to enjoy the scenery,” he smiled.

“What scenery?” I asked.

“The girls back there,” he clarified.

I had barely noticed them in the crowd, it was all one jumble of people and noises to me.

“They'll be there when we're done,” he said. He gave me a little shove back toward the port.

The Lethargy looked every bit her name at port. The sails had been tied down and a crane swung out over her deck, doing all the lifting for her. The crew was hurrying around her, loading crates onto the crane bed and unloading crates on the dock. Some workmen from the town were hauling them away on carts.

Captain Peck stood on deck surveying everything. “You two!” Captain Peck called down at us. “Where have you been? Help unload!”

“Yes sir!” I called.

“Calm down, we're coming!” shouted Ray. We set to work as the crane set down a new load.

Ameya and Victor were already there unloading crates of sugar from the islands. The wooden boxes were heavy with their valuable cargo.

“Is hard work, yes?” Ameya asked me with a smile. I had never asked what country he came from, but my guess was India. He had tan skin, curly black hair, and a sharp looking nose. “We finish quickly and go into town, yes Mr. Elderton?”

“Eldon,” I responded. I never quite understood him, but I seemed to be the only one who had trouble communicating. I tried to pretend that lifting boxes required me to focus so that I wouldn't have to keep talking to him.

We went back and each picked up a heavy box, then grunted the entire way back to the cart. Ray passed us, carrying two crates, and staggering under the weight.

“You'll break something like that,” I said.

“Nah,” Victor grunted, carrying two as well. “We'll get it done in half the time.” Unlike Ray, Victor looked as though he had real muscle on him. He was small and a bit on the chunky side but didn't look quite so tiny under the crates. His light colored hair was stuck with sweat to his forehead.

I hefted another crate upward and tried to get a grip on the rough wood.

“Don't drop them!” Captain Peck shouted at us.

We ignored him.

The the crane was lifted back onto the boat and we had a break while the rest of the crew loaded it. I sat with the others, looking around at the buildings and people. Other boats were being unloaded by similar looking crews. Most of the ships had British flags, but I saw a few, just cargo ships like ours, with company flags. Ours had the Circum Trading Company's flag, a white flag with the red CTC in their seal.

My shipmates had already located the tavern a few blocks away.

“You coming with us tonight?” Ray asked me.

“I might stop in for dinner,” I said. I had no love for their kind of entertainment and they knew it, but I didn't know where else I could go in this strange port. I ignored the chatter going on around me about drink and gambling and women. Carts passed us noisily on the cobbled streets. I turned back toward the town and looked up the hill past the bustling market. In the distance I could see the real city, with large buildings and nice houses. Farther up the hill I could see an old stone church with stained glass windows.

I heard the crane begin to swing toward us again. We all stood reluctantly and waited for it to come down. The rest of the crew came down the gangplank.

“She's empty?” Victor asked them as a whole.

There were nods and grunts. The crane came down and they began to help us unload. The Captain came down as well. He stood over us with his neatly trimmed dark red mustache cocked to the side. It made me wonder what he did with his lips to get it to do that. “I have other things to do this evening,” he said. “I can't wait all day for you.” He picked up a large crate and carried it toward the cart.

Now we unloaded crates marked with words like Cotton and Corn. We seemed to have brought quite a lot of corn from the Americas.

After a few more trips I turned back for another crate and saw the crane swinging away upwards.

“You're free for the evening gentlemen,” Captain Peck said as he passed by. He went to talk to one of the cart drivers and the rest of the crew hurried off toward the tavern.

“Gonna join us?” Ray asked over his shoulder.

“Don't wait for me,” I said. I turned the other direction, mostly out of curiosity. I wound my way through the streets, moving uphill. I passed over a bridge with a muddy little river flowing underneath it and found myself on a neat little road with shops. Ladies walked up and down with baskets on their arms and kerchiefs on their heads. A group of children ran up the road and disappeared between two buildings, their cheerful laughter made me feel at ease. It was just another town, just like any of the others in the Americas or in any other place.

I strolled past the shops and peered in the windows at their wares. I passed a dressmakers and then stopped at a bakery door where the smell of fresh bread wafted over me in sweet, doughy waves.

I went in and spent a little of my wages on some real bread and a pastry. They had given me the bread in a little cloth sack and I carried it by the neck as I walked, eating my pastry. It had strawberries in the middle and creamy white icing in it's flaky crust.

Four months ago I would never have imagined that a few strawberries would taste so heavenly. I had been looking for a ship to sail with for nearly a year before Captain Peck had hired me on the Lethargy.

It had come about innocently enough, a few children's games. A few of my friends had started calling me Captain and the name stuck. The more I thought of it the more I wanted to be a ships captain. Sailing over the waves to endless horizons, leading a crew of good men to new lands.

I had been crushed when I learned that you had to go into the navy to be a captain. I hadn't liked the idea of it at all. A merchant ship was the next best thing, but then there were always companies instead of a free ship like in the old days.

“I'll have to watch you in case of mutiny,” Captain Peck had said when the crew asked me what I had joined the ship for. I had not expected his sense of humor. Mutiny was taken very seriously everywhere else but Captain Peck joked about it constantly. It almost seemed like he wanted someone else to take over the ship.

I thought about my mother at home with my four older siblings already married and settled in our little town. I was the first to go anywhere at all, and felt a little sad for her that the younger boys looked up to me so much. I knew that I should write a letter and send it to them telling them that I had reached England safely and survived my first real voyage.

I sat down on a bench beside the road. A little tree in a cage sat next to me on the side walk and all around were houses with iron fences around their little yards and gardens. I munched at my pastry as I looked around, thinking out the letter I would send home.

“Young man, what are you doing there?” A gruff voice asked behind me.

“Sir?” I asked as I turned around. It was a police officer in his uniform, he had some sort of stick in his hand.

“Go back to the docks,” he grabbed me by the collar and yanked me up, making me drop the last bite of my pastry. I watched as it hit the sidewalk and the large strawberry I had been saving bounced away and rolled in the street. “Back where you belong!” He gave me a shove and I hurried off with my wounded pride, the bread still dangling from my hand.

My ears burned. I knew what it was though, in my sailors clothes I didn't belong walking among the ladies in their silk skirts and fancy hats. Back at home no one really minded, anyone could go where they pleased. I slouched and stuffed my free hand in my pocket. It suddenly became apparent that I was very far from home.

I watched him walk down the street and felt very sorry for him. The policeman tipped his hat at me as I passed. “Miss Vivian,” he said.

“Miss Winters,” I corrected him with a smile. He was a pompous fellow with a big mustache and loud voice, I remembered it well from my mother's dinner parties before I had gone off traveling the world.

I caught a glimpse of the young sailor hurrying down the street toward the docks. He had his hat pulled down low over his dark hair and his bag over his shoulder. I could see the CTC seal on the back of his dusty blue jacket, and the name Lethargy. The name made me wonder if it was a real ship at all, who on earth would name their ship Lethargy? He was gone through the crowd in moments and I lost sight of him. I wouldn't have been able to follow him and apologize anyway, it would be scandalous to speak to him at all. He looked so much nicer than the other sailors I had seen, and so hurt that I felt sorry for him.

“Vivian!” a loud female voice called from behind me. My heart sunk and I pretended not to hear. “Vivian!” It was impossible to pretend any longer. I turned around.

“Yes aunt?” I said. She was strolling down the sidewalk toward me. Her red silk gown flashing in the sunlight and her face was nearly as red.

“This heat!” she complained when she caught up to me. “I thought I would accompany you on your errands.”

My heart sank even lower, but unlike the sailor I could not slouch or put my hands in my pockets, my skirt had no pockets and the corset I wore prevented slouching. “I'm on my way to get a pair of riding boots,” I said. “I'm very much looking forward to learning.”

“Wonderful,” she puffed. “I do hope you'll enjoy yourself! You should have written me more often before this and told me you hadn't learned to ride yet.”

“I was always terribly busy,” I lied.

“Yes well the Spanish countryside will be a perfect place to learn!”

I felt like grunting but knew that would not go over well with her.

“It will be worth the money for lessons. Your parents must be so glad to know that you're learning so much with me.”

I hated it when she talked like that. My parents had wanted to send me to a school close to home where I could learn how to throw dinner parties and be a proper lady. The idea was that then I would have all the necessary skills to marry a high society gentleman. My aunt had other ideas. She had offered to take me around the world with her, at her own expense, and help me meet wealthy prospective husbands. Once I had started traveling with her she confided that she felt a husband would be a burden to me, as my uncle and her late husband, had been to her. It seemed to me that she wanted nothing more than to turn me into a lazy leech like herself, spending all of uncle's family fortune on travel and luxuries. I had not yet figured out where she expected me to get great wealth from.

Thankfully England had been on our way from Iceland to France, and I had insisted on returning home to visit mother and father. It had been a long and lonely six months trapped in hotels and dinner parties with Aunt chattering about how much like herself I was becoming.

I quickened my pace as the cobblers came into view.

“And after France we'll go to Spain before the end of summer, and winter in Venice would be lovely!” she was saying.

It sounded like a threat to me, another round of travel with her. I stood at the cobblers getting my feet measured and felt sick with her watching me. Mother and father thought it was good for me. I had written many times to tell them of my plight. I was very tired of hearing how terrible it is for young girls to marry, and it was unfair that she continued to lie to my parents about her goals for my future.

I was not at all against marriage, in fact I was sorely disappointed that I had not met someone yet. I was already nearly eighteen. It would be nice to marry at all, though I still held out hope for a man near my age who wasn't very stuck up or arrogant.

I walked home with new riding boots wrapped in paper under my arm. I had not actually bought them for riding lessons, I had bought them with escape in mind.

While I was home I had a better chance, I knew my way around the city somewhat, and how to blend in. It also helped that I could speak the language.

I wasn't entirely sure what I would do but I knew that I needed good sturdy shoes to make my escape. The sailor I had seen earlier had given me an idea. Nothing left the city as fast as a ship. An air ship would be the obvious choice and there was an airfield at the edge of town, but they would be watched more closely than a sailing ship. If I could stow away on board a ship and sneak out when they made port I would be free. Aunt and my other family regularly gave me small sums of money. I had saved them up for years since I had no real use for it, I could use that money to keep me until I could sort something out for myself.

Perhaps I could meet a good man at another port. It was as simple as that, I could run away and get married. I might even find a dashing young ships captain, one who knew how to use a sword. There was something so romantic about an old fashioned sailing ship. I saw myself standing in the doorway of a house near the coast, watching the waves and awaiting his safe return.

I sighed as I thought of it.

“What's the matter dear?” Aunt asked me.

“Oh, just enjoying the lovely sunset Aunt.” It was a lovely sunset, and I was more than hopeful about my plan. I could endure aunt for a day or two more and when the moment was right I would take it.