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Chapter 20: “Sling the Sloopy Keel Ye Starboard Wenches”

  “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Romans 5:3-5

  Unfortunately, Luke was wakened by a storm in his stomach and its contents slowly swinging. In the dark he couldn’t remember how to find the Head, but he did find the staircase that led up to the deck, and hurried to the rail.

  When he got done looking down, he looked up, and around, and realized there was no wharf beside them, and indeed, no city lights either. They were out on the open sea! In contradiction of all promises, in violation of all pledges. Luke’s heart fell. As soon as he had stepped on the boat he had felt out of place, and he had suspected that the church at New Owen Sound was more likely the place for him.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go to sea. The Huns had been an earth-bound, dirt-footed, water-allergic tribe, ever since the day the original Chief Derelict, seasick and sick of the sea, had sailed his bold-prowed schooner upriver to the most landlocked country he could find, and ran it aground, burned it, and sprinkled the ashes on his breakfast cereal. The natives of that land had happily relinquished it to the Huns and moved West to the Lunatic Fringe (where it’s safe), since they were tired themselves of being such a vulnerable target, right in the middle of everything, at peril from everybody! Location, location, location. As a visiting military scholar had once pointed out to the professors at Hun State, “Hardly a defensible position you’ve got here. The problem with being in the center of a continent like this, is that you can be attacked from any direction, any direction at all.” But as the Huns, ever eager for a fight, had pointed out in return, “Yeah? So?” The flip side was that the Huns could also attack in any direction, which at least gave their summers a measure of variety.

  Ever since first studying military history at Hun High, however, Luke had been enamored with the Vikings: their style of raiding simply seemed much more fun and glamorous than that of his own people. The destroyer from across the water, the raider appearing out of nowhere. The Huns were good at their profession, but there was an artlessness to it, a predictability and ploddingness. They raided the same countries, on the same cycle, and only ever went as far as a half-summer’s march before having to spend the other half marching home. But a ship! A ship could cruise and glide to anywhere! Anywhere in the world. The only limits were your water supply and your courage. Luke, with his artist’s soul, had always admired that potential for improvisation, for achieving something new. Perhaps merely a matter of the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence, or the water being bluer on the other side of the shore... His younger brother had confronted him with that possibility once: “So how come you like Vikings so much? What have they got that Huns don’t?” Trying to find an actual reason, Luke had tried to explain, “Huns can fight, but Vikings can sail, and swim, and fight!” “So in other words, they’re only part-time fighters,” DavidGorki had summed up, dismissing them.

  Rational or not, still somehow Luke had always held onto a yearning for something better, a hope to go beyond. Even the Hun rallying cry “All the way to Penetanguishene!” reflected that common desire to exceed the ordinary. Where Luke had departed from his fellows however, was in actually trying to find a way to make it so. He had read up on seafaring and navigation, he had even ventured into a swimming pool once to try to learn to swim (courage is called for!), and upon first leaving Hun-Country to go to Iowa State, he had inquired earnestly after the boat schedule--only to discover sadly that there were no ships leaving for Iowa anytime soon.

  In any case, he had long dreamed of being a mariner--even after he gave up raiding and ceased so admiring the Vikings. Sometimes the desire continues even after the cause has gone. So it was with some surprise, and a warm sense of comfort, that Luke realized how much he wanted to stay on shore! It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go to Sea. It’s just that he wanted the other life even more! The feeling had grown through the night, as he had happy dreams about singing and learning, with Bridgette and a happy congregation of believers; and when these dreams were followed by sickening dreams of the sea, its storms, its tumult and its troubles, he had known what decision he was going to make. And when he had woken to find that the part about the sea’s sickness was true, well that just made him all the more certain that he wanted to pass on this voyage!

  To find himself bereft of the choice, however, was a crushing disappointment. Huns not being used to wallowing in self-pity, Luke looked around instead for someone to blame... “Where’s the captain?” he demanded of the first sailor he saw.

  “The Admiral?” the sailor corrected him mirthfully. “He went to bed. Hafta wait till morning to speak with him. Better remain at your post till then.” He gestured mockingly towards the rail. Luke didn’t like to be made fun of, but... as another wave of nausea hit, suddenly it seemed like a good idea anyway! Luke rushed back to his post, disgusted and ashamed as his stomach helplessly told its tales to the tide. Part of him wanted to stay there, hugging the rail and waiting for the next round, but he also wanted to speak to the captain, right away. Perhaps there was still time to turn the boat around, Luke thought naively. At Luke’s demand, the sneering sailor pointed him towards the “Admiral’s Quarters”, and Luke knocked loudly at the door.

  After Luke had pounded for several minutes in an I-am-more-stubborn-than-you display, Admiral Jack finally opened the door and snapped impatiently: “What?”

  “You said I had until morning to change my mind. Well, I have decided. I don’t want to come on this trip. I have a pressing engagement at Church in the morning.”

  Jack looked up at him (he was kind of a little guy) with beady eyes, and said shortly, “Well that’s just tough, isn’t it? We go when the wind goes. And the wind blows north.”

  That kinda scuttled Luke’s hopes for them to turn the boat around, and he protested, “But you said...”

  Later Luke would read in his Bible, “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man”, and nod and say Oh-yeah-son, been there. But for now he simply had the Admiral’s curt answer: “That’s the way the world is. That’s the way people are. Try not to take it too hard.”

  Normally, Luke was one to play it cool, and probably could have rolled with the reversal of fortunes, except, “Hey! This is my eternal fate we’re talkin’ about! I’m trying to get my soul right with God! How ‘bout a little appreciation of that? A little help even.” Luke was somewhat mad, but it was hard to focus on putting on his intimidation face and his full-fledged wrath, coz he was busy having to concentrate to keep from being ill again.

  The Admiral refrained from repeating the old saw ‘God helps those who help themselves’, but said in the same vein, “Well if your salvation is such an important issue to you, you should never have placed it in someone else’s hands, should you?” That said, Jack was about to head back to bed, but then softened a little and tried to reassure Luke, stating proudly, jerking his thumb at his chest: “Don’t worry. New Owen Sound may have the Pope, but the TrogDogJonah has The Admiral!”

  The obvious implication was that the Admiral would somehow have all the right answers and powered-up advice Luke might need. Luke wasn’t too sure about that. He wasn’t even sure why they called him the Admiral. So he asked: “Coz it may be my scout-trained eyes don’t work as well over the water, but I only see the one ship. Don’t admirals command a fleet? Or an armada?”

  This gave Admiral Jack an opportunity to get started on the advice-givin’. “We all start small in life. But you won’t become big until you think big. Dream Big, Be Big,” the little man-boy stated like a mantra.

  “I want to be a child of God,” Luke declared. “Is that big enough?”

  Impressed, the Admiral acknowledged, “There it is. Aim high. Once you know what you want, the rest is jus
t a matter of time.” Speaking of that started him in on sharing his own secrets with Luke, telling him how much money he had squirreled away, all his own big plans for building a second ship, etc.

  “Go back to bed!” Luke told him, partly to avoid being bored, but mostly to free himself up for another rush to the rail. The Admiral was used to being the one giving the orders, but who argues with a Hun? He went back to bed, and Luke went back to his post.

  After several attempts to return to his berth, pre-empted by several more upheavals, Luke soon realized (necessity bein’ the mother of invention), that he could kind of doze right there on the deck, with his chest on the rail and the cool night wind singing past his ears.

  In the daylight, Luke awoke from rough sleep to find that more sailors were about, including his friend Bert. Orders were being given, instructions barked. Though he had read some maritime literature back in the day, there was quite a difference, Luke was discovering, between reading and doing, between thinking about something and knowing about something. Face-to-face with it, the sea life seemed quite complicated. So many different terms, so many commands being given! (Compared to the Huns, who only had to remember two commands, March! and Fight! And of those, only the first ever needed to be verbalized.)

  It all came as an aural blur. Directions from all directions, orders from all quarters: “Sling the sloopy keel, ye starboard wenches! (Har!) Raise the aft yard-arm or I’ll drop you with a forearm! Spar with the stars and heave the rolling sheave-hole--the Admiral looks a-stern! Trim the tipsy topsail trusses, ye leeward lushes! Bilge the briny brace-boomkin and drink some port! Hoist your petard and take a bow! Send the volley cheer on high, shake down the thunder from the sky...” (He looked up and smiled to discover that last part was just Bert, messin’ with him, and that he needn‘t really attempt it.)

  Luke felt guilty that he wasn’t helping out. He started to get up, but realized he still had some guts inside that needed to be puked out. Bert motioned to him not to bother trying to join the fray just yet: “Don’t worry son. I signed on as an able-bodied seaman, but I signed you up as an able-bodied landlubber. They expect you to take a couple days to get your sea legs (and your sea-belly.) It’s OK. Just watch and learn for a while. Your wages won’t start until you start working, but hey, in the meantime you still get all the free food you can eat!” Luke didn’t appreciate the joke, and voiced his displeasure to the waves.

  Bert stood on the foredeck and had a grand view of the sky, the sea, the crying gulls and the leaping fish; to go with the scent of sodium and the sound of timbers slapping water. Bert gave a wild laugh coz to him it was beautiful. Just happy to be back at sea again, his joy spilled out in a rhyme (the rime of the youthful mariner?): “Life is Exciting, Inviting, and it Strikes like Lightning! (never in the same place twice.)”

  Too queasy to get very excited, Luke merely added interestedly, watching the trail of floaties in the water, “My puke never lands in the same place twice either.”

  Bert grinned, gave him a game show announcer’s exaggerated “Con-grat-ulations!” and went back to work.

  “That kid’s got it worse than most,” one of the sailors observed some time later. “He’s spent half his time hugging that rail like it’s the last thing that reminds him of land, and the other half clinging to it like he’s practicing to survive a shipwreck.”

  Worried, some of the men figured they better say a few words to Luke, reassure him somehow, ease his grief or help him cope.

  “Hey, look at the bright side,” said a mariner named Morel. “You were throwing up every few minutes this morning. You were on like a faucet! Now it’s down to twice an hour!”

  “Whoo’oop-de-do” Luke managed, not quite consoled.

  Morel stayed cheerful: “What I mean is, I think you’re getting better. Getting stronger. Adjusting to the sea. Life is a constant series of adjustments, after all.”

  “I don’t feel stronger. Maybe the muscles that make my stomach turn are getting stronger. They’re sure gettin’ a workout anyway.”

  This skeptical attitude invited a prompt rebuke from a senior sailor: “Whatsagivin’ on behind yer forehead, bruzzer?” scolded an energetic Ensign named Edwards, who had sailed the salty Seas of Sydenham since he was a skinny scamp, “Oh, we sees yous ’uffering. But ain’t thassa good thing? Suffering brings strength! Strengfa mind, strengssa soul, strengka purpose, strengta f’will.”

  “Strength of odor,” Luke added, wiping his mouth, yuck. “Suffering is a good thing? Maybe you’d change your tune if you were the one suffering.”

  “I was sa one! We all whats! Afore wesacame veterans, wesa all novices. You hollerways begin atza beginning. You walks beforucan run, no? And you dossa boats beforucan sail! Land-bebbies fallso few times before they get good adyt. Well, we Sea-children have stuffa fallout a fuss! But effentually use’ll get the hang of it. Practice makes perfect, dozen dit?” He slid to a stop: “Hokiedokie. Here’s my wordz. What saz you?”

  “I’m getting jus’ about perfect at puking anyway,” Luke agreed, as he stuck his thumb into the air to check the wind, to prepare to aim his next delivery. (Wondering whether that would ever be a valuable skill in later life. He sure hoped it wouldn’t!)

  A good kid named Brian was the next one to help. ‘Chains’ was his sea-name, coz one of his particular responsibilities was the raising, lowering and maintenance of the anchors. Bred about the briny banks of Barrie, he had seen hard times of his own on the Stormy Seas of Simcoe. Feeling Luke’s pain, he offered, “As my uncle Macleod once told me, ‘Life is going to be tough at times, so don’t waste time hoping it will be easy, instead plan to be strong during those difficult times.’”

  “I was planning to be strong,” Luke recalled. “Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you plan, I guess.”

  “But you are strong,” another man offered. Luke later found out this was Che Vanier, their Christian Caribbean cook. “‘When I am weak, den am I strong’ rememba? Dis is prob’ly de most ’elpless you have ever felt, no? Humbling, yes? Thot’s where you begin, mon! When you get lost at sea, you look to day stars. When you get lost in life, you look to God! Here you are...weak, ’elpless, powerless! The others are right, it won’t last forev-ah! You will get true it! But the memory of dis moment should last forev-ah, my brotha. Keep it wit you! Because this is a lesson for you, for de one who has always taut himself so strong: Dis body, dis mind, dis heart, dis life: dey are only as strong as God has made t’em. Pray dat He will continue to make t’em stronga!”

  Last came Bert, finished with his shift and feeling good, filled up to glowing by a few extra minutes of sea-staring and water-watching. “In the meantime,” he counseled, “Make use of all this free time you have been given! Who was it that said ‘Know Thyself?’ So-crates?” Bert asked, using the standard Bill and Ted pronunciation. “That’s good advice I think. Especially at the start of this new leg of your journey. If ya know who ya are, that will help ya figure out what you want to get out of the trip. Which will…” he drum-rolled his hands on the wood, “…make it that much easier to achieve it.”

  “Kinda vague though,” Luke mumbled, as his tummy rumbled. “Know myself how? Don’t I already? What does that mean exactly?”

  Bert the Hack tried to help. “You know what I would do? Make yourself a Credo. A description of yourself. Start with one, then when you find out more about yourself, you maybe write another. Here is my example, of the way I feel these days:

  Like rain, I slide sidelong through the sky: Throwing punches at the day,

  Blowing kisses at the night.

  “Different slogans for different times,” Bert acknowledged with a chuckle; “In high school I settled for the simpler: ‘I’m everything that a young man should be: I’m Wittay, Grittay, and downright Prettay... and good at football.’”

  Luke had to concede that these sayings did capture much of Bert’s rough and gentle restlessness, his exuberance, and his extremes of emotion. Hmm, why not try? he tol
d himself, and he worked on writing his own, on and off for the rest of his belly-wrestled Time of Troublations. Eventually, the next morning (it took him a while coz he was a music major, not a poetry guy), Luke arrived at a formulation he was satisfied with:

  “Out of a bloody red past,

  I sail through a cool blue present

  Towards a clean white future:

  With hard hands empty

  I reach towards sanctuary.”77

  He decided he liked it better than the one Bert had written for him as an example, to try to get him started: “I’m a rough-and-tumble, hammer-hard Hun; I can beat you with either the pass or the run; and my proverbial phaser is never set on stun!” So he resolved, “Let that be the theme for this voyage.” Then added, “For every voyage!” Then recalling Che Vanier’s injunction to pray78, Luke started the journey out right with a cautious but hopeful prayer: “God? I want to believe the things that are true. Please help make me stronger on this journey, and show me the things you have put me here to learn. Thank you. -Luke. PS: Can I please stop puking soon?”

  Now, maybe it was just like Morel and Edwards had told him, and he was just getting the hang of the sea. Or maybe God had intervened. But the very instant he finished that prayer, he started to feel a whole lot better, and within minutes the nausea was gone completely79. “Neato,” Luke decided. (Later “Neato” would become “Thank you”, but hey, small steps.)