All our Yesterdays

claymore

claymore

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My God, I remember when I was Captain of a whaling ship, boundout from Leith to Torshaven in the Faeroe Islands. It was blowing something like a choppy force 17 at the time and I was standing in my rightful place at the Bow (front) of the ship, defying God and the elements to put me under. I turned round to my starboard (right) and saw the crew being sick over the side. I said "Come on chaps" (Called them 'Chaps', good for morale and by God they loved me for it) "Come on Chaps, lets all heave to - sorry chaps, bad turn of phrase - lets all pull together and we'll get to Torshaven if its the last thing we do." Well, the chaps responded splendidly and we made it on wings and prayers and a breeze that had died to 27 rectums.
Life just doesn't seem the same nowadays.
 
Ah, claymore made a good skipper. I knew him as a fresh-faced cabin boy on an Thames lighter, where I was Petty Liar. Claymore's job was to go and fetch phrases and words for me to use, which would be carefully assembled to make up almost-real-sounding sea stories. We built up quite collection, including:

"goodwin graveyard" "rusty harpoon which he always carried with him" "ripped his arm staright off" "dashed on the rocks like a wet rag" "left him dead with his legs wrapped around the rudder of the other ship" "dead three days" "jacobite doubloon" "3inches under the keel" "eerie fog that so thick a man couldn't even see his own hands" "mencing waves the like of which had ne'er been seen" "horizontal sleet cut the sail to ribbons" "broken compass" "round his neck" "not a soul on board, and even the cat had had its throat cut" "waves sent from the mouth of Hell itself" "only one eye and a gash across his face" ."remained to tell the tale" ..
 
I remember a torpedo taking away our propellor when on the Murmansk Convoy in 1941. "No worries" I shouted and dived over the side, I got behind that Freighter and swam pushing her ahead of me all the way to Russia.

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Dont know what they are on but I think they have been sharing it with Byron!

Must be some good sh1t as they have really lost the plot.

Dom
 
You forgot

Seven years on a bucking foredeck. I remember that one well - you'd just asked to be lashed to the tiller and wished me God Speed, I looked at you kindly, in a stern manly fashion and asked how you'd come by those dreadful scars.
 
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