Celtic Tales 22, Sailors

By Jill Whalen

These ten tales are about people who have sailed the seas at some point in their lives. Sailors come in all sorts of guises. Some are sailing because they love the sea. Others are forced to be on ships. Join the men who looked for the Golden Fleece long after Jason returned. Search the sea for stolen brothers and sisters; pan for gold on the shores of the Gold Coast; sail across the ocean in a one man ship.

For a little while be a sailor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jill Whalen
• Release date: Jun 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370261499

Jill Whalen

I am a Celtic mother of eight who is writing about family stories that have been handed down by word of mouth. I live in the beautiful Missouri Ozarks, am a graduate of Millikin University, and a member of Mensa.

Book preview

Celtic Tales 22

Sailors

By Jill Whalen

Copyright 2017

Jill Whalen

Smashwords Edition

This book is dedicated to Raymond and the Coast Guard.

Table of Contents

Tale 1: Desom McLeod

Tale 2: Samadan

Tale 3: Cameron

Tale 4: Born on a Ship

Tale 5: Broken Leg

Tale 6: Coltrain the Hacker

Tale 7: Slave Ship

Tale 8: Murrigan

Tale 9: Black Sea

Tale 10: Pirates’ Tongue

Tale 1: Desom McLeod

I live just outside of a city. It’s known as the Pig’s Head. We call it the Head. It is where we all grew up. We have taken our ship around the world five times now. I’ve been places most men just dream about. We trade if we can and raid if we can’t, but trading is better for the long term. If you raid, people run from you and run from other people too.

I am a McLir, a Sea Wolf. That is a name that is not spoken much anymore. We take water on the west coast after threading the eye. It is a secret. You can thread the eye going one way, but you sure don’t going the other. You can, but there are only a handful of days a year that you can do that.

We have canvas sails. I have got a small, yellow, cargo ship that has eight masts. They call us Tea Pirates or China Clippers. Thelma is the harbor where excise stamps are bought. We do that, but we tried to tell them several times that we’d just like to unload everything there. They go through this, that, and the other thing. They want opium. The Mandarin came out and swore the ones with opium hadn’t been there. We only saw the lacs of gold and lacs of silver. We decided we didn’t want to get involved with that, so we looked for another port to trade our goods. We don’t do slaving either. It is just like opium the other way around. I trade good quality goods like pots, knives, axes, wool, and woolen ware. We bring back tea mostly and if we can get it, silk, and spices. I am always looking for a good bargain and art. I brought a little jade lady home. She was dressed in robes and carrying a little umbrella. It was gorgeous.

From the port city up near the Head I’d be heading down with the dawn tide. If it is late in the day I can be lazy heading down there into a small catch. It will take me down and around to Thelma. I live in decent land, not in the filthy city under the Brit King George.

We’ve got goods to buy, but I’m not sure what to buy this time. If it is really true that they won’t sell anymore without silver or gold, then that puts a down on it. It is the year of our Lord seventeen hundred seventy-five. We tell time by latitude and sun. We pay port duties just getting out to sea. We pay docking fees, although most certainly Dalo won’t dock. If we do dock we’ll pay more docking fees. Of course, the big tax is when we come home. They take up to one third of the cargo. I’ve heard of them taking more in value. Dolf Longstare was put out of business here perhaps five years ago. He had seven ships racing back. The king took the silk and a few other things like that. It was about two thirds the value of the voyages. By the time he finished paying taxes, costs, and everything else he didn’t even have his house. He came back up to Suffolk where he bought a place his parents lived on, had a fence put around it, and just lived in it. Someone didn’t like him or the king liked the cloth he had.

There is trouble in the American Colonies. The king has commissioned a huge man-o-war called the Serapis. I’m not sure if they’ve made her keel or not. It will be a true monster ship with hundreds of guns. The British Navy has got the finest ships. I have got a man by the name of Muldone and another by the name of Denfher. They can shoot the eye out of a monkey at a mile with a cannon. I will see about trading the colonies anything for war.

The Americas don’t have silver and gold. They trade in furs and cotton. I might be able to trade the cotton, but the big traders have got most of that all sewed up. They would be all over me if I brought a load of cotton in. I’ve heard of tobacco, but mostly they grind it up for a poison agent or a cleansing agent. I am not going to snuff anything up my nose. They said it is like having a whole wad of hornets up your nose.

We got some smooth bore that might have a bit of a twist. I want to sell them. I’m afraid they might just take them or give me chits instead of money. George does that. By the time it is over the government will be bankrupt. They won’t expect to have to pay for the chits. The king bankrupts everyone.

To trade I move stuff off the big ship on to small lugers. That way they think that is what I am bringing in. You come in and get a thing from the crown. If you are smart like I am you get thirty-two bales of silk and so and so. You bring it in in lots of thirty-two bales in different ports with the same paper. Sometimes they catch you and put you in jail. Usually they don’t.

We use the clan way on my ship. Everybody bathes once a day, and you wash your hands often especially after relieving yourself. We wear clean clothes every fourth day unless it is very stormy. The men do not get sick like they do on other ships. I carry fruits too. Each man gets a quarter of an apple a day and a tot of rum or some such. The men worked extra hard this trip.

We went down to Africa. We killed game, dried the meat and loaded it on board. We also captured game and put it in cages on deck. We had deer and a pig. Then we sailed south to the gold coast that we knew. There we shoveled the cargo holds full of sand. We filled in barrels and filled in next to the bunks. The cargo holds are huge. We figured we’d have trouble with natives if they closed in, so we would shovel sand all of one day. The men were working feverishly hard. The shovelers would get back in the boat, row back to the ship, come up with the barrels, and dump them. Then the little group would go ashore, share, and share alike. They had mounted cannon on the ship. When they went in the guy who was the best shot from each boat crew stood by with a gun. Everybody else shoveled. When we got the holds filled with sand I simply went over the edge of the skyline. We sat out there using salt water to pan the gold out of the sand. Then we put the gold aside. After a time we would use the funnels. We melted it and made it into lacs. We did that three times and had many lacs of gold. We didn’t stay the night nor go back to the same place. We worked our way down south. The last time there were a whole bunch of baubles that looked cloudy. The men kept some of the bigger ones for me and threw the rest over the side like any rocks. I tried one on the mirror. It scratched the glass. I told them to stop throwing them over the side. They were diamonds. We filled a huge chest with them.

We moved back up north between two places. There we made three trips. There had been men jogging down there. I thought about blasting them with cannon, but why waste the money? We went back north and got one more load. We just scooped out what was there. We didn’t try to dig the bedrock where the good stuff was. It was a mix of diamonds and gold, but they were further down. We kept going down site, because we didn’t want to be digging in the same place.

When we came back we had a huge load of gold lacs. We took it to China. They had things that we wanted. One trader finally saw our hand-cast lacs. His eyes bugged out. He told the emperor. This was new gold. He wanted to know where he could get it. Gold is different colors, and he knew it wasn’t from his coast. He traded cloth and tea.

We went from there to the Spice Islands. They wanted bright silk for spices. I got half a hold of spices for two bolts of silk. That stuff just grows on trees down there.

We sailed back. I took a small chest of the rough diamonds, a map of the place that was marked where we found the diamonds on the coast, and I went into the king’s Privy Council. I took food and drink under my robe. I sat there for three days and two nights without saying anything except that I had the king’s gift, and that the king would be most unhappy if anyone interrupted. I finally got in. The chest was small.

I went to him and I said, Oh puissant majesty, I am but a pitiful trading ship master who stopped ashore for water, food, and to mine for gold and pan for gold so we could buy silk and tea.

He said, Oh yes, I know about that.

I said, While we were there we happened to find these. Sire, we know little about such things, but I believe they are uncut diamonds.

That got his attention. I gave him a map of where they were found. He liked the diamonds very much.

He said, Do you know what is in the box?

I said, Yes Sire, the king’s fortune. I am a ship’s captain. Over the years I’ve paid high taxes. He started turning red. I said, I pay a lot of taxes. He started turning purple. I continued, But all the taxes I’ve ever paid would never be enough to buy one of those stones, not even the least among them. This is the king’s fortune not for someone like me. I am a working man.

He looked at me. He said, You are a very strange man. If you had kept this fortune I might have bowed with you for it. It would have made you an incredible power in this country. I doubt you have the political savvy to survive the intrigue, but this odd little thing…. He held up the least stone. This I will have cut, set, and returned to you as the king’s reward. You can bring your shiploads in without taxes on the shiploads other than the ten percent port duty that I always charge for everything.

It was a real pain talking to the king. He spoke no language other than his first one and it wasn’t English. He spoke it very weird and I am not supposed to know it anyway. I got to talk to one guy who talked to the king. The king talked back to him and that guy talked to me. It was really stupid. He told me I could bring all my stuff in duty free except for the ten percent port duty. I had to wait the rest of the day to get the Royal Script, but I got it. The man was standing around waiting for a bribe.

At the end of the day he said, You have to go home now. I guess you will have to come back tomorrow.

I said, The king really liked his chest of jewels.

I could see the white of the man’s eyes literally rolled in his head. He went over to a paper, scribbled something, waxed it with two seals and a string, rolled it up, and sealed it again. That solved the problem. We brought that stuff into port in a small ship. I wasn’t sure what to do. I was tired of the whole game. Some of the men wanted to go back to the golden sands and mine more. They all looked at me expectantly.

I said, Those native army guys are going to be waiting for you. You’re going to have trouble getting that much sand out again. Remember how we used the whole coast to get the last load of sand. Remember we did three cargo holds and that last batch up the coast which was part of the hold just to get the gold together. We got a lot of gold. I gave each man a bag of small diamonds. I figured that made them rich. I told them I was going to settle around, find a woman, and stop. But if I couldn’t find a place then I was going to beach the ship in the western continent we call Gall, after the angry man. At least there was free land there. I said, This is a special ship. You’ve all been sworn to secrecy about it. The secret is easy to keep. Nobody would believe you anyway. I’ll be taking it apart and using it for firewood. Anybody that wants to come along is welcome. You’ve all been a good crew. I don’t know what I’ll be doing, but those of you who love merry old England, you’d be well advised not to ship out on this last voyage.

The captains of the smaller ships had gathered them together. I had one of them bring his first mate. He was the captain’s wife’s sister’s son. He was a likely lad that the captain had high regard for. He was in his late twenties and had a bit of trouble with his navigation math, but he could handle it alright. He was a hell of a seaman. I told the captains I was assigning the boats over to them, that I was off on my last voyage. I asked that first mate to stay after. I gave each man a deed of trust. That old man was a family mate with children. I signed the ship over to him. I suggested he go sit on a beach somewhere, because he was getting on in years having trouble getting about the deck. I gave him a small bag with three small diamonds in it. What the crew didn’t know and nobody else knew was that I still had four fairly large crates of those diamonds left and one hundred lac of gold I hadn’t needed to spend.

I had a bit of a spot of trouble with the outfitting I needed. I knew a man who had rope and a few other things. We melted up one of those lacs of gold and poured it out in the cabin late at night. One of my trusted men took it to that man’s office. I tossed a couple of rough coins down. We had made the mold by taking clay and putting in one of George’s mints. Then we poured hot iron into that. We cooked it on the outside the same time. The hot iron turned out to be a good slug, but the clay cracked. We used it to cast a few more. We had the steel plate to stamp out more Georges. We used that to make our coins. I thought they looked pretty good. I threw two of them on his desk. One rolled and almost went off. He almost broke his neck getting it.

I said, You were paid for large cordage. Now you have to honor your debt. I want to put to sea. He had good cord down there. I said, But I leave alone. Is this enough of a bribe to get you to honor your debt?

He turned red and he said, That is one of your problems. You always talk a bit of a high and mighty.

I knew that he had made the rope. My spies had told me. He wasn’t too anxious to let me have it even with the bribe. We had already shut the door. I pulled that little jerk over his desk. I picked up the gold coins and put them back in my pouch.

I said, Too late for those. Now we are going to go out here and you are going to release my things. You are going to sign a piece of paper to it right here right now or they are going to find you in your office in who knows what position, because I don’t know what I am going to do to you. I’ll take my cordage and anything else I want.

I had noticed that he was real insecure about his wife. She was always saying things about me. To tell you the truth she was a bit of a cow. She was a lot younger than he. His first wife died, so he went out and married this young woman. He was a bit sensitive about her. He hit at me. I caught his hand in the air and broke his fingers. He screamed out; I clamped off his wind. His eyes got funny, so I loosed my hold on him. He very quickly breathed.

I said, You are going to have trouble signing a document with that hand. Better I write it out.

So I wrote it out for the list of cordage for which we had already paid plus miscellaneous items to be determined by the captain, and it was already paid in full. He had trouble signing it. He had to do it three times before he got it right. I went out of the office.

He said, Please sir, I’ve sent word to the big man. When he comes here he’ll kill me. I know, I know he is tight. He is just like you. He’ll kill me.

Now that intrigued me. He didn’t know. He just knew some big man came in in a gray cloak, scared him, and left him with various coins in bribes including an old woman gold coin. He went away. It was when he said he was hunchback that I really became interested. I was interested before, but I mean really interested. I thought the man might be clan wearing a great sword, a byrne, on his back.

I said, My ship will be sitting off the coast. He should be able to find it and take a small boat out to my ship.

It was the mid of the night when a watch woke me.

He said, Sir, come to the deck.

I came up there to Gleeson. We had two of our boats with a lantern for the watch