docksides and the gauntlet of drunkards and cutthroats were dangerous places for boys like David. Sam McPherson was probably here now, alone and hiding somewhere in a back alley. Maybe David’s schoolmate had already been abducted by a press gang looking for a ship’s boy. Maybe he was murdered the first night he ran away or maybe he was kidnapped and sold to a Mollie house where men dressed as women. Here brutish sailors aroused by drink, or finely dressed noblemen numbed with opium were using homeless boys to satisfy their sexual appetites. David and the other orphans at Grey Coat knew they had little protection once outside.
David stayed close to the relative safety of Westminster and away from the drunken masses in some of the city’s poor districts. His mother was most likely somewhere among them. Unable to support her children after his father died, she had been forced to make some difficult choices. Although he missed her, he was thankful she had given him, at age seven, to the school, and he prayed he would never fall victim to drink.
The curse of alcohol seemed limitless to David, and in some of London’s worst districts like Whitechapel or St. Giles, he would have difficulty finding anyone sober. Watered-down wine, beer, and poorly distilled gin were a daily diet and sometimes the only sustenance taken by the city’s poor. In St. Giles one in every four houses was a gin shop. These were open to anyone of any age, and David could see men, women, and children drink themselves into oblivion. That alcohol had become a plague was obvious, but still its use was widely endorsed. The visiting physician would prescribe spirits for sick Grey Coat boys and, often as not, would take the cure in liberal amounts himself.
Alcohol was prescribed for all manner of ailments. It thinned the blood when it was deemed too thick. It warmed the bowels and aided in digestion. Spirituous liquor warded off the flu and cheered melancholia. Drink was also a mainstay of the British fighting forces. It fortified the disposition and helped soldiers quell their fear of battle. The navy’s daily ration was eight ounces of grog, and sailors were sometimes given double rations before naval engagements. Many seamen were so dependent on their daily ration of rum and water that they re-enlisted into the dreadful hardships of the lower decks just to find a steady supply. To the rest – the poor masses of that crowded and dirty city – alcohol was an escape.
David was thankful for his school. There he could find his escape, not into alcohol but into the Epitome of the Art of Navigation, a large book from which he studied trigonometry and the techniques used to plot a ship’s course. David worked hard at trigonometry. He knew that without it he couldn’t navigate, and the ability to navigate a ship might still be his passport out of the city’s poverty. Even though he was going to a Hudson’s Bay Company apprenticeship, if he could navigate, he might yet make it to the navy’s upper decks. His only other choice was to run for it like Sam and maybe find a kind skipper of a merchant ship to take him aboard.
2
Rupert’s Land
The day David had hoped would never arrive was here. He placed his grey uniform on his cot and gathered his meagre clothing and belongings. He rushed down the hall and burst into the classroom where Thomas Adams sat alone reading the Bible.
“I’m being sent to Rupert’s Land today and must leave straightaway!” he gasped.
“So I’ve been told,” replied the teacher, putting his hand gently on David’s arm. “Don’t be too disappointed, lad. Keep working hard. You never know what good advantage this setback may bring. Now quick to the kitchen and see what the cook has for you. Goodbye, Davie, I’ll miss you.”
“Goodbye, Sir.” David raced to the kitchen.
Nonsuch, the famous ship that in 1669 returned to London with a fortune in furs. The voyage spawned the Hudson’s Bay Company and the creation of Rupert’s Land.
A time of excitement at York Factory. Hudson’s Bay Company ships offload trade goods and take on the valuable cargo of fur bound for London.
The cook slipped him a biscuit and a little salt pork. “For the road. God bless you lad.”
David followed at a quick trot behind his escort. The rough-looking crewman was in a hurry to return to his ship. His instructions were to bring back two apprentice boys, but one would do. He didn’t want to keep his captain waiting. “Captain Tunstall he wants us aboard early he does. Cap’n don’t like things left t’ last minute,” he warned, as David began to lag behind. The Prince Rupert was rafted on the outside of two coal barges on the Thames. It was a fine Hudson’s Bay ship, and its bright gunnels and new rigging seemed a good omen to David.
“There should be two boys!” Captain Tunstall insisted from the quarterdeck as the crewman and David climbed the shipside ladder.
“Bloody hell!” the crewman hissed. In panic he turned to David, demanding an answer. “Where’d the little bastard go!”
“Don’t know sir, he’s been gone six months,” David answered carefully.
“Damn, damn, damn!” the captain growled. “Back to the school and see if you can’t find where the mutinous beggar went. And you, my young fellow!” he ordered, “follow the mate to your quarters below.”
David followed obediently, hoping the crewman might somehow find Sam. The headmaster would never tolerate a runaway and even less a deserting apprentice, David reasoned. Maybe the headmaster knew of Sam’s whereabouts all along.
Captain Tunstall ordered that David be kept in his quarters until the Prince Rupert was put to sea. The second mate led him to the lower deck.
“Not a proper place to sling a hammock,” the seaman confessed. “No portals or vents, but ‘tis dry and warm enough. Mind don’t soil the sailcloth with your shoes or the master sailmaker ‘ll stitch ye to the top gallants,” he said, latching the door as he left. David sat silently and listened to a chorus of rumbles and shouts while the last of the Prince Rupert’s provisions were stowed away. Eventually he struggled into a hammock and half-heartedly ate some of the cook’s hard biscuit. He saved the remainder in his coat pocket, but there was faint hope of sharing it with Sam. The scent of Stockholm tar and new sail-canvas filled his nostrils as he drifted into sleep inhaling the ship’s stale air.
Next morning he woke to the clanging of the ship’s bell and the sway of his hammock. He was still alone, and the Prince Rupert was rolling her way to open water. “Show a leg! Out and down!” a great and terrifying voice called. “Up all hammocks!” the first mate ordered, and David rushed to his feet.
“Seven bells.’Tis morning watch in half an hour, lad. Quick. Come to the table,” summoned a gentler voice, as the ship’s cook peeked around the bulkhead and handed David a bowl of thick porridge. “Take a place at that last table there,” he said, motioning to a crowd of men already huddled over their gruel at the mess tables. David and the men ate in silence, and no heads lifted to acknowledge the newcomer.
“Third watch on deck!” the first mate’s command boomed down the main hatch. David raced to finish his breakfast as the crew scurried to place their bowls in the cook’s washtub. He joined the rush up the main hatch ladder. On deck, each seaman hustled to his station while David remained awkwardly wondering where to go.
“To the holystones!” ordered the captain. A seaman jumped smartly into action. David watched him take a bucket of sea water and a pumice stone and begin to scrub the forecastle decks along with several other men already on their knees. He followed the men’s hands, scrubbing in small circles, grinding the wooden deck into milky grey puddles until the sweeping of their hands melded with the dizzying roll of the ship. Before the Prince Rupert entered the Channel swell, his stomach was knotting in nauseous