We made a plan to spend a few days away each month somewhere. This month Dudley made the decision and when we set out on Friday I had no idea where we were going. |
Wow! I had no idea! I had never thought about how you run a sailing ship or a navy. There were 650 men on the Victory. 620 of them slept in 14 inch hammocks and lived in horrible conditions. Their food was rancid and vitamin free, they crapped over the side, they were beaten, their only consolation was a generous ration of booze. They had one gallon of small beer a day as well as rum and wine. They must have been constantly slightly inebriated-a sort of compliancy drug to stop them having the wits to react to how they were being abused. They worked hard and you have to hand it to the officers, running a ship like that needed a huge understanding of manoeruvring to balance wind against waves and the enemy, using sails and ropes, and directing efforts of 600 tired demoralised and slightly drunk sailors to pull winches, climb sails and push and load canons and measure gunpowder.
The officers had wonderful cabins with lovely furniture and private heads. Elitism of course, but they needed space- what skills you needed to navigate without satellites or radios or weather forecasts or radar, all the things we take for granted. If any of us was preincarnated as a member of the ship's crew we would be totally useless. All we could contribute would be knowledge of how unfair it was and how badly the sailors were being treated. If we did sucessfully organise a mutiny what then? The ship would crash on to rocks or we'd die of starvation lost at sea.
The officers had wonderful cabins with lovely furniture and private heads. Elitism of course, but they needed space- what skills you needed to navigate without satellites or radios or weather forecasts or radar, all the things we take for granted. If any of us was preincarnated as a member of the ship's crew we would be totally useless. All we could contribute would be knowledge of how unfair it was and how badly the sailors were being treated. If we did sucessfully organise a mutiny what then? The ship would crash on to rocks or we'd die of starvation lost at sea.