The Unwilling Sailor

When I was woken up by a sudden impact, the first thing I noticed besides that was the enormous headache that ravaged my brain. Holding my head I squinted my eyes slightly as I opened them despite the pain. In the dark room I cried out. "Margaret! Margaret! Come quick!"

Margaret had been our housekeeper for as long as I could remember and had taken care of me and my siblings for ages. My mother had been extremely young when I had been conceived so when she and father had moved out from their parents house Margaret had been hired.

Sighing I shook my head which, apparently, was a bad idea considering my headache. Normally she would already be at his side, notice his problems almost immediately and swiftly nursed him back to health. "Margaret! Where are you!" I cried again, this time I opened my eyes fully and looked around. Suddenly I became aware of someone standing next to my bed. Relieved I wanted to berate Margaret for surprising me so suddenly when I noticed the beard on the person as well as a lot of missing or yellow teeth. That definitely wasn't Margaret.

Wanting to grab the large Candle holder that stood on my nightstand besides my bed I reached out only to find empty space. Where was the damn nightstand? Finally I decided to address the elephant in the room so I turned towards the bearded individual that stood next to my bed. "Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room."

The person first smiled lightly before suddenly erupting in laughter. After a while of laughter which I decided to tolerate despite his refusal to answer he finally decided to reply. "Aren't you a funny guy. You've been asleep for more than a day and the first thing you do is call me a woman. Well...considering how drunk you were before I'd say it's only natural. I'm Edward by the way but you can call me Old Ed since that's what everyone calls me anyways. Welcome aboard the Gloria."

Hearing the words that came out of that fools mouth I, despite my headache was really amused. Margaret truly knew how to amuse someone. It had been a surprise for sure. Chuckling lightly I replied: "Nice to meet you Old Ed. I'm George, but you should already know that. You can go to Margaret now since you've already done enough to amuse me."

The old man seemed a bit hesitant and confused now and began muttering. "George is it, huh? Did you even bother to look around? You do remember that you entered the Royal Navy, right?"

Hearing that amusing reply I simply couldn't keep myself from laughing loudly, perhaps the long sleep and headache heightened my amusement even more. "You are really an amazing performer. I should really ask father to hire you. Now off you trot. Since Margaret doesn't seem to be here she must be preparing food right now. By the way, the sounds you did to imitate waves and all that are really great, truly relaxing. Once we hire you I'd like you to do that every evening when I have trouble sleeping."

Stretching myself a bit in bed before getting up I noticed that something was off. Normally the large wooden pillars of my canopy bed would have limited my stretching but here only rough fabric restrained my movements. The old man had seemingly left for the door judging by the sound of his steps, he had probably gotten my message to leave me alone. He surprised me however when he opened up a hatch leading upstairs. The light that shone in revealing a rather large room I was in filled with hammocks and chests besides them. Old Ed meanwhile began climbing the stairs towards the top. Soon he shouted over his back: "I'll head up first. In the chest besides your hammock you'll find your uniform which you'll need to wear. Normally others in the navy don't have a mandatory uniform but the captain decided in the name of order that everyone would need to wear a uniform to be easily identifiable. To make things easier everyone on this ship has a special mark that is exclusive to one person. Your mark is the red circle. Your chest has that symbol just above the keyhole. The key should still be stuck inside the keyhole. Remember to keep the key with you at all times. We wouldn't want to let everyone steal your stuff, now won't we?"

Seeing me nod he climbs higher before stopping just below the hatch. "And George..."

"Yes?" I reply.

"Get yourself cleaned up properly. There are few things the Captain hates more than uncleanliness. Just left of this ladder is a door that leads to a small washing room where you can wash your clothes and yourself. Left barrel is freshwater, right barrel is saltwater. Use the freshwater only for your face and wash the rest with saltwater since our supply of freshwater is limited."

With that he disappeared through the hatch, leaving me behind. Slowly I tried to climb out of the hammock which wasn't as easy as I thought with my headache. The ship moving underneath didn't help out either, almost causing me to stumble and loose my footing. Luckily I could stabilize myself by holding onto the wooden wall to my right. Feeling the hard wood underneath in the palm of my hands I knew. All that had happened up to this point. It couldn't be a dream. Regardless how badly I wished it to be different I was on a ship. I had no idea how it came to be that I landed on a ship or why I landed here, it didn't change the fact that I was sleeping in a large ship which was probably far from home by now. Deciding to push all of that away for now I instead slowly made my way towards my personal chest while trying not to fall due to the swaying of the ship. When I'd go up I'd have the opportunity to clear up this large understanding and get back home in not time which would give me an excellent opportunity to boast to my friends about how I had sailed on a ship of the Royal Navy.