A Passage to India

When the director asked me if I liked curry, I should have suspected something. Apart from the routine debriefing questions, my director never asks me anything unless there's an ulterior motive of some kind. And here I am, having vowed never to risk life and limb on a wooden ship, sailing for India! We're only ten days out of Portsmouth and already I am developing a potentially lifelong aversion to salt herring. For variety we have some fresh fruit aboard, but it is strictly rationed, as is cheese and the rum which the crew gulp down like nectar but which in my opinion might serve as mouthwash.
The good thing about my growing aversion to dried fish is that I am developing a rapport with the ship's cat, very imaginatively named "Blackie". So, what else have I learned so far?

• Life at sea is damp.
• The crew aren't altogether happy about having a passenger aboard. Particularly a female passenger. But I am allowed on deck for a couple of hours each day as long as I don't distract the sailors from their duties.
• Since my (tiny - think broom-closet) cabin is relatively warm and comfortable the handful of books I brought along are relatively safe from the aforementioned damp and I have as much time for reading as I could ever want.
• In an effort to relieve the monotony of my diet, I tried a piece of hardtack. Hard is right. Even after soaking it in the soup of the day, it remains like homebaked concrete.
• Sailors are an impossibly superstitious group. I hope to write more about that later.

The best part of the voyage, in my opinion, is that the sailors are well-versed in all forms of recreation and during off-hours when more-or-less one third of the crew are off watch there is music, games and chatter to be found all over the ship. Which is to say, in an area roughly half the size of my front yard at home.
Having never been much of a knitter, I thought a lengthy voyage like this might provide me with ideal opportunity to learn and a couple of days ago I was on deck winding the yarn I bought before leaving Portsmouth when Blackie found me. The help of the ship's cat might have been enough trouble for me, but the ship's carpenter who also plays the viol saw the mischief that Blackie was threatening and struck up with the following ditty which has since been entered in my list of some of the most ribald I have ever heard!
                   

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