Trollheart

HISTORY LESSONS
Billy, a lad who embarks on his first ever voyage here, is shown here being “sold into indenture”. It's not as bad as it seems, and was common practice in the nineteenth century. With no real way to ensure their children earned a living and learned a trade, and for those who wished their boys (girls would not of course be considered) to amount to more than they had, a parent could purchase an indenture of several years. This meant that, for a certain sum --- here we're told it's £50 for four years --- a practiced professional like a sea captain would take on a young lad as an apprentice, teach him all he knew and allow him to become a sailor, thus ensuring for him a steady flow of work and perhaps the opportunity to captain or be mate on another ship in the future.

Of course, as we've seen already, life at sea was hard then. Everything was done by hand, from manning the rigging to turning the pumps, and there was little or no time for rest or frivolity. Food was cheap and mostly tasteless, and while at sea the captain's word was law. We've also seen that to some degree a brutal mate could exercise his sadism if he wished, with the law (did they care anyway) days, weeks or months away, and no respite for the one who was the target of the mate's anger. Such a situation involved Adams and Bucko Roberts, though by his account (and Bethel's) he was more or less a bystander in the murder. He was however the one upon whom Roberts decided to vent his anger. James tells of a similar run-in on his maiden voyage, and it would seem that it was more common than we might think. Billy is therefore lucky to be sailing under Baines and Onedin.

A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE
Where there were many hazards. Adams almost loses his life when he loses his grip on the spar and threatens to fall to the deck. Bethel, knowing the secret he carries, is slow to render assistance until Baines roars at him. Besides falling and breaking their necks, we see here too how easily a man could be washed overboard, and there were no attempts at rescue. As Bethel, and later Adams, point out, a captain is worried about only two things: his ship and his cargo. His crew come a very distant third, perhaps even fourth. No effort will be expended for anyone stupid, unlucky or clumsy enough not to be able to keep his feet on deck. “Happens all the time”, remarks James, and there is no rancour in his voice when he says it. An occupational hazard, one of many for the brave or desperate men who took on the ocean in those creaky wooden sailing ships.

There are many nautical terms used in this series, as you might expect, and it seems that with the amount of work they had to do breath would be at a premium, so many words and phrases were shortened. Here the word “forecastle”, referring to the forward section of the ship wherein the crew basically lived --- slept, ate and occasionally, very occasionally, relaxed --- is shortened to “fo'csl”, which is pronounced “folk-sil”.

TIGHTFIST
Or not, as the case turns out to be. Although we've come to know him as a hard-bitten, uncompromising man driven by profit and occasionally greed, there is the odd time when James will surprise us. Here, he interviews a lad who wishes to be indentured (see “History Lessons", above) as an apprentice on the ship, but explains that his father was killed in the Crimean War and that his mother has been trying to save the money to allow her son go to sea as an apprentice but has only managed to save approximately £32 of the £50 that is required.

The lad delivers his mother's regrets for any inconvenience, realising that he cannot sail if the money is not paid, but James, in a rare moment of soft-heartedness, and perhaps seeing something of himself in the boy, agrees to accept what his mother has saved and allow the lad to sail. The lad, Billy, is delighted and runs off to get the money. Of course, once he's been at sea a few weeks he may not be so happy that he was able to join the voyage: a life at sea was no easy proposition, and not for the faint-hearted, the feckless or the lazy.

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