A Captain’s Troubles                                                                  

The muggy tight feel of my cabin awoke me uneasily.  The  loud gentle noise of waves washed up along the outside of the ship weighing down the old soggy wood.  As I step out of my cabin I am blinded by the harsh sun that seems to be following our ship.  I meet my first man out front of the boat, for what seemed to be the only second he wasn’t bellowing orders and over flattering to me to secure his job.  “Show me the maps,” I replied as I let out a yawn.  I quickly shuffled over to the cabinet, made as a gift from the milliner to secure us as customers.  The first mate pulled out the long rolled up map and layer it out over the unevenly carved wooden table.  The map sprawled out on the table, as I grazed my finger over the West African sea coast.  Here I say pointing to a peninsula 20 miles or so east of our location.  “Eastward,” he yells, returning back to his normal self. “it’s settled,” he says rolling up the map and scurrying off.  

I watch him yell out orders from the bow, leaning on the railings, but the sound of water washing up against the boat blocked out his words.  I peered out over the back of the boat searching for land, but find only a small sliver where we were headed in the distance.  “Sometimes I feel like a castaway out here.  The wind controlling our movement never really knowing where we are.”  The man startles me.  I whip around to find a younker.  This is an odd event, the Younker, so low in class, that he almost never approached the captain in fear of losing his job.  “Yes,” I reply trying to act as if this interaction was normal, “A few days out at the sea with nothing but wood under your feet and the sea to look can do that to you,” I say smiling.  A few moments pass on without anyone talking, “Is that all then?” I ask confused.  “I just,” he hesitates, “I just left my bag under that chair.”  “Oh, sorry,” I say as I hand him his bag.  

We were just about to land at a beaten up dock, here we would start to sell items and purchase slaves.  We didn’t have all that much room left in the stock so we couldn’t buy many slaves even if we wanted.  The stock in England was very nice and affordable I couldn’t resist even though we were only half way done.  Coming from England, we had loaded the ship with manufactured goods.  I had invested more space and money than expected.  We had only finished two legs of our journey across the atlantic trade triangle.  Once we had landed and docked I took ten men, each carrying a good load and headed to the town for a day full of moneymaking.

With the exotic trade items and wide variety I have a large responsibility in the community to find items people back home would like to buy, not just what sells best.  I provide items that can’t be bought at most markets.  Although I was looking for money I knew the loves of all these men were in my hands.  A couple of wrong moves and we all could be dead.