Ah, you wouldn’t’ve found two cleverer hands than those of John Spriggs and me for sailing a trim vessel, no, nor clearer heads under the gale. A fine pair we were, young and laughing devils and bold as you please. Bold as any young men would be that had full bellies and none too much religion, especially when we were locked in the grip o’ th’ spirituous liqueur. It was a daft plan that young Spriggs came up with, mad as the weather in May, but there was some god-be-damned poetry in it, as I sit here. Ah, I loved him as ever one man loved another, and would’ve cut off my arm if he’d need of it, so it wasn’t to me he was lookin’ for a voice o’ reason.

Ah, but the sea’s a wanton, unpredictable bitch, and loves nothing so much as dragging two saucy lads down in her sluttish embrace. We weren’t the best to have ever fallen to her fickle charms, not by an English mile, no, nor shall we be the last, not so long as men live to see the sun break over a horizon unblemished by any pimple of land…