SB Centaur of Harwich

Arriving on the scuffed pine deck of the sailing barge Centaur Rich and Potkin were met, close to the head of the gangway, by a rotund figure somewhat wider than he was tall, wearing a grease stained, woollen tea-cosy on his head and a leather apron with assorted boning, filleting and skinning knives stuffed into the waist.   He had a black, cardboard eye-patch and a peg leg made from the richly French polished leg of a Queen Anne chair, more ornately rococo than practical considerations required, but it did have a beautifully carved ball and claw foot.   He explained that he had lost his own leg at the battle of Jutland.   Potkin thought that he must have been very careless to mislay an entire leg, but perhaps in the heat of battle it was easy to do that sort of thing.   This fellow it turned out was cook aboard Centaur and revealed his name to be Ebenhaezer Coleye, plain Eben to his shipmates.   He showed them where to sling their hammocks and then introduced them to the saloon, a large, low ceilinged, heavy timbered space, dimly lit by hissing Tilly lamps and with a black-leaded pot-belly stove at its heart.   Here they met some of the crew.

First was the skipper, name of Absalom Rowbottom, unnaturally tall with stooped shoulders, a man, brooding and lonely, weighed down by the responsibility of command.   A jagged white scar ran across his brow, behind the patent leather eye patch and over one cheek to disappear into one of his bushy, greying sideburns.     He wore a towering black stovepipe hat tied under his chin by beeswaxed string and a black oilskin long coat over a pair of similarly coloured rubber thigh-boots.
The mate was a muscular, shaven headed, heavily tattooed native of the distant island of Mersea.   His scant clothing implied a disregard for our east coast chill, and his one good, black-hole of an eye sucked in the world around with all its suffering and woe and let not a glimmer escape from within.
“Moses Smith’s my name.” he said to Potkin.   He and Rich seemed to be old shipmates and they chatted of previous voyages and adventures.   There were no further introductions as, it being half past opening time, the whole ship’s company rushed ashore to the pub.
The local alehouse was called the Rotting Hulk Inn.   It had a faded sign swinging wildly in the wind and was a high, eccentric, weatherboarded building, clinging tenuously to the edge of the salt flats.   Inside the bar it was cramped, dark and warm.   Every nook and corner was cluttered with nautical paraphernalia donated  by travellers on all the seven seas, fixed to walls and ceiling by drawing pin and Blue Tack were tobacco browned paintings of ships, sharks’ jaws, blocks, fishing floats, dried fish, half hulls, the scrimshaw carved tooth of the very whale that had devoured Westward Ho Smy and postcards, many creased and dog eared, from every location with a seaboard.   There were wax encrusted Mateus Rose bottles with worn down candles on every table. The customers jostled noisily, fierce looking people, some ragged, others flamboyant in feathers and ribbons, some boiler suited or Guernsey smocked, and occasionally an embarassed yachty in yellow wellies trying to keep a low profile.   Many of the rapscallions carried cutlasses or harpoons and exuded an aroma of Stockholm tar and bilge water, mariners all.
Richard ordered pints of deep headed bitter beer for himself and the crew and a saucer of milk for Potkin. Eben smiled at the cat and poured a tot of pusser's rum into the milk. He felt kindly towards Potkin who was shy and nervous in the press of strangers.    As Potkin was lapping his milk a slim torti-shell coloured cat came up to him.
“Hello sailor.” She said, “Would you like to buy me a drink?”
Potkin thought it would be impolite to refuse so he ordered her something mauve and very expensive in a champagne coupe. It came with a cherry on a stick. When they had finished their drinks she said,
“Would you like to come upstairs for a cuddle?”
Potkin replied that he could not as he had to keep an eye on Rich. She smiled gently at him and sighed.
“You’re a sweet cat. Come and see me again sometime.”
When Potkin rejoined Rich he was sitting at a table chatting with the skipper of a local smack, Heartsease Finbow, whose jade velvet eye patch trimmed with lace complemented perfectly her shock of flame red hair
“I thought you’d scored there.” she said to Potkin with a smile and girlish laugh.
The drinking and talking, some singing  and roistering, went on late into the night.  
Finally, “That’s enough, now.” shouted Absalom Rowbottom above the din; “We rise at sparrows’ fart.”
Arm in arm they reeled back to the ship and turned, gratefully, into their hammocks.