Call me Ishmael - there are three guys on this tub named Steve, four guys named Ahab, and five guys named Moe. I signed up with Captain Scourageous on the Possum after running away to sea at fifteen. That was twenty-one years ago, before Scourageous started hitting the bottle, before - but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Ive seen some bad voyages, but this was one of the worst: we were sailing out of Charleston, our black bottom desperately in need of scraping, with a hold full of tiples. We had seven supercargo - eight, if you count the mate's wife: he was taking her back to see her family: he told me he'd brought her back from the East Indies just after the war. I asked him, "Jakarta?" He slowly took his cigar from his mouth, spat tobacco juice over the taffrail, pulled out a wad of chewing gum, and said, "No. She came by boat".