Joe Larkin Talks about Silas

Ah, Silas! Yes, I've bumped into him now and again. I sailed with him a few times over the years on one vessel or another.

I certainly don't want to kick the guy down by speaking about him, plenty of others have done that over the years and he is a very nice and well meaning skipper, one of the better ones around, I suppose. Slightly wobbly on his legs most of the time and with his head in the clouds but he mostly gets the job done and his ships are usually happy ships.

He reminds me of a Captain in a film about strawberries. Not about the fruit but the one were Humphrey Bogart is the skipper of this cruise vessel and he starts to go mad. He nearly causes mutiny because he thinks somebody has stolen his strawberries. Silas is like that, I always have the feeling that something is about to happen, that a disaster is always around the corner or that the safety valve is about to blow on one situation or another.

Ach, poor man, He's a good man at heart and as I said before it would be a pleasure to sail with him again. Good at his job too, runs a smooth ship and knows his job inside out. Just not quite the full packet up top! Somehow he can never think in straight lines like everybody else and he has a certain knack for always misjudging situations, maybe due to the copious amounts of alcohol that he pours down his gullet or maybe not! Might be genetic or the workings of a highly developed mind, but then again he does drink from morn-till-night.

I met him first many years ago, when both of us had more energy and stamina and were at the peak of our careers. I as Chief and Silas as Captain we crossed paths on many a wreck that took us around the globe one way or another. During those days I could stand can for can with the man (in the evenings I mean). Supping beer of an evening and watching the wake froth out behind became a standard for us and so I say it myself - I am no saint either.

The only time that he really lost the plot, big style, was when his wife was onboard with us. He was about 39yrs old or so and his wife, a pert blonde haired and intelligent girl a bit younger than him. A proper little filly and what she ever saw in Silas I will never know.

Anyway, for the first weeks of that voyage everything flowed smoothly and we did what we were paid to do and enjoyed ourselves to boot. Silas navigated, I kept the old engine ticking over and Betty his wife ran circles around the poor cook and organised movie nights, fancy dress parties and quizzes - as wives tend to do. All was going well till one day I noticed that Silas was starting to glower at the second mate. I first noticed his bushy glower in the bar and it sort of sprung to his face every time the second mate spoke. Not that Sam seemed to notice or if he did he didn't care but it seemed to be totally against what I knew of the skipper's nature - went against the grain. He was more an amiable old fart who just sits in a bar with a permanent and inane grin on his face. But here he was actually staring with utmost hatred pouring out of his features - and for no apparent reason.

By the following week after my initial observations he had stopped talking to everybody unless absolutely essential and sat in the bar glowering at all who happened to be present.

By the end of another week he was not talking nicely to anybody, period! He had in fact started to slam doors in people's faces, leave rude notes on the chart table and he took to deriding or slagging off anybody that was not present. His wife also started to suffer from his sudden mood swings and most of the day she stayed in their cabin, tucked away behind locked doors. All bar quizzes and fun was naturally suspended!

By the end of two months the ship was in turmoil. The Deck Cadet was a constant waterfall of tears as he took daily abuse over his navigational skills, or rather his lack of them. The second mate was quite happy as he had been banned from the bridge and so spent his days sunbathing on the deck or drinking his life away in the bar (if Silas was not present). The cook, after a series of blistering attacks on his chicken dishes had taken to sharpening knives at all hours of the day and the Chief Officer had just threatened to resign. My engineers started to keep a low profile and shifted their drinking activities to the mess room downstairs. And I? Well, I just carried on before and took Silas stares, grunts and abuse with a pinch of salt.

Another week of this and I am sure we would have found the cadet swinging from the mast, the second mate heaved overboard or the cook throwing knives, but luck came our way, I am glad to say. Just after the Cook was seen sharpening a knife outside the skipper's cabin door we arrived in New Orleans and the skipper and his wife (both of whom had not left their cabin for three days) re-emerged. The wife came out of that cabin with bloodshot eyes and a suitcase, and without even a goodbye or a shake of the hand she was down that gangway and into a taxi - faster than I could stop the engine and before the last rope was thrown to the jetty.

Silas himself saw her off and came back onboard with a smile on his face. He came up that gangway and marched straight into the bar, poured himself a beer and for all we could tell the past weeks had never happened.

He sat in that bar and muttered something about how everybody had been leering at his wife. One word could cover that, jealousy, but he certainly took the reaction to extremes. A mountain out of a mole hill and he was seriously in error as nobody would have dared to have leered at his wife - pretty though she was. Needless to say she never came to sea again. In fact they separated not soon after that incident (small wonder). And we on the ship returned to normal as if nothing untoward had ever occurred. The cadet put away his rope, the second mate returned to work albeit looking like a beach bum and the cook kept his sharpening to the galley. My engineers and I retuned to the bar for our sociable beers and well, alls well that ends well.

Yes, that was the only time that Silas ever really lost the plot and I am still to this day unsure as to the real reason for his breakdown. But it didn't surprise me, he has always been near the edge of instability, always thinking tangentially instead of laterally and always off the main rails and into some siding that nobody else is aware of. Other trips have come and gone and we have got along like Captains and Chief engineers do, he drinks more and more and I drink less and less.

He's a good man, don't take me wrong, is old Silas Parks. And as I said before I would sail with him again - hope he leaves the wife at home though!