Silas and the Angry Cook

Everybody has to eat! If we stop eating our bodies get thinner and we lose the will to earn the wages that we are paid, then we have no money to buy food. Remember when scurvy was a common problem on the old wooden sailing ships? What I am saying is that cooks are a very important cog in keeping moral and a ships crew together. A cook plays a vital role in keeping all crew members well fed and thus happy.

Big Joe .
I remember Big Joe very well even after the twenty years that should have dimmed the memory of him. I never normally have problems with cooks, they cook and I navigate and I never cross over that invisible line, except that is just this once.

Joe is a very big lad, keen and fast moving. He is from Morocco as were most of the crew on this mighty vessel and a gentle lump of meat he was. Until that is his cooking skills came under attack. I presumed that his normal calm and quiet behaviour might be open to a gentle hint but on that I have never been so wrong in all my life.

Dinner Time .
Joe could only cook three dishes for dinner. These dishes were churned out in rotating succession every day of the week. Monkey Brains, Oxtail and boiled Chicken. If it was Oxtail tomorrow it would be Boiled Chicken Today and would have been Monkey innards yesterday. The meals came around with monotonous regularity and without fail or change in presentation or ingredients.

I hate Oxtail, and monkey brains have never appealed; I would rather have eaten rat had there only been some onboard. Chicken I can take but not boiled whole in a pot with little else to brighten the serving. Normally I let these things go and I live on side dishes and beer. I often have to drink beer just to relieve the sharp hunger pangs that attack my stomach at any time of the day! I could have sacked the guy but bad cooks are like leaves on a tree - there are thousands of them and the next one could be worse, believe me!

Anyway I ate one meal out of three and for many weeks I survived. The other meals being a fully liquid diet through beer, whisky and dreams of steaks and salads! The single meal that I forced myself to attend and begged my stomach to accept despite, the fact that a near revolt was always bubbling at the surface, was the chicken dish! An over-boiled mysteriously turned grey chicken leg that lay next to a scrap yard-like and over-salted lump of mashed potato and a whole carrot that had been tortured and maimed. All goodness dragged from it by the best in the world.

The day I went scavenging ..
For the other two meals between this enforced one I lived on beer, whisky and water from which I pulled the necessary sustenance to last another day. The beer and spirits, although allowing me another day of continuation, must have caused havoc by bombarding my empty stomach and thus my brain cells with wrong signals. It was thus that I found myself on edge and angry and determined to correct this disastrous situation.

One night with a hole in my stomach the size of a football and legs that could hardly keep me walking in a straight line I wobbled down to the galley - an area that I only visit during inspections and then with a blindfold on. I went down to the galley in full-uniform and started to whip up an eclectic mixture of nibbles. I was feverish and desperate, oblivious to all else around me - like I had just crossed the Sahara desert without water.

Big Joe catches me in the act ..
Cheese on toast, sardines sandwiches and tinned peaches, cheese in my pockets and crackers in my hand I was busy trying to motivate my non-answering legs to return with the goods when the most unfortunate occurred. Big Joe happened to come along and saw me with my treasure chest of appropriated food stuffs.

"My dinner no good, Captain" he said in what seemed to be an excessively unfriendly manner.

"Not for me, I can't stomach monkey brains and such like", I said and regretted my rash reply as soon as I had opened my mouth.

"I cook all day, and you no like! Maybe you no like me eh", said my now visibly aggressive opponent.

It was not the way that he said the last but the fact that he had picked up this rather large meat cleaver and was busy chopping at some invisible lump of matter on the counterpane that frightened me.

I suppose my mind was not functioning normally as my next words seemed to put the flame to the fuel - the fat in the frying pan, so to speak.

"I need some real food today", was all that I stuttered out as I collected together my sandwiches, pickles and opened cans of fruit. Simple words but ones that opened a Moroccan flood gate of every swear word in that language - I think he was swearing anyway judging by the hand waving and saliva that was bubbling out of his mouth. He even followed me up the stairs as I gripped tight to my salvation and made a dash for safety.

The Great Escape ..
I was positively shaking from my toes to my brain when I at last managed to slam the door of my cabin behind me. By the time I had shut, locked and installed a chair under the handle I had squashed sardines pasted down my previously clean white shirt, remains of melted cheese down my trousers and what looked like pickles draped over my shoes.

"Why me," I screamed at nobody in particular.

After a period of calming down I decided that I would need to eat what was left of my forage. I emptied what was left of the can of peaches down my gullet along with some bread that had managed not get mixed up with the pickles and washed all down with about ten beers.

Unfortunately it did not end there as Joe was not quite over the slight he felt on his cooking ability. He must have had a chip the size of a tree trunk weighing heavily on his shoulders as just about the time when I was deliberating whether to pick off some of the dried-up and stringy cheese from my trousers a massive ruckus erupted outside my cabin door.

I could here Joe shouting to me through the wooden separation, "Captain, I want apology, I want you say sorry", he screamed.

This continued for a little time as I cowered in my bathroom, only venturing out to get a shot of whisky and two to calm down my shaky nerves. Eventually though and after eating the remains of a mangled brie-covered peanut butter sandwich that I had found in my pocket, all went quiet.

Rescued from my prison cell
It wasn't until even later that I was rescued from my prison cell by a very welcome Chief Engineer and Mate. They told me that they had removed Joe to a safer place and had replaced the fire axe that he was about to break through my door with. I was released from my torment and had a few thankful drinks with my rescuers. I certainly needed them after all of that, the beers I mean.

Joe goes home and life goes on ..
Joe was suitably removed from the vessel the next morning still bearing ill-will against me. Life returned to normal and I hooked back my door feeling light and secure for the future and the rest of the trip.

With his departure I certainly felt lighter in my movements and I could see light for a fuller stomach in the coming weeks. Sadly though for the remainder of that trip all did not pan out as I expected as I found myself unable to participate in any further meal onboard that vessel.

The new cook objected to what I had thought was a carefully crafted suggestion that he tidy up his galley (which had become home to a large family of cockroaches during Joes tenure) but this did not sit well with him. Under fear and threat of him spitting in my soup or frying up a cocky or two with my steak I found myself unable to eat anything served up.

I can honestly say that I survived that trip though the nourishment gained from the odd can of beer, without which I would have shrivelled away to nothing.

They sacked me at the end of that trip, suggested that I should do a man management course but that they were not willing to pay for it. They also said that they where not happy with the amount of alcohol that I consumed on a daily basis - they certainly had no idea of how I survived the four months I spent on that boat.

I would have died had it not been for beer and an odd whisky or two.