A Pirate and a Gentleman

[daddybear54]

Chapter 1:   The Making of a Sailor

 

It was dark down here inside the ship’s hull. No light could penetrate into the cargo hold in the night time. Dark, but not silent – the endless creaking of the ship’s wooden fabric and the masts, the rushing roar of the ocean’s waters on the outside of the hull, the sloshing of water in the bilges – the cargo hold was always a noisy place.

By rights, Andrew should have been asleep in his cot. But he had an appointment down here which he was anxious to keep. Earlier in the day, he had cornered one of the apprentices, a handsome youth named Peter, and told him, “Meet me in the aft cargo hold at midnight.” Since he was the second mate, and Peter a rank beginner as one of two apprentices in the crew, Andrew had no fear that his orders would be disobeyed.

The ship’s bell rang, pairs of strokes with a pause after each pair. Four pairs. Eight bells. “Where in hell is Peter?” Andrew wasn’t aware that he had actually muttered the words aloud.

“Here, sir,” another voice responded out of the darkness.

Andrew peered in that direction and caught a glimpse of a pale form coming towards him. As Peter drew nearer, Andrew was pleased to see that he had already taken off his shirt.

“Good. You know why we’re here.”

Peter nodded, and without further ado slipped out of his trousers and underclothes, exposing his lower body – the buttocks swelling in a tempting curve, the cock already lifted clear of his balls.

Andrew did the same, gesturing wordlessly to his erect manhood. Peter dropped to his knees with all the grace of his eighteen years and went right to work on Andrew’s tool. With almost no delay, he managed to get the whole thing deep into his throat. Andrew smiled between his moans of pleasure. An experienced young man, not a rank beginner who had to be shown what to do at every step of the process. Andrew was prepared to train newcomers, whether to sail the ship or to suck and get fucked, but he much preferred to work with more experienced young men.

Peter was experienced – no doubt about that. His talented mouth and throat worked wonders on Andrew, and before long he simply had to pull his cock out. He didn’t want this to end until he had sampled the young apprentice’s enticing ass. He pulled Peter to his feet and spun him around.

Peter knew exactly what was intended. This man wanted to get right into his hole with no waste of time and get his rocks off as fast as possible. Well, that was fun enough in a way – but he was hoping he could entice the hunky second mate into staying a bit longer. Perhaps he could even flip the action if he played his cards right. He’d certainly noticed Andrew’s hand straying to play with his own ass as Peter sucked him.

Peter planted his hands against the frames of the hull, leaning forward and thrusting his sweet round ass cheeks out and up. Andrew’s hand landed there again, several times, with considerable force, before it slid into the crack and his fingers began playing with Peter’s hole. Andrew’s cock jutted up even harder and higher as he felt that squirming hole clenching at his fingers. It was time.

He added some more spit to his hand, wiped it over the head and down the shaft, and then pushed the blunt tip of his cock up against Peter’s hole. Peter pushed back, opened up, and in no time Andrew had entered him stretching him open, and thrusting further and further inside. It took only moments until the second mate’s tool was completely embedded inside the apprentice’s welcoming ass.

At once, Peter’s ass began squeezing and chewing on Andrew’s rampant cock, so much so that Andrew wasted no time before beginning to hump the apprentice. His pumping action picked up speed rapidly, and the air was filled with resonant smacks as his hips bounced repeatedly off Peter’s lush round ass cushions. Peter reached down with one hand to grasp his own cock, but Andrew smacked the hand away.

“No! Don’t touch it. Save yourself!”

Peter grinned at what he took to be the meaning hidden within those words. He flexed his muscles, working his tight hole around the second mate’s dick, squeezing it harder and harder. He wanted this man’s cum load inside his body.

Suddenly, Andrew pulled away, and snarled at Peter, “Get on your back on the deck.” Peter obediently laid down quickly on the boards, rolling onto his back and lifting his legs into the air as Andrew dropped down beside him. Andrew got himself into position, planted his red, throbbing tool against the hole, and pushed his way inside again. Peter let out another loud moan, a moan not of pain but of satisfaction. Anyone could tell that this slim, young apprentice loved having a rock-hard man’s cock inside his body.

Andrew resumed fucking, pushing down into Peter’s ass over and over. Peter stretched his arms out, wrapping them around Andrew and pulling him even closer. This was the kind of fucking Peter really liked – close in, face to face, arms holding his partner as close as possible. Andrew kept heaving his hips up and down, driving towards the moment when he could seed this boy’s cute young ass. Then Peter stretched his arms downwards, grasping Andrew’s ass firmly. The second mate had just time to think, Oh my stars, this boy’s got really long arms – and then Peter sank his long forefinger deep inside Andrew’s hole.

He knew he was taking a risk. Doing something like this to a superior could get him thrown off the ship, figuratively – or even literally, and with all the sharks in the ocean around them, that would certainly prove fatal. But he had guessed and taken a chance. And his guess proved right.

“Oh, my god, that feels so… keep doing it, boy!”

Peter kept fingering Andrew, working around until he suddenly hit the magic spot. He’d found his own, quite by accident, when he was fooling around with his own ass one day. Then an older sailor had taught him that every man has one, and how to find it. And now, his long arm and slim finger had found Andrew’s spot for him. Peter rubbed the little lump two, three, four times, and then Andrew suddenly slammed in hard, seized right up, and held himself against Peter’s body as his cock erupted, spraying an enormous load of cream inside the boy’s taut, round ass.

Peter cried aloud in delight as he felt the second mate’s warm sperm gushing into him. But he didn’t pull out his finger. He was still hoping.

In a couple of minutes, Andrew’s breathing slowly diminished to normal as he regained stability after that enormous climax – and it was right about that time that he realized that Peter still had a finger buried in his butt, the sensation of that finger rubbing at his magic spot was still incredible, and (most of all) that he wanted to feel a dick inside his own body.

“Did you spend yet, boy?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“Good. Get that rod of yours inside me and drive it in there until you’ve dropped all your seed into my hole.”

“Yes, sir.”

Peter squirmed out from under Andrew and pushed the second mate down to the deck. Andrew laid down on his face, spreading his legs apart and waiting for the invasion. He did not have long to wait. Peter was thrilled at the thought of plowing and seeding Andrew, and he couldn’t wait to start. In no time, he had Andrew’s ass lubricated with his spit, the hole quivering from the repeated invasions of his tongue, and had his cock in place, pushing against Andrew’s tight little hole.

“Relax, dammit!” Normally, Peter would never have dreamed of using such language to the second mate. But he had the man under him, he was going to fuck the second mate’s furry butt, and he was expected to dominate, to subdue, to control, and to mark his man. Having invited him to switch roles, Andrew couldn’t very well complain at being ordered around. Not that he wanted to complain. Andrew had started out acting the role of the man in charge because that was what his position in the ship demanded, but the truth was that he actually enjoyed being dominated and controlled. And now he was going to get exactly what he wanted.

And Peter gave it to him. The apprentice with the smooth body and the angelic face gave a mighty shove and buried his eight inches to the hilt inside Andrew’s butthole. Andrew yelled aloud, and Peter silenced him with a flat-handed slap. “You wanted it, you’re getting it, so shut your gob!”

Andrew moaned loudly as Peter began pumping into him, but another vicious slap put a stop to that. Peter had learned much from all his previous experiences with being fucked by men, and he used it all, stirring his dick around inside Andrew’s guts, dragging it out, and then slamming back in on the exact angle that would hit the magic spot inside Andrew on each plunge.

It was working. Andrew was getting more and more wound up as Peter drove into him, quickly approaching the point of no return again. Peter knew it too. It was plain that this strong, aggressive treatment was turning Andrew’s crank in a big way, and Peter knew that it was time to push the lordly second mate all the way to the wall. He abruptly speeded up, driving in and out of Andrew’s hole at top speed like a mad thing. Andrew cried aloud again as his cock spasmed, shooting another load of his sperm onto the deck under him. The sudden contractions of his tight hole did it for Peter, and in seconds he was slamming up against the second mate’s muscled cheeks, bursting the dam and erupting multiple shots of his white-hot sperm into the older man’s fuck tunnel.

This time both of them took longer to recover. It said much for the enjoyment he’d taken from the experience that second mate Andrew actually turned over, embracing and kissing and caressing the boyish blond apprentice at some length.

And then, abruptly, their cuddling reverie was broken by a loud moan not far off, a moan which was quickly followed by the sound of several wet splats against the deck.

Peter sat up suddenly. “What was that?”

Andrew muttered, “Must have been the captain’s boy. He’s always prowling around at night. Get your clothes on and get out of here.”

“Yes, sir.”

Both of them chuckled at the sudden pointed tone in Peter’s voice.

Less than a minute later, the hold was quiet again – well, as quiet as it could ever get – apart from the solitary figure groping around in the darkness, until he found what he was looking for. His hand wiped up several globs of man cream off the deck, and he licked and sucked them clean, moaning in pleasure again at the taste. There followed some quick slapping sounds, and then another series of splats as he added a few extra shots onto the deck to join the ones the second mate and the blond apprentice had spewed there not long before.

In the early morning sunlight, George Treston appeared on the quarterdeck of the ship, named Ernestine IV, looking out at the skies and estimating the weather with a seaman’s trained eye. He owed his position as an apprentice to his father. George’s father wasn’t merely the captain of the Ernestine IV. He owned this ship and three others, as well as dock facilities in Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, and the Bahamas. The Treston company was a known and respected commercial presence throughout the British Caribbean Islands.

George stood with his feet braced apart, swaying easily and naturally with the send of the vessel as it climbed and swooped over the waves on passage from Jamaica to Antigua. This in spite of the fact that he was barely fourteen years old and only on his second voyage. That is, it was his second voyage as a formal member of the crew with assigned duties. You could only call it the second time if you discounted the many earlier trips in which he had sailed as a boy, following his father everywhere above and below decks and learning the essentials of the trade – and of some other incidentals – by watching, listening, and remembering everything.

As it happened, he was remembering the lively scene he had witnessed in the cargo hold the night before. The memory was making him grow hard yet again. George had been intrigued, not so much by the role of Andrew, the second mate, as by his fellow apprentice, the smooth-skinned, blue-eyed blond boy named Peter. He’d looked like a son of the gods when his clothes had come off, and George wanted to enjoy coupling with that beautiful body the same way that Andrew had done. Of course, getting a chance to be fucked by either Andrew or Peter wouldn’t be a bad thing either. George had seen it all but had yet to experience any of it – beyond the thrill of playing with himself.

His attention shifted again, as a change in the wind called for the sails to be trimmed anew. George scurried to join the others at the halliards. Once the bustle of trimming settled down, he resumed his thoughts.

The early growth of George’s seafaring knowledge and skills had owed much to his father’s insistent drumming of the essentials into his head at every turn as he grew up. It owed even more to the fact that trade between the multiple islands of the Caribbean, and between the islands and North America or England, had been the family business for several generations. The letter “IV” in the name of the company flagship, Ernestine IV, was proof of that, she being the fourth flagship of the Treston firm to bear that honoured name. Ernestine had in fact been the ship’s cat in his great-grandfather’s day, a more than dedicated mouser and ratter. The sailors in Ernestine’s time claimed that she was the most valuable member of the ship’s company.

None of this was ever explained to outsiders.  They were left to suppose that “Ernestine” had been the lady love of the company’s founder back in Bristol. Let them think that. It wasn’t something that George’s father, Edward Treston, had ever talked about, either, maintaining a resolute silence in the face of persistent questioning from George’s mother, an island woman whom his father called Esmeralda.

George’s earliest voyage of all was the absolute height of foreshadowing, not to mention unorthodox. The boy set sail into the world of ships and the sea via the birth canal. His mother produced him after an extended labour aboard a small coastal vessel making a rough passage from Kingston around Jamaica to Montego Bay. She had informed her “husband” Edward that she wished to go to her mother’s people on the north shore of the island to birth her child, and to be cared for afterwards. Esmeralda was no fool. She knew perfectly well that Port Royal was full to the brim with highly competent gamblers, bootleggers, and whoremasters, but suffered from a distinct shortage of such feminine luxuries as trustworthy midwives. Edward had consented to her plan, albeit reluctantly, and in accordance with local tradition had given the captain of the coastal trading packet a substantial bribe, with the promise of as much more to come, once his wife was delivered safely and unharmed to her mother. After that farewell, he had himself set out on one of his regular trading voyages to San Juan.

The treacherous waves accompanying George’s birth were triggered by the catastrophic 1692 earthquake which swept most of the boozy, riotous pirate city of Port Royal into the ocean, taking the headquarters of the family business with it. Edward’s timing for his voyage to Puerto Rico had been perfect, in the sense that he and his ship were unharmed although somewhat tossed about by the ensuing seismic waves. After returning to a wharf and warehouse which were missing in action from an acreage of land which was no longer to be seen, George’s father shrugged, wrote off his losses, and set to work to start over again. In the event, this actually meant setting up shop in a newer and bigger warehouse and wharf farther up the bay on the inland side of what remained of Port Royal Point, facing the site on the mainland which would henceforth be known as Kingston.

In due course, Edward built up a fleet of four vessels. Once George had reached the age of eight, his father began taking him along on some of his trading trips around the Caribbean Sea and up the eastern coast of the Thirteen Colonies. Not so the longer voyages to and from England, which lasted for months at a stretch. Captain Edward needed to supervise his company’s affairs on the spot, and disappearing into the far reaches of the North Atlantic Ocean for months at a time was a task best left to his subordinates.

Was George’s father actually married to his mother? That was something that George was never able to find out for certain. There had certainly been a ceremony in Port Royal, of a sort, presided over by a gentleman dressed in the robes of a Church of England divine. Edward George Treston and Esmeralda had sworn the oaths of a conventional marriage to each other and had honoured those hallowed oaths – at least in word, if not always in deed. But there was a catch. There was no formal certificate of marriage. Port Royal being the kind of city it was, the odds were pretty good that the presiding “clergyman” was actually a former priest of the Church of England who had been defrocked due to sinful excesses of gambling, drunkenness, whoring, you name it. The wedding, then, such as it was, likely lay well outside the bounds of the orthodox marriage vows. That, as matters developed, was certainly an omen.

Like most men from Europe who found themselves in the islands, Edward Treston made no real pretence of being faithful to his wife. Esmeralda might have been the light of his eye, but there were others who drew his attention below the waist. Esmeralda knew this perfectly well, going to great efforts to try to flush any other women away and out of his life. Perhaps it was fortunate for both of them that she remained unaware that there were also men she should have driven off.

Edward’s onboard adventures had begun when little Georgie, less than a year old, was still being cuddled and nursed at all hours of the day and night by his mother. Need it be explained that Edward was a seething mixture of frustration and physical discomfort by the time his ship sailed after a two-week break ashore? His mating organs nearly burst into flames on the spot when Hugh, the boatswain, introduced Sean to him, explaining that the previous apprentice had disappeared before he could be paid off. Sean had providentially been right there on the dock when he heard Hugh complaining that they needed that extra pair of hands and the young guy who had taken off would have to be replaced. Sean immediately stepped forward and offered himself, and after a few quick questions was brought aboard to sign the apprenticeship agreement.

Watching as Hugh issued orders and the crew made sail and hoisted in the anchor, Edward was pleased to see that Sean listened and followed orders uncommonly well for a novice, not to mention the enticing sight of his buttocks rounding out the seat of his breeches. His upper body was soon on even better display as the tropical heat forced him to strip off his shirt. Edward could have sworn that Sean had caught his eye for a second and had then begun to twitch and clench his ass muscles in alluring enticement.

When Sean came off watch duty at 8:00 that evening, Edward was waiting for him.

“Sean!”

“Yes, sir?”

“When do you go on watch again?”

“Not until 4:00 in the morning, sir.”

“Good. I have a job for you to tackle. Come with me.”

Edward led the way down to the stern of the ship, where he opened the door of the captain’s cabin. As soon as Sean saw the bed, his face broke into a hot grin. When Edward closed the door, Sean immediately stepped up, reached out, and palmed his crotch through his breeches.

“Is this the job you had in mind, sir?”

Edward’s quiet moan confirmed that Sean was on the right track. So did the roaring erection which bulged up inside his pants in no time flat. Edward quickly realized that Sean should already be rated as “Able Seaman” in at least this area of work. His new apprentice was far from inexperienced, and very soon a wet stain was growing on the front of the captain’s breeches. By this time, Edward had torn off his shirt, and he now stepped away to remove his breeches as quickly as possible, until he was standing in the cabin naked. Sean positively licked his lips in anticipation as he went down to his knees and began to lick on Edward’s rigid cock.

The captain groaned aloud as the young but skilled apprentice went right to town on him. His hands buried themselves in the boy’s flaming red hair and pushed him repeatedly down onto his senior officer’s manmeat. Sean knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew he was going to get results as a steady stream of sweet juice leaked out of that swollen dick and onto his taste buds. But even with that hint, he was startled at how soon the climax came. In barely two minutes, the captain began panting, “Oh… oh… oh… ohhhh…!” and then his muscles convulsed, and a thick blast of white cream exploded into Sean’s sucking mouth. Sean sucked and swallowed as fast as he could, but he was no match for the flood which backed up in his mouth and flowed down his chin. Edward grasped at the timber framing of the ship for support as his knees began to give out under him.

Edward gasped for air as Sean swallowed the last of his load and then stood up in front of him. His bright green eyes locked with the captain’s dark brown eyes as Edward gradually recovered his normal poise.

“Will that be all, sir?” The question sounded perfectly respectful, but as Sean asked it, his hand went again to the captain’s cock, giving it another squeeze. As he did so, he noted with pleasure that the tool in his hand showed no signs of softening. Nor was that surprising.

“Not in the least.” Edward reached out, grasped Sean’s hand, and drew him close. He kissed the boy’s lips lightly at first, then much harder, as his hands reached around to grasp the young ass and draw him closer. Sean was loving being embraced so tightly by this impressive man, but he wanted to feel it closer still. He took one of Edward’s hands and guided them to start pulling his shirt up over his head and off.

Edward drank in the sight of a taut young body, lightly dusted with freckles as he might have expected with a redhead, with the pert nipples poking out at him. He then lowered his hands, and began tugging the boy’s breeches down and off, exposing the lower half of his body to view. No argument was possible. Sean’s ass was a thing of beauty, and Edward couldn’t wait to enjoy it. He turned Sean around and stepped up behind him, rubbing his wet cock up and down in Sean’s crack as he worked his hands up and down the front, from the pec muscles to the cock and balls.

Then it was Edward’s turn to drop down onto his knees and bury his face inside Sean’s deep crack, spreading the round hills of the youthful ass apart so he could drive his tongue right down and into the hole. Here, again, was the proof that Sean had done this before – and many times. Almost at once, his tight hole yielded and let Edward’s tongue slip inside him. The captain kept tongue-fucking the apprentice until Sean was moaning nonstop, murmuring, “I want it… I want it…” over and over.

Edward stood up again, spat in his hand, spread it around the head of his tool, and then planted the bulbous tip against the hole and began to push. At once, the boy’s ass spread open, and his head slid right inside before the muscles snapped shut behind the rim. He then pushed on, slowly but steadily, as his shaft sank all the way inside this beautiful young hole. Sean was sighing and moaning quietly in his delight as this stalwart man took him all the way, fucking his hole right to the bottom, over and over.

As the speed of the fuck increased, Sean braced himself against the massive oaken rib curving up along the cabin wall, straining to hang on as his captain used his ass, fucking him into a dazzling haze of erotic sensations. That firm, straight cock was bumping up against his button every time it drove in, and Sean knew he was going to cum soon. He tried to hang on, but in just another minute the captain was fucking the cum out of him – and he hadn’t even grabbed and stroked himself.

“Awww… fuuuck…!” he cried aloud as the sperm rocketed up his shaft and spilled onto the deck in front of him. Despite the sudden clenching spasms from the muscles, the captain kept right on fucking him, harder and harder. In moments, Sean began cumming again, and then yet again. Edward kept right on driving into him as the waves of orgasm kept washing over him. The repeated muscle spasms gripping his cock started pulling Edward up to the brink, and then he erupted in multiple shots inside Sean’s clenching channel. Finally the cum stopped flowing, Edward stopped moving, Sean stopped cumming repeatedly, and the two of them slowly wound down from the most incredible climax either of them had ever experienced.

When Sean’s ass forced Edward’s slowly shrinking dick out of the hole, it was followed by a tidal wave of his hot sperm. The semen flowed gently down Sean’s legs, even as Edward tried to lick it all up. Then he stood up, turned the dazed apprentice around, and kissed him deeply, using his tongue to share all that hot cream with his partner. Sean clung to him, partly in ecstasy, and partly to keep from falling over. That powerhouse fuck and endless orgasm had really worn him out.

When Edward realized that Sean was struggling to stay on his feet, he picked the lad up and carried him in his arms over to the bed. He laid Sean down there, pushing him back against the bulkhead, and then lay down next to him, drawing his partner into his arms. They embraced and kissed gently.

“Sean, that was amazing.”

“Amazing doesn’t begin to describe it.”

“Would you like to do this again?”

“Not tonight. I’m done.”

Edward chuckled. “I meant tomorrow morning. Or tomorrow night. Or whenever.”

Sean realized exactly what Edward wasn’t precisely saying. It took him just a few seconds to think of a comfortable bed versus a swaybacked hammock, sensational sex on tap, and best of all the tenderness in the captain’s voice when he’d asked his question. It was an easy decision.

“Yes, I would. I’d love to. Thank you, sir.”

And they fell asleep together, arms wrapped around each other. In the morning, he’d sucked a first load out of the captain’s dick to wake him up properly. Then, that night, he’d let Edward fuck him and cum inside him twice more. Scarcely deterred even then, he’d sucked Edward into yet another erection, took that raging tool back into his hole – and the two of them had fallen asleep like that, big and little spoons, with a blissful smile on Sean’s face. He loved falling asleep with a man’s hard meat deep inside him, and Captain Edward, experiencing that treat for the first time, found it just as enjoyable.

The two of them had remained a regular couple, at sea at least, for several years. Between Sean when out at sea, and Esmeralda when at home, Edward was completely contented. In time, Sean’s skills on the business and navigation side of things led Edward to appoint him as first mate of one of his other ships, Euphemia. He and Sean both missed their long relationship, losing no chance to revisit it whenever both of their ships were in Kingston at the same time.

Now, with George having come aboard his ship, Captain Edward restrained himself from any further activities of that kind as he bent his energy instead to raising the next generation of the Treston family. It was an active education. The captain was a stern taskmaster, and he began at once to drill his son in the fundamentals of seamanship. He also tutored the boy in mathematics and astronomy, scientific backgrounds of immeasurable value in a shipping business. By age 10, George had his own sextant and was taking noon solar sights and working out the ship’s position with commendable care and accuracy.

In practical terms, young George applied all the energy and fearlessness of youth to mastering the skills of climbing the rigging, and soon could be found racing up and down the ratlines with a speed which would have done credit to the most experienced of topmast men.

Edward also lectured his son, in short but trenchant episodes, on the basics of the mercantile world, the skills of negotiating deals, the values of different cargoes, and the kinds of record keeping which would endear him to his shore-based customers.

Edward wanted to shield his son from some of the rougher aspects of life on board ship, and had the young boy sleep beside him, on a small mattress on the deck in the captain’s cabin at the stern. Alas for good intentions, George was an even more than usually inquisitive boy and managed to explore all kinds of nooks and crannies – which was how he had first spotted men fucking together. He also managed to find out a good many other things which his father would rather he hadn’t known about – some of them involving Edward’s propensity for slick and underhanded business deals. One thing, though, he never learned about until years later, and that was his father’s liking for a firm male ass to fuck when a woman was nowhere to be found.

George’s father knew without a doubt that his son was going to figure it all out sooner or later. Men at sea in wooden ships got just as horny as men on land, and they saw no reason to keep their bodily needs in check while out on the ocean and without female company. There was scarcely a night that didn’t see at least one roaring fuck scene played out in the cargo holds of any of the Treston ships. Other crew members, more brazen still, simply ripped off their pants, bent over the breech of one of the cannons, and took a fellow crewman’s raging erection right out in the open.

In time, it was plain to see that Edward Treston had every expectation that his only son should follow him as the sixth generation owner of the family business, and he was making certain that young George should be as fully prepared as possible. Only son? Yes – and George was destined to remain so, as far as Edward was concerned. Nine years after her son George was born (and after she had miscarried twice), Esmeralda became pregnant again, under circumstances which had appeared decidedly suspicious to Edward. She had insisted, amid floods of tears, that the child was indeed his and no one else’s, but he remained doubtful. Then Esmeralda had given birth to twin girls, both of whom shared Edward’s distinctive dark-red hair colour when their hair grew in. Edward had the grace to admit contritely that he had been wrong. But Esmeralda wasn’t there to see or hear herself vindicated. She had died shortly after childbirth, bleeding uncontrollably, and George had suffered the first devastating loss of his young life. He had loved his mother, not least because she had treated him with great affection – which was more than he could say for his father, who often regarded him as more a business apprentice than his child.

George was not altogether wrong in feeling that way about his parents, but he was very far wrong in extrapolating this to a belief that his father was incapable of any human feeling. The truth was far otherwise. Edward mourned for his Esmeralda, mourned to a degree which would have shocked many older and more experienced men than his son. The fact that he concealed his grief under his customary stern, gruff countenance when outside of his own private quarters proved less than nothing about his emotional state. In his own way, he was overset and knocked off his feet just as much as his son. Esmeralda had reached places deep inside his emotions which no one else had ever been able to touch in any way.

Despite his pain and loss, Edward was acutely conscious that he had to make some provision for his three children, and he filled the gap in the lives of his infant daughters by acquiring Phoebe, a slave girl with a better than average command of English, to be their nurse. He then arranged, through his contacts, for her to live with the babies in the home of Richard Lajambe, another merchant who now lived full time ashore in Kingston. For his son, George, his provision was to take his son with him again on his next voyage.

 

 

Edited November 11 by daddybear54

[seattlebbbtm]

This is a fun tale

[daddybear54]

Chapter 2   Growing Up at Sea

 

When George was thirteen years old, Edward made a long-planned change to the company’s overall business operations. He commissioned one of the leading builders in Kingston to construct a new addition to his little fleet. This order brought about the launching of the Ernestine V, the vessel which became his new flagship. The name was an obvious choice, since the older and slower Ernestine IV had met a sad end on an uncharted coral reef – a common hazard. The new build was the fastest and best-armed ship in the family’s history – a basic necessity for the latest trade opportunity which he intended to pursue. Edward Treston himself captained the new vessel for her first two working voyages. George was on board and learning every step of the way. There was a lot to learn.

Each stage of the ten-month voyage had its own distinctive cargoes with special rules for care and handling. The outbound leg from Kingston saw the Ernestine V loaded with casks of sugar, molasses, and rum, and with expensive spices from Grenada and St. Vincent. As well, there was a lively trade in coffee from Colombia and silver from Bolivia. These last two products were supposed to be royal monopolies of His Most Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain, but somehow a certain amount always managed to vanish from the official caravans and the fleets of the Spanish treasure galleons, only to reappear later in the cargo holds of the Ernestine V.

Some of these expensive and highly profitable cargoes were landed in North American ports such as  Charleston or Boston, but the bulk of the cargo always continued on across the Atlantic. By tradition, the Ernestine V docked in the company’s birthplace port of Bristol, offloading and selling the luxury goods for generous profits. A portion of those profits went to purchase various kinds of trade goods which would be of value at the next port of call. Business concluded, the ship was reprovisioned and then set sail for West Africa.

In one of the river estuaries of the Gulf of Guinea, along the so-called Gold Coast or Ivory Coast, the ship would anchor, and Edward would set up negotiations, doling out the various items purchased in England in exchange for hundreds of  bewildered young men and women linked together by chains and ankle irons. Once these were herded aboard and arranged, lying on their sides in tightly-packed rows in the empty open spaces of the slave deck, the ship sailed again, bound for San Juan or Santo Domingo, the sites of the two most profitable slave markets in the company’s home region. The human cargo was offloaded and auctioned in the markets at an enormous profit, and the Ernestine V then made a brief passage to Kingston to purchase more of the assorted luxury products which commanded such generous prices in England.

Throughout this multi-leg itinerary, the Ernestine V’s crew had numerous opportunities to display their prowess with loading, aiming, and firing the vessel’s numerous guns. Some of the firing was done purely for target practice, but each leg of the trip brought the possibility of armed encounters with pirates, enemy warships, or jealous rival slavers. This last group quickly learned to cut the Ernestine V a wide berth and detour around her at a safe distance. Edward Treston had equipped his pride and joy with the latest and most accurate cannons for long range work, making her as dangerous as a porcupine would be if it actually could, as rumour had it, throw or shoot its quills at an enemy.

After spending nearly two years commanding those two shakedown voyages, Edward turned over command of the Ernestine V to one of his senior captains. A certain cold-blooded disregard for others being a useful accessory for a slave trader, his long-time associate, Captain Worrickton, fitted the role to a “T”.

Edward Treston used this interval of time ashore to school his son in the business side of another new venture in the company’s affairs. Edward then took up the position of captain of his other new ship, the Carmelita, a ship designed from the outset with a shallow draught which enabled her to venture close inshore in the coastal waters of the Spanish Main for the dangerous work of acquiring contraband coffee, gemstones, and silver, among other things. Voyages on the Carmelita were a useful way to introduce George to the fine arts of bribery, smuggling, spying, and double-crossing, all essential knowledge as applied to this kind of clandestine and risky activity. This training led George to grow much more adventurous, entering his teen years with a decided taste for risky business and a devil-may-care attitude towards personal risks and the legal powers that be.

The work was risky, without a doubt. His Most Catholic Majesty’s naval ships were perfectly capable of blowing the Carmelita out of the water if the Treston ship were caught at its work, and they would not hesitate to do so – in theory, at least. But Captain Edward knew the best points of sailing of all the Spanish ships in the Caribbean, certainly far better than their captains knew or understood the capabilities of the Treston ships. He also commanded superior intelligence networks of the sort best developed by distributing ample quantities of Spanish gold dollars – always under the table, naturally. Evading the clumsy vessels and lackadaisical crews of His Most Catholic Majesty’s navy was simplicity itself compared to passing out bribes which were substantial and desirable enough to keep the trade channels open.

It was on the Carmelita that young George first encountered in person the third and by far the most significant influence in his life. Kiru had begun life in West Africa, before being scooped up by one of the frequent raids which kept the visiting slave ships well-supplied with cargo. He had been purchased to serve as one of the family slaves. Kiru had been taught to read and to write by an English missionary in his home community on the Gold Coast, and he’d developed a most unusual taste compared to many of the slaves – he was a voracious reader of books. Not just poetry, either – his favourite reading included books of scientific information and history from all parts of the world, areas which had been recognized and studied by English authors, and he soon surpassed almost all of his shipmates in literacy and in knowledge of all kinds.

George’s father, who used everyone’s skills whenever he could, was mightily impressed by Kiru’s appetite for knowledge, and his cultivated speech which sounded almost as if he had been educated in England. He decided to teach Kiru some basic business concepts, and the results were rewarding indeed. Recognizing Kiru’s physical strength and agility, his sharp mind, his impressive knowledge base, and his undoubted shrewd grasp of the business, Edward liberated him from slavery and hired him as an apprentice seaman on the Eugenia. Within two years, Kiru had developed such a grasp of the techniques of sailing, and of leadership responsibility, that Captain Treston had promoted him to second mate. It was only one of many things George’s father did that would have raised eyebrows – and hackles – in the family’s old home in England. Kiru’s status raised enough hackles as it was, even in free and easy Kingston.

When the Ernestine V was introduced into service, Kiru had balked at the invitation of transferring to her to serve as first mate alongside Captain Treston. Versatile he might be, but Kiru bluntly refused to play any role at all in the slave trade. He exchanged some harsh words with Edward on the subject, and he threw down the gauntlet by telling his boss to go ahead and fire him if that’s what he wanted. That was not what Edward Treston wanted at all, and Kiru knew it perfectly well.

 At last, Edward saw that in this one area he was not going to get his way, and he didn’t want to lose one of the best men in his entire company. His solution was to take the Eugenia’s first mate into the Ernestine V, leaving Kiru on the Eugenia as first mate until his other new ship, the Carmelita, should be ready, two years later.

George first sailed on the Carmelita at the age of fifteen, and he simply couldn’t take his eyes off Kiru. Right away, the second-in-command role was something no other English ship’s captain had ever dreamed of handing over to an African. Then there was Kiru’s coal-black skin, which gave him a huge advantage over most of the crew in coping with the blazing Caribbean sunshine.

Equally eye-catching to George, though, was Kiru’s massive muscular body, large dangling manhood, and big round balls, which were all on display whenever they anchored. When the ship was in port and all the loading or unloading was done for the day, custom decreed that everyone would get some downtime to leap into the ocean and wash themselves clean. This was where George really couldn’t keep his eyes off Kiru.

That sexual part of his education began two weeks into the voyage, on the night that ship was on passage from Port of Spain in Trinidad to Roatan Island in Honduras. Young George wandered down past the hatch that led down to the cargo hold and heard men’s voices grunting and groaning. He’d  learned enough long since to understand that sailors on long sea voyages didn’t confine their leisure activity to dice or cards, nor to the women they could get their hands on in Kingston or at other ports of call. When he sneaked quietly down the ladder into the hold and looked around, George soon realized that the hot scene of his dreams was on the agenda this night. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could make out the pale white form of Samuel, the ship’s boatswain. He was bent face-down over a bale of dyed cloth from Trinidad, and Kiru was working hard, buried deep inside Samuel’s white-cheeked ass.

George could feel his own cock getting hard, could feel it beginning to leak. But he didn’t move, hanging there by one hand and one foot on the ladder, staring incredulously as Samuel took the full length of that swollen, rigid tool over and over, the pumping motions getting faster and faster. His eyes opened wider and wider still as he watched Samuel’s ass getting stretched into a bigger gape with each stroke. Samuel was experienced in taking cock in his hole, but that massive black third arm was opening him up farther than even the blacksmith or the cooper in Kingston had ever managed, and the head was striking sparks out of him as it penetrated deep inside his channel with each powerful thrust.

As the action got faster and faster, Samuel twisted and squirmed with great energy, as if he were trying to escape from Kiru’s onslaught, except that he was making certain that he got as much of the huge black stud’s fucker inside his body as possible.

Now Kiru was grinding out words in his deep, rich bass voice. “Get ready, Samuel. I’m going to spend in you – fill you up with my man’s seed.”

Samuel cried out, “Yes! Now!!!” Then he shuddered, his contracting loins spewing multiple squirts of his own sperm onto the bale of cloth as Kiru roared and erupted deep inside his body. The noise, and the explosions, went on and on. George wasn’t even conscious that he had let go of the ladder with his right hand and grasped his own manhood through his breeches. He snapped back to reality to find the cloth under his hand sopping wet, and to feel the hot sperm running down his legs.

As Kiru slowed to a halt, George turned and fled. Kiru smiled to himself. He had seen the son of the boss staring at them from the ladder and drew a likely conclusion. In truth, Kiru was only confirming what he had already suspected.

George staggered back to his hammock in a daze. He’d jerked off many times, watching the men of the crew getting it on, but he’d never been so swept up in the erotic fire of lust as he had on this night. His cock refused to go down. All he could think about was Kiru’s massive erection, as he imagined it sliding up inside his body. He kept handling his own dick until he had exploded twice more. Then, finally, he managed to calm down enough to clean himself off and fall asleep.

Was it just a coincidence that Kiru came to find George the next day? “Your father, the captain, spoke to me, told me to teach you all I know – about the sea and ships. We’re going to start now.” So Kiru said, but George hoped that there was a double meaning in the words. Just the sound of Kiru’s dark, deep voice made the hair on George’s head quiver.

Captain Edward had trained his son by a mixture of books and lectures. Kiru used more of a hands-on method, taking George all around the ship with him and showing him how different parts of the standing and running rigging did their jobs, how the various fittings along the decks and bulwarks allowed them to be rove or hauled, and demonstrating how the positions of the sails affected the ship’s behaviour, depending on the direction and speed of the wind. The times when Kiru wrapped his enormous arms around George’s much more slender body to show him exactly how and when to pull on a rope or adjust the wheel – well, those lessons set George quivering even more than the man’s voice.

When they weren’t involved in the mechanics of working a ship under sail, Kiru told George endless stories about all the various ports of call to which he had sailed, and even harked back to his own younger days in Africa. As he talked, George realized more and more just why his father had freed and promoted Kiru, over the objections of his numerous peers in the shipping world.

Kiru was plainly a master of his work, an expert of the kind that every ship needed ready at hand, not least because of the small size of the ship’s crew. It was an old chestnut for merchant sailors to cut off any complaints from the men of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy with the undeniable fact that the merchant ship had to make do with five men where the man o’war did the same job with fifty. Just how it was possible to navigate and manage a ship this size with a tiny crew, and how to get the best work out of the crew at all times, those were Kiru’s specialties.

Kiru was also a different kind of man from Captain Edward in one very significant way. Where the captain snapped, snarled, barked, and fired insults at his men, Kiru was far more apt to urge, to invite, to treat the men as men and not as animated sail-pulling machines. This, even more than his skin colour, made him stand out like a sore thumb when they were in company with other ships. The captains based in Jamaica, to a man, believed that the harsh old school was the only way to run a ship. Kiru baffled them by getting results as good as, or better than, any of them without resorting to their old hard-edged style of command. His leadership quality often led to the Carmelita making all sail, weighing the anchor, and getting under way while others were still getting the crew into position for those manoeuvres.

Young George was quick to notice the difference in those results, and to notice the difference in the mood and attitude of the crew when Kiru was leading them, versus when his father was in command. One day, he asked Kiru.

“Sir, why do you not shout at the sailors as the captain does?”

That was another thing that would have ground a great many gizzards, both ashore and afloat – the spectacle of the son of a white man addressing a black-skinned African man as “sir”. The thing was, Kiru was far more than just a black man, whether you looked at his undoubted breadth of knowledge, his skill at handling ships, or at one of his other and even more striking attributes. Addressing him as “Sir” came naturally to George, without even thinking about it, as he was still a very junior member of the crew and Kiru was second in command.

George’s question hung in the air for a moment as Kiru turned and looked directly at him, his face solemn and serious to a greater degree than George could ever remember seeing. “It’s like this, George. When you’re chained to the slave deck for weeks, given nothing to eat, poked and prodded by strangers’ hands in the market, sold and bought like a bolt of cloth, seen how many get broken by the humiliation… let’s just say that it teaches you a thing or two. I treat the crew the way I wish someone had treated me. I got lucky – your father picked me out and gave me a life of my own. I hope to be the luck in a similar way for some of our sailors. Can’t be that if I harass and beat them the way I was beaten.”

The more George thought about it, the more he sensed that Kiru was onto something, a secret that almost nobody in either the merchant fleets or the Navy would ever be able to see. He guessed, and as it turned out, guessed rightly that it wouldn’t be long before Kiru was given command of a ship of his own.

It happened sooner even than George expected. His father decided to take some time to oversee the British arm of his operations and handed off management of the company’s work in Kingston to his business partner, Silas Braydon. More to the point, he passed on the command of the Carmelita to Kiru, who thus became the undoubted first African man ever to captain a British-designed and built sailing ship. If Kiru’s role as first mate had rubbed the rigid-minded members of the Kingston old guard the wrong way, seeing him standing proudly in the august place of Captain came near to causing them to burst into flames.

When Edward asked George what he would like to do next, George shyly replied that he was happy to stay on board the Carmelita and continue learning the trade under Kiru’s direction. Edward’s face displayed an enigmatic smile upon hearing those words. He was no fool and had already guessed what it was that his son really wanted to learn from the fleet’s newest captain. Ever since that night when he had watched Kiru plowing deep into Samuel’s ass, George had been a silent eyewitness to a number of other encounters of a similar kind. Of course, whoever was Kiru’s target of the moment was of less interest to him; it was watching Kiru’s impressive physique at work that caught and held his eye.

During his first voyage under Kiru’s command, George passed his sixteenth birthday – an event celebrated with great energy by the entire crew as the Carmelita lay at anchor in Port of Spain. Everyone knew or guessed by this time what it was that George wanted most of all, and they all guessed that he was going to get his wish that night.

Later on, Kiru went off to do his final rounds of the day, seeing that all the remainder of the crew were settled in the foc’s’le, with only the two men of the anchor watch on deck. When the captain returned to his cabin, he was a little surprised to find George standing right outside the cabin door.

“You looking for something, young George?”

George did his best to give a lascivious smile as he groped the front of his breeches. Kiru smiled in return, and his smile was the real deal – horny as a young boy himself and hot as the fires of hell. He pressed his hand against the front of his own breeches, and the size of the lump made it plain that he had a serious lust for the young man. He opened the door, drew George in after him, then closed and bolted the door behind them. Gesturing to the open skylight next to them, he then pressed his finger to his lips and George nodded, quivering with excitement. He found it hard to contain his excitement as they undressed, seeing Kiru’s bulging muscles and swelling cock closer at hand than he’d ever seen them before. George gulped as Kiru reached out, took him by the hand, and placed George’s fingers right onto the massive black shaft of his tool.

George knew what it was that Kiru wanted. He’d seen the captain getting that kind of help from others. George dropped, a little clumsily, onto his knees, and began to lick at the enormous head. Kiru showed him how to peel back the skin and release the tender head into the open air. As soon as George wrapped his lips around that head, Kiru shook in excitement from head to foot. He than placed his hands onto the back of George’s head, and steered him along the shaft, down to the base, and then back up to work on the head some more.

Kiru needed to demonstrate the next part himself. He pulled away from George and lifted the young novice to his feet. Then Kiru knelt down and began to suck George’s cock, taking the lad’s head and shaft right into his mouth and sliding down until most of it was in his mouth and in his throat. He breathed loudly through his nose, showing George how to avoid choking.

After a minute of this treatment, Kiru sensed that George was about to erupt, and he didn’t want that to happen – not yet. He wanted to feel George cumming when he was buried to the hilt inside that tender, virginal asshole. He murmured in George’s ear, “Now, you show me.” George again went to his knees and proved that in this, as in so much of seamanship, he was a quick learner.

Wanting it so badly was a big part of it. George quickly mastered the trick of dropping his jaw and letting the manmeat slide through and into his throat as he breathed deeply through his nose. Kiru grasped the back of the boy’s head and began gently face-fucking him, his thick knob straining the back of the boy’s throat as he pumped it deeper and deeper at each stroke. He was getting his first taste of precum as he sucked, the juice mixing with his saliva into a heady cocktail in his mouth.

George’s jaw was aching by this time, but he badly wanted to suck Kiru to completion, to feel the mighty bolts of man juice streaming out into his mouth and down his throat. But there was something else that he wanted even more. He pulled off of Kiru’s massive cock and stood up, still caressing it firmly as he turned around and rubbed his pert buttocks against the oozing head.

Kiru leaned down and asked him, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You know it’s going to hurt. You ought to start with someone smaller.”

“I’m sure. I want you to be my first.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

With that, Kiru bent George over the cot and took a washcloth, soaking it with water from the pitcher, then washing down and wiping the boy’s ass. Once he’d cleaned George’s crack, he bent forwards and began to lick and tongue the mounds, then dug down in between them to find the tight hole and go to work on it.

George moaned fiercely, but Kiru grabbed another cloth and reached up to shove it into his mouth   then returned to his task. As he ate the boy’s hole with increasing energy, he quickly had George squirming in excitement, rising onto his toes in the desire to push more of himself back into Kiru’s aggressive tongue.

Then Kiru introduced a finger into the action, keeping up his licking and kissing and sucking as he wormed the finger into George’s hole up to the second joint. By this time, George was breaking a sweat from the fury of his reactions to the treatment that Kiru’s tongue and finger were giving him. He had imagined the feeling of a thick slab of cock wrenching his hole open, but he’d never expected such overwhelming waves of ecstasy crashing through his entire body. We was so consumed in his lust that he didn’t even notice when Kiru began working some kind of lotion into his quivering hole.

But then George felt the blunt head of his captain’s thick black cock pushing against his tight opening, and he instinctively seized up. Kiru wrapped his arms around George’s shaking body and placed his mouth right against George’s ear. “Breathe, George. Deep breaths. And relax. Just let your muscles go slack. Push out – and then relax. And keep breathing, deep.” He kept murmuring the words quietly, soothingly, a mantra of calm and release in the young man’s ear. And George heard him, took it in, gradually managed to relax his muscles, let his hole open, let the enormous intruder force an entry.

All at once, the entire head was lodged firmly inside his sphincter. George wanted to cry out the pain, but the cloth was still there in his mouth, silencing his voice. He kept breathing, deep, harsh breaths, sucking air out of the sky, struggling to keep control of his body as the thick, black shaft forced its hard path inside his body. George wanted to scream from the pain, but even more he wanted to yell aloud to Kiru to push the rest of it into him. The want soon won the battle. Once he was over the shock of the initial entry, George managed to relax somehow, he couldn’t say how, and the huge plunderer slowly slid deeper and deeper inside him.

It took another fifteen minutes of slow, cautious, movement, but finally the moment came. Kiru had managed to sink his entire massive tool into George’s virgin hole, the rim clenched around the very root, the huge shaft feeling to George like someone had inserted a new bone into him. It hurt him, it hurt like hell, but George didn’t complain or cry out. This was what he had wanted, all that he had wanted. This was the greatest dream of his young life, to have the entire manhood of this massive hunk of masculine power embedded deep inside his body. And he wanted more.

Kiru could never remember afterwards how he had managed to hang on as long as he did. As it was, it seemed a miracle that he actually managed to delay his orgasm for three minutes after his hips had landed firmly against George’s sweet young ass. All he managed to do was to start moving slowly, drawing his giant rod a bit out, and then sliding back in, while George kept on moaning and hissing in total sexual abandon.

But then time ran out. George lost control, and his harshly-stretched asshole struggled to contract as he exploded, spraying his cum across everything in reach as he experienced the wildest orgasm of his life. Those sudden, violent contractions did it for Kiru as well, and before he could even think of what to do, his cock was convulsing and pumping his seed deep inside the young ass of his junior crew member.

In time, George’s ass forced the intruder out. The two of them lay, side by side, gasping for air after the strenuous climax of their mating. Kiru pulled the cloth out of George’s mouth and used it to mop up the stream of cum pouring slowly out of that no-longer-tight ass, as the hole refused to close up from the beating it had taken. Then he planted his bulging arms around George’s slender body and drew the boy into an embrace. Their mouths joined together as George, having just lost his virginity to the captain’s rock-solid tool, now experienced his first ever man-to-man kiss. And time stood still.

“Happy Birthday, young George.” Kiru’s voice held a warmth which George had never heard before.

His answer was equally warm, an incongruous contrast to the formulaic words: “Thank you, sir.”

Within another week or so, George had abandoned his hammock in the tween decks and moved into the captain’s cabin. There was nothing really startling about this to the rest of the crew. The relationship between Kiru and George would have been impossible on a naval ship, but in this setting there was no particular negative vibe towards a senior officer sharing his quarters with a crew member. The attitude among merchant seamen at this distance from their homeland, in this as in so many matters, was tolerant, with a strong feeling of live and let live.

Over the next two years, George’s training in seamanship moved forward at a great pace. So did his training in the fine arts and skills of man-to-man sex. Kiru was an incredible teacher in both of those subjects. George, for his part, thoroughly understood how fortunate he was to have such an amazing teacher.

During these key years, Kiru had taught George just about everything there was to know during their nightly shared sessions in the captain’s cabin. George had experienced every position imaginable, learning about the hundred and one ways he could arouse his partner with fingers and tongue. Nor did Kiru do all the heavy lifting by any means. As a big, muscular man with a thick, long cock and heavy balls, it was normal that other men expected Kiru to take charge all the time, but the truth was that he enjoyed being on the receiving end too.

As with taking Kiru’s cock inside his own ass, George had quickly begun to master the techniques of how to make Kiru feel good while enjoying the experience of fucking the captain’s ass in return. In time, his favourite position was to fuck Kiru in missionary, lying right down between the man’s massive muscular thighs and stroking and kissing Kiru as he drove his arrow-straight tool deep into the captain’s strong hole.

Although Kiru worked George to the bone on deck and in the rigging during the daylight hours just as much as he did with all the rest of the crew, George held no resentment for that. After all, Kiru was just as unsparing with himself as he was with his sailors. Not for him the life of idle luxury, sitting on the quarterdeck and fanning himself with a palm leaf while the crew drove themselves into exhaustion. Some captains were known to behave that way, but Kiru was never one of them. He was a born leader, and he led from the front, rather than driving his men from behind. It was this leadership quality more than anything which had led George’s father to single him out and train him for an officer role.

Now, Kiru was doing the same with George. He hadn’t even needed the explanation that Edward had given him to know that George was being prepared to take over the leadership of the company in his turn. At the moment, Kiru was George’s superior officer, but he knew full well that a day would come when he would be taking orders from George. That prospect didn’t bother him at all. What did begin to trouble Kiru was the realization that he was developing serious feelings of affection towards his employer’s son.

It was hardly surprising. In a life stripped of all opportunities for family affection, George had become an emotional anchor for Kiru, a person who gave him positive support and a safe shelter from the cross-currents of life. In truth, Kiru had never been given the chance to develop any kind of positive relationship with another human being after he’d been brutally torn away from his home and his mother when he was still only ten years old, give or take a bit (he didn’t actually know for certain how old he was nor which day of the year was his birthday). Lying in bed, nestling up against George’s ass with his cock buried inside, or simply falling asleep with his arms wrapped around his younger lover – all of this was a heady emotional tonic for the former slave.

It was a heady emotional tonic for George as well. His own life had been bleak since the tragic death of his mother, given the austere, even cold, emotional climate of his relationship with his father. George felt the affection flowing out to him from Kiru, and he returned it in full measure. By the time he had reached his eighteenth birthday, George had come to regard Kiru as his full partner, his husband, his lover – call it what you like.

Perhaps, then, it was unsurprising that George’s eighteenth birthday should have ended the way it did. Since the rest of the crew really liked George, they went all out to throw a special party on the big day “to welcome the newest man joining the crew of the Carmelita!” There were little presents, most of them handmade knickknacks and such, and the cook even baked a cake generously flavoured with Barbados rum.

The rum flowed freely that night, too, but George didn’t make a fool of himself. He’d long since found that he didn’t care all that much for the taste of liquor, and he’d learned how to sip slowly and cautiously while others guzzled heartily. As for Kiru, he knew perfectly well that danger could appear at any moment in any of a hundred unexpected ways. He, too, drank slowly and with caution, determined that no harm would come to his ship because of his carelessness. The party was a huge success all around, and George floated to bed on a cloud of personal exhilaration.

And that was when he received the best gift of all. Kiru had fucked him very slowly and gently, remaining face to face with George in missionary throughout the entire act. Despite his size, and his muscular build, he could be very gentle when required and he was gentle now. He remained joined with George, mouth to mouth, hands to body, and cock to hole, through a solid hour of sexual ecstasy during which George came three times while Kiru pumped two big loads of  his hot African sperm into George’s body. As they lay quietly, stroking each other in the afterglow of that intense peak experience, it was Kiru who said the magic words: “George, I love you.”

And George, despite his youth, wasn’t the least bit surprised to hear that. This was the way it was, the way it had to be. It was the most natural thing in the world that Kiru should have said those words, and it was the most natural thing, too, that George’s next words, in return, would be, “I love you, Kiru.”

Kiru would feel remorse later, knowing better than his younger lover that life would tear them apart from each other soon enough. George still lacked the maturity to know that there was, in the end, no such thing as a happy ending. Death lay in wait around many unexpected and dangerous corners in their adventurous world. In the emotional high of the moment, though, Kiru hadn’t been able to restrain himself from reaching out to grasp the happiness that was there for him to take, freely offered. Nor had he been able to resist the glowing happiness in George’s face when he had said the magic words back to Kiru in reply. And perhaps, he thought, George did understand, in his own way, that this happiness which they shared was for now – but not for all time.

 

 

[daddybear54]

Chapter 3    Change of Command

 

George and Kiru remained together for another two years in the Carmelita, linked in a rock-solid relationship which was a marriage in all but name. During that time, the ship’s first mate, Seddon, died unexpectedly, falling overboard and drowning during a seizure. Kiru appointed George as the interim first mate, pending their return to Kingston. There, the business manager confirmed  the appointment.

When Ernest returned from his four-year sojourn in England, he simply smiled at the sight. It was perhaps forgivable that he looked a bit smug at having guessed correctly what was going to happen behind his back. Both of the pair had often had moments of unhappiness and even bleak despair because of the emotional holes in their lives, and Edward was actually thrilled to see that these darker moments had all but vanished. His strongest captain and his son and successor had helped to complete each other in so many ways – and it was this completeness that really put the smile on Edward’s face.

But he had no time to sit still and enjoy his success. Shortly after his return from England, his flagship, Ernestine V, made port in Kingston under the command of her first mate from the northern fjords, Torvald  Ericsson. From him, Edward learned that Captain Worrickton had taken early retirement – wrapped in a sailcloth. He had been killed in a duel with a competing slave ship captain in one of the river mouths on the Gulf of Guinea. His rival had offed him by a thrust with the sword which went cleanly through his heart. The crew had brought the body aboard the ship, sailed out into the ocean, and buried him at sea in the traditional manner. All this had, of course, happened some months previously, and Ericsson had been forced to assume command for the remainder of the voyage to San Juan, and then at last back to home port in Kingston.

Edward had planned to take command of Egeria as a stopgap, but now realized that he was going to have to return to sea in one of the bigger ships. Since the older captain of the Euphemia had retired for health reasons, he decided to shift the captain of Egeria to the Ernestine V, and take  command of Euphemia himself. This meant that Egeria would need a new captain – and that left him with only one other person who could conceivably assume the commanding role. He hated to do it, but it was time – and it had to happen. Edward called in his son.

“George, I assume you know that we have a problem – a shortage of competent officers. Because of what happened, I’m going to have to go back to sea in command of Euphemia. I’ve looked around a bit in Kingston, and I haven’t found anyone who’s available that I’d be willing to trust with one of my ships. So, it’s a problem. I’ve shifted Captain Blackstone to Ernestine V, I’m going to assume command of Euphemia, and now I can only think of one person already in the company who might possibly be up to the commanding role for Egeria. It’s fair enough to call this the junior command of the company, since she’s the smallest ship and serves the most local ports in Grand Cayman, Hispaniola, and the Bahamas as well as Jamaica itself.”

George knew that this conversation was of the kind that he and his father would be having more often in future, as he had to become more involved in the workings of the company. “Who did you have in mind, sir?”

Edward hesitated for just a moment. “I’m looking at him right now.”

Edward was pleased to see that George didn’t flinch right away. His eyes showed that his mind was racing, adding up all the pluses and minuses, the challenges and the consequences of this promotion his father wanted to give him. Edward could see the exact moment when George’s thoughts landed on the reality that he and Kiru would have to be split up. It was only then that his face fell – and he began to look uncertain.

“What is it, George?”

“It’s hard to explain, sir.”

“Let me help you out with that. It’s Kiru. You’re in love with him. You love him just as much as he loves you, and both of you want nothing more than to be together.”

George’s jaw had dropped. When he finally recovered his composure, he asked one question: “How did you guess?”

Edward smiled, a smile that showed more compassion than George had ever seen in his father’s expression before. “George, I didn’t even have to guess. It obvious to the eye as soon as anyone sees the two of you together. There are so many little things – the way you stand closer to each other than men usually do, the way you give each other little touches on the arm or shoulder, the way you turn and look at each other from time to time, the way you finish each other’s sentences….”

George cut in. “Are you angry, Father?”

Edward laughed. “Far from it. It’s the best thing that could have happened, for both of you.”

“Then why are you going to break us up?” But George already knew the answer, even before Edward spoke in reply.

“It’s not because I want to, believe me. But there’s a basic rule you’re about to learn the hard way. It’s summed up in three words: Business Before Pleasure. The simple truth is that Kiru has done his job all too well, training you to such a pitch of skill that you and he are both essential to the Treston business as captains. I wish it weren’t so, but I need both of you to lead crews on two of the ships, and that’s all there is.”

“I know, sir.” George was still monumentally unhappy, but he could see the point even before his father finished explaining it to him. Business was a hard taskmaster, and that was all that could be said.

“But I can give you a small consolation. Both Carmelita and Egeria are due for docking and careening. I’ve arranged for the work to be done at Robertson’s shipyards. You and Kiru can certainly feel free to spend some time together ashore while the ships are being repaired.”

Edward went even further than his words suggested. He rented a house in Kingston so that his son and Kiru could have some privacy during the time their ships were taking turns at the shipyard. At the same time, he left some pretty strongly worded “suggestions” for George. Kiru laughed when he read them, and smacked George’s bare butt in the morning as he said, “Come on, Captain, time to get moving and start to learn your new job!”

Kiru now helped George to navigate the challenges of preparing a ship for sea – the ins and outs of provisioning, of topping up the armaments and the magazine, of onboarding and stowing the cargo, and most of all, of running down and signing up a quality crew. Quantity was not an issue. The brothels and taverns of Kingston were filled to overflowing with experienced sailors. The trick was, as Kiru explained it, to find the right men. “You don’t want a crew made up of experienced drunkards, George. This is where you learn to see under the skin, to decide quickly whether the man you’re meeting for the first time is going to be good crew or trouble. And then you learn to make snap decisions.”

“I’m going to make a mess of this.”

“Probably you will, George. That’s normal, in a first command. The important thing is not to think of it as a mess – think of it as a lesson learned, so you won’t make a mess the same way again. And then, next time, do better.”

In a few days, George had assembled a big enough scratch crew to take Egeria to sea for trials when her repairs were completed. As first mate, he had his contemporary, Roger. This healthy, well-formed young man had been Captain Edward’s main squeeze on his last voyage, but he had also proved himself thoroughly as a sailor and a leader. George was, as it happened, completely ignorant of Roger’s history with his father. All he cared about at this stage was having a competent second-in-command, and he’d achieved that.

Busy as they were in daytime, George and Kiru managed to spend all of their evening hours together. Their respective crews knew what the score was, or at least that their two captains were living together, but it’s doubtful if many of them ever sensed just how deep the still waters were running beneath their leaders’ business-like outward appearance.

They made love together every night, anxious to build up a store of memories against the time when they must be separated. One night, Kiru would take George and give him another one of his signature mind-blowing fucks. The next night, it would be George’s turn to return the favour. While his cock wasn’t as sensational, that didn’t matter at all. The two men were now coming together much more for the emotional sensations than for the physical act.

The time of their parting came. George’s ship, Egeria, was ready for sea first, the bottom newly coated with sealant tar and copper, the upper works bright with new paint and gold lead, the figurehead of Egeria herself newly cleaned and embellished, and the crew all in place. George awoke early that day. He was due to sail with the morning tide, and the ebb was due to begin at about nine-thirty. Between excitement and trepidation, George was wide awake at five o’clock and unable to get back to sleep. He studied the sleeping form of Kiru next to him as the early dawn light seeped into the room through the shutters. It was a sight which never failed to excite him. George lay there, stroking his cock gently as he studied this magnificent man, his lover.

At last he could bear it no more. He bent down and began to suck on Kiru’s cock, encouraging it as it rapidly began to swell and harden. As he worked, he heard Kiru’s voice, “Well, I wondered when you were going to wake me up.”

George laughed and pulled himself up and into Kiru’s arms. “This is it, then. I want you to give it to me one more time, before I have to go.”

Kiru rose magnificently to the occasion. George’s hole, now thoroughly accustomed to his massive erection, welcomed him in. The two of them, locked together, moving in unison, became as one yet again. George’s rhythm of contracting his well-trained muscles milked Kiru’s cock in perfect time with his slow yet mighty thrusts. Their arms locked around each other’s bodies, the two of them took each other slowly but irresistibly right up to the moment when Kiru hammered suddenly, fiercely downwards into George’s body and spewed his usual torrent of man juice into his younger partner’s body.

After they’d finished, they lay together in the dawn quiet, caressing and kissing each other. And then it was time. They got up out of bed, washed and dressed, and had a last goodbye at the door, with a final deep, heartbreaking kiss.

George took up his kitbag and swung it onto his shoulder, and then walked away down the steps and along the street to the landing where he could hire a boat to take him out to Egeria as she rode easily at anchor. He didn’t turn and look back, if only so that he wouldn’t burst into tears in public.

Kiru went and stood by the window, watching through his telescope. He didn’t move from his post as the boat reached the ship, as George swung himself and his gear on board, and as the topsails blossomed. He continued watching as Egeria hoisted the anchor, gathered way, and swung easily around to head down through the channel, away from Kingston, away from headquarters, away from him. She passed by Port Royal Point and still Kiru stood and watched through his telescope. Only after the sails had dwindled into a dot beyond South Cay did Kiru finally lower the glass and turn back from the window, setting his face firmly toward his own day’s work, as he prepared Carmelita to return to the sea at the beginning of the next week.

On board Egeria that evening, George and Roger had finished the work of sailing day and had a chance to relax and walk the deck together while talking over the plan for the voyage. On this trip, they were going first to Grand Cayman, then on to Belize, and a final call at Roatan before returning to Kingston. The two fell easily into a good working partnership as the ship sailed westwards.

Despite a spell of calm weather which slowed them down, Egeria anchored off the shore of Grand Cayman on the third day out. George and Roger worked together as a team, directing the men as cargo to be offloaded was swayed up from the holds and dropped into the lighters alongside. Then came the outbound cargo, some for delivery to Roatan but the bulk of it going right around their route and back to Kingston. Similar routines followed at Belize and Roatan. Both captain and first mate had plenty of experience with planning and executing these offshore anchorage stops, and the crew worked well.

As tradition dictated, the crew enjoyed a quick swim in the ocean after their work at Grand Cayman was done and before they sailed. It was a tricky channel through the reefs, so they would wait for daylight to sail. George stayed on board. The water looked tempting, but he wanted to set a tone as captain that he was on duty even when others were not. His father had never bothered to remain on his dignity at such times, but George was acutely conscious that almost all of his crew were older than he was (at the ripe old age of 22), and he refused to let crew discipline slacken until he felt more at ease in his role. He also remained on board in Belize. But when they reached their final port in Roatan, Roger had a talk with him.

“Sir, that’s twice now that you haven’t joined in the ritual swim. I’ve heard the crew talking. They’re starting to think you’re too full of yourself, too pompous, too aristocratic to mingle with us lowly sailors. You should jump in today. I can keep watch on deck.”

George thought for a moment; he could see the justice in what Roger was saying.

“Thank you, Roger, I will do that.”

Roger nodded to the boatswain, who blew his whistle and bellowed, “Crew on deck to jump in the ocean!”

The eight sailors came tearing up the main hatchway, buck naked, shooting like rockets one by one over the side of the ship and into the water. “Coming, sir?” the last one called.

George quickly handed off his telescope to Roger, whipped his clothes off, and dived neatly over the side of the ship to the accompaniment of whistles and hoots of merriment. They swam around in the water all together for a few minutes, laughing and joking, while Roger watched, smiling. He could see the danger of a split between captain and crew vanishing like a puff of smoke. But he could see more than that, and certainly liked what he saw.

After about fifteen minutes, the crew all climbed aboard. George settled the issue of precedence before anyone began climbing by stating firmly, “I will go last.” That way, he also got a grandstand view of the parade of naked asses and cocks. The truth was, though, that George wasn’t really looking. In his head, he was mentally counting the days until the end of his fourth voyage, in about six weeks time. That was expected to be the next time that Egeria and Carmelita would both be in Kingston at the same time.

At last he climbed over the side at the end of the parade, seized the towel which Roger held out for him, and rubbed himself dry, feeling happier than he had felt since coming aboard. He gave orders to secure the ship for sea, but then glanced at the horizon and the setting sun and added that they would sail at dawn.

After eating dinner, he retired to his cabin. The boatswain, who was doubling as the second mate on this small ship, had the deck from eight to midnight. Roger would be on duty from midnight to four in the morning, and George would take the deck then, using those early hours to advantage to think through the hazards on the voyage back up to Kingston.

At six o’clock, as the sky was lightening, Egeria weighed anchor again and set course for home, steering first around the southeastern end of the island and then heading off to the northeast. George remained on deck for much of the day. He always loved being at sea, feeling the motion of the ship beneath his feet, the tropical breeze on his face, watching with one eye always on the sails and the crew, while the other idly scanned for dolphins and flying fish – and perhaps a larger whale for variety. Being out on the open ocean had always given him a feeling of peace.

He needed it. There was no one he could talk to, but the truth was that the separation from Kiru was weighing heavily on him. He did his best to remain approachable in all circumstances, but he felt more and more as if the one place he wanted to be was in his cabin, where he could hide his unhappiness from the eyes of his crew. He did his work, did it well and thoroughly, earned the respect of the sailors and of his first mate, but otherwise he kept very much to himself.

Roger sensed the tension and the unhappiness causing it, and he understood, better than George would have guessed. He, too, was missing someone – his lady love ashore in Kingston. He had hoped to be given a captain’s position, as that would have given him the financial security to ask for her hand. Her father, himself an old sea dog, would settle for nothing less, and he knew it. For all that, Roger didn’t begrudge George the captain’s role. He was sharp enough to realize that George’s training was moving into its final stages. Not only that, but Roger liked the owner’s son and looked forward to many years of working for George when he took over from his father in the top office of the company.

The next evening, as the ship continued to the northeast, Roger decided to take the bull by the horns. He buttonholed the captain who was on his way to his cabin again. “Is everything all right, sir?”

George sighed and thought for a moment. “With the ship and the crew, yes. The captain, maybe not so much.”

“I know how you feel because I feel the same way – and for the same reason. You need to work out some of your frustration. So do I. Maybe we could help each other out.” As he said that, Roger reached down and grasped his bulge, then leaned towards George and let the back of his hand brush George’s crotch. There was no chance of George mistaking his first mate’s meaning.

Nor did he. As if for the first time, he noticed Roger’s broad shoulders and tight waist, and the growing bulge in the front of the first mate’s pants. His physical tension and frustration overrode any emotional scruples he might otherwise have felt. He opened the door of the cabin, pulling Roger in after him.

Clothes flew at top speed in all directions. George couldn’t sense for a minute what role Roger might want to play, but since his muscled ass was just as attractive as his thick tool, George would be prepared to do it any way he wanted. But then Roger sent a clear signal, pulling George close to him, grinding their crotches together as he stretched his arms down George’s back to begin playing with his captain’s ass.

In just another moment he had his index finger prying into George’s crack, seeking the tight button which he would undo to get into the captain’s tight hole. As he poked and prodded, the hole suddenly took on a life of its own, opening up and letting Roger’s finger in, then clamping down around that finger and trying to suck it further inside.

“Ohhh… nice….” Roger’s voice came out in a low purr, feeling George’s ass opening to him, begging Roger to fuck him deep and hard. “You like this, George? You like my finger inside you? You want to feel my big cock in there?”

“Yeahhhh.” The low, hot-breathed sound hit Roger’s ears like a flatiron, demanding to be taken and used and filled with cock and sperm.

With that, Roger pulled away. “Get on your face,” he snapped. George spun around and knelt on the cot, head down and ass thrust up. Roger dropped onto his knees on the deck, forcing his face into the deep crevice between George’s firm, round cheeks. His tongue was already out, probing, seeking, digging into the mounds to find the gate to George’s body, the tight hole where Roger could have his way, feeling this beautiful young man’s deepest and most personal inner sanctum. George kept moaning in delight as Roger’s tongue teased his body into a ferment. He could happily have let Roger keep eating him all the way to the finish line.

But Roger had other ideas. He was a man on a mission, and he was going to plunder his captain’s hole, wasting no time about it. He stood up, spat in his hand, wiped it all over his rigid dick, then placed the head right against George’s hole.

“Get ready.”

George took a deep breath and then bit down hard, swallowing the scream as Roger gave his tool a mighty shove, forcing the whole shaft inside George’s ass in one quick thrust. Nor did he stop there. He fucked George with power and speed, plunging in and out repeatedly. He wasn’t gentle, and he knew from George’s reaction that he didn’t have to be. George kept reaching back, grabbing at his thighs, pulling him in harder and harder on each stroke. Roger began slapping at the sides of George’s butt, the repeated smacks from his hands punctuating the slapping sounds as his thighs beat out a fucking tattoo on George’s firm round cheeks.

George was crying out now, a repeated refrain of “Yes… yes… yes…” as Roger pounded deep into him. His hole was grabbing at Roger’s dick, urging the first mate to work it even harder. But then Roger’s cock cast the deciding vote, suddenly swelling even larger and then spitting huge globs of his sperm deep inside his captain’s ass. Roger breathed deeply, snatching at the air as he came down slowly from his explosion. But George hadn’t peaked yet. He urged Roger to keep driving it into him, and after a brief pause to catch his breath, Roger obliged.

The second round lasted even longer than the first one, but Roger was more than equal to the task, plundering his captain’s body even deeper and harder than before. He now reached around and grabbed George’s swollen member, stroking it firmly as he drove his own farther and farther inside. And then it happened. George gasped aloud, and his cock spasmed in Roger’s hand, spraying his own sperm across the cot. The spasms grasping at Roger’s tool brought him back up to the brink, and with a loud grunt he pumped another load of his juices into George’s no longer tight hole.

At last he withdrew slowly, and flopped down onto the cot beside George, who obligingly shifted over to make room for him.

“You enjoyed that.” George’s voice wasn’t accusing, just matter of fact.

“Oh, yes. So did you – but I knew you would. You and Kiru are the talk of Kingston.”

“What are they saying about us?”

“Just that you’re seen as a married couple now, nothing much else.”

“And you?”

Roger thought for a moment – and then, for the first time ever, he answered such a question with complete honesty. “I really enjoyed it. Women or men, I like it all. It was a nice change of pace.”

“Nothing more, Roger?”

“What have you been hearing?” Roger’s tone carried an edge of worry.

“Nothing at all, that’s why I’m asking.”

“Well, George, when I said it was a change of pace, I wasn’t referring to being with a man instead of a woman. What I really meant was that it was a change to be giving it to the captain instead of getting it from him.” George pondered that for a moment and then suddenly his eyes opened wide. Roger laughed. “That’s right, George. You’re not the first ship’s captain I’ve done it with. And he was really good – excellent cock-sucker and a great fucker.”

George was in absolute shock. Why it had never occurred to him that he and his father had this experience in common, he couldn’t even guess. But the revelation that his father, too, enjoyed fucking male ass and sucking cock had completely overwhelmed his mind.

Roger got up to get dressed, then leaned down to kiss George goodnight. “Hope you’ll sleep better now, captain. I know I will.” He slung his coat over his shoulder and left the cabin with a jaunty wave. George rolled over and quickly fell asleep, filled and satisfied. And tomorrow, they would be back in Kingston.

The next voyage saw the Egeria calling at Montego Bay, Nassau, Grand Turk, and Providenciales before returning to Kingston. The two trips after that added one or two more stops to these, Port Antonio and Cap-Haitien being among the occasional calls, but the basic pattern was set and continued on the usual round with each voyage lasting 10-12 days. By now, the crew had welded together into a tight-bonded unit, doing all the regular tasks with complete efficiency and minimal wasted time. George wouldn’t have taken the credit to himself, but he had exercised excellent judgement in picking his team.

Of course, his positive frame of mind owed a great deal to the occasional visits from Roger. The first mate’s energetic fucking served to keep him from curling up into a ball of misery when he was off duty. At least twice on every voyage, Roger would plant his rigid dick deep inside George’s ass and pound him deep and hard until he exploded inside. George didn’t just ask for it; he demanded it. “Hurt me, damn your eyes, hurt me! Rip me wide open! I want to feel you in there!!!” He couldn’t have explained this sudden urge for rough, hard, painful ecstasy if he were asked. It just seemed like the right way for him to relate to his first mate, to still be in charge even while Roger was taking charge of him.

At last the day came when Egeria came sailing up the channel into Kingston for the fourth time since George had taken her on his first voyage as her captain, six weeks earlier. As chance would have it, Roger was in command – but George was also on deck, looking around at the familiar surroundings, surveying the ships docked and anchored, and watching Roger’s handling of the entire arrival process. And it was Roger, thanks to his telescope, who was first to spot the familiar profile of Carmelita’s distinctive rigging.

“Sir, Carmelita is here already – two points to starboard, behind Port Royal Point.”

“Ah, yes, there she is.”

Roger could tell that George was keeping his feelings on a tight leash, but he felt sure that inwardly his captain’s heart was singing for joy. And so indeed it was – but only for a moment, as George kept staring at the distant masts..

“Roger, what’s that flag flown in her rigging. A signal?”

Roger looked through the glass. “Sir, it’s….” His voice died away as the meaning of what he was seeing dawned on him.

“Spit it out, man.”

“It’s the Union Flag, sir, but she’s flying it at half mast.”

George’s heart fell with a sickening thud. Anticipating joy and love, he now had to prepare himself for loss and sorrow instead.

Egeria moved farther into the harbour, around closer to Carmelita where there was space for her to anchor, not far offshore from the Treston warehouses. Roger took the ship through the rest of the arrival manoeuvres, timing the dropping of the anchor and getting in of the sails to perfection. Just as Stubbs, the boatswain, announced that the crew could stand down while the anchor watch was set, Roger and Stubbs spotted the boat at the same moment.

“Sir, Carmelita is sending a boat to us.”

“Thank you, Stubbs.”

George was mentally bracing himself. As the boat drew closer, though, he spotted the imposing figure and coal-black skin of the man he loved, and he felt a quick rush of relief. But still, there was that half-lowered flag.

The boat drew alongside, and Kiru swung himself up the main chains and onto the deck. George looked at the bleak expression on Kiru’s face and felt his heart sinking again. This could mean only one thing, the only other thing which he would dread to hear. George braced himself anew.

“Captain, I bring grave news to you. Your father has died.”

George forced himself to hold his rigidly erect posture and preserve his calm face.

“How did it happen?”

“He fell ill of the yellow fever, and it carried him off three days ago, just as Euphemia was sailing into Kingston harbour. I am so sorry for your loss. The manager is waiting for you ashore at the pier. He will come out to you as soon as you are ready to receive him.”

With that speech, George knew that his apprenticeship had ended. He turned to Roger, whose solemn face showed that he understood exactly what a momentous event this was. “Send the boat to the pier for Mr. Braydon, if you please, Roger.”

Kiru, returning to his own ship, heard the twitter of the boatswain’s pipe from Egeria, saw the boat rowing away towards the pier, marked the slow descent of the ship’s flag to half mast. He’d been impressed by George’s calm demeanour in the face of such unhappy news. Kiru knew perfectly well that George would now be expected to step forward and take on the ownership and control of the entire company. Like his father, he would certainly go to sea again, but business affairs would increasingly claim his time. Kiru knew how badly George would need the calm and peace that only he could give at this time. It wasn’t the homecoming either of them had hoped for and anticipated, not at all, but it had to be faced. And if George could face it and not flinch, then so could he.