Competition Twenty-Four Highly Commended: Things You Can’t Say at Your Sea Scouts Tryout by Chris Cottom

That, astride your inflatable flamingo at Bexhill-on-Sea, you bawled your head off when your dad, ankle-deep and careless, let go of its string. Floating to France would be bad enough, but not half as bad as leather-faced mariners laughing at your cute-kitten swimming trunks.

That your dad was what your mum called a rover, like the swashbuckling Captain Dan Tempest from The Buccaneers on ITV, plundering treasure chests spilling with sparkling jewels. That on the eve of your ninth birthday he set sail for uncharted lands, never to return, that even the birthday cards soon dried up.

That you auditioned for the title role in your school production of Billy Budd but got cast as the Mess Boy. How, snare drums rattling and the full ship’s company standing to attention on the main deck in the last act, you shed real tears at Billy’s bravery, knowing you didn’t have what it takes to face execution on three consecutive evenings as well as a matinee.

That you know about pressgangs from your Hornblower books, how they’d slip a king’s shilling into a man’s pint so he’d have to join up. Your mum won’t let you drink beer so you’ll accept an Orange Tango and a postal order, but inflation means a shilling’s now £147.53 and anyway you’re tempted to try the Air Cadets because sky-blue might suit you better.

That you’ve no idea how much you’ll love it, every Tuesday evening and all day Saturday, learning to stow the sails, climbing the mast on TS Royalist, that you’ll sign on for real at eighteen and steam out of Portsmouth to teach the Argies a lesson they won’t forget. That you’ll never forget the explosion, your shipmates floundering in the oily ocean, drowning like kittens.

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Chris Cottom lives near Macclesfield, UK. He has work published or forthcoming in 100 Word Story, Eastern Iowa Review, Flash 500, Leon Literary Review, NFFD NZ, NFFD UK, On The Premises, One Wild Ride, Oxford Flash Fiction, Roi Fainéant, The Hooghly Review, The Phare, and others. In the early 1970s he lived next door to JRR Tolkien.

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

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