The Low Road (18 page)

On another occasion, after we had been partaking more freely than usual of the captain's stock of excellent wine, we descended on to deck and called George from the wheel.

‘The boy needs fucking,' said the captain. George's eyes lit up, and he stood to attention.

‘Yes sir!'

And there, in front of the eyes of all, I was stripped and plugged by his gargantuan black penis. Moore watched from the bridge; the rest of the sailors were less distant. They crowded round us, slapping me in the face with their cocks, always mindful that they were observed by the captain. I didn't care; they could be as brutal with me as they liked. I came while George was fucking me, but
ordered him to continue, and within a few moments I was stiff again, with Dessert's cock in my mouth and another in each hand. How I loved playing the slut!

We docked in Dublin, picked up our religious cargo and returned with all despatch to Liverpool, hiding our sexual activities behind closed doors. The men were all under strict instructions not to molest the sisters, on pain of immediate death. I can only assume they obeyed, or if they did not, there were no complaints. Our nightly orgies raged below decks while the nuns above us sang hymns and prayed for a safe crossing.

We left Liverpool and turned north again. I am ashamed to confess that during all this time I had as good as forgotten Lebecque. It was only the knowledge that we were returning to Scotland that pricked my conscience. Oh yes! I would resume that heroic quest when opportunity allowed. But for now, I had no choice: I told myself I was a prisoner on the ship, however indulged. The truth is that I had become accustomed to reigning in my own little kingdom, and was in no hurry to abdicate. The life suited me. I had all the pleasure I could want; the appetites of a nineteen-year-old boy are more prodigious than those of a forty-year-old man, but when Moore was tired of my advances he was happy to allow me to play with the sailor - or sailors - of my choice. I fucked, or was fucked, never less than three times in every twenty-four hours.

This unwonted activity, combined with the healthy influence of sea air and the little work that I did on board, suited me well. I had dropped the last traces of puppy fat, and my muscles now stood out on my arms, chest, stomach and back. My legs were strong; I could shin up the main mast with the best of them. My arse was still as round and pert as ever, but now it was muscle rather than flesh that gave it its tempting shape. The sailors could not take their eyes off it; they longed, I know, to tear into my smooth white cheeks and fuck me ragged. I teased them; I walked
around the decks naked, sometimes, daring them to touch me. Often, I would drag one of them up to the wheel and let him fuck me while he steered the ship.

It was not just my arse that was in demand; the captain, to my surprise, had an insatiable appetite for my prick. Indeed, after George, mine was the biggest on board; perhaps all the exercise had made it grow. Moore was quite shameless about his enjoyment in getting fucked; he deliberately positioned the mirror so that he could watch his arse being stretched around my bloated cock. Some of the other sailors enjoyed it just as much, but were more secretive. Dessert was known to be a good bit of ‘boy pussy', but after a few weeks all of them had accommodated me both orally and anally, even George. The sight of my fat pink shaft disappearing between his smooth black buttocks made my pleasure complete.

But before long my appetites became jaded. I would like to say that my conscience won through, and that I was spurred on to my escape by a sense of honour. That was partially true, but more pressing at the time was the ennui and claustrophobia that began to plague me. Much as I enjoyed the constant debauchery of our seagoing life, I sickened of it too. After a month in which I had been constantly mauled, fucked and sucked, I began to long for the purer joys of solitude and contemplation. What a spoiled creature I had become! I indulged myself in gloomy contemplation of my fate, I worried about my mother, I even spared a thought for poor Lebecque; and then another cock would be in my hand, another arse offered to me, and I forgot them all again.

The day came when my desire to escape transformed itself from a vague longing to a definite resolution. We had done two more round trips from Oban to Liverpool, Liverpool to Dublin, back and
forth across the Irish sea. With every league I grew more discontent, and the image of Lebecque burned brighter before me. He had started to visit me in my dreams; before long, I was consumed throughout the waking hours by a sense of guilt and failure. The allure of clean sheets and hard cocks was as strong as ever, but one day, as we plied further north than usual, I thought that I recognised the shape of a distant headland. With nothing more than the clothes I stood up in, I slipped over the side of the Florida and began to swim towards the shore.

It was harder than I anticipated. Down in the water, I could no longer see the land that had been so clearly visible from the ship's deck. The sea was freezing, and I had to fight for every breath. Strong as I was, the currents were stronger, and before long I had not the slightest idea of which direction I was swimming in, only that I must keep swimming in order not to drown. Waves lifted me to terrifying heights and then dropped me into sickening chasms below. Time after time the water closed over my head; time and again I fought to the surface. I regretted my folly, thought again of the warmth and security of the ship and the friends that I would never see again. But there was little time for reflection. If I didn't find land soon, I would freeze to death.

The waves buffeted me so strongly that I was barely swimming a stroke, just struggling to keep breathing and to survive each fresh assault. The currents were dragging me somewhere, and I was powerless to resist them. I could only pray that they were carrying me towards land rather than further out to sea. If the latter were true, I was dead for sure.

Finally one massive wave caught me just as it was breaking. All the breath was slapped out of me, I rolled over and over seeing now dark blue, now white and green as I tumbled helplessly like a piece of seaweed in the foam. The water roared in my ears, my lungs felt as if they would burst from the effort of holding my breath, I kicked my legs furiously in one last attempt to break the
surface and saw, as my head emerged, the rapid onrush of land as I was thrown into the air by the fury of the waves.

I landed with a thud on the sand, winded completely. Another wave was coming up fast behind me, white hands reaching out to drag me back into the sea. I struggled with all my might, catching on to handfuls of sand which disappeared between my fingers, leaving me with nothing to grip. The second wave broke over me, crashed on the shore and then returned with a hiss into the sea, taking me with it. I flailed around, tumbling in the undertow, and my hands found a rock. I grasped and slipped and was dragged back. My hands found another rock - this one, mercifully, with a hole in it the size of an egg. I buried my fingers in it and clung on for dear life. Yes: I was still there. The waves had receded. I struggled to my feet and ran like a drunk man up the beach and beyond the waves' reach.

I lay for a while resting my head on the ground, thanking God that I had been spared. Then, content that arms and legs were unbroken, I tottered to my feet. How strange the ground felt beneath them! It was many weeks since I had last stood on dry land; I felt at each moment the phantom swell of the water which all sailors miss so much when a voyage ends. And then it dawned on me-I was free! I would find help from my fellow countrymen, beg clothes and food from some kind family, and resume my journey.

I ran up the beach into a sparse wood; beyond this, I guessed, must lie the nearest settlement. My feet crunched through bracken and moss; how good it was to smell the earth again, and all its riches! I had been too long at sea. Time to return to reality! Time to find myself once again among decent people whose interests were focused chiefly above my waist.

The wood thinned out, and a patch of sandy heath extended beyond it, with a few clumps of heather twisting their woody roots into the sparse soil. Oh Scotland, my homeland! My heart was
jumping for joy as I sank to my knees and smelled the sweet herb. Then I ran on, up a bank, through some more trees and out onto a grassy plain cropped short by sheep or rabbits. Now, surely, I would see the smoke from a homely cottage, and would run towards the honest welcome of a humble Scottish family!

I looked around me, and all the breath seemed to drain from my body. I was on the highest point of land; everything around me sloped downwards into scrubby woods and patchy heath. And then, on all sides - the sea.

I turned to each point of the compass and stared down in disbelief. North: the sea. West: the sea. South: the sea. East: the sea. The island on to which I had been washed was, perhaps, no more than half a mile from tip to tip. And I could see, with a painful clarity, that there was no sign whatsoever of human habitation. Far away on the eastern horizon, perhaps four miles distant, I could see land. I could no more swim the distance than I could fly it.

Panic rose in my throat for a moment. Had I escaped the Florida just to expire on this desolate dot of land? I felt like throwing myself on the sod and weeping, but I am glad to say that reason did not utterly desert me. Instead I thought of my more immediate needs, and undertook a survey of my new kingdom. Breaking through the woods into a grassy clearing, I surprised three dozy-looking sheep who were cropping the grass in peace; they stared blankly at me, then lumbered away through the trees. This was my first piece of good fortune: where there were sheep, there must soon be men. Livestock was not just abandoned on an island. Farmers must pass by at some time to shear or slaughter them. It was winter now; surely, at worst, they would come for lambing time.

A few charred bits of timber on the beach supported my theory. Mankind had set foot on the island, and not so long ago; the wood was still black and soft, not crumbled away by the rain. Further exploration revealed a source of clean water, one of those miraculous burns that come from nowhere to feed beast and flower. I lay
down beside it and drank deep. Somewhere behind me I heard a stamp and the crack of twigs; the sheep again, I assumed, and carried on drinking.

The wind was picking up, and soon I was cold. My clothes, of course, would not dry, and I was acutely aware that I must find shelter before night fell. I looked around for suitable caves or large rocks that would protect me from the elements, but the best I could do was a pile of leaves in one of the denser knots of trees. I covered myself and waited for dawn. Somehow, I slept.

The next day was fair, with white clouds racing across a sky of eggshell blue, and I awoke with a ravenous hunger. Of course, I had brought nothing with me from the ship; besides, even if I had filled my pockets with provisions, they would all have been lost at sea. There was nothing in the way of fruit that I could eat apart from some shiny black berries that I did not know; I was not yet so desperate that I would risk poisoning myself. But after two hours of searching the island for edible scraps, I was so desperate that I was almost ready to try. Then, sitting in despair on a stone, I saw a young rabbit come creeping out of a bramble thicket to nibble on the grass. Slowly, quietly, I picked up a stone and then, when it had wandered within my reach, I deftly brained it.

Delighted by my catch, I had spared no thought as to how I was to prepare it. There was no means of starting a fire at my disposal. I used a sharp flint to skin and gut the rabbit, and a sorry mess I made of it; but finally, there the little shiny pink body lay, looking good enough for the pot. I had always heard that rabbit was a wholesome meat that needed little cooking. I tasted a little scrap of flesh that clung to the skin. It tasted good enough; a little sour, perhaps, but not bad. And so, I picked up the poor little corpse and gnawed every scrap of meat off its bones.

I felt better instantly - partly, I suppose, from the relief of knowing that I was not going to starve to death. I ran up to the highest point of the island, knowing that my survival depended
on catching sight of any boat that came within hailing distance. The sun rose in the sky, seagulls cried above my head and I felt, for the first time in weeks, an exhilarating sense of well-being. Happiness, in my case, has always found its most immediate expression through my body, and before many minutes had passed I was stretched out on the grass with my shirt pulled up under my chin, my trousers round my knees and my hard cock in my hand. The air felt so good on my skin, blowing through the light golden fuzz on my chest, stomach and legs, tickling my balls and my arse. I threw my head back and settled in for a good wank, licking my fingers and sticking them shamelessly up my arse, fucking myself as I bucked my hips and shot a big load of sperm up into the clear island air. I must have presented a strange spectacle to the sheep; just as I came, I heard one of them creeping up nearby - then stampeding away into the trees.