Días a Bordo

The days flew by working as a cabin boy and without realizing it, Lucas had spent 1 month aboard La Vieja Ana.

By this time the atmosphere on the ship had improved a bit thanks to the fact that many sailors managed to come to terms with the death of the cook.

There was only one more month left before he could reach Los Alamos and meet the church again, which made his tasks as a cabin boy less burdensome as the promised date approached.

The tasks were quite varied from making the food to cleaning the deck, other times he had to help with the bait for fishing and almost always there were lots and lots of sweaty clothes to wash.

But thanks to the help of Ricardo and the bottles of wine from the cellar, the work became less heavy.

Over time, he began to develop a kind of friendship with the vast majority of marines on board except for Wiliam and Ron who always looked at him suspiciously.

This week in particular had been somewhat complicated for the boys and for the entire crew in general, since the capricious sea cursed them with a storm that had already lasted a week and a half.

On stormy days there was always a bad mood on board the ship, working with rain and thunder is never good for the morale of the sailors.

But luckily the captain always allowed a few extra bottles of wine on rainy days, which helped everyone relax a bit, especially the group of alcoholics on board.

Still, what was good news for the rest of the crew was a curse for the cabin boys, who spent the entire week cleaning up alcoholic vomit.

"I can't believe how many times in a row the useless helmsman can vomit, it seems that he never learns and every night he returns to drink like a bottomless barrel!!", Ricardo shouted as he cleaned the vomit from the cabins

"That's 4 times this week..." Lucas muttered with some fear that the others would hear them.

The helmsman, who was completely drunk, far from caring about his vomiting and Ricardo's complaints, snuggled comfortably in his net watching the two boys work with a smile on his face as if remembering the past.

"Hey bad boy, don't yell in the cabins, there are a few of us trying to sleep around here!!" Ron yelled.

Although Ron was also a little drunk, far from looking for sleep, he took a bottle that he kept rolling around the cabin following the rocking of the ship and throwing himself into his net, uncorking the bottle and starting to drink while crying silently for some reason that no one will ever know.

"You have fun, and we work like slaves, what kind of shit is this" Ricardo continued complaining

"That's life, boy, some are upstairs and some are downstairs…." The lookout muttered with his eyes closed as he tried to sleep.

"Like a slave?! .... At least you can work hard and become bottle-in-hand sleepers, leaving your past as a vomit cleaner behind" Ron retorted drunkenly as he continued to cry.

"Besides… You know how difficult it is to navigate… With the sky covered with clouds, boy" the helmsman murmured somewhat sleepily as if trying to get rid of the guilt.