Sent in by Peter Nicholson- a ruggid seaman with a lot of salt in his veins, from the British Merchant Marine, who sailed on, amongst other ships, the S.S.Esso Buffalo,T.E.S.Theobaldius, M.V.Bloemfountein Castle, and the Good Hope Castle during the 1950's (e-mail: exseaman@sympatico.ca)
Back in 1951 I signed on AB in a Shell Tanker, a T2, laying on the bouys at Bromborough , Liverpool.
The Captain who would have made Captain Bligh of the "Bounty" look like a choir boy, was a sailor hater. He didn't speak to people, he snarled at them, officers and crew alike, and God help anybody who he perceived as having crossed him, as I did the very first day. The very first few hours aboard in fact. I didn't know then what a hell he would make our lives for the next 7 months. Especially me.
We upped anchor that night bound for Mena al Amadhi in the Persian
Gulf.
We were a new crew, all strangers, which didn't mean too much on
tankers because they often went away on long voyages,
2 years in British flag ships not being uncommon at all. In fact all
deep sea voyages were articled for 2 years plus 3 months
allowance for repatriation if you paid off in a foreign port. Oh, the
ship owners literally did own you once you'd signed on.
Not that it bothered us one iota in those days.
Before preparing to get under way, we were assigned watches, mine being
the 12 - 4, known as the 'graveyard watch'.
It came to me to go to the wheel when we sailed.
Arrive on board, sign on, find a cabin, change and get turned to. All
standard routine procedure, everyone knowing their
jobs and things usually went like clockwork, hangovers and thick heads
notwithstanding. Quite common on sailing days.
To an experienced hand this is all routine,as is all the calm hubbub
going on in the darkened wheelhouse.
I'm standing there quite at ease carrying out the Pilot's orders, and
all very relaxed when I felt something touch my ankle.
Not knowing what it was, I moved my leg, but the contact to my ankle
persisted. A light nudging was what I felt.
Thinking that it might be a piece of mat or carpet come loose, I pushed
it aside with my foot. Suddenly a dog started
yelping as if it had been whipped or something.
That's what it was, a dog sniffing around my legs.
Suddenly a voice
snarled "Who kicked my dog?" "Was that you?,
You at the wheel?".
"No sir, I didn't kick the dog at all, I only brushed it with my shoe,
and it started yelping, I didn't know it was a dog."
"You kicked it all right! What's your name?"
I told him my name and that's when he told me, right then and there,
that from that moment on
"I'll be watching you".
"That's a good start" I thought, "In stooks with the Old Man right
away"
Not realising then just what an evil bastard he would prove to be.
A couple of days later I was headed up to the wheelhouse to do my 2
hours, and a couple of Joe Shell's slaves (Cadets)
were soogying on the after end of the bridge housing. They had a small
rubber hose like a garden hose, washing off the
soogy with fresh water. The dog was up there on that deck with them. 
As
I approached, and started up the ladder, the
dog started barking at me, and as I drew near, I snarled right back at
it. "Get away from me you mangey bastard" I growled,
and with that the dog turned and jumped away right into the kinked up
hose. Over went the dog, and at the same time started
to yelp as if it were being given a beating. Almost at the same time
the Old Man appeared from around the corner of the housing.
He took one look. "So! The dog kicker's at it again. Kick my dog will
you? I already warned you about that before haven't I?"
"I didn't kick your dog Captain, it got tangled up in that there hose"
" Yes, after you kicked it, that's when it got tangled in the hose,
anyway I saw you kick my dog, and that's not the first time"
Of course that was an outright lie. I knew it and he knew it.
" For
starters Captain, I'd need 12 foot long legs for me to kick
it because that's about how far away it was, and you didn't see me
because you wasn't even in sight when the dog started
yelping, you were around the corner"
"Don't argue with me, I know what I saw, where are you going anyway?"
"I'm going to the wheel Captain"
"Get up there then, I'll deal with you later"
After I did my two hours at the wheel and was headed for the sailor's messroom, a Cadet came and told me I have to report to the Old Man. I had an idea what was coming next, and sure enough he had the mate with him and informed me that I am being logged a day's pay for insubordination. I wasn't about to risk another day's pay by saying anything that would cause him to pick my pocket again, so I kept quiet and gave the usual standard answer for him to enter in the log, which was "Nothing to say sir!" As if that made it proper, legal and all above board.
On the voyage to Mena I developed an abcessed tooth and a further example of his spitefulness manifested itself . T2 tankers were fairly comfortable ships and moreso for the crew, as any kind of comfort for seamen was practically unknown in those days. Air conditioning had not yet arrived and the best we could hope for in the way of trying to stay cool was a fan in the cabin. That's if it worked. The fridge in the sailor's mess had not been removed, probably only because it was rated a different electric technics than British, otherwise it would have found it's way into some shoreside Super's abode. But sometime as the voyage progressed it was cannibalized for parts to fix the one in the Officer's saloon. Such were practises at sea in those days us crew could do nothing about that, and neither did we expect to. That was part of life, and accepted. I suffered badly with the swollen face and pain from that poisoned tooth. A very miserable and trying time for me.To get some relief I would steralize a needle with a lit match and prick the abcess to burst it. I did that several times.It was the only way to get some relief. When at last we got to Mena the Old Man had no choice but to allow me to go to the hospital run by the oil company. Of course, as my face was badly swollen the doctor could not risk pulling the tooth all the while it was abcessed, so he gave me a shot of pennicillin and a note that I must have shots of pennicillin at regular intervals until the condition cleared.
When I presented the note to the Mate to give to the Old Man he sent
for me and told me that there is pennicillin aboard, but not for the
likes of me. Not for the likes of me! My patience was at a very low ebb
if only because of the continuous pain I was in, coupled with no relief
from the heat of the Persian Gulf, way up in the hundred plus degrees.
Only very warm water to drink. Most hands sleeping up on the boat deck
aft to escape the cabins that had turned into ovens. On top of that
this spiteful bastard was playing head games.
The second mate was present at the time and I turned to him and said
"You are witness to this Second Mate"
He didn't answer and I expected none. I was making a statement of fact,
not asking his opinion.
A couple of hours later I presented myself at the Old Man's cabin. I
handed him two written sheets of paper. 
"What's this" he growled.
"Captain" I said, "Those are copies of two letters that I have written. One
is to my Member of Parliament and the other is to a newspaper, and
they'll be posted when we get to Karachi"
"Oh, is that so" he said. "You won't be going ashore in Karachi, I'll
make sure of that".
"I don't need to go ashore Captain, I can get anyone to mail a letter
for me"
"You won't be getting a sub"
"I won't need a sub. I can get anything I want in Karachi for a deck of
smokes"
By now he's almost foaming at the mouth. "I'll stop your tobacco
issue. No more bond for you, I'll see to that."
My parting shot was "You'll have to stop every man's on the ship then
Captain, because I'll have no trouble getting hold of cigarettes, or
cash come to that"
After about an hour went by a Cadet called me to go to the Second Mate's cabin and there I was told I would be given shots of pennicillin. Aha! I thought that there's no way that Shell Oil wants to make the headlines over an issue such as this. So I let it be known that I would be holding the letters for future reference. Not that it made one scrap of difference to the Old Man's treatment of by now the whole crew, but always him getting that extra dig at me, "The Dog Kicker"
By the time the voyage was into about the 5th monthI had rarely had a run ashore and we did get to some pretty nice places. La Spezia, Italy. Pireus, Greece. Marsielles in the South of France. The old man constantly up to his tricks.No doubt these days he would probably be jailed for his fraud and extortionate manipulations of our money. Any other ship gave out a sub (money advance) when in port. Every chance that thieving bastard got he would make some arrangements with another thieving bastard ashore in India or Pakistan to only grant us a limited amount in one of the stores. Not a cash advance, but credit to purchase something in the store. Every seaman ashore wants to do what seamen do when they go ashore, not buy up a load of souvenir nick-nacks. But an arrangement could be made with the store owner for a cash advance with a 20% deduction. So you'd get 40 rupees instead of the 50, then those deductions no doubt then split with the Old Man. Totally illegal I think.
Tankers get very little time in port as a rule. A T2 could be loaded in
about 8 hours up the Gulf ports, and discharged in not too many more
hours at the port of unloading. Sometimes when there was a hold up of
some kind causing a delay, the chance would come for a run ashore. Usually
an expensive cab ride, as tankers don't dock downtown anywhere, but
always at a refinery miles from the nearest city or town.
I was almost a prisoner on the ship because the Old Man designated me
permanent night watchman. 'In case I felt inclined to ill treat any dog
I came across ashore.'
Even when another hand would volunteer to give me a break, he would
put the kibosh on it.
On most ships when keeping anchor watch, the hands were allowed to
retire to the messroom after doing rounds. And so it was on this ship.
Except for me. I had to do the full 4 hours on the focs'le head. Other
hands in my watch were allowed to bring me a cup of coffee, but I had
to stay there. Rain or shine. One of the things that pissed me off no
end was that the Mate was witness to all this BS, but never once did he
come to my defence. Not once. I was one of his guys. A good AB if I do
say myself, and yet that Chief Mate would stand by and watch all this
happen.
But total joy was not far away. A turn for the best was about to take place. Almost making up for all that past torment.... Almost. In the little event to come the dog played a starring role.
At last we were homeward bound, and not a day too soon as far as all hands were concerned.
Heretofore unmentioned,the Old Man's wife accompanied him on this voyage. She was every bit the bitch as he was the bastard. She made the stewards lives hell. Both of them never ate in the Officer's saloon with the officers. Their meals were always taken in the Captain's quarters. A bad mistake really, because when the tray containing the meals was left on the counter prior to the steward delivering them, the meals therein were treated to many different embelishments by the abused crew. I really wouldn't care to record what went into some of those meals, especially the soups. Yuk!
One evening, just before dark, I was right aft sitting on deck,
enjoying a quiet smoke before turning in.
I was alone, with nobody else about. I saw the dog come trotting
towards me and came right up to me and sat down looking up at me. He then
bent his head down and dropped something from his mouth on to the deck
then sat back wagging his tail. "Watcha got there boy?, let's have a
look what it is you put down there". There on the deck lay a set of
false teeth. A set of uppers. Like lightening it hit me. There's only one
place they could have come from!. I reached down and grabbed them and
after taking a quick look around making sure there were no
witnesses,.... SPLASH!! 
and over they went, down hundreds of fathoms into the Red
Sea.
Oh the unbounded joy. I wanted to go into the mess and crow about it.
One of them now has got no top teeth. It didn't really matter to me
which one of them it was.
There was no word about it before I went on watch at midnight and still
no word the following morning until the Old Man's steward came for the
breakfasts. It was the steward that told us that the Old Man's wife's
teeth were missing and almost blaming him for it.
I could hardly contain myself, but couldn't resist saying that maybe
the dog had something to do with it. After all didn't the dog show up in
the messroom that time with the Old Man's pipe in his mouth?. But the
steward was convinced that she had mislaid them herself the previous
evening. He went on about how she's tearing the place apart, but she knows
that she left them in the washroom.
She wasn't the prettiest of women at the best of times and now she was
less prettier still. On many occasions after that whenever she appeared
in the wheelhouse, I was expecting her to say to me "What are you
grinning at?" I just couldn't help it.
I think I had a permanent grin that started each time that I walked
along the flying bridge from aft up to the wheelhouse. It got wider if him
or her or both of them came into the wheelhouse.
One of the galling parts to this though was that I couldn't say what I
knew to the rest of the crowd. I would have loved to have broadcast it
to all hands just what happened to those teeth. I didn't matter though.
I took great pleasure in what only me and the dog knew.
Finally the voyage came to an end and all hands paid off and went their
separate ways. I stayed home for a few weeks then once again my
thoughts turned to another voyage.
I knew the Crew Agent at the Company Office in London and he greeted me
warmly with the offer of a bosun's job.
"You'll be based in Singapore"
he said. " Two years on the 'Quest', a research ship she is. A nice job
that should be just right for you. You'll be flying out there in a few
days from now"
"Hmm" I figured, "That'll do me, just right".
I had no responsibilities in the way of family, being unmarried and
unattached, so two years away was no problem to me, I liked that part of
the world too, this was shaping up to be a good 'un..
"Yeah thanks, I'll take that"
"Good" he said "I thought of you when the job came up".
Then...... "Oh, by the way, you may be glad to know that a couple of
guys you sailed with last trip will be going too.The Captain as well"
Did I hear right? The Captain as well?
"Not Captain ******son?, not him surely".
"Yes, you'll all be flying out together, the entire crew, why?"
"Not me" I said, "I won't be going anywhere that that SOB is going."
I changed my mind instantly, No job, no matter how good was worth it
if that bastard was around. It wouldn't be a good job for very long if
he had a hand in it. I wondered if any of the others knew about it. I
didn't ask.
"Why, what's wrong with it?. You were quite eager to take the job
awhile ago, and I haven't got another bosun's job for you right now"
"I don't care, I'll sail AB, that's no problem. There's just no way
that I'm going to sail with him again" Then I had a thought.
"Tell me this, will he be coming in this office before they fly out?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact he's coming in this afternoon, why do you
ask?"
"Well, would you give him a message for me, and make sure that you let
him know that it was me that told you. Tell him he used to know me as
the dog kicker"
"The dog kicker? What does that mean, the dog kicker?"
"I'll tell you some day, but meanwhile will you make sure you give him
a message from me?"
"Okay then, what is it"
"Tell him that the dog kicker said his wife's false teeth are at the
bottom of the Red Sea, just tell him that"
"His wife's teeth are........................?"
"At the bottom of the Red Sea, he'll know what you mean, but promise me
that you'll tell him the message came from the dog kicker"
'Aw come on Nick, can't you let me in on it?"
"I will some other time, too long to tell right
now"......................."Don't forget now, the Dog Kicker told you.", "Red Sea".
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