UNCLE MIKE

What fascinated me about Uncle Mike were his scars. I came home from school one day and there he was, tall, dark and ugly with scars on his face and arms and possibly other places I couldn't see. When mum introduced us, I wondered why no-one in the family had talked to me about him before. I longed to get him alone and ask him about those scars.

Well, the next day was Saturday and mum and dad had to go out shopping. I managed to persuade them for once to leave me behind. And as soon as Uncle Mike appeared, I asked him about those scars.

He made me wait while he fixed himself some coffee, then he began. "You see this long one on my arm? Well. I got that in a bar in Lagos. Do you know where Lagos is? Well, it's in Nigeria, in Africa."

"But what were you doing there?" I asked him.

"I've been at sea for the last five years," he replied. "We docked in Lagos and we all had a bit of shore leave, so we went off to find something to drink. Well, were sitting there, drinking and joking together when all of a sudden this man pulled out a knife and started shouting about how he hated all the British and wished us all dead. Then he lunged at me. I dodged, but not fast enough. The knife slashed me all down my arm, but I managed to grab his knife and knee him where it hurts. Then my mate got hold of him and it was all over. It took a doctor a bit of time to stitch me up, though."

"Wow, weren't you scared?" I asked. I would have been."

"Of course I was, but I just had to act fast. It was a question of staying alive!"

"Well, what about those scars on your face?" There were two fairly long ones and three or four others. One of them went right across his nose and another pulled the corner of his eye out of shape. They really were ugly.

"That's another story," he began. "We were out in the middle of the Atlantic when the most enormous storm blew up. The ship was pitching and rolling, the waves were like mountains. I was at the wheel, on the bridge, trying to hold our course steady. Then one wave came along, bigger than all the others. I could see it coming, but there wasn't a thing I could do about it. We plunged down into it, and it came right over the ship. As it struck, the ship shuddered. The radar scanner broke off, and the water smashed the window of the bridge right in. I was showered with bits of glass and I could feel the blood beginning to run down my face. But I didn't leave my post. At least I had the wheel to hold on to. We lost two men overboard to that freak wave. It was utter chaos for a few minutes. We had no radar and the compass was damaged. Water had got into the radio and blown some fuses. The only thing to do was to keep afloat. I had to keep wiping my eyes to clear the blood away. I was cold and wet. It must have been only about fifteen minutes later, but it felt like hours, when they got someone else up on the bridge to take over the wheel and I went below to get my face seen to. It took us days to get things more or less 'shipshape' again, but for the rest of that trip, until we put into port for repairs, it was a bit cold on the bridge!"

I sat there, open-mouthed. It really was something to have an uncle who'd had all these adventures. Why hadn't mum or dad told me about him before?

I was just about to ask if he had any more stories to tell me, when Uncle Mike lifted up his shirt, showing me his chest. There was a long, purple scar running from his right shoulder down across his chest. "How did you get that?" I asked him.

"One day, the ship was in port and we were loading some supplies," he began. "We had two cranes on the ship to help us do this. Anyway, I was on the dockside, supervising the loading. We put one load into the hold and then the crane swung round to pick up another one. I was just guiding the pallet to the ground when one strand of the cable snapped, ripping a gash right across my chest. A good job it didn't go any higher it could have had my eye out, or worse. It was pretty painful, but I had to hang on to the cable to prevent any more damage. Very quickly, my mates came over and held on to things. Then they took me off to hospital. I should have stayed in for a week, but I signed myself out after two days. I didn't want to be stranded by myself in a foreign port.

"Mind you, I wasn't able to do much work for the rest of that trip. For the next two weeks, whenever I stretched or lifted anything, the wound opened up again. They nearly laid me off after that, but I persuaded them to keep me on. After all, if they hadn't, I might have put in a claim for compensation for my injuries."

Mum and dad came back from the shops just then and Uncle Mike disappeared into the kitchen to make some drinks. I was still curious to here more tales from the sea, but there was no more opportunity. Next morning when I got up. I found that he'd already gone out. Over breakfast, I asked mum why she hadn't told me that Uncle Mike had been a sailor. She seemed surprised, and asked me what I meant by that. I told her about the scars and the stories he'd told me.

Mum replied, "Uncle Mike always was a great one for tales. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but he didn't get those scars at sea. As far as I know, he's never been a sailor. The sad truth is that he got them in a car accident. He went head first through the windscreen and survived, but his wife and only son were killed. He's only just come out of prison for that. You see, he was drunk and driving too fast at the time of the accident. He almost died as well. Maybe it would have been better if he had."

I was quiet and thoughtful after that, but I couldn't agree with mum. I thought Uncle Mike was very brave, and anyway I preferred his version of how he got the scars. I think I'll be a sailor when I grow up.