Ballad: The Bumboat Woman’s Story

In “The Bum­boat Wom­an’s Sto­ry,” an elder­ly woman rem­i­nisces about her youth­ful days at sea and her affec­tion for Lieu­tenant Belaye, a naval offi­cer. Once thriv­ing in her six­ties, known for her charm and beloved by the Roy­al Fleet for her live­ly eyes, she pro­vid­ed for the ships in Portsmouth Bay, includ­ing the HOT CROSS BUN com­mand­ed by the kind-heart­ed Lieu­tenant Belaye. The lieu­tenant, skilled in max­i­miz­ing the pres­tige of his small gun­boat, deceives casu­al inquiry by con­flat­ing its ton­nage with the num­ber of guns, imply­ing a grandeur far beyond its mod­est capac­i­ty. Their rela­tion­ship blos­soms below decks, amid tales of sea bat­tles and affec­tion­ate nick­names, fos­ter­ing a love that Peak could hard­ly resist.

When Belaye was ordered to sail to the Ger­man Sea, it dev­as­tat­ed the local maid­ens, none more so than our bum­boat woman, who stealth­ily joined his crew under the guise of a man, seek­ing to stay close to her heart’s desire. Aboard the gun­boat, she not­ed the unsea­man­like qual­i­ties of the crew—well-mannered to a fault, inept in the face of duty, and prone to sea sick­ness, yet they share a unique cama­raderie under Belaye’s indul­gent com­mand. Despite their lack of naval prowess, they were unit­ed in their gen­teel nature, a rar­i­ty among the rough seas.

The nar­ra­tive weaves humor and heartache, illus­trat­ing the wom­an’s cun­ning in secur­ing her place on the voy­age and her obser­va­tions of the crew’s peculiarities—from their aver­sion to hard labor to the secret enhance­ments of their appear­ances. The bal­lad pro­gress­es, recount­ing the dai­ly life on board the HOT CROSS BUN, marked by the Lieu­tenan­t’s proud but inef­fec­tu­al use of his sin­gle gun, and the crew’s gen­tle demeanor stark­ly con­trast­ed against con­ven­tion­al sailor behav­ior. Through storms and still­ness, the woman remains by Belaye’s side until a fate­ful leave sep­a­rates them, per­haps to reunite after a long week apart, leav­ing read­ers to pon­der the con­clu­sion of this sea-far­ing tale.

This nar­ra­tive cap­tures the essence of mar­itime life through the lens of a love-lorn woman dis­guised as a sailor, cre­at­ing a vivid tableau of naval adven­tures, roman­tic ambi­tion, and the endur­ing human spir­it amidst the vast and unpre­dictable sea.