Mr. Arrow , first of all , turned out even worse than the captain had feared . He had no command among the men , and people did what they pleased with him . But that was by no means the worst of it , for after a day or two at sea he began to appear on deck with hazy eye , red cheeks , stuttering tongue , and other marks of drunkenness . Time after time he was ordered below in disgrace . Sometimes he fell and cut himself ; sometimes he lay all day long in his little bunk at one side of the companion ; sometimes for a day or two he would be almost sober and attend to his work at least passably . In the meantime , we could never make out where he got the drink . That was the ship 's mystery . Watch him as we pleased , we could do nothing to solve it ; and when we asked him to his face , he would only laugh if he were drunk , and if he were sober deny solemnly that he ever tasted anything but water . He was not only useless as an officer and a bad influence amongst the men , but it was plain that at this rate he must soon kill himself outright , so nobody was much surprised , nor very sorry , when one dark night , with a head sea , he disappeared entirely and was seen no more . `` Overboard ! '' said the captain . `` Well , gentlemen , that saves the trouble of putting him in irons . '' But there we were , without a mate ; and it was necessary , of course , to advance one of the men . The boatswain , Job Anderson , was the likeliest man aboard , and though he kept his old title , he served in a way as mate . Mr. Trelawney had followed the sea , and his knowledge made him very useful , for he often took a watch himself in easy weather . And the coxswain , Israel Hands , was a careful , wily , old , experienced seaman who could be trusted at a pinch with almost anything . He was a great confidant of Long John Silver , and so the mention of his name leads me on to speak of our ship 's cook , Barbecue , as the men called him . Aboard ship he carried his crutch by a lanyard round his neck , to have both hands as free as possible . It was something to see him wedge the foot of the crutch against a bulkhead , and propped against it , yielding to every movement of the ship , get on with his cooking like someone safe ashore . Still more strange was it to see him in the heaviest of weather cross the deck .
He had a line or two rigged up to help him across the widest spaces -- Long John 's earrings , they were called ; and he would hand himself from one place to another , now using the crutch , now trailing it alongside by the XXXXX , as quickly as another man could walk .
Anderson Arrow Hands Silver Trelawney coxswain day first lanyard night