Down to the Sea in Ships by Horatio Clare

Author:Horatio Clare [Horatio Clare]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2013-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

14 October

Early bed under glittering stars, then woke at 4.45, so got up. Others were up too. Joel said: ‘Thank God for the stabilisers! If they weren’t out, in this weather, no sleep!’

Another dawn, another breakfast: conversation is fitful these days. The sea is growing off the port bow, where it has been all this time. Bands of clear follow bands of mist over water an astonishing colour, blue and purple-black and bustling with waves: it is strange and exciting to look out from the deck all the way to the horizon and see nothing still anywhere. Busy wraiths in squalls of rain hurry over us, coming and going, commuting to infinity.

Chris is in an excellent mood. Everyone is excited about LA – we’re still more than two days out but it feels just over the horizon. You can feel the forces acting to bend the ship, and you feel her flexing against them.

‘You should see the atmosphere on a ship after three days of storms and no sleep,’ Chris says, with grim relish.

‘Pretty bad?’

‘Poison.’

The forces are peculiar and intermittent, like hands pressing down on your shoulders and your neck. Sorin says you need to drink a lot of water in storms, ‘Because all the guys are sick.’

He is in a meditative mood during his watch. He is also flying home from LA.

‘What does it take to be a good officer, Sorin?’

He thinks for a moment. ‘You need to be able to feel the ship – like a body. Like a creature.’

‘Is this a good ship?’

He looks down her, all the way to the foremast and the Pacific.

‘Oh yeah, she is good ship.’

‘What else?’

‘To be good seafarer? I think you need to feel salt on your skin. Once a seaman always a seaman.’

‘And suppose your son says he wants to go to sea. What will you say?’

‘I would respect him, but I would warn him. About loneliness . . . isolation. About needing to be strong with yourself.’

It is dark and rainy now and very lively. Outside the cargo is singing and thumping in whines and bangs; loose things in the crates are booming. We have been boarded by pirate poltergeists. Showers flood, wardrobe doors fling themselves open, batteries and lighters fly off desks, a pencil crosses the chart table of its own accord, my lamp revolves on its base and the bed refuses sleep.

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