Friends in strange garments

by Anna Milo Upjohn

From obscure Spanish towns the belated telegrams kept coming in all that week. Three bodies had been washed ashore, and eleven men were accounted for; only Ives Karadoc was missing. Some sailors had come home with the story of the wreck. After the break-up of the Jeanot, Ives had been seen clinging to a floating barrel. That was the last known of him. So the days dragged on, hollow and dark.

People went back to their daily affairs, and began to talk of other things than the wreck of the Jeanot. But in Michel’s home things were not as before. Laughter had died away from the hearthstone. A knock or a strange step on the flags set their hearts beating, and every night the little lamp burned in the window.

‘Ives has been picked up and taken to some far country,’ persisted Grandmother. ‘We shall hear, we shall hear.’ But one morning Michel, finding her all in a heap near the fireplace, weeping with her apron over her head, knew that she had lost hope.

He himself could not give up, and with hot protest in his heart he started for the headland beyond the village where one could look far out to sea. It was the point where they had all gathered to watch for the Iceland fleet when it had returned less than a month ago, the Jeanot leading, her sails agleam in the setting sun. And now the Jeanot had gone down! Why, she was as familiar and friendly and dear as the kitchen itself! And Uncle Ives was such a jolly young uncle, so full of understanding! The children adored him. Last year at this time they had begun to fill the sea chest for his first voyage with the Iceland fleet. Together they had saved their pennies to buy sweet, sticky ginger and chocolate and biscuits to tuck into the corners as surprises. Guen had knit socks and hemmed towels. Grandmother had made the underclothing. Finally, together, they had fashioned the tarpaulins, which were to keep Uncle Ives dry in the worst of storms. Grandmother had cut and sewed them on the machine with three and four rows of stitching. Then they had dipped them in oil; and the children had dragged them out to the hillside and spread them on the bushes to dry, weighting them down with stones, turning them to the sun and the wind, bringing them out each day anew and taking them in at night. At last the three coatings of oil were dry, and the suit was light and tough and waterproof. How they had laughed when Uncle Ives had tried it on, and had pulled the huge stocking feet of the trousers over his boots! Before he sailed he had asked them what they wished him to bring them from Iceland, just as the father of the three daughters in the fairy story did. They could not say, not knowing what things there might be in Iceland; but Ives had brought walrus teeth to the boys, a sack of eiderdown to Grandmother, and dolls in quaint native costume to the girls. And then, just as they thought they had him back again, he had started off with the Jeanot to buy salt for next year’s catch!

THEY HAD WAVED GOOD-BYE TO HIM

They had waved good-bye to him, and watched until the Jeanot was a white fleck beyond the islands. Now all that was bright in life seemed to have been dashed to pieces on the black rocks of Biscay.

Michel pushed his way through the gorse, which pricked thickly about him. At the summit of the headland stood a great stone cross, its carvings worn by centuries of wind and brine. Here women who had waited long for men at sea came to pray. On the step, with his cap pressed to his breast, Michel knelt. His heart was too full to pray in words. Besides, what could he say if God did not already know how much he wanted Uncle Ives back?

Below him spread the bay, a sweep of pale gold. Tiny islands, rose and lavender, or velvety black where the seaweed clung to them, studded the surface like gems. A row of twisted pine trees followed the line of the opposite shore.

After a while Michel stood up, and shading his eyes, gazed seaward. There where the straits led into the open channel lay the Isle of Breha, and round its point came the Paimpol fishing fleet returning for the night. As they drew nearer Michel could distinguish each boat by some well-known mark as one can tell a neighbor’s cow by a crumpled horn or the white patches on its flanks. There was the high curved prow of Raoul’s boat, a black and green trawler. There was the orange patch on Jean Baptiste’s gray sail. Among the well-known boats there was a stranger with tawny sails and a bulky hull larger than the rest. What boat was that? Pricked by a boy’s curiosity, Michel forgot his grief. If he raced back by way of the beach he might reach the wharf almost as soon as the boats reached it.