Sometimes, however, the find would turn out to be fool’s gold, as it was the time I bought a 1,200-foot coil of condemned one-inch manila rope for 10 shillings, sight unseen, only to discover that it should have remained sight unseen, forever.
In time the officers in charge of the depot became interested in our activities, and set aside items which they thought we could use. In this way we acquired such things as a ton of truck springs (for inside ballast), an Air Force compass (which we used all the way around the world), a big bilge pump (still in use), an aluminum gas tank from a crashed plane (our deck water tank), and dozens of other items, great and small.
No amount of searching, however, would dig up the outside keel we had to have cast by a foundry, or a marine engine (ordered from America), or our sails (made in Yokohama), or the many special deck irons, or the rigging. In cases such as these, I had to do it the hard way.
By September, work had progressed far enough so that we felt it was high time to decide on a name for our craft. My preference was for Daruma, the Japanese doll with a rounded bottom and the well-known ability to bounce upright every time it was pushed over. The Japanese have a saying about the daruma: “Nana korobi, ya oki!—Down seven times, up eight!” I liked those odds very much. So, when our Japanese language teacher and very good friend, Mr. Yamada, next visited us, we broached the subject.
“Daruma....” Mr. Yamada said, slowly tasting the word. “Yes-s-s ... very good.” From his tone we knew he really meant not worth a plugged yen. What we didn’t know at that time was that to the Japanese the daruma also connotes a lady of easy virtue, for obvious reasons.
“Maybe something else would be better?” Barbara said, giving him an out.
“I think so—maybe something else,” agreed Mr. Yamada. “I will think about it.”
On his next visit Mr. Yamada did not bring up the subject of the boat’s name directly. That was not his way. But he did produce a 10-yen note and point out to us the mythical bird engraved across its face, the phoenix. And during the rest of the evening the word “phoenix” seemed to recur frequently in our conversation. “We Japanese hold phoenix in very great esteem.... One of the rooms in the Imperial Palace is called Phoenix Room. It is most beautiful.” More importantly, Mr. Yamada had written out for us, in his amazingly neat script, an account of the place of the phoenix in Oriental mythology—“He is legendary king of the birds appearing to reign only in time of universal peace.” In turn Mr. Yamada seemed both awed and incredulous when we told him of the Western concept: that the phoenix is eternally born again from the ashes of its own destruction.
“Perhaps—world peace—shall rise from the ashes of Hiroshima,” he murmured.
“Mr. Yamada,” I asked, “what would you think of the name of Phoenix for our boat?”