Under Sail

by Lincoln Colcord

"Thank you" Captain Bradley gave a wry smile "I think I can fulfil my duties. I'll try to give satisfaction, sir"

He had not told them of his own relation to the Viking, fearing the injection of sentiment into a business-like application. That afternoon he joined his old command, at forty dollars a month and all found.

He would not have called it a stroke of luck in the other days. How incredible, then, to look ahead, would have seemed the natural development that time had wrought. Could he have foreseen the end that he was coming to, he would have blown out his brains. But life had accomplished it easily and inexorably; failure had at last ground down the keen edge of his spirit, disappointment had rounded off the corners of his imperative nature. As he stepped across the rail of the barge Viking, only a great and pathetic happiness found place in his heart. His fight was finished. He had kept his pride at too terrible a cost. Now he gave it up, freely, gladly. Perhaps he would be allowed to die in peace, aboard the ship that had shared his better days.

Fine old ship—life had gone hard with her, too. The lofty masts and spreading spars had been lopped away; nothing remained above decks but the three lower masts. The decks themselves were grimy with coal dust; the woodwork had not seen paint for years. How well Captain Bradley remembered her appearance, when, spick and span from the shipyard, the best production of her day, he had taken her on her maiden voyage. It seemed impossible that a whole era of such intense human activity could so completely disappear, carrying its lore, its lessons, its origins, its very worth and meaning, into the oblivion of time. An economic empire had passed away.

Dingy, battered, neglected, yet Captain Bradley loved the old vessel—loved her all the more for the hard knocks she had seen. A sentiment that he had thought to be dead reawoke in his heart. He had not known, he had not dared to admit, how much he had missed her. He felt as if he had come home.

His duties were light. There were on the barge four men besides himself. He found time to clean her up. After every loading or discharging, he would have the decks thoroughly swept and washed down, and all the paintwork scrubbed. Later, out of his own pocket (he had no use for money now), he bought paint and freshened her appearance about decks; for the coal company, knowing that she would not last much longer, would provide nothing for upkeep. The cabin, the scene of so much that was sacred to him, he scrubbed and painted with his own hands, spending many quiet hours over the task while the barge was towing up and down the coast. It was a labour of peace and love.

For a long while the matter of sails gave Captain Bradley deep concern. The barge was rigged on the three lower masts with fore-and-aft sails, to be used in an emergency, when she had broken adrift from her tow. Often these sails would be set to assist her progress when the wind was fair. Smothered in coal dust, exposed to sun and rain, the first suit that had been given her as a barge was now worn out; the canvas would hardly hold together to be hoisted. Not that Captain Bradley cared a pin for his own safety; nothing would have better pleased him than to be lost at sea aboard the Viking. But the condition offended his sense of seamanship and responsibility. It was an indecency to the old ship to fail to provide her with the ordinary weapons of battle; and there were other lives than his involved.

At length, seeing that it was hopeless to expect her owners to furnish the barge with a new suit of sails, he began to save his money. In a year's time he had laid up enough to supply them at his own expense. It seemed like a touch of the old seafaring activity to be drawing up their specifications; he ordered thick duck and stout bolt-ropes, for this was to be a suit of real heavy-weather sails. When, one afternoon under the coal chute at Perth Amboy, he was able to stow away this strong white canvas in the lazaret, together with a couple of coils of first-grade Manila for reeving off new sheets and halyards, he felt that he could go to sea again with a clear conscience.

That evening he sat for a long while alone in the cabin. The interest of looking over and stowing away the sails had passed; he saw the truth now, saw how things really stood. Buying a suit of sails for a coal barge: was it for this that he had spent his hard apprenticeship, had learned and practised the intricate lore of the sea? He could remember greater triumphs. For two hours of grim thought he sat with hands clenched on the arms of the chair, facing the world's defeat without surrender. In his heart of heart he knew that he had not failed. He had kept respect and dignity, saved his honour, been true to himself through it all.

He sat on into the night; the storied cabin enclosed him as if with loving arms; slowly, as the mood of revolt wore away, his mind drifted back into the old days. He remembered how his wife used to sit there beside him, on evenings at sea, busy with her sewing; he remembered how little Frankie used to come running in. These things had happened so often, so naturally. But not for a long, long time....