I WILL STRONGLY POINT OUT THAT THERE ARE NOT REA PEOPLE IN THESE STORIES

It was a chilly afternoon of December when saw Orlov, standing in a queue,  with the well-fed disembarking passengers lining up for the passport control in the ferry terminal. He looked down and was dressed in a shabby suit. His only luggage a plastic bag,  I saw him moving with halting steps slowly across the hall. I had recognised him at once although we haven't seen each other for two years. I waited while he got out of customs then went up to him. We exchanged casual greetings. Because I had still plenty of time and his train wouldn't depart until later in the evening, I proposed we could move into the nearest pub to have a couple of beers. He gave a slight nod for approval, so we went to a pub near the quayside.

When we were sat at the table and beers were put before us, I asked him: "How is your love life? Is it still alive?"

He made no answer.

"I mean the girl whom you met during the last revolution?"

"Oh, you mean Plum. She's gone."

"I'm sorry."

He sat quietly for a while. Then took from his pocket a pouch of tobacco and a packet of cigarette papers and started to roll a cigarette. "Never mind," he said, looking out of the window, there was the darkening street. The window faced onto the harbour. It was getting dark, and the lamps aloft on the pylon had come on and now illuminated the quayside. A ferry with a luminous row of windows was just approaching the mouth of the harbour, and another was heading out to sea, its lights glistening on the black surface of the water. The ferries sailed in  and out, and I could see through the window how the restless crowds swarmed, ready to embark. There were the taxis, rushing to the front of the terminal, and uniformed chauffeurs lifting out the baggage. A group of men emerged from one of them.

Orlov turned his face towards me. "Do you know Oskar?" he asked.

I nodded. Of course, I knew the man. Oskar was a well-known businessman; he was a man whose worth no one knows for sure, only I knew he spent plenty of energy and money on women of all ages and on all colours.

Orlov produced a crumpled paper from his pocket. He handed the paper over the table to me. It was a piece of a newspaper a few weeks old. It was an article about some shipwreck been taken place in the northern Baltic Sea. According to the newspaper, a gale had blown at nearly force nine. A tugboat happened to be near and had received the request for help.

"For this," Orlov said, pointing at the paper, "I owe thanks to Oskar. Oskar had arranged some jobs for me, not long ago. To tell the truth, a job has been hard to come by, as you know."

He put the clipping back into his pocket. He gulped down the rest of his beer and, after sweeping foam from his beard, gave me a tired look. "There was not any general request for help. I have to tell you the whole tale."

It was almost a year ago when anybody had pay wages for my trouble. I used to call the jobs as troubles because so they had been in the most case with the employers. I had been without a regular job for a while, little money or empty pockets, and not doing anything particular onshore. Such extreme desperate circumstances can produce drastic ideas for a job. I started looking for a ship to purchase. The thought of starting something of my own urged itself upon me.

After a few days wandering I found one of those kinds of a coaster, put laid up for sale in a tiny dock in south Finland. She was a small craft all right, an old vessel. I was told that she was brought from Germany. The price wasn't such a large sum of money, about fifty of thousand was talking about, but my outlaw reputation must have shocked the bank managers. They didn't say directly that my loan application would be rejected. I just received a letter by mail politely saying that they were sorry, but they could not loan me the funds.

I hinted of the matter to Oskar. One evening I was receiving a phone call, there was Oskar.

"Your ship is berthed in Helsinki now. We drove her over because we didn't know where you were. The boys aboard the ship are already fixing and polishing her up. Hep, hep." There was nothing else, the line went silent. That's all. Your ship. What a ship?

I stuffing some shirts and things into my Yankee bag I took the train to Helsinki.

By afternoon I found her berthed alongside the oldest side of the harbour, secured at the wharf. There she laid, a moody ship, with her The bows up, There were seen the regular joints of rivets running on the grey side plates. She was an old-fashioned ship, an ancient mariner, She was built in some shipyard before the nazi-Germany era. I was supposed to be the captain on her.

When approaching the ship I had a feeling that the mouth of the ventilation horns was staring right at me, but the feeling vanished as I got climbed on the deck. She had a close wheelhouse on the after part of the ship with the red teak command bridge. I could recognise the typical pre-war fashion, and I could feel the spirit of the past still breathing out of the shadows of the ship. No doubt, she was one of the last of the old shipping cultures, like an old precious lady, with roundness on her forms.

There were faint creaks under my steps on the ladder of the wooden companionway as I descended. The saloon itself under the quarterdeck was panelled with mahogany and provided with heavy furniture and the atmosphere, in the pale natural light from the skylight, was very navigational. In such environment you could still felt a faint odour of the old after-shave lotion mixed with the smell of the Florida water, and Keratin that the sailors used in those good days. and the smell of tar and diesel in the air as well. All those colourful smells around the shipboard were just a typical patina of sea life. I continued my way down to the passage of the crew's quarters and found a hole in the floor, eaten away by corrosion. When I got down on my knees to peep into the hole I perceived an empty water tank beneath. The water dripping in the darkness sounded like a pulse of an echo sounder.

Up on deck, I went again, rubbing my eyes for a while in the daylight I continued my way up the bridge. The sliding door of the wheelhouse was ajar and I entered the room where the huge wheel stood in the middle of the wheelhouse. That narrow place was filled with the old-fashioned apparatus of navigation. A worn chart was lying on the chart table, its colours faded by sunlight and there were circular prints to be seen on its surface the prints of countless coffee cups. The chart locker situated under the desk; I drew out the drawer and began leafing through the old sea charts. The main part of the charts went back to the war. It was possible to find the stamps of swastikas, and I could still read the "Kringmarine" stamped on the corners of the charts.there was also such rareness like a bearing-plate with the original swastika ornament.

It took me half an hour to inspect the small ship. You didn't need to be a sailor to understand that the ship had been a long time out of use.

getting complete my survey I descended on deck.

There were some runners on the main deck hammering rust off the hatchway collars. The noise of hammers struck my ears, I exchanged some words with the men on the deck without any particular meaning, she was a remarkable relic from the good old days, but could she make long-distance journeys without extreme heroism? There was no answer.

Before evening, Palconik came on board. He was an unusual man. He had once asked me whether one had to have a specific education or view of life. It never dawned on me what he really meant by that. His physical appearance was unusual too; he was large and muscular. His red beard, which seemed to give him a partisan outlook, was trimmed with much care. He was a man who could very well be fifty or forty from the manner of his dress. However, one with a trained eye could easily observe at once that all his clothes, from buckle boots up to his leather jacket, were costly and a good grade.

He greeted me in his peculiar singing voice. "There is the captain on board and the Lord in heaven." (The master-next the God) Then he added, "I have nothing to do with this business, but when are you ready to sail?"

"Where are we sailing for?"

"Well, to Riga, I guess."

I hesitated for a moment.

"The vessel is not seaworthy yet. We are short of men; the mate and the mechanic."

He shrugged, turned away, and paid no more attention to me. There were whispers inside my head. It was the seaman's experience that advised me; withdraw in good order and in good time from this ship and for this company and go ashore as soon as possible. No sane man can stay on board a vessel like this. Just when I had made up my mind to do so, I remembered the saying about rats that abandon the ship before she sinks, and in this circle, the sense would be emphasised. So I settled in the captain's cabin and decided to stay for a while.

The next morning brought the chief mate on board. I saw someone in a white coat, struggling with a huge suitcase on the gangway. When the whole of the fellow finally rose in sight from behind the bulwark, and stood on deck, breathing heavily under his burden, I saw that he was a lanky young fellow in his white suit. He was just a boy. We saluted each other with curses and handshakes. He told me he had been at the Navigation College and had graduated as a quartermaster. After a short chat, I led him below into small dim cabin belonging to the chief mate. The boy's eyes widened a little when he entered this cubby- hole, and from the way he chucked his suitcase onto the settee, I realised that he will not unload it in this vessel.

I introduced him the ship, and when we walked on deck his spirits rose. He recalled his sea times been serving on board his first vessel as a deck boy. "Can you understand?" he exclaimed. "It's already worn two years since then, the time goes so fast," and those two years seemed to have been a long time for him.

We wandered around the ship, inspecting the vessel. We were more interested in her past than her future. The boy kept talking all the time, about this and that, as though he were trying to conceal his uncertainty behind his constant flood of words. He only paused when pointing out some object eaten by rust on the deck: "I wonder what this could be?"

He was young, inspired and enthusiastic, but he scarcely had the experience to recognise the ship's second anchor.

The next days were sunny, and they evaporated the doubt about the vessel's age and her bad condition.

At noon, the mechanic, Smith, and the engineer arrived on board.

The blacksmith was a stubby bald-headed man; his round moon face was covered with dried black carbon and oil. The engineer was entirely different; it was evident that he wasn't a typical seaman at all. He was a blond, delicate human being and he wore thin steel-rimmed glasses. At once I realised that he had his family disposition. His entire essence and manner were withdrawing and embarrassing, He seemed to be afraid and awkward all the time. His manner and outlook very much reminded of a clergyman. He suited poorly amongst the crowd like us, on board the dilapidated freighter that could sail anywhere.

The boy and I were installing the Nautex unit in the wheelhouse when Palconick made another visit on board. This time he was accompanied by a middle-aged man whom he called Sambo.

TWO CAPTAINS

by Harry Tobin.

REFANULT

By Harry Tobin

Ginsberg wasn't much more than thirty years of his age; he was slim and tall with a pale complexion and had unusual eyes.

There was something like eyes of a deep-sea fish, they seemed to be subject to unusual fluctuation of their color, altering between blue and grimy grey, depending on how long his drinking-bout lasted.

He was a drunkard, and so susceptible for alcohol that after a few bottles of beer, he was unable to make out which color an oncoming ship was showing.

His body was weakened by alcohol so that he could suddenly, and- without warning-fall over like a person with epilepsy. After a single tumble of this kind, he had hurt his head, and there was an indentation on the right side, just under his blonde hairline.

Being sober, he was quiet and tame, but getting just a glassful of vodka he got drunk, and a significant change came over his appearance. The drunk really took the upper hand of him for he then became contentious and he started cries with high-pitched stone, like a drunken woman.

In spite of this physical and mental lameness, he had the sea captain tickets in his pocket, and, with referring for that merit of rating, he naturally held permission to act, as the master on board for any range and any size of vessels.

The document, the honorable title and the certificate of competence had given him pieces of bread then and now. He had never gotten a job or opportunity as the master on board a ship before, so he hasn't faced the possibility of losing his captain's ticket, There was only one exception when he had ran into an incident that led to the risk of losing his ticket.

The episode took place in the archipelago, in a domestic trade when he was making a voyage with a Barge, fully loaded with sand. And during that voyage, he had taken a glass or two of vodka then got drunk and then disappeared.

How long time he had been out of the wheelhouse, before the Helman, got worried and slow down the engine and began hooting and calling after his skipper.

Ginsberg had been hiding in the stern nook of the barge, and there he was asleep and high as a kite.

The deckman now with bewildered mind began to hail for help from the boats of pass buyers, he also had gulped up half a bottle of vodka and was entirely unable to do anything.

For the sake of this case, Ginsberg nearly lost his master ticket.

However, the authorities of the National Board of Navigation - after inquiry, just considered to canceling his ticket for a while which didn't prevent him from servicing onboard as an o/s

Ginsberg spent his leisure time in a public bar named Cookie. He sat there among the no seamen. There were two sorts of people around him, some of them boasted being once or twice afloat in a vessel of local traffic, and there were men as well, who never been set their foot on the deck of a ship of any kind.

What they shared with themselves was the familiar feeling of drunkards with a deep sense of drunken comradeship, and for all of them,-he was

the captain.

It was a day in middle winter when Ginsberg got back his ticket and got a sign on a ship as the master; the vessel was a coaster and she bore a biblical name as Refanult.

The muster occasion took place in a room of the port admiration, it was a formal and respected occasion for a seagoing crew so that at the end of it, Ginsberg became the official master of the freighter Refanult.

His documents in his hand, wearing his white-blue jacked he stood by the table of the mustering office. He was sober, and there was no sign of inability to be found in his manner or his appearance, standing there waiting his turn to sign the ship's article, he gave an impression of a reliable seafarer.

It was a cloudy midwinter day in the most unstable season of the year when a northern could blow for days causing troubles at the sea and was asked hard work at the shipping business and kept the seafarers stand-by.

Extreme changes could exist over the sea, and all kind of change of the weather above the sea, and on the shore as well, it could be frozen hard during a night, and ice growing on the ship's antennas and rails with white mantle, by the evening the cold was breaking down. Then there was the fog, spreading over the sea and coast such conditions were eating the nerve of the seafarers,

MV Refanult was a coaster, little more than a thousand tons of capacity, and she was fitted with old techniques and provided with poor stores. She too much looked like a rusting hulk with her rusted broadsides.

According to the ship's classing certificates and the classifications of the vessel, she had licensed for sail near the coast only.

Ignoring this point of safety and the surveyor made his engagement notes for the seaworthiness to the muster roll in the compliance by demand of the shipowner Mr Hollow, who requested that the ship must be labeled with the stamp which proved the ship as seaworthy for the voyage.

The surveyor was well aware of her limitations, but the usual corruption, which gave him a permanent asset of the duty-free whiskey and American cigarettes obligated him taken a less sharp look over the rules.

There was the crew in this muster room to join. A man about thirty, solid build, lowering faced a young man in his prime. He stood there upright with his mate's certificate in his pocket.

Despite his gloomy outlook, he was very obedient. One could know that there was a haunting shadow of fear in his young mind; it has link to his experience at sea. He has been badly traumatized during his previous voyage. He had been acting as the third mate aboard a ship named 'Cannibal.' and quite well remembered that early morning when he had been in charge as the duty officer on the bridge. He couldn't forget it. There had been an unknown ship in the situation as 'close quarter,' close in a collision, and that unknown vessel nearly rammed his ship with her large bows as an ax ready to fall and with the terrible sound of her loud horn.

After this traumatic experience, he had settled onshore, keeping his

decision; leave the sea forever, never accept a job as the mate on

board a ship anymore.

Now he was standing there waiting for his turn to sign, he was going to the sea again. His mate certificate stood there because the official roll of the crew was short of the license, not short of skillful men. So he had approved the request of the shipowner Mr. Hollow, to join the ship, only with a particular clause, which will give him the position and rank on board as an able seaman without any responsibility of the navigation.

"No problem," Mr Hollow assured him.

"If you wish to be just as the 'metros, 'you can be the matrons. 'It's

only the certificate of competency I need."

He signed the engagement, which indicated him as an able

seaman on board and he firmly pointed out that matter of fact for everyone.

When a man is going to sea, after been living a long time on shore with his lovely wife, been settled in their regular life, there must be some other reason go to sea as the sea itself. Perhaps a man long accustomed to living daily life onshore became bored and wanted little more attention for himself and he could then wishing to take a ship and go to the danger of the seas, for, him, as a man, the sea has always been the focus of the hero worship.

There were two men left in the muster room. A young fellow an ordinary seaman, no more than eighteen years of his age, he was going to join as a first trip man. He was a fisherman who had made his living by fishing in a boat like a dory on the inshore water.

The last one who was going to join aboard the vessel Refanult - wasn't quite old either, perhaps less than forty of age. He was a man with sobers look and wealthy outlook. In spite of the sign for ab seaman, he, in reality, become the real captain and commander on board the Refanult.

He had served his time as skipper limited trade that entitled him to act as a master on board for the Baltic Sean with his home trade certificate. Now the ship was bound far over the limitation and by the formally, he could declare competent on board as an able seaman only. His name was Peter, and he was nicknamed and called by his friend, as Peter per mil, and with this nickname, he was well known along the coast and in the seaports. He had earned that kind of epithet by his habit to wight man's ability. "No worth of his salt', was heard him saying, or "it's three per mil of man". He had gained his reputation as the as tug master, and was coming to know as a caple man and would be able to handle a ships and the men in them.

A couple of days ago the phone had ringed and the owner Mr.

Hollow had been online.

"Would you like to drive a trip by the ship little?" Mr Hollow

asked. That; trip-by ship 'sounded odd to Peter's ears. He always thought that navigation is something more than a ride.

There was a little barrack-like hut standing nearby the dock, It was the office of the well-known shipowner Hollow, and there was the company's arm,

The arm was there, decorated on the outer wall aside from the exterior door. The picture was made with white paint on the plate with a blue background; at once anyone could find its made with very dubious hands and there was curious

a tableau of ship's anchor with a tangle of cable, It was indefinite

tangle and in the center of the figure it read, written in white letters;

the Christian name of shipowner Mr. Hollow.

The hut was small, and so were the rooms in it.

Peter opened the door and entered the small room. The room was divided into two equal portions by the inner wall. In the first room

were two pale-faced women in their daily duty of the bookkeeping.

In this room were all the bookkeeping documents and all the necessary paper needed to run the ship management so that the other

the room which was the room of the boss and director; was, almost empty.

There wasn't anything but a maritime calendar hanging on the wall of the room, and a writing pad on the table.

Mr Hollow lifted his head and waved Peter to sit down opposite the table. Mr Hollov was a short lean, tiny man. He has a narrow shaped gull, weak chin with small fish eyes and sand-colored hair. These didals made him look very much, like some grey human rat.

.

With his watery grey eyes, he stared at Peter.

"Sit down and take off your hat. You got my ring?"

"Yes, I got it. and here I'm".

Peter sat, saying nothing for a while.

'' I 'll put you as the captain aboard. How does it sound to you? Hollola said.

"I dond know. Boud where?"

" For Sant Malo".

"It's a long way".

"If you don't want to embark, say it now. If you are not satisfied, say it now, and I will find some other".

"I have just the home trade certificate, not enough to sail out of the baltic sea".

"There will be not a problem at all," he said." Let's mix this pack

of cards, and you will be the captain on board the Aku. Of course,

formally you are an able seaman, but as I said, in practice, you act as the

captain. You will have the captain's cabin and all the power."

"I don't know," Peter said with a hesitated mind.

. "It sounds odd. How could You warrant that the boy will agree that all? The boy could draw

his head full and cancel all my authority and rise one hell of a row."

"He must." the voice of the boss was firm. "The boy has been a long

time here, and I know him. I can't entrust the ship to him. The boy

had got his bread from here. He will be obedient for that. We here

will hold on to the rule to decide who will be the captain of our vessels.

I, from here shall inform every port you will call at. I will let everybody know-all of them, that you are the captain on board. If there will

arise any conflict between you and the boy, I can give my word that you can

sent the boy home along the soil ground, by the birth's way. The boy

will serve on the board as the chief mate, and you will have an able

seaman as well onboard who hold the mate's receipt if you fall into a problem with the authorities. It's up to you."

The speech of the mall man was firm and purposeful, there was

specific security in his speech as at the statement of a country preacher who assures

that any bad things cannot touch them, who are authorized by the Lord.

"You can go home now, rest overnight," Hollow added. "I can

take care of the loading, there will be loading the granite up to the nine

a hundred tons and timber on it five hundred tons. You come then,

tomorrow afternoon. The loading ought to be ready then."

Peter rose and went out. When he closed the door behind him, he

heard Hollow shouted after him. "See tomorrow ."

Peter paced his way along the quayside, then he stopped for a while and

light a cigarette. He could see Refanult moored at the opposed side of the dock, she laid haight with no cargo and there was bustle on the quay as the stevedoring prepared to start the loading. The short northern daylight had turned dark and the deck lights burned above the deck. A black figure of human appeared in the galley's doorway, standing there and

smoking. The character remained for a while in the door, then the

cigarette blew over the side, and the human shape disappeared from the deck.

Peter continued his walk, he wanted to walk a little a bit to think and work out

the kinks that sounded in his mind, still didn't find the way out. He

knew Mr Hollow for many years and also the way in which Hollow

always crewed the ships with the crew as an alcoholic and various

derelicts. That surprised him, for he was accustomed considered the

vessels have been such a costly thing that they need to pay special attention, then

he remembered how low the wages were cut and how much the

crew gets the payments, and the whole thing did not surprise him.

Sauntering he came up to his car. He sat in a while on the driver

returned unable to decide where he wanted to drive to. He felt a little

longing for home, well knowing that he wasn't home anymore. Then

he started the engine of the car and got the car moving he drove aimless without a destination, some thought drew him to the old home and he nosed the car to the highway.

The house stood on the hill with snow on the steps. A woman with

She top-not opened the door.

"You here."

"Yes, It's me."

"What spring you here?"

"I was driving the past and though I could see in."

"Come in then," the woman said and held the door open.

Peter went in and tried to find out some signs for welcoming and

of kindliness expression, but there wasn't anything like that.

"I will set the sail to-morrow," Peter said.

"Good. Then you will have money for alimony."

The woman went into another room, she was sizeable blond female with

her alto tone.

Peter sat in the kitchen while she made her up before the mirror.

There was neither coffee nor the air of familiarity.

"I've got out to the party," the woman said from the other room.

"I had a problem with the babysitter. You are here now so you can

be the babysitter tonight. Take care of your boy over the night. Can

you?"

Peter nodded, he had a vague feeling, and with a

disappointed, he wished to run away, far away, somewhere off from

this nerve-wracking ambiance in which he strongly felt been

as a strange visitor. When she appeared her outlook was changed.

She was now masked with a colored makeup like a harlot of

Babylon and she were dressed in a black tight fitted skirt that made her

looked good, when she walked past by the table, Peter by

sudden impulse tried to catch her, but she took evasion action. "Teak

It easy," she snapped. Peter sat and felt himself being like a residue

of the past in the kitchen.

It was afternoon when Peter drove his car back to the port. The

loading had completed a while ago, and the cargo hatches were

closed. The vessel laid deep in the water, and she seemed to lie

by her nose. The white painted draft marks' on stern sunk into the water and there was just seen above the water level the footmarks;

twelve feet.

Upon arriving on the pier, Mr. Hollow greeted him with hail:

"You see. The ship is ready for sea. Tell them to be ready

for the start. I will cast off the mooring lines so we can save the money

little."

Mr Hollow has been busy, so busy that to care for the supervising

of the loading have neglected, or, perhaps Hollow didn't

know anything about such task as loading the cargo. The ship

wasn't sea-shape at all. When boarding Peter found a lot of loose

gears laying there and here on the deck, and in the passage, even on the

floor of the captain's cabin was covered with numerous of

cardboard cases from the ship-chandler these boxes were filled with the duty-free

Export for the ship's crew to be used at the open sea only. Among

these gears ran men back and fro. Peter didn't surprise the

eagerness with which Mr. Hollow arranged the ship's departure.

"Stand by!" bawled Hollow. "Not waste time, captain. Out

she is out she shall go."

Peter took her out from the harbor, there was no critic nor did

protest from Ginsberg who seemed consent to the rule of the play.

The day was one of a northern winter day when there is not enough

natural light to see the passage in ice and the lamps must be

burn night and day. The initial part of the voyage leads through the

icy western archipelago. Peter was taken her on to a particular

passage which cries out unique know-how and was obligated to every outbound, and inbound vessels keep a pilot aboard to be

ensured the ship's safety traveling. Peter knew the principal rule of the seafaring.

However, the waters and the passage both were familiar to him.

With her steady speed of the eight knots, he proceeds toward the open sea.

She had been loaded with the cargo of granite rocks bound for St. Malo

in France, and this port of destination now lies beyond four days run. There was partly frozen passage, and the ice floes were rumbling against the bow as she moved.

The young fisherman was standing at the helm on his first journey abroad. He was active with muscle and bone, and he was as tall as

sailors want to be. He held the wheel with blacksmith's hand and

watched the compass with watchful eyes. Peter stood beside him

keeping an eye on the channel that was looming out of the white and

black field of loses ice. The dark greyish day was turning a minute

after minute darker.

In the pale dawn breaking the ship reached the open sea and the

grey waves lifted and fall her in a saw motion, making her also

roll from side to side and sometimes sipped water through the

scuppers over the deck.

Ginsberg took over at six o'clock in the morning, Peter remained in the wheelhouse till the daylight and when

she was clearing the last and he

went down to the captain's cabin to rest, the bow split the empty grey sea ahead, the

compass showed her running almost dual south.

The forecastle head was low, and there was noise as rattle each

time as the bows fell against waves and every time there could see

a small spout as the seawater burst up from the nostril of the anchors.

Ginsberg had his watch on the bridge from six to twelve.

After the first sea day, the weather got milder, and the fog appeared like a thief in the night. Now there was one more risk, the fog blanking the sea around the ship, so tight, that the sea and the sky obscured by the wet fog and a part of the forecastle beyond vision.

If you ever have sailed in old ships, owned by second-hand shipowners,

then you have also met a ship's brownie. It's seaman as

well, a low rate seamanlike an ordinary seaman or an oilier,

ruined by alcohol and homelessness. In each old ship carry in her a ship

brownie.

Onboard the motor vessel Aku, this brownie was the

engine, assistant. He was a pitiful man, full of wow and

inconceivable dirty, rejected by the life and emollient by the

alcohol. He was moving about there and hereby oneself, doing

something in the engine room and sometimes cooking something in

the ship's galley.

He was a refugee of the sea, the ship gave him refuge and the

regular meals and the duty-free, and in return he was given

his name on the crew list and filled the gap which prevented the ship become

short-handed.-pitiable would have been more

an accurate description of this man, unseaworthy as the ship herself, he dwelled.

Just like all drunkards, he felt dissatisfied with his position aboard, according to his own account, he has been long enough on board to earning A better paid and a better role aboard.

in this internal competing hierarchy onboard- which occur

and haunt in all this kind of establishment in which malcontents spend

their time in their mutual proportion and where all the social relations

are bound to the official rank value of a man and seasoned to

bidding for the next man above.

With her bow down the ship ran into the fog like a ragged ghost upon

The silent sea, laden with blocks of rock and timber. Sure enough

there was an ominous similarity between the ship itself and the crew in

She and the unique nature of the cargo as if these stones in the cargo hold

were lowered there to ensure the destiny of the ship and the crew in

it, to be sure that the sea will have them before they see their

home port again.

There were two men aboard this small floating world. Two

human beings with human power and with the will of their own, so it

might have been enough to save the biblical cities of 'Sonoda' and the

'Gomoda' from their destruction.

They were Peter and the fisherman.

With resolute minds and by sheer will of their own they did resist the

course of events on board. The fisherman was a young, healthy mind

and built. He was perfect contrary to the other crew

member. He did all his duty in time and without complaints. He did

not stand on the side of anybody against someone else. He was

independent and courageous, what he didn't know, he asked and

learn. The basis of his genotype must have been well. Otherwise, he

couldn't have been as he was.

The fifth member of the crew was the engineer. He was a man of

forty years of his age with massive bulk, sluggish and flat-faced

And there was something incompatible in his being, it was something

phlegmatic and restless at the same time. According to his' resume.'

He had been working before as a digger contractor. How he had got

into a business like ship's engines, it is another story. He seemed

suffered some kind of later identity crisis of puberty, and his body was

all the time restless, and he suffered from compulsive movements.

When he stood his legs alternated restless all the time at their place.

When he sat, he jiggled his legs under the table. When he wandered

about the bridge, his fingers ran over the clutch

Connectors. He suffered an of melancholia, and then he did not

answer a question, the feel being nobody has tortured him through

His whole life and ruined his manhood. Everywhere he had sought a

a position where he could be better than another, and he had

the continuous desire to be the boss and the commander, he felt proud

every time when someone calls him the Chief, by the title which belongs

to the ships' chief-engineers, then he lifted his chin and was

pleased with this title.

The confused internal relations of the command aboard the vessel

were well known among the crew and it was an excellent substrate to the

growing problem aboard.

In the evening, Peter came up on the bridge and took over the

watch. The clock was ten to six, it was already dark as it is in this

season on these latitudes. Swells were running, long and low,

from the west, Peter noticed the rolling movement of the ship, the center of the gravity was small; it caused the vessel rolling to the right

and left like a pendulum clock.

The Matros stood at the corner of the wheelhouse, he was standing

there as a lookout, Peter could see his dark figure against the

window. Matros stir, it was just subtle movement, and he continued

to stare out of the window. There was nothing to be seen in this fog

and darkness outside the ship.

Such a routine on the bridge continued day and night and

t ox-eye lamb above the chart table illuminated

the surface of the navigation chart laying on the table.

The grey, wet dusk of the day had turned into the darkness with fog and

the night pitch dark. Having been written the events of the watch in the

logbook, Ginsberg draws a small cross with a pen on the chart to pick pointing the

position of the ship. After that, he stretched oneself up to see the

navigator set on the wall above of the chart table. He first surveyed the

route points, which he has entered there. Then he restores the set to

be operating on the coordination display which he well knew Peter's

will to use, with that observation he concluded that

Peter is unable to use the route-point sailing

system, a conclusion like that affirmed his self-esteem and his position

aboard.

Pacing across the wheelhouse, Ginsberg glanced into the

gyrocompass and announced the course keeping on, after that he

went down by the ladder. Peter took over and checked the radar.

The flasher showed no ship or obstruction on the radar screen, and

then he took a look at the steering compass and stood beside it

watching it for a moment.

Outside the ship, there was anything to be seen but the waste emptiness of the sea and the fog, there was no benchmark to the human eyes, not a light neither. Peter made his routine watch from six o'clock to midnight. A few minutes later when he returned to the radar he found two pips appeared on the screen, there were two pips of unknown ships, far ahead, the pips were faint and still in the right distance. He picked up the binoculars and walked out to the left-wing of the bridge. To aim the binoculars were hard to set without the visible horizon to be fixed the objective of binoculars, still looking through the darkness Peter couldn't find out anything. However, there were two vessels conveyance by a human.

The weather was bitter cold, and the fog got tighter and tighter. The motor vessels Aku makes her way in this wet emptiness through the mist and water. Upon the calm sea the fog and the black night and the sea, these three distinct elements became interlocked together as a single one.

During the next night, the vessel passed a bright point glowing on

the radar's display unit, it was the beacon off the southern tip of the

'Soda Udder.'

Inside the cold and moisture fog, far out of sight of human eyes,

out there were several small grafts on their way steering on a

variable courses, the 'pips 'of shine spots of flash

on the screen of the radar, it seemed as if all the fisherman had set off

Starting their trawling on the same night. By the evening and during

the followed night those place changing 'pips' flamed up

And died as a restless swarm of fire beetle on the radar's screen. Peter

knew it could mean an agitated light of an unknown vessel, then

it may be too late to tell which way she was hearing, any moment from this