The great, unobstructed passage, through which fishermen every summer go to Iceland, had already been sailed by Yann for a day.
When they started singing their old songs, the southern wind had blown, and all the ships, sails alive, had broken down when the seagulls were lying on the sea.
Then the wind had started to settle down and the pace had diminished, the fog running along the surface of the water.
Yann was perhaps more real than usual. He complained about the ghost air and seemed to be in need of movement to expel something heavy. But there was nothing to do except to close quietly in the middle of the calm sea; there was no other task to breathe and live. When he looked around, he saw but gray; when you listened, but heard silence…
… Suddenly, Jyske was in the rubber, hardly noticing it, if it hadn’t been so unexpected and came from below: it seemed like it would be in a car that was braked. And “Maria” stopped and didn’t move …
They were on the ground !!! where and what? Probably with a break on the English side. But yesterday evening, there was nothing to see about the surrounding mist.
The men jumped up, ran even behind, and their fervor was a strange contrast to the sudden motion of their ship. “Maria” stayed in place and did not flinch. In the midst of this infinite, rolling wetness that hardly seemed to hold up in the snake’s weather, it had been hit by some firm and immobile hiding in the water. “Maria” was firmly attached and maybe it would fall into it.
Who has not seen a birdcage, an insect-borne infestation of the feet of a bird’s glue?
First of all, it is not noticed; it does not change their eyesight. You have to know that they have been caught from underneath and never get out. Only when they start struggling to get rid of them will stick them to the wings and the head, and they will gradually become so miserable when the animals are in the death cat.
The same was for the “Marian”; at first, there was hardly any note; it was a bit sideways, but it was early morning and the weather was calm and beautiful, had to know to find the real danger in the hands.
The captain’s goodbye was a pity who was guilty of an accident when he hadn’t kept in the place where he was: he wrenched his hands and said in despair: “Oh my boat, my boat!” They were suddenly close to them and they saw a cape they didn’t know. The fog drifted over again, and they no longer separated it.
There was no single sail, no smoke. – At the moment, it was almost like them; they were very afraid of English saviors, who would almost forcibly help the danger, and who must be defended as pirates.
They rumbled and knocked, changing the cargo. Turk, their dog, who was not at all afraid of the sea, was also very uneasy;
Then they took the anchors out into the boats and tried alone to tow the ship out – hard work that lasted ten hours at a time; – And as the evening came, the ship’s parka, which was so clean and tidy in the morning, seemed miserable, dirty and wet, and everything was a scream. It had fought and tried, if in some way, but did not flinch, it was when caught nailed when the wrecked boat wreck.
* * * * *
The night they were surprised, the wind woke up and the wave began to rise; it started to look bad when they suddenly, at six, got off; the boat went off, the anchor chains broke down, where they tried to stay in place… Then the men ran when they crazy to cook after screaming
– We’re off!
They were really loose, unable to explain their joy in words; they once again felt moving, being on a light, living ship, and not being in a wreck, just as they had been.
And at the same time, Yann’s grief was lost. He had been free as a boat, the healthy fatigue of his arms had healed him, he was worry-free and scattered the memories.
The next morning, when they got their anchors up, he continued his journey towards cold Iceland, the heart seemingly as free as in previous years.
Shared-mail came from France, Circe deck, Ha-Long outer port on the other side of the world. In the middle of a crowd of sailors, the card master shouted loudly with the names of those who received letters. This happened in the evening, in the battery, in the light of a lantern.
– “Moan, Sylvestre!” There was a letter to him, right, there was
Paimpol’s stamp, but it wasn’t Gaudi’s handwriting. –
What did it mean? And what was it?
After watching and translating it, he opened it up.
“Ploubazlanek 5 p. March 1884.
“My dear grandson”.
So it was from his old grandmother, he breathed lighter, whether he had put his nickname under his great, clumsy letters: “Widow Moan”.
Widow Moan. Without thinking, he lifted the paper to his lips and kissed the name as a bad holy amulet. For this letter was an important moment in his life: tomorrow morning, at the end of the day, he had to leave.
Was in mid-April; Bac-Ninh and Hong-Hoa were recently captured. For larger companies, Tonkin is not going to take any action – but not enough to send the aid – that’s why all the crews that could be abandoned were taken on board, complementing the seaman companions that had already been exported. And Sylvestre, who had been tired of being creative and guarding for a long time, had been assigned to fill the gaps in the company with a few others.
It was at that time that peace was spoken; but there was something that told them that they would be able to get to the country in time to get the fight. When they had arranged their rebellion, stopped their production, and said farewell, they walked all night long among those who were aboard, and they felt their swell and proud of them; each of them showed in their own way how the output affected him, others were true, a bit indifferent, others eased their minds unceasingly by speaking.
Sylvestre went almost silent and hid his impatience, only when someone looked at him, his mysterious smile seemed to say, “Yes, I too – and already tomorrow morning”. He still had only a vague idea of war and fire; but he was attracted to him because he was a brave race.
Concerned about Gaudi, because of the strange handwriting he tried to approach the lantern to read. And it was difficult in the middle of a half-naked man group, all of whom were struggling to suppress the hot patter, even to read.
Right at the beginning of the letter, as he had expected, Grandma Yvonne explained why he had to resort to an old neighbor’s untrained hand:
“My dear child, this time I can’t let your cousin write this letter because he has a great sorrow. His father died suddenly two days ago. His house and his belongings are a must, nobody here has been waiting for this, I think my dear child, that this is just as bad to kill you as I do.
“The son of Gaos sends you greetings; he has renewed the contraption with Captain Guermeur, who is still ‘Mary’, they left this year somewhat early in Iceland. and they don’t know it yet.
“I can understand, my son, that this is the end of now, now we can no longer marry them, because now Gaudi has to work to live his life …”
He was quite depressed, for the sake of these evil news, he could no longer rejoice that he would fight.
