* * * * * *
Piraeus, October 16th, 1962. The time was about 8 o’clock in the morning. A 19-year-old boy walks down the steps of a house at 104 Sahtouris Street, in Santa Claus. The day before they had come as a family from his island, Amorgos, to his aunt’s house in Piraeus. He has decided, now that he has finished high school, to pursue the naval profession.
He’s moving towards the end of tramway 21. He wants to go to the SPAP train station at the port of Piraeus. Destination: Pylos. The ship will be first moored from Pylos to transfer oil and commodities. As he was told by the shipping company, it is a Liberty type cargo ship, the “s/s Costas Michalos”.
An old lady who was also waiting for the tram, sneaking glances at him. One on himself and one in the suitcase he was carrying. With her right hand she makes the signal of the cross as if to give him her blessing.
The young man casts a hurried glance towards the house he left. He’s looking in the corner as if to avoid seeing something. But he did not avoid it…A woman standing on his doorstep, waving one hand in farewell and with the other wiping her eyes with a handkerchief in a hurry. He immediately, so as not to collapse, turns to the old woman and asks her when the tram is coming. As if he didn’t know, all the times he had come to Piraeus, that the trams don’t have fixed timetables!
The old lady has got it all figured out. She tells him, spontaneously, not to worry, and gives him her blessing. She explains that she is used to it. He has two sons on the barges and knows very well what separation means.
* * * * * *
Manos Stratakis lived with his family in Amorgos. His father had a boatyard on the island. He built and repaired big boats, big wooden fishing boats, and whatever other floating vessels were ordered. He was renowned as the best craftsman of his kind. For his son Manos, he had different plans…He wanted his son to study, to become a scientist. The old man’s first wish was to be a doctor, but he would be ok for him to become a pharmacist, or even a lawyer!
Manos, however, had other dreams of his own: He wanted to experience his great love, the sea.
Kostas’ father, a friend and classmate of Manos, had been a Captain for many years. Kostas had told him countless sea stories that he had heard from his father. She had told him about travel and homelands that no landlubber would ever know in his life. Kostas was talking and Manos was absorbing. He seemed to be living it all, as if he were on the barge himself.
* * * * * *
Pylos. The time is around 6 o’clock in the afternoon. The 19-year-old young man is sitting on the harbor pier, quite thoughtful. A fear has slowly begun to nestle in him. A new and completely new day begins for him. He does not know how the barge will accept him, and even more so, how the sea itself will accept him.
Suddenly, the whistle of a ship’s whistle takes him away from his thoughts. He turns his head and sees the ship coming in the distance. He was riveted to stare at it. Really, it seemed so huge! At that time, Liberty ships of 10,000 tons were considered behemoths. Who would have known now, that after several years, as a Captain, he too would end his naval career on an 80,000-ton, eight-barge freighter!
When the ship came closer, he read his name on the bow: “COSTAS MICHALOS!”
A great noise brought him back to reality. It was the ever noisy ship’s leech, furiously following the anchor to the bottom.
After half an hour he boarded the ship. Without being superstitious, he stepped on the headstone with his right foot. He was shown to his room and immediately fell asleep. When the oiling was over and when the ship left again, he didn’t even know.
In the morning when they woke him up, he realized that the ship had left and was on its way. He got up, washed up and pulled himself to the dining room. Someone came there and told him that after the morning meal, the Captain was looking for him in his office. They led him there.
As soon as he goes in, he loses it. The captain was Captain Michalis Varnalis, the father of his friend from the island. His friend Kostas hadn’t said anything to surprise him. After greeting him and welcoming him aboard, he told him that he had signed on as a Deck Cadet. They said a few other things about the ship and finally, in a more stern and official tone, he sent him to the bosun for work.
When Manos reached the door, the Captain stopped him and said: “Mano, here on board ships and especially in the dining rooms you will hear a lot of things about your Captain, an old naval custom. Don’t ever come and tell me anything, because I’ll cut off your legs and rip out your tongue and send them in a package to Amorgos, to your friend and my son, Kostas. You’re only coming for one thing: when you hear they want to kill me. And now go downstairs to your work because you’re late, and the Bosun will be shouting!”
* * * * * *
Many years have passed since then and Manos, Captain Manos now, Captain later, never left his mind those words first spoken to him by Captain Michael, the first Captain of his naval career.
Thank you.
Panos V. Tzemos
