The Journeying Moon: Sailing into History by Ernle Bradford
A philosophic reflection on a dream fulfilled. This memoir is a success story of life as an adventurer and sailor in the Mediterranean by a noted naval historian.
Recommended reading for those who dare to venture to live life to the fullest.
EXCERPTS:
We both know that running back before the gale means throwing away hard-won miles. It means retracing our steps and adding more days to the voyage. ‘Ah, well, what do the books say? “Patience is a virtue learned at sea.” All hands!’
Away on the western horizon, lit from beneath by the dying sun, a huge cumulo-nimbus cloud towers into the sky. A fantastic structure, like a baroque cathedral, the cloud soars in thousand-foot pinnacles and then sags at its base as though it cannot support its weight. Below it, descending from some two hundred foot above the sea, three dark pillars hang down into the ocean. ‘Waterspouts!’
The past two years I’ve not been living as I wanted to —how few of us ever do—but living according to the designs of my country. One day, though, if I survive the war, I’ll have my own life to live. At twenty-one the gift of a life seems the promise of endless freedom.
At six o’clock I went to the bar at Mary’s House and waited around for my friends to join me. It was a good bar at Mary’s; the drink was reasonable, the measures just; the food eatable—and upstairs there were a few rather tired girls for those whose simple appetites were not revolted by a communal dish.
Our palates had been spoiled for the softer nuances of contentment. The after-lunch doze with the Sunday paper, the clatter of the lawn-mower, and the distant scrape and fiddle of B.B.C. tea-time music seemed insipid after fevered nights in leave-time ports. Of those who failed to make the adjustment, some emigrated, some took to drink, and some climbed mountains. Others—and I was among them—attempted the return to post-war living, found it unsatisfying, and then cut out new paths for ourselves. The Welfare State was designed for the generation that followed us. London was strange and uneasy in those immediate post-war years. It had something of the same smell about it that conquered Naples had at the time when Naples was the leave center for our Anzio troops: a little dust; much decay; and the smell of corruption.
I remember the night-clubs thick with black-marketeers; the well-fleshed smiler who knew where you could get whisky, and whose new Bentley echoed nightly with the giggles of loose-legged girls. People never fight for the world they get. They fight for the world they remember.
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