The Captain.

As promised, my first and most favourite story.

The Captain.

The quayside pub was packed as usual and I had to elbow my way to the bar to order a drink.
The air was thick with smoke, but mingled within the dense blanket of exhaled smoke was the unmistakable, pungent aroma, of "his" pipe.
"He" sat in his usual window seat. All the better to watch the ships that sailed slowly past on their way out to sea, or back to a safe berth in the harbour.
Everyone called him Captain, but truth be known, he had never captained a single vessel in his entire life.
He was seventy years old and long since retired from seafaring, but he was the most interesting of men.
His tales were the stuff of legend, and his glass was never allowed to go empty whilst he was in full-flow with one of his many tales.
He'd manned whaling ships, tramp steamers and tugs, and each tale he told was the absolute truth, therefore everyone wished it to continue to its climax.
He was a wonderful storyteller and never ever seemed to run out of new adventures to relate.
Every man in the bar admired, and secretly feared him, for he had a violent temper, and it was well known that he had walked away unscathed from a multiple of dockside brawls.
Definitely a man to be wary of.
He feared only one person in the world.
That was his wife Sarah.
Sarah and he had been married for fifty years, and he loved her with all of his heart. They had never once quarrelled in all of those years, because he knew, above all other things, that she loved him deeply in return, and he would never say a word to hurt her in any way.
He had had an unhappy childhood and he recognised love when it came his way.
His Sarah was a beauty, and he would wonder until his dying day just what she had seen in him as a young man. He wasn't good-looking.
In fact some, behind his back, would say he was really ugly and dumb.
But his Sarah, she had recognised immediately that here was a man on whom she would be able to depend for the whole of her life, and she'd loved him from the very first moment of their meeting.
They had no children, more is the pity, so they had just accepted that that was the way it would be, and had loved each other even more deeply.
His only other love was the ocean, but this would never be a contender for his love of Sarah.
Every day he walked slowly to the quayside tavern and "his" seat by the window was always vacant.
No-one cared, or dared, to occupy it, even if he was late in arriving and the tavern was packed, "his" seat was always vacant.
Each evening at 9.00 p.m. promptly the door of the tavern would open, and Sarah would be standing there in the doorway.
She would glare at him demandingly, and he would stare back defiantly, but in each pair of eyes there was the sparkle of love and respect.
He would down his drink and stand slowly and stretch his arms to the heavens.
"Well me'boys, time I was in me' hammock," he would bellow, and an avenue would be made for him through the crowded bar.
Sarah would allow him to pass through the open doorway, and then she would deliver a broad wink to the assembled mariners drinking there.
That was the night he died in his sleep, and Sarah came to the tavern to inform everyone there. She never cried or showed any sign of grief, but the light had gone from her eyes.
Things would never be the same for her, nor for the crowd in the bar.
To this very day "his" chair has never been sat in by a single soul. Everyone knows he is sitting there still, looking out of the window, watching the ships go by.

Kitos.