The oldest man in the crew was sixty-three, the youngest was sixteen. Next, there is the bosun, with a rank similar to that of chief petty officer in the Navy, or master sergeant in the Army. The deck, which means all of the ship including the maindeck and up from it, is the bosun's responsibility. The hundreds of miles of rope and cable a merchant ship carries is his to look after, to check and repair. He must see that the ship's boats are in working order, that the life rafts are ready to drop at a moment's notice.
Every storm leaves the ship rust-streaked, battered and bent.
When the Gray Victory drove through four days of battering monsoon, it emerged with its gear smashed, two lifeboats put out of commission, a bent rail, and great areas from which the paint had been stripped as neatly as if by a blowtorch. The ABs, or able seamen, work on the bridge, directly under the deck officers. Theirs is the physical act of steering the ship, braced against the wheel, their eyes on the gyro compass. Each shift at the wheel is an hour and twenty minutes of curious, blank concentration. Whether in storm, or under attack, or in a fog-bound night, his job is to remove himself from the world, attach himself to the gyro, and forget all else.