Shadow Bridge: The Life and Loves of Charlie Gray

By Nicholas Day-Lewis

Charlie Gray and his wife Pam emigrate from England to South Africa, a country sinking under the scourge of apartheid, to start as an engineer in the gold mines. His life appears on the surface to be charmed, but he lives under the shadow of a terrifying instance of abuse in his childhood. Tragedies occur in his marriage and he is forced to leave. He moves, first to Nauru, then to Australia where his life begins to resemble that of the biblical character Job. Things happen to him, events beyond his control. He is powerless to stop them until he meets Emma, a distant cousin, and in a return to Scotland and the place where the story began he finally throws off the shackles of the past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Sep 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669889366

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Ancestors 1879

The Rainbow Bridge

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!

I hope that God will protect all passengers

By night and by day,

And that no accident will befall them while crossing

The Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,

For that would be most awful to be seen

Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

William McGonagall

Henry Haig was in love. It had taken him months of soul-searching to decide that Emma was the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life, but at last he was sure. Quite sure. He was ready to commit himself. As 1879 approached its close Henry knew it had been a good year. Fortune had favoured him and he felt confident of the future. He had taken the train down to Leuchars especially to see her. Today he would ask her to marry him. With their betrothal the year, and his life, would be complete.

Emma’s father, the Reverend Peter Muir, ministered at the local Presbyterian Church. Henry had joined the family – Emma, her mother and her younger brother, Donald – at morning service and had returned to the manse for luncheon. The meal seemed to take an interminable time and Henry had quite lost his appetite. But eventually the ladies retired and he was able to speak to Emma’s father, to ask for her hand in marriage. The Reverend Muir listened to him gravely and then, to Henry’s profound relief, he smiled benignly, clasping Henry’s hand warmly.

‘I thought you would never ask, never ask,’ he said. The minister had the liturgical habit of repeating words. No doubt he thought his congregation would fail to take in his pearls the first time, but it did make his sermons a trifle tedious. ‘Of course you may, of course, and I hope she’s not such a fool as to say no. You have my blessing. Yes, she would be a fool to say no.’With heart pounding Henry went in search of Emma. He had carefully rehearsed his proposal, and he thought that on the whole it should be sufficiently persuasive. Finding her alone in the drawing room he sank to his knees and launched straight into his speech. He described his prospects in the firm of accountants for which he worked, and the likelihood of a junior partnership in two years’ time. He emphasised his loyalty and undying devotion to her no matter what should befall them, and finally he asked her to be his wife, a step that would make him the happiest man in all Scotland. He was so taken up with what he was saying that he failed to notice Emma’s increasing agitation. When it finally came, her reply was brief, utterly painful to them both, and totally unexpected.

‘Henry dear,’ she said at last, after turning away to hide her blushes and her unhappiness. ‘I am very fond of you, Henry, but …’

‘What is it, dearest?’

‘… but I can’t marry you. Well, not yet anyway. Oh Henry, this is too sudden. I’m sorry,’ and she had fled the room in tears.

Three hours later they were all sitting silently in the drawing room over their afternoon tea. Outside it was already dark. A sudden squall rattled the window, a sound that somehow emphasised the melancholy that pervaded the room. The grandfather clock in the hall struck the half-hour and Henry lifted the fob watch from his waistcoat pocket to check its accuracy. Immediately he placed his teacup on the table before him and rose to his feet.

‘I really must be on my way,’ he said.

‘So soon?’ queried Mrs Muir.

‘My train leaves in half an hour,’ said Henry. ‘I mustn’t miss it; it’s the last one back to Dundee tonight.’

‘Quite so, quite so,’ said the Reverend Peter Muir. ‘But you must visit us again,’ he added, holding out his hand. ‘Visit us soon, very soon, won’t you, Henry?’

‘You are most kind, sir. Thank you both for a lovely day, and may I take this opportunity of wishing you all a very prosperous year ahead.’

‘Thank you, Henry,’ said Mrs Muir. ‘See Henry to the door, Emma.’

Emma, who had remained silent and preoccupied over tea, rose uncertainly.

‘Yes, Mama,’ she said.

Henry followed Emma out into the hall. There was an awkward silence as she helped him into his coat, broken only by the slow ticking of the clock. When Emma eventually spoke, she did so hesitantly.

‘Henry dear, I know I disappointed you today and I’m sorry. Perhaps I just need more time; I’m not ready for marriage.’

He took her hand in his and looked steadily into her eyes. He had never seen her so sad, or confused.

‘Yes, I am disappointed,’ he said, with rather less bitterness than he felt, ‘but I shall not give up.’ He paused, then gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘I love you, dearest Emma. I shall always love you.’

With that Henry opened the door and strode out into the storm. After the bright interior of the manse, the road outside seemed all the darker. The few gas-lit street lamps had been blown out and the only light came from the windows of surrounding houses. Henry was surprised by the savagery of the storm, for the morning had been calm. The west wind which had come up during the afternoon was now gusting strongly and teeming rain lashed the ground with a roar like a waterfall. As he turned his steps towards Leuchars station Henry had to keep his head down for the rain was driving into his face, stinging his eyes with its ferocity. He leant into the wind as he struggled along the road, clutching a little square box in his coat pocket, an emerald engagement ring to set off Emma’s rich chestnut hair, a gift and a promise so cruelly refused.

Henry’s mind was so occupied with these sombre thoughts that he missed the turning to the station. His reverie ended abruptly when he walked into the shelter of a tall building and, looking up through dripping eyelashes, he realised he’d strayed into a part of the town he didn’t recognise. Quickly he retraced his steps. As he hurried back he thought he heard a train whistle but the sound was torn away by the wind. Running the last fifty yards he reached the station and burst onto the platform. It was deserted. He looked up the line and saw the three red tail-lights of the receding train as it disappeared into the storm

Henry was racked by indecision and annoyance. On balance he felt that the circumstances of his parting from Emma precluded him from returning to the manse for the night and so he resolved to stay at the station. The stationmaster was busy locking up, but seeing Henry’s predicament he left the light burning in the Gentlemen’s Waiting Room and added some coal to the dying embers in the fireplace. Henry thanked him profusely.

‘You’ll be taking the first train out in the morning, then?’ said the good Samaritan. ‘I’ll be going off now, sir, and I wish you a good night.’

Henry stripped off his wet coat and held it in front of the fire. When it was almost dry he rolled it up for a pillow and lay down on the hard floor in front of the meagre nest of hot coals. But he found it impossible to sleep. He rose again and began to pace the floor. One wall of the waiting room was adorned with a group of framed photographs showing the new railway bridge over the Firth of Tay.

Looking at them Henry was again filled with a sense of pride at this great achievement: the longest bridge in the world. It had been nicknamed ‘The Rainbow Bridge’, a slender iron ribbon, not level but rising and falling, wavering as its iron and concrete legs sought a firm foundation, like a giant centipede treading water. For most of its length the rails ran along the top of the ironwork, but for a thousand yards over the deepest part of the firth the structure was raised high enough for ships to pass underneath. Here, through the high girders, the rails ran inside.

He thought of the many times he had taken the train across the bridge in his quest for Emma’s love. In particular he reflected on his journey that very morning. He had set out from his home in Dundee with a light heart, much looking forward to the time he would spend with his beloved. In the early morning the sky was clear and the absence of wind left a strange stillness in the air. At Tay Bridge station, bright and airy with its modern glass roof and the soft-hued grey stone of its buildings, he caught the first train south. As the engine and its five coaches wound their way onto the threadlike structure, the clacking of wheels changed to a deeper, more sonorous rumble.

He had looked around his first-class compartment, at the dark, plum-red upholstery with its armrests and laced antimacassars, its hassocks, footwarmers and head cushions, and its brass and iron lanterns – all the very best that North British Railways could provide. He had a passion for railways, for the power and romance of the latest Drummond steam locomotives which seemed to have advanced so far since the spidery little engines of his youth, and he loved the travel that went with them. The bridge was indeed a great achievement; for a moment Henry managed to forget the considerable loss of life among the workers who had built it.

It was through the railway and the bridge that he’d first met Emma. One of the framed photographs, larger than the others, depicted Sir Thomas Bouch, the designer, stern and unsmiling in his top hat. Henry had attended a civic reception to honour him. Emma had attended too, and a mutual acquaintance had introduced them.

As the train had rattled onto the ‘high girders’ that morning, the open ironwork swept up to embrace them as if in a cocoon. There was some considerable vibration and he felt his coach sway suddenly, but he didn’t give it a second thought. Instead he looked out through the seemingly endless rows of iron lacework, at the water a hundred feet below him, comforted by his immovable faith in the engineering that supported him against the sky, for the railway designers and engineers were the new gods of the Victorian era. Henry, like most of his contemporaries, believed implicitly in their creative infallibility. While the Dundee newspapers had been peppered with readers’ letters alleging malpractices such as speeding and poor maintenance, he refused to accept that these were anything other than sour grapes.

For most of the journey, however, he had thought of Emma, his dearest Emma, and the many patient months that he had spent courting her. Beside him on the seat was a copy of the music for Mr Gilbert and Mr Sullivan’s latest operetta: HMS Pinafore. He had a passion for music that was even stronger than his passion for steam trains. He would ask Emma to play the pianoforte for him while he sang for her. As the train ran on, its wheels clicking rhythmically, he hummed to himself:

Unlearned he in aught

Save that which love has taught

(For love had been his tutor);

Oh, pity, pity me –

Our captain’s daughter she,

And I that lowly suitor!

With Emma now close in his thoughts he lay down once again. But sleep was still impossible. The ill-fitting door rattled, and the wind whistled and howled around the building, filling the room with puffs of smoke which the draught quickly fanned into a choking blue haze. The rain lashed the windows and at one stage a shower of hail clattered down onto the tiled roof with a sound like handfuls of gravel. Henry lay there listening to the savage, untamed night, shivering with cold and damp, and cursing himself for missing the train.

Brutal though the storm may have seemed at Leuchars, it was merciless further to the north. On the Firth of Tay the south-westerly wind was funnelled between narrow hills that urged the gale on to speeds of ninety miles an hour. There was a restless thrumming in the latticed iron of the bridge and the Tay joined in this great tumult, leaping and heaving like the steepest ocean. Throughout the afternoon the barometric pressure had fallen sharply and Dundee itself was being battered by the gale. Loose roofing and masonry was crashing down in the streets and the glass roof of the station had collapsed in heaps of shards on the platform, the air filling with glass dust and flying debris.

Many were the eyes of the simple souls of Dundee that looked out from their windows in awe on that Sunday night, searching in the gloom for the lights of the train on the bridge. Some wondered if God would indeed punish the North British Railways for running trains on the Sabbath as had been warned from numerous pulpits around the country.

The stationmaster at Dundee had received a signal that the train was on its way, but then the line went dead. When there was no sign of it well past its scheduled arrival time, he started to worry. Thinking that the engine might have broken down, he sent out a search party along the bridge. The wind was now roaring down the firth at near hurricane intensity and the searchers made slow progress for fear of being blown bodily off the bridge. It took them over an hour to reach the centre spans. What they saw terrified them.

The nearest section of high girders had disappeared. Only twisted ends of rails and braces protruded drunkenly over the abyss, poised above the heaving, boiling mass of angry water, spray hissing off the tops of the waves in white sheets. Of the train there was not a trace, and they could only hope that it had managed to stop before reaching the fallen section.

At the other end of the bridge the signalman in the Wormit signal box had given the train the all clear and had watched it crawling out over the firth. By this time the rain had stopped and he was able to follow the progress of the tail-lights all the way to the high girders. Moments later he saw a spray of sparks pulled eastward by the wind, followed by three distinct flashes, then one great flash. When the tail-lights failed to reappear beyond the high girders he began to feel uneasy and tried to signal the north shore. There was no reply.

After a few minutes of indecision he left the relative shelter of the box and started inching his way out across the bridge. He hadn’t gone far when suddenly the wind tore a hole in the clouds and the moon shone through. It was as if nature wanted to give him just a brief view of her devilish handiwork, for a second later the clouds closed up again to hide the horror. But in that moment the signalman had seen all with perfect clarity. The thirteen spans and twelve columns of the high girders, over a thousand yards of the great Tay Bridge, had disappeared into the boiling waters of the firth, and with them an engine, five carriages, a brake van and seventy-five men, women and children.

Once again the bard of Dundee, Mr William McGonagall, would impose his doggerel on the citizens of the town, though at the time he seemed to be as hazy about the actual number of passengers on the train as the railway company’s management.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!

Alas! I am very sorry to say

That ninety lives have been taken away

On the last Sabbath Day of 1879,

Which will be remembered for a very long time.

Meanwhile, carrying the terrible news, the Wormit signalman ran the two miles south to St Fort, and then the further four miles to Leuchars. Rumours of the disaster spread quickly. The story reached the manse early the next morning, and though feeling dizzy and sick, Emma resolved to go to the station immediately to verify the information. Hastily she put on her coat and bonnet and hurried into the street, but when she reached the station she found Henry, pale and dishevelled, emerging sleepily and stiffly from the waiting room. At first she could not believe it was him, so sure was she that he must have been killed, but her disbelief turned to joy when he spoke.

‘My dearest Emma, what are you doing here?’

‘Haven’t you heard? The bridge came down last night; the whole train was drowned.’ Emma spoke quickly, almost without pause. ‘Oh! Henry dearest, I thought you were dead.’ Her words tumbled out. ‘Do you still want to marry me? Yes, Henry dear, I will marry you. I do love you. I’ve always loved you. I just didn’t realise it. Please forgive me, Henry. I thought I’d lost you for ever.’

Eventually she ran out of words. Clinging tightly to him she burst into tears, but this time tears of relief. As she sobbed Henry held her to his chest. He was having trouble coming to terms with the extent of the tragedy. It was as if a significant tenet of his faith had been suddenly proved false. He had believed a fraud. Slowly he dragged his mind away from the disaster and focused again on Emma.

‘I took a wrong turning last night,’ he said. ‘I missed the train.’

Despite the appalling news Henry felt strangely elated.

‘Never let me go again, will you, Henry?’

‘How strange that my happiness comes in the face of such tragedy,’ he answered, again feeling in his pocket for the little square box.

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PART 1

Immigrants 1957 to 1969

CHAPTER 1

First Steps

When Charlie awoke, something had changed. After a few moments he realised the vibrations had stopped and there was a change in the ship’s motion. For fourteen days, apart from a short stop at Las Palmas, the Edinburgh Castle had forged its way south, swaying gently in the Atlantic swells. The engine vibrations that accompanied this movement were felt throughout the ship, but they had become so much part of the voyage that Charlie had ceased to notice them until they stopped. The liner must have reached Cape Town during the night.

He glanced at Pam sleeping quietly beside him, and then at his watch. It was a little before five and still very dark. He was just nodding off again when he heard the sound of feet scurrying past their cabin, and voices raised in excitement. He couldn’t make out what was being said, but curiosity overcame him. He shook Pam awake.

‘We’ve arrived. I’m going on deck.’

‘Wait for me.’

Charlie and Pam had met at Oxford University. He was at Wadham College reading engineering, and she was at Lady Margaret Hall reading English. They hadn’t just met. They had collided, riding their bicycles in opposite directions on the Isis River towpath during Eights Week. Once they had managed to disentangle themselves, and their bikes, they found they had more in common than a love of rowing. They were both at the end of their second year. At the end of their final year they had married and a month later had set out for South Africa. They were both twenty-three years of age.

More people clattered past as he and Pam raced each other to get dressed. The deck was already crowded when they arrived – passengers were looking at a faint pink glow high up in the sky. There was a chill in the air and a smell of salt and fish. Charlie put his arm round his wife’s waist for warmth. Imperceptibly the glow in the sky grew brighter. As dawn approached, the colours began to change and there was a murmur of anticipation from the onlookers. The glow divided into two parts: darker below, a pearly iridescence above, separated by a neat horizontal line. It was only then that Charlie realised he was looking at the famous Table Mountain.

There was a tall man in a trilby hat standing next to them. ‘There’s a south-easterly blowing,’ the man said. ‘The rising air currents at the back of the mountain form a cloud over it. They call it the Tablecloth.’

‘It’s breathtaking,’ said Pam. She turned to Charlie. ‘Don’t you just love it?’ He hugged her closer and kissed her upturned mouth.

The man in the trilby was speaking again: ‘It’s the rising sun shining through the Tablecloth that gives it the colour.’

They stood for over an hour, watching and waiting. As the sky brightened, the cloud turned slowly to orange and then gold, and finally lost its colour. The craggy fissures on the face of the mountain became visible, and then the buildings of Cape Town and the cranes on the waterfront. Charlie pointed out a cable car creeping sluggishly up to the western end of the summit. Suddenly, it seemed the whole seascape lay in bright sunshine.

The Edinburgh Castle was still a kilometre offshore. An early morning yacht hissed past with its sails bellying, and fishing boats manned by black sailors in yellow sou’-westers bobbed in the swell near the liner.

‘Are those fishermen natives? They look too light-skinned to me,’ said Pam.

‘They’re probably coloureds – mixed race people,’ said Charlie. ‘A product of the old slave days. The women were used –’

‘I don’t want to know about it,’ said Pam quickly.

Faintly they heard the sounds of the docks: hammering, the rumble of cranes, a steam whistle, the general hum of a waking city. And the smell of fish grew stronger. The tablecloth had been folded away and overhead the sky was now a deep blue. His first view of Africa had been all Charlie could have wished for. He was full of nervous excitement, though still apprehensive at the challenge awaiting them.

During the voyage they had been befriended by an Afrikaans couple returning from a sabbatical year in Germany. Koos van Tonder and his wife Irma lived in Stellenbosch where he was a lecturer at the university. He was a bear of a man, with close-cropped sandy hair, a moustache, a deep voice and a powerful handshake. His wife was subdued, mousy almost, but always ready with a smile. Charlie thought her unobtrusive manner was probably due to her being less confident in English, her natural language being Afrikaans.

The four of them had spent many hours talking about South Africa, its different races, its politics and its customs. Charlie had ignored the inherent racism in much of what Koos said, though Pam complained about it when they were alone. Charlie believed he was a guest of the country and needed to accept its ways, even if he didn’t always believe they were right. Charlie was grateful for the friendship and he’d developed a liking for Koos, but it was a friendship that was tinged with reserve. Charlie was becoming increasingly aware of the great gulf between their two cultures. Meanwhile Koos tried to teach him how to pronounce Afrikaans words and names, such tongue twisters as Vereeniging. And he laughed uproariously at Charlie’s efforts.

‘You must learn to speak die taal if you’re going to stay here,’ he said.

On the last evening of the voyage they all sat together after dinner.

‘Would you like to see around the Cape Peninsula before your train heads north?’ Koos asked them. ‘I have a car waiting in the city.’

‘We’d love to,’ said Pam. Then she turned to Charlie. ‘We have got time, haven’t we?’

‘Of course,’ said Charlie, a little disconcerted at having the decision made for him.

The ship docked at nine. Two diligent and self-important tugs made fussy hooting noises as they pushed the two ends of the ship towards the wharf. The dockside was lined with people who’d come to meet relatives and friends. They waved and shouted with excitement as they recognised each other across the narrowing gap of water. Gangs of black and coloured workers were waiting to come on board as soon as the gangways were moved into position. They were dressed in khaki uniforms and looked uniformly scruffy and bored. Charlie and Pam held hands as they watched the scene. He felt insignificant and a little lost.

‘Do you think everything will be all right?’ Pam asked him.

‘Of course it will,’ said Charlie. He didn’t like to admit to his own anxiety.

They had been told that they must go through immigration procedures in one of the saloons. They made their way to the appointed place and stood in the queue. When they reached the front, an official took their passports. He was surly and unsmiling. He spent a long time scrutinising the documents, then looking up and checking Charlie and Pam against their photos, then paging through the passports again. Charlie began to think that something was wrong, but remained silent.

‘Meneer ’n Mevrou Gray …’ he said, and then something in Afrikaans that Charlie couldn’t understand. And he pronounced Gray the Afrikaans way, with a guttural ‘G’.

‘Sorry?’ said Charlie, leaning forward.

‘Everything in order,’ said the official suddenly, and he quickly stamped both passports on an inside page.

Charlie and Pam turned hastily and left.

‘What a rude man,’ said Pam. ‘Not even so much as a good morning.’

On deck everything was noise and confusion. Charlie found it bewildering. Porters were carrying baggage up from the hold and dumping it down, seemingly without order, though in fact in rows according to the initial letter of the owner’s surname. People were milling around searching, others were barking orders, and one old woman was standing among the chaos, crying to her husband that she couldn’t find one of her cases.

Charlie eventually found the row marked ‘G’. Their trunks and other cases had arrived on deck, all with their ‘Not Wanted on Voyage’ labels shining red against the browns and dark blues of the baggage.

‘How many pieces do you have?’ asked a uniformed man who suddenly appeared out of the tumult.

‘Twelve in total,’ said Charlie. ‘The others are in the cabin.’ The man chalked a cross on them, signifying that they’d been inspected, and walked off. ‘Well, that was easy,’ Charlie added. He began to feel a little more confident. ‘We could have been carrying almost anything.’

A coloured supervisor came and asked them what they wanted done with it all. Charlie knew that most of the luggage had to be forwarded to Welkom, their ultimate destination, but didn’t know how this had to be done. Luckily Koos arrived at that point. He spoke to the supervisor in Afrikaans and soon everything was arranged. With relief they headed down the gangway and stepped onto South African soil for the first time. Charlie made a little ceremony of it.

It was a delightful drive, down the coast past Clifton, Camps Bay, and the Twelve Apostles with its magnificent seascapes. They cut back through Constantia Nek. Koos stopped the car at a restaurant for lunch and refused to let Charlie pay for anything.

‘Your first meal in my country is on me,’ he said. ‘And you must try my favourite wine.’

On the return journey behind the mountain range, they visited Groot Constantia and the Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens. They had difficulty dragging Pam away from all the spring flowers. Charlie was fascinated by the Cape Dutch architecture, stark white in the bright sunshine. They saw many other landmarks and sights, and when the van Tonders dropped them off at the station in the late afternoon, they were effusive in their thanks. They asked Koos for his address in Stellenbosch.

‘I’ll write as soon as we’re settled,’ said Charlie.

‘Make sure you can write in Afrikaans by then,’ said Koos with a broad grin.

Charlie wasn’t quite sure if Koos was serious. He had always been hopeless at languages and, to be honest, he’d been put off by the sound of Afrikaans. It seemed ugly, disagreeably guttural and unromantic. Only on the last of these epithets would he ever have cause to change his mind.

In all their years in South Africa nothing in their lives quite lived up to the promise of that first day. As evening approached, the train sped through lush vineyards, through Paarl and Worcester. It began to climb the steep winding pass into the Hex River Mountains, snaking its way slowly upwards in the growing dusk. Charlie’s mind was whirling through the events of the day.

‘What do you think?’ he said.

‘What?’ Pam’s mind was half a world away.

‘About our first day in South Africa.’

‘I hope all our luggage gets to Welkom all right. I’d hate to lose any of our wedding presents.’

‘Maybe if we lost some of the teaspoons it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.’

‘It’s all so beautiful but, well, I feel a bit threatened.’

‘Why?’

‘The strangeness of it. And all the black people. There are so many of them.’

‘Yes. It is a bit overpowering.’

By next morning the scenery had changed completely. They were in the heart of the Karoo Desert. On all sides were koppies of bare rock, dry riverbeds, sand and scrub. There was little to interest them as the train rumbled on through mile after barren mile. Dust devils swirled alongside the railway track and they could feel the heat building up.

Charlie’s mind was back at the home he had left, the green and pleasant land of East Devon and the old thatched cottage in the village of Woodcombe where he had grown up, all so different from the dry brown landscape outside the train window. He thought of his father who’d died of war wounds in 1947, his eldest sister, Gillian, who, with her husband and unborn child, had died in the Lynmouth flood disaster while on their honeymoon. That August night in 1952 ninety million tonnes of water had cascaded down the narrow valley, sweeping everything away and causing terrible death and destruction. It was a few days before their bodies were found, clinging to each other in the wreck of their car, a little way out to sea. Charlie’s other sister, Pearl, had also recently married and had moved to London with her husband Sean. So Charlie’s mother, Felicity, was now all alone in the cottage. He was very fond of his mother and hoped she was not too lonely living there on her own.

Charlie’s love of travel wasn’t the only reason he was escaping the family home. When his father died, Charlie’s uncle Ted became ‘in loco parentis’, and Charlie had become very attached to him. He had taught Charlie the arts of sailing and had helped him in every aspect