In those days

THE LAST OF THE LEG.

 Before the wind, we came in the pale dawn of December, driven by the north at last in a haven. Flavia came to see me. She has moved from Sweden by her a little car and was delighted seeing us secured in the port. I wasn't in hight spirit for I was tired and down, still at the same time relaxed getting the ship out of the sea and now secured ai quya in the port of Lybec. A few days ago, we struggled on our way to suffering the sifting of the cargo in a northern gale in the baltic sea—the crew from Estonia- full of hope and opportunity to get aboard a foreign ship.

 Now all have collapsed, the ship, the hope and the future.

 The crew who have embarked in Estonia now dismissed waiting for their passage to home.

 In the evening, I drove Flavia away, saying; that I'm broke, so there will be no more money, nor honey. She was so upset and shocked that she ran half-naked ashore.

 It was a bleak week before Chrismas, the weather raw and cold, and it was sleeting. Early in the Wednesday morning, we embarked that red-coloured Rol and Rol ferry for Helsinki, and there was again the grey sea around with melancholy grey-coloured expansion of the water. We have left our watery home in the port of Lubeck, not a day too early; the vessel had reached the final state, now more a hulk than a real seagoing ship, impossibly to continued her voyage anywhere, the axillaries broken down all the way and her par-last tanks badly leaking, and the apparatus of the bridge blind and, the Gyro compass out of order.

 There we were, an exhausted and downhearted crew, making our return by the ferry. All of us, out paid and almost penniless.

 For last six months, I had mastered her as the skipper, and the other crew from Estonia now with disappointing mind waiting for the fate to be sent back to homeland with not a big salary in pockets.

 The ferry carried us, and we roamed on the deck of the ferry with little talking to each other. 

 Immediately after the lunch which served in the saloon, I groped into my cabin and taken out a pistol from my suitcase I surveyed it and found it be a gas arm. It wasn't proper metal. I was a gun for nothing, and I wondered why in hell I had bought such a needless thing. Tom came in, giving a glance at the pistol, sat on the bed saying nothing. He sat there for a while and then went out to the deck.

 The boys have taken their job with great hope; now they were on the way back home. They soon were forced to accept that from this first western ship; they will have hands-only those grans news port suits.

 The soviet union stood on the edge of collapse. There was a fear of the war and those million and million refugees from the East. Around the Baltic Sea, the coast guards were alarmed, and there were helicopters following every one of those ships crossing the Baltic sea. A helicopter could hover so down that the pilot could see directly into the wheelhouses of the vessel.

 It was late evening as we arrived in Helsinki, and migrant police made boarding. Now it dawned to me that the Estonian boys don't have a transit visa. The boys have choked the black stemple on their passport, which could prevent their re-boarding.

 I have the crew list, and by that, it allowed them to move to the Olympic terminal the ferry port for Tallin.

 We all were gathering in the terminal, and I made a phonecall the shipowner asking him to come by.

 The owner came with his luxury can. When I demanded him pay off the Estonian boys, the owner with hesitated main said to me as if trying to see support for himself "We will not hire any revolutionary men anymore".

 It sounded so native that it nearly made me laugh. "We no hire those revolutionaries anymore."

 As though after all the lost, there could be room to hire anyone.

A worrying policeman watched as the Estonia boys embarking the ferry for Tallinn. "The Foreign Minister of Sovjet Union Zevartnace have resing. We don't know what from there could appear", the policeman said. It sounded like; It has crossed the Borden.

That winter and the following summer was a period which brought unforeseeable changes into Europa. Is the world order changing? The wall of Berlin was grumbling, and they were singing over the countries of Baltic. That winter I spent onshore, doing one miserable job and another, driving dirt dumber in the port, and spending nights, in a small cellar in the middle of the city, it was to be illegal abode with no light. It was called among the dumber drivers' as iron college. The landlord warded me making noise there down below because it was unlawful living - even the job was without tax to pay- so I was precisely literally and in practice- undergrounded.

When the spring came, I got a job like a skipper on a ferry, owned by a family company based in Helsinki. The job and the route were nothing but driving non-stop, from morning to evening, between the outer bastion of the island of Suomenlinna and Helsinki. I spent many dull days aboard, carrying tourists and bicycles, steering the wheel all day long.

There was another skipper aboard. He was called Ali in his fifties. He wore a navy-like blue suit and kept his hair combed and slick. He had served before as an air pilot on the MHK company. I didn't very much care for his talk — I knew he had never been at sea like a real sailor.

 The owners of the ferry made daily visits aboard. They were an elderly couple with their oldest son, they were always worried, inquiring whether we had seen any maritime inspector boarding the ship or if any problem had arisen aboard. The summer went that way, and it was sunny. Later that summer, By August, the change came over, and then there was the rain. It was almost the end of August when I was off and took a trip to Estonia. It was a rainy and windy day; the quayside terminal was full of embarking passengers. Upon entering the ferry terminal, I saw Turk. I saw his blond head towering above the crowd, and I could see at once, he was drunk. In no time, he discovered me and began bawling, "Nice to seen and kill an old fella."

He was drunk and with high spirit, I didn't care very much his company, and when I got my boarding pass for the ferry Tallink, we embarked together. After the ferry was out and the bar opened and place found to sit down for the voyage, I began to think about how I could get rid of the drinking company. He annoyed me by his loudly talking and chattering trying to tell over and over his reason for his trip. "There are whores, plenty of whore and vodka".

I went out the deck awaiting impatiently the arriving in Tallinn. The weather was good and mild, and there was no wind. I stood on deck watching while the ferry manoeuvred and had tied at the quay, then the outrunning crowd was filling the gangway for the custom and the border guards, "your passport, please. What brings you to this country, Mister? a tourist. The custom" Have you anything to a declaration. 

"No,"

 Do not try to smuggle anything".  

"No"

Finally getting the bloody task of the customs and all the inquire done, I was free to enter the country.