थे River

The great river

The night was dark and soft and it was easy to feel the moisture in the air due to the vicinity of the great river. I sat on ground in the grass and other of the two ordinary seamen, Leo, was sitting beside me. The third one of us - the second ordinary seaman stood little apart. He was a man with heavy bulk and I heard his name uttered, it sounded like Aki, or something like that, I at once found him be sullen and he has been cutting his hair off and had shaving his head so that everyone could seen his head shining in the sunlight like polished a egg. As Aki was red and robust, Leo was tiny and slim.
We all were sitting or standing waiting for our captain.
There was the boatmen’s hut and our captain had entering into it I was told that he was going to deal with the boatmen the drive, up to the ship..
I felt tired and was sitting double folded and there was pain in my stomach for been sitting so long time in that cramped plane, eleven long hours in that full loaded tube unable to move anywhere but toilet.
During those eleven hours flay there have been dramatically change in the environment, having been no more than twenty hours ago white winter around us and the temperature in Helsinki 15 c below the zero. Upon arriving at the Mississippi the temperature showed 20degrees of C above the zero and I still wore my fur-winter boots.
Sitting there in green I was truck by the odour of the earth and hay and the moisture of open water, all those things after ice blocked sea and the frozen nature sterilized by the winter.
The door of the hut opened and in the lighted doorway was seen a silhouette of a man, It was tall slim figure of our captain in his khaki uniform accompanied by a boatman. I got on my feet and we started down to river, the boatman goes ahead and then our captain, we followed them in a single file and got into boat.
The ship was there anchored somewhere on middle of the wide river of the large river. The water looked black and there were sparks of the reflections of the lights on surface of the water. The boat drove into night and got rounded the lofty aft of the ship the aft structure dowering up like an lighted cathedral, then the huge black ship’s side ran past and then there was the gangway in sight been lowered down near the water. The boat stopped and everybody of us stood up to stand-by to leap on gangway. The captain went first and then we limped one by one after him.