There had been others— one thinks of Roman galleys pulling on oars out to the wide ocean The Crusaders come to mind And those in sailing ships peeking around hillsides of ice Worlds bound by the same elemental fear & wonder. So what of memory? What sticks? Thirty years after the tour ends, invited to write a piece of reminiscence Billy Stead recalls the winding lanes of Devon, the secret stairways of Holyrood, the dank corridors of the Tower of London, the dust particles that hung in the air of a celebrated dressmaker’s shop in Paris, and that terrible night outside Cherbourg taking on emigrants from the French tender ‘four in a basket … and shot down an incline on to the lower deck (just like the mail)’. It is an older Billy Stead writing, re-evaluating, reflecting. He recalls Gallaher travelling all the way south to Reefton to tell him he’s signed up for the war in Europe. Another campaign. Just the two of them this time, they sat on a rock at the edge of a field, trailing thoughts.
