A Sail to Beyond
The sea sang to his soul richer than a beautiful woman's voice. He can't explain in words how the stars and colors mix for his eyes to view. How the skies thunder and swirl the wind, creating such a challenge for him.
Jacques doesn't come from England. A Frenchman from Marseille, his family moved to England when he was too young to recall. One sea changed for another. His father was a merchant. His mother was a caretaker of his many siblings, though few made it to adulthood. Those who did never embarked on his passion. To become a man of the sea. His father served in the Navy. The British Navy. During the mid-1800s, things maritime and nautical seemed too attractive to ignore for the men in his family. All the men in his family, his brothers, his father, and his grandfather, subscribed to a seafarer life. Though as merchants, not as navy men. Not what Jacques desired.
The sea sang to his soul richer than a beautiful woman's voice. He can't explain in words how the stars and colors mix for his eyes to view. How the skies thunder and swirl the wind, creating such a challenge for him. Or how when he returns home to Bristol, the land doesn't do justice to him. The sea. A tormenter. A lover. A fighter. His family can't share this enthusiasm, but his siblings understand. His family can't share this desire for the navy as he can, but his father and grandfather understand. France and Britain are allied. Centuries of war and destruction. They do better as friends. Lovers fancying one another. His family married the English. The local English dream of France. For holiday, for leisure, and rest. To retire. To find love. To enjoy.
Jacques isn't at home, though. Bristol. Nor on holiday in Marseille, visiting his grandfather. Sharing stories, learning from the old and wise. Helping out with errands. France feels like a soft blanket that only wants to coddle him, but he resists. He has tried to become British, but everyone calls him Jacques, the Frenchman. A Frenchman. He gets asked if he's a spy for the French, but he swears he fights for the British. He gets asked what France is like by those who wish to live there. He plays cards with the gents, those men like him set course for one place only. Burma. Britain has been laying siege to this mystical place, so far-flung and foreign to Jacques, it could be Atlantis. He only knows three places: France, Britain, and Europe. Anywhere else rings adventure to the ears of navy men, but Jacques is distraught. Burma is no island. But Burma contains a great river, traveling northwards.
While playing cards, sitting on a barrel as the others all laugh and drink gin, a go-to drink on the battleship, outfitted with fine sails and grandeur, soon to be replaced by creations of the Industrial Revolution, Jacques plays his hand. He folded. The other navy men laugh, joke, and continue to drink, a merry time under tranquility. The seas have not been horrendous recently off the coast of Africa. Somewhere not colonized by the British Empire. This immense empire, like the French empire. Governed by democracies, behaving like empires of old. An irony that never alluded to Jacques nor his fellow British navy men, all with lives of their own. Families. Dreams.
Georges wished to own property, give his wife a brighter future, and do something positive for his children. Nathanial sought to open a business in London, a hygiene business, something foggy except for him. Robert wanted to attend school, earn higher education, and one day, teach what he had learned to others. Jacques only had a future across the sea, under the vast sky. He prayed to the Almighty, who gives man the ability to discover and explore. Jacques kept three things with him in the navy: a French bible, a cross of Christ, and prayer beads. He is a Catholic. Those around him barely believe in more than themselves, and Jacques doubts those from this mystical Burma may even comprehend Christianity, but Jacques keeps these items close. It only takes one soul of Burma to know.
One soul to fear God. One soul to love Jesus Christ. One soul to believe in the Holy Spirit. Jacques keeps these beliefs to himself, only he, within his family, bother to retain the aspects of Catholicism. They've left. They've deserted the Church for other churches. But Jacques accepts that. God is beyond understanding. No man or woman could ever comprehend. It only takes one woman of Burma to believe in what he does. He sighs, playing cards, wondering to himself if Europe was better under one religion, not torn asunder by deceit. The devastation of a continent. Because man came before God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Because man is just a primitive fool.
These British navy men. He will never speak of his inner Catholicism. He won't.
