How it opens
You were Michel, of Rozel Bay, and your father's boat had carried brandy and tobacco until the year France began cutting off heads, when it began carrying people.
Your father had made the crossing nine times in the old war and was drowned off the Ecrehous by a storm no prayer could argue with.
ElieThe wind is from the sou'-west, Michel, and the moon sets at two, and the coast is quiet as a church that has been shut.
Choose
Own it for the money, and say so, because honesty is the boat's whole ballast.
Own it for France's people, and the road your father said a boat could be.
Own it for nothing you can name, and let the naming wait for a winter that can afford it.