Ecuperating - Chapter 8

The English Maritime Commission came up with the entire crew list for the Sea Princess. It was surprisingly small. There were only three replacements in the entire four years that Eric was captain. It said something about the leadership of the man. All of the crew except one was American. The first mate, one Cecil Hardwick, was an Englishman. All 17 of the American crew had passed away. Phone inquiries to their families yielded no information.

While all were interested in the reason Carl gave for the inquiry; that of a possible book about the vessel and crew; they had no specific information except that all of them were left quite well off because of their relationship with Eric Tanner. It seems he had shared his riches with them when he transported passengers from Europe to America during that conflict.

Obviously they were not convinced that all was on the up and up with the passengers. Some actually came right out and claimed Eric had transported war criminals for money. It was a charge not supported by any facts.

“Looks like a dead end,” Shirley said to Carl after a week of phone calls.

“The only one left is this Cecil Hardwick in England.”

“It’s a long shot, but what the hell; let’s see what we can get from him. According to the last report he lived on Canal Street in London. The best way to find out if he’s still there is to call the London Exchange for information and phone number. You go ahead, Shirley.”

Shirley got the London Exchange and asked for the number of Cecil Hardwick of Canal Street. Her eyes got wide.

“Boss! It’s ringing! He still lives there. Line 2. Take it.”

“Yes? Cecil Hardwick here,” a man answered.

“Is this the Cecil Hardwick who served aboard the Sea Princess in WWII?” Carl asked.

“I think you are referring to my father. He died 10 years ago. May I ask what this is all about?”

“Sorry to hear that. I was hoping he could help me. I am a publisher, and I have an author who is researching information about one Eric Tanner and the Sea Princess for a novel she is writing.”

Carl informed him. “Really? I’m quite glad to hear that. My father tried to contact Captain Tanner for many years and was unable to reach him anywhere in the states. My father has a record of Eric Tanner’s daily log aboard the Sea Princess and would have liked to get it to him or his family. Evidently he had inadvertently picked up the log after Captain Tanner had quit the service and sold the ship in 1944. Do you think that, should I send it to you, you might get it to him?”

Carl tried to mask his enthusiasm.

“Well, I certainly will try. I’ll have my secretary give you my address and you can send it to me. It seems Eric Tanner has pretty well gone off the map here, but I’ll do my best!”

“Thank you very much, sir. I’ve been trying to get rid of it for years. I almost gave up and decided to throw it out. I’m glad I didn’t!”

Shirley gave him their address and hung up. They laughed out loud and celebrated with another round from Mr. Donuts.

Carl called Jayne and informed her about their lucky find in the log of Eric Tanner. As soon as it came in, Carl shipped it out to Jayne in Vegas. She opened the mail and gleefully began to read about the life of Eric Tanner at sea. June 10, 1939 The log of Eric Tanner.

This is the first of a series of records in what I have chosen to call The Last Heroes. In no way do I pretend to be a writer, for my thoughts are often too disorganized to lend any degree of expertise on my part to that noble profession. I therefore write in this record only those facts as I saw them at the time of living through the events recorded here, and to record my thoughts at that time, and will try not to color them in any shade but what they were at the time, though one is sorely tempted to do so.

History alone will judge me well, I am sure.

I was born on a cold November night in 1923 in a little lumbering town called Seney in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. From there we moved 25 miles north to the lumbering town of Grand Marais on the shore of Lake Superior. Trust my father to go against the main tide, and he turned to fishing instead of lumbering, where the money was in those days.

In ten years he proved to have staying power against the mighty Lake Superior, surviving many storms and making a fair living for my mother and myself. At ten years old, I went to sea with him during those months the great lake allowed one to eke a skimpy living from it.

He taught me well from April through October, encouraging me in the field of navigation and mathematics. The small libraries in the schools of Grand Marais and Seney ran out of information useful to me within the first two years of my sailing career.

Mastering navigation was not difficult for me. For that matter, I have found little in this life difficult to master if one puts his mind to it. Father ordered books on global navigation from the local libraries for me to peruse. Few came in, but all were read avidly.

My father was a large man, unlike his kin in Canada. His grandfather had taken himself an Indian bride of the Chippewa tribe. She was a large woman, actually of dubious Indian heritage, for she was swarthy and much too hairy to be of Indian Heritage. My father had inherited traits from both his parents; the swarthy French blood from the Canadian French, and that of his Indian mother.

Father had claimed direct descent from the French General Montcalm, who had lost Quebec to the rebels in the late 1700’s. I know not the truth of this, but he had no reason to lie about the relationship.

I seem to have inherited the traits of my immediate ancestors also. At 12 years of age it was necessary that I shave a heavy beard, and at 6 foot three, I topped the scales at 220 pounds. This proved to be the extent of my growth, however. To this day I have not grown an additional inch or gained so much as 10 pounds, and still must shave twice daily should I expect to go out in public on an evening.