The old man leaned back comfortably in his chair and gazed abstractedly through the salon windows.    As they had for several years since his retirement, his wife and he had once again decided to take a break from cruising, and moor their boat at this marina for the colder winter months ahead.    Situated at the mouth of the magnificent Tennessee River gorge, and within twenty miles of Chattanooga with its' big-city amenities, it provided the optimum winter location.   Selecting a berth more than fifty miles or so from here, either up or downstream, away from the protection of Monteagle Mountain and the Cumberland Escarpment, could make boat-life . . . and old age . . . rather more uncomfortable due to the prevailing winter storm patterns in this region.

It was only a few weeks until Christmas, but even for southeast Tennessee the weather was surprisingly mild.    Like an arclight suspended on proverbial skyhooks, the late afternoon sun glared down from a clear blue sky, spreading an almost summerlike warmth from across the well-defined ridge of Cedar Mountain.    The crumbling remains of the old Hales Bar Dam and the associated hydro-electric powerhouse, long since derelict, stood starkly silhouetted against the bright winter light.    Their dark contours contrasted sharply with the shimmering brilliance of the surrounding waters of Lake Nickajack, its' surface lightly rippled by the gentle south-westerly breeze.    From the direction of the coaling station across the lake, built on the abandoned lock structure, a faint rumble echoed.     A never-ending caterpillar of massive thirty-ton trucks, fresh from the Sequatchie Valley stripmines to the northwest, wound through a saddle in the opposite mountainside.    As each reached the head of the squirming column, it noisily discharged its' load of soft coal into the clattering conveyor system.   Rarely stilled, this monster fed the hungry barges lined up on the water below, like young fledglings in a nest awaiting their early morning worm.     Nearby, the pushboat "Bearcat" lay at her moorings, her powerful diesels idling softly, the exhaust haze rising lazily from the smoke-stacks amidships.    Soon she would marshall fifteen of the barges, each loaded with some fifty thousand tons of coal, into the standard five-by-three tow, and begin her bi- weekly run downstream to the big coal-fired power generating plant, operated by TVA at the Widows Creek site.    Over the years it had become a familiar and well-loved scene.

Earlier that morning he had gone ashore as usual to check for mail at the Post Office in the nearby village.    Striding along at his usual brisk pace, accompanied by the two dogs and the "Massed Bands of the Royal Marines", the daily walk gave him much needed exercise.    No !    On second thoughts it had been the "Pipes and Drums of the Black Watch" marching with him today . . . he wondered absently how one had ever managed before Sony developed the "Walkman" ? Occasional rest stops were explained away to passing villagers, in response to solicitous enquiries as to his health, as being necessitated solely by the intermittent natural needs of the two mutts, Max and Molly.

Now, as the suns' glow spread like warm treacle throughout the boat, the old man and the dogs dozed contentedly in the somnolent atmosphere, each feeling pleasantly tired from their morning exertions.    Max, the ancient Doberman, sprawled in his usual ungainly fashion inside the sliding glass doors leading to the front deck.    The sun glistened on his thinning hair.    Somehow, Max had never learned to look tidy when sleeping, and now that he was almost totally blind he didn't really care.     Molly, the something-Beagle crossbred puppy  . . .  a more recent acquisition that had been abandoned near the marina by an uncaring prior owner  . . .  had taken up her usual position.    Curled up under the mans' outstretched legs, she snored and snuggled, a firm believer in the axiom she had read on Page 31 of "The Lost Dogs Training Manual"  . . . . .  "Happiness is a Warm Puppy".    All were at peace !

The man dozed fitfully, lost in that dream world somewhere between current reality and yesterday.    A crumpled letter drooped from his left hand.    The freshly opened envelope, with the now familiar "Queen Elizabeth II" postage, lay before him on his desk, a cluster of dog-eared copies of old "Haltonian" magazines alongside.    The letter, penned in a well-recognised scrawl, had been from a long-time friend;   an "ex-brat" classmate from a village close by the old mans' childhood home in the UK.    The two of them had maintained this intermittent relationship for over fifty years, as each travelled the world.    The letter had brought disturbing news.    The British Government had, as a matter of political expediency, decided to abandon the seventy-odd year old R.A.F. Aircraft Apprentice training programme.    They had forever closed the doors of No. 1 S. of T.T. -  RAF Halton  . . .  there would be no more Brats !    The "navy-blue and brown jobs" had finally won out !

He had spent a couple of hours reading everything, and now the words and photos were reconjuring long dormant memories of that earlier life across the Atlantic so many years before.    So many names and faces . . . sights and sounds . . . planes and crews . . . places visited  . . .  victories won and punishments received . . . they flooded through his dreams, like a wild river on its' Spring rampage !

Why, it was only . . . . .