Chapter 9 - The Salt and the Iron\
Halifax Harbour in late April smelled of cold Atlantic brine, wet granite, and the sharp, clean ozone of an approaching northwesterly gale.
At the end of the newly modernized container terminal, where the giant gantry cranes stood against the pale sky like the skeletons of ancient beasts, three hundred people had gathered beneath a canopy of white canvas.
The band from the Royal Canadian Navy was playing a quiet maritime air, the brass instruments catching the thin northern sunlight.
Claire stood on the wooden platform above the dry-dock, wearing a long navy coat with silver buttons and a dark wool scarf tossed across her shoulder. Beside her stood the Premier of Nova Scotia, the regional port commissioner, and Kurt Weber, who looked like a proud uncle in his heavy overcoat.
Below them, floating in the deep basin of green harbor water, was the hull of the Elizabeth Vance.
She was seven hundred feet of reinforced steel, painted a deep, sovereign blue with an ivory waterline. There were no decorative flourishes; she was built for the ice lanes of the North Atlantic, for thirty-foot swells off Cape Race, and for carrying the heavy industrial machinery that kept the small ports of the Maritimes alive through the winter months.
"Miss Mercer," the shipyard director said, presenting her with the traditional wooden mallet bound in silver ribbon.
Claire looked down at the hull.
She thought of the small apartment in Brooklyn. She thought of the mornings when she had scrubbed the grease from the kitchen counters while Daniel slept, dreaming his grand, fragile dreams of corporate conquerings. She thought of the women who would be living in the Greenwich house this summer, young women with books in their hands and grease on their sleeves, learning how to build something that wouldn't collapse when the first storm hit the glass.
She stepped to the railing.
Her voice, carried by the public address system across the water to the dockworkers and the engineers standing on the crane gantries, was clear, steady, and without a trace of hesitation.
"I christen thee the Elizabeth Vance," Claire said, her hand coming down with a clean, confident stroke that shattered the bottle of champagne against the bow plates with a crisp crack that sounded like a rifle shot across the water. "May God bless this ship, and all who sail upon her."
The horn of the great vessel sounded—a deep, concussive roar that vibrated through the timber of the platform, through the soles of Claire’s boots, and through the cold stones of the pier, rolling out across the gray Atlantic until it vanished into the wide, open sea.
The crowd applauded. The dockworkers waved their hard hats from the catwalks.
Kurt Weber stepped beside her, holding two small glasses of sherry.
"A good ship, Claire," Weber said, clinking his glass against hers. "Solid steel. Good lines. No hidden guarantees."
May you like
Claire laughed—a bright, clean sound that rose above the cries of the gulls wheeling over the masts.
"No hidden guarantees, Kurt," she said, looking out toward the mouth of the bay where the lightship was already blinking against the twilight. "Everything on this ship is paid for."
