The Cruise of the "Willing Mind" by A.E.W. Mason

The cruise happened before the steam-trawler ousted the smack from the North Sea. A few newspapers recorded it in half-a-dozen lines of small print which nobody read. But it became and -- though nowadays the _Willing Mind_ rots from month to month by the quay -- remains staple talk at Gorleston ale-houses on winter nights.

The crew consisted of Weeks, three fairly competent hands, and a baker's assistant, when the _Willing Mind_ slipped out of Yarmouth. Alexander Duncan, the photographer from Derby, joined the smack afterwards under peculiar circumstances. Duncan was a timid person, but aware of his timidity. He was quite clear that his paramount business was to be a man; and he was equally clear that he was not successful in his paramount business. Meanwhile he pretended to be, hoping that on some miraculous day a sudden test would prove the straw man he was to have become real flesh and blood. A visit to a surgeon and the flick of a knife quite shattered that illusion. He went down to Yarmouth afterwards, fairly disheartened. The test had been applied, and he had failed.