Black ink drawing of a rope-wrapped anchor and ship's wheel beneath calligraphic lettering reading the sailor's creed, shown as a design on paper rather than on skin.

Anchor and ship's wheel with sailor's creed lettering

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A pen drawing on white paper shows a rope-wrapped anchor crossing a ship's wheel, with a line of calligraphic lettering above reading "May your anchor be tight, your cork be loose, your rum be spiced and your compass be true." The anchor and wheel are shaded with dense hatching and cross-hatching, and the lettering uses varied weights for emphasis on key words. The image is black ink on white with no colour, and the composition centres the lettering over the emblem.

Lettering Anchor Ship's wheel Rope Compass Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Liverpool has gone quiet at last, Tom, so I am writing this on the back of a chandler's invoice while the gas lamps hum outside the window of the Crown Street lodging house. The rain stopped an hour ago and the cobbles shine like wet slate. You will laugh, but I have been muttering your creed under my breath all evening, because young Pritchard keeps asking me what the words mean and I have no better answer than the one you gave me on the Marguerite Lowe.

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Anchor tight means hold fast when the wind comes round, and cork loose means we open the bottle for the men who did the hauling. Rum spiced is for the cold watches, and compass true is the only line that mattered to you. You said it with your thumb pressed hard on the brass of the binnacle, as if you could keep the needle from wandering by will alone. I never told you I thought that was foolishness.

Pritchard's ship sails on the morning tide, and I have decided not to be on her. The owners have offered me a shore berth counting bales at the Albert Dock, and I said yes before I could talk myself out of it. Do not come down to the quay to shout at me. I have left the spoke of the old wheel you carved your initials into under the bench at the Bell, where the landlady promised to keep it dry.

Here is the last thing, and then I will blow out the lamp. I sketched the anchor and the wheel crossed together on the blotter tonight, rope wound round both, and it looked almost like a knot that could hold anything. Say the words over your tea for me, Tom. Anchor tight, cork loose, and be true to whoever is steering.