Black and grey US Navy anchor tattoo with USN lettering, the words U.S. NAVY above and RETIRED below, on an upper arm.

US Navy anchor retired tattoo on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo on the upper arm shows a US Navy anchor with a chain wrapped around its shank, with the letters USN set over the upper part of the anchor. The arched words U.S. NAVY sit above the emblem, the years 1978 and 1998 appear either side of it, and RETIRED is written below. The shading is greyscale with bold outlines and crisp, even lettering against the skin.

Traditional Lettering Upper arm Anchor Chain Date

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had shut the Crossed Keys for three days, and the only guest who came down to breakfast was Mr Harrow Velde, who took his tea at the window table and never once looked at the road. I cooked for him because there was nobody else to cook for. On the third morning he asked for a pencil. I found a stub behind the bar, chewed flat at one end, and he drew on a beer mat with the care of a man signing a will.

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It was an anchor, stout and old-fashioned, with a ring at the top and a chain wound round its shank. Above it he wrote U.S. NAVY in arched capitals, and beside the crown he set two years, 1978 and 1998, one on each side of a word he boxed in and did not explain. "Twenty years of hauling stores up ladders," he said. "Then they gave me a clock and a handshake." I asked whether he missed it. He looked out at the drifts climbing the wall of the lane and said the sea had never been the hard part. Coming ashore had been.

The gritter lit up the lane at six on the Friday, and Mr Velde settled his bill in coins, counting them twice. He left the beer mat face up on the table. I pinned it above the till with a drawing pin, because it seemed a shame to bin something drawn so carefully.

In April a postcard arrived with no return address, only a photograph of a harbour wall in the rain. On the back, in the same square capitals, were two words: Still counting. I moved the beer mat to the bar, where the lamp falls on it in the afternoons.