Clocks Like Horses

It was interesting as to how the ninety year old man kept time with each different parts of the world. And it was like a lapse in time to hear his old war stories of how he led his life working on ships. The weird part was at the end when the story mentions something about how he knows there will be the old man waiting lying in his bead dead. Maybe this story had an alternate meaning but I really didn't catch it.