Long Summer Day (59 page)
‘When the coastguard arrives explain what’s going on down there,’ Rudd told Willoughby, and sent Hazel back to the village with a written message for Tom Williams or his deputy. He scrawled it on an envelope in the light of a lantern, making no attempt to explain details. All he wrote was,
‘Shore party and possible survivors in cove just east of headland. Try and pick up at first light or soon as ebb begins. Rudd!
Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he added, ‘Per pro Squire Craddock,’ without thinking that Tom Williams would be most unlikely to know the meaning of ‘per pro’.
There had been one spluttering rocket from the end of the reef, so that it was clear that someone there was still alive but the drenching spray had already doused two of the tar canisters and only the most westerly still burned brightly. In the light of this the men worked methodically, knotting the assorted ropes until they had made a cable about a hundred and thirty yards in length. Abe Tozer tested every knot and Tamer showed them where to anchor the shore end, looping it over and through a twisted snarl of iron buried in the shingle, itself a relic of a wreck on the Conger Rocks a generation ago. Then, with the skiff stern firmly lashed to the long rope they carried the boat over the boulders to a point where sand had piled up in a broad crevice and there was a chance of launching between breakers, for here the beach was partially protected by the isolated rock and the causeway connecting it to the shingle. The causeway itself was already under four feet of water.
Paul took no part in these operations. Tamer obviously knew the tides and rock formations like the back of his hand, and Abe Tozer made himself responsible for briefing the shore party, emphasising the doubtful quality of the cable.
‘She’ll hold so long as you’m careful to pay out an inch at a time,’ he warned them. ‘Dornee be in no bliddy hurry or they’m all goners, an’ Squire too!’ He said nothing about Tamer’s prospects but the old fellow was not slow to remind him.
‘Aye, and me along with ’im,’ he growled, and because this was the nearest thing to a joke uttered on the beach that night everyone laughed and Eph Morgan, in his sing-song Welsh accent, said, ‘There’s a brave thing you’re doing, Tamerboy! The Lord go with both of you!’
It was now close on high tide and waves were breaking within twenty yards of the cliff wall. Glancing round the circle of faces Paul realised that there could hardly have been a more representative gathering of the Valley families. Not since his Coronation soirée had he seen so many of them in one place at one time. The Coombe Bay folk were represented by the two Tozers, Walt Pascoe and Eph Morgan, the Dell by Tamer and his son Sam. Young Willoughby was there from Deepdene, and so were the Derwents, father and son, from High Coombe. Will Codsall and Eveleigh’s team represented Periwinkle and Four Winds and although old Arthur Pitts had remained at the top with Willoughby and the Home Farm men, Henry Pitts was there to represent Hermitage and had, in fact, already quarrelled with Paul in an attempt to take his place in the boat. Paul counted them, without knowing that he did so, and numbered fifteen and only when they were ranged each side of the skiff, waiting for the lull after a ninth wave, did he realise that his own presence brought the total to sixteen.
For a moment, on launching, the sea under the headland seemed almost calm and they made it in a single rush, Tamer at the oars, Paul sitting astern with his weight, in accordance with Tamer’s instructions, pressed on the rudder bar, causing the skiff to swing south-east as the bows struck the first breaker and brought a drenching shower of spray into the boat. The rope went taut, then slack, then taut again, so that at first Paul thought they would be dragged back into the eddy and thrown at the feet of the shore party but the scour, sweeping round the extreme tip of the Bluff, caught them within seconds and glancing over his shoulder he could still see the beach in the glow of the tar beacon. Then the buffeting of the waves drove every thought but self-preservation from his head and they seemed to be spinning in wide circles, with Tamer grunting and wheezing in the bows and every now and again lifting his starboard oar clear of the water as he lashed away with his port blade to increase his sea room and hold a course for the rock.
Without the cable they would have been helpless, for the scour here had the force of a cataract and they seemed to be rushed towards the causeway at fantastic speed. The wink of the beach fire had been blotted out yet they could see no sign of the big rock or of the men clinging to it. Paul saw that Tamer was back-paddling with all his might, doing what he could to check the onrush of the boat for each time the cable went slack they feared that the next jerk would rip the stern from the boat or tumble them both in a heap in the bows. The shore party, however, seemed to know their business. Soon the sickening jerks ceased as the cable remained taut and Tamer, glancing over his left shoulder, drew in his starboard oar and set to work solely with his port, so that in smoother water west of the breakwater the sheer weight of the wet cable steadied them somewhat and when Tamer shouted ‘Hard up, Squire!’ Paul found the boat answered to the rudder perfectly and they drove right in under the rock, Tamer breaking the force of the collision with the oar. Then a minor miracle occurred. At the very moment of arrival the mist parted and they must have been visible for a few seconds from the beach for Paul heard a faint cheer and was astonished by it. It seemed to him that they were now miles out to sea.
It was to this momentary break in the mist that the survivors on the rock owed their lives, for although the shore party might have been able to drag the boat within reach of the beach, they would have had to guess the moment to do so whereas now they could see enough to show them when to let the cable slacken and give Tamer an opportunity to make his own last-minute approach. He achieved it with a skill Paul would not have expected of an expert seaman, standing upright in the tossing boat and somehow steadying it between a platform of rock on one side and the unbroken wall of the pinnacle on the other. The first man fell on them as from the skies and it was only when there was a concerted movement on the platform that Paul saw where the survivors were huddled, wedged in a compact group under a concave slab of sandstone and covered, every few seconds, by vast sheets of water spouting through gaps in the pyramid of fallen rocks about there. It was astounding, he thought, that anyone could still remain on the shelf, for each big wave flushed it from end to end and even more astonishing that, in the tiny runnel where Tamer was holding the boat steady, the overspill cascading from the shelf did not capsize them. The second man reached the boat between two smaller waves and then came a young woman, with a great mop of dark hair, who managed it more skilfully, judging her moment and crawling crablike across the level surface before somersaulting into the bows. The survivors obviously had fight left in them for at once they set about baling with sea boots and it was time somebody did for the skiff, with five adults aboard, was shipping water in alarming quantities. Tamer, however, remained erect, arms widely spread and looking like an old prophet pronouncing a blessing as a half-naked boy with an injured leg was handed down. Then the mist closed in again and the men on shore began to haul, so that there was no chance of plucking anyone else from the shelf as they were bounced away, the keel scraping on the submerged causeway in its rush for the beach. They shipped so much that it was a miracle the boat bobbed up again as the next wave crested past and then, in a bound it seemed, they had grounded on shingle and the shore party were then hauling them in, dragging woman, boy and the two men from the boat and carrying them up the beach to the fire. Tamer, chest deep in the swell, still held on to the waterlogged boat, bellowing ‘Dornee mind ’em! Drag the boat clear, you bliddy vools, bevore ’er’s smashed to tatters!’, and enough of them heeded him to lift it clear and carry it along the tideline to the point where it had been launched fifteen minutes before. Eveleigh said, hoarsely, ‘How many more be there for God’s sake?’ and Paul told him four or five, as far as he could judge and they would have to return for them at once.
It was odd how every man seemed to find himself a task and needed little direction, either from Paul or Tamer. The little cove now seemed crowded with figures, all moving cumbersomely among the scattered boulders and crossing the dull glow of the fire. Paul noticed that the shepherd twins and Meg Potter had now made the descent and came forward to carry the injured lad out of reach of the spray. The woman with the wild mop of hair walked alone, seemingly little the worse for her experience, and Paul left them to help Eveleigh and the others gather up the cable and follow the party with the boat back along the tideline to the western edge of the cove.
They had, perhaps, another fifteen minutes in hand, for the sandy runnel from which they had made the launching was now knee deep in water and although the mist was dispersing, the sea, even at this protected point, still ran high. They had upended the skiff and drained it before moving off but although it was no great weight it was very difficult to manoeuvre over broken ground in semi-darkness, with yards of heavy rope trailing behind as they slipped and slithered on the bladder wrack and weed-covered limpet shells. When they regained the launching point Paul saw that Tamer was near the end of his strength and said, as the men positioned the boat and began coiling the cable, ‘Can you make another trip, Tamer?’, to which Tamer replied, bluntly, ‘I got no choice, ’av I? There baint one o’ these lubbers knows the cove like me, nor that skiff neither! Suit yourself whether you come along, I reckon I could manage alone if I shipped the rudder and trusted to the skulls!’ Paul said briefly, ‘There’s no time to argue. Line up each side and push us clear again!’
It was by no means so straightforward an operation as before. The fire had burned low and with water splashing all round them they got in one another’s way, so that twice the keel fouled ledges of rock and hurled the boat back on the shingle. At the third attempt they won clear and the improved visibility helped Paul steer a more direct course for the rock while Tamer, shipping his starboard oar, used the other to prevent them swinging broadside on to the breakers. Almost at once, or so it seemed to Paul, they were running straight for the niche where the survivors crouched and immediately Tamer rose to brace his oar against the rock two men scrambled aboard, one using the spare oar to offset Tamer’s pressure in an attempt to keep the boat comparatively steady. A second later a middle-aged seaman, whom Paul judged to be the captain, left the rock but rolled over the stern into the water shouting to the last castaway, a young man naked but for a pair of canvas trousers, to join him on the tow rope. Paul and the rescued men at once began to bale but the moment Tamer withdrew his oar the shore party must have begun to haul for the boat shot stern first from its tiny haven, ploughing straight into the backwash of a spent breaker recoiling from the big rock. It was not a large wave compared to those breaking beyond the causeway, or even those falling on the beach eighty yards distant, but it was more than sufficient to capsize them in the trough. Paul, losing hold of the rudder bar, was pitched head over heels into the bows and for a moment he, Tamer and the two men amidships, tangled as the stern lifted under the suck of another backwash. Then he was flung clear and an oar, shooting past like a javelin, struck him a shattering blow on the temple. He felt the sharp sting of salt in the wound as the next wave crested over him but after that nothing but a confused buffeting as a tumult of water rolled him six feet under towards the breaker line.
They dragged them from the surf more dead than alive, Paul first, then the captain who kept his hold on the rope and made a lucky landing on sand at the launching point, and finally another man, who made a successful bid for his life by striking seaward, judging his moment to dive and finally landing in the arms of the shepherd twins as they stood waist deep in water to catch him. Minutes later a big wave tossed Tamer on to the ruins of the most easterly of his tar beacons. The other two sailors did not come ashore in the Cove. One was washed up a fortnight later on the Whinmouth bar, twelve miles to the West; the body of the other was never recovered.
They carried them beyond the shingle barrier and nobody had any comment to make at that time. After a few mouthfuls of spirit from Meg’s leather bottle the captain recovered enough to tell them in precise English that there were no more survivors out on the rock and certainly no one alive on the wreck three miles out to sea but in any case further efforts were out of the question for the cable had parted, the boat was in splinters and both oars had been lost.
Rudd, as soon as he heard the news, came down the gully again and in the light of lanterns rigged on driftwood spars watched them at work on the survivors, himself kneeling to bandage the deep gash in Paul’s temple. It was still bleeding freely and the rush of blood gave him hope. One of the sailors, who had been unconscious when brought ashore, responded to artificial respiration but Paul, although they worked on him for thirty minutes, yielded no more than a dribble of water. His pulse still registered and he muttered a few incoherent words when they lifted him and laid him between the replenished fires, wrapped in dry blankets brought down by the tireless Davy Tozer, making his fourth ascent of the gully that night. Tamer Potter would never be revived and everyone realised that as they dragged him ashore. His jaw had been smashed to a pulp but no blood flowed from the wound and his body was so bloated that it was all they could do to lift him clear of the boulders and carry him up the beach. By then it was after eleven o’clock and they could expect help any time now, for the sea was going down rapidly and the tide was on the ebb. Tom Williams, who had made two unsuccessful attempts to round the Bluff, sent word by Hazel Potter that he would come in and land before it was light and that they were to keep big fires burning and mark the sand runnel with two rows of lanterns. Meg Potter made no outcry when Eveleigh told her that Tamer was dead but accompanied him along the shingle to the spot where he lay slightly apart from the others. Rudd went with her, the others standing back in a silent huddle. She looked down on the disfigured face for a moment and said, calmly and quietly, ‘Well, Mr Rudd, ’er was a rare ole waster but ’er died a man’s death come to last.’ She then took off the short braided jacket she was wearing and covered his face, afterwards busying herself among the others and administering carefully regulated sips of her cordial.
