by Ned Reardon
Up on the deck he was able to see as far as the final reach of Milton Creek where it linked up with the Swale. A small fleet of dinghy sailing boats were racing round the Isle of Sheppey with their multi-coloured sails leaning in unison into a westerly breeze. He felt a little envious for there wasn’t even a breath of wind here and the heat had become intolerable. Heatwaves distorted the middle distance and the creek’s underbelly of shiny grey mud appeared like overlapping slabs of molten silver reflecting under the scorching sun.
He closed his eyes for a few moments and imagined what it would be like out on the high Swale among the racing sailors. Cutting the waves in a boat of his own with the wind in his hair, salt in his lungs and the sea spray raining in his face. Aspiring to even dizzier heights, he promised himself that one day when he had come of age, he too would master the art of sailing and become the greatest yachtsman ever.
At the stern of the vessel there was an open hatchway. He edged towards it cautiously avoiding the parts of the deck which had severely corroded, paper thin in patches. Balanced awkwardly above the hole, he peered down into the dark space below and was soon convinced that it was the chamber that housed the tug’s anchor after noticing part of a coiled metal chain. When descending the iron ladder, he instantly felt the benefit of a sudden drop in temperature and after crawling on top of the rusty chains, saw that there was just enough room to squeeze himself beyond the daylight.
Cramped below deck it was dark and dank and eerily silent but a welcome relief from the oppressive heat. He felt exhausted and again his mind began to tire. Could one of the wrecks lying on the mud have been the ‘ Marianne ’ barge? he asked himself. Could this be the place where his mother and father had perished?
He was then startled by a noise above which caused him to shrink back further into the darkness. Instantly he understood he was cornered. But then, to his utter relief, he noticed that it was only a bird that had hopped onto the rim of the hatch. It stayed there for a while preening itself. At first he wondered if it was Jack, escaped from his aviary, but when he glanced up he was met by the uneasy sight of a lone magpie gawking down at him. The boy stared up at the bird into its black beady eyes. ‘One for sorrow,’ he uttered, ‘two for joy.’ He waited for the second magpie, hoping. But the bird never came. Soon he was fast asleep.
Beyond the thinning mist as the great blue wave nears the end of the world headed towards the sky that is no more, the boy holds steady his nerve. The time comes soon enough when, knowingly, he looks sharply astern. In that very moment, the boy and his raft are hurtled forth into the black, star studded ocean of space and he watches, with the saddest of hearts, the rapid white water far beneath him draining from every sea on the planet as it floods over the edge of the earth and disappears forever into the abyss.
But all is not lost. He is afloat once more. Gently adrift upon an invisible sea of peace and calm amid a spectacular new world, silent and unfurled. Now he weighs anchor and sets sail, charting a straight course towards the great vortex suspended in perpetuity between the celestial realms of past and future. Be patient my beloved mother and father, he cries out into the dark void. I am coming now. And thus begins his incredible journey across the heavenly universe to the Kingdom of the Lord.
Following his nap the boy awoke feeling invigorated and relaxed, cooled and calmed. No longer did he fret about the possibility of Christopher Crispin inadvertently giving the game away. Or about what his guardians might have to say to him when he had a mind to return to Greenporch. What will be will be, he thought. He would deal with their reprimands when the time came. This adventure, as far as he was concerned, had only just begun.
However, this pleasant sense of exhilaration and exuberance had deflated somewhat soon after vacating his convenient fox hole. Smothered in rust particles, he was aghast with the sudden realisation that he was in deep trouble. The tide had long turned and it seemed that he was now in serious danger of becoming trapped, cut off by the incoming sea water. With not a moment to spare, he clambered his way back down the gangplank with his thoughts racing in panic. The timbers he’d used earlier as convenient stepping stones were now submerged under the muddy water. Not to any great extent but the problem was that they had become completely invisible. He had no choice, the boy realised, other than to estimate at their proximity and hope for the best. Which meant of course getting his feet wet but needs must, he supposed.
Initially he coped, getting a good foothold on the solid framework and at about half way back all was well. At this stage he’d also managed to sling his rucksack over on to the sea wall. Now he could count some of his blessings for at least his supplies were safe and dry. The boy though was not so fortunate having misjudged a timber two steps later causing him to trip head first into the water. With some awkwardness, he gradually squelched his way back out of the creek drenched from head to toe in a foul smelling cocktail of grey mud and milky coloured slime. Spitting out the dregs of the filthy brackish water he cursed his rotten luck. He was furious; a bath at this early stage of his escapade had definitely not been on his agenda.
The church, away on the horizon and its surrounding wood, grabbed his attention momentarily. He knew perfectly well that hidden just beyond the old elm and sycamore trees was Greenporch, his home where he had been forewarned by the wise ones, sat in their salubrious surroundings, never to come here alone. As he stood there stooped with his hair and skin caked in the disgusting, blancmangey mud, he could literally hear their taunts and jibes and imagine them scolding him at the forefront of his mind, wagging their fingers righteously.
Annoyed with his own foolishness, he plugged up his muddy ears with his muddy fingers and refused to accept their disparaging remarks.
The mud on his skin was drying fast and was beginning to feel prickly and uncomfortable as though alive with parasites. Hastily, he skimmed off as much as he could, using his bare fingertips but the situation was hopeless. He could hardly bear the smell of himself, the mud was repulsive and stank to high heaven. He felt dejected, upset and irritated with himself for having fallen into the creek but for now the urgency of a bath had become a more pressing matter. Now it seemed he had to return home with his tail firmly between his legs and having had his expectations knocked down a peg or two, he thought about what lay ahead. Whatever will be, will be!
Chapter 8
Trudging back across the hinterland despondently and his head hung low, he was suddenly halted in his tracks by the sight of something mesmerizing. He found himself staring at a clump of woodland that seemed almost to be afloat on a great yellow sea. It was located in the centre of a vast cornfield, which surprisingly, he hadn’t noticed earlier on his way down to the creek. He was sweating prolifically and his skin itched terribly. Commonsense told him that he should continue on his homeward journey as fast as he could but try as he may, he could not avert his attention away from the mysterious looking island.
Then, overwhelmed by some crazy, whimsical impulse, whilst at the same time emitting a high-pitched scream imitating Tarzan’s jungle cry, he leapt down into the corn. He couldn’t see the island at all now and was amazed at how he’d disappeared bodily below the tall stalks. However, he still felt confident he’d find his way after retrieving the pocket compass from his rucksack.
It didn’t take him very long to reach the isle where he followed the perimeter around the poplar trees until he discovered a sufficient gap in the dense gorse wide enough for him to crawl through.
When he got beyond the rough brambles and stinging nettles, his eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets as he came before a large pond, abounding with algae and covered in water lilies. He was stood gaping at the fresh water pool sunk in the midst of an explosion of colour more striking than a coral reef, ringed by copious amounts of flowering shrubs, alluring exotic plants and overhung by trees drooping in full bloom. In the succeeding months he would learn what they were, fuchsias, cedar
s and magnolias, to name but a few. Even the sheen upon the water’s surface was radiant with every colour of the rainbow. The boy had to pinch himself for he wasn’t quite sure if he hadn’t just stumbled into somebody else’s dream. The whole place was aglow with sublime beauty, a picturesque utopia beyond his wildest imagination, inhabited by fat frogs, nimble newts and scaly lizards. Through wide open, innocent eyes which struggled to believe, he saw a mystical, amphibious world patrolled by magnificently coloured dragonflies darting adeptly from one bulrush to another above an army of pond skaters and lesser water boatmen.
Without warning something then began to emerge from the water causing the startled boy to instinctively hit the deck. Fearful once again, his heart began to beat furiously and terror quickly seized hold of all of his senses. Although it’d only been a fleeting glimpse, he’d noticed that the man was naked but more alarmingly felt certain that it was also the same person he’d seen earlier, burying something out on the salt marsh. The man must have been swimming underwater and had presumably resurfaced for air. In that split second the boy had also observed some very distinguishing marks around both his eyes and mouth. There was no doubt in his mind now that the bather was indeed the man that the villagers called ‘Blackberry Bill’. The grotesque scaring he’d noticed was also prominent on the man’s chest and on the front side of his legs like he was suffering with some type of skin affliction.
The boy started to panic. Had the man seen him? Was he creeping quietly towards him this very moment? Almost choking on his own fear he dared not to twitch a muscle. Too afraid to look up, too afraid to scratch at his itchy skin, too afraid to breathe even, he thought about the portrait of Jesus Christ and prayed to Him now for protection. He laid trembling and also thought about the gypsy’s tale. Was he about to be throttled to death and eaten? He squeezed his eyes shut, swallowed his fear and listened with bated breath for all his life was worth.
Nothing. Not a murmur. Deafening silence broken only by the thudding pulse of his own heartbeat. No sounds of splashing water. No huffing and puffing. Peace and calm had returned save for the sound of a cuckoo, cuckooing somewhere close by. Maybe the man had gone? He desperately hoped so. Raw fear niggled his nerves but it was now or never. He had to try and make a dash for it. Three… Two….One and he was up in readiness to flee. There was nobody there. He was quite alone.
Not quite trusting his own eyes he scanned his immediate surroundings for any sign of the man’s presence. There wasn’t any. Not a trace of the strange man or his clothing were evident. He’d even begun to doubt his own sanity. Maybe he hadn’t really seen him at all. A mirage perhaps? Too much exposure to the sun. Only now was he able to drop his shoulders and exhale a long sigh of relief.
After finally regaining his breath his confidence slowly returned, enough so for him to strip down to his underwear and step gingerly into the pool. Initially, the pond water had felt quite tepid but as he paddled out he noticed how much cooler it became. In the centre it was also deep enough to swim around in but first he had to wash every bit of dried dirt away from his sticky hair and grimy sunburned hide.
Floating on his back, gazing up through the leafy trees at the empty blue sky, his anxiety mellowed into a form of contentness. He couldn’t quite believe his luck, a Garden of Eden right bang in the middle of nowhere. He swore to himself never to breathe a word of its existence for here he felt completely free, overwhelmed by a pleasant sense of euphoria. He wanted this place all to himself and resented the fact that Blackberry Bill was obviously aware of it too. He wondered if anyone else did? Most likely not. Blackberry Bill and himself and possibly old farmer Pat, the land owner were probably the only people, he surmised, whom had ever relished its tranquility.
Satisfied that he was now completely clean he stood at the water’s edge dripping wet, realising rather stupidly that he hadn’t anything to dry himself off with. Craning his head up at the blazing sun, he felt sure that it would complete the task for him. He set about the other job of rinsing out his dirty clothes including his footwear and hung the whole lot willynilly on some nearby bushes. He’d be nice and dry in no time at all and as for his boots and clothes, they would dry eventually. Alongside the weeping willow, naked and sopping wet, he sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, coated yellow-green with lichen and moss and waited patiently for the sun to do its work.
Negotiating those slippery timbers had been more than he’d bargained for but it mattered little to him now. He’d begun to fend for himself precociously and he considered this a positive thing. In fact he couldn’t recall ever feeling quite this happy. Here alone on the marsh, he felt as though he was slowly becoming a man and having erased all memory of his deceptions was now more resolute than ever.
In that moment, he’d even begun to muse over the concept of moving there for good, weighing up the practicalities of such an undertaking. For instance, the problem of having somewhere warm and dry to sleep was easily solved if he bought himself a small, second hand tent at the jumble sale with the pocket money he’d saved already. He’d live by eating the fish that he’d catch himself and learn to hunt rabbits and maybe grow some vegetables too. He thought he could be just like Robinson Crusoe, the resourceful castaway marooned on an island and nobody would ever know he was there… But then, he sighed, wouldn’t he be sorely missed back at Greenporch? And in particular by his dear friend Jack.
Chapter 9
Listening to the songbirds had reminded the boy of his pet jackdaw which he’d found when only a fledgling. He’d noticed the bird balancing precariously on top of his parent’s headstone. Flapping its tiny, undeveloped wings in some obvious distress, he could only assume that the poor creature had somehow fallen from its nest or maybe even crashed into the tombstone on its maiden flight.
More worryingly, he’d also noticed a mangy-looking ginger tomcat prowling nearby who he suspected was planning to eat the baby bird for his breakfast. Of course he’d felt compelled to deprive the hungry cat of his free meal, (not that he’d anything against cats), shooing it far away before rescuing the injured jackdaw. He’d instantly named the pitiful, helpless thing ‘Jack’ and concerned for the animal’s welfare, decided to smuggle him into Greenporch where he secretly sustained the bird on tiny worms and pieces of stale bread soaked in sour milk.
The boy had had to beg the wise ones to keep Jack after his little secret had been discovered only a few days later. They’d refused outright, claiming that it wasn’t ethical and that it was basically cruel to keep a wild animal domestically. Mr Stickles, the home’s gardener and general caretaker however, was of the opinion that the bird had unfortunately damaged a wing which needed a little more time to heal. Following a reconsideration of the bird’s predicament, he was then granted temporary permission to retain the animal during its time of convalescing. Nursing the bird back to full health had become a very laborious job for the boy and by the time he’d actually made a full recovery Jack had already grown into his prime, his feathers shiny and as black as coal.
The boy had tried his utmost to introduce his foundling back into the wild where he truly belonged, adopting all sorts of crafty procedures in order to outwit the bird but alas, failing miserably at every attempt. Jack was far too clever by half and had stubbornly made up his own mind that Greenporch was his home now and that was the way it was going to stay! To be perfectly honest nobody at the orphanage, including Mr and Mrs Saffron, had really wished him to leave anyway for he had become quite a celebrity. It so transpired that the boy was allowed to keep the jackdaw as his pet for good.
Mr Stickles kindly constructed a permanent aviary out of bits of driftwood and chicken wire. The cage was meant only to protect the bird from natural predators such as stray cats and foxes and not to imprison him. The caretaker had ingeniously incorporated a unique Jacksize doorway which meant the bird was free to come and go as he so desired.
The bird had become excellent company for the
boy and so amusing too, a prodigy in fact. More often than not, following some of its impish antics, it’d have the most hardened of dispositions rolling around in fits of laughter. On one such occasion, when the tortoise was out on the summer lawn, the jackdaw had walked up to it rather inquisitively fearlessly cocking its head from side to side trying to figure out exactly what the strange looking creature was. It wasn’t too long before Jack had developed a practical use in his new found friend by hopping up on to the tortoise’s shell and hitching a free ride around the garden whenever it took his fancy.
Much of the time the jackdaw stayed on its best behaviour which was attributed somewhat to its wonderful temperament and human-like characteristics. Even so, like its human counterparts, the bird would occasionally play up, taking it upon himself to fly up to an open window where he would casually remove various items of jewellery from the girl’s dormitory, much to their repeated annoyance. Fortunately for Jack, the boy without fail would rush to his best friend’s defence, disclaiming their accusations of theft and nuisance and assuring them that the intelligent creature had merely borrowed their bangles and trinkets as toys to play with. The girls were always reunited with their property and ultimately the bird was always forgiven.
Chapter 10
When he reached into his rucksack to take a swig of his orange squash, he suddenly remembered the magnifying glass. It was just the thing he needed right now and within a few minutes, using the sun’s rays in conjunction with the glass, he succeeded in igniting a flame for a small fire of dry twigs and reeds. He was rather pleased with himself for what he’d achieved but at the same time was anxious that perhaps the smoke from his fire could bring some unwanted attention to his whereabouts, especially with regard to the naked swimmer he’d seen earlier. Nevertheless, it was a risk he had to take. The heat had already dried his skin and so now with the aid of the fire he proceeded to dry off every article of his wet clothing.
