Dead and Alive

by Hammond Innes

  Sarah’s son, Mervin, was home that night, full of talk of the sale and the five calves he’d got. But mostly he talked of sheep. They had never had sheep on the farm and he had bought a dozen lambs. He argued that the price of wool was going up and sheep were a good investment. He wasn’t sure of himself and was trying to justify the purchase, which he described as a bargain that it was just foolish to miss.

  I sat and smoked and enjoyed his enthusiasm, glad that I too had things to plan and work for. The atmosphere of the farm was less of memories and more of plans and hopes for the future.

  Just as I was going to bed Sarah said with a little smile, “When are you moving down to Bossiney, Mr. David?”

  I laughed. “How did you know?” I asked.

  “Allow an old woman’s who reared three children her intuition,” she said. She tapped my arm with her knitting needles. “You wouldn’t have listened to Mervin’s blather with such entertainment if you hadn’t got plans of your own.”

  I nodded. “I’m glad I came,” I told her. “It seems I, too, have hunches that sometimes work out. I’ll be moving down there in a day or two.”

  I arranged for Mervin to call me when he rose the following morning and by seven-thirty I was striding along the road to Boscastle in the early sunlight. I sang nearly all the way. I was frankly excited. I hadn’t planned for myself like this for more than five years. Down the valley I caught a glimpse of the sea, blue and calm. High tide was twelve-forty. With luck the barge should be unloaded and safely moored in Boscastle shortly after midnight.

  The narrow, twisting street was warm and bright in the sunlight as I came down into the valley. The long elbow of the inlet that was responsible for the village looked quiet and peaceful. Fishing boats, masts bare, were moored behind the mellow stone of the two thick sea walls. The girdling hills were a riot of colour. The green between the stone outcrops was tinged with the yellow of birds’-foot trefoil and early gorse flowers.

  Down by the hard Mr. Garth was getting his boat ready. He was a man of about sixty with a weather-beaten, dour face and blue eyes beneath a dark cloth cap. “I’ve sent my nephew up to the head yonder to watch for the tug, Mr. Cunningham,” he said. “He’ll signal to Garge here when it’s sighted.” He indicated a big clumsy-looking man who grinned up at us from the engine hatch at the mention of his name. “Meantime the missus has a Cornish pasty she’d be glad for you to try and there’s a pint or two of home-brewed cider that would be the better for the drinking of it. The missus,” he added as we climbed from the boat, “is main proud of her pasties. So are all the women of Boscastle, for that matter.”

  He led me up the hard to a little stone house set back in a garden of flowers and vegetables. “Yes,” I said, “I remember the Cornish pasties I had in Boscastle, though it is more than five years since I was here.”

  “Aye.” He nodded and spat at a stone with precision. “Thee can’t beat Boscastle for pasties.”

  In a cool stone-flagged room full of faded photographs, last war relics and polished Cornish stone we ate steaming pasties and drank rough cold cider out of glazed earthenware mugs. We were served by a little girl in pigtails tied with blue ribbon. “Thee was much talked about down at the Black Prince last night,” old Garth said. “When I told ’em wot it were you were after doing there were much shaking of heads.” He cackled. “But I were in Navy in last war and I said whatever they thought, I reckoned a Navy man could do it. I bet Ezra Hislop, who has a farm over by Trafalgar, five pund that you d do it before the autumn weather. Aye, an’ there’s witnesses to that. An’ there was other bets taken, too.”

  “Well, I hope I don’t let you down, Mr. Garth,” I said. I was feeling uneasy.

  “Thee don’t have to worry about that, mister. A bet gives an old man an interest in life. An’ if it’s labour you need, I can find that. There’s two boys back from the Forces with nowt to do.”

  He told me that one had been in the Navy and the other had been an R.A.S.C. driver. I asked him their names and said, “I’ll come down and have a word with them some time.”

  We talked about the fishing then until George came in to say the tug was sighted. I sought out Mrs. Garth in the big cheerful kitchen. There was the warm sweet smell of pastry baking and she smiled and nodded her head when I told her how good her pasties were.

  The boat’s engine was already running as we came out into the dazzling sunlight of the hard. We cast off and the protecting hills of the inlet slipped by as we chugged through the sparkling waters.

  The tug was lying-to about three or four chains off the entrance to the harbour. She slipped her tow as we came up. “Ahoy, there,” came a shout over the loud hailer. “What’s your name?”

  “Cunningham,” I shouted.

  “Okay, Cunningham, here’s your scrap. Slater’s compliments and if it’s not returned within a month he’s sending a file of Marines.”

  “Tell him he needn’t worry,” I called.

  “Okay. Don’t get those hawsers wrapped round your neck, landlubber.” And with that crack and a wave of his hand, he was off, cleaving a deep wake at his low stern.

  A signal ran up on the halyards. “Good luck!” I waved acknowledgment and almost wished I was back in the Navy.

  We made Bossiney just before midday and stood off for half an hour. As we drove in on the full tide I could see Stuart standing on the battered bridge of the old hulk watching us. Everything seemed possible to me then as I brought in the equipment that would have cost a lot of money to him.

  We were lashed to the stern end of the barge and we drove in through calm waters at full ahead. Old Garth knew the cove, and he hugged the cliffs on the starboard side so close that I thought he’d crush his boat between them and the barge. There was a shudder, the binding ropes strained taut and then we were still, the barge firmly grounded on sand.

  “Ahoy, there,” I called.

  Stuart clambered down to the beach and waded out to us. Several trippers were gathered on the rocks watching us. “What the hell’s the barge for?” he asked, as he climbed on board, his slacks dripping water. Then he saw what was in the barge and his eyes lighted. “Where did you get it?”

  “Naval Dockyards,” I said. “It’s on loan.”

  He jumped down into the boat and wrung my hand. He was as thrilled as I’ve ever seen a man. “Partner,” he said, “I see you know your way around.” He jumped on to the barge and ran his eyes over the contents. Then he looked down at us. “There appears to be some hard work ahead of us. I suggest a drink. I’ve scrounged a couple of bottles of Haig from the local whilst you’ve been away.”

  By two o’clock the barge was high and dry and we got to work. We rigged two of the girders upright in the sand against the side of the barge and lashed a light cross girder to them. It was then that I first realised what a help the odd tripper could be, for the girders were very heavy and the holiday makers proved only too anxious to show how strong they were. A pulley attached to the cross girder lifted the winches clear of the barge and then with a rope we pulled the whole lot over on to the sand. It took us three hours to empty the barge by this primitive method and another two hours to stow the gear clear of the tide. Smaller items such as wooden rollers, tools, locking bolts and so on that I had included we stowed on board. Slater, bless his soul, had thrown in some tins of grease, one drum of lubricating oil and five of diesel oil. Particularly I appreciated the diesel oil since it showed that he was confident that we would in fact get off.

  The question of food cropped up during the stowing as we had nothing but some pasties and a jar of cider that Mrs. Garth had thoughtfully stowed in the motor boat. A young man who had been helping us in no uncertain fashion whilst his girl friend slept in the sun on a nearby rock said, “Look, if you’d care to invite us to supper with you, I’ll press-gang that good-for-nothing woman over there who happens to be my fiancée into doing some cooking.”

  So Stuart introduced her to the galley and the larder, and by the time we were
through she had a hot meal ready for us. I don’t remember her surname. To us she was always just Anne. Her fiancé’s name was Bill Trevor. They came down and gave us a hand quite often after that first evening and for some strange reason things always seemed to go better when Anne was around so that we came to regard her as our mascot.

  After dinner we sat on the bridge drinking and singing snatches of old songs to an accordion which Stuart played, whilst the tide crept darkly up the cove. Old Garth’s boat was floating shortly after eleven, just as the moon began to rise and fill the whispering cliffs with strange shadows. The old man had heard that Bill and Anne were staying at Boscastle and offered to take them in the boat. They were so keen on the idea of going back by sea in the moonlight that Bill gave me the keys of his car and asked me to park it at the farm for the night and drive over for them in the morning. I readily fell in with the idea since it would mean transport for my luggage to Bossiney. I knew that the job I’d undertaken was one that I’d got to live with.

  Down on the beach I took Garth aside to settle for the hire of the boat. But when I spoke to him of it, he shook his head angrily, “Man,” he said, “I’ve enjoyed the day. Thee’s given me a change and that’s as good as a holiday. I’m my own master. You’ll not be spoiling it by offering me money.” He gripped my elbow in a hard hand. “An’ if thee’s in difficulties and need men to give thee a hand, come and see me. There’s plenty of us over at Boscastle who’d come for the fun of it. We’re men of the sea and if it’s a question of putting a boat in the water there’s few of us won’t give a hand.”

  There was nothing adequate I could say. I shook his hand. He turned quickly away and went up to Anne. A moment later he had picked her up and was wading out to the boat with her. With a tow line fixed, the barge came off the sand with barely a sound and Stuart and I watched them chugging out of the now moonlit cove with a feeling that things were going well.

  It was two o’clock before I drove back to the farm, for Stuart insisted on my explaining to him how I intended getting the craft off with the tackle I had borrowed.

  The next day we started on the back-breaking task of building up a boulder and sand causeway between the rocks on which she rested and the one jagged outcrop that lay between her and flat sand. When we were tired there was always some holiday-maker to take over for a short spell. In three days we’d quite altered the appearance of the end of the cove. At night I slept like a log in an iron bedstead that Sarah had insisted on lending me complete with mattress, sheets and blankets. We lived out of tins, except once when Anne came down and whilst Bill laboured furiously with the three of us—the half-wit from the village was now under contract for the hours of daylight—Anne cooked about the biggest meal I have ever seen.

  By the end of the third day we stood back in the red light of a wild sunset and could see how, by raising her stern and shifting her foot by foot, we could swing her on to the flat sand without damaging her. But the sky was flecked with dirty looking cloud. “There’s a break in the weather coming,” I told Stuart. The weather forecast that night included a gale warning.

  It was about four in the morning that I woke. The wind was roaring against the ship’s sides and I could hear the crash of the rollers growing louder as the tide came up the cove. I dressed and went up on deck. Stuart joined me shortly afterwards. Intermittently the moon broke through ragged gaps in the clouds and showed us the water tossing angrily at the entrance to the cove.

  “Is it going to clear?” Stuart asked.

  “No,” I said. “It’s going to get worse.”

  He nodded. “What about that?” He indicated our three days’ work with the glowing bowl of his pipe.

  “We’ve had it,” I said. “And we’ll be lucky if those boulders don’t smash through the plates.”

  We decided to batten everything down and go up to the farm. There was no point in staying on board. There was nothing we could do.

  As we climbed the path to the head in the grey light of early day it began to rain, stinging, blinding rain that whipped our faces. The tide was high and the waves were already sucking at the sand of our ramp and weeding out the smaller boulders. “By to-morrow morning,” I said, “we’ll not know that we’ve done any work at all these last few days.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  OFF THE ROCKS

  SARAH understood our mood as soon as she saw us, wet and angry, at her door. She piled the fire high, gave us a huge breakfast, and left us alone with a chess set that had belonged to her husband.

  Neither of us had played chess for a long time. We played all day, while the rain lashed at the windows and the gale shook the house. We spent the night there for we knew there would be no sleep for us on board.

  Next day the wind had dropped and the sun shone on a drenched world. We went back along the cliffs and saw the sea thundering at the cliffs with blows that looked like depth charges. The tide was falling. When we reached the cove it was just as I’d first seen it. Of our three days’ work there was not a trace. “But what about the boulders?” Stuart said. “Surely they haven’t been sucked out to sea?”

  “Buried under the sand,” I told him. “It’s lucky we hadn’t started shifting her.”

  “There is that,” he agreed. “Once we do start moving her we’ll have to work fast.”

  Two plates had been buckled and looked as though they might have sprung a leak. Otherwise she seemed none the worse. Obviously she’d weathered bigger storms during the winter.

  Bill and Anne came down to commiserate with us and we drove over to Boscastle for lunch. Stuart was in a sombre mood. He seemed dispirited about the whole thing. And his mood flared dangerously at an innocent remark of Bill’s, who was trying to cheer him up. “You think I’m a child to be patted on the hand and given crumbs of comfort like a bag of sticky sweets,” Stuart cried, banging down his knife and fork. His voice was tense and strained and his eyes strangely narrowed. “When things go wrong with you, you can go crying to Anne for comfort. But I’ve got no one. Nobody in the world. All I’ve got to show for my life is an old landing craft. And that’s on the rocks—like my life. I’m on the rocks. I’m no good. I’m finished. And bloody little fools like you come with words of comfort. I don’t want your comfort. I don’t want it—do you understand?” And he flung out of the room.

  It was a side of him that I hadn’t known about until then.

  There was a stunned silence. And then Bill said, “What an extraordinary fellow!”

  I said, “Not so extraordinary.” Then I asked him if he’d been overseas.

  “No,” he replied. “I was in a reserved occupation—they lowered the age just in time.”

  I said, “Well, Stuart was nearly four years overseas. He was wounded twice. And I rather fancy—he hasn’t told me, but I think I’m right—that his wife and child were killed by a flying bomb.”

  Anne nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I understand now. Those photographs—and that charred furniture. What hell for him! Find him a girl, David, before it drives him crazy.”

  “He’s trying to marry a landing craft at the moment,” I told her. “That’s why he’s so upset.”

  After lunch I sought out old Garth and asked him about the weather. He told me there should be at least two weeks of fine weather now.

  I made no attempt to find out where Stuart had gone. I’d known men in his mood in the Med. He’d walk it off. The three of us drove into Tintagel and saw a frightful film which was made pleasant because Anne held my hand. She was a very sweet and understanding girl. She insisted on coming back and cooking dinner for us.

  Down in the cove Stuart had already started rebuilding the ramp.

  We were up next morning at dawn and were at work whilst the cove was still dark and sunless though the sky was blue. We decided to build the ramp of sand this time for it was difficult to find rocks. But the curve along which the stern would be shifted had to be of rocks in order to support the girders.

  Stuart was in terrific form. H
e nicknamed the half-wit Boo, because of his goggle eyes. And for some reason the queer boy was pleased at that. Stuart drove him unmercifully. He drove the trippers too. A man had only to pause a second gazing upon our labours and Stuart, who had suddenly cultivated a broad Cornish accent, suggested that a little physical exercise would do him a power of good. They fell for it practically every time. And as soon as they’d a shovel in their hands, he’d got them. “Man, thee’ll never stand it for as much as a quarter of an hour.” And then when they did stand it for quarter of an hour, he’d be so full of compliments that blisters or no they just had to go on. He paced them himself or set off one against the other. And all the time he sang old sea shanties and snatches of negro spirituals. And periodically he directed a stream of curses at Boo’s rhythmically swinging back. And Boo would give him a loose grin and the sand would fly from his shovel.

  It was a great day and by sundown sand and boulders were piled amongst the rocks.

  The next day Bill and Anne came down and Stuart even bullied Anne into taking a shovel. And for the next hour there wasn’t a man in that cove who dared refuse the proferred tool. We ran short of sand as well as rocks by midday and after lunch we rigged one of the winches and, using an old piece of corrugated iron as a bull-dozing blade, ploughed fresh sand up to the edge of the ramp. Then I borrowed Bill’s car and ran down into Boscastle. I was worried about the engines. I was afraid sand might have got into them and I was taking no chances of engine failure once we’d floated her. We had to get her out of that cove and into a harbour where we could tie up, for she’d no anchors and if the sea rose before we got her out of the cove she would be wrecked.

  Garth told me the nearest marine engineers would be over at Newport. He saw my disappointment and said, “Remember I told thee about a boy from the Navy who was looking round for work? I mind now that he was an engineer.”