The Ghost of Howlers Beach

by Jackie French

  ‘And egg and cress,’ added Aunt Elephant, helping herself to a slice of toast piled with half a jar of apricot jam. ‘You’ve hardly eaten any of your scrambled eggs.’

  He made sure no one was looking, then crept into Dad’s study and opened the bottom drawer of his desk. He lifted out a framed photo of Dad and the other soldiers at Albany, a photo album, and then Dad’s Box Brownie camera. If there were criminals keeping Olive and Gil hostage he could at least take a photo of the crooks to show the police — assuming he could get close enough without them seeing him, and get away secretly too.

  Butter thrust the camera into the bottom of his rucksack, wrapped in an old jumper, then headed back to the kitchen.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ rumbled Aunt Elephant. She took the rucksack and began to fill it with food. Butter waited for her to ask why his jumper was so heavy, but she said nothing. Butter supposed she didn’t even notice the weight.

  She packed in a tin of gingernut biscuits as well as the sandwiches, plus half a chocolate cake, an apple, a couple of oranges and a banana, the last one left in the fruit bowl till the fruiterer came with his horse and cart tomorrow. ‘Better to have too much than not enough,’ said Auntie Cake.

  ‘And the hens will eat any leftovers,’ agreed Aunt Peculiar. ‘You’d better take a Thermos of milk too. And maybe some lemon barley water . . .’

  Butter hefted the rucksack onto his back and headed down to the beach. The tide was coming in, small waves nibbling, the bigger waves pushing them from behind and, every now and then, an even larger wave forcing the sea upward to swallow the land.

  He could see his footprints, and Tish’s and Woofer’s too, up above the high-tide line. But there, down on the harder sand there were unmistakable traces of other footprints too, up and down the beach as if those who had left them had been confident the tide would wash away their prints before they could be seen.

  And the prints would have already vanished, thought Butter, if I’d come down just ten minutes later. But if Olive and Gil and Tish were hiding — or being kept prisoner — why risk a game of cricket on the beach?

  The ripples sped across the ocean, dark blue, turquoise, almost black, in the deceptive calm of the rip. The birds Dad called sand walkers stalked, skinny legged, across the sand the waves had left bare. Seagulls pierced the wind.

  Butter walked below the scattered coils of seaweed, shells and other debris abandoned by the tide to the cliff, wondering if anyone was up there keeping a lookout, like a guard with a pistol or a Chicago gangster-type machine gun kept in a violin case.

  Maybe he should get the camera out now, just in case — but then any gangsters would see it. They’d never let him go if they thought he had a photograph that would identify them.

  Maybe he should have told Dad he was going to come here, or even the police? What if the person or people who had killed the bodies up on the headland were the ones keeping Tish, Gil and Olive prisoner?

  But then why did Tish go back so willingly? And why let prisoners play cricket on the beach?

  It didn’t make sense. And it would seem too much like betraying Tish’s trust to bring the police, or even Dad. They might not believe him anyway, not without proof like a photo.

  No, this was better, even if he was facing danger alone.

  He reached the base of the cliff. The tide was going out again, leaving rock pools with sea urchins, cream and purple pipis, and a tiny fish that seemed to say, ‘I am just a bit of seaweed! Ignore me!’

  He began to search for smooth patches that could have been used as footrests and handholds up the cliff. Once he started looking, they were easy to find, slightly shiny from being trodden on so often. He put a foot on the first, then another, then one more out of sight from the sand dunes, and up again . . .

  And then he saw it: a dark grin in the rock face, a hole just big enough for kids to crawl into. There was even a slight ledge, smoothed as if a thousand bodies had already slipped across it. He peered inside, but all he could see was darkness.

  He hesitated. The hole was too narrow to turn around once he’d wriggled inside. What if he got stuck? He might be lost inside the cliff forever . . .

  Don’t be stupid, he said to himself. Dad and the Aunts and the police would come looking for him. If he got jammed inside he could yell. Even if his yells were muffled by the rock and the pounding of the sea, they’d hear him.

  Eventually.

  Probably.

  After a long, long time.

  And as long as the high tide didn’t force a jet of water in and up, and drown him in the darkness . . .

  Butter took a deep breath, unhooked his rucksack, pushed it into the cave ahead of him, then followed it. He heard the rucksack slide just as his body slid after it like a slippery dip, too fast to stop himself.

  Down, down, down in the darkness. His elbow bumped against something hard. He automatically put his hands out in front of him to protect his head.

  Then suddenly bump! The slide was over. He landed on soft sand, somewhere dark. He reached around and found his rucksack, then squinted. Blackness everywhere. Except, maybe, just over there, the blackness wasn’t quite so absolute.

  He picked up the rucksack and trod forward carefully, in case there was another hole to fall into. But all he felt was sand under his shoes. He stopped, seeing that the way to the left was just slightly lighter than the path to the right. He stepped left, bumped his nose, then crept around the rock face, feeling it with his hands, till, all at once, the rock wasn’t there.

  Instead, there was light at the end of a tunnel. He bent and felt the sand. Could a wave wash up there, drowning him in the dark, smashing him against the rock? No, the sand felt dry. Water must rush up here sometimes, to bring this sand, but not often. And, he hoped, not today.

  He hefted his rucksack back onto his shoulders.

  He gathered up his courage.

  He walked toward the light.

  CHAPTER 13

  His first thought was that there were no guards: no Chicago-style gangsters standing on the sand with machine guns waiting for him like he’d seen at the picture theatre, no Olive and Tish and Gil tied up with ropes.

  His second thought was that it was beautiful.

  The cave opened into a small, narrow cove, surrounded by high cliffs of brown rock. The small sea front widened to a beach rising slowly back perhaps five hundred yards, so the far end was on a ledge of soil and tussocks almost halfway up the cliff. That was why he’d never seen this beach, he realised. Even if you risked the edge of the cliff giving way under you and looked straight down, all you’d see would be the ledge.

  And the cove was still, except for the almost silent push and suck of waves on smooth sand. Even the sea breeze banished. No grain of sand moved. It was as if this cove had been sliced from the world, as if time did not exist once you’d come through the darkness of the cave.

  Then he saw the hut.

  It stood on the highest point below the ledge. It was a home built of gathered debris, but not a shanty like the ones at the susso camp. This looked solid enough to last a hundred years, even if it was made of driftwood planks faded into a hundred shades of blue and green and grey, their gaps plugged with what looked like concrete. The concrete had shells pressed into it, swirls and wriggly lines of white and pink and sea-blue, lovely among the muted colours of the planks.

  The hut’s roof was flattened kerosene tins. Ropes dangled off it with big rocks tied to each one, to stop it blowing away in the southerly busters. Battered buckets stood underneath the edges of the roof to catch drops of rainwater. The chimney was rocks cemented together too.

  A driftwood fire flickered in a well-built stone fireplace a few yards from the hut’s door. Olive and Tish sat next to it, their eyes on the fish cooking on sticks above the flames. Woofer lay beside them, his eyes hungrily on the fish. The cove was filled with the scent of cooking, hot rocks, salt water and the smoke of burning driftwood.

  Suddenly Woofer noticed B
utter. ‘Snerfle,’ he barked, wagging his crooked tail. He limped down a thin, well-worn track, bouncing up on his one hind leg to sniff eagerly at the rucksack.

  Olive dropped her stick in shock. She grabbed Tish and held her behind her back.

  ‘You!’ she cried. She wore another of the too-long dresses, pale against her tan skin and flapping against her ankles. ‘What are you doing here? How did you . . . ?’ She stopped because it was perfectly obvious how he had got there, thought Butter, and why he was there too.

  ‘I was curious,’ he said simply.

  Olive hurriedly moved her stick from the fire. The fish was charred now, but evidently precious as she carefully put it on the stones to one side. ‘Then you can go away again. I mean . . . no, don’t go . . .’ Olive hesitated, her face anguished.

  ‘Make up your mind,’ said Butter, as gently as he could. He looked around. Why was Olive so scared? She and Tish had seemed happy grilling their fish over the fire. Everything looked peaceful, hidden in this cove.

  Maybe their captors were inside the hut, he thought. Or guarding them from above. He looked up, but all he could see were sheer cliffs, streaked white with seagull or eagle droppings, and an overhang of grass far above. Perhaps they’d taken Gil as a hostage . . .

  ‘Is anyone else here?’ he asked softly.

  ‘No,’ said Olive, her voice trembling. ‘No one is here but us. You . . . you’d better go before Mum and Dad get back. They don’t like intruders!’

  Butter blinked. Was that their secret? Just cruel parents who only let them out of the cove to play cricket on the beach?

  ‘Where’s Gil?’

  ‘He walked over to the highway to sell the fish we trapped this morning,’ said Olive shortly. ‘With Mum and Dad,’ she added quickly. ‘They’ll be back soon.’ She still looked shocked, her face pale. ‘Butter, please . . . please just go away and never say you’ve seen us. Never tell anyone we’re here!’

  ‘But why not?’ asked Butter. Would their parents beat them if they found out their secret cove had been discovered? Or maybe their parents really were hiding from murderers or gangsters. ‘Is someone trying to kidnap your family? Or murder you?’

  Maybe they’re hidden royalty, he thought suddenly, like the Russian princess who might have escaped when the Bolshevists murdered her family after the Revolution. Maybe they were hiding from Bolshevists and Olive was really the Princess of Russia . . .

  ‘No one’s trying to murder us,’ said Olive shortly. ‘We . . . we just can’t let people know we’re here.’

  ‘Is it because you don’t own the land your . . .’ He hesitated. Their place wasn’t a shack, but it wasn’t quite a house either. ‘. . . your home is built on? But none of the people at the susso camp own the land they live on either.’ Butter had a feeling that the police were even glad that the camp was too far away for them to get complaints about illegal shacks.

  Olive shook her head. ‘I don’t think anyone would bother about another illegal hut.’

  ‘Then what are you frightened about?’

  ‘I’m not frightened!’

  ‘I think you are,’ said Butter quietly. ‘I think you were scared up at the Castle. I think you’re terrified now I’ve suddenly turned up here. But why?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Why can’t you tell me?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that either.’

  Butter made up his mind. ‘I want to meet your Mum and Dad.’ If they were being cruel to their kids then something needed to be done about it. Parents wouldn’t listen to him, of course. But they’d listen if Dad spoke, and Aunt Elephant.

  What kind of parents let kids starve? Did they eat all the rations and make their kids live on the fish they caught? Tish was so hungry, he thought, and Woofer too. She had seemed to think that bread was one of the most wonderful things she had ever seen.

  ‘If your dad tries to grab me I’ll run,’ he said. ‘I’m fast. Unless your dad is tiny I don’t think he could fit through the tunnel. No grown-up could.’

  Even as he said it, he wondered how their parents had left the cove if they couldn’t get through the tunnel. How had they even built a house here? They must have a boat . . .

  ‘I won’t let your father hurt me,’ he added. ‘If he tries to hurt you again, follow me up to the Very Small Castle. Grandpa built it to fight off invaders. We can protect you there.’

  Olive stared at him. ‘You’ve got bats in your attic!’

  ‘Daddy would never have hurt us!’ cried Tish. ‘Daddy was wonderful! He showed me how to make a mermaid out of shells!’ She pointed at a sand sculpture sheltered by a rock ledge. It WAS a mermaid, her tail curling under blue shells, the rest of her made of sand covered in pale pink or white shells. She was beautiful too.

  And Butter realised what Tish had said. He saw the moment Olive understood too. Tish had said, ‘Daddy was wonderful.’

  ‘Was your mum wonderful too?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Yes!’ said Tish defiantly. ‘She was the most wonderful mum in the world! She could make rope from tree bark and weave fish traps that are full of fish every time the tide goes out. She told us stories about how the stars came down each night to meet their brothers and sisters in the ocean. She made Woofer better too. He was all torn and sick when Dad found him up on the road, but Mummy looked after him and taught him how to walk on three legs.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Butter softly. ‘Your mum sounds lovely. My mum was lovely too.’ He met Olive’s eyes. Maybe their parents HAD been kidnapped by gangsters. But it seemed more likely they had died.

  Olive hesitated. She glanced at Tish.

  ‘I think Butter’s nice,’ said Tish softly. She looked at Butter’s rucksack. ‘He said he’d leave us sandwiches.’ She made them sound more precious than the Crown Jewels.

  ‘Yes, I brought sandwiches,’ said Butter quietly. ‘Olive, what’s wrong? Please. I just want to help.’

  Olive looked at him for a long time. ‘Can we trust you?’ she asked at last.

  ‘Yes,’ said Butter, then added honestly, ‘but if you couldn’t I’d have said yes anyway.’

  Olive gave a small smile. ‘I think that means we can trust you. But if I tell you about Mum and Dad will you promise not to tell anyone else? Or tell anyone at all about us being here?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Just promise,’ said Olive tightly.

  Butter considered. He trusted his father too, and the Aunts. Why couldn’t they know whatever was happening here?

  But Olive looked . . . sensible. Like Gil, she seemed older than a kid. If she thought it was dangerous for anyone to know the three of them were there, that this cove was there, then she was probably right.

  ‘How about I promise not to tell anyone unless you or your brother say I can?’ That way, if the only reason they were scared was because someone would attack them in this isolated place or even try to evict them from their home to take it for themselves, he could persuade them that Dad and the Aunts could do whatever was needed to keep them safe. ‘And I’ll help you as much as I can,’ he added.

  ‘Really? Cross your heart?’

  ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘Snerfle?’ asked Woofer hopefully, bouncing on his hind leg up to the rucksack again. He fell over, scrambled to his feet, sat and looked up at Butter expectantly, already drooling.

  ‘Do you really have sandwiches in there?’ asked Tish.

  ‘And a banana,’ said Butter.

  ‘A banana!’ cried Tish. She leaped up and hugged his knees.

  ‘All right,’ said Olive, still uncertainly. She sat down by the fire again, cross-legged. Tish sat next to her. ‘You can sit down too,’ she offered Butter.

  Butter climbed up the rest of the track, pulled off his rucksack, sat down next to Tish, then pushed Woofer off his lap. He opened the rucksack, pulled out the Thermos of milk and the barley water, and then pushed Woofer off his lap again.

  ‘Snerfle,’ said Woofer reproachfully,
sniffing at the rucksack. Most of him was still clean, but he’d managed to get seaweed muck on his paws.

  Butter began to set out the food: the sandwiches, the cakes, the biscuits, the fruit. The girls looked at it longingly.

  ‘Tuck in,’ said Butter awkwardly. ‘It’s all for you.’

  ‘Don’t you want lunch?’ asked Olive hesitantly.

  Butter shook his head. ‘I ate too much breakfast.’ Both girls blinked at him, as if the idea of ‘too much breakfast’ was too foreign to understand.

  ‘Please eat,’ he said.

  Tish grabbed the banana and gazed at the sandwiches. ‘Cheese,’ she breathed, then kept her breath for eating.

  ‘Leave some for Gil,’ warned Olive, as Tish fed Woofer a sandwich too. She glanced at Butter. ‘Er, would you like some fish? I’m afraid it got burned a bit.’ She gestured at the big charred fish now sitting on the rock wall of the fireplace.

  ‘No, truly, I’m not hungry. But, please, why are you scared? Whose house is this? How did it get here?’

  ‘It’s our house. Our dad made it.’

  ‘But he died,’ said Tish matter-of-factly. ‘A long time ago, after I was born.’

  Olive finished her sandwich, took a drink of the milk Butter passed her, then handed the Thermos to Tish. ‘I’ll tell you the story,’ she said.

  CHAPTER 14

  A seagull strutted down at the sea-end of the cove. Small waves lapped a little way across the sand, as if they were curious about what happened beyond the empire of the sea, but had no strength to come in further. An enchanted cove, thought Butter, where even the waves were gentle.

  Olive talked in between nibbles of sandwich. ‘Mum and Dad were married just before Dad volunteered for the War. He got injured at a place called Ypres.’

  ‘I know about Ypres,’ said Butter softly. The Aunts and Dad had never spoken about the desperate battles there, but he had read about it in Armistice Day articles in the newspapers.

  ‘Dad was really badly hurt, not just shot. His dugout got hit by one of the big guns. He got buried in the mud and they had to dig him out. He had a big shrapnel scar over half his face. His shoulder and leg were hurt too, so he walked sort of lopsided. He was sent home long before the War ended. He healed all right, but his face was red and puckered and people thought he looked weird and horrible. Mum said he had bad nightmares. The scars got a bit better as time went by, but they were still red and purple. But we didn’t mind. That was just what Dad looked like, to us. What he’d always looked like. And we loved him and he loved us.’ Olive hesitated. ‘Sometimes the nightmares weren’t just at night, though, or even when he was asleep. He’d hear a sudden noise and start screaming. He needed quiet.