The Stone

by Graham Adams

  The fisherman had told them that the forts were about nine miles out at sea in the Thames Estuary. Edmund had visions of an estuary like the mouth of a river, like in his geography lessons at school. Unfortunately it was nothing like that. Soon they were out of sight of land, and they both stood up peering over their boat’s superstructure scanning an empty grey sea of waves. Paul looked at his friend and didn’t need to say anything his look of fear was enough.

  Edmund shouted over the crashing noise of the waves at the standing fisherman. ‘How long will it be till we get there, matey?’

  The fisherman pointed forward. ‘The forts are ahead!’

  On the misty horizon they could see a small shape appearing, but it seemed still far off. In about half an hour more of tossing in the little boat, the shape had taken form. Having never seen any Defence Forts before, they were totally alien to them. The forts formed a cluster of cylindrical structures standing on four stilts that came out of the sea. Obviously they were secured in the sand bars on the seabed, Edmund could make out five forts in a circle and then two of the structures were further out in the estuary. A flimsy gangway that was swaying in the wind was all that there was connecting them.

  As the little boat pulled alongside the nearest fort he noticed how they were to get onto them. There was a platform halfway up the stilts and from that platform a metal ladder ran from the side and down into the sea. The fishing boat somehow managed to get alongside this ladder, bobbing suddenly close, then away from it.

  The fisherman put his arm out to Edmund and helped him out of the hold. He couldn’t speak due to the roaring noise produced by the waves crashing against the stilts, so he indicated to Edmund to stand with his back to the small bit of rigging. He did that rather reluctantly. The fisherman then shouted in his ear.

  ’When the boat rocks close to the ladder, let go of the rigging, and then JUMP!’

  The boat rocked close to the ladder but Edmund held onto the rigging for dear life. He was really scared as he looked at the churning sea. The boat rocked a few times more, but Edmund couldn’t release his hands from the rigging. Finally the boat rocked close again and this time the fisherman pushed him violently. Edmund let go and jumped for the rusty ladder, missing the first rung that he jumped for, and just managed to grab the next one down.

  Holding on again for dear life, he looked down to see that the sea was lapping on his shoe. He scrambled up the ladder and was on the platform in a second. From his place of safety he looked down at the raging sea and realised that if he had missed the second rung, it could have been curtains, swallowed up by the sea with no hope of rescue. ‘No life jackets or anything else to save me!’ He thought as he plunged his hand in his jeans pocket, and gripped the stone. It felt warm.

  Paul followed quickly, no looking down for him, although he was swearing and cursing to hide his fear. Edmund’s hand automatically searched in his pocket for the stone. ‘Thank you!’ He thought to himself. The fisherman winched up the two little cases containing their clothes for them to unhook on the platform, looked up, waved and turned the little boat around and set off back to the harbour. The sound of crashing by the grey menacing sea, as if it was angry that it hadn’t got them, soon drowned the little fishing boat’s engine out.

  The only way now was up another rusty ladder to a trap door underneath the big metal structure. This time Paul went up first. He scrambled through, and then held his arm out for his buddy.

  The trap door slammed shut and the silence was deafening, shutting out the horror that was the sea

  ‘What the hell have we let ourselves in for Eddie?’ Paul blurted out.

  ‘Listen, did you hear that? Edmund pointed in the gloom. They felt their way in semi darkness to the far end of the dank room to a door, up some more steps and then another door. ‘Sounds like music, over there.’ They followed the ever-increasing sound up into the next floor. This time the room was well lit and smaller. Paul rushed over and opened the door still following the sound, and suddenly discovered where it was coming from.

  A man in a dark coat was crouched over two turntables. The table that the equipment was on was edged with large pieces of plywood and over the top was a large piece of material, like a blanket. This was attached to the top of the sheets of plywood. Amateur was not the word! They recognised ‘Satisfaction’ by the Rolling Stones barely audible. The man turned to them with a sheepish smile and put a finger to his lips. They both had recognised the signal to be quiet obviously he was on air.

  He introduced himself to them. ‘I’m Roy, and am I glad to see you two! I’ve been on air for four hours and I need to go, if you know what I mean.’ He looked at Edmund who was unfortunately standing the closest to him. ‘Look, put these headphones on, hold on to this mat, you see that the turntable beneath is still spinning. At the end of the Stones, flick this switch and introduce yourself to the audience, then introduce the record on the mat, and let go of it. OK?’

  The Stones last bars were fading, Edmund looked up at Roy who nodded at him. ‘Hi, good morning I’m Bob and I’m here as your new DJ. I’ve just arrived and I need a shave’ He let go of the mat and the Beatles ‘I Feel Fine’ began. The intro sounded a bit like an electric razor.

  ‘Bloody hell mate that was brilliant.’ Paul shouted.

  Roy clicked the microphone off quickly and looked at Paul. ‘About Fourteen million people heard you say that!’ But there was no time for recriminations, so Roy showed Edmund how to cue up the next record on the other turntable and it now dawned on them why they needed two turntables. Paul looked at the record.

  ‘Hey Bob do you know this one; ‘A walk in the Black Forest’, by Horst Jankowski, bet you can’t introduce this one.’ he almost bust a gut trying to stop laughing.

  The Beatles number was ending and Roy watched Edmund as he switched the mike on. ‘Hope you liked that. On my way here today I noticed a row of trees, and someone told me I was going for a walk in the Black Forest, see you there.’ and let go of the mat.

  Roy put his thumb up, and indicated the mike ‘off’ switch and said that he was off to the toilet, and it was all down to them for a short time and disappeared. Paul looked in the record pile that was ready to play. He picked up ‘Shout’ by Lulu and put it on the table, cued it up, and lifted the mat for Edmund to hold. As Edmund got hold of the mat Paul pointed to Edmund’s wrist, it was covered in blood! Edmund hadn’t noticed that with all the excitement, he had caught his hand on one of the rusty rungs of the ladder when he jumped off the boat.

  Roy returned looking much better, just as Edmund introduced Lulu, not so slick this time, having noticed his wrist. Roy indicated for Edmund to get up out of the chair and for Paul to replace him, which they did. As Paul was rummaging for the next disc, Roy showed Edmund the rudimentary bathroom to clean up his wrist and told him to get back in the ‘studio’ as soon as he could.

  Edmund was longer than he thought as the facilities were as basic as they possible could be, and it was ages before he could find even a plaster. Still he came back into the studio, but he needn’t have worried, Paul was in his element as usual. It was like he was born to it, and there was no doubt on Roy’s face either.

  They both took turns of fifteen minutes to get used to the system until Roy was happy that they could handle it. Between one of the sessions, he asked Paul if he could handle it on his own, for about half an hour whilst he showed Edmund around the place. Paul stuck his thumb up at Roy. ‘Ladies and Gents, your favourite DJ Gary Brando is now going to play you one of my all time greats......’ Roy smiled at Edmund, ‘He’s got it, that one.’

  ‘I know Roy, he certainly has.’ Edmund laughed at his remark.

  As they walked around the rooms, Roy explained that his real job on the station was Engineer, ‘but we have to do everything here.’ He said that since the tragedy he had been on his own, keeping the broadcast going for nearly a week! Edmund felt really sorry for him. ‘No wonder that Dave was in a bloody rush.’ He thought to himself. />
  Roy pointed to the wall that had a map of the layout of the forts, which had been originally built as a line of defence for the shipping lanes into London. The furthest fort from the one that they were in housed the generator that had to be tended regularly with fuel and lubricants day or night. Roy promised to show them what to do about the generator at the end of broadcasting that day.

  ‘What do we do about food Roy?’

  Roy showed Edmund the galley, for what it was! All the food was from tins, and the most precious thing, water, was held in large plastic containers. The only good thing, Edmund thought, was the large cupboard by the table, which contained the booze and the fags, locked of course, and Roy waived the key at him!

  It wasn’t long before the euphoria of being a DJ on a Pirate Radio station wore off. The work was relentless! If they weren’t spinning records, they had to take turns to fill up the Generator. This entailed walking the tightrope over the swinging walkways, emptying two four-gallon containers of diesel into the generator’s reservoir, and checking the lubricant levels of the engine. Roy had made it very clear to them, that without the generator, everything would stop and worse than that it would be so dangerous in all sorts of ways.

  Also one of them had to make some sort of meal from the meagre supplies, as well as trying to make some sort of plan for the next show. ‘Well Eddie, that’s Show Business!’ Paul’s humour kept the other two going, and they were very grateful for it.

  The radio station was on air between 7am and 7pm. Paul and Edmund were expected to be on air at least five hours each day. Very often a show would last two hours, so planning for each production became a nightmare, as the record library was not the most extensive one. In the first week the new DJs struggled greatly with the problem of keeping fresh for the listeners.

  In the second week however Paul (Gary Brando) hit on the idea of a tandem show with Edmund (Bob Gray). This added new life into the production; however it was hard to tell whether or not it was a success, as they didn’t receive any feedback from the listeners. Roy was just so happy that they were using their initiative; it enabled him to get on with the upkeep of the equipment.

  Edmund also came up with another idea for a show. He called it ‘Pop Sticks’ based on a request only programme. The problem with this idea was that there were no letters arriving at the fort, so no requests to read out! He got over this by sticking a pin in an old London phone directory, and then making up a request, as if it came from them. The two DJs used to take turns on this show, and some of the requests they made up were so weird that it was very difficult to read them out without ‘corpsing’ on air!

  Probably the worst thing about being on the forts however was the silence, and it was the hardest to get used to. By the second week Roy had fixed up a short wave radio and he was able to make contact with base. What a relief that was. For the first two weeks it seemed like there was no one else in the world.

  In the third week, the water was running low, the beer was running low, and, worst of all, and the diesel for the generator was running out! Roy finally reached someone in Whitstable on the short wave radio, and they sent out the lifeboat with water and diesel. That was the time that they realised, that in four days time, relief would be on its way, and they were longing to get off the forts.

  It was the third Sunday, one more night to endure! Edmund was the last of the three to make that endless journey to the generator. It seemed to him such a pointless task, especially at night. This particular night was the worst one that he had had to perform the job. It was early January and the wind was blowing up a gale. It was pitch black except for tiny bulbs attached to the side of the structures as he walked around them. The walkways between the structures were about thirty feet long and were swaying violently in the wind. Roy told him that they were designed to sway, otherwise they would snap off with the wind, and, well that didn’t bear thinking about.

  It had started to snow, and looking down he could see the white surf of the top of the ferocious waves. He knew that because the North Sea is shallow compared to other seas, this made it the roughest sea imaginable! The tiny bulbs on the last but one structure were flickering, which meant that the generator was running out of fuel.

  ‘I must get there before it does!’ he shouted. He thrust his hand in his pocket took out the stone and shouted at it. ’Help me, get me there before it runs out, I need to get there.’ He put the stone back in his pocket and trudged on. The weather was worsening. At last, he was on the last connecting gangway and it was swaying like hell, but he knew he was near.

  As he reached the generator it was spluttering, on its last legs. ‘Hold on you bastard, Hold on!’ He started the long process of pouring the diesel out of the container into the reservoir, and it suddenly jumped into life. His hands were frozen with the wind and wet snow, his clothes were sodden, but he had done it!

  He was part way back when around the corner appeared Paul. ‘Shit mate, I thought you were a goner.’

  ‘Tell you what Paul that was the worst thing I have ever endured in all my life, and I don’t mind admitting to you, that I have never been so scared.’

  ‘When the lights started to dim, I thought you might have needed some help Eddie, poor old Roy is fast on, totally out of it. Anyway mate you’re a bloody hero in this lot, a bloody hero!

  The wind had worsened and the snowflakes were blinding. Edmund never heard a word that Paul had said to him, but he was so glad to see him, none the less!

  The next morning the sea was flat, the storm had blown itself out. Roy had slept right through it, and they decided not to bother him with their troubles. He wasn’t coming off as they were, not yet as he would have to show the newcomers the ropes as well. Paul the DJ hero was spinning the records, it was seven in the morning and they were having a Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie for breakfast.

  ‘This is the last time I’m ever going to eat one of these.’ Edmund said to himself.

  Around ten, Roy came into the studio, stuck his thumb up at Edmund, and that could only mean one thing to him, dry land next stop. It was a time to be inventive so Edmund switched on the mike and spoke to his ‘adoring fans’.

  ‘Dear friends, I hope that you enjoyed listening to my choice of records, I hope you don’t mind listening to ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ because that’s just what we’ve had, here on Radio Invicta. Signing off and speak to you soon.’

  Edmund switched off the mike. ‘Roy, will you please see Paul and me off, the LP will keep them all happy till then.’

  Unusually for Roy, he smiled at Edmund and put his arm around his shoulders.

  ‘I know what you did last night Edmund, and I’m proud of you, proud of both of you.’

  As the three of them arrived at the lower landing level from above, three men had already disembarked with two more on the way. Fortunately Roy recognised two of them and they shook hands. Roy introduced Edmund and Paul to everyone. A tall blonde man said ‘Which one of you is Gary Brando?’

  ‘That’s me’ said Paul.

  ‘Well you are really cool man, I like your style, and my name is Dave Cash.’

  ‘You related to Johnny Cash?’ Paul asked, jokingly.

  ‘You related to Marlon?’ Dave quipped in return.

  The whole crowd of men broke into laughter and the tension had gone! The replacements all shook hands with Paul and Edmund then they each climbed the ladder into the fort. Roy was last to go up and they both gave him a hug ‘Thanks, mate for all your help’ Paul said.

  ‘You both took to it like ducks to water.’ Roy’s words were filled up with emotion.

  ‘Yeh Roy, there’s plenty of that around here’ Edmund shouted as Roy disappeared through the trapdoor. They boarded the homeward bound ship that was much bigger than the one they came on. They looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief. ‘You know what; I don’t think those new guys will have it as tough as we did.’ Paul nodded in agreement, but his eyes were forward, searching for land.

  E
dmund tapped on Paul’s shoulder, pointed for him to look back. Already the forts were a very small pale blue dot on the horizon.

  ‘Bloody good riddance to the place!’ Paul said ‘Mind you, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. When we get ashore and get paid that two hundred quid, I want to tell you something.’

  Edmund said nothing He felt for the stone in his pocket, and was just glad to be alive right now, as he made out the low line of the harbour coming into view.

  Edmund remembered that a few days after they arrived on the station there was a letter from Decca records offering some commission to any of the DJ’s on Invicta that would plug Twinkle’s record called ‘Terry’, especially if it reached the top 5 in the charts.

  ‘Talking of money, can you remember that letter about the Twinkle song from Decca?’ Edmund asked.

  ‘Do I remember? I think I must have worn the grooves out.’ He grinned as they were pulling up alongside the quay.

  ‘Well, we need to check if it got into the top five whilst we were on the fort, if so we are owed some money there too.’ Edmund shouted