The Kingdom by the Sea

by Robert Westall

  He stared at the sand for a long, long time. The dog, puzzled, impatient, leapt up and put its paws on his shoulders and looked at him trustingly. He could have died of agony.

  And then he remembered his father’s voice again.

  “Don’t flap around like a wet hen. Think!”

  And immediately, he realised he did have some money. In the Trustee Savings Bank. Seventeen pounds, ten shillings. All the money from all the birthdays and Christmases that Mam had made him save when he wanted to go out and spend it. Saving up for a rainy day, she had called it, when he raged and pleaded with her.

  But where was the bank book?

  In the attachè case, of course.

  He dived in under the boat, and clicked open the case with trembling hands. There was a bundle of bank books, held together neatly by an elastic band. Dad’s on top, then Mam’s, then his. He opened it. It said, in neat curling writing, seventeen pounds, ten shillings. And he knew how to get it out; you only had to fill in a form, that was all. He had enough to keep himself and the dog for months. Wild excitement blew through him like a gale. He must get it! Now!

  Then his eye drifted round the rest of the case; over the other precious things it contained. Dad’s best wristwatch, the one he only used for special occasions, in case it got scratched. The bright pink insurance books. A wedding photograph in a small silver frame, with Mam and Dad looking smooth, smiling and young. His own photograph in school uniform, from when he first went to the grammar school; a neat bundle of school reports. How proud of him they’d been! Tears pricked again, so he rushed on, being practical. The family ration books… a bar of Mam’s pongy special toilet soap, still in its paper wrapper. The scent wafted up to his nostrils… and he felt suddenly terribly guilty, as if he was burgling a church. He was never allowed to look inside the attachè case; it was private to Mam and Dad.

  He took his own bank book and then slammed the case shut and clicked in the fasteners loudly. Well, as long as he carried the attachè case, Mam and Dad would still be with him. Like the Ark of the Covenant that the children of Israel carried all the way to the Promised Land.

  To soothe himself, he carefully folded the blankets into a neat heap, then came out of the boat and smoothed down the sand to hide the entrance, and sat playing with the dog’s ears till his breathing came back to normal.

  Not a moment too soon. There was a man coming out of the coastguard cottage, the one with the smoking chimney. Walking down the beach towards him. Harry could tell from the way he walked that he wasn’t a bad bloke. He walked slow and steady and contented, puffing on his pipe, stopping to look at things and touch them. Only a bit bossy, perhaps. As if it was his place.

  “Good morning, young feller-me-lad! You’re the early bird that catches the worm!”

  “Been swimming,” said Harry.

  “So Aah noticed, while Aah was shaving. Said to the missus there was a young feller-me-lad, having a grand time wi’ his dog, on a Saturday morning early. Grand dog!” He bent and patted it. “What’s his name?”

  “Don.”

  The man looked for a name-medal on the collar and didn’t find any. “Dog could do with a combing. Sand won’t do his coat no good.”

  “I always comb him when I get home.” Harry was amazed how neatly the lie popped out. Then he said, “What time is it, mister?”

  “Half-past eight,” said the man, pulling out a pocket watch. “Better be on me way up yonder.” He pointed to the Coastguard Station on the cliff. “Just thought Aah’d have a word wi’ you, seeing you was having so much fun wi’ your dog. Only,” he added, “you could do wi’ a pair of bathing-trunks, instead of bathing in yer underpants. We’ll have young girls down here, later on.” He glanced around. “A towel wouldn’t do you any harm, either.” Harry glanced at him, suddenly hunched-up, wary. But the man gave him a conspiratorial grim. “Aah didn’t tell me mam all Aah was doing when Aah was young either.” And he was gone, leaving only a fragrant whiff of his tobacco smoke.

  Chapter Four

  Three hours later, Harry lay back on the sand by the boat, closed his eyes, and let his mind stop whirling. What a terrible trip! He was never, never, never going up into the town again. Tommy Dodds had seen him, and Audrey Henry’s mother, and he’d only missed running into Cousin Elsie by diving up a back alley like a shot rabbit. He still wasn’t sure she hadn’t seen him. And the terrible wait in the bank, while the man counted out his money three times before he gave it to him, and he worried about Don tied to a lamp-post outside… when he’d got out, he took the bus straight back to Tynemouth. Thank God he’d had that threepence ha’penny, or he’d have had to give the conductor a ten-shilling note for the fare. And the conductor had still fussed about how sandy the dog was, and how it was making a mess of his bus… It had been stupid to go up into the town on a Saturday when everybody was out shopping. If he went on making stupid mistakes like that, he’d get caught for certain.

  But Tynemouth village had been better. Nobody knew him in Tynemouth. And he’d had a good shopping-spree, ten-shilling notes or no ten-shilling notes. There were still things to buy that were not on the rations. The pet-shop woman had been nice and friendly. Sold him a leash for the dog, and a steel curry-comb, and a big bag of dog biscuits. And some anti-flea soap, that would do for them both. She had pursed her lips over the note, but he’d said, “It’s me birthday present,” and she had told him he was a kind boy, spending all his birthday present on his dog. Then he’d gone to the butcher’s, and got some bones for the dog, and looked at the Cornish pasties so hungrily that the man had said, with a grin, “Do you want one? You can’t live on doggy-bones, a growing lad like you.”

  And lastly he had gone to the newsagents, and bought two boxes of matches, because he thought they were sure to come in useful, and the biggest newspaper he could see. Not that he cared a damn about the news, but certain movements in his tummy told him he was going to need a newspaper tonight after dark. God, life was all food going in one end, and out the other.

  But for the moment, he was content. Full of Cornish pasty, watching the dog chew at his big bone, and watching the girls go past in their bathing costumes.

  Through the pair of dark glasses he’d thought on to buy at the chemist’s.

  The chip-shop man saw him coming. Long before he got to the shop, Harry could see the bald head peering and bobbing maliciously above the heads of the customers. He had spent half of the day manufacturing lies for the chip-shop man. He tied up Don properly by his leash to the lamp-post, and pushed boldly into the shop.

  “Ha,” said the man nastily. “Here’s our little war hero, back for his nightly share of our fish and chips. I see you’ve managed to wash your face for once.”

  Harry joined the queue quietly, saying nothing. All the people in the shop were total strangers, so he knew he couldn’t look for any help there.

  ‘“E’s bombed out, you know,” said the man nastily. “Where you billeted then?”

  Harry was ready. “Priory Road.” It was the longest road in Tynemouth, and not very posh.

  “What number?” asked the man. Harry was ready for that, too.

  “Dunno,” he said, “but it’s about half-way down, on the right-hand side. Gotta green door and big white sea shells in the garden.” Half the houses in Priory Road had big white sea shells in the garden.

  “What’s the lady’s name - that you’re billeted on?”

  “It’s a funny long name - we just have to call her Auntie.”

  There was a titter in the queue. Harry felt they were turning on to his side. The woman at the front of the queue said sharply, “C’mon, Jim. I haven’t got all night to stand here, you know. Our Ted’s got to go back from leave.”

  The man gave Harry another nasty glare, but started shovelling chips again. Meanwhile, the other women in the queue began discussing which woman with a funny long name had a house in Priory Road, with a green door and sea shells in the front garden.

  “It’s not Peggy
Molyneaux, is it? I hadn’t heard she had anybody billeted on her.

  Harry was glad he’d picked the longest road in Tynemouth. But he knew with dreadful certainty that this was the last time he could use the chip shop. The gossip would be all over the village by tomorrow night. And what would he and Don do for food then? The woman asked him more questions about his landlady, and he almost ran out of answers, and sweated.

  But at last it was his turn.

  “Six sausage an’ chips, please.” He might as well grab what food he could.

  “Six?” yelled the man. “Are ye feeding a bloody regiment or something?”

  “The landlady wants some an’ all. An’ for her husband.” Harry’s lips quivered. He felt a traitorous tear gathering in his eye, and simply let himself cry. It had worked last night…

  “Leave the poor bairn alone, for God’s sake,” said a woman. “What’s he ever done to you, Jim?” And there was a murmur from the queue. Harry didn’t think anybody liked the man, really.

  But it was a marvellous relief to get out into the cool air of Front Street, with the packet burning against his chest. His tears dried up instantly, and he untied Don and walked down to the sea amazed at himself. His dad had always taught him never to lie, and that only babies cried. But tears and lies seemed to be all that worked now.

  In the night, the dog stirred against his side. Stirred and growled deep in its throat. Harry was awake in a flash. Was there someone prowling the dark beach? Somebody after Mam’s precious attachè case? He listened hard, and heard nothing. Then the dog growled again.

  And Harry heard.

  Vroomah, vroomah, vroomah. Out over the sea. The Jerry bombers were back. And there seemed to be a lot of them.

  Then, on the Castle cliffs overhead, the siren went.

  The dog whimpered, once, and then went mad, trying to scrabble its way out from under the boat, casting huge sheets of sand over the blankets, and into Harry’s eyes in the dark. His eyes were agony.

  But he knew he must stop the dog. Dogs went crazy in air raids. Ran about the streets howling, upsetting people. Ran blind, ran anywhere. Don could run off and get lost forever.

  He grabbed for Don’s collar, and felt around desperately for the leash, and got it on him, just as the dog wriggled out from under the boat. Harry let himself be dragged after him, bumping his head so he saw stars. There was nothing else he could do.

  Outside, it was as light as day. Three searchlights, three great bars of blue light reached outwards from the Castle into the sky above the sea, slowly waving and feeling like fingers for the approaching Jerries. More searchlights waved around from South Shields across the river. Little bits of mist or cloud drifted through the beams, like cigarette smoke. By their light, Harry could see every detail of the beach. And be seen. There’d be a warden round in a minute, yelling at him to get under cover. And the bombers were closer, and the guns would be opening fire overhead. Where to run to?

  But the dog just ran, and Harry had to run with him, tripping over bits of wood half-buried in the sand and once falling flat and being dragged along. He hadn’t a clue where he was going. But Don had. Suddenly they were up against the beginning of the pier, the massive granite pier. And set into the pier, huge arches. And inside the arches, massive granite blocks were stored, for repairing the pier when the waves broke it. Don went straight into a dark gap between the blocks, and dragged Harry after him. And then Don stopped, and Harry realised he was in the best air-raid shelter in Tynemouth. Six feet of granite over his head, and solid granite on three sides, and on the fourth a parapet of huge blocks, just low enough to peer over.

  “Good dog,” he whispered. “Good dog,” and fondled the dog’s ears. Don was shaking so hard he made Harry shake in sympathy. Harry remembered something his dad had said about dogs in air raids. They suffered terribly with their ears, because they could hear ten times better than people. The sounds were ten times as loud to them. He pulled off one of his jumpers, folded down the dog’s ears, and wrapped the jumper round them hard. The dog seemed to like it; it snuggled in.

  And then the Castle guns fired, and it was like the end of the world. The world cracked apart four times; Harry’s head seemed to crack apart four times. His ears hurt, physically hurt. Like earache.

  He remembered the government issuing ear-plugs. Everyone had laughed at the idea of the little rubber ear-plugs, on their bit of string, that you carried in your gas-mask case, if you still carried your gas-mask case, which hardly anyone ever did these days, only kids with soppy mams.

  He wished he had them now. But… something… hold the dog with one hand, scrabble in his pockets with the other. Bit of paper; bus ticket. He shoved it into his mouth and chewed it frantically. When it was soggy enough, he worked it into two lumps, and pushed one piece into each of his ears.

  The Castle guns fired again. But it was much better now; only half as bad. Didn’t hurt. He shoved the bits of bus ticket even further in. Then peered with interest over his high bulwark. He’d never been out in an air raid before; he’d always been cowering down in the shelter, like a rat in a hole. Mam hadn’t even let him look out of the shelter door, unless it had been quiet for ages.

  He thought it was the grandest firework display he’d ever seen. High above, great chains of blue lights hung, lighting the whole sky. They swung; they drifted across each other like swathes of stars. These must be the “chandeliers” Dad had talked about; dropped by the bombers to light their target.

  The ack-ack men at South Shields must be trying to shoot them out. Long streams of tracer shells, yellow and red, climbed slowly into the sky from behind South Shields pier. They made the blue lights rock and swing harder, but they didn’t put them out. Then the Castle guns fired again, making Don flinch; making a pattern of four bright stars in the sky that burnt holes in your eyes, so that wherever you looked afterwards, there were four black holes in what you looked at. And it all smelt like Guy Fawkes night.

  It was… grand. Grand like a thunderstorm, if you were out in it, and not afraid of being hit by lightning. It made Harry feel huge, as huge as the sky.

  And then he saw the German bomber, clear and sharp as a minnow in a pond, caught in a cone of no less than five searchlights. It wriggled, glistened like a minnow, a minnow with a shiny nose and tiny crosses on its wings, a minnow trying to escape out of a giant hand. But the giant hand of light held it, twist and turn though it might. Then every gun on Tyneside seemed to be firing at it. Again and again, it vanished in the scatters of blinding flashes. Harry’s eyes seemed as full of black holes as Mam’s collander. But when the flashes had gone, the tiny plane was still there, twisting and turning and getting bigger. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere any more, just wriggling, trying to escape.

  And then there was a streak of fire. Then a comet, a shooting star of brilliant yellow, heading out to sea, down to the sea. Down and down and down, brighter and brighter and brighter, better than a two-shilling rocket. And then it burst into a brilliant shower of blue lights, that were caught by the wind and drifted and went out, all but one that glowed all the way down to the dark water.

  The guns were silent, so you heard the hiss it made as it hit the sea; heard the people cheering, all the way over the dark water, in South Shields.

  He hugged the dog. “We got one, boy, we got one.” It was better than North Shields football team scoring a goal. In the silence, the dog thumped its tail against his leg, and licked his hand.

  And then the next wave of Jerries came vroomahing in.

  It was dawn before the Jerries stopped coming, and the all-clear went. He and the dog came out of their deep, deep shelter. The dog stretched, fore and aft, sniffed an upturned boat and peed against it. Harry, walking on what felt like two wooden legs, watched it with great fondness. Don was wonderful. He’d heard the bombers coming, long before the siren went; he’d found the best shelter. Above all, he’d been close to the dog, to its furry warm bulk. The dog had been closer to him than Mam had been
, let alone Dad.

  He thought he and the dog made a pretty good team. He sat on his upturned boat, and watched the dog sniffing around the beach. Nice to sit in peace and quiet, listening to the little waves plopping on the sand, after the great storm of the night.

  But today, Sunday, they had to move on. Before someone noticed him on the beach on Monday morning, and caught him as a truant from school. Before the food ran out. Before the dog went through again what he had gone through last night.

  Away. Up the coast. To where there were no people to bother them. To where there was plenty of food.

  He knew he wasn’t thinking very straight. He needed more sleep. He called to the dog, lured it to him with its share of cold sausage and chips. Then got it through the hole, under the boat, and in a little while they were both sound asleep.

  Chapter Five

  He started awake, and pushed back the blankets. He was very hot, and there was a small of melting tar, and, worst of all, voices all around him. And the dog was gone.

  He must have slept too long. It was Sunday afternoon. On Sunday morning, the beach was empty, except for a few men walking their dogs. But on Sunday afternoons in summer, even in wartime, it filled up with families out for the day People were sitting with their backs against his boat, blocking out the strip of sunshine. Until they went home, he was trapped. And they usually didn’t go home till about six o’clock.

  And where was the dog? He could see the place where it had scrabbled out. How long had it been gone? Where had it gone? Had it gone for good? There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t scramble out after it, in full view of everybody. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the people sitting round; it was more a terrible embarrassment at making a fool of himself, of being stared at when he was all dirty and sweaty and peculiar-looking. And his Cousin Elsie, or somebody else he knew might be sitting there.