The Tide in the Attic

by Aleid Van Rhijn

  Farmer Sanders had said that the water was up to the old sea-wall. He had seemed to be worried and so had Father and Mother. But there was really no cause for alarm. That big, heavy, solid wall couldn’t possibly give way. Why, it was at least fifteen feet wide on top. Probably more. And at the bottom it was wider still. It was bound to hold.

  Still, it was bad enough that the water had come that far. It would look very odd with the beach quite gone, and all the marshes under water. He’d go there tomorrow to see for himself. With Jaap and Geurt...And suddenly, there was Jaap, right before his eyes.

  Jaap was leading Miesje along on a leash. And Miesje had grown as big as a cow. Who was that blowing so hard? Stop it! You’re blowing us over! Stop it, I say! Now you’ve done it, blown us straight into a puddle. The water was deep. He was sinking. Help! Help!

  Just then the teacher, Mr. Buis, arrived. He was on horseback. No, he was riding on Bob. Mr. Buis jumped off his ‘horse’, ran up and seized Kees by the arm.

  But it was really Father, for when he woke up, Kees saw Father standing by his bed. ‘Come on, wake up, Kees,’ Father said urgently. He had been dreaming, and now Father was at his bedside.

  Whatever was going on?

  Kees rubbed his eyes in surprise. Sjaantje, too, was standing by his bed, shivering. And Father urged: ‘Come on, Kees, get up. You’ve got to help.’ His voice sounded strained.

  Sleepily, Kees rolled out of bed. His eyes half shut, he picked up his socks from the chair and dropped one. Outside he could hear the storm raging. He followed Father down the narrow staircase; but stopped dead half-way. Did he hear right? He put his hand to his ear to make quite sure.

  The bells were ringing in the village. And in the middle of the night too!...Suddenly he shivered, not because of the cold, but...

  In his mind’s eye he could see his grandfather before him. Grandfather had died two years before. He could still hear him telling the story about the flood. ‘And then in the middle of the night, we heard the peal of the alarm bell.’

  He remembered shivering when Grandfather had first told him that story. Grandfather told it so vividly that Kees almost imagined he had been there himself. He remembered clearly how the story went on. There were the gigantic breakers rushing through the gaping hole in the dam; whole farmsteads were under water and many people drowned. Kees was still poised on the stairs thinking, remembering.

  ‘Well, are you coming?’

  Father had stepped into the hall and was looking up the stairs impatiently. ‘Stop dreaming.’

  Kees remembered another sentence from his Grandfather’s story. ‘The worst is still to come.’ That’s what the vicar had said to Grandfather when they were standing on the crumbling dike with the storm raging round them.

  ‘The worst is still to come...’

  Kees, with his heart pounding, started walking down the stairs again.

  CHAPTER THREE — Ready for the flood

  As Kees entered the kitchen, he could see all sorts of strange and unusual things going on. Mother was dressing Sjaantje; Trui was bustling about, her face as pale as a sheet, and Father and Jacob were putting on their gum-boots. But the strangest thing of all was that Miesje the cat was rushing about on the table and that nobody chased her off.

  ‘You’ve got to help,’ Father said to him. ‘The water might get as far as here. Mother will tell you what she wants you to do. Sjaantje will have to help, as well. Now get on; all hands on deck.’

  ‘Mr. Wielemaker and I will take the animals out of the sheds,’ Jacob told them as he quickly rolled a cigarette. ‘We’ll take them on to the Blue Dike. They ought to be safe there, for the time being anyway, because it’s further inland.’

  Kees had only just woken up properly. He had stopped thinking about Grandfather; only the present seemed to matter now. There was a lot of work to be done, hard work. For a brief moment he was worried at the thought of the poor animals having to leave their warm sheds to be driven into the dark night in this raging storm and icy rain.

  Trui had recovered a little from her fright. ‘What shall we do first?’ she asked.

  ‘Mr. Wielemaker thought we should get everything ready in the loft first,’ Mother told her. Kees noticed that she was trying hard to look calm but that her voice was trembling.

  ‘First we two will have to fetch Jacob’s bedding from the hay-loft. Kees and Sjaantje will help us to bring up the bedding from our bed. If the ground floor should get flooded, we’ll at least be all together upstairs,’ she said.

  Kees got hold of the pillows from his parents’ bed and took them upstairs. Sjaantje followed with a couple of sheets and Mother brought up the mattress.

  They put everything on the floor of the main loft, next to the children’s and Trui’s little attic rooms. Jacob usually slept in an attic off the hay-loft, above the cow-shed. ‘I like to sleep near my friends,’ he always said.

  Soon all the bedding was upstairs. ‘The men will sleep here,’ Mrs. Wielemaker said to Trui. ‘We shall sleep in your room. Let’s make up their beds now.’

  The loft suddenly seemed much smaller and quite different. ‘It looks rather cosy with all these beds,’ Kees said. He and Sjaantje went on lending Mother a hand. All sorts of things had to be taken upstairs: a Primus stove, matches, candles, provisions; in the end the place looked just like a shop. Trui had brought up two whole hams, a side of bacon, and several sausages from the larder.

  ‘If need be, we can hold out for quite a while,’ she said.

  All this time, Kees could hear the loud peals of the bell above the roar of the storm.

  Suddenly, the sound of an engine was heard in the farmyard. A moment later a man ran in. He was wearing a leather jacket; his cap, gloves and boots were made of leather, too. Kees wondered who on earth he might be.

  ‘Well, I can see you are getting everything ready,’ the stranger said. ‘Are you helping too, Kees?’ Now Kees knew who it was. It was a voice he would always be able to recognize: that of his teacher, Mr. Buis.

  ‘Hello, sir,’ he said. ‘What a terrific leather jacket!’ He was quite relieved to see his teacher. Mr. Buis was a very nice man and everybody liked him, especially the boys, because he was a good football player. He was a real sport. He had a motorbike, too; it wasn’t very new but it went wonderfully well. On one occasion, Kees had been allowed to ride pillion on it.

  Just then Mother and Trui came into the kitchen. They had been taking up a sack of flour.

  ‘Good evening,’ the teacher said to them. ‘The mayor has sent me to warn you and other isolated families. It’ll be a wicked night, Mrs. Wielemaker.’

  ‘Do you think the water will get as far as here?’ she asked him.

  The teacher picked up Jacob’s cigarette tobacco. ‘I’m sure he won’t mind,’ he said as he rolled himself a cigarette. ‘The water is now above the sea-wall. A stretch of Brasser’s meadow is under water already.’ He moistened the cigarette paper with his tongue. ‘It all depends on the sea-wall holding now. That’s why the mayor says that all the animals must be taken up to the Blue Dike. It’s quite a long way inland and the animals will be safe there, for the time being, anyhow. People will have to be prepared to spend quite some time in their lofts. Anyway, I’m glad to see you are all prepared.’

  Kees was full of admiration for his teacher. He wasn’t at all like a schoolmaster. He was completely soaked and his jacket and boots were spattered with mud.

  Trui put a cup of coffee in front of Mr. Buis. She had just brewed some more for him.

  ‘Just what the doctor ordered,’ he said. ‘All the roads are full of animals.’ He blew on his coffee to cool it.

  ‘What are things like in the village?’ Mother asked.

  ‘They’ve got their hands full there, too. The men are helping the farmers with their animals, and the women are taking all sorts of things upstairs to safety. All, except the Jacobs family. They don’t think the water will ever get as far as the village square. It’s too high up, they say.’r />
  ‘They’re quite right, aren’t they?’ Kees asked. ‘The water couldn’t possibly get as far as that, could it?’

  ‘You never know,’ the teacher replied, ‘but let’s hope it won’t. Even so, things won’t be too easy for you down here.’ Bob was watching the door anxiously. Outside you could hear the cows lowing and a horse whinnying angrily. The animals would clearly have preferred to stay in their warm stables.

  ‘Well,’ Mr. Buis said, ‘I must be off. I’ve still got Kruger’s farm to call on.’

  ‘That’s a pretty long way, especially on a night like this,’ Kees said.

  ‘Can you manage to get through in this storm?’ Trui asked

  ‘I think so, Trui. But you’ve got to be very careful not to be blown off the dike road. Motor-cycles only have two wheels, you know!’

  He said good night, thanked them for the coffee, patted Bob and went off.

  ‘What a fine man he is!’ Kees thought. For a moment or two he could hear the roar of the engine as the motor-bike made its way through the howling gale.

  ‘Where is Sjaantje?’ Mrs. Wielemaker asked in alarm when the teacher had left.

  Kees looked round in the kitchen. ‘She isn’t here,’ he said, rather pointlessly, but Mother did not need him to tell her that.

  ‘I put her back into bed,’ Trui said, as she came down the stairs. ‘She was very tired. But I told her to keep her clothes on. You never know.’

  Kees thought that they were all making much too much of a fuss. It wasn’t likely that the water would get as far as Sunset Farm. Why, it was a good half an hour’s walk to the sea-wall. All the pastureland between couldn’t possibly be flooded. As for the people in the village, they must have gone completely off their heads. Surely, they were safe. And now Trui had put Sjaantje to bed with all her clothes on. What a lot of fuss, when they were sure to be perfectly safe.

  Suddenly there was a violent rattling and clattering outside, as something very heavy knocked against the side of the house.

  ‘Whatever is that?’ Mrs. Wielemaker asked Trui nervously.

  ‘It’s the milk pails,’ Kees said. ‘They’ve been blown out of the shed.’

  ‘But the shed door is shut,’ his mother said.

  ‘Perhaps the door has blown open,’ Trui said. It struck Kees that the door must have been torn off its hinges. He took his coat from the peg behind the door.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ his mother asked nervously.

  ‘I’m going to make sure,’ Kees said with so much determination that his mother looked at him in astonishment.

  Now that Father was out, he was the only man in the house. As such, he couldn’t just let things happen without doing anything about them. He put on his clogs and opened the front door, which opened outwards. For a moment, he just stood there paralysed with fright.

  The door was wrenched out of his hand, just as if some giant had been tugging at it. With a dull thud it beat against the wall. Kees had to hold on to the doorpost not to be blown over. The ceiling lights in the hall swung to and fro, and the umbrella stand fell over.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Trui called anxiously and rushed out into the hall. Kees drew a deep breath, went out and seized the door. When he had nearly shut it, it was wrenched out of his hands once again. There was another thud. He tried again. He had to summon up all his strength to push it shut, just as if he were pushing a cart that had got stuck in the mud. At last, he succeeded. He was gasping by now, and it took him quite a few moments to regain his breath. Then he went on.

  He stopped for a second or two in the washhouse which was sheltered from the storm. It was pitch dark inside. He could only just make out the contours of the barn. Now he went on towards the shed. Suddenly, he stepped on something which had no business to be there, and then on something else. No doubt, they were roof-tiles which had blown off. To make any progress at all, he had to bend double, fighting against the storm with all his might.

  Then he tripped over and fell on to some wooden object. He realized at once that it must be a door. Kees groped round on the floor and found a bolt. It was the shed door, torn off its hinges by the storm.

  As he got up, a light was flashed into his face. ‘What are you doing there, young man?’ a voice in the dark addressed him.

  It was Houwelink, the policeman. Whatever was he doing here?

  ‘The shed door has been torn off,’ Kees said, gasping for breath, as he stood up. His eyes, blinded by the torch, were slowly getting used to the dark again. The open shed stared at him like a dark-eyed giant.

  ‘Let’s pick the door up together,’ Houwelink said. ‘No, not too high up; otherwise you won’t be able to hold on to it in the storm.’ They refitted the door on the remaining hinge as best they could, and then went into the farmhouse, where Mrs. Wielemaker was anxiously waiting for Kees. She was about to tell him off for having been so long, but then she saw Houwelink and thought better of it.

  ‘The news is getting worse,’ he told her as he sat down.

  The news was getting worse!

  ‘We shan’t be...we shan’t be flooded, shall we?’ Mrs. Wielemaker asked anxiously.

  Trui gave the policeman a cup of coffee. Trui was always making cups of coffee. When there were visitors, when a cow was calving at night, when the doctor called, when anyone was ill—whenever anything like that happened, Trui would always pour out coffee. ‘It’s the healthiest drink,’ she would say.

  ‘I’m afraid that all the land around here is bound to be flooded,’ the policeman said.

  Kees was feeling much better now that there was a grownup man in the house. He had begun to feel uneasy, from the moment his teacher had left. Women were always so excitable and nervous. If only Father and Jacob came back soon. He saw that his mother was even more worried now that Houwelink had told her the latest news. He, himself, could hardly believe it.

  The policeman now explained the reason for his visit.

  ‘The mayor wants me to see that all the animals are taken away.’

  ‘Mr. Wielemaker is doing just that,’ Trui said.

  ‘Have you thought that you might have to go upstairs? Have you taken up your bedding, your food and whatever else you might need?’

  ‘It’s all been done.’ Trui seemed to have recovered from her fright. She had been kept busy all the time and that had probably helped.

  ‘If only the sea-wall would hold,’ Houwelink said. He poured the hot coffee into his saucer, as country people do. With one gulp he emptied the saucer.

  ‘What happens if it doesn’t?’ Mrs. Wielemaker asked.

  ‘Let’s just hope for the best,’ Houwelink replied, and got up from his chair. ‘You have taken all the necessary precautions, I am glad to see. Keep your chins up. I have to go now. Good night and many thanks for the coffee.’

  A few minutes later Father and Jacob returned. They were dead tired and their boots were completely covered with mud.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ Jacob said, trying hard to sound cheerful. But Kees could see right through him.

  His father dropped heavily on to a chair next to the stove. He took off his boots and put them behind the stove.

  ‘Now I am a farmer without livestock,’ he said gloomily.

  ‘Don’t take it so hard,’ Jacob said. ‘After all, you haven’t lost them.’

  ‘But what will become of the animals?’ Mr. Wielemaker asked. His voice sounded desperate as he thought of them up on the dike in this weather, in this terrible storm. And who could tell how long it might last? Things might get worse still.

  ‘Houwelink was here.’ Mother explained why he had come, while Trui brought out the coffee-pot once more for the two frozen men. Then Kees told them about the shed.

  ‘You are not to go out again,’ his father said sternly.

  ‘That’s right, Kees,’ Jacob agreed. ‘Believe me, it’s dangerous outside now. Anything might drop on your head. Or you might just be blown away. One big blow and there’d be no more Kees.’
/>   Kees smiled. The things Jacob said! He couldn’t get blown away just like that. Or could he?

  The storm kept howling round the house all the time. There was nothing to be done now, except to wait and see.

  CHAPTER FOUR — The water comes nearer

  Mother was still mending Kees’s trousers. Trui was knitting socks for Arie, and Jacob was doing a crossword puzzle. Mr. Wielemaker just stared vacantly into the fire.

  ‘Don’t you want to go to bed?’ Mother asked Kees.

  ‘Mayn’t I stay up? I couldn’t sleep, anyway.’

  ‘Leave him,’ Father said. ‘If I were a boy of his age I wouldn’t be able to sleep, either.’

  Kees looked at the puzzle over Jacob’s shoulder. Jacob was licking the point of his pencil and occasionally writing down round, fat letters.

  ‘I need a colour in five letters,’ Jacob said.

  ‘White.’

  ‘That’s it, why couldn’t I think of it myself? Thank you, Kees.’

  Suddenly Kees stood up. The word had reminded him of something.

  ‘Where is Witje?’ he asked.

  ‘Good grief, yes,’ Jacob said. ‘She is still in one of the sheds. I’d quite forgotten about her.’

  ‘What shall we do?’ Kees asked. ‘We can’t just leave her out there.’

  ‘No, we can’t. But we can’t take her all the way to the Blue Dike either,’ Father said. ‘I wouldn’t like to do the trip again, just for one goat.’

  ‘Father, mayn’t we bring her into the kitchen?’ He could see that Mother wasn’t very keen on the idea, because the goat was bound to make a mess in the house.

  ‘But we can’t just leave her all by herself in the shed, can we?’ Kees said.

  ‘Fetch her into the hall, then,’ Mr. Wielemaker said to Jacob. ‘If necessary, I suppose we can take her up to the loft as well.’

  Without asking permission, Kees went out with Jacob. ‘Where are the pigs?’ he asked him.

  ‘We loaded them on to a cart and took them along to the dike with the other animals. Careful now.’