by John Harris
I suddenly realised how he’d always represented the sea to me while Dig had symbolised the land; one restless, shifting and uneasy, never still, never under control, always with a hint of adventure and romance that never quite materialised; the other calm and dusty and solid, unemotional and immovable, as sure as the earth that was his background.
As I thought of Old Boxer, bitter, sardonic and moody, the father I’d lost as soon as I’d found him, I knew there was something predestined in the way everything had worked out. There could never have been a future for us as father and son.
“I was thinking about Yorky and Old Boxer,” I said aloud, fingering the shabby scabbard of the old naval sword I clutched in my frozen fingers. “He always said he ought to go down with his ship.”
“He’s all right, Jess lad. You’ve no need to be ashamed of him,” Dig said, and I realised without looking at him that he’d always known Old Boxer was my father. “‘The sea’s a tomb,’ Jess,” he quoted, “‘that’s proper for the brave.’ They’re in good company.”
I nodded. “I reckon so,” I said. “But he seemed to have so little in his life.”
Dig was silent for a moment. Then I felt him move uneasily. “Perhaps he’d got more than most of us,” he ended wistfully.
I nodded again and we huddled among the dark, muttering mass of exhausted men who sheltered in the lee of the bridge from the chilling wind that raced along the decks; staring backwards over the stern of the hurrying, bucketing boat into the blackness that was lit only by the glow from our own tumbling wake.
Eight
Kate Fee waited through the days of the evacuation at Wiggins’. The boat-yard was silent and deserted and she sat in the office alone, watching the rats run from underneath the stacked timber into the empty boat-shed. Their hurrying brown bodies seemed to her more a symbol of loneliness and emptiness, she told me afterwards, than anything else in the silent yard; more than the gulls that wheeled in the sky overhead, their cries like the sighs of mourners in the stillness, more than the stolid, inexorable ticking of the office clock.
She stared through the windows with dry eyes, watching the corner where the rats disappeared. She’d been at the yard every day from the time the boats had left, first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night.
Sunday arrived, and the drab streets were deserted except for a few children listlessly playing among the orange-peel in the gutter. In the sunshine, away from the bustle of the Narrow Seas, there was nothing to indicate what was happening at the other side of the Channel, nothing beyond an occasional flight of aircraft roaring southwards and east-wards overhead. The papers were full of news, but it was an empty, crowded news that told her nothing beyond what she already knew. Judging by the columns and the staring head lines, most of the excitement was dying now and Britain had done far more than anyone had dared to hope. She’d swept an army from certain destruction and capture.
One of Wiggins’ boats had arrived back within twenty-four hours of its departure, limping badly, its engines hot. A second had arrived the previous day, the Saturday, its decks splintered with bullets that had put its steering gear out of action before it had even crossed the Channel. Of the others there’d been no word, no sign, no indication of what was happening to them or to their crews.
Kate had been about the dusty streets in the intervals between waiting at the boat-yard, talking to the dishevelled men in stained and torn uniforms, who’d arrived from the east by train to fall asleep among the abandoned newspapers and tram-tickets in the roadway outside the station as they waited for the lorries to take them away, too tired almost to drink the tea that was offered them and eat the sandwiches they held in their grimy fists.
“There was too many boats, miss,” they told her in answer to her questions. “There was too much going on at once.”
“Gawd, miss, it was too much of a tea-party to notice anybody in particular.”
Outside, beyond the river, the grey, still sea had been like a steel sheet that gave no indication of what was happening beyond the horizon. Occasionally they’d heard rumblings but no more. No more beyond the tramping feet of those tattered men, who’d been housed for the night in the Town Hall and church rooms and schoolrooms, men whose eyes were heavylidded with exhaustion and weariness, men who sometimes had no boots.
Kate had sat all through that morning with every Sunday paper she could lay her hands on, scanning them for even the minutest scrap of information that would cheer her. But there was no rest for her strained nerves in the headlines. She and an elderly foreman had been virtually in charge of the deserted yard. Then, when the foreman went home for his lunch, glad to get away from the silent offices and sheds for a while, Kate was alone with a dry, dusty misery that made her feel sick inside.
Minnie had been to the boat-yard, her face pale and her eyes puffy with weeping. But there was no misery in her heart, I’ll bet. Only sorrow for herself, and a cunning little mind that refused to admit defeat. She’d put on her best clothes and was dressed fit to kill. She’d tried to find me at Dig’s, I heard, before she went to Wiggins’.
Kate had met Pat in the street as he hurried to the station and, from his incoherent snatches of words as he passed her, she’d gathered something of what had happened. Pat was not trite, not even humble or humiliated with his black eye and bruised face and missing teeth, only anxious to be away before Minnie could catch up with him.
“She can look after ’er bloody self,” he’d said as he went. “Got me into enough trouble, she did, the bitch.”
Then he’d hurried off in the direction of the station, and Kate had known as he left her that she’d never see him in the town again.
Minnie she greeted coldly when she arrived at the boatyard, half-defiant and with a simulated humility she didn’t wear well.
“When’s he coming back?” she’d demanded in reply to Kate’s information, feeling foolish and clumsy as she always did, I know, in front of Kate, whose stillness hid a sick heart Minnie couldn’t see.
“I don’t know.” Kate forced her voice to be steady. “Nobody knows.”
“Don’t know what he’d got to go an’ do that for just now.” Minnie’s tones were aggrieved. “Might have waited till I could see him before he went.”
Kate said nothing. There was so obviously nothing to say to this shallow, mean little woman, whose concern was only for herself. Unhappily, she realised Minnie had dressed carefully, with a thin frock over her curves, and scent enough to kill a cat. She’d done it all for me, I reckon. Ready to turn on all her charm.
“Isn’t there some way I can get in touch with him?” Minnie asked. “Them boats have wireless and things, don’t they? Can’t we ring up somebody who’ll know when he’s comin’ back?”
“He may not come back,” Kate said, and Minnie’s eyes widened, startled and big.
“What? Never? Well, that’s a nice thing! That’s a bit ripe!”
Then she realised what Kate meant and her jaw dropped. “Oh, Gawd!” she said. “Not killed?”
Kate nodded and Minnie was silent for a moment. I’ll bet she was thinking of herself in black, a widow. My death would have been her salvation. There’d be no clacking tongues to drive her from the Steam Packet, no scandal, no dirty linen to be washed in public. No one need know what had happened. There’s something comfortably respectable about widow-hood.
“Is that where he’s gone?” she asked more happily, indicating the papers spread on the office desk.
Kate nodded again and Minnie stared in awe at the black headlines. I’m sure she’d no idea what was going on. I expect she thought a war was a bit like a noisy Saturday night at the Steam Packet.
“Well!” she said, and she seemed almost indignant. Her moment of dismay had passed and she was the old Minnie again, self-reliant, selfish and independent, her problems half solved, anxious to make an impression.
“Fancy going off like that. Never a word of goodbye to a girl.” She turned to Kate, not realis
ing how much she knew. “Never even bothered to kiss me aw revaw,” she said.
“I expect not,” Kate replied, then she went on hurriedly, anxious to avoid an argument with a stupid woman: “Nobody did. They didn’t have time.”
“Well, I think it’s a bit thick,” Minnie said, and she even managed to force a few tears.
With thin hands that showed a sinewy strength Kate grabbed her shoulders suddenly, unexpectedly, and shook her so that her teeth jarred.
“Shut up!” she said, angered by the act Minnie was putting on for her benefit. “Don’t you realise he’s risking his life to save stupid people like you?”
The unexpected shaking on top of the nervous strain of the past few days while she’d been waiting for me to turn up at the Steam Packet, while she’d struggled to get her story word perfect and debated the best means of soothing me down, of winning me back now that she’d lost Pat, suddenly brought real tears to Minnie’s eyes and she began to wail. She stopped short as she felt a stinging blow on her cheek where Kate slapped her face.
“Pull yourself together,” Kate said. “There’s no time for hysterics.”
Minnie glared. “I ’spect you think he’s coming back to you, don’t you?” she stormed, her passionate temper rising. “Well, you’re wrong, Katie Fee. You’re wrong. You wait. He’s my husband and we’ll soon see who he comes back to. Just wait till he spots me, that’s all. Then we’ll see.”
She shoved her hat straight on her head and, grabbing her bag, hurried out of the office…
The day dragged on wearily towards dusk and Kate still waited under the harsh glare of the office electric light. The news that came over the wireless was still vague, but there was a more confident note in it now. England was on her own, but far from humiliated in her suffering. There was rising in her a spirit of pride, a grandeur that came from tradition. There was hope despite the disaster.
As she sat, Kate heard a train shriek in the silence and she guessed that another load of soldiers had arrived, needing shelter and food. Suddenly angry with herself for her fears, she rose to her feet. There were other women with anxieties just then, she decided. She wasn’t alone in her misery. There was too much to do to sit still, and the women who were slaving in and around the station and the Town Hall would be glad of help.
She rose and, switching off the light, stepped out into the cool night air and closed the office door behind her.
I was leaving the station with Dig as she turned into the street. She saw me immediately and broke into a run, her heels clicking sharply on the pavement.
“Jess! Oh, Jess!” Her voice broke and became an emotional croak as my hands caught her and steadied her. Then she was hugging me fiercely, her eyes shining with tears.
“Oh, Jess!” she was sobbing. “Thank God you’re safe!”
I held her silently, my arms round her, suddenly thankful she was there. My knees felt like water at the thought that she wanted me. I’d known she’d wait for me, but now that she was there in my arms it seemed to crowd the words from my tongue and hold my throat in a choking tightness that wouldn’t let me speak. And my eyes were full of stinging tears again.
“Kate,” I whispered at last. “I’m glad you were here.”
I drew her closer to me. My weary body and tired mind seemed to draw strength from her. Dig was standing nearby, his mouth twisted foolishly into a smile. Then Kate suddenly saw I was hiding the shabby naval sword she’d last seen Old Boxer wearing when he stumbled into the boat-yard that last night. She didn’t question it, though she must have guessed why Old Boxer wasn’t there to carry it himself, and why Yorky hadn’t come back with us.
I knew then that I no longer had any fear of losing her. I should never lose her again after this, however far away a ship might carry me. The sea couldn’t ever keep us apart again.
I held her tighter at the thought. I never even noticed the grimy figures who hurried past, all of them too tired, too concerned with food and sleep to see us.
Occasionally we were jostled by the crowd, but we clung together silently, speechlessly, breathlessly. To me there was no longer any question about the future. Kate had decided it for me. All the emptiness and hollowness, all the solitariness had drained away.
“It’s been a long and lonely voyage, Kate,” I said, “but I’m home at last.”
Synopses of John Harris Titles
Published by House of Stratus
Army of Shadows
It is the winter of 1944. France is under the iron fist of the Nazis. But liberation is just around the corner and a crew from a Lancaster bomber is part of the fight for Freedom. As they fly towards their European target, a Messerschmitt blazes through the sky in a fiery attack and of the nine-man crew aboard the bomber, only two men survive to parachute into Occupied France. They join an ever-growing army of shadows (the men and women of the French Resistance), to play a lethal game of cat and mouse.
China Seas
In this action-packed adventure, Willie Sarth becomes a survivor. Forced to fight pirates on the East China Seas, wrestle for his life on the South China Seas and cross the Sea of Japan ravaged by typhus, Sarth is determined to come out alive. Dealing with human tragedy, war and revolution, Harris presents a novel which packs an awesome punch.
The Claws of Mercy
In Sierra Leone, a remote bush community crackles with racial tensions. Few white people live amongst the natives of Freetown and Authority seems distant. Everyday life in Freetown revolves around an opencast iron mine, and the man in charge dictates peace and prosperity for everyone. But, for the white population, his leadership is a matter of life or death where every decision is like being snatched by the claws of mercy.
Corporal Cotton’s Little War
Storming through Europe, the Nazis are sure to conquer Greece but for one man, Michael Anthony Cotton, a heroic marine who smuggles weapons of war and money to the Greek Resistance. Born Mihale Andoni Cotonou, Cotton gets mixed up in a lethal mission involving guns and high-speed chases. John Harris produces an unforgettable champion, persuasive and striking with a touch of mastery in this action-packed thriller set against the dazzle of the Aegean.
The Cross of Lazzaro
The Cross of Lazzaro is a gripping story filled with mystery and fraught with personal battles. This tense, unusual novel begins with the seemingly divine reappearance of a wooden cross once belonging to a sixth-century bishop. The vision emerges from the depths of an Italian lake, and a menacing local antagonism is subsequently stirred. But what can the cross mean?
Flawed Banner
John Harris’ spine-tingling adventure inhabits the shadowy world of cunning and espionage. As the Nazi hordes of Germany overrun France, devouring the free world with fascist fervour, a young intelligence officer, James Woodyatt, is shipped across the Channel to find a First World War hero…an old man who may have been a spy…who may be in possession of Nazi secrets.
The Fox From His Lair
A brilliant German agent lies in wait for the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France. While the Allies prepare a vast armed camp, no one is aware of the enemy within, and when a sudden, deadly E-boat attacks, the Fox strikes, stealing secret invasion plans in the ensuing panic. What follows is a deadly pursuit as the Fox tries to get the plans to Germany in time, hotly pursued by two officers with orders to stop him at all costs.
A Funny Place to Hold a War
Ginger Donnelly is on the trail of Nazi saboteurs in Sierra Leone. Whilst taking a midnight paddle with a willing woman in a canoe cajoled from a local fisherman, Donnelly sees an enormous seaplane thunder across the sky only to crash in a ball of brilliant flame. It seems like an accident…at least until a second plane explodes in a blistering shower along the same flight path.
Getaway
An Italian fisherman and his wife, Rosa, live in Sydney. Hard times are ahead. Their mortgaged boat may be lost and with it, their livelihood. But Rosa has a plan to reach the coast of America from the islands of the P
acific, sailing on a beleaguered little houseboat. The plan seems almost perfect, especially when Willie appears and has his own reasons for taking a long holiday to the land of opportunity.
Harkaway’s Sixth Column
An explosive action-packed war drama: four British soldiers are cut off behind enemy lines in British Somaliland and when they decide to utilise a secret arms dump in the Bur Yi hills and fight a rearguard action, an unlikely alliance is sought between two local warring tribes. What follows is an amazing mission led by the brilliant, elusive Harkaway, whose heart is stolen by a missionary when she becomes mixed up in the unorthodox band of warriors.
A Kind of Courage
At the heart of this story of courage and might, is Major Billy Pentecost, commander of a remote desert outpost near Hahdhdhah, deep among the bleak hills of Khalit. His orders are to prepare to move out along with a handful of British soldiers. Impatient tribesmen gather outside the fort, eager to reclaim the land of their blood and commanded by Abd el Aziz el Beidawi, a feared Arab warrior lord. A friendship forms between the two very different commanders but when Pentecost’s orders are reversed, a nightmarish tragedy ensues.
Live Free or Die
Charles Walter Scully, cut off from his unit and running on empty, is trapped. It’s 1944 and though the Allied invasion of France has finally begun, for Scully the war isn’t going well. That is, until he meets a French boy trying to get home to Paris. What begins is a hair-raising journey into the heart of France, an involvement with the French Liberation Front and one of the most monumental events of the war. Harris vividly portrays wartime France in a panorama of scenes that enthral the reader.
The Lonely Voyage
The Lonely Voyage is John Harris’ first novel - a graphic, moving tale of the sea. It charts the story of one boy, Jess Ferigo, who winds up on a charge of poaching along with Pat Fee and Old Boxer, the men who sail with him on his journey into manhood. As Jess leaves his boyhood behind, bitter years are followed by the Second World War, where Old Boxer and Jess make a poignant rescue on the sand dunes of Dunkirk. Finally, Jess Ferigo’s lonely voyage is over.
