The Main Cages

by Philip Marsden

  ‘So, gentlemen,’ she looked up at them in turn. ‘What’s the form?’

  ‘It’s been pretty tight all season,’ volunteered Cameron.

  ‘What he means, Lady Rafferty, is that he’s been winning –’

  ‘Everything,’ said the Dane Soren.

  ‘He wins here and he’ll have won the season series.’

  ‘Again.’

  Cameron flashed a smile. ‘In these light airs, really it’s anyone’s race.’

  ‘So, Mr Cameron, what are your colours?’ Lady Rafferty was beginning to look forward to her afternoon.

  ‘Pea-green,’ said Lawrence Rose. ‘And mine is –’

  ‘Splendid! Does anyone have a book on it?’

  They each looked at each other, embarrassed at the mention of boats and betting. ‘Well, not exactly.’

  Outside, Anna paused on the hotel step. She blinked in the sun. The front had emptied somewhat and she made her way down to the beach. There she took out her sketchpad and gazed at the sparkling bay and the boats lying motionless in its shelter. It was very bright. She closed her eyes and listened to the gulls and the gentle kiss of seas on the sand and the distant barking of a dog and soon she was asleep.

  At the dam, all was quiet. The Stephens boys had not returned. Croyden was leaning against the wall, his beret pulled down to his eyes. Stretched out beside the well, Tyler was scratching at a piece of slate with a stone; he blew away the dust and there, in full sail, was a mackerel driver.

  Jack had wandered up from the spring. He stood on one of the stumps and surveyed the damage. Sawdust ringed each of the stumps and the entire top of the valley was scarred from the weight of the trees falling and being cut up and dragged over the ground. He carried on up the slope and sat in the grass. Far to the south, in the V of the valley was a triangle of blue sea below Kidda Head. He lay back and squinted at the sky and all that broke his vision was a tiny feather of high cloud drifting in from the east. He gazed at it for some time and soon forgot the destruction all around him. He felt the warmth of the sun on his face, then he too fell asleep.

  Some three miles to the south-west, through the gateway to London, came lunch. Around the open sides of a wain sat women and children from Crowdy Farm. In their laps were baskets of sandwiches and saffron cake. The dogs ran up to bark at the wheels and the legs that dangled from it. Ivor Dawkins brought the binder to a halt and everyone laid down their forks and scythes and converged on the wain. They all sat in a row, in its shade. Having eaten, they rested for a while and the dogs lay beneath the axles and some of the children lay with them, half-listening to the low hum of adult talk.

  Polmayne too paused. On Pritchard’s Beach the visitors had sought out the shade. The shops were closed; few people were out along the front. Parliament Bench was empty.

  In Porth Bay, not even the gulls were moving. The wind had died and the Petrels lay rafted together, their sails loosely stowed. The anchor chain of the Golden Sands dropped vertically into the silky waters. Tacker was stretched out, face down on a bench. Jimmy sat in the wheelhouse, looking out to sea and idly passing a pebble from hand to hand. On Pendhu Point, Captain Williams had pulled closed the louvres of his hut and his head rested on the table. It was just for a little while, he told himself; he’d been feeling strange that morning but if he rested for a few minutes he’d be better. It was very hot in the watch hut and stripes of sunlight came through the shutters and lay across his bare forearms where his skin was covered in the first tell-tale rashes of the Reeds.

  At two-twenty exactly the first puff of smoke rose from Porth’s breakwater. A moment later, its loud report bounced off the façade of the Kidda Head Hotel and echoed around the harbour.

  All over the village, people stirred. They packed away their picnics, pulled shut the doors of their cottages, and made their way down to the harbour. On board the Petrels they had raised their sails, dropped their moorings and were drifting across the bay. There was still very little wind.

  In the hotel many of those having lunch had made their way to the first-floor lounge. With its large balcony, it offered the best view of the racing.

  The three officers, awash with gin, stumbled out of the hotel and into the afternoon sun. Birkin spotted the T. Wall tricycle. ‘Anyone care for an ice?’

  From beside the hotel, the St Blazey Prize Silver Band started up with the hymn ‘Grace’.

  Five minutes after the first gun came another. The Petrels were already close to the start-line, crossing and recrossing before each other in a slow parade. The air was so light that the cries of ‘Ready about!’ and ‘Lee-o!’ and ‘Gybe-o!’ could be clearly heard ashore. The haze had thickened; Kidda Head was now no more than a grey shadow in the brightness.

  Anna was leaning over her sketchpad, drawing in lightning sweeps of the page. She was looking up and down at the boats as they manoeuvred offshore. She had no idea what they were doing, but she saw in their silhouettes and their movements an arcane ballet whose steps she was trying to submit to paper. By the time the start gun sounded and the boats fell into line beside each other, she had covered a dozen sheets.

  On the hotel balcony, Lady Rafferty was equally baffled. But in Major Franks she had found a fellow racing enthusiast and they had discreetly exchanged five-guinea wagers – he on Lawrence Rose and Grace; she on Ralph Cameron’s Harmony.

  ‘Have they started?’ asked Lady Rafferty.

  Franks had his binoculars on the boats. ‘Yes. Grace is down to leeward, but she’s being luffed already –’

  ‘Speak English, man!’

  It was becoming hard to see. The boats were moving away from the harbour, out towards Kidda Head, and the sky and the water and the sails all coalesced in the white haze. Anna watched them become fainter. She looked at her drawings and was pleased.

  On the hotel balcony, with the race out of view, silence fell. Parson Hooper, who found silences embarrassing, looked down on the heads of the crowd and exclaimed, ‘Well! Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves!’

  Lady Rafferty glared at him.

  Major Franks was still just able to follow the race through his binoculars. ‘They’ve rounded the mark … they’re on their way back!’

  ‘Who’s winning?’ demanded Lady Rafferty.

  ‘Harmony – half a length over Grace!’

  She smiled.

  The boats were reappearing from the mist. The two front-runners were together. Fifty yards astern was Chastity, the new Porth boat. Five or six others were bunched behind her. There were a couple at the rear. They were all moving so slowly that they seemed almost stationary. Their sails hung in loose folds, the bight of their mainsheets brushed the water – but yard by yard, they were narrowing the gap to the line.

  Harmony was keeping her advantage, but Grace was closing. As they came closer to the village, everyone could see clearly their two hulls, green and yellow, and then the white of Chastity.

  Along the front and on the quay, the Porth supporters were urging on their boat. ‘Bear away, Chastity! Bear away!’ Those from Polmayne were crying out ‘Grace’! and ‘Harmony!’

  On the balcony, Lady Rafferty was now standing. She had told Bryant to support Ralph Cameron’s Harmony, and he too was shouting ‘Harmony!’

  ‘Luff her, Grace!’ hissed Franks. ‘For Pete’s sake, luff her!’

  On the quay was Captain Maddocks. He alone maintained a judicious calm, co-ordinating his spotters and waiting with the gun for the first boat’s bow to cross the line.

  There were only three in contention now. With a hundred yards to go, Chastity was third but beginning to close the gap. Ahead of her, Grace drew level with Harmony – then pulled ahead. Harmony had borne away a little, seeking the tide. She lost ground at once, and Franks nodded with satisfaction.

  No one saw it coming. They were all watching the three lead boats. They did not see it as it crept around Kidda Head, peeled back the haze and darkened the sea-surface.

  It reached Hope first, the back marke
r. Dr Jones and his crew had long since given up and were lying with their legs up over the combing. When the sails suddenly filled and the boat leapt forward, they were caught unawares. The breeze pressed on towards the bulk of the fleet. As it reached each boat, the helmsman felt it and he watched the sails fill and everyone sat up.

  When the wind came to Chastity, it drove her through the water and she at once gained twenty yards.

  The Porth supporters raised their voices.

  Grace was still in front. The wind reached Harmony, slamming her boom to port; she began to bear down on Grace. Cameron pushed her upwind until Grace too caught it and tried to get ahead of Harmony’s bows. Cameron had right of way and held his course. The points of the boats’ bows sliced through the water towards each other. The heeling shape of their sails converged. The crowd fell silent, waiting for the collision.

  A few yards short, Lawrence Rose could see he was not going to make it.

  ‘She’s gone ahead!’ said Franks. ‘Dammit – Harmony’s ahead!’

  ‘Yes!’ hissed Lady Rafferty.

  Grace’s bow passed harmlessly astern of the green-hulled boat and Harmony surged on to the line.

  But as they duelled, Chastity had gone through. She came in ahead of Harmony by a length and the Porth supporters raised such a shout that the sound of the winning gun was almost drowned out.

  On the balcony, Lady Rafferty and Major Franks avoided each other’s gaze.

  CHAPTER 26

  It wasn’t the racing guns that woke Tacker – those he could sleep through. Nor was it the yachts which before their start had come so close to the Golden Sands that their sail-shadows slid over his sleeping form. Nor was it the shouts of the skippers or the clamour from the harbour that had been rising in tempo throughout the race. It was a much slighter sound – the very faint creak of timbers.

  He opened his eyes. Lying on his side he saw the stern-rail and beyond it the houses of Porth. They were moving. The boat was swinging on her anchor. He sat up at once. Two red stripes ran down his cheek. He hurried forward to the wheelhouse.

  ‘Coming in again, Jim!’

  Jimmy nodded. He had been watching it, had seen the first flurries of wind on the water, had seen it work its way boat by boat through the Petrel fleet. Now he was watching the sea out beyond Kidda Head where the flickering white-caps had just begun to appear.

  Up at Pennance they welcomed the breeze. They had formed a human chain. At one end, Croyden stood on the half-built dam wall, lowering the buckets into the water, hauling them up and passing them down to Jack who, balanced on the rocks, passed them on down to Edwin Stephens. In this way the buckets swung down the line until they were raised up to Tyler who poured each one through a funnel and into the tank.

  They made quick work. At one time or other most had worked together on the lifeboat, and although the afternoon was at its hottest, they settled into a practised rhythm and found that it required little effort. Double Walsh started singing in his own tone-deaf way:

  So merry, so merry are we.

  There’s no man on earth …

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Double!’

  – like the sailor at sea …

  ‘Dee!’

  Blow high, blow low, as the ship sails along.

  Give the sailor his grog and there’s nothing goes wrong.

  Then Croyden let one of the buckets slip. It fell on Jack – soaked him.

  ‘Ooops!’

  Jack picked up the bucket and threw what was left of the water at Croyden and he stepped aside but it caught him on the shoulder. He dipped the next bucket in and stood on the dam and swung it out towards Dee who was still singing. A silvery arc shot out and for an instant those underneath saw it above them, frozen against the clear blue sky. Then it flopped down and caught all those who failed to jump clear. Croyden threw another.

  ‘Oy!’ Tyler was standing on the cart, shouting at Croyden.

  ‘No harm in it, Cox!’ called Double, whose shirt was soaked in cooling water. And he slopped a bucket up at him from below. Tyler jumped down from the cart and avoided it, but then Croyden caught him with a bucketful. Soon the whole line had divided into two battling groups, led by the perennial rivals Tyler and Stephens. The encrusted ground softened into mud and soon they were all laughing. Even Tyler was laughing. Something had lifted, some months-long anxiety. They knew now there was enough water here for weeks.

  The forty-gallon tank took another half-hour to fill. When they had finished they trooped back up to the well. All of them were glad of the damp on their clothes and the wind that chilled it. They drank and filled bottles and sat down for a rest. Jack went back to the dam and untied the hobble from Job and led him back to the shafts and they began the journey home.

  It was hard going. With the tank full, the cart had to be eased over each rut and bump of the track, but once on the main road it was easier. They followed the road up the valley and through the dappled sunlight of Kestle Wood. Job was struggling. A couple of them gave a push against the tank and when they reached the top they sat down and drank from the bottles.

  ‘You fixed that rudder yet, Ty?’ asked Stephens.

  ‘Good as. Just one more coat of gloss.’

  A couple of cars drove past, full of visitors. They all waved and the visitors waved back.

  There was one more slope. The road dropped towards Polmayne and before the Crates it climbed again. Job managed twenty yards before it steepened. He came to a halt. The cart started to roll backwards. His hooves scraped on the tarmac. ‘Hold it – quick!’ shouted Jack, and Tyler jammed stones under the wheels. The cart stopped. Job found his feet again and they all paused and sat down. They passed the water around and then four of them stood against the back of the tank and took the weight. The others slipped out the stones and they heaved the tank up yard by yard. Jack was up at the front with Job. Tyler came up and they all urged him on: ‘Come on now, boy!’

  Everyone was pushing. They brought the tank over the top of the hill and left the main road and went through the gate towards the pieces. The strip of parched allotments curved down over the hill.

  Before they transferred the water they unhitched Job and fed and watered him and then they all sat down in the grass.

  ‘Well!’ said Stephens.

  ‘Well,’ agreed Double.

  Croyden lay back and looked at the open sea. Out beyond Pendhu they could see the tops of the waves turning. The haze of early afternoon had gone and Croyden knew that even if they were down at Newlyn there would be no fishing in this easterly.

  ‘Be another two days before he goes round again.’

  ‘Are you ever wrong about the weather, Croy?’ teased Jack.

  ‘He can smell a gale!’ laughed Stephens.

  ‘Better than his own pigs,’ said Double.

  Croyden smiled, but said nothing.

  Beyond Kidda Head the sea was now a sharp and brilliant blue. In the wheelhouse of the Golden Sands Jimmy made his decision. He took a blue-and-white signal flag from the locker and limped forward to the mast.

  In the upper lounge of the hotel, tea was being served. The afternoon sun flooded in from the balcony where the Polmayne Petrel skippers, back from their race, were looking out over the bay.

  ‘Don’t fancy it,’ said Lawrence Rose.

  ‘Tide’s with it –’

  ‘We should leave the boats here –’

  ‘Nowhere safer than Porth in an easterly.’

  Cameron looked from one face to the next. ‘Right. We’re agreed? We can return to Polmayne on the Garretts’ boat.’

  ‘Hey-ho!’ It was Lawrence Rose who saw the flag go up the Golden Sands’s mast. ‘Blue Peter!’

  ‘Someone call Bryant.’

  Bryant came out, blinking in the sudden sunlight.

  ‘Your boat’s just hoisted the Blue Peter.’

  ‘The Blue Peter?’

  Rose explained: ‘All persons report on board as the vessel is about to proceed to sea.’

&
nbsp; Bryant took a watch from his waistcoat. ‘No, that can’t be right. It’s barely gone four.’

  ‘I think you’d be advised to heed your skipper.’

  ‘I think he’d be advised to heed me. We said five-thirty. My guests –’

  ‘Listen, old man.’ Ralph Cameron put a hand on Bryant’s shoulder and led him to one side. ‘The wind’s getting up. It might all look pleasant in here, but I can assure you if you leave it much later, your guests will not thank you when you get out there.’

  When Cameron spoke like this, people usually agreed with him. Mr Bryant said, ‘Well, it’s damned inconvenient!’

  He went inside to where Sir Basil had joined his wife and the others. Major Franks was telling a story and Sir Basil’s shoulders were shaking with laughter.

  ‘… so the fellow was hopping about with this wretched spear through his boot!’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘Come and join us!’ Sir Basil was holding a paste sandwich. ‘The Major here’s telling us about Tanganyika.’

  ‘Thank you. Er –’ Bryant pressed his palms together. ‘We’ve a slight change of plan. We must make our way to the harbour.’

  Sir Basil said, ‘Just finish my tea!’

  ‘It seems the boat must leave immediately.’

  Lady Rafferty said, ‘Why is it that boats always make men such tyrants?’

  Outside, the wind was gusting harder. It was shooting down off the headland, darting across the sheltered water in dark, feathery patches. The halyards of the Petrels had begun to tap against their masts.

  The Garretts hauled their anchor and brought the Golden Sands into the harbour. The tide had dropped down the quay wall yet there was still enough water for passengers to board straight from the steps. But the rowing races were now in full swing. As the Golden Sands approached the quay six praams were also converging on it.

  ‘Clear off!’ they shouted.

  ‘Back away, Garrett!’