The Harbour Girl

by Val Wood

  ‘Ma! Ma! I’m over here.’

  It was Tom’s voice, though she couldn’t see him. ‘Where? Where are you, Tom?’

  He was standing by the pier road leading to the lighthouse. He had heeded her words and not gone down, but was perilously close to it.

  ‘Ma,’ he shouted hoarsely. ‘Mr Wharton’s about to put off in a fishing boat. He’s seen the Bonnie Lass. She’s turned over and Ethan and his brother are in the water.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘WHAT?’ MARY SAID. ‘How do you know, Tom? Who said?’

  ‘I saw him rush past, Ma. He was with two other fishermen and I heard ’em. Look!’ He pointed northwards beyond a group of warehouses to a slipway where he often could be found playing in the boats. ‘They’ve gone over to the boatyard. I heard them tell him that the Bonnie Lass had keeled over and that everybody was in the water.’

  ‘Both of you stay here. Don’t move from this spot.’

  Mary pushed her way back through the crowd, ran past the wharf where they brought in the herring barrels and headed towards a slipway where berthed fishing smacks and rowing boats were being tossed about on the water; a group of about four or five men with coils of rope in their arms were about to release a smack from its mooring.

  ‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘Wait. Wait.’

  They all looked up, but one of them – she was sure it was Josh – jumped into the smack.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said breathlessly as she reached them. ‘Josh. Please don’t. You can’t leave your bairns without a mother or a father. What’ll become of them if you go down?’

  ‘What’s she on about, Josh?’ one of the men asked.

  ‘Did he not tell you?’ she gasped. ‘His wife died this morning and there’s another mouth to feed.’

  Josh straightened up. ‘We’re wasting time,’ he bellowed. ‘My lads are out there. I’ve got to go to them. The Bonnie Lass has foundered. I’ve got to save my lads.’ His voice broke with emotion. ‘Come on!’

  ‘Nay, Josh. Tha can’t,’ another fisherman broke in. ‘Mary’s right. Tha can’t leave them motherless bairns to fend for the’selves.’

  Josh pressed his hand to his head and took a deep breath, then looked out to sea. ‘I have to, Ted. I can’t just leave ’em out there,’ he choked.

  ‘Get out of the boat.’ Another man reached for his arm. ‘Come on.’ He hauled him out and stepped into the boat himself. ‘Come on, lads. Bear away. We’ve enough manpower to manage.’

  Within seconds the Castle was free from her mooring and they were pulling away, the sail unfurled and filling as the gusty wind carried them out to sea.

  ‘Do they know where she is?’ Mary asked softly.

  Josh nodded; it was an effort for him to speak. ‘Just outside the harbour.’ He pointed. ‘You can just see her.’

  Mary narrowed her eyes. ‘She’s not capsized,’ she said. ‘There’s somebody on board!’

  Josh put his hand to his forehead and stared. ‘She must have righted herself. No! She’s gone again! Her mast is down. Dear God, what a nightmare. I can’t see her – she’ll be drifting towards the harbour. If she hits the wall they’re done for.’

  He began to run back to the harbour and turned towards the lighthouse pier. Mary followed him, her long skirt clutched in her hand so that she didn’t trip. She prayed that the smack would be in time to save the crew, but what sickened her more than anything was that when she had spotted the Bonnie Lass she had seen only one figure clinging to the broken mast.

  The smack was heading for the stricken vessel, but they too were struggling to keep from capsizing and at one point were perilously close to crashing into the Bonnie Lass as they were lifted high by the billowing breakers and then plunged down into the depths.

  ‘I should’ve gone with them,’ Josh muttered. ‘An extra pair of hands—’ He broke off as his ship dipped into the angry swirling foam and disappeared from sight. He put his hand over his mouth to stop himself from crying out and Mary saw tears in his eyes before he dashed them away.

  The wind was tearing at her hair and skirt and it was difficult to keep upright. She looked back to the crowd on Sandside to see if she could spot Tom and Jeannie and saw them wave to her. She lifted her eyes up to the castle headland, where another group of onlookers was gathered. They would be members of fishing families on the lookout for their own men; their eyes would be turned towards the North Bay and the Scalby sands where there was no safe anchorage. Any ships struggling there would have to make their way through the surging turbulent waters round the foot of the castle hill, avoiding the hidden rocks as they headed for the harbour.

  Another shout went up from the south as the rocket launcher was fired towards a ship in distress. The line must have missed its mark, for another was immediately launched. A cheer went up as the lifeboat Lady Leigh hit the water in an attempt to reach the stricken ship, but it was followed by another shout of dismay as the ship they were heading for keeled over under the pressure of the enormous waves.

  Mary turned back to gaze into the middle distance where she had last seen the Bonnie Lass. ‘Can you see her?’ she asked Josh, who was standing silently with his back to her, both hands clasped over his head.

  He turned to her and there was anguish written on his face. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t. Nor the Castle. I think they’ve both foundered.’

  She looked beyond his shoulder. The sea was raging; she had never in her life witnessed such terrible power. Beyond the harbour and along the coastline for as far as she could see, even beyond the Spa, hundreds of ships and small boats were being tossed around like corks by the ocean’s massive strength and destructive fury.

  Even so, some vessels were managing to enter the harbour and Mary curled her fist, making a circle with her thumb and forefinger to focus the view. She said nothing to Josh as she watched; he had crouched down, his chin in his hands as if he was garnering his strength to face what was to come.

  She caught her breath. A smack was making good progress towards port and she was almost sure … was it … or not? There were possibly five or maybe more on board. As it came nearer she saw that it was the Castle. But who was on board? The crew might have picked up anyone from a stricken vessel – or plucked somebody from the sea.

  Finally she exclaimed, ‘Josh! Look up.’

  He lifted his head and glanced at her. She nodded towards the harbour and he slowly got to his feet. He gave a gasp, and as the smack came nearer he whispered, ‘Is that our Ethan? It is! It’s Ethan! Thank God.’

  Ethan lifted a hand but it wasn’t a joyful wave, and Mary knew with a sinking heart that his brother was probably lost. And Ethan himself had yet to learn that his mother was dead.

  The smack took several attempts to tie up, for the water in the harbour was turbulent, but eventually after several crashes into the pier a rope was thrown and the boat secured. All the men were soaked to the skin, and Ted said they’d feared for their lives. Two of them had been thrown into the water and had to be rescued before an attempt could be made for the Bonnie Lass.

  He clapped his hand on Josh’s shoulder. ‘I’m right sorry about thy other lad, Josh, and the other two crew. But we were too late. They’d gone overboard by the time we got there. I don’t know how yon young lad survived. Sheer willpower, I’d say, for he’d been under water several times. He was clinging to the mast by his fingertips; it looked as though someone had tried to tie him to it but the ropes hadn’t held.’

  Josh had his arm round Ethan’s shoulder. He could hardly speak he was so choked, but eventually he said, ‘I’m grateful to you all. I’ll thank you all my life for what you’ve done today in saving my lad.’

  One of the other men spoke up. ‘You’d have done the same for us. But there’ll be some sorrow in the town afore long. This storm isn’t finished yet. Best go home, young sailor,’ he said to Ethan, ‘and get into some dry clouts afore you catch your death. You did well today. You’re a brave lad.’

  Mary watched and list
ened and thought that Ethan, though trembling and trying to keep back tears, seemed to grow in stature with the fisherman’s praise, but he was looking towards his father, who nodded and in a voice thick with grief said, ‘That he did. He’ll have his own ship yet.’

  It was close on midday when Mary collected Tom and Jeannie, and they were both shivering with cold. Even Tom made no fuss when their mother said they’d go home for some warming broth. She asked Josh and Ethan if they’d like to come back with her. ‘There’s plenty of soup,’ she told them, ‘and bread.’

  Josh shook his head and Mary guessed that he would be bracing himself to break the news to Ethan about his mother and tell his daughters about Mark.

  ‘Susan’s lit a good fire,’ she said, ‘so you can get warm and dry, Ethan; and the babby’s being fed. What name have you given him, Josh?’

  Josh looked at her vaguely. It was as if he had forgotten about the child, and even his wife, for he blinked rapidly and then his face crumpled. ‘Stephen,’ he said huskily. ‘It was what Lizzie wanted.’

  Ethan glanced questioningly at his father and Mary turned away, ushering the children in front of her. Josh Wharton had a double sorrow and his wife’s burial to arrange. Whether he would ever find his son was in the lap of the gods. Mark could have been washed out to sea, never to be seen again, just as her own husband had been, but she dearly hoped that the boy would be found and they could put him to rest next to his mother.

  The storm continued to rage all the rest of the day and all night, and the following morning Mary went down to the shore once more. There were still many onlookers on the cliffs and the headland as well as those on the sands. Those down by the water were mainly fisher families, hoping against hope that their men would be saved, but there were other townsfolk too, and there was much praise for the lifeboat men who had risked their own lives. The coastguard, too, was praised for launching the rocket apparatus in their attempts to save the ships’ crews.

  Vessels had foundered all along the east coast and lay wrecked not only near Scarborough but along the sands of Burniston Bay, Cloughton, Robin Hood’s Bay and Filey, or so she gathered from the people who waited, many of whom had been there all night. But the storm was not yet done. The angry seas were to claim even more lives before it blew itself out, but there were tales of great bravery as men such as the crew of the Castle and others like them battled against the force of nature to save lives.

  When she returned home, Tom, who had been unusually quiet since they’d returned the previous day, asked her if he could go down to the sands.

  ‘I’ll be careful, Ma,’ he volunteered. ‘I’ll not get in the way.’ He’d pressed his lips together. ‘I just want to watch the rescue.’

  ‘All right, Tom,’ she agreed, thinking he seemed pensive. ‘Wrap up warm.’

  He nodded, and then said, ‘Do you think that Ethan’ll go fishing again?’

  ‘Why yes,’ she said. ‘It’s his living. What else would he do?’

  ‘Dunno,’ he muttered. ‘He must’ve been scared, mustn’t he?’ He lifted his eyes to his mother’s. ‘Being in the water! I would’ve been.’

  She sat down and pulled him towards her and tenderly tucked a muffler into the top of his raincoat. ‘Of course you would,’ she said softly. ‘Everybody is at some time, even experienced fishermen and seamen. The sea has to be treated with respect. That’s why I’m always on at you to take care when you’re messing about down by the slipway. If a boat should escape its moorings and drift out to sea, what would you do?’

  He hung his head. ‘Don’t know, Ma.’

  ‘When you reach ten I’ll ask about and maybe some of the men will show you the rudiments of sailing and rowing, just to give you a taste of what it’s like.’ She kissed his cheek and said softly, ‘If your da hadn’t been lost he would have taught you, just like Josh Wharton’s taught his sons.’

  ‘He’s still lost one, though, hasn’t he? Mark’s lost at sea.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But none of us can escape danger no matter what we do, Tom. And there are old men who’ve been going to sea all of their lives and have come to no harm.’ She smiled at him. ‘You might become one of those.’

  ‘You mean like Josh Wharton?’

  Mary laughed. ‘I don’t think he’d want to be called old, Tom, but yes, just like him.’

  After Tom had left, Mary thought back over their conversation. She’d always thought that Josh Wharton was perhaps a few years older than her, maybe about thirty, but then she remembered that Mark had been nineteen and reasoned that he must be older, unless of course Mark wasn’t his son and Lizzie Wharton had been wed before. She thought again about the age gap between Mark and his siblings: seven years between him and Ethan, the oldest of the five.

  She shrugged and got on with cleaning their room and preparing food for midday. There would be no mending of nets today as the weather was too wild, but tomorrow, if the gale eased, there would be plenty of work on the damaged nets, and soon the Scottish herring girls would be coming down to Scarborough. Her mother Fiona and two others would stay with her; she’d give her mother her own place in bed with the children and she and her friends would bed down on the floor and she’d listen to the news from home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE RESIDENTS AT the bottom end of Sandside remarked to each other that it was the worst storm they could remember, and the following week several families were still waiting for news of their menfolk. Numerous ships had been wrecked, but many lives had been saved and the lifeboat crew, who had risked their own lives during the rescue, had saved more than twenty-five seamen. Seven from the brig Mary; five from the Black-Eyed Susan; five more from a Plymouth sloop and several others. Some bodies were washed up on the shores of the North Bay, Cloughton and Scalby, but some were never seen again, like Josh’s son, Mark Wharton.

  Mary had gone to see her mother-in-law, who was fretting that she couldn’t get down to the shoreline to see what was happening.

  ‘You don’t need to go down,’ Mary told her. ‘It’s enough that you know how it is. No sense in bringing back sad old memories.’

  ‘Aye,’ Aggie sighed. ‘You’re right. Fifteen years since Herbert was lost, four since Bob, and two since our Jack. It’s not summat you ever forget. I don’t need another great storm to remind me.’

  Jeannie, watching and listening, noticed that her grandmother’s tongue was never sharp with her mother in the way it was with her. It seemed that she held back her caustic opinions when speaking to Mary.

  On the way back down the Bolts, one of the narrow sets of steps which led to Sandside, she questioned her mother on this issue.

  ‘Gran doesn’t shout at you the same as she does at me,’ she said, clip-clopping down. ‘I’ve heard her telling off other grown-up folk, but never you. Why’s that?’

  Mary hid a wry smile. ‘Once she did,’ she told her daughter, ‘when I first came to Scarborough and met your da. But I told her straight that I was going to marry her son and if she was going to cause trouble I’d persuade him to leave town and come back to Scotland wi’ me.’ She laughed. ‘That did it. She’d lost one son already and didn’t want to lose another, although of course’ – her voice dropped – ‘she did eventually. But you’re onny a bairn, Jeannie. You must be polite to her and not answer back. She doesn’t mean half of what she says in any case, so don’t mind her too much.’

  And, Mary thought, the old tyrant would be lost without me, which is why she’s careful not to cross me. She sighed. I never thought that she’d become so reliant on me. And she remembered Aggie’s comment when they spoke of Josh Wharton’s losing his wife and eldest son on the same day.

  ‘He’ll be looking for a wife to look after his bairns,’ Aggie had said. ‘His eldest girl is hardly old enough to take on the household, not when there’s another mouth to feed.’

  ‘The babby’s being looked after until he’s able to take a bottle,’ Mary told her, ‘and Susan is doing a grand job with the other bairn
s. He’ll not want a wife yet a while.’

  ‘Aye, well you watch out,’ Aggie had warned her. ‘Don’t get yoursen drawn in there. You’ve enough on wi’ your own bairns to clothe and feed.’

  Mary had said nothing, but she knew what the old woman was thinking. If Mary should marry again into another family, she was afraid that there’d be no one to look after her. But she needn’t have worried. The fisher families always looked out for each other.

  ‘Can I play out for a bit, Ma?’ Jeannie asked. She’d spotted Ethan sitting on a bollard by the harbour.

  ‘Aye, for a wee while,’ Mary said. She turned towards the quay on the West Pier to collect some fish for supper and called back, ‘If you see Tom tell him to come home with you.’ Tom had once again played truant from school.

  Jeannie walked up to Ethan, who was gazing out into the harbour. He looked up but didn’t speak.

  ‘You all right, Ethan?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Yeh. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  Jeannie shrugged. ‘Just asking, that’s all.’

  Ethan gave a big sigh. ‘Folks keep on asking me all the time.’

  He didn’t seem cross, Jeannie thought. Just fed up, and rather miserable. ‘It’ll be because of your ma and Mark, I expect,’ she said. ‘And because you nearly drowned.’

  He turned to look at her. ‘But I didn’t, did I? It was our Mark that did.’

  She nodded silently, and then murmured, ‘I’m glad you didn’t. I think I would’ve cried if you had.’

  ‘Would you?’ He gazed at her. ‘I know my ma would have cried. She’d have cried for Mark as well, but she didn’t know cos she’d died already.’

  She let a moment elapse before asking, ‘Were you scared? On the ship, I mean? I would have been.’