The Gale of the World

by Henry Williamson

  “You don’t mean she may have wandered somewhere near the river? Mornington tells me it’s broken its banks. Are you there, Phillip? Hullo—hullo. Phillip!”

  “They are—getting organised—walkie talkie sets—police firemen—on the the road—from Barbrook—to—Lynton.”

  “Firemen—in all this rain?”

  “To pump—out—houses.”

  While Molly was saying how clever of them to think of that, Mr. Corney came into the room. His face was wan, desolate. He had seen his old master, Manfred, standing beside the hearth in Mr. Mornington’s room. He knew he had come to fetch Master Hugh—

  Laura took the telephone receiver. “Molly” she said in a low voice, “Mornington has told me about Miranda. Capella will be with her. She will be a visible mark for any helicopter. So don’t worry. I’m sure she is all right. No, we couldn’t see very far when we came down. Phillip’s beacon saved my life. He drove up, after leaving the cricket match, to make a bonfire on The Chains. I saw the flames after the Brig bailed out to lighten the glider when our wings iced up. No; there’s no news of ‘Buster’ either, I’m afraid.”

  “Keep your heart high, darling. Hugh is a very good pilot, and may have flown right out of the storm area. So he may yet have got the long-distance record after all!”

  “He hoped to get to Redhill in Surrey!” The voice contained a dangerous euphoric excitement.

  “How clever of him, darling. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the Brig too. Now go and have a bath, and then to bed with a couple of hot-water bottles. The sun will be shining when you wake up! Now don’t worry about the Brig. He’s been in a worse jam than this, and come through. Did Lucy and the children get back all right? Any news of Peter, that dear child? Hullo! Can you hear me? Are you still there, Laura?”

  Laura had gone down on the floor.

  *

  During six hours of rain, nine inches had fallen upon The Chains. From that lonely area under clouds three score runners had swelled into torrents leaping in creamy surge down both northern and southern slopes of the watershed, bearing in their freshets the bodies of men, women, and children to both Severn Sea and English Channel—those western arms of Atlantic ocean which, since creation, has known four winds pouring across its wastes—names which were part of the very soul of Theodora Maddison, from her beloved Homer—Boreas whose home was the polar ice-fields: Euros, dry and bitter from the East, depressing life in plant and mammal: Notos the South Wind, fanning wavelets in steady wan and wap upon shores of broken sea-shell and crumbled rock: innocent and delinquent Zephyros, gentle in play with leaf and feather, bringing peace to flower and bird and cradled babe.

  *

  Shortly after ten o’clock that morning Peter had gone to the meet of stag-hounds, and enjoyed the gay scene: the horses, the riders, the cheerful faces, the crowds of summer visitors. He had watched the two gliders soaring above the Valley of Rocks, and wanted to go there to watch the cricket; but there was so much to see that he lingered, while some old hounds, a few couples of tufters, were taken into the wood to rouse the old stag which harboured there.

  At first the stag had refused to get up from its day-resting place. The tufters had bayed it and the stag had seemed not to bother much about them. At last it had got up and ran to the bed, or harbour, a boy told Peter, of a smaller stag, which it tried to get to run for it. A bit of a coward thought Peter, but the younger stag wasn’t a fool; it lay close in its bed of bracken, so the old stag made off somewhere else, and eventually—after more than an hour—got a hind to run for it. The old tufters knew it wasn’t the season for hind-hunting, so they were taken off the line of the hind and laid on to the scent of the stag who had scarpered, the boy—who had by now become Peter’s friend—declared.

  The stag having broken cover, the tufters were taken back to the barn where the rest of the pack had been shut up, singing mournfully.

  Peter and his new friend didn’t wait to see the hounds laid on the line of scent where the old stag had run, but went on up to The Chains hoping to see where the stag was making for. It was a blazing hot climb, and they were soon puffed; but kept on, eventually reaching the tumulus, which Peter knew well from having walked there with Dad and his brothers two weeks before —a period of time which now seemed to be part of another world altogether, so pleasant was it camping on Green Meadow, paddling the canoe, fishing, and having all kinds of lovely things to do.

  When the pack had gone over The Chains, and out of sight of all riders except whippers-in and huntsmen, who wore scarlet coats, while the field were in tweeds and bowler hats, the two boys went down to Lynmouth. Peter wanted to show his new friend the canoe; but, he said, he couldn’t take him out until he had asked his father’s permission, as he had promised that he wouldn’t. The tide was out, so they walked over slimy stones of the little harbour to look at it, and admire. There Peter’s initials were, underneath the name painted in black, Sea Rover.

  “It needs repainting all over” he said. “Do you like red? I think I do.”

  “Red shows up far away, don’t it?” said the boy.

  “You’re right! Will you help me to carry it up the road?”

  Which was done, the job being lightened by the promise of a double cornet ice-cream. “I’ll ask Major Piston, who lives here, if I may keep ‘Sea Rover’ in his garden, for the time being.”

  It was a light affair, and the boys, with rests, got it into the garden of Shelley’s Cottage. Major Piston said of course they could park it there, and they went happily into the cafe next to Bevan’s hotel and had double vanilla ice cornets.

  Afterwards they were standing by Glenlyn bridge when Mr. Osgood Nilsson drove up in his old motorcar, and stopped to talk to them.

  “Do you see what I see in the sky, Peter? I see som’pn brewing. I guess we’re going to have a twister. Want to come with me and help haul my trailer out of the meadow by The Marksman Inn? You’re both welcome.”

  So up the long hill they went with Mr. Nilsson, and to the meadow in front of the Marksman, where they helped push the caravan and fasten it by a towing pin to the bar. Then down again by another way under Scob Hill and so to Watersmeet and Myrtleberry Cleave to Lynton, and over the East Lyn bridge and up the hill above the West Lyn to Lynton, where the caravan was parked in Mr. Nilsson’s garden.

  “Now I guess we’ll go down again and tow out your mother’s caravan, Peter. Do you see what I see up there?”

  “It looks like a storm coming, sir.”

  “British under-statement, Peter!”

  Towering sullen cumulo-nimbus was moving rapidly east, while, lower down, scarves of copper-coloured vapour were moving west. “I guess she’s beginning to spin around, Peter. No time to lose, brother!”

  When they got to Green Meadow heavy drops were coming through the canopy of green leaves of the beeches in the Glen. The owner of the site was already busy. Two motorcars with towing bars, one a jeep, were drawing caravans up the steep causeway to the road, pushed by their owners and helpers. As soon as these were on the road they were unhitched well in to the right of the road and the towing vehicles returned for more. Meanwhile Osgood and the boys had hitched on Phillip’s old, steel-sheeted caravan, which was hauled up to Nilsson’s house up the hill to Lynton, through wind and rain which swirled across the windscreen and tossed the branches of roadside trees.

  Motorcars were now passing through the town, bringing spectators from the Valley of Rocks, while thunder grumbled in the distance. The caravan was left outside the gate, for Lucy to see when she passed by. Nilsson asked both boys in, but Peter said, “Thank you sir, but I think the river might rise, and perhaps come over Major Piston’s garden, so I think I’ll go down and find a safer place for my canoe. May I come back later?”

  “By all means, Peter. And if you see your mother, tell her you’re all welcome to camp in the garden, and pick a bone with us tonight,” said Mrs. Nilsson.

  So Peter and his friend hurried down the hill again, and carried
the canoe up the steep curve of hill, where they managed to heave it over the stone wall above the glen, and tie the painter to a tree before letting it down gently to rest against the bole of the tree.

  “I suppose you didn’t see Phillip on your way back?”, Rosalie asked her husband. He replied that they had come down the East valley, and that Phillip would have gone up the road to Barbrook. “I guess he’s back in his hide-out as of now.”

  “I wonder if Miranda is with him? She knows the way there, of course. I saw her going after him, with her goat. What a dreadful thing her father did, before all those people. My goodness, listen to the wind!”

  Peter decided to wait for his father, lest he came down from the Cot and, finding the meadow under water and no caravans, would think that they had all been washed away. He wore his bicycling cape, and his friend, who had gone over the bridge to fetch his from his home near the electric light shed, stood beside him.

  Major Piston, seeing them standing on the bridge, asked them in to have sausage rolls and cocoa. He said his mother was baking that day, so they could stuff themselves as much as they liked. Peter explained why he had taken his canoe higher up the hill.

  Piston replied, “Wind up, laddie! It would be safe as houses with us. We’re more than five feet above the river’s winter-level, and this cottage has stood here since Shelley stayed here in eighteen hundred and twelve. How about a game of draughts? You two toss who starts off against me.”

  “I bestways should wait for my father by the bridge, sir, thank you all the same.”

  “What, in all this rain?”

  “My cape shoots it all off, sir. And the rain is quite warm.”

  “Bring your old man in for a drink when he comes, my lad.”

  “I will, thank you, sir.”

  *

  Darkness. Peter had been waiting for hours it seemed. When he heard a terrible grinding roar up the gorge, he couldn’t think what it was at first, it was like hundreds of thousands of sacks of coal being emptied through the coal-hole in the pavement outside the coal-cellar of Hill House all at once. He and his friend ran in terror up the hill, turning their heads to stare a moment before hurrying for dear life. A great plunging, leaping whiteness of water roaring so loud that it was like a concentration of thunder in a cavern. The water seemed as high as the cottages below the bridge. Spray went right over some roofs and when the spray stopped the roofs had disappeared.

  Peter’s friend began to cry, saying that his mother and father would be drowned. The only thing Peter could think of to comfort him was to say that it was only the West Lyn that was bringing down all the water. He added that his friend could stay with them in the caravan for the night if he liked. But the boy cried all the same. Peter said, “Look, the flood is going down, perhaps something blocked the bridge higher up, like a dam, and when the dam burst all the water came down at once.”

  Many people were now gathered on the steep corner at the bottom of the hill. Some carried paraffin-vapour lanterns. There were policemen with short-wave transmitter sets. Firemen with short axes in their belts, to each of which was hooked a spare electric torch, Peter observed.

  His friend was still crying, so he asked a policeman what he should do. The policeman advised him to go home.

  “But his home is beside the East Lyn,” replied Peter.

  “Then why not take your friend home with you? It will be a kindness, and we’re all in this together now. It’s an emergency.”

  He took out a note-book. “May I have your friend’s name and address?”

  The boy gave a gasping sob. “Don’t be afraid, lad, you’ve done nothing wrong. I only want your name for the record, so that we can let your parents know you’re safe and sound this side.”

  He wrote down particulars and then turned to Peter, who told him that they had been camping on the Green Meadow, but Mr. Osgood Nilsson had towed away the caravan in time, with all the other caravans.

  “Splendid! I don’t suppose you know the names of the other caravan dwellers? Yes, I know Mr. Osgood Nilsson is an American writer. I’ll make a note that your mother and family are staying at his house. Your ‘gen’ is very important. I’ll report to my Chief right away. Good show, my lad!”

  The policeman’s voice was a little like that of Field-Marshal Montgomery, Peter thought. Then he saw that he wore the riband of the Africa Star amongst others under his cloak.

  “Your name? Any relation of Captain Maddison, who lives at Shep Cot? You’re his son, are you. I suppose you don’t know where he is to be found just now?”

  “I’ve been waiting for Dad here, sir. He was with my mother and brothers and sisters at the cricket match this morning. I went to the meet of stag-hounds on Summer House Hill, so I don’t bestways know where he is just now.”

  “You didn’t see him upon the moor, in his motorcar?”

  “No, sir.”

  Peter was toiling up the steep bend in the road, holding the arm of his weepy little friend, when the ‘man from the paper of the times’ stopped his motorcar and invited the two boys to get in, saying he was going up to Lynton. As he drove up the hill he asked Peter questions, starting off with, “Have you heard of Rudolf Hess?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “From your father? You did. And from Lord Cloudesley as well? Do you know of any plan to rescue Hess by glider? Lord Cloudesley’s father knew him, didn’t he, in those chivalrous days of the First World War, you know, dropping messages over each other’s airfields and all that sort of thing. I thought so. Didn’t your father also see Hess in Germany before the last war? Was it with Göring, did you know? Sir Piers Tofield went with your father, or rather the other way, wasn’t it, for Sir Piers was then working in film production in Berlin. Your father went out to see Sir Piers, sailing in the Bremen from Southampton, as a matter of fact. Did they meet Birkin there, with Hitler, do you know? You’re not sure? Oh, one more thing. Have you ever heard your father speak of going to prison just after the First World War?”

  “I don’t bestways know about that, sir” replied Peter, wondering if the man was a spy. He was pretty sure he was that when he heard the last question.

  “Your father is part German, isn’t he?”

  “You’d better ask him yourself, sir.”

  “I’ll see you both safe and sound with your Mum,” said the fellow, “then I’ll be on my way. And if I come across your father, I’ll tell him where you are.”

  “Thank you very much, sir, and also for the ride!”

  The reporter asked to see Osgood Nilsson, who came out of his study (which he was preparing as a bedroom, after putting away all his papers, for other homeless people).

  “I come from the paper of the times, sir—”

  “You do, do you, you Fleet Street buzzard? Come in, and I’ll give you a drink, but this is a social visit, and off the record.”

  “I understand, Mr. Nilsson. Dog does not eat dog.”

  “What’je mean by that?”

  “Only my little joke, Mr. Nilsson. I know very well that as a foreign correspondent in Europe you’re the top brass.” You old ham, he said to himself.

  *

  Both Lynmouth by the sea and Lynton on the hill were in complete darkness. Part of the electric power house, wherein a dynamo was worked by a turbine fed by water brought in a leat down the wide and sombre valley of the East Lyn, was on its way to the sea, with various fragmentated cottages. The flood, pouring down the two valleys of East and West Lyn, was surging to the harbour twenty feet above normal summer level of the combined river-bed. It rushed eight feet above the street, lined with houses on both sides, filling some cottages to their bedroom floors while others had fallen entire.

  One of the cottages which had, in part, withstood the flood was Ionian Cottage. It may be remembered that it was built in part over the river bed, rising ten feet above a mason’d wall when the success of Lorna Doone had brought hundreds of summer visitors, by coach and carriage, to the little fishing village already known to th
e few for its association with the poets Shelley and Southey.

  The high river-wall was soundly built along the straight course of the combined Lyns, permitting their flowings to pass below without hindrance until this evening: when the eastern gable end of the cottage, built on to and above the river-wall, had given way in the first plunging roar of water released at Barbrook. Thus a bedroom was exposed to the weather. And in that bedroom, according to a short-wave radio message from a policeman standing on the east bank above the lapping edge of the flood, two women were marooned. He reported that he had seen a lighted oil-lamp carried across the disclosed bedroom, to and fro several times, as a signal. Then a far door had opened and two women went into what appeared to be an adjoining bedroom overlooking the street.

  Then darkness.

  *

  The road through the trees steepened on the last half mile There were no lights by which Phillip could see the way. He fell more than once, losing co-ordination with his right hand and the rough top of the stone-wall built up from the side of the road. Behind the wall arose trees growing above the precipitous slope which ended at the river.

  Stopping before the final downward sweep of the road he saw, while resting against the woodland wall, a long white object which on inspection he saw to be a canoe. Having neither matches nor torch he was unable to decide if it were Peter’s. If it were Peter’s, then it had either been stolen, or, more likely, put there above possible flood. So Peter might be alive!

  With return of hope he went on down the hill to get help to carry the canoe. The East Lyn was now running with less turmoil but with great surge of white water over masses of rock and uprooted trees carried down with motorcars, cattle, mason’d walls and wooden floors of cottages. Men in steel helmets were lying down, one had a Lewis gun, the water gleamed with German flares across the marsh, where the enemy held the left bank of the Ancre below Thiepval. The R.S.M. said Jerry had broken through, but why was he talking about the effects of the flow of water?

  Phillip tried to hold on to words describing how slabs of rock had been detached from the old river bed after being under-cut by water-streams so rapid that they appeared to have been rolled down the Glen only a little less in speed than that of the spate.