Firefly Gadroon (13 page)

‘That’s the Meteorological Office,’ he cracked back fast. ‘We’re coastguards.’

I looked out. And it
was
the same sea, same estuary. The reach looked narrower, hardly a stone’s throw, but then the tide was lowish. And the same dunes. And Drummer’s pathetic ramshackle hut, just the same. And the distant old gun platforms low down and miles off. The ocean-going ships on the horizon. The same gaggle of tiny yachts already racing from the Blackwater. Yet . . .

‘Something’s missing, Joe.’

‘Eh?’ He scanned the outside world, puzzled. ‘No. Same as always.’

‘No, Joe. Something’s odd.’

I kept looking at one place. Wherever I tried to look, my eyes kept coming back to it. It was the dune, the big mounded dune where I’d found Drummer. Its top just touched the horizon for what seemed an inch or two when seen from here. But so what? And they’d done Drummer on the far side
where they wouldn’t be seen from Joe’s place.
If I hadn’t stood on Drummer’s hut roof I’d never have seen him and Germoline, from that different angle.

Joe tried kindness again. ‘Go home and have a rest, Lovejoy. Do as Doc says—’

‘Lovejoy’s right, Dad.’

Joe looked at me, then at Alan. ‘Show me what you mean, son.’

Alan pulled at us both, jubilant. We followed him in silence out on to the balcony, as far left as the railing let him. ‘Lean out, Dad.’ Alan was proud as Punch. ‘
Now
look at the sea.’

And suddenly I knew. Even before looking I
knew
, knew it all – or most of it.

‘Good lad,’ I told Alan. I was downstairs and walking off when Joe and Alan came running after me.

‘Lovejoy. You didn’t even look.’ Joe didn’t know whether to be annoyed at himself or pleased with Alan’s observation. ‘It’s—’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘The gun platforms.’

‘That’s right.’ Alan was grinning as we walked out, chuffed at being one up over everybody. ‘From almost everywhere else you can see three gun platforms. From Dad’s lookout you can only see two, because—’

‘That big dune obscures it.’ I stopped and waved to Alice at her window. ‘I’ll get the clothes back when I can get a minute.’

‘You’re welcome, Lovejoy. Here. What’s so special about the old gunfort?’

‘Nothing, Joe. Forget it. Thanks for everything.’ We stood about being embarrassed. I decided to thumb a lift back from the road.

‘Cheers,’ Joe said. Alan said the same, a bit self-consciously. ‘Er, Lovejoy,’ Joe called. ‘Don’t forget Germoline.’

Germoline and her cart were tied at the railing of the yacht club. A few members were having coffee in the bay of their verandah, clearing throats and studiously reading papers.

‘We got the cart and did it up,’ Joe added. ‘She’s been fed, only . . . well, she’ll be a bit lost . . . and she likes you . . .’

The cart was spotless. Somebody had laboured most of the night on it. I bet it was the yacht club people now so preoccupied. Germoline’s harness was gleaming and her coat was brushed to a fine dark sheen. Even her hooves shone. She looked really posh. Broken-hearted, but posh.

I managed to say after a bit, ‘Tell them thanks, Joe.’

‘Get in. It won’t hurt her.’

I did as I was told. The shafts rocked a bit but Germoline shuffled expertly and we balanced up.

‘It’s a long way to my cottage,’ I said anxiously. Now I had a bloody donkey to worry about.

‘She likes work,’ Joe informed me. Alice was smiling and nodding from her steps. ‘It’s Germoline’s trade, like antiques are yours.’

I sat there like a lemon holding these straps while everybody avoided looking.

‘Er . . . ?’ I got out at last, quite lost.

‘You say, Gee up, Germoline,’ Alan prompted.

‘Gee up, Germoline,’ I commanded apologetically. ‘Please.’

And I rolled home at a slow stroll to the sound of Germoline’s harness bells.

One donkeypower. Well, I thought helplessly, it’s more than I’m accustomed to.

Countryside never stops being astonishing. When you think of it, it’s only a collection of villages dotted thinly among trees and estuaries and other boring pastoral crud. So you’d think news has a difficult time getting itself spread about. Nothing is further from the truth. An hour after I reached the cottage a silent pale Dolly arrived with a hot meal, sat me down to eat and moved about tidying up. Several times she bravely answered the door but didn’t let anybody in.

I don’t know much about donkeys but I’m sure Germoline knew what was up. After her terrifying experience she’d be daft if she didn’t. I was scared the journey home was too much for her but Dolly said she was probably glad of a job, take her mind off things. We went out to her about fiveish just as Tinker arrived stinking of fish meal, Jacko’s flavour of the month, and carrying a dirty sack. Dolly linked her arm with mine defensively and recoiled as Tinker came plodding up the gravel.

‘Had to walk bleeding miles, Lovejoy,’ he whined indignantly.

‘Get it?’ I’d phoned him from the box by the chapel to bring Germoline some grub.

‘Aye. You owe Lemuel for it.’ Tinker slung the bag on the
grass disgustedly. ‘He says it’s enough for two days.’ He hawked deep and spat messily on the gravel.

‘Show us how to feed her, Tinker.’

Germoline was standing forlornly in the garden. She had a half-hearted go at chewing a bit of grass, then sobbed a few heartbreaking donkey sobs. Naturally Tinker grumbled but did it, threading a rope through the sack some way and hanging it over Germoline’s face. It looked a dicey business to me, though Germoline got the hang of it smartish. And it stopped her crying, thank God.

‘You really need Lemuel for this,’ Tinker groused. ‘He’s a natural with nags.’

‘I’ve heard – from the bookies,’ I said sardonically. ‘There’s a beer indoors, Tinker.’

‘Should I fetch it out?’ Dolly suggested brightly, thinking of her cleaning, but Tinker had streaked off.

A car screeched to a stop in the lane.

‘Lovejoy! You poor, poor
creature
!’ Patrick descended, grand with grief in his orange suit and blue wedge heels.

I’d put a couple of planks across the gap in the hedge to show Germoline her territory. Patrick momentarily shed his unmitigated sorrow to curse this arrangement while he stepped gingerly over. Lily followed lovingly. Oho, I thought, where are the widows of yesteryear? Lily’s husband was in a cold bed again.

‘Wotcher, Patrick, Lily.’

Patrick posed on the gravel, orange trilby tilted and hands clasped to show the depths of his emotion. ‘Lovejoy! We’ve all heard and we’re positively
distrait
!’ He was going to enlarge further but got bored and decided to notice Dolly. ‘Ooooh!’ he squealed. ‘
Love
your pearls, dear! False, though, aren’t they?’

You have to take Patrick with a pinch of salt. He’s not as
daft as he looks. On average he pulls a high-priced deal in minor master paintings once a year, which shuts his critics up for quite a while.

I introduced them all, Dolly as an old school friend.

‘No
need
to apologize, Lovejoy.’ Patrick fluttered his eyes at Dolly roguishly. ‘We won’t say a single
mot
about you and Lovejoy rutting the way you do.’

This was getting out of hand. I cut in. ‘Patrick, do me a favour. Ask Brad about a boat.’ Brad’s brother Terry has a boatshed.

‘How old, dear? There’s only those old sailing barges—’

‘Not antique. One that goes.’

If he was surprised at this non-antiques enquiry he concealed it well. ‘For you,
anything
! But why, Lovejoy?’

Anxious not to reveal too much, I turned the chat to antiques for a minute or two. Clearly Patrick was disappointed at not finding me moribund. His enthusiasm for the visit weakened visibly when Tinker reappeared from the cottage swigging ale from a bottle.

‘We’ll go. In case we get
covered
in
fleas
,’ he hissed. ‘One thing, Lovejoy.’ He pulled me aside and whispered, ‘
Do
tell that sweet Dolly there’s a
limit
to how much tan a bottle-green twinset can
bear.
Promise?’

They departed, Patrick abusing Lily for bad driving as she made eight noisy attempts to turn their car. ‘You’re giving me a headache!’ he was screeching. Neither remembered to wave.

‘Frigging queer,’ Tinker growled after them. ‘What’s this about a boat, Lovejoy?’

‘We need one for a couple of days.’

‘That’ll cost us,’ he grumbled.

Dolly took my arm gently. ‘Come in, love. I’m chilly now the nights are drawing in.’ I was glad to call it a day.

* * *

That day all I could think of was where to get some money. Dolly has a car and her husband has a good job, but could I tap her for a boat’s hire, deposit and all? Probably not. And how much is a boat anyway? While she was running Tinker back to town, Helen dropped by to ask if it was all true about Drummer. It was a curiously stilted visit, her standing in the doorway saying, no thanks, she wouldn’t come in just now. I told Helen thanks for visiting and I was fine but Drummer was killed. She said politely how she quite understood and turned on her heel and zoomed off in her red saloon. I think she sensed Dolly. I went and sat on the grass near Germoline to think.

Devlin, of course, killed poor old Drummer – the only pair of eyes looking seawards at a precise spot on the ocean, from the dune. And I knew roughly why. It was the gun platform, one of the sea forts, as people call them here. Thanks to young Alan, I knew which one.

They stand some miles offshore. Our people built them during the war as flak batteries against enemy raiders. Soldiers were posted there for only limited periods because of the constant risk. It was no rest cure. Between bomber raids there was the constant fear that every warship was an enemy until proved otherwise. Apart from that there were only the terrifying storms which tried to shove the gun tower over into the deep ocean. And the blizzards. And the fogs, when you began to wonder if the rest of the world had simply vanished . . .

Drummer was dead. It would be me next. I forced myself to think of shadows. A few years ago I unintentionally went sailing, with a bloke who lived on a cabin cruiser. Still does. He had some nautical gadgets for sale, a sextant, two old ship logbooks and a navigator’s table from sailing days. I wouldn’t even have gone on board but it was one of those fine calm summers when our estuaries are crowded
with holidaymakers. It seemed safe as houses. Doug, an old mate of mine, laughed at my fears.

We had a drink or three while we haggled. It was only early Victorian, none the less desirable. I knew I had plenty of keen customers for his stuff. We were both fairly well pickled when I noticed I couldn’t see the shore any longer through the cabin window. While we’d been fixing the deal a dense fog had fallen. In fact we couldn’t see a damned thing, not even another boat.

Doug laughed again, but this time less convincingly because it seemed we were drifting. Doug’s bloody carelessness with his anchor had put us in the most dangerous position you can ever be on water – drifting in a fog. Naturally by then Doug was too sloshed to think straight. Terror sobered me, but I know nothing about boats. Naturally the nerk’s engine wouldn’t go, and to cap it all his famous electronic gear failed to bleep. He kept saying, ‘We’re fine, great,’ the lunatic.

About half an hour later foghorns began booming. The most mournful sound in the world except for a sobbing donkey. The trouble is you can’t really tell which direction they are coming from. Fog does weird things to sounds. I was sure they were trying to tell us something, but of course Doug was singing nautical gibberish and unable to do anything even if he knew what was going on. We had another drink or two. Not much else we could do for the moment.

Scared as I was, I must have nodded off. I’d been swigging Doug’s filthy homebrew since clambering aboard. Anyhow the next thing I remember of this holiday cruise was coming to, still befuddled and grinning with Doug snoring loudly in the cockpit. I sat in the well area peering blindly around at the grey fog. The sea heaved its unpleasant oily surface against the boat. No need to worry, though.
Doug, that experienced sailor, said so – sloshed out of his mind but undoubtedly experienced. He’d told me we’d just float in the estuary till the fog lifted.

‘Hey, Doug,’ I remember bawling from my reclining posture. ‘I can see a roof.’

‘Eh?’ He came to and yawned extravagantly. ‘Impossible. You’re drunk, Lovejoy.’

But I could, a tilted dark mass exactly like a pointed roof. And there was a noise, an intermittent sucking and slurping. Doug came staggering up from the cabin, stretching and scratching. I pointed. The mass seemed to be hardening and growing fast.

Doug froze.
Jesus
!’ It wasn’t even a shout. It was a moan. ‘The
gun fort
!’ he screamed.

At that moment a faint gust thinned the fog. I gaped at the appalling sight, nearly peeing in sheer terror. We were floating fifty yards off the most colossal thing I’d ever seen. An immense looming black concrete rectangle filled the sky hundreds of feet above us. Vast cylindrical pillars plunged from its flat belly into the sea. They were horribly stained by weed and begrimed by rims of discharged oil. The sea sloshed on them with that gruesome sickening slurp I now realized I’d been hearing for some time. With the erratic sloshing of the greeny-black oily sea around its legs the horrible bloody thing seemed to be wading towards us like a huge uncoordinated giant bent on our destruction.

‘Get us away from it!’ I screeched. ‘Get the fucking boat—’

‘We’re drifting for it!’ Doug yelled. He attacked the stupid engine controls on the dashboard, kicking and blaspheming, while I subsided into an aghast silence as the great malevolent mass seemed to plod its mad way nearer and nearer. To my shame I hid my head between my hands in
the cabin, too terrified to do anything, though Doug was screaming for me to come out and help. He called me all the abusive names he knew but I didn’t budge. The one glance I gave nearly made me faint. We’d drifted between the tower’s obese legs, about forty feet off to either side, and above, the grotesque soiled dripping underbelly of the gun fort filled the whole world, a mass of slanting shadow.