The Gale of the World (43 page)

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 the 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.

“It required only two such sections of displaced rock to arrive together under the bridge to crack the masoned structure, which then gave way, releasing a secondary volume of water which
carried with it sufficient force to destroy walls of some of the boarding houses and cottages lining the street below.”

“Then you’d say that the chief factors causing the disaster are:– (a) the steep descent of gorge; (b) the dislocation of rocks and boulders already part of the river-bed, which got wedged under the bridge and caused a battering-ram effect of rock and water together?”

Hallucination passed. He remembered with stony despair where and what he was. He recognized the questioner as ‘the man from the paper of the times’.

He said to the sergeant of police, “My sister and a friend are marooned in a cottage about sixty yards down the street. There is an eddy or backflow coming
up
the street, caused by
backpressure
of the main flood in front of us. Will you help me to get down a canoe, please?”

“Afraid not, sir. You’d never make it. There are trees under the white water down there, and great boulders, even motorcars.”

“I must get across to my sister.”

“Sorry, sir. But I’d like to say this: the flood is receding, and those houses which are damaged are likely to stand up. Your ladies are on the upper floor, where they’ll be safe. May I enquire your name, sir?”

“Maddison.”

“Captain Phillip Maddison? Then this gentleman of the press has some good news for you. Your son Peter is safe, together with his mother and the other children, and staying in the Lynton house of Mr. Osgood Nilsson, whom I think you know.”

“That’s right,” said the reporter. “Mr. Nilsson managed to get to the camping site in good time, to tow out your caravan, with others, from Green Meadow, before the main force of the flood arrived there.”

“That is correct,” said the police sergeant. “This gentleman took up your son, Peter I think he is called, with a chum of his to the house, earlier this evening. Catch him! He’s all-in. Let him down gently. Here, put him on my cloak. He’s wet through poor sod. Come from off the moor, got across Barbrook bridge with a young woman just before it gave way.”

“Who was the girl?” persisted the reporter.

“Secretary to Lord Cloudesley, a Miss Laura Wissilcraft.”

“Funny name. Is it her own?”

“So far as we know. She’s been with his Lordship some time. She brought down her glider on The Chains. Captain Maddison
went up apparently to make a beacon to guide both gliders down. Only one arrived.”

“Does anyone else know this? Any other reporter, I mean?”

“Not that I know of.”

“There will be a fiver for you, old boy. I’ll get on the blower to Fleet Street! See you later!”

*

Phillip was wondering why the two men were speaking in dialect.

“All they poor souls to Shelley’s cottage, them’ dade, I reckon.”

“Aye, them’ all dade, surenuff.”

“This one be a visitor, I reckon.”

“Noomye, ’tes the gennulmun what lives by isself in thaccy shep cot up to Vuzzle.”

“He with thaccy li’l ole dog of Aaron Kedd’s?”

“Aye.”

A white and shimmering radiance broke in the sky. Above it, in a circle, moved a helicopter, showing a small red light.

“What be thaccy?”

“Tes a light, I reckon.”

“Mebbe a rocket.”

“Tidden no rocket, else us’d zin’n goin’ up, like.”

“Aye. Tidden no maroon vor th’ live-boat, else us’d’v heard’n.”

“Tidden no maroon, midear, no live-boat cud get past they rockses scat abroad when the Rannish tower went.”

“Aye. Th’ watter be up to th’ Risin’ Zin, they’m tellin’. My Gor, ’tes a loss’.”

The solitary parachute flare wavered as it sank slowly down.

The Germans were across the Ancre Valley. Why had all his men left him?

Piers kneeling beside him. Had he been hit? He heard his own voice saying, from a rent in an immense darkness of fear, “Don’t leave me!”

“You’re all right now Phil,” said the voice of Piers.

“How long have I been here?”

“Oh, some time. Now just relax, we’ve sent for transport.”

Piers put a rolled coat under his head.

*

Phillip awakened to a sense of dolour which became ease and well-being when Lucy came in to tell him the good news that both his sister and Melissa seemed to be none the worse for the night’s ordeal.

“In fact, my dear, I think it’s done Elizabeth a world of good. I’ve never seen her quite like this before. Melissa said she behaved calmly after the first shock, and able to cope cheerfully with the little dogs, who slept in her bedroom, afraid of the lightning and thunder, all together in a large clothes basket.”

“What, Aunt Mavis and the dogs?”, cried Jonathan.

“No, the little dogs, darling,” said Roz, coming in, “Anyway, I wouldn’t mind sleeping with them. Where’s Bodger, Dad?”

Lucy said, “Well, he was ill, wasn’t he?”

“Mum,” said Peter, downstairs. “What will Dad say when he learns about his little house—”

Peter was sad for his father; but happy for his new friend, the boy whose parents had survived the flood.

Later in the morning they walked down Mars Hill to
Lynmouth
, and picked their way over and through obstacles to the cottage. Elizabeth and Melissa had cleared the kitchen and the
sitting
room of most of the debris and mud. Phillip went to his sister and kissed her on both cheeks. She felt his tears on her cheek.

“There now,” said Elizabeth, “don’t worry.”

Later she said, when they were alone, “I did mean to look after Dads, you know. Only I couldn’t get two nurses, it was a terrible time. I did try.”

“It was just after the war, dear sister, and everyone young was with the Forces. And Bournemouth must have had more elderly invalids than any other place in England.”

“You can come and live here, if you want to, when the place is rebuilt. I hear that a Fund has been started, to help everyone.”

“Thank you, my dear.”

“You know your little cot is gone, don’t you?”

“I thought it might.”

“You don’t seem very worried.”

“I’m not. I shouldn’t have needed all my notes, anyway. They were preliminary clearance, only. They were emotion recollected without tranquillity. May I look upstairs?”

“Of course! It’s your house for as long as you like.”

Melissa was looking down at the wreckage which spread away in all directions as far as could be seen. She took his hand. “Elizabeth was thinking of you, so often. I told her what
happened
at the cricket match, and do you know what she said? ‘It isn’t fair!’ You see, while we were all on the beach here, with Lucy and the children, Lucy told her a lot about you, and Elizabeth’s eyes were opened.”

“I think I needed some shock before things could come into adjustment.”

“The angels are trying all the time, Phillip.”

Elizabeth called up the stairs, “Come down and have some coffee. Mr. Mornington has just called.”

He had come down Mars Hill to tell Phillip that Miss Laura had gone to hospital; and that neither Lord Cloudesley nor the Brig had returned to The Eyrie.

“No news of their whereabouts has been reported by either police or coastguards. I hope you won’t mind if I accompany you on the beach, sir?”

“You are one of my best friends, Mornington.”

It was possible to cross over a light Bailey bridge erected by the sappers below the wreckage of the West Lyn Bridge. Great beech trees lay upon boulders and stones which spread fanwise from the changed course of the two rivers: trunks, branches, lesser branches even twigs—all white. Bark scaled in the frantic
trituration
of racing sand, grit, pebbles, stones, boulders; the frantic grind of rocks whirled, bashing and rebashing, dragging, scraping, paring, shredding. A wide new estuary of grey stone had arisen above the old narrow watercourse; a levelled valley of bricks and broken walls upon which rested a vast litter of planks, doors, rafters, smashed furniture, beams and joists—enough to build half the beacons of the West Country, thought Phillip. Pyres for the dead—speckles of fire arising on hill beyond hill across the West Country to far Cranborne Chace, under starlight!

Motorcars lay upon the desert of grey stones, some half buried. Ancient little Austin Sevens and cumbrous taxicabs of the ’twenties, wide wings crumpled and compressed, abraded of all rust and paint, new-burnished in action between rock and water until some had become cigar-shaped, save for rubber tyres
bulging
sullen and contorted.

Trees stuck out of the stained sea a hundred yards from the tide-line. In one tree was lodged a bedraggled white object, shapeless and still. The three brothers went down to the water’s edge to get a clearer view. Jonathan’s sharp eyes detected a
crimson
collar below an unmoving head.

Two military frogmen, in black suits were flapping down the beach towards the sea.

*

The three-score runners feeding the East and West arms of the Lyn river had. between them, swept away or broken nearly half
that number of bridges. The Lynmouth sewerage system was destroyed, so nearly a thousand people were to be evacuated at once. A new wide water-course, it was already being said, must be built east of the old and narrow river-bed.

Rest centres had already been set-up in Lynton. A missing Persons Bureau was opened by the Devon Constabulary. To this office came telephone calls from all over England and Scotland. Some were from the Continent of Europe, since the flood had been classified by Whitehall as a National Disaster, and thus covered by the Press of the World.

At various points some miles inland from the coast, police road-blocks had been placed. The general public, arriving in a succession of motorcars, pony traps, motor-bicycles and pedal cycles were stopped from further progress north; and asked to return. Only those holding official positions in the Army, Ministry of Food, Civil Defence, British Red Cross, etc. were permitted to enter the area of devastation. Some had been present the previous afternoon, in an official capacity, including the Lord Lieutenant, the G.O.C. South-Western Command, the Chief Constable of Devon, and Lt-Col. and Mrs. Peregrine Bucentaur.

*

Now, as Authority moved in little groups about the ruinous scene, Phillip kept his distance along the low-tide-line. Mornington followed, on guard. His immediate concern was to prevent a confrontation between Phillip and Colonel Bucentaur. For by now what had happened on the cricket field was common knowledge.

So Mornington followed beside the wet lash of distained
wavelets
breaking upon boulders, now scoured of green algae, until Phillip, seeing Lucy and Melissa talking to the Bucentaurs,
decided
to return.