10/- For a Sailor

10/- for a sailor

I closed the book and placed it on the night stand. Jamaica Inn was the latest novel in the series of books I was reading about Devon and Cornwall. It ranged from Charles Kingsley’s Westward Ho! to local history magazines. It was almost a compulsive interest of mine that I read everything about the area I was living in. On reflection it was beyond a passing interest and almost a study; I had started with Stalky & Co of course, the United Services College was about two miles away and this had whetted my appetite as I was a reluctant public schoolboy myself. My parents were abroad, my father was in the RAF and every school holiday I went to stay with my aunt and uncle actually she was my great aunt, my grandmother’s youngest sister. She and her husband had moved down to the North Devon coast just after the war and opened a boarding house. Very much a typical bed and breakfast place of the sixties. Not that the 1960’s had reached North Devon yet. In fact, it was still stuck firmly in the late 1940’s. I had a pair of jeans of which I was immensely proud, but I wasn’t allowed to wear them. As my Aunty Elinor said,

“Those are overalls, that’s what your uncle wears when he goes up the allotment,” she sniffed disparagingly. And to extent it was true, my uncle wore a denim jacket and trousers, filched from the Gas Board, where he’d worked when he came back from the war.

The door to my room rattled waking me. The room had that half grey light that just precedes the dawn. The handle rattled again, this time with more determination.

“Okay, Aunty Elinor, I’m awake,” I tried to keep the asperity out of my voice. I wanted to snuggle back down under my blankets, but I knew better than that. Get up now, or the door rattling would be back, with a vengeance. I got out of bed, the linoleum felt like ice, I cringed against the sensation, the feeling of tiny needles on my bare feet. I went to the free standing washbasin, reputedly from a Ship’s Captain’s cabin and poured water from the ewer into the enamelled bowl. I looked into the bowl and saw my reflection; a tousled haired boy of twelve, pulled from his bed at dawn, hurrying to get washed and dressed. I plunged my hands into the cold water and scooped it onto my face. I suppose now I would call it invigorating, then it was the morning shock that wiped away any chance of sleepwalking through the morning. Dressing quickly I went out to meet Aunty Elinor.

“Good morning,” Aunt Elinor was always precise in her speech and manner. No doubt, as a result of an Edwardian upbringing. If North Devon in the sixties was stuck in the 1940’s South Wales, just after the First World War would have been firmly back in the 1890’s. The morning was still grey, the clouds hanging low and dark, almost touching the chimney pots. I shivered in the early chill. The two dogs that we were about to walk leapt about in boisterous anticipation.

“Morning,” I mumbled.

“It is either ‘Good morning’ or ‘Good day’ and you should address me by my name as I am older than you,” Aunty Elinor reminded me. She was very good at reminding me if I made, what she considered, a grammatical or social error. It wasn’t that she was a ferocious woman, it was that for her everything had to be just so.

We walked away from the kitchen yard, a small square of concrete with not only the entrance to the kitchens but also an entrance to several store cupboards, one of which had been converted into my bedroom.

The road stretched away full of garish tourist shops, their wares carefully hidden behind the wooden shuttering. They probably wouldn’t open until after Easter. The shutters stared back at us, almost disapproving our intrusion into an as yet slumbering world. I trudged silently beside my aunt. She, of course, had the deportment of a duchess. Her back straight, her head up with nostrils slightly flared daring either myself or the two dogs not to instantly obey her will.

As we turned the corner leading down to the sea, the wind bit into us like a small, ferocious animal. The dogs momentarily stopped in shocked disbelief and whimpered their protest. My aunt, of course, was having none of it. With a sharp, “Get on!” and a vigorous shake of her walking stick we went forward. The sea, now visible, a grey mass, almost indistinguishable from the sky. Save, for the white topped waves prancing like Lipizzaner Horses toward the faint line that divided shoreline from sky. What stood plain, against the sea and sky was the outline of Lundy Island.

On seeing it I instantly recalled the local couplet;

If Lundy be high ‘tis going to be dry.

If Lundy be low ‘tis going to be snow.

If Lundy be plain ‘tis going to be rain.

And if Lundy’s not there ’tis going to be fair.

Lundy was the only thing that stood out against the greyness. Watching, I could see a squall of rain running in from Hartland Point, Down the coast toward the beach that we were making for.

My aunt strode on, with me and the dogs in her wake.

Of all my Aunts I always found my Aunty Elinor the most interesting. She wasn’t a particularly tall woman but gave the impression of being taller by her bearing. She had, as a girl, been sent to work for Lord and Lady Cardiff, as a scullery maid. Though hard work and her own native intelligence she had progressed up the domestic ladder to become cook. This was a time when cooks in great houses were classically trained in what would now be described as haute cuisine. Her first love had been a young man who was his lordship’s valet. Between them, they were a formidable pair below stairs as the servant’s area was known. During our early morning walks she would, when she was minded, tell me of the great houses she had worked in. How to behave and to conduct myself was also imparted. But not only from her perspective as a cook but also the finer points of male grooming etiquette. Doubtless, as she had learnt it from them, as he was described to me, ‘that black hearted Irish chancer’ his Lordship’s valet. On these morning walks, I learnt such diverse things as how to make potted shrimp. Small brown shrimps ( ground with a pestle and mortar)  clarified butter and a pinch ‘no more you understand’ of cayenne pepper. How to sponge and press a hunting pink, I didn’t know that this was what the fox hunter’s red jacket was called, after a particularity muddy gallop. Seemingly, the preferred method was to dip the whole jacket in a rain butt, sponge it, and then leaving it to dry on a good quality shaped hanger. This was a fascinating insight to my twelve year old mind.

We walked on into the teeth of the gale toward the slipway to the sands. The slipway, leading to the sands, had not been used for boats or indeed vehicles for years. So really it shouldn’t be properly described as a slipway. More rightly it was a broken concrete ramp that lead down to the beach. As we picked our way down, Aunt Elinor began to tell me about picking her way “down the mountain” to take food to her Uncle Fletcher. Who, she told me, lived in a cave on the shore line on the beach back in South Wales. As with many of her tales they were reached obliquely. A chance remark about one thing setting the next thing in motion; almost like falling dominoes. Whilst I listened with interest to the description of the climbing down the mountain, my curiosity was fired with a relative of mine, be it in the past, living in a cave!  It seemed that Uncle Fletcher was my great grandmother’s uncle who’s father, also called Fletcher, had been killed in Africa at the battle of Isandlwana. It had so badly affected his son that the young man became a recluse and ended up living in a shoreline cave but still fed and watched over by his family. All this fascinated me and looking back on it now, was how our family history was passed on.

The sand was hard packed and wet. Normally this close to the slipway the tide didn’t encroach all the way up, so the surface was soft and yielding to the step. However, last night’s tide must have been higher. That and the squally rain that had plagued the coast for most of the night and this had left the sand damp and firm to the step. Because it was easier to walk on my Aunt picked up her pace. We kept close into the ridge of pebbles that formed a natural barrier with the area behind the beach which was known locally as ‘the burrows’ a haven rabbit warrens and odd lakes formed in the sandy soil.

Ever eagle-eyed my Aunt was adept at spotting items either lost or left by visitors. Her haul in the summer was impressive. She had found wrist watches, wallets, cameras and innumerable items of clothing. On one occasion a Fortum & Mason’s picnic hamper. That is without the bounty the sea gave up. She rarely returned home without driftwood, which after it had been stored, fulled the stove during the winter.

She scanned the pebbles as we hunched against the wind that swept over the sand. The dogs ran full pelt all over the sands and toward the lapping waves at the water’s edge. They raced back to us barking furiously and then bolted back from whence they had come, still barking. We stopped, this was unusual, the dogs normally ran off all over the sand, that was the pleasure of the walk. But for the dogs to bark at us and the return to the waterline needed further investigation. As we turned toward the sea, there was an indistinct shape in the surf. I looked askance from my Aunt. With a slight nod from her, I ran after the dogs, who were standing barking at the shape. As I came up to it I realised it was a man.

I skidded to a halt, my boots making deep scores in the wet sand. I didn’t know what to do, I just stood agog.

He lay there in, his arm out flung, beckoning to a retreating tide. As if beseeching his tormentor to return and take him from this lonely shore. My Aunt joined me, I didn’t hear her approach, and placed a reassuring hand on my thin shoulders. I looked up at her questioningly.

“There’s nothing we can do for this poor soul,” she said.

“But…”

“Hushed, run back to slipway and use the telephone box. Call the Coast Guard, remember it’s 999 the same number as the Police. Tell them we’ve found a body in the surf and be sure to tell them that I’m waiting with the body. Now you can do that can’t you?” Aunt Elinor instructed me. They were precise instructions for me to follow.

I turned and ran as fast as I could back the way we had come. I hadn’t realised how breathless I was until I reached the call box. My hand shook as I dialled 999. The operator had to tell me three times to speak more slowly until I was able to tell her that I needed to speak to the Coastguard. She connected me.

A deep bass voice said, “Coastguard emergency, how can I help you?”

I blurted out that there was a dead body on the beech and could the come and help. The voice asked me for my name and address, this confused me. Was it my home address or the address of my aunt and Uncle they needed? My hesitation was treated with suspicion and the voice became stern.

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“No, I swear my Aunt Elinor are out for our early morning walk and we found this body. Only I don’t know if you want my home address or where I’m staying only my Aunt and Uncle…”   I got no further.

“Okay son, I understand. Just give me you auntie’s address and we’ll get someone to you. Now where are you exactly?” the voice had softened somewhat. I told him where I was calling from and where my Aunt and Uncle lived. He told me to go back to my Aunt and wait. I rang off.

I ran back to my Aunt who was standing looking out to sea, apparently unheeding of the body a few feet away. For my part, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. My Aunt didn’t ask if there had been any difficulty making the call. Rather, just was there any time given of the coastguard’s arrival. I had to confess I never asked. This produced a withering look at my stupidity. We stood together waiting. To distract me, my Aunt told me that there was a local history of shipwrecks. With ships being lured ashore with false lights and looted, the unfortunate sailors and passengers killed for their cargo. She went on that this had been so prevalent that looters were hanged for the crime and eventually a reward was given by the authorities for rescuing shipwrecked mariners and declaring wrecks.

I turned and saw two men striding across the sand toward us. As the got closer I saw one was a rubicund faced policeman and the other, was wearing a white topped cap and refer coat. They neared us and looked at the body and at my Aunt. The Policeman asked when we had found him. My Aunt, never a woman to suffer fools gladly, remarked that as it wasn’t yet 7 A.M. And the tide was on the way-out it must have been this morning. I noticed the Coastguard grin at the officer’s discomfort. Ponderously the Policeman took notes in his pocket book of the circumstances of us finding the body. My Aunt confirmed everything I told the two men. With cutting acidity in her tone my Aunt said that she had breakfast to prepare for her guests and she had, “wasted quite enough of her day,” with a shake of her stick we walked back across the sand.  As we walked I could feel his glances toward me.

“Well young man, that was a surprise for us both,” in the way she spoke I knew there was more to come.

“Yes, Aunt Elinor,” I mumbled.

“That will have been the first time you will have seen a dead body,” this was a statement of fact and not framed as a question, her voice was kindly though not cosseting. “Always treat the dead with dignity and respect. It is a state that will come to us all and hopefully it is the way we ourselves will be treated. You already know the sea is not without danger; be wary not frighted of it. I was very pleased with the way you conducted yourself this morning. You have taken a long step toward growing up into a useful young man,” she shook he stick and the dogs, commanding them, “To get on!” indicating that the conversation was closed.

On reflection, this was just the way to deal with the situation and something that has stayed with me. No matter what sadness or horror I have encountered I have tried to deal with it matter-of-factly and done my reflection or grieving privately later.

We returned home and busied ourselves in producing breakfast for the few guests it residence that early in the season. Later that morning a police constable on a bike turned up and asked to take a written statement from my aunt. In her way, she referred the policeman to me, as she put it, “It was my nephew who found the poor man. And it was my nephew who reported it. So you should speak to him,” there was an air of finality that discouraged any further comment from the police officer. He duly took my statement.

About a month later, just as was getting ready to return to school, an official brown envelope arrived addressed to me. In it was a postal order for ten shillings with a complement slip from Her Majesty’s Coastguard. Puzzled I showed it to Aunt Elinor. She smiled and reminded me that she had told me about the reward for contacting the Coastguard when a body was found. As she put it, “It gives some peace to families who lost relatives to the sea,” and the Coast Guard offered, what was then, a handsome, reward. Ten shillings for a sailor.

Written By Nest Madden

March 2018