Of Lions and Unicorns

by Michael Morpurgo

  “And here I am,” said William aloud as he stepped gingerly forward on to the next rock, reaching for a handhold to support himself. “Here I am, leaping from rock to rock like a goat. If only they could see me now.”

  He hauled himself up over the last lip of rock and there at last was the pool down below him, with the sea lapping in gently at one end. Here for the first time William began to be frightened. Until this moment he had not fully understood the step he was about to take. It was as if he had woken suddenly from a dream: the meeting with Sam in the hay barn, his triumphant walk along the cliff path, and the long rock climb to the pool. But now as he looked around him he saw he was surrounded entirely by sea and stranded on the rocks a great distance out from the beach. He began to doubt if he could ever get back; and had it not been for the seal William would most certainly have turned and gone back home.

  The seal surfaced silently into the pool from nowhere. William crouched down slowly so as not to alarm him and watched. He had never been this close to a seal. He had seen them often enough lying out on the rocks on the island like great grey cucumbers and had spotted their shining heads floating out at sea. But now he was so close he could see that the seal was looking directly at him out of sad, soulful eyes. He had never noticed before that seals had whiskers. William watched for a while and then spoke. It seemed rude not to.

  “You’re in my pool,” he said. “I don’t mind really, though I was going to have a swim. Tell you the truth, I was having second thoughts anyway, about the swimming, I mean. It’s all right for you, you’re born to it. I mean you don’t find getting around on land that easy, do you? Well nor do I. And that’s why Sam told me to go and learn to swim, said I’d swim like a seal one day. But I’m a bit frightened, see. I don’t know if I can, not with my foot.”

  The seal had vanished as he was speaking, so William lowered himself carefully step by step down towards the edge of the pool. The water was clear to the bottom, but there was no sign of the seal. William found it reassuring to be able to see the bottom, a great slab of rock that fell away towards the opening to the sea. He could see now why his brothers had come here to learn, for one end of the pool was shallow enough to paddle whilst the other was so deep that the bottom was scarcely visible.

  William undressed quickly and stepped into the pool, feeling for the rocks below with his toes. He drew back at the first touch because the water stung him with cold, but soon he had both feet in the water. He looked down to be sure of his footing, watching his feet move forward slowly out into the pool until he was waist-high. The cold had taken the breath from his body and he was tempted to turn around at once and get out. But he steeled himself, raised his hands above his head, sucked in his breath and inched his way forward. His feet seemed suddenly strange to him, apart from him almost and he wriggled his toes to be sure that they were still attached to him. It was then that he noticed that they had changed. They had turned white, dead white; and as William gazed down he saw that his left foot was no longer twisted. For the first time in his life his feet stood parallel. He was about to bend down to try to touch his feet, for he knew his eyes must surely be deceiving him, when the seal reappeared only a few feet away in the middle of the pool. This time the seal gazed at him only for a few brief moments and then began a series of water acrobatics that soon had William laughing and clapping with joy. He would dive, roll and twist, disappear for a few seconds and then materialise somewhere else. He circled William, turning over on his back and rolling, powering his way to the end of the pool before flopping over on his front and aiming straight for William like a torpedo, just under the surface. It was a display of comic elegance, of easy power. But to William it was more than this, it became an invitation he found he could not refuse.

  The seal had settled again in the centre of the pool, his great wide eyes beckoning. William never even waited for the water to stop churning but launched himself out into the water. He sank of course, but he had not expected not to. He kicked out with his legs and flailed his arms wildly in a supreme effort to regain the surface. He had sense enough to keep his mouth closed, but his eyes were wide open and he saw through the green that the seal was swimming alongside him, close enough to touch. William knew that he was not drowning, that the seal would not let him drown; and with that confidence his arms and legs began to move more easily through the water. A few rhythmic strokes up towards the light and he found the air his lungs had been craving for. But the seal was nowhere to be seen. William struck out across to the rocks on the far side of the pool quite confident that the seal was still close by. Swimming came to William that day as it does to a dog. He found in that one afternoon the confidence to master the water. The seal however never reappeared, but William swam on now by himself until the water chilled his bones, seeking everywhere for the seal and calling for him. He thought of venturing out into the open ocean but thought better of it when he saw the swell outside the pool. He vowed he would come again, every day, until he found his seal.

  William lay on the rocks above the pool, his eyes closed against the glare of the evening sun off the water, his heart still beating fast from the exertion of his swim. He lay like this, turning from time to time until he was dry all over. Occasionally he would laugh out loud in joyous celebration of the first triumph in his life. Out on the seal island the cormorants and shags were startled and lifted off the rocks to make for the fishing grounds out to sea, and the colony of seals was gathering as it always did each evening.

  As William made his way back along the cliff path and up across the fields towards home he could hear behind him the soft hooting sound of the seals as they welcomed each new arrival on the rocks. His foot was indeed still twisted, but he walked erect now, the stoop gone from his shoulders and there was a new lightness in his step.

  He broke the news to his family at supper that evening, dropped it like a bomb and it had just the effect he had expected and hoped for. They stopped eating and there was a long heavy silence whilst they looked at each other in stunned amazement.

  “What did you say, Billy?” said his father sternly, putting down his knife and fork.

  “I’ve been swimming with a seal,” William said, “and I learnt to swim just like Sam said. I climbed down to the rocks and I swam in the pool with the seal. I know we mustn’t swim in the sea, but the pool’s all right, isn’t it?”

  “By yourself, Billy?” said his mother, who had turned quite pale. “You shouldn’t have, you know, not by yourself. I could have gone with you.”

  “It was all right, Mother,” William smiled up at her. “The seal looked after me. I couldn’t have drowned, not with him there.”

  Up to that point it had all been predictable, but then his brothers began to laugh, spluttering about what a good tale it was and how they had actually believed him for a moment; and when William insisted that he could swim now, and that the seal had helped him, his father lost his patience. “It’s bad enough your going off on your own without telling your mother, but then you come back with a fantastic story like that and expect me to believe it. I’m not stupid, lad. I know you can’t climb over those rocks with a foot like that; and as for swimming with seals, well it’s a nice story, but a story’s a story, so let’s hear no more of it.”

  “But he was only exaggerating, dear,” said William’s mother. “He didn’t mean—”

  “I know what he meant,” said his father. “And it’s your fault, like as not, telling him all these wild stories and putting strange ideas in his head.”

  William looked at his mother in total disbelief, numbed by the realisation that she too doubted him. She smiled sympathetically at him and came over to stroke his head.

  “He’s just exaggerating a bit, aren’t you, Billy?” she said gently.

  But William pulled away from her embrace, hurt by her lack of faith.

  “I don’t care if you don’t believe me,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. “I know what happened. I can swim I tell you, and one
day I’ll swim away from here and never come back. I hate you, I hate you all.”

  His defiance was punished immediately. He was sent up to his room and as he passed his father’s chair he was cuffed roundly on the ear for good measure. That evening, as he lay on his bed in his pyjamas listening to the remorseless ker-thump, ker-thump of the haybaler outside in the fields, William made up his mind to leave home.

  His mother came up with some cocoa later on as she always did, but he pretended to be asleep, even when she leant over and kissed him gently on the forehead.

  “Don’t be unhappy, Billy,” she said. “I believe you, I really do.”

  He was tempted at that moment to wake and to call the whole plan off, but resentment was still burning too strongly inside him. When it mattered she had not believed him, and even now he knew she was merely trying to console him. There could be no going back. He lay still and tried to contain the tears inside his eyes.

  Every afternoon after school that week William went back down to the beach to swim. One of his brothers must have said something for word had gone round at school that “Limping Billy” claimed that he had been swimming with the seals. He endured the barbed ridicule more patiently than ever because he knew that it would soon be over and he would never again have to face their quips and jibes, their crooked smiles.

  The sea was the haven he longed for each day. The family were far too busy making hay to notice where he was and he was never to speak of it again to any of them. To start with he kept to the green pool in the rocks. Every afternoon his seal would be there waiting for him and the lesson would begin. He learnt to roll in the water like a seal and to dive deep exploring the bottom of the pool for over a minute before surfacing for air. The seal teased him in the water, enticing him to chase, allowing William to come just so close before whisking away out of reach again. He learnt to lie on the water to rest as if he were on a bed, confident that his body would always float, that the water would always hold it up. Each day brought him new technique and new power in his legs and arms. Gradually the sea would let him come closer until one afternoon just before he left the pool William reached out slowly and stroked the seal on his side. It was a gesture of love and thanks. The seal made no immediate attempt to move away, but turned slowly in the water and let out a curious groan of acceptance before diving away out of the pool and into the open sea. As he watched him swim away, William was sure at last of his place in the world.

  With the sea still calm next day William left the sanctuary of the pool and swam out into the swell of the ocean with the seal alongside him. There to welcome them as they neared the island were the bobbing heads of the entire seal colony. When they swam too fast for him it seemed the easiest, most natural thing in the world to throw his arms around the seal and hold on, riding him over the waves out towards the island. Once there he lay out on the rocks with them and was minutely inspected by each member of the colony. They came one by one and lay beside him, eyeing him wistfully before lumbering off to make room for the next. Each of them was different and he found he could tell at once the old from the young and the female from the male. Later, sitting cross-legged on the rocks and surrounded entirely by the inquisitive seals, William tasted raw fish for the first time, pulling away the flesh with his teeth as if he had been doing it all his life. He began to murmur seal noises in an attempt to thank them for their gift and they responded with great hoots of excitement and affection. By the time he was escorted back to the safety of the shore he could no longer doubt that he was one of them.

  The notepad he left behind on his bed the next afternoon read simply: “Gone to sea, where I belong.” His mother found it that evening when she came in from the fields at dusk. The Coastguard and the villagers were alerted and the search began. They searched the cliffs and the sea shore from Zennor Head to Wicca Pool and beyond, but in vain. An air-sea rescue helicopter flew low over the coast until the darkness drove it away. But the family returned to the search at first light and it was William’s father who found the bundle of clothes hidden in the rocks below Trevail Cliffs. The pain was deep enough already, so he decided to tell no one of his discovery, but buried them himself in a corner of the cornfield below the chapel. He wept as he did so, as much out of remorse as for his son’s lost life.

  Some weeks later they held a memorial service in the church, attended by everyone in the village except Sam, whom no one had seen since William’s disappearance. The Parochial Church Council was inspired to offer a space on the church wall for a memorial tablet for William, and they offered to finance it themselves. It should be left to the family, they said, to word it as they wished.

  Months later Sam was hauling in his nets off Wicca Pool. The fishing had been poor and he expected his nets to be empty once again. But as he began hauling it was clear he had struck it rich and his heart rose in anticipation of a full catch at last. It took all his strength to pull the net up through the water. His arms ached as he strained to find the reserves he would need to haul it in. He had stopped hauling for a moment to regain his strength, his feet braced on the deck against the pitch and toss of the boat, when he heard a voice behind him.

  “Sam,” it said quietly.

  He turned instantly, a chill of fear creeping up his spine. It was William Tregerthen, his head and shoulders showing above the gunwale of the boat.

  “Billy?” said Sam. “Billy Tregerthen? Is it you, dear lad? Are you real, Billy? Is it really you?” William smiled at him to reassure him. “I’ve not had a drink since the day you died, Billy, honest I haven’t. Told myself I never would again, not after what I did to you.” He screwed up his eyes. “No,” he said, “I must be dreaming. You’re dead and drowned. I know you are.”

  “I’m not dead and I’m not drowned, Sam,” William said. “I’m living with the seals where I belong. You were right, Sam, right all along. I can swim like a seal, and I live like a seal. You can’t limp in the water, Sam.”

  “Are you really alive, dear lad?” said Sam. “After all this time? You weren’t drowned like they said?”

  “I’m alive, Sam, and I want you to let your nets down,” William said. “There’s one of my seals caught up in it and there’s no fish there, I promise you. Let them down, Sam, please, before you hurt him.”

  Sam let the nets go gently, hand over hand until the weight was gone.

  “Thank you, Sam,” said William. “You’re a kind man, the only kind man I’ve ever known. Will you do something more for me?” Sam nodded, quite unable to speak any more. “Will you tell my mother that I’m happy and well, that all her stories were true, and that she must never be sad. Tell her all is well with me. Promise?”

  “Course,” Sam whispered. “Course I will, dear lad.”

  And then as suddenly as he had appeared, William was gone. Sam called out to him again and again. He wanted confirmation, he wanted to be sure his eyes had not been deceiving him. But the sea around him was empty and he never saw him again.

  William’s mother was feeding the hens as she did every morning after the men had left the house. She saw Sam coming down the lane towards the house and turned away. It would be more sympathy and she had had enough of that since William died. But Sam called after her and so she had to turn to face him. They spoke together for only a few minutes, Sam with his hands on her shoulders, before they parted, leaving her alone again with her hens clucking impatiently around her feet. If Sam had turned as he walked away he would have seen that she was smiling through her tears.

  The inscription on the tablet in the church reads:

  WILLIAM TREGERTHEN

  AGED 10

  Gone to sea, where he belongs

  nce upon a time, the little fishing village was a happy place. Not any more.

  Once upon a time, the fishermen of the village used to go out fishing every day. Not any more.

  Once upon a time, there were lots of fish to catch. Not any more.

  Now the boats lay high and dry on the beach, their paint p
eeling in the sun, their sails rotting in the rain.

  Jim’s father was the only fisherman who still took his boat out. That was because he loved the Sally May like an old friend and just couldn’t bear to be parted from her.

  Whenever Jim wasn’t at school, his father would take him along. Jim loved the Sally May as much as his father did in spite of her raggedy old sails. There was nothing he liked better than taking the helm, or hauling in the nets with his father.

  One day, on his way home from school, Jim saw his father sitting alone on the quay, staring out at an empty bay. Jim couldn’t see the Sally May anywhere. “Where’s the Sally May?” he asked.

  “She’s up on the beach,” said his father, “with all the other boats. I’ve caught no fish at all for a week, Jim. She needs new sails and I haven’t got the money to pay for them. No fish, no money. We can’t live without money. I’m sorry, Jim.”

  That night Jim cried himself to sleep.

  After that, Jim always took the beach road to school because he liked to have a look at the Sally May before school began.

  He was walking along the beach one morning when he saw something lying in the sand amongst the seaweed. It looked like a big log at first, but it wasn’t. It was moving. It had a tail and a head. It was a dolphin!

  Jim knelt in the sand beside him. The boy and the dolphin looked into each other’s eyes. Jim knew then exactly what he had to do.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll fetch help. I’ll be back soon, I promise.”