by Bond, Nancy
“I don’t believe it.”
But it was. All the clouds of the day before had been swept off the sky by a boisterous westerly wind. It brushed the sea with white horses and sang in the electric wires. The air felt light and sharp.
The morning slid by pleasantly, with a sort of endless breakfast: oranges, cocoa, coffee, eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, as much as anyone wanted, interrupted by unwrapping presents.
The argument of the night before wasn’t mentioned, and though Peter didn’t speak to his father more than absolutely necessary, neither did he make any remarks that would annoy David.
Mrs. Davies and her plump, cheerful daughter, Susan, came in to organize dinner. Mrs. Davies raised her eyebrows at the chaos in the kitchen, but for once she didn’t say anything. And before anyone quite knew what was happening, she’d passed out jobs. Jen peeled potatoes, while Becky and David did the dishes, and Peter found himself chopping up stale bread for stuffing.
They set up the table in the lounge with a white tablecloth and two of the longer candle-ends, because, as Becky said, you couldn’t just eat a turkey dinner like boiled beef and cabbage in the kitchen. It had to be special.
The smells, thought Jen, closing her eyes for a moment, are just like the smells of any Christmas dinner: roast turkey and gravy, beets, steaming pudding, hot and rich.
Once dinner was over, they piled everything in the sink and left it while all four of them went for a walk on the bright, windy beach. The broad, hard sands were covered with people out walking, muffled against the wind in best coats and scarves and gloves, tiny children wrapped so they looked almost spherical, dogs racing ecstatically from figure to figure.
Gulls dipped and screamed raucously on the air currents, slicing through the sky on sharp wings, and Becky sent a small party of black and white birds with long red bills crying out low over the water.
“Oystercatchers,” she told the others. “Aren’t they beautiful? Gwilym showed me.”
“Isn’t that Gwilym?” asked David. “Up there?”
“He’s watching something,” said Becky. “Come on.”
The long, thin figure stood still, looking out to sea through binoculars.
“Hullo,” said David, as they joined him. He jumped and turned around. He seemed a little overwhelmed at the sight of all the Morgans together.
“What are you watching?” Becky demanded.
“Oh, um, not much. Some fishing boats, I think.” He glanced around. “Too many people for birds.”
Peter gave Jen a nudge, which she ignored.
“Just out walking?” David asked pleasantly.
“Up to Ynyslas, I thought, sir.”
“That’s the bit of beach where the Dovey joins the sea, isn’t it?”
Gwilym nodded. “Good place for birds at low tide.”
“Isn’t there supposed to be a drowned forest somewhere down that way?”
“Yes, sir,” said Gwilym.
“You mean underwater?” said Becky.
Peter and Jen avoided each other’s eyes.
“You can see it at dead low tide, but the water has to be right out, which doesn’t happen that often,” explained Gwilym.
“But the trees aren’t still alive, are they?” Becky asked.
“Of course not,” said Jen.
“What does it look like then?”
“Nothing much, I should think,” said David.
“You can find tree stumps and a peat bed like in the Bog,” Gwilym said.
“When did it happen?” asked Peter.
“Some say when the Low Hundred was flooded, which’d be sixth century,” replied Gwilym.
Peter looked speculative.
“You sound well up in archaeology,” remarked David, and Gwilym’s eyes lit with pleasure.
“I know some,” he admitted. “There’s a lot to find around here, sir.”
They had begun walking again, all of them moving down the beach toward Ynyslas.
“Yes,” David said, “I’d hoped to have more time for exploring, but the University’s kept me pretty well occupied so far. Maybe when the weather gets warmer in the spring.”
“It’s a grand place for it, sir.” Gwilym sounded approving.
“But the forest,” Becky persisted. “Why did it drown?”
“I would guess the sea rose. Perhaps it’s still rising.”
“It could cover Borth?”
“Not right away.” David smiled. He turned back to Gwilym. “This whole area used to be forested once, didn’t it?”
“Hundreds of years ago, that was. Most of Wales. But it was stripped for timber and farming then. Forestry Commmission’s replanting parts of it now.”
“So it’ll look the way it used to?” Becky wanted to know.
“Not likely. To make money lumbering. Never mind how it looks and what it does to the wildlife. There.” Gwilym pointed back, toward the hills behind the Bog. “See the patches there? That’s Forestry land.”
Regular dark green squares stood out boldly against the rust and silver of the bare slopes.
“All the same kind of tree planted together and so close there’s no light between, just so they’ll grow straight.”
“I see what you mean,” said David.
Peter stared without seeing at the rough edges of the waves on the sand. He pretended indifference to the conversation, but he was listening hard, his mind working furiously over the new information: the drowned forest, which meant a flood, the hills covered with trees once upon a time. There must have been forests at the time of the flood.
They’d passed most of the other people, and the last houses of Borth lay behind them. The sun broke and scattered on the restless bay and high over the Bog Gwilym spotted a buzzard sailing the wind on broad, ragged wings. “All around,” he said. “Cardigan’s thick with buzzards.” After a moment, he offered David his binoculars for a closer look. Doesn’t trust the rest of us, Jen thought.
“Can you see the white patches on the undersides of his wings?” asked Gwilym.
“Mmm. Very well.”
“Buzzards are the ones that hang around waiting for people to die, aren’t they?” asked Becky.
“You’re thinking of vultures,” David told her, watching the bird lift higher and higher until it was only a dot in the towering sky.
“Vultures have bald heads,” Jen added.
“No,” David disagreed, “those are eagles.”
“Bald eagles!” shouted Becky, laughing.
Gwilym smiled politely but without comprehension, and David handed back the binoculars.
“Those are good ones,” he remarked. “What power?”
“Ten by fifty.” Gwilym was back on his own territory. “Bit big for some, but I can manage them. Dad gave them to me, got them special from Cardiff.” There was pride in his voice. “Best present I ever got.” He hung them carefully around his neck again.
David nodded. “Hard to beat good ones.”
They went on, David and Gwilym talking together, Jen and Becky joining in now and then, and Peter coming thoughtfully behind.
After all, how long ago was hundreds of years? Gwilym had said sixth century, but that would have been 500. Imagination couldn’t stretch that far, and yet vast pieces of time lay all around: in the sand underfoot, the shaping of the sea, the burnished hills, the Bog. They changed, but so gradually it was seldom noticed in a lifetime. They must all have been here fourteen hundred years ago. Suppose you could see other people’s footprints in the sand—not just the ones from this time that the tide hadn’t washed away, but the footprints every person had ever made on this beach. . . . Peter thought his head would burst.
David was saying, “We came from here, my family. My grandfather was twenty-seven when he emigrated to New England. I remember he used to speak Welsh sometimes. He came from the coal valleys in the south near Tredegar and he settled in Massachusetts.”
“And he met Great-grandmother,” Becky prompted. They all knew the story and she
always loved to hear it.
David smiled at her. “Yes, he met Great-grandmother. She’d emigrated with her own family from Machynlleth when she was seventeen. I think she was always sorry she’d left Wales, she told us such stories. We always swore we’d come back one day and see it, but none of us ever did till now.” His eyes were on the mountains across the river as he spoke.
“She saw them, too, didn’t she?” Jen asked softly. “She grew up with them. It’s hard to imagine.”
“But why?” asked Becky. “Why did they leave Wales?”
“Money. A better life. It was a bad time for many people in the nineteenth century. Lots of them left. Huw Morgan’s brothers all went to Pennsylvania from Tredegar to work in the coal fields because it was what they knew, but Grandfather tried farming instead in the Connecticut Valley.”
Becky nodded, satisfied.
Gwilym had been keeping pace with David, listening in silence, but he stopped abruptly and lifted his binoculars.
“Birds?” asked David, stopping, too.
“No,” said Gwilym, “some kind of boats.”
They all looked in the direction he pointed, and on the horizon they could make out four—no, five—little black specks.
“Out by Towyn that is,” said Gwilym after a minute. “Sailing boats.”
“Good wind for it,” remarked David, shading his eyes with his hand.
“Odd shape they’ve got. Not fishing boats on Christmas Day, but too big for pleasure boats.” He passed David the binoculars. “What do you think, sir?”
“They certainly do look peculiar. Double-ended and one square sail each. Maybe something special for Christmas? A race of some kind?”
“They’re Irish,” said Peter, who’d been silent till now.
“How in blazes do you know?” asked his father, surprised. “You can hardly see them without the glasses!”
“They just are.”
“Let me see,” Jen demanded, and David gave her the binoculars. He frowned at Peter.
There were six boats visible through the glasses, sailing close together. Their sails were well filled with wind, they were broad and high-sided, rather like barges, with two pointed ends, so it was hard to tell at a glance which way they were going, but in a minute Jen saw they were tacking away from the coast—toward Ireland.
“My turn,” cried Becky impatiently. “I want to see!”
Reluctantly Jen passed the binoculars.
“They are sailing toward the Irish coast,” said Gwilym slowly, “but—”
“They look like replicas of the war ships used by the ancient Celts,” David said. “It must be some sort of pageant. An old Welsh custom, like burning a Viking ship the way they still do in the Shetlands every year.”
“They’re neat,” said Becky. “I wish I could see one close.”
“There’ll probably be a picture in the Cambrian News next week,” David replied.
Peter was too overwhelmed by what was happening to speak. He’d seen the ships once before, when Taliesin and the boy had been taken aboard them as prisoners. He knew they were Irish. He knew they weren’t replicas. But—everyone was straining to watch as the ships disappeared over the horizon—they had all seen them this time, not he alone! Of course, the others understood even less than he did, but they all had seen them.
Somehow, when the ships had gone, no one wanted to walk any further up the beach. Above the hills to the northeast, clouds were beginning to pile and the wind had a bite to it they hadn’t noticed while they were moving. Gwilym alone went on toward Ynyslas, reluctant to lose the light. He turned when he’d gone a dozen yards or so.
“If you want to go out along the Dovey tomorrow, I’ll be going,” he called. “Early, mind.”
“Of course, we do,” Becky declared. “When?”
“Half-past six. We can get a ride up to Ynyslas with my Dad if we’re sharp.”
“Why not the Bog?” Jen asked.
Gwilym shook his head. “Too wet since that storm. Not safe.”
“Well!” said Jen, when they were well out of earshot. “I thought he’d forgotten all about promising.”
“Not Gwilym. It was Dad being interested that did it, though. You could tell. I bet he’d like it if you came, too.”
David shook his head, smiling. “We’ll see, but I doubt I can spare the time, much as I’d like to.”
To everyone’s surprise, Peter allowed that he might like to go, even though it meant getting up at six.
It was still dark when Jen and Becky fell out of bed next morning—dark and bone-chilling. But Becky declared it wasn’t nearly as hard to get ready for a special expedition at six as it was to get up for school at seven-thirty. She thumped on Peter’s door, and he came out of his room fully dressed, as if he’d been waiting for her.
David had given all three of them small knapsacks for Christmas, and they began rummaging for food to pack in them.
“I have no idea how long we’ll be out,” said Peter, “but I have no intention of going hungry.”
Becky sliced bread for sandwiches and Peter cut chunks off the cold turkey, while Jen made toast and cocoa for breakfast. They all got in each other’s way, scalded their mouths on the hot cocoa and dripped butter on the table quite amicably.
“I tell you, though,” Peter stated, shifting his knapsack to find the most comfortable spot, “I hope we don’t have to go too far before we can eat this stuff. It’s heavy.”
“You shouldn’t complain. You put most of it in,” Becky observed.
“Come on,” said Jen, “we’ll miss Gwilym.”
He was waiting outside Bryn Celyn. Jen thought she saw a flicker of surprise in his eyes when he saw them emerge on time—in fact, five minutes early. She grinned to herself.
“We’re in time for the bus if we nip down to Williams’s smartish,” he greeted them and was off before anyone could respond. They could only gallop after him.
East, beyond the Bog and over the hills of Montgomeryshire, the sky was stained with first light. It moved across the sky like water spreading across a blotter, drawing mist up from the country. A few windows on the hill were lighted, but not many people were up at half-past six the day after Christmas.
Hugh-the-Bus was. He sat leaning over the steering wheel of his bus, reading a two-day-old newspaper. He grinned at the Morgans as they stumbled on behind Gwilym. “Up early, is it? You’ll have a grand morning for it. Wind’s up, but sun’ll be out in two shakes, look you. Down to Ynyslas is it, Gwilym?”
“Don’t you mind having to work today?” asked Becky. “I thought it was a holiday.” The bus was empty but for the five of them.
“Aye, Boxing Day. But it’s not so bad, and twice the money, see. Someone has to.”
“It’s the babies,” said Gwilym darkly.
“And for you!” said his father with a laugh.
The Morgans looked puzzled.
“My sisters,” Gwilym explained. “Susan and Sheila and both with babies in the house.”
“Two mums and a gram and the bath full of nappies and the sink full of bottles.” Hugh-the-Bus chuckled. “More than a man can stand, and for three days. Better it is to leave them fussing and go.”
“Worse than with summer visitors,” added Gwilym. “At least with visitors you aren’t expected to take an interest. But babies—”
“You’re an uncle!” exclaimed Becky, delighted.
“Aye, he is that,” agreed Hugh-the-Bus solemnly. “Twice over.”
“Ahh,” protested Gwilym, disgusted.
The only soul to be seen down the length of Borth was the paper boy on his cycle. Hugh-the Bus saluted him as he drove majestically down the middle of the long straight road to the Ynyslas Turn by the golf links.
“Right you are! Have a good day then, and mind you don’t let Gwilym drag you too many miles!” With a wave of his hand, Hugh-the-Bus left them and turned inland along the river.
“Well, come on then,” said Gwilym, striking out across the dune
s.
The hard, bright air filled their lungs and scoured their faces as they tramped down to the sea. Gwilym took them out to the sand spit at the mouth of the Dovey where fresh met salt water. It must have been a mile or so, but they covered it quickly. To Jen the world appeared unusually sharp, in perfect focus, every detail clear, from the pebbles and strings of seaweed at her feet to the distant windy horizon.
“You can see so far!” she shouted against the wind. “What’s the land out there?”
“That’s up in Caernarvon,” Gwilym told her. “It’s the Lleyn Peninsula and beyond it, further to the west, you can just see a bump, can you?”
“Wait.” Jen peered in the direction of his hand, northwest. “Yes, just barely. What is it?”
“Bardsey Island. Supposed to be a grand place for birds,” he said longingly.
“Have you never been there?” asked Becky. “It doesn’t look far.”
“Might as well be the other side of Ireland. I’ve no one to go with me, and no money to get there. Mum doesn’t approve of hitching and she’ll not hear of me taking my motorbike.”
“I didn’t know you had a motorbike,” said Peter.
“Aye. Bought it last year off the student Mum had living in. It needed a lot of work, but I got it running. Don’t have a proper license yet, only ‘L’ plates, but I’m going for it next year. Mum doesn’t approve, but it’s my own money and Dad said I could do what I liked with it.”
Peter looked at Gwilym with new eyes. Here at last was something he understood. “Can I see it sometime?”
“Tisn’t much. Not fancy, you know.”
“Just the same?”
“Aye.”
Becky prodded him. “What’s that the other direction?”
“Pembroke. Strumble Head, that’d be. You can see both ends of Wales from here when it’s clear like this.”
“Not very much to it,” remarked Peter.
“Enough,” said Gwilym. “There’s a lot to Wales, you know.”
“You sound like Mr. Evans. Do you believe in magic?” Becky asked suddenly.
Gwilym’s face stiffened, and Jen looked warily at her sister. Peter alone was unconscious. He whistled softly as he gazed down the coast at Strumble Head. “Why Strumble Head?” he wondered aloud.