by Ross Welford
‘You thieving rats!’ he growls. ‘Wait till I get my hands on you!’
‘Take the wheel!’ shouts Alfie, and, as soon as I do, he’s pulling off his sweater and kicking off his shoes.
‘What the …?’
Everything is happening so fast. At exactly the moment that Alfie dives over the side into the churning sea, disappearing beneath the surface, the final strand of rope succumbs to the pressure of Jasper’s knife and the door bursts open.
I start to yell, ‘Alfie!’ but I don’t get past the first syllable and end up just screaming.
The Jolly Roger is still continuing its terrifying progress towards the land, when a huge swell from a wave lifts us up and away from a massive black rock. Water cascades over the side of the boat, and, if I wasn’t clinging on to the wheel, I’d be cast overboard.
Seconds later, the yacht has righted itself, but with no wind in the sails we’re at the mercy of the ocean, which will surely take us back to the looming rocks.
Jasper, who has not even said anything yet, grabs the rope attached to the sail. It’s like an instinct to save himself and his boat, tightening the rope enough to give the sail some wind to work with and, as he secures it to the metal hook again, the Jolly Roger begins an agonising, slow curve away from the rocks. The wind is still howling and the rain is hammering so hard into my face that I can hardly see.
All the while, from the boat’s speakers, comes the monks’ slow, harmonious chanting.
There’s so much going through my head that I can’t even think straight.
The main thing, though, is: Alfie – where is he? Is he OK?
Wiping the sea spray and rain from my face, I try to focus on where he might be in the water, but I can’t even make out where we are. In the last few seconds, the boat has moved many metres away from where he dived in.
Fifty metres. That’s about how far we are from land.
I can swim fifty metres, I’m thinking. Most kids I know can swim at least fifty metres. That’s two lengths of Tynemouth pool. Easy-peasy.
But in open water, in a North Sea storm? He doesn’t stand a chance. It seems, though, that our little boat is out of immediate danger. The rocks and the island are retreating, and still the holy, haunting music is blaring.
Then Jasper’s next to me, screaming in my face.
‘WHAT IN GOD’S NAME ARE YOU DOING, AIDAN?’
The full answer to that is going to take much longer than I think Jasper has time for, and I’m not thinking rationally. I just say, ‘Alfie!’
Jasper looks at me, then at the island, then at the coastguard boat, which is now only a couple of hundred metres away. His mouth gapes open for a second and he blinks hard.
‘Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no!’
With the boat under control, we’re out of immediate danger, and the surging swell of ocean subsides for a moment or two, as if the storm is taking a breather.
The rescue inflatable is alongside us now. There are three people in it, wearing yellow oilskins and bulky orange life jackets.
The man at the front throws a rope, which I catch and secure to a hook on the stern of the yacht. Pulling on the rope, he draws the inflatable close enough for him to step onto the short metal ladder that hangs from the stern and, hauling himself up, he’s in the boat with us. He’s huge with a grizzled grey beard and his name, WAYLAND G., is printed on his oilskin jacket.
‘Are you the one that called?’ he shouts to Jasper, for the wind is still noisy and the monks are still singing on the yacht’s music system. ‘What’s the problem? You said you were a prisoner! What’s going on?’ Then he looks at me. ‘No life jacket? Are you mad? Quick – go and get one on.’ He points to a storage locker beneath the side-rail.
He obviously has no idea at all what’s happened. ‘Alfie!’ I shout. ‘He’s in the water!’
The look on Wayland G.’s face is one of pure horror. ‘What? Where?’ He spins round to look, and, as he does, Jasper barges him with all his strength and Wayland G. is sent staggering backwards down the steps, landing in a stunned yellow heap inside the cabin. Pushing past me, Jasper heads to the back of the boat.
What? I think.
As Wayland G. staggers to his feet, I’m still trying to pull on a life jacket. Jasper has unhooked the rope securing the rescue boat to the yacht.
Unencumbered by life jackets and oilskins, Jasper is much more agile than the two crewmen in the inflatable. With his back to the yacht, he hooks his arms over the rail and lifts up both feet to deliver a huge double kick into the chest of the first man. All he says is, ‘Whoa!’ and then he falls backwards into the water.
By now, Wayland G. is back up the steps. He pushes me roughly aside and is one stride away from grabbing Jasper, just as he lets go with his arms and lands in the rescue boat.
When he lands, the little inflatable rocks violently to one side. With a cry of, ‘No!’ the remaining man overbalances and plops into the water, popping to the surface immediately like a cork.
We’re still under sail, so we’re already a good distance from where the first man went in, his yellow jacket clearly visible, bobbing in the water. Jasper has taken the controls of the rescue boat and is speeding back towards the island.
What is he doing?
‘Can you sail, son?’ shouts Wayland G. to me.
I shrug non-committally.
‘Right. Release the mainsail; prepare to come about. Watch the boom!’
I think we’re going to turn round and pick up Alfie and the people overboard. I can only wonder what on earth will happen when Jasper catches up with Alfie. I think of the moment when he went after the police car, claiming he wanted to comfort the lost boy. There’s something else going on, clearly. He knows Alfie and he’s after him.
The monks’ chant – mournful and loud – stops suddenly as Wayland G. flicks the switch, and once again the only noise is the wind and the sea.
‘Where’s the OB?’ shouts Wayland G. ‘The overboard – where did he enter the water?’
I scan the surface where Alfie was swimming, but there’s no sign of him.
Cold water never used to bother me. When I was little – that is, properly little, all those years ago – cold water was more or less all we had. We would wash in it, and, when we needed to wash all over, there was always the sea.
And in the winter, when the sea was too cold even to stand in and splash ourselves, Mam would warm a pot of seawater next to the fire …
You see, all my thoughts go back to Mam – even now, when I am throwing my arms over my head, one after the other, trying to plough through the cold, cloudy water, and swallowing great mouthfuls of salty sea.
It is not far to the shore, but it takes me five strokes to make the progress of one in calmer water. The ocean lifts me up and swoops me down on massive waves, bringing me closer to the rocks that will split my skull. Like a wild animal, I kick my legs madly to give myself extra propulsion.
‘Swim, Alve, swim!’
I hear Mam in my head, urging me on. But I cannot swim faster, or stronger, for the waves and the cold have stolen my strength; as I get weaker, they get stronger. I lift my head to take a desperate breath, and a wave top breaks in my face making me inhale another lungful of seawater. I am choking underwater, and I become certain that that is where I will die. Like my father all those years ago, I will be taken by the ocean.
When I sink, the noise of the waves stops. The sound of the wind has gone; everything is silent, and peaceful, and dark. I feel something touch my arm: it is the sand, and I am being dragged along the bottom by the surging water, and surely it will only be a few seconds until I can feel nothing more …
‘Not yet, Alve,’ says Mam. ‘Not yet.’
Then, strangely, Mam’s imaginary voice becomes deeper and it is Rafel, my combat teacher from so long ago. His voice is in the water all around me:
‘Remember, Alfie: you are at your strongest when you are at your weakest. When your enemy thinks you are beaten, that is w
hen to strike. Find force from frailty, Alfie!’
Force from frailty.
My feet are touching the sand, my legs are bent, and I know that if I straighten them they will push against the sea bottom. From somewhere deep inside me, somewhere a thousand years ago, I find a tiny, scrappy remnant of strength and with a final push I thrust upwards to the air. Half a second more and I would have taken a fatal lungful of water, but my mouth clears the surface and I suck in a rattling, desperate breath that seems to contain my whole long life. Then a wave pushes me over again, but this time my knees hit the sand and I realise I can stand up. I suck in more air and cough up seawater, then another breath and I am on the beach, and I do not stop staggering, walking, running – anything to escape the devilish embrace of the ocean.
Breath.
Cough.
Run.
Breath.
Cough.
Run.
I have made it. I turn to look back at the water, the mighty foe I have defeated.
Heading towards me, out beyond the rocks, is an inflatable boat with a man at the helm.
Jasper.
Desperately I look across the water, my eyes flicking left and right. The swell has picked up again as we bring the yacht round, tacking left and right to catch the wind, and the boat is rising and falling on the waves.
‘There he is!’ I yell.
I point at the little beach on the island. A small, shirtless figure is running out of the white-foam shallows up the sand. He’s made it.
But Jasper is in the inflatable, with a couple of hundred metres to go. The swell is holding him back, but he’ll land soon as well.
Wayland G. shakes his head in disbelief. ‘Crazy,’ he says. ‘Just crazy.’
The yacht is getting close to one of the floating crewmen and Wayland G. throws out a line.
I cannot take my eyes off Alfie, staggering and running and stumbling up the rain-soaked beach.
I saw a documentary on television once: a little antelope was being hunted by a lioness. It couldn’t run fast enough, and the lioness kept getting closer and closer.
Watching Alfie scramble up the beach, I keep thinking, Go, antelope, go!
I turn from Jasper, closing in in his inflatable dinghy, and run up the beach towards a long, dry cave.
The cave: the one where Mam and I hid the pearl.
I barely notice another boat at the other end of the beach, pulled up onto the dry sand. There are some small tents, too, quivering in the wind, and a larger green canvas tent, exactly the shape and colour of the little plastic houses in a game of Monopoly.
The tents must belong to the archaeologists, although there is nobody about. I conclude they have left their tools and tents and returned to the mainland.
I stagger-run some more. The cave is getting closer. I have to stop to throw up, and I sink to my knees, bringing up a belly-load of seawater. Looking back at the sea, the rescue boat with Jasper in it is very close to the shore now. I can make out his black beard.
I run some more, and I am at the mouth of the cave.
It stinks – an ancient smell of dry seaweed, salt and dead seabirds.
It is dark too. Only a short distance into the cave it is already hard to see. I blink my eyes hard, but it does no good; I stumble forward, hitting my bare toes on jutting rocks.
Yet I know exactly where the clay box is. At the very back of the cave, it sort of splits into a fork – one fork is barely an arm’s length deep, and ends in a slope of sandstone. The other is longer: a narrow passage almost as high as I am, and almost as long, that ends in a huge boulder.
The boulder conceals a turn, a bend in the rock that no one could find unless they knew it was there.
Old Paul knew. Mam knew. I know.
I can squeeze most of my body round the big boulder, then I stretch out my left arm, and feel a short, sandy ledge, and then …
Nothing. My breathing quickens as I pat my hand round the ledge, and the rock behind it. Have I knocked it off? It is not there, for sure, and a dreadful fear begins to rise in me.
Then I feel a cold, hard hand grab my other wrist, and I cry out.
I turn to face Jasper.
It is not Jasper. In the darkness, I can make out an older woman’s face, with white hair, and it is familiar.
‘I sought it vas you,’ she says, and I recognise the German accent.
It is Dr Heinz, the old archaeologist who spoke at school.
‘Quickly,’ she says, ‘follow me.’
‘Is zis what you are looking for?’
We are standing in the largest tent. Outside the wind is still rattling the canvas, but inside it is calm, the tent fabric casting a greenish glow over everything. A long trestle table is covered with boxes, and files, electrical leads, devices with dials on them, and trowels and brushes. And lying on a square of folded cloth is the clay box, its coating of tallow, pine resin and beeswax darkened and cracked with age.
I nod dumbly. ‘It is my mam’s. Mine, I mean. Ours.’ I cannot take my eyes off it. I reach out my hand, but Dr Heinz steps between me and the table, staring hard at me.
‘It is incredible,’ she says. ‘But is it true?’ She is tipping her head from side to side, looking at me from every angle. ‘The vay you spoke that day, in the school. Somesing made me … wonder.’
I say nothing but shiver all over. My teeth are chattering.
‘Ach, poor boy, you are cold! Here!’ She gives me a blanket from a pile, which I wrap tightly round me.
‘Your teachers told me about you, and the dreadful sing zat happened to you. And so … I do a little research, yes? The fire, you know? I am so, so sorry. I looked in vebsites, official records, yes? I discovered you and your mother, God rest her soul, are living in zat house for many, many years, yes?’
I nod, and sink into a nylon camping chair next to the table. I am exhausted. I cannot lie any more.
‘The legend of ze Neverdeads: it has almost been forgotten, no? But there was zat clue, hidden in ze writings of an old Durham Bishop.’
I sigh. ‘Walter.’
‘You knew him?’
I shrug, and think back to Old Paul. ‘Not personally. But I think I know who told him.’
From quite a distance away, outside, comes a shout.
‘Alfie! Alfie!’
Dr Heinz gasps. ‘There is another person?’
‘Shhh!’ We fall silent.
‘Alfie! I don’t want to harm you! Come out!’
Peering out of the tent through the laced-up entrance, I see Jasper, soaked through, pacing up and down the mouth of the cave and shouting into it. A faint echo comes back from within.
‘Alfie! Where are you?’
You … you …
He stops for a moment and looks about, his gaze finally settling on the tents. I pull back from the entrance and turn to Dr Heinz.
‘He’s coming! Hide the pot!’
She moves quietly and confidently, placing the pot beneath a blanket in the corner of the tent, and standing upright at the moment the lace ties on the front flaps are pulled apart and Jasper’s dripping, bearded face thrusts through, his wild eyes glinting in the greenish gloom and his long, too-white teeth bared in a grin as if ready to bite.
‘Hello, Alfie!’ he says.
It seems to be only minutes before we’re sailing back towards the twin piers at Amble harbour. By ‘we’, I mean me, Wayland G. and the two other guys that Jasper sent for a swim. The inflatable rescue boat is towed behind us.
At the wheel of our boat, Wayland G. gives the command to lower the sails and he starts up the engine for an easy steer back to the marina. He is not being friendly. ‘Get down there, son, and stay there till I tell you,’ he growls, pointing to the inside quarters of the yacht. The storm seems to be blowing out. At any rate, it’s stopped raining.
I overhear him talking with the other two.
‘Scramble the helicopter from Bamburgh … boy in immediate danger … theft of HM coastguard vessel …�
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He comes down the steps and glares at me. ‘Does this thing work?’ he says, pointing at the boat’s radio.
‘I … I don’t know.’
He flicks a switch. The same music blares out.
‘Alleluia!’
He swears under his breath and switches it off. ‘No point in radioing,’ he says. ‘We’re two minutes from the harbour, anyway.’ He turns to me and says through clenched teeth, ‘I hope for your sake, bonny lad, you’ve got a good explanation for all this.’
I swallow hard.
I have an explanation, but whether it matches anyone’s idea of a ‘good’ one is doubtful.
There’s a police car waiting at the harbour when we dock. A small crowd has gathered. As I get off the boat, a policewoman comes forward and takes my arm gently.
‘Come on, young man. Into the car with you.’
The drive to the police station in Amble is only about two hundred metres. It’s a new, low building the same colour as the sand on the beach. Inside it smells of fresh paint.
I can hear Roxy’s voice on the phone.
‘I don’t know, Mum … I know that, Mum, it’s just that … yes, Mum … I think he’s here now … bye, Mum, love you.’
I’m shown into a plain room with a desk, a low beige sofa and cream walls. Roxy leaps up from the sofa. There’s a lady, not in uniform, sitting with her, holding a notebook.
‘Aidan!’
Roxy dashes forward and throws her arms round me, which I wasn’t expecting, and I sort of stand there awkwardly, being squeezed by this tiny girl. ‘I was so worried! I thought you’d sunk and drowned!’
There’s something a bit odd about Roxy’s behaviour, and I can’t quite put my finger on it.
‘I told you to be careful, didn’t I?’ says Roxy.
And then I do: she’s acting. Again. I have to bend down a bit to return her hug, and when I do she whispers in my ear.