My father took up the carving knife grumpily and Grandfather muttered “. . . products of a-theism—” I remained silent for the rest of the meal, not mentioning Johnno or anything about the Bronze Medallion. Life was becoming intolerable.
During that night a strong wind arose from the north-west. When I got out of bed I saw the waves running at an angle up the beach under a gloomy sky. Grandfather tapped the glass and growled that we’d be lucky if the roof stayed on the house that night.
Early in the afternoon the examiner arrived—a tall, hollow-cheeked man wrapped in an overcoat. As there were no other candidates Johnno and I drove alone with him to the beach. The sea was louder now and spray blew occasionally across the L of the pier.
“You’re both strong swimmers?”
When Johnno didn’t answer I said, “He’s the best in the town.”
The examiner looked at me bleakly. “But you, you still want to go on with it yourself?”
“Yes,” I said.
There was good reason for this: Johnno was the perfect patient; when he filled his lungs with air he floated like an inflated beach toy. I knew that if he left school I might never get the opportunity of having him again.
“Very well; get undressed as quickly as you can.”
The dressing shed was deserted and had about it a winter look. It smelt of undisturbed salt deposits, and outside the tea-tree creaked depressingly.
All this was lost on Johnno. He was so at home in the sea and so glad to be out of school that a cyclone would have meant nothing to him.
We put our sweaters on and went on to the beach, our legs stinging in the blown sand. There was no one to be seen except the examiner who was striding up and down the pier. We walked beside him to the end, our eyes watering in the wind, the water making sucking sounds under our feet.
“It’s a very poor day indeed. You’re sure you want to go on with it?”
“Yes sir,” we said.
“All right, you know the twenty-yard mark—the third bollard on the L. You, Reeve, will swim to a point opposite it, then Johnston will carry out the first method of release followed by the first method of rescue.”
“Yes sir.”
We handed him our sweaters and climbed down on to the landing. The decking was awash and the waves made rushing, slapping sounds round the piles. All this Johnno hardly noticed. He filled his great chest and dived in and began swimming parallel to the L, his feet fluttering rhythmically. I glanced inland at the town as a man might glance if seeing it for the last time, then I dived after him.
The water felt cold enough to stop my heart. Below the surface the depths were silent and hostile, reaching far into darkness. I curved up to the light and saw Johnno well ahead, treading water patiently. The movement of waves was against us as strongly as I had ever felt it.
“First method of release,” cried Johnno.
I lifted my arms in fair imitation of a drowning man and felt them grasped and twisted outward. He turned me on my back, put his hands over my ears and presently I was riding with my head on his chest, all sound shut out, my face clear of the water. Above us was a grey sky, its cloud racing. Under me I could feel Johnno’s legs driving powerfully. I relaxed and breathed deeply in preparation for the return.
As we came to the landing the examiner shouted, “First method of release and first method of rescue, Reeve.”
We swam back together into the oncoming sea and faced each other twenty yards out. Johnno held up his arms and I turned him on to his back. He was unsinkable; even if waves washed continually over his face, he said nothing. But one thing he couldn’t do was control our direction. We ended our run ten feet from the landing.
“All right,” shouted the examiner, “don’t bother to go back to the landing, swim from where you are. Your turn, Johnston—second method of release, second method of rescue.”
Each time Johnno’s turn came he attempted to correct my drift, but correcting it completely was beyond him, so we moved slowly down the pier.
Gradually fatigue crept over me, so that I began carrying out each movement automatically, hardly aware sometimes whether Johnno was the patient or the rescuer.
Drifting the way we were, we were beginning to lose protection from the L. Through the corner of my eye I could see the waves coming, and at the last moment would lift Johnno’s head and submerge my own.
“Johnston—fourth method of rescue.”
With his mouth near my ear he shouted, “You okay?”
I heard my own voice answer, “Okay.”
“Reeve—fourth method of rescue.”
On the last lap I had illusions of relief. The waves seemed less aggressive and the tremendous ache at the back of my neck was easier. The idea came to me that I was not in the water, but lying in bed, vaguely dreaming.
I heard the examiner from a long way off say, “Good work. Back to the landing and get dressed.”
The landing was no more than fifty yards away, but it seemed beyond reach.
Johnno struck across the lines of waves, his body rising on crests and falling into troughs like a ship. I started after him, but found myself drifting rapidly towards the pier. The idea came to me that it would help to rest awhile by holding one of the piles. I was letting myself drift towards them when I was picked up by a wave and saw I would strike a pile. I dived under the crest, but in a second my head struck hard. As I surfaced in the trough the swirl held me to the pile. Somewhere up above the examiner was shouting, but before I could hear his words the next wave drove me against the pile with a turning motion and I felt mussel shells cut the insides of my arms and legs. In the same instant the pier lifebelt dangled beside me. I lunged at it, pushing my shoulders through it. A third wave swung me again, but when it had gone the two above hauled me on to the rough planking of the pier.
“My God, boy, why didn’t you call for help?”
I heard Johnno say then, “I thought you were just behind me.”
I sat up and saw myriads of small cuts on my arms and legs, done as if with razor-blades. On my forehead a lump was rising.
“Do you feel equal to walking?”
“Yes,” I said uncertainly.
“We’d better go, then—a storm is coming.”
The wind was still from the north-west, but much stronger than before. In the south-west the sky was black, the black clouds advancing quickly. I began to walk between Johnno and the examiner, my body feeling strangely light.
We were about half-way down the pier when the wind suddenly dropped and the air was momentarily still, then it came roaring from the south-west, low cloud flying before it. Inland we saw the trees bend together and branches go flying through the air. The beach was hidden under swirling sand.
“We’re for it!” shouted the examiner. “Johnston, run and get the clothes and come to my car.”
We found his Baby Austin with its hood torn off, but as soon as Johnno came back we drove straight to our place and reached it as the rain began. The house was shaking as if it would fall to pieces, and Gyp was hiding under Grandfather’s bed.
CHAPTER NINE
Nothing much was said to me that night. My mother swabbed my legs with iodine, fanning them with a piece of cardboard, thinking I suppose, that this would ease the stinging. It was impossible to go to bed on the veranda. Rain washed its full length and blew under the front door and dripped in several places through the ceiling.
All night the house shook and creaked as if trying to uproot itself from the cliffs. Once there was a tremendous crash as Squid’s look-out tree fell into our garden.
Apart from the confusion outside, my mind was confused from the happenings of the day. At times the waves and wind and the thrashing of trees was like a weird continuation of the moments on the pile. Sometimes when the wind eased momentarily I would hear water gurgling in the down-pipes and overflowin
g from the tank and the rope snapping on Grandfather’s flagpole.
I was sleeping on a couch not far inside the door leading on to the veranda. The bedrooms opened off this central room and it seemed to me that every time I opened my eyes my father or mother was going to Ian to assure him he was safe.
Towards dawn I was sleeping fitfully when a gust of cold air woke me, and a splashing of rain. I sat up, but the door was closed and I was still in darkness. After a few seconds I heard, even above the storm, a bellow from Grandfather, “Ship ahoy! All hands on deck!” Then a testy cry from my father to my mother, “Isn’t it enough to be perched on a cliff-top on a night like this without having to curb a maniac.”
“Lower away!” yelled Grandfather. His voice was blown by the gale, but even the gale could not overcome it. “Strike away, men! Watch for survivors!”
My father tripped over something, cursed luridly and flung open the door. He had switched on the veranda light and out there I saw Grandfather in a deluge of rain, his hair and beard blown, his pyjamas almost torn off. Rain and wind swept into the room and the light suddenly went out.
“Ready to take over, sir!” yelled my father. Then I heard him cry, “My God, there is a vessel!”
Forgetting my hurts I leapt off the couch and ran outside. In the first grey light, lying on her side on what we called “the second sandbank”, was a yacht, the waves rolling her horribly.
“Here,” said my father, taking Grandfather’s arm. “You must get inside.”
“I don’t desert the bridge!” shouted Grandfather, his face streaming.
“You, Charlie, get Sergeant Gouvane.”
I left the two of them struggling beside the binnacle and began running in my pyjamas to the police station, my legs rubbed and stinging.
The rain and wind were in my back hurtling me towards the town, then through the town, the rain horizontal in the street lights, twigs and leaves flying through the empty streets. I pounded on Sergeant Gouvane’s front door and immediately his light went on. When he came I had hardly breath enough to speak. He stood glowering at me, a great slab of a man looking somehow the more threatening in his pyjamas.
“What is it?”
“A wreck—” I said.
“Where?”
“Opposite ‘Thermopylae’.”
He took hold of my shoulder. “Is this some dream of the old man’s?”
“No,” I said. “I saw it myself—a big yacht.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
He turned inside and I began running again down to the bike-shop in Beach Street. Standing there in the rain I knocked on the wall of Johnno’s bedroom beside his head. After a bit he pulled aside the curtain, then came tumbling out.
“What is it?”
“A wreck,” I said.
I gave him the story and we started back, Johnno running on ahead since by now I was out of breath and the cuts on my legs were raw from my wet pyjamas. As I went through the main street I could hear the firebell blowing in the wind, pealing weirdly. It was nearing full day, but a day like midwinter rather than April.
Down on the beach the sea was heaving and sickly. Johnno shouted to me, “Her mast’s gone!”
I hardly heard him for the din of waves and I had no breath to answer him.
The waves were breaking now right over her. Gouvane was already on the beach, my father too and a couple of other men. They were attempting to launch a boat to see if anyone was trapped aboard, but each time they pushed it out, the boat broached to. We could hear none of their words for the wind.
Johnno shouted in my ear, “We could get the reel.”
The door of the lifesaving club was never locked. We went to it and came back one at either end of the reel.
Gouvane came over to us. “What d’ you intend doing with that?”
Johnno said, “I could swim out.”
Gouvane looked at my father who had joined us. “What do you say?”
“Hardly possible,” said my father, frowning.
“Well, we’re not doing any good with the boat and we can’t just stand here. There could easily be someone still aboard.”
Johnno waited for no more, but stripped off his pyjamas and stood while I fastened the belt round him. On the sandbank we heard a loud crashing as something broke loose inside the hull. Presently the yacht heaved onto her side and lay with her bottom to the beach.
Johnno ran to the edge, the line trailing behind him. He bounded in a few yards, then was thrown off his feet. I saw him next on a wave top, then he disappeared. The sea was running at an angle to the beach, not in regular lines, but in short, vicious waves, their directions constantly changing. I saw Johnno again about twenty yards out moving slowly across the general direction of the sea. On the beach the line was running through Gouvane’s hands.
“I’m not sure that we should have done this!” shouted my father.
Gouvane ignored him. Johnno was out of sight again, but the line was moving steadily. About a hundred yards had gone out. Next time we saw him he rose up on a high wave just abeam of the yacht, his arms still going tirelessly. He turned then and struck behind the wreck.
We all stood waiting on the beach in the pelting rain. Dr Stuart was there now, an army greatcoat over his pyjamas.
“Who is it out there?” I heard him shout to my father.
“Young Fred Johnston.”
“He’ll be damn’ lucky if he gets back.”
For my part there was never any doubt of Johnno getting back. However else he died, I couldn’t imagine it being by drowning.
I noticed then that Grandfather McDonald was on the beach, his pyjamas clinging to his lank old frame, his beard like wet seaweed. He had got away from my mother and had come down the cliff path alone.
“How on earth—” I heard my father begin.
He and Dr Stuart stood one on either side of the old man and led him to the doctor’s car. I believe when they drove home to our place, Grandfather cursed the doctor all the way for his interference.
By this time Johnno was on his way back, moving quite fast, though often out of sight in troughs. Gouvane had taken over the winding of the reel; the rest of us stood shivering at the edge of the water. Wreckage was beginning to come in: a smashed chair, a lifebelt, even a saturated book of signals.
Johnno reached the beach about half an hour after he had started. He was still on his knees on the sand, leaning on his hands, his chest heaving, when Gouvane shouted to him, “Was there a sign of anyone?”
He shook his head. After a bit I heard him say, “There were two broken mooring ropes—”
“Are you sure of this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Could you see her registration?”
“No, but her name was Isis.”
That really was all there was to the wreck of the Isis. By afternoon the beach was strewn with her wreckage for a mile or more, and half the town was there to see it. Rumours began spreading concerning Johnno’s swim and two people he was supposed to have rescued. For the rest of the day he was saying in an embarrassed voice, “No, it’s not true; no, no one; it’s not true,” and so on. I kept wishing for him that it had been true.
CHAPTER TEN
After these happenings Johnno came in for a good deal of admiration—though not, of course, from Moloney. I believe Johnno himself would sooner have passed one of Moloney’s Monday tests than have been praised for his swim. As it was, even my father praised him. “But the world demands application and perseverance as well as courage,” he added.
At home the wreck had serious repercussions. Grandfather had become so wet and cold and so worn out by his climb down the cliffs that next day my mother had to call in Dr Stuart.
I heard Grandfather bawl out, “Who gave you permission to set foot in my door? No Bones touches me while I’ve
breath in my body.”
The doctor was a man with flaming red hair and a flaming temper. He shouted back, “I won’t have long to wait, then! G’day to you.”
He picked up his bag and walked out of the room. Grandfather, panting a good deal, called to my mother, “Show him the door and bolt it behind him.”
But it was no good. Dr Stuart had to come back next day. He and Grandfather muttered and growled at one another all through the examination. It turned out that Grandfather had to stay in bed and had to lie propped up. There were whispers of pneumonia.
The trouble then was to keep him in bed, especially when the wind rose and the old house began shaking. My mother and father divided the night between them, and before long they became tired and irritable.
My task was to sit with him in the evenings after school. There was something depressing about this. Winter was coming on and evening crept into the high-ceilinged bedroom very early. And often the sea added to my melancholy. The window opened just above my bed on the northern veranda, but from where he lay Grandfather could see no more than thick tea-tree.
Each evening when I came in he would ask how the sea was running and the direction of the wind and state of the tide and ask me to read the barometer. Sometimes when I turned back to him I would see him staring like Henry Hudson adrift in his boat, his eyes defiant but hopeless. In the kitchen his old clock would strike out the hour as if hurrying him away.
On some nights I was relieved by Mr Theo Matthias, Grandfather’s old debating friend. After these visits Grandfather was usually over-excited and unable to sleep. Despite his shortness of breath he would try to discuss the origin of man and whether T. H. Huxley was a Christian. Mr Matthias would stride out well satisfied, stick in hand, beard pointing aggressively from one side to the other as he walked.
In the middle of this period I became involved in an affair with Squid which, according to my father, “publicly disgraced our family”.
One morning I left later than usual for school. This was a Monday, the morning of one of Moloney’s tests. Out on the road, as I began running towards the short cut, I heard Squid yell, “I’ll give y’ a dink.”
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