Constable by the Sea

by Nicholas Rhea

  He was Max Cooper, a heavily built and very jovial character who had seen his fortieth birthday some years ago. He was what we termed an old-stager, a man totally satisfied with life. He was totally content with his lot and had never even attempted his exams; for Max, promotion was regarded as greasing up to one’s superiors.

  He had the chubby, pink face of a countryman with a strikingly clear complexion, although his hair had thinned almost to the point of extinction. His hobbies were fishing, which absorbed him almost totally, and drinking, which he undertook with gusto. Overall, Max had an infectiously carefree attitude to work and to life in general. In other words, he did as he liked, and he was one of those men with whom ‘nowt could be done’.

  No one, not even the sternest superintendent, could dictate to this stolid Yorkshireman. It was possible to persuade him to adopt a certain path but never to drive him. When he executed his night-shifts, for example, he took with him some extra comforts, which included a small alarm clock, an inflatable rubber cushion and a flask of coffee. The rest of us left our flasks at the station, but Max didn’t. He carried his around his beat and claimed it kept him awake as he patrolled throughout the night hours.

  Max’s propensity was to fall asleep in strange places, and I did learn that, over the years, the locals had come to know him and his odd trait. Most of them therefore refrained from calling out the ambulance or the police when they found a hefty policeman apparently dead or drunk or possibly asleep in their greenhouse or coalshed.

  Strensford’s seasonal visitors were not to know this, of course, and so it was not uncommon to receive reports of dead policemen in fishing cobles, touring buses, back alleys and telephone kiosks. In all cases, the ‘corpse’ was Max. It was this incurable habit which compelled him to carry the alarm clock and the cushion.

  When making a point at a telephone kiosk, Max would go inside, inflate his cushion, place it on the floor and sit on it. As he waited in that comfortable position, he would set the alarm clock to rouse him just in time to walk to his next point, timed for half an hour later. Unfortunately, he regularly forgot to set his alarm, which meant he forgot to wake up as he sat curled up in his telephone kiosks. His absence from sundry appointed places meant that a search was made by his colleagues, just in case he had been assaulted or attacked or had even died.

  It followed that Max was a problem to his supervisory officers, but somehow he avoided disciplinary charges for sleeping on, or for being absent from, his place of duty. Most of the time his colleagues covered up for him, for in the daylight hours he was a fine fellow, a very good policeman and a jolly asset to the town.

  Now that I’ve left Strensford, two memories of him stand out in my mind.

  One bright July morning, I paraded for duty at 5.50 a.m., in readiness for my early turn shift which ran from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. We always reported ten minutes before the official start of any shift so we could be briefed about our forthcoming duties. By six, therefore, we were all ready to patrol the town, when the outgoing shift sergeant, a thin fellow with poor teeth, came into the Muster Room. He spoke to our sergeant, Sergeant White.

  ‘Chalky,’ he said so we could all hear. ‘Max has done it again. He hasn’t come in to book off duty. He’ll be asleep somewhere. I’m sending two of my lads around all the likely places on his beat, but I thought your lot might keep their eyes open as well. I’ll skin the bloody man alive, so I will. Why can’t he come home to sleep like the rest of us, instead of kipping in kiosks and keeping us all out of bed?’

  With no personal radio sets, we had to maintain contact with the police station through the network of telephone kiosk about the town and were told to ring in the moment we found him. Then the search would be called off. But no one found him. I patrolled my town centre patch and checked pub toilets, cottage outhouses, garages, waste land, telephone kiosks, shop doorways, buses, cars – everything and everywhere that might have provided a bed for the slumbering Max.

  The office duty constable rang us all to keep us informed of the nil result, and I rang the office in my turn to report a nil response. This lack of a result began to generate some concern. Even though we had searched all Max’s regular nodding-off places, no one had found him – and he wasn’t easily overlooked.

  By 8.30 that same morning, there was increasing concern which amounted almost to panic. Because no one had found Max, it was genuinely feared that he had come to some harm – perhaps he’d fallen into the harbour, or been attacked by villains, or become ill and collapsed somewhere. So at 8.45 we were all summoned back to the station for a briefing. There we were told that a full-scale search would be mounted, with police dogs and more men being drafted in.

  A last-minute check was made at his home, just in case he had wandered back, but he was not there. His wife, a big lady called Polly, was not in the least worried – she said he often went on fishing trips and didn’t come home on time, because he had fallen asleep on a river bank somewhere. She was virtually unflappable – she knew him so well!

  But the Force, in its official capacity, was worried, hence the preparations for a major search. The Inspector and the Superintendent had been called from their beds at the god-forsaken hour of 7.30 a.m., and we all assembled for this vital briefing.

  The clock was striking nine as the Superintendent walked in to allocate to each one of us an area for intense search and thorough enquiry.

  ‘You all know PC Cooper,’ he said. ‘Even those who are with us for temporary coastal duties are familiar with his appearance, so I need not bother with a physical description. Now, last night, he was patrolling No. 3 Beat …’

  At that stage the constable on office duty gingerly opened the door of the Muster Room and poked his head around the corner.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir, but it is important. It’s Max … er … PC Cooper, sir. He’s all right, he’s on his way home sir … I just got a call …’

  There was a long silence followed by murmurings of relief as the Superintendent, valiantly suppressing his anger, vanished upon his mission of discovery of the truth, while those who had remained on duty since six were dismissed and sent home for their overdue rest. I and the other early-turn men all returned to our normal duties, not daring at that stage, or in that tense official atmosphere, to attempt to discover what Max had done. We’d find out in due course.

  Later that day I did find out where he had been.

  We learned about 3 a.m. he had gone into the deserted railway station, as indeed we all did, and had entered a carriage for a sit-down. He had fallen asleep in a corner without setting his faithful alarm clock, and at 5.30 the empty coaches had been taken up the line to Middlesbrough. The sleeping Max had gone with them.

  Strensford Station in those days closed after the last train at night, which was 5.35 p.m., and opened next morning around 6.45 a.m. The 7 a.m. train steamed up the valley to Middlesbrough and returned with a load of passengers, but on this occasion the empty coaches which had been left overnight in Strensford were required for an additional summer train from Middlesbrough. When they had arrived, they had been shunted into a siding, and so had Max. He had woken at 8.30 and, thinking the sun was higher than normal for the time of day, had emerged to find he was not in Strensford but in Middlesbrough, some thirty miles away. We were assured that this surprised him somewhat.

  He was fined three days’ pay for that lapse, because several disciplinary offences were heaped upon his shining head.

  But it was an ensuing, albeit similar performance, which caught the public’s eye, because on that occasion the Press found out.

  The preliminaries were very similar to Max’s unintentional train journey because he had been working another night shift, complete with clock, cushion and coffee, and at six o’clock had failed, yet again, to appear when it was time to book off duty. Once again, the customary search was launched, and this time we included all the coaches at the railway station but without result. Every one of Max’s known sleeping spaces was checked plu
s a few unknown ones, but he had vanished completely.

  The panic and concern this time were at a level considerably lower than upon his railway trip, but there was concern and there was worry. This time he had vanished without a trace.

  As worry increased, tension mounted and a larger search was authorized. The police dogs were called out, and radio-equipped vehicles brought in from other divisions. There was a total complement of about twenty men, so that a complete search of the town could be effected. It is fair to say that by 11.30 that morning everyone was worried, and even the stolid Polly was beginning to show some concern. He was now 5½ hours overdue. Her concern, however, arose because today was his day off, and he had arranged for her to knock him up at ten o’clock, after only some three hours sleep, so he could go fishing on the River Swale. That, she said, would have made him come off duty on time, and for that reason she was worried. She showed her anxiety by coming into town to join the search.

  The sudden influx of police officers, vehicles and dogs, and their urgent enquiries around the town, soon came to the notice of the local reporter, who flashed the news to his friends on the national papers. The rapid arrival of several reporters from the nationals with their photographers, happened to coincide with Polly’s decision to join the search. She was pictured with a worried frown as she made a token inspection of a boilerhouse – a lovely human-interest photograph.

  By noon, the regional and national programmes were pumping out the story of Strensford’s missing constable, and there is little doubt that the whole town, resident and visitor alike, knew of our very genuine concern. This time we were very worried, and the public joined the hunt. The locals knew where to look for Max, but failed to find him, while the visitors searched the most unlikely places, such as caves on the beach and deserted woodland glades.

  Eventually the time had arrived for the harbour to be dragged. There had a grown a nagging fear that the large constable, weighted down by his heavy uniform, might have slipped into the tidal waters and been drowned as the powerful undercurrents dragged him below. A few tentative searches of the waterline had been made, but there was nothing that resembled the soggy mess of a waterlogged Max.

  To the delight of the newsmen, the Superintendent made the decision to drag the harbour. This would provide a marvellous seaside angle to the hunt and would produce some suitably dramatic pictures. As we had no marine section of the Force, he sought the help of the local fishermen. But they were not available either, because they were out of the harbour, fishing steadfastly somewhere on the grey North Sea. This meant we had to seek the assistance of some men who manned the pleasure boats. These were small cobles with a motor engine; they could carry a dozen folks out to sea, around the buoy and back again for a few shillings each.

  Several of them offered to cruise up and down the harbour dragging the fearsome-looking grappling irons; we kept those at the station for such occasions. And so the search gathered momentum. As it did, so our concern, both official and private, steadily increased.

  By two, I was due to book off duty, but every one of us volunteered to remain at work until Max was found, however long it took. By chance, I was parading an area at the top of Captain’s Pass where the hotels had underground cellars. I had to check every one of them, and as I made my methodic searches I was worrying about Max’s awful fate. I could see the harbour, and the little boats dragging their grappling irons. This made me think of the fishermen … suppose they netted his corpse or found him floating out to sea … The fishing boats, British and foreign, had gone out of the harbour this morning at high tide, some time before 5.30 a.m.

  And those boats had very comfortable cabins … and those cabins were open at night …

  As my mind followed those thoughts, I guessed where Max could be. It was the only answer. I walked along the clifftop to the coin-operated telescope which stands for the use of visitors but, before using it, looked out to sea with my naked eyes. I had no idea how far those boats travelled before dropping their nets, but if they were within sight of the shore, they could be seen with the telescope. Together, they would look like an armada or a small floating town, but I couldn’t see them with my unaided vision.

  As I was about to press a 3d bit into the telescope’s coin box, I noticed Sergeant White walking briskly up Captain’s Pass. He had not seen me, so I put my fingers to my mouth and produced a piercing whistle which he heard. I beckoned for him to join me.

  ‘Now, young Rhea, what’s up?’ he asked when he joined me, slightly breathless after his steep climb up the cliff-face steps.

  I explained my theory, and he smiled with quick understanding.

  ‘The daft bugger!’ he said, smiling at the thought. ‘You’ll be right, lad. He’ll have gone below deck for a kip; he’ll be somewhere near Dogger Bank now …’

  ‘I wondered if we could check with this telescope?’ I said. ‘I was about to look when I saw you.’

  ‘Go on, then.”

  I pressed my 3d bit into the slot, put my eye to the eyepiece and waited for the internal shield to move aside.

  When the view cleared and I began my 3d worth of sightseeing, I could make out a clutch of fishing vessels some distance off shore. I had no idea how far out to sea they were, but the quality of this telescope was insufficient to identify anything clearly. I could not even decide whether the boats in view were those from Strensford or the visiting foreign fleet.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Chalky White when I told him. ‘I’ll go across to the Imperial and ring the coastguard.’

  I continued to watch until my money expired, and when I removed my eye from the telescope, I was surprised to find that a party of people had assembled around me.

  ‘Is he out there?’ someone asked, coming forward with his money. ‘On those boats?’

  ‘We’re just checking,’ I said. ‘But feel free,’ and I indicated the vacant telescope. Now we had a new tourist attraction in town – spot the constable. I stood aside as a longer queue formed; based on the theory that British can’t resist queuing, everyone wanted to see what I’d been looking at. Such is human curiosity.

  From regular visits to the Coastguard Station, I knew that the coastguards in their look-out high on the cliff at the opposite side of the harbour had a remarkably powerful set of binoculars; they were supported by a strong pillar and were more like a powerful telescope. Sergeant White would be asking the duty coastguard to examine those ships or even to make contact with them, to see if Max was on board.

  It took a few minutes, by which time a growing crowd had gathered around my telescope as word passed among them. I wondered what they all expected to see, but when they saw Sergeant White returning with a smile, they all looked at him with expectancy.

  ‘He’s there,’ he said, with a mixture of anger and relief. ‘The silly … er …’ He hesitated as he realized the crowd was hanging onto every word. ‘Er … the silly fellow’s there. He’s on a Polish ship, the Piaski, and they’ve got him working. They don’t like policemen in Poland, you see, and thought he was a spy. And they make stowaways work! So he’s swilling the decks …’ and he burst out laughing. ‘They have refused to come all this way back with him. The coastguard’s been in touch. So he’ll have to stay there until the fleet comes home. The Poles knew nothing of the search of course. Serve him right … Well, folks,’ he addressed the crowd. ‘There he is, see if you can find him. It makes good viewing.’

  And we left the growing crowd as we went into the Imperial Hotel to use their phone to ring the police station.

  Mrs Cooper was very philosophical. ‘Mebbe that’ll put him off fishing,’ was her only comment, as she awaited the headlines in tomorrow’s papers.

  Max was fined seven day’s pay for that escapade, but he also became something of a folk hero. The town still talks about the night sleepy Max Cooper dreamt he was fishing – and woke up on the North Sea to find that he was.

  10

  And young and old come forth to play

  On a
sunshine holiday

  John Milton, 1608–74

  Because our brief spell of duty at Strensford was specifically to cope with the seasonal influx of holiday-makers, it was probable that we saw more of those than we did of the local people. There was very little time to form personal relationships or to know the residents.

  This might have given a false image of the town and its population, but we did find that the visitors, whether they were there only for the day or for longer periods, were a friendly bunch of folks. The only regular trouble came from youths who grew rather boisterous after drinking too much, and from a few confidence tricksters who left their hotels and boarding houses without paying. And thoughtless motorists were a constant irritation.

  Generally, those who took the trouble to journey to this corner of north-east England were a colourful, happy and fun-loving people, and as I walked that summer beat among them, I did experience several twinges of regret. That regret was my own wife and four tiny children could not be here too, that they could not enjoy the sands, the sea and the sunshine. I’d bring them later, I promised myself; it was such a charming place. Olde-worlde in many aspects, it had a powerful character of its very own, a character moulded by generations who had earned a tough living from the sea. That Strensford is picturesquely situated is never in doubt, for it is supported by some of England’s finest and most dramatic countryside.

  But if circumstances forced me to concentrate upon the visitors, they did not prevent me from noticing Edwin Dowson, a local man. Edwin was a man of routine, a life-long Strensford resident who was now well into his seventies, a gnomelike figure with a mop of iron-grey hair over his sharp little face.

  Edwin’s daily routine comprised a walk into the town centre and a visit to the Lobster Inn. He’d been a groomsman in his younger days and had worked for one of the Strensford major shipping families. Now that he was retired, Edwin followed his routine every weekday, beginning at 10.30 a.m. He concluded his first session at 2.30 p.m. This allowed him time to get his breakfast, tidy his cottage and walk into town. In town, he went to the bar of the Lobster and sat on his own chair in his own corner where he remained until closing time. He drank very little but he did enjoy the companionship of locals and visitors alike who drank in the same bar. Every weekday Edwin lunched at that pub. And then at night he performed a similar exercise. He left home at 7 p.m., walked down to the Lobster and left at 10.30 p.m., when it was closing-time. On the way home, he bought fish and chips.