Strandloper

by Alan Garner

  William ran. He could not run straight, but his mind would not let his legs fail.

  “Crank!”

  Renter was lying on the sand.

  “Haul your wind, Crank.”

  “Gerrup!”

  “It’s all holiday in Peckham, Crank.”

  William put his hand in Renter’s wet shirt to take the food. He grappled with the body to make it sit. “Damn you! Gerrup!” The meat slid away from him around the back. He put both arms in, and pushed one way and pulled the other, to bring it round to the front. And all the time he crouched against the tearing. “Dall yer eyes!” But he had hold of a bone, and tugged the meat out and ran.

  “Cease firing!”

  The lieutenant waved his hand at the dusk.

  “Save your powder. He’ll be back, or come never.”

  Jeremiah watched the purple shadow merge.

  “‘The bright day is done. And we are for the dark.’ I fear me, Mr Johnson.”

  III

  YOUNG COB

  Mony klyf he ouerclambe in contrayez straunge,

  Fer floten fro his frendez fremedly he rydez.

  “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”

  lines 713/4

  15

  HE RAN UNDER the moon. The moon set. He ran under the stars. The stars paled. He ran along the surf, leaving no trace. He ran as fast as a man could walk. He ran bent double, as he had stood in the months below decks, knowing no other, his hands scuffing the water. His legs wavered, his right foot stepping across to the left, his left to the right. He ran into the green of the rising sun. William ran.

  He stopped, and listened. There was only the great silence of the waves. He hutched himself round to face the way he had come. It was easier to move in the water, because it gave his legs the weight of the chain and the irons. He tilted his head sideways to look. The mast of the ship was on the horizon, and blue smoke from the camp rose in the air, but the shore and the land were empty: sand, grass, low trees here and there, silver, brown, green. But nobody; no pursuit or chase. He grunted.

  Now then.

  It took five moves to turn back. He tilted his head again. The shore curved away, and hills near to.

  Compass.

  He smoothed the crumpled paper.

  What the heck?

  There was a circle drawn on the paper, quartered by a cross. At the top of one arm was the letter N and an arrow.

  N? N?

  He tilted his head all around, but he saw no N.

  What’s N? And the arrow? Is it pointing? N pointing?

  Fause monkey! Port Jackson! China! It’s North!

  William held the paper so that the arrow pointed away from him along the shore. He held it steady, and walked forward.

  Eh up, Het!

  16

  IT WAS WORSE than the bread of that day: the burnt bread with God’s blessing. It was the white bread with God’s curse. He had snapped off a crust and put it in his mouth and sat under a tree out of the sun.

  The bread was bone. There was nothing in his mouth to soften it. His tongue stuck to the lump. He moved it around. Bone. He granched it with his teeth, and tried to swallow, but his throat would not. He chewed the lump to splinter, the splinter to shard, the shard to crumb, and spat, but he could not rid his mouth. He had to scrape out the dust with his fingers.

  The sun had moved, and he shifted away.

  He took a piece of beef, but the brine was too harsh. He pulled at grass, cutting his hands, and pushed it into his mouth. It changed the taste, but gave him no juice. He gagged on the dryness and heaved it from him. He turned his palms, and, with slow care, picked each bead of blood on his tongue. It was salt, but he could feel the moist for an instant as it was taken up. He sat against the trunk and closed his eyes.

  The sun hurt his lids. It had moved again. He looked at the shadow, and at where he had first sat. There was only the air beating down. Where he had shifted, too, was in the open light.

  Yay! Bugger this for a game! Sun’s going backards!

  Skrike or laugh, said Grandad. You’ll learn.

  He collapsed against the tree. A wind blew from the land; and on it was a sweet and biting scent. He sniffed. It was the smell in the sound of the bee at the churching.

  Gripe, griffin, hold fast!

  William kept the compass straight, and ran in the sun, along the shore, laughing, though his skin cracked.

  17

  WELL, THIS WON’T buy the child a new frock.

  He drank from the river as much as he could, took the bread from the pool where it had been soaking, and ate half of it. He dipped the tin mug into the water and filled it, then he stood, straightened his back, and set off along the shore, slowly, carefully, trying not to slop from the mug, which he held in one hand, the compass in the other, following N.

  There was no shade from the sun, and, as it rose higher, the compass pointed towards it.

  Ay, you would! Get on, then, chase-yer-arse! See if I’m frit!

  The water and the sky became one light, and the bread began to harden in his shirt. He sucked the bread until there was no more to be got from it. His head ached. He put the bread by a tussock, and the mug with it, holding down the compass, and went into the sea. He sat, and dipped his head in the waves. The water burnt his face, but it cooled him. He looked around. There was only the shore, backed by hills, stretching in front and behind, so that, without the compass, both ways would have been the same. The river was lost, and there was no sign of any other.

  When the sun was lowering, he came out of the water and went back to the tussock. The mug and the compass were as he had left them, but the bread had gone.

  What the ferrips?

  There were crumbs in the sand. Some were moving.

  He looked closely. The crumbs were being carried by ants.

  They’ve getten me pannam!

  He picked up the crumbs that were lying and ate each one as if it were a meal. He felt a stab of fire at his foot. An ant had taken hold of his flesh. He knocked it away, and the body snapped off, leaving the head still in him.

  Best be doing, said Grandad.

  William took up the mug and the compass, checked the N, and moved forward.

  He was thirsty. He sipped at the water. It was not enough. He dipped a piece of meat into the mug, and sucked that. But the brine was stronger than the water, and his thirst grew. His ankle throbbed and was swelling. To drink was all his head could hold. But he would not.

  The sun dried his clothes, and they stiffened with the salt. The seams rubbed him so that he cried out. His hand shook, and water splashed over the rim. He knelt and tried to save the spillage, but the sand had taken it. He drank. He could not stop. He could not stop. He tilted the mug and stretched for more, but he touched nothing but metal.

  William looked along the N into the fret of sea and light and land. Nothing.

  Nowt.

  Best be doing, then, said Grandad.

  William cast around with his head. The sun hurt as much as his ankle.

  Nothing.

  He turned, and set off back the way he had come. He could hobble.

  He fell into the river in the purple light. He put his head under the clear stream until he had no breath. Then he pulled himself out and lay by the bank, and chewed some meat.

  Well, this won’t buy the child a new frock.

  He had lain in the shade by the river and cooled his leg in the water until the swelling had gone. There was no more bread, and only enough meat to last him to China, but he reckoned the folks there wouldn’t let him starve, for all they were blue. He filled his mug with water.

  He followed his footprints in the sand, past where he had sat in the sea, a half day more, but the meat made him drink, and he got back to the river because the grass had become dewed in the night.

  Well, this won’t buy the child a new frock.

  He filled his mug, and set off in the dark, not drinking, but licking the grass until day, and all that day he did not
eat, but the mug was emptied and he had reached no water. On the way back, another night came, and he tried not to eat, but had to, and he coughed and spewed, but he found the river before dawn, and was safe.

  Well, this won’t buy the child a new frock.

  He watched two whole moons go round before he felt strong enough to leave the river, and even so he had to turn back to it again, while he could.

  Well, this won’t buy the child a new frock.

  He came to new water. It was a stream that he must have nearly reached before, but he had always stopped too soon. He dipped his head and gulped. The water was salt, scalding his face and shrivelling his throat. He did not remember how he got back to the river.

  He practised. He made himself do with less and less water, until he could go for three days without putting the mug in the river. But he knew that did not mean there would be another river, however many days he walked.

  Well, this won’t buy the child a new frock.

  There was no more meat. He could fill his mug, and he could stand.

  All night and all day he walked. His feet had lost feeling, and his hands tingled, and there was no sweat for him to breathe; but the mug was full. He licked dew the next night also, and spilled never a drop of the water. He passed the salt stream, which told him he could not go back, but N was steady and William in fine twig. The sun rose behind him into a new day.

  “Bear a bob!” he cried. And Niggy Bower and John Stayley, and Joshua and Charlie, Sam, Isaac and Elijah began to sing with William.

  “‘Who would true valour see

  Let him come hither!

  One here will constant be,

  Come wind, come weather!’”

  William turned, and walked backwards, but holding the compass straight, and the mug steady. They were all marching after, led by Tiddy Turnock and Squarker Kennerley, in uniform and holding their staffs and singing.

  “‘There’s no discouragement

  Shall make him once relent

  His first avowed intent

  To be a pilgrim!’”

  The church band was at the rear: Bongy Blackshaw played the serpent; Mazzer Massey the violin; Juggy Potts the clarinet. And, out on a rock in the sea, Cobby Lawton sat with his bass viol.

  “‘Whoso beset him round

  With dismal stories,

  Do but themselves confound;

  His strength the more is!’”

  William faced the front, beating time with the compass hand.

  “‘No lion can him fright;

  He’ll with a giant fight,

  But he will have the right

  To be a pilgrim!’

  “Eh!” said William. “Where’s wenches? Where’s Het?”

  Tiddy and Squarker smiled.

  This here’s lads’ stuff, youth.

  ‘Hobgoblin nor foul fiend

  Can daunt his spirit!

  He knows he at the end

  Shall life inherit!

  Then, fancies, flee away;

  He’ll not fear what men say;

  He’ll labour night and day

  To be a pilgrim!’

  By, but it’s dusty work, this ranting! Give us a sup!

  And they crowded round him, Cobby wading from his rock, and took the mug, and all drank their fill.

  “Nay! You munner!” shouted William.

  Cobby winked at him, and sang:

  ‘Owd Cob and Young Cob

  And Young Cob’s son;

  Young Cob’s Owd Cob

  When Owd Cob’s done!’

  He drank.

  “You munner!”

  Cobby gave the mug back to William, and the band turned and marched away, following Tiddy and Squarker, playing and singing.

  ‘Owd Cob and Young Cob

  And Young Cob’s son!

  Young Cob’s Owd Cob

  When Owd Cob’s done!’

  “You munner.”

  The beach was empty. The mug was dry.

  But there was a bead. One bead of water on the tin.

  William tipped the mug, and the bead slid to the bottom. He carried it as gently as if the mug were full. The compass and the bead. They were everything through that day. In the bead he sometimes found a rainbow, small, but a rainbow the same as at the mere, as in the swaddledidaff that wore his pocket thin.

  It caught the first of the evening. And William did not see the rock, and stumbled, one shoe splitting as he fell, and he lay, watching the bead trickle out onto the rock. It rolled to the stem of a blue flower that grew in a crack, a flower that he had known somewhere, and soaked down to the root.

  William heard a humming, and smelt the sweet sharp air of the church and the wind off the land. A bee, small as a fly, hovered on the petal, and lifted nectar from the flower’s heart.

  “Fair do’s,” said William. “Ay. Fair do’s, and all.”

  18

  THE BEE’S WINGS brought him out of blackness. He did not want them to. They came, and went, came, and went, but they would not go. Soon, they were louder, and he could not stay asleep. He opened his eyes.

  It was daylight, but dark. He was lying in the sand. It was not the bee; it was thunder banging on the mountains: two peaks standing alone, and lightning about them.

  Splashes of rain hit his face, and the splashes turned to a pouring, and he opened his mouth and drank the water that the bee thunder gave back to him from the root of the blue flower and the nectar of its heart.

  Oh, can you wash a soldier’s shirt?

  And can you wash it clean?

  Oh, can you wash a soldier’s shirt,

  And hang it on the green?

  He danced, but his broken shoe made him stamp. Under the rain he stamped. He stamped his keggly shoe from him.

  Oh, can you wash a soldier’s shirt?

  And can you wash it clean?

  Oh, can you wash a soldier’s shirt,

  And hang it on the green?

  He took the shoe soles and clapped to the tread of a foot that now knew land.

  “And I can wash a soldier’s shirt! And I can wash it clean! And I can wash a soldier’s shirt, and hang it on the green!”

  The sun set behind him. Another moon rose in front. The rain had filled his mug, but he had long finished it. And the rivers and streams were all salt now: rivers and streams of flowing salt into the sea; and there was marsh. Even the dew tasted of it.

  Never mind, Het.

  He could follow the compass in the light. Towards dawn, he saw a rock ahead, going down to the tide. He would find snails there. The sky was bright behind the rock when he got to it, and he put the compass under the mug, and walked into the sea, feeling for the shells. The flesh was tough, but in each was a squirt of clean water, and he swallowed without chewing, once he had burst the gut. He ate as much as he could. Each bite was a step to China; his belly was his baggin cloth. As long as there was baggin, he was right for another day, and he made the juice of the snails taste of cold tea.

  He went back for the mug and the compass. N pointed over the rock, and he climbed up to follow it.

  “Barley mey!”

  Below the rock, the shore ran to a point. The sea was on both sides. Across the water, the shore began again, and there the ship was at anchor. Along the beach smoke rose from the camp, which was now ordered rows of tents and huts; and gardens. And Knoppy’s marquee. There was a pole. From it hung the Union Jack. He saw marines at drill in squares. There were sailors. Jeremiah waved to him.

  He looked at the compass. N pointed at them. But the paper was torn, the folds cracked. It was coming to pieces in his hands.

  “Tha’s bugger’t; and tha’s bugger’t me,” said William.

  He looked again over the water.

  He could smell the comfort of a fire in the night, and new baked bread, and he could smell fresh water, and there were bright colours, and friends that would talk outside his head. And there were buildings painted white, with no windows and one door and heavy bolts; and men working i
n lines, and straight lines, and straight fences, and straight paths and straight roads: prison bars reaching out to gridiron the shore and hill, not seeing how the land danced.

  Falseness and guile, said Tiddy, have reigned too long.

  And truth, said Squarker, hath been set under a lock.

  “No back bargains!” shouted William, turned and jumped.

  At the even, said Tiddy, men heareth the day.

  To get from the sea, William fled by left and right, among tussocks and dunes, through mud pools, he kicked his one shoe away. He followed a stream against its flow. Even here, when sun and moon were mad, and N came round, streams, even salt, would not start at the sea.

  He was among low hills and trees when he fell. He could not stand. The last thing he saw was the arrow, pointing away from where he had come.

  “Tha’s still bugger’t.”

  He must have been lying too long. The sun was burning him sick through the shade of the few trees. The ground was brittle leaves and twigs and bark, a bed of tinder. The mug and the compass were in front of him. He looked at the compass, then at the tinder. It hurt his head to move, and his tongue was swollen so that he had to breathe through his nose. His fingers twitched in the litter, picking bits over. He found a piece of bark as soft as linen. He spread it under his palm, next to the compass.

  He felt for a strong twig, and took it between his fingers. He tested along his arm for a boil that was ripe, and probed and pressed it with the twig until the boil broke. He squeezed out the pus down to the blood, and, when the liquor was red, he began to copy the pattern of the compass onto the bark, using the twig as a brush: first, the circle and the cross; next the arrow, taking care that it was pointing as the arrow on the paper; and, at the top, a new N.