The Fisher Lass

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Dad, it’s all right,’ Angus was panting, gasping through the water and the spray. ‘Feel that?’

  As he spoke, Robert felt a tremor run through the whole of the ship.

  ‘We’re going to be all right, Dad. We’re all right.’

  Much later, Robert asked Angus what he had meant.

  ‘That shudder, you mean? If you feel that, then the ship’s buoyant. I just knew we were going to be all right. That’s all.’

  Robert stared at his son, marvelling yet again at the boy’s instinctive knowledge and understanding. But the dangers were not over yet for the bad weather did not let up. Through the driving rain and sleet, now ice began to collect on every part of the surface of the vessel, but not so much that the crew were called upon to chop it away.

  Robert was as busy as when they’d been trawling, carrying tea and food along the heaving deck and up to the wheelhouse.

  ‘This is a bad ’un. I’m sorry you and the lad are having to go through this,’ Joe said.

  His eyes were dark-ringed with tiredness and the anxiety never left his face. He had the ship and the whole crew, to say nothing of a hold full of fish, for which he was responsible. Grimly, Robert said, ‘No apology necessary. I’m glad I came. No, I mean it,’ he added firmly as he saw Joe’s look of scepticism. ‘And you might not believe me, Joe. But it’s been an eye-opener for me. I thought I knew about ships and going to sea when I served in the war, but this.’ He shook his head. ‘My God, this is hell on earth out here. Oh, it’s all fine when the weather’s good and the fish are there. But face this weather?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Joe, I never realized.’

  They stared at each other for a moment whilst beneath their feet the ship heaved and rolled.

  ‘So,’ Joe said slowly, ‘you’ll not be letting young Angus come to sea again, then?’

  Robert allowed himself a quick, wry smile. ‘I shan’t be able to stop him. Nor shall I try.’

  ‘You won’t?’ Joe was obviously surprised.

  ‘No. If he wants to make the sea his life, I shan’t try to stop him. Though,’ again he smiled, with a tinge of sadness, ‘I don’t doubt his mother and I will worry every moment he’s away. Just,’ he added softly, ‘as she has always done about you and Sammy.’

  The man was silent and he looked away, out of the screen overlooking the deck, unwilling to meet Robert’s eyes.

  Robert cleared his throat. ‘You may not believe me, Joe, but I promise you something. When we get home, I’m going to do everything I can to improve the lot of the fishermen, at least in our fleet. And you know something else too, Joe?’ Though he waited a moment, there was no response from Joe, but Robert knew by the rigid set of his shoulders that the skipper was listening to every word. ‘Sammy – and you as well – could do so much to help us. If only you would.’

  He turned then and left the wheelhouse, clambering down the ladder and along the deck with the waves like walls on either side.

  As he was about to go below, he turned and glanced back towards the bridge. Even through the driving rain, he could see that Joe was watching him. Then he glanced sideways to where Angus stood on the deck alongside Sammy. He saw Angus look round and grin at him, but then, as Robert watched, the boy’s gaze went beyond him and a look of horror spread across his young features.

  As the wave swept on to the boat, lifting Robert high in the air and carrying him over the side, the last thing he remembered was the stricken look on his son’s face.

  Fifty-Two

  ‘Edwin, you must have heard something? They were due home today. Surely Joe’s radioed in by now?’

  She could see that Edwin was worried too and she was convinced he was holding something back.

  ‘Even if you’ve had bad news, I’d sooner know.’ All the old fears were crowding in on her. The terrible waiting, the awful not knowing . . . ‘Please, Edwin.’

  ‘Dearest Jeannie.’ He took her hands in his. ‘Try not to worry. Look, let me take you out to lunch and when we come back—’

  ‘No, no, I couldn’t eat a thing.’ She pulled free of him and began to pace up and down his office coming back each time to stand before the window overlooking the docks. ‘You must have heard something.’ Jeannie was too knowledgeable to be put off so lightly. ‘Are any of the other ships that went out at the same time, back?’

  Edwin cleared his throat. ‘Er, well, yes.’

  ‘How many?’

  He hesitated a moment and she could see the tortured expression in his eyes. Reluctantly, Edwin admitted, ‘Most of them.’

  Jeannie put her hands to her cheeks and stared at him. She took a deep breath and, her gaze never leaving his face, she asked, ‘Edwin, what is it you’re no’ telling me?’

  He sighed and said heavily, ‘There was a storm—’

  ‘What! You dinna mean their ship’s missing?’

  ‘No – no,’ he said swiftly.

  ‘What happened then? Are they all safe?’

  But all her brother-in-law would say was, ‘Joe’s a fine skipper, Jeannie. I promise you. Just put your trust in Joe.’

  She turned back to look out of the window once more, across the docks towards the river. Like a figure turned to stone, she stood there the whole day, just watching and waiting . . .

  Jeannie refused to leave the office until, at almost midnight, Edwin insisted on driving her home. She lay awake for most of the night, tossing and turning, debating whether she should get in touch with Thelma. At about four o’clock in the morning she fell into an exhausted sleep. Then, as dawn broke over the North Sea, the telephone shrilling in the hall below dragged her back to consciousness.

  ‘Jeannie, that you?’ Edwin’s voice came down the line.

  ‘Yes. What is it? Tell me quickly.’

  ‘It’s all right. Their ship’s coming in. She’ll be docking on the morning tide in about an hour . . .’

  Before he could say any more, Jeannie said, ‘I’ll be there.’ And she dropped the receiver into its cradle and was running back up the stairs before Edwin, at the other end, could draw breath to ask her if she wanted him to come and pick her up.

  ‘Oh well,’ he said aloud to his empty office. ‘I’ll go anyway.’

  ‘Oh Edwin, they’re a’ right? All of them? You’ve spoken to them?’ She drew him into the kitchen and poured him a cup of coffee.

  ‘This is most welcome, Jeannie. I went back to the office after I dropped you here.’

  ‘You promised me you were going home,’ she scolded, but she was laughing, light-headed with relief.

  He smiled up at her, but she could see that the anxiety was still not entirely gone from his eyes. ‘It was the only way I could get you to come home and try to get a little rest. I knew, if I didn’t say that, you’d have stayed up all night at the office too.’

  ‘Aye, I would.’

  She watched as he drank his coffee, standing impatiently before him, almost willing him to finish it quickly so that they could leave for the docks.

  ‘What time will she be in?’

  ‘As soon as the dock gates open, I don’t doubt. Joe likes to land his fish first to get the best prices.’

  ‘And they are a’ right?’ she asked again, but Edwin avoided her eyes now. Standing up, he said, ‘Come on, time we were going.’

  She stood once more at the window of Edwin’s office, feeling now as if she had not moved away from it at all in the last twenty-four hours. She squinted towards the place where the dock gates still remained closed, any ships waiting to dock were still drifting on the Humber’s tide.

  ‘When will he open the gates?’ Jeannie asked for the third time.

  ‘Another five minutes or so, I reckon.’

  It was the longest five minutes of Jeannie’s life until she saw the gates open and the first ship came nosing her way through.

  ‘Is that the Arctic Queen II? I canna see . . .’ She almost pressed her nose to the pane in her anxiety.

  ‘Come on,’ Edwin said. ‘We’ll go down.
I’ll find out where she’s berthing.’

  Jeannie was waiting on the quayside with Edwin when the first of the deck-hands came down the ladder.

  On the bridge she saw Joe and, shading her eyes to look up at him, she knew that he had seen her. He seemed to look down on her for a long moment and then he turned away and disappeared from her view. Several other men came down the ladder and walked away without glancing in their direction. And already the lumpers were gathering near the ship.

  Then she saw them. First Sammy came down the ladder followed by Angus. Jeannie sent up a whispered prayer of thankfulness.

  Next came Joe. As he stepped ashore, they seemed to hesitate for a moment, standing together, the three of them, as Jeannie’s glance went back to the top of the ladder, expecting to see Robert swinging his leg over the side and coming down to join them.

  But there was no one else.

  They were walking towards her, just the three of them.

  Jeannie pulled in a breath and held it. Her hand fluttered nervously to her throat. Oh no, not Robert.

  Her glance was darting between them as they came towards her. And then she was aware that Joe’s arm was about Angus’s shoulders. She looked into their faces, trying to read what she most feared to learn. Her legs felt weak beneath her and, blindly, she stretched out her trembling hands towards them. Towards her three boys.

  But Angus was smiling, calling out to her now. ‘Mother, Mother, it’s all right. Dad’s all right. At least . . .’ They reached her now and surrounded her, hugging her. All three of them.

  ‘He’s safe, Mam,’ Sammy said quickly. ‘But he’s had an accident . . .’

  ‘We had some foul weather, Mother, and a huge wave washed Dad overboard.’ Angus was determined to be the one to tell her. His grin widened. ‘But, you’d never believe it, the very next wave washed him back on board again.’

  ‘He was badly bruised,’ Joe explained, his deep voice calmer than the other two. ‘And his leg’s broken. He tried to come right home, but we could see he was in a lot of pain. When we got off the coast of Scotland, we radioed ashore to one of the company’s agents and he arranged for the local lifeboat to come and take him ashore. He’s in hospital in Kirkcaldy.’

  Jeannie gasped. ‘My home? Near my home?’

  ‘Aye.’ Joe grinned and imitated her Scottish tongue. ‘You’re awae hame, Mam. We’re putting you a train . . .’ He put his arms about her, holding her close to his chest and resting his cheek against her hair. Huskily, he said, ‘You’re going home, Mam, just like you always wanted.’

  Her eyes brimming with tears, Jeannie looked up into the face of her first-born, unable to speak for the lump in her throat. She wanted to say something, but the words would not come.

  ‘There’s just one thing.’ He was smiling now, his eyes teasing. ‘We’re sending my brother, Angus, with you.’ There was only the merest emphasis on the word ‘brother’ but hearing it, the lump in her throat swelled. Again Joe put an arm about the younger boy’s shoulders and, as Angus grinned up at him, Jeannie could see the hero worship in his eyes.

  ‘Just to make sure,’ Joe was still speaking, his voice sounding a little husky now, ‘that you come back to us.’

  Now the tears overflowed and ran down her face as she held out her arms, trying to envelop them all.

  She’d come back. Oh yes, she’d come back. That was what she wanted to say to Joe, to say to them all. Home was not in Scotland now. Home was here in Havelock.

  With Robert and her three beloved boys.

  Margaret Dickinson

  Jenny’s War

  ISBN: 978-0-330-54430-6

  Is it possible for a ten-year-old girl to fall in love? Jenny Mercer thinks so. Evacuated to Lincolnshire from the East End of London at the outbreak of war, she is frightened of the wide open spaces and the huge skies. But the kindly Thornton family soon makes her feel welcome. And no one more so than Georgie, the handsome RAF fighter pilot who is caught up in the battle for Britain’s survival. When Georgie is posted missing, presumed dead, Jenny is devastated.

  More heartbreak is to come when Jenny’s mother Dot decides that she wants her daughter home and Jenny is forced to come back to live in the city which is now under almost daily attack from enemy bombers. Dot’s ‘fancy man’, Arthur Osborne, treats Jenny kindly. But is Arthur only interested in the girl because she can be useful to him? No one will suspect a ten-year-old girl of being involved with the Black Market . . .

  When the law comes a little too close for Arthur’s comfort, the family flees the city and heads towards the hills and dales of Derbyshire. There, Jenny is caught up in a life of deception. All she really wants is to go back to Lincolnshire, for Jenny has never given up hope that one day, Georgie will come back . . .

  The Fisher Lass

  Born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, Margaret Dickinson moved to the coast at the age of seven and so began her love for the sea and the Lincolnshire landscape.

  Her ambition to be a writer began early and she had her first novel published at the age of twenty-five. This was followed by twenty-eight further titles including Plough the Furrow, Sow the Seed and Reap the Harvest, which make up her Lincolnshire Fleethaven trilogy. Many of her novels are set in the heart of her home county but in Tangled Threads and Twisted Strands, the stories included not only Lincolnshire but also the framework knitting and lace industries of Nottingham. The Workhouse Museum at Southwell in Nottinghamshire inspired Without Sin and the magnificent countryside of Derbyshire and the fascinating town of Macclesfield in Cheshire formed the backdrop for the story of Pauper’s Gold. Wish Me Luck returned to Lincolnshire once more and the county was also the setting for Sing As We Go. Part of the story in Suffragette Girl took place in Davos, Switzerland, but Sons and Daughters was set solely in the flat marshlands near the East Coast. Forgive and Forget centres on the rich history of the beautiful city of Lincoln. Jenny’s War is divided between Margaret Dickinson’s beloved Lincolnshire, wartime London and the rolling hills and dales of Derbyshire. Second World War Sheffield is the setting for The Clippie Girls.

  www.margaret-dickinson.co.uk

  ALSO BY MARGARET DICKINSON

  Plough the Furrow

  Sow the Seed

  Reap the Harvest

  The Miller’s Daughter

  Chaff Upon the Wind

  The Tulip Girl

  The River Fork

  Tangled Threads

  Twisted Strands

  Red Sky in the Morning

  Without Sin

  Pauper’s Gold

  Wish Me Luck

  Sing As We Go

  Suffragette Girl

  Sons and Daughters

  Forgive and Forget

  Jenny’s War

  The Clippie Girls

  Acknowledgements

  Grimsby is the inspiration for this novel although the story is entirely fictitious. I am very grateful to Mr Richard Doughty, Director of Museums, Archives & Archeology, and all his staff and volunteers at the National Fishing Heritage Centre in Grimsby for their interest and help, especially Mike Cullum and Doug Richards for sharing with me their experiences aboard minesweepers during World War II; Ray Smith for his wonderful tours of the Ross Tiger; Bob Roach, Craig Lazenby, Fisheries Historian, and Russell Hollowood, Fisheries Officer, for general background information and patiently answering innumerable questions.

  My special thanks to Mike Coulson, of Skegness, who served as a radio operator aboard trawlers for two and a half years in the early 1960s and so kindly read the whole script for me.

  My love and thanks as always to my family and friends, especially those who read and helped edit the script in the early stages; my sister and brother-in-law, Robena and Fred Hill; my brother and sister-in-law, David and Una Dickinson; my friends, Pauline Griggs and Linda and Terry Allaway. Thank you all so much for your hard work!

  First published 1999 by Macmillan

  This edition published 2013 by Pan Books

  This el
ectronic edition published 2013 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-447-21751-0 EPUB

  Copyright © Margaret Dickinson 1999

  The right of Margaret Dickinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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