Flood (The Fenland Series Book 1)

by Ann Swinfen

  I do not know if he heard me, but he ignored me. He was nearly at the bridge now. I stood up at the near end of the bridge.

  ‘Go back, Tom! The bridge is very slippery. You cannot cross it on crutches.’

  Behind me I heard a loud splintering sound.

  ‘It’s going! Watch out!

  There was a crash. I twisted round and saw the men jump back, away from the sluice. Some of the timber fell into the Lode, sending a fountain of water up, then whirled away toward the river. The rest must have fallen into the ditch.

  ‘It’s partly blocked at the bottom,’ George said, ‘but see, some of the water is already pouring through.’

  We could all see it. The amount of water flowing down to the river would be reduced soon. Although that would make no difference to the flood which had already poured over the fields, drowning our farm and creeping towards the village, it would lessen the force of the overflow from the river.

  ‘Stay there, Tom, we’re coming back.’

  I crossed back over the bridge more quickly than I had crossed it first, still using my pitchfork to steady myself, glad of it, even though it had not been needed to demolish the sluice. The three soldiers followed me.

  ‘That was well done.’ Tom was grinning, standing on the Lode embankment, where several inches of water covered his one foot and the ends of his crutches. ‘I can see the water flowing into the old ditch already.’

  Then disaster struck. Tom leaned over to peer through the snow. His crutches slipped on the muddy bank. He pitched forward into the rushing water of the Lode and was swept away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Everything happened so fast. One moment Tom was there on the embankment, the next he was gone. One crutch floated on the shallow water round our feet, the other spun round and round, following him down the Lode. I saw his head sink, then rise again.

  ‘Can he swim?’

  George was beside me. He had dropped his axe and was stripping off his buff coat.

  ‘He used to be able to swim.’ My hands were pressed against my chest. It was as though something had struck me there, driving out all the air. I gasped. ‘He used to swim. Before he lost his leg.’

  George nodded. ‘Get down along the bank, lads. In the direction the water is flowing.’

  We all stared at him blankly. For a moment we could not understand what he meant, then as one we began to plough our way through the knee-high water. I tripped over George’s axe, then picked it up, not knowing why.

  He checked to see that we were doing what he wanted, then turned away from us and leapt into the Lode.

  ‘God’s bones!’ Aaron cried. ‘They’ll both drown!’

  ‘Can he swim?’ I tried to see either of them in the water, but the snow was too thick. Then George was there, level with us.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Aaron said.

  Col stood gaping in horror.

  ‘I think he can.’ I waved the axe to where George could be seen, his head above water, carried steadily downstream, a little ahead of us now. He was moving more quickly than we could, but of course the water was flowing that way. I could not seem to think clearly.

  ‘Careful with that axe, mistress,’ said Col. ‘You’ll have one of our heads off.’

  We were almost at the point where the Lode met the river when I caught sight of Tom. He had managed to grab the crutch, using it to help him stay afloat. He was making an attempt to swim back against the current, but he was barely holding his own.

  ‘Tom!’ I shouted, ‘we’re here. Keep swimming. George is coming for you.’

  I don’t know whether he was too far away to hear me, but George was drawing nearer and I think at that moment Tom saw him.

  The roar of the water and the blinding snow storm made it almost impossible to see and hear what was happening, But as we came level with the two of them, I could just make out that their heads were close together.

  The three of us stopped, staring down helplessly into the muddy water. George had hold of Tom’s left arm now. His right was still hooked over the crutch. For an agonising minute they both began to be swept away towards the river, but slowly, slowly they held their position against the current.

  ‘Over here,’ Aaron called. ‘We’re here. If you can get to the bank we can pull you out.’

  Time seemed to slow down.

  I thought: They cannot make it. One man crippled, the other weighed down by his heavy clothes. And his boots. Why did he not take off his boots?

  But, of course, there had been no time.

  We watched, unable to help, as they inched toward the bank. They were almost here.

  ‘Reach up with the crutch and we can pull you out with it,’ said Col.

  They were beside the bank now. With his free hand George had grabbed a tuft of grass that showed just below the surface of the Lode. In normal times it was part of the embankment that would be above water. Tom managed to lift the crutch up along the bank and Aaron reached out to catch hold of it. I threw down the axe and seized him round the waist, so that he too would not fall in. On his other side Col stretched out his hand to Tom’s free hand as George tried to push him upwards.

  Then they had hold of Tom and were dragging him up over the embankment. He sprawled, sitting up to his waist in the water.

  ‘Give us your hand, mate,’ Aaron called down to George.

  I looked around for the pitchfork, to give him something to hold on to, then realised I must have dropped it back by the bridge, when I picked up the axe. I half turned. Should I go back for it? But the men weren’t waiting. Col was kneeling, trying to grab George’s free hand. His other hand was still gripping the clump of grass.

  Then suddenly, unbelievably, the clump came away from the bank in a swirl of mud. George made a lunge towards the reaching hand. And missed.

  The waters took him and swept him out into the faster current of the river, and he was gone.

  A kind of panic seized us then. Leaving Tom where he was, we struggled down to the river, but there was nothing to be seen. Although the river had overflowed into the barley field and beyond, the central portion, the river itself, could still be made out as a strip of angry flowing water, carrying branches and broken planks and dead sheep past so quickly we could hardly see them before they were gone.

  The two men looked at me helplessly.

  ‘What shall we do, mistress? You know these waters.’

  I shook my head. I could barely speak.

  ‘I fear he’s gone, unless he can get ashore further down river.’

  I knew it was unlikely, with the river raging as it was.

  ‘We’d best get your brother home,’ Aaron said. ‘In this cold he’ll not last long, soaked through like that.’

  I nodded. I looked back over my shoulder at the river, filled with horror and a kind of shame. If Tom had not come, if we had been quicker, stronger, understood better what to do . . . But it had all happened so fast. Turning our backs on the river, on George, seemed like the worst betrayal.

  We made our way back to Tom, who was barely conscious. I picked up the crutch.

  ‘He’ll not be able to walk, mistress.’

  ‘I know. But can you carry him?’

  ‘We’ll manage. Carried enough injured men after battle, we have.’

  They made a kind of chair by linking their hands and wrists and eased Tom’s arms round their necks, though I thought he hardly knew what was happening to him and would not be able to hold on. I waded behind them, ready to put a steadying hand on his back if he should start to slip. The water was still up to our knees, but did not appear to be getting any deeper.

  As we reached the near end of the bridge, I saw George’s army coat caught on a small gorse bush. It was wet, as all our clothes were wet, but not soaked through like the rest of Tom’s clothes. I draped it round his shoulders. A sorry little procession, we set off through the driving snow, which was growing heavier every minute. The wind was getting up, blowing hard in our faces. It must have s
hifted direction to the north. Snowflakes clung to my eyelashes and my clothes, forming a kind of breastplate on the front of my bodice. I tried to clutch my cloak together to fend off the wind and the snow, but it kept slipping out of my frozen fingers, whipping behind me in the wind.

  I do not know how long it took us to reach the farm. It seemed to take forever. Every so often the soldiers had to rest and change the grip of their hands. I stumbled along, numb with the horror of all that had just happened. George would probably wash up, along with the dead sheep, where the river met the sea. Somewhere I had never been. Even if he had managed to keep swimming, the cold would surely kill him. I hoped it would not kill Tom. My hands and my bare feet were so cold that they had lost all feeling. Snow was filtering down the back of my neck and along my spine. We had to grope our way blindly along the embankment, then, at the end of it, down across the lower ground in what I hoped was the direction of the farm. Once off the embankment, we found the water reaching our thighs. And we still had to reach the church.

  At last the buildings of the farm loomed out of the snow. We were on the right track and once on the lane, even though it was underwater, it would be slightly easier to move along. My home stood marooned amid the water like a lost ship. I just wanted to turn in there, to find refuge, but it was pure folly. The water would be two or three feet deep on the floor. We could not light a fire to get warm. We would have to carry on to the village.

  The men stopped for a few minutes, leaning against the gate. They were both white with exhaustion and I felt guilty that I was not strong enough to relieve one of them. If only Tom had not followed us out to the Lode! But what was the point of wishing that? If wishes were horses, Hannah used to say, then poor men would ride.

  ‘Not far now,’ I said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘There will be food and warmth in the village.’ I hoped I spoke the truth. They both gave me shaky smiles and heaved Tom up again.

  It must have taken us twice the usual time to reach the village, we were so tired. Finally the church took solid form through the snow and the gathering dark, and we could hear the mingled chorus of animals from the glebe land. Light shone from every window of the church.

  ‘Wait here a moment,’ I said. ‘I want to see whether the village is flooded and whether we should go on.’

  I went forward a few yards till I could see down the village street. It lay in a slight dip beyond the church, which – with the rector’s house and the glebe land – stood on the highest ground in the parish. Not a single light showed from any of the village houses. The water reached halfway up to the ground floor windows.

  No help there, then. I went back to the men.

  ‘Everyone has gone from the village,’ I said. ‘They’ll be in the church.’

  We turned off the lane and started up the slope to the church. I held the church gate open and the men manoeuvred themselves and Tom through it. Tom looked more dead than alive and my heart clenched with the fear that we had reached help too late. As we climbed the path to the church, we rose up out of the flood, like some grubby parody of Venus rising from the waves. The last few yards of ground in front of the church were deep in snow, which was settling here above the water line. We could hear a Babel of voices from inside. My hands were so cold and so numb I fumbled helplessly with the heavy iron ring of the door latch. At last I managed to lift it and swing the door open, and stood blinded by light and deafened by noise.

  It seemed every face turned towards us together, as though they were all joined to a single string. There was a moment of silence, then the noise broke out again, louder than ever. A small shape detached itself from what seemed a huge crowd and flew to me.

  Kitty threw her arms around me, sobbing. ‘Oh, Mistress Mercy, we thought you were dead!’

  I hugged her, unable to speak.

  ‘But Master Tom, what has happened to Master Tom?’

  ‘He fell in the Lode.’

  I saw Nehemiah helping the two soldiers to ease Tom on to a bench.

  ‘These two men,’ I said, ‘Aaron and Col, they’ve saved Tom. They need dry clothes and warmth and food. Tom must be stripped. Are there any blankets?’

  I gradually became aware that a fire had been lit in a brazier in the middle of the nave. In the church! There was even the smell of meat cooking. There were so many people here. All the villagers. The settlers. The soldiers.

  My two soldiers had disappeared, drawn in by their fellows. Jack’s mother and Mistress Cox – of all people – were wrapping Tom in blankets. I hadn’t seen them remove his clothes, but my head was swimming. I must have lost a few minutes somewhere. It was too bright and too noisy. Too many people crowding around, all talking at once.

  Kitty was tugging at my arm. ‘Come, you must take off those wet clothes. And your feet are bleeding.’

  I looked down at my feet in puzzlement. They were bare and leaving bloody footprints on the flag stones of the nave. I remembered that I had taken off my shoes, but it seemed my stockings were gone as well. It was improper of me to show my feet like this. Must cover up my feet. I took an unsteady step forward. Two strong hands reached out and took mine.

  ‘Mercy, you are safe.’

  I shook my head. Now I knew I was lost in some weird dream. That was Gideon’s voice. Gideon’s face in front of me. Gideon could not be here, holding my hands. Gideon was far away. In the Low Countries. Or was he dead and I was dreaming of ghosts? I felt the whole church tip sideways as the floor swung up to meet me.

  I was lying on the floor in one of the small side chapels. I remembered Gideon explaining to me once that before the Great Reform, each of the side chapels – and there were four – had been dedicated to a saint. They had each an altar and a statue of the saint, before which a lamp burned perpetually. There had been brightly coloured wall paintings as well. He had seen a portion of one once when some plaster fell away.

  ‘They were plastered over a hundred years ago.’ I could hear his voice telling me. ‘In the time of the boy king Edward, son of Henry. He was a zealous reformer. The statues and side altars went earlier, in Thomas Cromwell’s time.’

  All they had left us was the stained glass window of Mary and Jesus and the hare sitting up and watching the toddling Child.

  No, that was wrong. The window was smashed. I remembered that now.

  There was something else. The font. Very ancient. That was it. A font which might once have been something else. I needed to remember something about the font. Something to do with Alice.

  ‘Alice.’

  ‘I’m here, Mercy.’

  I opened my eyes to see Alice’s worried face bending over me.

  ‘What was it about the font?’ I frowned. ‘I can’t remember.’

  She looked startled. ‘At Huw’s christening, do you mean? Those foul soldiers brought by Edmund Dillingworth. They pissed in the font.’

  ‘That’s right.’ It was a relief to have it explained. ‘Filthy brutes. But our soldiers saved Tom. And George drowned.’

  ‘I know, Mercy.’

  ‘Edmund Dillingworth tried to rape me. He wanted revenge.’

  ‘Don’t think about it. Here, drink some more of this.’

  She lifted me up and propped a cushion under my shoulders, then held a cup to my lips. Hot spiced wine. I drank gratefully.

  ‘Am I drunk, Alice?’

  ‘Just exhausted and confused. And you struck your head on the corner of a bench when you fainted, though Gideon managed to stop you hitting the floor.’

  ‘Gideon? Don’t be silly, Alice. You’re confused. Gideon went to the Low Countries. There was a ship, the Brave Endeavour.’

  Perhaps it was Alice who was drunk, not me. It was strong, that wine.

  ‘The ship was blown back by the storm. And then you and Hannah . . .’ her voice trailed away.

  ‘I’m not a witch,’ I assured her.

  ‘I know you aren’t. You were even proved innocent.’

  ‘That’s right. They tried to swim me and I nearly dr
owned. Like George.’ I began to cry. ‘All he wanted was to go home to his wife and children.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He was a good man. He saved Tom.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Tom!’ I said, trying to sit up further. ‘Is Tom all right?’

  ‘He’s wrapped up warm and he’s been eating. Kitty is fussing around him like a mother hen.’

  ‘She’s a good child. She can’t be blamed for being a foundling, whatever they say.’

  ‘Nobody blames her. You’ve brought her up like your little sister.’

  ‘It was my mother took her in. Mother came here safely? Kitty was with her.’

  ‘She’s safe. All the village is safe. And Toby and Jack managed to break into the pumping mill and stop the machine. There’s still water being pumped down from Crowthorne, but if they can get through in the morning, they’re going to try to break in there as well.’

  ‘Fenland riots,’ I said. ‘We’re a bad lot. Always known for troublemakers.’

  ‘We’ll just keep on fighting.’

  ‘Aye. Just keep fighting.’ I felt my eyes closing and slid down again.

  ‘Get some sleep.’ Alice tucked a blanket around me.

  The next time I woke, the church was quiet, except for soft breathing and a few snores. It was dark, though further down the nave several candles had been left burning. I was aware of many people around me and outside the church a great silence. The wind must have dropped and left behind that particular silence which means that thick snow is falling relentlessly.

  There was a heavy weight on my chest. As I stirred, it shifted and I felt a faint vibration against my skin. My hand met soft fur and as I stroked it, a paw reached out and patted my face.

  ‘Tobit,’ I whispered. ‘I knew you were a wise cat.’

  My hand resting on his back, I fell asleep again.

  I woke next when the first grey daylight fell on my face from the window in the side chapel. Tobit was gone.

  ‘The Mary chapel,’ I said softly. ‘That’s what it is. I remember now. Gideon said this was the Mary chapel.’