The Wreck of the Zanzibar

by Michael Morpurgo

  DECEMBER 9TH

  The Wreck of the Zanzibar

  I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN. GRANNY MAY is still asleep. She wakes from time to time, and looks up at me fondly. I’ve told her again and again what’s happened today. She just smiles and pats my hand. I hope she understands, but I’m not sure she does. I’m not sure I do.

  Mother sent me out early as usual to fetch back some limpets or whatever I could find. It was too rough again to fish from the rocks. The storm was worse than ever. There must have been a dozen of us out doing the same thing on Great Porth, when someone saw the sail. The rain was coming in hail squalls, driving into my face so hard that I could scarcely open my eyes. One sail became four, white against the black storm clouds. The ship was beating her way past Seal Rock towards the Tearing Ledges, making no headway in the teeth of a gale. We all knew what was going to happen. We’d seen it before. A ship about to founder staggers before she falls. A huge wave broke over her stern and she did not come upright again. She lay on her side and wallowed in the waves.

  The cry went up from all around. ‘Wreck! Wreck!’

  I raced home and met Father and the chief coming up the track at a run.

  ‘Is it true?’ cried Father. ‘Have we got a wreck?’

  When we reached the boathouse they were already hauling the gig down into the surf. Time and again, the crew leapt in and we pushed them out, up to our waists in the icy sea, and time and again they were driven back by the waves. In the end she was caught broadside on, capsized and everyone was upturned into the sea. After that everyone wanted to give up, everyone except the chief.

  ‘Rushy Bay!’ he cried. ‘Nothing else for it. We’ll be out of the wind. We’ll launch her there!’

  But no one would hear of it until the schoolteacher came running along the beach towards us, breathless.

  ‘There’s men in the sea,’ she said. ‘I saw them from Samson Hill. The ship’s gone on the rocks.’

  ‘You heard her!’ cried the chief. ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’

  They lashed the oars across, and at a word from the chief, lifted the gig up on to their shoulders. Mother was beside me now, taking my hand in hers, silent with anxiety. I stood and watched, yearning, aching to be carrying the gig, with the chief, with Father, with old man Jenkins and the others.

  They staggered up the beach and set off across the Green towards Rushy Bay, all of us running alongside. When we reached the track up Samson Hill everyone made off up the hill to watch from the top, everyone but me. I stayed with the crew. Mother tried to hold on to me, but I broke free. Father bellowed at me, but I paid him no heed and I knew he was too busy to make me.

  Over the dunes they went, cursing and groaning under the weight of the gig, and I went with them. And that was where Father went down with a cry, clutching at his ankle and rolling over in agony. When he tried to stand, he could not. I went to help him. He looked up, and shook his head.

  ‘You take it!’ the chief was shouting, and he was shouting at me. ‘You, Laura, you!’ He took me by the shoulders and shook me.

  ‘Come on!’

  So I took up Father’s oar and my share of the weight on my shoulder, and leaving Father behind on the dunes, we ran the gig down the beach and into the sea. We unlashed our oars, leapt in, and at once we were pulling hard for Samson. The waves hurled us up and down so violently that I thought the gig would break her back.

  I just rowed and as I rowed I suddenly realised where I was, and what I was doing. I was out in the gig! I was rowing out to a wreck! I was doing what I had always most wanted to do all my life. At last, at last, at last!

  No one spoke except the chief. He stood in the prow bellowing at us.

  ‘Row, you beggars, row. Row like hell. There’s folk in the water out there. Row your hearts out. Row, blast your eyes, row!’

  And I rowed like I had never rowed before, fixing my eyes on the blade, pulling long and hard through the water, reaching far forward, bracing my feet and digging the oar again into the sea. The sea surged and churned around the gig. I became my oar, my oar became me. I was too busy to feel any fear, too cold to feel any pain.

  The gig grounded suddenly. I had not expected it so soon. We were on Samson already. We hung over our oars like wet rags, drained of all strength. But the chief hadn’t finished with us yet.

  ‘Out!’ he cried, and he leapt over the side. ‘We’ll carry her across Samson and launch her again on the other side. It’s the only way we’ll reach them. Come on, you beggars. Be time to rest when it’s done.’

  So we tumbled over the side, lashed the oars again and lifted.

  The neck of Samson is just a hundred yards or so across, but in the teeth of that gale, it felt like a mile. More than once I stumbled and fell to my knees, but always there were strong hands grasping me and hauling me to my feet.

  ‘I can see them!’ cried the chief. ‘Over on White Island. I can see them.’

  The chief was everywhere, lifting with us, bellowing behind us, clearing the way ahead of us. We reached the beach on the far side of Samson at last and ran the gig down over the pebbles until the sea took the weight of her from us. We unlashed the oars, pushed her out and piled in.

  ‘Pull!’ he cried. ‘Pull for your children, pull for your wives.’

  I have no children, I have no wife, but I pulled all the same. I pulled instead for Granny May, for Mother, for Father and for Billy, especially for Billy.

  It was no great distance across the narrow channel but the seas were seething. A witches’ brew of wind and tide and current took us and tossed us about at will. Under us the gig groaned and cried, but she held together. A thunderous wave reared up above us, a great green wall of water and I thought we must go over.

  ‘Steady! Steady!’ came the chief’s voice, and even the wave seemed to obey him. I felt the boat rise with the wave, surge forward and then we were surfing in towards the beach where we were dumped high and safe on the shingle of White Island.

  I climbed out and looked about me. I saw men staggering towards us, and one of them was running ahead of the others.

  ‘Laura!’ he cried. I knew the voice, and then I knew him.

  ‘Billy?’ I said, taking his face in my hands to be sure, to be quite sure. ‘Is it you, Billy? Is it you?’

  ‘Thank God,’ he whispered.

  I have to pinch myself still to believe it as I write it. Billy is back! Billy is safe! Billy is home! We hugged out there on White Island. We cried. We laughed.

  On the way back to Bryher, with the wind and the waves behind us, with new strength in our arms, the gig flew over the sea. We had rescued every man on board and Billy had come home. I could have rowed that gig single-handed.

  They had hot baths ready all over the island. Billy sat there, laughing in the tub in the kitchen with all of us around, and shivered the cold out of him.

  He was bigger, stronger, different somehow, but still Billy. We had hot soup – limpets again – but we didn’t care, not now. I’ve never seen anyone as hungry.

  I’ve never seen Mother glowing so, nor Father so motherly. Everyone’s proud of me. I’m proud of me. Billy’s too tired to talk much, he says his ship was called the Zanzibar. She was bound for New York from France. He was suddenly tired and Mother took him up to bed. He’ll tell us more tomorrow.

  I’ve just told Granny May again that Billy’s back home, but all she says is: ‘The turtle, the turtle.’

  She’s asleep again now. I am so tired and I am so happy.

  DECEMBER 10TH

  WHEN I WOKE UP THIS MORNING I THOUGHT yesterday must be a dream. I had to go into Billy’s room to be quite sure it wasn’t. He was still asleep. He sleeps like a baby, like he always did, with his finger alongside his nose.

  The wind has dropped. From his window I watched the sea dancing in the morning light. Father was on his way out when I got downstairs, leaning on a stick and limping, but beaming at me.

  ‘The Zanzibar,’ he said, ‘she’s still on the
rocks – what’s left of her. But she won’t be there for long. We’re going out to see what we can take off.’

  Mother tried to stop him but he wouldn’t listen. I tried to go with him but Mother wouldn’t have it. She stood between me and the door, took hold of me and sat me down firmly.

  Later on, I went up Samson Hill with Mother, leaving Billy and Granny May still asleep. Every boat from Bryher was out around White Island. The wreck was high on the rocks, only her prow hidden under the water, her sails were in tatters. There were men crawling all over her like ants. As we watched we saw the gig pulling slowly away from White Island. She was low in the water. There was laughter across the sea.

  As the gig came into Rushy Bay below us, I saw something lashed to either side of her. Mother could not make out what it was and neither could I. The crew shipped their oars some way from shore and let the gig come in slowly on her own. Then I saw the chief and old man Jenkins leaning out over the side. They had knives in their hands and they were cutting at the ropes.

  ‘Cows!’ someone said. And at that moment, amid great splashing and whooping from the gig, six cows came out of the sea and came gambolling up the beach.

  ‘Well, I’ll be beggared,’ said Mother.

  The crew leapt out after them, and then began a great cow chase all over Rushy Bay, Father waving his stick at everyone and shouting. In the end it was difficult to say who was chasing who. We all ran down Samson Hill to help, and drove them up over the dunes on to the Green where they settled at last to graze. Father, all breathless, leaned on his stick and shook his head.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Would you believe it?’

  But there was a lot more than cows on the wreck of the Zanzibar. All afternoon the boats came back and forth loaded to the gunnels with timber, with corn, and with brandy! Billy was up by now, and along with all the other rescued sailors from the Zanzibar, he lent a hand.

  By this evening, the beach on Rushy Bay was littered with piles of loot – every family had their own pile and we ferried it all back home in donkey carts.

  We had prayed for a wreck and a wreck had come. And what a wreck! That a miracle had happened, no one doubts. There is wood enough to rebuild our battered houses, and to rebuild or replace our ruined boats. There are cows to give us milk, all the corn we need to feed us and them through the winter, and there’ll be enough over for seed next spring. And brandy enough, Father says, to keep us all happy forever.

  Granny May insisted we get her up. She keeps touching Billy to be sure he’s real. She took some soup – the first time she’d eaten for days – and then made us take her to Rushy Bay to see the wreck. She couldn’t walk, so Billy and his friends from the Zanzibar pulled her across the island in the back of a cart, as the donkeys were still busy. She was beside me this evening, at high tide, when we heard the Zanzibar groan. Everyone was there to watch her go. We watched her sink slowly into the sea, her shredded sails whipping in the wind, waving at us. I waved back in silence. The crew took off their hats, some crossed themselves and one of them fell on his knees in the sand and thanked God. And then we all knelt with him, except Granny May, I noticed.

  We’re staying. Everyone’s staying. Billy’s staying. He’s said so, he promised. He’s crossed his heart and hoped to die. He’s been all over the world – America, Ireland, France, Spain, Africa even. Imagine that, Africa. I asked about Joseph Hannibal. It seems he didn’t quite turn out as Billy had expected. He drank a lot. He borrowed Billy’s money and never gave it back. And when Billy asked for it, he threatened him. So Billy left the General Lee in New York and became a cabin-boy on the Zanzibar. It was the Zanzibar that had taken him all over the world.

  Billy says there are beautiful places in the world, wonders you wouldn’t believe unless you saw them with your own eyes, but that there’s nowhere else in the world quite like Scilly, nowhere like home. I told him I knew that already, and Father said there’s some things you’ve got to find out for yourself, and Billy and he smiled at each other.

  DECEMBER 24TH

  I’M MILKING THE ZANZIBAR COWS, AND WITH Billy, too. Three of the six are in milk and we think the others may be in calf – let’s hope! Everyone had most of what they want off the wreck. There’s been some grumbles, of course, but it’s been fair shares. We’ve got the cows because we’re the only ones who know how to handle them – we got some corn, too – everyone did. We’ve rebuilt the cowshed just as it was. Granny May has enough wood for her roof. There’s timber stacked up in gardens all over the island. There’s boats being mended, roofs going on. Everyone, everywhere, is hammering and sawing. Bryher is alive again.

  Granny May will probably be with us until the spring, till her house is ready. She’s the same now as she ever was, scuttling about the place and muttering to herself. Sometimes I think she is the ‘mad old stick’ everyone says she is. She keeps telling me it wasn’t God that brought the wreck that brought Billy back to us, it was the turtle. She rambles on and on about how there’s no such thing as a miracle. If something happens, then something has made it happen. Law of nature, she says. We saved the turtle and so the turtle saved us. It’s that simple. You get what you deserve in this world, she says. I don’t know that she’s right.

  I’ve told Billy all about the turtle. He says if he’d found it, he’d have eaten it, but he wouldn’t have. He’s just saying that. We talk and we talk. We’ve hardly stopped talking since he came back. I’ve heard his stories over and over, but I want to hear them again and again. I know them so well, it’s as if I was with him all the time he was away, as if I’ve been to America and Africa, as if I’ve seen for myself the great cities, the deserts that go on forever and icebergs and mountains that reach up and touch the sky.

  The crew of the Zanzibar left from the quay this evening. We were there to wave them off. Everyone hugged everyone. They were all so happy to be alive and so grateful to us for saving them.

  Since he’s been back, Billy hasn’t had a cross word with Father, and Mother is my mother again.

  DECEMBER 25TH

  Christmas Day

  IT SEEMS GRANNY MAY MIGHT HAVE BEEN right after all. I was with Billy cleaning out the cowshed after church when he called me outside. Everyone seemed to be running down towards Green Bay and there was a crowd gathered down on the beach. So we left everything and ran. We met Mother and Granny May coming out of the house.

  ‘There’s been a dead turtle washed up,’ said Mother. Granny May looked at me, her eyes full of tears. We had to push through the crowd. People were laughing, and I hated them for that. He was covered in sand and seaweed and they were trying to roll him over, but he was too heavy, even for them. Then I looked again. It was a turtle all right, but it was not our turtle. It wasn’t any turtle at all. It was painted bright green with yellow eyes and it looked as if it had been carved out of wood. It was the figurehead off a ship.

  Billy crouched down beside it, and brushed the sand off its face.

  ‘That’s off the Zanzibar,’ he said.

  Granny May was laughing through her tears. She took my hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Now do you believe me?’ she said, and she didn’t need an answer.

  ‘If it’s off Billy’s ship,’ she went on, ‘then it belongs to Billy, doesn’t it?’ No one argued with her.

  ‘We’ll call him Zanzibar and he can live in the garden. Let’s get him home.’ So we heaved him up on to a cart and trundled him home. All afternoon we scrubbed. A lot of his paint had come off in the sea. He’s a little bigger than our turtle was but his face is just the same, wizened, wrinkled and wise like a two hundred year old man. And he smiles just the same too – gently.

  I’m looking out of my window as I write this. He looks as if he’s trying to eat the grass. He won’t, of course. He’ll only eat jellyfish. Zanzibar is a good name for him, the right name, I think.

  (On the last page, she had written in ink, in the wobbly handwriting of an old lady:)

  P.S. One Last Thing

&nb
sp; I’m not leaving Zanzibar to anyone. I’m leaving him to everyone. So I want him put out on the Green so all the children of Bryher can sit on him whenever they like. They can ride him wherever they like. He can be a horse, a dragon, a dolphin, an elephant or even a leatherback turtle.

  As you know, your Great-uncle Billy lived a good long life. When he died, I didn’t know how I’d manage without him. But I did, because I had to. Anyway, we’re together again now.

  L.P. 1995

  MARZIPAN

  I SAT THERE ON THE BED FOR SOME MOMENTS, looking at the last of Great-aunt Laura’s drawings – of Zanzibar on the Green gazing out to sea. Sitting astride him is a small girl. The wind is in her hair and she’s laughing out of sheer joy.

  From outside the window I heard peals of laughter. I leaned out. There must have been half a dozen little nieces and nephews down in the garden and clambering all over Zanzibar. The smallest of them, Catherine it was – my youngest niece, was offering Zanzibar some grass and stroking his head between his eyes.

  ‘Come on, Marzipan,’ she was saying, ‘you’ll like it.’

  ‘He won’t eat it,’ I called down. ‘He only eats jellyfish.’ She looked up at me, squinting into the sun.

  ‘How do you know?’ she asked.

  ‘If you let me sit on him,’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you where Zanzibar came from, how he got here, everything.’

  ‘All right,’ she said.

  So, sitting on Zanzibar in the evening sun, I read them Great-aunt Laura’s diary from beginning to end. By the time I’d finished, the entire family was gathered around Zanzibar and listening.

  I closed the book. ‘That’s it,’ I said. No one spoke for some time.

  It was Catherine’s idea that we should move Zanzibar right away. So we fetched Great-aunt Laura’s rickety cart out of her shed, loaded up Zanzibar and hauled him along the rutty track to the Green. I knew from that last drawing in the diary exactly where she wanted him put. And that’s where we left him, gazing out to sea.