Alan Hunter - Gently in the Sun

His voice was clear, and ringing. Even hanging on to a ladder he preserved an air of clerical dignity.

‘Young man, are you aware of the gravity of your behaviour? Are you aware of the awful sin you are about to commit before the eyes of God?’

Simmonds was perched exactly where Gently had first seen him, a little to the left of the belfry window. There could be no doubt that he had shuffled along the ledge and perilously knelt for that abortive interview.

‘Young man, I am praying for you, I am praying for your enlightenment. May God, in His infinite mercy, remove the cloud from your understanding. He it was Who gave you life, not, as you presume, to be wilfully disposed of.’

Was he listening, pressed to the stones, the blood now drying on his restless hands?

Hawks, Gently saw, had edged a yard or two closer, his expression changed to one of indignant anxiety. His dark eyes were boring into the figure of the artist, he seemed to be willing him to make the fatal decision.

‘Dare you face your Creator, young man, in such sin? Will you meet Him this day with such a burden of guilt?’

A little girl began to cry and was snatched up by her mother: a man, looking pale, seated himself upon a tombstone.

‘I beseech you to think again — think of those who hold you dearly.’

If Simmonds would just keep still with those Cainlike hands.

‘Your life is a precious thing, redeemed for you by Christ Jesu: put your trust in the Lord and preserve your immortal soul!’

The vicar had done and was bowing his head in prayer. Several of those round about had their hats in their hands. In all it was like a sacrament, a last rite for the dying; all earthly aid had been rendered, only the event now remained. And Simmonds… his hands were stiffening, they were pressing him out into the void: he was balancing on the edge only a hairbreath from eternity.

‘No!’

The stifled cry coming from him scarcely seemed a human utterance. It was wrenched from between teeth set together like a trap.

‘I don’t want to die. Oh God, I don’t want to! Get me down off here… get me… get me down!’

He was back against the wall, scooping at it in a frenzy. For the first time he seemed to understand his frightful position. He cringed against the flint, his knees sagging, his body trembling: they could hear his breath coming in little suffocated gasps.

‘Someone get me down!’

His face was ghastly with its terror. Nothing remained of the insensate coolness which till now had carried him along.

‘I don’t want to die… help me… come and get me down!’

In a moment or two, it seemed, he must slither off the ledge.

And nobody could do a thing! They would liked to have done, now. The whole current of the affair had undergone a change. Simmonds was no longer braving them, flouting them, indicting them: with his terror and his cries he was back on their side.

‘Simmonds… get back on the roof!’

‘Get back — get back!’

Gently’s shout was repeated by a hundred different voices. ‘Reach up to the parapet — pull yourself over!’

‘Put your foot on the spout!’

‘Just heave and roll over!’

Sobbing and panting the artist made a feeble effort, but in doing so he nearly lost his balance on the ledge. He screamed like a child and fell back into a crouch. A piece of loose rubble fell pattering among the reporters.

‘Can’t we get up inside?’

There was a panic to be doing something. Two fishermen wanted to run for their nets. Remembering the bell, Gently sent Dutt to guard the church door. Dyson had popped up in the phone box where he was bawling unintelligibly to someone.

‘Get me down… get me down!’

Simmonds’s voice had sunk to a wail, and the quality of death itself was echoing in that plea. He couldn’t last for very much longer — you could hear it in every vibration. Like a dislodged sack of flour he was going to slither from his perch.

‘Sir — come here a minute!’

Dutt was beckoning to him from the doorway.

‘According to the bloke what keeps the pub, that fisherman has just gone into the church.’

‘Fisherman? Which one is that?’

‘The big bloke — Dawes, I think they call him.’

‘Dawes! Has he gone up into the tower?’

‘I reckon so, sir. He isn’t inside.’

Esau… gone up into the tower! Gently stared at the sergeant in amazement. What was the Sea-King doing up there, that silent, unpredictable man of mystery?

‘Hadn’t I better fetch him down, sir?’

‘Yes… but watch your step in the belfry. If he gives you any trouble I’ll send Mears to lend a hand.’

Just then the crowd gave a shout and made him turn in apprehension, but the artist still crouched on the ledge, still clung to his last few moments of life. It was something else that was happening up there! — The slats of the window were being driven outwards. Through the disintegrating wood came a jabbing sea boot, thrusting, splintering, and smashing at the framework.

‘It’s Esau… he’s going to get him!’

Was it physical, that surge of hope? There was a roar in their throats like the roar of a football crowd, unconscious, compulsive, a single, primitive voice. The Sea-King would do something — he was more than mere humanity! He could grapple with the impossible, he could wrest it to a conclusion.

Through the fragments came the fisherman with majestic unconcern. He might have been drawing himself through a hedge, so little concern did he seem to attach to it. Having got through the window he reached up for the ledge, and having grasped that, rose easily on to it. As a feat of strength it was fantastic, it could have baffled a trained gymnast: yet the white-bearded giant made it seem a matter of course. With a quiet word to Simmonds he went up and over the parapet, then, taking the artist by his armpits, he drew him firmly on to the roof.

Pandemonium broke loose! It was the only word to describe it. Gently himself was babbling something, he could never remember what. The uproar was so deafening that one never noticed the fire engine — its crew must have thought that they had stumbled into bedlam. Some were running into the church, some embracing each other: even the reporters were shaking hands and dancing about just like the rest. Above the tumult the sudden tolling of the bell sounded quite in order — it had to clang three times before Gently realized…

But, after all, he needn’t have worried. Nothing, it appeared was to spoil that moment. The bell had deafened poor Dutt — he was deaf for a week — but it had done nothing else except to stir up dust. Gently arrived just in time to see the trap door opening. He helped to bring the collapsing artist down the rickety ladder. Esau, always Esau, was slowly piling the stones in a heap; he wouldn’t even look at Gently, wouldn’t answer a word that was put to him.

‘Nothing but shock, is it?’

Dyson had forced the Wolseley through to the gate. From porch to road it might well have been a wedding — everyone was trying to pat Simmonds on the back.

‘The shock — but that’s enough!’

Simmonds was only partly conscious. His feet were dragging after him and he needed support on both sides.

‘To the Police House, then?’

‘Yes — and get a doctor to him. Take Mears along with you. His wife’ll know what to do.’

The crowd hadn’t time to take it in before the artist was whisked away. The reporters, too, were rather at a loss. But then they remembered Esau — Esau, who had worked the miracle. Could it be that he’d escaped in the excitement surrounding Simmonds?

No, Esau was there — at least, for their cameras. Gently could have told them not to expect more than that. The Sea-King came out of the church with his admirers crowding about him… at a distance, a little distance: he had the divinity that hedges kings.