Hammond Innes - Dead and Alive

I felt depressed. Now that I was in danger of being unable to do what I had so glibly promised to do it had suddenly become violently important. I arranged to come down the following morning to have a look round the yards for what I wanted and we got quietly drunk on rum and old memories of the Wavell and Montgomery campaigns.

The following morning I went all over the yards with him. Equipment of every kind was there. But no L.S.T. pontoons. I eventually decided on two small powerfully built hand winches, two big steel jacks, six really strong steel girders twenty feet high, pulleys, chains, and great coils of wire hawser with blocks and tackles.

Slater had all the gear loaded on to an old barge. ‘There’s an Admiralty tug going up to Cardiff tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We’ll get her to tow it up. She should be off Boscastle about 10.00 hrs. the following morning. Get one of the motor fishing boats out and take the barge in to Boscastle. And remember — I want the barge and the gear back. I like helping my pals, but not to the extent of a court-martial.’

‘You’ll get it back within the month,’ I promised him. ‘And the old L.C.T. will be towing it.’

‘Like to bet on it?’ he said with a grin.

‘No,’ I told him. ‘But I’ll buy you the biggest dinner you’ve ever had in your life if I get her off.’

‘That’s a date,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘Lots of frutti di mare, eh? Plenty lobster and Bifstek — doppio. Well, chum, I hope you do it — but I think you’ve taken on rather a big thing.’

That was my view, but I didn’t tell him so. I spent a sleepless night trying to visualize, step by step, the equipment I’d borrowed doing the job it had to do. The next morning I returned to Tintagel. I had a late lunch at the farm and then walked to Boscastle to arrange about the boat. By the time I got back it was late to go stumbling in the dark down to Bossiney, and I decided that at least I might as well have the pleasure of surprising Stuart with my borrowed tackle.

Sarah’s son, Mervin, was home that night, full of talk of the sale and the five calves he’d got. But mostly he talked of sheep. They had never had sheep on the farm and he had bought a dozen lambs. He argued that the price of wool was going up and sheep were a good investment. He wasn’t sure of himself and was trying to justify the purchase, which he described as a bargain that it was just foolish to miss.

I sat and smoked and enjoyed his enthusiasm, glad that I too had things to plan and work for. The atmosphere of the farm was less of memories and more of plans and hopes for the future.

Just as I was going to bed Sarah said with a little smile, ‘When are you moving down to Bossiney, Mr David?’

I laughed. ‘How did you know?’ I asked.

‘Allow an old woman who’s reared three children her intuition,’ she said. She tapped my arm with her knitting needles. ‘You wouldn’t have listened to Mervin’s blather with such entertainment if you hadn’t got plans of your own.’

I nodded. ‘I’m glad I came,’ I told her. ‘It seems I, too, have hunches that sometimes work out. I’ll be moving down there in a day or two.’

I arranged for Mervin to call me when he rose the following morning and by seven-thirty I was striding along the road to Boscastle in the early sunlight. I sang nearly all the way. I was frankly excited. I hadn’t planned for myself like this for more than five years. Down the valley I caught a glimpse of the sea, blue and calm. High tide was twelve-forty. With luck the barge should be unloaded and safely moored in Boscastle shortly after midnight.

The narrow, twisting street was warm and bright in the sunlight as I came down into the valley. The long elbow of the inlet that was responsible for the village looked quiet and peaceful. Fishing boats, masts bare, were moored behind the mellow stone of the two thick sea walls. The girdling hills were a riot of colours. The green between the stone outcrops was tinged with the yellow of birds’-foot trefoil and early gorse flowers.

Down by the hard Mr Garth was getting his boat ready. He was a man of about sixty with a weather beaten, dour face and blue eyes beneath a dark cloth cap. ‘I’ve sent my nephew up to the head yonder to watch for the tug, Mr Cunningham,’ he said. ‘He’ll signal to Garge here when it’s sighted.’ He indicated a big clumsy-looking man who grinned up at us from the engine hatch at the mention of his name. ‘Meantime the missus has a Cornish pasty she’d be glad for you to try and there’s a pint or two of home-brewed cider that would be better for the drinking of it. The missus,’ he added as we climbed from the boat, ‘is main proud of her pasties. So are all the women of Boscastle, for that matter.’

He led me up the hard to a little stone house set back in a garden of flowers and vegetables. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I remember the Cornish pasties I had in Boscastle, though it is more than five years since I was here.’

‘Aye.’ He nodded and spat at a stone with precision. ‘Thee can’t beat Boscastle for pasties.’

In a cool stone-flagged room full of faded photographs, last war relics and polished Cornish stone we ate steaming pasties and drank rough cold cider out of glazed earthenware mugs. We were served by a little girl in pigtails tied with blue ribbon. ‘Thee was much talked about down at the Black Prince last night,’ old Garth said. ‘When I told ‘em wot it were you were after doing there were much shaking of heads.’ He cackled. ‘But I were in Navy in last war and I said whatever they thought, I reckoned a Navy man could do it. I bet Ezra Hislop, who has a farm over by Trafalgar, five pund that you’d do it before the autumn weather. Aye, an’ there’s witnesses to that. An’ there was other bets taken, too.’

‘Well, I hope I don’t let you down, Mr Garth,’ I said. I was feeling uneasy.

‘Thee don’t have to worry about that, mister. A bet gives an old man an interest in life. An’ if it’s labour you need, I can find that. There’s two boys back from the Forces with nowt to do.’

He told me that one had been in the Navy and the other had been an R.A.S.C. driver. I asked him their names and said, ‘I’ll come down and have a word with them some time.’

We talked about the fishing then until George came in to say the tug was sighted. I sought out Mrs Garth in the big cheerful kitchen. There was the warm sweet smell of pastry baking and she smiled and nodded her head when I told her how good her pasties were.

The boat’s engine was already running as we came out into the dazzling sunlight of the hard. We cast off and the protecting hills of the inlet slipped by as we chugged through the sparkling waters.

The tug was lying-to about three or four cables off the entrance to the harbour. She slipped her tow as we came up. ‘Ahoy, there,’ came a shout over the loud hailer. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Cunningham,’ I shouted.

‘Okay, Cunningham, here’s your scrap. Slater’s compliments and if it’s not returned within a month he’s sending a file of Marines.’

‘Tell him he needn’t worry,’ I called.

‘Okay. Don’t get those hawsers wrapped round your neck, landlubber.’ And with that crack and a wave of his hand, he was off, cleaving a deep wake at his low stern.

A signal ran up on the halyards. ‘Good luck!’ I waved acknowledgment and almost wished I was back in the Navy.

We made Bossiney just before midday and stood off for half an hour. As we drove in on the full tide I could see Stuart standing on the battered bridge of the old hulk watching us. Everything seemed possible to me then as I brought in the equipment that would have cost a lot of money to him.

We were lashed to the stern end of the barge and we drove in through the calm waters at full ahead. Old Garth knew the cove, and he hugged the cliffs on the starboard side so close that I thought he’d crush his boat between them and the barge. There was a shudder, the binding ropes strained taut and then we were still, the barge firmly grounded on sand.