Michael Morpurgo - Arthur High King of Britain

1 The bell

2 Nobody’s child

3 Excalibur

4 Guinevere

5 Lancelot

6 Three of the best

7 Gawain and the Green Knight

8 Tristram and Iseult

9 Percivale and the beginning of the end

10 The last days of Camelot

11 The acorn

THE BOY LEFT HOME AT FIRST LIGHT, ENOUGH food and drink in his rucksack to last him the whole day. It was something he had always promised himself he would do – if ever he had the chance, if ever the circumstances were right. He told no one of his plans, because he knew his mother would worry, his little sister would tell on him, and his father would try to stop him. As far as they were concerned he was going shrimping off Samson. He would be getting up early to catch the spring tide just as it fell, so that he could walk the sea-bed from Bryher to Tresco and from Tresco over to Samson. That was what he’d told them. Everyone did that, but what no one had ever done, so far as he knew anyway, was to walk over to the Eastern Isles and back again. Everyone said that it could not be done in the time. His father was quite adamant about it. That was partly why the boy was determined to do it.

He had worked it all out. He knew the waters around the Scilly Isles like the back of his hand. He had lived there all his twelve years. From the deck of his father’s fishing boat, he had learnt every rock, every sandbank. He knew the tides, the currents and the clouds. He could do it. The spring tide would be the lowest for years. The weather was settled and perfect – red sky the night before – and the wind was right. So long as he left the Eastern Isles by half past twelve he would have enough time to make it back to Bryher and home before the tide rose and cut him off. He knew precisely how fast the tides came in. He knew there would be places where he would have to wade shoulder high through the sea. And if the worst came to the worst he could always swim for it. He was a strong swimmer, the best in his school. He could make it. He would make it.

He stood on Green Bay looking out across Tresco Channel, the cold mud oozing between his toes. He checked his watch. Just before six. A pair of oystercatchers busied themselves in the shallows, and were interrupted by a gang of raucous gulls fighting over a crab. They took off, piping their indignation. The sea was fast draining away in the Tresco Channel. It was a windless, cloudless dawn. The boy hitched up his rucksack, and began to trot out towards Tresco. As he had expected, the sea was still running fast through the channel. He splashed out into it, the force of the current soon reducing him to a walk. He took off his rucksack, held it above his head and waded in deeper. The cold of the water took his breath away. He thought that maybe he had set out too early, that he might have to turn back and wait for the tide to ebb a little further; but a few steps more, and he was through the deepest water and then out of it altogether. He clambered up over the dunes and broke into a run, passing Tresco church by quarter to seven. He was on time.

As he came down to the harbour at Old Grimsby, the whole sea-bed was open to the sky. It was as if Moses had been there before him. The sea still ran through in places, but he could see his route plainly – Tean, then over to St Martin’s and along the shore towards Higher Town Bay. And there were the Eastern Isles still surrounded by sea, the Ganilly sand-bar already a golden island in the early morning sun. The sand-bar would be his only way in and his only way out. In less than two hours, by his reckoning, the sand-bar would be a brief causeway to the Eastern Isles. He would have to hurry. He ate his breakfast on the move, a couple of sausage rolls and a jam sandwich. He gulped it down too fast and had to stop to wash it down with water. Biting into the first of his apples, he headed out towards Tean. With the tide still going out he knew this was the easiest part. It would be on the way back that he would have to race the tide home to Bryher. The return must be timed perfectly, to the minute; so the sooner he reached the Eastern Isles the better. Once there, he would have just a quarter of an hour to eat his lunch and rest. With this in mind, and only this in mind, he reached St Martin’s and ran along the beach, trying to keep to the wet sand. It was easier on his aching legs than the softer sand near the dunes.

The sun was high now and hot on his head. The rucksack was chafing at his shoulders, so he hooked his thumbs into the straps to relieve the soreness. When the beach became rocks he turned inland and followed the track through the bracken towards Higher Town. He was passing the school gates when he saw Morris Jenkins coming down the track towards him. He was about the last person the boy wanted to meet. Morris would want to talk. He always wanted to talk.

‘What’re you doing over here?’ Morris shouted.

‘See you, Morris,’ said the boy as he ran by, breathless.

‘Flaming marathon, is it?’

‘Something like that.’ And then he was out of sight and heaving a sigh of relief. He slowed to walk. His legs felt heavy. He was tiring. He longed to sit down, to rest; but he dared not, not yet. He thought of Morris Jenkins. He had resisted the temptation to tell him where he was going, what he was doing. He’d only have scoffed. When the time was right, when he’d done it, then he would tell anyone, then he’d tell everyone. There’d be those who wouldn’t believe him, of course, Morris amongst them, but he didn’t mind that. He would know and that was all that really mattered. He bit into another apple and pressed on towards the Eastern Isles.

By noon the boy was sitting in triumph on the highest rock on Great Ganilly, the largest of the Eastern Isles. There were a few other walkers out and about now, shrimping the sea-bed around St Martin’s; but he was quite alone on the Eastern Isles, except for a solitary seal bobbing in the open sea and a few shrieking terns that were diving at him, trying to drive him off his rock. He sat where he was, ate his lunch and ignored them. In time they gave up and left him in peace. He finished his last jam sandwich and checked his watch. He had ten minutes to spare. He’d rest for a minute or two and then be on his way. Plenty of time. He lay back on the rock, head on his rucksack, his eyes squinting in the glare of the sun. He closed them, and wondered how the Scilly Isles had been when they were one entire island, before it tipped fifteen hundred years ago and let the ocean flood in. Had there been an earthquake, or a tidal wave perhaps? No one knew. A mystery. He liked mysteries, he liked the unknown. Lulled by warm stillness and more exhausted than he knew, he slipped into sleep.

When he woke, the sun was gone, the sky was gone, the sea was gone. He was cocooned in thick fog. The foghorn from the Bishop Rock Lighthouse sounded distantly, echoing the fear that was taking root in the boy’s heart. He scrambled down through the bracken. It would be clearer down on the shore. It must be.