The Kingdom by the Sea Read online

  All he could do was push back the blankets and lie there, and munch another soggy mass of cold chips, and worry about the dog. It was more horrible than being in the shelter during an air raid.

  It was the voices that soothed him in the end. The family sitting against the boat, at least, were strangers. A mum and dad, three kids and a granny. They had rough accents; they must come from further up the river. Somewhere like Byker. When the granny said, “I’ve lived in Byker all me life, and I’ve never seen anything like that in all my born days,” it cheered him slightly that he had guessed right.

  He sort of lost himself in the life of the family. Bossy mum, idle dad.

  “Why don’t you play cricket with the bairns, George? They’re bored stiff!”

  “Why, there’s no room to play cricket, hinny. There’s not room to swing a cat. Don Bradman hisself couldn’t play cricket here.”

  “Well, do something with them!”

  “Woman, Aah slave six days a week at the North Eastern Marine, an’ even God rested on the seventh day.”

  “There’s our Edith throwing sand in Sammy’s eyes again. Stop it, our Edith, or you’ll feel the back o’ my hand. Cannit ye get them an ice-cream, George? Aah could do wi’ one meself.”

  “Ice-cream? Hinny, there’s a war on.”

  “There’s a feller at the top o’ the bank…”

  “Bloody Italian black marketeer… you don’t know what they put in them things. Vaseline an’ hair-cream an’ anything else they can lay their hands on… would poison a dog.”

  “Mam, tell our Edith to stop it.”

  “Our Edith…!”

  It was like going back into another life.

  And soon there was some good news.

  “Mam, this dog’s lost. It’s starving. Look, it’s putting its paw up, asking. It’s begging.”

  “Gerraway, Alsatians can’t beg. They’re too big.”

  “It’s hungry. Give it that piece of pie Gran dropped in the sand.”

  “Oh, here y’are then. Anything for peace. D’you think that dog is lost, George?”

  Harry tensed up with terror.

  “No, it’s not lost, hinny. It’s gorra collar. It’s just on the cadge. I’ve watched it cadging off people for the last hour. It’s doin’ all right. Whoever starves, it won’t be that dog. C’mere, boy. Have a sandwich. Best spam.”

  “Get it away. I don’t like Alsatians, they’re savage.”

  ‘“Bout as savage as a new-born lamb. Look, he’s rolling over to have his tummy tickled.”

  Harry listened for a little while longer to the dog cadging food round the beach. It struck him that Don had more talents than he’d imagined. Don was indeed doing all right.

  Then he dozed off again. He could just sleep and sleep these days. Must be the heat.

  He was wakened by the dog’s wet nose, nudging him forcefully in the neck. He came to with a start, worrying about the people. But there was silence outside. When he peered out, the beach was empty. It was later than he wanted it to be. The sun was already dropping towards the cliff top. Night was coming, and with the night, the bombers.

  He packed up quickly, shaking the sand out of the blankets. But he took time to wash his face and hands with the anti-flea soap. You had to have a clean face. The water freshened him up. He was busting to go to the toilet, but he held out till he got to the toilet by the bus station.

  There was a bus in, going up the coast to Blyth. And he found he had plenty of loose change in his pocket. The driver and conductor had got out, to have a smoke under the clock-tower so he had time to get Don nicely settled, on a tight lead before the conductor dimped his fag and came aboard.

  “Where to, young feller-me-lad?”

  “Single. All the way,” Harry said vaguely.

  “Fourpence.” The man handed him his ticket, and eyed his luggage. “Been out for the day?”

  “On the beach. Camping.”

  “By God, it’s grand to be young.” The man left him and went to tend the passengers upstairs.

  The bus started, and swung out round the clock-tower. Harry’s heart gave a sudden lurch. He was glad to get away from the bombers, and from anybody who might recognise him. But this was home, for the last time. There was Bertorelli’s, where they’d come down on a Saturday night for an ice-cream, even in the depths of winter, and then back home by bus, to hear “Inspector Hornleigh Investigates” on the radio.

  He was off for pastures new. He swallowed several times, and took a firm grip on Don’s collar.

  Chapter Six

  “This is as far as we go, sonny Jim,” said the conductor. “Unless you want to go back to Tynemouth. Where d’you live?”

  God, adults got suspicious so quickly. Harry had been dozing, but he had the sense to say, “Across the river.” That was all he knew about Blyth; that it had a river. It was ten miles from home, and he’d never been there in his life.

  “You’ll just catch the last ferry,” said the conductor and nodded his head instinctively in a certain direction. Harry grabbed his stuff, all of a shake, and set off in the direction the man had nodded. As he set off, he heard the conductor say to the driver, “Some folks have no sense, letting their bairns wander round this time of night wi’ the air raids and all.”

  It was late. The bus seemed to have taken forever. The sun was gone; it was getting dark. He began to hurry. There was no point spending the night here. Blyth was bombed as often as Tynemouth; there were a lot of gaps in the streets of houses. And his mam said Blyth was full of roughs and drunks. He knew he was heading for the river all right, because of the towering dockside cranes. But the river was the roughest part of any town.

  And as he turned down the ferry landing, he met two roughs. Men in dirty caps. He didn’t like the way they stopped, and watched him approach. The way they filled the whole footpath, blocking his way.

  “By, that’s a grand dog ye’ve got there. A grand expensive dog.”

  “Worth a pretty penny, that dog. Where did ye find him? Is he lost?”

  “What ye got in the case, laddy? Show us what you got in the case! We’re policemen.”

  “You’re not policemen,” said Harry, with a desperate defiance. “You’ve got no uniforms.”

  “Special constables, we are!”

  “Aye. Very special.”

  They laughed together in a nasty way.

  “Plain-clothes men.”

  “Aye, very plain-clothes men. Give us that attachè case, son. I reckon you’ve got something stolen concealed in there.”

  “If it’s not stolen now, it soon will be.” They laughed again, and one man reached for the case, as Harry backed away against the wall.

  The next second, Don’s leash ripped out of Harry’s hand, so hard he felt his palm had been burnt.

  Don’s black muzzle and huge teeth closed round the reaching hand.

  The man fell down, screaming in pain. “Joe, help me, help me, for Christ’s sake help me.”

  Joe kicked at the dog; kicked it in the hind leg.

  Don yelped, let go, and went for the second man’s face. The sounds he was making were unbelievable, like a wild beast. Harry couldn’t believe it was happening. The second man fell down.

  Then the next thing he knew was that the two men were on their feet and running, with Don in hot pursuit, barking like a fiend. He vanished round the corner, then came back after a minute, the same old friendly Don as ever, wagging his tail.

  Harry grabbed the trailing leash and ran for the ferry. He never knew how he gabbled out his request for a ticket, to the man in the ticket office.

  “Steady on, son,” said the man, nodding at the ferry. “They won’t go without you.”

  As the gap of dark water widened, between him and the men, Harry looked down at Don. Harry was shaking and trembling so much himself, he could hardly hold the leash and the attachè case. But Don seemed quite calm, not even panting. As Harry watched, he nosed for a flea on his hairy flank, making a vigorous gnawin
g sound. It seemed all part of a day’s work to him.

  The far side of the river was quieter. They were soon out of town and into the countryside, full of hawthorn hedges and rows of electricity pylons. He could hear, in the dark, the sea not far away. The sound of the waves soothed him. It was time to look for shelter for the night. Every time you got out of a mess, there was something else to worry about.

  They seemed to walk a long way, with nothing but hedges. There seemed no way down to the sea, no hope of an upturned boat. Then something loomed up, as big as a house, shaped like a house. No lights showing. Harry walked up to it, and felt it in the dark. He felt a tight strand of rope, and a lot of soft hay.

  A haystack.

  Dad had talked about sleeping in a haystack, when he was a lad.

  Why not? There seemed to be a cave where someone had broken into the stack. Lined with soft hay.

  It was enough. The stack was even thick enough to stop falling shrapnel.

  They sat side by side in the cave, and shared the second-to-last packet of sausage and chips. They should have tasted awful, but neither of them could get enough.

  Mam had always said that hunger made the best sauce.

  Harry was too tired even to undo the blankets. He just pulled hay over the pair of them. Dad had always said you could sleep as snug as a bug in a rug, in a haystack.

  It was warm; only it made your face prickle and your nose tickle. He heaved up the pack of blankets and made a pillow out of it.

  They slept.

  The dog growled once. Harry had no idea what time it was, but he heard the German bombers, far away, in the direction he had come from. Dreamily he watched flashes that he knew must be bombs and guns over Tynemouth. But all far away. He turned over and slept again.

  He wakened, warm as toast. The dog slept on, just whuffled in its dream. Its paws moved softly on the hay, as if it was dreaming it was running. Harry got up quietly, so as not to disturb it, and covered it over with the hay again. Seemed the kind thing to do. Then he walked away from the haystack and looked towards the sea, and yawned and stretched and surveyed the lovely morning. The sky was blue, pale blue, from horizon to horizon again. The sea glittered in millions of points of light, under where the sun was. There were white gulls circling over the beach; their calls came faint to his ears. It felt blissy, like the first morning of holiday on the farm at Gilsland, where they had gone every year, even after the war started. It was still cool, and everything smelt good. He wondered what Mr Gilbey, the farmer at Gilsland, was doing at this moment. Would he have finished milking the cows? Harry always got up early and helped with the cows. The smell of them, all steamy and grassy, the smell of the warm streaming milk, spurting into the shining bucket, the slow swish of tails and sound of munching. And Mr Gilbey, singing strange Methodist hymns slowly as he milked.

  “When I… spurt… survey… the wondrous… spurt… Cross.”

  He liked Mr Gilbey; he liked farmers; he liked helping. So when he heard the distant sound of a tractor on the road, he turned to greet it. You always said good morning to people you met in the country, even when you’d never seen them before; it was not like in town.

  The tractor approached, the farmer on it getting slowly bigger. He resolved from a series of coloured blobs, and Harry could see he looked quite like Mr Gilbey, with a long-sleeved collarless shirt, and an open waistcoat over it, and a shapeless bulging cap on his head. Harry waved timidly, because it could almost have been Mr Gilbey (though of course it couldn’t be). He smiled as he waved.

  The tractor stopped. The farmer got down, leaving the engine running. Stooped to pick up a large pair of old leather gauntlets from where the driving pedals were, and walked up to Harry briskly.

  “Morning,” said Harry. It was what you said in the country. He wondered what the farmer wanted. He couldn’t be lost on his own farm; maybe he wanted some help with the harvest; Mr Gilbey always did. Maybe he would pay, or at least give harvest meals of sweet cold tea and apple pie.

  “You little sod,” said the farmer. “I’ll teach you to mess around in my haystack.” He raised the hand with the gauntlets in it, and brought it slashing down on Harry’s face.

  Harry fell down. He managed to yelp, “Please, mister,” and then the farmer hit him with the gauntlets again. He tasted blood in his mouth; he held his arms up to protect his face. He rolled around on the ground, trying to get away from the blows. They went on and on and on, on the back of his head, on his shoulders, in his kidneys as he arched his back. His head spun, he couldn’t think any more, he was just pains… he yelled and yelled for mercy.

  And then it stopped. And somebody else was yelling. Harry looked around wildly. The farmer was standing, just standing. He had dropped the gauntlets, and was clutching his big hairy bare arm. And there was blood trickling down through his fingers.

  And Don was standing between him and Harry, crouching, back hunched, teeth bared in a snarl. Don growled, low and awful.

  The farmer looked insane. His small blue eyes were popping; his mouth was wide open, showing gaps in his teeth, and his cheeks were covered with whiskers where he hadn’t shaved for a week.

  Then he gave a yell of rage. “I’ll settle your hash, you murderous bastard,” he yelled at Don. He made for the tractor at great speed, and picked something up from where he had picked the gauntlets. Something long and shiny.

  A double-barrelled shotgun. Harry knew it was, because Mr Gilbey had carried one on his tractor, at harvest time, for potting the rabbits that came out of the last of the corn. Harry leapt to his feet in terror; the farmer was going to shoot Don. He flung himself at the farmer.

  “Please, mister, no, no.”

  The farmer gave him one push that knocked him flat. As Harry got up, the farmer broke open the gun, and put two fat red shells into it, and turned towards Don.

  “Mister,” screamed Harry, running at him again, trying to get between the gun and Don.

  The farmer roughly pushed him away again, against the tractor seat. Harry put out his hand to save himself, and his hand closed round a long piece of wood, a fence-post or something, that was lying on the floor of the tractor.

  Harry saw the farmer raise his gun and point it at Don, who was standing looking totally baffled.

  Harry’s arms just moved of their own accord. He grabbed the fence-post with both hands, raised it high above his head, and hit the farmer. He meant to hit him on the head, on his bulgy cap; but he missed and hit him in the small of the back.

  The farmer gave a terrible yell, and fell down. The gun went off along the ground, raising an enormous cloud of dust and grass, cutting a long swathe through the stubble of the field. But Don was no longer anywhere near. Don was off and running, his ears down.

  There was a silence. Then the farmer slowly turned his head.

  “Christ, kid… I think you’ve broken me back.” He didn’t look insane now; he looked very pale and ill and feeble. The freckles stood out on his nose like spots of blood. He tried to raise himself on his hands, managed about six inches, and fell back. “Kid, help me,” he said. He had little sandy eyelashes on thick white eyelids. Harry hated him. He was a disgusting object. He’d tried to kill Don, and now he was pleading like a baby. But he’d try to kill Don again, given half a chance…

  “Get lost!” shouted Harry. He turned away and grabbed his blankets and attachè case, and ran off down the road. Don, thinking it was a game, came racing past him.

  “Kid,” shouted the farmer desperately. “Kid.” He shouted many times, but Harry just kept on running.

  Quarter of a mile further on, at the bend in the road, he looked back.

  The farmer had managed to haul himself to his feet against the tractor, but was just standing there.

  At least his back wasn’t broken.

  Harry ran on, reached a crossroad, and took the turning for Newbigin-by-the-Sea. His dad had told him about Newbigin; it was a fishing port. It didn’t seem a place that a farmer would go. Soon after he
crossed the River Wansbeck, he left the road and headed down to the sea.

  He found what he was looking for; an old upturned boat on the beach, bleached grey with age and splitting at the seams. Making sure nobody was watching he got the dog under it, and tied him firmly to a thwart, by his lead. They lay there for the rest of the day, while Harry watched through the cracks for farmers and policemen. There wasn’t a sign of either. Only one old man, beachcombing for sea-coal, who went home with a full dripping sack, when the sun had begun to set.

  It was the smell of real fish and chips, wafted on the northeast breeze from Newbigin that finally lured Harry out after dark. He left the dog tied up, and followed his nose till he found the chip shop. The shop was nearly empty, and the old lady behind the counter was so busy chatting to her crony that she served him without a glance. He got another bottle of Tizer too.

  The fish was smashing; but then Newbigin was a fishing village where the boats still went out every day, for rock salmon and rock turbot. The dog enjoyed his fish as well.

  On the edge of sleep, Harry thought how right it felt, to be bedding down under a boat again. With the dog. It felt like the only way he had ever lived now. Other bits of him seemed to have dropped off during the day. He tried to think of Dad and Mam and Dulcie and the old days, but the pictures wouldn’t come. But he didn’t worry. They were buried somewhere, deep and safe in his mind. He’d be able to think about them again. Some day. For now he had the sound of the sea, and a full belly, and warm blankets. And Don. And for the first time, that was enough.

  Chapter Seven

  The rain caught them on the move. They were travelling by night now, since the business with the farmer. Harry’s fear of farmers and policemen was very great.

  The rain didn’t catch Harry without warning. There was a warning in the change of sounds, in the silence. Every noise came to him as clear as a bell, as they struggled along the fringe of the beach in the dark. A dog barking; voices in the kitchen of a fisherman’s cottage; the very breathing of the sea. And the silences in between were cushioned, velvety.