Candles in the Storm Read online

  No, and it wouldn’t be the first time that the fishermen, desperate to land a catch, had hung on too long either. Times were changing for some folk what with the unions and all, but for her da and Tom and Alf there was nothing like that. Her da and a few more of the old fishermen could remember tales passed down to them by their great-grandas, which had come through their great-grandas and so on. Stories about the disease-ridden hovels built into the banksides of the Wear and Tyne, which were considered fit rat holes for fishermen. These labyrinths of stairs and dark passageways with a public house at every corner had also been frequented by the press gangs, and it was the fishermen who had suffered the most at the hands of those infamous ruffians. And who had cared enough to lift a finger? No one. Even now, according to her da, there still wasn’t a band of people considered so expendable as ordinary fishermen. When they went to work they could simply disappear; as dangerous as life in the pits was, the death toll on the seas was twice as high.

  Daisy said nothing, but as she turned to face the room again her face must have spoken for itself because Nellie’s voice was dry when she said, ‘Aye, well, mebbe I might talk out of me backside at times, hinny, but the only thing that’s sustained me for the last seventy-six years is takin’ it a day at a time. No use frettin’ until you know you’ve got somethin’ to fret about, now then. As me old mam used to say: Spit in the eye of the devil an’ likely he’ll be blind enough to leave you alone.’

  Daisy nodded, walking across to the bed and taking her grandmother’s wrinkled hand which was resting on top of the grey blankets, the veins tumescent. She wished she could be as calm as her granny, oh, she did, but she just couldn’t. She wished her da and Tom, and Alf too, hadn’t gone out today. And whatever her granny said, she had listened to the men talk well enough to know how many times they cheated death. At the end of a hard winter, like now, they took extra chances. There wasn’t a fisherwoman alive who didn’t know that.

  ‘Shall I light the candle early, Gran?’

  Nellie gazed into her granddaughter’s enormous eyes with their thick smoky lashes, and what she saw there caused her to say softly, ‘Aye, you do that, me bairn. You do that. An’ we’ll have a nice sup tea with one of them drop scones an’ a bit of Enid’s crab apple jelly, shall we? While we’re waitin’ for ’em to get back like?’

  Daisy smiled and nodded, but once the tallow candle was lit and the ill-tempered wind lashed the sleet into vicious sabre-like squalls against the windows with its ever-increasing fury, she found she couldn’t eat a thing.

  George was tired, bone-gnawingly tired, and the icy chafing water which had been working on his flesh for hours had opened the crust on the salt water boil on his thigh which had been giving him gyp for days. A needle spray stung his face as it had been doing all night, but at least now, in the wild light of dawn, the silent angry wastes of the North Sea didn’t hold the terrors they had in the pitch blackness.

  He couldn’t see any of the other boats, although when the storm had hit he knew none of them had begun to make their way home. It had been the inexplicable conviction that a big shoal was nearby that had done it, and he still maintained it had been there. But they’d stayed out too long, damn it. In this sort of sea even the big ships went down, and the cobles were matchsticks in comparison. Aye, they should have cut their losses long before they had.

  George glanced across to where Tom was standing, his son’s face rigid and tight. It had been that way since their row the day before. Silly young so-an’-so. George ground his teeth irritably. What had the lad expected him to do when he had told him he was set on marrying a bit lass - a miner’s lass - who didn’t know one end of a gutting knife from the other? Fall on his neck and offer his blessing? Say it didn’t matter? Well, it did matter, and he had never been one for beating about the bush as Tom well knew. By, to think a son of his could be so damn’ stupid! No good could come out of such a union, it was doomed from the start. But it hadn’t happened yet, had it, and if he had his way he’d make damn’ sure this was one wedding which never took place. He’d rather be struck down this minute than have to watch his own flesh and blood being led by the nose by some bit miner’s daughter.

  Another wave, which seemed as high as a house, smashed into the bow, sweeping the small craft on to nowhere at a furious rate. Each time they crested a wave and slid down the far side, icy water swirled knee-deep into the bottom of the boat but at least they could see what they were up against now, thank God, thought George, crossing himself with one hand as he steered with the other.

  Tom caught the gesture, his mouth curling at what he saw as hypocrisy, the harshness of his judgement mainly the result of yesterday’s quarrel. Normally his father’s ability to shape the Almighty into a comfortable concept he felt easy with - one which didn’t include church on a Sunday or unnecessary religious fervour, but which definitely included the Creator taking an interest in George’s personal affairs - didn’t bother Tom at all. Today, however, his feelings were still raw from the bitter exchange which had flared up once he had mentioned Marge. Well, one thing was for sure, he didn’t intend to keep coming cap in hand to his da, Tom told himself aggressively. He’d tried the reasonable approach and if his da wouldn’t meet him halfway that was his lookout.

  The grey water washing aboard reduced his limbs to salty numbness, but inside Tom was still boiling. His fingers were raw and split from where they had dug into the net earlier but he couldn’t feel them; for the time being the lacerating pain was deadened by the anaesthetising effects of the freezing water. Not so the hurt within.

  He would see about renting his own place once he was back, aye, he would, Tom thought angrily. Old Ken Upton’s cottage would be coming up soon now his widow was going to live with her sister in Fulwell, and if Alf would be willing to have him on his boat he’d join up with him.

  Another welter of white lather from the towering waves sprayed the boat as it continued to smash heavily into the next foam-topped ridge and then the next. Tom heard his father’s voice, reedy against the din of the storm, call to him to take the tiller. He lurched over to him, noticing as he did so that the older man’s face was grey with exhaustion and he looked spent. His da wasn’t as young as he used to be. As the thought hit home it had the effect of cauterising the bitter aftermath of their hot words, even to the extent that Tom thought, much as George had done earlier, What the hell did I expect him to say anyway? He was never going to understand; how could he when I don’t understand it meself? But I’ll be blowed if I’m goin’ to lose me da over this. It’ll work out. When he meets Marge he’ll understand why I love her, aye, he will. She will win him over.

  He squeezed his father’s sodden arm in the moment before he took the tiller, a quick gesture and without undue sentiment, but as he saw something lift in the grey face he was glad he had made the first move. He was a stubborn old blighter, his da, but then it took one to recognise one.

  They had shot the nets several times the day before but each haul had yielded next to nothing, although his da and some of the other old-timers had said they felt it in their bones that the fish were waiting. If one boat had turned for home the others might have followed, that was often the way of it, but they had all needed a good haul and so they had pushed the gods just a little too far.

  Tom looked over to where his father was standing on the freedeck, and was just going to call to him to ask if he could see any other boats when the coble spun drunkenly under his hands. And then he saw it, the mother and father of a wave coming broadside on, and he knew his father had seen it too when the older man turned an incredulous, fear-filled face to him, shouting something he couldn’t hear.

  It took three or four seconds for the wave to hit but Tom, unlike his father, didn’t move, his whole being caught up in the ghastly fascination of the mountain of water descending towards them. By the time George snatched the tiller out of his son’s hands, trying to pull it hard over to get the boat into the wind, it was too late. The sea picked t
hem up and tipped them over as easily as a bairn playing with bits of twig in a puddle.

  Daisy hadn’t slept all night. A fear had settled on her, a familiar fear, and it was no use her granny saying she always felt like this when the boats hadn’t come back because she knew that was true but it was no comfort. This storm was worse than most; in fact, she couldn’t remember one of such ferocity lasting so long. Her granny had remained silent when she’d said that.

  ‘I’m goin’ to have a look outside again.’

  ‘Oh, hinny.’ Her grandmother’s hand came out towards her in protest. ‘It’s still barely light, an’ you’ve already got soaked to the skin once the day. If you up an’ take a chill an’ I have to start lookin’ after you, it’ll be a case of the blind leadin’ the blind all right.’

  The last few words had been said in a jocular tone, but when Daisy’s tense expression didn’t change the old woman in the bed sighed deeply. She might as well have saved her breath, the lass would have her own way in this. It was no use saying that the boats were likely resting at Marsdon beyond Lizard Point or even Frenchman’s Bay if they’d got blown South Shields way, the lass wasn’t of a mind to hear it. Daisy wouldn’t rest until George and the rest of them were safely home, that was always the pattern of events.

  ‘I’ll be back in a little while. You all right for a few minutes? Drink your broth, Gran.’

  ‘Aye, I will, lass, but I wish you’d have a bite of somethin’.’

  ‘I will later, I promise.’

  It was actually a relief to step out into the bitter cold although the wind, stiffened with sleet, stung Daisy’s eyes as she immediately scanned the horizon. She was glad her granny didn’t openly fret when the boats were delayed, of course she was, but at times like today the old woman’s stoicism was almost irritating. Alf’s mam was more of a comfort on occasions like this; Enid Hardy was always at sixes and sevens until Alf was back, and moreover was vocal in her concern.

  Daisy picked her way over the mudbath that was the road, and on to the wet spiky grass dotted with pebbles and stones which led to the edge of the high bank below which stretched a long expanse of sand. She stood gazing out to sea as she had done earlier, praying soundlessly all the while. Let them come home, God. Let them come home. Let them come home. And then she turned as Enid Hardy came up behind her.

  ‘It’s not let up all night, lass, has it? An’ here was me thinkin’ the worst was over when the thaw started.’

  ‘Hallo, Mrs Hardy.’ Daisy smiled at the older woman, and Alf’s mother patted her shoulder for a moment before standing with her and following Daisy’s gaze out to sea.

  ‘I know fishin’ is fishin’ the country over an’ none of it easy, but I reckon our lads have it worse than most,’ Enid muttered, pulling her shawl more tightly about her face as the wind whipped the ends. ‘Do you know, lass, the first thing I can remember is the sound of the sea. There’s them that say it’s similar to the sound of your mam’s blood pulsin’ in her body afore you’re born, an’ that’s what makes it “comfortin’ ”! Comfortin’! Comfortin’ my backside, that’s what I say. I’d as soon take comfort from the devil himself. Right from a little bairn I’ve hated it, aye, I have, even in the summer when it’s pretendin’ to be pally.’

  Daisy nodded; she could understand Mrs Hardy speaking like this. She knew from her granny that Alf’s mam had first lost her father and two brothers and finally her husband to the capricious moods of the ocean.

  ‘I look at them pit villagers when they come for a plodge in the summer, messin’ about an’ splashin’ each other an’ larkin’ on, an’ they’ve got no idea what’s what. They buy the scones an’ cakes some of the old wives sell from their cottage doors, have a nice day in the sunshine, an’ go home thinkin’ they’re hard done by the rest of the year ’cos they don’t live by the sea.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to go down a mine though, Mrs Hardy.’

  ‘Aye, aye, there is that, lass. It can’t be much fun down a mine for sure.’

  They stood together, the old woman and the young girl, without speaking now. It was a little while later when Daisy, taking a step forward, said urgently, ‘There’s a ship out there, Mrs Hardy. Can you see it? A big ship, there, through the mist. But there’s somethin’ wrong.’

  ‘A ship you say, lass?’ Enid bent slightly forward as though the extra inch or two would help her failing eyesight.

  By the time a couple of their neighbours joined them Daisy knew the vessel out at sea was foundering, and so quickly did she turn and run towards the cottage of one of the men she had spoken to the day before that Enid wasn’t aware of her departure for some moments.

  ‘Our Jed, lass?’ The big woman who had opened the door to Daisy was heavy with her fourth child in as many years, her overall bulk increased by her enormous stomach. ‘He’s not here. He’s gone with Dan to get a sack of taties an’ flour an’ bits, been’s as they couldn’t take the boat out. What’s the matter anyway, hinny? Is it your granny?’

  Daisy’s heart sank. Apart from a few elderly men who were too old or too sick to fish anymore, Jed and Dan were the only fishermen who hadn’t sailed with the fleet the day before. And now there was a ship sinking in front of their very eyes and no one to help.

  Daisy gave Jed’s wife a quick explanation and left the other woman shouting to her children to remain indoors while pulling a shawl over her head and following Daisy outside. But what help would a pregnant woman be? What help would any of the women be? It was one of the oddities of fisherfolk life that very few of their menfolk, let alone the women, had ever learnt to swim, the general feeling being that if they were unlucky enough to find themselves at the mercy of the North Sea no amount of swimming would help them. And no fisherman in his right mind would swim for pleasure.

  Daisy glanced at the women clustered together on the shore, some four or five of them now as more of the cottagers became aware of the drama out to sea, but didn’t join them. Instead she ran down on to the sand itself, her heart pounding as she saw that the ship was now listing badly. The women followed her down to the water’s edge, mostly silent, several clasping their hands together and one or two praying out loud.

  ‘We have to do somethin’.’ Daisy glanced about her wildly.

  ‘You can’t do nowt, lass.’ Enid’s voice was low, her eyes fixed on the ship which had moved nearer to shore in its death throes but was now sinking fast. ‘Them rocks out there are meaner than shark’s teeth. Once they’re in the water the cold’ll finish ’em in minutes. An’ look at them waves, lass. You’d be knocked off your feet even if there was a boat to launch. Poor devils, whoever they are.’

  ‘It’s goin’ down . . .’

  One of the women spoke and there was a concentrated drawing in of breath as the ship stood almost vertically in the water for a moment. As it remained there for some seconds the women heard a noise, either an explosion or perhaps the engines and machinery coming loose from their bearings and falling the length of the ship, and then it stopped, the ship first sinking back a little at the stern and then sliding slowly forward through the waves in a slanting dive as the sea closed over her.

  ‘Oh, dear God, have mercy on them in the hour of their distress . . .’

  Daisy was aware of Enid murmuring at the side of her and of one or two of the women crying while others were busy ushering children back towards the cottages and away from the debris which could now be clearly seen in the water. The waves were huge and it was difficult to discern any human beings amidst the wreckage, but once or twice Daisy thought she saw an arm lifted or what looked like a body or two clinging to anything which floated, but within a short while these had disappeared.

  Mrs Hardy was right, no one could survive for long when the sea was like this and the coldness of the water froze the will to fight and resist. But in spite of her thoughts Daisy continued to strain her eyes out to sea, hardly breathing in her distress. Those poor, poor people, whoever they were. Mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers
, sweethearts - there would be loved ones at home waiting for them. Oh, Da, Da, please be safe, and Tom and Alf. Were they still out on the water? If a big ship like the one that had just gone down couldn’t make it safely to port, what chance did the cobles have?

  And then she saw it. A small lone lifeboat being tossed about at random as the huge waves rose and fell. And someone was inside it.

  Daisy clutched hold of Enid with enough force to make that good lady cry out in pain, but Daisy’s fingers tightened further as she said, ‘Mrs Hardy, there’s a lifeboat that hasn’t sunk an’ someone’s in it. Look, there. You see? Oh, we’ve got to help somehow, it could be turned over any minute. What can we do?’ And then she answered herself saying, ‘Quick, we need a rope.’

  ‘Rope, lass?’ Enid shook her head. ‘You’ll never get near enough with a rope.’

  Daisy didn’t waste time contradicting her, turning and hurrying up the beach and on to the high bank where Jed and Dan’s boat was standing. She had noticed a thick coil of heavy-duty rope there the previous day and was praying the fishermen hadn’t moved it when they had finished working on the coble. They hadn’t.

  Several of the women had remained with Enid at the water’s edge, but now Daisy called to one or two who had come back up to the cottages and were standing in a small group a few yards away. ‘There’s someone in a lifeboat! Jenny, Maggie, quick, help me carry this rope down. Come on. We haven’t got much time.’