Read Online A Ship's Tale by N. Jay Young - Free Book Online Page B

gazed at me for a moment, her expression blank. “Yes of course,” she said, with evident annoyance, and then fixed me with an accusing eye. “As you well know, there’s been no one to keep up this place as it once was, since my young gardener ran off and joined the RAF. I promised that his position would still be here for him after the War. But really! Years on duty and another year in hospital. He says he expects to be fit enough to return in the spring. You young men!” she sighed, as though it were our fault .
    â€œAnd there’s the pond over there.” She pointed to the well-tended haunt of a chattering flock of assorted waterfowl.
    â€œYes, that’s a fine little pond,” I said, making an effort to be agreeable. “I’ve cleaned it out and cut back the weeds and trimmed the edges.”
    She scowled, “Well, it was never intended that there should be a pond there you know. What a single German bomb accomplished in one night would have taken five men weeks of work. But there it was in the morning, a monstrous great hole in the place where my nice larch trees had stood. The poor things simply vanished. The rains kept it full, and then the ducks and geese came. That was some consolation at least. I do have the odd egg or two from them. After the bomb, I had to replace nearly every pane of glass on the Inn. And the roof! Slates everywhere!”
    Again I had the impression that she felt it was somehow all our doing. She turned to go, then paused, “I do hope you’ll be finished with this vine soon. I can’t think why you’re taking so long over it. Thank heavens I’m not paying you by the hour! Oh, yes, I nearly forgot, I’ve put together a few things for the orphans. When you have a moment, perhaps you can drive them up.”
    From where I stood, I had a clear view of the orphanage on the rise to the west. Pulling a thorn from my finger I said, “Perhaps it’s time I took a break. I could run your donations up to the headmaster straightaway.” This vine was beginning to take its toll on my patience, not to mention my epidermis, so I welcomed the opportunity to escape it for a little while. And escape her too!
    Most of the time Mrs. Beasley was one of earth’s most irritating people, and could drive anyone mad. But she must have had a grain of kindness, for she regularly donated food and clothing to make life a bit easier for the boys who lived at the orphanage. I had never been there before and had heard only little about it.
    I cleaned myself up a bit, and then slid into the seat of the landlady’s decrepit Austin. Driving the road up to the old building provided a great view. The rolling hill sloped gently downward until it flattened into the marshy banks of the Thames estuary. As I wound along, I looked back where the Beasley Inn stood among its few trees, with the water behind it. To the east, past the Isle of Grain, was the naval base of Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, lost in the haze. To my eye, the broad waters and the land merged into a murky distance. I knew that not far beyond lay the foot of the North Sea, hard by the Straits of Dover. I stopped the car for a few minutes and enjoyed the sight of the river’s traffic. There was a little Tyneside collier coming in with her hold full of sea-coal, and an outbound merchantman with the Channel Pilot escort she had picked up at Tilbury. Here the estuary was four miles wide at high water, but I could make out nothing of Southend or its mile long pier, which I knew lay across on the Essex side.
    There was precious little working sail on the river these days, so it was a thrill to see one of the old Thames barges come into view upriver. With russet sails, it looked much as Thames barges had for centuries. Below and eastward, I could see the three old barques with no proper pier or landing. They stretched out what masts and yards they had between them, tasting the sea wind