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Authors: Rita Bradshaw
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others as she prayed silently, Let them be all right. Please, please let them be all right. But as she opened the door to the cottage and braced herself to meet the barrage of questions she knew would come her way from her granny, her mind had returned to the young man again, and she was thinking how odd it was, disturbing even, the effect one look from a stranger had had on her.
Chapter Three
It was around ten o’clock that same night that Daisy felt a sense of deep aloneness come over her. It was a strange feeling, not like loneliness or being companionless - more a recognition that if her da and Tom had been lost at sea she didn’t know what she would do or how she would bear it, and that this night there was only her to care for the sick man and her granny so she had to be strong. She couldn’t cry or give in to the consuming fear that was turning her bowels to water. Not yet.
Her concern for her father and Tom, and for her second youngest brother, Peter, who worked a boat with his best friend, had mounted steadily throughout the afternoon and evening.
It had been just after midday when the first of several boats had been sighted. These, it appeared, had all managed to shelter in Marsdon Bay, albeit only after they had taken a severe battering on the seas. Two more boats had sailed in at twilight by which time the storm had all but blown itself out. These boats, of which Alf’s was one, had found refuge a little further up the coast at South Shields. There were now only three boats missing: Daisy’s father’s, Peter’s, and Molly’s husband’s.
Alf had come to visit Daisy as soon as he had seen his mother. He told the white-faced girl that the three boats in question had been some distance from the others when the storm had hit. Likely they would be weathering out the worst of it together somewhere, and she mustn’t worry. Her da was the finest fisherman Alf knew by a long chalk.
He had brought a pot of hot crab soup and a plate of freshly cooked fishcakes with him - Enid had sent a message saying Daisy had enough to do looking after her granny and ‘the other one’ to worry about cooking an evening meal. Once Alf had taken a look at ‘the other one’ he had been reluctant to leave, but Daisy had finally managed to shoo him away after half-an-hour or so by which time he had brought in a sack of driftwood and a bucket of coal and coke from the store under the dilapidated lean-to situated between George’s curing house and the privy, and also filled up the water barrel in the scullery.
Daisy was grateful for his help, and overwhelmingly relieved he was safe, so she didn’t understand why it was she hadn’t wanted Alf to stay when he had offered. But she hadn’t.
The stranger was still in the state of semi-consciousness he had slipped into down at the shoreline. Although Daisy had perodically fed him tiny spoonfuls of Mrs Hardy’s renowned ginger beer - made with enough root ginger to make it hotter than the devil’s pitchfork, according to those who tried it - along with small sips of rabbit broth, she knew he wasn’t really awake. And this became increasingly unnerving as the hours ticked by.
When the women had carried him into the cottage earlier Daisy had hurried upstairs and dragged down her flock mattress, placing it close to the range. She had piled it high with the blankets from her father’s and brother’s beds as well as her own. While she had boiled hot water for the two stone water bottles, Enid had stripped every stitch of clothing from the young man until he was as naked as the day he was born, and then proceeded to rub his frozen limbs as hard as she could in an attempt to get the blood flowing through his veins. Once the older woman had dressed the inert form in Tom’s spare trousers and a thick jumper she had called to Daisy, who was averting her eyes in the scullery, and the two of them had tucked him under the heaped blankets in front of
Chapter Three
It was around ten o’clock that same night that Daisy felt a sense of deep aloneness come over her. It was a strange feeling, not like loneliness or being companionless - more a recognition that if her da and Tom had been lost at sea she didn’t know what she would do or how she would bear it, and that this night there was only her to care for the sick man and her granny so she had to be strong. She couldn’t cry or give in to the consuming fear that was turning her bowels to water. Not yet.
Her concern for her father and Tom, and for her second youngest brother, Peter, who worked a boat with his best friend, had mounted steadily throughout the afternoon and evening.
It had been just after midday when the first of several boats had been sighted. These, it appeared, had all managed to shelter in Marsdon Bay, albeit only after they had taken a severe battering on the seas. Two more boats had sailed in at twilight by which time the storm had all but blown itself out. These boats, of which Alf’s was one, had found refuge a little further up the coast at South Shields. There were now only three boats missing: Daisy’s father’s, Peter’s, and Molly’s husband’s.
Alf had come to visit Daisy as soon as he had seen his mother. He told the white-faced girl that the three boats in question had been some distance from the others when the storm had hit. Likely they would be weathering out the worst of it together somewhere, and she mustn’t worry. Her da was the finest fisherman Alf knew by a long chalk.
He had brought a pot of hot crab soup and a plate of freshly cooked fishcakes with him - Enid had sent a message saying Daisy had enough to do looking after her granny and ‘the other one’ to worry about cooking an evening meal. Once Alf had taken a look at ‘the other one’ he had been reluctant to leave, but Daisy had finally managed to shoo him away after half-an-hour or so by which time he had brought in a sack of driftwood and a bucket of coal and coke from the store under the dilapidated lean-to situated between George’s curing house and the privy, and also filled up the water barrel in the scullery.
Daisy was grateful for his help, and overwhelmingly relieved he was safe, so she didn’t understand why it was she hadn’t wanted Alf to stay when he had offered. But she hadn’t.
The stranger was still in the state of semi-consciousness he had slipped into down at the shoreline. Although Daisy had perodically fed him tiny spoonfuls of Mrs Hardy’s renowned ginger beer - made with enough root ginger to make it hotter than the devil’s pitchfork, according to those who tried it - along with small sips of rabbit broth, she knew he wasn’t really awake. And this became increasingly unnerving as the hours ticked by.
When the women had carried him into the cottage earlier Daisy had hurried upstairs and dragged down her flock mattress, placing it close to the range. She had piled it high with the blankets from her father’s and brother’s beds as well as her own. While she had boiled hot water for the two stone water bottles, Enid had stripped every stitch of clothing from the young man until he was as naked as the day he was born, and then proceeded to rub his frozen limbs as hard as she could in an attempt to get the blood flowing through his veins. Once the older woman had dressed the inert form in Tom’s spare trousers and a thick jumper she had called to Daisy, who was averting her eyes in the scullery, and the two of them had tucked him under the heaped blankets in front of
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