Read Online The Kingdom by the Sea by Robert Westall - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Robert Westall
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“That radio’s the one thing the sea didn’t give me. I bought it second-hand at Hardy’s in Amble. I bought it with the money I got for the fish. It runs on batteries. I buy them with money from the fish too.”
They listened in silence to Bruce Belfrage reading the news. The news wasn’t very good, as usual. The Eighth Army were retreating in the Western Desert. The Russians were retreating round Smolensk. The RAF had sustained “comparatively light” losses, bombing Germany. The man switched off. “Must save the batteries. How you goin’ to manage, now you’re an orphan?”
“Dunno,” said Harry warily.
“You can always manage, by the sea,” said the man. “I’ve learnt that the hard way, over thirty years. I’ll show you how, if you like. Then you’ll have to go away and find your own beach. There’s not room for two here on this one. Is that a bargain?”
“That’s nice of you,” said Harry, and found he meant it.
“Just doin’ me bit for the War Effort,” said the man. “You’ll have to sleep outside though. Wi’ the dog. In the shed.” And he immediately led Harry to the door, taking the empty bowl off him as he went.
The “shed” was simply one end of the long building, with a wall missing. It was full of propped-up, saltstainedplanks of wood, old fish boxes and lumps of cork. Don followed, the well-chewed remains of the fish still in his mouth. The wind, getting up, howled round the open shed, blowing in both spots of rain and rifts of hissing dry sand.
“You’ll make yourself snug enough here,” said the man. “Well, goodnight to you.” And he went in and slammed the door hard.
Harry managed to build some kind of shelter for himself and Don, behind the propped-up wood.
A hand shook his shoulder. “Time to get up. Tide’s on the turn. Time’s a-wasting. Drink this.” The man thrust a very chipped enamel mug into Harry’s hand. Harry sipped it. He thought it was tea without milk or sugar; it was as bitter as gall, but after he’d drunk it, he felt better. He peered out of his shelter. Dawn was just breaking, a steely slit between grey sky and darker sea. There was a brisk breeze, with rain in it.
Then the man was back, and handing him three straw fish baskets, with handles.
“That
one’s for sea-coal, an’ that one’s for slank, and that one’s for anything interesting you find.”
“Like what?”
“You’ll see,” said the man, striding off, with what seemed to be four straw baskets in each hand.
After two hours, Harry’s back was breaking; he was soaked and his knees were caked with sand, and he’d lost all feeling in his hands from cold and wet; they were red and swollen. And yet he was still fascinated. The man stalked the tide-line, bent double all the time, looking as natural as a heron on the hunt for its breakfast. He stalked with a heron-stride; he dipped with his hand like a heron striking. His feet even looked like heron’s feet, bony and splayed and grey. And he must have eyes like gimlets. He didn’t just find sea-coal (which Harry soon learnt to recognise), and slank (which was a particular kind of seaweed, which the man said was better for you than green vegetables). He found a penny, with the King’s head almost worn away by the sea and sand. He found a round rusty tin, still half-full of sweet-smelling tobacco. He found a sodden navy-blue jumper, with one elbow worn out, but it would darn. A baby’s dummy, nearly new, a deflated rubber bathing-ring that could be repaired. Two crabs stranded by the tide, a dead flatfish that was sniffed and pronounced still fresh, and a crippled sea-bird that he despatched with one blow of a charred plank, saying it would make supper. But he was most jubilant about some orangey stones, that he said were amber.
“These started,” he said, “as lumps o’ resin oozing out of a fir tree in Denmark, hundreds and hundreds o’ years ago. I gotta piece once wi’ a fly caught inside it. All
They listened in silence to Bruce Belfrage reading the news. The news wasn’t very good, as usual. The Eighth Army were retreating in the Western Desert. The Russians were retreating round Smolensk. The RAF had sustained “comparatively light” losses, bombing Germany. The man switched off. “Must save the batteries. How you goin’ to manage, now you’re an orphan?”
“Dunno,” said Harry warily.
“You can always manage, by the sea,” said the man. “I’ve learnt that the hard way, over thirty years. I’ll show you how, if you like. Then you’ll have to go away and find your own beach. There’s not room for two here on this one. Is that a bargain?”
“That’s nice of you,” said Harry, and found he meant it.
“Just doin’ me bit for the War Effort,” said the man. “You’ll have to sleep outside though. Wi’ the dog. In the shed.” And he immediately led Harry to the door, taking the empty bowl off him as he went.
The “shed” was simply one end of the long building, with a wall missing. It was full of propped-up, saltstainedplanks of wood, old fish boxes and lumps of cork. Don followed, the well-chewed remains of the fish still in his mouth. The wind, getting up, howled round the open shed, blowing in both spots of rain and rifts of hissing dry sand.
“You’ll make yourself snug enough here,” said the man. “Well, goodnight to you.” And he went in and slammed the door hard.
Harry managed to build some kind of shelter for himself and Don, behind the propped-up wood.
A hand shook his shoulder. “Time to get up. Tide’s on the turn. Time’s a-wasting. Drink this.” The man thrust a very chipped enamel mug into Harry’s hand. Harry sipped it. He thought it was tea without milk or sugar; it was as bitter as gall, but after he’d drunk it, he felt better. He peered out of his shelter. Dawn was just breaking, a steely slit between grey sky and darker sea. There was a brisk breeze, with rain in it.
Then the man was back, and handing him three straw fish baskets, with handles.
“That
one’s for sea-coal, an’ that one’s for slank, and that one’s for anything interesting you find.”
“Like what?”
“You’ll see,” said the man, striding off, with what seemed to be four straw baskets in each hand.
After two hours, Harry’s back was breaking; he was soaked and his knees were caked with sand, and he’d lost all feeling in his hands from cold and wet; they were red and swollen. And yet he was still fascinated. The man stalked the tide-line, bent double all the time, looking as natural as a heron on the hunt for its breakfast. He stalked with a heron-stride; he dipped with his hand like a heron striking. His feet even looked like heron’s feet, bony and splayed and grey. And he must have eyes like gimlets. He didn’t just find sea-coal (which Harry soon learnt to recognise), and slank (which was a particular kind of seaweed, which the man said was better for you than green vegetables). He found a penny, with the King’s head almost worn away by the sea and sand. He found a round rusty tin, still half-full of sweet-smelling tobacco. He found a sodden navy-blue jumper, with one elbow worn out, but it would darn. A baby’s dummy, nearly new, a deflated rubber bathing-ring that could be repaired. Two crabs stranded by the tide, a dead flatfish that was sniffed and pronounced still fresh, and a crippled sea-bird that he despatched with one blow of a charred plank, saying it would make supper. But he was most jubilant about some orangey stones, that he said were amber.
“These started,” he said, “as lumps o’ resin oozing out of a fir tree in Denmark, hundreds and hundreds o’ years ago. I gotta piece once wi’ a fly caught inside it. All
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