The Main Cages (17 page)

On 10 August he drove into Truro and collected the Tablet
which he had written when the
Constantine
had struck (
Ye who seek out landfall on this earth of ours,/Or shelter from the tempest
 …) and commissioned a new one with T.E. Brown’s piece of gardeners’ doggerel:

A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!

Rose plot,

Fringed pool,
Fern ’d grot –

The veriest school

Of peace …

Later that week, over a game of chess, Captain Henriksen announced to him that the salvors had managed to make a full repair of the
Constantine’s
bows. In the next couple of days, they would put more pumps aboard.

‘One week, Rector, two maybe – then to sea again!’

Parson Hooper felt a sudden breath of cold air.

In Newlyn, Jack Sweeney had grown a beard. In months gone by Croyden used to tease him for turning up at dawn with his cheeks smooth, because shaving was something that happened only on Saturday evening. But for Jack now everything had changed and the beard was a way to mark it.

Croyden still teased him: ‘Makes ’ee look like a bloody Spaniard.’ Hammels, who was completely hairless on his chin, was curious about it, and liked to inspect it when Jack was sleeping.

The fishing was very poor. By the time the
Maria V
arrived in Newlyn the early shoals had begun to thin. Jack wrote to Anna:

Everyone blames everyone else in Newlyn. The fishermen blame the buyers for the prices, the buyers blame Mussolini and Abyssinia and the shopkeepers blame everyone because the
boats from St Ives and the East coast have gone back. Now the fish have stopped coming and Croyden and Charlie Treneer blame poor old Hammels for it. If that’s not enough there’s Penzance council to blame for condemning the houses of Fore St and St Peter’s Hill. They want to knock them down and put everyone in new houses. Why can’t these people just be left alone?

The next day, he wrote again – this time a hurried note.

We’re coming back! Just for a day or two. We’ll take the early train on Saturday. It’s Polmayne’s Regatta & Carnival and Charlie Treneer says he wants his half crown for crewing Petrels – plus winnings and he usually wins. Croyden says he must find water for his piece and I said I’d help him. He has guessed of course my real reason for wanting to be in Polmayne.

That Friday afternoon, at the Golden Sands Hotel, a shiny new Lincoln Zephyr crunched down the gravel drive and came to a halt at the porch. Mr Bryant hurried out of the hotel to open the car door.

‘Lady Rafferty … Sir Basil.’

Sir Basil Rafferty was a large man with the slightly startled look of a tortoise. He was also the hotel’s principal backer. Like Bryant, he had done well in Birmingham out of the Depression and like Bryant he had no experience of the sea – the turf was his passion. When he was invited to invest in the hotel, he agreed not because he believed in seaside hotels but because he believed in Bryant.

‘Sounds worth a punt!’

After tea, Mr Bryant took Sir Basil up to Penpraze’s yard where the
Polmayne Queen
was leaning against a quay.

‘For the guests’ entertainment,’ he explained. ‘Picked it up cheap.’

‘Splendid!’ said Sir Basil.

‘We relaunch tomorrow for the regatta.’

Mr Bryant had told the Garretts that he would take on their boat under a number of conditions. The sides must be repainted golden-yellow, with the bulwarks white. The porthole casements should be picked out in red, the funnels be sky blue with two four-inch yellow hoops towards their top, the woodwork on board be glossed white with some features, such as the wheelhouse, picked out in yellow. The canvas awning would be replaced by a wooden canopy (painted yellow) just aft of the wheelhouse, making a ‘saloon’ with a simple bar for refreshments. The engine – a four-stroke from Bergius of Glasgow – must be fully serviced and a lifeboat be installed.

‘Hospitality and safety,’ explained Mr Bryant to the Garretts, ‘the twin principles of the hotelier!’

He had also told them he wanted it all ready for Polmayne regatta on the fifteenth.

‘Can’t do that, sir!’ said Tacker.

‘If you need extra men, I will pay for them. But I want it ready.’

Tacker looked to Jimmy and Jimmy shrugged, then nodded.

Last, Mr Bryant had insisted on them painting over the places where the name
Polmayne Queen
appeared.

‘Good, good!’ said Bryant when he saw the boat gleaming bright yellow in the evening sun. ‘Look!’ he exclaimed, showing Sir Basil where the new name had been applied in gold leaf on the bows –
Golden Sands
– with a gold cove-line running back down the length of the hull.

‘Ah!’ Sir Basil nodded approvingly.

Tacker Garrett popped his head up over the side. ‘Hello, sir!’

‘All ready for tomorrow, Tacker?’

‘Well, sir!’

Jimmy stood up beside his brother, wiping his hand on a rag. ‘Had a little setback.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This lifeboat you wanted needs new davits and we had to reroute the fuel pipe round them and we couldn’t get –’

‘But it will be ready for tomorrow?’

Jimmy shook his head.

Mr Bryant’s success as a developer was based on knowing enough about construction to argue with his builders – ‘If you want them to jump, learn to say “jump” in their language’ – but with boats he was lost.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Jimmy. ‘Be finished in time for Porth regatta.’

‘Porth regatta’s a lovely day out!’ echoed Tacker.

‘When is that?’

‘Two weeks.’

‘Two weeks!’ Bryant shook his head. He looked across the river, clenching and unclenching his fists. Turning his gaze back to Jimmy, he said, ‘You let me down again, Mr Garrett, and I’ll have you. You’ll be begging for a crust. Good day.’

Jimmy watched the two men go, tiptoeing back through the mud in their polished leather shoes.

T
he sun rose behind a bank of grey-brown cloud. Beneath it the sea lay sludgy and still. Along the front, Mrs Cuffe took her buckets to the pump, looking at the cloud and hoping it would thicken into rain.

In Dawkins’s fields, families woke in their tents to see that the light diffusing through the canvas was not bright and buttery but dull. When they crawled outside they looked to the sky for signs that the cloud might thin.

At six-thirty, Lawrence Rose rowed out to his banana-yellow Petrel
Grace.
The splash of his paddles was the only sound in the stillness of the bay. He climbed on board and hoisted the twenty-six signal flags to dress her overall. As he rowed back towards the Gaps he concentrated less on the bank of grey-brown cloud than on the looking-glass surface of the water and the limp flags reflected in it.

‘Not a breath!’ he called to Toper Walsh.

Toper was sweeping the quay. ‘What’s ’ee expect? It’s regatta day!’

At seven o’clock a breeze began to tug at the bunting which ran in multi-coloured swells around the harbour. It made a faint clicking in the fronds of the roadside cordylines and rippled the curtains of open windows. Over the next few hours it freshened. The clouds disappeared and by eleven o’clock, when the Falmouth working boats and the cruisers and the Petrels from Porth began to assemble in the bay, it had become a steady southerly. The signal flags fluttered from
Grace
’s mast. The blue bay sparkled in the mid-morning sun, and by common consent it turned out to be Polmayne’s best regatta since before the war.

At eleven Croyden and Jack and Charlie arrived back in Polmayne on Harris’s station bus. They left the bus in front of the Antalya and climbed the hill to Rope Walk. Croyden’s daughters were outside with their mother, preparing for the carnival. The two older ones were staining pieces of sailcloth with coal-dust.

‘Look, Father!’ they held up the shrouds and made whooshing noises. ‘We’re the West Wind!’

Croyden smiled. ‘Very good. And what’s ’ee?’ He nodded to Betty, his four-year-old. She was standing in a yellow dress while her mother knelt down to pin up the hem. ‘I’m the sun.’ She raised her arms and waved them around. ‘That’s the sun’s rays.’

‘Keep still!’ Maggie took a pin from her mouth and half-turned to Croyden. ‘Any luck?’

He toed the dust and shook his head. ‘No rain here?’

‘Nothing.’

Charlie went to find Ralph Cameron and enlist as crew. Croyden and Jack each took two earthenware bussas and made their way on up the hill to Croyden’s piece. The nearest spring to the allotments had long since dried up. A cattle-trodden
patch of crusty mud stood in its place. They carried the bussas on into the next field. The spring there was the same. Above the Glaze River the sun was rising to its midday height and away from the wind it was hot. They followed a dusty track down past the tents and reached a granite trough which was full of greenish water; a little bulb of water was rising from the spring above it.

‘That’s better!’ said Croyden. They filled the bussas. As they re-crossed the fields a figure came running down the grass towards them. It was Bran Johns.

‘Mr Dawkins’ – he was out of breath – ‘Mr Dawkins says … he’ll set his dogs on anyone takes as much as a drop …’

Croyden looked at him. He raised the bussa to his lips and drank. He wiped his lips, then drank again. ‘You tell your Mr Dawkins he can bugger off.’

At ten minutes to two, Major Franks fired the first gun. The bay was already full of a mass of white and tan sails. There was the flapping of jibs and shouting, and the thud of running back-stays being thrown. Jousting bowsprits sped towards each other. Gybing booms swung across the decks. Spectators along the front and on the terrace of the Golden Sands were amazed (and a little disappointed) that there were no collisions. Sir Basil Rafferty watched it all through his field glasses, trying to work out who on earth was racing with whom.

The various cruiser classes were first off. They were followed by the crabbers and the working boats, and all through the afternoon the crowds thickened on shore in anticipation of the main race – the Petrels.

Three times a week that season the Petrels’ cream sails had lined up off the quays for the start. Their dart-thin hulls appeared to fly above the water. Two new additions to the fleet had taken their number to eight. For the regatta they had been joined by four more from Porth. But the two to watch, as always, were
Harmony
and
Grace.
Ralph Cameron
usually won in
Harmony,
at least when he could persuade Charlie Treneer to crew for him. For
Grace,
Lawrence Rose had a regular crew in Red Stephens.

That summer, for the first time, the Stephens brothers found they earned more from sailing than fishing. Their lugger remained unused while they pulled on the guernsey sweaters they had been given for racing – Red Stephens’s was embroidered with
Grace.
Joe’s had the name of the Dane Soren’s
Charity.
Parliament Bench nicknamed them ‘the angels’.

The twelve boats sailed back and forth along the starting line. Short little white-caps spotted the bay. At three forty-five exactly, a puff of grey smoke rose from the quays and the Petrels fell in beside each other to cross the line. The spectators cheered. They watched the boats beat out to the mark off Pendhu, then bunch up for the run up to the lifeboat station.

On the first round,
Harmony
had a minute over
Grace;
by the time she took the final gun she was five minutes ahead. Ralph Cameron rowed into the inner harbour and was greeted with applause.

‘
Harmony!
’

He sauntered up the steps, flashed his airman’s smile and clapped a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. ‘All down to my crew!’

Charlie grinned shyly. He took his winnings straight to the Fountain Inn. Visitors and locals alike congratulated him. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much.’ Half an hour later, he was bellowing out that he would never sail again. ‘Rather drink my own piss than go yachtin’! Bloody pansies’ game!’

To raise funds, Coxswain Tyler assembled those of his crew who had been on the
Constantine
rescue and brought the
Kenneth Lee
in through the Gaps. Croyden had fished his brother Charlie out of the Fountain. On board, he and Jack stood on each side of Charlie to stop him falling over.

A steady flow of people passed the gauntlet of rattling
collection tins to see the boat. They were curious, hushed, admiring. They stood on the quay and looked down at the blue-and-orange hull and said to each other how small she looked. The lifeboatmen stood on board like fattened geese, roasting inside their lifejackets and sou’westers.

A group of boys came aboard. Tyler showed them into the shelter. They looked at the engine, the flares, the axe. They went forward, whispering to each other. When one asked a question about the
Constantine,
they all did.

‘Sir – did the ship have a hundred sails?’

‘Was it a bad storm?’

‘Were the waves this tall?’

‘Sir, sir – did you have to swim?’