The Seven Gifts (8 page)

When Charlie was a little bigger the Bosun
began taking him round the island on his foraging expeditions. The
young gull would perch on his shoulder, peering avidly about it,
yelling at the other passing gulls, and occasionally falling off.
But he made no attempt to join the others. The Bosun was his mum;
and he showed his devotion by pecking constantly at the old man's
ears.

But the affection was mutual. What was a
sore ear, thought the Bosun, compared to friendship?

In the evenings they would sit round the
fire together eating their supper. The Bosun had carved some wooden
bowls now that Charlie was old enough to feed himself, and they
each had their own. Charlie's was filled with chopped up fish,
while the Bosun's would vary. Sometimes he had rabbit, sometimes
fish; occasionally just seaweed and fruit. But he never had
seagulls’ eggs again. And he didn't bother any more to look for
ships; his life on the island now seemed quite sufficiently
meaningful. With Charlie's company the Bosun was content.

Even when Charlie began to fly and went off
fishing by himself, he would still return to the old Bosun's hut of
an evening to share a little of his supper, and perhaps his
company. But they spent less and less time together now that
Charlie was independent of his mum. And before long, the Bosun
knew, Charlie would be away to a new life as an adult seagull. He
was already spending most of his days flying with the other mottled
young gulls; swooping along the wind currents that were drawn up
over the cliffs, and scouring the beaches for food.

The Bosun began to think again of rescue. He
spent more and more days wandering the cliffs and, where at one
time he would just have watched Charlie, he now scanned the distant
horizon for ships. And he rebuilt his old signal fire, long since
pillaged to feed the fire in his hut.

At night he would dream of the sea and
ships, even of land and the civilisation of the Snow Queen's
kingdom. He dreamed of the family and friends who now presumably
thought him dead. And one night he dreamt of his old Captain: the
man he had last seen standing calmly on the poop watching his ship
break up and sink beneath him.

Only it wasn't the Captain he saw in his
dream, it was Charlie - Charlie speaking with the Captain's voice.
It was Charlie stood on the poopdeck in the screaming wind and
spray, as the Bosun and his men fought with the frozen halyards,
each crashing sea filling the deck and rising to their necks. And
Charlie spoke to the Bosun, the voice of the Captain rising clearly
above the howling gale.

“Do not worry, my old friend. You will be
saved; from this storm, and again from the island you will be swept
to. You have more years yet in which to suffer this world.

“Tomorrow at noon you must light your signal
fire, for a ship, homeward bound to the kingdom, will pass just
below the horizon at that time. The crew will see your smoke and
come for you.

“And do not fear for me."

The Bosun awoke with a start, the dream
still fresh in his mind. He looked towards the spot by the fire
where Charlie normally slept, but the seagull was gone.

He shook his head and thought about the
strange dream. He had never believed the superstition that the
souls of drowned sailors lived in seagulls. Could they? No, it was
wishful nonsense.

But as the sun neared its zenith he had
almost finished preparing the bonfire. Damp leaves and twigs were
piled high on top of it to make smoke, so that it would be visible
further in daylight. He felt a little foolish, but then there was
no-one around to see. Why not have a bonfire? It was something to
do. And he couldn't know that there wasn't a ship passing below the
horizon that day.

All through that long afternoon he stood on
the edge of the cliff, peering out to sea. Behind him the bonfire
gradually died to a flicker. By nightfall there was just a pile of
smouldering embers, and he had seen no ship. When it became too
dark to see, he turned and trudged wearily back home to his little
hut.

Charlie, who was normally ensconced by the
fire long before dark, was nowhere to be seen. And by the time the
Bosun was preparing for bed, he had still not appeared. He worried
about Charlie, sufficiently to be able to forget the failure of the
signal fire. That night he slept fitfully, dozing, then springing
awake at the slightest sound, hoping it might be his little
seagull. But when he finally dragged himself out of bed with the
dawn, there had been no sign of Charlie.

It was a tired and saddened old man who
half-heartedly ate a small breakfast of fish. After he had eaten he
savagely kicked soil over the fire, ground it out with his heels
and stamped out of the hut to begin a thorough search of the
island. He hoped he might find his little friend with perhaps just
minor damage to a leg; something he could fix. It seemed odd, he
pondered as he walked, how Charlie had disappeared immediately
after his strange dream. A dream that obviously had been just
wishful thinking on his part. But something seemed to have
happened, to break the harmony of his simple life with Charlie and
the island. He felt depressed, and that was unlike the Bosun.

He rounded a small clump of wizened trees
and stood looking down on to the bay where he had first washed
ashore. In the middle of the bay, at anchor, was a sailing ship. A
small gig was being rowed towards the beach and the Bosun could see
an officer, quite clearly, standing in the sternsheets.

He fell to his knees on the wet grass, put
his hands together and cried out thanks to God for his salvation.
Then, with tears streaming from his eyes, he ran - all thoughts of
Charlie gone - down the steep path towards the beach.

The Bosun leaned on the rail of the little
ship, clad in fresh clothes and puffing contentedly on a pipe. The
Mate was alongside him, recounting all the latest news of the
kingdom. Above the ship, unnoticed by either of them, a seagull
soared on long white wings, round and round, ignoring all the
others that squabbled in the scraps thrown over by the cook.

“...... palace was razed to the ground," the
Mate was saying. But the Bosun didn't hear him. Now that he was
safe on the ship he was thinking of Charlie again and wondering
what had happened to him. He had asked the Captain to scour the
island for his friend, but it seemed the time could not be spared.
They had already lost a day and a night coming for him, having seen
the smoke the previous afternoon. And that had set him wondering
about his dream.

But dream or no dream, he was desperately
sad at leaving without saying goodbye to Charlie. The little
seagull had been a good companion during all those months on the
island - months that would have been intensely lonely without
Charlie.

The Mate was still talking.

“No-one knows what happened," he was saying,
“but the Ice Princess has been in the foulest of moods ever since.
Something to do with the band, I believe. I tell you, the kingdom
is no place to be these days; you'd be better off staying
......"

He was cut short by a scream from somewhere
above their heads. Then a seagull smashed into the deck at their
feet in a flurry of blood and feathers. Its neck was pierced with
the bolt of a crossbow, and blood poured from the wound, swirling
around the seamen’s boots like a red tide. The Mate stared
horrified.

But the Bosun turned cold. Ice ran down his
spine and into his heart as he knelt and cradled the dying Charlie
in his arms. Charlie looked at him with surprisingly calm eyes for
a long time, then suddenly fell lifeless in the Bosun's shaking
hands.

Tears streaked the old man's rugged, lined
face as he slowly rose to his feet, gently holding the dead body of
his friend in strong seaman's arms.

“Good shot eh?" came a cheery cry from
behind him. The Bosun turned unseeing, his eyes blurred with tears.
But the Mate saw.

At the break of the poop stood a grinning
merchant, on board to keep an eye on his wares. His ermine-trimmed
robe ruffled in the breeze and a crossbow swung negligently from
his right hand. His round, puffy face looked pleased.

“Scum!" spat the Mate, who knew full well
where the souls of drowned sailors went. The Bosun turned to him -
a kindred spirit.

“Take me back to the island please," he
said.

o ------------------------
o

The young boy closed the
book on the Third Gift

and remained a while with
his thoughts

in the lonely tower at the
end of the beach

And the Angel watched over
him

o ------------------------
o

Gone Fishing

IT WAS soon after midday when the Angel
entered the room. The young boy was sat at the desk staring rather
glassy-eyed at the third story, which still lay open in front of
him. He felt tired and fed up. There seemed to be all sorts of
possibilities in this one. The gift could be almost anything -
love, eternity, hope, life; anything. He could not sort out which
one.

He did not seem to be doing very well so
far. He felt sure the Angel would soon despair of him. Whatever it
was he had to do on Earth, he was beginning to think he was just
not capable of it.

He swivelled in his chair at the sound of
the door opening, and was surprised to see the Angel standing
there. He shrugged his shoulders apologetically.

“I can't seem to figure out this one at
all," he said, with a sigh. “There are so many alternatives. What
is it?"

The Angel shook her head slowly. Yes, I
know, he thought, I must work it out for myself. “I'm tired," he
said with some feeling.

The Angel smiled. “Never mind," she said.
“Forget about that for today, I think you have had enough. Let's go
fishing." And with that she turned and left the room.

The boy could hardly believe his ears.
Fishing! His tiredness vanished and he flew out of the door.

The Angel's boat bobbed alongside the wall
of the tiny harbour, varnish and yellow paint glinting in the
afternoon sun. She was a sturdy little open boat some eighteen feet
long, fitted with a small two cylinder diesel engine, and a stumpy
little mast and derrick just abaft the foredeck. Under the derrick
was a capstan, driven by rods and gearing from the engine, for
hauling the little wing trawl that lay neatly flaked in the stern
of the boat. A small wooden trawl door hung from each quarter.

The two of them climbed aboard the boat,
started the engine, and motored slowly out of the harbour. The
Angel stood at the tiller and, once clear of the entrance, she set
course for a patch of clean trawling ground where she knew they
would find some big plaice.

The boy sat perched on the gunwhale, his
face wreathed in smiles as the little boat rose and fell to the
waves. It was a beautiful day: clear and warm with just a light
breeze to ruffle the water. A day to be at sea.

He breathed in the clean, salty air and
listened to the gentle chuckle of the bow rippling through the
small waves. The diesel engine thumped away steadily and the Angel
leaned back in the sternsheets, steering with one arm draped over
the tiller. The boy was happy and the Angel content. But then she
always was.

They soon reached the grounds and shot the
gear away downtide in about four fathoms of water. The Angel set
the boat on course and throttled the engine so that they were
making a steady two and a quarter knots over the ground. Then she
handed the tiller to her young crew and went to check that the
warps were vibrating evenly, showing that the doors were properly
on the bottom and dragging the sweeps through the muddy sand,
rooting out all those dozing plaice.

“Digging well is it?" enquired the boy. The
Angel nodded.

“It always intrigues me," the boy continued,
“how you can sense, just by feeling the vibrations in those warps,
exactly what is going on down there."

“Well," said the Angel, “when the doors and
the net are set properly, you get steady, even vibrations from both
warps. That tells you the doors are churning nicely through the
sand, keeping the sweeps on the bottom; and the angle between the
warps shows how far out the doors are flying.

“I know from experience what the warps feel
like when we are catching well, so if there is any difference then
something is wrong. The door might have toppled, or a sweep caught
up round its G-link, or maybe even the net has rolled over - which
can happen if you shoot away across a strong tide. If there is
hardly any vibration at all, the door is not on the bottom - not
enough warp out usually.

“It's all part of the general awareness a
fisherman needs when he is at sea. You should know about that - all
the things you need to be constantly judging and sensing: the state
of the sea; strength and direction of wind and tide; any looming
change in the weather; your position and course; how the engine is
behaving; how the gear is working. That's why fishing is so
interesting. To me anyway."

She glanced casually at the boy, then added:
“But you find real contentment at sea, don't you? Why?"

That stumped him for a moment. Why did he?
Was it peaceful? Not usually. Restful? Only occasionally, and
certainly not when fishing. Just pleasant perhaps? Sometimes, he
decided; but all too often it wasn't. When the wind howled and
waves rolled aboard high enough to slop down your neck; with the
gear hitched up round a rock on a black night in a rising gale,
fish boxes crashing around in the water that swirled over the
bottom boards; and you couldn't see where you were and home seemed
a long way away; when you were scared and wondered whether you
would ever see that home again, then it was not pleasant.