Salt Tea

PART I

Mrs Van Dijk looked into the deep water from the wood jetty seeing first her reflection in the water like a ghost and then beyond, the silvery flash of big fish. Sometimes the water swirled with dark plumes of dirt or slime, but sometimes it was clear. The noise from the small harbour was clamorous – women were selling fish, fishermen shouted at each other across the water between the moored boats. Dogs barked.

She had come to the jetty to get away from the people and the noise. She looked back at the quayside trying to see Howard. She’d been waiting an hour. Fishermen in a boat just coming in across the placid water came close to the jetty and noticed her and shouted. She wasn’t sure what they said because the accent was so strong but there was a masculine jeer in the sound of their rough voices. She was glad she couldn’t understand.

She kept her eyes low, not wanting to encourage any more shouting and held the straps of their two large bags in her hand tightly. She looked again down the jetty for a glimpse of Howard.

She wished he’d said where he was going, and how long he would be. It was already late in the day and they’d have to get a boat this evening or they would have to stay somewhere in Boston. It didn’t seem a nice place. The place was hardly a port at all. There were buildings behind the simple quayside – some tall – and the famous tall church tower called the Boston Stump, but the port buildings were poor and low. The water was muddy and smelly. It was more like a place that had been hollowed out from a marsh or a swamp than a proper port.

She began to regret coming. To remind herself of the reasons for setting out, she opened her bag again, looking for the letter. She’d read it three times already since leaving the Vale early in the morning. She took it out again.

Dear Mrs Van Dijk,

Thank you for sending your manuscript on the ‘Flowering plants of northern Europe’, which we received in good order. Myself and another editor read the text with great satisfaction and even happiness.

I don’t mind telling you, Mrs Van Dijk, that we were very concerned on hearing of the death of Dr Wroclaw so far from home, in England, especially since we received from him only a few days before a letter in which he discussed entrusting you with the completion of his great work.

I’m glad to say that the work has been done by you to a superb level of detail and requires only the minimum of editorial alteration. To continue our discussions we would very much like to invite you and your husband to Amsterdam, Netherlands. We will of course reimburse the costs of your journey and will pay you your fee for the completion of the work.

Please write by return of post to confirm when you intend to travel. Our address is at the top of this letter.

Underneath was a complicated and elaborate signature with many curls and flourishes. No name appeared, only the name of the publisher in large letters at the top.

She had written a reply immediately after receiving the letter saying that she and Howard would come that same week. This is why she now waited on the jetty smelling the fishy air and the mud of the channel that led to the open sea. Howard had gone looking for a boat that would take them to the Hook of Holland leaving that afternoon.

She put the letter back in the envelope and then the envelope into her big bag. Looking up she saw Howard striding down the jetty toward her. He always walked quickly and when he walked she always found it difficult to tell his mood. He had a small bag over his shoulder and his hair was longer than usual, his face was sunburned red.

But his face wasn’t optimistic. She could tell he hadn’t found a boat. Her sprits fell. She let go the straps of the two bags and sighed heavily.

She turned back to the sea. Perhaps because she didn’t want him to see her disappointment.

‘I couldn’t find anything. There are boats going to Holland but none to the Hook. They won’t take passengers anyway’.

She nodded. At least it was warm and there was plenty of light left. It wouldn’t be dark for a few hours. There was time to walk to Boston.

‘This is a horrible place to stay’ she said. ‘We can walk back. We can return tomorrow’

She looked up into his face. He nodded – but she could tell that he was probably thinking that they wouldn’t find a boat in the morning either.

********************************

They found an inn on the waterfront and sat in the room at the front that looked out on the boats. The tables were rough and there was sawdust on the floor. A few bearded fishermen sat drinking. They ordered beer – which was all there was – and sat looking gloomily out at the horizon past the forest of masts.

‘Who did you ask Howard – which boats?’

‘All of them around here. Maybe six captains or six sailors. I believed them though’

‘About what’

‘That they weren’t going to Holland. Most are fishing boats with no space for passengers.’

‘But this is a port. I went to the Dutch in Stathern to ask and they said Boston was the place to come to get a boat to Holland. All their wool goes that way’

‘There are some wool merchants here but they told me they aren’t sailing for a week. They’re waiting for wool to come from the farms’. He reached over and touched her hand and she smiled. She had been quite excited about going on a boat. She’d set her heart on it. Still, they’d get something.

‘Shall we go back to the town? I don’t think we can stay here’

She stood to take one of the big bags and scraped her chair back. In the window Howard saw a man passing. He was walking quickly. The man stopped and looked in at the window – at them. He was not bearded. He seemed young – but with the untidy hair that all fishermen seemed to have – perhaps because of the wind at sea.

The man took his face away and they saw him move on to the door of the inn. Then he was inside striding through the room, his heavy boots thumping on the wood floor.

He stopped before them and smiled standing very upright. He was quite short, and he had a sort of pleasing, youthful face. He might even be called baby-faced. He swayed back and forth, his smile fixed. His teeth were crooked.

‘You’re looking for a boat to Holland – to the Hook?’ His voice was weakly accented. It sounded like the south of England.

Howard nodded. He was sure he’d already asked this man, and he’d said no.

‘I thought that...’ said Howard.

‘Yes we thought that there’d be no room, but we’ve changed our mind. My name is Snap – my nickname. My real name is Richard. But call me Snap’

Snap looked about him. Howard thought there was something wary about the sailor. He was friendly but also watchful. One of the fishermen at the tables was turned to them, a smile under his beard.

Snap stared hard at the drinking fisherman who dropped his eyes immediately to look back into the depths of his beer mug.

‘We are sailing within the hour. I mean that. If you want a passage you have one. There’s even a cabin for you and your wife’

He smiled his crooked smile with his crooked teeth. He bent over to take the strap of Howard’s bag and lifted it quickly onto his shoulder.

They had no choice but to follow him out. They had their passage to Holland.

It was a small boat. Howard hadn’t seen it properly before, because he’d stood on the quay. When he’d asked before, Snap had been almost rude, wanting to get rid of Howard. But now the baby-faced man was embarrassingly helpful. He smiled a lot and scratched his head laughing absently mindedly. A few other rather shifty-looking sailors watched as the two travellers came on board. They watched for a few seconds and then went back to doing what they’d been doing, tying ropes, loading boxes. All over the deck Howard noticed bags of canvas tied together, but empty. Barrels of water were stacked at one end of the small deck. At the far end was a hatch that led below deck, and this was the way Snap took them.

‘The other men are dull, stupid – don’t mind them’ he said gesturing over his shoulder at the sailors. He seemed not to care if they heard him.

‘The skipper’s in the town. He’ll be here in a minute’ he mumbled.

At the bottom of a short flight of stairs was an open area, dark but for a candle and an oil lamp. It smelled foul, but there was a sweet herb smell too. There was a salted carcase of a pig hanging from the ceiling. There were beds along one side.

‘There’s a crew of three with the skipper and me. We sleep in there...’ he pointed at a pair of doors to the left. ‘This will be yours...’, and he took them to the door to the right.

‘But what is the cost’, said Howard. He was worried about the cost suddenly, seeing that they were being treated rather well. He was always wary of being charged too much.

‘You can talk to the master about that. Don’t worry. It’s cheap’

Through the door was a tiny space with two low bare beds and a curved wall that was probably the wall of the boat. There was a single circular hatch. There was enough room for the two bags and the two beds – and that was all.

‘How long does it take?’ asked Mrs Van Dijk. Her voice was high and wavering, tired.

‘Three, four days, if we’re lucky with the wind. Two or three nights’

Howard looked out of the window, having to crouch over, almost double. Outside was the hull of another boat, and below, perhaps only a few feet below, the brown water of the harbour.

He’d never sailed more than a few hours in a boat.

He turned to look at Mrs Van Dijk. She was tired after the long trip to the coast but not nervous about the voyage, just pleased they were on their way.

********************************

Under the two narrow bunk beds were more of the canvas bags that Howard had seen on the deck. There was damp in the corner below the narrow circular hatch. Howard thought that there were times when the seawater leaked through. He hoped that it wouldn’t happen on their voyage.

They put their bags on the hard planks.

‘It’s better than I thought it would be’ Mrs Van Dijk said. ‘If the boat was smaller we’d had have no room of our own. If the boat’s big also we won’t feel the sea too much’

But even the water underneath them in the harbour moved slowly and Howard heard the ropes creaking on the deck. The bad smell of the water in the quay leaked up through the floorboards.

They heard Snap’s voice and the thump of boots.

‘Would you like tea?’ he asked banging on their door. ‘On deck’ he said and they heard his boots retreat.

‘We should go Howard’ said Mrs Van Dijk. ‘I’m thirsty too’

They wondered through the dark lower deck and up the steps to the smaller upper deck. There was a lower part with about the floor area of the living room of their cottage in Earls Court, and two raised parts at the front and back of the boat. The mast – a huge column of polished blond wood – stood up from the back of the lower deck. Canvas sails hung limply from it and coils of stiff salty rope. Snap and another man sat together on a bench, their backs to the mast.

The other man was older, long haired, but with white hair that grew only over his ears. His head was otherwise bald and freckled and mottled brown from years of maritime sun.

‘Pickles – the captain of the Mabillard’ said Snap loudly, pointing at his companion with mock grandeur.

‘This boat is called the Mabillard?’ asked Mrs Van Dijk.

There were four big cups of tea on the bench. Snap held out two of the cups to the visitors.

‘This is the Mabillard’ said the older man. He narrowed his eyes looking up at Mrs Van Dijk. There was the faintest suggestion of a lascivious smile on the Captain’s lips. The captain didn’t offer his hand to shake, but simply looked levelly and rather coolly at his two passengers.

Howard took a sip of the tea and found it odd at first – nice but odd. It was slightly salty.

He looked into the cup, raising his eyebrows at the same time and Snap said: ‘Salty tea! The fisherman’s drink. Not made with seawater, but just mixed with the ubiquitous salt of the sea!’

‘It’s nice’ said Mrs Van Dijk under her breath.

‘We’ll leave within the hour’ said Pickles. He rose with his cup in his hand and looked amongst the sails. He shouted loudly to a man who was sitting with his back to them amongst the sail canvas. Neither Howard nor Mrs Van Dijk could understand what he shouted, but the man looked round and stood and started to pull in one of the larger ropes. Water sluiced off the rope.

‘Pulling up anchor’ said Snap. ‘Have you sailed before?’ He looked at Howard. There was some amusement in his eyes.

‘No’

‘Well don’t worry it will be easy. The weather is fine’

But even though the weather was fine, Howard became sick almost immediately in the little cabin. He couldn’t remember in his life ever feeling so sick. It was as if the world was constantly moving underneath him. At first he lay on the bed, trying to lie still, perfectly straight, looking up at the wood ceiling. But this was no good. The nausea was overwhelming. After this he tried shutting his eyes and imagining he was back in the cottage in the Vale, but then it was worse.

In the end it was a relief to be sick through the narrow hatch. Mrs Van Dijk got up to show him the catch that allowed it to be opened – but only just in time. Now Howard knew what the hatch was for.

For the first hours of the voyage, Mrs Van Dijk sat with him. Suddenly he had the selfishness of the sick man – who had no interest in anything but getting better and no desire other than getting better again. She stroked his forehead between his bouts of sickness, while he softly – and with great feeling – swore that he would never again sail in a boat, anywhere.

********************************

After dark, Mrs Van Dijk went up on deck. One of the men whose name she didn’t know was at the wheel. There was only a small breeze and the boat was remarkably stable. She couldn’t understand why Howard was so sick.

And the night was glorious. The sky was not black but grey – grey with stars. Only the sails were black. The light of the sky gleamed on the black water too. The sails and ropes creaked with the breeze but she could see from the water swiftly passing the gunwales that they were moving quick. The sky was faintly dark blue in the west where the sun had set. They were sailing due east. She sat on a bench and looked out to the front. It was magical – she could see ahead – maybe a low black cloud, maybe a coast. But it couldn’t be a coast – they were not so far out, not so many hours from England. She sat fascinated and tense with excitement hoping that no crewman would come up to the deck and spoil her quiet moment with the sea.

In the night, Howard groaned and coughed but was not sick again. She couldn’t tell whether he was sleeping.

It was long past midnight when she heard shouting. She wasn’t sure whether she’d been asleep or not. There was a sound of wind and the boat was moving more. There were shouts again, then talking from within their boat. She sat up and leaned over Howard’s sleeping body to look out of the hatch. She saw nothing. The sky was no longer grey with stars, but darker. She thought that clouds had covered the sky.

There was a creak nearby and a banging sound then a sudden bump that passed right through the boat. She froze, sitting upright in bed. Howard woke. She saw his sleepy head turn – he was listening.

‘Are you awake?’ he said.

‘Yes’

‘What was that?’

‘I don’t know Howard’

‘Have we hit something?’

There was shouting now right outside the door. Then very heavy boots walking on the deck right above them. There was a voice that they didn’t recognise, someone talking loudly.

‘I have to get up’

Mrs Van Dijk sat on the edge of the bed and in the tiny space pulled on her trousers and boots. It was warm and humid.

‘Have we hit something?’ said Howard stupidly; he was still not properly awake.

‘No Howard another boat has come alongside. I’ll get up and look’

He sighed and coughed. Was he going to be sick again?

‘I’ll come too – are you going up?’

There were two men in dark uniforms on deck. Pickles and Snap were there. They were in their clothes and both smelled of brandy or whisky. Mrs Van Dijk guessed that they hadn’t been to bed. The men in uniform were asking the two crewmen questions.

Snap seemed genuinely glad to see the two travellers from below the deck. He was half-drunk and he spoke loudly about how they had taken the two from Boston and were heading for Holland. There they would pick up other passengers to bring back to England. They did this often – trading in simple goods – wool, manufactured things. But their main business was passengers.

‘But we are legal’ said Snap, grinning at the officer. He swayed a little, holding a glass up-close to his face.

The two officers were quiet. There were lights off the far side in the darkness showing the position of the other boat. Mrs Van Dijk could just make out sailors moving on its deck, holding lanterns. It was some kind of military boat. She noticed that the officers’ uniforms were untidy. They looked tired. One had a large book in his hands. He opened it while she watched.

‘What’s the name of the boat’ asked the other officer.

‘The Mabillard’ said Pickles. ‘These two kind people are our passengers. We would have taken others but no one was about in Boston’

‘You’re taking them to the Hook of Holland?’

‘Yes sir’

‘You’re a bit far north aren’t you?’

‘It’s the wind sir. Also as you can see we have been celebrating and rather taken our eye off the sailing. But we’ll correct our course right now – this evening’

‘We’ll have to search your boat’ said the officer with the large book. The book looked like a ledger. He held a pencil at a name on a list on the open page. Probably it was the name of the boat.

‘I’ll lead you two gentlemen below’ said Snap.

He took the two officers down into the lower deck. They heard them talking and the thump of their boots.

Captain Pickles put his cup down and winked at Mrs Van Dijk exaggeratedly. He was probably more drunk than he looked.

Howard was sitting on a half barrel looking wretched. He was still coughing.

‘My husband has been sick’ she said without knowing why she’d started a conversation.

But Pickles seemed unable to speak. He swayed again and then sat down. He held his head between his hands.

Within a minute, the two officers were climbing the low stairs back onto the main deck. They looked satisfied that the Mabillard was not carrying anything illegal.

The senior man with the book picked up a brass lantern and they stepped up onto the gunwale and then across into the other boat. The other officer followed. Mrs Van Dijk noticed that the other official had a small pistol in his belt.

‘You’re free to go’ shouted the officer. ‘I would sober up though – if I were you. You’ll not be on the wide sea all night. Watch out for other vessels’

The lanterns on the far boat began to retreat and there was more shouting in the dark as the bigger boat began to pull away. There was a scraping sound and a bump and then they saw it move along side. It was much larger than the Mabillard – with a name in large letters and a symbol suggesting the King’s Navy.

Pickles and Snap went back to a bottle that they’d hidden and poured themselves more drink. The heat and humidity was surprising for a night on the North Sea, and Mrs Van Dijk didn’t want to go back into the cabin because it was so stuffy, but Howard still looked ill and probably needed to lie down. She had no intention of being alone up on the deck with Snap and Pickles.

********************************

It was a long night. Howard felt better, but now he couldn’t sleep. The nausea had gone but a powerful headache had taken its place. He couldn’t move without setting off a terrible pulsing pain that felt like his brain was expanding in his skull, more than his skull could accommodate. He tried to forget about it, and listened to Mrs Van Dijk’s breathing beside him, or the sigh of the water passing by the window, or the creak of the ropes and the old wood in the hull and the deck. He thought he heard Snap and Pickles walking around, laughing and even talking outside the door. Very late, when he was not sure whether he was awake or asleep, when the headache had finally begun to subside, he heard a click in the door and a low thud. This sound troubled him. He wasn’t sure why. In his sleep he thought someone had done something wrong, something bad, but he didn’t know why. He was either asleep or still suffering from sea sickness.

He slept on hearing the wind get stronger, and feeling subliminally that something had gone wrong.

Light pierced his eyes as he opened them. Light was coming straight in through the open hatch. It was bright sunlight. The wind was still strong and the whole boat moved back and forth. But it wasn’t a movement from side to side – which was what had made him sick. He lay feeling if there was any nausea, or any headache. Nothing. Why was he awake?

‘Howard – wake up. I don’t understand’

He turned. Mrs Van Dijk sat on the bed fully dressed, facing him. She looked very concerned.

‘I let you sleep. But there’s something wrong’

‘What?’ Nothing could be as bad as the nausea and the headaches. He almost felt glad. The morning smell of the sea was nice.

‘The door’s locked, Howard’

‘Are you sure?’

She sighed. ‘I wanted to go out to the privy but I couldn’t open the door’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes! Do you think I didn’t try the door?’

Howard sat up. He was still in his clothes from the night before, when the officials had boarded the boat. It had been the worst part of the night for him. He had felt terrible. He wasn’t even sure if he remembered the officials’ visit right. He’d been half asleep.

He pulled on the door. It was firmly shut. There was no give in the door either. It was very solid oak. He went to his knees expecting the headache to return and peered through the keyhole. The key was still in the keyhole on the other side.

‘It must be a mistake. They must have locked it by accident’. Then he remembered hearing something at the door the night before. The click of the lock.

He pulled at the door again. Then banged on it in frustration.

‘Did you go to the privy, Lotte?’

‘No of course not! Where could I go?’

He banged hard on the door. It was solid. He shouted.

‘Hey – the door. It’s locked.’ He banged very hard. ‘We need to get up’

Silence. He went to his knees again and listened through the door, and looked through the keyhole.

He went to the window and pulled on the catch and opened it slightly. He put his mouth as far out as he could, tasting the salt spray from the swiftly moving sea below. He bellowed into the wind.

‘Hey – open the door’

They must have heard that.

They waited.

‘Don’t worry. It must be a mistake’

This time he stepped back from the bed and pushed hard against the door with his shoulder and his body weight. The pain came back into his head immediately.

Footsteps came down into the lower deck. Howard hammered.

‘Open the door’ he shouted angrily.

Snap’s low cool voice came from the other side of the wood.

‘You’ll be alright in there. Don’t worry’

His voice was slightly malicious, maybe even amused.

‘We need to get out. My wife needs to get out’

‘No. You stay’

‘She needs to go out’

Howard banged furiously on the door. His head began to bang with pain. Once he got out he’d take that man Snap by his neck and...

‘Your wife can come out’

The door key scraped and the lock clicked. The door opened outward and Howard saw Snap’s foot just back from the door. Howard launched himself forward his head down low.

But he felt a terrible pain on his neck and a loud sound in his brain. The new pain was not the pain of headache. He fell to the floor and felt a splinter of wood enter his cheek.

********************************

He woke, face down in the bunk. This time he really felt terrible. His neck felt like it was broken. Mrs Van Dijk was beside him. He felt the boat move quite violently under him. But this time it wasn’t the sea that made him feel sick; it was the pain in his neck. He sat up and moved straight to the hatch and opened it so he could be sick again. He looked down into the swirling sea and a wave came up and splashed his face suddenly cold. Water poured in, and he withdrew his head, shutting the hatch. He gasped with the sting of the salt water. Then lay back on the bed.

Mrs Van Dijk sat beside him.

‘Are you alright?’

‘No. What happened?’

‘He hit you with something. He was standing behind the door. Does it hurt?’

‘Yes. Did you go out?’

‘Yes. He let me out to the privy then locked us in again. They’re keeping us locked up for some reason. They won’t speak to me’

‘Is there any food?’

‘He put bread on a plate and pushed it through. Do you want some?’

‘Yes, Lotte’

He sat up and his head began to bang with pain. This had been the worst two days of his life – pain and nausea. He would never, ever, come to sea again.

She held up a piece of dry bread on a broad white plate. He felt the back of his head. There was a bump and the skin felt hot. He looked at his fingers. No blood.

‘He didn’t cut you Howard. I looked. Take some bread’

He chewed the dry bread which seemed as tough as leather. Every time he moved his jaw, his head throbbed with pain. But he knew he must eat. He’d not eaten properly for days.

Mrs Van Dijk lifted a heavy brown jug to the bed and he heard a glug of water.

‘There’s enough water for a few days’

‘How’s the weather?’

‘I can’t tell Howard. Still sunny, but windier. We’ve been out of port for almost two days. We’re going fast with the wind.’

Howard laid his head back and looked up at the wood in the ceiling which was the boards of the deck above. He thought he could see the gleam of light between the boards, but he wasn’t sure. In a second he was asleep again.

‘Howard’

Mrs Van Dijk’s hand was on his forehead. He looked for the pain expecting it to come, but it stayed low, somewhere in his shoulders.

‘Where are we?’

‘I don’t know Howard. You slept for hours. How do you feel?’

‘Better. Can I drink’

He lifted the jug to his mouth and drank hugely. The water was wonderful – fresh and clear. For some reason he imagined it would be salty but it tasted so sweet. He couldn’t hold the jug up for long and he wanted to drink more. He set it down.

‘They’re moving around – on deck’

‘Who?’

‘The crew. I’m sure I heard them say something about us’

‘Where are we?’ he said again.

‘I don’t know Howard. It’s impossible to tell’

Howard looked out of the hatch. He thought he saw the sky bright behind the boat – in the direction in which they’d come. Was the sun setting in the west? So they were still sailing due east.

There was a thump at the door and it scraped open. Snap and the Captain – Pickles – stood in the dark lower deck beyond. Both carried heavy sticks.

Howard wanted to get up and fight, but when he tried to stand the pain was too great and he had to bend double. He thought he might be sick again.

‘Out’ growled Snap. He tapped the stick against his palm.

‘Where?’ asked Mrs Van Dijk quietly.

‘Don’t worry. You’ll be safe. We are just lightening our load’

Mrs Van Dijk began to tremble. Were they going to be thrown into the sea?

‘Madame’ said Pickles in a mock polite way, ‘don’t worry. We would not abandon you in the wide sea. We have brought you to somewhere safe’

Mrs Van Dijk stood up and pulled on her boots.

‘Come on Howard’

He got up and followed her out, his head still bowed low. The pain was huge. He felt it right down his legs and into his feet. Had they broken his back? But he could walk.

They blinked up on deck. The sun was going down, and the sails had been dropped. There was still a wind and the sea around to the west was milky and grey, but lit by glancing light. Mrs Van Dijk clutched both of their bags.

A rowing boat had been lowered and one of the nameless crew members was standing on the gunwale holding a rope.

The rowing boat rose and fell.

‘In’ said Snap.

Mrs Van Dijk lowered herself carefully down the frame of wooden slats on the side and into the row boat and Snap threw both of the bags in after her. Howard went down, grimacing with the pain of having to move. He sat in the boat his head in his hands. The crewman went down and then Snap. They cast off the rope and the crewman pushed the row boat away from the hull with an oar. Then with powerful strokes he brought the boat around and rowed hard pulling deeply on his shoulders.

Mrs Van Dijk looked into the setting sun for a few seconds, trying to decide what to do. The two sailors watched her fiercely, their faces slightly silhouetted by the brightness of the light. Howard sat motionless beside her. Snap still held the big stick.

She turned at last, realising dully that their destination was behind her. The salt of the sea blew in her face, but past the dancing waves, just a small way ahead, was a line of dunes and dune grass silvery green in the sun.

PART II

They were told to get out of the boat where the water was shallow. But still the sea was cold. Mrs Van Dijk stepped out and the water went to her waist. The waves slapped against her. She held one of the bags above her head.

Howard stepped over the side. The pain in his head was less, or perhaps the shock of the cold water distracted him. Snap passed him the other bag.

He looked into Snap’s face expecting some kind of explanation, but the other just stared, his eyes empty. The crewman was already turning the boat around and pulling on the oars. The Mabillard was set back, huge and dark against the sky.

Howard waited, but no words came to him. The cold of the sea had made him mute. Mrs Van Dijk took his hand and pulled him. She had turned to the land feeling they had a better chance there. The row boat was already off and Snap’s back was turned. Not a word had been spoken.

‘Come on Howard – walk to the beach. We can change into dry clothes’

‘I don’t understand’ he said dully looking at his feet in the clear water.

‘Neither do I’

It was a wide beach but not in a bay – it was convex outward so it felt like they were on an exposed point. The sand was littered with drift wood and debris from boats, pots and planks, part of an old chair. There were shells everywhere, pink and blue, some partially buried, some upturned and filled with sand.

There was wind blowing along the shore but the sand was too wet to move. They wondered slowly up the beach into finer, drier sand that was cream in colour and rippled into long waves. Thin delicate grass spiked up through the sand, and there were traces of birds’ feet, mice and rabbits. There were no human footprints.

Then the rippled sand folded upward into a line of dunes. Coarse dark grass was combed back against the wind and sand was blowing in white veils like smoke over the ground.

They followed a passageway between two big dunes and immediately the wind was gone, and sound was deadened by the sand. It led up into a small platform behind the head of a dune but up quite high. It was slightly lower in the middle of the platform with tall grass around the side, like a shallow bowl. The sand was warm and there was no wind.

Howard was already exhausted. He sat heavily on one of the bags and felt behind his neck where the pain was worst. It was still warm and moist. His fingers had a bit of blood.

‘Did you bring the water?’ he croaked.

‘In the bag’

Mrs Van Dijk went up to the high point of the dune leaving the bags. It wasn’t the highest dune, but it was amazing that they were all so similar – all about the same height. There were other dune ridges further in from the beach, but not as high. She stood looking at the sea, and the wind blew her hair out behind her. The water was shiny like a polished shield, and at its centre she could see the small spiky outline of the Mabillard. It was hard to tell, but she thought it was sailing back out to sea. To her left the great arc of the beach was rimmed by the dune ridge, as far as she could see. Inland the shoulders of the dunes dropped down into rolling grasslands. There were no fences or hedges. Some of the grasslands were scarred with creamy white where the sand showed through. She thought there were dunes beyond the grasslands, but she couldn’t tell. The sky was grey in the east. Perhaps it was raining out there. Wherever ‘out there’ was.

She let herself slide down the dune to the hollow where Howard still sat on the bag. She felt the sand fill her boots up. But at least it was warm

She was always very practical at these times. Howard had not done anything about the drinking jug so she took it out for him and laid it on the sand by his hand. She opened one of the bags, which was his, and took out trousers for him and another pullover. They would have to sleep in the dunes, so he’d need to be warm.

‘Howard’ she spoke almost roughly. ‘Drink some water and put these warm clothes on’

He got up like a child scalded by his mother and took the trousers and changed. He looked terrible – with his white legs and his battered face. He put a pullover on and sat back down on the bag. His face was white under his angry dark hair.

‘This is better than the boat’ she said.

He didn’t say anything but took the water jug and drank deep. She wondered how much water they had, and how much they might need.

He seemed immediately to think the same.

‘Any sign of people – a village? What country is this?’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t see anything – only dunes and grasslands’

‘Is there wood for a fire?’

‘I’ll go and look. You sit and keep warm. You’ll feel better soon’

She thought she should change her trousers but already they seemed to be drying. The warm wind dried everything. The air was like a balm – perhaps it was the placid sea.

She walked down the steep inner slope of the dune feeling the sand collapse underneath her. It was warmer down here, and the marram grass grew very tall, almost head height. There were lower mounds of sand and then the grassland began. But it wasn’t really grass – it was more like spiky succulent plants growing close together in a mat. She thought she should know some of the names from her book The Flowering Plants of Northern Europe. There was some sea cabbage and sea campion. There were flowers here and there and rabbit holes and smears of cream and yellow sand that had been dug out.

There was a pile of very dry wood from a long dead tree. It was grey and bent into curves like bones. She lifted it and it was light from years of rotting and sunshine. But still it would burn. There was more further on. But no water.

If they had had food, it would have been a nice place to stay.

She turned and started to walk back to the hollow in the dunes. She thought she would change her clothes before the dark came.

********************************

Rather than stay up in the dunes, she realised it would be better to go down where the wood was. Though it was warm now, it would soon be cooler. It was always better to be near a fire, and she’d have to carry to wood if they camped up in the dunes.

So she told Howard to take his bag and carry it down. Near to the pile of wood, there was another low hollow, this time ringed with succulent grass and flowers. There were animal burrows but they looked old. She didn’t want to disturb a fox or a badger in the night.

In the hollow there was a place to sit on the short wiry grass and if the wind blew they’d be sheltered. For now it was still.

She dragged the grey wood from the pile into the hollow and went looking for more, before it was completely dark. She was also looking for human signs, footprints, or anything human at all. Though they were out of the dangerous boat, this was not a place that they could survive for long.

Not far from the hollow she found another low place where the grass was taller and the ground damp. In the centre was a mass of tall reeds that surrounded a shallow pool of clear water. She put her finger in to taste it, expecting it to be salty. She was surprised to find it was fresh with only a slight salt taste. They’d not drink this yet, but if they had to she would come and fill the jug. She’d have to make a decision in the morning whether to stay or move on. It depended on how well Howard was. He wouldn’t be able to walk far in the state he was in. She climbed back up to the edge of the hollow and looked what she thought was south. She had the impression that the land on which they had alighted, this windswept coast, was more continuous that way, and that they’d have better luck walking along the beach southward.

In the dancing light of the fire, Howard looked better. He no longer held his head down. He’d drunk a lot of water but now he was hungry. Mrs Van Dijk found some oatcakes in her bag that she’d completely forgotten about. She’d carried them all the way from Earls Court. They ate them looking into the fire.

In the night Howard murmured in his sleep ‘where are we?’ and started to get up, so Mrs Van Dijk put her hand on his chest.

‘Don’t worry. Sleep Howard’

He lay back and didn’t reply and his deep breathing suggested he was asleep. But Mrs Van Dijk was disturbed. She propped her head up on the folded coat that was her pillow and looked around. It was deep night. The fire glowed at their feet and a single wisp of smoke rose. The sky was misty but stars in grey patches showed low in the east. Perhaps the bad weather she’d seen earlier in the day had cleared. She listened and thought she heard animals moving around – small digging noises and the rapid pattering of feet.

She had an idea to look for light as sign of human settlement, so she got up trying not to disturb Howard and retraced her steps to the high platform behind the big dune. The sand was cold now and harder to climb – each upward step pushed a mass of sand down under her boots – but she got to the top. The wind was still blowing off the sea from west to east. This was why they had travelled so fast in the boat, she thought. After all they must have crossed the North Sea. They must be in Holland or Germany.

She climbed to the highest point of the dune. The sea was a dark part of the sky but she could dimly see white lines forming on its surface, which she thought were breaking waves. The sky in the east was clear but there was nothing distinct in the land in that direction. There were no mountains, there was no light. To the north it was dark. To the south where she thought they should walk in the morning, there was more to see, perhaps because the dunes that stretched for miles, were quite light even under a moonless sky. But there were no points of light. They were alone.

She went back to the hollow and got under the one blanket that she shared with Howard.

Howard woke her, his face looking down into hers and bright sunlight around. He was grinning.

‘My head’s better’ he said.

‘I’m glad’

She lifted herself onto her elbows and blinked in the bright light. The sun was warm on the dark blanket.

‘I found water nearby’

‘There is some water’ she said sleepily.

‘...and blackberries!’

He dropped a handful of blackberries into the blanket over her lap, sitting down heavily next to her. One or two were red, but most were glossy and black, quite edible. His fingers were purple with blackberry juice. He’d probably eaten a lot.

‘There’s a bank of brambles – a huge bank – over there. I’m not even hungry now’

He seemed happy. His face was red and his beard had begun to grow.

‘So do you know where we are?’ he asked.

‘You asked that in the night. I don’t know where we are. I think we came east with the wind, so perhaps we’re in Holland or Germany...’

‘It seems like England. There are coasts like this in the east.’

She tried one of the blackberries. It was very sweet. The seeds rubbed on her tongue as she swallowed it.

‘We can’t have gone back to England’ she said.

‘Why did they drop us here?’

That was the big question, but neither of them had any idea why.

********************************

‘Which way shall we walk?’ said Howard, lifting the bag onto his shoulders.

‘I thought this way’ she pointed down through the dunes. ‘I think it’s south’

Howard looked down at the place where they’d camped. There was nothing but cold ashes and disturbed sand where they’d slept. It was odd though – and satisfying – that they hadn’t left anything. They were truly travelling light.

Mrs Van Dijk said: ‘we should walk along the beach’

‘Why Lotte?’

‘So we can see far ahead, also so we can see footprints’

‘Have you seen any?’

‘Not one – except mine and yours!’

So they climbed back up and through the dunes onto the big beach. It was so bright that they had to screw up their eyes to see. The sun was shining onto the sea from the east and it was blue, and dark, almost violet, far out.

Their footprints of the day before were just lines of little depressions, leading to the water. They’d lost their form overnight.

After a long while walking they thought they could see a building or a boat – a dark disruption of the sand horizon in front, but as they got closer they saw it was a huge trunk, scoured and stripped by the sea, half buried. Crabs scurried around it but disappeared as they got closer. They sat on the wood looking south, their backs to the long stretch of beach they’d walked down.

Howard got the jug of water out.

‘I filled it from the spring this morning. It’s a bit salty but tastes alright.’

They both drank.

‘I forgot why we were coming to Holland’ said Howard suddenly. ‘To see the publisher!’

Mrs Van Dijk nodded. At least it was pleasant sitting on the big trunk. The wind was weak and the sun shone on her legs. She thought she’d take her boots off and carry them – and roll up her trouser legs.

‘I’m going to be late for the meeting in Amsterdam’ she said.

‘Do you mind?’

‘Not really. They’ll understand when we tell them. That we were kidnapped’

‘They didn’t ask for a ransom. I wonder where the boat is – the Mabillard?’

‘I looked yesterday when you were lying in the sand. They were sailing back out to sea’

Howard picked up his bag again.

‘Shall I carry yours?’

‘Yes – if you can. I’m going to take off my boots and tie the laces together, then hang them over my neck’

They walked for a long time, past the time when the sun was high. The beach hadn’t changed much. It was hugely wide, perhaps a hundred yards from the sea up to the first dunes. With the tide out, that distance was even greater, and a huge expanse of shiny flat sand was revealed. But the tide was coming in now and they walked on the softer sand, which made it more difficult to make progress.

They’d not seen anything more than the trunk in the sand, the thousand little crabs and here and there shells and dead and drying fish. Howard was getting so hungry that he thought he would eat a crab raw if he could catch one.

So they walked from the open beach into the dunes again. Even though they’d gone many miles, the land was like it had been that morning. It could have been the same place. The same line of dunes, the same interior of grass plains and meadows, the same sandy burrows and flowers. Howard wondered if they’d walked anywhere at all. Between two big dunes they sat down.

Mrs Van Dijk was now very tired. Sometime in the afternoon she’d put her boots back on because her feet had begun to hurt. Now she ached all over from walking. She was hungry too.

They sat in the shadow of the dune and she suddenly felt cold. The sand was cold. She realised she didn’t want to spend another night out.

‘Lotte. I’ll look around. I’ll get some blackberries’ he said.

‘Howard’ she said sighing heavily, ‘we can’t live on blackberries’

‘I know’. He touched her cheek. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll find water and some food. Sit in the sun’

He took the two bags and set them on the slope of the dune and encouraged Mrs Van Dijk to sit. She sat with her back on the bags facing out to sea looking miserable.

He went off into the dunes, looking for dark masses of brambles or anything else. Rabbits were very common – as he came to the top of a small dune ridge, through the marram grass, they must have seen him and they scattered into their burrows.

He looked around, surveying the green backs of the dunes, then dropped down a slope onto the grassland. After a few minutes he came to a mound of sand that must have been made by digging animals. There was a bramble growing near it with a branch rich in blackberries.

Under the branch in the fine cream sand was a fresh human footprint.

********************************

‘How long before dark?’ he asked when he got back.

‘Not long Howard’

‘I found a footprint’

‘Really?’ she brightened. ‘Where?’

He held out blackberries that he’d collected in his hat. ‘It was under the blackberry bush’

‘Where did the prints lead?’

‘I only saw one’

She looked quizzically at him her brows knitted together.

‘It was just a little patch of sand with a footprint right in the middle’ he explained. ‘It didn’t go anywhere’

‘But it’s a good sign’ she said. She took hold of the water jug and drank.

‘Do you want to walk some more, or shall I look around?’

‘Let’s walk’ she said.

So they returned to the beach, but now they walked looking down at the sand searching hard for footprints. There were none. The shadows began to lengthen as the sun went down into the sea and the sand got rapidly cold so Mrs Van Dijk stopped and put her boots back on. She rolled down her trousers dusting the sand off her knees.

The dunes got lower to their left and at last the beach started to curl away to the east. A vast expanse of sea opened in front of them and the dunes fell away to flat land. To their relief they saw a fence post driven into the sandy soil. There was no fence leading off from it. The grass was mixed marram and a softer finer grass that cattle or sheep could eat. They wondered if it was cultivated land, or at least land that had been prepared for grazing. Looking ahead, the now flatter land had no dunes. Beyond the big expanse of sea there was nothing. It was just sea all around and a tiny flat shelf of land. The sky was like a huge reflection of the sea. Howard felt like it was like walking along under a huge mirror.

They sat by the fence post. Strangely it gave them some kind of solace – as a sign of human habitation, or a sign that someone once did live on the grasslands. Howard had been wondering for  hours if they had actually slipped back in time as well as being kidnapped, and that they were stuck, marooned, in a place far from their own time, as well as their own place. But this fence post, grey and weathered, showed them that they were not the only humans on earth. It was like the only fixed point on a strange map.

They thought they would camp by the post, so Howard unloaded their one blanket. The air was still warm, but there was no wood around, so this night they would have to survive without a fire.

The dark came quickly spreading across the sea from the west. In the east when Howard stood up a single light winked on and off somewhere across the grassland. He watched but said nothing, not being sure of what he’d seen.

But then it came again, faint and yellowish. Perhaps a few miles away.

He reached down and took Mrs Van Dijk’s hand saying nothing. They started to pack their bags again.

PART III

There were low houses of a kind they’d never seen before, just back from the sand. Lights glowed from two of the houses and a larger structure like a hall. The sand was criss-crossed with thousands of tracks. In the shadowy fields and meadows there were sheep and goats, and a single large horse. Plots of vegetables neatly planted and with strips of paper designed to scare the birds, were squeezed between the meadows.

They stood in the sand at the edge of the village in the half dark. No one came out to greet them, so they assumed they hadn’t been seen. The wind filtered through the paper streamers and sighed in the grass, then a sound of singing came from the low hall. Two dim lights glowed in its low windows. The singing was high and tremulous – like the singing of women together. It was a slow song which rose and fell. A single voice was louder than the others.

They left the sand and followed the grassy path. The singing became louder. Up close the houses were very strange. Their walls were low, much lower than Howard’s height – and the low roofs were heavy with grass and moss rather than thatch. It seemed as if the roofs were little meadows. The windows were small and tucked just under the roof, and the doors were narrow and low, but painted bright.

These were not houses of English style, nor of Dutch. Not for the first time they wondered where they were.

They waited until the singing had finished and then climbed the two steps to the door of the hall and knocked quietly. There was whispering from within and a face appeared at the door, which had opened only a small distance. A brown faced woman looked at them, wisps of grey hair fell across her broad cheeks. Howard thought she looked vaguely like a mouse. She had large eyes with large brown irises, and the white around was very small. She was short. She squinted up at Howard. Maybe she was short-sighted as well.

She said something in a language they didn’t understand. It was guttural but had the sibilant sound of German. But it wasn’t German.

Mrs Van Dijk smiled her friendliest smile and said hello first in Dutch and then in German. The woman still stared. She blinked. The door opened a little wider and the woman called behind her. Another woman appeared. Howard could see behind a candlelit wooden table and wood walls. It looked warm inside. There were women sitting around the table.

The new woman was taller and more confident – with a thinner face and pale blue eyes.

She spoke in German rapidly. Neither Howard nor Mrs Van Dijk understood.

‘She thinks we’re German’

‘We are lost’ said Howard, speaking slowly. The woman stared. It made no difference how Howard spoke. She didn’t understand.

Howard made a gesture with his hand rubbing his stomach. He immediately regretted it. He was just hungry and hadn’t thought it was rude.

But the woman immediately understood. She stood back and said something in a guttural sibilant language, then walked past them briskly onto the step.

She gestured for them to follow and she took them along a path at the front of the low houses to the last house. She pushed the door open. Candles were arranged inside. There was another large table and a pot on a fire. Plates were stacked by a large washing bowl. There were sacks of potatoes against the wall and fruit on shelves. There was a smell of stew or soup.

She showed that they were to sit and two plates were put in front of them, and a jug of water. The woman who was brisk in everything, poured a broth onto the plates which was lumpy with potatoes. It steamed into their faces. It smelled wonderful.

They nodded their thanks and plunged their spoons into the food. The woman smiled faintly, watching them with her hands on her hips. She seemed momentarily maternal.

She turned to go to the door.

A few minutes later, as the food began to fill their stomachs they heard the singing resume in the little hall.

********************************

After eating they went to sit outside. The thin-faced woman didn’t come, and the singing continued in the hall. The music was slow and controlled, sad and restrained. There were times when the voices climbed high and plaintive, and the one dominant voice became very clear. But there were gaps between the songs, and silence. In those silences the wind was the only sound, and the distant sea whispered. They saw its white waves curling out in the bay.

After a long time the singing faded and the singers came out, carrying lanterns and candles.

They were all women, dressed similarly in shawls around their shoulders and long skirts. The older women had white head scarves that concealed their hair. They talked amongst themselves and the thin faced woman came to the visitors again. She was stern and authoritative and led them away from the main houses on a continuation of the path to a small hut amongst the vegetable patches. It was the same design with a low overhanging roof on which grass grew freely. She ducked her head low to enter and gestured for them to follow. There was small bed inside and a single table. There were small windows at the back and one facing the front, towards the dark sea.

She lit a candle and yellow light sprang onto the wood walls. Howard looked up at the ceiling curiously, expecting to see a mass of roots, but there were clean solid planks. They hadn’t noticed that the woman carried two blankets under her arm. She placed the blankets down patting them in a maternal way and nodding. She said some words in her strange language and left them. Howard watched her wander back to the group. The women hadn’t dispersed. He thought he heard them talking quietly, perhaps about their new visitors.

‘It’s nice’, said Mrs Van Dijk sitting on the folded blanket. ‘Not cold. And they were very kind’

‘It’s a strange place’

‘Some kind of religious place. I think the songs were hymns – you know – religious songs’

They laid down without undressing. Howard listened to the wind and the distant waves and slept.

It was white light in the morning and Howard thought he was back in the dunes. But the sun was shining right into his eyes from the white window. Mrs Van Dijk was curled beside him in her trousers and big pullover, fast asleep. Her head was on her hands which were pressed together like she was praying. She looked peaceful.

He went to the window and saw the sea immediately and the tall grass waving outside the front of the hut. There was a woman on the beach walking slowly head down, occasionally picking things up.

The air was salty, washed clean by the wind. The window rattled.

There was water in a jug by the door. He picked it up and poured it into two cups on the white table. He took a cup to Mrs Van Dijk waking her.

‘Water, Lotte’

She opened one eye and withdrew her hands, smiling and sighing.

‘How is it?’

‘Very nice. One of the ladies is out collecting on the beach’

‘Is she still there? Go and look’

He went to look but she wasn’t there. The sea met the sand in two big swipes of colour, blue and cream.

When he looked around Mrs Van Dijk was back under the blanket.

********************************

One of the women came to the hut and knocked on the door gently.

They hadn’t seen her before. She was round and fat with a pink jolly face. She wore a scarf over her hair that cut across her forehead rather severely. But she was very cheerful. She stood at the door when Howard opened it, holding a spade in her hand. She nodded furiously and pointed over behind the houses. She babbled in the strange language. Maybe she didn’t know that they didn’t understand.

But then she led them to the house that they’d eaten in the night before along the grassy path. The sky was big and streaked with thin cloud. It felt cooler than the previous day and it wasn’t so humid.

Again there was a stack of bowls by a washing bucket, and on the table two more bowls of porridge. Steam rose from the bowls.

When the woman left, they tried the porridge which was salty rather than sweet.

‘They must eat very early’ said Mrs Van Dijk between mouthfuls.

‘Why?’

‘Because all their bowls of porridge are almost dry – can you see? They probably get up very early. Did you hear anything this morning?’

‘No. I was asleep, and in our hut you can only hear the wind. I like it though’

Howard looked into the bowl and saw that he’d already finished the porridge. It had been a strange recipe – salty and thick. Not like English porridge.

‘What did the woman mean about the spade?’ asked Howard.

He found out very soon. Three women arrived at the hut. One was the jolly lady. They were leading an old donkey and a cart with ancient wooden wheels. The jolly lady gestured for them to come, and they set off on a track through long grass leading away from the houses inland to the east. It was so completely flat that nothing could be seen of the land. There was grass that crowded in around them, and above a vast sky. The world was simply green and grey blue.

The women talked and laughed leading the donkey, and spades rattled in the cart. Howard and Mrs Van Dijk walked behind the ladies, wondering where they were being led. The track looked to Howard that it had been designed entirely for the cart, worn by countless journeys of the women and the donkey. But the track seemed to lead nowhere. Soon the deep ruts made by the wheels began to get wetter and the ground underfoot was softer and spongier. There was slight upward incline, almost imperceptible.

The cart came to a bank of what looked like cut soil and the women wheeled it around and unharnessed the donkey, tying him to a pole. They women unloaded six spades and passed them around. They were still talking cheerfully. Howard had never heard such talkers – but perhaps he was more aware of their talking because he couldn’t understand what they were saying. The language was rapid, but consisted of lots of slurred sounds, some of which he was already able to recognise. He wondered if they were parts of words.

The bank of soil was waist height, damp and shining in the sun, and there was a cleared area of flattened soil in front so it looked like the bank had been cut back in slices.

Then he realised what it was.

‘Peat. It’s peat’

‘What Howard?’

‘Soil filled with wood and plants. If you dry it, it burns – like coal’

‘Ah yes!’

‘It’s only found in wet places, high up places’. He picked up one of the spades. It was peculiar – light and long with only a narrow shoulder. The cutting part – the blade – would only make a narrow cut.

The spade felt light in his hands and he turned it then plunged it into the soil at his feet. It went in easily.

The women noticed and smiled in encouragement, nodding. Their voices rose and they talked loudly amongst themselves. They seemed to approve of Howard suddenly. He smiled back shyly. But he felt good that he understood at least something, and could do something of use.

‘You’ve made friends’ said Mrs Van Dijk, also grinning.

Howard knew how to use a spade but this work was difficult. The women lined up at the face of the peat and cut down in wet slicing motions with the narrow spades. Then they would lever the cut piece out cutting through the base to make a piece of peat about the size of a loaf of bread.

Howard copied the women. They were remarkably adept at cutting, starting with a big heavy chop; arms raised high and using the weight of their shoulders to push down. Then the swift horizontal cut to release the loaf of peat.

The women chattered. He was frustrated at first that he was slow, and Mrs Van Dijk even slower. Mrs Van Dijk found the cutting very difficult and soon had rather bad blisters on her hands. She sighed stretching her back and looking up at the sky.

The women began to sing after a while a strange song that was more of a rhythm than a melody. They took turns to sing some little phrase or shout something out. The rhythm was the same as the cutting, and the chop and slap of the spade blades had a place in the music. The exhaled breath of the cutters became rhythmic too, making the music seem heavy and primitive – not like the ethereal spiritual music of the night before. Sometimes in the strange rhythmic song, the women would laugh uproariously at something one of them had said or sung.

This was all foreign to the two visitors. Howard didn’t mind because he felt grateful to the women – for their hospitality – and so he wanted to show that he was useful to them. But Mrs Van Dijk began to feel a little excluded. Howard was foreign because he was from a place far away – and a man – but she was only from far away. Also she couldn’t cut the peat well, it hurt her shoulders and her hands and she couldn’t find the rhythm of the song in her cutting.

They stopped after a long time, and water and cake wrapped in white cloth were passed around. They sat in the long grass next to the face above the cut peat that shone brown like chocolate in the sun, eating the cake. It was some kind of potato cake – heavy and salty but nice. Cutting peat made you hungry.

One of the women saw Mrs Van Dijk’s red hands and squawked like a bird in sympathy, taking her hand in her own, opening up the palm.

‘Ah’ she said.

The woman’s hand was heavy with callouses and hard like a man’s. She’d been cutting peat for years. The woman was plump – like all the others. Her kindly face was lined from years of the wind in the dunes. Her brown eyes looked into Mrs Van Dijk’s. She stroked Mrs Van Dijk’s long fingers admiring them.

‘Sorry’ said the woman.

Howard heard the English word too and looked up.

‘Sorry’ said the lady again – indicating the blisters on Mrs Van Dijk’s hands.

The other ladies said sorry too. But the sound of the word was quite foreign, like they were repeating it without understanding its meaning.

********************************

It was difficult to tell how long they had worked at peat cutting. Howard and Mrs Van Dijk were used to hearing the bell in the tower of Earls Court church but here there was nothing. But when the sun was high, the women stopped and began to stack the peat in neat rows on the floor of the cart. They took great care to stack the chunks of peat upright rather than flat. The donkey was re-harnessed and slapped hard on the rump to begin the journey back.

Howard and Mrs Van Dijk walked behind the cart, exhausted. The women were also quiet on the way back. Once or twice one of the women would look back to see the visitors, but in general they kept to themselves. Except for the word sorry, nothing had been said between the women and their visitors all day.

‘Are you worried about the meeting Lotte?’ asked Howard.

‘The one in Holland? No not really. I was certain that the crew of the Mabillard would throw us in the sea. You know the night when you were sick, after being hit...? That was terrible. I’m just glad that we’re alive’

‘It’s a nice place, this’

They could hear larks calling high above in the blue sky that was streaked with high feathery clouds. Howard realised that the larks had been singing the whole time that they’d been working, but he’d not really noticed them.

‘Who do you think they are?’

‘The women? Some kind of religious community. We could stay here a while and then try moving on. Even though they don’t speak English or Dutch we’ll have to try to understand where we are’

She laughed. ‘It’s strange – it’s the first time I’ve been in a place and not even known the country or the language’

‘When we leave, we’ll have to give them some money for the food and their kindness’

‘We must try to talk to someone – one of the women. We have to find out where we are, and find the way out. Did you notice any path or track – any large track?’

‘No, nothing. In fact this is the only track out of the settlement. The place is completely without a road’

‘How strange’ murmured Mrs Van Dijk

They went to the large hut in the afternoon after eating the same kind of broth they’d had the evening before – potatoes and turnip. The tall woman with the thin face was sitting on a bench under the overhanging roof, sewing. Her hair was covered unlike the evening before. It made her face even more striking. Her nose was quite narrow and sharp and her light blue eyes were like ice. She looked quite unlike the other women.

She gestured to them to sit. Mrs Van Dijk turned to the woman and put her hand to her chest saying Mrs Van Dijk, then pointed to Howard saying his name as slowly as she could. The blue eyed woman nodded, putting her sewing down and said name was Karen, pronounced with a long ‘a’.

‘Which country is this?’ said Howard.

Karen looked blankly at him.

‘No Howard, it won’t work. How can we ask?’ Mrs Van Dijk said.

There was a patch of sand in front of the bench. She got down on her knees and tried to draw the outline of Europe in its soft loose surface. She spent some time on the boot shape of Italy and then rounded Spain and France and made the triangle shape of Britain. She tried the countries of the North Sea up from France to Holland and Germany. She pointed at Britain and touched her own and Howard’s’ shoulder.

‘England’ she said.

‘Ah’ said Karen and bending over pointing above the map that Mrs Van Dijk had drawn, to the north of her uncertain line, into nowhere.

‘Danmark’ she said. ’Danmark’

‘Ah’ said Mrs Van Dijk and Howard at the same time. They sat back thinking, resetting their minds to the right place.

‘Denmark’ said Howard looking out over the sea. ‘We must have come further, and due east’

Karen was smiling, looking less proud and formidable than before. Perhaps the two visitors now seemed more human. Living in this isolated place, it must have been disturbing to have strangers appear from nowhere – straight from the sea.

‘Where is Kobenhavn?’ asked Mrs Van Dijk. ‘Kobenhavn?’ she tried to say the word differently not knowing how to pronounce it

Karen looked blank but then nodded ‘Ah Kobenhavn!’ She pointed over the grassland to her left.

She rubbed out the indistinct Europe in the sand and made the upright shape of Denmark on its own, like a thick thumb. She made a spot in the sand in the north of the thumb. ’Kobenhavn’ she said again.

Then to the left of the thumb she drew a small oval very carefully, saying ’Torshavn’.

She stood and pointed at the little disc and said the name again: Torshavn. Then she pointed to the ground.

‘We’re on an island’ said Mrs Van Dijk. ‘...and that’s why there are no roads leading anywhere else’

********************************

In the afternoon, one of the women appeared with a wheelbarrow of dark peat wheeling it over the short grass to the hut.

Howard came out to greet her. He remembered her as one of the peat cutters.

The woman smiled – and uneasily said something that Howard didn’t understand. Mrs Van Dijk came out.

The woman said the words again, and then letting go of the handles of the wheelbarrow she made a sign wiggling her fingers and bringing her hands down either side of her head. She pulled her thick jacket about her and pretended to shiver.

‘The weather’s going to change. It’s going to rain’ said Mrs Van Dijk slowly.

The woman showed them the stove at the back of the hut and the metal lid that opened. Inside were the ashy remains of burnt peat, white like chalk dust.

The peat the woman had brought was dried, not like the fresh peat of the morning. It was much lighter and rough to the touch. In its texture you could see the remnants of plants and woody fragments that crumbled away if you scraped the surface.

She showed them how to load the peat into the stove and she left a box of matches.

When the woman had gone they sat under the overhanging roof and talked about what they should do. Of course they would have to leave, perhaps tomorrow. How could they get to the mainland? There must be a way to get to the mainland. After all the women – the sisters, for they seemed to be part of a religious community – were able to get things like matches. They had stoves too and building materials – so it must be possible to sail to the mainland. They would ask Karen tomorrow.

‘But the weather will be bad tomorrow’ said Howard.

‘Just a bit of rain perhaps. We can ask her and we’ll find the place where the boats come. It’s too shallow here for a boat to come in’

But it wasn’t just a bit of rain. In the night the wind built up slowly into a rush that sounded like flooding water, and then into a moan, then into a howl. The sound woke both of them, huddled together in the small bed, suddenly cold. Howard felt the air moving in the hut and heard the creak of the windows as they were pushed at by the pressure of the air flying off the sea. The wood logs that made up the walls leaked wind and cool air came under the door in a rush. His nose was cold.

‘Are you cold, Lotte?’

‘A little bit. Is it late?’

‘I don’t know’

The wind came in brutish rushes and seemed to be trying to push the front wall of the house down. The roof moaned and whistled above them. Howard looked up nervously at the wood supports – for signs of movement – but there was nothing. Perhaps this was why they planted the roofs with grass, to weigh them down? To stop the roofs from blowing off.

He couldn’t sleep and so got up. The wind seemed to have lessened, but he felt the freezing stone floor on his bare feet, and the damp. He looked through the dim window, out toward the sea. He thought the light was about to come in the east. The window had stopped creaking but rattled a bit. As he peered through, the first rain came, just a few drops propelled by the flowing air, hitting the thin glass like grains of sand. They ran down its surface. Then more rain so that in a minute the surface of the glass was pouring with water. He heard the deluge on the roof, even through the wood and the grass. Cold came too with the rain – he felt it diffuse through the room from the outside. In the faint light he saw the long grass outside being held down by the rain.

He went to the stove and put some of the peat inside with soft dry grass as tinder. He lit the grass and it flared up with yellowish light. He saw Mrs Van Dijk watching him from the bed.

‘It’s raining’ he said.

‘I know’

He spent a long time encouraging the flame so that the corner of one of the bricks of peat began to flare red and glow. He felt the front of the stove warm up. Then seeing a trickle of water come under the outside door, he put a box up against the wood and immediately some of the cold draft was gone.

He went back to the bed and got under the blanket.

A massive front of rain hit the hut and sprayed the window.

He thought it unlikely that they would move on that day. But he would wait to see what Mrs Van Dijk said.

********************************

As day came, the onslaught of rain didn’t change. They got up and dressed and sat by the stove and Howard sometimes went over to the window to look out. He’d never been imprisoned before by the rain, but this was not like an ordinary storm. Once in the late morning he moved the box and opened the door, and the force of the wind almost knocked him over. The wild air whipped into the room making the stove flare and the sheets on the bed billow up. He got a face full of cold rain in a second before squeezing the wind back out. He stood with his back to the door, trying to smile.

But now hours later he was feeling trapped. He looked out at the other houses through the streaked window and saw no one moving. Thin smoke was smeared horizontally from the chimney pots above the grassy roofs. The women were burning peat like they were. It was the only way to keep warm.

‘Peat only collects in wet places’ he sighed. ‘Perhaps the weather’s like this most of the time’

It looked very different out there. The grasses were greener after being washed so thoroughly and the sea was very dark, like a black band with white lace of storm waves. The clouds were just above the beach, angry and grey like cliffs above the sisters’ houses.

‘Come and sit by the stove’ said Mrs Van Dijk. She was sitting with her feet up on the side of the stove, where it was warm. She was looking at a book she’d brought. She didn’t mind sitting for a while: she was aching from the peat cutting and her hands were still sore with blisters.

‘The women here must be some kind of religious order. Perhaps this is a retreat of some kind – away from the world’

‘There are no men here’

‘Except you!’ She smiled and patted his knee. He put his feet up next to hers. His socks were ragged and wet from standing in the doorway for just a second.

‘We’re at the end of the world’ she said.

‘What book are you reading, Lotte?’

‘Robinson Crusoe’

Howard laughed. He found it irresistibly funny. It was so apt! They were like Crusoe himself – wandering the beach looking for footprints.

‘You’ve read it before’

‘I know Howard – but it’s perfect for here, no?’

She said no like a question.

While she read he listened to the strange fizzing noise as the peat burned inside the stove.

In the afternoon, there was a little less rain and Howard was drawn to the window again. The light had changed subtly so the clouds over the houses looked less severe. There was a faint illumination so the grass was yellow-green, almost luminous. One of the sisters was coming through the grass with a wheelbarrow again. Her big coat billowed in the wind and her scarf was almost being pulled from her head. It was still windy even if the rain was dying down.

Howard opened the door and the woman wheeled the barrow right in, her face red with the effort, grey hair streaked across her face. She smiled though. She almost looked apologetic, as if she was sorry for the terrible weather. They helped to unload the peat. They’d almost used up the amount they’d been given the night before. The sisters were very generous.

Mrs Van Dijk thanked the woman and was told via various signs that her name was Brigitte. Before she went out she pulled from her jacket a roll of parchment. It was yellow with age and damp at the ends from rain. She gave it to Mrs Van Dijk signing that Karen had told her to give it to them – to read.

And then Brigitte was gone, wheeling the wheelbarrow along the grassy path. Howard watched her go. The light had changed again, and the grass no longer glowed. The clouds were black over the houses. Rain started to fall again: the weather was closing in for the night.

Mrs Van Dijk unrolled the parchment and sat back on the stool placing her un-booted feet up on the warm iron of the stove. She found it quite comfortable.

‘Ah – the writing’s in English. Something about a saint, a catholic saint’

********************************

She read:

Amma Syncletica of Alexandria, a 4th century Christian saint of the desert, was from a wealthy background. From childhood she was drawn to God and the desire to dedicate her life to him. She gave all that had been bequeathed to her by her parents to the poor. Syncletica abandoned the life of the city and went to live in a desert cave becoming a hermit, gazing out onto the sand each day – at the limit of the world. She gained the attention of local people and gradually many women came to live with her as followers of Christ.

Syncletica cut her hair to renounce the world. Her solitude and humility made a deep impression on her female followers.

St. Syncletica said: ‘how happy we could be, if we took as much time to please God, as we do to gain material things! We work and trade among thieves and robbers and at sea we expose ourselves to the fury of winds and storms, to shipwrecks, to perils to gain worldly wealth’

‘We must be continually on our guard, for we are engaged in a perpetual war; unless we take care, the devil will surprise us, when we are least aware of him. A ship sometimes passes safe through hurricanes and tempests, but if the captain, is not careful a single wave, raised by a sudden gust, may sink the ship. In this life we sail in an unknown sea. We meet with rocks and sands; sometimes we are becalmed, and at other times we find ourselves tossed and thrown by a storm. Thus we are never secure, never out of danger; and, if we fall asleep, we are sure to perish. We have a most intelligent and experienced captain in the form of Jesus Christ himself, who will conduct us safe into the port of salvation’

‘A treasure is secure so long as it remains concealed; but when it is disclosed, and laid open to a bold invader, it is presently destroyed; so virtue is safe so long as it is a secret, but, if exposed, it evaporates into smoke. If you are humble, and have contempt for the world, your soul, like an eagle, soars high, above all transitory things’

‘It’s beautiful’ said Mrs Van Dijk. She sighed putting the parchment the floor beside her. She stretched her legs up.

‘What does it mean?’

‘The sisters must be followers of this St. Syncletica. I’ve heard of the idea of renunciation of the world and of living a pure life’

They listened to the hiss of the burning peat.

‘We’re at the edge of the world’ she said sleepily.

As if in answer to this, a rush of wind and rain slammed into the front of the house. They felt a wave of cool air move in the room. Howard thought he smelled the sea on the rain and even tasted salt on his tongue. He imagined the violent wind far out at sea, scooping the spray from distant waves in deep water, then sweeping up the beach to throw the sea at the little hut. On a night like this it was easy to imagine that the hut was a boat far out to sea, out of sight of land.

********************************

They lay in the dark, listening to the wind. The rain had stopped and there were just rushes of air coming up the beach. They could hear fragments of singing broken by the wind. The sisters were worshipping again.

‘I feel guilty’ said Howard

‘Why?’

‘Because we’re eating their food and using their peat. They must be poor’

‘You can go and cut peat for them’

‘I will – if the weather is good tomorrow’

‘Besides Howard, some of these women might have money. Perhaps they didn’t renounce their wealth’

‘I think they did. They eat everything they grow. They’re self-sufficient. They’ve no need of money’

‘I know something about St. Syncletica – from school. She was a very passionate woman before she went to live in the desert – or so the legend goes. She cut herself off from the world, but was still driven by desires, maybe tormented by them’

‘But wouldn’t it be more difficult?’

‘Perhaps it’s easier to give up everything... wait let me show you’

She got out of bed and scuttled over to the parchment on the table and brought it back. She shivered holding up the parchment between them.

‘This bit’, she read: ‘A treasure is secure so long as it remains concealed; but when it is disclosed, and laid open to a bold invader, it is presently destroyed; so virtue is safe so long as it is a secret, but, if exposed...What does it make you think of?’

‘I don’t know’

‘Well...laid open to a bold invader – don’t you think it sounds strange?’

 ‘I suppose so’ he said.

The wind went away in the night and the morning light woke them. Howard stood up. He was terribly hungry. He realised that because of the storm they’d only eaten once the day before. He looked out of the window rubbing his stomach. It was as if the world had been remade – or as if the world had simply returned to what it had been before the storm. Outside it was bright cream sand and deep green dune grass. They could have dreamed the storm.

He went to pour some water for Mrs Van Dijk.

‘I’m hungry’ she said.

‘So am I - but I feel bad about going to the kitchen to eat. We have to be invited...’

‘Why don’t we go and pick blackberries? We can eat out in the dunes. When we get back we’ll go and see Sister Karen and say that we want to work to support ourselves and to contribute to the community. You can go and dig peat’

‘We can find out about boats too. Maybe they have a boat somewhere. How far is the mainland? Do you still want to get to the Hook of Holland?’

She nodded and smiled, but she was rather enjoying being stuck on the island.

********************************

They followed one of the paths back from the houses across the meadows toward the cream dunes. The plots of vegetables were soon behind them and the meadow reverted to sea grass and succulents like sea cabbage. There were outliers of the tough marram grass and piles of sand where rabbits had dug below the surface. It was warm and sunny and humid. There was not a trace of the savage weather of the night.

‘You see how the meadow grass is only near the houses? They probably have to plant it, and keep the marram grass back, otherwise it’ll take over’

‘I wonder if they catch rabbits to eat?’

‘They only eat vegetables I think’

‘But they like blackberries?’

There was a long bank of sand overgrown with sea cabbage and a bluish flower, and a big bramble that entwined everything. The blackberries were darker and riper than before. Perhaps those few more hours and the rain had made them ripe. They were black and glossy in bunches making the branches bow with their weight.

Howard showed Mrs Van Dijk how to pick them by pulling them between her fingers, but she squashed a lot on her skin so that her fingers began to go red, the colour of wine. There were small thorns that pricked her skin. But she learned quick, eating about one in every three of the blackberries she picked. They put them in a bowl they’d brought for the purpose, piled up bright and black like a bowl of bright crystals. There were a few that were sour – but you could tell as you bit into them because they were a hard under your teeth. Others were over-sweet or almost alcoholic.

Their tongues were purple after a while and they felt full and perhaps a bit sick. But they had enough extra for several people. Perhaps for the sisters to eat after the stew that they always ate – the potato and turnip stew.

Brigitte was waiting for them at the hut, carrying a jug of water under her arm. Howard showed her the blackberries and she smiled appreciatively, nodding and touching her lips with her finger.

‘She likes them’ said Howard.

Brigitte led them to the kitchen again for bowls of porridge – the same as the day before. Exactly the same. It was nice – salty and quite creamy, some kind of oat porridge. Brigitte put the bowl of blackberries on one of the big tables and covered it with a cloth. Perhaps they would eat them in the evening.

‘I would like to cut peat’ said Howard. He imitated the digging motion. He said the sentence again slower.

Brigitte stood and looked uncertain, then she shook her head.

‘She doesn’t understand’ said Mrs Van Dijk. ‘Perhaps they aren’t cutting peat today?’

‘I saw some of the sisters on the beach this morning, before we went out’ said Howard. ‘I thought they were collecting cockles’

Brigitte went out and came back a few minutes later with one of the peat spades. She gave it shyly to Howard, and he said thank you in a rather exaggerated way, swinging the spade. He felt rather silly. Where was the donkey cart? Would he be cutting on his own?

‘You’ll have to go now’, said Mrs Van Dijk smiling, ‘or you’ll disappoint her. I’m no good at cutting peat – I’ll go and talk to Sister Karen – maybe she’ll explain things’

So Howard went, carrying the spade on his shoulder. Perhaps they’d send the cart later.

The grass was taller walking to the east and the ground was suddenly damp. The east side of the island seemed different, softer and wetter with no sand. The land was sometimes domed slightly, and densely overgrown. There were pools stained black with the peat and insects flew over the dark water. As before the high larks twittered and sang continuously, somewhere out of sight.

But he felt better working – even if he was on his own. The women were kind. At the back of his mind he realised he feared the men on the boat – Snap and the others. He couldn’t work out why they’d imprisoned them – and then left them here. He felt safe on the island, but he also felt that the boat might come back. He remembered the savage wound on the back of his neck. It had almost healed. He feared someone that could do such a thing to an unarmed man. What would such a man do with a sword or a knife?

So he was glad to work at the face of peat. It had dried a little so it wasn’t shiny black like it had been. But he liked the smell – earthy and damp, perhaps a bit like the Vale fields. He held the spade above his head enjoying its compact feel in his hands, then brought it down hard into the soft peat.

********************************

Mrs Van Dijk sat with Sister Karen outside the small hall. There were chairs and a rough table in the long grass. It was difficult at first because the language they had in common was German, and Mrs Van Dijk spoke it only poorly, whereas Karen was fluent. Mrs Van Dijk suspected that Karen was German. She certainly looked very unlike the others – with her narrow face, thin nose, blond hair and blue eyes.

She spoke slowly though and they began to understand each other. Sister Karen was the leader of the women – the Abbess – and the community had been on the Island, which was called Torshavn, for twenty years. The island was uninhabited before that. Most of the women were from catholic homes which were distributed across the west coast of Denmark, and they had left their families freely to devote themselves to god. The women were dark eyed – all except Sister Karen – because these catholic families were of Spanish stock. They were rumoured to have settled there after the ruinous attempt to invade Britain by the King of Spain in the seventeenth century. Many Spanish ships were lost in the savage North Sea and were wrecked on the beaches. The men came ashore and married Danish women and many dark-eyed, dark-haired children were born. So though the sisters spoke Danish and followed the customs of Denmark, this colony was like a little bit of Spain. And as Mrs Van Dijk had suspected, they followed the teachings of Saint Syncletica.

Mrs Van Dijk asked carefully in her faltering German why the women chose to live in such an isolated place and Sister Karen, looking out to sea narrowing her eyes, said the place was unusually spiritual. They had wandered over the island for weeks in the beginning when the colony was being established – across and amongst the dunes at the northern edge. But when they saw the south – the grass and sheltered beach – they chose this place immediately.

Apparently boats had sailed from the mainland with building materials and men helped them build the four houses and the hall – and the hut in which Howard and Mrs Van Dijk were staying. There had been such activity! A well had been sunk, grass seed was planted in the meadows behind the houses. And when the men had left, they were alone. The sisters were alone and happy – able to look out to sea, and contemplate God’s greatness, the great emptiness.

‘We believe’, said Sister Karen, ‘that by contemplating the greatness around you, you appreciate how small and insignificant you are. Only by being truly humble can you be happy because all pride is destructive and leads to unhappiness’

She smiled serenely and looked out at a line of waves on the violet sea: ‘Only by contemplating the sea can you feel humility. Saint Syncletica taught that every woman must disdain the world, and worldly things, including worldly love. Only when you have contempt for the world can you appreciate the spirit’

‘It is beautiful here’ said Mrs Van Dijk speaking in English absently.

‘The sea changes every day’, continued Sister Karen in German. ‘We have the most savage storms here – like in the last few days. Wind that can blow you over; rain that can drench you in a second. Storms where our little houses cling to the sands underneath and the roofs are almost pulled off. We sit in the houses and sing to dispel the hideous sound of the storm, knowing that we could be blown away in an instant’

Mrs Van Dijk thought that perhaps living in a precarious way might make you happier for the simple things – like water and bread – or potato and turnip soup. She wanted to ask Sister Karen how far the mainland was, and if a boat ever came, but this wasn’t the time.

‘Here we have no choices. Choice is a not a sin like pride. But with choice always comes unhappiness’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Mrs Van Dijk tentatively.

‘People who have choice, women who have choice, believe that they are free. But making a choice always means that you can make the wrong one, the one you will always regret. It is better never to have choice, nor free will. It’s better to live where all you do is necessary and fitting, or that is told to you, or that you have to do to survive. Here we have to grow our food, cut the peat. If we don’t, we starve or freeze. The winter here is terrible – long and cold. Can you imagine these dunes white and hard with ice? Can you imagine the sea freezing? Here it does’

‘But with this austerity comes happiness’, she continued. ‘Choice and freedom are empty, and ultimately the source of great unhappiness’

She looked at Mrs Van Dijk quite penetratingly, her blue eyes narrowed. Perhaps she believed that Mrs Van Dijk was a woman who had had too much choice in her life.

PART IV

Brigitte brought the donkey cart to Howard sometime in the mid-morning. He had cut a lot of peat and he’d stood the pieces in ranks so that they were already drying in the sun. The damp surface of the stuff lost its shine very quickly. It had been hard work and his shoulders ached, but he felt that he’d done something useful. Brigitte helped him to load the cart and they walked back together. Brigitte continued to talk in her incomprehensible language. She seemed not to realise that Howard didn’t understand. So he tried to smile and nod. But this seemed to make her think that he did understand and so she talked even more. He thought perhaps that she was lonely. Perhaps the women didn’t say much to each other? How long had they lived together?

When they arrived at the settlement Brigitte took charge of the cart and went toward the houses to unload the peat, and Howard went back to the hut.

Mrs Van Dijk was sitting in the grass outside reading her Robinson Crusoe. It was very warm and sunny, a bright sea light shone in the grass.

He sat down heavily beside her.

‘Did you find anything?’ he said.

‘Oh yes. It’s interesting. Have you eaten?’

She gave him a large piece of bread from the kitchen. He sat back, his weight on one hand, and munched on the bread looking out at the sea.

‘Tell me then’

‘There is a boat in about a week. It comes around the south of the island and pulls up onto the beach here, bringing candles and matches, soap. The sisters sell potatoes and turnips and knitted clothes, and these are taken back on the boat. Sometimes when we hear the sisters singing, they aren’t worshipping, they’re knitting. They knit in the evening, together’

‘A week until the next boat!’

‘I asked how far the mainland is – twenty miles to the east. If you look carefully – Sister Karen says – you can see the mainland sometimes, just a dark line above the horizon. The coast is the same as here – dunes and wild beaches’

‘And this is a religious community?’

‘Followers of Saint Syncletica. The women are mostly of Spanish descent but they are very much guided by Sister Karen. She’s rather a bully I think. She’s very austere – she believes like Saint Syncletica did – that happiness only comes from an absence of everything – choice, pride, luxury. But I think she confuses happiness for a lack of sadness. She thinks they’re the same thing’

Howard didn’t exactly understand but it was clear that Karen and Mrs Van Dijk didn’t quite agree on philosophy.

‘But it’s really beautiful here’ said Howard.

‘It’s wonderful. It would have been nicer to be alone on the dunes – to live out there’

Mrs Van Dijk was quiet for a moment. ‘Sister Karen is very bossy though. There was a big argument about something they’d found on the beach this morning. The sisters were very talkative. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but they were excited’

‘So was Brigitte – she didn’t stop talking!’

‘Did you understand anything?’

‘No, nothing’ he grinned sucking on a grass stem.

Mrs Van Dijk laughed. ‘Probably nothing happens here so when something’s found on the beach they get excited’

‘What did they find?’

‘I don’t know. I saw them carrying bags up, but Sister Karen was shouting at them. She seemed to be telling them off for being materialistic – or too worldly. The other women are like children – being pushed around by an all-powerful mother. Sister Karen was really shouting, her hair wild and her face red’

‘Maybe it was bread?’ he held up the remains of the bread she’d given him.

‘No – they have bread and potato cakes’

They sat and watched the sea.

‘Tomorrow let’s go early into the dunes’ said Mrs Van Dijk. She touched his knee: ‘Let’s go and see the sea’

‘Alright’

A little while later they heard Brigitte chattering again. She was carefully picking her way through the long grass carrying a tray. She was pink with excitement, her headscarf forgotten, her hair flailing in the breeze.

On the tray was a teapot and two cups. She said something in Danish which was probably the word for tea, and set the tray on the grass beside Howard and Mrs Van Dijk. She grinned brightly and rubbed her hands together, then left, walking back through the grass with big ungainly strides.

‘Tea!’ Howard reached out. The pot was hot. He poured the tea into Mrs Van Dijk’s cup. It was a strong orange colour. It looked like tea from the Vale. Where had the women got it?

He missed drinking tea, so he poured some and tasted it. It was strong, like tea in England – but salty. He tried to remember where he’d tasted salty tea last.

********************************

It was so bright in the hut, with the sea so close and the sky so big, that they woke early every morning. Mrs Van Dijk had promised the sisters to help with digging some of the young potatoes later in the morning, but she wanted to go out into the dunes first.

So they went out, drinking water from the jug, and expecting to eat only blackberries for their breakfast. The sisters were about because they could hear them talking and laughing in the kitchen, perhaps eating their breakfast. But Mrs Van Dijk didn’t want to be seen and so she and Howard followed one of the paths in the long grass that led to the dunes.

‘I feel oppressed a little by the sisters’ she said. ‘It’s much nicer out here. Do you know that the stew – the potato and turnip stew – is the same all winter? They eat nothing but that! They eat apples – but the rest of the time it is stew every night’

‘Perhaps they have that porridge every morning too?’

It was very warm when they entered the dunes and walked amongst the piles of sand and thick marram grass. It was wonderful how the wind immediately disappeared and the sound of air – which was a characteristic of the settlement – was suddenly gone. They followed a sandy corridor between two long dunes which led into an open area ringed with dunes and a natural meadow in the centre. Rabbits watched them approach and then dashed into their holes, leaving them alone. Another passageway between tall dunes led down to the beach and they could just see a wedge of blue sea and big flat beach.

They ate a few blackberries that grew in a horseshow shape enclosing a sandy hollow. Then they took their boots off – which were full of sand – and followed the sandy passageway down to the beach. The wind returned, blowing straight into their faces. But it was warm. The hot weather of before the storm had returned.

‘Is this close to where we were abandoned?’

‘I think it’s further up, Lotte. He looked northward along the huge beach shielding his eyes with his brown hand. He was trying to suck his teeth free of blackberry seeds.

‘Do you think we could go in the water?’

‘It might be cold’

‘Might! But I would like it. The tide is coming in – look all the beach is white dry sand. It will be nice now – with sand under our feet’

On a slight ridge at the edge of water where the sand became a bit coarser and there were banks of old bleached shells, they cautiously undressed. In the wind their clothes threatened to blow away so they weighed them with some of the damp shells. They hobbled down to the water laughing as they tried to keep upright, then going silent as the cold water lapped about their feet.

Howard walked out and felt the water immediately deepen, the soft sand falling away. Suddenly he was waist deep and then a wave splashed over his shoulder. The cold was a shock but he liked the energy of the water and the feel of the sand being sucked from under his feet. He looked down and saw his legs white and magnified in the water, then plunged forward paddling his hands and feet, not really going anywhere.

‘Come on’ he gasped and coughed, spluttering seawater.

Mrs Van Dijk let the water come and she felt the waves scour sand under her legs so that suddenly she was lifted from the bottom and was floating in the clear water. It moved her back and forth. She stretched out feeling buoyant and temporarily frozen into inaction by the cold. Her body seemed so white, like a bleached floating log. But she would have to move or she’d really get cold so she rolled over and got water in her face but started to paddle on her front. The waves bobbed around her and she temporarily lost sight of Howard. Then she saw his head near her, his hair flat on his face. He was smiling, trying to speak, but shivering as well.

‘It washes everything away’ he managed to say at last.

She tried to speak, but couldn’t. It was too cold and such a shock to her body.

In the water a little way off, where it was deeper, another dark head appeared and Howard was startled. The head disappeared and he wondered if he had just seen a piece of floating debris or a knot of seaweed but the head appeared again quite close, water sluicing off its fine fur. Two large brown eyes regarded Howard.

‘A seal’ he said, choking slightly swallowing seawater. He turned but Mrs Van Dijk had not noticed. She had moved toward the beach and was finding her feet walking out on the soft sand.

But he said nothing thinking that it would scare her. The seal looked again – quite a penetrating curious stare, as if it would shortly open its mouth to speak – to ask a question. What brings you here? Who are you? But then it submerged, and though Howard looked carefully shading his eyes, he didn’t see the seal again.

He stumbled out feeling the warmth of the air and the sun, climbing awkwardly up the stony face of the beach. He sat by Mrs Van Dijk by their clothes on the sandy bank, still struck silent, looking out across the water, and then lay down flat to drink the sun’s rays in.

Mrs Van Dijk felt happy. She saw an imprint of the bright sun on the inside of her closed eyelids and listened to the sea that a few seconds before had dominated her senses but now seemed distant.

********************************

Howard knew they were being watched when he stood up to get dressed. Thin clouds were passing over the sun and the sea’s bright blue faded to grey in front of them. Howard looked around seeing patches of shadow race over the cream sand to the north. The heads of the dunes were in the wind and he could see the marram grass brushed back shining in the sun. Then he saw a figure or perhaps just a head and shoulders above one of the folds of sand leading to the top of a dune. It was definitely a figure – dark, quite distinct against the sand. As he watched he thought he saw it move, or perhaps the head was turning.

He touched Mrs Van Dijk’s shoulder.

‘You’d better get dressed, Lotte’

She looked up and was going to stand up.

‘We’re being watched!’

He picked his trousers off the sand and pulled them on. He looked again and couldn’t find the same place in the dunes. Perhaps there was no one there after all.

Mrs Van Dijk was fastening her skirt, brushing sand off her legs and feet.

‘Is he still there?’

‘I can’t see anything’

She stood up, doing the buttons of her shirt, then surveyed the dunes with narrowed eyes.

They started walking back, following their own footprints. After a while they saw someone stand up and walk rapidly across a face of sand, and then down below a bank of marram grass. The figure walked quickly but not easily, losing grip in the sand. It was clearly a woman.

‘One of the sisters’ sighed Mrs Van Dijk. ‘This is going to be difficult’

‘It depends what they saw!’

‘Don’t joke Howard!’ she looked serious for a moment. ‘Remember we still have five days here’

They chose to walk back along the beach, rather than through the dunes. The clouds had gone, flying away to the east as quick as they had appeared. It was warm and windy. Howard felt his face burning, but liked the salt dryness on his skin.

‘No one will say anything’ he said after a while. ‘After all the sisters aren’t supposed to be wandering in the dunes. If one of them says something, she’ll be in trouble with Sister Karen’

Mrs Van Dijk stopped to empty her boot. Then she pulled at the pockets of her skirt and emptied them of sand.

‘Howard – can you carry my boots? I think I’ll go barefoot again’

********************************

They went to dig potatoes in a vegetable bed behind the hall. Two of the sisters were waiting for Howard and Mrs Van Dijk, leaning on long handled tools, like giant forks for eating. There were two more of the forks in the long grass by the potato bed.

The sun was warm and quite high in the sky when they started to dig by pressing the prongs of the fork deep and then levering up the soil and watching the pale potatoes appear amongst the tangled roots. Potatoes grew in the Vale, but there the soil was wetter and more like clay so digging potatoes was harder. Here the small pale globes simply fell from the sandy soil. There were a lot – the hidden fruits seemed to fill the soil just below the surface. Here and there were the shrivelled remains of green fronds that Howard thought were leaves but then realised was seaweed. The sisters must fertilise the soil, he thought.

The smell of the soil was nice too – humid and earthy. It was not such a chore to work like this on such a beautiful day when so many potatoes fell out of the soil.

‘They’ll make potato cakes with these’ said Mrs Van Dijk, leaning on her fork. Howard knew she didn’t like digging but was doing this work for the same reason Howard was – to demonstrate that they were contributing to the community.

‘Or perhaps the potato and turnip stew’ said Howard smiling. It had become a joke between them that the women were very unadventurous in their cooking.

‘Have we had that every night?’

‘Yes Howard – don’t remind me’

They dug more across the potato bed until the buckets they’d brought from the kitchen were full. There was still half of the bed left to dig, but the two sisters stopped and waved to the two visitors to stop as well. They had enough potatoes. They shared the buckets between them, carrying one between two by the handles.

Passing the back of the hall they heard singing start and a strange rhythm like a drum. The singing was old –  a repeating chant – and the thud of the rhythm seemed almost to pulse through wood logs of the hall. Howard was intrigued. The song seemed very primitive and old but reminded him of singing he’d once heard in the north of England. It wasn’t like religious singing. He and Mrs Van Dijk put down the heavy potato bucket, and the sisters did the same. Seeing his curiosity they gestured for he and Mrs Van Dijk to go over to one of the narrow windows in the front of the hall that faced the sea, to look.

Howard peered through the dim window, a little uncertain whether about what he was about to see was meant to be seen. The sound was somehow primitive and irreligious. He could just see some of the sisters around the table in the dim light. He thought he could see Sister Karen’s long blond hair. The women seemed to be passing cloth – wool or wool clothing – back and forth across the table, each time banging the palms of their hands down on the wood. This was the rhythm that reverberated through the wall. The women moved rhythmically too – their backs and arms in a pattern together. The wool was being stretched and then compressed all to the beat of some kind of ancient song.

Mrs Van Dijk said: ‘I’ve seen this before. They do this to the wool before its spun. It makes it better for spinning. They sing for hours and the rhythm makes it easier. These are very old songs. Work songs’

Howard watched the women. Their faces were set and their eyes shut, moving hypnotically. But they seemed happy. He felt like an outsider looking in, not understanding the customs of the women, their culture. But he felt an admiration for them. Perhaps Karen was right – there was some consolation in doing simple things, and following rituals.

********************************

‘The sisters never eat with us – have you noticed?’ said Mrs Van Dijk.

They were sitting in front of the hut on the grass. It was evening and still very humid and warm and the sky in the west was striped with peach and flaming red colour as the sun descended.

Mrs Van Dijk was holding the Robinson Crusoe book, while Howard watched the horizon. He sucked a piece of grass between his teeth.

‘Maybe it’s part of their belief – that only women should only eat together’

‘But I’m a woman’ she said not lifting her eyes from the book.

‘I know but you’re with me. I think they are sensitive because of me’

It was odd to be around women all the time. He felt a bit self-conscious sometimes because he was so much taller than anyone else and because of his maleness. The women were always very quiet when he was around, but he knew that when they were together they seemed very happy people. He heard them singing – also laughing at breakfast and dinner time. The sisters always ate before Howard and Mrs Van Dijk. Also when Karen was there, the sisters were quieter and more respectful.

He watched the sun descend the last strip of luminous sky. It was huge and orange, but had lost enough brightness to be looked at. Its diameter was bigger than when it was high in the sky – he was sure. But he didn’t know why or how it had become magnified. He watched the wide golden curve just touch the sea. For a second he convinced himself that the sun was dropping into the sea, and he half expected a mass of steam of heated seawater to billow up on the horizon. As he watched its middle was engulfed. Then it was like an eyelid closing over a bright eye and there was only a sliver of brightness and orange air above. The sea suddenly changed to grey.

He looked at Mrs Van Dijk, still reading, and his vision had a bright spot in front – a memory of the sun.

‘I’m reading about how Crusoe adapted to his surroundings’ she said. ‘How he made his house, how he found water and food. He didn’t worry so much about being lost at sea’

‘Then he sees the footprints in the sand of – what was he called – Friday?’

Mrs Van Dijk laughed. ‘We saw them too – of one of the sisters’

‘Maybe it was the same sister that saw us today – that ran away into the dunes. Maybe there’s one that walks on her own’

‘Maybe. But the sisters do seem more excited than usual...’ she said absently mindedly.

She looked back at her book and turned a page.

********************************

The next morning after porridge Howard walked back up the grassy track to the peat banks. He had arranged with Brigitte for her to bring the donkey cart at lunchtime. They were beginning to communicate – not by words but by pointing and nodding – and by familiarity of some shared experience. Mrs Van Dijk had stayed at the hut and would help the sisters with collecting and sorting wool.

He carried the peat spade over his shoulder and listened to the ceaseless twitter and call of the larks which he never saw. It was a beautiful sound – clearer here than anywhere in the Vale. He realised that this sound was very much connected with his experience on the island – and when he heard it again in the future he would always think of the high sky and the dunes. The larks were very loud when he cut the peat, and though he worked hard he heard the sound all the time, and was just conscious of it. He would always think of peat cutting when he heard larks singing.

He wondered what it would be like to be alone on an island for days or months or years. Robinson Crusoe had been rescued after many years, most of them alone. When Crusoe had arrived home in England what would he have remembered? What sounds would have made him believe he was still back on the island? Perhaps there would be a smell or a sound that would take him back in his imagination? Of course Crusoe’s experience would have been very intense because he had been alone for so long, without Friday.

The track entered the damp grassland and water squelched under his feet. He thought he could see further ahead than before. The sea was a blue band past the low dome of green, but a layer above the sea was dark and blue grey, with clouds boiling over it. He wondered if this was the mainland of Denmark – a few miles away across the water. What was it like? Were there farms and churches like England? He tried to narrow his eyes to pick out anything human, but could see nothing. The clouds seemed often to collect over the land there in the east. Perhaps it rained more there than here on the island.

He smelled the damp bank of peat and took his position to dig. He drank water from a bottle that Brigitte had given him, and tasted the slightest salt in the water and wondered where the well was. But it was alright to drink – much less salty than the tea!

He raised the peat spade above his shoulders and brought it down hard onto the edge of the peat so that a slice dropped out cleanly. It was nice stuff, peat. It looked like cake, or something you could cook. He smiled to himself – perhaps days and days of porridge and turnip soup had made him want to eat peat!

Mrs Van Dijk sat with Sister Karen in the grass at the front of the hall. She’d been invited to help with sorting and conditioning the wool. Sister Karen was notably friendly to Mrs Van Dijk and even asked a few questions about the Vale and how it was for a Dutchwoman to live in England. But the Sister carried austerity with her and couldn’t shake it off. It seemed that Karen believed that without her guiding hand the colony of women would collapse into chaos, or would immediately lose its Christian principles – the austere ideas of Amma Syncletica. Perhaps that’s why Sister Karen seemed to always look so tired and strained – because she thought she was carrying the weight of the colony herself and she couldn’t share it.

But she clearly liked talking to Mrs Van Dijk, perhaps because she was more of a free thinker than the other women. The invitation to the hall had come from Karen. Mrs Van Dijk would participate in one of the rituals of the sisters. The sisters were coming from their breakfast and early prayers and some were gathering in the hall taking out wool from baskets arranged around the walls.

‘The sisters like these activities’ said Karen. ‘It’s something for them to look forward to. I am a hard taskmaster...’ Karen smiled. ‘But I believe in these activities. Our life here is bound up with the land and the sheep. When we worship it is always as part of our work. When you work as part of a group, it may be repetitive and hard but being together – working – brings you closer to god. The sisters...’ she gestured behind into the interior of the hall, ‘…come together to work, but it’s worship as well. They often sing’

‘We heard them sing when we were cutting peat the other day’ said Mrs Van Dijk. ‘It was nice. It helps you forget the pain in your shoulders and the blisters on your hands’. She laughed.

‘Ha yes!’ said Karen, smiling. ‘Did you hear what happened the other day – what the sisters found on the beach?’ She was suddenly conspiratorial.

‘No’

‘Almost twenty large bags were washed up – after the big storm. The storm was huge for summer – even for our standards here on Torshavn. They were found in the early morning all tied together in a great mass. I went out early to look. I really thought that a dead animal had been washed up – you know when an animal’s body becomes all bloated with the water. I thought it was a dead horse’

‘What was it?’

‘A bundle of bags. The bags were made of some kind of canvas – but the canvas was slimy and wet from days out at sea. Each bag was the size of a coal sack. So there was a lot. The pile of bags was bigger than a horse!’

Karen looked out toward the beach.

‘The women were beside themselves with excitement. They didn’t know what the bags were. One of them – one of the younger sisters – came running and shouting up the beach. I had to come out and calm them down. The women here are simple – they have no experience of the outside world – some have been here since they were children. Small things like these – interjections of the world into their lives – cause great consternation and excitement’

‘And what was in the bags’ asked Mrs Van Dijk. She remembered how the previous day Karen had been shouting at the sisters on the beach. So that was why.

‘I wasn’t sure whether we should look inside the bags. I was genuinely worried about what they might contain. Guns, gunpowder, brandy. You should know that the sea lanes here are used regularly by smugglers who bring brandy from France into the northern countries and Russia. Guns go back the other way – from Russia back into the south. I didn’t want to know what was in the bags and I suggested that the sisters take them and simply store them in one of the houses. Just in case whoever lost the bags decided he wanted them back again’

‘I think that’s wise’ said Mrs Van Dijk.

Karen shook her head and tapped Mrs Van Dijk’s hand. ‘But you see here you cannot do that. I sometimes cannot control these women. One of them – I don’t know who – cut open one of the bags. The other girls said it was an accident, but I don’t think it was. Do you know what they found?’

‘I have no idea’

‘Tea! A huge amount of tea! The tea was packed inside three layers of waterproof canvas. It could not have been cut accidentally’ said Karen sitting back.

‘Tea’ murmured Mrs Van Dijk quietly. ‘Of course! Tea!’

********************************

‘Are you going to sing today?’

‘The sisters always sing – it’s part of our lives here – praising God and making useful things for our lives. The wool we spin will be used to knit warm clothes.’

‘And you sell the clothes?’

‘No. We swap the clothes for things we need – candles, matches, cooking things. We’ve had no money in this place for years. Some of sisters have never seen money’

Mrs Van Dijk said: ‘One of the ladies brought us tea – it was so salty! We wondered why – my husband and I. But we were very grateful to receive the tea. We drink a lot of tea in the Vale’

‘This worries me’ said Sister Karen – and her face became stern again. ‘We should not be using this tea. It came to us dishonestly – we didn’t work for it. We should throw it away – bury it’

Mrs Van Dijk thought this was a crazy idea but said nothing.

‘But the girls were so excited’ continued Karen. She called the sisters girls even though many of them were older than she was. But this was her manner – stern and slightly superior – also burdened with what she thought was the moral leadership of the settlement.

‘They were so excited about the tea. But now they seem excited about something else. I look around at them and they are laughing – whispering amongst themselves. It’s very odd. I don’t remember them ever being like this’

Mrs Van Dijk looked past the Abbess at the sea, hearing the distant waves. She thought she knew what the sisters were whispering about. She wondered how long the whispers would take to reach Sister Karen.

In the hall the women piled wool on the large table. They sat on stools facing each other across the shiny surface. Mrs Van Dijk was invited to sit on one side, at the edge. The wool had been cut rather expertly in whole fleeces so that she could see a sort of outline of a sheep in each one. There were many other fleeces and some loose wool also pouring out of the big baskets like foam out of a beer glass. The smell was wonderful – a sort of musty, earthy smell. It permeated the hall. But Karen was right – there was a mood of suppressed excitement amongst the sisters. There were six not including Mrs Van Dijk and Karen.

Two fleeces and a mass of disconnected wool were dumped on the table. They pulled the stools close together and they began to pull the wool back and forth stretching it so that you could see the fibres that made it up, and then pushing it together.

Mrs Van Dijk joined in at the edge facing Karen and was amazed at how soft the wood felt. She’d never really liked wool. In the Vale she didn’t like the way that in the late part of the spring before the sheep were shorn, the wool would start to drop off their shaggy backs and would litter the grass slopes.  But this clean island wool felt nice. Very soft and spongy. She felt the slight slip of oil on her hands and was surprised to see after touching and kneading the wool for a while that her hands were shiny with a kind of light oil. The oil had the same musty smell as wool.

She held her hand to her nose.

‘Lanolin’ said Karen, brightening. ‘It’s natural in the wool. It’s why the sheep stay dry even in the biggest of the Torshavn storms. The wool is full of lanolin. It’s why our hands are so smooth and supple!’

She held up her hands which did look young. The other women smiled knowing what she was talking about.

They kneaded the wool and then began to thump the table with their palms – slowly at first but in rhythm with the movements. The thump was very rhythmic and the singing began spontaneously. The oldest of the sisters started singing low – almost under her breath in a breathy sort of way. But the other women began to sing or chant too. The sounds were soft and rhythmic – but seemed to be a transformation – some kind of human translation of the moan of the wind and the sway of the marram grass – and the bobbing of the sea campions and the sea cabbage out in the dunes. It was beautiful music – stark and primitive but also deep.

Time passed quickly and more wool was brought without breaking the rhythm. Mrs Van Dijk found herself singing from the lowest part of her stomach and banging her hands on the table. It was nice to be a part of this rhythm, to lose yourself in the community. It was nice to feel part of something beyond your control – to surrender your individuality. Sometimes.

She thought that women’s religious feeling was different to men’s. It was more like a recognition that women were a fundamental part of the earth – like trees and stones – like the sea and the wind. Whereas men were individuals. Men were like boats caught out at sea – fighting to stay on course – fighting against the flows and movements of the great Earth.

********************************

‘One of the sisters must have seen us’ said Mrs Van Dijk later.

They were sitting outside in the wind in the evening. It was still light with the sun hovering above the horizon in the west. The wind was combing the grass back toward them flowing straight off the sea.

‘What?’

She said it louder. The wind pushed her hair up.

‘Ah – how do you know?’

‘There was a lot of smiling and some excitement. Sister Karen doesn’t know!’

Howard snorted with laughter. ‘Good! I can’t imagine what she’ll be like if she finds out’

‘Shall we go inside?’

It was cool inside the hut because of the wind, but it was a nice coolness. The air was so fresh – it washed out the rooms and flowed out of the little door over the dunes. Howard took the matchbox and some of the wood kindling and lit the peat stove. It was the first time they’d lit it since the storm. The strange smelling peat smoke rose from the stove opening, and puffed out as the wind blew a gust outside.

‘The boat will come the day after tomorrow’ said Mrs Van Dijk sitting down in front of the stove. She took up her book. She’d almost finished it, reading about the friendship of Crusoe and Friday and of the attacks of the tribes on the island. Soon Crusoe would be rescued. Howard knew because he’d read the book before. Soon they would be rescued too. He wondered what the boat would be like – and how the trip would be. He knew it was only a few miles but he remembered the sea sickness. He remembered being hit on the head too. He still felt pain in his neck when he bent over.

Mrs Van Dijk looked at the pages but didn’t seem to be reading. ‘I forgot to tell you Howard. The tea was found – the salty tea that we had the other day. It was tea that had been found on the beach in great big bags, washed up. Karen thinks it’s smuggled tea’

She told Howard about the sisters and their excitement over the tea and how Sister Karen had complained about the tea bags being cut open.

‘She is more friendly now. She seems to see me as an ally. She complains about the sisters. She really treats them as if they are children. She calls them her girls!’

‘Girls!’

‘She has a strange idea of women being creatures of the primitive earth. Creatures that tend gardens and grow – that sing and cut peat. She thinks that happiness comes from being part of a community and from ritual and simple work. I think she doesn’t like men’

‘Perhaps she had a bad experience with a man?’

‘Perhaps’ said Mrs Van Dijk sighing and putting the book down. ‘She’s beautiful. Perhaps she lived in the wide world before, but not as a sister. Perhaps she gave up men for a reason. When I was a girl I heard that Saint Syncletica was also very passionate, and that she had to fight against her desires. She was disgusted with herself. This is why she was so extreme. She became extreme in her rejection of men because her passion was so extreme’

Howard looked at the tiny flame licking around the peat.

‘Perhaps the sisters see men as individualists who sail the seas’ continued Mrs Van Dijk, ‘fighting against the mighty power of the Earth, while women flow with that power’

‘Do you flow with it?’

‘Sometimes’ She laughed and took his hand. ‘Shall we go swimming tomorrow again?’

‘Oh yes!’ said Howard.

********************************

They walked up the beach in the early morning. They had grown used to not knowing the time – even to an absence of time. There were no clocks in the community; only the natural events of the day marked out time, like sunrise and sunset. In Earls Court they lived by a big church clock and the chimes of its bell defined the day. But here the movement of the sun across the sky was all – and it was a big sky.

This was the fourth day of pure sunlight, and it was warmer than ever. It was warm too at night and light until very late. Howard wondered how much he and Mrs Van Dijk were sleeping – how many hours – because it seemed to him that the days were very long. He wondered what time it was in the outside world – six o’clock, seven?

The tide was higher than the day before so that the sea came right up to a shingle ridge and the waves slapped hard against the white stones and the shells without breaking properly. They sat on the stones looking at the boisterous greenish water. The sea was blue further out and then close to the horizon it was a violet band with a sharp distinct upper edge.

‘I think the good weather will end today. There’s no haze’ said Mrs Van Dijk stretching her legs out. The shells were warm in her hand. She was thinking about how cold the water had been, but she was still drawn to it. The water looked deeper, darker, with stripes of foam on the surface. She looked for fish.

‘I wonder why the sisters don’t eat fish?’ she said idly.

‘I don’t know’ said Howard leaning back. He took off his thin pullover and rested his head. The sun was low, not far above his outstretched foot. He looked up at the perfect blue sky.

‘Don’t you want to go in?’

‘Yes. But I like the sun.’

He felt Mrs Van Dijk recline beside him.

‘I just thought that I’d like to stay here – and not go back on the boat’ he said.

‘It would be nice – I like these early walks on the beach’

‘I wonder if Robinson Crusoe wanted to be rescued?’

Howard listened to the waves trying to hear a rhythm, but there was none, just a chaotic splashing and the underground grind of pebbles and shells as the water pulled at the ridge where they lay. But soon the tide would go out, and then there would be a long stretch of wet dark sand – not like the white sand that he liked up on the ridge. With his eyes closed he let the sand filter through his fingers and felt the sun rise over his feet.

They went into the water after a long time, while also looking at the dunes behind. They were no figures in the sand.

The water was warmer than before and more lively. It became waist deep immediately, slapping against their legs and spraying salt in their mouths. There seemed to be a little wind just over the waves and it tossed their hair about. It was impossible to stay dry so they both pushed forward into the water and let the waves carry them. They turned and looked back at the ridge of sand and the dunes behind, still looking for observers. There was no one. Neither Howard nor Mrs Van Dijk could touch the sandy bottom, but the water made them so buoyant – like two corked bottles – that it was rather pleasing. Like being in a child’s game. So they stayed in longer and as a result were much colder when they got out.

Mrs Van Dijk gasped in the wind hugging herself against the cold.

‘I can’t wait to get dry in this wind, it’s too cold – let’s run up the sand into the dunes. It’s warmer there. We’ll get dressed there’

But the sand was too soft to run on so the last bit they walked and found a passageway up into one of the higher dunes. On its outer facing slope they found a small hollow ringed by marram grass where there was no wind at all.

‘We’re being watched by the larks this time’ said Howard. ‘But you can never see them’

The sun was bright on the sand as Howard stood up to put on his trousers and his eyes were dazzled. The world seemed like a bright space filled with light and no colour. But after a while closing his eyes a bit to get used to the glare, he saw the sea. It was greyish blue and flecked with white waves far out. Below the horizon to the south was a boat with a tall mast coming close to the island.

PART V

‘Do you think it’s the boat from the mainland?’

‘It’s too big Howard. This is a proper boat’

The sun’s glare on the water from the south made it difficult to see the boat. It was a dark shape, with its own short shadow about a mile out. But it was moving down the coast toward the colony. From their high place they could just see one of the low houses – a wide low rectangle with a grassy roof.

They stood watching, rather unnerved by the sight. It wasn’t the small boat that the sisters used to trade with the mainland because it had clearly come from the east from the wide North Sea. It was moving quickly enough to leave a white band of water behind its broad back.

‘It’s the Mabillard’ said Mrs Van Dijk suddenly.

‘Do you think so?’ Howard’s happiness suddenly evaporated. He dreaded even the name of the vessel, let alone the men that sailed in it. He narrowed his eyes, but he couldn’t remember much about the Mabillard. After all he’d either been sick or unconscious when he’d been on it. But its dark shape and the spine of the mast against the bright sea looked right. Also his dread of the boat made him think that Mrs Van Dijk was right.

‘Do you remember the empty bags on deck – on the Mabillard? When we got on?’

‘No’

‘They were all over the deck, empty. I think they were the bags where they store the tea...’

‘You think the tea belongs to the Mabillard?’

‘I do’

They stood watching for a moment, feeling like they were the only human beings on earth as the boat cut across the hard brightness of the sea leaving a white scar on the water.

Then they started down the edge of the dune, the sand collapsing and streaming down in front of their boots. The cold of the sea was forgotten. Down in a sand gulley the wind was gone. To the right was the bright beach and to the left was the jumble of dunes and grassland.

‘It’s not safe to go along the beach. They’ll see us’

‘All right – we’ll walk in the dunes’

‘Do you think they’ll take the tea back, Lotte?’

‘Don’t you remember? They were brutal’

‘I remember’ he involuntarily reached back and stroked his neck.

‘I think they dump the tea overboard when they get close to land or near a navy patrol. They probably mark the bags somehow, perhaps tie them together. Then when the patrol’s gone they collect the tea again. Sister Karen said that tea is smuggled here. They take it to England too – carry it in baskets under imported wool’

‘And the big storm drove the tea ashore?’

‘I think so. Karen was right – not to open the bags’

‘But they did’

‘I hope that the men don’t do something terrible – after what they did to me’

Mrs Van Dijk squinted into the bright sun, her hair waving over her face.

‘Karen was right that women are strong in their rituals and traditions – in their faith. And also that men sail the seas thinking of money. But the women need protection’

They came into the wide valley between the two main chains of dunes and followed one of the thin paths through the grass. The high larks twittered unconcernedly while Howard thought how he and Mrs Van Dijk might offer protection from the harsh men of the Mabillard.

Near to the colony they stood on a low marram grass-covered dune. The boat was already in the open bay and a row boat was pulled up on the sand. In the time that they had walked the paths in the dunes, the men of the Mabillard had dropped anchor and come onshore.

They watched for movement between the houses. A faint scribble of smoke rose from the chimney of the kitchen building. There was no sound but the air and the sea and the larks.

‘Let’s go over to the peat bank’

Howard led Mrs Van Dijk off across the low mounds of marram grass keeping low and always watching. They intersected with the track that led to the bog and followed that as it curled around a mass of covered dunes. Underfoot the path was beginning to dry up, but they smelt the damp potato smell of the peat before they saw the bank.

It was a warm day and the peat face was drying and now a leather brown colour. Peat dust collected in the grass. A peat spade stood upright in the soft ground.

‘I left it here’ said Howard. ‘Perhaps it will be useful?’

He lifted it and felt a blister on his palm. It was light enough to swing over his head, but heavy enough to cause some damage.

********************************

They returned to the low marram-covered dune, and concealed on its far side they watched the settlement for movement. Smoke continued to curl up from the kitchen house. In the low wind they strained their ears to hear any sound at all, but nothing came through the air. It seemed such a peaceful place with the green of the small meadows and potato patches and the wide cream crescent of the sand, then the sea beyond. There was only a rowing boat on the beach to suggest trouble – and the Mabillard offshore. Perhaps they were wrong to assume that the men of the Mabillard would cause trouble? Perhaps they would simply demand their tea and then move on?

‘The sisters usually come out and look for cockles on the beach at this time’ said Mrs Van Dijk. ‘Strange that there’s no one out’

‘You think they’ve got them inside?’

‘The men? Yes’

‘How many men?

‘There was Snap, the Captain – I can’t remember his name – and two or three other sailors. So four or five. They will have left two or three on the Mabillard’

‘We can deal with two men’ said Howard

They walked amongst the potato patches to their hut always trying to keep the Mabillard in view and watching the other low houses of the community. They stood behind the wall of their hut listening for a long time. There was no singing and no voices from the other houses – only the moan of the wind. Their own building was empty. They inched around its far side and Mrs Van Dijk entered quickly through the front door.

Mrs Van Dijk stayed in the hut. She watched while Howard moved off quickly in the direction of the kitchen hut, carrying his peat spade balanced in one hand.

He was back in a very short time gasping from running.

‘Did they see you?’

‘No Lotte’

‘What’s happening?’

‘They’re all in the hall. There’s no one in the other houses’

‘Did you see?’

‘No. But I checked all the other houses. They’re empty. Two of the big tea bags – the canvas bags – are lying outside the entrance to the hall’

‘There’s no sound from the hall?’

‘No’

Howard explained an idea.

‘Do you think it will work?’ said Mrs Van Dijk doubtfully.

‘To catch a fish, you have to attract it first’ he said cryptically.

Mrs Van Dijk returned to her big bag and took out the dress she’d planned to wear at the meeting with the publisher in Amsterdam.

‘You can leave your boots on’ said Howard, almost smiling.

Mrs Van Dijk felt nervous now – and slightly ridiculous walking through the long grass, the dress flapping in the boisterous wind. This was a dress not made for a windy island. Her boots looked ridiculous too- they were black and dirty from the peat. They were huge at the ends of her legs.

‘I’ll stand behind the door’ said Howard but she hardly noticed what he was saying. She was a bit annoyed with him. Wouldn’t it be better for her to have a peat spade as well?

They were in the long grass outside the hall.

‘I’ll stand behind the door’ he said again, thinking she hadn’t heard him. ‘Lotte – don’t worry. You knock on the door – hard – then step back – walk toward the beach or something. Don’t let them get near you’

Howard had a coil of fisherman’s rope and a knife in his pocket. The big peat spade was over his shoulder.

She approached the door and saw dimly in through the window. The sisters were sitting and standing inside. She thought she heard a man’s voice shouting. A candle burned on one of the tables.

There was no choice.

She banged hard on the door. The shouting voice stopped and she heard the door handle rattle. She turned and walked out from under the deep eave of the house into the sunshine and looked back. The door was open and she saw the man called Snap – his thin well remembered face. He stood holding the handle on the inside looking out at her, blinking in the light.

She smiled and saw his face lighten. Maybe he remembered her. She stepped back a little again.

‘Hello!’ said Snap. ‘Won’t you join us?’

He leaned further out of the door still holding the door handle. Howard was standing beside the doorway the peat spade raised. But Snap was not out yet.

‘Why don’t you come out?’ she said in half–flirtatious voice. She felt ridiculous again, and frightened. She stroked her blowing hair away from her face.

Snap came out, pulling the door shut behind him; he almost stepped into the sun but didn’t make it. The peat spade hit him between the shoulders and he fell, still in the deep shade. The dark shape of Howard pulled the fallen man by the belt through the grass. She saw Howard doing something with the rope.

********************************

She heard Snap shout but his cry was muffled and carried off on the wind. She stood in the bright sunlight the wind moving her dress about her – her blue dress for the meeting in Amsterdam. She looked into the darkness under the deep eave of the building, but the windows were black. Would she have to knock again? The dunes behind the house looked inviting. She wished she’d stayed there. How did she get into this situation?

Howard reappeared from the corner. He was breathing heavily but nodded encouragingly. He held his thumb up. It meant everything was alright. She moved closer to the building and saw a sudden reflection of herself very bright and blue in the window. The sea behind her blue image was a bright arc. It was like a remembrance of herself by the sea when she was a child. There was talking from inside and the door opened again. The captain of the Mabillard appeared. He looked thinner than before and his chin was indistinct with a white half-grown beard. He stood staring at her, not speaking. She held up her hand in a gesture of friendship – just to get the man to come out. Why wouldn’t he come out?

Behind the man she saw Karen standing in shadow, her face drawn and frightened.

Mrs Van Dijk waved again and the man took two steps out. Howard struck him from behind with the handle end of the peat spade – in the middle of his back. The Captain of the Mabillard groaned loudly and dropped into the grass. Howard stepped hard onto his back and pulled a rope around his waist and twisted it twice around one hand. He pulled the man’s other arm roughly from behind making him shout.

‘Keep back – this one’s strong’ said Howard. He was breathing very heavily. He kept one boot on the middle of the man’s back. He looked cautiously into the house.

‘Are you alright? Is there anyone else?’ He’d forgotten that Karen didn’t speak English.

Mrs Van Dijk saw Sister Karen emerge. Sisters crowded in behind her, blinking into the sunshine.

Karen said something in German over Howard’s head to Mrs Van Dijk.

Howard was leaning over now, tying the lying man’s feet together very tight. He shouted: ‘the other one’s behind the corner. He’s hurt his head. I’ve tied his feet and hands’

Mrs Van Dijk came over. She felt suddenly absurdly decorative in the company of the women. She wished she wasn’t wearing the dress.

She tapped Howard on the shoulder.

He was grinning. He’d actually enjoyed it. All that work with the peat spade had not been wasted.

Mrs Van Dijk listened as Karen spoke German again rapidly.

‘She says that the men from the Mabillard wanted their tea back. They asked the women to bring money to pay for the tea they’d used’

Howard stood and straightened his back.

‘I’ll bring the other one round’, and he went to get the tied-up Snap.

A line of women came from the door now, some sniffing and crying, while Karen continued to talk urgently to Mrs Van Dijk. Howard remembered that the Captain was called Pickles. He pulled him over so that he was on his back and lined up Snap with him. Snap was still groggy, and was moaning. Pickles stared malevolently up at Howard.

‘We should have thrown you overboard. It was Snap that said we should bring you here’

Pickles swore viciously and tried to spit up at Howard. The spit only went on the Captain’s shirt.

‘Where are the other three?’ said Howard.

‘There’s two on the boat’ said Pickles and tried to spit again.

‘If you swear and spit again, I’ll hit you’ said Howard and he lifted the peat spade ‘Remember that you’re in the presence of ladies’

Howard tried to smile nonchalantly to reinforce his threat. But he was scared too.

Pickles turned his head to the side and swore again into the grass. ‘They don’t understand English’ he said but more quietly. The peat spade had hurt and he didn’t want to risk another blow.

‘Did they take anything?’ said Howard to Mrs Van Dijk.

‘No. The sisters don’t have any money. They tore up some of the books – some of the parchments...’

They went inside. The hall was a mess of broken shelves and torn paper. The men had been looking for money – or something to steal.

‘Karen thought that the men would hurt the women – because they couldn’t find money...’

Some of the manuscripts on the stone floor were badly damaged. There were pages of coloured drawings and text, flashes of gold.

‘I didn’t know they had so many books’

‘Karen keeps them. They are more valuable than tea’

They looked back at the door. The women were still gathered around, talking quietly, looking down at the men who looked like chickens tied up for roasting in the oven.

‘We’ll have to take the Mabillard men back to the mainland – or put them on their boat’ said Howard quietly. ‘It’s not safe to have them here’

********************************

In the early morning the boat from the mainland came. It was a low boat with a canvas cover at one end, and a single mast. The boat rowed in from the south quite close to the Mabillard. There were five sturdy Danes aboard – each with a thick beard and ice blue eyes.

During the night there had been no new visitors from the Mabillard, and the two robbers – Snap and Pickles – had been carefully tied up in the hall, after the books and parchments had been cleared up. Howard watched them all night, taking tea from Mrs Van Dijk at regular intervals. He’d been nervous about the other men from the Mabillard coming to land all night, and had gone out regularly to look across the dark water to the boat. A faint quivering light on the boat painted a patchy line of reflection across the waters but there had been no attempt to come ashore. Probably there was only one rowing boat and so whoever was on the Mabillard was stuck there.

It was clear that Sister Karen, the Abbess, commanded a lot of respect because the Danish sailors – when they arrived – took off their caps when they approached the houses through the long grass. They spoke respectfully to her at the entrance to the hall. Two of the men carried barrels on their shoulders. One carried a cured ham, like a cudgel, in his hand.

Karen explained all that had happened in rapid Danish, and the men went to look at the two robbers, who now looked distinctly weak and defeated after a night tied up and without food or drink. The men from the mainland looked hard at Pickles and Snap talking quietly and nodding. Presently they led the two prisoners out, and loaded them onto the mainland boat. For extra security they were locked in chains to the wooden struts in the bottom.

Some of the tea was collected, and stacks of island potatoes. But the biggest bags were of wool that had been spun into twine or was just raw. This wool was the trade of the island women, and was greatly valued on the mainland. But the barrels that the sailors had brought were full of things that the women could not make – candles, matches and sugar. The tea that they would normally have exchanged for some of their wool was now going the opposite way – from the island to the mainland.

The boat was only able to stay for a few hours because of the tide and the need to get back before dark and so it was loaded quickly. Howard and Mrs Van Dijk found themselves saying goodbye to the women rather quicker than they had thought. It had been such a momentous day: the end to their placid stay on the dune island had been the opposite of placid. But the sisters were very grateful, and now they looked at Howard in rather a different way than they had before. They had been curious about him – a man amongst them cutting peat and paddling with Mrs Van Dijk in the cold sea, or wandering the dunes. Now he seemed to them like a fighter. With his beard growing he looked wild – worse than the robbers from the Mabillard. But he knew that they were grateful to him. For his part he was only grateful that the five Danish sailors had come, because he had had no idea about what to do with Snap and Pickles.

Walking over to the boat and getting their boots wet as they sloshed into the side, they looked back at the green island and thought how beautiful it had been: its simplicity and beauty, the closeness of the waves and the sand and the wind. The sun in the big sky. But it was time to turn back to the sea and so they loaded their bags into the back of the boat and sat, avoiding the angry gaze of the two shackled prisoners.

Four of the Danes took oars and began to pull the boat into deeper water, heading out toward the Mabillard. The sail was down, folded along the spine of the boat. It seemed that the boat was heading out toward the Mabillard. Howard turned to watch and could see sudden activity on the deck of the bigger boat. The anchor was being pulled up and there was shouting. A sail was being raised. The two men aboard had realised they were being pursued and were preparing to leave. Before the Danish boat was within a hundred yards the big rear of the Mabillard had started to move leaving a trail of white in the water, and the sail creaked and billowed. The Mabillard was already heading out of the bay and the rowing boat of the Danes would never catch it, even with its small sail lifted.

Perhaps they’d get the Mabillard another time.

The Danish sail was raised out on the water past the bay and the little boat was pointed eastward around the southern tip of the island. From the viewpoint in the front of the boat, looking back, sitting on their bags, Howard and Mrs Van Dijk watched the little colony of the sisters disappear behind the dunes.

© M H Stephenson 2025

Read more in the fifth book of the English Gothic Series, ‘Land’s End’.