Lifeboat! (2 page)

Pete pulled on his sea-boots over his thick woollen socks, then the stiff orange-coloured oilskins and insulated jacket and the life-jacket. Lastly on went the bump hat—the regulation hard helmet-like piece of headgear. Pete climbed the ladder on to the boat.

‘Here, Tony, mate, hook my belt up, will you? What's on, d'you know?' he added as he turned his back and stood patiently whilst Tony Douglas fastened the hooks on Pete's life-jacket.

‘Red flares down Dolan's Point way.'

Footsteps pounded across the concrete forecourt of the boathouse and Chas Blake, the emergency mechanic, and Alan Gilbert, the assistant mechanic, arrived together. The head launcher and one of the two tractor drivers were already in the boathouse making ready for the launch so that left only a few more launchers to arrive.

‘Right the other end of the town, I was,' Chas Blake panted, but he did not waste a precious second in climbing aboard.

‘Aye, an' they pick their bloody moments,' Pete grinned.

There was a knowing chuckle from Fred Douglas. ‘ 'Ee's still got 'is pyjamas on! Interrupt summats, did we, Pete? That poor lass of yours mun be thankful to hear the maroon go!'

‘Not Angie,' Pete laughed. ‘She's …'

Whatever he had been going to say was drowned by the vibrating noise which filled the boathouse as the tractor engine burst into life and smoke swirled upwards into the rafters. The huge sliding doors of the lifeboat station, facing seawards, had been folded open and the tone of the tractor engine heightened as it tugged at the launching carriage with its load of some ten tons.

Saltershaven's lifeboat, the
Mary Martha Clamp
, emerged from the shadows of the boathouse. On board, the signalman, Tony Douglas, raised the radar mast as soon as the boat was clear of the doorway, then he made his way along the deck to the bows and proceeded to stow the rope fenders.

Turning left out of the boathouse the tractor quickened pace along Marine Esplanade, the caterpillar tracks rattling loudly on the tarmacked road surface. Several paces in front of the tractor Macready walked with Fred Douglas, his second coxswain, heading the whole colourful procession: the blue tractor and the blue, white and orange lifeboat with three crew aboard and alongside, keeping pace, were the remaining two crew members all dressed in their vibrant orange oilskins and life-jackets with the black lettering RNLI. Walking alongside the boat, too, were the launchers in yellow oilskins and thighboots, and Bill Luthwaite, the honorary secretary, who was accountable for the boat whilst it was on land. Once in the sea the lifeboat became Macready's responsibility.

The road traffic was temporarily halted by a police constable so that the procession could take the quickest, right-hand turn around the fountain in the centre of the crossroads and turn due east on to Beach Road. At the end of this road, the tractor lumbered into the soft sand, the stretch of the beach never washed by the sea in summer. Following the lifeboat now were a smattering of interested spectators who always seemed to gravitate towards the drama of the launching of the lifeboat. Had the service been later in the day, the whole route from boathouse to the sea would have been lined with onlookers, but at this hour of the morning— breakfast-time—only a few witnessed the launch. Some distance away the council's men were already at their task of clearing away yesterday's rubbish: broken glass, discarded cans, paper bags, dropped icecream cones and candyfloss squashed into the sand.

The tide was just on the ebb after standing for about an hour at high water. The tractor and trailer gained the narrow stretch of harder sand, still wet and virgin from the retreating waves, and arrived at the water's edge. The tractor turned parallel to the sea, paused whilst the small trailer towed at the rear of the bigger carriage was unhitched and then continued in a wide arc to bring the lifeboat pointing, bows first, out to sea.

On the top floor of a block of holiday flats, quite close to the lifeboat station, the sound of the first maroon had awoken Nigel Milner.

He lay a moment in that strange state somewhere between sleep and full wakefulness, not sure whether he had really heard a noise or whether he had dreamed it. Then the second maroon aroused him fully. He rolled off the lower bunk and padded to the window overlooking the esplanade. The twin puffs of green smoke from the maroons drifted seawards, but the boy from the Midlands did not understand their significance.

Then, far beneath the window, he saw a man running along the pavement and another pedalling his bicycle along the road. They both turned into the lifeboat station, the man on the bike flinging it carelessly against a wall in his haste.

‘Hey, Martin, there's summat goin' on at t'lifeboat place.'

Awkwardly, for he was an overweight ten-year-old, Nigel stood on the lower bunk and shook his younger brother's shoulder. ‘Come on, let's go an' 'ave a look-see. Come
on!
' He gave the thinner boy's arm a vicious pinch.

‘Gi' ower,' Martin murmured and rubbed his arm, his eyes still closed, his head still buried in the pillow.

But Nigel was determined. He dragged the loose covers from the younger boy, who turned over quickly, made a grab for the disappearing bed-clothes, missed and fell out of the top bunk on to the hard floor.

He began to snivel. ‘ Mam, Mam, it's our Nigel, he's …'

‘Ssh!' The fat boy bent over him. ‘ Don't waken them up—they'll not lerrus go.'

Martin's whimpering stopped and he looked up into Nigel's pudgy face. ‘Go? Go where?'

‘To watch t'lifeboat. Come on.' Roughly Nigel grabbed Martin's arm and hauled him to his feet. ‘ Get dressed,' he ordered, reaching for his own shorts and tee shirt. ‘ We don't need no shoes.'

Ten minutes later—fifteen after the maroon had first awoken Nigel—they were standing at the end of the road leading on to the sand.

‘There it is,' Nigel pointed and, without waiting for agreement or otherwise from his brother, he set off after the lifeboat, following the deep ruts made by the tractor and trailer right across the soft sand.

As the two boys raced across the beach, the tractor released the launching carriage, pulled forward and swivelled around on its own axis, churning the sand, and was then re-coupled. The rest of the crew climbed aboard, Macready last, and a launcher removed the ladder. Macready fastened the safety chain across the opening and the tractor pushed the carriage and boat into the sea until the caterpillar tracks were completely hidden by the water. The four restraining chains were released from the sides of the boat when Macready blew his whistle and the launching gear was operated by the tractor driver. The lifeboat slipped from its carriage into the waves, the seawater at once flooding into her ballast tanks and then, engines revving, the
Mary Martha Clamp
headed out to sea.

Nigel Milner gripped Martin's stalk-like arm. ‘I say, let us play lifeboats. I'll be t'captain.'

Scornfully Martin said, ‘T'ain't “ captain”, 'tis coxswain!' He pronounced it “cockswane”. ‘ I seen it in that guide book they got at the flat.'

‘Oh Clever Dick.' Nigel punched Martin's arm again.

‘Gerroff! 'Sides, we can't. We can't blow us dinghy up.'

‘Don't need to.' Nigel leant towards him excitedly. ‘Don't you remember? Last night we was late back from the beach and Mam was werritin' about bein' late for t'bingo. Well—Dad never let the dinghy down!' He delivered the last sentence like a coup de grâce and stood back to watch Martin's expression. But the enthusiasm he had anticipated was not forthcoming.

‘They'll be mad,' Martin volunteered. ‘That's why he lets it down ev'ry night, so's we won't go playin' in it by us selves.'

‘Baby Buntin'.' Nigel said scathingly. ‘Who's chicken then? Look the sea's as calm as anything.' He waved his fat arm in the direction of the ocean.

They looked. The sea was indeed calm, the morning mist still shrouding the water's edge in secretive patches, mist that heralded another hot day—the last of their holiday. Nigel's next manoeuvre was to remind his younger brother of this fact. ‘ Won't 'ave another chance this year,' he said slyly. ‘By the time me dad gets up, it'll be time to pack up an' go for t'train home.' Back to dusty grey streets and concrete playgrounds without a

drop of salt water or a grain of sand.
Martin hesitated, wavered and was lost. ‘Come on, then.'
They raced across the beach, sand showering from their flying

feet.
Behind them, deceptively benign, the sea lay in wait for the

innocents.

As the lifeboat chewed its way through the shallows towards the open sea, Timothy Matthews stood watching the boat he had just helped to launch and feeling the inevitable twinge of longing, that peculiar ‘left-behind' feeling he always felt as he watched the lifeboat out of sight.

Tim could not remember a time when he had not been at the water's edge, or very near it, at a launch. Not always as a launcher, of course; only comparatively recently had he been old enough to take an active part. But no one had ever been able to stop him being there watching, longing to go with them, waiting to grow up …

As he turned from the shoreline, he saw the two boys and it was like a ghostly reminder of his own childhood. Only now there were two of them and there had only ever been one of him.

Tim had always been a loner.

He paused a moment to study the two boys. The fat one was talking urgently to the smaller one, bending towards him, bullying him almost, it seemed to Tim. Then they turned and ran across the sand.

Tim smiled and shook his head wonderingly. He glanced over his shoulder at the lifeboat, a hazy shadow through the patchy sea-mist, but still visible.

That was where any similarity between him and the two boys ended.

Timothy Matthews would never have left the beach until the lifeboat had been gone completely from sight for at least ten minutes.

No one had ever been able to stop him. His house-father in the Home, his teachers at the local grammar school, even the headmaster who was feared by many a would-be truant, all had been helpless when confronted by the boy's obsession.

The instant the maroons sounded, Tim had been away to the boathouse, leaving meals unfinished, lessons, the football field—to the cries of anger from his friends if he were in goal. He would even leave his bed in the dormitory of the Children's Home where he had lived since babyhood. Nothing and no one could deter him from being present every time the lifeboat was launched. Since the age of seven, he had only missed one launch and that had been because he was in hospital under sedation on the operating table losing his tonsils.

Even ordinary childish illnesses had not deterred him. On different occasions he had appeared at the boathouse covered in chicken-pox blemishes, measles and an out-of-shape mump-swollen face. Once, during a nasty bout of 'flu, the only reason he had escaped pneumonia was that his housemother had followed him in her car and then he had only been persuaded to get into the car if she promised to follow the lifeboat to the beach and park as near as possible so that he could watch the launch.

All punishment failed. Neither canings, nor detentions, nor early-to-bed had any effect. As soon as the maroon sounded there was no stopping him. Even a car back-firing was enough to make him leap to his feet.

‘Bend over, Matthews,' the headmaster would say with resignation.

‘Yes, sir. Do you know, sir, it was the fastest launch this year? I timed it. Twelve minutes, forty-five seconds.' (Whack) ‘It's a member of the crew of a trawler, sir, he's got an appendicitis that's gone wrong.' (Whack)

‘Peritonitis.' (Whack) The headmaster supplied the information along with another stroke.

‘That's it, sir. That's what he's got. I reckon,' (Whack) ‘they ought to call in the helicopter from the airbase.' (Whack)

‘I'm sure the coxswain will take heed of your advice, Matthews.' (Whack)

The headmaster turned away, but the boy had not finished even if the caning was done. He stood up, his eyes shining, the ready smile still on his mouth. ‘Oh, he's a great coxswain, Mr Macready. Eighty-seven lives he's saved in the eleven years since he's been coxswain. It's all up on a board in the boathouse, sir …'

‘Yes, yes, that will be all, Matthews. Return to your class.'

Only now, in the face of the headmaster's lack of interest in the town's lifeboat activities, did the boy's expression alter. Tim could not understand how anyone, particularly the headmaster who was always exhorting his pupils to take a lively interest in whatever was going on around them, could not be as enthusiastic as he was about the lifeboat.

The headmaster sighed as the door closed behind Matthews. ‘Doesn't anything have an effect on that boy?' he murmured.

The school's secretary, typing in her corner, glanced at him, pursed her lips and said nothing but pounded the keys even harder. Mrs Hibbett did not agree with punishing young Matthews. She thought the boy showed spirit.

The next time Matthews stood in front of Mr Edwards, the headmaster said, ‘Well, boy, so it's happened again, has it?'

‘Yes, sir. Do you know, sir, they were a crew member short. If only I'd been older perhaps they'd have let me go.'

Mr Edwards raised his eyebrows and murmured, ‘Heaven forbid!' Clearing his throat he added, ‘Well Matthews, caning seems to have no effect. I—er—understand you particularly dislike the writing of essays. Is that correct?'

The boy grimaced. ‘ Yes, sir.'

‘Well, then. I suggest you remain in detention after school this evening and write me out a full account of the launch of the lifeboat and why you feel the crew have especial need of your presence
every
time a launch takes place.' The sarcasm was lost on Tim. His eyes were shining. ‘Yes, sir.'