“I told you I don’t read books like I should,” he said.
“What’s she writ there? What’s it say?” Mary asked. Alfie went to look.
“Papa,” Alfie read. “It says Papa.” They all gathered round the picture to look. “It’s the story, Mother,” Alfie said. “That Ugly Duckling story. It must be. That man, he’s her father, and he’s reading a story to the ducks, isn’t he? Stands to reason. And that’s why she asks for that story again and again. It reminds her of him. That’s him, got to be. That’s her father.”
“But he’s a giant,” Jim said. “Look at him. He’s as big as the trees about him, almost.”
“Big or small, don’t matter,” Alfie said. “All that matters is that she remembers him. She remembers her father.”
Later that evening, way past the time they were usually in bed, the three of them were still sitting round the kitchen table, trying to piece together all the clues they could glean from the drawing of Lucy’s father. In particular they were trying to work out where the lake might be, with the tall trees behind and the buildings in the distance. And why was this giant of a man wearing such old-fashioned clothes? As Jim pointed out, the coat he was wearing was a lot like Uncle Billy’s Long John Silver coat. “Come to think of it,” said Jim, “maybe it is Uncle Billy. He’s got a long neck as well, hasn’t he? And a nose like a crow, which Uncle Billy has too.”
When Mary objected to this, Jim went on. “I don’t mean nothing by it, Marymoo,” he said. “But he has, you know he has. Maybe it’s him, maybe it’s a picture of Uncle Billy. She likes him. Maybe he tells her stories. He likes stories, likes his books, you know he does.”
“Then why’s she gone and writ Papa underneath, Father?” said Alfie. No one could answer. Talk turned then to Uncle Billy and the Hispaniola, and what a wonderful boat she was, now that she was finished.
“Best idea you ever had, Marymoo,” Jim said. “Once a shipbuilder, always a shipbuilder, that’s what you said. Over five years ago, when you first brought him home from the asylum, and you set him to work on that old hulk of a lugger in Green Bay, I thought you was mad. But you said, give him something to do. Man’s got to keep busy, you said. You told me he could do it, and you told him he could do it too, and now he has.”
“He’s showed them all right, has my brother,” said Mary, fierce with pride. “But you found him all that washed-up timber, Jimbo. You gave him your tools, all he needed. But the rest he done all on his own. They’ll think twice before they call him Silly Billy now. Silly Billies don’t build boats that beautiful.”
“He’s off tomorrow, sailing away to Treasure Island,” said Alfie. “That’s what he told us. And I had the feeling he meant it too.”
“He’s said that from the day he started,” said Jim, with a laugh, “when it were nothing but a rotting hulk on the beach. Him and his Treasure Island! Him and his Yo-ho-ho! He means it all right, but he won’t do it. Dream talk, that’s all it is.”
“Just so long as he’s happy,” Mary said. “After all he’s been through, he deserves to be happy. So far as I’m concerned, he can be who he likes in his mind, go where he wants to. We all got to dream, Jimbo, haven’t we?”
The wind got up that night and blew itself into a gale, which shook the whole house so that it creaked and rattled and growled all night long.
When they woke, they heard the gramophone playing downstairs, playing Lucy’s tune again. Lucy had not done that before, she had never put the music on before breakfast. Alfie thought that was strange. When he came down, he found the kitchen door was wide open and no one was about. When they looked, Lucy wasn’t in her room either, nor was she outside, feeding the hens. Lucy was nowhere to be found.
Alfie was the first to notice what she had done. There was writing now on every one of her sketches all around the kitchen. Some had ‘Mama’ written in large letters across them. All the drawings of the giant reading to the ducks by the pond now said ‘Papa’ underneath. And above him, always, a full moon.
Over the drawing of the big ship with the four funnels she had written her own name, for some reason. But she had spelt ‘Lusy’ with an ‘s’, instead of a ‘c’. The one of the log cabin in the forest, with the porch all round, now had ‘Bearwood’ written across the top in capital letters. And on every one of the several horse drawings – horse running, horse lying down, horse standing in stable, horse rolling – she had written either ‘Bess’ or ‘Joey’; except for the last one, which she had put up on the wall only a few days before, of a horse’s face looking through a window, ears pricked. This one was ‘Peg’, and she was recognisably different from the others. There were other names too, under the pencil portraits she had done: Aunty Ducka, Uncle Mac, Miss Winters, and of a young girl of about her age, called Pippa – there were several drawings of Pippa.
They were still puzzling out the names and the drawings when Lucy came running into the house, breathless, wildly gesticulating at them, trying to tell them something, stamping her foot in frustration that they didn’t immediately understand her. She was beckoning them to follow her, then running out again, across the field down towards Green Bay. One look was enough. The Hispaniola was gone. Other boats in the bay, including Jim’s, were scarcely moving on their anchors. The storm had taken the wind with it and left behind only a breeze, and a gently breathing sea. There was no Hispaniola out in Tresco Channel, and no sail further out to sea.
“Must’ve been blowed off her anchor in the night,” said Jim. “Uncle Billy will be home in the boathouse; don’t you worry none, Marymoo.”
But Mary was already running up the beach, calling for Uncle Billy. He wasn’t in the boathouse. They went up and down Green Bay, searching for him, shouting for him.
“Do you think he’s really gone and done it, Mother?” Alfie said. “Sailed off to Treasure Island, like he said he would?”
“He wouldn’t have,” said Mary, becoming more distraught with every moment. “He’s not mad. He’s not!”
“He’ll be here somewhere,” Jim told her. “We’ll find him soon enough. Don’t you worry.”
“You’re right, Jimbo.” Mary was struggling to hold back her tears. “He’s still on the island, I know he is. We got to find him.”
“He’ll be out looking for her, for the Hispaniola,” said Jim. “That’s what he’ll be doing; he’ll be up on the hills, on the cliffs, looking out to sea. That’s where we’ll find him.” He sent Alfie and Lucy out to search the other side of the island. Peg had followed them down to the beach by now. So they mounted up and went looking. All that morning they searched, from Samson Hill to Heathy Hill, from Popplestone and Stinking Porth to Hell Bay. There was no sign of Uncle Billy, and no sign of the Hispaniola.
By that afternoon every boat on the island was out looking for Uncle Billy and the Hispaniola. Soon, all over Scilly, wherever they had heard of the disappearance of Uncle Billy, the islanders got in their boats and went out searching. Every fishing boat was out at sea, every gig, the lifeboat too. None of the rumours and tittle-tattle about Silly Billy, nor the stories about Lucy Lost being a German, mattered any more now. One of their own was lost at sea, a boat was missing, and a boat everyone knew – one that, mad as he might be, Silly Billy had built with his own hands. By nightfall no one had found any trace of either man or boat.
The next morning, Sunday morning, gifts of bread and jam were left on the porch at Veronica Farm, and prayers were said in churches all over the islands for Uncle Billy. In Bryher Church, the Wheatcroft family were no longer left in their pew alone. Heart-warming though this newfound kindness was, nothing could bring any comfort to Mary. She was in despair. Time and again, Jim tried to remind her that Uncle Billy didn’t just build boats, that he’d been at sea for most of his life, sailed the world, that if anyone could handle the lugger it was Uncle Billy.
“You build a boat, you know how to handle it, Marymoo,” he told her. “The skills of a sailor once learnt are never forgotten. You’ll see, Marymoo. We
’ll look out at sea, this morning, tomorrow morning, whenever, and he’ll come sailing in on the Hispaniola, just as cool as a cucumber.” But no words could soothe Mary’s grief, and grief it was, for with every day that passed, and still no sign of Billy, she was beginning to believe the worst, that Billy was gone for good, dead and drowned out there somewhere, and never coming back.
In the days that followed Uncle Billy’s disappearance, Lucy hardly left her side. This silent child, who could offer no words of consolation, was the only one who seemed to understand her loss, the only one who could be any comfort to her at all. Mary knew, as everyone else on the islands did, that when they went out looking now every morning, searching the shoreline, the rocks and the cliffs, it was wreckage they were expecting to find, or a body.
IT WAS AT DAWN FOUR days after the disappearance of the Hispaniola that her sail was sighted off St Mary’s. As she came close into the harbour, the few islanders that were up and about saw that there was more than one man on board. Word spread fast.
From Dr Crow’s journal, 23rd October 1915
I write my journal, in part, as a record of a doctor’s life in these remote and largely unknown islands, but also so that I myself might later be reminded of times past, when memory dims. If there is one day that will linger long in my mind, and in the collective memory of these islands, it will be today. There never was in my life a more momentous day.
Roused early by the sound of the church bell ringing, and by a great kerfuffle and hullabaloo in the street below, I leaned out of my window and saw the town was full of people, and all of them hurrying by in a great state of excitement, every one of them it seemed on their way towards the quay. I called down, enquiring of them what might be the cause of all this commotion.
“It’s the Hispaniola,” came one reply.
“It’s that old Silly Billy from Bryher,” came another. “He’s come back, and he isn’t alone either!”
I dressed as fast as I could and went out into the street to join the throng. I was, as I soon discovered from looking around me, rather more properly dressed than some. There were those who, in their haste, had thrown on little more than a dressing gown over their nightclothes, and some were still in slippers. Several of the children, I noticed, were running barefoot through the streets. We were all carried along in the rush of the crowd. It seemed to me that everyone on the island must be there, all of them eager to reach the quay and have a first sighting of the Hispaniola.
By the time I came round the corner, and saw her, she was already tying up. There was much jostling in the crush of the crowd. Like everyone else I wanted to have a closer look, but could not find a way through the press of people, until, that is, I heard someone calling for me.
“Is the doctor here?” came the cry. “Someone send for the doctor!”
I imagined at once that Uncle Billy must have fallen ill, or been injured in some accident or other, which would explain why he had been gone so long. The crowd made way for me as I came through, but they were no longer excited. A hush had descended on the quayside now, which brought to mind another silent crowd in another place, on the beach at Porthcressa, some months before when I had been called out to attend to two poor sailors washed up drowned on the sands. So already I was fearing the worst. But then I realised that this was altogether a different kind of silence, a silence borne of hostility. I was soon to understand why.
Looking down from the quay on to the deck of the Hispaniola, I could see there were three men there. One lay prone and still, another crouched over him, while Uncle Billy busied himself about the boat, hauling down the sails and stowing them away, paying no attention whatever to the crowd gathering to watch on the quay above him, one or two of whom were now shouting at him as I climbed down the ladder on to the deck.
“What d’you bring them back for, Billy?”
“They’re not our boys!”
“They’re Fritzis, they’re Huns.”
“Look at their uniforms – not like ours.”
“Dirty beggars!”
Then it was me they were shouting at. “You don’t want to bother with them, Doctor!” “Not after what they done.”
I stood there on the deck, looking up at the sea of faces above me. That long look – and it might have been more glare than look – was enough in the end I’m pleased to say to silence those few malign voices. No more was said. But perhaps that was also because many had now noticed what I had already seen at first glance, that the sailor lying stretched out on the deck was dead. Perhaps some had also seen that, whoever he was, wherever he came from, he was young, hardly more than a boy; his beard, unlike the other sailor’s, still sparse and downy with youth. Kneeling beside him now, I felt his wrist and his neck for any sign of a pulse, just to be sure. But I had no need to. There is a stillness in death, a pallor, that is quite unmistakable. I knew from the eyes of the other sailor as he looked at me that he did not have to be told.
“Sein Name…” he said. “His name was Günter, Günter Stein. Aus Tübingen. I also live there. The same town. He was the youngest on the boat. Nineteen years old. Sein Brüder, Klaus, was also killed in Belgien, in the army. His mother now, she has no sons.”
His English was hesitant, and interspersed with German, much of which I could not understand. He submitted only reluctantly to my examination. It was evident, even at a cursory glance, that he was bewildered and disorientated, and fearful too, of the crowd of onlookers, who were quieter now, but nonetheless still hostile towards him. He was also clearly dehydrated, and weak, unsteady on his feet as he stood up. His face was blistered, and raw in places, from exposure to wind and sun.
Uncle Billy, being an intensely shy and private person, as I knew from past experience, would not allow himself to be examined, especially in front of all these people. So I merely studied him closely, as I asked him questions. He too, quite evidently, had been suffering from exposure and exhaustion, but his gaze and his bearing seemed strong. He answered me, as I had expected, without ever looking at me, and in short, sharp sentences, his voice and his face deadpan as usual. But even so I managed to glean from him something of what had happened out there at sea. As far as I could discover, the Hispaniola had been several miles south of Scilly, becalmed and drifting with the current. Uncle Billy had woken one morning to hear a voice calling him.
“I thought it were a voice in my head,” he told me. “But it weren’t.” He had seen a life raft nearby, with two sailors on board, and he picked them up. He seemed neither to know nor care who they were, nor where they came from. He had some water left to give them, but very little, and soon there was none. All his food was gone. “One of they sailors died,” he said. “And I were sad about that. He were only a boy, like Alfie.” He told me that he didn’t want to talk about it any more because it made him sad, and that he needed to go home right away, that he wanted to see Mary and Jim and Alfie.
“Maybe it would be better,” I suggested, “if I sent word to Bryher and they came over to meet you here, on St Mary’s. Meanwhile you can come back to my house and rest. You need rest and food, Billy. They’ll be here soon enough. You shouldn’t be going out on that boat again, not now.”
“I don’t like strange houses,” he said. “And I don’t like strange people. I ain’t coming.”
“I’m not a stranger, Billy,” I told him.
“They are, up there,” he replied, turning away from me, and from them. They were intimidating even for me, and none of them were strangers to me. They were all my patients. But I knew how Billy hated to be stared at. There were hundreds of faces peering down at us now from the quay, and not a smile to be seen among them. I knew how obstinate Uncle Billy could be, that there was no possible way I could persuade him to come with me back to my house through that crowd unless people moved away. So I decided to take matters in hand, to address the crowd, speaking to them with as much authority as I could muster.
I knew I could not do this all on my own. I needed an ally, someone
up there on the quayside, someone upon whom I could rely. Searching the faces, I found the person I was looking for: Mr Griggs, harbour master, coxswain of the St Mary’s gig, town councillor, church warden, a man I knew was much respected and admired.
“Mr Griggs,” I said, raising my voice so that all could hear. “I’d be obliged if you would first of all send for the undertaker to take this poor lad away. I shall ask you also to send word to the Wheatcroft family on Bryher, that the Hispaniola is back, and Uncle Billy too, both unharmed. Meanwhile, because these two men are in need of medical attention, I should like to take them back home to my house, where they can be properly cared for.” My audience, I saw, was listening, and I was much encouraged by this.
“You’ll agree with me, Mr Griggs,” I went on, “when I say to everyone here that this is not a spectacle, that we should not stand and gawp, but we should rather remember that a young man has died, a young sailor from Germany, who is called Günter. He was some mother’s son, like poor Jack Brody was, and Henry Hibbert and Martin Dowd. They fought for our country, as did this young man for his. So we should show proper respect for him, no matter where he comes from, the same respect shown by you and your forebears to those Germans saved, all those years ago, from the wreck of the Schiller, as well as to those who perished, and who lie buried in our churchyard, German and English side by side.”
When I had finished, I was waiting for cries of protest, or at least a voice or two raised against me, but none came. Instead, Mr Griggs spoke up. “What the doctor says is only right. Let’s show the proper respect.”