Listen to the Moon
Beside herself now with worry, Mary ran out of the house and stood there, calling for her, shouting for her. She could not imagine where she might have gone, and so could not begin to think where to start looking. The island was small enough, no more than a couple of miles end to end, but she could be anywhere. Small though it was, Lucy would be utterly lost out there, especially in this fog. After all, she had never been further than the henhouse at the bottom of the garden. Wherever she had wandered off to, she would have no idea how to get back again. There were the towering cliffs, hundreds of feet high, at Hell Bay. If she was to get too close to the edge of the cliff path… it didn’t bear thinking about.
And then Mary remembered it was low water, the tide turning. If Lucy wandered too far out on to the sandbanks, she could easily be trapped by the incoming tide. It had happened only the year before to little Daisy Fellows. The water was already up around her neck when they found her, and she couldn’t swim. They’d only just got to her in time.
There was old Mr Jenkins’ mad dog that he never tied up. It had attacked children before. And the bull was in with the cows in the field below Watch Hill, and everyone knew he had a wicked streak in him. Lucy could be anywhere. Anything could have happened to her.
Panic was rising in Mary, erupting. She could not control it. She found she was not shouting for Lucy any more but screaming for her. And she was running. Wherever she ran – up Watch Hill and Samson Hill, into the Town, around the church and the graveyard, along Popplestone Bay, out to Heathy Hill – wherever she went, whoever she met, she’d ask time and again if anyone had seen Lucy Lost, but no one had. The alarm raised, soon almost everyone was out scouring the island for Lucy, but by now a blanket of fog had settled thick over the island. It was a white-out. Mary couldn’t see more than a few yards in front of her.
Lucy was still missing when Alfie and the other Bryher children came back from Tresco on the school boat later that afternoon. Once they found out what had happened, all of them joined in the search with everyone else. Someone told Alfie his mother was in the church. He found her there, on her knees, praying silently. She looked up at him, her eyes full of tears. “God is good,” she whispered. “He will protect her. He will, won’t he, Alfie?” They held one another in the dark silence of the church, until all the tears stopped, until she was calm enough to gather herself again. “Come along, Mary,” she said. “No good weeping and wailing, and feeling sorry for yourself. Don’t help no one. God helps those who help themselves. Let’s go and find her, Alfie.”
They searched together after that, each reassuring and encouraging the other as best they could, both of them all the while hiding their worst fears. With the island shrouded in white, and still no sign of Lucy after long hours of searching, people were beginning to lose hope. Fog or not, everyone knew well enough that, as time passed, it was less and less likely she would be found safe and well. She wasn’t just lost. Something must have happened to her. They shouted and called for her all over the island, blew whistles, even rang the church bell, but there was no sign of her, no response. The fog seemed to soak up all sound, muffling even the crying of the gulls and the piping of the oystercatchers. The light was fading fast now, the fog darkening around them.
Everyone was beginning to realise there was little point in calling out any more, or even in looking for much longer. After all, Lucy Lost could not speak to answer, could she? And anyway, hadn’t they searched everywhere again and again, all along the cliffs and the beaches, every field and hedgerow and garden, every barn and shed? Lucy Lost seemed to have vanished as mysteriously as she had appeared. She had come out of nowhere. She had gone back there.
There were even whisperings now – and not only among the children – that maybe the story about Lucy Lost being a ghost might be true after all. She was the ghost child of St Helen’s, a poor lost soul condemned to wander there alone till the end of time. Ghosts come and go as they please, don’t they? They can be visible or invisible, materialise as and when they like, can’t they? As the search became ever more desperate, this idea, however absurd it seemed to some, gained more and more credence. Some believed it absolutely. If Lucy Lost had disappeared, and there was no sign of her, no body found, then Lucy Lost had to have been a ghost all along.
Even Alfie and Mary, who of course knew Lucy far better than anyone else there, and who knew well enough that she was flesh and blood, could not get it out of their minds that there might be some truth in the story. They too were losing heart with every hour that passed. But like everyone else they went on looking through the blinding fog, searching the heather on the high moors, on Watch Hill, on Samson Hill, checking again all the cists and ancient burial sites up there, where Lucy might have climbed in and taken shelter, and then around the rocks in Hell Bay and Droppy Nose Point. Even when Mary and Alfie were on the coastal path and close to the cliff edge, with the sea no more than a stone’s throw away, still they could not see the water below. They could hardly hear it either. The sound of the sea was all but swallowed by the fog, like everything else, like Lucy Lost herself.
Mary and Alfie did not speak any more. There was no need. There was no point. They shared each other’s worst fears. Alfie held his mother’s hand tight, as tightly as she was holding his. Every shadowy figure that loomed up out of the fog they hoped would be Lucy, but it never was. It was someone else out searching, as they were.
“Nothing?” Mary would ask them, always hopefully, but fearing and knowing already the answer.
“Nothing,” came the reply, every time.
“We keep looking then, and we keep praying,” Mary would say, “looking and praying.” To everyone they met, she sounded as determined as ever, but Alfie could sense now that even she was losing any last vestige of hope.
They had searched the dunes behind Rushy Bay yet again, and were walking back along the beach on Green Bay when they heard Jim’s voice ahead of them in the fog. “That you, Marymoo?” he said. “It is, isn’t it! And Alfie too? What you doing out in this?” They could see him better now, a walking shadow looming out of the fog. “Never seen a fog like it. Fish seemed to like it though.” He held up his fish bucket and shook it. ‘You’ll be pleased with me, Marymoo – a dozen good mackerel, and a fine sea bass. I got a nice crab for Uncle Billy too. Not bad, eh? And look who was there to greet me on the beach when I came in!”
Out of the gloom behind him came Peg, plodding over the sand, and she wasn’t alone. Lucy was up there on her back. “We never knew our Lucy could ride, did we?” said Jim. “What’s up? You’re looking like you seen a ghost or something.”
Mary couldn’t say a word. She simply stood there on the beach, covering her face with her hands, and sobbing. Alfie did the explaining for her. “Lucy’s been missing all day, Father. The whole island’s been out looking too, all of us. We thought she’d gone over a cliff or something. Where’s she been?” Peg had walked right up to him now and was nuzzling his shoulder.
“She’s been with Uncle Billy, haven’t you, girl?” Jim said. “Billy says he were out in the fog, on his way back from doing a bit of shrimping out in the bay like he does when no one’s about – he likes fog, our Billy does – and along Lucy comes, riding up on Peg, and she don’t seem to know where she is, he says, which is hardly surprising, and she’s a bit upset. So he takes her home to the boatshed. They been eating shrimps all afternoon, he says. And working on the sails for the Hispaniola. She’s good with a needle, he says. Then after a while he thought time was going on, and didn’t quite know what to do with her, so he reckoned he’d bring her home, her and Peg both. And that’s when I met up with them, on the beach, when I came in from fishing. They was just walking out of the fog. Give me quite a fright, they did. Uncle Billy went off home, and here she is.
“And look at her, Marymoo,” he went on. “Happy as you like, I’d say. What’re you crying for, Mary?” he said, putting his arm round her. “She’s back, isn’t she? Seems she likes horses as much as her piano mus
ic, I reckon. Knows how to ride them too. Look, she got no reins, no saddle, no nothing. Rides Peg with her knees. She knows her horses all right, rides like she’s been doing it all her life. And you know what Peg’s like. She don’t allow it. She don’t allow no one to ride her, do she? She’s a pullin’ horse, a carthorse, not a ridin’ horse. I’ve tried getting on her once or twice in my time, so’s young Alfie, so have lots of folk, and every one of us has ended up on our bottom in a hedge or a ditch or in a patch of nettles. She can’t stand anyone sitting on her, can she? But look at her now. Who’d have thought it, Marymoo, eh! Lucy riding Peg easy as pie.”
Laughing, he reached up, and lifted Peg’s forelock. “See that? That’s Peg smiling! You ever seen that before? And look, so’s our Lucy! You got a nice smile, Lucy. Lights up your whole face. You should do it more often. Maybe you should go riding more often. Here, Alfie,” he said, handing the fish bucket to Alfie, “you’re younger’n me, you can carry the fish. Come along, Marymoo,” he went on, taking her arm. “Home. Took for ever coming back in. Had to feel my way down the channel. Soupy old fog, could hardly see beyond the nose on me face. Lucky I got a good map of everything in my head. Should have, shouldn’t I, after all these years? Need my supper, Marymoo, I’m famished. I could eat a ruddy horse – oh, beggin’ your pardon, Peg.”
When it got around that Uncle Billy had taken Lucy in and looked after her all day, there were a few mutterings, about Silly Billy, and how he should’ve told Mary, told someone, told anyone where she was and saved the whole island a lot of trouble. But most didn’t care about that. They were simply relieved that Lucy Lost had been found; that was all that mattered. She was safe and sound.
The story of Lucy’s disappearance that day was of course the talk of the island for days, but soon enough it wasn’t just Lucy that everyone was talking about, it was the horse. During those hours lost in the fog – and how long it was before Uncle Billy had found her had never been quite discovered – an extraordinary transformation had somehow come over Peg. It was almost as if Lucy had put some sort of spell on her.
Everyone on Bryher knew Peg, how moody and mean and stubborn she could be. A whiskery old horse, black all over with feathery hooves and a crooked nose, she was the island’s communal workhorse, but one who would only work if she felt like it, and if she was fed right and treated right. She much preferred to be left alone to wander the island, grazing peaceably, a ubiquitous and benign enough presence, until she felt hard done by in any way, until someone upset her.
Peg was the ploughing horse, the harvesting horse. She was the island’s only carthorse too, used to haul loads of seaweed up from the beaches to fertilise the potato fields and the flower fields. There were one or two donkeys on the island, who did most of the fetching and carrying, but the islanders couldn’t do without Peg. They knew it and she knew it. No one owned her, and she knew that too, or seemed to. She was her own mistress. She guarded her independence fiercely, and liked to be treated always with the greatest respect.
She made it quite plain that she didn’t like people, she tolerated them, so long as they behaved as she liked them to behave. Ask too much of her, work her too long and there would be trouble. Try to ride her or take a stick or a whip to her, take liberties of any kind, and she’d let you know soon enough who was boss. Groom her when she didn’t want to be groomed, pick out her feet when she didn’t feel like enduring it, and she could turn nasty. She was quite capable of giving anyone, young or old alike, a sharp nip, even an occasional sly kick. Everyone on the island knew better than to take Peg for granted.
She was though, for the most part, as good as gold with youngsters, especially if they came with a carrot. With a carrot, the smallest child could fetch her in for work, and work her too. She hardly had to be told where to go, nor where to stop. But try to get up and ride her home after a day’s work and, child or not, you were in big trouble.
No one rode Peg. Many had tried, for a dare, but it had always ended badly, in tears mostly. No one had ever ridden Peg and stayed on, but now everyone on the island knew that Lucy had. It was unheard of. Lucy Lost had stayed on Peg for hours, for the best part of a day, a day that seemed to have changed Peg out of all recognition.
After that first, and now famous, ride in the fog with Lucy, Peg would often be seen making her way to Veronica Farm, where she’d stand outside the door in the garden, even peering in at the window, while she waited for Lucy to come out and ride her. Most mornings now, they’d be seen out riding around the island, both of them obviously enjoying it as much as the other. And it was noticeable now that whenever anyone went looking for Peg, to fetch her in for work, to put her in harness, she would not be easy to find, nor to catch, nor to be tacked up.
She’d stamp her foot and snort and shake her straggly mane, leaving no one in any doubt that she’d rather be somewhere else altogether, and everyone knew who with. As soon as the work was done, ploughing or harrowing, mowing or fertilising, as soon as they had taken the tack off her, she’d be trotting off right away, back to Veronica Farm to find Lucy. What’s more, Peg had never been known before to break into a trot. She did now, with Lucy. They’d been seen cantering along Rushy Bay, and once even breaking into a gallop. Peg cantering! Peg galloping!
BY THE TIME DR CROW came over to Bryher, some weeks later on his next visit, he discovered that the horse had almost entirely supplanted his gramophone and his records in Lucy’s affections. And he was not at all disappointed by this development.
From Dr Crow’s journal, 27th August 1915
Thank the Lord for Lucy Lost and Peg. Never in all my life has there been a day of greater contrasts than today. It began badly.
I was woken at dawn by a knock at my door. It was Mrs Merton, with an urgent message from Bryher, summoning me at once to attend young Jack Brody again. She is not a person I care for greatly, for she is a habitual busybody, and unquestionably Scilly’s most pernicious gossip – and we have a few of those on these islands. However, it has to be said that on this occasion she had good enough cause to wake me. News had come from Bryher that poor Jack was delirious again and in a dreadful state. I had to come quickly, she said.
I do not ever begrudge Jack Brody a visit. Indeed, no one on these islands deserves the attention of a doctor more than he. But as a doctor I hate to have to witness the prolonged suffering of anyone. He is crippled not just by his wounds, but by his pain. The amputation of his shattered leg was done well enough, but has become infected yet again. I did what I could, cleaning and dressing the wound, showing Mrs Brody again how to do it herself, and how important it is that her hands be clean. I worry about septicaemia. Once that takes hold, there is little that can be done. With luck, the wound may heal in time, but I cannot heal the agony in his eyes. I tried to make him as comfortable as I could. But if I’m honest I know he can never be comfortable again, that the pain he lives with, in his leg and in his head too, is almost constant. He endures bravely, but, knowing him as I did before, he is a truly pitiful sight. The kindest thing any loving and merciful God could do, would be to let him go, and quickly too. Mrs Brody, a widow of many years, is used to suffering, but I think the suffering of her son is almost too much to bear.
As I came away from that sad, sad house, I was called to a much happier place altogether, and no more than a few hundred yards away. It turned out on this occasion that I was in just the right place at just the right time. This was to prove a most timely and entirely joyous visit – to assist at the birth of Mrs Willoughby’s second child. If only all births were so easy. The child, a boy, she is calling Handsome – an unusual but most suitable name I think for such a beautiful child. He is large, at nearly nine pounds, and with a full head of dark hair.
I left with a spring in my step, feeling that after all, all can and will be well again in this troubled world. As I came away, nature herself seemed to confirm this. The sun was shining out of the deepest blue sky, the sea lapping lazily on to the sand, swallows skimming over the
shoreline. But then, as I walked along Green Bay, I happened to meet old Mr Jenkins out mending his nets, his fearsome dog beside him. He’s a gruff old so-and-so, and his dog is no better, both to be avoided if at all possible. So I thought it best to keep my distance. But, when he beckoned me over, I had to go. He asked me if I’d heard the latest news. It seems another of our ships, a merchantman, has been torpedoed in the Western Approaches. No survivors had been picked up, he said. I wish now I had not stopped to speak.
I saw Uncle Billy busy on his boat as usual. He didn’t see me. He sees very few people because either he does not look, or he does not wish to, or both. I think Uncle Billy may have the right idea. He speaks to no one, except his close family, and then only rarely. He keeps himself to himself, attends only to what is near and dear to him. He does not want to know about the sadnesses of the wider world. It is as if he understands, and maybe he does, that for him, and for all of us, this is the only way that can lead to sanity, and to salvation. Billy may sometimes be deluded, but in this I believe he is right, that his example is one we should all follow, or I fear this war and all its sadness will make us all mad.
I rage against the horror of this war. I can say this to no one at the present time, especially since the sinking of the Lusitania, for fear of seeming to be unpatriotic, and unsupportive of our soldiers at the Front. I love England as well as any man, but do I have to love war to love England? I know that no good can ever come of it, no matter who wins or who loses. I only want the suffering and the pain and the grieving to stop. I have seen and tended to sailor after sailor, many little more than boys, all brought ashore at St Mary’s, already drowned, some of them, some terribly burnt, some half dead with cold. All, like Jack Brody, are some mother’s son, some girl’s sweetheart. Not so long ago they were all newly born, like Handsome, with life and happiness ahead of them.