Limpet - between the tides

                                  By Christopher Mathews

 

Oblivious of men, she keeps her small safe world, locked away from crashing waves, but she never makes a pearl.

 

No precious jewels are secure and safe inside her secret cave. She has no time between the waves to be a human’s slave.

 

Record of the years, the cycles of the moon, marked in calcium layers, she paints her little room, now dark now light, now blue now white, the health of the sea is held in each, the container of her life.

 

The ebb and flow of tide, are her night and day, now wet now dry now hot now cool, deep beneath the waves.

 

Slowly graze the limestone crags, the gravestones of the ships of men. Hold fast, be strong, all winter long, when storms must always come.

 

Hold tight, hold tight, with all you might, when the pecking seagull comes. be tough, survive and live your life, my armour plated one.

 

Like the grooves of a record or the rings of a tree, she marks the years of famine or of plenty. First he then she, then young now old, the solitary life of the limpet is seldom ever told.

© Christopher Mathews

 Final Disclosure

Christopher Mathews 

First Contact 

There had been rumours and sightings for years of course.  Since Rendlesham Forest in 1980 and before that the Roswell incident in the US.  But no formal recognition, no government acknowledgement that they existed at all, just blunt official denial, coverups, misdirection and wild press speculation.  People, being what they are, made up their own minds or more accurately, their imaginations. There were no hard facts. 

 

However, decades of speculation came to an abrupt end on the last day of March 2033 when official government disclosure was made obsolete in a most dramatic way.  Every internet site, every TV and radio station, every mobile phone and subdermal coms chip carried the same chilling announcement.

 

Do not be alarmed we have taken control of your communications networks. This message is from the Intergalactic High Council. Humanity has at last come of age.  Your race was ceded by this Council eons ago over infinite space.  You are now on the threshold of solar colonisation, soon you will discover interstellar travel.  

 

But your science and technology have outstripped your wisdom.  You lack self-control, in this you are infants, you will destroy one another and the Earth.  You cannot be trusted to govern yourselves; you cannot yet be allowed to spread beyond your world.

 

Humanity is therefore now under the guardianship of our Interstellar Caretaker, Ansat.  He will meet your world leaders to discuss the transition.  Forty solar cycles from now Ansat will address your world.

 

This announcement sounded wise and benign, even fatherly, but was heavy with the threat of absolute and irresistible power.  The same broadcast was repeated over and over for twenty-four hours, and then communications went back to normal.  But the interruption had caused chaos and barely contained panic. Aeroplanes and stock-markets around the globe both crashed. The delicate balance of modern life, so dependent on technology that we have come to rely upon had been exposed as fragile, and we all now knew it. Humanity was at the mercy of these strangers, and we were powerless. Effortlessly they could disrupt the technological web we have come to rely on.  The food supply chain would collapse overnight, panic would break out, as people squabbled over dwindling supplies.

 

“A loaf of bread for a day’s wages,” the book of Revelation predicted of the last days; a succinct description of social collapse which lies just below the surface of our age.

The folly of our proudly vaunted long life expectancy is just an elusion, as all those dependent on medication would die within a week, because no supplies could get through for lack of fuel. 

 

It is shocking to think that with our technology gone, we are all just one step from being bronze aged goat herders. Hubris had brought us to the brink of collapse.

 

Our world would now cling to their promise that mankind is on the threshold of its next giant evolutionary leap. With this announcement, humanity is truly poised on the edge of the next Cambrian Explosion.  We know that we are not now alone in the vast universe as we once thought, and now nothing would ever be the same again.

 

Over the intervening weeks, the world’s press was fixated on this one story, almost to the exclusion of all else. Examining every implication and possible outcome. Respected scientists, from every discipline, clamoured to give their insights.  Many came forward to say they had been monitoring the massive spaceships in orbit around our little planet for years.  but were forbidden to speak out.  

 

Fringe new age cult groups as well as many mainstream religious leaders like the Pope held massive gatherings. Offering their welcome, announcing Ansat as a saviour, the twelfth Imam, the coming messiah, whilst desperately trying to accommodate this paradigm shift into their traditions.

 

The sense of anticipation mixed with real dread was palpable. No one doubted the truth of the announcement or the validity of their claim. Dissenters were swiftly and silently disappeared.

 

The same worldwide announcement was made every seven days throughout the months of April and May, just as spring was coming into full bloom, but it also brought social unrest, collapse and even chaos.

 

On the fortieth day, all the phone and TV screens changed to a live feed from the White House lawn, in America.   The world’s press was busy setting up cameras. Leaders from all over the planet were gathered.  Our own King, along with all the royal crowned heads of the world were there. The leaders of the world’s religions were distinct in their colourful finery, and most shocking were rulers of nations, which under normal circumstances would never be seen at the same gathering.

 

The Benevolent Guardian 

 

A thundering sound was followed by the shocking sight of a gigantic liquid spaceship landing on the White House lawn.  A hatch opened with a cold metallic hissing sound.  The dignitaries parted as all eyes turned to look upon a terrifying sight.  Countless numbers of 7-foot-tall non-human creatures emerged. Human-like, but only just enough to be recognisable. These looked like monsters made from the discarded remains of all sorts of reptilian creatures.  Their appearance was softened, but not wholly disguised by the fact that they were clothed in what could be, either royal livery or more sinisterly military uniforms.  Each was carrying a long complicated metallic blue object, which ambiguously, could be a royal sceptre or a weapon. They were leading, what to everyone’s relief was a man, a very normal-looking man.  He was rather tall and slender, possibly of Scandinavian or Nordic ancestry.  He approached a microphone set up upon a dais.  His tall, mute entourage fanned out, shoulder-to-shoulder in an arc behind him, obscuring completely the world leaders.  Earth was looking on, holding its breath.

He spoke with a soft engaging voice, delivered in a clear and refined English accent.  Afterwards, others told me that he had an educated American voice, or spoke in perfect fluent French.  It seems to me that each person heard him in the voice they instinctively most trusted.  Oddly, none of the recordings made of that announcement can be recovered, they were all blank.  Finally, he cleared his throat and addressed the waiting world…

 

My children, it is a real joy to us that humanity has at last come of age.  But you are like adolescents who have discovered the first strength of manhood, but not the maturity to wield it.  Think of me as your guardian, taking care that you do not destroy yourselves before you can walk on your own. Or, if you prefer, as a schoolteacher settling squabbles in the playground.

 

I represent the will of the ‘Intergalactic High Council of Sentient Beings’ who, in their beneficence wish to invite mankind to our table when you are ready. Until that time, you must submit to our custodianship.

 

Your leaders have therefore agreed to surrender their power and authority to me, for a while.  I have crossed the vast expanse of space over millions of years in peace and friendship to…

 

But here, his soft voice and seductively reasonable words were abruptly interrupted by a break in the transmission.  A dishevelled looking old man appeared in what was obviously a makeshift studio.  He was half recognisable as the leading physicist who had been appointed by our own government.  He had met with the interstellar delegation when first contact was made, but soon after had mysteriously disappeared.

 

The unmasking

He lies; they are not what they claim to be.  They have not travelled across space to bring peace. They have always walked among us.  They flatter with the notion that ‘humanity has come of age’ or with an invitation to the ‘high table of sentient beings’, but they have appeared to subjugate humanity.  They impress with technology because it is in technology and science that we have placed our faith.  We have abandoned the God who made us and have surrendered to the demons who would enslave us.

 

History is littered with their malevolent presence bringing oppression and misery to mankind.  They are interdimensional beings; they occupied the shadows, the dark matter, they are the goblins and ghosts. The demigods and demons of ancient literature they are the Nephilim of the bible. The devils and the fallen angels of history reinvented as space beings. Subjugation is their plan; they seek to bring hell to earth and obliterate the Imago Dei and re-make man in their own image.

Ansat is nothing more than a demon masquerading as an Angel of light. He came to deceive and enslave humanity in chains of darkness and proclaim himself as God…..

 

But here the screen went blank, all screens went blank, all communication went blank, each of us was now alone, facing an uncertain future.

 

Copyright Christopher Mathews

 

The Night she disappeared

 The Night she disappeared

By Christopher Mathews

“The captain who thinks he is master of the sea is a fool. She is a cruel and fickle mistress who cannot be trusted. But once she has cast her spell, holds men in her net of wonder forever." *

Distress flares were seen around midnight somewhere off Old Hobb’s Point. Another ship in trouble was battling a frozen angry sea.

In the year 1859, fierce winter storms battered the Dorset coast, claiming many lives.  A severe storm will snare a weary crew who long to be stowed away at home with his family after a rough Atlantic crossing. An impatient captain, hoping to make for safe anchorage in Poole or Portsmouth may regret pushing his crew too hard. Better to have made for Falmouth and wait the storm out in safety. But a gale can last several weeks and that would cost the captain much of his bounty prize. 

Late in the evening a farmer was searching for lost sheep on the clifftops in spite of the gale. Sometimes, frightened sheep are driven over the precipice in panic during a storm. The stark white outline of the floundering ship was caught as the lightning flashed above Old Hobb’s Stack. The awful sight of the beleaguered ship fighting to keep herself from being gored on the rocks, was forever branded on his mind.

Her shredded sails were useless, as she was being driven before the wind and surf. There would be little chance to tack out to the relative safety of the open sea. It would mean certain death to send his weary crew aloft to set new canvas.

If she could only run before the wind to the safety of Falsehaven Cove, just two miles beyond the point, they may be able to save her. If not, she would be gored on the reef of Old Hobb. Once in his teeth, Old Hobb does not let go.

Falsehaven is no place to overwinter but “any port in a storm” is no metaphor along this rugged coast. Falsehaven is not named thus for no reason.

Leaving his sheep, the farmer ran down into the small fishing village calling,

“Shipwreck, off Old Hobb,” to the small fishermen’s cottages scattered along the street.

Nothing forges such strong bond in a small community as fishermen whose very lives are repeatedly in one another’s hands. The sea calls to each of them for their livelihood, but they each call on one another for their lives.

Branok was the young skipper of his great granfer’s old Dorset fishing Lugger the Henryetta, and crew in the Falsehaven lifeboat.  He was also a brand-new father, just that day. The townsfolk were all celebrating with him in the Luggerman’s Rest. The storm shutters of the tavern were battened down against the gale, it was long after licencing hours. The fishermen of Falsehaven supped on their ale deep into the night.

After midnight, above the sound of the men singing, the chapel bell rang out, a clear and piercing sound, cutting through the gale and the fog of pipe tobacco. It called the Lifeboatmen to trespass once again into the sea’s treacherous domain when she is most angry.

As soon as Branok’s wife heard the bell toll she knew what it could mean for her. Her newborn baby cried, and she nursed her, wrapped in her strong warm embrace. More than ships are dashed on the rocks of Old Harry in a storm. But it would be no use pleading with her husband, she knew him too well. All the wives knew that the fishermen of Dorset are bound to the sea with bonds far stronger and deeper than kin.

On leaving the warmth of the tavern, the men all touched the sign above the inn’s door for good luck, some muttered a prayer, or snatches of a hymn. The sign read, “God save our souls.” Each would need whatever courage God will supply if they were to see their loved ones again before the Great day of Judgement, “when the sea shall give up her dead.” Branok thought of his young wife Endelyn and new daughter Rosenwyn,

“What would become of them if...” But it does not do to dwell on such things before a rescue.

But there were others too, whose greedy eyes were on the floundering ship. They light beacons along the beach, but not to guide her home to safety. They are not intent on saving souls, they have a different prize in mind.

The Wesleyan Chaple, at the high end of Ratline Street looks reproachfully down on the tavern. They stare at one another along the length of that street with unspoken distrust. Both calling the town’s sinners to come and take their very different libations. And so, the words, “God save our souls,” are written above the doors of the chapel too.

The tavern is a conveniently short stagger from the harbour wall, where the boats tie up to unload their catch. But the chapel is a slow, hard climb up the long steep hill of Ratline Street.

On a bright, cloudless, day you can look down on Falsaven Cove from the clifftops, with a score of fishing luggers drying their sails and nets in the gentle summer breeze, mirrored in the surface of the deep azure sea. You may catch scraps of a sea chanty as the men haul the boats up the stony beach.

The farmer who ploughs the soil may believe the sea is just water, but the fishermen who ploughs the ocean knows not to trust her, even when she is in this mood. On such a day the rugged weatherbeaten cliffs are the only clue that the sea is a fickle mistress who does not yield willingly. She gives up her wriggling, glittering jewels reluctantly and demands a high price from those who would forage in her deep waters.

The fishing boats of the town are often crewed by three generations of men. Their faces, hands and temperament reflect the weatherbeaten crags, with tufts of thick wiry beard like the tussock grass which grows among the rocks. Boys must become men the day they leave school. Every family in Falsehaven has lost someone to the sea, some have lost several generations.

On this night the whole town gathered on the quayside to watch their menfolk row out through the relative safety of Falsehaven Cove and on into the pounding surf and treacherous waves heading towards the reef of Old Hobb’s Point. The little boat looked like an insect, a water-boatman in a maelstrom.  To the small children, their fathers are mighty men who can battle the fierce seas, their wives know better. “Come, my little ones, the chapel bell is calling us to prey for your pappa and granfer.”

The skipper of the Sir William Hillary knew there was little hope if the stricken ship did not clear the Point. That night’s catch would bring little joy to anyone.

Rowing hard, they approached under the sheltered lee of the cliffs, which stood landward of Old Hobb’s Stack. On rounding the point, there she was, broken in two on the unyielding rocks. Three of her four masts were gone, the aft deck smashed by the surf and her inners spilled out from the rip in her side. Branok, who was at the helm gasped at the site, “Poor souls”

Men could be seen on the foredeck clinging to the bow sprit and shrouds, some torn between jumping into the surf or staying with the ship until her inevitable ruin. On seeing the lifeboat, the crew all cheered with a new sense of hope rising above their despair. The stranded sailors quickly rigged a Bosun's chair from the stump of the foremast and shot a line down to the lifeboat. Once the line was secure, the crew were rescued one by one. Seven of her crew were saved that night. Two who had jumped, were plucked directly from the sea itself, but the rest were lost, swept from her deck like bar skittles. Branok thought of what Jesus had said to St. Peter the fisherman,

“Come follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men.”

Just seven souls were saved from a crew of about twenty, and what had become of her captain, the sea make not such distinctions.

By morning the worst of the storm had blown itself out. That day’s low tide would be a grim harvest of worthless cargo among infinitely valuable lost souls.

Every man and boy on that lifeboat knelt at the alter rail of the little chapel to give thanks for bringing them home safely. Their womenfolk had spent the night on their knees on that same spot. The small congregation, including the seven men who were rescued, spontaneously broke into Horatio Spafford's hymn It is well with my soul. Stafford had lost all four of his daughters to the sea.

The following afternoon was bright and clear although the sea was still rough. From high up on Old Hobb’s Point nothing could be seen of the ship, but the grim flotsam on the beach.

© Christopher Mathews, June 2024

*Adapted from a work by Jacques Yves Cousteau.

Fear of Falling

 Fear of Falling

By Christopher Mathews

The alarm was set for 4:00 in the morning, but he awoke well before dawn, stirred by some inner clock. The birds had not yet risen to lay claim to their patch of the clear, summer sky.

The sweet, breathless morning air refreshed his senses, bypassing his troubled mind, he lay still, as the physical sensation of peace washed over him, his limbs restful and quiet.

For a fleeting moment his dream lingered on, tethering him to that other world, beyond the reach of his restless mind. Until inevitably wakefulness came flooding back through the touch and sight and sounds of his own remorseful day.

The nightly truce between body and mind had passed. It is said that the unquiet mind rules the waking hours like a tyrant but, in the fortunate few is deposed at night by sleep.

He had packed his gear in the car the night before. Over coffee he scrawled a note to his wife which read,

“Don’t keep dinner, don’t wait up”.

He sat in the car with the engine running, setting the destination on the satnav. It read back to him in a bright cheerful woman’s voice:

“Beachy Head, popular tourist spot, high on the white chalk cliffs of the South Downs, overlooking the English Channel, on a clear day visitors can see all the way to France”. 

But it also has a darker reputation, not mentioned in the tourist guidebooks. These visitors only tell their story in brief scrawled notes.

He pushed such thoughts to the back of his mind and turned off the satnav. This journey should not be interrupted by the ceaseless chatter of this trivial world.

The roads were empty as the moonlight, low in the sky flickered through the trees lining the narrow lanes, rendering everything in its harsh, silver, ribbons.  Like blades cutting “snicker-snack”, chasing him through the landscape. He thought how different this was from his daily commutes battling with traffic. It was as if the roads had cleared themselves to make way for this one journey.

After an hour or so the hedgerows thinned and became open fields for the last two miles. The moonlight was now soft and gentle like snow on the rolling fields.

“Almost there, he thought, not long left”.

Past the last slumbering village and approaching the Seven Sisters, he now turned east toward his destination, the highest point of the cliff looking down on the Beachey Head lighthouse, caught between night and day, moonlight and the soft glow of the pre-dawn morning. He thought absurdly how the lonely lighthouse looked like a toy sitting forgotten on the beach, left behind by some giantish child who had been making sandcastles the day before.

Not bothering to lock the car he swung his pack on his back, tightened the straps, and walked, his mind fixed on the highest point of the cliff where the earth stopped, and the heavens began.

He stood right on the edge, swaying slightly as the gentle sea breeze brought the taste of brine to his lips. He fought against waves of vertigo which tingled through his limbs like electricity. Strange, how the line between the fear of falling and exhilaration is so thin. So very different but both sharing the same visceral sensation, which hijacks the mind and overpowers the senses. And still he swayed on the spot, teetering on the edge of decision.

A thin white pre-dawn mist lay over the calm dark water, diffusing the horizon between sea and sky, one vast seamless canvass. the great expanse of heaven was all about him. As if he himself was witnessing the creation of the formless world on the very first day. “Formless,” he pondered the word, a memory of a dusty bright sunlit Sunday School swam into his mind when he was eight, of opening a heavy bible which said:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

The cliffs below him were suddenly caught in the blaze of the rising sun as it broke the eastern horizon. like burnished gold leaf overlaying the chalk cliffs.

“And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.”

“This is the perfect day”, he thought to himself.

As on the very first day of the world, not a soul looked on, he was quite alone. The vast sky was above him and soft dewy grass at his feet. To his right his shadow was that of a giant, but he himself felt small and insignificant.

Trembling, he said to himself,

“I don’t have the nerve to jump, the fear of falling is too strong.”

Turning, he walked deliberately back, counting out 20 paces, the prescribed distance. Gazing wistfully over the rolling green patchwork of the Sussex Downs he turned his back on England and ran fast towards the precipice. At the very edge of the world his feet danced in empty air as he leapt into nothingness; arms outstretched to embrace the vast heavens. His fear of falling was swallowed up by the joy of flying.

Then came a sudden jolt as his billowing white chute opened above him.

Base Jumping is a reckless sport, but in that brief moment he felt alive.

The strong updraft of the salty sea breeze carried him high above the cliffs. The harness of his paraglider creaked and strained to bear his weight aloft until he was well above the downs. Blacked-backed gulls joined him, taking advantage of the same thermals rising from the land. Soon he was joined by other paragliders each riding the crest of an invisible wave, which forms high above the cliff tops.

The sun was fully up now, the twilight having been banished like a bad dream. Sightseers like ants looked up at the spectacle of that strange flock which soared back and forth along the cliff.  Like a colony of latter-day pterosaurs they wheeled rising, falling and rising again. Until having reached the top of the wave they turned to make their slow descent inland.

The fear of falling, like the bleak night was swallowed up as he soared up into the clear, bright and lovely, delightful day.

© Christopher Mathews Feb. 2024

My Worst Holiday 01

 My Worst Holiday

By Chris Mathews

“This is the one for us!” Mabel said, rifling through the glossy magazines she pinched from the dentist’s waiting room. “Listen to this Arthur, Shore & Shanklin Holiday Tours of the Isle of Wight. Wonderful, two weeks on the sandy beaches of Shanklin or Ventnor.”

“Listen to this Arthur,” she read, “the coach picks us up from Chelmsford and takes us all the way there. Just think, you won't have the stress of driving, and for once, we won't have to start the holiday under a cloud because you lost your temper getting me lost in the middle of nowhere, just because you are too stingy to buy a new map. Those maps of your father’s are at least 20 years out of date.”

The 17^th of July 1964 came at last, and with their suitcases packed, they stood on the pavement waiting for the coach from Shore & Shanklin Holiday Tours.

“Arthur, are you sure this is where we board the coach, it seems a very odd pick up point, right outside the front gates of Chelmsford prison, of all places. I ask you couldn’t they have chosen somewhere else.”

“That's what the young lady at the travel agents said.” Arthur replied in a wearied, longsuffering tone.

An ancient, dilapidated coach pulled up in front of them after ten minutes, and Mable said “that's disgraceful, they promised us a new shiny sleek touring coach. Look at it, it's just an old grey bus. The travel agent will hear of this in a stiffly worded letter.”

As the doors slammed open a surly, grim faced man in a blue uniform stood before them with a clipboard in his hands, without meeting their gaze or any attempt at the usual pleasantries, he barked out “number.”

“it's Mr and Mrs Jones, I believe we are numbers 24 and 25, and, I do need a window seat, one can get rather bilious if one can't see out.

“Oh, certainly Madam, cocktails will be served at 11:00, and what time would you like lunch?”

His sarcasm was lost on her, and Mabel whispered under her breath,

“That's better, you see Arthur, a little courtesy goes a long way.”

“Thank you, my man, prepare luncheon whenever is convenient, we don’t want to put you out. Well, come along Arthur.”

Arthur was jabbed in the back with a stick the man was carrying, none too gently either, but he said nothing. Arthur was used to that sort of treatment, having been married to Mable for 40 years.

They climbed aboard and found their seats. Mabel sat next to a big burly man covered in tattoos. “How do you do,” she said we are the Joneses, but you must call us Arthur and Mable.” He simply grunted and looked away. And what is your name? Without looking at her he said,

“My cell mates call me knuckles and my enemies don't call me.”

“Lovely, but I hope our rooms are a little bigger than a cell, we have ordered a sea view and a connecting Avocado bathroom suite. “

“And are you looking forward to your holiday on the Isle of Wight?”

“Holiday, yeah, I suppose you could call it that, after Chelmsford and before that the Scrubs and Wakefield. though I don't suppose Parkhurst will be much better.

“Yes, but, think of those brisk early morning walks along wide empty sandy beaches and the bracing fresh air, that’s real freedom.” Mr Nuckles grunted at this, wiped the greasy mist from the window and turned away again.

“He does not seem to be looking forward to his holiday much does he Arthur,” she said under her breath.

“Perhaps he is recently widowed,” said Arthur longingly. 

“Oh yes and that’s why he is down in the dumps I expect, we will have to try to cheer him up a bit when we get to the hotel.”

“Best not Mable,” said Arthur looking across at Mr Nuckles. And he too turned away to take a nap.

“This holiday will be a chance to get away from the humdrum life chained to the kitchen sink all day.”

Mable chatted on to no one in particular at one point suggested a singsong. Arthur groaned as he pretended to sleep.

To Mables discussed, they were not allowed to take the bracing sea air during the crossing to Cows. This would no doubt be added to her stiff letter too.

“Look, look,” cried Mable, “the hotel is set in its own grounds with walls and gates, it must have been a grand country house once owned by... But yes, look look, Her Majesty’s something or other written above the gates. Oh, I do wish I had my spectacles.”

There was some confusion when they disembarked from the coach. With the Coach tour guide barking out numbers from a list, and they had to carry their own bags too, as they were briskly marched across the forecourt.

“I should like to see the hotel manager young man” demanded Mable. “This place has obviously been allowed to go to rack and ruin, it looks nothing like the photos in the brochure.”

“Certainly madam, I will show you to your suite and ask the manager to pop in an see you once you have had a chance to unpack. Perhaps he can bring you a small, sweet sherry too madam and how do you like your porridge in the morning.” The uniformed coach courier said sarcastically.

“That’s better, and be quick about it my man.”

“I’m going to find the bar,” Arthur said, seizing the opportunity for a peaceful half hour. It had dawned on Arthur that this would be a holiday unlike any other for Mable. And, whilst he was not a vindictive fellow, he felt that the experience may well do Mabel some good. He also felt that long sleeping boyish devilment which had been suppressed through 40 years of his own imprisonment of a very different sort.

He found his way to the games room where he played table tennis with a celebrated bank robber, lost a game of chess with a financial embezzler and even had a fascinating conversation with a murderer. Another prisoner offered him some prison moonshine.

“Only, keep it under your hat governor, don't let the screws know.”

“Prisoners get a really bad press”, he thought to himself “underneath they seem like really decent fellows, I could really fit in here.”

Several hours were spent in the company of some of the most notorious criminals in Britain. But eventually the prison governor called him to his office. He profusely offered his most humble apologies. And burbled on about no need to speak to the press about the unfortunate mix up. He offered him a glass of sherry and ordered a taxi to wherever he chose to go. Eventually, the governor himself escorted him to the prison gates still mumbling his apologies. Somehow, in all the fuss Arthur forgot to mention Mabel, and before he knew it, he was half a mile from the prison.

“No doubt they'll realise their mistake eventually, and I suppose I'll have to come back and pick her up, but in the meantime…” Arthur thought to himself, rubbing his hands in glee.

Arthur found a small B&B in a sleepy seaside town close to the railway. Steam trains were his long-neglected passion. It had slowly given way to tedious hours of bridge and cocktails with Mable’s friends under her persistent social climbing. “She could have been a mountaineer.” he thought with a wry smile.

He had a wonderful time touring round the Island making many railway enthusiast friends. No fancy pretentious dining, no expensive cocktails, no, “elbows off the table Arthur.” just pub lunches with his new mates. But after four days in which he thoroughly enjoyed himself, guilt began to nag away at his conscience like a storm cloud on a sunny day. But Arthur told himself:

“I suppose I really ought to... Eventually, they will realise won’t they though... I'll ring them tomorrow, or… maybe the day after. One excuse followed another, and so the days of peaceful freedom stretched on.

 

© Christopher Mathews - Aug 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A Swift Encounter

By Christopher Mathews                         
                  

Isaack is such a clumsy, hand-me-down sort of a name, left over from a great uncle who died long ago.  But, almost as soon as he could remember he chose the name Jack. Jack Swift the explorer, Jack Swift the mountaineer, or best of all Jack Swift the pilot. He was fascinated with flying and would sit for hours watching the starlings like smoke above the treetops rhythmically forming and breaking their hypnotic murmuration.

Swallows, martins and swifts gathered waiting for just the right moment to leave home. His mother had shown him the swifts which flew around the garden and through the thin fringe of trees, skimming the lake behind his house.

“Just like you, Jack Swift, my little bird.” He longed to fly like that and often could be seen running with arms outstretched lost in a world of his own.

His father taught engineering in the town where Jack was born, but he hardly remembered the Fenlands of Cambridge now. Mr Swift had been seconded to a university in Germany in 1928 when Jack was just seven.

Jack felt it rather than understood it, that gloomy approach like a thunderstorm on the distant horizon which creeps into every conversation. But what is politics to a carefree 7-year-old? He found a new language difficult at first but soon made friends as he settled into a new life in a small university town in Germany. Most important to him was the fact that their house backed onto Woodlands and down to rivers and eventually a beautiful lake. Unlike the open Fenlands, this was a world of hills and forests, heavy with the scent of pine resin and leaf mold. Jack had not lost his love of flight. By night he could hear the soft hooting of owls, and by day the woods were alive with bird song.  His father gave him a pair of binoculars through which he could see the nesting birds. And here he learned for the first time that, in the bird world, like the human, there are those who oppress and feed on the weak. Among his school friends, only Hans shared his passion for birds. Jack’s surname was Swift, and Han’s surname was Martin. On ropes they would fly through the treetops which overhung the river, letting go and landing with a great splash in the water. But, for one brief moment, they knew the joy of being a bird in flight.

As the adult world outside became darker, so the two boys’ friendship grew. Hans became the brother Jack never had, and the wood became a safe place to escape into. They made treetop Hides, their own secret language of bird calls and drawings in chalk on a tree or a wall where they had each been. The thin pointed winged outline of a swift for Jack, and the fantail of a martin for Hans. Soon the town was covered with these strange drawings, but Jack and Hans understood their meaning.

Birds can tell when a storm is approaching. So too Jack knew that there was trouble, he felt it at school. Bullies seemed to grow more confident strutting around picking on the weak. One day Hans told him that his father had made him join the black shirted Boy Scouts and could no longer be his friend.

“It will make a man of you,” Herr Martin told his son,

 For some reason, Jack was never asked to join.

The storm eventually broke in the early hours of the morning. His mother scooped him up out of bed. Her gentle words and smile could not conceal the fear in her eyes. His father could not speak. Taking no possessions, they crept quietly out through the back door, on through the familiar garden, and into the dark and silent wood. They were greeted by men carrying dark lanterns, giving brisk direct instructions. To Jack, German is such a harsh and threatening sounding language, even if spoken kindly. They were taken deeper into the forest than Jack had ever been, occasionally they were met by other families who wore the same fearful expression. Some carrying small crying children others with worried elderly grandparents. Eventually, they arrived through the wood into what looked like a disused railway goods yard. Jack could hear the distant screeching of train wheels and the click-clack of rusty wagons. Small knots of people gathered under the pale gloomy gaslights waiting for instructions. Jack and his family were bundled into an old cattle wagon, it had an abandoned smell of neglect. A knot of a dozen pail frightened faces stared at him through the gloom. He sat on a straw bale held between the tight grip of his mother and father. Candlelight made ghastly shadows danced grotesquely on the wagon walls behind them. The last thing he saw was his forest through a crack in the rough wooden walls.  Rocked by the gentle motion of the wagon, fretful sleep overtook him.

Hours later he was surrounded by the faces of his fellow passengers bathed with a red light of the morning sun. But gone was his forest. He was now rumbling through snow covered mountain passes, this was Switzerland, and had he known it, freedom and safety.

Years later back in England a scholarship gave him an opportunity to go to university to study physics. But his real passion was to learn to fly, and his college had a flight school. It is true most of their planes were clapped-out veterans of the Great War. Just patched canvas and sticks held together with string. But the thrill of exhilaration was wonderful. The childhood memory of being a bird came flooding back to him, but now it was real. The airplane responded to his very thoughts. Flying came naturally to him as if inside Jack had always been a bird.

But finally, the dark storm clouds he first felt in Germany spread over all of Europe and threatened England. 

The King’s call came at last as everyone knew it would. In his final year immediately after exams, he signed up to join the RAF. He and several others were shipped off to Scotland to be trained. Flying over the forests and locks was so reminiscent of his time in Germany, bringing back the joy of his childhood.

“Whatever happened to Hans, did he ever think of me?”

His natural ability made him perfectly suited as a fighter pilot. After gaining his wings he was posted to the east coast of England.

Although he had the ability, he did not have the temperament. He lacked the sense of invulnerability, that doubtful gift of youth, that mix of skill and folly that drives the daredevil, the risktaker of a fighter ace. The Spitfire is the kite for these short-lived heroes.

The Hawker Hurricane was a sturdy, reliable machine that could take appalling punishment and still get you home.

His first combat mission was escorting Lancaster bombers. It was an utter disaster, within minutes of taking off they were ambushed by a group of Messerschmitt 109s, every RAF pilot’s worst fear. His wing commander was shot down almost immediately.

“Enemy aircraft encountered at…” …followed by radio silence. Jack and most of the others were too inexperienced to organise a proper counterattack. Two Lancasters and half the Hurricanes were shot down over the Channel.  But he was a fast learner and did not lose his head.

But that day, the joy of flying died in Jack Swift.

On his next mission, it was replaced by the instinct to survive. But Jack was not a killer, if he shot down the enemy, he hoped they bailed out in time.

Pilots were not encouraged to paint mascots on their planes, but of course, they did. The base commander understood that:

“Chaps need every bit of luck they can get, and if putting a lucky charm on the side of their plane helps, then so be it.” Most painted famous pin-ups or sharks’ teeth and some comic heroes. But Jack painted the symbol of his childhood, a swift.

Fighter pilots who survived, particularly those who could keep their heads in a dogfight far too soon became the senior flyers the younger pilots looked up to.

He was leading his squadron in another bomber escort mission when he was attacked by three 109s coming out of the sun, one descending from above and two below preventing him from diving.  Hurricanes are good planes but slower than the 109, a pilot’s only hope was to go into a steep dive, and an experienced 109 pilot knew it. A burst of gunfire ripped through one wing and the fuselage just behind him, as the planes engaged in the elaborate and graceful dance only shared by birds.

He managed to shoot down one and another cut away to engage a Lancaster, but the one who bore down on him out of the sun was a brilliant pilot. He was right behind him, closer than flying in tight formation. Bullets whistled past him ripping canvas and splintering wood. Whatever Jack did he could not shake him off. Finally, his engine caught fire. Losing speed and altitude, this was an encounter he could not win. If he was lucky, he could ditch in the sea off Clacton. It was a miracle he was not killed by bullets as again the 109 circled round in a blur, coming in for the final death blow. But suddenly there was silence. His engine was still. He was now gliding in a slow descent, the 109 had stopped firing, it was right behind him, and it could not miss. But still, he did not fire.  Time behaves very strangely when flying, and seconds stretched on into what felt like minutes. Old fighter pilots say that they “lived far more in those few seconds of flight than at any time in their lives since.” And still, the 109 did not fire. Jack was now over land, skimming the treetops and peaceful village rooftops of Essex.

“Don’t attempt a crash landing with the undercarriage down!” he was told in his flight training. And still, the 109 did not fire. Jack chose a field to lay his plane to rest. And still the 109 did not fire.

Seconds before he hit the ground the 109 banked tightly right in front of him, and there blazing in the morning sun, painted on the wings was the image of a martin.

© Christopher Mathews – June 2023

The Harvest Mouse

The Harvest Mouse

By Christopher Mathews

Who first taught the Harvest Mouse, how to build her home,

high up like a teasel stem, beyond the reach of a stoat.

Spun from golden strands of barley, lined with the softest thistledown,

but food for Kestrels if she tarries too long on open barren ground.

Banished by the ploughman, to the margin of the field,

        one and twenty silver moons, before her life must yield.

She lives in the ribbon of plenty, beside the silvery stream,

where the Kingfisher keeps his kingdom, as the iridescent king.

Mirrored by the surface, of two opposing worlds,

        bathed above in sunlight and veiled below in gloom.

Dressed in robes of splendour, and lord of all he sees,

enthroned aloft in palest blue, beneath in deepest green.

Copyright Christopher Mathews