A Safe Harbour Read Free Page A

heart. To her dismay she felt the ache of grief in her throat grow stronger and her eyes begin to smart. Her vision blurred and she rubbed at her eyelids with cold fingers. It was not yet time for tears. She felt Mary Linton’s arm come round her shoulders.  
    ‘I’m sorry, Kate, hinny,’ she said. ‘You’re not much more than a bairn. Eighteen years old. About to be a bride. You shouldn’t hev to face this.’  
    Mary and Kate stood together on the darkening shore and when the men in the cobles began to cast their grappling hooks into the water they groaned in unison. The Sea Quest had not been sighted and the men were searching the water for a wreck. Jos was never going to be a bridegroom. Now they must wait for the sea to give up his body.  
    The two women clung together as they looked out to sea. Light from the fire-pans in the cobles danced on the swell and illuminated the scene at the harbour entrance as the men searched. The fire-pans, which gave the men a bit of warmth and could boil a kettle, had different cut-out patterns so that each family’s coble could be recognized from the shore.  
    The Lintons were there and George Lisle, Barty’s father, and Kate could see her own family’s coble although she knew her father was not on board. Her brothers had answered the call. Time and again the crews cast their grappling hooks into the blackness of the water, to no avail.  
    Kate turned to look up towards Bank Top. A group of villagers stood in line gazing down at the scene below. It was too dark now to make them out individually but Kate could see the women’s skirts fluttering as the wind began to gust. Some of the men, not engaged in the search, stood with their womenfolk, wanting to see the outcome but not wanting to intrude. Many of those silent watchers would have been guests at my wedding, Kate thought.  
    ‘Here, lads, over here!’ The words carried clearly to the shore on the strengthening wind.  
    Mary Linton gripped her arm and Kate turned and strained to peer across the water. Her elder brother, William, had hooked something and he was leaning over as he held his burden against the side of the coble. He was waiting for assistance. Already the other crews were beginning to row towards him.  
    Soon all the cobles were huddled together, nudging and bumping against each other in the swell, the light from the fire-pans illuminating the sea around them. William and Thomas heaved together and a dark shape rose from the water. The small boat rocked violently as the brothers dragged their burden aboard.  
    ‘Oh dear God . . . dear God.’ Kate sank to her knees in the wet sand.  
    She heard someone shout, ‘Over here . . . here’s the other one!’  
    Holding her head in her hands she began to cry.  
     
    Kate followed the sombre procession from the water’s edge. The men tried to maintain their dignity but the bodies were made heavier by the water and those carrying them stumbled now and then in the soft sand. They laid them on the ramp that led up to the lifeboat house.  
    Jos and Barty looked peaceful in death. Jos’s eyes were open and his mother reached down and closed them gently. Then she took off her shawl and laid it over her son’s body, covering his face. His father and brother watched silently, approving her gesture. Kate stood beside her, helpless. There was nothing she could do for the man she had been about to marry. A little further up the ramp Barty’s father, a widower, stood by his only son’s body with a look of blank resignation on his face.  
    After a while the men came with a cart and took Jos and Barty up the bank. They were going home for the last time. Jos’s family walked behind the cart. The way they clung together excluded her.  
    ‘Kate? Are you coming?’ her mother’s voice called through the darkness.  
    ‘Not yet. I need to be on my own.’  
    Nan didn’t try to persuade her. ‘Don’t stay too long,’ she said, then she set off up the bank