Draca. Geoffrey Gudgion
Draca wasn ’ t a boat to sail single-handed. They were probably hidden behind the sails, but the photo made it look as if Grandpa was on his own, grinning, one leg braced against the lee side of the cockpit, in his element.
A brassbound clock, a barometer and a compass ranged along the mantelpiece, beneath a framed Admiralty chart of local waters. In the recess on the other side of the fire, Eddie ’ s magnificent, wooden model of a Viking longship sat on white-painted cupboards beneath more shelves of books. Grandpa had made that longship ; he ’ d been quite a craftsman before his hands gave out. The smell of French cigarettes still lingered in the room, a year after he ’ d finally kicked the habit.
Jack couldn ’ t stay in the room, not that evening, not on his own. He felt too much of an intruder. He took his wine into the garden, where Grandpa had made a seat by burying an old, wooden dinghy stern first in the ground so that the bows made a protective arch. It stood at the highest point of the garden, near the cottage, where there was a view through the treetops to the water. The bench he ’ d fixed to the thwart had been a perfect size, when Jack was younger, for an old man and a boy to sit side by side and tell stories. Since the previous winter, the boat seat had also been home to Draca ’ s figurehead, a piece of ancient, carved timber that Grandpa had found poking through the mud below the cottage one morning, on a day when extreme low tide and a northerly storm had combined to push the sea away from the land. Eddie had restored it, fitted it to Draca and brought it home after Draca was laid up. He ’ d cut a slot for it at the end of the bench so it would sit upright and stare at the sea beside him.
Ugly great beast. ‘ My pet dragon ’ , Grandpa called it. ‘ A piece of Draca to keep me company . ’ It was about four feet long, carved with a lattice of scales, and curved like a question mark or a bishop ’ s crozier, except that the hook bending down over the shaft formed a snarling mouth that could have been any animal with a long neck and jaws. Once it had probably been much longer, but the neck ended in a scorched stump that Grandpa had trimmed, squared and fitted to Draca ’ s bow, like a figurehead. It had spoiled the lines of the boat, in Jack ’ s view.
It had its own smell, that dragon. In still air it was strong enough to overlay the garden ’ s pine resin and salt with something older : a charcoal and leather, old wood and male sweat kind of smell. Eddie had soaked it for months in the same stuff that they used to restore that Tudor ship, The Mary Rose : a polymer that drives out the salt water and hardens the timber. Somehow the carving still leaked scents trapped deep in its core. Jack had told Eddie it was probably a n historical artefact, and that he should take it to a museum, but Eddie just laughed and said they were meant to be together : a Viking figurehead found by the descendant of Vikings.
Jack forced himself to remember the good times in this spot, not the ravings in the hospice : the stories, the shared confidences. He and Grandpa would come out here even in winter, light a fire in a cast- iron stove by the seat and talk, staring at the flames. This place, this panorama of the great natural harbour, had been part of Jack ’ s childhood and youth. Freshwater Bay curving out to Witt Point; the island-dotted water stretching away until it met the hills rising beyond the sailing resort of Furzey ; this vista had framed his times with Grandpa. Him and Grandpa. Always, in the good memories, just him and Grandpa. Jack wedged himself into the corner by the carving, put his phone within reach, cradled his wine and watched the long summer evening fade over the water. He and Grandpa ’ s dragon would keep vigil together.
*
Jack woke with the kind of jolt that he ’ d have had if he ’ d let himself doze on patrol, resting up within an ambush position, and one of the sentries had woken him with a gentle touch and a wordless signal. Contact! For a moment he felt the adrenalin rush that comes before action, that familiar dry mouth in chill night air, but as his eyes probed the near-darkness he saw only the first stars over the harbour and the outline of Witt Point looming like a dark mass low against the water. His tension faded into mild loneliness as he remembered the names of the men he had thought were around him. ‘ Chalky ’ White, Donovan, Wolfe, ‘ Dusty ’ Miller …
But something had woken him, and he searched his memory for the sign. There ’ d been a noise, perhaps just the creak of the boat seat settling as the temperature dropped, and he stood, senses still tuned. Behind him, to the west , the sky was pale enough to outline the hills rising beyond the cottage. In front of him, the water shone faintly, showing the nearest islands dotting the harbour, patterns of darkness that merged into a black mass, like low cloud. A light mist forming over the water dissolved the shorelines in irregular patches. A stand of Scots pines covered the slope from the garden down to the water, and if Jack held his line of sight high in the trees he could let his peripheral vision scan the space beneath them.
He knew those trees. There was no reason why they should suddenly seem threatening. Their trunks stood clear against the mist below, their outlines and spacing irregular; the way a body of men might stand, watching, waiting. He began to understand why a deluded old man could think there was someone among them. A whole troop stood there, and any one of them could be a ghostly warrior. Two branches, lifting almost horizontally from a trunk, had been perfect for a childhood rope swing that had taken him far out and high where the land fell away. Look at me, Grandpa! Now they looked like two arms stretched in crucifixion.
But tonight there was movement between the trunks, a shadow among shadows. And again, between different trees. The shape was indistinct, and always at the edge of his sight, disappearing into the background dark when he looked directly at it. If he ’ d have been on patrol, Jack would have snapped on his night- vision goggles and crouched into cover, weapon ready. As it was, he grabbed Grandpa ’ s torch from the kitchen and threw a searchlight beam down the slope.
Nothing. The glare panned through the trees, making shadows dance, until the beam met the mist above the beach and was lost in a circle of opaque greyness. No people, no animals darting away, no eyes shining in the beam. Jack wondered whether to go down there. The torch was big enough to double as a club, if necessary, but he wasn ’ t fully fit. Not yet. If he fell over a tree root he could set himself back weeks. He snapped off the torch and waited, listening to the whisper of branches in the wind. The tide must have been out. He could smell seaweed from the mudflats rather than the sharper salt of open water. He waited until his eyes readjusted to the dark, and when he still saw nothing, he turned to go inside. The day had been hot, but this early in the season the night was chill, and he was only wearing a light fleece and jeans. He ’ d sleep in his old bed, in the little room at the back of the cottage.
Getting to sleep was usually easy, with a little liquid help. It was staying asleep that was the problem.
*
One summer when Jack was a kid, the family stayed on a farm for their summer holidays, and the farmer set a magpie trap in his yard. In the centre, in a little cage within a cage, was a live one. The ‘ call bird , ’ the farmer said. He ’ d left it a dish of water and even a bit of dead pigeon to eat, but the thing flapped around making a lot of noise in that harsh, rattling way of magpies. As Jack and the farmer watched from inside his barn, three more magpies arrived and hopped down through the wire door to see what all the fuss was about. They went frantic when the farmer walked over and they couldn ’ t get out, and he shot them, one by one, with a .22 rifle he kept for vermin.
The Taliban hadn ’ t killed Jack outright because he was their call bird, but they ’ d used Dusty Miller for target practice. It was usually Dusty who woke Jack in the black hour before dawn, and always with the same pleading look, that way he ’ d stared at Jack as if he could do something. Dusty had come running back for him through the firefight in a mad, heroic, suicidal dash, and he was still coming back for him, pulling him out of the fug of sleep when the alcohol drained from Jack ’ s system and all that was left was the sour taste of guilt. Sometimes, in those first moments of wakefulness, Jack could smell roasting meat. Then he ’ d have to walk outside and breathe clean air, whatever the hour, whatever the weather. He ’ d have run, if he could. Even in summer, the air just before dawn can be pure