Chapter Three

They woke, next morning, to a storm. The wind penetrated the building, rattling windows, making the solid-fuel boiler burn so furiously that the water boiled in the pipes. The thick walls could not shut out the sound of the gale, but John was used to the weather, and was woken not by the wind but by the telephone. It was a quarter to seven. He put on Elizabeth’s dressing gown and went barefoot to the telephone extension in the sitting room of their flat. As he had expected it was the coastguard with a routine cone message. He stood, shivering. The coastguard wanted to chat. At last he returned to the bedroom, dressed and went out on to the island. The wind was blowing from the north-west, dragging the shore into ridges, driving the surface water into grey and white waves. He pulled the canvas cone from the generator shed. The wind filled it and made it unwieldy. He carried it to the mast on the Beacon, fastened ropes and shackles and hoisted it: an anachronistic and unnecessary statement of the obvious, a warning to shipping that there was a gale from a northerly direction. The tide was not full in, but already the waves were breaking over the flat rocks at the north of the island, and had reached the stilt legs of the sea-watching hide. The flaps of the hide were shut and that surprised him. It should be a good day for seabirds and he had expected Nick and Mark to be there already. When he got back to the flat Elizabeth was being sick.

He wished that he could be outside waiting for the seabirds, but breakfast was at 8.30 and he had promised Elizabeth that he would help her to cook it. Eventually she looked so uncomfortable in the kitchen that he sent her outside for fresh air. He was surprised when she went, without argument, pleased when she came back exhilarated.

“It’s an amazing storm,” she said. “ I can’t remember one like it before. The seawatching hide is completely cut off. I hope that Charlie and Jerry managed to get out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jerry arranged to meet Charlie there before breakfast to discuss work.”

“There was no one in the hide when I raised the cone at seven o’clock. If they are there they’ll be quite safe. They’ll only have to wait for the tide to go out.”

“I suppose that Jerry might be late for breakfast. Charlie usually has his in the Wendy House.”

But when they went to the dining room everyone, except Charlie, was there. They were talking about the weather. It was impossible to ignore it. The windows were streaked with salt spray and there was a background noise of wind and water. Occasionally there was the sharp crack of a slate being lifted from an outhouse roof.

“You cowards,” John said to Nick and Mark. “I should have thought that you’d be in the hide on a morning like this. The birds could be pouring up the coast. It’s brilliant seawatching weather.”