I was in charge of a boat once. It wasn't for very long - only
about three weeks - and it wasn't a very big boat. It could seat three or four
people comfortably and had a tiny, three-horsepower outboard motor. It was a
very long time ago. I was seventeen and had just had left school. The fact that
I was so young was what brought it to mind recently. I woke up a couple of weeks
ago with a dreadful hangover after drinking only a few beers the night before.
I thought about the saying that goes, 'When you're twenty you can stay up drinking
all night and in the morning you look as if you've had a good night's sleep.
When you're thirty you can stay up all night drinking and in the morning you'll
look as if you've been up all night drinking, and when you're forty you can
have a good nights sleep and you'll still look as if you've been up all night
drinking.' Looking back, I remembered one particular night which was a perfect
example of the truth of that saying.
At the time, I was living on a small island in a river estuary in the south
east of England. The island was a bird sanctuary and my job was to keep an eye
on things and count the birds every day. Three times a week I showed visiting
birders around the island. They were brought out from the mainland on a much
bigger boat in the morning and taken back in the late afternoon. There were
usually at least two wardens on the island and occasionally a third or fourth
would turn up for a week's voluntary work. The small boat was our means of transport
between the island and the mainland. Usually the oldest warden, Bernard, took
charge of the boat. He held the most senior position and had been there the
longest too, so it wasn't a matter for debate. One time however, Bernard went
off on holiday for three weeks leaving me, by default, in charge of both the
island and the boat.
That warden's job was my first position of responsibility and I took it seriously, but as I said, I was young and I had just left school. In the two years before I left school, the economic depression of the seventies was just beginning to hit in a big way and unemployment in our area was already worse than people could ever remember. The attitude of most of the teachers at our school was, typically, 'Well, you lot are stuffed. There's hardly even any point in trying.' They were never a very supportive bunch. My biology teacher, Mrs. Pascoe was the exception. She was always enthusiastic. I adored her and trusted her and would do whatever she suggested. The only hope that I could see then was to try to stay on in education as long as possible and perhaps the economic climate would change before I got my final qualifications. Mrs. Pascoe knew I was interested in biology and, especially, ornithology and she did everything to encourage me to study and keep up my interests. She wrote reference letters to universities, which was really nice of her because I was a horrible kid. Truancy, bloody-minded disobedience and rudeness were among my most obvious traits at the time. When I was accepted to study biology at one of the universities, Mrs. Pascoe did another great thing. She convinced me to take up a voluntary warden's post at a bird sanctuary over the summer, while I was waiting to go to university. She helped me fill out the application form and wrote another reference letter which ensured that I got the job. I think she thought it would keep me out of trouble and I suppose it did, for most of the time.
Those were the days when you could still sign on for unemployment benefit in summer holidays if you were a student and you were still treated like a human being down at the dole office. Even though there were very few jobs to be had, the government hadn't yet come up with the idea of blaming the unemployed for their own predicament. You could also legally sign on and do voluntary work then, as long as you still made yourself available for paid work should you be offered it (though there wasn't much chance of that ever happening). I don't know why they ever stopped that. Maybe it was because people might avoid doing a rotten paid job if they could do a voluntary job they liked and get paid by the government. I can't imagine that ever happening on a large scale though, even if there were jobs to be had. But I guess the extent of the activity isn't the issue. It's the principle, isn't it? I mean, for heaven's sake, we can't have ordinary punters doing what they enjoy and getting paid for it, can we?
Those were halcyon days, compared to what Mrs. Thatcher was to deliver in the near future. We just didn't know it at the time. After I arrived on the island, I signed on in the nearest large town at the first opportunity. Even though I was living on an island, they accepted the fact that I could be contacted if work became available, since I would be going to the mainland to collect my giro-cheque at the post office on a regular basis. Because I was living so far from the town, I was also given the option of signing on by post. This meant that I could go in to the village post office and pick up my giro, while sending off a signed form for the next one. They were halcyon days indeed.
Before Bernard left on holiday I had never taken the boat out on my own, but being a rather clever man, he often let me pilot it to the village and back in preparation for his upcoming absence. I really enjoyed it. The mainland was only a couple of hundred yards from the island on either side, but the village with it's small harbour was about two kilometres upriver from the north end of our island and the distance from our huts and where we kept the boat added on another kilometre. The journey took about forty minutes and, especially at low tide, was quite tricky as there were a number of mud-banks to negotiate and nearer the village the river was thick with holiday yachts, only a narrow channel between them being navigable. It was lucky the journey didn't take more than forty minutes as there were two very small holes in the bottom of the boat which let in water at a slow but steady rate. Usually, by the time we reached our destination, there was about four or five inches of water in the bottom of the boat, but occasionally, when the tide was against us and we were a bit slower, the water would get deeper and that in turn would slow the boat even more. For such cases we kept a small saucepan stashed under the back seat, but even though we had been forced to use it occasionally, there had been no real problems.
When Bernard left, two new volunteers, Judith and Ian, arrived as scheduled and a third turned up quite unexpectedly. His name was Chris and he had been on the island for a week the year before. He had suddenly found himself with a free week this year and decided to come down to see if we needed any help. His timing was good as we were in the middle of a sluice-gate building project and there was a lot of digging and moving of rocks to be done. It turned out, however, that Chris's idea of 'help' involved counting birds and things like that. He was a tall guy somewhere in his thirties with a big bushy beard and looked to me like he would be good with a spade. He claimed however, that he had been involved in academic research most of his adult life and had never done any serious manual work. He thought it might be a bit dangerous to make a start at that late stage, and said he would rather not, especially since it was voluntary work. Judith and Ian were much nearer my age. Judith was twenty-three and Ian was eighteen or nineteen and they were both much better than Chris at digging and shifting rocks. There were lots of other things that needed done and we all got on really well and made a good team.
Towards the end of the week I began thinking about going to the village, as I had to send in my form and collect my giro-cheque. It could have waited till the following Monday but we had been working really hard all week and getting along well with each other and I thought it might be nice to spend some purely recreational time together. 'Hey, guys.' I shouted to the others as we were packing away the tools late on the Thursday afternoon, 'What's green and gets you really pissed?'
'Don't know.' replied Chris.
'A giro-cheque! Why don't we finish up early tomorrow afternoon and go into the village for a few beers at the Jolly Sailor? I have to collect my giro anyway and send off a form for the next one.' I explained. They all thought this was a wonderful idea and the next day we had finished, packed away the tools and washed and changed by three-thirty, which left us plenty of time to get to the post office before it shut and pick up a wad of drinking vouchers. Everybody was looking good and we were all fairly excited about the prospect of going out after working hard on the island all week. We shut all the doors and windows in the huts and crunched down the shingle beach towards the boat. Even though the others were all older than me, and Chris had been on the island before, there was no question about who was in charge. Ian got in first and sat at the front in the bow, Chris and Judith sat together on the bench the middle and I pushed off from the shore before jumping in and taking up position in the stern next to the motor. Off we went. It was a lovely evening and it felt magic, chugging along the river, taking my new friends into the village for a night in the pub and pointing things out along the way like a knowledgeable local. 'See that post there? That marks the edge of the mud-bank and you have to keep to the right of it at low tide - left on the way back - or else you're in trouble. You can see it against the sky even when it's dark. And see that channel there? That goes up to another nice wee village. We could easily go there if we had the time - it's not far. The mouth of the channel marks the halfway point on the way back to the island at night. And now look, were coming to the yachts. They can be really tricky at night. They drop anchor but you can't see the lines in the dark. You have to figure out which way they're drifting with the tide - they'll all be going the same way - and then you can avoid the ropes.' I sounded like an expert and I suppose I was. Bernard had told me all this on our first trip and had reminded me of it when he let me take control of the boat. He had let me take the boat back at night once, just before he left, and I remembered everything and had no problems at all. He had been quite impressed.
When we got to the harbour we tied the boat up but left it in the water as the tide was going out and it would be grounded when we came back. We all had got used to wearing canvas shoes without socks as we had been in and out of the water all week and no one minded getting wet feet. At the top of the little beach we rolled down the legs of our trousers, straightened our T-shirts and walked across the road to the Jolly sailor. I left the guys to find a table while I nipped into the post office next door. When I returned I got a round of beers up and we all got stuck in. The beer was lovely. It was a real, cask conditioned ale with no added gas but lots of character. It was strong too. In those days 'real ales' were not as popular as they are now. Nobody made a fuss about them and the usual range of nationally produced, watery 'factory beers' was on sale at higher prices than the local stuff. The beer was going down a treat and the atmosphere in the pub was already quite lively. We decided we had made a good move and started on another round. We got some sandwiches with the third round and by that time we were getting into some good storytelling and joking. By the fourth and fifth rounds it felt like we had all known each other for years. We were very jolly sailors indeed.
The pub closed at ten thirty, which is fairly early by many standards, but we had expected that and doubled up on the last round. By the time we hit the street we had drunk a lot of beers, though nobody could remember exactly how many, and we were in fine form. I think there might even have been a bit of singing going on. There was certainly a lot of hysterical laughing and shushing and banging as we stumbled and tripped over things on the way to the boat. We got the boat into the water and set off with little hassle. I steered us out through the narrow harbour entrance and swung out into the main channel, avoiding the boats tied up against the outside of the harbour wall.
We were going along quite nicely and we started joking and singing again. The cold air and the relatively serious job of getting the boat in the water and setting off without looking like a bunch of drunken idiots and alarming the harbourmaster had sobered us up a bit, but now we began to relax again. We had been going for maybe ten minutes and were already far enough out from the harbour that it was just a dazzle of lights behind us. The moon was up but it wasn't full and was in and out behind the clouds, so it was fairly dark but not pitch dark. I had seen worse. Suddenly, a white shape loomed out of the distance. Someone had anchored a yacht right on the edge of the channel and it had turned with the tide and drifted in towards the middle. There was a light on top of the mast, but I hadn't paid it much attention up till then. There were little lights everywhere. Some of them were stars. I looked at the yacht, lining it up, figuring out which way it had drifted and which side to pass it on. I hit it smack in the middle of the port side. The motor was pushing us up against the yacht so I steered sharply to the right and scraped along its side. A guy in his pyjamas appeared on the deck of the yacht and the guys started shouting 'Sorry' at him while I tried to get us past. We got jammed between the bow of the yacht and the anchor rope. By this time the guy on the yacht was furious. Our motor was still running and my panicked grip on the throttle was jamming us even tighter but I didn't think to cut the throttle. I just wanted to get us out of there. Luckily the yacht owner didn't have a torch and it was too dark to see who we were or what our boat looked like. One thing I know about being drunk is, it doesn't matter how crazy and out of control the events of the night before get, as long as they remain firmly in the night before. It's when they spill over into the morning after that the problems begin. I did a bit of quick thinking and steered the boat sharply to the left this time. For a few seconds nothing happened, but suddenly the stern of our boat swung round and we were off again. This time scraping along the side of the yacht towards the stern and eventually clearing it. Chris was still shouting 'Sorry' as we headed back into the clear channel.
After a few minutes of top-speed panic motoring, we slowed down and started to relax and laugh about what had just happened. 'Hey, did you see that poor guy's face?', giggled Judith, 'I thought he was going to have a heart attack. Do you think he'll recognize us?'
'No. No way.' Ian assured her, 'It was far too dark.'
Chris was still stunned. 'I've never done anything like that in my life. What if we damaged his yacht? I mean, what if he comes looking for us? He must know were headed for the island.'
'Don't freak out, Chris,' I said. 'We could just as easily be heading up the channel to the other village. Look there it is. A lot of people probably do that after the pub shuts. There's yachts moored up there too. We could be from one of them. He doesn't know. He's not from around here anyway. Take it easy. That's us past the halfway mark. We'll be home soon.'
Two minutes later, the engine ran out of petrol. 'Right. Don't panic,' I commanded. We've got oars. This has happened before.' (It hadn't but I wasn't going to tell them that).
'There's an awful lot of water in the bottom of the boat.' Ian said 'Is that okay? We won't sink will we?'
'Don't panic. Everything's under control.' I repeated, passing the saucepan to him. 'Use that to flick some of the water out of the boat. That'll sort us. Who wants first shot at rowing?'
'Me. I'll do it.' shouted Chris who was getting more enthusiastic now that we weren't damaging anyone's property. Judith moved to the back and sat beside me to give Chris space. It was pitch dark by now. The moon had vanished behind the clouds and we were well away from any lights. We stopped talking and it was quiet except for the soft splash of the oars and the 'plip-plip' of Ian's bailing. In the dark I suddenly realized how completely drunk I still was and it occurred to me that the others were the same but after that I didn't give it any further thought. We all seemed to drift into our own little trance. Chris seemed to be rowing on automatic pilot and Ian's bailing was becoming slower and more intermittent. Judith and I, stimulated by the warmth of our closeness, started cuddling and stroking each other and stopped paying attention to what was happening around us. Suddenly there was a great cold rush of water over the back of the boat. It was now so dark that we couldn't see the water but what we could see were 'sea gooseberries'. These are little planktonic, jellyfish-like animals about a centimetre in diameter. They emit a phosphorescent glow when they get agitated and it was weird to see this stream of glowing dots coming in over the stern and swirling around in the bottom of the boat. It seemed to happen in slow motion and I just stared at it in fascination. 'Water! water!' shrieked Judith. 'There's water coming in the boat'.
There was a lot of water coming in the boat. I looked up at Chris and suddenly realize that although he was sitting in the right position, with his back to the bow, he was rowing the boat in the direction he was facing. We were going backwards. The stern was cut lower to allow for attaching the motor and the weight of Judith and I on the back seat and the amount of water which had seeped into the boat was pushing the back edge of the boat below the surface of the river. Chris's rowing was scooping the water in even faster. 'Chris!' I shouted, 'Stop rowing and get into the front of the boat with Ian. I'll take over. Judith you stay there.' With the boat re-balanced we stopped taking on water. Ian had resumed his baling at a frantic rate and Chris and Judith were baling with their hands. I started turning the boat. It was still dangerously full of water. 'Can anybody see the island? What if we sink?' Ian asked.
'Look. We won't sink.' I said, 'Well, not completely. It's a wooden boat so even if it fills with water, it won't sink. If the worst comes to the worst, all we need to do is get into the water and hold on to the sides of the boat. Four of us can easily guide it into the shore.'
'But I can't swim!' shouted Chris, who was beginning to sound a bit hysterical.
'It's okay. We can get into the water one at a time and you can be last out of the boat. Don't worry. I'll go first.' I promised.
'You won't have to swim, Chris.' added Judith, 'You can hold on to the side of the boat.'
'We must be almost at the north end of the island by now, anyway. We can tie up there and walk along to the huts.' I offered. 'Can anybody see the marker post.' I said, suddenly remembering. I was straining, trying to look for it over my shoulder, just as we ran aground on the mud. Home, but not quite dry. It was low tide and we were still far from the shore. We couldn't even see it, but it still felt good to have reached our island. We got out of the boat and sank knee deep into the squelching mud. Judith lost a shoe right away. We didn't even attempt to drag the boat. There was a small anchor under the back seat attached by a length of nylon rope. I took the anchor and we headed towards dry land. The rope went taught after a few metres and we still couldn't see the shore. Reasoning that it couldn't be far, I buried the anchor deep in the mud and we carried on wading shorewards.
We got back to the huts at about one o'clock but it seemed as if we had been out on the river all night. Although we were all still fairly drunk, we had sobered up a great deal since the pub and we knew there would be a boatload of tourists coming out at half past eight in the morning, so we really should have gone to bed. But we didn't. We were so excited after our adventure that we broke open a couple of bottles of wine that I had stashed and started partying again. 'Hey you should have seen your face, Chris.' Ian teased. 'You were as white as a sheet. Your face was the only thing I could see out there.'
Chris was indignant. 'It's okay for you lot. You can all swim. Imagine how I felt. I thought I was going to die.' Everyone howled with laughter and eventually Chris started laughing too. We drank for another couple of hours then went to bed, but not because of any sensible decision. Everyone was just too wasted to go on any more. I was sick outside on the shingle before I went to sleep.
I had the presence of mind to set my alarm for half past seven, and when it went off I jumped out of bed straight away. My head was swimming. I must have still been drunk but I didn't stop to think about it. I ran outside in my shorts, past the pile of vomit I had deposited the night before. I noticed two more on the way to the shed where the petrol was kept. I filled the small petrol can and picked up a spade. I turned over the three patches of vomit-covered shingle to hide the evidence, dropped the spade and jogged the kilometre along to the north end of the island. The boat was about 200 metres out in the water so I swam out clutching the can and climbed into the boat. I filled up the tank on the motor and started hauling on the anchor rope. The boat moved towards the anchor and I coiled the rope in the bottom of the boat. When I was directly above the anchor, I started hauling on it with all my strength but it wouldn't come free of the mud. I climbed over the side and swam down to try and dig the anchor out of the mud. The water wasn't so deep, but you should try it. It wasn't easy. Eventually I was successful and got back into the boat and started the engine. When I got the boat back to the huts and the engine stashed away in the shed, I woke the others then brushed my teeth and washed my face.
At twenty- five past eight Ian and I were standing at the landing, watching the tourist boat come round the point. Only two of us were required to be there and Chris was still comatose (He was thirty. Remember the saying at the beginning?). Ian was first to volunteer. John the boatman and the ultimate commander-in-chief of the whole bird sanctuary operation, passed the wooden ramp out to us and we helped the passengers to climb shakily out of the boat, down it and onto the shore. I stood in the water and took their hands as they climbed over the side 'Good morning. Welcome to our island.' I said with a big smile to each of them as they passed along the small gangplank.
'Good morning.' Ian repeated to each with an even bigger, cheesier smile, when they stepped onto the beach. 'Would you like to come this way please?' John was last out of the boat. He wouldn't stay. He just got out to help me push the boat off the shingle. 'Morning, John.'
'Morning. How's it going?' As he passed close he sniffed and smiled. 'Had a little drink last night did, you?'