A Breath of Sea Air 



of her. Once, it is true, in the flurry of a squall, she had cap- 

 sized, but Frank had been within reaching distance of a rock 

 shaped like an elephant and he had been able to drag her into this 

 and relaunch her upright. 



And so it happened that Jan would be shaken into life by his 

 friend's calloused hand at half past four of a morning. Wearily 

 at first, with the splinters of his shattered sleep still sticking in 

 his skin, he would splash water over his night grown beard, dress 

 in trousers and a coarse sweater and trudge downstairs to a cup 

 of tea that had already grown stale in the pot. Once outside, the 

 beginnings of the sunlight acted like a cool ointment spread 

 thinly over the whole of his body and, by the time he was seated, 

 sea-booted, in the Maypole he would be glad that he had come. 



At first, because of his status as an invalid, Frank had allowed 

 him to do no more than a turn at the baling cup but, as he grew 

 stronger, he began to take to the oars. It was too long a stretch 

 for any man single-handed, especially when it was only a pre- 

 liminary to a full day's work in the fields, and Jan was relieved 

 to feel that his weight was no longer a mere encumbrance on a 

 pull that sometimes ran into four miles or more. Frank kept 

 swearing that he must get a motor fitted. He swore but he did 

 nothing about it, not until he broke his thumb in a fall from a 

 haycart. Even that only made him swear still louder. But he 

 bought an outboard motor. 



They crept out slowly, and up the coast, groping between the 

 rocks, swerving from inlet to inlet, touring the buoys to which 

 their creels were tethered. Gingerly, then, hanging over the 

 starboard side afraid that the boat would turn turtle, Frank drew 

 up every rope, rhythmically, hand over hand. The surface of the 

 water about them moved up and down with the quiet regularity 

 of the breath of a sleeping baby. Only against the coast, when 

 they listened for it, came the snore of foam on rock to remind 

 Jan that he was now dealing with a fully adult sea. And then he 

 would catch sight of the hovering oblong, submerged but slowly 

 rising, and all thought of listening to anything would be lost. 



3 



