The Bathing Season 



out to sea and saw the smack roll heavily, the big 

 wave was coming. By now the bathers had gathered 

 confidence, and stepped, a little way at a time, closer 

 and closer down to the water. Some even stood 

 where each lesser wave rose to their knees. Suddenly 

 a few leant forwards, pulling their ropes taut, and 

 others turned sideways ; these were the more experi- 

 enced or observant. Boom! The big roller broke 

 near the pier and then ran along the shore; it did not 

 strike the whole length at once, it came in aslant and 

 rushed sideways. The three in pink went first they 

 were not far enough from their machine to receive its 

 full force, it barely reached to the waist, and really 

 I think it was worse for them. They were lifted off 

 their feet and shot forward with their heads under 

 water; one appeared to be under the two others, a 

 confused mass of pink. Their white feet emerged 

 behind the roller, and as it sank it drew them back, 

 grinding them over the pebbles : every one knows how 

 pebbles grate and grind their teeth as a wave subsides. 

 Left lying on their faces, I guessed from their attitudes 

 that they had dug their finger-nails into the pebbles 

 in an effort to seize something that would hold. 

 Somehow they got on their knees and crept up the 

 slope of the beach. Beyond these three some had 

 been standing about up to their knees; these were 

 simply buried as before quite concealed and thrown 

 like oeams of timber, head first, feet first, high up on 

 shore. Group after group went down as the roller 

 reached them, and the sea was dyed for a minute with 

 blue dresses, purple dresses, pink dresses; they 

 coloured the wave which submerged them. From 

 end to end the whole rank was again overwhelmed, 

 nor s did any position prove of advantage; those who 

 sprang up as the wave came were simply turned over 

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