THE BEACH AT CROYDE, according to Morley in The County Guides, is ‘not only a hidden gem: it is a jewel in Devon’s crown’. It is indeed a place of hidden and peculiar charms, lying on a little promontory between the vast stretches of Saunton and Woolacombe, accessible only via a steep route down below a few lonely thatched cottages. The charabanc parked by the cottages and we clambered down to the beach with our provisions, over wet rocks and sharp grass. It was low tide.
‘I feel like Chistopher Columbus,’ said Morley. He took a couple of his deep pranic breaths.
‘Perfect,’ he announced, holding his index finger aloft to check the wind. ‘Easterly,’ he said. ‘Splendid!’ and then speedily led the boys up towards the north end of the beach.
For anyone who has never taken part in surfing, I should explain. Surfing requires an obsessive concern with detail, a great deal of patience, and an utterly illogical, death-defying determination to pit oneself against the uncontrollable forces of nature. It is, in other words, Morley’s ideal sport.
At the far end of the beach great waves came barrelling towards the shore with a shocking ferocity, some of them as much as four or five feet high.
‘Chop, chop!’ said Morley, chivvying us along. ‘Come along, come along. We haven’t got all day.’ The boys reluctantly changed into their bathing costumes. And Morley changed also, though having done so he then popped a woollen pullover on top, giving him the appearance not so much of a man determined to do battle with nature but rather of a man preparing to use an outside lavatory late at night. The appearance was deceptive.
Morley gathered the boys around down by the waterline and explained his purpose.
‘Aloha!’ he began. ‘Which is the Polynesian equivalent – as of course you know – of the Hebrew greeting Shalom aleichem, or the Arabic Assalum Akaylum.’ The boys exchanged glances. Not only did they not know that Aloha meant Shalom aleichem and Assalum Akaylum, they had no idea what on earth he was talking about. ‘Repeat after me, gentlemen, Aloha!’
‘Aloha!’ the boys weakly chorused back.
‘Can’t hear you!’ said Morley. ‘Aloha!’
‘Aloha!’ bellowed the boys back.
‘Good! Anyway, gentlemen, we are gathered here today to pay homage to the wine-dark sea and her overwhelming and intoxicating power, a power governed only by the Good Lord Himself. Et dominabitur a mari usque ad mare, et a flumine usque ad terminos terrae.’
Looks of incomprehension once again – I caught the gist only of terminos terrae.
‘Some of you may already be familiar with the history of surfing’ – again, there were more uncomprehending glances – ‘and so to be brief …’
He was not brief, of course: he was Swanton Morley. From what I recall his ‘brief’ history began with an account of ritual practices in ancient Polynesia, continued into the late eighteenth century with the adventures of Captain James Cook, detoured into Australia and ended around the 1920s with a Hawaiian gentleman whose name I cannot now recall but who apparently won some Olympic medal or other and who went on to become a self-appointed ambassador of surfing. It was not an uninteresting tale, but at about ten minutes or more in duration it was at least nine minutes too long.
‘Now, gentlemen, I want to show you something.’
Morley often carried with him a knapsack of the kind used by poachers – a dark brown, greasy canvas bag. From this unassuming bag he now produced, improbably, a volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
‘The Britannica is not a convenient pocket companion, boys, but until someone invents either a truly convenient pocket encyclopaedia – a pockepaedia, shall we call it – or a pocket large enough and capacious enough to contain a gentleman’s home reference library in toto, the Britannica it is and the Britannica it will have to be. I have brought this volume with me today, gentlemen, in order to show you this …’ He opened up the book to the entry on Hawaii. ‘This, boys, is my inspiration!’
He held the book aloft, showing a photograph. The photograph showed men standing up upon the waves. I had certainly never seen anything quite like it: several boys gasped.
‘This is not what is sometimes called belly-boarding, boys. This is not stomach-skimming! This, gentlemen, is stand-up surfing!’ He struck a pose, resembling Christ on the cross, on a tightrope. ‘By the end of the day, gentlemen, it is my hope that you will all be standing tall, as God intended you to be, cresting the ocean waves! Proud, erect and nutbrown Adams, the lot of you!’
I lit a cigarette and stared out to sea. My own costume consisted of my underwear: it occurred to me that I would make a rather unassuming Adam.
‘Now, first things first, gentlemen,’ Morley continued. ‘This, boys, is a surfboard.’ He tapped one of his long wooden boards that the boys had lugged down to the beach. ‘Anyone seen one of these before?’ No boy spoke. ‘As I thought. But it is my contention this morning, boys, that to be in Devon – never mind to live in Devon – and not to surf is like living in Scotland and never to have worn the kilt, or to be in Egypt and not to have scaled the pyramids, or to live in France and never … to have eaten snails.’ Some of the boys made gagging noises. ‘Surfing, boys, is your duty and your inheritance.’
During this speech, Alex, standing behind us, had been assisting Miriam in getting changed. I looked around to see her giggling as he held a towel for her. Some duty.
‘My aim today, gentlemen, is to show you the rudiments of surfing, and perhaps to ignite an enthusiasm that will last for years, if not a lifetime. To surf, gentlemen, is to taste freedom. It is to experience knowledge of the world in its most powerful and intimate form: dark, flowing and profound. It is to embrace and to be embraced by what I believe Yeats himself … Sefton?’ – I nodded absent-mindedly in agreement, which was all I was required to do – ‘What Yeats himself described as the “white breast of the dim sea”. In years to come, gentlemen in England now-a-bed shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day …’
‘Father,’ called Miriam from behind us, as Morley looked set to launch into further horations.
‘Ah yes,’ said Morley, remembering himself and his audience. ‘For the purposes of my demonstration my lovely assistant will show you the moves, and will explain them to you. Miriam, would you like to wax the board?’
Miriam strode before us in her emerald-green swimming costume. There was an audible intake of breath among the boys. Alex came and stood beside me, resplendent in his own gleaming white costume, complete with embroidered crest and initials on his chest.
Morley meanwhile had produced from a leather tobacco pouch a small hard ball of wax, which he held aloft.
‘This, gentlemen, is beeswax, which I have mixed with a small amount of coconut oil and some standard rosin, in order to assist the surfer to grip the board. Miriam, could you show the boys how to rub the board?’
The talk of breasts and rubbing was becoming too much for some of the boys and there was a sudden outbreak of sniggering. (For a man who adored wordplay and wordgames, Morley seemed inexplicably oblivious to all forms of double entendres and bawdy: his book of limericks, for example, Morley’s Limericks for All Occasions (1930) entirely misses the mark. So dull and so innocent are they, one might almost use his limericks as lullabies.)
Morley held the board up straight as Miriam proceeded to wax it lengthwise, then crosswise and finally in a circular motion. The slow rubbing motion as she did so clearly caused some excitement and consternation among the boys. One raised his hand.
‘Yes?’ said Morley.
‘Permission to go for a pee, sir?’
‘If you must, boy,’ said Morley. ‘If you must. Now. Note, Miriam has finished her rubbing when small bumps of white wax have appeared on the board. This process must of course be often repeated. When the white wax appears lumpy and dirty it should be scraped off with a long hard smooth edge.’ This proved too much for another boy, who also begged permission to pee. Worse was to come.
‘Miriam will now demonstrate to you boys the basic techniques for surfing: paddling out to the waves, and standing erect on the board. Miriam, if you wouldn’t mind?’
Miriam obliged by lying flat down on the board, her feet dangling over the end.
‘First, you lie down on the board, as demonstrated. Not too far forward, not too far back. You will have to manoeuvre yourself into a comfortable position.’ Several of the boys were in extremely uncomfortable positions. ‘You then begin to paddle, like so.’ Miriam made as if to paddle. ‘Hands lightly cupped, as you can see. Your hand should enter the water smoothly, sweeping low, almost as if you were caressing the wave. As with swimming, too much splashing is a sign of poor style. So, nice and smooth, just as Miriam is demonstrating. Stroke, stroke. Caress, caress. Stroke. Any questions?’
Silence again, as the boys watched in awe.
‘Next, you slide your hands along the side of the board, ready to push up.’ Miriam did so. ‘And so with your hands flat on the deck, you raise your body off the board into position, thus.’
Miriam was now in a position poised over the board. She resembled Josephine Baker, mid-routine. She looked at the boys gathered in a tight circle around her, her eyes at waistlevel. The atmosphere was tense.
‘Father,’ she said. ‘It might be an idea before we go any further for the boys to go and accustom themselves to the water, don’t you think?’
‘But we’re only halfway through the demonstration,’ said Morley.
‘Bit of vigorous exercise, and a dose of cold water, to get their organs moving,’ said Miriam. ‘Warm up. Stretch the arms and the shoulders. Essential, I’d say.’
Before she could finish speaking the boys had sped off down towards the sea, where they thrust themselves into the cold comforting waves.
‘Well,’ said Morley. ‘I rather think that could have waited until we were finished.’
‘I rather think not,’ said Miriam, winking at me and glancing down. ‘Sefton?’
I too raced down to the water and doused myself in the waves.
Once the boys and teachers had reassembled, Miriam went through the rest of the procedures: up into crouching position, the slide into the stand, arms out for balance.
‘Now, anyone like to try?’ asked Morley. A dozen hands shot up, for the privilege of being the first to lie down where Miriam had been. Once every boy – and Bernhard and Alex and I – had been through the routine, Morley explained several other manoeuvres that seemed far beyond our capacities.
‘Very good,’ concluded Morley eventually. ‘Now what?’
‘Into the sea?’
‘Incorrect,’ said Morley. ‘What we do next is this.’ And he promptly sat down, arranged himself into a yogi-like cross-legged position, and stared out to sea.
‘No man—’ he began.
‘Or woman, Father,’ said Miriam.
‘No man or woman should venture out into the seas without first watching the waves. Are they too big to risk? Are they suitable at all for us to surf? From what direction do they come? As beginners you will prefer the gentle rolling wave to the heavy pounding break, but as your skill increases you will be able to tell what to expect. You will learn to read the waves, as a salty sea dog.’ He continued to stare out, yogi-like, for some time. And then he leapt up again.
‘Now, Miriam, would you like to demonstrate how to surf?’
Miriam strode proudly down towards the waves, her surfboard carried under her arm. It was a vision as from a dream.
‘Note the carrying position,’ said Morley. ‘Never, under any circumstances, drag your board along, boys. Why not?’
‘Because it would damage the board?’ said one boy.
‘Correct,’ said Morley. ‘And more importantly and obviously?’
‘It would remove the wax?’ said another boy.
‘Précisément!’ said Morley. ‘Your board needs to remain smooth and waxed.’
Miriam by this time had paddled far out on the board. Waves crashed over her.
‘Note,’ said Morley, ‘the way in which Miriam raises herself up from the board to allow the wave to pass between her body and the board, and then she sinks back down onto the board and continues to paddle out …’
Miriam did exactly as Morley described, raising and lowering her body slowly over the foaming surf. The boys were becoming restless again, so it was fortunate that she astonished them with what happened next.
Far out in the surf, she had turned the board and was facing the beach.
Morley described for us what we were witnessing, because none of us had ever seen anything quite like it before.
‘Note: the surfer feels the wave – picks up the board – arches her back – tucks her arms beneath her – before pushing up – and then – up, up – see! – into the crouching stance – arms out – bending the legs. And lo!’
And lo indeed: Miriam was now standing on the board, just as in the Britannica, her feet apart, arms outstretched, looking shorewards, riding a wave, rushing towards us, grinning.
It was a truly amazing spectacle: the long brown board, the blue-white wave and Miriam in emerald green … And as she came washing up in shallow waters it was all any of us could do to prevent ourselves from rushing out into the waves to embrace her. On reaching the shoreline she simply and gracefully dismounted. We all burst into a spontaneous round of applause, which Miriam bowed to acknowledge, before turning and paddling out with the board again. This of course only made the accomplishment all the more impressive. The demonstration continued for several more runs, with variations, Miriam shifting her weight between front and back foot, somehow turning the board left and right.
The cold comforting waves at Croyde
I felt that I might have watched the same scene, utterly contented, repeated for hours. But I sensed Alex at my shoulder, his pure white bathing costume burning in the sun.
‘“Her clothes spread wide,”’ he said quietly. ‘“And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: but long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pull’d the poor wretch to muddy death.”’
‘What?’ I said.
‘Ophelia,’ he said. ‘Surely you know Ophelia?’
‘Ophelia?’
‘A famous woman among the waves,’ he said. ‘Eh?’
‘Now, Sefton?’ said Morley, interrupting us. ‘Would you care perhaps to take a ride with Miriam?’ He placed his own surfboard in my hands.
‘I … certainly would,’ I said, looking triumphantly at Alex, and I ran down to the water to join her.
Miriam seemed rather disappointed.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s you. Are you ready?’
‘Ready-ish,’ I said.
‘I suppose that will have to do,’ she said. ‘Just follow my lead, Sefton. If you can.’
I carefully followed her every move, to the best of my ability: paddling and ducking through the waves until we seemed far out and alone – just us and the waves, and the sun high above us, rocking gently up and down. Alex and Morley and the boys seemed like creatures on another planet. It should have been perfect, but I was surprised: I was nervous, almost panicking.
‘Where did you learn?’ I asked, trying to steady my nerves.
‘Learn what, Sefton?’
‘Surfing.’
‘Learn?’ she said. ‘Learn? This isn’t school, Sefton.’
‘No, of course, but—’
‘Like anything worth learning, surfing cannot be taught,’ she said. ‘Whatever Father says. One learns only by doing, Sefton.’ She tossed back her head and smoothed her hair away from her face: she knew of course in that moment that she was beautiful, and that she had me entirely. ‘Agatha Christie first showed me how.’
‘The lady novelist?’
‘Indeed. Excellent surfer. Surprisingly nimble. Friend of Father’s. And George Bernard Shaw – though he’s a terrible poseur. Takes himself rather more seriously than the surfing: not good. It’s the dance, not the dancer, Sefton.’
I felt a swelling beneath me and behind me.
‘Now!’ cried Miriam. ‘This is our wave, Sefton! Follow me! The dance, remember, not the dancer! The dance!’
I kicked frantically with my feet. I felt the wave come from behind and pick me up like the hand of God Himself, and I grabbed the edges of the board and began to kneel and … Blinded by the spray, unable to breathe, I was immediately somersaulted off, smashing my face onto the edge of the board as it came slicing down through the waves towards me.
My head snapped back and I felt my nose pop and blood come spurting.
Moments seemed like an eternity: I was choking on water, frantically struggling up to the surface, gasping, heaving, coughing. Flailing, turning around towards the beach, I saw Miriam speeding off away from me towards the shore. Somehow this calmed me: I was overcome, simply, by shame.
Some dancer. Some dance.
Defeated, I recovered the board and paddled slowly back into the shallows.
Miriam strode back past me into the water.
‘Are you OK, sir?’ asked a boy.
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
‘Bad luck,’ said Morley, who was acting as umpire, lookout and referee. ‘I should have said: it is a dangerous sport.’ I pinched my nose to feel the swelling: it was as though someone had hammered a blunt nail directly between my eyes. ‘Next?’
And Alex strode forward and grabbed the board triumphantly from my hands.
I turned to watch, the taste of blood in my mouth like bitter metal. Alex followed Miriam and when the right wave eventually came, he managed to raise himself from the board and stood for a moment, before crashing down into the surf.
‘Bravo!’ cried Morley.
And ‘Bravo!’ echoed the boys.
The day wore on, with the boys throwing themselves into the surfing with total abandon; not one of them suffered a mishap like my own. My bloodied nostrils dried and crusted, the bridge of my nose was wide and soft and sore.
Once everyone had followed Miriam out and enjoyed a turn on the boards, Morley himself gave a demonstration.
Dressed in his woollen bathing suit he lay down on the wooden board and paddled out, then sat, his head bobbing above the waves, waiting for the right moment. And when that moment came he was suddenly, magically, up on the board, arms outstretched, hurtling towards the shore, like some mad bejumpered Jesus on the Sea of Galilee. His moustache hung down wet like an old dog’s whiskers.
‘That was … amazing,’ I said, when he made his way up the beach, though my dented nose flattened the ‘amazing’ into what sounded like ‘amusing’.
‘Amusing?’
‘Amazing,’ I said again, though the word caused me pain.
‘Want me to set it straight for you?’ said Morley, referring to my nose.
‘No, thank you,’ I said.
‘Sure? I’ve done it before. Had to help fix up Teddy Baldock once after a fight at Premierland. Friend of mine had been training him. Best bantamweight I’ve ever seen fight. Did you ever see Baldock fight? Pride of Poplar?’
‘No, I didn’t, Mr Morley.’
‘Doesn’t look too bad anyway. Gives you a touch of the old Joe Louis, you know.’
‘Thank you.’ I certainly felt like I’d been beaten to a pulp by a heavyweight.
‘The thing with surfing, Sefton,’ continued Morley, ‘it’s like cycling. One never quite loses the knack.’
‘Once one has acquired the knack.’
‘Quite. But you’ll get there, Sefton. You need to relax. Be at one with the waves.’
‘At one with the waves?’
‘Absolutely. You do seem rather – what do they say? – uptight at the moment, Sefton, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
‘Uptight, Mr Morley. Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well. I … I’m worried about Miriam.’
‘Miriam?’
I nodded over to where Miriam was horsing around with Alex and some of the boys.
‘I have warned you about Miriam,’ said Morley, looking out to sea.
‘You warned me, Mr Morley?’
‘Several times,’ said Morley. ‘Untameable.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘I suggest you leave her to her own devices, Sefton. When her mother died, I perhaps slightly lost my—’
‘Lunch!’ announced Bernhard at that moment, and boys suddenly came crowding round.
‘Line up! Line up!’ said Bernhard.
We were once again finishing off the remains of yesterday’s afternoon tea: cakes and hard-boiled eggs, mostly, plus the rather ornate fresh cucumber sandwiches that had been prepared for the parents: rounds of bread cut with a fluted cutter, and the bread spread unappetisingly with a kind of green butter that seemed to have been concocted from vinegar, egg yolks – and fish. The sandwiches had not proved a great success with the parents yesterday. And they were no more appetising today.
‘Capers?’ said Miriam, chewing.
‘Capers,’ confirmed Morley. ‘Alas.’ He had extremely strong opinions about sandwiches: they most certainly should not contain capers, though he did permit anchovies, with egg, and they should ideally be consumed within an hour of being made, in order ‘to prevent the moisture from the filling wreaking havoc with the crust’. (His little pamphlet – one of his self-published jeux d’esprit – ‘On Making Sandwiches’, contains a long prefatory warning about the dangers of confining sandwiches ‘in closed receptacles’ and instructions on how to make one’s own muslin sandwich bag, to allow the sandwich ‘the freedom to breathe’.)
The boys were equally unimpressed with the sandwiches, some of them defiantly spitting them up, forming them into little green balls, and hurling them at one another.
‘Boys!’ cried Bernhard, utterly ineffectually.
‘Boys!’ said Alex quietly – and the sandwich spitting immediately ceased.
‘Time for a game, perhaps?’ said Morley.
‘Beach cricket?’ said Alex.
‘Good idea!’ said Morley.
‘Allow me,’ said Alex, getting up immediately. He was the only one among us who had changed back into his clothes, which emphasised his appearance of superiority. ‘I have spent the best part of a year trying to inculcate in these young fellows the basics of inswing, but I’m afraid I’m not having much luck.’
‘Takes a while,’ said Morley.
‘Indeed,’ agreed Alex. ‘But no time like the present. Cricket, chaps, come on! No more mucking around now.’
There was widespread groaning from the boys, but they got up and made their way down the beach in preparation for a game of cricket.
‘Can we tempt you to join us, Sefton?’ asked Alex.
‘No, thanks,’ I said.
‘Pity. Bernhard?’
‘Germany is not a cricketing nation, I’m afraid.’
‘Thank goodness,’ said Morley.
‘I’ll sit this out,’ said Bernhard.
As Alex departed, Miriam came and sat close beside me. ‘He’s an Eton blue in cricket, you know.’
‘Really?’
‘And he gives the boys lessons once a week on the art of swordsmanship.’
‘Swordsmanship?’ I said. ‘Renaissance man.’
‘Yes. Epee, sabre. Singlesticks,’ she said, licking her fingers clean from the remains of cucumber sandwich. ‘Love the nose, by the way.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Sort of like a snout. Have you ever fenced, Sefton?’
‘I can’t say I have, Miss Morley, no,’ I replied, though I had, to my shame, held a knife to the throat of a man in Spain and threatened to kill him unless he allowed us unfettered access to his larder. Some of our men also helped themselves to his daughters.
‘Sport of kings,’ said Morley, who was flicking through the pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
‘Indeed,’ said Miriam.
Keen to clear my mouth of the taste of the cucumber sandwiches, and looking for any distraction to avoid having to discuss Alex’s endless schoolmasterly accomplishments, I handed round apples from the sack from the cider farm. When I bit into mine there was at the centre a tiny white coiling maggot. I spat out my mouthful in disgust.
‘Not you too, Sefton?’ said Morley, not looking up from the Britannica. ‘What’s the problem, man? Taste of the old Laodiceans, eh?’
I had no idea what he was talking about.
‘“I will spew thee out of my mouth?”’ said Miriam, apparently in clarification.
‘Correct!’ said Morley. ‘Book?’
‘Of Revelation,’ said Miriam.
‘Correct! Chapter?’
‘No idea, Father.’
‘Three, verse sixteen. But no matter.’
‘It was a maggot, Mr Morley,’ I said.
‘Ah. You know what they say, Sefton.’
‘What?’
‘It’s the apple that corrupts the worm, not the worm that corrupts the apple.’
Miriam had wisely cut her apple in half, to avoid any maggot surprise – and she held the pure white cut face towards me on her palm.
‘The old apple clock is ticking, Sefton,’ she said.
Down on the beach Alex continued drilling the boys on their inswing.
‘It’s something Father used to say when I was young,’ she explained.
‘Wonderful sight, isn’t it, Sefton?’ said Morley, looking up from his book, pure contentment on his face.
‘Indeed it is, Mr Morley,’ I agreed, though I wasn’t sure if he meant the boys, the apple, or the Britannica.
‘Forms a pentagram, of course,’ said Morley, indicating the half of the apple that Miriam had handed him. ‘Ancient symbol of the goddess Kore. Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.’
‘We could stay here tonight, Father, and go home for breakfast tomorrow?’ interrupted Miriam.
‘I’m not sure that would be entirely practical,’ said Bernhard, who was busy clearing up the remains of the lunch.
‘Nonsense,’ said Miriam. ‘Do us all the world of good. Sleeping out under the stars, as nature intended.’
‘I’m not sure that we have come properly equipped for an overnight stay,’ said Bernhard.
‘Oh nonsense!’ said Miriam. ‘Father’s a famous fresh air enthusiast, aren’t you, Father?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Morley. ‘Absolutely. The more fresh air we get the better, obviously. Nothing worse than to be cooped up. One might simply imagine an individual hermetically sealed in a room who breathes and rebreathes his own impurities – it would make himself liable to all sorts of infections, wouldn’t it?’
‘I’m really not sure,’ said Bernhard, gobbling the few remains of some cake.
‘Oh come on, chaps,’ said Miriam. ‘It is a glorious autumn afternoon. The boys are enjoying the surfing and the cricket. We have enough provisions to see us through. And we could rise early and be back in time for classes tomorrow.’
‘I’m really not sure.’
‘Well,’ said Morley. ‘I was rather hoping to show the boys how to collect gulls’ eggs. And I did wonder if it might be good to teach them how to make Australian boomerangs … Simple to carve, but takes a while. I thought we could use driftwood. Taught to me by the Aboriginals when I was there. All the best Australian boomerangs are notched on both surfaces, you know, almost honeycombed. Like a golf ball. Most curious and I …’
I remembered as Morley continued that I had arranged to meet Mrs Dodds in Sidmouth early that evening.
‘I think we should probably return,’ I said, looking to Bernhard for support.
‘We would really have to have checked with the headmaster,’ said Bernhard. ‘It might seem rather reckless otherwise.’
‘Reckless?’ said Morley. ‘Reckless?’ Miriam looked at me and raised a victorious eyebrow. ‘Reckless? I really do think this is what’s wrong with schooling these days, Mr Bernhard, if you don’t mind my saying so. The lack of adventure. Lack of initiative. Fear. Where are those who are willing to take these boys and show them what life is really about? Who is willing to stick their neck out and do what’s right, eh? What we need are more men like Alex in our schools.’
‘Quite so,’ said Miriam, clapping her hands together. ‘Hear, hear!’
‘My ideal school,’ said Morley, warming quickly to a theme, ‘is a place where boys learn how to milk a cow, shoe and ride a horse, bake bread, grow fruit, keep bees and engage in handicrafts such as carpentry, building and leatherwork. I’ve been speaking to the headmaster about this. Also, the rudiments of engineering and—’
‘That’s all very well, Mr Morley, but—’ I began.
‘Each boy could simply place his blazer on the ground tonight and we could make a big ring,’ said Miriam, ‘with the fire in the centre, and some large stones for the fireplace, and the boys can collect wood and twigs, and we can surf and then—’
Bernhard suddenly leapt up and gave a cry. He was pointing down at the sea.
For a moment I thought he was pointing at the cricket ball, which was sailing high up into the sky, a small, hard red ball against the vast pale blue. But he was not pointing at the cricket ball. He was pointing at a speck, a splash in the ocean. One of the boys had apparently slipped away from the game of cricket and taken a surfboard, and swum out too far, and gone under. Bernhard had seen the splash – but the boy had not resurfaced. Alex, much closer to the shore, had also seen and was already running down to the sea, plunging in fully clothed, swimming out with a terrific stroke towards where the boy had disappeared. The boys had run down behind him and gathered at the shore. Miriam was crying out.
The boy surfaced for a moment, hand and head, and Alex reached him and grabbed him, but suddenly he too was pulled under, the boy dragging him down.
Miriam screamed again.
I too had run down to the shore but by the time I had reached the water’s edge Alex had dragged the boy out and had laid him on the beach, where he tilted his head back, and the boy choked up sea water and then Alex gave him the kiss of life – which had, thank goodness, the desired effect. The whole thing was over in minutes.
The boys whooped and hollered. Miriam wept. Alex stoically shook himself dry. Bernhard attended to the boy, a young man named Louis – and soon we all traipsed our way back to the charabanc, all thoughts of staying the night abandoned.
‘Well, certainly a memorable day,’ said Morley, clambering aboard.
‘Satisfied now?’ asked Miriam quietly, as she walked away towards the Lagonda.
‘Satisfied with what?’ I asked.
‘That Alex is a better man than you? Braver? More honourable?’
There was no answer to this question.
We sang no hymns and played no games: the ride back to All Souls passed in silence.