September 8th
TODAY I FOUND A TURTLE I THINK IT’S CALLED a leatherback turtle. I found one once before but it was dead. This one has been washed up alive.
Father had sent me down to collect driftwood on Rushy Bay. He said there’d be plenty about after a storm like that. He was right.
I’d been there for half an hour or so heaping up the wood, before I noticed the turtle in the tide line of piled seaweed. I thought at first he was just a washed-up tree stump covered in seaweed.
He was upside down on the sand. I pulled the seaweed off him. His eyes were open, unblinking. He was more dead than alive, I thought. His flippers were quite still, and held out to the clouds above as if he was worshipping them. He was massive, as long as this bed, and wider. He had a face like a two hundred year old man, wizened and wrinkled and wise with a gently smiling mouth.
I looked around, and there were more gulls gathering. They were silent, watching, waiting; and I knew well enough what they were waiting for. I pulled away more of the seaweed and saw that the gulls had been at him already. There was blood under his neck where the skin had been pecked. I had got there just in time. I bombarded the gulls with pebbles and they flew off protesting noisily, leaving me alone with my turtle.
I knew it would be impossible to roll him over, but I tried anyway. I could rock him back and forth on his shell, but I could not turn him over, no matter how hard I tried. After a while I gave up and sat down beside him on the sand. His eyes kept closing slowly as if he was dropping off to sleep, or maybe he was dying—I couldn’t be sure. I stroked him under his chin where I thought he would like it, keeping my hand well away from his mouth.
A great curling storm wave broke and came tumbling towards us. When it went hissing back over the sand, it left behind a broken spar. It was as if the sea was telling me what to do. I dragged the spar up the beach. Then I saw the turtle’s head go back and his eyes closed. I’ve often seen seabirds like that. Once their heads go back there’s nothing you can do. But I couldn’t just let him die. I couldn’t. I shouted at him. I shook him. I told him he wasn’t to die, that I’d turn him over somehow, that it wouldn’t be long.
I dug a deep hole in the sand beside him. I would lever him up and topple him in. I drove the spar into the sand underneath his shell. I drove it in again and again, until it was as deep as I could get it. I hauled back on it and felt him shift. I threw all my weight on it and at last he tumbled over into the hole, and the right way up, too. But when I scrambled over to him, his head lay limp in the sand, his eyes closed to the world. There wasn’t a flicker of life about him. He was dead. I was quite sure of it now. It’s silly, I know—I had only known him for a few minutes—but I felt I had lost a friend.
I made a pillow of soft sea lettuce for his head and knelt beside him. I cried till there were no more tears to cry. And then I saw the gulls were back. They knew too. I screamed at them, but they just glared at me and moved in closer.
‘No!’ I cried. ‘No!’
I would never let them have him, never. I piled a mountain of seaweed on top of him and my driftwood on top of that. The next tide would take him away. I left him and went home.
I went back to Rushy Bay this evening, at high tide, just before nightfall, to see if my turtle was gone. He was still there. The high tide had not been high enough. The gulls were done though, all of them. I really don’t know what made me want to see him once more. I pulled the wood and seaweed away until I could see the top of his head. As I looked it moved and lifted. He was blinking up at me. He was alive again! I could have kissed him, really I could. But I didn’t quite dare.
He’s still there now, all covered up against the gulls, I hope. In the morning…
I had to stop writing because Father just came in. He hardly ever comes in my room, so I knew at once something was wrong.
‘You all right?’ he said, standing in the doorway. ‘What’ve you been up to?’
‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘Why?’
‘Old man Jenkins. He said he saw you down on Rushy Bay.’
‘I was just collecting the wood,’ I told him, as calmly as I could, ‘like you said I should.’ I find lying so difficult. I’m just not good at it.
‘He thought you were crying, crying your eyes out, he says.’
‘I was not,’ I said, but I dared not look at him. I pretended to go on writing in my diary.
‘You are telling me the truth, Laura?’ He knew I wasn’t, he knew it.
‘Course,’ I said. I just wished he would go.
‘What do you find to write in that diary of yours?’ he asked.
‘Things,’ I said. ‘Just things.’
And he went out and shut the door behind him. He knows something, but he doesn’t know what. I’m going to have to be very careful. If Father finds out about the turtle, I’m in trouble. He’s only got to go down to Rushy Bay and look. That turtle would just be food to him, and to anyone else who finds him. We’re all hungry, everyone is getting hungrier every day. I should tell him. I know I should. But I can’t do it. I just can’t let them eat him.
In the morning, early, I’ll have to get him back into the sea. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but somehow I will. I must. Now it’s only the gulls I have to save from him.
September 9th
The Day of the Turtle
I SHALL REMEMBER TODAY AS LONG AS I LIVE. This morning I slipped away as soon as ever I could. No one saw me go and no one followed me, I made quite sure of that. I’d lain awake most of the night wondering how I was going to get my turtle back into the water. But as I made my way down to Rushy Bay, the morning fog lifting off the sea, I had no idea at all how I would do it. Even as I uncovered him, I still didn’t know. I only knew it had to be done. So I talked to him. I was trying to explain it all to him, how he mustn’t worry, how I’d find a way, but that I didn’t yet know what way. He’s got eyes that make you think he understands. Maybe he doesn’t but you never know. Somehow, once I’d started talking, I felt it was rude not to go on. I fetched some seawater in my hat and I poured it over him. He seemed to like it, lifting his head into it as I poured. So I did it again and again. I told him all about the storm, about Granny May’s roof, about the battered boats, and he looked at me. He was listening.
He was so weak though. He kept trying to move, trying to dig his flippers into the sand, but he hadn’t the strength to do it. His mouth kept opening and shutting as if he was gasping for breath.
Then I had an idea. I scooped out a long deep channel all the way down to the sea. I would wait for the tide to come in as far as I could, and when the time came I would ease him down into the channel and he could wade out to sea. As I dug I told him my plan. When I’d finished I lay down beside him, exhausted, and waited for the tide.
I told him then all about Billy, about Joseph Hannibal and the General Lee, and about how I missed Billy so much, all about the cows dying and about how nothing had gone right since the day Billy left. When I looked across at him his eyes were closed. He seemed to be dozing in the sun. I’d been talking to myself.
The gulls never left us alone, not for a minute. They stood eyeing us from the rocks, from the shallows. When I threw stones at them now, they didn’t fly off, they just hopped a little further away, and they always came back. I didn’t go home for lunch—I just hoped Father wouldn’t come looking for me. I couldn’t leave my turtle, not with the gulls all around us just waiting for their moment. Besides, the tide was coming in now, close all the time. Then there was barely five yards of sand left between the sea and my turtle, and the water was washing up the channel just as I’d planned it. It was now or never.
I told him what he had to do.
‘You’ve got to walk the rest,’ I said. ‘You want to get back in the sea, you’ve got to walk, you hear me?’
He tried. He honestly tried. Time and again he dug the edge of his flippers into the sand, but he just couldn’t move himself.
The flippers dug in again, again, but he stayed where he was. I tried pushing him from behind. That didn’t work. I tried moving his flippers for him one by one. That didn’t work. I slapped his shell. I shouted at him. All he did was swallow once or twice and blink at me. In the end I tried threatening him. I crouched down in front of him.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘All right. You stay here if you like. See if I care. You see those gulls? You know what they’re waiting for? If they don’t get you, then someone else’ll find you and you’ll be turtle stew.’ I was shouting at him now. I was really shouting at him. ‘Turtle stew do you hear me!’ All the while his eyes never left my face, not for a moment. Bullying hadn’t worked either. So now I tried begging.
‘Please,’ I said, ‘please.’ But his eyes gave me the answer I already knew. He could not move. He hadn’t the strength. There was nothing else left to try. From the look in his eyes I think he knew it too.
I wandered some way away from him and sat down on the rock to think. I was still thinking, fruitlessly, when I saw the gig coming around Droppy Nose Point and heading out to sea. Father was there—I recognised his cap. Old Man Jenkins was in Billy’s place and the chief was setting the jib sail. They were far too far away to see my turtle. I came back to him and sat down.
‘See that gig?’ I told him. ‘One day I’m going to row in that gig, just like Billy did. One day.’
And I told him all about the gig and the big ships that come into Scilly needing a pilot to bring them in safely, and how the gigs race each other to get out there first. I told him about the wrecks too, and about how the gigs will put to sea in any weather if there’s sailors to rescue or cargo to salvage. The strange thing is, I didn’t feel at all silly talking to my turtle. I mean, I know it is silly, but it just seemed the natural thing to do. I honestly think I told the turtle more about me than I’ve ever told anyone before. I looked down at him. He was nudging at the sand with his chin, his mouth opening. He was hungry! I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. I had no idea at all what turtles eat. So I tried what was nearest first—seaweed of all sorts, sea lettuce, bladderwrack, whatever I could find.
I dangled it in front of his mouth, brushing his nose with it so he could smell it. He looked as if he was going to eat it. He opened his mouth slowly and snapped at it. But then he turned his head away and let it fall to the ground.
‘What then?’ I asked.
A sudden shadow fell across me. Granny May was standing above me in her hat.
‘How long have you been there?’ I asked.
‘Long enough,’ she said and she walked around me to get a better look at the turtle.
‘Let’s try shrimps. We’d better hurry. We don’t want anyone else finding him, do we?’ And she sent me off home to fetch the shrimping net. I ran all the way there and all the way back, wondering if Granny May knew about her roof yet.
Granny May is the best shrimper on the island. She knows every likely cluster of seaweed on Rushy Bay, and everywhere else come to that. One sweep through the shallows and she was back, her net jumping with shrimps. She smiled down at my turtle.
‘Useful, that is,’ she said, tapping him with her stick.
‘What?’ I replied.
‘Carrying your house around with you. Can’t hardly have your roof blowed off, can you?’ So she did know.
‘It’ll mend,’ she said. ‘Roofs you can mend easily enough, hope is a little harder.’
She told me to dig out a bowl in the sand, right under the turtle’s chin, and then she shook out her net. He looked mildly interested for a moment then looked away. It was no good. Granny May was looking out to sea, shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun.
‘I wonder,’ she murmured. ‘I wonder. I shan’t be long.’ And she was gone, down to the sea. She was wading out up to her ankles, then up to her knees, her shrimping net scooping through the water around her. I stayed behind with the turtle and threw more stones at the gulls. When she came back, her net was bulging with jellyfish, blue jellyfish. She emptied them into the turtle’s sandy bowl. At once he was at them like a vulture, snapping, crunching, swallowing, until there wasn’t a tentacle left.
‘He’s smiling,’ she said. ‘I think he likes them. I think perhaps he’d like some more.’
‘I’ll do it,’ I said. I picked up the net and rushed off down into the sea. They were not difficult to find. I’ve never liked jellyfish, not since I was stung on my neck when I was little and came out in a burning weal that lasted for months. So I kept a wary eye around me. I scooped up twelve big ones in as many minutes. He ate those and then lifted his head, asking for more. We took it in turns after that, Granny May and me, until at last he seemed to have had enough and left a half-chewed jellyfish lying there, the shrimps still hopping all around it. I crouched down and looked my turtle in the eye.
‘Feel better now?’ I asked, and I wondered if turtles burp when they’ve eaten too fast. He didn’t burp, but he did move. The flippers dug deeper. He shifted—just a little at first. And then he was scooping himself slowly forward, inching his way through the sand. I went loony. I was cavorting up and down like a wild thing, and Granny May was just the same. The two of us whistled and whooped to keep him moving, but we knew soon enough that we didn’t need to. Every step he took was stronger, his neck reaching forward purposefully. Nothing would stop him now. As he neared the sea, the sand was tide-ribbed and wet, and he moved ever faster, faster, past the rock pools and across the muddy sand where the lungworms leave their curly casts. His flippers were under the water now. He was half walking, half swimming. Then he dipped his snout into the sea and let the water run over his head and down his neck. He was going, and suddenly I didn’t want him to. I was alongside him, bending over him.
‘You don’t have to go,’ I said.
‘He wants to,’ said Granny May. ‘He has to.’
He was in deeper water now, and with a few powerful strokes he was gone, cruising out through the turquoise water of the shallows to the deep blue beyond. The last I saw of him he was a dark shadow under the sea making out towards Samson.
I felt suddenly alone. Granny May knew it I think, because she put her arm around me and kissed the top of my head.
Back at home we never said a word about our turtle. It wasn’t an arranged secret, nothing like that. We just didn’t tell anyone because we didn’t want to—it was private somehow.
Father says he’ll try to make a start on her house tomorrow, just to keep the weather out. Granny May doesn’t seem at all interested.
She just keeps smiling at me, confidentially. Mother knows something is going on between us, but she doesn’t know what. I’d like to tell her, but I can’t talk to her like I used to.
If Billy were here I’d tell him.
I haven’t thought about Billy today and I should have. All I’ve thought about is my turtle. If I don’t think about Billy I’ll forget him, and then it’ll be as if he was never here at all, as if I never had a brother, as if he never existed, and if he never existed then he can’t come back, and he must. He must.
This is the longest day I’ve ever written in my diary and all because of a turtle. My wrist aches.