The Salk Island West Legacy, Gen.1, Ch.5

Generation 1 Chapter 5 The door burst open, and a man stood in it, dripping wet, outlined against the lurid storm sky behind him “My family! My ship! Come and help me, please!” His desperate appeal for help sent them all, except the youngest, running for the beach, through the pouring rain.
“We saw your light, and steered for it, but the ship was too badly damaged. We broke up before we could make it to harbour.”
Jon and the stranger set off running for the rocks on the far side of the cove. Nell’s eyes were sharp: she stood, scanning the darkened water for any signs of life.
“I can see something! Here, over here!” Nell’s voice , sharpened by her desperate anxiety, carried even over the storm. A swimmer was fighting towards the shore, clinging on to a piece of timber. Nell and Penny rushed into the water to help. The stranger had heard Nell’s cry, and turned and ran back, in time to see a young girl stagger out of the water, soaked, panting, and yet triumphant at the same time. He rushed her over to the fire and hugged her fiercely.
“Brigit! You’re safe!” Then he ran off again, to continue searching the choppy wastes of water. Nell hugged the little girl as well.
“You poor child! Let’s get you dry and warm. Come with me.” She put her arms round Brigit, and led the suddenly drooping child back to The Hut. Jon had remained by the rocks at the edge of the cove, anxiously scanning the water. The current would sweep someone into the cove, if they were still afloat – and fortunately, the tide was coming in. This point was where a lot of flotsam ended up – already, he could see bits of wood, doubtless from the broken ship, coming in on the tide.
And the one of the bits of wood moved! There was someone clinging to it!
“Ahoy there,” Jon shouted. “This way – the tide will bring you! Just hang on!”
He scrambled down to the water’s edge, and was soon helping an exhausted and battered young man up out of the water.
“Brigit and I grabbed a plank, when the ship went down – but then she was washed off it as we neared the shore. I couldn’t grab her in time!” The boy was desperate with worry. “And I don’t know what happened to my dad, my mum or Nils either!” Jon started half-carrying him to The Hut. The light they had put outside the door shone through the darkness, a welcome beacon.
“Your dad’s here, and safe. And Brigit’s just been rescued too. You need to get these wet things off you, and get warm and dry. Come on.”
“No! I have to go and look for the others!” But the boy was nearly fainting. It was only Jon’s support that was getting him over the ground. Both Brigit and Thorold fell asleep as soon as they were in a sleeping bag. Nell looked down at the two of them, exhausted, battered and bruised by their ordeal.
“But still alive!” she thought triumphantly. Then she turned and ran back down to the cove to help search for the two who were still missing.
They searched and searched the whole night long, calling, looking along the shore line from side to side of the cove. Nell sent Perdita back to The Hut eventually, to keep an eye on Joshua, Petranella and the two sleeping strangers, but Penny and Janet stayed with their parents, looking and looking all night long.
Dawn came, and still there was no sign of Nils, or of Brigit and Thorold’s mother. The stranger – Lars, he had told them, he was called – was gaunt and hollow-eyed with worry – and also nearly dead on his feet. Jon caught him as he swayed and nearly fell.
“You have to rest. At least for a bit. We will all go on looking. Penny, take him up to The Hut – and you can get some sleep too, and send Perdita down instead to help. Joshua can come too – it’s not so dangerous now, and he’s another pair of eyes.”
But there was no sign of the missing two. During the day, stuff was steadily washed ashore, and they all collected as much as they could. The other three were still sleeping, and Nell and Jon both left them to it – after the ordeal they had been through, sleep was probably one of the best things they could have. The rest of them scoured the shoreline, hoping against hope to find someone. Jon watched the moon setting, and the day beginning to break. The sea was calm now – very like that day eighteen years ago, when he and Nell and Penny had finally made it ashore. He didn’t hold out much hope of finding Nils and Ingrid now, but you never knew. Nell was keeping a watch out to sea. The light was beginning to show in the eastern sky, and it was getting easier to see what was on the water. Every so often he heart had leapt up with hope – only to see that it was just another piece of flotsam drifting into the cove. By the time the sun was well up, they could see how much stuff had been washed into the cove. It needed getting out of the water – Nell waded in, shivering slightly. Jon came to help her – and, looking at how cold Nell was, told Perdita to go and light the fire and make something hot to drink. “Jon, this could so nearly have been us. Me, looking for you, or you looking for me. Or both of us searching for Penny.” She clung to him, suddenly.
“I know. I thought that, too. Come on, Nell. Let’s get this stuff dragged up onto the beach. One way or another, they’re going to need it.”
It was the next morning before they found them. The tide had brought them both ashore – not that far apart from each other. Ingrid lay on the sand – curled up as though she was asleep. Her clothes were stained and tattered, but her face had remained unmarked. Nils was half buried by the sand. Lars gazed down at his wife and son, and felt as though his heart would break with the loss of them both. How life could go on, he didn’t know. But life does go on. The agonised hours turned into days, and then into weeks. They buried Ingrid and Nils in the little graveyard that Nell had found, years before, now. Jon shaped a couple of headstones: there were tools enough and stone enough at the mine. And now the three remaining Svensons sat eating with Jon and Nell. Their grief was no less, but the initial shock had worn off, and Lars, Thorold and Brigit no longer seemed like statues that had somehow come jerkily to life.
“I’ve been sailing for thirty-five years now, and I don’t think there’s been a storm like that one for at least the last twenty years,” Lars said. He was a trader, part of the Haven fleet – a loosely allied group of trading vessels.
“Eighteen years,” said Jon, a little indistinctly, as his mouth was full. “Where were you coming from – eighteen years ago?”
Nell was pleased to hear the question; at last Lars was beginning to engage with the world around him again.
“Sautach,” Jon said, and would have gone on, but Lars broke in.
“Sautach! Eighteen years ago?” Then he stopped abruptly, his eyes going to his children, and he said no more. But once the children had left the fireplace, the three adults sat down again and began to talk in lowered voices.
“What happened in Sautach? We left because we were warned that there might be trouble for Nell – and Penny.” “Nothing but trouble. There was a lot of anti-Istrian feeling – it was whipped up by the Felsen faction, trying for political gain. And with Istrians being so different from Sautachs to look at, it was easy.”
Nell turned her head. Her blonde daughter was in the garden, her two dark-haired daughters were fishing somewhere. One of them would have been safe, and the other two wouldn’t have been.
“So what did happen?”
“It was a total bloodbath. One of our ships was trading there, with a part-Istrian crew. Three of them were dragged off the ship and killed by a mob. The rest of the crew – Istrians and non-Istrians alike – barely got away with their lives. My brother was serving on that ship at the time – he told me about it.” Nell’s eyes were dark with sorrow at the thought of what had happened. Jon was just thankful – that they had got away, and that his parents hadn’t lived to see it happen. Joshua was fishing with Brigit. He had taken her under his wing, and she was seldom far from him.
“Don’t cry, Brigit. I’ll look after you. I’ll be another brother to you.”
Later, Nell explained to him that it was all right for Brigit to cry, and he changed it to, “Cry all you like, Brigit. I’ll lend you my shoulder.” Thorold was trying to cope like a man should. He was often to be found helping in the garden – especially when Perdita was there too, though he got on well with Janet too. And just as Joshua had taken Brigit under his wing, Perdita took Thorold under hers. She seemed to know when he needed leaving alone, and when he needed a hug, and when to just be silent with him. “I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t already been here.” Lars was trying to keep his voice matter-of-fact, but he couldn’t stop his feelings showing through.
“I don’t think we would have survived. I don’t think we would have managed to feed ourselves, or find shelter or anything.”
Jon knew what Lars meant. The three of them would probably have died from shock. “We owe you so much – more than we can ever repay. But I can give you something in return – I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. My brain seems to have seized up. I’ll show you in a couple of days’ time – I think it’ll be ready by then.”
Jon was intrigued. And Lars was as good as his word! They were, after all, traders – and in the containers they’d salvaged were clothes. New clothes! And combs, and scissors, and hair ornaments – Nell felt like herself for the first time in eighteen years. Five pregnancies had been hard on her other clothes, and they’d fallen apart long since. Jon was very happy too. He no longer needed to cut his hair with a knife (though he kept the beard – shaving was too much fuss), and it was very good to have clothes with no holes in them. Janet was the first of the children to benefit from Lars’s gift. As all her clothes were third-hand to start with, she needed it the most. Penny said she was fine – Nell had made her new clothes recently – but for the first time in her life she had a hairstyle! And Nell had really enjoyed being able to show Penny how to play with her hair and do things to it. Thorold was becoming more and more friendly with Perdita as the days went on. To her total surprise, he kissed her one day!
“You didn’t mind, did you?”
No. No, I didn’t mind,” Perdita said, confused, but by no means displeased.
“Good. Then I can do it again.” And he did! No-one else was particularly surprised by this – both Nell and Lars had seen it coming for quite some time.
“Lars, this isn’t just some reaction to all he’s been through, is it? I don’t want Perdita hurt.”
“No. Thorold’s never been much of a one for girls – Nils, now…” His voice broke, and he had to turn away for a moment, but he forced himself to carry on. “Nils was always interested in girls, from about thirteen. He was almost engaged when we set out on this voyage – we were all going to get together when we arrived, and finalise everything…” His voice died away again, and his face set hard, but eventually, he finished his sentence.
“Thorold’s serious about her. And she suits him. They’re good together.” It was about a month later when Lars went over to Nell one day. Jon was fishing up in the hills – ideally he’d have liked to talk to them both together, but suddenly he couldn’t wait any longer.
“Nell. You’ve all been so good to us, and we’re beyond grateful, but we can’t stay here with you forever. I think we need to find a place to make our own now.” Nell knew what he meant – and wasn’t altogether surprised, either. But it had been so good having new people to talk to, to get news from…She smiled at him, though it was a slightly watery smile.
“Lars, we’ll all be so sorry to see you go. Even if you won’t be going very far. But you’re probably right – we can give you seeds and plants to start off your own vegetable patch – and lend you tools as well. We don’t use them so much now.” She thought a bit.
“But Lars – you don’t have to do this on your own! Take some of our children with you to help you get started. The more help you get, the quicker you’ll be settled. And Brigit would hate to be separated from Joshua. I know he’s small, but he’s a good fisherman.” “Really? I could? That would be such a help! But what about Perdita and Thorold? They’d hate to be separated too.”
“Then let’s ask them all what they think, and what they want to do. We need two of the older ones here, if we’re to manage everything ourselves, but let’s get the children – well, offspring; they’re not children any more, most of them – to help decide what we’re all going to do.” Two weeks later, Lars was standing at the site he’d decided to make their new home. He’d picked it partly because it was near the river, and partly because it was within sight of the graveyard where his wife and oldest child lay buried. Like Jon and Nell before him, he had realised that they were going to have to think long-term. The rest of the fleet would certainly look for their ship, but whether anyone would think of coming this far was very doubtful. No-one would sail near the Western Rip if they could avoid it. He needed to think about settling here – maybe for good. Had he done the right thing? What if it didn’t work, and they couldn’t make a go of it here, on their own? Had he picked the right site? He gave himself a mental shake. If it didn’t work, then they could all go back to The Hut, and work at growing more food there, and building an extension to it. But they could try this first. And the best place to start was by clearing away some of the rubble that was here – that way, they could see which walls were sound, and could be used as part of a new building. “I want a pick-axe too!” Brigit said, loudly, and firmly.
“Brigit, we’re too small for pickaxes.” Joshua was equally firm, but not quite as loud. “But what we can do is clear away these weeds and then Penny can start planting. We can help too.” It was Janet who made the first discovery – a bed, hidden under a pile of rubble!
“I think we’ll still sleep in the tents though,” Lars said. “We’ll use the bed when we’ve got four walls and a roof!” Penny hugged Joshua with delight.
“You and Brigit have done a wonderful job, clearing this patch! Well done, both of you! And tomorrow, we’ll need you both to go fishing for us – you’re both going to be such a help.” And she began the garden by planting the seeds she’d brought with her. Soon she’d go back for the plants Nell had promised her – but there was no point in bringing plants over with nowhere to plant them. As they sat round the fire that night, cooking the food they’d brought with them, Lars thought that actually, it might be okay. Thorold wasn’t here – Perdita had decided to stay, as Petranella would be desolate without her, and that didn’t seem fair – and Thorold had stayed with her.
“But we’ll come over lots – and bring you things and so on. It’s not far, after all.”
The fire was warm on their faces. They had tents to sleep in – Nell and Jon had lent theirs, and there had been one among the salvage. They had food in their stomachs, and company as well. Yes, Lars thought, this might work.