The Fisherman's Girl by Maggie Ford

Author:Maggie Ford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Chapter Seventeen

‘Dad!’ Danny, standing at the gunnels of the boat, let his own load fall from his shoulders on to the deck. ‘You all right?’

It was a silly question. No movement came from the man below him, the pale blue eyes staring apparently sightlessly up at the sky. In seconds he was over the side, dropping down into the mud beneath its thin covering of water with a splash, to plough through it towards his father.

It hadn’t been a big fall, twelve inches or so, normally no more than an annoyance to a man measuring his length in soft mud. Dan would have reared up, roaring, ready to vent his fury on the man who’d sent him off balance with his sudden appearance. But with a heavy yoke on him burdened down by its unsteadily swinging baskets, each a dead weight, it had the power to snap a man’s neck as easily as if he’d fallen thirty feet.

Danny’s shout had added to the concern of those offloading the other two bawleys, their laughter already falling silent. Dropping their loads, they hurried forward, coming to see what was up as Danny knelt in the slowly deepening water beside his father.

Helping him push the yoke aside, several of them eased Dan off the planks so that he could lie flat. Danny lifted his father’s head on to his knees, clear of the incoming tide.

On the shore, Dick Bryant was looking on helplessly. ‘Is he all right, son? Anything I can do?’

Danny looked up, his eyes darkly brittle. ‘You’ve done enough, you. Go on, sod off! Or I’ll come an’ belt you meself.’

‘I only came to say your sister’s having her baby. It don’t look good.’

‘I said, sod off!’ Danny bent his head again to his father. ‘Come on, Dad, wake up.’

The blue eyes focused, swivelled to the face of his son. The weather-battered lips twitched into a grin. The voice came low. ‘Looks like I made a bloody fool of meself.’

‘Are you hurt?’ Danny asked, full of relief, and saw the brows knit.

‘Legs feel a bit funny.’

There were men all around them now. Whether Dick Bryant was with them or had made himself scarce, Danny wasn’t much caring so long as his dad was all right.

‘What d’you mean, funny?’

‘Just funny. Can’t proper feel ’em. Jarred meself. But I’m OK. Just help me up out of this damned water.’

As requested, Danny put his hand under his father’s shoulders, began to lift him to a sitting position where he’d be able to stand on his own, but the body felt heavy, limp, there seemed to be no muscle power there. He saw his father wince with pain and immediately stopped trying to move him.

‘Come on, Dad, help me get you up, or we’ll both drown sitting here.’ He said it in jest but already a light was dawning in his brain, one that had begun to put the fear of God into him. It echoed in his voice. ‘Dad, move yourself, for God’s sake.’

‘I can’t, son.

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