The Wind Off the Island by Ernle Bradford

Author:Ernle Bradford [Bradford, Ernle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Special Interest, Adventure, Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Europe, Italy
ISBN: 9781497617391
Google: cLEfAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-04-01T23:49:30.396811+00:00

FIFTEEN

‘Tromba marina!’ cried Antonio.

‘Che—?’

‘Tromba marina!’

He and his two sons had been sitting with us on the foredeck of Mother Goose. Now they were all on their feet, staring seaward.

‘We must look to the boats,’ he said.

The three of them disappeared over the side and I watched them row rapidly inshore.

‘What?’

I had not caught the word, but it was too late to ask now. I gazed out over the grey windswept sea to the north. Just to the left of the small mole a dark cloud hung down over the water. Something like a ragged coat-sleeve was flickering between the cloud base and the sea.

‘Tromba marina.’ Janet came up with the dictionary. ‘A waterspout.’

‘That’s all we needed,’ I said. The weather had really broken in the last twenty-four hours.

I looked back at the beach and saw Antonio and his sons taking their boat up at a run. Other fishermen were busily securing boats, lashing down canvas coverings, and stowing away sails that had been hung out to dry. The way the wind was, it looked as if the spout might pass clean across the harbour.

‘It’s coming this way all right,’ said Janet.

When Antonio had first spotted it the cloud had been two or three miles away, but it was coming up at such a speed that already we could see every detail of it. The ragged arm that leant down to grasp the sea was solidifying and putting on flesh.

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ I said.

We had no awnings up and the sails were stowed. There was no time to try and get out to sea. We could only watch and wait. If the spout hit the boat, and the anchor dragged, Mother Goose might fetch up on the beach.

‘I’ll start the engine—just in case.’

The wind’s note changed suddenly. We could see the spray rising thirty or forty feet high where the grey trunk drank the water. It was so close now, swirling and curving round the end of the point, that we could hear a hard hiss like a giant kettle boiling, and we both jumped into the cockpit.

‘I’ll take the tiller,’ I said. ‘You stand by the throttle. We’ll ease the strain on the cable.’

Mother Goose was sidling and twisting, first to port then to starboard, as conflicting eddies whirled about us. I kicked over the gear lever and we began to forge slowly ahead.

‘Enough!’

We stopped and drifted back a little on the cable. The spout was right off the end of the mole now, a hundred yards from where we lay. The wind tugged at the boat. There was a moaning noise and the edge of the dark cloud came right over us. My palms were sweating and Janet’s face was drawn. A burst of rain rattled like shrapnel on the coach-roof. ‘It’s—’

The dark twister was howling and the base of the trunk leaned sideways. Then it moved quick and sudden, with a curious flexible shudder, and spun away across the harbour—going away from us.

The wind was whipping round the boat like the leaves of a thousand autumns.

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