The turning of the tide

Strange events on the Kent coast

The sea was calm. High tide was due about now, but the waves lapping gently on the beach below George Honeydew’s seafront bench seemed further out than usual. In fact, they were at the low water mark. He was puzzled. Maybe there had been an especially low spring tide – except he knew spring tides were the high ones. He felt disoriented. He preferred the regular rhythms of his usually uneventful life.

George’s daily ritual was always the same. He had carried the boxes of fruit and vegetables from the pavement display into his back storeroom. He folded the trestle tables and propped them up in the shop. He emptied the till, put the takings in a bag, and stowed them in the sturdy safe in the back room. He would count them later and bank them during his lunch break tomorrow when Mrs Daniels from down the road came to look after the shop for an hour or two. He turned the sign to ‘closed’ and locked the door.

            Then, as he always did soon after 5.30 pm, he had left the shop and walked up the gently-sloping narrow street opposite, lined with old white-painted weather-boarded fishing cottages, to the seafront. He made his way to his favourite bench looking out to sea. Come rain or shine, George went there for half an hour or so every day to enjoy the view and contemplate whatever was on his mind. There was always something to see, as the ferries sailed in and out of Dover and giant container vessels and tankers flowed up and down the English Channel.

            Deal was an odd place, he mused, not for the first time. The promenade and Marine Drive was on a sort of levee between the sea and land. The beach shelved steeply down from it to the shoreline. But the High Street in the old town where his small shop was, lay below the seafront. True, the high-tide mark was probably never above his street level, but even so, water and shingle had cascaded onto the coast road in heavy winter storms.

What with global warming and rising sea levels, one of these days the sea would come right over the seafront, down the side roads, and High Street would become a river. Or a lake. It would take a long time to drain. The land rose gently further inland behind the shop. He could imagine his oranges and cabbages floating away, and his cellar becoming a reservoir. He never kept anything in the cellar these days. And all his valuables were in his living rooms on the two floors above the shop. George was not one to take risks.

            The gentle hissing of the wavelets slowly rolling the smaller stones and gravel backwards and forwards was relaxing. A gentle offshore breeze ruffled his dark but greying hair. There was nowhere George would rather be. It was always tempting, when the weather was warm enough, to doze off after a busy day on his feet, but quiet little town as it was, Deal had its share of opportunist muggers and it was sensible to keep your wits about you. Not that George had anything valuable on him. He didn’t own a mobile phone and he carried only small change in his pocket.

Whenever the local paper reported a mugging or a burglary, old Albert, who must be 80 and had been an almost daily customer of Honeydew and Son, Greengrocer and General Purveyor, ever since George could remember, blamed the kids from Dover. There weren’t many police in Deal, either. “Never had problems here before they built the new ferry terminal,” Albert would say. “Brought all the wrong sort in. And police spend all the time chasing stowaways and forgetting about us.” In fact, he said it most days.

George was the “Son” in the business name. He didn’t have a son of his own, and what with the new supermarkets undercutting his prices, he guessed the shop would close when he retired. He might be able to sell it to an antique dealer or delicatessen. It was hard to make a living, but he did try to stock local produce and people would come from all over town and pay a bit extra just to support the Kentish famers.

Deal was becoming gentrified as people moved out from the bustle of Dover or Canterbury for a quieter, gentler environment. Boutiques, specialist food, art and antique shops were starting to attract visitors back to the town. But his shop was away from the main stores and people wouldn’t walk far for a pound of locally-grown Cox apples or beef tomatoes, and probably not even for the orange beetroot and purple carrots a local market gardener was experimenting with.
He watched a ferry come out from behind the Kingsdown cliffs that hid the town from the port. The ships moved surprisingly quickly when you watched from the shore, although if you were on them the white cliffs of Dover seemed to take an age to get smaller, and those of Calais to get closer. Not that George went across the Channel often, but he had taken a couple of day trips to see what the shops were like over there. He hadn’t learned much.

The waves were hardly hissing now. George looked down the beach, and then across at the concrete stilts of the pier to his right. The tide still seemed to be going down. It was weird. George knew he wasn’t going senile yet. He was only 55. And although that and his healthy diet of fruit and veg from his shop and free-range chickens from the butcher down the road were no guarantee against dementia, his memory for facts and figures, for orders and deliveries, was as good as ever. He prided himself on it. He could even recall many of the customers he’d served yesterday. He knew the tide should be up.

In fact, it was going out fast. He felt a slight shuddering of the ground as a heavy lorry thundered past behind him. Everywhere in Deal shuddered when heavy lorries drove through. It wasn’t built for them, but for horses and carts carrying boxes of fish from the smacks that were hauled up on the shingle. Hardly any of the little boats were left now, although a few beached near the castle ventured out for a bit of line fishing with paying visitors.

The shuddering continued after the lorry had turned down into the town. That, too, was odd. George stood up, so that he could feel the vibrations through his feet. Either he had suddenly developed Parkinson’s Disease or the ground really was moving. He held his hand out in front of him; it was steady as always. He stared at the horizon. It wasn’t moving, either, as the ships continued to glide sedately along it. He concluded that he wasn’t ill.

It was like the shuddering when workmen used a pneumatic drill in the road. As you walked past you could feel the vibrations. Indoors, perhaps, loose objects on shelves would shake slightly, as the minute movements travelled through the ground and into the walls.

He looked over to the pier. It was entirely on dry land, now. Instead of a calm sea there was a swathe of shingle, with patches of sand, merging in the distance into what looked like a rocky or perhaps silty bed. A few people on the promenade had stopped and, like him, were staring out to sea.  The golden line of the offshore Goodwin Sands was clearly visible, with no sign of waves breaking over them. A dog walker on the beach was frantically calling her pet which had bounded across what, to judge from its sliding legs, was a wet and slippery surface. But here were fresh, new smells no dog could resist. Her calls went unheeded. The tremors continued.

There were of course mine-workings below the ground. The now-closed Kent coal fields had excavated well out to sea. Maybe one was collapsing. But that wouldn’t explain the disappearing water. The Straits of Dover wouldn’t empty into a few tunnels. Then he remembered. Earthquakes. Minor ones, mostly unnoticed, happened frequently in the UK although they were rare in Kent. It must be a larger one, he thought. And when big earthquakes occurred in the Pacific, people said the tide went out suddenly, then roared back in a devastating metres-high tidal wave. Tsunami? Here? If the epicentre was further north, or south, where the Channel was wider, the narrow Straits would act like a funnel and the surge would become higher.

George stood there, staring. Then a wave of fear rose up from his trembling feet and overwhelmed his brain. He had to get away. He looked at the dog walker, still trying to call the errant pet that was far out on the rocks. And then at the other people along the promenade. What about all the ships in Dover Harbour? They’d be smashed against the walls and sunk. And the other way, towards Sandwich Bay, the Royal St George’s golf course would be swamped. The factories along the marshes between Sandwich and Ramsgate would be inundated. Should he warn them? Should he call the police? They’d think he was mad.
There had to be another explanation. But George never took risks. He turned and hurried back to the shop. Inside, he took the money out of the safe and put it on the top floor. He might need the cash. He went back down and filled bags with vegetables and potatoes. Of course, if there was a flood the electricity might go off. But he had a gas stove in his upstairs kitchen. Would that still work? Would he be able to cook potatoes? He focused on the things he could eat raw, just in case. Carrots, white cabbage, salad onions, lettuces, tomatoes. He had tins of beans, vegetables and meat – not very nice cold but they were pre-cooked so would be safe to eat – and carried them upstairs too.

There was a garage at the back where he kept his little van, leading on to a lane running behind the buildings. There were sandbags there. Having stashed his food on the top floor (just in case the level was really high) he dragged sandbags into the shop and piled them against the door. They might not do a lot of good – the glass in the door and shop window could easily be shattered if the wave was powerful and carried a lot of debris, although the houses opposite, nearer the sea, would be hit before he was, and might shelter him from the force. It wouldn’t be nice for them but was a crumb of comfort for him. It just seemed prudent to take what precautions he could.

He did wonder if he should simply drive the van out and get to higher ground, but what would he do then? Where would he go? The authorities would probably set up emergency centres, but it could be weeks before he was allowed back even to get clean clothes. He’d rather stay put. The chances of the whole building being inundated were minimal. And there was a loft too. He got the step ladder from the garage and carried that upstairs. Just in case. Then he put more sandbags in front of the garage, and dragged the rest – he hadn’t realised how many he’d got; they were years old – into the house. He put three across the back door of the garage, and the rest inside the rear storeroom door.

George looked at the time. 7.15 pm. He went upstairs and looked nervously out of the window. He opened it to listen. All was quiet. Traffic was passing normally. He closed the window and decided to prepare a meal. He raided the freezer and put three pies in the oven; they’d keep him going for a while and they would be ruined if the power went off while they were still frozen. He’d now got a good supply of food to last him a couple of weeks. He could relax. Sort of.

He put on the late evening news. About halfway through there was a brief item about all shipping being temporarily stopped through the Straits of Dover because a minor earth tremor appeared to have disturbed the depth of the sea bed. Experts would assess the situation in the morning.

Every small sound in the night had him leaping out of bed and staring through the curtains. He could hear helicopters flying over, and hovering some distance away, presumably over the sea. The street lights went out at midnight as usual but the night was clear and the moonlight revealed that the street below remained dry.

He got up at first light and set a large pan of beetroot on the two-ring gas stove in the back room of the shop. Some of his customers liked large freshly cooked beetroot rather than the vacuum packed golf-ball sized things the supermarkets stocked. He had to assume it was going to be a normal day. Whatever was going on out to sea didn’t appear to have triggered any problems yet.

The unexplained phenomenon was the talk of everyone who came in. Old Albert had his views, of course. “It’s the Koreans,” he announced. “That underground atom bomb they exploded. Pushed the ground up on our side, that’s what it did. Had to go somewhere.”

“Don’t think they’re exactly below us,” George said. “Isn’t that Australia?”

“Well if it ain’t them it’s the Russians,” said Albert. “Never trusted that Putin bloke. Wants to take us all over, he does.”

For once, George had brought a portable radio into the shop. He didn’t believe in muzak in shops and he liked to talk to his customers without background noise. But in the circumstances he wanted to keep in touch with the news. It would help the conversations if he kept up to date. Rumours were bound to escalate. Especially if old Albert sounded off to everyone down the street.

From Radio Kent’s frequent news flashes, he gathered that the dried-up sea had everyone guessing. Geographers from Kent University at Canterbury were at the scene trying to figure it out. Oceanographers from Southampton University were on their way. So were archaeologists from Oxford and marine archaeologists from Portsmouth. They were all eager to explore what had once been the sea bed for signs of habitation before the last ice age, when England and France had been joined, and to examine the wrecks that were now visible on the surface.

What was puzzling everyone, apparently, was that the raised sea bed was relatively flat. There should have been a deeper channel, an old valley, running though it, which had been the main shipping lane. The hump, as it was being called, stretched roughly from Sandwich Bay in the north to St Margaret’s Bay in the south, and across to Dunkerque. The port of Calais was still open but the cross-channel ferries from Dover had been suspended until it was certain that the earth movement had stopped. The Channel Tunnel was closed too, even though it ran a few miles south of the affected area, while engineers inspected it for possible damage. Miraculously, no ships had been beached as the land had risen.

More significantly, the Prime Minister had convened a meeting of the crisis group Cobra to discuss strategy. If ships from the south couldn’t get north into the London Gateway container port, Britain could quickly run out of food. Sending them round the west coast and the top of Scotland to get to London would be horrendously expensive and time consuming. International trade in everything would take a big hit. Prices would rise, workers could be laid off.

Some trade could be diverted to Southampton or even Liverpool, but they had limited capacity and couldn’t handle the biggest vessels. Cargo from Belgium and Holland coming in to Felixstowe or London would ease the problem, but off-loading containers in southern France and sending them by road across Europe was logistically unthinkable.

So when Mrs Daniels came for her usual middle-of-the-day shop minding, George decided not to bank yesterday’s cash (he might of course still need it; who knew what was going to happen now?) nor did he want to catch up on his paperwork. Instead he walked up to the seafront and took a look for himself.

The world’s media had already camped along Marine Drive. A long line of satellite trucks took up most of the parking spaces. Reporters were scurrying among the local people who had come to stare, hoovering up opinions while official information remained scanty. George noticed that old Albert was voicing his views to one crew, waving his walking stick expressively as he did so. Albert liked an audience.

Helicopters were circling overhead, and several four-by-four and track-laying vehicles were ferrying what George assumed were the experts around the new landmass. He noticed that a couple of bulldozers, over to the left on the Sandown side, appeared to be smoothing the softer ground and pushing rocks to one side, as if to create a path. They were a dullish green-brown colour, blending with the expanse of weed-covered rock. No-one was taking much notice of them. 

Back at the shop, fresh news dried up while opinions became more bizarre. Old Albert’s had quite an airing. The experts were puzzled. The geologists had sent for drilling rigs to take samples from the sea bed, but they would take a couple of days to install.

Customers came and went. Early in the afternoon a tall, good looking African man came in. George had never seen him before, and guessed he was in his mid to late 30s. There were few black or Asian people in Deal.

“Hello,” he said. His English had no trace of an accent. “I wonder if you can help me. I need some carrots, parsnips, potatoes and onions.”

George motioned to the boxes around the shop. “How many?”

“I mean, a lot.” He consulted a piece of paper in his hand. “Two hundred kilos of onions. Three hundred each of the others. And - ” he looked around “- maybe a 150 white cabbages?”

George gulped. “I don’t carry that sort of stock, I’m afraid. I like to get produce in fresh each day.”

“For this time tomorrow?”

“I could get the wholesaler to deliver them,” George replied cautiously. “But…”

“I have money,” said the visitor. “I’ll pay you in advance.” He pulled out a sheaf of notes from his pocket. “My name’s Josh, by the way.”

George noticed they were £50s and £20s. He nodded, and picked up the small calculator by the till.

“Possibly a discount for bulk?” asked Josh as he looked around. “Oh, and you stock herbs.” They were growing in small pots. The people who bought purple carrots tended also to like fresh herbs. “Could you manage about 50 each of parsley, coriander, basil and sage?”

George made a list, worked out the prices, gave Josh ten per cent discount, and took his money. “From a restaurant, are you?” he enquired casually.

“No. Going camping.” Josh had an engaging, easy manner. “Just need some supplies to keep us going for a few days.”

“Must be a big group,” said George.

Josh just smiled. “I’ll bring the van about lunch time tomorrow, then.” He held out his hand. George shook it, and once Josh had left, shook his head in disbelief. He would have to get to the bank now. He didn’t like keeping so much money on the premises. And he needed to phone his suppliers. He rang Mrs Daniels to see if she could come back for half an hour. She could; she was a widow living on her own. It gave her something to do.

That evening George fought through the media throng and sightseers to his usual bench. Some of the experts were coming off the land bridge to give interviews. The two bulldozers to the left appeared to have cleared their path and were chugging back into the distance. Still no-one seemed to be taking any notice of them. They disappeared into the haze that was shrouding the horizon.

The next morning, newspaper headline writers had excelled themselves. George, having once more set his pan of beetroot on the stove in the back room, took yet another uncharacteristic morning walk and paused to read the headlines on the stand outside the seafront news and souvenir shop. “Goodbye Brexit – Bonjour L’Europe” shouted The Mirror. “Britain down the pan”, screamed The Sun before asking “Who pulled the plug on Brexit?”

The Daily Mail warned of “Open door to foreign invaders” and asked “Why isn’t the Border Agency patrolling the beaches?” Meanwhile the Daily Express focused on the weather: “Freak storms could follow massive earth lift”. The Times was more non-committal: “Experts puzzled by sudden seabed change”. The Guardian decided that ancient history, when England and France were joined, was repeating itself: “Revealed: Europe’s shape before the Ice Age”. And the Daily Telegraph focused on politics: “Government caught napping by freak events”.

George bought a copy of the Telegraph for the crossword and skimmed the lengthy coverage. A right-wing MP was demanding the government build a wall on the edge of UK territorial waters. The Bishop of Dover had suggested that this was God’s answer to the “deplorable” decision to leave the European Union. He was slapped down by the Archbishop of Canterbury who counselled caution. “It is too early to speculate on both the causes of this phenomenon and any steps that need to be taken,” he was quoted as saying. “We need to await the conclusions of the experts.”

Back at the shop, the day continued normally. Josh’s large order was delivered by 8.00 am and stacked in the back room. Mrs Daniels came for her usual slot, and George went upstairs briefly to make a sandwich. He didn’t want to go out because he assumed Josh would come for his vegetables at any time.

About 1.00, old Albert burst into the shop. “It’s happening!” he panted. “They’re coming! The Russians are coming!”

George fetched a chair from the back room and Albert sat heavily on it, dropping his walking stick on the floor.

Mrs Daniels picked it up. “You shouldn’t be rushing around like this at your age,” she said. “You’ll give yourself a heart attack. I’ll go and make you a cup of tea.” She went into the back room and put the kettle on.

“They’re coming, I tell you,” Albert repeated. “Seen ’em with me own eyes.”

George asked him what he’d seen. There was a convoy, he said. They just seemed to appear out on the rocks. Heading just north of Deal. “That’s where they’ll come ashore,” he predicted. “Beach is shallower there. Can get up onto the road easy.” There were buses, trucks, lots of them. All painted a sort of green-brown colour. “Must be camouflage, only they were too far away to see properly. They’re Russians, I tell you. Taking us over. Never trusted that Putin fellow.”

“Or gypsies?” suggested Mrs Daniels, handing him a mug of tea. “Refugees, perhaps? If it was a proper invasion, wouldn’t our boys be flying down here, bombing them or something?”

“Could you see any tanks or guns, Albert?” George asked.

“They’d be hidden, wouldn’t they? Ready to pull them out as soon as they get here. They’re Russians, I tell you, and as soon as I’ve had me tea I’m going home and barricade meself in.”

A few customers came, and went quickly as Albert began voicing his theories. And then there was a fresh noise from the street. Music. Lively music. Gospel music? Mrs Daniels went out to look.

“Dancing girls on an open truck,” she said. “And it looks like there’s buses and big lorries behind them. Like the ones Albert said he saw.”

“There you are! Told you! It’s the Russians. Trying to make us think they’re harmless. Trying to hypnotise us with music, I bet. Like the Sirens or mermaids or whatever they were who mesmerised the sailors and wrecked their ships. Close your ears.” He put his hands over his ears, but neither George nor Mrs Daniels followed his example.

The convoy was taking up the width of the narrow street. The flat-bed truck drove sedately past. On it was a large gold box, with golden angels at the corners. Behind the box four African women in bright blue and orange dresses were dancing, clapping and singing to the music coming from hidden loudspeakers.

Albert was right in that the single-deck buses and large trucks that followed were a green brown colour, but they weren’t camouflaged. Just sea-bed colour. The windows of the buses revealed smiling African faces. Children pressed their noses against the windows and some waved. Some of the trucks carried livestock. They could see sheep through the gaps, and one truck was laden with crates of chickens.Then came a large box van. It drew up outside the shop, and the whole convoy stopped. Josh jumped out of the driver’s cab. Another man of similar age and build got out of the other side and went round the back to open the loading doors. Josh bounded into the shop. “Good afternoon,” he said. “Were you able to get our vegetables?” George nodded and motioned to the back room. “They’re in there. Do you want a hand?” 

“No, it’s fine, thanks. Come on Caleb, weight-training time!” The two men lifted the sacks and boxes with ease and stowed them in the van. Albert stared, his mouth open. Mrs Daniels gripped the counter. George just watched.

“Going far?” he asked.

“Salisbury Plain,” said Caleb. “We’re a community. We need more space to live and follow our religion.”

“Got somewhere to stay?”

“We have tents. We live in tents all the time. A few of the old folks have motorhomes.”

“Salisbury Plain?” croaked Albert. “That’s where the military do all their exercises ain’t it?”

“We won’t be going on their land,” said Caleb. “There’s plenty of common land we can use. We won’t bother anyone.”

“Unless they bother us,” Josh chipped in, grinning.

They finished loading up. Caleb shut up the van. Josh came back into the shop, and held his hand out to George. “Thank you for your kindness and help,” he said. “We won’t forget you. May you and your shop flourish.” He seemed to bow slightly, then got back into the cab. The convoy moved off as a single unit, every vehicle seeming to move at the same time. More buses and trucks followed. The procession ended with an apparently empty bus with a red cross on it, and an ambulance.

The three people in the shop remained quiet for a few minutes.

“Hippies,” said Albert suddenly. “Hippies. That’s what they are. Won’t get far. Won’t last long on Salisbury Plain. Bleak place that.” He got up slowly and leaned on his stick. “Well, must be going. Thanks for the tea.”

George watched the old man leave. He went in the direction of the promenade, not his cottage down the road.

“Hippies,” George said to Mrs Daniels. “That’ll be on the news tonight. He’ll tell the reporters up there that they’re hippies, that he’s spoken to them, and he thinks they’re harmless loonies.”

He did. The fact that he hadn’t asked them where they came from was no barrier to Albert’s imagination. “Well, stands to reason,” he declared. “Come up from Africa and through Europe. Got lucky when the sea dried up. Saved them the ferry fares!” The fact that the convoy hadn’t been reported anywhere in Europe didn’t bother the journalists. They had air time and columns to fill. Someone else could ask those kinds of questions.

When George got to his bench that evening, the reporters were filing their stories and several were starting to pack up, presumably to follow the convoy. Out to sea the mist had grown thicker. A typical Channel fog was descending. The wind had changed direction too, and was blowing off what once had been the sea. He found himself wishing the strange people well. Live and let live, he thought. It takes all sorts.

He slept fitfully again. There were faint noises outside, a distant roaring and vibrating. Several times he got up and opened a window to listen. It was probably traffic rumbling in the town, or the distant throb of helicopters. The cool air had a familiar salty smell.

The next morning he again went up to the promenade. The sound he’d heard in the night got louder as he approached it. The ground was trembling slightly. The wind had grown stronger but the sound was not the wind. It was waves crashing on the shore, high waves whipped up by the wind. The sea was grey, with a heavy swell. The pier was once more striding out into deep water.

George Honeydew went back to his shop. He checked the pan of beetroot, climbed the stairs to the flat, poured himself a bowl of cereal, and turned on the news. Marine survey teams were being deployed to check that the Straits were deep enough for shipping. The final news item reported that 10,000 troops were making their way to Salisbury Plain.

Then, as usual, George took the trestle tables and set them up outside. He carried the boxes of fruit and vegetables from the back storeroom and set up the pavement display. He took the bags of small change from the back room safe and emptied them into the till. He turned the sign on the door from “closed” to “open”, and waited for the fresh day’s customers.

 
© Derek Williams November 2017

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