‘I’m through! Tim, I’m through!’ Jacqui called back to him with obvious relief.
‘Get the boy outside — right out of the cave!’ he snapped, seeing she was about to put Paul down. ‘Hurry!’
He plodded on, taking it one pace at a time, fully conscious that the jellyfish were gathering for him. Perhaps they aimed to finish the job they’d started on him in the harbour. Perhaps they had acquired the taste. It was difficult to avoid treading on them… to find a firm foothold…
Then, unexpectedly, Jane was there. She must have been out of the cave, for she was now armed with one of the shovels. Unceremoniously she scraped the jellyfish aside sufficiently to make a path for him. At last he was through as well.
‘Wait!’
With the shovel-blade she cut through the jellyfish secured to his boot until it fell away, three pieces of it, still undulating.
Once outside again, they all looked at each other uneasily, none of them wishing to be the first to speak. Their faces were strained and they seemed unable to come to grips with what they had just experienced. It was the fact that there had been so many jellyfish in that cave which shocked Tim most. Finding two or three in the harbour — well, he hadn’t thought that particularly unusual. But to see over thirty of them gathered in that confined space! What was worse, he was convinced their movements had been co-ordinated like an army platoon.
The seagulls swooped above them, crying out as if surprised to see them again. They circled, squabbled over a ledge high up the cliffside, then they streamed off towards the sea. Perhaps they knew something that humans could not even sense, Tim thought as he watched the stragglers fly after them with an effortless shrug of their wings. Who could tell how many more of those poisonous jellyfish were swimming in?
The first to recover were the two children. Barbara came over to him and grasped his hand. She had brown eyes, he noticed, matching her long straight hair. Pouting lips, too.
‘You won’t tell Mum, will you?’ she begged. ‘Please.’
‘Why not?’
‘’Cos she said I mustn’t ever go in that cave.’
‘She was right, wasn’t she?’ he said.
‘S’ppose so, only how was she to know it’d be full o’ jellyfish?’ She tossed her head impatiently. ‘Come on, Paul — they won’t tell on us!’
The boy got up and together they began to clamber back over the rocks in the direction of the beach. As they went, his voice could be heard, loud and contemptuous. ‘Bet you was scared!’ ‘Who was?’ ‘You was!’ ‘It’s you were, not was.’ ‘’Tisn’t — an’ you was!’ ‘Was what?’ ‘Scared. Scaredy-cat! Scaredy-cat! Sittin’ on the doormat!’ But at last their voices trailed away, leaving only the sounds of sea-birds and the breeze.
Jane stirred first, collecting together the two specimen containers and her shovel. ‘I’m going to get a couple for Jocelyn,’ she announced flatly.
‘You’re not going back in there?’ Jacqui was aghast.
‘It’s what we came here for, isn’t it? My sister’d never forgive me if I missed the chance.’
Tim climbed over the rocks to where he’d abandoned his own shovel. ‘You’re not doing it on your own,’ he said.
Before she could start objecting, they heard the girl’s voice calling out again urgently.
‘Hey, mister! Mister!
They turned to see her coming over the rocks towards them, her hair blowing about her face. When she reached them, she extracted a Brownies’ Diary from the back pocket of her jeans and thrust it at Tim.
‘Can I have your autograph, please?’
The diary was for the previous year, Tim observed as he took it from her, and the cover was sticky. But he found a blank page and signed it with a flourish. This was the only normal thing that had happened so far that day.
13
By the following morning it had become clear that the platoon of jellyfish concealed in that cave was only the advance guard. When the early tide receded, it left behind an army of several hundred spread over the shore, glistening in the light of the rising sun.
The first person to see them was Commander John Dafyd-Jones, RN(ret.), who was out at dawn as always, rain or fine, to take his dog for a run. Like many of those who have spent their lives at sea, Commander Jones was a romantic at heart, although not much given to fantasy. His first reaction to the sight of so many jellyfish gathered on a single beach was one of disbelief. It was some artistic happening, he thought. He’d read about such things in the colour supplements — that crazy American artist, for example, who wanted to cover the entire length of the Grand Canyon in coloured plastic sheeting. That’s what this must be, some artist’s prank.
Or intended for a film, perhaps. He’d heard the TV people were back again, so maybe they had placed these shining, colourful blobs all over the beach.
His dog was barking, wagging his tail furiously. Commander Jones bent down to slip the leash off his collar to allow him to make his usual wild dash across the sand, knowing he would skid to a halt a good six feet away from the water. He was a brown, shaggy-haired mongrel named Gannet — from his habit of collecting anything he could pick up in his mouth, whatever it was, and bringing it home to deposit in the corner of the living-room — but he was no hero.
Gannet yelped in sudden pain.
‘Gannet! Gannet — come here, boy!’
Commander Jones climbed down to the beach and set out across the sand, still calling his dog. Gannet was barking now at one of those… By God, they were jellyfish, and he’d narrowly missed treading on one!
‘Gannet!’ he called out again, sternly this time. ‘Gannet, come here! Come!’
His was a voice accustomed to command, but Gannet had never shown much taste for obedience since he was a puppy. Not that Commander Jones hadn’t tried patiently enough, but even from the start he’d realised the task was ultimately hopeless. Something in the dog’s make-up, some genetic strain inherited from his mixed family tree, had given him the ability to undermine all authority simply by ignoring it.
He was partly crouching now, quivering, his teeth bared. It was so obvious what he was going to do next.
‘Gannet, no! Drop it! Drop it, boy!’
Commander Jones hurried towards him, picking his way amongst the other jellyfish strewn across the sand like malignant ulcers. He arrived just as Gannet seized his tormentor between his teeth to begin shaking it and worrying it in his anger.
Then another yelp as the inside of his mouth was stung. He dropped the jellyfish, but immediately bit into it again, crunching it between his teeth. But as he did so, his hind leg encountered a second jellyfish behind him and the commander saw a long tentacle flickering out to sting him.
‘Gannet!’ he exclaimed anxiously, dropping his walking stick in order to be able to grasp the dog with both hands and lift him clear. ‘Drop that now!’
The body felt oddly limp and the heart beat was faint, yet still that mangled jellyfish dangled from his jaws. It took a moment to realise that his teeth no longer gripped it; in fact the dog seemed partly paralysed. The commander, grief-stricken, bent over him to take a closer look at his eyes.
It was a careless move. A tentacle shot out, stinging him painfully across the cheek. He grunted in surprise. Stupid move, he reprimanded himself, laying yourself open like that. He straightened up, his mind now alert. Around him the speckled pink-and-red jellyfish lay sparkling in the sunshine. Damned things have eyes, too, he thought as he became aware of that deep red spot in the centre of each one. Now he remembered. There had been some headline in the papers about jellyfish, not that he read newspapers, nothing in ’em.