There is, however, the River Berry. It is no longer an important river. It begins nowhere in particular, and meanders through mud flats and sandbanks to the inhospitable vastness of the North Sea. At Berrybridge, four miles from the river mouth, it is half a mile wide at high tide, and less than a quarter when the tide is low. On either bank, pale green fields and massed, deeper green trees sweep down to the water. The river gives the landscape a constantly changing fascination.
To those who love it best, Berrybridge Haven is probably at its most beautiful as Henry and Emmy first saw it, at half past nine on a summer night, when the last red-gold blaze of sunset is just disappearing behind the hills, and the moon is already up, touching the mud flats with a cold, silver gleam. On the black water, barely broken by the glittering ripples of the evening breeze, the boats ride in slender silhouette, their spindle masts scraping the sky. Nothing breaks the cold, damp stillness except the distant barking of a dog, or the sudden wave of warm, conversing voices as the bar door of The Berry Bush swings momentarily open, splashing orange lamplight onto the grey foreshore. This is the peace which justifies the clamour of a working week. The peace for which many Englishmen have been content to die.
“I hope,” said Alastair, “that Bob has tapped a new barrel of bitter. The last one was lousy.”
They all clambered stiffly out of the car, and walked over to the pub.
The Berry Bush is an ancient inn, frequented by mariners since the days when Berrybridge Haven was an important shipbuilding centre, and wooden-walled men-o’-war and merchant vessels stood on the slipways. Generations of shipwrights, bargees and fishermen have polished its black wooden benches with the seats of their trousers, and blackened its heavy beams with their pungent tobacco fumes. Today, only a handful of fishermen remain, and the big bar is monopolized by yachtsmen. The Berry Bush welcomes these newcomers kindly, and is glad of their custom: but always it dreams of a past which was more commercial, more real, rougher and more honest. Still, beer must be sold, and these Londoners aren’t bad chaps, taken by and large. Let them in. They pay, don’t they?
Henry and Emmy pushed their way into the crowded bar in the wake of Alastair and Rosemary, who seemed to know everybody, which made progress slow. Suddenly Henry felt vastly relieved to be wearing the uniform. Down here, anything other than jeans and a sweater would have seemed eccentric in the extreme. They installed themselves at a table in an inglenook, and Alastair took their orders for four pints of bitter. To ask for anything else would have smacked of heresy.
Almost at once, a very old man dressed entirely in nondescript navy blue made his way over to the table. His white hair made a brief appearance from beneath a venerable and oily yachting cap, which he touched perfunctorily as he approached. He came very close to Rosemary, drew himself up as if to deliver an important message, and said, “Ar.”
Rosemary beamed. “How are you, Herbert?” she said.
“Heard about your boat?” asked the newcomer in a thick Suffolk accent.
“No. What about it?”
“Sunk. Six foot under.” Herbert cackled thinly.
“I don’t believe you,” said Rosemary calmly.
“Hay?” said Herbert, putting a hand to his ear. Rosemary repeated her remark louder. Herbert chuckled.
“No more do I, but if she was, I’d know ’oo to blame.”
“These are our friends, Henry and Emmy Tibbett,” said Rosemary. “This is Herbert Hole. A very great friend of ours. He’s the Harbour Master.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Herbert, with a touch of gloom.
“What,” added Rosemary quietly, “are you drinking, Herbert?”
Herbert brightened visibly. “I’ll take a small gin, since you ask,” he said graciously.
“And a large gin for Herbert, darling,” said Rosemary to Alastair’s retreating back. Herbert sat down.
“I got the new mooring you was after,” he said confidentially. He dug Rosemary in the ribs with a skinny elbow. “Nice and snug she is now, just off the hard. Had to bale her out, of course.”
“Had she made a lot of water?” Rosemary asked solicitously.
“Not more ’un you’d expect. ’Bout enough to sink the Harwich ferry.” Herbert laughed again, with macabre glee.
“How’s Mrs. Hole?” said Rosemary.
Herbert became plunged in melancholy again. “Poorly,” he said. “Proper poorly. It’s her feet.” He nodded several times. “Still,” he added, more buoyantly, “mustn’t grumble, I suppose.” There was a short pause. “Sir Simon’s in again,” Herbert went on. He jerked his head significantly towards the bar. Henry saw an athletic, florid-faced man in his sixties talking to Alastair. “Took a glass of wine with him earlier on. There’s a gentleman for you,” said Herbert. After a moment he added cryptically, “I could tell you a thing or two.”
At that moment, Alastair arrived with the drinks, accompanied by an enormous young man in regulation sailing kit.
“Hamish,” said Alastair, “meet Henry and Emmy. Hamish Rawnsley,” he added, in explanation. “Friend of ours. Lives here, lucky sod. Has a four-tonner, name of Tideway.”
“All present an’ correct, Cap’n Benson,” said Herbert, raising his large gin and winking prodigiously.
“And the same to you, you old rogue,” said Alastair. “What have you been doing to Ariadne? Stopped that leak in the port-hand garboard yet?”
As the beer flowed freely, Rosemary, Alastair and Herbert became engrossed in a technical discussion in which the terms caulking, tingles and hanging knees were bandied shamelessly. Hamish lowered his well-distributed thirteen stone onto the bench beside Henry and said, “Got a boat down here?”
“No,” said Henry. “We’re sailing with Rosemary and Alastair on Ariadne. It’s our first time.”
Hamish looked at him with something like disbelief. Then he said, “I envy you.”
“I’m longing to see Ariadne,” said Emmy.
“I meant,” said Hamish solemnly, “I envy you because it’s your first sail. That’s something nobody can do twice.”
“We’ve had grave doubts about doing it once,” said Henry.
“Then you’re fools,” said Hamish shortly. “The only sport in the world,” he went on. “Sorts people out. Either they like it, or they don’t. If they don’t...” He broke off, and then added, “D’you enjoy this pub?”
“Enormously,” said Emmy with enthusiasm.
“Then you’ll enjoy sailing. Not,” said Hamish, “yachting. Don’t ever use that word with us. It’s dirty. Sailing. Boating. That’s what we do. Uncle Pete always used to say—did you know Uncle Pete?”
“No,” said Henry.
“Pity,” said Hamish. “One of the best. Terrible thing he should have died like that. Still, it was the way he would have wanted to go. With his boat.”
“Was he lost in a storm?” Henry asked tentatively.
Hamish looked surprised. “Good God, no,” he said. “Didn’t Alastair tell you? Oh, well, he will.”
Across the table, the technical talk had languished, and Herbert said to Hamish, “Got a buyer for the Blue Gull yet, then, Mr. Rawnsley?” There was a touch of malice in his voice.
“No,” said Hamish briefly.
“Ah, well, no point in rushing into a sale,” remarked Herbert. “Thank you, Cap’n Benson. Same again. No, as I was sayin’, best wait for the right buyer. After all, you’ve no lack of money now Mr. Pete’s gone, have you?” As an afterthought
he added, “Sir.”