Body of Water

On Boxing Day 1962 a cold, gale-force easterly wind from Russia brought snow to South East England. By New Year’s Eve a blizzard crossed the country, temperatures dropped and snow drifted up to twenty feet high. Power lines were brought down under the weight of the snowfall and roads and railways stood still. Then, in January of 1963 as temperatures continued to plummet to below minus two centigrade, the unimaginable happened: the sea froze over. For nearly a week it was possible to walk a mile and a half across the ice, past the end of the pier, almost as far as what was known locally as the crannog. Ordinarily this small island couldn’t be reached, for its rocks extended far out into the water, lurking just beneath the surface ready to tear apart any vessel’s hull.

The currents around the formation were incredibly strong; several boats and souls had been lost in bad weather from the force of these undercurrents, as if the ocean itself had reached up with massive hands and pulled them under. The adverse weather had traversed these perils, so there was clear passage to this lure. Yet nobody would venture that close. There were reports the ice thinned out too much as it approached the crannog, and some said it stopped some yards short of the outcrop. Every young boy’s parents warned them of the danger and the consequences of attempting it, especially the discipline they’d receive if they were discovered, and none of the girls even considered this stunt. Almost none.

My Auntie Ira was what was referred to then as a tomboy; she enjoyed taking the boys on at their own games, on their terms. ‘I could run as fast, climb a tree as high, throw as far, and fight as well as them,’ she repeatedly impresses upon me. She wasn’t doing these things to be one of them, they were just what she enjoyed. ‘If I had known other girls who did the same I would have knocked about with them instead.’ So when one of the young lads challenged her to walk out as far as the island, she didn’t think twice about it. Everyone knew the stories about the currents and the dashing rocks and the monsters and all of that, but she just found it was something she wanted to do; especially as none of her companions were brave enough. Without another word, she started out onto the frozen brine, heading for the distant black isle. ‘I was nervous,’ she says, ‘but it was a rational fear. What would happen if I got out that far and a blizzard got up again? How would I find my way back?’

There was a strong head wind on the way out, which made progress hard going and it whipped up the snow, but it seemed the further out she got, the calmer the weather became, settling down to a mere breeze by the time she was halfway. ‘It was an unexplainable feeling, walking somewhere no one else has. I imagine it wasn’t too dissimilar to how certain astronauts would feel several years later, when they took their own small steps. I daresay however the moon’s surface didn’t seem to bob up and down a little when they trod on it.’ This is when she first realised the ice was getting thinner and there was still some way to go before she reached the crannog.

She was only fifty yards from the rocks when she noticed movement at her feet. Beneath the waning ice she could make out the sea and its remnants moving back and forth. ‘At once it made me feel quite nauseous to think there was only this thin crust between me and the deadly cold water below, but I was a headstrong child, determined to be the first and possibly only ever visitor to the crannog.’ Finally she reached the edge of the ice and the black rock was within inches of her frozen mittens, so slowly and carefully she stretched out her hand and touched the sacred stone. That’s when she first heard it. She wasn’t sure what it was to begin with, thinking it may have been the ice groaning under her weight, but she describes it as rhythmical. She ran her fingertips through the snow which had formed on the structure, finding a small piece of loose debris she could return with. ‘I knew the boys wouldn’t take my word I had made it all the way out, so here was my evidence.’ Again she heard the sound; this time it was closer and she could feel the vibrations from it, almost as if she was right on top of it. Instinctively, she looked down.

‘I could never be certain exactly what I saw. The water was murky and I was cold and tired, but I swear to you I saw the pale face of a man: large dark eyes looking up at me, his mouth frozen in an O shape.’

Of course she ran, heart pounding and hearing the ice splinter in her wake. ‘I ran as fast as my tired, half frozen legs would carry me; my breath burning in my lungs. I headed for shore and I didn’t stop running until I had reached home.’

The boys had long since deserted the beach by the time she had got there; half-scared she wasn’t coming back, half-scared they wouldn’t get home before teatime. She hardly noticed. When she did see them next and showed them the rock she had taken, they didn’t believe her. They said she’d found it on the beach in the summer and had probably been home before they were.

I asked her if she told them what she saw. ‘I thought better of telling anybody what I had seen out there, trapped under the ice. Those big, lifeless, black staring eyes, jaw fixed in a silent scream. Hammering against the frozen sea, trying to break through to reach me.’