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3
Foreshadowings
In this world's youth wise Nature did make haste,
Things ripen'd sooner, and did longer last.
John Donne
The Progress of the Soul
It began with a call from my friend Ritchie Tassell. 'There's something
I want you to see. How soon can you get here?'
'I'm on the beach. One hour?'
'That'll do.'
I threw my wetsuit into the car and set off around the estuary. If
Ritchie, who had seen almost everything, thought it was worth my
while, it would be.
In the marshes beside the track, the sedge warblers churred and
buzzed. Swallows dipped over the ditches and flickered above the
heads of the sheep. The scent of bog myrtle, which - honey and cam-
phor - put me in mind of the Victorians, rose on the still air. Ritchie
had lent me a pair of binoculars. We waited.
'There he is!'
At that distance, to my inexpert eye, it could have been a buzzard
or a black-backed gull. But as it flapped up the estuary, with a strangely
awkward beat, I noticed two things. First, that something was sway-
ing and planing beneath it. Secondly, that it was too dark for a gull,
too white for a buzzard. It took me a moment.
'Jesus H Christ on a bike!'
'That's what I said. More or less.'
'I can't quite believe what I'm seeing.'
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