At The Going Down of the Sun

Bernard Pearson

’Do you need a hand with that? said the old man in what appeared to be a moleskin waistcoat chewing on a badly stained clay pipe. ‘Them windlasses can be tricky things. Here you’m got to get it on flush, otherwise you’ll never get them old girls moving ’,

I looked down as the black water lapped stubbornly against closed loch gates.

‘Thanks,’ I said cursing under my breath at how useless I was when it came to anything mechanical.

Together we secured the windlass and as I turned it the gates began slowly to open

‘You’m getting the hang of it now boy.’ said the old man.

Finally the lock basin was almost full.

‘Thank you so much, I don’t know why this one was giving me so much trouble,’ I’ve managed all the others fine.’ A stupid comment , as he of all people would know how many locks were on this piece of the canal.

My elderly helper took off his well worn cap and mopped his brow.

‘Thanks again for all your help, I’m Rob by the way’

‘Oh is that right.’ He chuckled. The name’s Timmins, Ted they do call me.’

Just up ahead of us a mallard shot out from the canal bank as if from a gun.

‘Tell me does this part of the canal get much traffic.’

‘Not these days, not enough to keep me out of mischief you might say.’

‘Is that your cottage up there?’

I asked looking at the pretty snowcemmed house on the other side of the canal.’

‘That depends.them what lives there now wouldn’t thank you for saying so, Won’t have anything to do with me. Close the curtains as soon as they sees me No idea how lonely I get’

‘Oh I see, I didn’t wish to pry.’

’Oh don’t worry young sir I’d soon tells , if you’d been prying.

I felt a warm glow in side here was something at last that Colin ,my annoyingly practical companion on board our fifty two foot narrow boat 'Guinevere' couldn’t do.

‘So looks like I can’t tempt you with a cuppa then afore you go.’ said the man I supposed to be rightly or wrongly the loch keeper.

‘Pity, I don’t get much company these days.’ said the old man his eyes seemed to cloud over for a moment or two or was that just the smoke from his old pipe?

‘Now next lock you’m come to just remember you get that old windlass on nice and tight and you’m watch your fingers in them there old cogs.’

Slowly I watched as he turned and walked back over the bridge his legs bowed in architechetral symmetry with the ancient span of stonework.

.

The old man had stopped just to the side of the bridge and was knocking his pipe out against the stone work. Before replacing his cap and walking back towards the cottage.

For a late june afternoon the breeze felt unusually chilly and the light through the trees seemed to lose its strength as Guinevere chugged on her way.

‘Where the Hell have you been?, I’ve never known someone take so long to take a leak Come on we need to get to pub and I still can’t make head or tail of this map.’ said Colin

As we sat out in the garden of The Queens Head that evening supping our pint. Colin was doing that thing men do, looking over his glass, letching at every female that went past. He practically chocked on the froth from his beer when a particularly beautiful girl glided past in a halter top and sprayed on jeans.

‘A little out of your league old son.’ I said.

‘Well I might just have to promote her so we can play regularly.’ He retorted.

I was quite anxious we didn’t have too late a night. As I knew the way things usually worked, Colin would try out his cheesy technique on this poor girl who would politely but firmly knock him back. Then melancholia would overwhelm him and having been belittling me for most of the trip would put his arm round my shoulder and tell me I was his only friend in all the world and then proceed to get absolutely legless

’I’m only going to have a couple of pints tonight I said we’ve got to get the boat back down to the boatyard by 10.30 am tomorrow or we lose or deposit.

‘It’ll be fine don’t worry,’ said Colin doing some more snorkelling into his beer as a girl at l another table in a dress of such brevity it could have passed for a seventies style glam rock trouser belt looked unsmilingly into the middle distance.

‘As long as you don’t go on a walkabout like you did today.’ He stared at me intently and then burped loudly, the local ale must be stronger than I thought

As we made our way back to the canal after calling it a night, Colin disgruntled over another passionless evening started on at me again.

‘In the morning you just stay below and make breakfast. Think you can manage that?’

‘But what about the locks?’

‘What locks?’ Said Colin. ‘Have you been on some other planet? We’ve not been through any locks! I purposely chose this bit of canal to go up and down on, so there weren’t any because I know how useless you are.’

I’d stopped listening to his tirade Instead my eyes were drawn to the war memorial tucked on the side of the road in a place hardly worthy of the being called a Hamlet. There were three names on it all from the Great War. Major Peter Rhodes D.S.M. M.C. and two Private’s with just their dates; Jim Price 1896-1916 and under him, Edward Timmins. 1900 – 1917.