Remarkable Creatures. Tracy Chevalier
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made me uneasy, though I couldn’t say why.
“It be one of God’s creatures, of course,” Joe said.
“Sometimes I wonder …”
“Wonder what, ma’am?” I asked.
Miss Elizabeth looked at me and Joe and seemed to come to her senses, like she just realised it was us she was with. She shook her head. “Nothing. It is just an odd-looking crocodile.” She glanced at the skull once more before she left.
Twin brothers, Davy and Billy Day, come the next afternoon to dig. It was a shame the tide was lowest in the early afternoon, for it was a busier time upon the beach than the early morning or evening. We would rather have done the digging when no one was about, at least until we knew what we had, and had it secure.
The Days were quarrymen who built roads and did repairs on the Cobb. They had block-like chests and massive arms and short stocky legs, and they walked with their chests thrust forward and their arses pinched. They didn’t say much, nor show any surprise when they come to the crocodile staring at them from the cliff face with its saucer eye. They treated it as the work it was, for all the world like they were cutting a block of stone to be used as paving, or for a wall, and didn’t have a monster locked in it.
They ran their hands over the stone round the skull, feeling for natural fissures they could hammer wedges into. I kept quiet, for they had more experience than me with cutting rock. I would learn much from them over the years, once my hunting begun to include cutting large specimens from the cliff face or stone ledges that were uncovered at low tide. The Days were to cut many monsters for me when I couldn’t do it myself.
They took their time, despite the short afternoon light and the tide creeping up and them only given half a day off for the work. Before each blow, they studied the rock surface. Once deciding on where to place the iron wedge, they then talked about the angle and force needed before at last using the hammer. At times, each tap was delicate and seemed to have no effect on the rock. Then Billy or Davy – I could never tell which was which – used all his might to strike the blow that brought out another chunk of cliff.
As they worked, a crowd gathered, both people who had been out upon beach already and children who seemed to know we were there almost before we arrived – including Fanny Miller, who would not look at me, but hung back with her friends. It’s impossible to keep secrets in Lyme – the place is too small and the need for amusement too great. Even a freezing winter day won’t stop people coming out to watch something new. The children ran along the shore, skimming stones and scrabbling about in the mud and sand. Some of the grown ups searched for fossils, though few knew what they were doing. Others stood and chatted, and a few men gave advice to Davy and Billy about how to cut the rock. Not everyone remained the four hours it took to get the skull out, for once the sun went behind the cliffs it got even colder. But quite a number did stay.
In the crowd was Captain Cury, come up the beach from Charmouth. When the Days finally managed to prise loose the skull, in three sections – two of the snout and eye, one with part of the head behind the eye socket – and laid it out on a stretcher made from cloth hung between two poles, Captain Cury stood over it with the others and examined the monster. He was paying special attention to the jumble of verteberries at the back of the skull. Their presence hinted at a body that must have been left behind in the cliff. It was too dark now to see back into the hole where the skull had been. We would have to come back when it was light again to look for the body.
I hated Captain Cury being so nosy but didn’t dare be rude again, for he frightened me. “Don’t like him here,” I whispered to Miss Elizabeth. “Don’t trust him. Can’t you get the Days to bring it home now, ma’am?”
Billy and Davy were sitting on a rock, passing a jug and a loaf of bread between them. They looked as if they would not budge, though it was twilight, and frost was already covering the rocks and sand. “They deserve their rest,” Miss Elizabeth said. “The tide will move them along soon enough.”
At last the brothers wiped their mouths and stood. Once they’d picked up the stretcher, Captain Cury vanished into the gloom towards Charmouth. We headed in the opposite direction, back to Lyme, following the Days as if they were carrying a coffin to its grave. Indeed, we took the path that led into town through St Michael’s graveyard, and then down Butter Market to Cockmoile Square. Along the way people stopped to peer at the slabs of stone on the stretcher, and there were murmurs of “crocodile” all along the street.
The day after we got the skull out, I run back to Church Cliffs as soon as the tide let me, but Captain Cury had already got there. He was willing to wade through water and freeze his feet so he would be first. I couldn’t challenge him, for I was on my own – Joseph had been hired to do a day’s work at Lyme’s mill, where one of the workers had taken ill, and couldn’t give up the chance to earn us a day’s bread. I hid and watched Captain Cury poking into the great hole the skull had left in the cliff. Cursing him, I hoped a rock would fall from above and hit his head.
Then I had a wicked, wicked idea, and I’m ashamed to say I followed it. I never told anyone how bad I was that day. I run back along the beach, then climbed the path above Church Cliffs, creeping along it to where I was just above the crocodile hole. “God damn you, Captain Cury,” I whispered, and pushed a loose rock the size of my fist over the edge. I heard him give a shout, and smiled as I lay flat on the ground to be sure he wouldn’t see me. Though I did not mean to hurt him, I did want to scare him off.
He would be standing away from the cliff now, watching to see what more would come down. I chose a larger rock and shoved it over, along with a handful of dirt and pebbles to make it seem like an avalanche. This time I heard nothing, but kept low. If he knew what I was doing he would punish me, I was sure.
Then it occurred to me he might come looking. Though it was common for rocks to fall, Captain Cury was the suspicious sort. I crept back from the cliff and hurried back down the path. Just in time I darted behind a clump of tall grass as he come past with a face full of fury. Somehow he’d worked out the stones weren’t naturally falling. I hid till he was out of sight, then nipped down the path to the beach and run along the cliff to the crocodile hole. With luck I could have a quick look before he come back, just to see if we would need to get the Day brothers digging again.
In the clear daylight it was easier to see back into the hole Billy and Davy had made. The skull had come out at an angle, and the body, depending how long it was, could extend far into the stone. With a head four foot long it could easily be ten to fifteen feet into the cliff. I crawled into the space and felt near the spot where I remembered the skull’s verteberries ended. I touched a long ridge of knobbly rock and begun to scrape at it to get the dirt and clay off.
Then Captain Cury rushed up behind me in a rage. “You! Not surprised to find you here, you nasty little bitch.”
I shrieked and jumped out of the hole, then flattened myself against the cliff, terrified to be caught alone with him. “Get away from me – it’s my croc!” I cried.
Captain Cury grabbed my arm and twisted it behind me. He were strong for an old man. “Trying to kill me, was you, girl? I’ll teach you a lesson!” He reached behind him for his spade.
I never found out what he would have taught me, for at that moment the cliff come to my aid. In the years since I’ve many times felt it my enemy. That day, though, the cliff sent down a shower of rocks near by, some of them as large as those I’d rolled over, accompanied by a slide of pebbles. Captain Cury, who’d been about to hurt me, suddenly become my saviour, jerking me away from the cliff as a rock smashed down where I’d just been standing. “Quick!” he cried, and we clung onto each other as we stumbled towards the water to a safe distance. Then we looked back to see that the whole section of cliff I’d been standing on top of not long before had crumbled, turning from solid ground into a river of stones raining down. The roar of it was like the thunder I’d heard as a baby, but it lasted longer and rushed through me like darkness rather than the bright buzz of lightning. It took at least a minute for the rocks and scree to finish falling to the bottom of the cliff. Captain Cury and I remained frozen, watching and waiting.
When