By the Bay Read Online Free Page B

ill.
    When he was finished, he expressed his thanks with a nod and then watched while the man went back inside after wishing him well.
    He sighed. Not ghosts after all. Ghosts didn’t eat or drink. A man of his time, Philippe was willing enough to accept that he was dead and had stepped into a strange version of the afterlife, but he was still sensible enough to know that eating and drinking didn’t go on in either Heaven or hell.
    His clothing was stiff and encrusted with salt, the bottle green jacket faded with sun and salt, his hair dried into sprigs, his chin grown out with a stubbly bristle. Usually a man of orderly habits, he didn’t let these things bother him. They were simply more signs that, in spite of everything he’d been through, he was still mortal and in spite of being cast away to die, still walked the earth.
    When darkness fell, he went back to the spot on the bay where he’d first land ed . The night was warm enough and, having no other option, he meant to sleep in the sand. A man who had spent as many nights as he had sleeping on a tossing ship, would find such a bed acceptable enough. Disturbed by the strangeness all around him, he found he wanted to be near the cottage where the girl slept. He had an odd feeling that it was his task to oversee her, to guard her slumber , though he had no idea why he felt she was in danger.
    Sometimes in the middle of the night, he felt he simply must talk to her and went and knocked on her door. He heard her soft footsteps, then the voice calling from the other side of the locked door.
    She refused to come out, of course, no doubt thinking him a mad man. He went away, comforted by the sound of her voice. She was alive and unharmed. He could rest for a while now.
     
    Philippe had found himself in many strange ports since he’d been driven from his native land when hardly more than a boy and he’d always landed on his feet, managed to struggle on to survive. He would do it again.
    He strolled with apparent aimlessness through the little town where noisy, smelly vehicles were already moving through the streets and a few people walked purposefully along, appearing not to notice his presence.
    From a distance, he saw the girl—his girl—neatly dressed in a revealing dress that stopped short well above her ankles, get into one of those vehicles and drive off, her red hair a flame in the sun. Thin and pale, she hardly matched the standard of beauty of his world, but he still thought her quite lovely in the way of a delicate spring flower.
    His feeling of danger surrounding her had dissipated this morning and the only thing he feared as he watched her departure was that she would smash that strange self-propelled vehicle into a wall and injure herself.
    He noticed that her clothing was not unusual. Other women wore skirts as short or even shorter, their hair was loose in the sea breeze.
    Having learned long ago to quickly orient himself to a new setting, he found his way easily enough to the place where yesterday the kind-faced man had given him food. He was relieved when he saw the same man, a ruddy-faced individual in his later years, a little heavy, obviously not a man accustomed to physical activity. But though he did not appear to have ever sailed the seas as had most of the men with whom Philip p e had lived his adventurous life, he still struck Philippe as someone to like and maybe even trust.
    The man took another puff of his cigarette, watching him with bright, intelligent eyes, th a n nodded. “Hungry?” he asked.
    Of course he was. He hadn’t eaten since that plate of food yesterday. But it was the last thing he would admit. “Looking for work,” he said instead.
    The man nodded again. “What can you do?”
    “I will do anything that needs being done,” Philippe said politely . “I must have the employment.”
    The man regarded him thoughtfully, then took a final pull from his cigarette, dropped it and ground it out in the dirt. He stuck out his