Wreckers Must Breathe Read Online Free

it had done a week earlier. Rather, I hated it for its aloofness and felt that it had no right to be so serene and beautiful when all Europe was to be subjected to the torture of war. I found myself even longing for the appeasement of the previous September. But it was the cry of emotion rather than reason. I knew that it could not be this time. We were not simply tied to Poland by a treaty. We were faced with the forces of oppression and brute force and we had to tread them under-foot before they ran riot over all Europe and had outgrown the strength of democracy.
    I found myself suddenly looking down upon Cadgwith without any knowledge of the walk there. It was just the same as before, the boats drawn up on the beach, the gulls wheeling and screaming, the little white cottages and the smell of fish. That men were dying in a desperate fight for freedom against a mechanised army that had no thought but those instilled into its soldiers by a vast propaganda machine, left this little fishing village untouched. And the probability was that it never would be touched. I shrugged my shoulders. War or no war, there was no reason why I should not get an evening’s fishing. I went down into the village and found Big Logan operating the donkey engine that hauled the boats up. While the wire hawser was being hitched on to the next boat I had time to arrange for two hours’ fishing on the following day at six in the evening. I went to the pub where I heard that five destroyers had been seen going down the Channel. The rumour was that they were going to pick up the
Bremen
now two days out from New York after the hold-up by the American authorities. And I spoke to a man who said that the coastguard had seen a submarine about six miles off the coast moving westward. ‘That will be a bloody U-boat,’ my informant told me.
    Like all the other people still on holiday, I tried hard to treat the following day as a normal one. Only when actually in the water, however, did I forget the atmosphere of tension that gripped me. On the beach, I felt moody and depressed. I could not settle down to enjoy the sunshine and the temptation to go back to the cottage to listen to the news bulletins which were broadcast with disturbing frequency was too much for me. Automatically I listened to broadcast after broadcast that were no more than a repetition of the previous ones, in most cases not even worded differently. There was nothing new—no ultimatum, no outbreak of hostilities on the Western Front; only the rapid progress of German troops into Poland. By the time I left for Cadgwith I was heartily sick of the news.
    With a pair of lines over the side of the boat and the gentle chug-chug of the engine, I was at last able to forget that the country was living under the threat of war. And soon my whole mind was occupied with the task of landing mackerel. Big Logan stood facing me at the tiller, whistling softly through his teeth. He hardly spoke a word, except when I hauled a line in and he looked astern for the darting strip of silver that would tell him there was a mackerel on it.
    We went as far as Dinas Head. As we headed back the wind began to freshen from the sou’west and little scuds of cloud appeared, flying low across the sky. By seven-thirty the light was beginning to go. ‘Looks like a bad night,’ I said.
    â€˜Ar, it’s going to rain all right.’ He rolled himself a cigarette and put the boat in towards the cliffs. ‘We might have a try for pollock,’ he said.
    The sea was getting up and away on the starboard bow I could see the waves swirling white round a submerged rock. ‘You want to know this coast pretty well,’ I said.
    â€˜You’re right there. It’s a wicked bit of coast this—submerged rocks everywhere. And they’re not rounded like they are over to Land’s End, but all jagged. See the Gav Rocks over to Kennack here?’ He pointed across the bows to the