The Dam Buster
A series of interconnected short stories from my 2018 collection "Degrees of Separation"
The Dam Buster
(August 1952)
“Don’t do that.”
The boy looked up. Momentarily blinded by the sun, he lifted a damp sandy hand to his forehead to combat the glare. The girl was walking purposefully towards him. He had seen her there yesterday too, recognised her green swim suit. She was still a few yards away, so he ignored her and bent to his task once more.
“I said, don’t do that. You mustn’t.”
“Why not?” he asked, pulling another large stone from the pile he had collected and finding it a suitable home in the dam he was constructing.
“Just don’t,” she said.
He saw the blue of her plastic sandals arrive in his peripheral vision and stop just a couple of feet from him, the other side of a ribbon of water that was running across the sand towards the sea.
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t kick my dam. Please.”
The last word seemed to still the foot he felt certain was just about to fly into the wall he was building.
“Why not?” she asked. “What are you doing anyway?”
She crouched down, the light reflecting off her costume seeming to shade everything a lurid green.
“Building a dam,” he said, selecting another stone, studying it and then examining the wall to see where it might best fit.
“Why?”
“To stop the water, of course.”
She watched him ease the next stone into place, padding sand around it as if it were cement. It looked like a good wall.
“Why?”
He looked up. She was not looking at him now, intent on the water, watching it flow towards the wall then ripple and eddy as it found a way around.
“To stop it,” he repeated. “Then I’m going to dig out a big hole here” - he indicated a loose circle already marked out with a few shells - “and make a lake. Then I’ll have lots of water.”
“What do you want water for?” Her tone was dismissive. It irritated him. “And the sea’s only just there, stupid.”
The word irked him.
“Because the tide’s going out. And when it’s gone out it will be a long way away. And I want sand here for my sandcastles. See?”
Nearby there were two buckets - one with a crenelated base - and two shovels. The buckets were clean and dry. She could tell that they were new; her buckets didn’t look like that.
“Okay. I see,” she said.
She stood up and edged out of his sight. He looked up, not trusting her; expecting her to suddenly come running and jump into his dam. She had moved closer to the shallow cliff wall and the source for the stream. Absentmindedly, she pulled at a couple of stones from near where the water emerged. A small clutch of pebbles dropped to the shingle beneath.
From their separate vantage points they watched the water now weave a little differently, though it still hit the wall where he was building.
“It won’t work,” she said, definitively.
“Why not?”
He had placed his last free stone and was walking towards the base of the cliff to find some fresh ones. She picked one up from near her feet and handed it to him. He took it without a word. It was a good one, large, and with a nice shape; some jagged edges that would make it easy to bed into the sand.
“It just won’t,” she said, not prepared to elaborate.
He picked up two more large stones and headed back to his wall.
“What’s your name?” she asked, looking after him.
“Why?”
“Isn’t it nice to know people’s names?” She paused. “My name’s Penny. Penny Wilson. Actually it’s Penelope, but no-one calls me that because I hate it.” She paused again. “What’s yours?”
Her large stone fitted brilliantly at the edge of the wall. He cemented it in and watched the ripple and flow of the water change a little. He was grateful.
“Edward,” he said.
“Oh,” she sounded disappointed. “What do your friends call you?”
“What?”
“What do your friends call you?” She said a little louder, then picked up another stone and headed back towards him.
He glanced up. It was a really big one. If she wanted, she could have just dropped it right there and destroyed everything.
“Edward,” he said, his voice flat and even, holding out his hands for the stone she held.
She passed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said. He knew it was good to be polite, even to girls in bright green swimming costumes who scared you a little bit.
“Can I help?”
He placed it down in the sand next to him. It was a beauty; perfect to serve as the anchor the far end of the wall. That was two great stones she had brought him.
“Sure,” he said, trying to be a little more upbeat. “You want to dig?”
“Dig!” She sounded excited suddenly, as if he had entrusted her with a big responsibility.
“Where the shells are. That’s the edge of the lake. If you start digging the hole just at the end there, and I’ll start letting a little water through.”
“And then come towards the wall?”
“Here.” He stood up and drew a marker on both sides of the little stream about a foot from the dam wall. “If you dig all the way to there and I’ll finish the wall.”
“And then we’ll dig the rest out together?”
Edward made a sound that was supposed to indicate he was agreeing with her, but it was far from convincing. The subtlety was beyond Penny however, and she had already made for his bucket and spades.
“Can I use these?” she asked.
He nodded.
“But not the red one. The red one’s mine.”
For the next few minutes they worked in tandem. Having removed one small stone from the base at the centre of the wall to allow it to flow a little, Edward was now on a relay to the base of the small cliff to collect stones which he then used to strengthen his dam. Penny was digging out spadefuls of increasingly wet sand from the growing reservoir and setting these neatly aside in a pile beside her.
“We might be able to use this sand for building later,” she suggested.
Edward hadn’t considered the building part yet; he hadn’t said anything to her about building. But she was digging quickly and well, and the pool of water was expanding just as he had imagined it would.
“You’re a good digger,” he said.
“You’re a good builder.”
As the reservoir grew, so the pattern on the surface of the water changed. When the stream hit the sudden depth of the growing pool, rivulets that had once existed just disappeared, replaced by invisible eddies beneath the surface. At the face of the wall, frustrated by the small hole he had made for it so far, the breadth of water Edward had to keep back was gradually growing as it strove to find a way around the edges of the dam. He was still losing some, but he thought these were now smaller trickles. Maybe Penny had been right about it not working, but he felt he was losing much less than before, and the lake she was digging out was still growing.
He lifted the really big stone and stepped round to the far side, placing it down in the sand where he wanted the wall to end. That would be his limit. There was a gap of about a foot he still needed to fill. He stood up, ready to run back to the cliff to get some more large stones. Having reached his markers, Penny had stopped digging and had stood up too.
“More stones?” she asked. He nodded and they ran together to the base of the cliff.
“We need really good ones,” Edward said, resisting the temptation to pick up the first ones he saw. The girl had found some fine stones already and he wondered if this might be her special talent. He believed everyone had a special talent; that’s what his father had told him.
“Where are you from, Edward?”
“Winchester,” he said definitively, the way he always did when he was certain of something.
“Where’s that?”
“It’s where King Arthur’s Round Table is.”
“King Arthur,” she repeated. “That’s Lancelot too, isn’t it? And the sword in the stone?” She saw him nod. “Thought so. That’s a long way from here.”
“Hours.”
“Isn’t there a castle near here too? King Arthur’s castle?”
“Camelot.” His father had told him the story and said that Arthur’s castle was near where they were going on holiday. They hadn’t seen it yet, but Edward hoped they would, even if it was a ruin. But the car had been playing up and needed fixing again, which was why they had walked down to the beach three days in a row even if doing so was problematic with baby Ralph.
“I wish I was Arthur’s Queen,” she said, her voice suddenly sparkling.
Edward looked at her. She was about the same height as him, even though he knew she was a little older. In her arms she was cradling three very large stones. With the ones he had collected, that would be enough.
“She was called Guinevere,” he said. “She was very beautiful.” He wasn’t sure why he added that last part, so suddenly said “Come on; let’s finish the wall!” and ran away from her.
They piled their stones a safe distance from the edge of the wall and Edward set about bridging the remaining gap. Penny passed him the stones one at a time, fascinated to see the methodical way in which he worked. Soon the wall was complete; Edward then plunged his hands into the base of the pool now created in front of it and dragged handfuls of wet sand upwards to layer against the stone edifice as if it were some kind of render. Then he stood up and took a step back.
The wall was almost four feet wide and in places stood nearly six inches proud of the water’s surface. At either end, the escaping liquid had already worn out two shallow channels that weaved away from them, petering out some twelve feet further on as it was sucked into the drying sand. Immediately behind the centre of the wall the sand was darker where the water was running toward Penny’s lake. He knew he had succeeded in stopping the stream as well as he could. The reservoir seemed a little shallower than before, but it still looked good.
“Let’s finish the lake,” he said making a sudden dash for his red spade.
For a few minutes they both dug, deepening the reservoir and increasing the pile of damp sand away to the side. It was brief frenetic activity accompanied by laughter. At some imperceptible signal they stopped. Edward dropped his spade and then lay face down in the sand, getting his eye-line as close to the rim of the water as he could. It gave him a different perspective; it made him feel small, and the dam wall much larger.
“Shall we make sandcastles now?” Penny asked from over his shoulder.
“You can start,” he said, suddenly comfortable and absorbed.
“Can I use your buckets?”
“Yes.”
Edward focused on the surface of the water, watching the little ripples, evidence of current and direction of flow, trying to imagine what was going on within the water itself. He could see that the level of the pool was very gradually - almost imperceptibly - falling, and he tried to focus on the far edge of his lake to visually capture the receding water almost grain by grain. He knew he would need to release a little more water through the wall. Behind him came the sounds of shovelling followed by the tell-tale thump as the upturned bucket hit the sand, then the tapping of the spade on the its base.
He didn’t really like the seaside. He hated the sea, but the ice creams were good. He didn’t like crowds either, and soon became bored, uncomfortable. Building the dam had saved him today. Although he hadn’t told Penny, doing so had been his father’s idea. “Something to keep you busy” he had said. He knew it would appeal to him.
Kneeling back up, he turned. Penny had already built four individual sandcastles and was filling the bucket for a fifth. They were disconnected from each other and the angles between them were offset, which annoyed him. He would have sited them parallel to each other. It didn’t look like any kind of fortification he had ever seen or imagined, more like a village.
He had an idea.
“Why don’t we make a road between them? That might look good.”
Penny shook her head, not sure what he meant.
Edward picked up the spare spade and with the back of it began to flatten out the sand between her castles, taking care not to damage them. Once he had made roads between the first three she could see what he meant.
“That looks really good!” she said, approvingly. “We could make a whole city!”
“And have a road leading to the lake,” he suggested. “That’s where the people could get their water for drinking and cooking.”
Penny set to making more sandcastles with renewed vigour, taking the trouble to embellish them so that they looked like houses. As she built, Edward followed on, adding to the road network. From the little stream where he had started, their empire now spread out to encompass an impressive area. The sea was now a long way away, and most people had moved their things further down the beach to be closer to the water. Where they were was now relatively quiet.
“That’s impressive,” said a voice. They both looked up.
“Hello,” said Penny.
“Hello.” It was Edward’s father. Edward had paused briefly, recognising the voice, but had almost immediately returned to his civic duties. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Penny,” said the girl. “Who are you?”
“I’m Edward’s father,” he said, making a show of looking around of their efforts. “That’s pretty impressive. Great dam building, Edward.”
His son said nothing, concentrating on completing the last few inches of road to the reservoir. When he had done so, he stood up, spade in hand.
“We have to go,” the man said, “Mummy needs to get Ralph back to the cottage.” Edward didn’t move.
“Oh,” said the girl. She looked at Edward. “Will you be back tomorrow?”
“Don’t know,” he replied.
She waited a moment.
“Can I carry on building, Edward? If I get my own bucket and spade?”
Edward’s father had begun to move away, so the boy was obliged to follow after him.
“Yes, if you like.”
She immediately ran off across the sand to the windbreak behind which her own parents were sitting on their deckchairs reading. She paused to take a drink, then collected her bucket and spade and ran back towards their construction site.
She stopped a few feet short. The dam wall had been breached and three of her castles had been broken.
Edward was nowhere to be seen.
For links on where to buy Degrees of Separation, click here.