Blown In By The Storm

The storm had brought a wrecked vessel to the shore, and Branwen must do what she could to help . . .

THE knocking was insistent. It reverberated through the cottage. “Branwen, come quick! And tell your mam to bring her bag. There’s been a wreck off Hen Bont beach and the sailors are swimming ashore.”

Sian Pritchard stood red-faced on the doorstep.

“One of the lads who works the fields on the headland ran all the way to the pub to tell us. I suppose the ship was headed for Tenby but was blown off course by the gale.

“I thought I’d fetch your mam in case some poor souls need tending to.”

Her mother was distilling herbal oils in her shed at the bottom of their garden. She looked up in surprise as Branwen burst through the slatted wooden door.

“Tell Sian I’ll be down directly,” she said. “And then come back and help me pack my bag.”

There was a calm about her mother’s movements that Branwen had seen before in such circumstances: a core stillness that seemed to spread out from within her like a soothing cloud, so that anyone she was called to immediately felt better just for her being there.

“Hot heads are no help to man nor beast,” Mam would say as she filled her old carpet bag with bottles of oils and creams.

With only the gentry able to afford a doctor’s fees, it was common for her mother to be called to assist the ordinary people of Hen Bont in times of sickness.

From childhood Branwen had become accustomed to the knock at their door. Growing up, she was proud her mother was a person so valued in the village.

“Aye, they like what we can do for them but they don’t understand us,” her mother said ruefully. “Not so many years ago they were burning us as witches.

“But Williams women have always been healers. It is our calling and it will be yours. The calm, too, will come when you see your life’s path clearly.”

Mam had begun to pass on her knowledge, but as the women hurried down to Hen Bont’s small beach, Branwen doubted she would ever master her mother’s serenity.

When they arrived, some of the sailors were already staggering ashore through the surf, groups of waiting villagers crowding round with brandy and blankets.

Beyond them to the Tenby side of the bay, Branwen could see the stricken vessel listing alarmingly against a rocky outcrop that guarded the cove.

“Olwenna – over here!” A man beckoned Branwen’s mother.

A sailor had collapsed in the surf. A party of men carried him up on to the beach as he cried out in agony. Once on wet sand, the poor man passed out.

“Looks like his shoulder’s out,” Olwenna said.

He was young, around Branwen’s own age. She took his hand as her mother began to examine his misshapen shoulder.

He had green eyes which were a striking contrast with his blond hair. As Branwen watched, she saw them struggle to focus and he began to speak. But he was incomprehensible.

“Mam, he’s talking gibberish.”

“Must be the shock.” Her mother didn’t remove her focus from his injury. “Get him to chew on some of this willow bark while I slot his shoulder back in – it will help with the pain.”

“Here.” Branwen stroked his cheek gently as she did with young children when she was trying to get them to open mouths for her mother’s medicines. “Take some of this, good sir, it will ease your suffering.”

She continued to speak soothingly. He gazed at her as if she were something unearthly and began to talk again in his strange tongue.

She took advantage of his open lips to feed him the willow bark. For long moments they gazed at each other as if bound by an invisible force.

“Ready?” Her mother braced the arm.

Branwen nodded and squeezed the other hand harder as he groaned aloud. His shoulder made a snapping sound.

“Stay with him, Branwen, while I tend to the others,” her

mother commanded. “The leg is beyond my skills: it is badly broken. We must send for Doctor Evans and see if he will treat the boy out of Christian charity.”

Branwen remained by the half-delirious sailor who held on to her hand and continued to murmur in the unfamiliar language.

“Excuse me, sir,” she called to a shaken but unharmed survivor. “In what tongue is he speaking? I cannot understand.”

“He’s a Frenchy, love – we have a few who work the route from Dublin to Cherbourg with us.”

“Do you know his name?” “Something foreign.” The man shook his head. “We just call him Pally – like Paddy, do you see?”

Branwen could not have said how long she remained by the semi-conscious young sailor, stroking and soothing, mesmerised by the beautiful green eyes.

Suddenly all was action as Dr Evans arrived and instructed men to help him with a stretcher. Till the last second the sailor called Pally held on to her hand.

“I’ll come and see you,” she called, feeling bereft as he was taken away.

“Come, Branwen,” her mother ordered. “They’re taking them to the church hall – we’re needed there.”

Pally was not in the church hall, nor did he appear there over the days that followed when Branwen accompanied her mother as she continued to care for the injured.

Unable to shake the memory of the young man and the moments they’d shared on the beach, Branwen tried to find out what had become of him.

“I heard he was given a bed in the pub after the medic had done.” The sailor she’d spoken with on the beach chuckled. “A fine billet, to be sure.”

Branwen’s heart was pounding so hard she thought her ribs might break. She had never before been inside a public house and knew it was no place for a respectable young woman from chapel.

Still, the desire to know the fate of the young sailor made her linger outside the Bridge Arms.

As she moved towards the door the landlady, Sian Pritchard, emerged.

“Hello, lass. I’m glad I’ve seen you. I wanted to thank you and your mam. It’s blessed we are to have two such healers amongst us.”

Such a welcome emboldened Branwen to make her enquiry.

“He’s coming on fine.” Sian Pritchard’s face creased into a smile. “I made up a bed in the back parlour – would you like to come and see him?”

“Er –” Branwen’s stomach fluttered.

“He’s been asking about someone as tended him on the beach. That you, is it?” Branwen’s eyes widened. “Come on in, lass. Schoolteacher is with him just now. She can speak his tongue, see. Makes him feel more at home.”

Branwen let out a breath. If Miss Hope found it acceptable to visit inside a public house, then surely it could do no harm.

He was sitting propped up, and the face Branwen remembered as so white looked sun-bronzed against Sian Pritchard’s pillows.

He smiled at the sight of her and turned to Miss Hope with a torrent of his own tongue.

“Ah, Branwen.” The schoolteacher smiled. “So it’s you he means? Pascal has been most anxious to see you again.” “Pascal?”

“His name, dear.” She nodded at him. “He has something particular he wants to say to you.”

Branwen saw him take a breath.

“Thank – you.” He smiled as if his cheeks would split. “Thank – you much.”

He turned again to the teacher and spoke.

“He says that when he was first washed up he thought he had died and you were an angel.” Pascal nodded rapidly. “Afterwards the pain took away all his English words.” “He speaks English?” “Yes.” Miss Hope frowned. “But it needs work. Perhaps you could help him? It would do him good to have the company of someone his own age.

“I hear the other sailors are going back to Ireland tomorrow but Pascal must stay here till his leg heals. You could help him with his English.”

“You will . . . come? Yes?” Pascal asked and something in Branwen’s heart melted away.

Mam was unsure, but since it was educational the preacher was able to allay any fears about propriety.

“Make sure it’s only about learning, mind,” she warned.

So it became a routine: when Branwen finished her chores she would sit in the pub’s back parlour with Pascal and teach him English. She even taught him some words of Welsh.

He was a quick student and soon they could have proper conversations. He told her of his home in Brittany and how from boyhood he had always loved the sea.

Branwen listened, corrected and taught vocabulary, and all the time felt like she was falling into the earnest green eyes.

Whenever she left, Pascal would take her hand and Branwen’s skin tingled with a delicious tension she’d never felt before.

“Dai Ellis asked if you were walking out with the Frenchman.” Olwenna continued to concentrate on decanting her herbal solution and didn’t look up.

“Ach, Mam, tell him to mind his business.”

“He’s a good man with a good trade. Like your father, God rest him. And you know he’s always carried a torch for you. You could do a lot worse.

“He has a fine cottage next to the forge and a good income. You don’t want to lose your chance with him for the sake of a fancy foreign sailor who’ll be away any day.”

Branwen’s pulse banged in a place behind her ear; panic surged. Of course Mam was right: Pascal must leave. But Hen Bont without him seemed unthinkable, and marriage . . .

“Is that what it’s about, Mam? A cottage and money? Is that why you married Daddy?”

“That is an unworthy comment.” Her mother’s eyes oozed sadness. “But I forgive you, though it tears my heart to see you like this.”

“Sorry, Mam. I didn’t mean . . .” Branwen forced a smile. “I shall stay single all my days and be Hen Bon’s healer – how’s that?”

“That, my child, is not the way it works.”

When she got to the pub Pascal wasn’t there. For a second her heart contracted, but then she saw him, walking carefully around the courtyard with a crutch.

“Pascal!” she called. “You’re walking – that’s wonderful!”

“Yes.” His expression was solemn. “But it means I must go home, to Brittany.”

It was like a lead weight falling on her chest.

“But . . .” Branwen found she was struggling for breath. “Your leg will take weeks to –”

“Non, ma petite. There is a ship in two days from Dublin. It unloads in Tenby and takes me home.”

Branwen’s mouth would make no words; there was a juddering in her chest and inside her brain a voice shrieked, “Not yet!”

“Unless . . .” Pascal sat heavily on an upturned barrel. “Unless I have a reason to stay.”

Deep brown eyes implored her.

“The company has need of seamen to work on the tug boats at Neyland. I could get work there, if –”

Again the eyes scanned her face.

“Do I, Branwen? Do I have a reason to stay?”

In that instant Branwen knew she had never been so sure of anything in her life. She felt a core stillness settle inside her.

“Oh, yes,” she said, taking both his hands in hers. “You definitely do have a reason to stay.” n