Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [0]
MARK MORRIS
Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd,
Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane
London W12 OTT
First published 1999
Copyright © Mark Morris 1999
The moral right of the author has been asserted Original series broadcast on the BBC
Format © BBC 1963
Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC
ISBN 0 563 55571 8
Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright © BBC 1999
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton Many thanks to Paul Tye for information about boats and David Howe for information about families.
This is for Kevin Mullins, a great friend who was there at the beginning and who has shared so much of the magic.
Part One
Seeing Stars
With a grinding of machinery and a clanking of chains the trawl was winched aboard. As the huge net broke the grey surface of the sea and rose into the air, it looked like a living thing itself. Beneath its thick mesh thousands of fish thrashed and writhed, their silver bodies flashing beneath the blazing summer sun. When the trawl was clear of the sea, Terry Robson operated the gantry arm and the net swung out over the deck, drooling water which splashed around the boots of the six-man crew.
The Papillon had been built in the thirties, a decade or so before Terry was born. It was rusted and patched up, its engine in need of constant attention, but Terry‟s old grandad still referred to it as „the new boat‟. The Robsons had been fishermen for generations, perhaps even centuries, but in recent years Terry‟s dad, Malcolm, skipper of the Papillon, had been muttering with no real humour about there being „a sea change‟ on the way.
The big factory trawlers, with crews of up to a hundred and no reason to come ashore except for the occasional repair, were putting sole traders like the Robsons out of business.
For the moment they were still making ends meet - just - but Terry was realistic enough to realise that it wouldn‟t be too long before they would have to diversify. Already many of their friends and neighbours were supplementing their income by taking groups of overfed businessmen for a day‟s sea fishing. If it hadn‟t been so depressing it would have been funny, making executive types pay for the privilege of freezing their nuts off and chucking their guts up all day.
As Joe Tye, Terry‟s cousin by marriage, released the cod end, sending fish cascading in a slithering heap across the deck, the gulls circling above the wheel house began to shriek with frantic hunger. Terry moved forward to help sort through the catch. A lot of the stuff that the trawl ensnared would have to be thrown back - crabs, eels, pregnant females, fish smaller than regulation size - but there looked to be enough viable fish here, cod and haddock, herring, whiting and plaice, to make this a good haul.
Joe‟s son, Barry, who at twenty was the youngest of the crew, and who wore his blond hair long like his pop-star heroes The Sweet, was bending towards the mass of fish slithering around his boots when suddenly he recoiled.
Terry‟s Uncle Pete, his dad‟s younger brother, glanced up.
Uncle Pete was a fearsome character, six-and-a-half feet tall, with a bushy black beard, piercing blue eyes, and hands like shovels. Barry was often the - mostly undeserving - butt of Pete‟s abrasive manner, which did little to sweeten the already volatile relationship between Pete and Joe. Terry didn‟t know why his dad‟s brother and his sister‟s husband disliked each other so much. Maybe it was just one of those things, or maybe there was some history between them. The fishing community at Tayborough Sands was tight-knit, contained within such a small, neat block of the tourist town that it could almost be termed an enclave. In such communities favours were always returned in kind, and often with interest, but by the same token no grievance was ever forgotten. Grudges were worn like insignia and even passed down through subsequent generations.
„Something frighten you, lad?‟ Pete growled. He had a knack of making every sentence he uttered sound