THE FERRYMAN

En route to Skegness they must cross the river Trent...

THE COACHMAN'S HOLIDAY - 3

THE FERRYMAN

There was the subtle sound of snoring from the passengers on the Skegness coach as it rattled along the unkempt roads of days long past, avoiding pot-holes whenever possible and crashing into them when it wasn’t. Progress was slow and frustrating for David Wasp, the driver and guide to his passengers, but as their half-way point drew ever nearer and the sun shone down on the rutted road he decided the time had come to make an announcement.

“It’s been a long day,” he called down, hoping the snoring would stop and ears would open. “we’ll be taking the ferry soon, and then it’ll be a short ride to Brumpton where we are due to spend a wonderful night at the King’s Garter, an ancient hostelry and Inn where it’s rumoured Henry the Eighth’s seventh wife stayed for one glorious night of passion with the Archbishop of Canterbury before having her head lopped off.”

“Henry the Eight only had six wives,” shouted up Harry, the wiry individual who had almost survived the soporific effect of all the coach’s jolting and jumping.

“I wasn’t around back then, so I don’t know from personal experience,” replied Driver Wasp, “but when I checked my facts I read that he had sixteen wives in total, many of them losing their heads to the axe after so short a marriage to him that their existence was never recorded. The Seventh was known as Mo Bishops-tart, which might explain everything or nothing.”

“Where did you read it?” demanded Harry, “and how come you can read when many of your betters can’t?”

“I’m an educated man!” rapped David Wasp, “I went to a pauper’s school and learned my letters under the loving tutelage of a goodly reverend’s whip! And being literate I read it on a poster outside Swanspottle Jail whilst I was waiting for Bo the Clown to be released. He was in for a six month stretch whilst a surgeon adjusted the frontal lobe of his brain as a cure for his madness, and I was in charge of his transport home.”

“Posters never tell anything but lies, exactly like Bo the Clown,” sniggered Harry.

“Believe what you like,” retorted the driver, who had huge faith in his fellow man and liked to believe what all and sundry both said and wrote. “Anyway, here we are at the ferry,” he added, changing the subject necessarily.

In those wild days there were two ways of crossing the River Trent: either by bridge, which meant an impossibly circuitous route that would have added half a day to their schedule, or by raft, or as its owner called it, ferry, which was operated by the local madman and which cost almost nothing in either time or money. So the ferry (or raft) it was going to be. Driver Dave Wasp had a keen understanding of economics.

He pulled up by a small booth that had been constructed in the middle of the unkempt road and in which a toothless crone sat plaiting her beard and drinking gin.

“To the other side, crone,” he barked, “on the first available ferry.”

“Well, Mr Wasp,” she cooed, “so you’re back here again! Want our services, eh? Well, old Dan’s waiting for you and it’ll cost you three farthings to get to the other side of the raging torrent we call the Trent.”

“So you’ve put your prices up, then?” he asked.

“Had to. Most people choose to go by bridge, and bread and gin cost cruelly,” she spat at him.

“If I decided to go by bridge instead it wouldn’t cost anywhere near three farthings,” he told her, “I’ll have to rethink my schedules in future if costs are going to rise like this!”

She spluttered and shook her plaited beard at him. “Call it a single farthing this time, and we’ll be the losers,” grimaced the crone. “But things can’t go on as they were. There’s rumour of war again, and you know what that means to poor souls like old Dan and me. Taxes, that’s what it means. Taxes.”

Dave grinned, and passed over the required farthing. “I’ll be back then,” he promised her, “with my farthing,” he added.

“You’d see a crone die of thirst,” grumbled the woman, swigging the last of her gin and hiccuping.

“Better than dying of alcoholic poisoning,” Driver Dave assured her, and urged his six proud stallions towards a rickety wooden raft that bobbed against the bank of the river as it washed past it.

“Whoa there!” wheezed the ferryman, a geriatric piece of human garbage called Dan, barely capable of holding the wooden pole he used to guide his raft across the waters.

After considerable assistance from a kindly driver Dave and the odd sweetmeat as a tempter, the horses were encouraged onto the raft, pulling the coach behind them. Then the ferryman tucked into a heart meal of steaming pottage whilst the passengers waited, puzzled.

“What’s he doing?” asked Tom, one of the overweight sons of Annie Anon, which was still sitting on top with the driver, sweating and cursing because the sinking sun was getting into her eyes whenever she opened them.

“He’s building up some wind. You’ll see,” replied Dave.

“Why does he need wind?” asked Dick, joining his brother in the window. “We want a smooth crossing,” he added

“To speed across the surging stream,” replied David, and “you’ll see,” he added again.

His meal over, the ferryman took his place at the front of his makeshift raft and held up one moistened finger.

“The breeze’s just right,” he informed his passengers, “so we can set off. But first, a warning. Water’s wet and if you fall in it you might drown, and if this raft of mine gets overloaded then it might sink, and you might drown, and if a savage crocodile from the great Eastern Nile comes this way it might tip into this raft of mine, and you might drown. Everyone got that?”

There was silence. They understood, but didn’t like the idea of drowning.

“So off we go!” he exclaimed, “the breeze is just about right and all we’ve got to do is add to it and we’ll be across quick as anything, and most likely quicker than lightning.”

“You’ll see why he ate all that pottage,” grinned Dave to his passengers.

The ferryman then proceeded to adopt a heroic posture, legs firmly and unnaturally apart and facing up the stream.

“What a man,” sighed Annie Anon, “what a vision of angelic delight! What magnificent legs! And what a stance!”

“Wait for it,” whispered Dave.

“Here we go!” gasped the ferryman, leaning forwards slightly.

And he farted.

The rip-roaring sound of gases from deep within him exploded onto the world with a rasp of titanic proportions, and the fart went on and on. The raft juddered at first and then gained momentum as the blast of pure noxious gases drove it on, urging it against the flow of the river and filling the air with an unbelievable sourness.

“There were beans in that there pottage,” gasped Dave, “but a word of warning: try not to breathe it in. It’s plain nasty.”

The ferryman sunk to his knees as his fart came to an inevitable ending. And as he collapsed he glanced towards the coach and sighed.

There was pride in his eyes, the deep pride of a man who knows what he must do, and has done it.

TO BE CONTINUED...

© Peter Rogerson 25.05.18