Ahead of them, the sky was darkening over fairly calm waters. The boat had a faint smell of diesel fuel and fish. Andy reckoned that that they would arrive after midnight.
He sat in the back of the wheelhouse, feeling the vibration of the engine and the gentle chop striking the boat’s bow. Lejeune regularly checked the GPS receiver. The radio played on, with one rap song after another, interrupted by annoying commercials. The station ID declared that it was “Delta FM 100.7” from Boulogne. The two crewmen popped in for cups of coffee and to rip huge hunks of bread from baguettes. They hardly spoke a word. One of them spent most of his time below, tending the engine.
As they approached the British coastline, Andy was surprised to see one long stretch to the south of them that was completely blacked out. He pointed this out to the captain. “Wow! It’s just
Lejeune wagged his chin in disgust and muttered,
Laine cocked his head and queried: “
“My meaning, Monsieur Andy, was: ‘the end of the world as we’ve known it.’”
Andy retorted, “Oh. Yes, it does seem to be the end.”
The fishing boat quietly pulled up the slough into Rye harbor. It was nearly two a.m. when they pulled up to the dock. Since the water was almost dead calm, the captain didn’t bother to tie up the boat. The tide was high, so Andy was able to simply step off it right onto the dock. The two crewmen handed his bike and then the trailer down to Andy.
Andy handed Joseph Lejeune the twenty-franc coin and said,
Pocketing the coin and nodding, he replied,
The throaty growl of the engine increased in tempo as the boat reversed far enough to make a safe turn and head back out to the English Channel.
Laine pedaled down the deserted dock under the yellowish light of sodium vapor lamps. Turning onto Rye’s main street gave him a huge sense of relief. From here on, it was unlikely that he would be stopped and asked for identification.
Getting used to riding on the left side of the road was a quick transition, but it would have seemed more natural if there had been traffic on the road. Other than hearing some trucks in the distance, there was no evidence of vehicles moving. Andy didn’t have a map, and the night was overcast, so he couldn’t tell the direction he was heading. He just had the vague idea of turning right and heading up the coast. After leaving the town of Rye on Folkestone Road, Andy stopped and consulted his compass. He noted that he was headed northeast. That seemed correct and he knew that Folkestone was up the coast from Rye, so that seemed affirmative. He pressed on. The roadway was very quiet. Only two bakery trucks passed him in the first two hours of riding.
A half hour after dawn, Andy passed through the village of Brenzett, and he saw an elderly man with a walking stick who was walking his terrier on a leash. Andy stopped his bike and asked, “I’m sorry, but I’m without a map. Will this road take me up to the White Cliffs of Dover?”
The dog started yapping, and the man hissed, “Hush, you!” Then he looked up and answered Laine, “Yes, indeed it will, but you have to make a few turns to get to Dover. Come with me and I’ll fetch you a map.” Turning on his heel, the man said, “That’s me house, just three down.” Andy dismounted and walked his bike across the street. He walked alongside the man and the dog, talking as they walked. Andy said, “I appreciate your help, sir.”
“Don’t you mention it,” the old man answered. He noticed the man had a bit of a wheeze to his breathing as he walked.
The man turned in a gate, and said over his shoulder: “Wait here, young Yank!” He emerged a minute later carrying a Kent Coastal Cities Ordnance Survey map. “This will show all the smallish roads you’ll need to get to Dover on a bike. You can keep that map-I have a newer one. Safe home!” Andy thanked him and the old man soon popped back in his door. Setting the kickstand, Andy spent a few minutes consulting the map, picking out the roads that would get him to a succession of harbors as he made his way up the coast.
That afternoon, he passed through Folkestone. As the terminus city for the Chunnel, Folkestone had some rough characters, who eyed his bike and trailer with hungry eyes. Andy gave them stern looks in response. To one ruffian who started walking toward him, he shouted “Back off!”
Once he got away from the city on the New Dover Road, Andy felt the most at ease since he had left Vilseck. The economy was a wreck, and there were very few cars and trucks on the road. But at least here he found more shops open than in France, and some friendly faces.
Bicycling through England in the winter wasn’t much different than on the Continent. The weather was just as bad, but at least language wasn’t a barrier, and he encountered more hospitality. His first night in England was outside the town of Church Hougham. Just as he was looking for a secluded copse of woods, he was flagged down by a middle-aged man carrying an umbrella. As soon as the man heard Andy’s accent and learned that he was a stranded American, he often offered him a place to stay for the night. Sleeping in the man’s barn was much preferable to sleeping in the woods in his bivy bag.
One downside was that Andy felt even more self-conscious carrying a pistol in England than he had in France. He decided that he would draw it only in the most dire circumstances. If he was ever arrested, he would undoubtedly be searched. His SIG pistol would land him in a world of hurt. The last place he wanted to end up was in Wormwood Scrubs Prison just as the world was falling apart.
As he was bicycling toward the city of Dover, Laine stopped to repair a flat tire. Just as he was finishing pumping up the tire with the replacement inner tube, a policeman pulled over to observe him. Andy nodded and waved. The policeman, dressed in a black raincoat that was half covered with optic yellow safety patches, strolled over to Laine. Andy clipped the pump back onto the bike’s frame and reattached the trailer. “What do you have in that trailer?” the policeman asked.
It was again Andy’s American accent that quickly changed the situation from a suspicious encounter into a friendly chat. The policeman, who appeared to be in his early thirties, had an acne-scarred face and was tall enough to look Andy eye to eye. Laine introduced himself and gave a one-minute summary of his trip from Germany. His only omission in the story was of the French fishing boat. By that omission and his mention of “arriving in Folkestone,” the policeman assumed that Laine had come by train through the Chunnel. “So you’re all on your lonesome, and you want to pedal up the coast, looking for a ship?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, sir, that’s a very dangerous thing to do at the present time. It’s a good thing that you didn’t get merked right there in Folkestone. There’s a bad lot down there. Yobs, they are. And there’s more of the same in parts of Dover as well. Mind you: Don’t go near the Dover docks. You’ll find no yachtsmen there, just Barney- nothing but trouble.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen their kind before. I had to stare down a couple of them.” After a beat he added, “You know, just coming off active duty, I feel a bit naked, traveling by myself, unarmed.”
“Can’t blame you.” The policemen hesitated and then said, “My name is Michael Lyon. I think you need my help.”
Lyon’s palm brushed the top of his baton, and he gazed at it. He continued in a matter-of-fact voice, “Let me explain the legalities, Captain Laine: You carry one of these, it’s an offense. You carry a knife, it’s an offense. You carry a cricket bat, it’s an offense. You carry pepper spray, it’s an offense…”
“So what am I supposed to stop the bad guys with? Harsh language?”
Lyon laughed. “Well, it’s fortunate that you’re a bicyclist and not just afoot. That gives you a bit of leeway. You see, here in the U.K., on a bike you can legally carry ‘safety equipment,’ and that includes flashlights… and the law doesn’t specify what
Andy smiled and asked, “What do you recommend?”
Lyon glanced around nervously and said: “Hang on a sec, Yank. I’ve got something in the boot.” He stepped over to his police car and opened its trunk. Unzipping a duffel bag, he pulled out a six-cell Maglite flashlight. It looked like the other turned-aluminum police flashlights Andy had seen before, but slimmer. Then he realized that it held C-cells instead of D-cell-size batteries.
