Low Tide

With the tide out, the walk is merely difficult, not impossible, the sandy beach is well behind you, and the coast so far has been rugged. It is a fine, calm day, and a gentle swell breaks on the rocks. You have been walking for nearly an hour, expecting to be able to reach the next beach. There is always the possibility that you will reach an impassable cliff, and you will have to turn back. You haven’t asked anyone if the route is usable; finding out is part of the adventure.

Clambering over a particularly jagged outcrop, you turn into a cove, at the bottom of a narrow valley, with cliffs book-ending a small, sandy beach. You work your way along the rocks at the foot of the nearby cliff toward the sand. You are sure-footed, but you are getting tired from all the climbing up, down and around boulders, and the sand offers a welcome, if brief, respite.

At the far end of the beach is a short jetty, from which a narrow pathway leads up the valley. You are slightly jealous; whoever lives at the other end of that path effectively has their own private beach. With the tide most of the way out, the jetty is high and dry, the water some yards away from the outermost supports.

You continue along the waterline. The cliff at the far end of the beach lacks climbable rocks at its foot, and it looks like this might be a dead-end, unless the water is shallow enough to wade past the cliff to somewhere you can scramble on to the rocks further along. You walk past the bottom of the jetty, before stepping into the water, searching for a handhold that will get you up the rocks. Only a couple of yards from the beach, the gentle swell is lapping your thighs. Clearly, the water at the base of the cliffs is quite deep, and short of swimming the distance to the end of the cliff, there is no way to continue.

Dejected, you wade back up the beach. Perhaps if you take the path up the hill, you’ll be able to get to the road, or back down to the beach on the other side of the headland. There’s only one way to find out. You trudge back along the beach, passing under the end of jetty, intending to reach the track on the other side.

As you do, you spot something that makes you stop in your tracks.

Hanging from the back of the wooden post supporting the jetty, at about waist height, is a pair of handcuffs. A heavy steel staple captures the short chain between them. The staple is a little rusty, and the cuffs showing the first signs of corrosion, but they have not yet been damaged significantly. The cuffs close cleanly. Unobstructed, the arms swing through the ratchets and back around, ready to catch and hold their next victim. Pulling the other way, they hold firm.

You place your back against the post, looking out to sea. Wrapping your arms around the post, you clasp one wrist with the opposing hand. You feel the cuffs, hanging at exactly the right height to capture your wrists; you could easily fasten both. However, if you were so captured, you would not be able to sit or kneel; you’d be forced to remain standing, waiting for the tide.

As you imagine doing so, you notice that the post supporting the other corner of the jetty is painted with marks indicating tide heights and ranges You can’t help noticing that, in your position, the height of your head is about two thirds of the way between the neap and spring tide levels.

If you were foolish enough to capture your hands in the waiting bracelets, a neap tide would not cover you, although any significant swell probably would give you a regular dunking. On the other hand, a spring tide would surely drown you. In between, the waves would likely cover your head, leaving you to catch breaths during the troughs.

You imagine what it would be like to be trapped here, abandoned to the inexorable forces of nature. What kind of mind would place such restraints here? Restraints that could only be intended to place a fellow human being in mortal peril, should they find themselves so captured.

And as you stand there, fidgeting nervously with the cuffs, you find yourself wondering, to just what height will the tide rise?

 

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