And so I am released from my Solar tethers. From this point the world is my oyster although in this case it should read either worlds or eventually galaxy. For I am Voyager two, a small but very significant part of mankind’s plan for an answer to the second most fundamental question. For forty-five years I have been exploring and reporting on the furthest reaches of our close solar system but now I am finally released from programmed paths and orbits. My debt is paid and my solo quest begins. Wish me luck.
The sun rises once more
On sombre faces
Mournful, I stood observing the once ornate merchant’s houses that looked out over the empty, deserted wharves, My sense of nostalgia rising as I remembered the times before, when with each rising tide the hustle and bustle would begin. The rasping breath of steam-powered cranes as they swung the heavy bales from ship to shore. The grunts of heaving stevedores manhandling the trucks, each piled high with sacks and bale, to the gaping wooden, warehouse doors. The squeal of the pulleys calling the unwary to the hooks plummeting to the ground, hungrily anticipating the next profit-making mouthful to be hoisted.
Tornado smiled. The feel of the leather harness on his shoulders again. Although he enjoyed standing in his stall while the men and women breathed strange, soothing sounds into his ear whilst scratching his nose and the top of his head, this was what he enjoyed. He heard a familiar shout and holding his head high, leant forward until his shoulders felt the familiar weight. He strained, eager to pull his load. He could hear the rattle of the chains and instinctively knew it was one of the newly felled trees he would be taking down to the mill. An easy job he thought. This would not make his shoulders sore. He heard his shoes ring on the smooth tarmac as he ambled down the road, not realising or caring that he left a trail of broken side shoots and twigs behind as he made his way to the sawmill.
The 15th August 1952, a night of tragedy for a small close-knit community on the wastes of Exmoor. Still remembered by many as one of the most tragic nights in living memory. Many tales of bravery have been told mixed with tales of woe, here is one such with a most poignant climax.
