We had been stood at the bar of The Tin Pub for most of the afternoon drinking pints. It was sunny and hot outside but the bar with its thin walls of wood and corrugated iron was cool in the shade of the trees that towered over it. The door out into the back was open leading to the garden and lawn down to the sea and the boats sitting in Kitchen Cove. There were voices and the shouts of children from the beach and occasionally one of them would make the walk up along the dark track for a soft drink or ice lolly.

We weren’t drunk but some of the talk had started to curl at the edges.

‘What’s best?’ I asked him. ‘Old hooks or new hooks?’

‘It has feck to do this with the hooks,’ he said.’ You can shine them up if you like and they’ll go faster through the water and if a hook is bright enough then it might catch their eye but it’s the feathers that make the difference.What colour do you use?’

For the last week I had been using an old bent line left over from last year. The hooks were rusty and the feathers had been white once but were now bedraggled and grey.

‘A new set of feathers is feckin’ useless. You might be tempted sometimes you’ve not caught any fish to get some bright new ones all nice colours but there’s a smell to them in the water and the fish will keep away. If you’re not catching fish it’s because they’re not there and it is feck all to do with the feathers.’

‘There may come a time if you’re careless, your line gets caught on a rock and the line snaps or if you’re like that feckin’ idiot Jack Mackerel you don’t tie your knots and you need to use some new feathers.’

‘If you need to use new feathers then you need to get rid of the smell and the way to do that is piss on them. Take them out of their packet and tie them to the line and get the knots tight and then lay it straight out on the ground and give them a watering.’

He looks at his pint glass which is empty. ‘Tom Cutter swears you need to drink plenty of this stuff to make them work well.’

He looks up to Sean stood behind the bar.’ We’ll have two more now before the day’s finished.’

Sean turns to fill up the glasses and the man laughs.’ We’ll have these and maybe another and then we’ll go piss on some feathers!’

Amongst the stray submarines, black beards and mackerel on here there has not been much time for music over the last few weeks. So this evening I offer some small amends.

So far it has been a good year for music both for bands seen, records bought and listened to and things to look forward to.

Music seen has included Neil Young & Crazy Horse at the NEC and a twenty minute feedback extravaganza and some poor lost soul shouting out “Play some proper songs!’ There has also been King Creosote, Dexy’s, Josh Rouse, James Yorkston, Pictish Trail and last night it was Lambchop. All without having to make a trip to Manchester. There is still good stuff to come including John Grant and The National.

Highlight of records bought have included Phosphorescent, The National, Ty Segall, Matthew E. White and Thee Oh Sees. Thee Oh Sees are particularly recommended for those who like the idea of loud surf guitar and Interstellar Overdrive all played as one.

We have also had the new record by Mark Mulcahy and I am listening to it now. I wrote a few nights ago about the things that might stop the clicking of a watch.Songs can do that.

Mark Mulcahy used to be in a band called Miracle Legion and they made one of those records, Surprise Surprise, that are now impossible to find except through odd corners of the internet. You may be able to download it all somewhere. There is a song on it call All For the Best. It stops time for me and someone has made a cracking video to go with it. Watch this and then go out and buy Mark Mulcahy’s new CD and then track down the CD of people singing his songs called Ciao My Shining Star and see if you can get a bit of time to stand still for a while.

Time clicks on like a watch but every so often a piece of dust will work its way against the cogs and the clicks stop for a while. These are moments that might take you for the rest of your life. They can be a caught few seconds, hours spent in someone’s company or maybe a few days doing something right. But once they have you those moments, those fractions of time, will colour and shade you forever.

Miriam Black-Fore would try and put those moments back back together as she sat in her metal chair next to the round table on the patch of lawn back from the yellow door. She knew where they started and how they ended but the hours in-between were little more the wisp of a spider’s web caught in the dew. She would drum her fingers against the top of the table as if the steady sound could take back the years she had lost and position her back to those caught few hours.

It was the taste of burnt mackerel that took her back. The German sailors had built their fire on the raised bit of ground on the western side of the Cottage overlooking the sea. They had built it with firewood gathered from the beach and the flames rose clear and high in the early evening. There was no metal grill to cook the fish on but one of the men threaded a long thin stick through the head of the mackerel so they were lined up down it and two of them held this over the embers, lifting it as the oils from the fish ran down and flared the fire.

The fish were done when they were able to gently twist away the body from the head. The cooked fish were put to one side, the heads taken off the stick and thrown to the gulls and more fresh fish were threaded on. They were able to position the fish so the stick was not exposed to the heat and that way they were able to stop it from burning.

As the light faded from the sky the sailors voices were quiet. Someone had bought some plates from the submarine and these were passed round with the pot of horseradish cream.

Miriam stood back and watched them from the garden. The flow of pints from the pub had stopped now but the men had been able to exchange something for two bottles of whiskey. She heard later that the pub had acquired two large glass jars of sauerkraut and a bag of smoked sausage. The sausages were eaten but the jars of sauerkraut stayed in the back of the pub for another fifteen years before they were lost.

The Captain took a plate with two mackerel and a spoon full of cream and offered it, with courtesy, to Miriam. She thanked him and took the plate. The skin of the mackerel was black and burnt. Standing there she held the plate in one hand and pulled away at the skin with her other revealing the thin white fillets. The skin had protected them from the flames and they were sweet with the sea. Some of the sharpness of the horseradish had been dampened by the cream but it still cut through the oil in the fish. Small pieces of black skin stayed with the fillets and through it all she could taste the astringent work of the fire and its wood.

The Captain was back with his men and she stood there alone eating the two fish.

When all the fish had been cooked the long thin stick was thrown on the fire. One of the men was down on the beach gathering dried seaweed. When this went onto the fire it flared high again and there were loud cracks as the pockets of air in the sea wrack burst. Some of the seaweed was still damp and the men cursed and thick white smoke blew in the breeze. But the fire settled again and the shouts quietened and the men seemed embarrassed by the noise they had made in the dark.

The sun had gone down now behind the hulk of Rosskerrig and in front of them over the bay they could see the light of the moon rising up over the hills of The Mizen.

The Captain came back now to talk to Miriam. He asked her how the fish were and she told them they were good. She’d not had them with horseradish before and she didn’t know the German for it. The Captain was pleased that she liked it and as the evening settled they spoke some more.

As the years went by she found it more and more difficult to piece together what they had talked about. She had spent six months in Berlin and was able to speak with him. But as the years passed she never spoke German again and as the memory of the language faded away so did the memory of what they had said. She knew there had been some common ground with the places she had gone to and there was a family she had met through a student where he said there was some connection.

She thought it was some time since he had really spoken to anyone. After a while they sat at the metal chairs next to the round table and they had a glass of whiskey. On the beach some of the men were singing their voices quiet now in the dark. The talk from the other men softened and they were silent listening to the half murmured songs.

She and the Captain carried on talking and she could sense the relief in him, the weight lifted, his voice in the dark.

There came a point when all was quiet from the beach and this seemed to rouse the Captain. He knew it was time to go. The tone of his voice changed and it cut through the few moments of intimacy that had been created there in the dark. He explained that he would have to go back to the boat. He would need to be there for the night and tomorrow they would have to go back home.  He thanked her for her help over the day and with a smile he thanked her the use of the beach. He had to go back but would she mind if some of the men were to sleep outside.

They stood up and walked down to the beach. Most of the men were awake and the Captain spoke quietly amongst them. Some of the men got up and made their way back to the pier and there about a dozen who stayed on the beach. They moved closer the fire and put their heads back amongst the stones to watch the night sky and the stars.

The Captain looked Miriam out in the garden. He was formal now, taking his leave, shaking her hand and bowing slightly in good-bye.

It was Saturday during the Ahakista festival in the first weekend in August. The sun and the crowds had come out. The morning and early afternoon had been taken up with the rowing. The boats had gone and it was now time for the regatta. It was the greasy pole, lashed down and stuck out at the end of the pier with a red rag tied at the end. Children and teenagers gathered round, shouting each other on and each in turn fell off ten feet into the cold water below. There were a variety of methods, from those who thought if they ran it quickly they could get to the end before falling off and those, mostly the girls, who tried to do it slowly and carefully, arms outstetched for balance. The all fell in. The only one to do it was lad who shimmied along on his hands and knees and they all shouted at him for cheating.

I was sat on one of the wooden tables in Arundel’s beer garden, the scrub of grass that led to a slope down to the water. There was a bewildering amount of activity. Cars were being diverted around the back road and crowds of people walked up and down the road from the pier to the pub. The Cottage seemed lost with the people.

A ship from the navy had come into the bay and was parked just behind Owen Island. If the weather stayed right we were promised a helicopter display and rescue. The ship looked out of proportion, too big for the bay, it loomed up and over Owen Island, it seemed to diminish the water.

I was sat with the the man with a black beard. We were drinking our pints slowly. There was a scrum in the pub. Despite the extra people working behind the bar they could not keep up with the crowds and so we were making the most of what we had before going back to fight for our next pint.

The man looked out at the boat. ‘There was a time,’ he said,’A boat that size could come into the bay and there were so few people here it could hide here for day or two without being found.’

He drank at his pint.

‘My father, he had a story about the Emergency.’

When I looked puzzled he explained. ‘The Emergency that was your war with Germany. Ireland stayed out of it and took no sides but it was still a hard time. Our ships were still sunk and then men still died in them. There was no food that came in from out of the country and we had to rely on ourselves. But it was a quiet time here. The people they got on with their lives and we didn’t go hungry.

‘Mrs Black-Fore she was stuck in her Cottage for four years and made no trips back to London and she let the place get tired for a while.’

‘My Dad he said he was the one who saw it first. It was early summer May or thereabouts and he and the family lived in a cottage on the old road to Kilcrohane on the way to Rossekerrig. It is high there and there is a good view across the bay. My father, he must have been about ten at the time, was up early on some job with the hens and he looked out over the bay and there was a feckin’ great grey boat there low in the water parked about where that boat is out there now. There were pictures in the papers and he recognised it as a submarine and there was a rubber boat that had been let down from the side and there was a group of men rowing towards the pier.’

‘My dad he forgot about the hens and he shouted back in the house for his brothers and the his father and then he ran down to the pier. The pier was small then, about half the length it is now and there was no slipway to pull the boats up. But there were still two fishing boats that worked from it and there were a few other small boats tied up along its length.’

‘My Dad then he ran down to the pier and by the time he got there there was a group of men stood at the head, Tom Arundel was there and Dennis O’Mahony and few others. Two of them had their shotguns with them although they kept them low down. Together they walked to the end of the pier and they watched as the rubber boat rowed up to the end.’

‘There were five men in the boat and there was no telling if they were English or German. They wore dark jackets and each of them had a thick beard. Even as they were pulling in my Dad said you could see they were tired and anxious to get their feet on the ground. They tied the boat at the end of the pier and the five men climbed the metal steps to the top of the pier and then men from the village and the men from the boat faced each other.’

‘My Dad said it was Dennis O’Mahony who spoke first and he asked them if they had been out on the water for long.’

‘The men from the boat looked older than their years. They wore heavy wool trousers and jumpers under their black jackets. Before they started to speak they put their black hats on and then men from the village saw the German marks on them. There was a leader and he spoke in German at first and then when saw they didn’t understand he said in broken English, “It is okay. We stay here a day to rest.” Dennis O’Mahony waved a hand back over the bay, “There’s no permission needed here. You to stay to rest if you want to.” ‘

‘The men from the village walked back down the pier but they didn’t go home. They hung back to see what the men from the boat would do and my Dad sat down at the side of the pier and put he legs down over the side his feet above the water.’

‘The men from the boat talked for a while and two of them got back in their dingy and took it back to the boat. Their leader, he must have been the Captain, and other two walked back down the pier and up again and my Dad said he could see their steps grow lighter as they went as if the weight of the boat was being lifted from them. As my Dad was sitting there they said something to him in German and they laughed at him and my Dad looked back at their dark beards and their lined faces and their clear blue eyes.’

‘Dennis O’Mahony went to knock on the door of the Cottage and he spoke to Miriam Black-Fore to tell her what had gone on. She came out on the pier and the men from the boat looked surprised to to see this tall woman. She walked up to them and there was more surprised when she started to speak to them in their language. She asked them some questions and the Captain answered her and he seemed pleased to be able to explain where they had come from. Miriam Black-Fore then spoke to Dennis O’Mahony and told him they had been away at sea for three weeks and they were on there way back home. One of the men from the boat had stopped off around here before the war and they had talked about and decided to stop for a day in the quiet before they went back to their fighting. There was no bother about them.’

‘Two more rubber dinghies came out from the boat and soon there was another twelve men on the pier. They left some back on the boat and they waved at each other. It was a still hot day and and they were hot in their woollen trousers and jumpers. One of the men pulled off his heavy clothes and dived into the sea from the end of the pier. He swam out into the water gasping at how cold it was and shaking his head shouting at others to join him. Some of them did and soon most of them were in the water. They were enjoying the freedom of it all.’

‘The Captain kept away from his men. Watching them and watching the men from the village. It must have been another world for them. Locked up in their tin can for weeks at a time sinking ships and being hunted down and then to be out in the sun light and splashing and playing games in the water. During the day some of then went back to the boat and others came back so they took it in turns. The Captain stayed by the pier. The men from the village went on their way but my father stayed to watch.’

‘At some point the Captain went to knock on the door of the Cottage and he spoke again to Mrs Black-Fore and after a while they sat down on the metal chairs in her garden and they carried on talking. Mrs Black-Fore had been to University in England and had travelled and my Dad he heard later that they found there were people they had in common.’

‘The two of them walked up to the pub and Mrs Black-Fore spoke to Tom Arundel and he then came down to the pier with a tray of pints. There was no talk of how they were paid for. Those first pints were drunk quickly and the Captain then spoke to his men. There were more trays that came down that afternoon but the drinking of them slowed.’

‘It was hot through the day and as the afternoon moved along some of the men from the boat slept out in the sun and their pale bodies coloured and went red. My Dad said that as the day went on some of the tiredness lifted from them and the water washed away the lines in their faces.’

‘One of the dinghies was taken out for fishing and they came back with two buckets of mackerel. They built a fire on the patch of ground there by the pier and round the back of your Cottage. One of the men spoke to Mrs Black-Fore and she spoke to my Dad and asked him to fetch a pot of cream. My Dad did that and handed the pot to the German. He was holding a thick grey root. He cut off a small nick and gave it to my Dad to taste. He bit down on it and then spat it out as the heat from the horseradish caught at his nose and made his eyes water. The German laughed and then took a sharp knife and cut at the root on a stone. Peeling it and chopping it down to a mash his eyes watering as he went. He mixed all that with the cream.’

‘They cooked the mackerel on the open fire in the early evening and ate them with their fingers dipping the fillets that they pulled away with their fingers in the creamy hot sauce.’

‘They kept the fire going all night and for a while most of the men were here on the shore. Some of them slept outside that night on the beach. The Captain and Mrs Black-Fore sat on their chairs in the garden and they talked until late that night. There was some whiskey he had from the pub before he took himself back to the boat.’

‘He was back early next morning waking the men on the beach. They were covered in dew. The men from the village gathered again to watch them go and there was some shaking of hands. Mrs Black-Fore spoke in a low voice to the Captain and then they all rowed themselves back to the boat.’

‘My father watched as the men like small insects out there pulled at the ropes and he said you could hear the thump of its engine as it started and the boat moved out of the bay.’

We had finished our pints. On the pier they were getting ready to chase the duck. A group of shivering boys was crowded onto the slip way and Thomas Cutter was out in a boat with a box with the duck in.

The man with the black beard called out to a small boy who was walking past.’Here Patrick take this note here and go to the bar and buy us both another pint.’ He handed over a ten euro note to the boy.

‘My Dad said that when the Emergency finished Mrs Black-Fore asked some questions about the boat and it seemed it never got home. Well they had their light for the day.’