“Shrimp from he body make tasty meals”
The shrill call
‘Just before day- break a voice filled with panic pierced the peace and tranquility. ‘Wake up, get up, leh we go! Fisherman say pumpkin, plantains, banana – all ah wash up at the beach. A cargo boat sink. Come leh we go fo some freeness!

Ship Wreak
Almost all the peasants scrambled out of their beds and scantily clad ran down the brick road into the bush dam and to the sea wall.

A Rush
Yes, the entire beach was a market on display… fruits, vegetable and groceries, provisions all awash. Ripe for the picking…the pickers had a ‘hay’ day.

Agri Product free
One old man grabbed a huge bunch of plantain, unable to fetch it, He hand It out and threw the stalk away. He dragged himself home with his agri prize .

Glutton Folks
It was a steady stream of curious villagers going with huge bags and empty baskets and returning full load.
Me and a friend trekked to the seaside ‘give away’ by afternoon. My father detests seeing us following crowds especially for freeness.

Empty Beach
By then the beach was almost empty. Only the water-logged melons and eddoes rolled up and down with the tide. We scanned the horizon for a glimpse of the Il-fated vessel. No luck but what was visible was massive groyne. We imagined the impact and devastation of that ship ramming into the sold concrete at full throttle.

Fate of ship and crew
We wondered about the plight of the crew who could survive in that turbulent ocean in the dead of night.

Man sitting on a beach
As we left the remnants to the beach-combers we went in search of golden apples. And there and then, from a distance we saw a man sitting on the beach in some brush. We thought he had a nature call, so we left him alone. But passing back we found him still sitting. We called out to him to get up and go. No response. The tide was coming in strong. We went up to him.
We were horrified. He had no eyes and blisters were all over his almost naked body and a lot of dead shrimps were stuck on his skin. Scared to death we ran.

Crew Member
I told my dad. At first he didn’t believe me. I told him it could be a crew member from the sloop. He reported the matter to the police but when the cops arrived on the scene, the receding tide had taken the body away. The cops were angry with us. They felt we had told a lie.

Coming in from the dead
But a fisherman confirmed our disclosure. He had a basket full of shrimp which he had taken off the floating corpse. The tide did bring back the body to knee- deep water. The villagers bought every one of the scavengers. They were eager to put something in their pumpkin curry. If they only knew where the shrimp came from. That wicked fisherman divulged his distasteful deceit years later.

Picking up the corpse
Well the police loaded the drowned man on a dray cart still in a sitting position.
Apparently he jumped overboard in a crouching position and had a heart attack. He drowned in that position

The ship captain
Later we learned his name was Kitchener, the captain of the MV Sea-Horse, the ill-fated sloop. How sad.
I still remember the ‘man sitting on the beach’ – D E A D! 60 years ago.