Dream #147

It's the annual Fowey River paddle-board race. There is a fine calm sea. One man is way ahead of the others, who are mere specks on the horizon.

His board is fitted with out-rigger rowlocks, and he stands back to the prow, rowing powerfully with great long oars.

As he approaches the Harbour, he glances over his shoulder, and then alters his course, heading straight for the rocky spur under the castle walls.

Only a sailing dinghy, tacking in a light wind, would dare to approach so closely, but on the rock stands a man in military fatigues, wearing a cap and giving a Nazi salute.

At the last moment, when the board seems set to crash into the rock, the oarsman digs his port oar into the water, and as the board turns sharply away from danger, he bends down, raising the blade of the starboard oar high in the air.

It catches the saluting man on the side of his head, sending him flying into the sea.

As the oarsman resumes the race, the sound of Edward Elgar's 'Land of Hope and Glory' is drowned out by the roar of the cheering crowd on the cliff top, which wakes me up.