Dr. Gronk Goes to the Beach

"The water’s simply marvelous, Dr. Gronk! Come on in! It’s perfectly safe!”

Despite the gentle assurances of Miss Lucas, Dr. Gronk had remained on the beach.

They were here in the quaint seaside village of Quardnay for a medical conference, and Gronk had done nothing but work the whole time. Now that it was the week-end, Miss Lucas had been determined to show the good doctor a good time. But despite all her efforts, he had utterly refused to join her in the surf.

Miss Lucas had considered this problem from all angles. But any and all of the stratagem she had developed and deployed had been keenly parried by the Doctor. Standing amidst the waves, her mind churned, looking backwards and forwards, up and down, for a solution. Eyes narrowed, she put her hand under her chin and thought on. Hmm…

For his part, Dr. Gronk was perfectly content on the beach, and was not at all tempted, neither by sky nor surf.

Instead, he had set up camp some hundred feet distant from the water’s edge, seated quite comfortably and securely on a lounge-chair of his own contrivance: a large rock that he had dragged from the breakwater and across the beach, zig-zagging through a veritable minefield of bathers, leaving behind a foot-deep furrow in the sand that marked his path.

As he had passed one couple, a mustachioed Major and his wife, the Major had exclaimed, “My God, look at that! That’s Dr. Gronk!”

“Who’s that?” his wife had asked.

“Why, only the foremost medical practitioner in London!” the Major had explained. “Will you look at him!” After Gronk had passed, the Major stood up, watching after him. “My God, if there was ever a shining example of the British spirit!” Sitting back down, he remarked, “If only we had more of that kind of determination in our battalion! I tell you, that Dr. Gronk is a credit to the Empire!”

“What’s he wearing?” his wife had asked.

“Hm? Oh, those are his leopard skins. Something he picked up on the Savile Row, no doubt. London has the best tailors in the world, I should say.”

“Lovely print.”

Now, having maneuvered the stone to a vacant spot on the beach, alongside Miss Lucas’s own more conventional wood-and-fabric lounge, Dr. Gronk was content to enjoy the stone’s familiar cool solidity. The water, for him, held no appeal. What good, after all, could come from entering that turbulent gray and white, seafoam-embroidered deathtrap? Dr. Gronk consulted the sky. It also was gray and interwoven with ominous foreboding. No, the sea was only trouble.

“Gronk stay here,” he informed Miss Lucas.

Miss Lucas pursed her lips. Think, think, she thought. What to do? What to do? Kidnap the doctor bodily, drag him into the sea! No, wouldn’t do. Get a bucket, sneak up on the Doctor and douse him, to show him the refreshing and revitalizing quality of ocean water. Perhaps.

Thinking on, she adjusted her swim cap and turned and dove back into the sea, coming up in a graceful backstroke. She proceeded to ply up and down the shoreline, as graceful as a mermaid or perhaps a bottle-nosed dolphin, all the while her mind casting about internally for an answer, like a swift, unusually animated lighthouse in a dark and never-ending fog.

On the beach, Gronk watched Miss Lucas swim up and down the coast. “Miss Lucas float well,” he thought to himself. “Just like duck.” Maybe even better than duck. But still, it was better to be on land, which was really just one enormous rock, and therefore quite secure. Gronk looked further down the beach, away from the town, towards where the great white, chalky cliffs rose up in the distance. Incredible. “Very big stones,” Gronk said with admiration. Perhaps he might take a closer look?

Rising from his boulder lounge-chair, Gronk proceeded down the beach, his club dragging in the sand behind him. He was casting a backward glance at Miss Lucas, to assure himself of her continued existence on top of the water, when he bumped into another beach-goer, sending them both tumbling into the sand.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon!” the person he had run into said. “How clumsy of me.” Gronk rose dumbly into a sitting position, his leopard skin askew, and was about to apologize when he was struck by the man’s exceedingly odd outfit.

The man’s clothes, seemingly, consisted for the most part of a tremendously long pair of rubber shoes that went up past his waist and were fastened about over his shoulders. And, under the long shoes, were not socks as one might expect, but a shirt. Aside from the long shoes and the shirt-not-socks, Gronk also suspected that the man had completed his outfit with the hat that was now some hundred-yards distant, twisting in the sea breeze.

The man wearing the long shoes, seemingly unaware of his missing hat, scrambled himself up onto all fours and began crawling around, patting the surface of the sand. After a moment, he uttered a cry of relief and placed a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles on the bridge of his nose. “I do beg your pardon. I am so clumsy sometimes and I...my word, are you Dr. Gronk?”

“Hello,” Gronk said, waving.

The gentleman lifted himself to his feet and, reaching down, pulled Gronk to his feet as well. “It is quite an honor!” he said, as he began brushing the sand from Gronk’s leopard skin. “As well as a surprise, meeting you in a place like this. What brings you to Quardnay, Dr. Gronk?”

Gronk began searching for the words to explain, but the man interrupted him, “Oh, HA HA! I expect it is too technical to put in layman’s terms in any case. Undoubtedly performing more medical miracles. Well, it has been a sincere pleasure, and I do hope our paths will cross again in the future.” The man stuck out his hand and they shook. Then the man made ready to depart. He had only one more belonging to retrieve from the sand, and this caught Gronk’s attention right away. It was a long stick. Attached to the stick was a silken thread. And at the other end was a circle of metal.

“What that?” Gronk asked, pointing.

“Oh, this!” The man reached down and gathered the stick lovingly into his hands. “I’m glad you noticed. It’s the latest design. Would you care for a cast?”

Gronk looked himself over, but all four limbs seemed to be whole and unbroken.

“Oh, HA HA, very funny Doctor,” the man said. “Come.” Stick in hand, the man began trotting back down to the sea. With a little reluctance, but overcome by curiosity, Gronk followed. When they were a little ways from where the small, ground-down expanse of powdery rocks met the twisting, churning pool of liquid death, the man inexplicably lofted the stick high into the air, as if to throw it, but then at the climax of his movement, he improbably held on to the stick.

Gronk gestured, trying to point out the man’s mistake. He must let go of the stick if he wanted to throw it. The man nodded his head, “Yes, I know, the old boy’s form’s not what it used to be. Well, what can I say, Doctor? You know better than anyone, ravages of time and what not.” Then the man simply stood there, unthrown stick in his hand, looking stupidly at the sea.

Gronk’s attention was just beginning to divert back to the big chalky cliffs further up the beach when the man uttered a cry. “Blimey! I got one. And mark my word, it’s a whopper!”

Then, incredibly, to Gronk’s utter amazement, the stick suddenly and violently bent, by itself, into a half circle. Gronk’s eyes grew wide. Magic stick, he thought to himself. He looked down at his club and wondered if it was capable of similar gymnastics. If so, they were hitherto unknown to him. Perhaps his relationship with his club was not as sophisticated as he had supposed.

“Ooooohhh, catch of the day, I should think!” The stick shook in the man’s hands, as if trying to free itself from his grasp, and Gronk began to weigh to which party he owed a higher allegiance: the stick or the man? But before he could decide, the man began furiously

pawing at the hunk of metal at the base of the stick, then bending over, pulling back and pawing some more. He repeated this process several times. “There we are!” the man said. “There we are. Look out, there, Doctor, I’ve got him on the ropes! Blimey!”

Then the stick suddenly unbent and, still pawing furiously at the metal hunk, the man began to jog down to the edge of the water. Gronk ambled along behind him, curious. When he caught up to the man he saw that there, lying in wait for them both, was a large, flat fish. The man lifted the fish up, suspending it in mid-air for display. “Bob’s your uncle!” he exclaimed proudly.

So this whole business with the stick had somehow conjured up food, Gronk concluded. He looked from the fish to the man, and back to the fish. The man, sensing his interest, extended the stick toward him. “Fancy giving it a go yourself, Doctor? It would be my honor.”

Gronk evaluated this offer. But then he looked down at his club. He had his own stick after all. Experimenting, he turned towards the sea and lifted his club up, aping the man’s earlier ritual display.

“Oh, HA HA! Doctor, I must say, you do have a capital sense of humor! HA HA!”

Gronk was taken aback. He let the club back down. Evidently, he had no grasp of the fish-producing dance. But then his grip tightened around the club and he decided to throw down the gauntlet.

His own stick, his old trusty, powerful club, was as good as any, especially as compared to this man’s willowy twig. And if the twig could make fish appear, the club certainly could as well. Gronk did not know what kind of relationship the twig had cultivated with the fish to induce it to exit its home in the sea and journey onto the land, but he did understand well the relationship his own wooden implement had with the animal kingdom. So, determined to demonstrate to the man his own superior skill as a hunter, Gronk decided to face his fear.

Upper lip stiffened and club in hand, he began to march towards the sea.

“Oh, my dear Doctor! That’s not the way!” The man, alarmed, hurried after him. “Here, be my guest! Cast off! Cast off!” The man shook the twig at him. “Why, my dear Doctor, I don’t mind at all! Have a go!”

But Gronk was not to be deterred. His feet hit the water, and though the depth and quality of the sea’s cold momentarily took his breath away, he continued on to face Poseidon. When he was almost up to his waist, the waves churning around him, Gronk stopped.

The roar of the sea was immense. Wind struck his face, attempting to turn him over and entomb him in a watery grave. This was no place for man. But Gronk dug his feet into the sand and rooted himself there like a great oak tree.

Gronk must think like fish, he thought to himself. He was familiar with fish. They did not come out much, and instead stayed at home under the water. But there was more to it. Gronk probed further into the ways of the fish. No like earth, he realized. Always stay away from ground, like Gronk stay away from sea. Hm.

Maybe he and the fish had much in common. They both feared exiting their natural habitat. The fish would stay as far away from the earth as possible, deep under the water, as low as they could go, just as Gronk preferred to stay as far away from the water as possible, except in matters of manly pride.

So, he must look low. Low, under the waves is where he would find the fish. Resolutely, he advanced a few feet more into the sea, closed his eyes and then, taking a great gulp of air, dove under.

When Gronk opened his eyes, to his great surprise, he found a world of calm and beauty. Though the waves raged above, underneath all was peace, a rich and diverse world unto its own, populated by a kaleidoscope of little plants and animals, frittering this way and that, living in a chorus of color and pleasure.

Some of the little animals, no doubt having never seen such a creature as Dr. Gronk wandering through their environs, began to swim over to him, to get acquainted and say hello. Included among them were seahorses and cuttlefish, crabs and tiny fish that traveled as one in a pack. And also there was another fish, larger than the rest, that, unfortunately for it, resembled to Dr. Gronk quite distinctly something that, early on in his stay in London, he had once been served alongside a basket of chips.

And though this fish was well versed in all manner of hooks and nets, the only large pieces of wood it had ever encountered or heard of before were floating pieces of driftwood or submerged logs. The club, when it appeared, did so in a most unsporting manner, giving the fish no advance warning, nor indeed extending a gentlemanly offer to calculate the risk of a particular piece of bait. But in the midst of forming its protest, Dr. Gronk's sure aim struck the fish clear out of the water and deposited it neatly on the beach.

Job done, Dr. Gronk emerged back into the air. Regaining his footing, he turned back towards the shore and began to plod towards the beach. The twig man was still there, on the shore, his pipe half-hanging out of his mouth, a dazed and confused expression on

his face. But then, having examined the fish, then Dr. Gronk, then Dr. Gronk's club, he began to comprehend.

“My word,” the man said in awe.

He looked at Gronk in utter amazement. Then his face broke into a beaming, broad smile. “Well, that’s the way, old boy! I’ve never seen the like of it in my life! Cheerio! Cheerio! Britannia rule the waves, I should say!” He continued exclaiming on in similar terms, jumping up and down next to the fish. All along the beach, heads popped up from lounge-chairs and turned to examine the source of the commotion.

“By God, Doctor, you’re quite the sportsman, I should say! Why, have you been fox-hunting? Terribly exciting sport. I should like to see you try your hand! Or what about grouse? Doctor, you must come see me at Hobbin’s Manor sometime. Wait until the chaps hear about this! HA HA!”

Gronk, feeling vindicated, turned his attention from the twig-man and back to the sea. He was enjoying the hunt. Easier than duck, he thought. Fish not fly.

Again grasping his club, he dove back under, repeating his own personal fish-producing ritual and in no time at all had brought another stunned victim out of the water, deposited alongside its brethren on the shore.

Now the twig-man was rolling up his sleeves, a determined look on his face. "Why, I think I'd like to have a go at that, old chap. What do you say you give me a quick lesson in the operation of that ol' sidearm of yours, and I'll go for a dip."

As he was adjusting his long-shoes, a few of the curious beach-loungers had gathered around the fish, and were consulting amongst themselves as to what was going on and also questioning the man with the twig, who, in a hurry, was crossly attempting to both deflect and answer their questions while also securing his spectacles in a zippered pouch.

Dr. Gronk turned away from the melee, back to the calm of the ocean, and the food that awaited him beneath. At his current rate, he would have food for nearly the entirety of the rest of the medical conference, and would no longer have to tramp out into the woods that surrounded Quordnay for his meals. He took another deep breath and dove.

Water not so bad, he thought to himself. Float not so hard. A line of seahorses passed in front of his face. Intrigued, he decided to follow them for a bit. But right about by the big blue rock that housed a family of crabs, and just before the small field of kelp, something

strange happened. The line of seahorses, in an instant, zoomed out into the ocean.

Seahorse very fast, Gronk thought. Much faster, indeed, than any land-based horse. Dr. Gronk was in the middle of wondering what could propel such an ungainly looking creature at such a high rate of speed when he felt something grab him and pull.

He spun, head over heels, through the water, completely taken by surprise. Cursing himself for going against his primal instincts, he tried to steady himself as the water grew colder and darker.

Then, when he was certain his splashy nemesis had done him in, he felt another pull, this one at his arm. He looked. The club, which he still gripped tight, was pulling at him gently, re-orienting him.

Wood float! Gronk remembered. And so, using his club as his north star, he began to kick hard, just as he had observed Miss Lucas do as she plowed up and down the shore. The water grew lighter. The cold departed. At last, he reached the surface.

But when he emerged, choking and sputtering, land was nowhere insight. All was gray ocean around and gray sky above. He had been swept out to sea. Forlornly, teeth chattering, Gronk held onto his club while around him the sea churned and heaved, and took no notice.