The troop ship returned from South Africa with its hold full of oranges and the troop ship hit a mine and went down in the cold North Sea and the oranges broke out of the hold and began to float to the grey surface and the sea currents drew the oranges close to the coast and the tides washed them on to the beaches.
From their school on the cliff the children saw them - bright globes in the white surf, rolling on to the beach then being sucked tantalizingly back into the sea. The children had never seen oranges, though they had been dosed with orange concentrate during the war. Now the war was over but everything was still scarce, still rationed. Except those gleaming oranges.
After school though it was getting dark they scrambled down the cliff to the narrow beach. They fought among themselves for the oranges. The girls had the advantage. They filled their skirts and made bags out of their knitted cardigans.
It was a girl named Jean who saw the first skull. Rolling and floating in the waves just like an orange only bigger and white with big black holes. Then there was an other and another. It was Jean too who saw the bones above them, poking out of the sandy cliff. The remnants of coffins.
``Its a grave yard,'' she said, ``the sea has broke open the grave yard. It got in the church yard when they blew up the sea wall to stop the Germans.''
And the children stood on the beach in the growing dark with a cold wind blowing and they held in their blue cold hands the skulls of the long gone people of their sea town and they held in their blue cold hands the golden fruit of a distant land. Gifts from the sea. The children returned the skulls to the waves and gathered all the oranges they could carry.