The beach that would not stay still

An original literary non-fiction-style account of walking beside the water on a shingle beach.

From the path, the beach looked like a long grey cushion beneath the sea wall. Stepping onto it removed that impression immediately. Stones shifted beneath my shoes, carrying each step a little further sideways than I intended. The beach had no interest in keeping the shape of my footprints.

Near the water, the stones were darker and more distinctly themselves. There was a flat piece striped with white, a round brown one with a small hollow and several which looked black until I lifted them into the light. I put each back close to where I had found it. The next wave came over them before I could check whether I had been accurate.

It arrived with a soft sliding sound. Then the water drew away, and the whole edge of the beach began to speak. Not one crash, but hundreds of little knocks, clicks and brief scrapes travelled down the slope. I could not follow any single stone through the movement. The careful arrangement I had tried to preserve was already somewhere else.

Further along, a man was drawing a line in the shingle with the end of a walking stick. A wave stopped just short of it. He moved the line a little nearer the water and waited. I passed without asking what he was measuring. Behind me came the same loose, complicated rattle, as if the beach were quietly unpacking itself again.

How does the writer use language to convey the shingle's appearance and continual movement?