The Silver Darlings (34 page)

Rob broke the spell that had fallen on them:

“Well, I don’t know how you feel, but I could do with a bite.”

“Trust Rob to remember his belly!” said Callum.

They were suddenly smiling in the happiest mood, munching away at the bread and salt beef, but going canny on the milk, for there was very little of it left. It was a pity, too, that they hadn’t at least put some more water in the cask, though no one said as much. Salt beef was bad for raising a thirst. However, by the afternoon or early
evening
they were bound to hit land somewhere.

“What are you looking for, Rob?” asked Callum. “Expecting anyone?”

“No,” drawled Rob, who had been peering over the sea, “not exactly.”

Callum chuckled and threw Finn a wink. “Well, you can’t say you have been here before.”

“No, I haven’t been here before,” replied Rob, “but I may know about it for all that.”

“Know what?”

“You may be a smart fellow, Callum, but your laugh sometimes reminds me on the lad who was living on the island I’m looking for. It’s the island of Rona and it lies somewhere in these seas. Have you heard tell of it?” he asked Roddie.

“Yes,” said Roddie, “but I hope it’s well to the north. Otherwise it’s a long trip we’re on.” Smiling he bit on his bannock, eyes ahead.

“Well, I know, whatever, that Lewis is their nearest port of call,” replied Rob, “so it can’t be that far away, surely.”

“What happened to the lad?” asked Finn.

“It was his first trip to Stornoway, and there for the first time he saw a horse. The horse neighed, and he thought it was laughing at him,” said Rob.

“Got me that time!” allowed Callum.

“Ach, it’s maybe not so difficult as you think,” said Rob, picking a crumb off his breast.

“Is it a big island?” asked Finn.

“No,” said Rob, with his slow, sideways nod, “it’s only big enough to hold a few families, but they have it well cultivated and they live well enough. They‘re terrible hospitable, if you land there. They’d kill a sheep for you and give you a bit of all they have. Oh, a fine people, by all accounts.”

“I thought they had all died out,” said Roddie.

“Yes—and no,” replied Rob, screwing his eyebrows. “A terrible calamity fell upon them, but a new lot was set
on the island after that; though how they’re doing, I haven’t heard. But it was sad enough what befell once. It seems that a swarm of rats came from the sea, and ate their grain, and after that some wild sailors landed and killed their bull. The factor of the island reached there about a year afterwards, and found no life, only a woman with a child at her breast, both lying dead beside a rock.”

There was silence for a little. “It’s the sort of thing a factor would find,” said Henry, for he had been touched by the story.

“Ach, well,” said Rob, “he couldn’t help it, likely. A queer thing how rats come from the ocean in swarms like that. But it’s true enough. I have heard of it in other
connections
. Strange things happen among the beasts of the world, if we only knew.”

“Stranger things happen among the humans of the world,” said Henry, “particularly when one or two of them have the power and are after the money. The only
important
difference between the real rat and the human rat is that you can kill the real rat.”

“Talking of money,” said Rob, “the thing that struck me about Rona—and this is as true as I’m sitting here, for it’s all written down—was that they had no money. You see, there was nowhere to spend it, so it would have been no use to them whatever way. Isn’t that strange? Yet they lived happy without it, and they had their meal and fish and sheep and cattle—in fact, all the human body needs. But I remember that in particular—how happy they lived. It struck me.”

“And how did they pay their rents?” asked Henry.

“Well now,” said Rob thoughtfully, “well now, that’s—I don’t think it was specially mentioned—let me see——”

“Didn’t they pay it long ago,” said Finn, “in oats and butter and fish——”

“Exactly,” Rob interrupted him. “I knew there was something. Man, and do you know what they would put the grain into, for they hadn’t bags? It comes back to me now.
They would skin a sheep whole, and then tie up the
openings
at the legs, and there was your bag! And they would fill that with grain. They would do it while you waited. And, of course, they had the wool for the weaving like
ourselves
.”

“But what would a young fellow do,” asked Callum, “if there wasn’t a girl for him?”

“I can tell you that, too,” said Rob. “It’s all written down and it’s no lies. They were a good-living people and had their own little place of worship where they said a prayer. And sometimes one would come to
see how they were getting on with the religion. Well, once he came. Now there were two young fellows there after the one girl. And one of them said, to him who came, couldn’t each of them have the girl year about to wife? But he shook his head at that and said, no, that wouldn’t be right, that wouldn’t be the thing at all. So one of the young fellows, who was desperate keen on having a wife, even if it was only for a while at a time, was very put out, oh, sore disappointed he was. And then all at once he remembered the shilling he had got from a sailor, and he offered it, saying, Will you buy me a wife in Stornoway for that?”

A gust of wind carried the laughter from the hold, a slash of rain trickled down their smiling faces, the boat rose and plunged, lay over, and Roddie was about to let go the mainsail sheet, when she rose to it and the sting of the gust passed. Passed quite away, leaving a lull. Roddie stowed the after-sail, waiting for the next gust. There were flurries of uncertain wind—and then a calm.

This was what he had feared more than anything else. The wind had blown itself out of the south-east, and so he had lost that steering airt. As they swung at the oars,
keeping
her, as he hoped, to their original course, he searched the sky. From long practice he could give a pretty accurate guess at time or compass point by glimpsing the sun’s position. But there was no sun now. Every minute he
expected
the wind to come at them from a new airt, but the
heaviness seemed to clog even the weather, and their boat wallowed in the troughs of the sea. When this had gone on long past what they felt was the height of the day, Roddie knew that the heavens would not clear and that, as far as making any sure landfall was concerned, they were rowing blind.

It must have been well on in the afternoon when the wind hit them. Roddie judged it to be from the sou’-west, and sailed as close to it as he could, once going over for a reach on the port tack to counter any northerly drift. It started to blow so hard that Roddie had to look out for lumps of sea, and soon it was a fight with the elements. It was good to watch Roddie now, felt Finn. His eyes were like living drops of the ocean itself and you could see the exaltation of the fight concentrated in them. When they judged, and succeeded, the skin sometimes creased in fine ironic lines round the eyes, and once he looked at Finn suddenly, with a friendly smile, and said something with a quiet humour that Finn did not catch.

Though Roddie told them to keep a sharp look-out for land, they neither saw nor heard anything but the sea, and when the light was sensibly diminishing, Roddie’s face went expressionless as stone.

CHAPTER XV

STORM AND PRECIPICE

A
ll through the night they fought the sea, manning the pump in turns, though they shipped little more than lashings of wave-tops, for Roddie’s hand felt for side and crest with a skill that was most part pure divination. It was some time in the first of the night that the seas attained proportions beyond anything they had ever encountered before. Whole hills of water seemed to come at them with great valleys between. For hours Roddie was cut off from his crew in a darkness as of winter. Once when she staggered as she climbed and they felt for a terrible moment that the wave had got them, was holding them, and was going to throw them clean over, she choked shudderingly within herself, but held, reached the crest, balanced, then quivered as she caught the wind and plunged on, eased by Roddie’s hand. Clear and heartening came Roddie’s voice: “That was a bad one, boys!”

There were a few elemental jokes of the kind, with words plucked out of the mouth and blown in tatters into the darkness, before the grey of the morning came upon their half-stupified bodies; came to reveal nothing far as the eye could reach but countless herds of tumbling seas. That they had lived through the night seemed now more of a miracle than before.

“Henry,” cried Roddie, “some water all round, but go canny with it. I’m dry.”

“If you take only a mouthful,” called Henry to each, “you can have a mouthful after your piece.”

As they munched their bere bannocks, they could not keep their eyes off the waves. But Roddie could now see what was coming at him, and as the light grew it seemed to them that the wind eased.

“Keep your eye lifting for Rona, Rob,” called Callum.

“Where do you think we are?” Henry asked Roddie.

“I don’t know,” answered Roddie, “but I should say we are in the Western Ocean, for I have never seen waves the length of these. Only one thing I know—one while during the night if it had blown any harder we couldn’t have done it. And it wouldn’t have helped much to try to run under bare poles for the Arctic Ocean! She’s a good sea boat, boys. We’ll give her that due.”

Roddie’s simple words of praise for the gallant boat touched Finn closely, and more so as his body was battered into a heavy lassitude, so heavy indeed that when it relaxed completely, it felt light and incorporeal, and there came upon his spirit a fine clarity. He looked at the stem—
reaching
up the wave, searching the horizon, plunging down—to rise again. On, on, on—that was the song at her heart. So long as the human spirit was equal to the need, she would not fail. With that strange wooden dream of her own besides! Finn felt a softness in him and turned his eyes away to the seas.

For the first time he knew the strange companionship of running seas—strange because lifted beyond the normal into this thin region of the spirit. He had heard of a Gaelic poem that described all the different kinds of waves there are. But no poem could describe them all. Take this one coming at them now—now!—its water on the crest turned into little waters, running, herding together, before—up—up! over its shoulder and down into the long flecked
hollow
like a living skin. Or that one steaming off there!—a great lump of ocean, a long-backed ridge overtopping all, a piled-up mountain. He drew Roddie’s attention to it by pointing. The crew stared. The gleam of a smile lit Roddie’s eyes. “We met one or two like that last night,”
he said. And Finn suddenly understood how a wave, far in the open sea, could catch a boat and throw her clean before it. No small boat could climb that onrushing wall. He watched Roddie’s eyes, when they were on the crest of the next wave, peering far ahead. He was looking out for the big ones in the distance so that he might have time to dodge them!

Lying back in partial exhaustion, with the spirit grown thin and clear, Finn felt, coming out of the companionship of these seas, a faint fine exaltation.

He had learned a few things since he had left home! How distant home was—the beach, and the stranger
talking
to his mother—like something remembered of a foreign shore. His mouth was dry with thirst. There was a well of crystal water not far from the House of Peace. You got down on your hands and knees and then reached farther down with your face. There was the physical effort, before the water lapped your mouth and nose. It was difficult to drink, with the crystal water almost choking your
outstretched
throat. They had all seen how Henry had had to tilt the little cask, but no one had said anything. There might be a cupful each yet. His teeth began to chitter again, and he moved within his clothes, which were sodden to the shirt.

Presently Roddie started to talk. “We’ll have to think of what we’re going to do, boys. The seas are running bigger than ever, but the wind has lost its snarl. I think we got blown clean out of the Minch. We probably passed west of the Butt in the late evening. If so, we are now somewhere to the west and perhaps north of the Butt, for we are bound to have made a lot of leeway. I think myself we are well into the Atlantic Ocean.”

“It seems to me,” said Henry, “that everything depends on from what airt the new wind hit us. It may be sou’-west, but we couldn’t swear it is not nor’-west, and when a
sou’-east
wind dies away—and then the wind comes again—it’s more than likely to be from nor’-west than from sou’-west.
Rowing in a calm like yesterday was like walking over a moor in the mist: you cannot keep your direction. We might be well down the Minch, and the long seas may be coming from Iceland. I’m not saying we are in the Minch, but we
might
be.”

Roddie nodded.

“Wherever we are,” said Rob, “we’ll have to think of where we’re going, so the sooner our minds are made up the easier they’ll be.”

“Where do you think we’re heading for, Finn?” asked Callum, with an expectant glint.

Finn smiled in response. “My mother’s first cousin was taken to Canada in one of the emigrant ships. If we keep going as we’re doing we might get some news of him. That would always be something.”

“It would, faith!” Callum lifted his broad, fair face in a quick laugh. “You’re as good as a drink!”

Nothing happened for a while and then Roddie said, “We’ll put her on the other tack. Get ready.”

When they were settled down, he remarked, “The sun may help us soon. My own feeling is that we are now
heading
in a southerly direction. If the sea takes off a little in two or three hours, we’ll let her fall off to dead east.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed in calculation, then he nodded. “That would suit, either way.”

But the sky showed no sign of lightening. The weather lay on it, grey-dark and formless.

“It’s nothing for a storm in this part of the world to last for a week even in the height of summer,” Rob said.

“You for a Job’s comforter!” declared Callum.

“It may moderate during the day,” continued Rob,
ignoring
him, “and rise again at night.”

“Like a sick man with a temperature,” said Finn.

Callum cupped his knees with his palms.

“All the same,” added Rob, “it’s as well to know a fever when you see it.”

After that they fell silent. Callum drew attention to
Rob’s head swaying sideways in a doze, but soon his own chin was on his breast. Henry offered to take the tiller, but Roddie answered, “Take a snooze now. You can have your turn later. Pull that bit of stuff over you,” he said to Finn.

From a sleep that seemed an endless semi-conscious daze of formless motion, Finn wakened sharply and blinked at Roddie. Henry’s lean, black head was up, too. They
followed
Roddie’s gesture and far astern they saw, forming clearly against the misted horizon, a tall ship.

She was life coming after them, she was the spirit of the land, she was comfort and hope, she was the word of
direction
upon the grey endless tumbling wastes of death, she was a cry they could not yet hear, she was a fine thing to see.

“Wake them up,” said Roddie.

Rob screwed his eyes and the left half of his mouth. “It’s a big boat,” he said, telling them.

Callum had to be shaken strongly. “What? Where? A ship!” He knuckled his eyes. And at that moment a sea hit them and they took in water. Roddie gave a sharp
exclamation
for he had, through forgetfulness, been at fault. Then Finn noticed the expression that came on his face as he looked at the swinging seas. Not yet! it seemed to say in ironic comment. Not for a while yet! And as Finn glanced away the grey crests seemed to gather speed and fury.

“Lord, I’m cold!” exclaimed Callum. “I was just
falling
off to sleep when I heard you,” he said to Roddie simply.

“It’s a good job,” said Rob, “that—that you hadn’t far to fall.” They were all excited.

“Stand by to put her about.” Roddie was now satisfied that the approaching vessel would pass well to leeward of them. “We’ll keep to wind’ard of her, but as near as we can on her course,”

The wind had certainly taken off and the seas were not breaking, though they seemed as big as ever.

Rob ventured the first comment, “She’s a Dutch buss.”

“She’s a smack,” said Roddie.

“A fishing smack?” asked Finn.

Roddie looked at him. “Yes.”

“Why, what sort of smack do you think she would be?”  asked Callum, grinning.

“As long as she’s a fishing smack,” said Finn, colour darkening his face as he glanced away.

They all looked at him, and for a moment felt disquieted. For an old fear had touched Finn, born suddenly out of childhood memory of the first time he had heard how a tall ship had come out of the sea and press-ganged his father. Rob was going to say something when Roddie forestalled him by remarking quietly, “She looks like a Grimsby smack. Some of them come up to the cod fishing at
Lerwick
.”

“Lerwick!” exclaimed Henry. “Are we off the
Shetlands
then? Or where can she be going?”

“God knows,” said Roddie.

“Cold iron!” cried Rob, sharply gripping the point of the boat-hook. They all touched iron, to avert the bad luck that comes from naming God at sea. Finn kept gazing at the vessel over the starboard quarter.

Where, indeed, could this vessel be going? That Roddie had exclaimed so thoughtfully only showed how deeply disturbed he must be.

“I can make out L K,” said Finn.

“Lerwick!” Henry’s brows narrowed.

“Stand aft here,” said Roddie to Henry, “and be ready to shout.” Henry’s voice was far-carrying. He sang well, if seldom.

The smack was now close and plunging in the seas. Henry was cupping his hands about his mouth when a voice reached them as out of a trumpet.

“Where away?”

“Stornoway,” cried Henry. “We’re lost. What course?” They could see the crew, a good dozen men, staring at them.

“Dead east!” And the man who shouted threw his arm out. “Lewis—dead east!”

“How far?”

There was a moment or two before the answer came: “Forty miles. Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Ask him where he’s going,” prompted Roddie.

“Where you bound?” cried Henry.

“The Rockall.”

“Thank you.”

“Were you out all night?”

“Yes.”

Back came the voice with a ring of tribute: “Plucky lads!”

“Stand by,” said Roddie. He was running with the smack and now, watching his chance, brought the
Seafoam
up into the wind smartly and, as she fell away on an easterly course, the crew on the deck of the smack waved their arms and cheered.

It was a genuine tribute, and the men of the
Seafoam
, who could put out a hand and touch the sea at any time, felt it. They waved back and cheered, too, in companionship and gratitude, their faces flushed.

“The Rockall,” began Rob.

“He knows where it is!” cried Callum, and doubled over laughing. This made them all laugh, except Rob. And when they saw Callum wiping the tears out of his eyes, they laughed again. The feeling of relief went deep.

“Where is the Rockall?” asked Roddie at last.

But Rob was now apparently in a slight huff. “Och, it’s just out there in the Western Ocean.”

“Far out?”

“I suppose it is,” said Rob. “It’s just three hundred miles.”

“Three hundred miles!” echoed Henry and, laughing, shook his head. “The farthest out land is St. Kilda—and I doubt if that’s farther than we are ourselves.”

“Oh, well,” said Rob, “you’ll know best.”

They laughed again.

Finn had been profoundly moved by this chance
encounter
of the sea. That last shout, followed by the
involuntary
cheer, wasn’t three hundred miles from a lump in his throat and a softness behind his eyes. His body was weak from exhaustion and cold, from lack of food and water. And then to discover that instead of being a ship of war, she was a boat of the fishing folk themselves! What a difference was there! He looked after her, driving into that western ocean, and wished her well.

“Good for the Shetlanders!” cried Roddie. “They’re brave seamen.”