Atlantic Fury (34 page)

I left the following morning immediately after phoning Cliff. A cold, clear day with the wind fallen light and the clouds lifted to a thin-grey film of cirrostratus high in the sky. And late that afternoon I pitched my tent against a background so utterly different that I might have been in another country. Gone were the lofty hills of Harris, the sense of being shut in, pressed against the sea's edge by sodden heights. Gone, too, was the brown of the seaweed, the sombre dark of rocks. Here all was sand, great vistas of it, golden bright and stretching flat to the distant hump of a solitary, purpling peak. My camp faced east and the tide was out. The peak was Eaval. Behind me were the dunes of Baleshare. All the rest was sky, thin mackerel scales of cloud, silver-grey and full of light. And not another soul to be seen, only the distant outline of solitary crofts, remote on islands in the Ford.

From the top of the dunes I could see the channelled entrance to the Ford, marked out for me by the white of waves breaking on the sand bars. A mile or more of broken water, and beyond that, low on the western horizon, the outline of the Monachs, the pointed finger of the disused lighthouse just visible.

The sun set and the heavens flared, a fantastic, fiery red. From horizon to horizon the sky blazed, a lurid canopy shot through with flaming wisps of cloud. It was a blood-bath of colour, and as I watched it, the red gradually darkening to purple, the whole vast expanse of sky was like a wound slowly clotting. Darkness fell and the tide rose; the dinghy floated closer until it rested just below my tent.

Cliff came through prompt at ten o'clock. The weather pattern was unchanged. I had some food then and went to bed and lay in the dark, thinking of Laerg – out there to the westward, beyond the break of the sand bar surf, beyond the dim-seen shape of the Monachs, hidden below the horizon.

If, when I had left Rodil that morning, the engine had failed to start, or I had found an air leak in the dinghy, or anything had gone wrong, then I think I should have regarded it as an omen. But across the Sound of Harris, and all the way down the coast of North Uist, the engine had run without faltering. The speed, measured between identified islands, had been just over 3½ knots. Even in the North Ford, where it was wind against tide and quite a lop on the water, I hadn't experienced a moment's uneasiness. The craft was buoyant, despite her heavy load. She had shot the rapids under the Causeway bridge without taking any water, and though the tide was falling then and the channel tortuous, she had only twice grounded, and each time I had been able to float her off.

I was sure, lying in my tent that night, that I could make Laerg. But confidence is not easily maintained against such an elemental force as the sea. The break of the waves on the bar had been no more than a murmur in my ears when I had gone to sleep. When I woke it was a pounding roar that shook the dunes and the air was thick with the slaver of the gale; great gobs of spume, like froth, blown on the wind. Rain drove in grey sheets up the Ford and to stand on the dunes and look seaward was to face layer upon layer of rollers piling in, their creaming tops whipped landward by the wind.

It lasted a few hours, that was all, but the speed with which it had arrived and the suddenness of those big seas was disturbing.

The synopsis at the beginning of the one-forty forecast confirmed the pattern transmitted to me by Cliff the previous night; the depression centred over Scotland moving away north-eastward, and a high pressure system building up behind it and covering the Eastern Atlantic from the Azores to approximately latitude 60° North. Outlook for sea area Hebrides was wind force 6, Veering north-westerly and decreasing to light variable; sea moderating, becoming calm; visibility moderate to good, but chance of fog patches locally.

I moved fast after that. The gale had lost me half the day and now the tide was falling. Where I was camped on the southern tip of Baleshare the deep water channel swung close in to the dunes, but on the other side, towards Gramisdale, the sands were already beginning to dry. My most urgent need was petrol. I had used over eight gallons coming down. I filled up the tank of the outboard, slid my ungainly craft into the water and pushed off with the two empty jerricans, following the channel north-east past the tufted grass island of Stromay towards the village of Carinish.

Beyond Stromay the deep water channel forked. I took the right fork. It was still blowing quite hard and by keeping to the roughest water I avoided the shallows. I beached just south of the village, tied the painter to a stone and hurried up the track, carrying the jerricans. There was no petrol pump at Carninish, but the chart had marked a Post Office and as I had expected it was the centre of village information. There were about half a dozen women gossiping in the little room and when I explained what I'd come for, one of them immediately said, ‘There's Roddie McNeil now. He runs a car. D'ye ken the hoose?' And when I shook my head, she said, ‘Och weel, I'll get it for you myself.' And she went off with my jerricans.

I asked if I could telephone then and the post mistress pushed the phone across the counter to me. ‘You'll be the pairson that's camped in the dunes across the water to Eachkamish,' she said. Eachkamish was the name of the southern part of Baleshare. ‘Would you be expecting somebody now?'

‘No,' I said, thinking immediately of the Army.

‘A lassie, maybe?' Her eyes stared at me, roguish and full of curiosity. ‘Weel noo, it'll be a pleasant surprise for ye. She came in by the bus from Newton Ferry and now she's away to the Morrisons to inquire aboot a boat.'

‘Was it a Miss Field?'

She shook her head, smiling at me. ‘I dinna ken the name. But she was in a tumble hurry to get to ye.' And she turned to a young woman standing there and told her to go down to the Morrisons and bring the lassie back.

I picked up the phone and gave the exchange the number of the Met. Office at Northton. It couldn't be anyone else but Marjorie and I wondered why she'd come, for it wasn't an easy journey from Rodil. There was a click and a voice said, ‘Sykes, Met. Office Northton, here.' Apparently Cliff had been called down to the camp. ‘Will you give him a message for me,' I said. ‘Tell him I'll be leaving first light tomorrow. If there's any change in the weather pattern he must let me know tonight.' He asked my name then and I said, ‘He'll know who it is,' and hung up.

Five minutes later Marjorie arrived, flushed and out of breath. ‘We'd almost got the boat down in the water when I saw the dinghy there. If I hadn't gone in for a cup of tea with the Morrisons I'd have seen you coming across.'

‘How did you know where I was?'

‘Daddy was sure you'd be somewhere in the North Ford and this seemed the most likely place.' She glanced round at the faces all eagerly watching us. ‘Walk down the road with me, will you. We can't talk here. What with that odd craft of yours and me coming here asking for a man camped in the dunes – it'll be all over North Uist by this evening.' She gave me a quick little nervous smile. ‘I didn't give your name.' And then, when we were clear of the Post Office, she said, ‘The boat's been seen at Eriskay, on the east. Colonel Webb was notified this morning and Daddy rang the hotel. He thought you'd want to know.' And she added. ‘A crofter saw it there last night. They're not sure it's the one Major Braddock took, but it's a lobster boat and it doesn't belong to any of the local fishermen.'

So he'd crossed The Minch and was waiting like me for the expected break in the weather. I was quite sure it was Iain. The island of Eriskay was immediately below South Uist and right opposite Mallaig. ‘What are they doing about it?' I asked.

‘They've sent out a plane to investigate.'

‘A helicopter?'

‘No. A plane, Daddy said.'

A wild coast and no place to land. A plane wouldn't stop Iain. And for me to try and intercept him was out of the question. He'd shift to the little islands in the Sound of Barra and by tomorrow he'd be gone.

‘It's what you were expecting, isn't it?' She had stopped and was standing facing me, the wind on her face.

‘Yes.' And I added, ‘It was good of you. To come all this way.'

‘I suppose you'll go now.'

‘Tomorrow morning.'

‘He's got a much bigger boat than you. If anything happened … I mean, you ought to have somebody with you – just in case.'

‘In case I fall overboard?' I smiled. ‘I wouldn't have far to fall – a few inches, that's all.'

‘It's nearly a hundred miles to Laerg, and that wretched little dinghy …' She was staring at me, her eyes wide. ‘I realise you can't take anyone – anyone who wouldn't understand. But—' she hesitated, her gaze, level and direct, fixed on me. ‘I've brought cold weather clothing and oilskins. I thought if you wouldn't take anyone else …' Her hand touched my arm. ‘Please. I want to come with you.'

I didn't know what to say, for she wasn't a fool; she knew the danger. And she meant it, of course. ‘Don't be silly,' I said. ‘Imagine what your father would say.'

‘Oh, Daddy knows.' She said it quite gaily and I knew she really had settled it with him. And when I said, ‘You know it's out of the question,' her temper flared immediately. ‘I don't know anything of the sort. You can't go alone …'

‘I've got to,' I said.

She started to argue then, but I cut her short. ‘It's no good, Marjorie. You can't help me. Nobody can. In any case, there isn't room. When the stores are in it, that rubber dinghy is full – there's barely space for me.'

‘That's just an excuse.'

I took her by the shoulders, but she flung me off. She was angry now and her eyes blazed. ‘You're so bloody pig-headed. Just because I'm a girl …'

‘If you'd been a man,' I told her, ‘the answer would have been the same. There's no room for anybody else. And to be perfectly honest, I don't want anyone. This is something I've got to do alone.'

‘But why? Why do you have to?'

‘He's my brother,' I said. No point in concealing it from her now.

‘Your brother?' She stared at me, and I could see her thinking it out and going over it in her mind.

‘Now do you understand? This is something I've got to work out for myself. Perhaps for Iain, too.' I took her by the shoulders and this time she didn't draw away.

‘It's settled then. You're going – tomorrow.'

‘Yes.'

She didn't argue any more and when I drew her to me, she let me kiss her. ‘Thank you,' I said. ‘Thank you for coming, for offering to go with me.' Her lips were cool with the wind. ‘That's something I'll always remember. And when I get back …' I felt her body come against me, the softness of it and her arms round my neck, her mouth on mine; and then she had drawn away. ‘I'll see you off, anyway.' She was suddenly practical and we walked back in silence.

The woman who had gone off with the jerricans was waiting for me outside the Post Office. ‘Ye'll find Roddie McNeil wi' your petrol doon by the landing place.' I thanked her. ‘It's nae bother. And there's nae call for ye to be thanking Roddie. He'll be charging ye for his time as well as the petrol, ye ken.'

McNeil was waiting for me on the sands, a small, dour man with sandy hair. ‘There's a wee bit extra for the cartage,' he said. I paid him and he helped me launch the dinghy and stow the jerricans. ‘Is it long ye'll be camped over to Baleshare?' And when I told him I'd be gone in the morning if the weather were fine, he said, ‘Aye, weel …' And he sniffed at the breeze like a sheltie. ‘It'll be fine weather the noo, I'm thinking.'

He held the boat whilst I started the engine, and then I looked back at Marjorie. There was something almost boyish about her, standing there alone on the sands, the faded anorak and the green cord trousers tucked into gum boots, her head bare and her hair blown across her face. And yet not boyish; more like an island woman, I thought, her body slim and erect, her face clouded – and she'd been quite prepared to come to sea. The noise of the engine drowned all possibility of speech. I waved and she waved back, and that was that, and a feeling of sadness enveloped me as I motored down the channel. I didn't look back and in less than twenty minutes I had beached the dinghy below my tent. I was on my own again with the surface of the dune sand dried now and the wind sifting it through the wiry grass stems.

I began loading the dinghy ready for the morning. Reed's Nautical Almanac gave time of sunrise as 06.43. There was no moon. I thought I should have sufficient light to cross the bar just before five. And once out beyond the bar I should be stuck at the helm hour after hour with no chance to change the stowage or search for things. Everything I needed had to be ready to hand.

There was another problem, too. At five o'clock in the morning the tide would be almost low. If I left the dinghy where it was, moored to the shore, it would be high and dry when I wanted to leave, and loaded it would be much too heavy to drag into the water. The only alternative was to anchor off in deep water and sleep aboard.

I stowed everything in its place except the tent and the radio set, and by the time I had finished the sun was shining, the wind no more than a rustle in the grasses. It was a calm, clear evening with Eaval standing out brown and smiling against the black storm clouds still piled against the mainland hills. I climbed to the top of the dunes, and all to the west the sky was clear, a pale pastel shade of blue, with the seas white on the bar, but breaking lazily now and without much force.

There was nothing more I could do and I got my sketchbook out. The two drawings I did show the loaded dinghy lying like a basking shark stranded at the water's edge, the tent snugged in its hollow against the dunes, and that flat world of sand and water stretching away to the sunken hulks of the distant hills. They set the scene, but they miss the bright calm of that suddenly cloudless sky, the curlews piping to the more anxious note of the oyster-catchers, the flight of the grey plover and the laboured strokes of a heron. The sun set, an orange ball that turned the Monachs black like a ship hull-down, and as twilight fell, the darkening world seemed hushed to a sort of sanctity so that I felt I understood what it was that had drawn the early Christians to these islands.