The Silver Darlings (44 page)

“They know a boat on the south side.” Rob nodded “Do you remember George o’ James’s, who came from Smeral, and whose son was married on a niece of old Widow Macrae’s? Well, the brother of that son, George to name, was related by marriage to a fellow who had a job in the Elgin brewery….”

This involved detail, which he could never remember, suffused Finn’s body in a divine warmth. It was Rob’s voice speaking. It was the old happiness of comradeship and the sea. If he looked at Callum, Callum would wink, implying, “We’ll have him on!” He looked. Callum winked.

They shot their nets not far from the
Sulaire
,
which lay inside them in the mouth of Loch Odhairn. The
Iolaire
was over towards the north side. The
Mary
Ann
had
disappeared
round Kebock Head and then come back, and was now shot fairly close into the rocks, where the gulls were very excited and noisy.

“Can you smell them, Rob?” Callum asked.

“Never you mind whether I can smell them or not,” answered Rob. “We’ll see what we will see.”

“Look!” called Finn.

A jet of water rose into the air between them and the
Sulaire.

“Bl-essings on him, it’s himself,” said Rob.

The whale! It was the first time Finn had ever seen one blowing.

“How big will he be?” asked Finn, full of the wonder of the sea.

“If he came up under us,” answered Callum, “we would fall off his back like a bowl off a table. You better be ready to strip.”

Finn smiled and munched away, as the shadows deepened in the great rock before Kebock Head. The sky was
overcast
and the sea wind-darkened. For weather, it was the best fishing night they had had. They all knew they were among herring. The rest was with the luck they could not compel.

Roddie was quiet in his manner, but smiling now and then. At moments, Finn had seen in him an almost childish poignancy. Because he was strong and had that terrible
destructive
power, because it was part of him naturally, he was not proud of it. But he would not be abashed.

“We’ll stretch ourselves,” he now said. “It looks like being a good night.”

His voice was quiet and shadowed like the night,
pleasant
with peace. For a moment Finn felt the loneliness of the human mind. The loneliness of the night. The gulls were crying. The boat moved gently to the swing-rope. Between them and the bottom was an inch of planking, between them and the whale! They were fishing herring, like the whale himself. Over this thought, forming vaguely into a pattern of its own, was a wonder at the meaning of it all. Not a sentimental wonder, but a curious, detached wonder, rather stark, more like a bodiless vision.

It faded before it had quite formed, into the loneliness of himself, the secret companionship of himself with himself, where no-one intrudes—except … and there were her dark eyes and the dark hair shadowing the white neck. He never begged of her. Never. But when he forgot himself, she was there. Sometimes his repelling sarcasm was very effective. But with tiredness drugging the body, tenderness has a way of forgetting…. He fell sound asleep.

He awoke as if someone had touched him. It was the grey of the morning and Roddie was pulling on the swing-rope. Henry was sitting up. His senses became preternaturally acute. Had Roddie tried the net earlier and found nothing? A slight nausea balled in his breast. Roddie was slow in his movements, hand over slow hand, his body against the sky. How terrible, if theirs should be the only boat without herring! Upon Finn came the power of the superstition regarding blood. Were they doomed? The premonition gripped him. Their nets hung empty in the sea. They must face up to that, show nothing. Roddie had reached the net. He stooped and hauled, but not far. There was a splash. He
stood looking astern, turned to stone. Henry, unable to bear that stillness, got up and in a voice, casual in its supreme control, asked, “Nothing doing?”

Roddie turned. His voice had the smile of a child in it. “We’re in them,” he said, “solid.”

Henry stood dead still. Finn could not move.

“We’ll start hauling at once,” Roddie murmured. “Waken them up.”

Finn rolled againt Callum and, in his ear, cried shrilly, “Herring!”

Callum whirled over, “What? Where?” and grappled Finn earnestly before he came to himself.

There was no doubt about the silver darlings now. In blue and green and silver, they danced into the boat.

“Fair quality,” said Roddie, hauling mightily.

“They’re good, boy,” said Rob. “They’re by-
ordinary
.”

“They’ll pay half a dollar for one in Berlin,” said Finn, “and get value.”

Roddie laughed. Finn’s heart soared among the wheeling gulls.

“The
Sulaire
is in them, too,” said Roddie, with light happiness.

“And that’s our debt paid to the
Sulaire
,
thank——”

“Will you be quiet?” interrupted Rob sharply.

“Thank goodness,” completed Callum. “Got him that time, Finn! Do you know what I’m thinking, Rob?”

“It won’t be much,” said Rob.

“I’m thinking it would be a good thing if Finn went to Luirbost again and prayed for ten more hours.”

“That’s all you know,” said Finn. “I haven’t yet told you about the jar of brandy. There was a fellow there named Alan Macdonald and we slept together. He was in a queer mood because certain things were happening to him, and——”

“What things?” asked Callum.

“Never you mind,” said Finn. “And he wouldn’t go to
sleep. He would keep pouring out the brandy into a bowl and asking me to drink it.”

“And you didn’t?”

“I had to,” said Finn, “or I would hurt his feelings. It’s not that I wanted the stuff myself. Not at all. Though it was good enough. I’ll say that. It had a nice taste. But you know how it is?” he asked.

“I know,” said Callum, shaking his head. “Boy, boy, do you know the road you’re taking?”

“You’ll be like the fellow from the Dykes of Latheron,” said Rob, “big John Angus McGrath—an elder in the church, too. Every time he took a dram, he would shake his head and say, ‘Nasty stuff! nasty stuff!’ To my father’s knowledge he said it for over fifty years.”

They laughed at Rob’s shortest story.

“Credit where it is due, all the same,” said Henry. “I’ll stand you a brandy myself when we get
ashore, Finn.” And his dark face, so often satiric, smiled with such a humoured friendliness that Finn felt his cheeks grow hot.

The sweat was running down their faces; they staggered as they shifted their stance. Then Finn saw the whale heave his great bulk, with wide gaping jaws, quite close to him, and let out a cry.

“Sure, it’s himself,” said Rob. “I hope you’re
having
a good fishing!” he called to the great beast as it rolled by.

“He’ll foul us!” yelled Callum, whose experience of whales was not much greater than Finn’s.

“Do you think it’s you he’s after?” called Rob in
sarcasm
. “He has better taste.”

Roddie was hauling steadily. When it came to the last two nets the whale began to move quickly around them as if in anger at the diminishing store of food. Callum had nothing to say. Finn was dogged by the fear of disaster at the final minute, disaster beyond anything he had dreamed.

As the last net was coming in, the immense brute
followed
it to the boat’s side, feeding on the best herring as
they fell from the mesh. He was plainly angry now, setting dark swirls of water about the boat.

“Now, now,” called Rob to him. “We have no more for you here. Yon’s the
Mary
Ann.
Look!” And he pointed. “They’re scarcely half-hauled. If you hurry up, you might get something yet.” The great jaws closed and the whale turned away in the direction of the
Mary
Ann.
“A very biddable beast,” concluded Rob.

Yes, the whale was gone! Finn was so relieved that he looked at Rob in open astonishment.

“What do you think?” Henry asked Roddie.

Roddie gazed at the deep well of herring. “Over forty crans,” he answered.

Forty crans! They straightened their backs. Roddie alone seemed unimpressed. No quick excitement touched him. Finn saw that his face was quiet with peace.

“The sooner we get them landed, boys, the better they’ll cure,” he said. And his gentle voice released unbounded energy in their bodies.

They had to row for a time and did not make great
headway
because the
Seafoam
was deep in the water and the tide against them. But soon a little air of easterly wind sprang up and presently the oars were shipped. The straining on the oars had eased the exuberance in their bodies and as Finn sat where he could get some support for his back, a divine warmth uncurled along each arm and each leg like the snake of life itself. Callum so brimmed over with this lazy warmth that he just winked and gave the small sideways nod that leaves humour lost in wonder.

Finn looked at sea-birds hurrying over the water, gazed at the land, thought of the grey night by Loch Luirbost (which opened off Loch Erisort) and the strange things that happened there. They were not quite real now. They had then seemed more real than life, transcending life. But ah! this was life, this exquisite morning of the world. Alan caught in the thicket, grown by his two kind sisters—a
witchcraft of the night. He turned his head away—and Callum asked, “When did you leani to tame whales, Rob?”

“I knew about whales before you were born.”

“Did you, man? Where?”

“On the sea. Where did you think?”

“Oh, I didn’t know. There are some fellows who have been inside the bellies of whales, and the whales spewed them up. I didn’t know.”

“There’s many a thing you don’t know——”

“But if I live long enough I’ll learn?”

“—and there’s many a thing I don’t know. But there’s one thing I know now that I didn’t know before.”

“And what’s that?”

“That yon whale put the fear of d-death in you.”

Callum tried to speak, but no-one would listen to him. It was Rob’s round.

“There’s the
Mary
Ann
under way,” said Henry and they all looked back. The brown sail of the
Iolaire
was also being hoisted. But the gulls were still wheeling in myriads about the
Sulaire.

“He’ll be in them to the gunnels again!” cried Callum.

Roddie smiled.

“He’s a fine man,” said Rob with his serious air.

“He’s all that,” said Roddie.

“
Mary
Ann
and ourselves for Bain,
Sulaire
and
Iolaire
for Maciver. It’s level going,” said Henry.

“It looks as if the boats from the north are blank again,” called Finn. They had been making but little progress in the light wind and had seen the bulk of the fleet heading in past the Chicken Rock but now they were near enough for Finn’s keen eyes to see that the last boat or two sat lightly in the water.

As they passed Goat Island, Callum said, “Will you look?”

Convoyed by the gulls, low in the water, they slowly approached a quay that seemed to be thronged by all Stornoway.

Finn felt the excitement surging in him, and did his best to look indifferent. Rob scratched his beard. “There seems to be a few folk about,” he said casually. After that, none of them spoke, but each sat in his place with calm
countenance
.

Roddie, the terrible East-coaster, the mad Viking, the spiller of blood, the curse on Stornoway, brought the
Sea
foam
to her berth, silver-scaled to his thighs, with a quiet gesture of the lowering of the sails and no word spoken. Glancing up the quay wall, Finn saw hundreds of eyes on them in silence. It was a moment of great triumph.

Bain’s voice rose in a shout.

Roddie lifted his face and answered with a quiet smile. Yes, they had a few crans.

“What about the
Sulaire
?” asked Maciver.

“She won’t be for an hour or more yet. He’ll have to come carefully,” said Roddie with a glimmer of humour.

“Good for Macleod!” cried Maciver.

“And the
Iolaire
has a good shot,” Roddie added.

Maciver slapped Bain on the back. One up!

“The only other boat that was with us was the
Mary
Ann
and she’ll be in next,” said Roddie. “She was in them, too.”

“Hah-ha!” laughed Bain, jerking his head back. Both Maciver and himself had seen the quality of the herring. They were in high feather.

“Kebock Head will be black with boats to-night,”
prophesied
Maciver.

“So long as you have a Caithness man to lead the way,” agreed Bain. “I’ll stand you a good one to-day, skipper, even if we don’t go to Donald George’s,” he shouted.

The whole quay laughed. Roddie turned away, his face darkening.

“That’s him,” said a girl’s voice. “Throw him a kiss.”

Finn, glancing up, saw the gutting crew of three girls with whom he had already had a slight passage at arms. He
blushed deeply and looked down. They shrieked with laughter.

As they were unloading their herring, Finn saw people coming up to have a look at Roddie, a discreet wondering look. The story of the Sloop Inn was already growing fabulous. The mass of the Lewis fishermen were glad that Big Angus had got it where he deserved it—in the jaw. But this man’s mythical strength, his defiance of superstition, his touchiness over what now was retailed as an incredible feat of seamanship in the Western Ocean, and—confronting them here—his triumph over the fish of the sea itself! …

“You mind your step,” cried the high-spirited fair girl, as Finn staggered sideways a little in tipping the fish into the gutting-box.

“I didn’t mean to touch you,” said Finn.

“We’ve had your touchings before,” said she.

“I’m sorry if you didn’t like them,” said Finn.

She mimicked his East-coast accent. “Mama’s pretty boy!”

He stood a moment looking at her, his eyes gleaming over the flush on his face.

“Here!” she called to the foreman. “Watch him!”