Atlantic Fury

CHAPTER TWO

(March 1–6)

There was news of Iain in the papers that night. It was in the Stop Press — MISSING MAJOR SEEN AT STIRLING. A motorist had given him a lift to Killin at the head of Loch Tay. And in the morning when the train pulled into Glasgow I found the Scottish papers full of it, his picture all over the front pages. He’d been seen on the railway station at Crianlarich and again at Fort William. A police watch was being kept on the quay at Mallaig in case he tried to board the steamer for the Western Isles and all the villages along the coast had been alerted. The net was closing in on him and in that sparsely populated district I didn’t think he had a chance.

A man who boarded the train at Arisaig told me a stranger had been seen walking the coast towards Loch Moidart, and with Ardnamurchan so close, I toyed with the idea that he might be making for our old croft. But at Mallaig there was more definite news, a lobster boat stolen during the night from a cove in Loch Nevin. The whole town was talking about it and an old man on the quay told me it was an open boat, 30 ft. long with a single screw and a diesel engine. ‘An oldish boat, ye ken, but sound, and the bluidy man will wreck her for sure.’ I was certain he was wrong there; just as I was certain now that Iain was making for Laerg. He’d push across to Eigg or Rum or one of the smaller islands and lie up in the lee. But to cross The Minch and cover the eighty-odd miles of Atlantic beyond he’d need better weather than this; he’d also need fuel. By taking the steamer I’d be in the Outer Hebrides before he’d even left the mainland coast.

It was late in the afternoon of the following day, March 3, that I reached Rodil. The passage across The Minch had been bad — the steel-grey of the sea ribbed with the white of breaking waves, the sky a pale, almost greenish-blue with mares’ tails feathering across it like vapour trails. Later the black outline of the Western Isles had become blurred by rain.

I had planned to pitch my tent at the head of Loch Rodil, well away from the hotel, but the boatman refused to attempt it and landed me at the jetty instead, along with my gear and two other passengers. ‘Will you be staying long this time, Mr Ross?’ He eyed me doubtfully. ‘Last time you were here …’ He shook his head. ‘That was a tur-rible storm.’ The two passengers, Army officers in civilian clothes, regarded me with interest.

I dumped my gear and got hold of Marjorie. I was in too much of a hurry to consider how she would react to my sudden unexpected appearance. All I wanted was to contact Cliff and get away from Rodil before the Army discovered I was there.

As she drove me in to Northton, she said, ‘It’s true, then, that Major Braddock has stolen a Mallaig boat. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

I didn’t want to be questioned and when I didn’t answer she gave me a wry grin. ‘For one wild moment I thought you might have come to see me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I ought to have managed this meeting better, but it couldn’t be helped. She was wearing the faded anorak she’d had on when I’d first seen her. Wisps of her black hair escaped the hood, glistening with moisture. She looked very attractive and at any other time …

‘That rubber dinghy, the outboard, all that gear on the jetty — it’s yours I take it.’ And when I nodded, she said, ‘I’m afraid you haven’t chosen a very good time. It’s been — like this for almost a fortnight, nothing but rain and wind.’ She meant it as a warning. And she added, ‘It’s Laerg. isn’t it? You’re going to Laerg.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m going to Laerg.’ No point in denying it when she’d known it instinctively. ‘But please don’t tell anybody. I’m hoping Cliff will give me the local forecasts and then I’ll get away from here just as soon as I can.’

We were driving into the camp then and she stopped. at the main gate. ‘I’ll wait for you here. I have to pick my father up anyway.’

My luck was in. Cliff was on the afternoon shift and he was still there, standing by the sloped desk, checking through a teleprint sheet. ‘Ross.’ He put down the teleprint sheets. ‘Damn it, man, what are you doing here?’ He hadn’t changed — still the same old cardigan, the open-necked shirt, the quick, volatile manner.

‘I want your help,’ I said. And I told him about my plan to go to Laerg.

‘Good God! I should have thought you’d have had enough of the place after what you went through there.’ The quick brown eyes stared at me curiously from behind their thick-lensed glasses. ‘What makes you want to go back?’

‘You forget I’m an artist,’ I said. ‘And my father was born on Laerg. Now that the Army’s evacuated, it’s an opportunity to be there alone. The birds will be back now. I want to paint.’

He nodded and I thought he’d accepted my explanation. But he was still looking at me curiously. ‘Have you got the Army’s permission?’

‘No.’

‘What about Nature Conservancy then?’

‘I haven’t got anybody’s permission,’ I said. ‘I’m just going to go there.’ And I explained what I wanted from him; a weather clearance at the first possible moment, the certainty of at least twenty-four hours of light winds; and one, preferably two, personal weather forecasts during the voyage. ‘I want to sail as soon as possible and it’s essential that I have calm conditions on arrival at Laerg.’

He asked then about the sort of boat I’d got, and when I told him, he reached for his cigarettes. ‘You know what you’re doing, I suppose.’ He didn’t expect an answer to that, but went on to inquire about my radio. Could I take Morse? What speed?

‘Fast enough,’ I said.

‘And you’ll be on your own?’

‘Yes.’

He lit his cigarette, staring thoughtfully out of the window.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘will you do it?’

‘And you need calm weather at the other end.’ He seemed to be thinking aloud. ‘That means you’re not planning to land in Shelter Bay.’ I thought he was much too shrewd where weather was concerned. But instead of pursuing the matter, he turned abruptly to the maps on the wall. ‘Well, there’s the situation.’ The lower one showed a low pressure area south-east of Iceland and another Low coming in from the Atlantic. But it was the upper one that interested me, the one that gave his forecast for midnight. It showed that second Low just west of the Hebrides. ‘A southerly air stream, you see, with the wind veering south-westerly some time during the night.’ Behind the depression with its wedge-shaped lines marking the warm and cold fronts was a shallow ridge of high pressure. Beyond that, farther out in the Atlantic, another Low.

‘It doesn’t look very promising,’ I said.

He had walked over to the map and was standing there, staring up at it. ‘No. Fine tomorrow with the wind falling fairly light, and after that high winds again. But it’s not quite as bad as it looks. The Azores High is strengthening — I was just looking at the figures when you came in. Maybe in a couple of days …’ And then without a change in his voice: ‘You know Braddock’s been seen on the mainland.’ He turned abruptly and faced me. ‘There’s talk in the Mess that he’s stolen a boat — one of those lobster boats. He could reach Laerg in a boat like that.’ He was staring at me, his gaze fixed on my face. ‘The last time you were in this office, Braddock came in. Remember? They questioned me about that at the Inquiry. They asked me whether you’d recognised each other. Did you know that?’ And when I nodded, he added, ‘I told them no.’ He hesitated. ‘You’re not being quite frank with me now, are you? It’s because of Braddock you’re going to Laerg.’

It was no good denying it. I needed his help. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I’d rather not talk about it now.’

To my relief he seemed to accept that. ‘Well, it’s your own business, nothing to do with me. I don’t give a bloody damn about Braddock. He cost a lot of men their lives and if he’d bothered to consult me first … However — ’ He shrugged. ‘It’s done now and I don’t like to see a man hounded out of his wits. Did you know they’d got an aircraft up looking for him?’ He stood there a moment, thinking it out. ‘Suppose I refuse to give you the local forecast — what then, would you still go?’

‘Yes. I’d have to rely on the BBC shipping forecasts, and that wouldn’t be the same as having the local weather from you. But I’d still go.’

He nodded. ‘Okay. That’s what I thought.’ And he added, ‘I don’t know what your connection with Braddock is or what you hope to achieve by going to Learg, but nobody would undertake a trip like that unless they had very strong reasons for doing so. I accept that, and I’ll do what I can to help you.’ He stubbed out his cigarette. ‘The weather’s been bloody awful these last few weeks and that Low that’s coming in from the Atlantic — ‘ he nodded to the weather map — ‘it’s still intensifying. The new figures just came in over the teleprinter. Pressure at the centre is nine-seven-two falling and unless the ridge of high pressure in front of it builds up — and I don’t think it will — that next Low will start coming through some time tomorrow night. After that… well, this is just guesswork, but we might get a fine spell. It’s about time, you know.’ He went back to the desk. ‘I’ll give you my call sign and the frequency you have to listen on.’ He wrote it down for me and suggested I tuned in to his net at 22.00 hours. ‘Just to check that you’re picking me up all right. Phone me at nine o’clock tomorrow morning here. I usually look in about that time if I’m not on the morning shift.’

I thanked him, but as I turned to go he stopped me. ‘Take my advice, Ross, and keep clear of the Military. It’s not only Braddock they’re worried about. There’s a report of a Russian trawler in the area, and this new chap, Colonel Webb — very cautious he is. Can’t blame him after what’s happened. And a fellow alone in a rubber dinghy, you see … thought I’d better warn you.’

I left him then. It was just after six-thirty. The car was waiting for me at the main gate and there was an officer leaning against it, talking to Field. It was the dapper little captain who had replaced Mike Ferguson as Adjutant. He watched as I climbed into the back of the car and I thought he recognised me.

‘Marjorie tells me you’re going to Laerg,’ Field said as we drove off. ‘Alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I hope Cliff Morgan was able to offer you the prospect of some better weather.’ He didn’t ask me why I was going.

But later that evening, sitting by the peat fire in their croft, it was obvious he had guessed. ‘The air search is being stepped up tomorrow — two helicopters and a Shackleton. They’ll be concentrating on The Minch and the Inner Hebrides, and every fishing vessel will be on the lookout for him.’

‘He hasn’t been seen then?’

‘No. But it’s just a matter of time.’ And he added, ‘I gather he was under treatment. It’s possible he said things …’ He didn’t look at me, but sat staring into the fire, his long, beaked face in silhouette against the lamplight. ‘These truth drugs, they quite often work, you know.’ And then he gave me the same advice that Cliff had given me. ‘If you don’t want the Army bothering you, I should get away from here just as soon as you can. The North Ford, between North Uist and Benbecula, is as good a jumping-off place as any. Nobody will bother you there, and when you do sail you’d have the Monach Isles to land on if the wind got up.’ He turned his head suddenly and looked at me. ‘I wonder what makes you so certain Braddock is heading for Laerg?’ And when I didn’t say anything, he added, ‘That night when we were leaving, he wanted the tug to go without him, didn’t he?’ I hadn’t expected him to have guessed that. His gaze returned to the fire. ‘A strange man. Quite ruthless. But a great deal of courage. And with a drive … I think that’s what one most admired, that driving energy of his.’ And after a moment he added, ‘For your sake I hope the end of it all isn’t — ‘ he hesitated — ‘some ghastly tragedy.’

Marjorie came in then with supper on a tray. We ate it there by the fire. It was a cosy, pleasant meal, and for a while I was able to forget the weather and the sense of loneliness, almost of isolation, that had been growing in me ever since I’d returned to the Hebrides.

I had to leave at nine-thirty in order to be back in time to pick up Cliffs transmission and test reception. ‘I’ll walk down with you,’ Field said. Marjorie came to the door with us. ‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t have too unpleasant a night.’

Outside the rain had ceased, but was blowing harder than ever. Field didn’t say anything until we had passed the church. ‘I wanted to have a word with you alone.’

His voice was hesitant. ‘About Marjorie. You realise she’s in love with you?’ And he went on quickly. ‘She’s Celt — both sides. She’s the sort of girl who’d break her heart over somebody.’ He stopped and faced me. ‘I wouldn’t be talking to you like this if you were an ordinary fellow. But you’re not. You’re an artist. I don’t know why that makes a difference but it does.’

I didn’t know what to say, for I hadn’t given much thought to the way the relationship between us had been developing, and now … ‘Probably it’s just the reaction … I mean, she was fond of Ferguson.’

‘Fond, yes. But nothing more. You’re an older man …’ He hesitated. ‘Not married, are you?’

‘I was — for a few months. But that finished years ago.’

‘I see. Well … ” He sounded awkward about it now. ‘We’re very close, Marjorie and I — always have been since her mother died. And now she’s grown up …’ He started walking again, his head down. ‘Not your fault, perhaps, but don’t make a fool of her. I couldn’t bear that — and nor could she.’ And he added, ‘Well, there it is … just so that you understand.’ He didn’t give me a chance to say anything, but switched abruptly to the subject of my voyage to Laerg. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘The weather up here can change very quickly. Right now there are half-a-dozen lobster fishermen marooned on the Monachs. Been there almost a fortnight.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘Cliffs giving me the local forecasts.’

‘If I weren’t tied up here, I’d offer to come with you. I don’t like the idea of your doing it alone. Nor does Marjorie.’ We had reached the dip in the road that led down to the hotel and he stopped. ‘Well, you know what you’re doing, I suppose.’ And he added, ‘I’ll let you know if there’s any further news of Braddock.’ He left me then, going back up the road, the darkness swallowing him almost at once.

I had pitched my tent on the same grass slope just beyond the small boat harbour and I got back to it just in time to pick up Cliffs transmission. He gave me his call sign first — GM3CMX, repeated several times; then the weather forecast, keyed much slower than he would normally send. Reception was good, loud and clear with no interruption. He followed the forecast with a brief message: Your arrival commented on. Remember my advice and clear out tomorrow. He ended his message with the letters CL, which meant that he was closing down his station.

I lit the pressure lamp and got out my charts, starting with 2508 which covered the whole hundred miles of the Outer Hebrides chain and included all the out-islands. Laerg stood solitary and alone on the very edge of the chart, a tiny speck surrounded by the blank white of ocean, with only scattered soundings. The shortest line from Laerg to the Hebrides touched North Uist at its westermost point, Air-an-Runair. The distance was eighty-three nautical miles.

But now that I had disembarked my gear and contacted Cliff, I was no longer tied to Rodil and could shorten the voyage by crossing the Sound of Harris. The west coast of North Uist was too exposed, but remembering what Field had said, my eyes were drawn to the North Ford and to a straggle of islands shaped like the wings of a butterfly that lay barely a dozen miles to the west. These were marked on the chart — ‘Heisker (The Monach Islands).’

I lit a cigarette, got out chart No. 3168 and began to examine the North Ford in detail. It would be low water before I got there and I saw at a glance that the narrow channels through the sand would make it possible for me to go through whatever the tide. And at the western end, beyond the causeway that joined North Uist to Benbecula, the island of Baleshare stretched a great dune tongue down from the north, a bare waste devoid of any croft. I pencilled a circle round it, let the pressure out of the lamp and lay down with a sense of satisfaction. From Baleshare to the Monachs was about nine miles. From the Monachs to Laerg seventy-six miles. This way I should reduce the open sea passage by at least thirteen miles.

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 bloodbath 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 31/2 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 to 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.’

I

And she added, ‘A crofter saw it there fast 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.

Cliff Morgan’s transmission came through very sharp that night, with almost no interference. Message received. Weather set fair for 24 hours at least, possibly 48. Fog your chief hazard. Future transmissions twice daily at 13.30 and 07.00 continuing for 3 days. Thereafter 22.00 as before for 4 days. If no message received by March 10 will presume you are in trouble and take appropriate action. He repeated the message, the speed of his key steadily increasing. Finally; Bon voyage CL. I marked the times of his transmissions on the chart and checked once again the course I should have to steer. He had given me seven clear days in which to get a message through to him. Time enough to worry how I was going to do that when I reached Laerg. I wished Iain could have ” heard that forecast. Fog was just what he wanted now.

I checked the tides given on the chart for every hour before and after high water Stornoway, pencilling in the direction and speed for the twenty-four hours commencing 05.00. I also made a note of the magnetic variation — 13° West — and my compass deviation which I found to be a further 4° West with all my gear stowed. Taking these factors into account the compass course I should have to steer after clearing the Monachs was 282°.

Having satisfied myself that all the navigational information I required was entered on the charts, and having checked through again for accuracy, I folded it and slipped it into its spray-proof case. Together with the radio, I stowed it in the dinghy within reach of the helm. Then I struck the tent and when that was loaded and the camp entirely cleared, I waded into the water, pushed off and clambered in. I moored out in the channel, a stone tied to the painter, and went to sleep under the stars, clad in my oilskins, lying crossways, my feet stuck out over the side and my head cushioned on the far curve of the tight-blown fabric.

It was cold that night and I slept fitfully, conscious of the yawing of the dinghy, the ripple of the tide tugging at the mooring. I had no alarm clock, but it wasn’t necessary. Seabirds woke me as the first glimmering of dawn showed grey in the east, silhouetting the dark outline, of Eaval. I dipped my face in salt water, conscious now of a feeling of tension; eyes and head were sluggish with the night and the cold had cramped my bones. I drank the tea I had left hot in the Thermos, ate some digestive biscuits and cheese, and then I pulled up the mooring, untying the stone and letting it fall back into the water. The outboard engine started at the second pull and I was on my way, circling in the tide run and heading down the centre of the pale ribbon of water that ran between the sands towards the open sea.

The light in the east was pale and cold as steel; the stars overhead still bright. The speed of my passage made a little wind, and that too was cold, so that I shivered under my oilskins. All ahead was black darkness. I had a moment of panic that I should lose the channel and get stranded among the breakers on the bar. Passing through the narrows between Eachkamish and the northern tip of Benbecula — the channel marked on the chart as Beul an Toim — the broken water of the bar showed in a ghostly semicircle beyond the piled-up bulk of my stores. Even when I could see the breaking waves, I could not hear them. All I heard was the powerful roar of the outboard. I steered a compass course, running the engine slow, and as the dunes slid away behind me, my craft came suddenly alive to the movement of the waves.

Breaking water right ahead and no gap visible. The light was growing steadily and I jilled around for a moment, searching the line of breakers. A darker patch, further south than I had expected … I felt my way towards it, conscious of the tug of the tide under the boat, noting the sideways drift. And then suddenly my eyes, grown accustomed to the light, picked out the channel, a narrow highway of dark water, growing wider as I entered it. The swell was bad here out on the bar, the waves steep but only occasionally breaking. The dinghy pitched wildly, the engine racing as the prop was lifted clear of the water.

There was a moment when I thought I’d missed the channel, the waves higher than my head and starting to curl at the top. I wanted to turn back then, but I didn’t dare for fear the dinghy would overturn. The jerricans were shifting despite their lashings and I had to grip hold of the wooden slats at my feet to prevent myself from being thrown out. This lasted for perhaps a minute. Then suddenly the waves were less steep. A moment later, and I was motoring in calm water and the sea’s only movement was a long, flat, oily swell. I was over the bar, and looking back I could scarcely believe that I had found a way through from landward, for all behind me was an unbroken line of white water, the confusion of the waves showing as toppling masses against the dawn sky, the low land surrounding the Ford already lost in the haze of spray that hung above the bar. I set my course by the compass, took a small nip from the flask I had kept handy and settled down to the long business of steering and keeping the engine going.

Shortly before seven the sun rose. It was broad daylight then and the Monachs clearly visible on the port bow. At 06.45 I had tuned in to the BBC on 1500 metres. There was no change in the weather pattern and the forecast for sea area Hebrides was wind force 1 to 2 variable, good visibility, but fog locally. Shortly after nine the Monachs were abeam to port about two miles. They were flat as a table and at that distance the grass of the machair looked like a lawn. My compass was one of those which could be taken out of its holder and used as a hand-bearing compass. I took a bearing on the disused lighthouse, and another on Haskeir Island away to the north. These, together with a stern-bearing on the top of Clettraval on North Uist, gave me a three-point fix. I marked my position on the chart and checked it against my dead reckoning, which was based on course and speed, making due allowance for tide. The difference was 1.4 miles at 275°.

That fix was very important to me, for thereafter I was able to base my dead reckoning on a speed of 3.8 knots.

The sun was warm now, shimmering on the water, a blinding glare that made me drowsy. The one thing I hadn’t thought of was dark glasses. I had taken my oilskin jacket off some miles back. Now I removed the first of my sweaters and refilled the tank with the engine running slow. In doing so I nearly missed the only ship I was to sight that day — a trawler, hull-down on the horizon, trailing a smudge of smoke.

Every hour I wrote up my log and entered my DR position on the chart, just as I had always done back in the old days on the bridge of a freighter. The engine was my main concern, and I was sensitive to every change of note, real or imagined. All around me, the sea was alive, the movement of the swell, the flight of birds; and whenever I felt the need, there was always the radio with the Light Programme churning out endless music.

Just after eleven I ran into a school of porpoise. I thought at first it was a tidal swirl, mistaking their curving backs for the shadow cast by the lip of a small wave breaking. And then I saw one not fifty yards away, a dark body glinting in the sun and curved like the top of a wheel revolving. The pack must have numbered more than a dozen. They came out of the water three times, almost in unison and gaining momentum with each re-entry. At the final voracious plunge, the whole surface of the sea ahead of me seethed; from flat calm it was suddenly a boiling cauldron as millions of small fry skittered in panic across the surface. For an instant I seemed to be headed for a sheet of molten silver, and then the sea was oily smooth again, so that I stared, wondering whether I had imagined it.

A flash of white from the sky, the sudden splash of a projectile hitting the water … this new phenomenon thrilled me as something dimly remembered but not seen in a long while. The gannets had arrived.

There were a dozen or more of them, wheeling low and then hurling themselves into the sea with closed wings and out-thrust head, a spear-beaked missile diving headlong for the herring on which the porpoise were feeding and which in turn were attacking the small fry. I could remember my grandfather’s words before I had ever seen a gannet dive: ‘Aye,’ he’d said, his thick, guttural voice burring at us, ‘ye’ll no’ see a finer sight of heaven, for there’s nae muckle fowl (he pronounced it the Norwegian way — Fugl) can dive like a solan goose.’

Where the gannets came from I don’t know, for until that moment I had seen none. They appeared as though by magic, coming up from all angles and all heights and the little bombplumes of their dives spouted in the sea all round me. My presence didn’t seem to disturb them at all. Perhaps it was because the dinghy was so different in shape and appearance to any boat they had encountered before. Three of them dived in quick succession, hitting the water so close that I could almost reach out and touch the plumes of spray. They surfaced practically together, each with a herring gripped in its long beak. A vigorous washing, a quick twist to turn the fish head first and then it was swallowed and they took off again, taxiing clumsily in a long run, wings and feet labouring at the surface of the water. Other birds were there — big herring gulls and black-backs; shearwaters and razorbills too, I think, but at that time I was not so practised at bird recognition. The smooth-moving hillocks of the sea became littered with the debris of the massacre; littered, too, with porpoise excreta — small, brown aerated lumps floating light as corks.

It was over as suddenly as it had started. All at once the birds were gone and I was left alone with the noise of the engine, only then realising how the scream of the gulls had pierced that sound. I looked at the Monachs and was surprised to find they had scarcely moved. There was nothing else in sight, not even a fishing boat, and the only aircraft I saw was the BEA flight coming into Benbecula, a silver flash of wings against the blue of the sky.

Though less than four miles long from Stockay to the lighthouse, the Monachs were with me a long time. It was not until almost midday that they began to drop out of sight astern. Visibility was still very good then. The stone of the lighthouse stood out clear and white, and though the North Ford and all the low-lying country of Benbecula and the Uists had long since disappeared, the high ground remained clearly visible; particularly the massive brown bulk of the Harris hills.

It was about this time that I thought I saw, peeping up at me over the horizon ahead, the faint outline of what looked like a solitary rock. The peak of Tarsaval on Laerg? I couldn’t be certain, for though I stared and stared and blinked repeatedly to re-focus my eyes, it remained indefinite as a mirage, an ephemeral shape that might just as easily have been a reflection of my own desire; for what I wanted most to see — what any seaman wants to see — was my objective coming up right over the bows to confirm me in my navigation.

But I never had that satisfaction. It was there, I thought, for a while; then I couldn’t be certain. Finally I was sure it wasn’t, for by that time even the Harris hills had become blurred and indistinct.

I was conscious then of a drop in temperature. The sun had lost its warmth, the sky its brilliance, and where sky met sea, the pale, watery blue was shaded to the sepia of haze. Where I thought I had glimpsed Laerg there was soon no clear-cut horizon, only a pale blurring of the light like refraction from a shallow cloud lying on the surface of the sea.

Fog! I could feel it in my bones, and it wasn’t long before I could see it. And at 13.3 °Cliff Morgan confirmed my fears. After giving me a weather forecast that was much the same as before, he added: Your greatest menance now is fog. Weather ship ‘India’ reports visibility at 11.00 hours 50 yards. The BBC forecast at 13.40 merely referred to Chance of fog patches. I had already put on my sweaters again; now I put on my oilskin jacket. Within minutes the atmosphere had chilled and thickened. A little wind sprang up, cats’ paws rippling the oily surface of the swell. One moment the hills of Harris were still there, just visible, then they were gone and the only thing in sight, besides the sea, was the tower of the Monachs lighthouse iridescent in a gleam of sun. Then that, too, vanished, and I was alone in a world where the sky seemed a sponge, the air so full of moisture that the sun scarcely percolated through it.

Half an hour later I entered the fog bank proper. It came up on me imperceptibly at first, a slow darkening of the atmosphere ahead, a gradual lessening of visibility. Then, suddenly, wreathing veils of white curled smoky tendrils round me. The cats’ paws merged, became a steady chilling breeze; little waves began to break against the bows, throwing spray in my face. Abruptly my world was reduced to a fifty-yard stretch of sea, a dank prison with water-vapour walls that moved with me as I advanced, an insubstantial, yet impenetrable enclosure.

After that I had no sense of progress, and not even the sound of the engine or the burble of the propeller’s wake astern could convince me that I was moving, for I took my grey prison with me, captive to the inability of my eyes to penetrate the veil of moisture that enclosed me.

Time had no meaning for me then. I nursed the engine, watched the compass, stared into the fog, and thought of Laerg, wondering how I was to find the entrance to the geo — wondering, too, whether I should be able even to locate the island in this thick wet blanket of misery that shut out all sight. It would be night then, and the slightest error in navigation …

I checked and re-checked my course constantly, the moisture dripping from my face and hands, running down the sleeves of my oilskin jacket on to the Celluloid surface of the chart case. Tired now and cold, my limbs cramped, I crouched listless at the helm, hearing again my grandfather’s voice; stories of Laerg and his prowess on the crags. He had claimed he was fleeter than anyone else. Even at sixty, he said, he’d been able to reach ledges no youngster dare visit. Probably he was justified in his claims. At the time the islanders left Laerg there were only five men left between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, and remembering those long, almost ape-like arms, those huge hands and the enormous breadth of his shoulders, I could well imagine the old devil swinging down the face of a thousand-foot cliff, his grizzled beard glistening with the vapour that swirled about him as he sought some almost invisible ledge where the guillemots or solan geese were nesting.

In just such a fog as this he had gone down the face of the sheer cliffs on the north side of the island, below Tarsaval, lowering himself on the old horse-hair rope that had been part of his wife’s dowry when they married at the turn of the century. Those cliffs were over 1,300 ft. high, the most spectacular volcanic wall in the British Isles. He was on his own and he had missed his footing. His hands had slipped on the wet rope and he had fallen fifty feet, his foot catching in the loop at the end. They had found him hanging there head-downwards in the morning. He had been like that most of the night, a total of five hours, but though he was frozen stiff as a board and his joints had seized solid, he nevertheless managed to walk down to his cottage. He had been fifty-two years old then.

These and other stories came flooding back into my mind; how when he had married my grandmother he had had to undergo the ordeal of the Lovers’ Stone. That sloped crag, jutting out high over the sea where it boiled against the base of the cliffy, had made an indelible impression on my young mind. He had told us that all bridegrooms had had to pass this test, walking out along the tilted stone to stand on the knife-edge, balanced on the balls of their feet and reaching down to touch their toes. It was a test to prove that they were competent cragsmen, men enough to support a woman on an island where the ability to collect eggs and birds from their nesting places could make the difference between a full belly and starvation in winter. ‘Aye, and I was fool enough to stand first on one foot and then on the other, and then put my head down and stand on my hands — just to prove I wasna scared of anything at all in the whole wide wor-rld.’ The old man’s voice seemed to come to me again through the roar of the engine.

I was tired by then, of course, and I had the illusion that if only I could penetrate the grey curtain ahead of me, I should see the towering cliffs of Laerg rising out of the sea. At moments I even imagined there was a sudden darkening in the fog. But then I reached for the chart and a glance at it confirmed that my imagination was playing me tricks. At five o’clock the island was still almost thirty miles away. I had most of the night ahead of me before I reached it. Then, if the fog held, the first indication would not be anything seen, but the pounding of the swell at the base of the cliffs, perhaps a glint of white water.

And that was presuming my navigation was accurate.

It was just after the six o’clock weather forecast, in which the BBC admitted for the first time the whole Eastern Atlantic was enveloped in fog, that the thing I had most feared happened. There was a change in the engine note. The revolutions fell off and it began to labour. I tried it with full throttle, but it made no difference. I adjusted the choke, giving it a richer mixture, but it still continued to labour. The water cooling outlet thinned to a trickle and finally ceased. The engine was beginning to pound as it ran hot. In the end it stopped altogether.

The sudden silence was frightening. For more than twelve hours I had had the roar of the engine in my ears to the exclusion of all other sounds. Now I could hear the slap of the waves against the flat rubberised gunnels. I could hear the little rushing hisses they made as they broke all round me. There wasn’t anything of a sea running, but the swell was broken by small cross-seas. The wind was about force 3, northerly, and in the stillness I could almost hear it. Other sounds were audible, too — the slop of petrol in a half-empty jerrican, the drip of moisture from my oilskins, the rattle of tins badly stowed as the dinghy wallowed with a quick, unpredictable movement.

My first thought was that the engine had run out of fuel, but I had refilled the tank less than half an hour ago, and when I checked it was still more than half-full. I thought then that it must be water in the petrol, particularly when I discovered that the jerrican I had last used was one of those that had been filled by the crofter at Carinish. Rather than empty the tank, I disconnected the fuel lead, drained the carburettor and refilled it from another jerrican; a difficult and laborious business, cramped as I was and the motion at times quite violent.

The engine started first pull and for a moment I thought I had put my finger on the trouble. But no water came out of the cooling outlet and though it ran for a moment quite normally, the revolutions gradually fell off again and for fear of permanent damage due to overheating, I stopped it.

I knew then that something must have gone wrong with the cooling system. The outlook was grim. I was not a mechanic and I had few spares. Moreover, the light was already failing. It would soon be dark, and to strip the engine down by the light of a torch was to ask for trouble with the dinghy tossing about and all available space taken up with stores. The wind seemed to be rising, too; but perhaps that was my imagination.

I sat there for a long time wondering what to do — whether to start work on it now or to wait until morning. But to wait for morning was to risk a change in the weather conditions and at least there was still light enough for me to make a start of the job. First, I had to get the engine off its bracket and into the boat. It was a big outboard, and heavy. For safety, I tied the painter round it, and then, kneeling in the stern, I undid the clamp and with a back-breaking twist managed to heave it on to the floor at my feet.

It was immensely heavy — far heavier than I had expected. But it wasn’t until it was lying on the floor at my feet that the reason became apparent. The propeller and all the lower part of the shaft, including the water-cooling inlet and the exhaust, was wrapped and choked with seaweed. I almost laughed aloud with relief. ‘You silly, bloody fool.’ I had begun talking to myself by then. I kept repeating, ‘You bloody fool!’ for I remembered now that as I had sat with the earphones on, listening to the forecast, I had motored through a patch of sea that was littered with the wrack of the recent gale — dark patches of weed that produced their own calm where the sea did not break.

Cleared of weed and refastened to its bracket, the engine resumed its purposeful note and the sound of the sea was lost again. Lost, too, was that sense of fear, which for a moment had made me wish Cliff Morgan had allowed less than seven days before presuming I was in trouble.

I switched on the compass light and immediately it became the focus of my eyes, a little oasis of brightness that revealed the fog as a stifling blanket composed of millions upon millions of tiny beads of moisture. All else was black darkness.

It became intensely cold. Surprisingly, I suffered from thirst. But the little water I had brought with me was stowed, for’ard against an emergency — and in any case, relieving myself was a problem. I suffered from cramp, too. Both feet had gone dead long ago due to construction of the blood circulation.

My eyes, mesmerised by the compass light, became droop-lidded and I began to nod. I was steering in a daze then, my thoughts wandering. ‘You’ll go to Laerg, and I’ll go to my grave fighting for the mucking Sassenachs.’ That was Iain, ages and ages ago, in a pub in Sauchiehall Street. What had made him say that, standing at that crowded bar in his new battledress? I couldn’t remember now. But I could see him still, his dark hair tousled, a black look on his face. He was a little drunk and swaying slightly. Something else he’d said … ‘That bloody old fool.’ And I’d known who he meant, for the old man had both fascinated and repelled him. ‘Dying of a broken heart. If he’d had any guts, he’d have stuck it out alone on the island, instead of blethering about it to the two of us.’ But that wasn’t what I was trying to remember. It was something he’d said after that. He’d repeated it, as though it were a great truth, slurring his words. ‘Why die where you don’t belong?’ And then he’d clapped me on the back and ordered another drink. ‘You’re lucky,’ he’d said. ‘You’re too young.’ And I’d hated him as I often did.

Or was that the next time, when he’d come swaggering back, on leave after Dieppe? Too young! Always too young where he was concerned! If I hadn’t been too young, I’d have taken Mavis….

The engine coughed, warning that the tank was running dry. I refilled it, still seeing Iain as I had seen him then, cock-sure and getting crazy drunk. Another pub that time, his black eyes wild and lines already showing on his face, boasting of the girls he’d ploughed and me saying, ‘She’s going to have a baby.’

‘Yours or mine?’ he said with a jeering, friendly grin.

I came near to hitting him then. ‘You know damn well whose it is.’

‘Och well, there’s a war on and there’s plenty of lassies with bairns and no father to call them after.’ And he’d laughed in my face and raised his glass. ‘Well, here’s to them. The country needs all they can produce the way this bloody war is going.’ That was Iain, living for the moment, grabbing all he could and to hell with the consequences. He’d had quite a reputation even in that Glasgow factory, and God knows that was a tough place to get a reputation in. Wild, they called him — wild as a young stallion, with the girls rubbing round him and the drink in him talking big and angry.

And then that last evening we’d had together … he’d forgotten I was growing up. It had ended in a row, with him breaking a glass and threatening to cut my face to ribbons with the jagged edge of it if I didn’t have another drink with him — ‘One for the road,’ he’d said. ‘But not the bloody road to the Isles.’ And he’d laughed drunkenly. ‘Donald my Donald, my wee brother Donald.’ I’d always hated him when he’d called me that. ‘You’ve no spunk in your belly, but you’ll drink with me this once to show you love me and would hate to see me die.’

I’d had that last drink with him and walked with him back to his barracks. Standing there, with the sentry looking on, he’d taken hold of me by the shoulders. ‘I’ll make a bargain we’ ye, Donald my Donald. If ye die first, which I know bloody well ye’ll never do, I’ll take your body to Laerg and dump it there in a cleit to be pickled by the winds. You do the same for me, eh? Then the old bastard can lie in peace, knowing there’s one of the family forever staring with sightless eyes, watching the birds copulate and produce their young and migrate and come again each year.’ I had promised because he was tight and because I wanted to get away and forget about not being old enough to be a soldier.

Damn him, I thought, knowing he was out there somewhere in the fog. He wouldn’t be thinking of me. He’s be thinking of the last time he was in these waters — a Carley float instead of a lobster boat and men dying of exposure. All those years ago and the memory of it like a worm eating into him. Had Lane been right, making that wild accusation? Quite ruthless, Field had said. I shivered. Alone out here in the darkness, he seemed very close.