by Mark Neilson
Mary hurried down the quay. She blinked, the cold wind bringing tears to her eyes. No sign of the old drifter. She peered across the river. Difficult to be sure, when the drifters were moored together, like a town, floating on the water.
But there was no sign of Neil’s boat anywhere. The wind plucked at her shawl. Mary returned slowly to the harbour entrance.
‘No luck?’ said Gus, still haunting the sheds long after he’d sent his quines back to the relative warmth of their hut.
Mary shook her head. They stood together, staring through the grey gap of the harbour mouth, as the light began to fade. It was almost midwinter, dark by late afternoon. The herring season was almost over. A blast of wind made them stagger.
‘God help anybody out there tonight,’ Gus said. Then glanced guiltily down at Mary. ‘But they’ll be safe enough. The Findlays invented the sea, and can cope with anything it throws at them. That’s two of our best young skippers, out there.’
Mary nodded silently, pulling the shawl tight again around her shoulders.
‘I’ll walk you back to the hut,’ said Gus. ‘It’s getting dark.’
‘I can’t thank you enough, for coming with me to visit our Jessie,’ Chrissie said.
Jonathon scrubbed at his windscreen with a gloved hand. Rain was pouring down, making the glass steam up. ‘Happy to help out,’ he said. ‘I remember your niece well. Her family were my patients for years.’
‘That’s what she says. And it’s her first baby – she’s nervous. Her man is away at the fishing. All she needs is a friendly face.’
‘Then we can bring her two of those. It’s only minutes’ work, to check the baby and her blood pressure …’ Jonathon leaned forward. ‘What a dirty day for anybody to be out in,’ he muttered.
‘Who?’
‘Up ahead. That man, walking.’
Chrissie scrubbed a clear patch on the glass. ‘Poor soul,’ she said. ‘The water’s running out of him.’
Jonathon hesitated, then braked to a halt. It was a stranger, a small canvas holdall across his shoulder, greying hair plastered down his face from the rain.
He wound down his window. ‘Want a lift?’ he called.
The stranger came alongside, bent down, water dripping from his nose. ‘That would be just great,’ he said. ‘This rain of yours is pretty wet.’
The voice was neither Scottish nor American, but had traces of both.
‘Climb in,’ said Jonathon.
‘I’ll soak your car,’ the man warned.
‘It’ll soon dry out.’
The small car rocked as the man threw in his bag, then climbed inside.
‘Where are you heading?’ Chrissie asked, as they moved forward again.
‘Portgordon.’
‘Us too.’ She turned halfway round in her seat, to make talking easier. It was commonplace, men walking their own Roads to Nowhere, restless after the war and this was a decent man, she sensed. Not a tramp.
‘Do you live there? Coming home from the war?’ she asked.
‘I got home from the war over a year ago. I’m not a local, but my grandparents are. I’m over on a visit, and hiking the last few miles to them.’
‘American?’ Chrissie asked.
‘Canadian. My family left here about thirty years ago.’
Chrissie struggled further round. ‘What’s your grandparents’ name?’ she asked. ‘Maybe I’ll know of them.’
White teeth flashed in a weather-beaten face. ‘Campbell. Probably half of the village are Campbells. By the time I find the right ones, it’s likely to be midnight.’
‘Have you got their address?’ asked Jonathon, scrubbing at his windscreen.
‘No address. My parents had – but they’re both gone. They were the ones who kept in touch with the old folk. I was too busy – like all kids.’
‘Did your parents emigrate to Canada from Portgordon?’ Jonathon asked.
‘They sure did. They left to find work.’
‘If they were locals, then you’ll have no problem,’ Jonathon reassured him. ‘Up here, everybody knows everybody else’s history. Tell your story to the first people you meet. The chances are they’ll take you straight to the door you’re looking for. That’s how people are up here.’
‘My mom always said that too. It’s what I’m banking on.’
‘You’re wet to the skin,’ said Chrissie. She’d seen him shiver.
A wry smile. ‘I’ve been wet before. I’ll survive.’
Chrissie was a creature of instinct and impulse. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘We’re going to my niece’s house. Come with us, change into something dry and heat yourself at her fire. Then get a cup of hot tea inside you.’
A pause. ‘That’s real nice of you,’ the man said awkwardly. ‘But I couldn’t possibly …’
‘Why not?’
‘You don’t know me from Adam.’
‘What’s your name?’ demanded Chrissie.
‘Angus Campbell. Same as my grandfather – I was named after him.’
‘Well, there you are!’ she said triumphantly. ‘I know you from Adam, now, so you’re no longer a stranger. What’s more, there can’t be many Angus Campbells in Portgordon. My Jessie will know where to send you, once you’ve dried out. If she doesn’t, one of her neighbours will surely know. I’m Chrissie, by the way.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Chrissie Bytheway,’ he said solemnly, eyes twinkling.
‘Get off with you!’ she laughed. ‘And this man, peering short-sightedly through the windscreen, is Jonathon – our Buckie doctor.’
‘It’s the condensation,’ Jonathon complained. ‘Three of us in a small car …’
‘So you’re the doctor?’ Campbell said. ‘Is somebody ill?’
‘Not yet,’ said Jonathon cheerfully. ‘She’s probably healthier than me. Is this where your niece lives, Chrissie?’
‘No. Next street down to the sea.’ Chrissie wriggled almost three quarters round in her seat, consumed with curiosity. ‘What was your mother’s maiden name?’ she asked. ‘Maybe I’ll remember her.’
Jonathon caught the Canadian’s eye in his rear mirror. ‘You’ll have to excuse Chrissie, she used to work for the Spanish Inquisition,’ he said. ‘Until they threw her out for being too nosey …’
‘That’s it!’ Chrissie declared. ‘I’ll tell Jessie no scones, for your cheek.’
Jonathon winked at Campbell. ‘On the other hand, she’s salt of the earth,’ he amended hastily. ‘Don’t let anybody tell you different.’
Behind him, Angus Campbell’s eyes crinkled.
‘I wouldn’t listen to them,’ he said. ‘These scones … are they anything like the ones my mom used to make?’
The quines’ hut rocked in the squalls raging overhead. It was a wild night and not many were sleeping. It was too noisy and the hut was freezing, bitingly cold, the wind whistling through every crack in the boarding, and every ill-fitting window frame.
Mary lay sleepless, old grey blankets which smelled of dampness wrapped around her. On her right, Aggie had got up a few minutes before, to find her work jacket and a couple of woollen jerseys: she put the jerseys on, wrapped the blankets round herself, and fell rather than climbed into bed, before reaching out to haul the jacket over her body too.
‘This makes Buckie feel like summertime,’ she grumbled.
On Mary’s other side, Elsie was tossing and turning. With her blankets loosened, there was no chance of building body heat: she shivered, biting her lip to keep her teeth from chattering.
Another blast left the hut timbers groaning, like a ship at sea. And that was the root of Mary’s problem. Her mind was on the Endeavour. Somewhere out there, miles from the shelter of land, she would be riding out the storm, her old timbers creaking and grunting too.
She moved restlessly. Or had Andy already brought the boat in late, under cover of darkness? Were they moored only a couple of hundred yards away, against the side of another sleeping drifter?
She half sat up,
her body ahead of her mind. Should she throw on her shawl, and a pair of boots, go down to see if the boat was back? She was conscious of movement under the shapeless heap that was Aggie, then a long pale arm came out from under the blankets and gripped her hand.
‘It’s a woman’s fate to worry – and the man’s job to cope,’ Aggie whispered.
‘It’s such a wild night,’ Mary whispered back.
The warm hand squeezed. ‘Well, you’d better get used to it. Worrying, I mean. You love that Findlay loon. Don’t you?’
Ridiculous. Mary felt her face flush. ‘I’m fond of him,’ she admitted.
And heard Aggie’s snort of laughter.
The bunk beside them stirred, then Elsie was out of it and across. She pulled the blankets from Mary, pushed her over, and climbed in beside her. The girl’s body was frozen, and her feet were like ice.
‘Are they safe out there?’ she whispered.
‘Are they ever safe?’ Aggie asked bleakly.
‘It’s just … Andy’s out there too.’
Mary worked an arm round Elsie’s shoulders. ‘They’ll be fine,’ she said, forcing certainty into her voice. A certainty which she didn’t feel. ‘They’re the two best skippers out of Buckie. They’ll be here by morning, their holds full.’
The young girl’s shivering eased. Within minutes, Mary sensed that she had fallen asleep. So easy when you were young, to trust an older person’s judgement, accept it as infallible. She herself felt all too fallible.
‘They’ll be fine,’ whispered Aggie. ‘Go to sleep.’
With all her heart, Mary wanted to accept her friend’s reassurance. Try as she might, she couldn’t. She lay staring sightlessly at the shadowed ceiling.
What was happening, out at sea?
Jonathon couldn’t sleep. As the gale raged round his house, he listened to the squalls. Rain dashed against the window panes. He turned over, trying to find sleep on his other side. Rolled onto his back.
What he needed was to do something, burn off this restlessness. A sense of foreboding possessed him, heavy as a physical weight. He decided to make himself a cup of tea in the kitchen and got up. Reaching for his old dressing gown he wrapped it round himself, yawning, then padded barefoot down the stairs.
Halfway down, he stopped. A brilliant flash of light, then another, streamed through the curtains of the stair window leaving the stairs darker in their wake. He paused on the landing, pulled aside the heavy curtains and looked out.
Far to the south and east, the whole sky lit up, turning the rivulets of rain on the glass into molten silver. Lightning: sheet lightning. He waited for the crash of thunder, but it never came.
The storm must be many miles away, out at sea.
He watched the night sky flaring silently, again and again while the wind screamed and fresh squalls of rain crashed against his window.
The strange silent lightning increased his sense of unease. Lightning you expected in a summer thunderstorm. Not midwinter. He shivered, then closed the curtains and headed down to the kitchen. Even on this side of the house, the room was intermittently lit up by the strange silver/blue flashes of light.
Jonathon closed the internal wooden shutters. They shut out the night, but not the growing sense of unease, foreboding, within him. There seemed something evil, threatening in that distant, silent lightning storm. Superstition, he thought, aware of goose-pimples rising on his body. He was a practising doctor: should be beyond such fears. But, as he filled the kettle, he shook his head.
He wasn’t.
The sense of foreboding wouldn’t go away: if anything, it was stronger than before. Something bad was going to happen. He felt it in his bones.
‘Get back to bed,’ whispered Aggie. ‘Just what good do you expect to do out there? You’ll catch your death of cold.’
Mary turned from the window, where the rain streamed down the panes of glass, and the wind shrieked across the gaps in the frame.
‘Can’t sleep,’ she said. ‘That lightning, way up north and out to sea.’
Aggie wrestled against the comfort and the heat she had built in the bed, then sighed and began to unwrap clothes and blankets from her body. In her bare feet, she padded over the wooden floor, wrapping the final blanket round herself like a shawl. Then, as an afterthought, when she reached Mary’s still figure, she opened the blanket again and wrapped it round the two of them, her warm arms resting on her friend’s cold shoulders.
Together they stared through the window, at the almost constant flares of light in the north-eastern sky.
‘It’s miles away from us,’ she said. ‘Can’t even hear the thunder. We’re safe as houses here …’
Mary leaned wearily against her friend, drawing comfort more than heat.
‘We’re safe,’ she said. ‘But they are out there, the boys. That lightning’s miles from us, but they’re right in the middle of whatever is causing it.’
Aggie drew her closer as more lightning flared.
‘If you’re sweet on the loon, you had better get used to feeling this scared and helpless,’ she said quietly. ‘Like I said, it’s the woman’s job to worry … while she prays to any God who will listen that the boat which holds her man out there, is still riding the waves and afloat …’
Just as Neil had feared, the wind backed west-south-west, rising steadily to storm force ten. It left them plugging dourly into it, deckhouse windows streaming from solid water on the outside, and condensation inside. The old boat reeled under the onslaught of steep waves and the screaming blasts of wind.
Three men crowded into her deckhouse. Johnnie had come up to relieve Andy at the wheel, but the skipper refused to go below. So Neil had brought up a mug of tea – half spilled by the time he reached there – and a salt-sodden sandwich. As Andy wolfed the food and gulped down the tea, he stayed on. Six eyes were better than two, on a night like this when one minute it was pitch black and the next the light so dazzling that they couldn’t see.
Neil scrubbed clear a pane of glass. Outside, momentarily, a wall of black water bearing down on them. Then total darkness. There was a dull boom from the bows: the whole ship shuddered, then rose fiercely under the thrust of the wave passing beneath.
At half speed, they were barely making steerage way but to go faster would only increase the battering the ship was taking. Land was still far below a horizon they couldn’t see. The storm had them pinned down, like a butterfly on a collector’s board. Far to the north, at the centre of the storm, the sky lit up again with vast flashes of sheet lightning. They couldn’t hear the thunder for the bedlam outside.
Andy handed back the empty plate and mug.
‘I’ll take the wheel,’ he said wearily.
Johnnie hesitated. ‘You’ve had the watch for hours already, Skipper,’ he said.
‘I’m fine,’ Andy snapped.
‘Johnnie’s right,’ Neil said. ‘We’re safe enough out here. Stuck, until the storm blows itself out. We’re marking time. You won’t get a better chance to rest.’
‘The skipper stays on deck …’ Andy argued.
‘An exhausted skipper is no use to man nor beast,’ Neil said. ‘Get your head down for an hour. We can’t do anything different from what we’re doing. Not even by dawn. I’ll keep watch up here, with Johnnie.’
Andy frowned. The thought of crawling into a damp bunk and closing his eyes for a few minutes was sorely tempting. Neil was right: they could do no more than keep their bows to the onslaught of the waves. To turn and flee in front of the storm was to leave even more miles between them and Yarmouth, when he was already doing sums in his head about the coal in the engine room bunker.
‘Go on, Skip,’ Johnnie urged. ‘We’ll be fine.’
Another huge wave came roaring in from the dark, burying the Endeavour’s bows, then sending her soaring skywards. Black seawater swept along the deck and engulfed the foot of the deckhouse.
‘Just watch yourself going back,’ warned Neil.
Not idle advi
ce. It had been a mouth-drying dash from the crew’s quarters round to the deckhouse stairs when he brought Andy’s sandwich and tea. There were no safety harnesses – or even safety ropes – on these old fishing boats.
Andy yawned, peering out into darkness beyond the feeble cocoon of light on deck. ‘Right. You take the watch, Johnnie. No need for you to hang around up here, Neil. Get your head down too. We’ll need our wits about us in the morning.’
He waited until another wave surged past, then slipped through the deckhouse door. Halfway down the short stair, as the Endeavour slid down the rear slope of the wave, he paused. Looking up, uncertainly, as if he sensed …
The Endeavour hit something solid in the water. She stopped dead in her tracks, as the next wave roared in and underneath.
Andy, his attention split between the boat and himself, pitched headfirst over the rail into the winch housing. Then was picked up by the surging water and slammed against the foot of the deckhouse stairs, and swept aft to the stern rail.
Mary sat bolt upright in the bed. At her side, Elsie grumbled and tugged back the bedclothes. In the darkness, Mary’s head was spinning, her heartbeat thundering in her chest. Half awake, she felt nauseous and frightened to death.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she listened to the wind scream over them, while the old shed grated and creaked. Gradually, her heartbeat slowed and she struggled to take control over her mind again. She shivered, as another squall rocked the hut. If it was like this on land, what would it be like out there?
It had felt like a dream, only it wasn’t. The image burned in her mind was too clear for any dream. Something terrible had just happened, out at sea …
Leaving Neil and the crew now fighting for their lives.
Neil was out of the deckhouse before he’d fully registered what had happened. He vaulted the rail and landed in the slack of the wave’s surge. Saw Andy being swept overboard, and launched himself after his brother’s tumbling body. They slammed into the stern rail together. Wind and sea clawing at them.
