The Wind from the Sea

by Mark Neilson

  Neil grabbed two fistfuls of Andy’s jacket. Jamming his feet against a stanchion, he surged clear with all his strength, fighting to reach the comparative lea of the deck-house and the crew’s quarters.

  No good. Another swirling wall of seawater drove him back. He flung himself sideways, and crashed against the lifeboat mounting. With one arm, he grabbed it desperately, fighting to get his feet beneath him.

  While holding grimly on to Andy with his other hand.

  The trailing body was nearly sucked away. Neil’s shoulders cracked, but he held on. Then Andy became an inert burden, too heavy to let him move quickly – leaving them both exposed to the surges of water along the decks.

  Bracing himself against the mast, he dragged Andy closer. Waited for the wave to pass, then launched himself desperately across the heaving deck towards the crew’s quarters. Andy’s body was a deadweight, slowing them as the next wall of water came coursing along the deck.

  The door opened, and two crewmen rushed out. This time it was four bodies which tumbled back towards the stern, and the sea beyond. But three desperate men are stronger than one. Their slide stopped as they crashed into and half under the lifeboat, leaving them bruised and breathless.

  Dragging Andy towards the open door, they tumbled inside and down the short stairs. The floor was swimming.

  ‘Close that door,’ Neil gasped. ‘We’ll be swamped.’

  The rest of the crew were scrambling out of their bunks, while the lantern swung wildly under the low roof. Neil turned Andy over. Blood ran with salt seawater down the white, young face. His brother was unconscious – or dead.

  He felt for the artery in the throat: Andy’s heart was beating.

  What injuries? And quickly, because whatever had hit the Endeavour had left her mortally wounded. Even with less than half his attention, he felt her rising ever more sluggishly to the thrust of the waves.

  Gently, he felt round Andy’s head. His hands came away red.

  Neil slowly turned the head round. A huge tear, from the crown down behind the right ear. He hesitated, then gently felt the skull beneath. Fearing – even expecting – movement of the bone after a blow like that. The skull was intact.

  He released breath that he seemed to have been holding for days.

  ‘He’s knocked out. Get him onto a bunk,’ he growled.

  ‘What happened to us?’ one of the crewmen asked, as they lifted Andy onto the nearest bunk.

  ‘We hit timber or something in the water,’ Neil said. ‘One of you, get up there to the deckhouse and ask Johnnie how the ship is coping.’

  ‘Right, Skip.’

  Neil didn’t notice.

  ‘Donald. You and Davie bandage his head. Try to draw the edges of the tear together. I’m going down to the engine room and through to the hull, to find out what the damage is.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Skip.’

  Neil stared. No time to argue.

  He patted Andy’s cheek, then hurtled down the stairs into the engine room. No sign of the engineer.

  ‘Padraig!’ he yelled.

  ‘Up forr’ard!’ the voice was faint.

  Neil ducked into the dark. He knew every nook and cranny of this ship: as a boy, he had explored every space. Beyond the main hold, he saw the faint glow of an oil lantern. Padraig. On his hands and knees, he eased into the cramped V of the hull, through slopping water almost two feet deep.

  The big Irishman pointed. In the light of the lantern, seawater was gushing in through bow planks which had been sprung, maybe even shattered.

  ‘We’re shipping water,’ he said calmly.

  ‘Are the timbers holed?’

  ‘There’s three planks sprung. About four feet of damage. Whatever we hit, it was a glancing blow.’

  ‘Repairable?’ Neil gingerly felt the extent of the gaps.

  ‘At sea? In these conditions?’

  Around them, water rose steadily.

  ‘When this reaches the engine room, it’ll dowse the boiler,’ Padraig warned.

  Leaving them without power. Drifting completely at the mercy of the storm.

  Worse still, going down.

  Padraig looked at him wryly. ‘I thought I would live forever, after getting through the Somme. No more bullets with my name on them.’ He grimaced, his wet face shining grotesquely above the lantern. ‘Nobody ever said about my name on a floating log.’

  ‘The men,’ said Neil. ‘We’d better get back to them.’

  The level of water inside the bows was rising quickly, and the engine room was already flooding, greasy water and steam swirling round. Dripping oil and water, they climbed into the crew’s quarters, to meet the stares of the waiting crew.

  ‘Planks sprung, on the starboard bow,’ Neil said grimly. ‘Shipping water.’

  A silence. Then Davie spoke.

  ‘The boys want to take to the lifeboat. Launch her over the stern.’

  Neil shook his head. ‘In these seas, we wouldn’t last ten minutes.’

  ‘Then what do we do?’

  He heard the panic, controlled by iron courage, in Davie’s voice.

  So much like the voices of the men he had led in the trenches. Men who knew they were facing certain death. But were determined to meet it like men. To die without shame.

  ‘We stay with the ship,’ he growled. ‘Keep her afloat … patch her up.’

  ‘How?’

  Their eyes watched him, whites reflected in the swinging lantern’s light.

  It was his responsibility. A familiar burden, settling on his shoulders. He sensed, rather than heard, the engine stop.

  ‘The boiler’s gone out,’ said Padraig. ‘We need a miracle now …’

  Chapter 8

  With Andy unconscious, Neil found himself moving seamlessly from cook, back to skipper of the boat. The responsibility and decisions were his alone.

  First things first: the boat had to be brought under control. That meant getting steerage way – with his engine dead. And the only way to do this was to hoist the small stern sail, which all drifters used to let them hold station while waiting for their nets to fill.

  ‘Davie. Hoist the stern sail,’ he snapped. ‘Not full up or the wind will blow it to shreds. Just enough to give us steerage. Take Dougie – and keep an eye on these waves, both of you.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Skip.’

  ‘Donald. Get back to Johnnie. Tell him to come about, between the waves, as soon as we have steerage way. Then set our stern to them …’

  A risk. Taking big seas over the stern could founder them: but doing nothing condemned them to sinking like a stone.

  ‘Padraig. We’re going into that hull again. Bring the blankets from the bunks – and the broadest-bladed chisel you can find.’

  ‘Right, Skip.’

  ‘The rest of you, get pails and buckets. Make a human chain from the engine room to the deck. Bail for your lives – but have a man on that door to close it fast, if he sees us being swamped by a wave.’

  In the lantern light, their faces were yellow and grim. Set in stone, because they were fighting for their lives in this old boat – and there wasn’t a man who didn’t know it.

  ‘Get on with it, boys. Good luck,’ he snapped.

  ‘What about Andy?’ Dugald asked.

  ‘Leave him to come back to his senses. We need all hands.’

  Dragging an armful of blankets, Neil fought back through the spaces into the bows. Water everywhere, waist deep rising to chest deep, slopping and surging as the Endeavour wallowed sluggishly in the path of the waves.

  Jammed into the constricted space of the bows, with Padraig holding a lantern for light, Neil growled: ‘An old deep-sea sailorman told me this. If they were holed at sea they tried to work a sail under the boat’s hull. The water pressure held it tight, and slowed down the inflow. Then they packed the hole from inside with sails or blankets, and nailed it down. It still leaked, but they could usually cope by bailing out.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘We’re not hole
d. So, maybe if we can stuff blankets between each plank that’s sprung, and tamp them in with a chisel …’

  ‘Like caulking the planks again?’

  Neil nodded. ‘It might just work.’

  Padraig silently handed over the first blanket. Neil folded it once, then twice. By touch, he found the end of two planks where the flow of water rushed past his fingers. Traced the gap back until he could almost fit his fingers between the planks. Groping under water, he started feeding the blanket into the gap. Then punched it tight with the broad-bladed chisel that Padraig had brought.

  The first planks were easy: then, as he worked deeper, he had to hold his breath and duck his head under to reach then repair the damage.

  The water was freezing cold. Dulling his mind, not his will. No feeling in his hands, but he barely noticed. Pain from splinters disappeared. His whole existence revolved round feeling, sensing, jamming the coarse fabric into gaps, then ramming it home hard. Then surfacing, spent and gasping, his breath pluming out in the lantern light, while water coursed off his face.

  Their last blanket filled the last gap. Just.

  Neil was utterly spent. ‘Padraig,’ he gasped. ‘You come here and feel if there’s any water rushing in. If there isn’t, tamp everything in as hard as you can manage with that chisel.’

  They struggled past each other. Neil fought not to drop the lantern, his breath still whooping, and his body in shuddering spasm.

  Then Padraig looked up, filthy-faced but exultant. ‘We’re sound, Neil,’ he panted. ‘If I ever meet your sailor-man, I’m going to buy him as much as the old bugger can drink.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to dig him up first,’ Neil replied, teeth chattering. He lowered the lantern. ‘Right. If the lads have got the stern sail working, our next job is just to bail and bail, until the water level falls. Could take all night, even tomorrow. Then light the boiler fire again – that won’t be easy. Once we have the engine working, we can turn for home. But at dead slow – otherwise that caulking will never hold.’

  He scrubbed his eyes. ‘Is there anything I’ve forgotten?’

  Padraig grinned, demonic in the lantern’s light.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We can pray.’

  ‘Don’t try to do too much,’ Jonathon said. ‘Especially over the first week …’ He stood in the doorway of the now-empty cottage hospital, watching the husband and wife walk slowly downhill to the town. Last patient gone, quicker than he would have preferred. In effect, thrown out of the cottage hospital whose sole mission it was to look after them. But what choice was there?

  The letter from America was burning his hand: just delivered, as he escorted the woman and her husband through the door. He was desperate to open it, but waited to wave. Neither of the couple looked back.

  Closing the door, he threw the rest of the mail onto the desk inside the hallway. Now that the letter was in his hands, he was afraid to open it.

  Sticking a finger inside the envelope flap he tried to ease it away. No good: this was an expensive envelope with sound adhesive. He fumbled for his letter-knife in the desk drawer, and cut through the flap.

  The empty envelope fluttered to the floor.

  Jonathon’s eyes raced down the page: ‘Oh, God,’ he said.

  This was what that premonition, two nights before, had heralded.

  Disaster, but the others would have to know. Grabbing a coat, he rushed through the door, leaving the envelope discarded on the carpet. The front door banged shut: no time to lock it. He threw his coat into the rear of the car, and went round to begin the prolonged business of starting it.

  When the engine fired, he climbed in, closed the door and nudged the car into gear. Then accelerated down the hill, passing the couple who were walking slowly home. They looked at each other in surprise. Not like the doctor to go past them: he must have something all-absorbing on his mind.

  Jonathon brought the little car to an untidy skidding halt outside Eric’s door and gathered up the letter. Knocking, he walked straight inside, as if he was on a house call, re-reading the letter.

  The contents hadn’t changed. They never would. Not now.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Eric, startled out of forty winks. ‘Oh …’ He had seen Jonathon’s face.

  ‘Read this,’ Jonathon held out the letter.

  ‘I can’t,’ Eric replied. ‘My specs are in the kitchen. Read it to me.’

  Jonathon turned the letter round, and studied it. ‘Very friendly,’ he said. ‘Lots of stuff about Andrew Carnegie’s pride in his Scottish ancestry, how interested he would have been. Then, the important bit:

  “We have considered your request for help at considerable length, as we know our founder would have done. There are two major issues which influence our response. Firstly, the Foundation’s remit is to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding: not provide funds for buildings. Secondly, while we are happy to consider an unusual project, we feel bound by our founder’s own basic principles. Andrew Carnegie started life as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory. He reached where he did by dedicated part-time study. His objective was to help others to travel that same path, to freedom. Thus his charity gifts were tied to funding colleges, and libraries, places where an ordinary working lad could study to improve himself. A cottage hospital, worthy though it is, scarcely falls into any of these categories. Regretfully, we must turn your request for funding assistance down.

  However, we do not wish to abandon both your cause and your community – both of which deserve better. We have sent your letter on to a friend of his – another Scot who came to the New World with only the clothes he wore, but has made his fortune in timber. We have asked if he can help you. At some future date, he may be in touch” …’

  Jonathon looked up blindly. ‘It has taken two months for Andrew Carnegie’s foundation to reply. If his friend ever decides to help – and why should he? – it’s going to come too late. The building’s up for sale in ten days’ time.’

  ‘Come through to the kitchen, and I’ll make us a cup of tea,’ Eric said heavily. ‘Let me see that letter … where are my specs?’ The old fisherman read the text, slowly and deliberately. ‘They sound nice people,’ he judged.

  ‘But not nice enough,’ said Jonathon. ‘What do we do now?’

  Eric thoughtfully reached for his pipe and tobacco tin. Took out a flake of tobacco, and began to rub it between the heels of his hands. Unusually, some of the crumbled tobacco fell to the floor.

  Jonathon saw that the old man’s hands were shaking.

  Eric stuffed the tobacco slowly into his pipe. Began his search for the matchbox, which lay in full view beside the tobacco tin. Wordlessly, Jonathon reached over and handed him the matches. Eric struck one and held it over the bowl of his pipe. Smoke wreathed his face.

  Then he took the pipe away, and flapped out the match.

  ‘You make the tea,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ll fetch Chrissie – she should know. The quines are back tomorrow. Maybe they can think of something.’ He looked up, blindly. ‘What’s going to happen to the town?’

  Jonathon sighed. ‘That was our last chance … and it’s gone, taking the cottage hospital with it.’

  The storm blew itself out – bringing down the final curtain on the herring season. Any drifters leaving the harbour now were generally heading home for Christmas if they were English boats, or New Year if they were Scottish.

  The communal huts were emptying, faster than they’d filled. Each merchant was busy making payments for the fishing, then arranging for his gutting teams to travel home.

  Aggie was in a ferment about buying something before they left, to take home to her Wee Man. Quines sang and stuffed their filthy belongings into kitbags and ancient leather cases – to be washed, once they were home again. Only Elsie sat, head bowed and miserable, on the edge of her bed.

  Gus paused in the doorway. ‘Mary Cowie’s team?’ he asked. One of the quines pointed inside and he entered, uncomfortably edging ro
und the young women and heading for Aggie.

  ‘I’ve got your rail tickets,’ he addressed her busy back.

  She straightened quickly. ‘Any news?’

  Gus shook his head, frowned, and nodded over to Elsie.

  ‘Where’s Mary?’ he asked.

  Aggie sighed. ‘Down at the pier head. Where else?’

  Gus glanced at the neat, but empty bed. ‘Is she packed?’ he asked.

  Aggie shook her head silently.

  ‘She’s not going home,’ said Elsie. ‘And neither am I. Not until …’

  Then her head bowed, and her shoulders started shaking.

  Aggie walked over, put her arm silently round the girl’s shoulders.

  ‘We’re all going home together,’ Gus said firmly. ‘Your families would have me thrown out of Buckie if I left you here.’

  ‘You’d better see Mary,’ Aggie said. ‘I’ll stay with Elsie, for a bit. Just don’t take forever …’

  ‘We haven’t got forever,’ Gus snapped. ‘Our train leaves at 4 p.m.’

  ‘I’m staying, with Mary,’ Elsie’s muffled voice declared.

  Gus puffed out his cheeks. No wonder he was single: looking after everybody else’s quines soon turned a man into a monk. He strode towards the harbour. Mary would be keeping her lonely vigil there, long after the rest of the world knew that it was too late for the Endeavour to come back. Not after she was three days overdue – an old vessel, out in the worst storm to hit the coast in years.

  He saw Mary’s beshawled figure staring out to sea, as she had done throughout the daylight hours. It was a damned shame. His heart ached for the girl, and he liked the Findlay boys. But there came a time when hope and prayer had to stop, and life must move on without them.

  Gus walked up to her, his eyes on the grey sea stretching out to a cold horizon, straight as a pencil line drawn by a ruler.

  ‘They won’t be coming back,’ he said at last. ‘Not now.’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘There’s nothing to be served by staying here. Locals know this stretch of sea. If she’d survived, they say the Endeavour would be back, by now.’

  Still she didn’t reply.