The Sea Detective

by Mark Douglas-Home

  ‘You’ve heard of them.’

  ‘Who hasn’t?’

  ‘My grandfather was born there, though he’s dead now.’

  ‘All the men were killed in the war weren’t they?’

  Cal said they were. ‘His family name was Sinclair.’

  She considered for a bit. ‘I thought it was only MacKays and Raes.’

  A long expanse of water opened up on their right. Cal watched the glistening water. Sally said, ‘Loch Loyal. It gets its name from that,’ and pointed to the left of the road where a mountain with multiple peaks loomed. ‘That’s Ben Loyal … it and the memorial to the men of Eilean Iasgaich are the big draws around here. Not forgetting the sun, the beaches and the blue seas. …’ She let out a long suffering laugh. ‘… Though maybe not the sun.’

  ‘Today’s good,’ Cal said.

  ‘It is indeed. This’ll be summer, all of it.’

  A narrow channel connected the northern end of Loch Loyal to another loch which Sally said was called Craggie. ‘And along here a bit you should be able to see Eilean Iasgaich.’

  The road crossed open moorland until a gouge of sea running inland – the Kyle of Tongue – revealed itself. It sparkled with greens and blues in the sun. Sally pointed out the landmarks. Below them and to their left was the village of Tongue. Further along the Kyle (Sally said it was two miles, though it appeared closer in the clear air) was Eastern Township, the old crofting settlement, and between the two settlements were tidal flats of sand and mud banks crossed by a curving causeway and a bridge to the Kyle’s far shore. Beyond, where the Kyle widened and became open sea, there was a collection of islands. ‘Your island’s the one broadside to us, with a hill at either end.’

  Cal hadn’t given Eilean Iasgaich much thought since waking at 7 with an uncomfortable morning-after feeling. On the train from Inverness to Lairg, a cup of coffee chased away his sleepiness but the feeling hung on. If anything, it became worse as he preoccupied himself with Rachel, replaying the conversation of the night before, hoping for justification but not finding it; aware his bad temper then had as much to do with his guilty conscience about her as her documentary on Eilean Iasgaich. So when he saw the island it took him rather by surprise. He hadn’t known what to expect: if not a dark, sinister place inhabited by ranks of black cormorants then certainly not a pleasant green splash in a bright blue sea. When the surprise passed, it was replaced by lingering resentment. A place which had caused his mother’s family so much suffering and injustice had no right to look like this, enticing, pretty even.

  Sally said, ‘It’s not always like this, of course.’

  Cal asked, ‘Where do I go for the boat?’

  ‘By the slipway, at the causeway,’ Sally said. ‘It goes at noon and costs £12.50. You can walk along the road by the shop. Won’t take you more than five minutes.’

  Cal thanked her.

  ‘I’ll point you in the right direction … Oh and buy something to eat because there’s nothing but sheep and birds on the island.’

  A few minutes later the Postbus slowed and turned left. ‘Well this is almost the end of the line,’ Sally said. ‘Welcome to Eastern Township.’

  The Postbus entered the village, a collection of one and a half storey houses scattered along a single-track road. Cal watched for the hotel where Rachel was staying but Sally pulled up before he could see it. She parked on a tarred apron by a low-slung building. Outside it were two tables, some chairs and a rack of grey-blue Calor gas canisters. ‘Rae Family Stores’ announced the sign above the door.

  ‘This is as far as I go.’ Sally turned off the engine. ‘It’s the store, Post Office, café, you name it … You’ll find the boat along there.’ Sally pointed to a road which went between two large sycamore trees.

  Cal thanked her again. ‘Where’s the hotel from here?’ He opened his door, debating whether he’d try again to explain his reservations to Rachel about her documentary now, or later.

  ‘Another couple of hundred yards, you can’t miss it.’ She pointed straight ahead. ‘If it’s full and you need a room there’s a B&B opposite.’

  Cal nodded acknowledgement and followed her into the shop where he bought rolls, tomatoes, ham slices, cheese, crisps, chocolate biscuits and a two litre bottle of water.

  When he was at the counter paying he asked the shop assistant, a teenage girl with jet black hair and purple nail varnish, ‘Is there another shop in the village?’

  ‘Not really, not like this … There’s the Sea Shop down the road. It does fishing gear as well as surfing and diving equipment.’

  ‘Do you know if it used to be the general store?’

  ‘A long time ago; before the Raes opened this. I don’t know much more about it.’

  ‘My mother was born here,’ Cal said, ‘and her grandparents used to run a shop here, during the war and after it.’

  ‘Is that right?’ The girl looked bored at the prospect of another tourist trip down family memory lane.

  ‘Who owns the Sea Shop now?’

  The girl arched her eyebrows as if the answer was obvious. ‘The Raes of course. They own the village.’ Cal thanked her for his change and went to the door, waving goodbye to Sally, who was at the Post Office counter at the back of the shop.

  He looked at his phone. It was 11.34. Rachel would have to wait. The boat left in 26 minutes.

  The road to the slipway curved left beyond the sycamore trees. A stone wall on his right soon gave way to fenced pasture and a view across the Kyle. The tide was coming in. There were fewer sandbanks showing now than when he’d first seen it from the Postbus. It was an observation made from habit and didn’t occupy his thoughts. Those were concerned with Rachel and to a lesser extent with his own family’s association with this road (was this where his grandmother walked, an outcast from the island, widowed and pregnant with his mother?). The road sloped gently towards the water and soon he saw the causeway curving across sand and scrub to the bridge which spanned the western sea channel, a fast flowing ripple of blue. A fishing boat was tied up close to the bridge, in a calm deep backwater by the stream. Someone in a red hat was lifting boxes on to the side of the road. As Cal continued walking, a stone slipway came into view on the near shore. A rigid inflatable boat was moored there. It was orange and a man wearing a bright yellow jacket was leaning over its twin engines.

  Eight passengers were waiting in a queue by the ticket booth at the top of the slipway. Cal studied them looking for Rachel but didn’t see her. A small woman with greying blonde hair, a strained white face and a satchel over her shoulder asked him if he was taking the island tour. He nodded. ‘That’ll be £12.50,’ she said. He slipped his rucksack off his shoulder, unzipped a pocket and took out his wallet.

  With his ticket, she gave him a flyer announcing ‘the opening of an island cafe/ restaurant later in the summer’. There was also news about an appeal fund for restoring the house of Hector MacKay, ‘the famous skipper of the brave men of Eilean Iasgaich’. Cal wandered away from the booth reading about the various public grants the development projects had already attracted when he saw Rachel. She was sitting by the shore on the other side of the causeway, her back to Cal. He folded the flyer, put it in his pocket and crossed the road to the path which led to where she was. His feet slid on the gravel, but she didn’t turn. Cal stopped a dozen paces from her.

  ‘Rachel.’

  She turned and looked at him through sunglasses, before turning away. ‘It’s such an amazing day isn’t it?’ There was no animosity in her voice, or none that Cal could detect.

  He looked where she was looking, towards the mouth of the Kyle. Eilean Iasgaich was rising on the horizon. ‘Yes, it is.’

  She turned back, scrutinising him again, saying nothing.

  He wished he could see her eyes. Her dark lenses reflected the causeway behind him.

  ‘Can I just enjoy it?’ Again, there was no hostility but neither was it a question.

  He nodded.

  ‘Yeah �
�’ He scuffed some stones. He kicked at them again. ‘Sure. Are you going on the boat?’

  Her back was still to him when she spoke again. ‘No arguments Cal. Not today.’

  He took that to mean ‘yes’.

  ‘Ok,’ he said. There’d be time to talk later, make her understand how difficult it was for him, without it becoming a shouting match.

  She stood, bending to pick up her walking boots. Her socks were tucked into them. When she came towards him, bare foot, tentatively on the stones, he saw the lapping tide had wet the bottom of her jeans. She looked good, better than the last time, when they’d had coffee at the Television Festival in Edinburgh. Then she’d seemed manicured; today was how he imagined her: in jeans and a white tee shirt, a red over-shirt unbuttoned and flapping in the light breeze; her hair short and pretty, catching the light, not styled just-so as it had been then. Today, she was natural, more herself.

  ‘Rachel …’ he began. He was going to say, ‘Can we talk later?’

  But she shook her head. ‘Don’t.’

  There was that brief brittle smile again. It told him she was resigned, not accusing. Would he have been the same?

  ‘Ok.’

  ‘No arguments today. Is that a deal?’

  Cal held his hand out.

  She contemplated it and said, ‘Shake hands with the devil?’

  ‘It’s not that bad.’ He knew it was. In fact it was worse than she knew. But what else could he say?

  ‘Isn’t it?’ and she turned away. He withdrew his hand, feeling stupid for offering it.

  She preceded him up the path to the road, stopping on it. ‘I’ve found your grandfather’s old house. Number 14. It’s a bit of a ruin, but they all are.’

  ‘You’ve been out to the island.’

  ‘Yes, a few times; I’m trying to match families to houses, so that if we bring surviving relatives back to the island we know where to take them.’

  He didn’t say anything. The subject made him uncomfortable.

  They crossed the road. The other boat passengers were gathered in a semi-circle around the man in yellow, who was handing out life-jackets while making his introductions. His name was Mike Thomson, ‘but I’m Mike from now on’. He was ginger-haired with a broad smile and, Cal noticed, the same wind-whipped red face as Sally the Postbus driver. He’d started his safety spiel when he saw Rachel and Cal approaching and handed them the last two jackets. ‘When you’re ready, climb aboard,’ he said. ‘There’s room for two on the bench up front for those who don’t mind a bit of spray.’ An elderly couple followed Rachel and Cal down the slipway to the Rib. The man was reading aloud to his wife from a guide book. He stopped when he saw Cal watching him. ‘We’ve picked a good day for it. …’

  ‘Couldn’t be calmer,’ Cal replied.

  ‘And so lovely and warm,’ his wife added with a sweet smile.

  ‘Tom and Sandra Parsons, from Wiltshire,’ the man said.

  Cal introduced himself and Rachel before Mike interrupted them. ‘There’s room for two more here and two at the back.’ The seats were arranged in pairs: rounded saddles of black with padded back supports on tubular metal frames. Rachel sat behind the wheel seat and Cal behind her, his rucksack by his feet. When Mr and Mrs Parsons had settled, Mike untied the boat and let it drift from the shore before starting the engines. Rachel said to Cal. ‘Looking forward to seeing it at last?’

  ‘I think so.’

  She looked at him quizzically. ‘Only think so?’

  The Rib accelerated, twin engines roaring, across a calm backwater. It sped through a narrow gap between sand spits and suddenly it was in the fast tidal stream flowing under the bridge. As the Rib appeared on the other side, the skipper of the fishing boat stopped lifting boxes and watched them go by, waving lazily. When they’d passed, Mike cut the engines and leaned back to Rachel. ‘That,’ he jerked his thumb back over his shoulder, ‘is the grandson of the skipper who went down with the Eilean Iasgaich in the war.’

  She leaned back to tell Cal. Both of them turned to watch his red wool hat bobbing up and down as he resumed unloading his catch.

  Mike said, ‘He’s Hector MacKay too, like his grandfather, though everyone calls him Red because of the hat. He’s never without it.’

  Rachel shouted back to Cal. ‘He won’t speak to me.’

  Cal didn’t reply. He continued to watch Hector MacKay’s grandson who belonged here, whereas Uilleam Sinclair’s grandson did not, could not. Not without betraying his grandfather. Cal hadn’t expected to mind quite so much.

  The boat swung almost to the eastern shore where the channel split into two, divided by a sandbank. Mike steered the Rib within five metres of the rocks where the water was deepest. The rushing tide and the breeze whipped up waves.

  ‘Hold on,’ he shouted. The boat buffeted against the rearing water, showering spray over the passengers. ‘Another one’s coming.’ Then the Rib was in calmer deeper sea. A group of small islands appeared on the port side: three hummocks of grass and rock.

  Mike cut the engines temporarily. ‘They’re called The Rabbit Islands.’ The boat picked up speed again and Cal stood. Ahead, lying broadside across the bay was Eilean Iasgaich. Mike shouted, ‘We’ll go round Eilean nan Ron, the Island of Seals first …’ he pointed to starboard where a large grassy island had appeared. Ruined houses were silhouetted on its skyline. ‘… and then we’ll go ashore.’

  ‘It was occupied too?’ Cal asked.

  Mike shouted back, ‘Yeah, it was abandoned in 1938.’

  ‘Before Eilean Iasgaich?’

  ‘Seven years before.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The fishing was past its peak and the young men went looking for work on the mainland. Eilean Iasgaich stayed viable for longer because of the trawler: it had the range to go where the fish were; it could follow the cod and haddock.’

  The engines roared again. Seabirds circled overhead as the Rib swept round Eilean nan Ron and approached Eilean Iasgaich from the east. A low outcrop of rock lay 20 metres off the main island. Mike cut the engine and let the Rib idle past. ‘Eilean Iasgaich Beag … it means Little Fishing Island.’ He shouted so all the passengers could hear. ‘Only the tip shows at high tide. The main island is called Eilean Iasgaich Mor or Great Fishing Island.’

  Now the Rib cruised sedately below suddenly soaring cliffs until, rounding a buttress, it entered a natural harbour. A pier jutted out into the sea and from it a line of steps ascended a rocky gully to the island plateau.

  ‘It’s deep here and sheltered from the gales and swell.’ Mike said.

  Cal wondered if this was why he had been called Caladh: harbour in Gaelic.

  The Rib was now less than 50 metres from shore. From a shadow under the cliff, at the back of the pier, a sculpture began to emerge. It was a circle of men in bronze, linking arms, on top of a stone plinth. There was an inscription on it but the boat was still too distant for the words to be legible.

  Mike noticed Cal paying attention to it. ‘That’s the memorial to the fifteen heroes of Eilean Iasgaich.’

  ‘There were sixteen,’ Cal snapped.

  Chapter 14

  The carved inscription read:

  In memory of the brave men of the anti-submarine trawler Eilean Iasgaich who laid down their lives in the service of their country and their island.

  On 17 September 1942, five men died protecting the North Atlantic convoys from German U-boats and fighter bombers.

  On 29 September 1942, the youngest member of the crew was swept overboard in a storm returning from Archangelsk.

  On 6 July 1944, nine men were killed in action east of Orkney after engaging a U-boat which had surfaced to shell a fishing vessel transporting Norwegian resistance fighters. The U-boat and the Eilean Iasgaich went down with all hands.

  In June 1945, a month after the return to power of the Norwegian Government in exile, the nine were awarded posthumously Norway’s highest gallantry decoration, Krigskorset med Sverd (War Cr
oss with Sword), in recognition of their extraordinary heroism.

  Let their deeds be remembered always.

  Hector MacKay, skipper, aged 53, died 6 July 1944

  Donal MacKay, aged 47, died 17 September 1942

  Angus MacKay, aged 45, died 17 September 1942

  Robert Rae, aged 45, died 6 July 1944

  Iain Rae, aged 43, died 6 July 1944

  Murdo Rae, aged 38, died 6 July 1944

  Alexander Gunn, aged 35, died 17 September 1942

  Sinclair Gunn, aged 34, died 17 September 1942

  Duncan MacLeod, aged 29, died 6 July 1944

  Robert MacLeod, aged 27, died 6 July 1944

  Alasdair Murray, aged 26, died 17 September 1942

  James Murray, aged 24, died 6 July 1944

  Alexander (Sandy) MacKay, aged 16, died 29 September 1942

  Hamish Sutherland, aged 49, died 6 July 1944

  Donald McIntosh, aged 27, died 6 July 1944.

  May God abide with them and may their souls rest in peace.

  Cal prayed for his grandfather. Uilleam Sinclair, aged 21, died 29 September 1942. God abide with him and may his soul rest in peace.

  Mike was attending to the other passengers, who had begun to climb the stone steps up the cliff from the pier. Tom and Sandra Parsons from Wiltshire, the least agile of the group, asked if they could take it ‘at their own speed’. Mike said he would follow them up ‘to catch them in case they slipped’.

  ‘Can we stay here a bit longer?’ Rachel read Cal’s mood.

  ‘Sure no bother,’ Mike said. ‘Come up when you’re ready.’

  Cal had been the first ashore. He had studied the inscription and then stood with his back to it looking out to sea as Mike told how the surviving members of the MacKay and Rae families commissioned the memorial in 1949, the year they took title to the island, and unveiled it the following year.

  ‘The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland stood on this rock,’ Mike turned towards the sea, ‘and held a service of thanksgiving. The bay was full of boats at anchor from all the surrounding townships and beyond. The navy sent a minesweeper. The decks of all of them were packed with people. The sun shone that day, like it is today.’