The Silver Darlings

by Neil M. Gunn

  “I don’t know,” answered Roddie, “but I should say we are in the Western Ocean, for I have never seen waves the length of these. Only one thing I know—one while during the night if it had blown any harder we couldn’t have done it. And it wouldn’t have helped much to try to run under bare poles for the Arctic Ocean! She’s a good sea boat, boys. We’ll give her that due.”

  Roddie’s simple words of praise for the gallant boat touched Finn closely, and more so as his body was battered into a heavy lassitude, so heavy indeed that when it relaxed completely, it felt light and incorporeal, and there came upon his spirit a fine clarity. He looked at the stem—reaching up the wave, searching the horizon, plunging down—to rise again. On, on, on—that was the song at her heart. So long as the human spirit was equal to the need, she would not fail. With that strange wooden dream of her own besides! Finn felt a softness in him and turned his eyes away to the seas.

  For the first time he knew the strange companionship of running seas—strange because lifted beyond the normal into this thin region of the spirit. He had heard of a Gaelic poem that described all the different kinds of waves there are. But no poem could describe them all. Take this one coming at them now—now!—its water on the crest turned into little waters, running, herding together, before—up—up! over its shoulder and down into the long flecked hollow like a living skin. Or that one steaming off there!—a great lump of ocean, a long-backed ridge overtopping all, a piled-up mountain. He drew Roddie’s attention to it by pointing. The crew stared. The gleam of a smile lit Roddie’s eyes. “We met one or two like that last night,” he said. And Finn suddenly understood how a wave, far in the open sea, could catch a boat and throw her clean before it. No small boat could climb that onrushing wall. He watched Roddie’s eyes, when they were on the crest of the next wave, peering far ahead. He was looking out for the big ones in the distance so that he might have time to dodge them!

  Lying back in partial exhaustion, with the spirit grown thin and clear, Finn felt, coming out of the companionship of these seas, a faint fine exaltation.

  He had learned a few things since he had left home! How distant home was—the beach, and the stranger talking to his mother—like something remembered of a foreign shore. His mouth was dry with thirst. There was a well of crystal water not far from the House of Peace. You got down on your hands and knees and then reached farther down with your face. There was the physical effort, before the water lapped your mouth and nose. It was difficult to drink, with the crystal water almost choking your outstretched throat. They had all seen how Henry had had to tilt the little cask, but no one had said anything. There might be a cupful each yet. His teeth began to chitter again, and he moved within his clothes, which were sodden to the shirt.

  Presently Roddie started to talk. “We’ll have to think of what we’re going to do, boys. The seas are running bigger than ever, but the wind has lost its snarl. I think we got blown clean out of the Minch. We probably passed west of the Butt in the late evening. If so, we are now somewhere to the west and perhaps north of the Butt, for we are bound to have made a lot of leeway. I think myself we are well into the Atlantic Ocean.”

  “It seems to me,” said Henry, “that everything depends on from what airt the new wind hit us. It may be sou’-west, but we couldn’t swear it is not nor’-west, and when a sou’-east wind dies away—and then the wind comes again—it’s more than likely to be from nor’-west than from sou’-west. Rowing in a calm like yesterday was like walking over a moor in the mist: you cannot keep your direction. We might be well down the Minch, and the long seas may be coming from Iceland. I’m not saying we are in the Minch, but we might be.”

  Roddie nodded.

  “Wherever we are,” said Rob, “we’ll have to think of where we’re going, so the sooner our minds are made up the easier they’ll be.”

  “Where do you think we’re heading for, Finn?” asked Callum, with an expectant glint.

  Finn smiled in response. “My mother’s first cousin was taken to Canada in one of the emigrant ships. If we keep going as we’re doing we might get some news of him. That would always be something.”

  “It would, faith!” Callum lifted his broad, fair face in a quick laugh. “You’re as good as a drink!”

  Nothing happened for a while and then Roddie said, “We’ll put her on the other tack. Get ready.”

  When they were settled down, he remarked, “The sun may help us soon. My own feeling is that we are now heading in a southerly direction. If the sea takes off a little in two or three hours, we’ll let her fall off to dead east.”

  Henry’s eyes narrowed in calculation, then he nodded. “That would suit, either way.”

  But the sky showed no sign of lightening. The weather lay on it, grey-dark and formless.

  “It’s nothing for a storm in this part of the world to last for a week even in the height of summer,” Rob said.

  “You for a Job’s comforter!” declared Callum.

  “It may moderate during the day,” continued Rob, ignoring him, “and rise again at night.”

  “Like a sick man with a temperature,” said Finn.

  Callum cupped his knees with his palms.

  “All the same,” added Rob, “it’s as well to know a fever when you see it.”

  After that they fell silent. Callum drew attention to Rob’s head swaying sideways in a doze, but soon his own chin was on his breast. Henry offered to take the tiller, but Roddie answered, “Take a snooze now. You can have your turn later. Pull that bit of stuff over you,” he said to Finn.

  From a sleep that seemed an endless semi-conscious daze of formless motion, Finn wakened sharply and blinked at Roddie. Henry’s lean, black head was up, too. They followed Roddie’s gesture and far astern they saw, forming clearly against the misted horizon, a tall ship.

  She was life coming after them, she was the spirit of the land, she was comfort and hope, she was the word of direction upon the grey endless tumbling wastes of death, she was a cry they could not yet hear, she was a fine thing to see.

  “Wake them up,” said Roddie.

  Rob screwed his eyes and the left half of his mouth. “It’s a big boat,” he said, telling them.

  Callum had to be shaken strongly. “What? Where? A ship!” He knuckled his eyes. And at that moment a sea hit them and they took in water. Roddie gave a sharp exclamation for he had, through forgetfulness, been at fault. Then Finn noticed the expression that came on his face as he looked at the swinging seas. Not yet! it seemed to say in ironic comment. Not for a while yet! And as Finn glanced away the grey crests seemed to gather speed and fury.

  “Lord, I’m cold!” exclaimed Callum. “I was just falling off to sleep when I heard you,” he said to Roddie simply.

  “It’s a good job,” said Rob, “that—that you hadn’t far to fall.” They were all excited.

  “Stand by to put her about.” Roddie was now satisfied that the approaching vessel would pass well to leeward of them. “We’ll keep to wind’ard of her, but as near as we can on her course,”

  The wind had certainly taken off and the seas were not breaking, though they seemed as big as ever.

  Rob ventured the first comment, “She’s a Dutch buss.”

  “She’s a smack,” said Roddie.

  “A fishing smack?” asked Finn.

  Roddie looked at him. “Yes.”

  “Why, what sort of smack do you think she would be?” asked Callum, grinning.

  “As long as she’s a fishing smack,” said Finn, colour darkening his face as he glanced away.

  They all looked at him, and for a moment felt disquieted. For an old fear had touched Finn, born suddenly out of childhood memory of the first time he had heard how a tall ship had come out of the sea and press-ganged his father. Rob was going to say something when Roddie forestalled him by remarking quietly, “She looks like a Grimsby smack. Some of them come up to the cod fishing at Lerwick.”

  “Lerwick!” exclaimed Henry. “Are we off
the Shetlands then? Or where can she be going?”

  “God knows,” said Roddie.

  “Cold iron!” cried Rob, sharply gripping the point of the boat-hook. They all touched iron, to avert the bad luck that comes from naming God at sea. Finn kept gazing at the vessel over the starboard quarter.

  Where, indeed, could this vessel be going? That Roddie had exclaimed so thoughtfully only showed how deeply disturbed he must be.

  “I can make out L K,” said Finn.

  “Lerwick!” Henry’s brows narrowed.

  “Stand aft here,” said Roddie to Henry, “and be ready to shout.” Henry’s voice was far-carrying. He sang well, if seldom.

  The smack was now close and plunging in the seas. Henry was cupping his hands about his mouth when a voice reached them as out of a trumpet.

  “Where away?”

  “Stornoway,” cried Henry. “We’re lost. What course?” They could see the crew, a good dozen men, staring at them.

  “Dead east!” And the man who shouted threw his arm out. “Lewis—dead east!”

  “How far?”

  There was a moment or two before the answer came: “Forty miles. Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ask him where he’s going,” prompted Roddie.

  “Where you bound?” cried Henry.

  “The Rockall.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Were you out all night?”

  “Yes.”

  Back came the voice with a ring of tribute: “Plucky lads!”

  “Stand by,” said Roddie. He was running with the smack and now, watching his chance, brought the Seafoam up into the wind smartly and, as she fell away on an easterly course, the crew on the deck of the smack waved their arms and cheered.

  It was a genuine tribute, and the men of the Seafoam, who could put out a hand and touch the sea at any time, felt it. They waved back and cheered, too, in companionship and gratitude, their faces flushed.

  “The Rockall,” began Rob.

  “He knows where it is!” cried Callum, and doubled over laughing. This made them all laugh, except Rob. And when they saw Callum wiping the tears out of his eyes, they laughed again. The feeling of relief went deep.

  “Where is the Rockall?” asked Roddie at last.

  But Rob was now apparently in a slight huff. “Och, it’s just out there in the Western Ocean.”

  “Far out?”

  “I suppose it is,” said Rob. “It’s just three hundred miles.”

  “Three hundred miles!” echoed Henry and, laughing, shook his head. “The farthest out land is St. Kilda—and I doubt if that’s farther than we are ourselves.”

  “Oh, well,” said Rob, “you’ll know best.”

  They laughed again.

  Finn had been profoundly moved by this chance encounter of the sea. That last shout, followed by the involuntary cheer, wasn’t three hundred miles from a lump in his throat and a softness behind his eyes. His body was weak from exhaustion and cold, from lack of food and water. And then to discover that instead of being a ship of war, she was a boat of the fishing folk themselves! What a difference was there! He looked after her, driving into that western ocean, and wished her well.

  “Good for the Shetlanders!” cried Roddie. “They’re brave seamen.”

  “They have a great trade in dried cod,” said Henry. “They export it all over the world.”

  “We must go up and see them one of these seasons!” Roddie had not been far out in his calculation of their whereabouts, and was pleased.

  “Come on, Rob,” he said, “tell us about the Rockall, otherwise Callum will be at Henry for a drink.”

  Callum shook his head sadly. “My mouth is stuck.”

  “Stuck!” repeated Rob dryly. “In that case it’s maybe been an expensive cure, but I might have stood more for

  Their ready appreciation of this sally balanced matters, and Rob told them, correctly enough, that the Rockall was a solitary rock in the sea three hundred miles out into the Atlantic, round which there was a famous cod-bank, particularly for large fish. “They get them there up to, yes, over, six feet. A man by the name of Flett, who was a deckhand on a schooner that was forced into Wick, told George Dempster, who is married on a daughter of old Danny Budge, and is a foreman cooper in Lower Pulteneytown …”

  Finn always got lost in these relationships, though Rob would go into them at a length generally in proportion to the degree of the marvellous in his story.

  The Seafoam had now a very complicated motion of pitch and roll. Their voices were tired from being raised to carry. Steering was a more delicate art than ever and Roddie’s head seemed to get a curious swinging motion from the cross seas that bore down on them. For ever he had to be watchful, with stem or stern ready, and when they rose at a slant over a shoulder, Finn could see the backs of the seas, herds of slate-blue backs, racing over the endless wilderness, a sweep of wind round their mighty flanks, like brutes of ocean, hurrying to some far ultimate congregation. But always, from the lowest swinging trough, rising to out-top them, was the boat’s stem, steadfast in its own wooden dream.

  Roddie’s flanks were beginning to cramp. They could see him slowly straighten one leg and then the other, as he eased himself from hip to hip.

  “Will I take a turn?” Henry asked. The others waited in silence.

  “Look out!” cried Roddie sharply, and putting the tiller from him, he bore directly away. “I’m going about. Now!” And round she came, so that they were running back on their course. They saw the long-backed monstrous wave coming, and as Roddie brought the Seafoam up into the weather, she rode its outer edge, and then fell away on her original course. “Let out a reef,” said Roddie. Henry did not ask for the tiller again, nor did Roddie offer it, and so they were all relieved.

  Hours later Finn said, “It’s land,” and Roddie answered, “Yes, I’m sure now.”

  Callum’s lips, pale and with a sticky white munge at the corners, opened: “What about celebrating?” Roddie nodded, sticking his tongue between his own dry lips. For the last hour or two thirst had become a torment.

  Henry, helped by Finn and Rob, eased the last of the water out of the cask. There was about a cupful each. It was Roddie first, then Callum, whose hands were in a slight tremble, then Rob, Finn, and Henry last. When Henry had drunk, he said, “I have more than my share. There’s a little left.” No one spoke. “Give it to Callum,” said Roddie. But Callum refused to take it.

  “Take it,” ordered Roddie.

  “I’ll divide it with Finn,” said Callum. Finn refused.

  “Dammit, take it!” cried Roddie sharply. Irritation swept their weakened bodies. Finn moistened his lips and handed the skillet to Callum, who drained it without more ado.

  The irritation passed, leaving them quiet and concentrating on what soon were plainly seen to be islands. Roddie kept to windward to have seaway to bear down on them.

  As they brought the first two islands abeam, the way the waves broke on them was a silencing sight. Then two more islands—and beyond, to the far dark horizon, nothing but ocean! These were no islands in the mouth of a land inlet. There was no mainland anywhere. No Lewis.

  “Have you any idea of what they are?” shouted Roddie to Rob.

  Rob stared at the rock-walls with their green tops. The smashing, spouting seas were stupendous. He shook his head slowly. “No.”

  Roddie stood well away until he was beyond them. There was one larger island and perhaps——

  Finn cried, “I see sheep!” White specks against a grey-green. Yes, they were sheep!

  “Stand by!” called Roddie sharply. “I’m going to put her about.”

  Down they came, racing, clearing the water foul with low rock on their port side, heading into a horse-shoe bay, girdled by black cliff.

  Calm—in the slow heaving water of shelter. Finn and Callum, each with an oar ready, Rob stowing the sail, Henry forward at the anchor. “Let go!” called Roddie.

  “I’ve
got it,” answered Henry, holding bottom.

  “Thank God,” said Callum.

  “Cold iron!” cried Rob.

  Slowly Roddie got up, after touching cold iron, and straightened himself, his hands gripping the small of his back and working down over his flanks. His face broke. “Boys, I’m stiff.” His eyes lifted to myriads of circling, screaming birds. “They seem surprised to see us,” he said, and his eyes glimmered.

  It was a reconciling smile, and though this looked a wild and haunted enough place in all conscience, still they were here, and that, as Finn had said, was always something. Roddie stretched himself out over the nets and eased his body in rolling motions. For a short while they were full of humour, and lived in its careless moments.

  There were some birds which Finn had never seen before and a group of puffins looking over a ledge reminded him of an illustration of parrots in one of Mr. Gordon’s books.

  “What’s that one?”

  “That one?” said Rob, screwing up his eyes. “Man, I should know it, too.”

  “Do you think,” suggested Finn, “that we may have landed on an island in the South Seas?”

  “No, no,” said Rob. “We’re just in the Western Ocean.”

  “Ay, but where? What if that ship was not a real ship at all and we have been enchanted into the South Seas?”

  “Hush, be quiet!” said Rob. “What talk is that?”

  He looked around anxiously to make sure they had not been overheard by the old dark ones.

  And the cliffs were dark enough and mostly sheer. It was a wild, forbidding place, a black jaw, formed as they could now see by two islands, with the gullet at the back, just wide enough to take their boat, twisting out of sight between perpendicular walls, and clearly going right through to the west side because the pulse of the sea came from the channel in undulations upon which they rose and fell.

  The reverberations from the pounding waves drummed in their ears and could be felt in their bodies. The black cliffs vibrated. The circling birds had mostly fallen back upon their visible rock ledges where they were better able to keep up the intensity of their myriad-throated screaming.

  Roddie lay with his eyes closed as if he had fallen into a deep sleep. They all took their ease and upon them came an insidious lassitude. They gave in to it and lay with their mouths open in such varied attitudes that it looked as if the Seafoam had brought to haven a boat-load of the dead.