by Neil M. Gunn
“Well, they’re not,” said Finn. “I know where there is herring and plenty of them.”
Callum looked at him and, as the others disappeared round a corner, stopped. “What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes searching.
When Finn had told his story about the herring being in shoal in Loch Odhairn, Callum’s expression quickened like a boy’s and he jerked his right fist upwards. “If only we get into them!” His broad fair face lit up. “Come on! You’ll tell Roddie now.”
“You tell him,” said Finn.
Callum glanced quickly at him, his brows gathering over sharpened eyes as if he were trying to read in the dark. “All right!”
When the crew were by themselves, Callum said, “Listen here, boys.” And he told Finn’s story. Roddie looked at Finn. They all did. “It’s quite true,” said Finn, and gave circumstantial detail. They were strongly moved. “There’s one thing I asked Seumas,” Finn added simply. “He knew how the Sulaire gave us her herring, so I asked if there would be any harm in passing on the news to her skipper, and he said no. So you could tell him if you like,” concluded Finn with a glance at Roddie.
Roddie nodded, looked thoughtfully beyond them, then automatically began climbing down into the boat. Callum winked at Finn. “It’s a f-fine morning,” said Rob, glancing solemnly at the sky.
They lifted the damaged nets on to the quay, with the intention of taking them round to where the drift was drying. Mending could go on there with less publicity and greater comfort.
As Roddie and Henry went ahead, each with a folded net over his shoulders, Finn saw many people turn round and look after Roddie. He noted, however, that they did not stare until he passed.
Callum winked and smiled. “They won’t come in his way lightly,” he murmered, on a note of triumph ‘They’ll remember yon fight in Stornoway for a few years! He has no idea of his own strength. He’s a terrible fellow.” He almost shook his head.
Finn smiled.
“I don’t give a damn supposing what happens,” declared Callum. “If we get herring to-night—if only! O God.”
“Cold iron,” said Finn.
Callum laughed as at a hidden joke. Finn laughed, too.
“I’m glad you mentioned about the Sulaire. That was a fine stroke,” declared Callum. “You have some little sense in you, in spite of everything, I see. Did you notice that knot of folk looking at us and us laughing? They’ll be thinking we should be solemn as prisoners going to the jile! Little they know!”
“If they live long enough,” said Finn, “they’ll l-learn many a thing.”
That afternoon, Roddie had a long talk with the skipper of the Sulaire. About five o’clock, in a steady sailing wind from the sou’-west, the boats began to put to sea, the Sea-foam among the first. When Henry gave a final tightening to the halyards, eased the mainsail sheet to a calculated inch, and had everything in the best sailing trim, he glanced at Roddie. Roddie seemed impervious to any enthusiasm, unaware even of the boat in front of him. But Finn saw the stem of the Seafoam caught again in her old wooden dream, launching forward, sheering the water in her hissing song, with invisible eyes not for the boat racing there in front but for the horizon beyond. “Let me go. Don’t hold me back. Don’t hold me back.”
“Take her weather,” said Henry.
Roddie could not have heard him. The sails might have reefs in. All strife was behind him.
They could see the members of the crew quite distinctly. One of them was the whispering fellow who had started all the strife. Finn recognized him and looked at Henry. Henry gave a small nod, his lips drawn in satire, for it was clearly a matter he could not mention to Roddie.
There was no holding the Seafoam back, however. She was overhauling the boat slowly but steadily. “Leave it to me,” sang the stem.
“He’s cutting you out,” cried Henry. “He’s trying to blanket you.”
But all Roddie did was to fall away a little more, as if giving in. Henry eased the sheet, his face darkening, his lips tight. Not another word would they utter!
Minutes passed. The race was set. Neither crew looked at the other. Nor, perhaps, could the Dawn, heading for the fishing ground to the north, be directly accused of cutting her course too fine, or even over much. It was for any other boat to look out for herself. She held the seaway.
It became clear that Roddie must do something, or be knocked off his course before he could over-reach her to leeward. Dammit, he could not let her sit on them like that! They glanced at him surreptitiously, restlessly, tensely excited. Roddie put out his left hand and motioned backward with his fingers. Henry drew in the sheet in imperceptible inches until the fingers stopped him. Roddie’s eyes, from the peak of the mainsail, dropped back to stare expressionlessly ahead. He had slightly altered course. Excitement mounted. Neither was giving way…. There was going to be a collision…. Roddie would ram him!
Roddie did not ram him. He came in on his stern with a yard to spare and took his weather. It was a beautiful piece of seamanship. Two members of the Dawn yelled at them in rage, and the whispering fellow shook his fist. The Seafoam drew slowly away, nothing now between the singing stem and its beloved horizon. Finn glanced at Roddie’s face and found it expressionless and uplifted as the stem. A sudden quick emotion, like a sting of tears, made him glance away—to see Callum giving a quiet shake to the tail-end of the sheet over the gunnel: a request to the Dawn if she wanted a tow! He laughed quickly. Henry’s eyes gleamed in triumph. Rob scratched his beard noisily.
“She’s a dandy!” cried Callum. “I would rather that than a hundred pounds.”
“What do you say?” asked Roddie quietly. But they saw the smile in his eyes. Whereupon Callum clean forgot himself. “By God——”
“Cold iron!” yelled Rob.
“Give me the whole end of the boat-hook,” said Callum.
“Will you never learn how to behave yourself in a boat?” asked Rob, with loud disapproval.
“A man will learn many a thing,” said Callum, “if he lives long enough.”
When, well out to sea beyond Arnish Point, Roddie suddenly headed away on a southerly course, a sigh of relief (as Finn learned next day) went over the following fleet. They were well rid of that blood-spiller, if it’s herring they were looking for! He was probably ashamed of himself and wanted to be alone! Even the East Coast boats, though secretly elated over Roddie’s physical prowess, had no particular reason to believe in his luck as a fisherman. A wild enough devil of a Jonah to frighten any herring! Perhaps the dogs would follow him!
At the tail-end of the fleet, however, were two boats that headed south after him, and one other boat from Buckie that always kept an eye on the lucky Sulaire.
Off the islands at the entrance to Loch Erisort, Roddie spilled the wind from his sails. All had gone according to plan, and when the Sulaire came up, the smiling skipper gave them a salute. The Iolaire was in her wake, and Seumas waved to Finn, as the Seafoam’s head fell away and followed. Fifty yards behind, the Mary Ann was coming quietly, as if she couldn’t overtake anyone though she tried. But she had lines to her, as Finn pointed out.
“She could give any of us a clean pair of heels, that one,” said Roddie simply.
“Would she?” cried Callum, challengingly.
“She can sail into the eye of the wind as near as makes o difference,” added Roddie.
“That’s not everything,” said Callum.
“She’s smart on her feet as the Buckers themselves,” Henry said. “And they can handle her.”
“They know a boat on the south side.” Rob nodded “Do you remember George o’ James’s, who came from Smeral, and whose son was married on a niece of old Widow Macrae’s? Well, the brother of that son, George to name, was related by marriage to a fellow who had a job in the Elgin brewery….”
This involved detail, which he could never remember, suffused Finn’s body in a divine warmth. It was Rob’s voice speaking. It was the old happiness of comradeship and the sea
. If he looked at Callum, Callum would wink, implying, “We’ll have him on!” He looked. Callum winked.
*
They shot their nets not far from the Sulaire, which lay inside them in the mouth of Loch Odhairn. The Iolaire was over towards the north side. The Mary Ann had disappeared round Kebock Head and then come back, and was now shot fairly close into the rocks, where the gulls were very excited and noisy.
“Can you smell them, Rob?” Callum asked.
“Never you mind whether I can smell them or not,” answered Rob. “We’ll see what we will see.”
“Look!” called Finn.
A jet of water rose into the air between them and the Sulaire.
“Bl-essings on him, it’s himself,” said Rob.
The whale! It was the first time Finn had ever seen one blowing.
“How big will he be?” asked Finn, full of the wonder of the sea.
“If he came up under us,” answered Callum, “we would fall off his back like a bowl off a table. You better be ready to strip.”
Finn smiled and munched away, as the shadows deepened in the great rock before Kebock Head. The sky was overcast and the sea wind-darkened. For weather, it was the best fishing night they had had. They all knew they were among herring. The rest was with the luck they could not compel.
Roddie was quiet in his manner, but smiling now and then. At moments, Finn had seen in him an almost childish poignancy. Because he was strong and had that terrible destructive power, because it was part of him naturally, he was not proud of it. But he would not be abashed.
“We’ll stretch ourselves,” he now said. “It looks like being a good night.”
His voice was quiet and shadowed like the night, pleasant with peace. For a moment Finn felt the loneliness of the human mind. The loneliness of the night. The gulls were crying. The boat moved gently to the swing-rope. Between them and the bottom was an inch of planking, between them and the whale! They were fishing herring, like the whale himself. Over this thought, forming vaguely into a pattern of its own, was a wonder at the meaning of it all. Not a sentimental wonder, but a curious, detached wonder, rather stark, more like a bodiless vision.
It faded before it had quite formed, into the loneliness of himself, the secret companionship of himself with himself, where no-one intrudes—except … and there were her dark eyes and the dark hair shadowing the white neck. He never begged of her. Never. But when he forgot himself, she was there. Sometimes his repelling sarcasm was very effective. But with tiredness drugging the body, tenderness has a way of forgetting…. He fell sound asleep.
He awoke as if someone had touched him. It was the grey of the morning and Roddie was pulling on the swing-rope. Henry was sitting up. His senses became preternaturally acute. Had Roddie tried the net earlier and found nothing? A slight nausea balled in his breast. Roddie was slow in his movements, hand over slow hand, his body against the sky. How terrible, if theirs should be the only boat without herring! Upon Finn came the power of the superstition regarding blood. Were they doomed? The premonition gripped him. Their nets hung empty in the sea. They must face up to that, show nothing. Roddie had reached the net. He stooped and hauled, but not far. There was a splash. He stood looking astern, turned to stone. Henry, unable to bear that stillness, got up and in a voice, casual in its supreme control, asked, “Nothing doing?”
Roddie turned. His voice had the smile of a child in it. “We’re in them,” he said, “solid.”
Henry stood dead still. Finn could not move.
“We’ll start hauling at once,” Roddie murmured. “Waken them up.”
Finn rolled againt Callum and, in his ear, cried shrilly, “Herring!”
Callum whirled over, “What? Where?” and grappled Finn earnestly before he came to himself.
There was no doubt about the silver darlings now. In blue and green and silver, they danced into the boat.
“Fair quality,” said Roddie, hauling mightily.
“They’re good, boy,” said Rob. “They’re by-ordinary.”
“They’ll pay half a dollar for one in Berlin,” said Finn, “and get value.”
Roddie laughed. Finn’s heart soared among the wheeling gulls.
“The Sulaire is in them, too,” said Roddie, with light happiness.
“And that’s our debt paid to the Sulaire, thank——”
“Will you be quiet?” interrupted Rob sharply.
“Thank goodness,” completed Callum. “Got him that time, Finn! Do you know what I’m thinking, Rob?”
“It won’t be much,” said Rob.
“I’m thinking it would be a good thing if Finn went to Luirbost again and prayed for ten more hours.”
“That’s all you know,” said Finn. “I haven’t yet told you about the jar of brandy. There was a fellow there named Alan Macdonald and we slept together. He was in a queer mood because certain things were happening to him, and——”
“What things?” asked Callum.
“Never you mind,” said Finn. “And he wouldn’t go to sleep. He would keep pouring out the brandy into a bowl and asking me to drink it.”
“And you didn’t?”
“I had to,” said Finn, “or I would hurt his feelings. It’s not that I wanted the stuff myself. Not at all. Though it was good enough. I’ll say that. It had a nice taste. But you know how it is?” he asked.
“I know,” said Callum, shaking his head. “Boy, boy, do you know the road you’re taking?”
“You’ll be like the fellow from the Dykes of Latheron,” said Rob, “big John Angus McGrath—an elder in the church, too. Every time he took a dram, he would shake his head and say, ‘Nasty stuff! nasty stuff!’ To my father’s knowledge he said it for over fifty years.”
They laughed at Rob’s shortest story.
“Credit where it is due, all the same,” said Henry. “I’ll stand you a brandy myself when we get ashore, Finn.” And his dark face, so often satiric, smiled with such a humoured friendliness that Finn felt his cheeks grow hot.
The sweat was running down their faces; they staggered as they shifted their stance. Then Finn saw the whale heave his great bulk, with wide gaping jaws, quite close to him, and let out a cry.
“Sure, it’s himself,” said Rob. “I hope you’re having a good fishing!” he called to the great beast as it rolled by.
“He’ll foul us!” yelled Callum, whose experience of whales was not much greater than Finn’s.
“Do you think it’s you he’s after?” called Rob in sarcasm. “He has better taste.”
Roddie was hauling steadily. When it came to the last two nets the whale began to move quickly around them as if in anger at the diminishing store of food. Callum had nothing to say. Finn was dogged by the fear of disaster at the final minute, disaster beyond anything he had dreamed.
As the last net was coming in, the immense brute followed it to the boat’s side, feeding on the best herring as they fell from the mesh. He was plainly angry now, setting dark swirls of water about the boat.
“Now, now,” called Rob to him. “We have no more for you here. Yon’s the Mary Ann. Look!” And he pointed. “They’re scarcely half-hauled. If you hurry up, you might get something yet.” The great jaws closed and the whale turned away in the direction of the Mary Ann. “A very biddable beast,” concluded Rob.
Yes, the whale was gone! Finn was so relieved that he looked at Rob in open astonishment.
“What do you think?” Henry asked Roddie.
Roddie gazed at the deep well of herring. “Over forty crans,” he answered.
Forty crans! They straightened their backs. Roddie alone seemed unimpressed. No quick excitement touched him. Finn saw that his face was quiet with peace.
“The sooner we get them landed, boys, the better they’ll cure,” he said. And his gentle voice released unbounded energy in their bodies.
*
They had to row for a time and did not make great headway because the Seafoam was deep in the water and the tide against
them. But soon a little air of easterly wind sprang up and presently the oars were shipped. The straining on the oars had eased the exuberance in their bodies and as Finn sat where he could get some support for his back, a divine warmth uncurled along each arm and each leg like the snake of life itself. Callum so brimmed over with this lazy warmth that he just winked and gave the small sideways nod that leaves humour lost in wonder.
Finn looked at sea-birds hurrying over the water, gazed at the land, thought of the grey night by Loch Luirbost (which opened off Loch Erisort) and the strange things that happened there. They were not quite real now. They had then seemed more real than life, transcending life. But ah! this was life, this exquisite morning of the world. Alan caught in the thicket, grown by his two kind sisters—a witchcraft of the night. He turned his head away—and Callum asked, “When did you leani to tame whales, Rob?”
“I knew about whales before you were born.”
“Did you, man? Where?”
“On the sea. Where did you think?”
“Oh, I didn’t know. There are some fellows who have been inside the bellies of whales, and the whales spewed them up. I didn’t know.”
“There’s many a thing you don’t know——”
“But if I live long enough I’ll learn?”
“—and there’s many a thing I don’t know. But there’s one thing I know now that I didn’t know before.”
“And what’s that?”
“That yon whale put the fear of d-death in you.”
Callum tried to speak, but no-one would listen to him. It was Rob’s round.
“There’s the Mary Ann under way,” said Henry and they all looked back. The brown sail of the Iolaire was also being hoisted. But the gulls were still wheeling in myriads about the Sulaire.
“He’ll be in them to the gunnels again!” cried Callum.
Roddie smiled.
