The sun had now completely set and the city was suddenly bathed in that soft afterglow which brings on melancholy just before the night lights begin to sparkle. Archie watched Brawn standing by the ship’s rail, like a man being gathered into the artifice of eternity. He stood like a woodcut out of the Arabian Nights, all noble and numinous and far away, and Archie knew that he was looking at Byzantium for the last time ever.
‘Fire,’ Brawn said. ‘Look – pyres.’
Archie raised his eyes to the distant hills outside the city walls where Istanbul stretched into the mountains, where faint smoke could be seen rising into the night air from the small fires lit by the nomads who still survived in the old way out on the edge of the desert. Archie could smell peat smoke.
The brothel crew returned and the voyage continued, down through the Aegean and across to Port Said and the Gulf of Suez. In their off-hours they sat high in their bunks watching satellite television: news channels showing pictures of the very countries they were passing – the tented plains of Palestine, the severed oil-wells of Iraq, the thousands chanting in Enghaleb Square in Tehran. Tiger Woods was back on the seventeenth green discussing with his caddy whether he would use an iron or a wood for the approach shot. On yet another channel the Rolling Stones were playing, for the first time ever, in Red Square. ‘Little Red Rooster’, they wailed.
The voyage was both mundane and epic. That daily sea, and a different port every five days or so to discharge or upload all kinds of legal and illegal cargoes. It was routine and repetitive, even though the goods and events themselves were mind-boggling: transporting a whole group of young girls designated for prostitution, from Indonesia to Australia; fighting off pirates in the Sumatran Sea; rescuing fifty Nepalese off a raft in the middle of the Pacific; taking a band of guerillas from Bombay to Sri Lanka; guns and cocaine and all kinds of other weird and wonderful goods from one small corner of the earth to the other.
They became accustomed to it not because they were indifferent to the marvels nor because they were bowed into submission, but because the world they moved in was fluid. One day, this side of the International Date Line; the following day, forwards, or backwards, in time. One day, the sea boiling under the sun’s rays; the next, the sea heaving in the middle of a monsoon.
Nature itself was erratic, and what was human kind and their ways but a mirror of nature? Different nations, different ports, different oceans, different cargoes and different people, but the one boat, with Ludo in his uniform up ahead, Brawn on the capstan, and Archie and the crew on their knees, scrubbing, with one eye on the horizon.
They claimed it was a gift. The gift of song which had, supposedly, kept sailors alive since the days of Noah himself. One evening at the forge an old woman had arrived with a broken cradle. ‘I’ll repair it for a song,’ Gobhlachan had said, and as she sang the fragments of a lullaby the broken wood was transformed again into the Bethlehem crib, ready for the Christmas mass. ‘A coin can take you a short distance,’ the old woman had said. ‘But a song can take you across the world.’
How beautiful everything was in song. No island was lovelier than home, and how sweet the day of return. But meantime, farewell and adieu unto you Spanish ladies. How easy it was now, Skyping from the South China Sea, while the former sailors studied the headlands for favourable winds. ‘My, it’s calm today!’ ‘Breac a’ mhuiltein air an adhar; latha math a-màireach’ – A dappled sky today; a good day tomorrow. The highest mountain in the land is oftenest covered with mist. The owl is mourning, floods are coming. And a man had once said to him, ‘The North Wind is cold no matter which direction it comes from.’
But Archie knew this: by the time he had crossed the Pacific he’d never looked better. Brown and sinewy, with the proverbial muscles in those proverbial places which he didn’t even know existed, by the time they were sailing north-west through the Tropic of Capricorn he resembled a model old-fashioned sailor. If they could only see him now, these people back home, all brawny and tanned as he was, the very model of a man before the mast, even though the ship was all cylinders and hatches and electronics with not a mast in sight. Swarthy like Fionn MacCool himself, no one would recognise him now if they saw him:
‘Who’s that huge hero,’ they would say, ‘that giant over there felling all the trees with one sweep of his hand?’
How he would shame these part-time sailors now, these lobster and creel fishermen who all thought they were Neptune’s warriors just because they could don oilskins and haul a few fat oysters in a trawl. Worse still were those in the North Sea, being helicoptered backwards and forwards once a fortnight from Aberdeen then lying in air-conditioned bunks, pretending when they came home and scoffed their pints in the pub that they were out there daily battling the elements, single-handedly drilling for oil in the depths of the North Atlantic. If truth be known, as he’d always known, thought Archie, the only real work these guys did was to lift a teabag occasionally out of a mug while they watched the computer screen detailing where, at that precise moment, the crude oil was actually flowing down through the pipes to St Fergus.
Which was not to say that it hadn’t been heroic at one time: after all, someone had to be Buzz Aldrin. Someone had to be second, just as someone had to dive down at first to the very bottom of the sea with a helmet on his head and a tank on his back and dig beneath the rocks. But all that was a long time ago, before the heroes all died, and Archie knew fine that the oil industry now was a mere mechanical exercise, shifting keys on the computer, adjusting flows technologically, releasing or retaining oil according to the whims of the world’s financial markets. Though such could also be heroes, even at their computers: for there is no greater hero than the financial wizard, who can make the world flow or cease.
But the day will come, thought Archie, when we’ll all be back there, scrabbling around, trying to find a single peat for the fire, or a branch of twig from the shore, or some heather to light underneath a pot in which to make a bit of rabbit stew, and survive. How small his own peat-bank really was: twenty tiny sacks of crumbling moss on your back, and that was it. So he told himself this story.
There was a hero once. A king over Lochlann who had a leash of daughters. They went out one day to take a walk, and along came three giants and lifted the daughters of the king off with them, and there was no knowing where they had gone. Then the king sent word for the storyteller and he asked him if he knew where all his daughters had gone.
The storyteller said to the king that the three giants had taken them with him, and that they were in the earth down below, and that there was no way to get them but by making a ship which would sail on both sea and land. And so it was that the king sent out an order that anyone who could build a ship which would sail on both land and sea would get his eldest daughter in marriage.
In a poor corner of the kingdom there was a widow who had a leash of sons, and one day the eldest said to his mother, ‘Cook for me a bannock, and roast a cock. I am going away to cut wood so as to build a ship that will go and find the daughters of the king.’
His mother said to him, ‘Which would you prefer – the big bannock with my cursing, or a little bannock with my blessing?’
‘Oh, give me the big bannock,’ he replied, ‘for it will be small enough by the time I build the ship!’ So he got a bannock and went away.
He arrived where there was a great wood and a river, and there he sat at the side of the river to eat the bannock. A great monster came out of the river, and she asked him for part of the bannock. He said that he would not give her a morsel, that it was little enough for himself. So he ate the bannock and began cutting the wood, but every tree he cut down grew again instantly, and this went on till night-time came.
He went home mournful, tearful, blind sorrowful.
His mother asked him, ‘How did it go with you today, son?’
He replied, ‘Terrible. Every single tree I cut down grew back up instantly again.’
A day or two after this, the mid
dle brother said that he himself would go, and he asked his mother to cook him a cake and roast him a cock, and in the very way it happened to his eldest brother, so it happened to him. The mother said the very same thing to the youngest one, and he took the little bannock. The monster came and she asked for a part of the cake and the cock.
The young man said, ‘Certainly.’
When the monster had eaten her own share of the cake and the cock, she said to him, ‘I know full well why you are here, but for now go back home. Come back here, however, in a year and a day, and the ship will be ready for you then.’
And so it happened. At the end of a year and a day, the widow’s youngest son went and he found that the monster had the ship floating on the big river, all fully equipped. He sailed away then with the ship, accompanied by a leash of gentlemen, as great as were in the kingdom, who all joined the voyage so as to try and marry the daughters of the king.
They were but a short time sailing when they saw a man drinking a river that was there. The youngest son asked him, ‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘I am drinking up this river,’ the man replied.
‘Well, you’d better come with me,’ the youngest son said, ‘and I will give you food and wages, and far better work than that.’
‘I’ll certainly do that,’ the man said.
They had not gone far forward when they saw a man eating an ox in a park.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ the youngest son asked.
’I am here going to eat all the oxen in this park,’ the man said.
‘Well, you’d better come with me,’ the youngest son said, ‘and you’ll get work, and wages far better than raw flesh.’
‘I’ll certainly do that,’ the man said.
They went but a short distance when they saw another man with his ear to the earth.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ the youngest son asked him.
‘I am here listening to the grass coming through the earth.’
‘Come with me, and you’ll get food, and better wages than to be here with your ear to the earth.’
They were thus sailing backwards and forwards when the man who was listening to the grass said, ‘This is the place where the king’s three daughters and giants went through the earth.’
The widow’s son and the man who had been drinking the river and the man who had been eating the ox and the man who had been listening to the earth were let down inside a creel into a great hole which was there. Down at the bottom of that big hole they reached the house of the big giant.
‘Ha! Ha!’ shouted the giant. ‘I know very well what you’re seeking here. You are looking for the king’s daughter, but you’ll not get her unless you can find a man who can drink all the waters of the world like I can.’
So the widow’s youngest son set the man who had been drinking the river to hold a drinking contest with the giant, and before he was half-satisfied, the giant burst.
Then they went where the second giant was.
‘Ho! Hoth! Ha! Hath!’ said the giant. ‘I know very well why you’ve come here. You are looking for the king’s daughter, but you’ll never get her unless you have with you a man who can eat as much flesh as I can.’
So the widow’s youngest son set the man who’d been eating the oxen to hold an eating contest with the giant. But before he was half-satisfied, the giant burst.
Then he went where the third giant was.
‘Haoi!’ said the giant. ‘I know full well why you’re here, but you’ll not get the king’s daughter unless you first of all stay here with me as my slave for a day and a year.’
‘I’ll certainly do that,’ replied the widow’s youngest son, and he sent the basket away back up with the three men and the king’s three daughters. The three men then went with the three daughters to the king and told him that they had personally done all the daring deeds that were within their powers, which had freed his daughters.
When the end of a day and a year had come, the widow’s youngest son, who had slaved for him all that time, said, ‘Well, it’s time I was going.’
The giant said ‘Sure – now I have an eagle that will fly you up to the top of the hole and will give you your freedom there.’
So the giant set the eagle away with him, and gave the eagle fifteen pigs to eat while he was flying upwards, but the eagle had not reached halfway up the hole when she had eaten all the pigs and she returned back down to the bottom again. Then the giant said to the youngest son, ‘You’ll therefore need to remain with me another year and a day, and then I will release you.’
When the end of that year came he sent the eagle away with him, but this time giving him thirty pigs to eat on the way. Certainly this time they reached further than before, but three-quarters of the way up the eagle had eaten all the pigs and whirled back down to the bottom of the cave.
‘You must,’ said the giant, ‘stay with me another year, and then I will send you away.’
The end of that year came, and the giant sent them away, with sixty pigs for the eagle’s meat, and when they were at the very mouth of the hole the pigs were all eaten and she was going to turn back, but he tore a steak out of his own thigh and gave that to the eagle, and with one spring she was on the surface of the earth.
At the time of parting, the eagle gave him a whistle and she said to him, ‘If you ever get into any difficulties, whistle and I will be at your side.’
He did not allow his foot to stop, or empty a puddle out of his shoe, till he reached the king’s big town. He went where there was a smith who was in the town and he asked the smith if he was in want of a gillie to blow the bellows. The smith said that he was.
He was but a short time with the smith when the king’s big daughter sent word for the smith.
‘I am hearing,’ said she, ‘that you are the best smith in the town, but if you will not make me a golden crown, like the golden crown I had when I was with the giant, your head shall be cut off.’
The smith came home sorrowfully, full of lament, and his wife asked him his news from the king’s house.
‘There is but poor news,’ said the smith. ‘The king’s daughter is asking that a golden crown shall be made for her, like the crown that she had when she was under the earth with the giant. But what do I know about that crown. Nothing! How can I make something out of nothing?’
The bellows-blowing gillie spoke up. ‘Don’t you worry about that. If you get me enough gold, I won’t be long making the crown.’
The smith got the gold as he asked, with the king’s order. The gillie went into the smithy, and he shut the door; and he began to splinter the gold asunder, and to throw it out of the window. Everyone who passed by gathered up a fragment of the gold which the gillie was flinging out the smithy window. He then blew his whistle and in the twinkling of an eye the eagle appeared.
‘Go,’ he said to the eagle, ‘and bring here the golden crown which is above the big giant’s door.’
The eagle went, and soon returned with the crown between her claws. The gillie gave the crown to the smith, who went so merrily, cheerily with the crown to where the king’s daughter was.
‘Well,’ said she, ‘if I did not know that such is impossible, I would think that this is actually the crown I had when I was with the giant.’
The king’s middle daughter said to the smith, ‘Well, you will still lose your head if you won’t make for me a silver crown just like the one I had when I was with the giant.’
The smith took himself home in misery. His wife rushed out to meet him, expecting great news of praise, but all she heard was this new tragic news. But the gillie again came to the rescue, saying that he would make a silver crown if he got enough of silver. The smith got plenty of silver with the king’s order. The gillie went and did as he did before. He whistled; the eagle came. ‘Go,’ said he, ‘and bring here to me the silver crown which the king’s middle daughter wore while she was with the giant.’
The eagle went, and she was not
long returning with the silver crown. The smith went merrily, cheerily with the silver crown to the king’s daughter.
‘Well then,’ said she, ‘it is marvellously like the crown I had when I was with the giant.’
The king’s young daughter said to the smith that he should make a copper crown for her, like the copper crown she had when she was with the giant. The smith now was taking courage, and he went home much more pleasantly this time. The gillie began to splinter the copper and to throw it out of each door and window, and all the poor people from throughout the district gathered to collect the copper as they had already gathered the gold and silver.
Once again he blew the whistle and the eagle was instantly at his side.
‘Go back,’ he said ‘and bring here to me the copper crown which the king’s youngest daughter wore when she was with the giant.’
The eagle went and was not long returning. The eagle gave the copper crown to the gillie, who gave it to the smith. The smith went merrily, cheerily and he gave it to the king’s youngest daughter.
‘Well then,’ said she, ‘I would not believe that this was not the very crown that I had when I was with the giant underground, if there was a way of getting it.’
The king said to the smith that he must tell him where he had learned such crown-making, ‘for I did not know that such a man as skilful as you lived within my kingdom.’
‘Well then,’ said the smith, ‘by your leave, oh king, it was not I who made the crowns, but the gillie I have blowing the bellows.’
‘I must see this gillie,’ said the king, ‘so that he can make a crown for myself.’
So the king ordered four horses and a coach, that they should go and seek the smith’s gillie. And when the coach came to the smithy, the smith’s gillie was smutty and dirty, blowing the bellows. The king’s horsemen came and asked for the man who was going to look on the king.
Archie and the North Wind Page 9
