‘Just about,’ he said, and then he left us. McDermott had removed his sheepskin jacket and I saw the insignia of the Army Medical Corps, the serpent of Aesculapius, on his battledress. He was a surgeon, he told me, and he’d left Edinburgh shortly after eleven, flown to Stornoway and then been driven right across Lewis and Harris to Northton. ‘I’ll be honest — I hope we don’t have to go. I’m a damned bad sailor and from what I hear this boy’s in a mess.’ He was puffing nervously at a cigarette.
Half an hour passed. Then a door slammed, a voice gave an order, somebody shouted and rubbered feet i
pounded aft. The dynamos changed their note as the lights dimmed momentarily. Another piece of machinery had come into action. The door opened and Captain Stratton came in, small and dark with premature streaks of grey in his black hair and a quiet air of command. Snatched hours of sleep had left his eyes red-rimmed. ‘Sorry I wasn’t here to greet you. As you’ve probably gathered by the sounds of activity, we’re getting under way.’
‘I take it,’ McDermott said, ‘this means the LCT is still stuck out there?’
‘Yes. Kelvedon’s made one attempt to winch himself off. Over-eager, by the sound of it. Anyway, she didn’t budge. And now he’s going to wait for the top of the tide before he tries again.’ And then he went on to explain his own plans. ‘As we’re afloat now, I thought I’d get started. We’ll be bucking a head-wind up to the Sound of Harris; may take us three hours. If he gets off all right, then we’ll put into Leverburgh. If he doesn’t we’ll be that much nearer Laerg.’ He turned to me. ‘I hear you have a lot of sea time. Master’s ticket?’ And when I nodded, he said, ‘I hope you’re a good sailor then.’
‘I’m not sea-sick, if that’s what you mean.’
He smiled. ‘You may regret that statement. Have you ever been in a landing craft before?’
‘No.’
‘You’ll find the movement a little different.’ And he added, ‘If you want to visit the bridge any time….’ It was an invitation that accepted me as belonging to the brotherhood of the sea. He went out and a moment later the deck came alive under my feet as the main engines began to turn.
I watched our departure from the open door on the starboard side of the bridge housing. Dawn was breaking and the bulk of Mount Hecla sliding past was purple-brown against the fading stars. A seal raised its head snake-like from a rock, and then with a jerking movement reached ‘ the weed growth at the edge and glissaded without a splash into the water. A heron lifted itself from a grass-grown islet, ungainly in flight as it retracted its head and trailed its feet, grey wings flapping in the wild morning air. Five cormorants stood on a ledge and watched us go, curious and undisturbed. These were the only signs of life, and though the door was on the leeward side and I was sheltered from the wind, I could see it whipping at the surface of the water.
One of the crew appeared at my side hooded in his duffel coat. ‘Battening down now, sir.’ He pulled the steel door to and fixed the clamps. ‘In a few minutes we’ll be rounding Wiay Island. We’ll begin to feel it then.’
The visitors’ quarters were immediately aft of the wardroom pantry, a clutter of two-tier bunks with clothing scattered around and a desk littered with papers. McDermott had already turned in fully clothed. ‘Seems steady enough,’ he murmured.
‘We’re still under the lee.’
My bag had been dumped on the bunk immediately aft of his. I stripped to my vest and pants and got into it, pulling the blankets up over my head to shut out the grey light from the portholes. The time was ten to six. I must have slept, but it wasn’t a deep sleep, for I was conscious all the time of the movement of the ship, the sounds, the pulsing of the engines. I knew when we turned the bottom of Wiay Island for the bunk began to heave and every now and then there was a crash as though the bows had hit a concrete wall; at each blow the vessel staggered and a shiver ran through her. Vaguely I heard McDermott stumble out to the heads. Later he was sick in his bunk.
The steward woke me shortly after eight, a teenage youngster in a khaki pullover balancing a cup of tea. ‘I don’t know whether you’d care for some breakfast, sir. The Skipper said to ask you.’
I told him I would, though the battering was much worse now that I was awake. ‘Where are we?’
‘Off Lochmaddy, sir. Half an hour and we’ll be in the Sound. It’ll be quieter then.’
The cabin reeked of vomit, sickly sweet and mixed with the smell of human sweat. I dressed quickly and breakfasted in solitary state, burnt sausage and fried bread with the fiddles on the table, the blue settee cushions on the floor and the framed photograph of L8610 banging at the wall. I smoked a cigarette, thinking about Laerg and the ship stuck in Shelter Bay. Lucky for them the wind was in the north. If it had come in southerly during the night … I got up and went along the alleyway for’ard. A curtain was drawn across the open door to the Captain’s cabin. There was the sound of gentle snoring, and behind the closed door opposite I heard the buzz of the radio operator’s key. I slid back the door to the wheelhouse and went in.
The deck was almost steady now. A big, heavily-built man stood at the wheel, dressed like the officers in a white polo-necked sweater. There was nobody else there, but the door to the port side wing bridge stood open and almost immediately the Number One appeared framed in the gap. ‘Port ten.’
‘Port ten of wheel on, sir,’ the helmsman repeated.
‘Steady now.’
‘Steady. Steering three-o-four, sir.’
Wentworth went to the chart table, checked with his parallel rule against the compass rose. ‘Steer three-one-o.’
‘Three-one-o, sir.’
He straightened from the chart table and looked across at me. ‘Skipper’s got his head down. Did you manage to get some sleep?’
‘A certain amount.’ And I asked him if there was any news.
‘He didn’t get off.’ And he added, ‘The wind apparently — or so he says. It was round into the north-east and a gust caught him. Personally I think he dragged his kedge anchor when he tried that first time. Anyway, he’s right up against the beach now, almost broadside-on to it.’
‘You’re going to Laerg then?’
He nodded. ‘Going to have a shot at it, anyway. They’ve despatched a Navy tug. But the Clyde’s over two hundred miles away and she’ll be butting straight into it. We’re the only vessel that can reach Laerg by next high water.’ He glanced through the for’ard porthole and then went out on to the open wing bridge again. ‘Starboard five.’
The needle of the indicator half right of the helmsman swung to five as he spun the wheel. I crossed to the port side where the chart table stood, a mahogany bank of drawers. Spread out on the top of it was Chart No. 2642; it showed the Sound littered with rocks and islands, the buoyed channel very narrow. ‘That’s Pabbay straight ahead,’ Wentworth said, leaning his elbows on the table. ‘Steer two-nine-six.’
‘Steer two-nine-six.’
Through the porthole I looked the length of the ship. The tank hold was an empty shell with vertical walls and a flat bottom that ended abruptly at a steel half gate. Beyond the gate was the black hole of the beaching exit with the raised ramp acting as a bulkhead immediately behind the curved steel bow doors. Water sloshed in the open hold and sprung securing hooks banged in their racks. The vertical walls were topped by steel decking that ran like twin alleyways the length of the ship to finish at a small winch platform. This platform was swinging now against a backcloth of sea and islands; it steadied as the helmsman reported. ‘Steering two-nine-six.’ Pabbay was on the starboard bow then, a smooth hump of an island, emerald-green in a drab grey world; whilst I had slept a thin film of cloud had covered the sky.