‘How did you know where I was?’
‘Daddy was sure you’d be somewhere in the North Ford and this seemed the most likely place.’ She glanced round at the faces all eagerly watching us. ‘Walk down the road with me, will you. We can’t talk here. What with that odd craft of yours and me coming here asking for a man camped in the dunes — it’ll be all over North Uist by this evening.’ She gave me a quick little nervous smile. ‘I didn’t give your name.’ And then, when we were clear of the Post Office, she said, ‘The boat’s been seen at Eriskay, on the east. Colonel Webb was notified this morning and Daddy rang the hotel. He thought you’d want to know.’
I
And she added, ‘A crofter saw it there fast night. They’re not sure it’s the one Major Braddock took, but it’s a lobster boat and it doesn’t belong to any of the local fishermen.’
So he’d crossed The Minch and was waiting like me for the expected break in the weather. I was quite sure it was Iain. The island of Eriskay was immediately below South Uist and right opposite Mallaig. ‘What are they doing “about it?’ I asked.
‘They’ve sent out a plane to investigate.’
‘A helicopter?’
‘No. A plane, Daddy said.’
A wild coast and no place to land. A plane wouldn’t stop Iain. And for me to try and intercept him was out of the question. He’d shift to the little islands in the Sound of Barra and by tomorrow he’d be gone.
‘It’s what you were expecting, isn’t it?’ She had stopped and was standing facing me, the wind on her face.
‘Yes.’ And I added, ‘It was good of you. To come all this way.’
‘I suppose you’ll go now.’
‘Tomorrow morning.’
‘He’s got a much bigger boat than you. If anything happened … I mean, you ought to have somebody with you — just in case.’
‘In case I fall overboard?’ I smiled. ‘I wouldn’t have far to fall — a few inches, that’s all.’
‘It’s nearly a hundred miles to Laerg, and that wretched little dinghy …’ She was staring at me, her eyes wide. ‘I realise you can’t take anyone — anyone who wouldn’t understand. But-’ she hesitated, her gaze, level and direct, fixed on me. ‘I’ve brought cold weather clothing and oilskins. I thought if you wouldn’t take anyone else …’ Her hand touched my arm. ‘Please. I want to come with you.’
I didn’t know what to say, for she wasn’t a fool; she knew the danger. And she meant it, of course. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘Imagine what your father would say.’
‘Oh, Daddy knows.’ She said it quite gaily and I knew she really had settled it with him. And when I said, ‘You know it’s out of the question,’ her temper flared immediately. ‘I don’t know anything of the sort. You can’t go alone….’
‘I’ve got to,’ I said.
She started to argue then, but I cut her short. ‘It’s no good, Marjorie. You can’t help me. Nobody can. In any case, there isn’t room. When the stores are in it, that rubber dinghy is full — there’s barely space for me.’
‘That’s just an excuse.’
I took her by the shoulders, but she flung me off. She was angry now and her eyes blazed. ‘You’re so bloody pig-headed. Just because I’m a girl….’
‘If you’d been a man,’ I told her, ‘the answer would have been the same. There’s no room for anybody else. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t want anyone. This is something I’ve got to do alone.’
‘But why? Why do you have to?’
‘He’s my brother,’ I said. No point in concealing it from her now.
‘Your brother?” She stared at me, and I could see her thinking it out and going over it in her mind.
‘Now do you understand? This is something I’ve got to work out for myself. Perhaps for Iain, too.’ I took her by the shoulders and this time she didn’t draw away.
‘It’s settled then. You’re going — tomorrow.’
‘Yes.’
She didn’t argue any more and when I drew her to me, she let me kiss her. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you for coming, for offering to go with me.’ Her lips were cool with the wind. ‘That’s something I’ll always remember. And when I get back …’ I felt her body come against me, the softness of it and her arms round my neck, her mouth on mine; and then she had drawn away. ‘I’ll see you off, anyway.’ She was suddenly practical and we walked back in silence.
The woman who had gone off with the jerricans was waiting for me outside the Post Office. ‘Ye’ll find Roddie McNeil wi’ your petrol doon by the landing place.’ I thanked her. ‘It’s nae bother. And there’s nae call for ye to be thanking Roddie. He’ll be charging ye for his time as well as the petrol, ye ken.’
McNeil was waiting for me on the sands, a small, dour “man with sandy hair. ‘There’s a wee bit extra for the cartage,’ he said. I paid him and he helped me launch the dinghy and stow the jerricans. ‘Is it long ye’ll be camped over to Baleshare?’ And when I told him I’d be gone in the morning if the weather were fine, he said, ‘Aye, weel …’ And he sniffed at the breeze like a sheltie. ‘It’ll be fine weather the noo, I’m thinking.’
He held the boat whilst I started the engine, and then I looked back at Marjorie. There was something almost boyish about her, standing there alone on the sands, the faded anorak and the green cord trousers tucked into gum boots, her head bare and her hair blown across her face. And yet not boyish; more like an island woman, I thought, her body slim and erect, her face clouded — and she’d been quite prepared to come to sea. The noise of the engine drowned all possibility of speech. I waved and she waved back, and that was that, and a feeling of sadness enveloped me as I motored down the channel. I didn’t look back and in less than twenty minutes I had beached the dinghy below my tent. I was on my own again with the surface of the dune sand dried now and the wind sifting it through the wiry grass stems.
I began loading the dinghy ready for the morning. Reed’s Nautical Almanac gave time of sunrise as 06.43. There was no moon. I thought I should have sufficient light to cross the bar just before five. And once out beyond the bar I should be stuck at the helm hour after hour with no chance to change the stowage or search for things. Everything I needed had to be ready to hand.
There was another problem, too. At five o’clock in the morning the tide would be almost low. If I left the dinghy where it was, moored to the shore, it would be high and dry when I wanted to leave, and loaded it would be much too heavy to drag into the water. The only alternative was to anchor off in deep water and sleep aboard.
I stowed everything in its place except the tent and the radio set, and by the time I had finished the sun was shining, the wind no more than a rustle in the grasses. It was a calm, clear evening with Eaval standing out brown and smiling against the black storm clouds still piled against the mainland hills. I climbed to the top of the dunes, and all to the west the sky was clear, a pale pastel shade of blue, with the seas white on the bar, but breaking lazily now and without much force.
There was nothing more I could do and I got my sketchbook out. The two drawings I did show the loaded dinghy lying like a basking shark stranded at the water’s edge, the tent snugged in its hollow against the dunes, and that flat world of sand and water stretching away to the sunken hulks of the distant hills. They set the scene, but they miss the bright calm of that suddenly cloudless sky, the curlews piping to the more anxious note of the oyster-catchers, the flight of the grey plover and the laboured strokes of a heron. The sun set, an orange ball that turned the Monachs black like a ship hull-down, and as twilight fell, the darkening world seemed hushed to a sort of sanctity so that I felt I understood what it was that had drawn the early Christians to these islands.
Cliff Morgan’s transmission came through very sharp that night, with almost no interference. Message received. Weather set fair for 24 hours at least, possibly 48. Fog your chief hazard. Future transmissions twice daily at 13.30 and 07.00 continuing for 3 days. Thereafter 22.00 as before for 4 days. If no message received by March 10 will presume you are in trouble and take appropriate action. He repeated the message, the speed of his key steadily increasing. Finally; Bon voyage CL. I marked the times of his transmissions on the chart and checked once again the course I should have to steer. He had given me seven clear days in which to get a message through to him. Time enough to worry how I was going to do that when I reached Laerg. I wished Iain could have ” heard that forecast. Fog was just what he wanted now.