The Silver Darlings (41 page)

“Where away?” asked Finn.

“I’m going home,” answered Seumas.

“What’s your hurry?” Finn had a sudden desire to hang on to Seumas, not so much to be away from the members of his own crew as to be apart from them. They discussed some of the week’s doings and smiled over the havoc wrought by the dogs. “You have had a drink,” declared Finn, “and I haven’t.”

“No, I must be going,” said Seumas; “it’s nearly ten miles, and I’ll get my head in my hands for being as late as I am.”

Seumas lived down on Loch Luirbost, where a religious revival had blown up, and Finn rallied him on it, with Seumas smiling, his grey-brown eyes alive. He was a slim fellow like Finn himself, two years older, with high
cheek-bones
and dark hair.

“Lord, here’s Big Angus,” said Seumas suddenly, “
taking
the street to himself!”

A tall fisherman, fully six feet four, broad shouldered, straight-backed, with a short, curly, brown beard, came along, accompanied by three other fishermen. Seumas stepped off the pavement and Finn was shouldered off.

“They never saw you,” explained Seumas, with a laugh. “He’s a quiet enough fellow, Angus, until he gets drink. On Saturday night he rules the world, with everyone frightened of him.”

“I know someone who won’t be frightened of him,” murmured Finn, his eyes following the four men until they turned into the Sloop Inn.

They argued until the prospect of some fun was too much for Seumas, and he agreed to go along for a few minutes.

The bar was filled with seamen and voices and drink. The voices broke into laughter and sometimes shouted. More than Big Angus were on top of the world! Finn at last got two whiskies from the landlord, who was a small, forceful man, with a tubby body and a sharp, commanding voice. His clients did not object to his occasional cautionary words, rather liked them in fact, and on the whole obeyed them.

From their stance by the wall, near the door, Finn saw the inception of the trouble. One of the three seamen with Big Angus whispered something to him. “What’s that?” asked Big Angus, and had it repeated. Then he turned his face and looked over towards the corner where Roddie and Henry were talking and drinking. Roddie’s back was to
him. Angus took a sideways step, as if to get a better view, and then laughed. “Missed the Butt!” he said, and coming back to the counter hit it with the bottom of his thick glass. “Another round!” he called. “God, fancy a man missing the Butt!” The humour of it broke from him. He shook his laughing head. “Did you hear that one, Donald George?” he asked the landlord, as he scooped up his change. “He missed the Butt!”

“Now, now, Angus,” said Donald George. “That’s enough.”

“I should think it was!” said Angus, and threw his head back in a hearty roar at his own wit. “It’s the best joke I have heard in years.”

However Henry tried to hold Roddie’s attention he could not shut his ears. The whole room was caught, and eyes gleamed on Big Angus and shot to Roddie, who had now turned round.

His mirth seemed to weaken Big Angus, and he said, “Damn me!” and “Och! och!” Then turning to have
another
look at the marvel who had missed the Butt, he encountered Roddie’s steady stare.

That stare shook some of the mirth out of him, for he was not used to opposition. But he held by his
expression
as he took a step or two towards Roddie and asked, with laughing curiosity, “Tell me, how did you manage it?”

“Never mind him,” said Henry quickly to Roddie. “He’s all mouth.”

“All what did you say?” asked Big Angus.

“You mind your own business,” said Henry, “and we’ll mind ours.”

“Hoh-ho!” said Angus.

“Now, Angus, that’s enough!” called Donald George.

Roddie had never moved. His eyes were glass, his
cheek-bones
smooth. His concentration was so intense that it drew Big Angus fatally. There was a moment’s intense silence. Big Angus straightened his shoulders, like a man
freeing and gathering himself, and said with automatic derision, “I was only asking him how he missed the Butt.”

Roddie’s movement was so swift, the smashing blow to the face so instantaneous, that Big Angus was being swayed back on to his feet by the men he had fallen against, before anyone quite realized what had happened.

“Get out of here!” yelled Donald George, fairly
dancing
.

No-one paid any attention to him. Big Angus, blood on his face, came towards Roddie, his fingers curved, his shoulders bunching. But Roddie did not wait for him; he swept in and lashed out a right and left to the face; then followed up so impetuously that Big Angus, supported by the crush behind, grabbed at him blindly. In this lock, Roddie staggered back to clear himself, steadied, then slowly, his throat swelling, lifted Big Angus clean off his feet and smashed him to the floor, where he lay squirming, like a man in a death-throe.

“Here, by God!” began one of Big Angus’s three companions, but Roddie was on him in an instant and the smash of the blow could have been heard down the street.

Roddie had broken loose. Swaying on the outer edges of his feet, fists clenched, he let out a challenging roar. But no-one was interfering with him now. “I’ll sail you round your bloody Butt!” yelled Roddie. “Come on!”

No-one, that is, but Donald George, who had a long experience of the moment when, with a few drinks, a client in the pride of his manhood has an urge to sweep the seven seas. He ducked under the flap of the counter.

“Get out of here!” he barked into Roddie’s face.

Roddie looked at him for a moment as at something utterly unexpected and strange. Donald George thrust out a compelling hand. Swift as a cat Roddie stepped sideways, caught Donald George by neck-band and trousers-seat, and swung him off his feet, swung him full round, and let go. He passed clean over the counter and crashed into his own
bottles and casks. There was a roar of breaking glass and a flood of released whisky.

And at that moment, with the whole company paralysed, it came upon Finn to approach Roddie.

The actuating motive may have been a desire to help Roddie, to get him away in time. Standing before him, he said, “Come on, Roddie. Let’s get away now.” Roddie’s left arm was still outstretched, the back of the open hand towards Finn’s face. Through the foot that separated it from that face, Roddie brought it with such explosive force, that the resounding slap almost lifted Finn off his feet. Seumas caught him as he fell backwards; but in a red instant Finn had torn free, carried in that instant beyond all reason, in a stormy madness that cared nothing for defeat or death. For some obscure reason, Roddie did not hit him as he came in, when indeed he might have killed him. Though Finn, for that matter came very swiftly, and did in fact hit Roddie a glancing blow on the cheek. Roddie caught him, crushed him, lifted him up. Finn wriggled and yelled, his voice half-cracked, in a demented rage, clawing madly at Roddie, hitting him where he could. Whether Roddie would have smashed Finn against floor or wall and with what result was never to be known, for Callum leapt clean in on Roddie, and Henry, coming at him behind, slipped an arm round his throat. At that moment, Big Angus gripped Roddie’s ankle. Roddie’s blind heel shot backwards and hit him in the jaw. He rolled over in a bellow of agony. Roddie thrust Finn down on top of Callum and tore himself free.

“Roddie, boy,” said Rob, “you b-b-better stop.”

Roddie glared at him, as if he did not know him, and, turning on the men in the pub, let out his challenging
berserk
roar.

“Don’t be a bloody fool,” said Callum to Finn, holding him by the throat at arm’s length, “or I’ll bash you.”

Finn’s voice was broken, and he was shouting through his insane anger like a tortured child. And though he broke
free, Callum, helped by Seumas, bunched him to the door, and finally together they shoved him bodily out.

Seamen were now coming running to the pub.

“Come on!” snapped Callum and, with the help of Seumas, walked Finn along the street. “Now clear out, for God’s sake!”

He waited until Finn had gone some little distance before turning back to the inn.

Seumas had him by the left arm, but Finn went quietly enough, head up, his quick breathing broken by panting gulps.

The slow-curving row of houses along the south bay seemed never to end. Seumas was talking quickly and lightly to Finn, and smiling, so that those who looked at Finn’s face might be deceived. Once or twice he pointed to a boat drawn up on the black foreshore below the grounds of Stornoway Lodge, as an excuse to avert their faces.

When they were on the country road, heading south, Finn stopped and sat down. He started trembling and, turning over on his face, gripped the heath with his fists. From him came not sobs but dry hacking convulsive sounds. Suddenly he shot up: “I’m going back!” Seumas put an arm round his neck. Finn tried to tear free, but Seumas held him, muttering common-sense gently. “Ssh, be quiet. Here’s somebody coming.” In time he got Finn quietened.

Finn sat in the ditch staring before him, his eyes bright as in fever. Seumas, with the pleasant lightness of
comradeship
, more soothing in voice and manner than any woman, told Finn that he was coming home with him to Luirbost for the night. At last Finn said, “Well, I’ll be getting back,” as if he had not heard a word.

So Seumas put all his reasons forward again, and added, “You can’t go back there wherever you go. You’ll only start it all over again. And you don’t want to do that?”

“I must go.”

“You think you’re running away. You want to know
what’s happened.” Seumas looked at him, wondering whether Finn could now stand what he wanted to say, and then he said it: “You’re only thinking of yourself.”

Finn’s face hardened. Seumas laughed lightly. “Be
sensible
, Finn. You can’t pack into that lodging-room now, five of you. Nothing more will happen. It’s only a fight. There’s hardly a Saturday night in the season but Big Angus is in a row of some sort. Well, he got his gruel
tonight
. And he deserved it. So leave them alone. Besides,” he added shrewdly, “it was clear that Callum didn’t want you. It was Callum who told you to clear out. If they don’t want you, why force yourself on them?”

There was a long pause. “All right,” said Finn.

“We’ll have a snuff,” said Seumas, “and then we’ll take the road. It’s a fine night for it.”

He was a friendly, lovable fellow, this Seumas, and his voice so full of light common-sense that he broke down Finn’s reserve by asking, “After all, Finn, how
did
you miss the Butt?”

So after a vague smile Finn started talking and told of the thick weather and the storm.

Seumas listened with deep interest, drawing him out. And in time they got to the Seven Hunters.

“You didn’t climb Eilean Mor?” Seumas stopped on the road and looked at Finn closely, the subtle complimenting friendly manner fallen from him.

“I climbed that rock anyway.”

“But isn’t there a sheer face? Harris men go out there in the season for a load of birds and mutton. But they take a ladder for that bit, and they’re about the greatest rock climbers in the world.”

“Yes,” said Finn, “a ladder there would save time.”

“What did you find on top?” asked Seumas as they walked on again.

When Finn had described the little house, Seumas nodded, convinced at last. “Yes, that’s the ruins of the chapel. Long, long ago, a holy man lived there. They
called him Saint Flannan. That’s why they’re known, too, as the Flannan Isles.”

“Did he?” said Finn. “I wonder what he was like?”

Seumas looked at him. “No-one knows now. Why?”

Finn half smiled. “I had the sort of feeling that I was expecting him.”

“Had you?” remarked Seumas, also smiling, but with a reserved critical look in his eye. As Finn glanced at him, he continued: “An old man from Uig, named Ceit Morison, once told me that he used to go there as a young man. They used to do some queer things on landing. You know how we turn a boat round with the sun: never the other way.”

“Yes,” said Finn.

“Well, when they got up on top, the leader first of all would say, ‘Now, boys, there’s to be no relieving of nature here.’”

Wonder came back to Finn’s face in a solemn grin. “It wouldn’t do, I suppose, after they had got so far safely,” he said.

“They didn’t want to offend the rock that had been kind enough to take their feet. And it’s natural enough.”

“That’s so,” Finn agreed.

“Then they would strip off their upper clothes and put them on a stone before the Chapel. Did you notice a stone?”

“I did.”

“They got down on their knees and, saying a prayer, went forward that way to the chapel. Then they went round the chapel sunwise saying a second prayer. And then they said a third prayer by the little door. They did that in the morning, and also in the evening when they had finished killing the birds on the rocks.”

“Did they?”

“Yes. Old Ceit said to me that some of them would pray there better in a day than they would pray at home in a year. He said you could feel it was a holy place. Did you feel that?”

“I don’t know,” replied Finn, thoughtfully. “I felt as if
someone invisible had just left and was maybe coming back. I felt he was an old quiet man. I was a little afraid and yet not afraid. But I have had that feeling at a place at home. What else did they do?”

“You know how we mention certain things at sea by other names? Well, they had queer names like that, too. In fact many of the Lewis seamen have them here. You call water by the name ‘burn’, and a rock is ‘hard’, the shore is ‘the cave’, sour is called ‘sharp’, you mustn’t say a thing is slippery but ‘soft’—oh, and a great lot more.”

In this way, as they journeyed together, by loch and peat bank, Finn grew calm in himself. But it was a grey calm, thin in texture like the feeling he had awaiting the invisible man, like the politeness that greets a stranger though death sits in the heart.

The night was on them before they turned along the quiet waters of Loch Luirbost, but in it was a dim greyness from the dead day. A sheep coughed, its face ghost-white. Grey, the gable-end of a cottage; and the front of the
cottage
, like a grey face. Black the peat stack, black the bare peaty soil, grey-green the grass. Stillness everywhere and silence—except for the eternal sea-bird that cried along the shore, drawing the eyes out over the shimmering water.