Stormy Petrel

‘Almost impossible,’ said Neil.

‘But given the time and the capital, it can be done? A good team in from Glasgow, get a supply chain going, they live in the house while they get set up, then the Portakabins on that flat field by the beach . . . It could be done.’

‘The weather can be a problem,’ said Neil.

We were standing in the belvedere, which commanded a view to northward of the machair, and straight across the channel to the island where, in the sunlight, the outlines of the broch showed sharply. Down to our left Neil’s boat lay by the jetty, with Crispin sitting in the stern, fishing.

It had been a long day. Neil had brought Sea Otter round soon after breakfast, and taken Crispin and me to the house. Not long after that Archie’s Land Rover brought Mr Bagshaw down, and the tour of inspection began. At Neil’s request I had stayed with the two men while they looked over the house, and then had – this at my own suggestion – given them lunch of a kind in the kitchen. I had made sandwiches earlier with the rest of the cold chicken and some ham, and brought some cheese and fruit to finish with. Crispin had taken his share earlier, and had gone off on his own to look at the machair; he had insisted that he could manage perfectly well with the elbow crutch, and since he could obviously look after himself we had let him go, and turned our attention to a hopeful discouragement of Mr Bagshaw.

It did not appear to be working. On that lovely sunny day the house failed to look depressing, or even very neglected, though I drew Neil’s attention twice to damp-marks on the ceilings, and Neil responded with a rueful remark about the state of the roof, then checked himself with a quick, worried look at Mr Bagshaw. The rather awful back premises of the house drew nothing more from the latter than pursed lips and a reference to the excellent architect who was, apparently, living only to make Mr Bagshaw’s dreams come true. And the weedy garden was no problem at all: with those bushes, whatever they were called, said Mr Bagshaw, eyeing the rhododendrons with enthusiasm, all you needed do was keep the grass cut, and who needed a garden when you had a view like this?

And of course the machair decided it. It looked, to Neil’s and my fury, exactly like the most idyllic picture postcard of an island view. There was the long, gentle curve of milk-white sand, backed by a sea of turquoise and pale jade and indigo. There were the far cliffs, violet-shadowed as any classical landscape. And for the four miles of the flat coastline, between the white beach and the green slope of the moor, stretched the wild-flower meadow that in Gaelic is the machair. The turf is barely visible, starred with the tiny yellow and white flowers of tormentil and daisy and silver-weed. Then comes the next layer, at a few inches high, eyebright and bugle and yellow rattle, and over these, in soft motion always in the breezes, the dog-daisies and ragwort and knapweed and brilliant hawkears and the lace of pignut and wild chervil, and the sweet delicate harebells that are the bluebells of Scotland.

They may not all have been flowering at once, but that is the impression the machair gives you, and the scent, mingled somehow with the smell of the sea and the tangle at the tide’s edge, is the unforgettable, un-forgotten smell of the summer isles.

Mr Bagshaw, predictably, was in ecstasies. The bathing, the sun-beaches, the pictures in the brochures, the water-sports, and yes, he supposed there were wet days, but he had been assured in the village that the television reception was OK, and in fact had watched it last night, and of course there would be the night-life, the leisure centre, discos . . .

So at length we came back to the garden and the belvedere. Mr Bagshaw did not notice Echo and Narcissus watching us sadly from their weedy beds, or I am sure they would have inspired him to new plans, but he kept his eyes fixed on the bright prospect framed by the trees at the end of the belvedere.

‘That’s the remains of a broch you can see,’ said Neil. He sounded tired and dispirited. ‘An Iron Age stronghold. You wouldn’t be allowed to touch that, of course.’

‘Of course not. But it would make another attraction. Culture,’ said Mr Bagshaw. ‘And that’s another good beach on the other side. There’s something romantic about an island, I always think. Don’t you?’

‘Oh, yes. But the tides are difficult, and the channel can be very dangerous.’

Mr Bagshaw was silent for a minute, then turned those bright, shrewd little eyes on him. ‘I get the impression that you’re not all that willing to sell. Am I right?’

Neil hesitated. ‘I suppose so. I realise that I may have to, but it’s – well, it’s not easy to envisage such, er, changes to a place one has known and loved. And what you propose, Mr Bagshaw, would change the whole island. I wouldn’t want to feel responsible – I mean, I did try to explain—’

‘Yes, you did. But the whole world changes, every day,’ said Mr Bagshaw, with truth, ‘and this sort of place has to change with the times. People have leisure, and they want clean air and the sea, and to have fun, and if we can provide it here in this country, it keeps their cash here, doesn’t it?’

‘So you really want to take up the option?’

‘I can see nothing against it.’

‘Well, that’s it, then,’ Neil got up from where he had been sitting on the wall. ‘But would you like to see the little island, too? I’ll take you right round it, to the bird cliffs, and then if you like we can land you to look at that beach, and the broch.’

Mr Bagshaw would be delighted. And presently he was in Sea Otter with the three of us and we were cruising round the outside of Eilean na Roin. The birds rose in screaming clouds, to the pleasure, different in either case, of Crispin and Mr Bagshaw, as Neil took the boat gently on and along the machair as far as the peregrine cliffs. Then, slowly, back again. It was difficult to talk above the noise of the engine, and Mr Bagshaw seemed deep in his own thoughts. I handed round plastic mugs of thermos tea, and then sat enjoying the colours of the advancing twilight, and the pleasure in my brother’s face.

Some time around half past six the wind died, and with it the last brightness fell from the day. The evening was still far from dark, but all through the afternoon the slow clouds had been building up in the west, and as the sun sank lower behind them, twilight dimmed the outlines of the land and greyed the sea.

I saw Neil looking around him with satisfaction, and then the engine’s noise sank to a mutter, and he brought the boat softly in to the inner shore of Eilean na Roin, and let her drift alongside the causeway. He jumped out and handed Mr Bagshaw ashore.

I made ready to get out, but he shook his head at me. ‘Wait a bit, do you mind?’ Then, to Mr Bagshaw: ‘Why don’t you go ahead and take a look around before it gets too dark? Take your time. I’m going over to the boathouse for a few minutes to fix something. OK?’

Mr Bagshaw was understood to say OK, and Sea Otter drifted back into mid-channel. We saw Mr Bagshaw making his way rapidly uphill towards the broch, then Neil turned the boat and headed, not for the boathouse, but for the headland beyond which lay the cove called Halfway House.

It was a narrow cove, with a wedge of stony beach, and to either side sheer-sided rocks where a boat could lie as if at a jetty. Landing was simple. We tied up to a ring that he himself, said Neil, had driven into a crevice in the rock many years ago, and silence came back as the engine died.

‘Am I to understand,’ said Crispin, ‘that you are leaving the Defenders of the Highlands to do the job for you?’

‘To make a suggestion merely,’ said Neil.

‘They’re making it here,’ I said, slapping. ‘Where’s the stuff?’

‘Some in the cabin. I never move without it.’

‘One sees why.’ Crispin was slapping, too. ‘But this surely won’t be enough? I don’t mean the Shoo, I mean the suggestion.’

‘I thought it might give him time to think. And give me time to think as well. It’ll probably just make him mad at me, but even that might be helpful.’

‘If he did withdraw?’ I asked, smearing midge-repellent.

‘I simply don’t know. All we can do is wait and see.’

‘They’ve driven him over the cliff and into the sea,’ said Crispin, but nobody laughed. To someone like Mr Bagshaw, not used to the Highlands, and moreover, only just freed from a rather restricted form of life, the rocky island could hold, in the half-light, some very real dangers.

‘I’ve been a double-dyed fool,’ said Neil, explosively. ‘Come on, let’s find him. Crispin, you’d better stay put. Tie the boat up will you, please? Come on, Rose.’

He led the way uphill at a fast pace, and I followed. We paused, but without much hope, at the tent.

‘If he’d been in here, he’d have heard us,’ said Neil. ‘Are you there? Mr Bagshaw?’

No reply. He pulled the flaps open to show an empty tent.

‘I can hear the gulls at the cliff,’ I said, with misgiving.

‘Only a few. Don’t worry, nothing’s happened, I’m sure. He struck me as having a lot of sense. I’ll go over there, I know the ground better than you. You go the other way, downhill, towards the seal rocks, and take care . . . Mr Bagshaw! Are you there?’ He strode away and was soon lost to sight in the growing dusk.

On the seaward side of the island the rising breeze was stronger, and waves boomed and echoed against the rocks. Some of the birds, disturbed, were out and calling. My eyes were used to the half-light, but even so the going was uneven, and needed care. I heard Neil call out a couple of times, but then the wind noises and the sea noises and the lie of the land blotted his voice out. I did not pause to listen for the enchanted sounds of the other island nights. I hurried, trying not to feel the older, stronger enchantment of the lonely Highland places, where the ghosts walk of all the dead, and the following shadows thicken your blood with cold.

I was almost at the seal rocks when I found him. I heard him first. Not the moan or cry for help that by now I was half expecting, but a soft, impatient shushing noise that came from a small figure kneeling, hunched, over something on the ground.

‘Mr Bagshaw! Oh, thank goodness! I was so afraid . . . Are you all right?’

‘Hush up, lass! Keep your voice down! Of course I’m all right, but there’s a bird here with a broken wing or something, and you’ll frighten it if you shout . . . Careful now, slowly . . . Here, see.’

I saw. Below him, barely visible in the deep shadow of a fallen-in rabbit’s scrape, a small black bird lay, half hidden by dust and pieces of broken turf. One wing, curved and narrow, protruded from the debris, moving feebly. The small body quivered and shifted, as if its feet, under the weight of dust, were still trying for take-off. But it was trapped. Behind it was the rabbit-hole, and to either side the turf bank rose sharply, where the recent fall of sandy stuff had half buried it, shutting it in like a golf ball in a bunker.

Mr Bagshaw was making no attempt to touch it. He backed off a pace. ‘If it’s got a wing broken—’ he began.

I knelt down, and began very gently to scrape away some of the fallen stuff. It was sandy, light and friable, and moved easily. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘the other wing’s out now, and it’s moving it. Not damaged, then . . . I don’t think it’s hurt at all. It must have just been coming out of the burrow when that bit of the bank came down and trapped it. It looks recent.’

‘It is. I did it. I thought I heard something funny from under ground, and then I stepped too near the edge of the rabbit-hole. Could have broken my ankle in the dark.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. It was stupid of us, really, to go off like that, but you see, we were hoping . . .’ I stopped. I could hardly tell him what we had been hoping.

‘Never mind,’ said Mr Bagshaw. ‘But how about getting this little bird out of here? If we scrape the stuff away gently . . . yes, that’s fine. What’s it doing in a rabbit-hole anyway? There, now, there, now . . . I’m used to birds. I like them. We kept pigeons when I was a boy, and my grandfather used to breed canaries. That was in the days when they bred them at the pithead to find the firedamp. I used to help him. He kept them in the engine-shed, and you should have heard them all singing whenever the engine was running to lift the cage in the shaft . . .’ He was speaking almost in a whisper, while he gently shuffled the dust and fragments of turf aside, and I scattered them away. ‘I think you’re right, the wings are OK. But – oh, here’s your brother coming. He wants to watch himself in this light.’

‘What is it?’ asked Crispin, limping up. Neil must have heard our voices, too. I saw him coming downhill towards us.

‘A bird, here on the ground. A house martin, I think. It can’t fly. I thought it might be hurt, but your sis says not.’

‘A house martin? Here?’ And indeed, with the sickle wings spread, and the white rump now clearly visible in the dusk, Mr Bagshaw’s guess was fair enough.

‘It’s a stormy petrel,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen one before, close to, but that’s what it’s got to be. And it’s grounded. At least I hope that’s all that’s wrong.’

My brother laid the crutch aside and knelt down. Neil joined us, with a question, and I said quickly: ‘It’s OK. He’s here. One of your petrels in trouble, that’s all.’

Crispin was saying quietly, to Mr Bagshaw, ‘Rose is right. I don’t think it’s hurt, Why don’t we just lift it out of there and give it a start?’

He reached down, but I caught at his arm. ‘Mr Bagshaw’s used to birds. Let him do it.’

My brother glanced up. I saw him hesitate, then he moved back and got to his feet.

‘Go on, then, Mr Bagshaw. Your bird, I think?’

‘Sure.’ I felt Crispin relax beside me as Mr Bagshaw slid gentle palms under the petrel’s breast, folding the wings in and cradling the little creature firmly and expertly. It made no attempt to struggle. It looked very small and fragile in his hands, like a tiny bat with velvet wings. I smelled again the sharp, chemical smell that pervaded the broch wall.

‘Well, what do you know about that?’ said Mr Bagshaw admiringly. ‘The little bugger spat at me.’

Crispin laughed. ‘If it got on your clothes, you may as well put them on the bonfire. You’ll never get the smell out. Now, if we just take it somewhere near the edge of the cliffs . . .’ He led the way across the turf. At this end of the island the cliffs were lowish, with stacks jutting from the swell and wash of white water.

We stopped a few feet from the edge. ‘This will do,’ said Crispin. ‘Throw it over now, into the sea.’

Mr Bagshaw turned to stare at him, his face a pale blur in the dimness. I could see his mouth opening to protest.

‘Go on,’ said my brother. ‘Quickly. That’s where it was going. It’s a storm petrel. Except when they’re nesting, they live at sea. Really. They follow ships, and they can swim if they have to. That little thing can fly anywhere – anywhere, as long as it’s at sea. Go on, throw it.’

‘You’re the boss, doctor,’ said Mr Bagshaw, and threw. The tiny bird made a curve up into the air, turned over, flapping a couple of times, like a moth caught in a draught, and then fell in a great sweeping dive to the sea. For a few moments we could see it, a scudding speck, black against the luminous white of the breakers, then it was gone, beating strongly out towards the open Atlantic.

Mr Bagshaw was looking down at his hands, curved as if they still held the warm shape of the bird. ‘Well, I never did. I wouldn’t have believed that if you’d told me. A pigeon, yes, maybe, but that little spelk of a thing . . . What did you say it was?’

‘A stormy petrel. They call them Mother Carey’s Chickens. The storm birds. Very small, very strong, very tough. I told you, they spend all their lives at sea, except when they come ashore to nest.’

‘And they nest on this island?’

‘Yes.’ It was Neil who replied, and I added: ‘That was what you heard, Mr Bagshaw. It must have a nest in that burrow, and what you heard under the ground was the bird crooning on its egg. They only have one. They sing every night. Its mate may just have come in from the sea to change over on the nest. Usually they wait till it’s darker than this.’

‘You don’t say?’ He looked out for a few moments towards the deepening darkness to the west, filled with the sounds of the sea. He spoke to Neil. ‘You didn’t tell me.’

‘No. We try to keep quiet about them because they’re so rare, and so vulnerable when they do come in to land.’

‘I see. And you didn’t tell me about the seals, either. Did you know there were a lot of seals at the end there, on the rocks? Some of them with young ones, too.’

‘Yes. I knew. The island’s called Eilean na Roin, which means Seal Island. They’ve been here since – well, since long before the broch. Long before men came here in the Iron Age.’

‘I see,’ said Mr Bagshaw again. ‘Well, I don’t know that I can actually . . . That is—’ He did not finish what he had been going to say, but asked instead: ‘Did you get your boat fixed?’

‘Yes, thank you. And I think we ought to get back to it and I’ll get everyone home before the wind gets any stronger. Shall we go? Can you see your way, sir?’

‘Sure I can. You give a hand to the doctor here. And don’t call me sir, my name’s Hartley, but I get Hart as a rule. Now look . . .’ This as we started back towards the boat. ‘I don’t know if there’s anywhere back in the village where I can ask you to come and have supper with me, but if there is, I’d be glad if you’d all join me there.’

‘I doubt if there is,’ I said. ‘No hotel, of course, and I don’t think you could take three extra to wherever you’re staying, without giving notice. But why don’t we all go to the cottage? I can manage. Let’s all go back there, and I’ll fix something.’

‘And I’ll run you home afterwards in the boat,’ said Neil.

We had reached the causeway. Mr Bagshaw stopped and turned back to face the three of us. ‘I won’t say no. I’d like that very much. And here and now I’d like to say thank you for this day. I’ve enjoyed it all, and that island there has been a rare privilege, and something more than I expected.’

There was a silence that could be felt. Then Neil stepped forward and put out a hand to help Mr Bagshaw into the boat. ‘It’s been rather more than any of us expected, I think,’ he said. ‘Can you see, Hart? Then let’s go.’