Strandings

The blue of these doors was deep. It was a dark, navy shade, no green in it. Stornoway harbour was pea soup and the beaches you reached out to, on Sunday school picnics, were as much green as blue. A colour I’d seen called ‘mallard’ in the plates of the Arthur Mee encyclopaedias. A locomotive was called that and coloured it too.

Three words, ‘Life Saving Apparatus’, were painted across the double doors, in white and you couldn’t see any drips from the letters. When you passed by here, it was always worth a look to see if anyone was inside. Same thing, passing the fire station. Just round the corner. Doors open. Abandoned bicycles. A car or van left with its wheels on the pavement, parked in a hurry.

Sometimes I’d walk down for the paper, with the olman, him stretching his legs after pedalling at the loom all day. This was before we had the car and before he moved to that other office, up the far end of town, near The Battery. It was while he still got the Express. We’d to remember the Woman’s Weekly, if it was the right day for it. Then he’d wind me up. ‘Harold Hare for you, isn’t it?’ But he knew fine I got The Eagle now. A Bunty for Kirsty. I’d learned it was no good asking for a Beano or a Topper. He’d always get our Eagle and Bunty, our choices, and a Look And Learn to share.

Back up the road, this day. The small door, set into the big double LSA doors, was open. It was there so you didn’t have to go undoing all the bolts to get in. You only opened the big doors if you needed to get all the gear out. Some of our neighbours were in the team. We might see Uisdean, a neighbour, sorting out stuff.

Then one of the big doors opened. A man appeared. He had a white shirt and a white-topped cap. I wondered how he’d managed to bend through that small door, to open the big doors from the inside. Like in Alice In Wonderland, I thought, though I’m sure I didn’t say that.

‘What do you have in the Aladdin’s cave, these days?’ the olman asked and the tall Coastguard said, as it happened, he was just going to do his inspection so we’d get a look.

The second, wide door opened to brass lamps, wooden crates painted the same blue shade, wooden pulleys, shining with oil, neat coils of rope. Faint creosote. Dusty hemp. My father lifted one of the pulleys and said there was quite a trick to it.

This was the snatch block for the hawser. The breeches buoy would run on that, pulled out on an endless whip of lighter rope. I liked the words but couldn’t see how that gear could rescue anyone, till the Coastguard started chalking a picture on a blackboard for me. Now I could see it, how people were brought ashore from wrecks. First the big rocket took out a light line. Then the crew had to pull out the thick rope – the hawser – so it all went from the shore to get tied round the mast of the wreck. That big rope was pulled tight and then it was like a runway for a cable car. The whip was the lighter rope that pulled the thing like a lifering back and fore, running along the thick hawser.

Survivors had to climb into the buoy. It had thick canvas leggings roped to it. Just in case you didn’t get the idea, there was dark lettering which said, ‘Sit In Breeches’. You were pulled ashore by the endless rope as your breeches ran along the thick hawser line. The empty buoy was then pulled back out again, for the next survivor in line.

The olman had gone very quiet. I thought this was just his usual trick of stepping back to let me figure things out. Then his voice came but it was very low.

‘So why couldn’t they use all this stuff at the Iolaire?’

‘Feel the bloody weight of it. Even if you rounded up ten hardy crofters and a horse and cart, in time, it would be a struggle. When it gets wet, it’s heavier still. No Land Rovers then. The access at Holm wasn’t great either. And it was New Year’s night – the first one after the War. It would take time to round up your squad.’

At school, we were always told the story of the Iolaire. It wasn’t a proper warship. Just a big motor yacht trying to carry the survivors of the First World War home for the New Year. Most were lost, about a mile out from Stornoway. The Beasts of Holm were really close to the shore. My olman took me out a walk to the memorial a few times. Most of the lost men were naval reserve. Most could have piloted the ship into harbour.

My father and the Coastguard were talking about it. One lad swam ashore with a rope. A few got off. What’s the tide doing then? Falling. That’s it, then. She’ll be over. A watch was recovered, stopped at the time water entered it.

‘And the Stella?’ It was my father’s voice again. Kenny F’s olman’s boat.

More recent history. They were all running for home but she was behind the rest of the fleet. He’d been on watch, at Holm. She was still showing her fishing lights, as well as her steaming lights. Red over white, up top, for fishing other than trawling. Most of the boats never bothered to put out the fishing lights, when they were steaming home, and most of them showed green over white – the trawlers.