I put the kettle on again and let Mairi get her breath back. I told her there was no hurry. We just sat in silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t awkward. Then she carried on with her story.
She held the fish and could feel the muscles moving, see fins bristling. She knew she was risking the remaining stability of the boat by leaning over to release it but she couldn’t just ditch it over the gunnel. It had come from shallow water so the swim-bladder would be intact. Sure enough it dived, with power, and was gone.
It was ale you needed for a decent sacrifice to the sea gods. They had access to plenty of cod. Or maybe not. Protected species, now, on the Grand Banks. Endangered species in the North Sea, if you believed the scientific officers’ reports.
She sighed when the Seagull fired second pull though she’d known it would. But she’d left the throttle full on when she’d shut the fuel cock, earlier. So now it was roaring in neutral. Not too nice. She went to throttle down, the black thumb-lever still the same shape as the old chrome one. The engine shouted at her. Her onshore drift was increasing with the northeast squall.
Fuck.
But she was seeing how the throttle cable was a bit kinked. She’d sprayed it with liquid grease. This was just lack of use. There just wasn’t enough time to get out, anymore. Maybe she was missing her man’s contribution more than she’d thought. Her right hand went to tweak the throttle, get these revs off. But she was too slow to respond to the urgency of that screaming pitch. Slowed by memories.
At last she remembered that the QB had a stop-button and went to press it just as a thump and a squeal came from within the cast cylinder. A painful, crippled movement continued, sounds she’d never heard from any engine. It would be pretty damn messy in there now. Seemed like an hour but it had probably only taken under a minute to destroy her pride and joy. The motor was dead.
She was calm now, studying the green ones starting to roll in with white crests on them. A low roar was sounding above the slap of smaller waves on the clinker boards. This was the breaking and turning of building seas on the lee shore. She was one of the few swimmers in her class, at school. Her father had persevered, showing her all the breast-stroke movements at home, then taking her to warm rockpools he knew so she’d put them together. It wouldn’t help her now. With that surge she’d be ingesting more water than air. OK, there was oxygen in water but even the old guys couldn’t show her how to extract that.
Hell, she was close to the rocks. What was the village tale of the fellow up for his mate’s ticket, getting questioned?
‘What would you do if you found yourself on a lee shore with machinery failure?’
‘Drop anchor, sir.’
‘And what would you do if the wind rose to Gale Force?’
‘Let out more cable and drop another anchor, sir.’
‘And if it rose to a nine?’
‘Put out another anchor, sir. With plenty of cable.’
‘And a storm ten?’
‘Have to put out the fourth anchor, sir.’
‘Yes, and now can you tell me where you’re getting all these anchors?’
‘Same flicking place you’re getting all that flicking wind from.’
As she was remembering, she was knocking in the pin at the stock of the fisherman anchor, always ready to go, at the bow. Three fathoms of chain and plenty of nylon warp but it wouldn’t be enough, in this swell, unless she was lucky. As the warp was hissing out she looked for anything that would do for a second anchor. So she moved astern, with the spare rope and made an anchor bend – a round turn but the first half hitch also goes through that turn – fixed to jam below the cylinder of the nearly-new outboard. She couldn’t resist one more pull of the cord just in case some seizure had been freed and splintered shards of alloy had healed themselves. They had not. Her fingers were working on the clamps holding the engine to the transom. No snags. So she put her strength into lifting engine, bracket and all, and dropped it over.
A moment of slack when it hit the bottom. She grabbed some of that line and led it round, crawling her way to the bow. She let out still more line, running through the fairlead so there would be no dangerous chafe. This would let the Rana plunge nearer the rocks but there was more chance of holding the ground.
She breathed deep, now both lines were tied off. That fixing point. What was its name?
‘The bitter end. From the Dutch word bitts – that part where the anchor is secured. You see it wasn’t only silver we got for our herring.’
All these things she hadn’t even realised she’d picked up from the olman.
Her voice was sounding out loud but not shouting. Singing. Best Church of Scotland voice. Nearest you’d get to a good going Baptist choir in a hundred mile radius of Garyvard.
‘Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?’ And the reply.
‘We have an anchor that meets the strain, steadfast and sure while the billows rain.’
Billows sounded a bit soft for these short, violent bastards. Was it her imagination or were they easing? She was swinging bow-in to the seas now. The gear was holding. The sacrifice might not be in vain.
Someone might have seen her leave and reported her caught -out. The SY lifeboat could be belting down here at eighteen knots with the wind behind her. U.S. Cavalry job, bugles blasting. The boys would find her, giving it laldy with seafarer’s hymns. That would be a performance, all right. Who was she kidding? The report of the overdue boat would not be sent till nightfall.
Another wee precaution. She took up the fat buoyancy aid, from under the thwart. She carried it but couldn’t work in it. Now she wrestled it over her bulky oilskin jacket. She was between a rock and hard place. Miracles were getting scarce.
But she might not need one. The savage edge of the front was through. There was still fierce power in the squalls but there was some breathing space between them now. Maybe she just had to bide her time. Hang on, the Silva compass was in the inside pocket. She couldn’t see a mark to line up but if the bearing to the point was constant, her anchors were holding. Norwegian wood. Wasn’t it good?
Call it zero one five. Wait a few minutes and check again. She was about to take away the eight degrees for variation then laughed at herself. No point in translating it to True. A constant bearing is a constant bearing. She wasn’t going to plot it on a paper chart.
The seas were no longer breaking. You could still see them coming. Dirty lumps of grey water. There wasn’t much white showing at the tops of them. The wind was right down again and returning to the west. The flood tide north would start any time now. She was going to get out of this. This boat was light enough to row well. That wind would take her out clear of the point and then the tide would help her along. She could sneak into Mariveg, the south entrance and moor the boat there
But she couldn’t afford any pissing about, trying to recover the engine. It had done its work. She had to let that rope run then haul up that anchor if it wasn’t snagged.
It wasn’t easy to get momentum against the run of the swell. But the Rana boat is a light craft and the low freeboard helps when it comes to rowing. She got her craft into the safety of Loch Mariveg under her own steam. Own muscle, anyway.