III

Cutting the Painter

Those jagged rocks, fused dark and hard as iron, beneath the brown weed. My spirit sank in me as I looked at him.

‘No, they got her off after an hour or two, I’m told,’ said Eoin, ‘and she hasn’t been greatly damaged, though I cannot say how much.’ He seemed sad and disappointed about it. We discussed the matter back and fore and then went in and told the Crew.

Within a day or two I got fairly accurate information. Her rudder had been broken and one side scraped, but by some miracle the hull itself was sound, not even a plank having been started. The slimy cushion of brown seaweed must have helped.

The trouble had lain not only with the storm, but with the heavy anchor, for when I came to investigate the matter on the spot, I discovered that this anchor had lost its hold because the stock had shifted—when the pin came out.

A carpenter from Kilmuir, who had served on ships in his time, got on to the job, and in due course I was informed that she was sounder than ever.

But my restlessness was increasing. There had been nothing but delays and trouble ever since I got her, and a feeling was beginning to grow that nothing would go right until I took her over myself. All along, too, I had been disturbed by the age of the engine, and the mechanic’s report that two of the gudgeon pins were perhaps not too tight did not help. Fifteen years is old even for a Kelvin, but I had the faint hope that I might get word from the makers, to whom I had sent the number of the engine, that she might be no more than ten. On the back of the news of the beaching on Hulm came a letter from the makers informing me that the engine was installed in 1912. Twenty-five years old!

Seventeen or eighteen years might have induced wrath or despair. But twenty-five so belonged to the realm of fantasy that we could do nothing but laugh.

New gudgeon pins might do no harm! And even a new bearing or two. The mechanic was told to go right over her from the beginning again and replace whatever was necessary. Then word reached me that the beaching and salvage had been officially reported to the Receiver of Wreck. She was not insured.

The only way to meet all these fantastic happenings, it seemed to me, was to be even more fantastic, and when a man came out of the blue and asked me if I was selling my house (the rumours of our going to sea must have been spreading!), I said yes. Within an hour of our seriously discussing the price, we were in a solicitor’s office and the house irrevocably sold.

That night the Crew and I thought it might be as well to discuss matters realistically, so we figured out our resources and our hopes, and the following day I went to the chief of the Civil Service Department in which I worked and handed him my resignation. His initial surprise turned to consternation and he spoke to me for a long time in a fatherly way, for he has a humanity that no red tape can strangle. Did I realise that I should not only lose my salary but my pension, towards which I had worked for over twenty years?

For though it is commonly believed that a Civil Servant’s salary is smaller than it should be because of pension rights that accrue, in actual fact a Civil Servant is not deemed to have any legal right to a pension. A pension is a gratuity graciously granted by the Treasury after forty years’ service. Should one elect to retire after thirty-nine years’ service, there would be no pension. There is here the characteristically delightful indefiniteness of British institutions whereby the individual is deemed to have rights—until he actually tries to act upon them—when he finds he hasn’t quite got them, not in his way, in fact not at all.

To make sure of this, I applied for a pension, including in the application certain personal considerations which I need not detail here, and forwarded it to our Departmental Board in London. In one sentence, curtly accepting my resignation and refusing even to lay my case before ‘the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury with the view to the award of a pension’, the small matter was economically disposed of. Which was that!

But I was touched by the friendly consideration of our northern chief, who did his best to point out the madness of my ways and the uncertainties of literature, particularly (as he tactfully if not very hopefully put it) when not of the commercial kind. I trust that when he retires in two or three years he may draw his pension for a period long enough to make up in some measure for the pension I did not get!

And if there is any excuse for such a personal irruption, it may lie in this: that after these two days’ action, our only abode was a boat in doubtful condition, and that if we had lost all visible means of support we had at least gained a little control of time.

So one fine and cloudy morning the Crew and I packed our small car with a miscellany of household gear and set off for the West. The sun was shining in Glenmoriston and we went past the oaks and the birches in the happiest mood. How complete a change had come over our earthly fortunes since, a few weeks before, Eoin and I had taken that first jaunt to Skye! The old boat had won out.

We had a few minutes’ anxiety near the crest of the steep hill behind Kylerhea when the engine, pulling away on bottom gear, suddenly roared and the car began to slip backward. I held her with both brakes until the Crew got out and fixed large stones behind the rear wheels. Three men working on the road came to our assistance. They were obviously used to this sort of trouble. I felt sure I had stripped my gears. But the oldest cheered me by saying, ‘The steepest part is still in front of you.’ They got their shoulders to the bodywork. I let in the clutch with no hope. The car moved away from them. In a flash I realised what had happened: under the continued vibration of low-gear work, the lever had of its own accord jumped into neutral.

The relief from this experience—for I had visions of hopeless delays and expense—heightened the pleasure of the day and we arrived at Duntulm in great form.

And then our troubles began.

 

The engine was not in the finished condition I had expected, though the job had been on hand for some two months. The floor boards were awash, though she had been dried that morning. When we tried the old pump it would not work without priming and then ejected about as much as a peashooter, so we baled her out with a bucket. Eoin had warned me about this pump, and some two weeks before, a new pump had been despatched, but had arrived without the two extension pieces of piping and so no effort had been made to put it in. The drip-feed box was absent. Wire was wound round the cylinder block. The two new lockers were upright shallow shells without shelves, and no storage room had been put in beyond the forward bulkhead. The dinghy was still unpainted and on daylight examination looked anything but the wholesome job I had thought her in the half-dark. A local fisherman hesitatingly believed ‘she might do if her bottom was heavily tarred’. The Crew could not find her primus stove, our only cooking fire, but we ran it to earth in an outhouse, where it had been used as a blow-lamp for plumbing.

In short, between one thing and another, I was disheartened to the point of despair, except for the moments when I internally cursed the sloth of the West generally and one or two Skyemen in particular! And what I should have to pay for all this, heaven alone knew, for there had been no contract.

There followed four days of unceasing toil. I had the boat beached again and the carpenter sent for. When the tide left her we found a bad leak from the lavatory outlet pipe, which moved bodily as the handle was worked inside. The carpenter made a perfect job of fixing this pipe, and after some attention to the pumping mechanism, we had no further trouble from the lavatory: a point worth making, perhaps, against small-yacht owners who have written uncomplimentary things about the functioning of this modern contrivance. Not that I am prepared to go into details of use and wont in the wilds. But the contrivance worked in a civilised way when called upon.

But the shining porcelain wash-basin—it was a fraud, for when it was tilted up the water merely ran on to the floor. The extension pipe from the zinc pan beneath had at some distant time been torn away. Before going to sea, we got a piece of flexible piping and made quite a respectable job of fixing it underneath to the hole in the zinc, with just enough length to reach the lavatory pan.

The real saga of these four days, however, was the hunt for extension pieces to the new bilge pump. When I think of it now I smile, but at the time the humour was very intermittent. It covered the whole social and individual background of Skye, including the religious (for a watch had to be set on a half-holy day while work went on behind closed doors).

It began by my ’phoning the plumbers in Portree to find that they did not possess inch piping in lead, iron, copper, or any other substance; the size was apparently an unusual one. For two days we went through the Island in a car, in quite a fair emulation of Caoilte after the deer, hunting blacksmiths, garagemen, joiners, or anyone remotely likely to have anything to do with piping. For the delay that would result from having to send to Glasgow or elsewhere on the mainland was at this point simply intolerable to contemplate. The weather was bright and pleasant—splendid sea weather, that one could not reasonably expect to continue, after such a glorious May. A break was overdue—and it might easily last a fortnight. As we flew along the coasts, the sea mocked us with its brilliant sparkle.

Then on the third day someone heard of someone who knew someone who was close neighbour to someone who had purchased some surplus piping some time or other from the Board of Agriculture, and would it be worth while going to enquire? I was in the mood to go to Timbuctoo, as long as I could go myself; so off we set and duly arrived. While the mechanic was going across fields and ditches towards the croft house, I sat in the car beside the neat-handed lad from the hotel and offered him wild odds in shillings that the piping, if any, would not be inch. He contemplated the bet seriously, and then declined it.

The farmer and mechanic appeared from the croft house coming leisurely towards us, their hands in their pockets. We smiled ruefully. Presently they stopped—and waved to us. We went across. Lying at their feet in the grass were lengths of piping sufficient for the needs of a small village—and with threaded ends. We measured a diameter. It was inches. Not quite believing this, I sent for the pump. The threaded end of a pipe screwed well and truly home.

While two short ends were being cut off by the hacksaw—for we always went prepared for such a miracle—I asked the price and got back the inevitable reply:

‘Whatever you say yourself.’

‘But I have no idea of the price,’ I answered.

‘Oh—well. Whatever you say.’

‘But I simply do not know,’ I protested, and suggested he must know because he had bought it.

‘Whatever you say,’ he laughed.

So in desperation I named a price. He did not laugh. I doubled it, and we shook hands. Whereupon we set off in triumph with our treasure.

And then our real mechanical difficulties began, for this rusty piping had to be bent into the shape of the boat’s hull beneath the stern-seat, and, above, turned at right-angles through the planking. An expert blacksmith might do the job. No one else could. Someone suggested road contractors who were busy in the neighbourhood. We got in touch with the chief mechanic, an invincible man from Nairn, who went to no end of trouble in his off hours to help. The blacksmith joined in and worked on the wire plan I had carefully made, heating and fusing and hammering and bending like an artist. He treated my wire plan seriously and we were both completely justified in the results obtained. That pump, which never required priming or any further attention and which threw out the gallons in solid continuity, proved as great a comfort as the inflated beds.

Meantime, however, the engine was still needing a bolt, and in fact it appeared that water had been seeping into the works. Late on Saturday night that invaluable mechanic made and threaded a bolt for me which fitted, and I dragged weary bones to bed, wondering what next, but vowing in my own mind that before that next happened we should be at sea. For a fatalistic feeling was growing in me that we might never get to sea, and that all our reckless doings might peter out in miserable fiasco. If we even got one day at sea and fetched a quiet anchorage, I should be happy and feel justified and would lie at that anchorage until some sort of peace was got hold of. After that—we should see.

The twenty-gallon petrol tank was full and the water tank nearly full. I had a spare tin with about four gallons of lubricating oil. I fixed seven o’clock on Monday morning as the hour for getting the boat finally ready. Everything now depended on the weather.

Sunday was a good day and I strolled over to see the Coastguard Officer who had attended, I was told, the salving of my boat. I wanted to thank him and whoever else had done me so friendly a service. He was a pleasant southern Englishman and when I expressed my gratitude I could see he was embarrassed. Then I learned that he had not only officially reported the salvage of the vessel but named in his report the nine men who had assisted. In short, the matter was still in the hands of the head Receiver of Wreck and he wondered whether legally the vessel could not be detained pending a settlement of all salvage claims I

A stroke quite as thrilling as the age of the engine! So I smiled, and as I had once had occasion to act as a Receiver of Wreck myself, we discussed the matter in all its bearings and implications.

Before I left him he put me through my paces in weather lore, and asked me if I had distress signals, rockets, or similar gear aboard. I confessed I had none. This shocked him and he told me to remember, whatever else I forgot, that I could always soak rags in paraffin and make a flare.

At six on Monday morning I looked out of my bedroom window and saw a sea of glass. For some reason, I had slept very little. I was by this time almost completely short of ready cash.

The West has so long been run by landlords, shooting tenants, dukes, and yachtsmen, that anyone with anything in the nature of a cruising vessel is inclined to be included within the moneyed class. There are, in fact, whole villages mainly dependent on this summer yachting business. The men run yachts during the season and then have the winter at home and appear at church in fine clothes and bowler hats like Glasgow professional men. The yacht owners for the most part are very kind to them, and I heard of one seaman who last year returned home in a motor-car which his master had presented to him.

Unfortunately for me I did not belong to this kind of owning class. And there was this business to settle with the Coastguard Officer. So at seven I got up, and, with the hotel lad, carried down our gear to the dinghy, which the Crew had painted, and which still leaked despite the copious tar a local skipper had smeared on her bottom. For an hour and a half we were very busy starting up the old engine—with once a backfire of pure flame over the carburettor—and heaving the two anchors. We had as much as we could do to get the heavier one aboard, and I realised then that I could never hope to heave it alone. However, nothing was going to stop me now. We came nearer the shore and dropped the light anchor. Then I left the lad to putty up round the exhaust outlet of the bilge pump and do one or two still unfinished jobs while I went off to the coastguard station.

There I fixed matters satisfactorily and the officer on his part promised also to convey to the nine good men my deep sense of obligation. As I bade him good-bye, he asked me if I remembered what he had told me.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘When the sky is green or there is a swell on a calm day, look out. Long-drawn clouds betoken wind and—’

‘No, no,’ he interrupted me. ‘Do you remember about the paraffin and the flare?’

A conscientious officer, a helpful cheery man, and I liked his southern tongue. He had a good word to say for the strangers he dwelt amongst and felt he could assure me that such simple arrangements as I had made would be properly received.

A quick breakfast and I was down to the shore again carrying more gear. There the skipper of the local lobster boat was waiting to say good-bye. We had had pleasant talks together, especially about the present economic position of the lobster fishing and what could be done to improve it, and as I had nothing to do now but wait for the Crew with the last of our personal belongings, we sat down on this calm lovely morning and talked together.

The immediate difficulty here at Duntulm, as I had already found it in the northern mainland, was one of transport. The accommodation on a bus carrying passengers is limited. The freightage charges on a single box of lobsters, from passenger bus to final rail delivery, is so considerable that it is often crippling and always out of anything like reasonable proportion to the fisherman’s returns. What was necessary here to begin with, we decided, was a two- or four-ton truck doing the loop from Portree by Staffin, Duntulm, Uig, etc., back to Portree, two or three times a week, and collecting en route from all the creeks. Mass consignments would reduce transport charges by nearly half and be an incentive to production.

The individualism of the Highlander is deep-seated and inclined to suspect grandiose schemes. Yet the whole past basis of his social life has been communal, and the folk will still help to cut one another’s peats or plough one another’s land and even find a sort of holiday pleasure in the process. But all at once extend that process to the pooling of the surplus resources of many villages and to the sharing out of profits in hard cash, and in due course there would be quarrels, mistrusts, and disruption. There must be a transition period. The four-ton lorry would help.

Roads would require widening and building up here and there, but even this might be done if a real economic case were made out for the authorities who spend so many millions of pounds with no ostensible purpose beyond helping the smooth passage of the tourist car.

As Mr. Nicolson and I talked away in this strain, the lad came ashore in the dinghy, and now descending from the hotel were the Crew and the lady who had been our perfect hostess for several busy days.

In the height of summer it was a lovely place and the wind was laden with the scent of honey. From the knoll where the castle ruins stand, the Crew had on one occasion returned after a short time with a written list of thirty-two different kinds of wild flower. But now she and our hostess came laden with the last odds and ends of our belongings and soon we were in the dinghy pushing off for the yacht.

Inside, the scene was a piled-up drunken fair, but I at once got the cover off the engine, primed her, swung the handle, and produced the roar. Within a few minutes I had all four cylinders firing, but found that the throttle attachment was not working. I fixed it for the time being, got on top, and soon had the light anchor up. Then back to the engine, increased the roar, and let in the clutch. She nearly spluttered out as she took the load. The Crew had the dinghy painter in hand, for on one thing I had made up my mind, namely, that I should never allow the rope to get round the propeller. My Inverness yachting friend had assured me, against all my protestations, that this was bound to happen once. I was to prove to him that it should not. ‘Hard over!’ When the engine beat was established, I joined the Crew at the tiller. We were under way, with the dinghy properly in tow, and after a sweep round the bay, passed well clear of the wreck and headed for sea.

It was a good moment. We waved farewells until the ancient ruin on the rock shut out the white walls of the hotel and the figure of our hostess. Ten miles away Waternish Point lay low to the sea in a faint haze. We set a straight course for it and committed ourselves to our adventure.