Island of Wings

by Karin Altenberg

  ‘What are they singing?’ asked Dick, who liked the sound.

  ‘It’s an iorram,’ answered the minister. ‘It’s a rowing song but I have also heard the women sing it while waulking the tweed.’ He was quiet for a while and listened, then translated for the benefit of the two brothers:

  My love, the hunter of the birds,

  Earliest home across the wild channel;

  And O, the ocean chant-man;

  And O, the beautiful;

  And O, the ocean chant-man.

  I’d make white tweed for you,

  Woollen thread as thick as rope;

  My love, the mariner of the deep.

  They were all quiet now and listened as the iorram brought the boat into harbour, the oars dipping miraculously in unison.

  Lizzie heard the song of the returning boat. She had already set the table. She had picked sorrel to flavour the bird meat and had put some wild flowers in a vase on the table. They had no more wine, but she had blended some dandelion and primrose in the cold water that she had just drawn from the well. She prayed they would notice that she had made an effort. She hoped they would notice.

  As they sat down to tea the men were exhausted and slightly bleached by the sun, the sea and the wind. They did not talk much but answered politely as Lizzie asked about the nature of their day. She would have liked to say something amusing or clever even, if only to bring the conversation out of the men and into the room, but she could not think of anything, and the meal, she had to admit, was rather dull.

  As the Atkinsons lay in bed an hour later they did grumble confidentially to each other regarding the somewhat indifferent fare and fell asleep while the peregrine chicks died in their cage by the window.

  The following morning a deputation of natives visited the manse to say that in return for more tobacco they would be happy to take the two Sassenachs to the Thumb Rock to see their climbing skills. It was also made clear that the gift of tobacco the previous day had been deemed too small and that the St Kildans were quite dissatisfied. George and Dick, determined to make it understood how much they intended to give, showed their remaining tobacco supply. The natives shook their heads and said it was too little, thinking perhaps that there was a hidden store in the gentlemen’s bags. The bartering went on for a little while until George produced a bottle of whisky and served a glass apiece. This immediately changed the situation, and the natives became most obedient and generous for the rest of the day.

  The rock that they called Stac Biorach, or the Thumb Rock, was the most awe-inspiring and inaccessible stack in the archipelago. It was the ultimate test for any cragsman, and those who had managed to climb it were held in reverence within the community. It had taken its name from the fact that at no point would the climber find a grip larger than a thumb. Situated in the narrow sound between Hirta and Soay, the island in the north-west, it was flanked by a most impressive archway. Stac Biorach and the nearby cliffs of Soay could easily have been mistaken for the clashing rocks through which the bravest heroes of antiquity had once sailed.

  As the boat drew near, the Atkinsons could tell that the cragsmen were losing heart. The minister felt it too, but he assured his friends that the St Kildans might be cunning and tricky barterers but they always kept their word. For a while the boat drifted at the base of the pinnacle as the natives folded their arms and chafed their bare feet against the deck boards. One man attempted to light his pipe. Dick had almost started to hope that nobody would risk the dangerous ascent when a fine, strong lad jumped up and said that it should never be said by strangers that they were inferior to their fathers in skill and courage, and that if anyone would accompany him he would lead the way. Another lad joined him. The minister named the boys as the cousins Donald and Finlay MacDonald. Donald quickly tied a rope around his waist and managed to jump on to the rock. Twice he lost his foothold and fell into the sea, but he was quickly hauled into the boat only to try to establish himself on the rock again. As soon as he was secure he called for Finlay to attach himself to the other end of the rope and helped him on to the rock. The two boys then started the ascent in the most remarkable way. Their bare hands and feet frisked the granite as their agile young bodies snaked their way towards the summit. Every now and again they would get hold of a guillemot in their way, break its neck and throw it down into the boat to the cheering of the crew. When they reached the top the boys were flushed with adrenalin and their broad smiles betrayed their pride. Finlay shouted down to his kinsmen to leave them up there on the stack for a couple of hours to kill some guillemots – Donald was courting a girl called Marion and he wanted to bring her the fattest rock-bird from Stac Biorach as a love token.

  The group in the boat was getting weary in the swell and was only too happy to set off for nearby Soay. They soon landed on the south-east side, facing Hirta. Soay was not as steep as the other islands in the archipelago and hundreds of archaic-looking sheep grazed its grassy slopes. The three gentlemen set off on their own to explore the island, while the natives lit their pipes with the new supply of tobacco. They seemed hugely content and the two brothers could not help but suspect that the men were overly pleased with their bartering. On the east side of the island MacKenzie and the Atkinsons found a large colony of puffins which had burrowed themselves into the grassy slope or the occasional natural holes and crannies in the rock.

  MacKenzie explained that each couple laid one egg in the depths of its burrow. If the egg was taken from them they produced one more and if this was taken they produced yet another one. But the puffins were hunted mainly for their fine feathers. The women would pluck the feathers of the dead puffin and either roast it for food or throw the carcass in a pit where it would putrefy and later be used to manure the barley fields. Sometimes the women would pluck a live puffin, and they swore that the feathers would grow back as white as snow – though MacKenzie had yet to see evidence of this miracle.

  It was no wonder then that the puffins’ calls which filled the air sounded so melancholy. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!’ they called mournfully to anyone who was prepared to listen. They looked pitiful and sometimes rather comical, thought Dick, like a great assembly of drunken churchmen swaying back and forth on their webbed red feet, unable to decide where to put their weight. He mentioned this analogy to the minister, who laughed and said that in the current climate within the Church of Scotland the birds may well pass unnoticed.

  George, in the meantime, had begun to throw stones at the puffins. He cheered as he managed to knock three off balance at the same time. The birds around looked slightly disconcerted as their friends tumbled down the slopes like skittles, but at the last minute before they fell into the sea the fat little creatures took wing and skimmed easily away over the waves. Soon they were swarming the air like midges, and George, who had tired of his boyish game, suggested to his companions that they sit down to eat their lunch of cold mutton and hard-boiled birds’ eggs. They passed the rest of the afternoon in a peaceful and agreeable manner, looking for the nests of stormy petrels.

  On their return to Hirta they stopped to pick up the two brave cragsmen on Stac Biorach. As the boat drew up to the rock the boys started flinging great bundles of tied-up dead birds down into the sea for the boatmen to collect. The huge bundles bounced off the surface of the water in clouds of blood before settling and crimsoning the sea. Donald was beaming. He had found a most voluptuous bird, which he would pluck and present to Marion as an Eun-creige – a rock-fowl love token. There is sure to be a wedding soon, the natives joked with the minister. The latter explained the custom to the two brothers. ‘I wish it was as easy as that to find a good wife,’ said George. ‘I was just about to say that they go to an awful lot of trouble to secure their partners,’ said Dick, who suffered slightly from vertigo. ‘None but the brave deserves the fair,’ the minister remarked with a wink to George.

  George, who was beginning to find that
the slow rowing and splashing were grating on his nerves, let his mind trail off. He was thinking of the skills of the cragsmen. He had become conscious of his own insignificance and littleness as he had watched the two young men suspended and crawling amongst the cliffs. At times it had been difficult to make them out amongst the chaos of rock and sea, as if they were truly part of the elements. He knew that he could never be one of them.

  As they reached the beach in Village Bay George was met by the captain of the crew he had hired in Rodel. ‘We must be off tomorrow, sir,’ said the sailor. ‘Why so?’ asked George. ‘Why, sir, if the wind was to change direction, we might be kept here for months.’ George, sensing that the crew may not have had a particularly sumptuous time living amongst the natives, tried to convince the captain to stay on a few days longer, but he could see the sense of the plan as none of them wanted to get caught on the island. After a short discussion it was decided that they would leave the same evening after tea, while the westerly breeze was still fair.

  After they had eaten and carefully packed all their specimens in crates and baskets, George, who fancied himself to be a man of words and who had been humbled by his time on the island, sat down to write in his notebook:

  Nothing can be more interesting, or more instructive and ennobling, to the mind of man, than the contemplation of the works of his Maker, which are daily before us, but when scenes of such immensity and grandeur present themselves, that even imagination has not pictured them, the soul must indeed be unsubdued which does not bow with admiration and awe.

  The MacKenzies followed the brothers to the landing rocks. The evening was mild and the westerly was dying slowly. George noted that Mrs MacKenzie seemed downcast. Perhaps we should have made more of an effort to talk to her, he thought. It must be awfully lonely for her without anyone but her husband to speak to. She came alongside him and smiled. ‘Would you do me the favour of posting this letter when you get to the mainland? It would mean a great deal to me,’ she said intensely. ‘It is for my sister Annie in Paisley,’ she added flatly as if she was reading the address out loud.

  ‘Of course, madam, it would be an honour.’ He looked at her and was surprised that he had not seen her beauty before. Perhaps he had not seen her at all, he realised. ‘I wish you good fortune with the birth of your child,’ he said, and added lightly, ‘Perhaps it will provide nice company.’

  ‘Company, sir?’

  ‘It must be lonely here at times?’ he suggested.

  Now that he was leaving she could admit it. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, at times it is.’ She glanced quickly at her husband, who was out of earshot.

  They left then, as they had to, and as George called his farewells in Gaelic like the minister had instructed him there was much emotion amongst the islanders as one after the other they shook the hands of the naturalist brothers.

  As the little ship set off on the failing wind George looked back for a long time towards the landing rocks where Mr and Mrs MacKenzie remained, standing a little apart.

  About half a mile south of the manse, at the base of Oiseval, was the Point of Coll. No particular feature marked this place, but it was relatively sheltered from the prevailing winds and, of all the promontories on Hirta, it was the one closest to the Long Isle. From the manse a faint path, trampled by conformist sheep rather than humans, led past the barn where the natives stored the fea­thers for the taxman’s visits. The path then joined the head dyke, which separated the enclosed land from the outlying lands, and once the dyke stopped abruptly at the end of the headland the path hesitated and meandered for a while until it gained confidence and struggled across the traverse of the steep slope. At this point the path gave access to the sea. It was said that the point had got its name from Colla MacLeod, one of the laird’s men, who, sometime in the distant past, had fought with a MacDonald from Uist over the lordship of St Kilda. The two men agreed that the one who got to the island first would gain possession of it. They set out in their currachs and raced the sixty miles across the Atlantic from the Sound of Harris. The race was well matched, but once the two boats got in sight of the island the Uist ­oars­men were a few strokes ahead. Threatened with defeat, Colla MacLeod drew his sword and promptly cut off his hand and threw it on to the island. It landed on the point of Coll, and the MacLeods, who claimed that they were the first to lay a hand on the island, have been the rightful owners of the island ever since. Another, and perhaps more likely, story was that a man named Coll had once died at the point. It was generally agreed that living at the point was impossible, whereas losing your life there would be easy enough. You needed courage, rather than a strong rope, to clamber down towards the sharp rocks that emerged from the sea here to join the island.

  Young boys would sometimes come here to fish, occasionally catching an unfortunate herring or a blue-ribboned mackerel surfacing too close to Village Bay. Mr MacKenzie, the minister, would often come here to be alone. He enjoyed practising his climbing skills on the boulders, imitating the young men of the island. But most of all he enjoyed being out of sight of the hamlet and the manse. He would sit with his back against the sheltering rock and read, scribble notes for his sermons or just think about the nature of things. This is where he found himself on a ­particu­lar morning a few weeks after the Atkinsons had left the island. Across the bay on the island of Dùn he could just make out some of the men, women and dogs catching puffins. The men would place a snare with multiple nooses on the ground and wait until enough birds had stepped into the trap before pulling the rope and snaring as many as ten or fifteen at a time. In the meantime the women and the dogs would coordinate their efforts to extract the puffins from their burrows. MacKenzie had seen the women reaching into the holes to grab a bird which was retreating as far into his burrow as he could while uttering the most heartbreaking sound. The women would always win, and as soon as the bird had been retrieved they would snap its neck and tuck the carcass into their belt.

  The tide was low and the smell of seaweed and barnacles drying in the warm July sun was comforting to this man who had been born by the sea. He felt at ease, perhaps even peaceful. He thought about his child about to be born and about his wife, whose kind face was well worn and familiar by now, yet still beautiful at times. His congregation was increasingly attentive. He had also noticed that the islanders would often turn to him to settle their disputes and affairs. He remembered George Atkinson’s warning about getting too involved in the souls of his parishioners. But authority was part of his duty. He had been chosen to serve as a father to these primitive but cheerful beings. He shuddered, not altogether from discomfort, at the task that lay ahead of him.

  A dead black-backed gull was floating close to the shore. Its gas-filled body bobbed lightly on the choppy waves. At a closer look it seemed to lack wings. Neil MacKenzie sat up. Had this bird flown too close to the sun? He let out a short laugh at the symmetry of his thoughts. Slowly easing his way forward, clambering on his hands and feet like a crab, the minister balanced towards the floating gull. When he had reached the rock closest to the carcass he stretched out his leg and caught the bird by the heel of his boot. The stench was no worse than he was used to from the clachan, but as he prodded the bird with his pen he withdrew in horror. It seemed obvious, although unlikely, that the huge gull had been tortured to death; its eyes had been gouged out and its wings had been tied to its body with a strip of sheep leather before it had been thrown into the sea to drown. This was most certainly the result of one of their pagan superstitions, thought the minister, as a shiver ran down his back. He had often eavesdropped on the folk tales and ancient songs that reflected the superstitions and rituals of the natives’ mythology. The minister was suddenly cold. He feared that there was a layer of existence on the island that he could not get to: a dimension that was deliberately hidden from him. He had charted all the place names and translated them into English in an effort to rob them of their threatening magic. He
had tried to stamp out the St Kildans’ vernacular way of explaining the world and replace it with the Gospel. Ah, was this tortured bird a sign of his failure? His distressed mind invested the omen with unhealthy significance. Could it be that the Devil was at work amongst his congregation? His responsibility towards them was greater than ever. It was his duty to eliminate all witchcraft and secure the island for the Almighty. Disgusted and terrified, he lifted the dead gull by its still-powerful bill and started to climb the rocks back up to the path. His mind was racing and sweat dripped down his back between his shoulder blades as he hurried towards the manse. There was no time to lose; he was carrying barbarism in his hands. He had never been so close to pagan sorcery before and could feel a stir of excitement in his bones; at last he could confront the natives with evidence of their own black magic!

  Lizzie looked up from her sewing as her husband stormed into the manse with the terrible bird in his hands. She gasped, and the dog they called Dog winced and retreated into a corner. ‘Ha!’ cried the minister. ‘Even the dog of the manse recoils at such unholy conjuring! He has got more Christian spirit than the natives of this island.’

  ‘Calm down, my love. You will upset the baby inside me with such wild talk,’ said his wife, who had reclaimed her equilibrium after the departure of the gentlemen brothers.

  ‘This,’ cried the minister, ‘is the result of demonology!’ The bird shook in his grip. ‘I will find out what it means. They will not keep this kind of secret from me. I will call an extra service tonight when the fowlers return.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said soothingly while rising heavily from her chair. She had to steady herself against the windowsill as she was really quite large at the end of her second pregnancy. ‘I will bring you a cup of tea,’ she said to his back as he stormed into his study, bird in hand.

  Lizzie had never seen her husband like this before. It worried her slightly, but at the same time she felt strangely suspended. This huge body was no longer her own, and the last couple of weeks she had had a sensation that she perceived her life from a distance, calmly and objectively. So she brought her husband his cup of tea with a steady hand, and when evening fell and the fowlers returned she wore her best bonnet to church in an act of support and loyalty to his cause.