It took an age to transfer the rope; we could not safely get close enough to her to pass it by hand, and in the end we had to throw the coil overboard with a net buoy, and wait at a respectful distance for her to pick it up before we could cast off the shark-rope from the Gannet’s bows.
We waited, miserably wet and cold but triumphant, while the Sea Leopard winched in. The shark was practically dead. Tex’s harpoon had penetrated between two of the vertebræ just behind the gills, and entered the central nervous column, paralysing the whole body. Had it not been for this the harpoon would never have held; the barbs had never had a chance to open, and the least struggle would have pulled it free.
The inertness of the shark’s body made it even more difficult than usual to lasso the tail, and eventually it took the help of the Gannet, plunging perilously under the Sea Leopard’s lee-side, to complete the job.
We towed the shark north into the shelter of Moonen Bay, and tied the carcase to the Lighthouse Pier. There were no sharks showing in the comparatively calm water below the cliffs, so we carried on south to An Dhusgeir, where we had killed the first.
We had three more shots, but we had used our ration of luck for that day, and we did not get another fish. Tex and I made one clean miss each, and once the charge, fresh-loaded and dry, failed to explode. We went into Port-na-long for the night, and found Watkins’s fleet, inexplicably lifeless, lying at the opposite side of the bay.
I heard later from Watkins that they had been having trouble with the lifting gear of the factory boat, and were stuck in port until it could be repaired. He had news of sharks in the Clyde area and soon returned to his home fishing grounds.
The wind moderated during the night, and we lay late in Port-na-long next morning, waiting for the sea to go down. We sailed out of Loch Bracadale and up to the Maidens at about eight; a bright gusty morning with a choppy sea of dark blue and silver. We had our troubles that day; we had unexplained misfires, at least one miss, and a harpoon whose barbs bent backwards. The harpoons seemed to vary individually, some were strong and some were weak, and we were beginning to separate the sheep from the goats. But we killed three sharks before five o’clock in the afternoon, and the season was under way at last.
CHAPTER VI
The 1946 Season: Loch Scavaig And Loch Hourn, May 20–June 2
We went on fishing Moonen Bay and the neighbouring coast for another fortnight, and we had killed twenty sharks before we shifted our fishing-grounds. We came to know that stretch of coastline intimately, as every day we caught sharks in the few miles between MacLeod’s Maidens and Neist Lighthouse on the point which closes Moonen Bay to the north. We saw much else besides sharks: there were big and small whales, and the seals that at low tide would bask on An Dhusgeir, lying fat and sleepy in the sun while we passed within a hundred yards of them. There were the eagles who had their eyrie on the south cliff of Moonen, and when there were no sharks to be seen we would watch them wheeling in great arcs high above the precipice, or sweeping down to the eyrie, carrying food for the downy eaglets that we could occasionally make out through the field-glasses. There were the fulmar colonies, where against the dark cliffs the birds would weave their intricate patterns of aerial ballet, skimming the rock wall with their wing-tips, climbing, turning, and diving in endless symmetry. There were the cliffs themselves, huge and black; when the boat was close underneath them their headlands seemed to reel and swim against the driven clouds, as one has the illusion of movement in a stationary train when another moves out from the platform.
There was the sea itself. In the early morning it was sometimes bright and opaque like crumpled silver paper; sometimes colourless, and confused with big formless waves; sometimes bright blue, hard, and enamelled, without patina; sometimes pallid and translucent with dancing green lights showing in the banks of a long, unbreaking swell. I remember how when it was rough a big wave would smash right up over An Dhusgeir in a tumbling lather of foam, and as the wave receded rivers like pouring salt would stream from the rock’s weed-covered shoulders. We had all kinds of weather during that fortnight, from sudden fierce squalls to days of mist and glass-calm when the surface was stippled with pinpricks of gentle rain.
The Sea Leopard became a background, a world, a life separated from any other that I had known. The cabin was my home, and I felt that I had never lived elsewhere. Though I could find my way blindfold over that ship now if she still existed, it is the sounds that I remember best of all. Just above my bunk was the ship’s alarm, which we had agreed should be used only to signal sharks in sight or extreme emergency, and it was only once used for the second reason in the Sea Leopard’s two years as a catcher. But almost every day it was sounded to signal that fins had been sighted from the bridge, and if I was asleep in my bunk it would scream, shrill and urgent, almost into my ear. When, later that season, we had a working gun on the Sea Leopard, it meant a race to reach it before a possible chance had been lost, and I would be out of my bunk and up the companion-way before I was fully conscious, in any stage of undress, and once stark naked. We became really efficient in this speed of turn-out, and later I kept a submarine officer’s quilted overalls beside my bunk, which I would pull on over my bare skin as I dashed for the companion-way. Even when all the crew had been asleep, we could have every man at his station and the gun fired within three minutes of the alarm sounding. A harpoon and trace were kept permanently attached to three different coiled-down ropes, and as I ran up the deck a man would pass me a harpoon-stick, wad, and a measured powder-charge through the window of the wheel-house. These had to be stored in the warmth above the galley, so that the sticks should not warp nor the powder become damp. We found the caps to be the most easily forgotten or mislaid, and I kept a box of them in each of the five pockets of the submarine suit.
I hear that alarm buzzer in my dreams sometimes now, and wake to find my legs twitching, like a dog who is chasing rabbits in his sleep.
Sounds that touch one’s sleep are often the best-remembered, imbedding themselves beneath the surface layers of consciousness and persisting when much that belongs only to the waking mind is forgotten. The night-long soft bump of a ship’s fenders against the pier at which she is lying; the small caressing slap of wavelets against the boat’s side a few inches away; the scuff of gulls’ feet upon the deck above, and their sad incessant crying; the raucous blare of the ship’s hooter calling the crew aboard when we were ready to sail; the hum and vibration of the Sea Leopard’s engines starting up; Tex on the deck overhead cutting wads with a hammer; the rattle of the anchor chain—these and a hundred others seem not so much things remembered as part of a permanent existence to which I could return with no memory of intervening years.
The visual images remain clear, but less precise in detail. There was, for example, some object that hung from the deckhead of my cabin; it would remain vertical when the boat rolled in a heavy sea, and by it I could judge the angle of the roll—because of the heavy armour on her superstructure it was sometimes as much as fifty degrees—but I cannot bring that hanging object into sharp enough focus to identify it. I see most of the cabin plainly: a sliding mahogany door at the forward end, a blue carpet, and under the side-decks, where there was just headroom to sit down, a sofa and flap-sided table on the starboard side and a bunk on the port. At the stern end of the cabin was another door, leading through into a compartment with lavatory and wash-basin on one side and a cool store for drink on the other. I find an inventory, made by Bruce at the end of the 1946 season, of the contents of the bookshelf—as ill-assorted a list as one could well imagine. Eliot’s East Coker was, I remember, stained by the damp kiss of its green-covered neighbour, Le Tannage des Peaux des Animaux Marins; Adamastor rubbed shoulders with its avowed enemies The Condemned Playground and Enemies of Promise, and next to them came Hogben’s Principles of Animal Biology, Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity, Huxley’s Evolution, and A History of the Whale Fisheries. Technical works on ballistics and navigation alternated wi
th tattered novels, of which Evelyn Waugh claimed seven out of twenty, and books whose foreign titles must have tried Bruce’s patience to copy out.
The weeks became a routine, though a routine of uncertainty. We returned to Soay only when we had sharks to tow to the factory, and to Mallaig only on Saturday mornings to sail again at midnight on Sunday. These week-ends were for me the hardest work of all; the accumulated mail of the whole week would be awaiting me at the Mallaig office, a mail that was seldom less than a hundred business letters. Those of any urgency had to be answered before Sunday night, or wait for posting until we returned to Mallaig the next Saturday. Before midsummer the situation had become impossible, and I took a resident shorthand typist to live aboard the Sea Leopard. The alarm buzzer would shrill in the middle of a dictated sentence, and the papers and typewriter be sent flying as I raced for the companion-way.
When I used to speak to others of this clerical aspect of the shark-fishery, they would say, “But where does the paper work come in? What’s it all about?”
It was a difficult question to answer in general terms, even at that time, still more difficult at this distance, so I have searched through the files for the mail of that third Saturday in May 1946. It has been a comparatively easy task, because, owing to the posting difficulties, we used to note the dates of receipt of each bulk mail.
There were a hundred and eighteen letters that morning. The largest category of them—forty-one—dealt with the products, established or possible, of the shark’s carcase. There were letters from sixteen firms asking for quotations for flesh, iced, salted, and light-salted, with estimated bulk and supply dates. They requested approval for marketing under the name of “sail-fish.” There was one from a great catering firm with whom we had been negotiating, saying that the amount of publicity which the project had received, together with the connotation of the word shark in the public mind, prevented them from confirming the huge order they had considered placing for flesh to be made into fish-cakes. Three chemical firms wrote asking for vitamin assays of oil from various parts of the body.
Four tanning companies and one private individual wrote for specimens of the skin, with conflicting instructions as to how to prepare the sample. A Chinaman wrote from Cairo to enquire whether I was aware of the aphrodisiac value of the shark’s fins, and offered a thousand pounds per ton for the fibres in a dried state for export to the Far East. He, too, asked for samples. A letter of more than two thousand words came from the manager of a great firm, who said that whereas his main interest lay in isinglass and the glue that might be obtainable from various parts of the fish, he would like to explore all possibilities, and re-design the factory if need be. He asked to be allowed to visit Soay in the immediate future. A trout-farmer asked for samples of the plankton stomach contents, which he thought might be used as fish food. An agent of an Asiatic fishing company required specimens of teeth and bone, to be made into souvenirs. Two oil-buyers made competitive bids for the liver oil from the whole season’s catch. A long letter from Davidson in Glasgow outlined an impossible programme for despatch of all the season’s products, asking for immediate comments so that his end could be organised accordingly. Three more dealt with the possibilities of marketing medicinal glandular products, one with fish manure, and the remaining letters were vaguely enthusiastic, offering to buy almost anything.
But these forty-one that dealt with products were little more than a third of the total mail. Of the remaining seventy-seven, eleven were from Government or official bodies. It is perhaps difficult to remember now that there was a time of greater rationing than the present day—practically everything that we used required applications and permits—petrol, coal, oilskins, and boots for the factory workers and the crew, Admiralty permit for the special yacht manilla ropes. The Inspector of Factories must visit Soay, and transport must be arranged for him; the Inverness County Council had not received up-to-date copies of the ground plan; a boiler inspector must carry out a separate inspection. I had sponsored appeals from the inhabitants of Soay for better communications, and there were letters from three Divisions of the Scottish Home Department pointing out the impossibility of our demands. Another was from the Ministry of Agriculture, and dealt with returns on the flock of Shetland sheep I had imported into Soay. The last of this batch was from the Ministry of Information, asking permission to publish photographs in the Moscow paper Britanski Soysnik.
There were still sixty-six left in the pile. The top one was from a crofter in the Orkneys to whom I had sent, in reply to an urgent appeal, a small bottle of shark oil with which to dress the fetlock of an ailing horse. He thanked me touchingly, and said that he was sending in return a small cheese under separate cover. The next four were in response to enquiries that I had made myself, an averaged-out meteorological report for the months of June and July in the Hebrides over a thirteen-year period; an analysis of the requirements of a firm of seaweed buyers; the experience of someone who had tried to dry peat commercially; and the possibilities of obtaining “Mulberry” equipment (precast floating concrete piers used in the invasion of the Continent) to afford greater facilities to the steamers visiting Soay.
Fifty-three left. Twenty-two, mostly from obviously unsuitable people, seeking employment; fifteen from journalists, press, and cinema companies asking for co-operation in making a feature. One from a crofter in Argyll who wanted to come and live on Soay. He started, somewhat disconcertingly, with the words “Dear Sir, Excuse me for interrupting you.”
A memorandum from the contractor, confirming my suspicion that the factory ice-house was incapable of keeping ice, and suggesting that it should be converted to a salting tank. This was a serious blow.
Two letters asked for my autograph—a Rugby schoolboy and a Glasgow nurse, the latter suggesting that the hazards of shark-fishing might call for a resident nurse on board. I visualised an intriguing hybrid between Florence Nightingale and Grace Darling.
One from an inhabitant of Soay—five hundred laborious words that must have taken an age to string and polish. It began: “As I am of the opinion that you are thinking that I have a grudge against you. I wish to state that such is not the case, rather the reverse, if you are out to improve conditions on this Forgotten Island, I shall be only too willing to give any support I can.” It ended: “As I have told you already, you are only a stranger among the Soay people, but as time goes on you will learn the truth.” He was right—as time went on I learned the truth.
One from a Skye factory worker: “I was most sorry to forsake your employment without telling you personally. I have the croft to look forward after. I was most pleasant in your service and hope to be with you in the next 1947 season!”
The remainder were in answer to my printed circular, sent out during the winter to all likely points on the coast, asking for reports on the appearance of sharks. Three letters reported sharks from Barra, South Uist, and Lochmaddy. The last of the whole pile announced a small stranded whale on the north coast of Skye and offered to sell it to our factory. It turned out to be a very small Basking Shark, and wasted a whole day of our time.
This was a fair sample mail for a week, though it contained fewer horrors and heartbreaks than many that I remember during that summer. From each batch of a hundred letters there were perhaps thirty that required immediate answer, and the fact that we were ashore only at week-ends made it impossible to deal with them by telephone.
I would sit typing in the Mallaig office all Saturday afternoon and Sunday, longing for my first hot bath for a week, and thinking with the Emperor Seth, “If I had one man of progress and culture whom I could trust.” But no Basil Seal walked by my office window.
All this time we had seen few sharks close to Soay itself, and none in the Sound of Soay, which my earliest information had led me to believe was a favourite locality. On Friday, May 25, we lay late at the factory pier, because we had to discuss with the foreman the preparation of the week’s products for carrying to Mallaig the following day.
Instead of sailing for Moonen Bay before dawn, as had become our habit, we did not cross the harbour bar until nearly nine o’clock. It was a glorious morning, calm and sunny, with big white cumulus clouds high on a blue sky—the very first day of the intoxicating Hebridean summer. Tex and Neil were in the Gannet, towed astern of us, the rest of the crew had not yet breakfasted, so I took the Sea Leopard’s wheel from Bruce as soon as we were over the bar, and turned north up the Sound of Soay without a glance at the sea astern of us. We had become accustomed to head straight for Moonen, and if I looked at anything that morning it was at the Soay shore, where the birch-trees were clouded with the sweet intense green of bursting bud, and at the Cuillins, whose soaring summits were still laced with the drifts of the last spring snowfall. I had that strange too-fullness of the heart which the sensory sum of my surroundings would often bring, and Tex’s shouting voice from the Gannet jolted me sharply into consciousness.
“Muldoan!” he was yelling from between cupped hands, “Muldoan!”
Tex had already adopted this fisherman’s name for the sharks, though it was not until later that season that it became our common currency of warning, like the whaler’s “Der er bla·st!”
He was pointing back over the Gannet’s rudder, and there, a quarter of a mile astern of us, was not one fin, nor two, nor four, nor any number that was immediately recognisable, but a whole group in close formation. Every fish was showing his tail-fin and dorsal high above the surface, and the pendulum swing of more than a dozen tails spread wide ripples over the calm blue water. Their progress was leisurely and infinitely impressive, leviathans strolling the park on a spring morning.
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