The Wind from the Sea

by Mark Neilson

  Her lips twitched. He lived on impulse, that child of hers.

  She looked out, over the roof of the auction shed. Jonathon. The friend from her childhood, who lived in a different world. Not that this mattered to them. They liked each other, and that was that.

  She rose. ‘When’s dinner time?’ she demanded.

  ‘Here’s Gus,’ said Mary. ‘Coming to check on his troops.’

  The fish merchant strode up. ‘What’s this?’ he complained with mock severity. ‘My cooper’s sitting against a wall, smoking his pipe and falling asleep. I’m not paying the man to sleep. I want him working. And that goes for you lot too. Get up, and fill more barrels.’

  ‘Then send us some fish,’ said Aggie.

  ‘How’s Elsie doing?’ he asked, grinning.

  ‘She’s fine,’ said Mary. ‘Working harder than her uncle anyway.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be difficult,’ said Aggie.

  Gus shook his fist at them. ‘I should never have hired the two of you,’ he declared. ‘My sense of judgement deserted me. You’re taking advantage of my good nature. Setting a bad example to my niece. How are they treating you, quine?’ he asked Elsie.

  She blushed, to be the centre of attention. ‘Fine,’ she said.

  Gus patted her arm. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘You could do worse than having these two for teachers.’ As he turned to go back down to the auction shed, he added over his shoulder, ‘But not much worse …’

  ‘The cheeky devil!’ laughed Aggie. ‘Right. I’m starving. Let’s have our piece, while we’re waiting.’

  ‘Is it not too early?’ protested Mary.

  ‘It’s eat now, or forever hold your piece,’ declared Aggie.

  Elsie giggled.

  ‘Don’t encourage her,’ Mary scolded. ‘She got that joke from an Irishwoman, ten years ago …’

  ‘The old ones are the best,’ said Aggie, sinking her teeth into her sandwich.

  The engineer paused from shovelling fresh coal into his bunker, wiping a black face with an even blacker hand. ‘Are ye better now, my man?’ he asked.

  Neil was every bit as filthy. His shovel lay discarded, as he huddled against the wall of the engine room. Shaking until his teeth chattered. It had come again, out of nowhere. Without warning. Mercifully, when he was down in the bowels of the drifter, away from the crew’s eyes. More important still, out of Andy’s sight.

  He gripped his knees, until the shaking eased.

  Then forced himself back onto his feet, picking up the filthy shovel. ‘Don’t tell Andy,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m depending on you, Padraig.’

  ‘Why should I? Your food’s on time. It’s better cooked than usual. You’re the first clean cook I’ve ever known. And you do your shift down here, on the coal, without a word of blasphemy. Why should I complain?’

  They worked together, moving the fresh coal into the forward bunker, where it was easily shovelled into the furnace when at sea. ‘I was at the Somme,’ the engineer said suddenly. ‘Got invalided out with shrapnel.’

  Neil nodded. With shrapnel flying, most men picked up a wound from that instead of spent bullets falling. Unless you were running into crossfire from German machine guns. ‘The Somme was bad,’ he murmured.

  ‘Had a mate who was buried alive,’ Padraig said. ‘Shell landed, behind our trench. Blew the back wall in. He was screaming mad, by the time we dug his face clear. Finished up like you. We covered up for him, or he’d have been shot.’

  He paused again, wiping a shiny black face with its white rivulets of sweat.

  ‘You were a sergeant, weren’t you, Neil?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘You looked after your men?’

  ‘I tried to.’

  ‘Were any of them ever buried alive on you?’

  ‘Aye. We dug for them, against the clock, with our bare hands.’ Neil stopped shovelling, his eyes fixed on the glinting coal. ‘We got them out,’ he said, ever so quietly. ‘We never stopped, until we did. But not all of them were alive. Some of them were left in bits, and we saved as much as we could …’

  The big Irishman clapped him roughly on the shoulder. ‘That’s why your shakes don’t bother me. And, for the record, I never saw them.’

  Eric Findlay stooped, knocking out the embers from his pipe against the heel of his boot. Raising the iron knocker of the cottage door he dropped it gently. The noise echoed inside the tiny hall.

  He heard Chrissie’s footsteps approaching from the other side. The door opened – nobody used locks in Buckie.

  ‘Eric! Trust a man to know when the kettle’s on. What brings you here?’

  Hauling off his cap, he ran fingers through wiry grey hair.

  ‘Got a letter from Neil. He saw the quines, the other day. They’re fine and comfortable. But the fishing’s up and down.’ Eric shook his head. ‘There’s a lot of boats whose owners are depending on the next two months. We need steady catches at a decent price … Wish I was up there, to help the loons.’

  Although retired, his old boat was a constant worry. Fishing boats were owned by shareholders; a mixture of family, outside businessmen, and banks. Cash earned from a year’s fishing was used to pay the costs: then, from what was left, each shareholder drew his share. In good years, fishing was a sound investment. In a bad year, you fought to cover your costs. Over a series of bad years, outside investors didn’t just tighten their belts. They complained: quietly at first, then louder.

  ‘Did Neil speak to Aggie?’ Chrissie broke into his thoughts. ‘How’s she coping with … you know …’ She nodded silently down towards the child at her side.

  Eric felt in his pocket, and hid another silver threepenny bit between his fingers. Silently, he showed the empty hand to Tommy. Then reached forward and plucked the small silver coin from the boy’s ear.

  ‘You want to watch that granny of yours,’ he said. ‘That’s another thrupp’ny bit I saw glinting in your ear. She should wash them cleaner …’

  As the child turned over the small coin, Eric glanced at Chrissie. ‘When Neil saw Aggie, she was eating a sandwich at barely nine o’clock in the morning. He says she was giving as good as she got from Gus.’

  ‘He’s got a heart of gold, that man,’ smiled Chrissie.

  ‘And a tongue like a rasp.’

  ‘But did he get a chance to speak to her? Ask about the Wee Man?’

  Eric shook his head. ‘He didn’t say. Neil’s not one for talking much – it’s Andy who would blether away to anybody.’

  Chrissie smoothed the boy’s hair. ‘She must be hurting,’ she said.

  Eric shuffled uneasily. Talking about emotions made him uncomfortable. ‘About wee Tommy,’ he said. ‘There’s a girr and cleek – you know, an iron hoop – somewhere up in the loft back home. Both the boys used it. They ran for miles behind it. I wondered if he’s old enough for that …’

  Chrissie looked down. ‘He’s only four. Maybe it’s too soon.’

  Eric nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. Decided I had better ask, before I got myself stuck in the trap door to the loft.’ He grinned. ‘I’m neither as thin or as supple as I was when I stacked their toys away.’

  ‘Waiting for the grandchildren?’

  ‘More like to tidy up the house,’ he said, embarrassed.

  ‘It will happen. One of these days, young Andy will decide to settle down. Or Neil will find a quine whose quietness matches his. And before you know it, your cottage will be full of bairns running around again.’

  Eric winced. ‘A couple would do,’ he hedged.

  ‘Get away with you! I never saw a more natural grandfather …’

  ‘Me? No. I’m ower young and irresponsible to be a granddad. I wouldn’t know where to start.’

  ‘You manage fine, with Tommy.’

  ‘That’s different.’ He turned away. ‘I’m off to the harbour for a smoke.’

  ‘The kettle’s boiling, through at the fire.’

  ‘Another time,’ said Eric. His body was itching for a sm
oke. Strange, he had never thought about the day when his loons would settle down. Another generation for him to teach how to fish.

  He sniffed the wind. Cocked his head and studied the clouds. The wind would veer west, he judged. Just enough to rough up the sea, and stop it from being a window, letting the fishes see the boats that hunted them. If he was on that old boat, he knew exactly where he would go tonight. Fill his holds. Get some money in, to keep the bank quiet. He felt old, and useless. Groping in his pocket for the empty pipe, he rammed it into his mouth. Started searching for his tobacco tin.

  He wondered how Neil was getting on. Always a tower of strength, out at sea, and then the war. Not any more. Would the sea give him his life back?

  More to the point, was Andy giving him room for the soles of his feet?

  Another dawn. On the wind-swept quay, the women waited for the fish auction to begin. Unlike the good-humoured banter which flashed back and forward between the tables by mid morning, there were only muted conversations.

  Elsie flapped her arms to generate heat. ‘You were a nurse, Mary. What were the VADs all about?’

  Mary blinked. ‘They were volunteer nurses, like me. Mostly middle-class girls, from colleges, or posh houses.’

  ‘If they were posh, why did they want to be nurses?’

  ‘They were mostly suffragettes, weren’t they?’ Aggie said, her cardigan sleeves pulled long over clenched fists.

  ‘Suffragettes stopped fighting the government when the war started,’ Mary replied. ‘To show they were as patriotic as any man. As good as any man. Some of them volunteered to go out into the field and drive ambulances. Taking the same risks as the men. Earning the equal voting rights that they demanded.’

  She checked the fresh rag strips on her fingers. ‘There was a desperate need for nurses. More casualties than we had ever suffered before. There weren’t enough doctors, surgeons and experienced nurses to go round.’

  ‘Didn’t one of these suffragettes throw herself in front of the King’s horse?’ an Irish gutter asked from the table below them. Gutting quines could hear a ha’penny drop at 200 yards, if there was gossip in it.

  ‘That was an act of protest, wasn’t it?’ Aggie answered.

  ‘More an act of madness. Who wants to vote in any case? Politicians are out for themselves. You can’t trust them.’

  The women stamped their booted feet. This early morning waiting time was always the coldest.

  ‘Did you work at the front line?’ Elsie asked.

  ‘Only after I transferred into one of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals field units. They were set up by Elsie Inglis – a brilliant surgeon, one of the first women to break into a closed male profession. She argued that the quicker surgeons could work on the wounded, the less the danger of infection. The War Office told her to go home and knit socks. So she set up her first volunteer unit, and the Belgians snapped up her offer of help. Then the French snapped up a second unit. And Elsie Inglis herself went over to Serbia, with another unit. They were taken prisoners of war by the Germans, then released. In 1917, when she was dying of cancer, she took a final unit out to the Eastern Front, to help the Serbs again, and brought her girls back through the Russian Revolution.’

  ‘Quite a woman,’ Aggie said.

  ‘She knew her surgery. Her front line units achieved almost double the survival rates of big military hospitals. But you worked till you dropped, when there was a “push” on. The longer you were there, the more experienced you became, the more responsibility you got. I finished up working in the theatre.’

  In the distance, the auction bell rang.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ said Mary.

  Within minutes, metal-rimmed wheels ground over the cobbles, as merchants’ barrows brought up the fish they had bought. As always, with the oily herrings, degeneration was a problem. If the job wasn’t done within the day, the fish were worthless. So gutters worked under constant pressure, filleting around fifty fish a minute, as fresh barrowloads spilled ceaselessly over the wide table tops.

  Tired minds make mistakes. At the end of a long first week of the Orkney fishing, the girls were feeling the pace. A couple of tables away, a young Highland gutter’s knife spun out of her hand. She grabbed at it, knocking it across her body.

  The razor-sharp blade sliced deeply into her upper arm. Within seconds, there was blood everywhere.

  Aggie and Mary heard the exclamations of the women round the other table.

  ‘There’s been an accident,’ Aggie muttered.

  Mary laid down her knife. She hesitated, then pushed through the crowd of women, wiping her fish-slimed hands on the sleeves of her jersey to try and clean them. She and Gus Walker reached the young girl at the same time.

  She was half lying on the ground, supported by her team.

  ‘One of you lassies run for the doctor!’ Gus called urgently. ‘Quickly!’

  Silence.

  ‘There’s no doctor on Papa Stronsay,’ an English gutter said. ‘The nearest doctor’s down in Kirkwall.’

  This wasn’t one of Gus’s teams, but that made no difference. Gutters and merchants were a tight-knit community, despite their competition. He was the only merchant here, and it was up to him to handle the crisis. Improvise.

  He looked up. ‘Mary. Can you help this quine?’

  ‘My hands are dirty,’ Mary said. But she knelt on the quay, and with gentle fingers pulled away the young girl’s bloodstained hand. ‘Give me a knife,’ she demanded, and cut back the blood-sodden cardigan arm, clearing the wound.

  It was long and deep. And pouring blood.

  That had to be stopped. Mary looked into the girl’s eyes. ‘We’ve got to stop that bleeding,’ she said gently.

  Decision made, the calmness came. The detached concentration, born of five long years of nursing men with far worse wounds than this. Her fingers felt for, and found, the places where she must compress the arm to staunch the flow. She pressed gently, saw the flow ease, then pressed firmer still.

  ‘Aggie!’ she called over her shoulder.

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Go up to the hut. In my bag, there’s darning needles. Take the smallest, and some white thread. Boil an inch of water in the kettle, and sterilize them. While you’re waiting, get the iodine bottle and cotton wool from the medical cabinet.’

  ‘Right!’ Aggie started running.

  ‘I’ll go too,’ said Elsie. She had overtaken the older woman long before they reached the hut.

  Gus swallowed. ‘What now?’ he asked.

  ‘Wait until the bleeding stops. Then stitch it up.’

  All his instincts were to leave them to it. But he couldn’t.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.

  His question was answered when the injured girl reached out a bloodied hand, and gripped his own fingers tight. He looked down at her: she was barely old enough to have left school. He was standing in for some dad who was out on a boat and fishing.

  He found himself pressing back gently. ‘We’ll have you up and chasing the lads in no time, quine,’ he murmured. ‘Has the bleeding stopped?’

  Mary glanced down. ‘Nearly.’

  All work had ceased, and the other women stood silently round. Then parted to let Aggie and Elsie through.

  ‘We washed our hands,’ panted Aggie. ‘And Elsie’s brought a wet towel, for you to use.’ She held out the threaded needle, which she was holding carefully away from her fish-stained clothes. ‘Here. Elsie’s got the iodine.’

  ‘Give me that first.’ Mary wiped her hands, then poured some iodine onto a cotton swab. ‘This will nip, lassie,’ she warned. ‘But we have to clean the wound, to make it heal.’

  The youngster took a firmer grip on Gus’s hand, and nodded dumbly.

  Her body bucked, as the iodine bit.

  ‘What now?’ asked Gus, sweat cascading down his face.

  ‘Give her something to bite,’ Mary said, taking the needle. ‘To stop her from shouting …’

&
nbsp; ‘Bite what?’ the Highland girl asked, with black humour. ‘We’ve only got raw herrings here.’

  ‘Take this.’ An Englishwoman pulled off her apron, and hauled off her woollen cardigan. She rolled up a sleeve of the cardigan, and gently eased it into the wounded girl’s mouth. ‘Bite to your heart’s content, my darling,’ she said.

  Mary took one deep breath, then another. Her racing heart slowed to a more regular beat. ‘Catch her arm,’ she ordered Aggie. ‘Above, and below where I’m holding it. Now, hold her still …’

  In her right hand, she took the threaded needle. In her left, with gentle fingers she drew together the edges of the wound. Blood seeped out, onto her fingers.

  She ignored it. Frowning, she chose where the first suture should be made.

  Then eased the needle in.

  Chapter 3

  Gus Walker perched on a barrel, studying the sky.

  ‘It’s hot,’ he said lugubriously. ‘And what’s worse, it’s building up into thunder again. That isn’t natural. Not for three days in a row, when one good storm should clear it up. And thunder’s bad for fishing.’

  His teams of women worked on stoically, lifting herrings from the table, gutting and grading them with a quick roll on both wrists, while his red-faced niece bent to take the gutted herrings and stack them neatly in layers in a new barrel.

  ‘I said it was hot,’ he repeated, to their busy backs.

  ‘We heard you,’ Aggie said. ‘Now we’re waiting to hear what you’re going to do about it. You’re the boss.’

  ‘We’re looking for leadership,’ Mary said. ‘Decisive action, to save us from heat-stroke and stop the fish from rotting.’

  ‘It’s the fish I’m worried about,’ said Gus. He wriggled down from the barrel and came over to lift one, sniff it, then drop it back on the table.

  ‘It smells nearly as bad as you,’ said Aggie.

  ‘At least it’s got an excuse – it’s dead,’ Mary added.

  Gus grinned. ‘Less cheek,’ he said. ‘Is the dance still on at the weekend?’