The Wind from the Sea

by Mark Neilson

  Someone gently squeezed his shoulder. Neil.

  ‘Well,’ Andy said tiredly. ‘Was I right?’

  ‘So long as you bring back the ship, the skipper’s always right,’ said Neil.

  Andy yawned. ‘What that fetched will make even our da crack his face.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Neil replied.

  Andy nodded. ‘There are some that are born to sing, and others who are born to complain,’ he said. ‘Which one are you, Neil?’

  ‘For this one time, I’ll sing.’

  ‘Because we made it through the storm?’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Neil.

  But he was thinking of the taste and feel of Mary’s lips on his.

  Andy clapped his back. ‘You’ve had your day,’ he said. ‘Now all I ask is that you show a bit of trust, and let me have mine. Back then, you were the best skipper on the coast. Like our da was in his day.’

  He paused, then said levelly: ‘But, by the time I’m finished fishing, I’ll be the Findlay that everybody remembers.’

  The whole hospital felt better with Aggie and Mary back from Eyemouth, Jonathon thought contentedly: even the handful of patients had perked up. Maybe it was the laughter and energy the girls brought with them. Or the fact that he had given Elspeth the weekend off, to take away a potential source of conflict. A problem he would have to resolve if he persuaded Mary to take the job.

  He was whistling as he headed towards the kitchen.

  ‘Typical,’ said Aggie. ‘You’ve only got to put the kettle on, and he appears.’

  ‘Just making my routine tour of inspection,’ Jonathon said loftily.

  ‘So you won’t have time for tea?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ he amended hastily.

  He watched her pouring the tea. Still as slim as ever, he noted: and the dark curl was there, exactly where he remembered it, on her neck. As if conscious of his stare, her hand went up to tidy the curl away. She looked up, caught his eyes, and smiled. Then, as quickly as it had come, the smile was gone, her face guarded.

  ‘Any word back from America?’ she asked.

  ‘Too soon. The letter has barely reached them. And they’re bound to have a system of meetings for dealing with cries for help. We’re in a queue and it could be weeks before we get their decision.’

  They were both suddenly very aware of the other’s presence.

  The silence stretched.

  It stretched until it broke into Mary’s train of thought. She had been wondering where Neil was now, how far down the coast to Yarmouth his old drifter had steamed.

  ‘The Carnegie Foundation?’ she said. ‘Americans won’t hang about. For instance, they’ve just given all women the vote, like Canada and New Zealand did in 1919. While we’re still stuck with the rule that only women over thirty can vote – when every man, drunk or sober, mad or bad, has been voting for years.’

  ‘I read that news last week,’ said Jonathon. He sipped his tea. ‘I suppose that hospital of yours was a hot-bed of suffragette ideas.’

  ‘Yes, and no,’ Mary replied. ‘The surgeons were all sympathizers, part of the drive to break into the medical profession. And most of the young VADs were college girls, who have argued the feminist cause for years. But regular nurses were just nurses, pure and simple. Their main concern was their patients.’

  ‘What about yourself?’

  Mary grimaced. ‘I’d no interest in politics when I joined up. But the more I learned about the cause, the more it appealed. If a woman can do the same job as a man, why shouldn’t she have the same rights?’

  ‘But can she do the same job?’ Jonathon argued.

  ‘We proved we could,’ Mary said. ‘Our VAD ambulance drivers collected the wounded and drove them out from the front line, under shell-fire, same as any male orderly. Our surgeons and the nurses worked far closer to the front line than any military hospital. Barely beyond the range of shells.’

  ‘I don’t question your courage,’ Jonathon came back. ‘It’s the training which worries me. Elsie Inglis trained her own doctors in that Bruntsfield hospital. Outside the normal medical schools, with their higher standards …’

  ‘Higher? Not true!’ Mary snapped. ‘She turned out women doctors who could pass any examination that the medical schools could set. Because the first thing she taught them was this: to prove they were the equal of any man, they had to demonstrate that they were twice as good. Because they would be under constant hostile observation, and mistakes would never be tolerated.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Jonathon, unconvinced – yet enjoying the argument. ‘On the question of the vote, isn’t it safer to keep the age for women set at thirty? Making sure that by the time they get the vote, they’ve had enough experience of life, and its responsibilities, to leave them able to use it sensibly?’

  ‘A good argument,’ acknowledged Mary. ‘But why not apply exactly the same condition to men? Making sure that they have had the same experience of life, and responsibility, to help them use their vote wisely and well?’

  ‘Which means not believing in any politicians’ promises,’ Aggie interjected.

  Jonathon laughed. ‘My argument was a two-edged sword,’ he admitted. He pushed aside his cup: he was too occupied to drink. ‘So your basic argument is that if a job pivots on intelligence and understanding, rather than sheer brute strength, there’s no reason why a woman cannot perform as well as any man?’

  ‘Exactly. Now that the war is over, women will challenge professions like the law, banking and business for admission and equal status. Even politics. Some of the girls want to campaign to become Members of Parliament – as the law stands, you can do that at any age, even if you can’t vote until you’re thirty. It shows the mess of half-thought-out prejudice which men turn into law.’

  ‘MPs like Nancy Astor,’ Jonathon mused. ‘She took over her husband’s seat in … where was it … Plymouth?’

  ‘She’s the first. There will be others. Trust me on that!’

  Mary’s eyes were flashing: this was a side to her he hadn’t seen before, the fierce crusader for women’s rights. It both intrigued and shocked him. Like most men of his time, he was conservative by instinct, disliking radical reform. Even when he could see that it was probably needed.

  ‘Equality before the law, for everyone,’ he said. ‘Great philosophers have argued this, but always from the point of view of men being equal to men. Liberté, égalité, fraternité … – the most wonderful slogan of all. Freedom, equality, and … brotherhood,’ he finished mischievously. He turned to Aggie, smiling. ‘What about you, quine? Do you see yourself as the equal of any man?’

  ‘No I don’t,’ said Aggie. She gathered the dirty dishes. ‘I see myself as better than any man!’

  Jonathon laughed outright. This was a new Aggie. ‘I should be holding my head in my hands,’ he chuckled. ‘What am I going to do with you, how am I going to run this place, with two argumentative females for my nurses?’

  His smile faded. ‘Provided that we still have a hospital to run.’

  Chapter 7

  The sea is dangerous – ask any man who makes his living from it. Most of the time, it looks worse than it is. On a very few occasions, when a hollow feeling in your stomach tells you so, it is actually far more dangerous than it looks.

  The dark log had been washed overboard from a Finnish vessel in a storm, many weeks before. But the sea is a vast place, leaving it to float in peace like the proverbial needle in a haystack. Only, lying low and solid in the water, it was infinitely more dangerous than any needle.

  Dozens of vessels had passed within sight, but none of them had seen it: by now, it was so saturated that it barely broke the surface, lying like a crocodile in an African river. One day, it would wash up onto a beach, and bleach slowly in the sun.

  For the moment, it floated. Almost invisible: and utterly lethal.

  Frost made the night air sharp and clear. The small group of friends pulled up their collars and headed back to Yarmouth
harbour, laughing.

  ‘It’s his walk that makes him funny,’ Andy declared.

  ‘No! It’s that bendy little walking stick,’ said Elsie.

  ‘The baggy trousers?’ Aggie offered.

  ‘The man’s just a comic genius,’ Mary smiled.

  Neil said nothing, acutely conscious of the hand that Mary had slipped through his arm. Making him happier than even the Chaplin film had done.

  ‘What do you think, Neil?’ she asked.

  ‘I like how he’s on the side of the little guy. Against the law … against bullies everywhere. We all are, deep inside – that’s why we like him. He’s smart, and fast on his feet. He always wins.’

  He felt her hand squeeze gently. Tucked it tighter still against his ribs.

  Andy was in high good humour. It had been his suggestion that they should spend their last few shillings on the picture theatre. ‘Watch this,’ he said, waving them back as they approached a junction on the road to the docks.

  He took a deep breath, and lurched off, trying to imitate the erratic walk, and the one-legged skidding turn round the corner. On a frozen puddle, his foot slipped out from under him, and he fell with an almighty crash.

  The rest of the group howled with laughter.

  ‘That was funnier than Charlie Chaplin,’ Aggie gasped. ‘Do it again.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’ asked Mary, the smile still on her lips.

  ‘Only his dignity,’ said Aggie. ‘He landed on his wallet.’

  Andy scrambled to his feet. To his credit, he was laughing too.

  Another figure joined the group. ‘That’s never Andy Findlay drunk again?’ it asked, rocking back slightly on its heels.

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk, Gus,’ said Aggie, fanning away the smell of whisky.

  ‘It’s worrying about you lot that drives me to drink.’

  ‘Then you must have been awful worried,’ Mary accused.

  ‘I was,’ said Gus. ‘I’ve half of Buckie working for me. Expecting me to buy the fish that makes their wages. And the other half are back at home, expecting me to look after their quines. Saturday night’s the only time I can forget my worries.’

  Aggie snickered. ‘From the state of you, they’re forgotten until Tuesday.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Gus protested. ‘I drink the way my father taught me. Always in moderation – by which he meant no more than one mouthful at a time.’

  He fell in alongside them, as they continued down to Fisherman’s Quay, where the Endeavour was moored, five deep, against other drifters. Every herring boat in Britain was in that harbour by the middle of December.

  ‘Any word from the Carnegie Foundation?’ he quietly asked Mary.

  She shook her head. ‘Not when Jonathon last wrote.’

  ‘They’re leaving it late,’ Gus said.

  ‘It’s getting near the date when we’ll have to close the place,’ she said. ‘Jonathon’s decided that he’s taking no more in-patients, unless on emergencies.’

  Gus grimaced. ‘It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Local businesses are like myself – depending on the herring. And landings are still below what they were, before the war. The skippers and their crews are tight for money, so they’re buying the bare minimum from chandlers and the like. When fishing sneezes, we all catch cold. Most of the businesses round the harbour are like me – they would break the bank to save the hospital. But it’s near broken already.’

  They walked glumly down the narrow streets, in darkness between the gas lights. But they knew the way home and there were plenty other groups of fisherfolk, drifting back to their huts or their boats. The real rush home would come later, when the dance halls and the ice rink closed. With surprisingly little trouble, for all the itinerant workers now staying in the town.

  It takes money to buy drink, to make trouble: at the end of the final fishing, until payment came, everybody was broke.

  ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ Neil asked quietly. They had fallen behind the others. Her shoulder and arm felt warm and comfortable.

  ‘That depends on where you’re going to take me,’ Mary smiled up.

  Neil touched the few coins in his pocket. Barely enough to jingle.

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ he said.

  And felt her hand snuggle in tighter to his arm.

  The wind was whipping up. In the threadbare light of a December afternoon, the old drifter began to pitch with a more lively action.

  Up in the wheelhouse, Neil studied the sky. He didn’t like the look of it, least of all the absence of seabirds anywhere. They had voted with their wings.

  ‘There’s a big storm coming in,’ he judged.

  Andy squinted through the salt-stained windows. ‘The settled weather’s over,’ he grunted. ‘About time too. The herrings could see us.’

  They had fished all week, barely covering the cost of coal. To make matters worse, today he was facing the indignity that every skipper dreads: a hold completely empty of fish, despite shooting the nets three times overnight, and – in desperation – in the morning too.

  ‘The wind’s still north-easterly,’ said Neil. ‘We could turn and head home in front of it, before it backs round.’

  Making a dash for home with the wind behind them made sense. If they left it until one of these big storms came in, the wind would swing right round and by heading west-south-west for Yarmouth, they would be steaming into the full force of the gale, slowing the old boat down to less than walking pace. All sensible fishermen headed for harbour, rather than ride out a storm which filled the North Sea from shore to shore. Leaving no hiding place, no island’s lee for shelter.

  Andy grunted again. He had never suffered an empty hold before. Sure, it could happen to any skipper. But that didn’t stop other skippers and their crews from talking behind their hands. His face burned.

  Responsibility lies with the skipper. It’s his job to read the sky and the sea, and find herring. If no fish are found then in the eyes of the world, the skipper has failed. Andy shuffled unhappily.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Neil. ‘The crew are dropping from lack of sleep. We’ll never find herring while there’s light in the sky. We should get back, before the storm breaks.’

  ‘I hear you,’ Andy snapped.

  Neil waited, as the silence stretched.

  ‘So?’ he prompted.

  Andy brought the palm of his hand crashing down onto the wheel.

  ‘Get off my back,’ he snarled.

  ‘There’s no good steaming further out to sea,’ Neil argued. ‘It’s just leaving more miles to cover when you’re fighting back against the storm to get home.’

  Andy’s whole body radiated anger.

  ‘I’m the skipper of this boat,’ he said tightly. ‘What we do is my decision.’

  A squall came screaming at them, and the drifter buried her bows in an oncoming wave. Over a foot of white-laced green water swirled down the decks.

  ‘I’m going out to check the hatches,’ Neil growled. ‘Make sure everything’s battened down. Think it through, and do what our da would do. That’s what I did, when I wasn’t sure, as skipper. But you’re right about one thing – the decision is yours alone to make.’

  He waited until the squall eased, then opened the deck-house door and stepped outside. Glancing once again at the sky, he shook his head. This was winter, and the North Sea the most treacherous workplace of them all. When it came at you, its waves were high and steep and often, taxing the boat and its crew to the very limit – and beyond.

  Deep in his stomach, he sensed that this was no ordinary storm. He hunched his shoulders, waiting for the best moment to move, then half ran to the bows, catching the rigging, before the next wave broke over him. Shaking himself like a dog, he began to check that the holds were storm-proof.

  Back in the deckhouse, Andy bit his lip. Responsibility lay heavy. He was torn between the desire to tough it out and the knowledge that he should be steering towards shelter. He was gam
bling that he could do again what he had done at Eyemouth. Come back with fish, when the auction market was empty; returning not a loser, but a winner who had nerves of steel.

  Against that, he knew that Neil was right. The signs were everywhere. There was a big blow coming up – and they should be making for the safety of a harbour.

  If Neil hadn’t pushed him, he would probably have turned for home already.

  He gripped the wheel, steering into the next wave, which broke in a sheet of solid water over the port quarter. The drifter corkscrewed up, almost vertically, as the wave roared under her. Hesitated at the top, the heavy old propeller screaming as it cleared the water. Then slid, like a sledge, down the back of the wave.

  Worth waiting ten more minutes? Andy shook his head wearily: ten minutes would take him no nearer fish in a storm like this. Neil was right – it would only leave them with further to claw back in their flight before the storm. Did it have to be Neil, and did he have to be right? Checking his course on the compass, he calculated that he would need almost a 180-degree turn to head back to safety, and Yarmouth.

  Sighing, he braced his legs and spun the wheel.

  ‘Are they back yet?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Who?’ Gus’s long pointed nose was bright red with cold.

  ‘The Findlay boys. The Endeavour.’

  Gus frowned. ‘The boats have been back for hours. Precious few of them with fish. I never saw Andy, or Neil. If they’ve drawn blank, they might just have headed straight in to the quay.’

  ‘Right,’ said Mary, tightening her shawl around her neck and shoulders. ‘I’ll nip round and check – thanks, Gus.’

  He watched her hurry past the stacks of barrels waiting for shipment. A bonny quine. And sweet on the older Findlay loon: he’d seen them drop back to canoodle at the weekend there.

  He sniffed. She could do worse. A solid lad – and one who had found his feet again after coming home from war. Good and bad. If Neil was fully fit again it would leave too much competition for Eric’s old boat. Brothers fight – especially when both of them are skippers.

  Gus doubted he would see Mary Cowie next year. Not if what he’d heard around the harbour was right. At worst, she’d be the village nurse: at best the wife of the local doctor. A bonny quine, spoiled for choice. And a good worker too. Gus sighed. Next year was five months away, and its problems could wait until then.