Oatcakes and Courage

by Grant-Smith, Joyce

  This continued throughout the remainder of the night. Anne lost count of the contractions that wracked through Janet. Anne was exhausted from helping the young mother-to-be. She couldn’t imagine how wasted Janet must feel.

  Now, between pains, Janet lay limply on the bed of blankets. Her shift was soaked in sweat. She whimpered once, “I can’t.”

  Anne could see the transom deck silhouetted in the lightening gray of dawn when Lily said, “This time, the baby is coming, Janet. Do you hear me? Give it everything you have. Here we go!”

  Anne pressed on Janet’s back. Janet sat up and gave a battle cry that would make her clan elders proud. Her face scrunched together in a grimace of great concentration. She bore down.

  “Aye! That’s it! Push! More! Just a little more!” Lily cried.

  Janet gave another great push, then fell back, totally exhausted.

  Anne waited. All was quiet but for Janet’s panting breath. Then Lily whispered, “Janet, you have a daughter.”

  The mewing cry of a newborn babe poured over them like warm honey.

  Tears streamed from the corners of Janet’s eyes. She lay with her eyes closed, a tiny smile creasing her lips.

  Lily hurriedly wrapped the baby in a soft blanket and set her on the new mother’s heart.

  Janet opened her eyes and in the new dawn light, gazed at her baby girl. Anne was weeping and laughing. She looked up at Lily to see the midwife’s eyes glistening. They smiled at one another.

  “You girls did just fine,” Lily said, patting Janet and then Anne on the shoulder.

  Lily tidied up a bit, then said, “Now, I’d better go see Kenneth and tell him that he is a father. After that battle cry of yours, Janet, he may wonder what I’ve done to you.”

  Janet whispered, “Thank you, Lily. Oh, thank you.”

  Lily tried to compose her face. Smiles and tears fought to overcome the usual passive calm of her features. “You are welcome, lass. I’ll be back shortly.”

  Lily turned and bustled across the deck.

  Anne reached out to touch the tiny infant’s cheek. She was delicate and soft as a rose petal. She had a wisp of ginger hair, like her mother’s. Anne asked, “What will you call her?”

  “Jane. After my mother,” Janet murmured.

  “That’s a lovely name.”

  Kenneth rushed over and began to fuss over his wife and daughter as new fathers do. Anne excused herself and left them to their happy moment.

  Blessedly, Baby Jane did seem to be a strong and willful soul. She had a hearty appetite and a good set of lungs. The passengers didn’t even mind too much that she woke them every night with her lusty cries for milk. It was a joy to have a healthy new life among them.

  A couple of days later, the Hector rocked upon gentle swells as light, wispy clouds skimmed the turquoise sky. Kenneth and Janet, with baby Jane, joined Hugh, Katherine, the girls, Alexander, Elspie, their boys, Anne and Ian for their midday meal. There was a comfortable camaraderie amongst them, and when conversation lapsed, no one felt the need to fill the peaceful silence.

  Little Christina’s voice carried very clearly, then, when she turned to her father and asked, “Where did Baby Jane come from?”

  Hugh’s face turned as red as his bright hair. He gaped at Christina. The rest of the group sat for a moment in stunned silence, then a quiet titter of laughter rippled the air. Hugh looked from face to face, aghast.

  He gazed down at Christina again. She sat with a small frown puckering her forehead. She didn’t understand the delay in getting an answer to her question or the chuckles of the adults.

  “I do not think that is a question that you should be asking…” Hugh choked.

  “Why?” Christina asked, eyes wide.

  “Well, because, it’s…” Hugh looked beseechingly at Katherine. She raised an eyebrow, but offered no assistance.

  “It’s not a question for a young lady to ask in such company.”

  Christina looked at the people about her. They were all family or folks friendly with her mama and papa. What was wrong with asking a question here? Her confusion was evident in her pouting lips.

  Hugh’s face grew redder still. Alexander’s shoulders were shaking with the effort of controlling his laughter. Hugh scowled at him.

  “Baby Jane was not on the ship when we left Scotland, was she?” Christina persisted. “I didn’t see her. So where did she come from?”

  Hugh threw up his hands. “Katherine!”

  Katherine took pity on Hugh and beckoned Christina over to her. She settled Christina next to her on the deck and said, “Baby Jane was on the ship, but you couldn’t see her.”

  “How? How could I not see her?” Christina’s eyes were enormous with wonder.

  Hugh, still red and flustered, strode off to the stern. Chuckling loudly, Alexander followed.

  Katherine explained, “The baby was in an egg. A very special egg.”

  Christina puzzled over that for a moment, then asked, “Why did I not see the egg, then?”

  Katherine smiled. “Ah, the egg was in a very safe place. It was in Janet’s belly. It stayed there, safe and warm until Baby Jane was ready to be born.”

  “Oh,” Christina said. She looked Janet up and down. Then she asked, “How did she know when she was ready?”

  “God knew,” Katherine said. “Just like when a baby chick is ready to come out of its egg. When it’s the right time, the babe will come.”

  Christina glanced at baby Jane, then nodded, satisfied. She hopped up and trotted across the deck toward her father.

  “I think she’s gone to explain it all to Hugh,” Kenneth snorted.

  Katherine nodded.

  Ian chuckled, “Poor man.”

  “I liked your explanation,” Anne told Katherine.

  Katherine winked at Anne. “Maybe one day you will use that little story to tell your own daughter where a babe comes from.”

  It was Anne’s turn to blush.

  At suppertime, when John Stewart made his rounds with his bucket of water, he did not have his usual cheery smile.

  “Hello, there, John,” Hugh greeted him.

  “I am afraid I am the bearer of more bad news,” John Stewart said glumly, raking one hand through his forelock of straw-coloured hair.

  Anne and Ian scrambled to their feet. Now what was wrong?

  “It seems,” John said, his deep voice toneless, “that the voyage is taking longer than was expected. We have a long way to go yet.”

  “That is bad news,” Ian said.

  “And,” John continued, “because of that, our water rations may not be sufficient to last out the trip. So I have been told by Master Orr to half the daily water allotted to everyone.”

  Anne glanced at the crumbling oatcake in her hand. Her throat was parched much of the time as it was, with merely a pint to drink each day.

  “Half a pint!” Hugh roared.

  “Well,” John Stewart said listlessly, “it’s that, or have no water at all for the last week or so that we’re at sea. That’s how Master Orr put it to me. I don’t relish that idea at all.”

  Hugh took a steadying breath. Ian and Anne looked at one another sorrowfully, then Ian shrugged.

  They held out their cups and accepted their meagre ration of breakfast water. They sipped it slowly to make it last.

  Chapter 9

  WHEN ANNE WOKE ONE late August morning, she knew something was not right, even before she opened her eyes. An eerie hush enveloped the ship.

  Anne came to her feet and looked about. The sea was as flat as a platter; the rising sun reflected on its surface like a mirror. Anne tilted her head and gazed at the masts. The sails lay as limp as wilted leaves. The Hector sat serenely, a dozing swan on a millpond.

  At first, Anne felt joy at the calm and beauty of the morning. She didn’t have to brace her legs to walk upon the deck. The ocean was enchanted in its stillness.

  Then, as she watched the tension on the faces of the sailors and the pacing of the c
aptain upon the transom, she realized that without the wind and the waves, the ship was stalled.

  That realization dawned on all the passengers during the morning. “We are stuck here in the middle of the ocean!” Alex Cameron groused.

  “Aye.” John Sutherland frowned, his bushy eyebrows meeting in a ‘v’ over his nose. “But there is naught we can do about it. Unless you can whistle up the wind.”

  “It is one thing after another on this accursed voyage,” Rebecca Patterson grumbled, her thin arms folded across her scrawny bosom.

  “John Ross made it seem like it was naught but a wee trip to paradise, did he not?” ranted Alex Cameron.

  “Well, I don’t suppose he knew what troubles we’d have on the ship,” John Sutherland conceded.

  “I wonder,” Alex snapped. “And I wonder if the promises he made us about the New World are as full of holes as this ship.”

  “Oh, surely not!” Rebecca Patterson blanched.

  “If we don’t get some wind, we might never find out,” Alex Cameron snarled. “And here comes John Stewart with our thimbleful of water!”

  “Don’t be short with me,” John Stewart snapped. “I just deliver the water to you. ’Tis not my fault the rations have been cut. I did not make this tub as slow as a snail.”

  “Aye, no point in shootin’ the messenger, as it were,” Archibald Chisholm soothed in his deep voice. “We don’t blame you, John, for the water ration. We appreciate you bringing the bucket ’round to us.”

  “Humph,” John Stewart grumbled. “Hard to tell, I’d say. All I hear are complaints. Someone else is welcome to the job anytime.”

  “Nay, nay, don’t take it so. It is not you we are sore at, is it?” Archibald looked pointedly at the others.

  The rest of the group gave grudging thanks to John Stewart for his efforts to bring around the water and he carried his bucket along to other settlers.

  Fear festered and pustulated into suspicion and anger. There was nothing to do but wait for the wind to blow. There were some half-hearted attempts to engage the men in arm wrestling contests to help pass the time. But when one match ended in a nasty fistfight because one contestant claimed the other had cheated, and Master Spiers had to break it up and put both men in irons for a day until they cooled their tempers, the settlers went back to listless waiting.

  The air was heavy, sultry, oppressive.

  The first adult to die was Margaret McLean. She passed over on the second day of the calm. Margaret had been terribly seasick at the beginning of the voyage and finally succumbed to dysentery. Anne remembered when she had brought her a cup of water just a day or so out of Ullapool. Margaret had been plump and red-faced, with merry eyes and a sweet little upturned mouth. When Anne saw her just before her death, she hardly recognized her. The illness had wasted her away to little more than a skeletal husk.

  Margaret’s husband, William, was a stocky little fellow with rheumy eyes and a balding head. When Lily informed him that his wife of twenty years had died, he could not seem to grasp the news. He sat on the deck, the heels of his hands pressed against his temples. He shook his head over and over, not saying a word.

  The funeral was held at dawn, with a crimson sun spilling over the quiet sea, as if laying a red carpet from the ship to Heaven. Captain Spiers recited the prayers, and John Sutherland, Ian, Alex Cameron, and Master Orr committed the lady’s body to the crystal waters. William McLean remained mute in his grief. He did not move from the rail throughout the day, but stared out over the ocean till night shrouded everything in blackness.

  Anne observed the bereaved man as she sat by the overturned longboat, gnawing listlessly on her supper of dried meat. Her eyes filled with sympathetic tears. Ian came to sit next to her.

  “Is there naught we can do for him?” Anne asked.

  Ian looked at poor William McLean then back at Anne. He shrugged and sighed. “I don’t know. I think he has to come to terms in his own way.”

  Anne passed the dried meat to Ian; she had no appetite. He finished it off in a couple of quick bites.

  “Ach,” he said, “my throat is parched all the time.”

  Anne swallowed. “Mine too.”

  After a moment Ian said, “Do you remember the time we climbed to the top of Beinn Dearg?”

  Anne frowned, thinking back. “We had gone fishing, but weren’t having any luck. So we decided to follow the river up the mountain.”

  “Aye. We climbed right to the top. What a view!”

  “It was beautiful. We sat and looked and looked for ages. Didn’t get back till well after dark.”

  “We hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Near starved.”

  Anne grimaced. “You and your stomach! Always hungry.”

  “You were hungry too, as I recall. Bleating like a lost lamb the last league to home because you were so starved.”

  Anne elbowed Ian in the ribs. “I did not! But we were gone a long time. My mother was not well pleased with me that night. She’d sent the boys out to search for me. Was afraid I’d fallen in the River Lael and drowned or something. My backside hurt for days.”

  Ian nodded, his mouth curled in a half-smile. “Not near the beating I got, though.”

  “My brother Will fell into the river, looking for me. He wasn’t half mad about that! Came home dripping and sputtering that if I was a proper girl I’d stay home and bake bread instead of running off fishing and climbing mountains. And I said if he was a proper boy he never would have fallen in. Good thing I am a girl or he would have trounced me that day.”

  “And whose idea was it,” Ian asked, “to go climb that mountain?”

  “I don’t remember,” Anne said. “We probably came to the idea at the same time.”

  Ian snorted. He slid an arm over Anne’s shoulders and as she rested her tired head on his chest, he murmured, “Another fine scrape you got me into, Anne Grant.”

  On the third day of the calm, in the early afternoon, the sails finally quivered and filled and the ship again lulled over the waves. Anne breathed a great sigh of relief as she felt the Hector roll under her feet. “Funny what a person can wish for,” she thought.

  After the evening meal, a young crewman in the crow’s nest called out to the first mate. There was excitement in his voice. He gestured wildly toward the starboard bow.

  The crew and passengers rushed to the rails and peered into the setting sun. Nothing but the endless reaches of the ocean spread before them. They looked at one another questioningly.

  Captain Spiers stepped to the bow and trained his spyglass upon the western horizon. He nodded to himself, but said nothing. They all waited, watching, wondering.

  And then little Christina, perched on Hugh’s broad shoulders cried out, “What’s that line over there? That brown line?”

  The hush was broken. “What does the child see?”

  “Is it land? Does she see land?”

  “Captain, is it Nova Scotia?” Archibald Chisholm’s bass voice boomed.

  Captain Spiers turned to face the passengers. “No, not Nova Scotia. But it is land. Newfoundland. We are in sight of the New World!”

  Cheers rose up from the Hector. Men turned and shook hands. Women hugged, crying tears of relief. Children jumped up and down and danced in circles around the deck, singing, “Land, land, Newfoundland!”

  “Mister MacKay,” shouted Alex Cameron to the piper, “I believe this is cause to celebrate. What about a bit of music?”

  John MacKay nodded, smiling, and went to fetch his pipes. He took a moment to pass the word to the passengers below, those who were sick and those who were nursing the sick, that land was in sight. He felt it would be the best tonic of all.

  John played his pipes well into the night. The Scots danced and sang, sure that their ordeal would soon be ended.

  Anne stood next to the starboard rail, next to Ian. The lively music seemed to take possession of her feet. She tapped her toes in time, itching to join the dancers. Anne looked up into Ian’s face, imploring
him to ask her to dance.

  He understood her look but shook his head sadly. “Ach, I have two left feet, lass. I’d have your shins bruised before we got once ’round the deck.”

  Anne tried to hide her disappointment by clapping her hands and watching Lily and John Sutherland caper across the floor. She noticed that Katherine and Hugh were dancing gaily, with Christina and Janet spinning around them like mayflies.

  John Stewart strode over to Anne and bowed, flicking his blond forelock from his eyes as he straightened. “May I have the honour of this dance, madam?”

  Anne beamed. “A pleasure.”

  She gathered her skirt in one hand and stepped out with John Stewart. She laughed as she had not laughed in weeks as her feet flew over the deck in time to the music.

  When the dance ended and John Stewart escorted her back to her spot along the rail, Anne found that Ian had disappeared. Anne craned her neck, searching for him, but couldn’t spot him amongst the crowd on the deck.

  She started to wander aft in search of him. Then John MacKay began another frolicking tune on the pipes and John Sutherland approached Anne. He wiggled his bushy eyebrows at her and asked her to dance, and she was laughing and whirling across the deck once more.

  Captain Spiers joined in the festivities for a time. Then he climbed up to the transom deck and stood between the carvings of the man and woman and surveyed the sea. The sunrise these last two mornings had been roseate and this evening’s sunset was hazy. Along with the three day calm, it made him uneasy. The captain scanned the star-studded sky and breathed in the air. He watched and waited, and prayed that he waited for naught.

  The captain’s heart thudded heavily as he observed a dark line begin to spread across the western horizon. The darkness grew rapidly, boiling up from the sea and swallowing the stars like a gigantic maw. The breeze freshened, full of warmth and moisture.

  The captain closed his eyes for a moment. Then he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and surveyed the deck.

  “Master Orr!” the captain called to his first mate.