Stillness deepened into total abstraction. A Viking chief stood by the tide, blue eyes of horror stared into mine. Eventually Eachan spoke again, “The Atlantic boomed away below them, the women in the Dun gathered children about their skirts, wide eyed and frightened. The island men faced sword and axe. That neck of land was their only means of life. The surf, creaming on the rocks. The birds screaming. Either side, a five hundred foot chasm. Climbing, running, up the Sea Rovers came, berserk, howling, swords gleaming.
The Sandray men faced them. In moments, axes were crunching bone, swords slashing flesh. The narrow path was a track of blood. Alive or dying, the echo of falling screams took their bodies to smash on the black rocks below. No man was spared. The ocean was left to sting their wounds and bury the dead.”
Was he hearing and seeing the carnage? His voice was low and strong, “That evening as the first star rose in the southwest, the virgin star they called it, a weeping trail of women wound down to the empty village, empty except for their dead Holy man. The villagers gathered about him. A trickle of blood ran from the cloven head. An old woman of the village came forward and knelt by him and slowly she bent to suck its last drop. ‘All the sand that ever blew on this island is not fit to drink one drop of blood born to our Saviour Christ.’ You see, that humble act was a bridge. It was the union of their Celtic creed and the Cross of Calvary.’
Eachan looked out of the window. I followed his gaze. In the window frame shone the planet I had seen on the night I arrived. We both drank and turned back to the fire. “The evening chill settled in and soon the Viking had fires blazing. They slung their leather hogsheads of ale ashore from the galleys and filled their drinking horns. The ale washed away the blood and they eyed the bonnie women. That night in fear of their lives, they lay below the raven’s wing. Dark hills were on the sleeping sea and the great silver moon sailed on the bay. Sobbing women prayed in the words of their Holy man and strangely enough the drunken Viking listened.
Next morning on the flood tide four longboat sailed. One man turned. A huge blonde man, and he stood beside the open grave, bowed his head as they buried the clefted head. And far out on the hill the raven circled, free of its cage.”
I moved uneasily, the reality of a bygone horror invaded the room. I clung to the chair. The air chilled. Nothing moved, yet someone was in the room. Breathing? Afraid almost, I looked up to the face in the brown stained photo. Its eyes watched me. My hair rose. The story became a soft voice. His eyes didn’t leave me.
“That man’s longboat stayed beached. In fullness of the months his child was born. And he took the long-ship’s steer-board oar, the same larch he’d cut from his grandmother’s tree of death, and fashioned it into a cross. And he gave the island its Norse name, Sandray.”
The peats died away, “And that next spring, the raven reared its brood on a cliff at the back of the hill. The hill you’ve looked at since you came. The one he christened, Hecla, from the helm of his ship. Hecla, he cried, which means, Hill of the Shroud.”
Eachan picked up his fiddle.
A tune poured from its strings, from the depth of his story.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Milk of Hills Untouched
“It’ll be slack water in the Sound about now. There’s quite a run with the flood at half tide. It’s better crossing to Sandray just before the tide’s on the turn. You could take the boat yourself, if you wanted to. Ach, maybe best not, the old stone slip on the north side of the bay is easy seen, but there’s a reef off the headland. I’d better show you, seeing it’s your first time across.”
Eachan poured another cup of tea for us both. Ella had gone down the field, milk pail and stool on one arm, a bucket of cattle cake on the other. Sitting at the table, I could see her from the kitchen window. The cow stood quietly, her head in the bucket as Ella knelt with her head on the animal’s flank and milked away. Their other cattle peered over the fence. After a little I heard her in the dairy at the back of the house, rattling utensils. She’d be sieving the milk through a muslin cloth.
I admired the woman’s hardiness and perhaps more than anything, her kindliness. Placid and unruffled, in the fortnight I’d now been in their house, her voice was never raised. Moreover, though Gaelic was their customary tongue, they rarely used it if I were in their presence.
Days had slipped by; I marvelled at the lack of stress. My cough had declined to the odd bout. My limbs had hardened. Blisters on my hands bore evidence of the process. We’d finished the hay, I’d been to the village store on the back of Eachan’s tractor and bought suitable clothing. We’d pulled into the ‘Castleton “just a quick one,” he winked. It extended longer than his description. From counter conversations I learnt that the theme for the locals revolved round the activities which made crofting tick. Surprisingly they drew me in as though I were part of the system.
Sheep, cattle, the quality of the hay crop, ‘the early ‘tatties’ lifted well this year’, a whole ability in dealing with fundamentals which passed beneath the concerns of a desk bound public sector juggling figures or the city whizz-kids alternately cheering or cursing their financial data. During these past weeks, I’d come to recognise the yawning gulf which exists between the artificial cleverness of a society that lacks the intelligence to spot its approaching buffers and the landbound skills of those few upon whom these sophisticated lemmings depend.
Crossing the Sound, sailing to Sandray, this could be the complete break. My departure from one intensely complex time and results controlled function to placing myself in a situation which would challenge my woefully inadequate abilities. An isolated island, forebears or no forebears, was I merely wallowing in nostalgia? I hadn’t mentioned my plans to Eachan.
“I’ll start the outboard if you like. There’ll be enough breeze to put us across once we’re out of the bay. How about trying the oars?” Eachan moved to the stern. I pulled away. The ‘Hilda’ moved easily after the first half dozen strokes. Already I had a fondness for her.
“Here’s the breeze, boy.” I shipped oars and watched Eachan hoist sail. The ‘Hilda’ sprang to life. He tightened the mainsheet. We headed out. Heeling slightly, the tap, tap on her planking began. Wavelets met us. She threw them aside in small flurries. Swooping over tops, dipping through the hollows she sailed with the ease of a tiny wave skimming stormy petrel. I revelled in the motion. Swaying forests were in her timbers, the tale of the old crone’s death and the larch tree’s spirit were in the boat they’d built. I vowed no freedom matched the open sea.
In the shallow waters of the bay, slim fork-tailed birds were touching the ripples and fluttering aloft. Their thin twittering cries reached us. Eachan noticed me watching them, “That’s the Arctic tern fishing for sprat. They nest on the beaches of Sandray, away from bird watchers and tourists. That’s changing fast, Hector boy. There’s a fancy new speed boat running out of Castleton. This Londoner built a huge house out from the village, just a couple of years ago, no word about the landscape, only planners needing more rates to pay their salaries would let it through. Anyhow, no doubt with a grant, he bought this craft, not a sea boat but twin forty horse power outboards. She’s roomy, does a twenty knot trip round the islands, a wake like a tidal wave to frighten the seals off the beach and you get a cup of tea in the cabin and can see your photos on a laptop.”
It was the first time I’d heard a note of bitterness in Eachan’s voice. Not truly one of their island fraternity and on many occasions a tourist myself, I said nothing. Cormorants sat silent, their wings outstretched to dry in the warm sun as we rounded the point and out of the bay. Gulls squabbled over a crab which one of them had dropped onto the rocks.
Suddenly, without warning, the ear shattering roar of a fighter jet hit us. I ducked instinctively. Its shadow flashed across the sea. The plane climbed steeply, pouring black exhaust. I’d barely looked up. A second deafening roar, another jet on its tail, in from the Atlantic. They skimmed over the hills of Halasay and banking steeply, heade
d north. The terns rose screeching and flew wildly in circles. Speechless, my ears ringing, I looked to Eachan.
He shook his head at the departing planes. “They’re away to blast rockets into a small island off Cape Wrath. It’ll be one of their sales pitches for flogging our latest weaponry round the world. Practise shoots for Afghanistan. Pakistan, maybe Libya or whoever’s the next in line for the installation of a puppet government in the guise of democracy.”
Quietness returned and the lap, lap at our bow. In sardonic tone his thoughts rumbled on, “Mind you those flying missionaries are already out of date; it’s far safer to blast the Taliban by sending in a drone controlled from a bunker under the Pentagon. But just you look at the faces of these Afghan hill men. Whatever their beliefs, right or wrong, these are real men. Compare them to the objects which pass for men and run our degenerate western society. The world is controlled by a collusion of egoistic politicians who’ve never ducked a bullet, military fools in the grip of a highly profitable arms industry and financiers with the greed of that cormorant over there with its gut crammed with fish.”
A dip in the swell exposed a line of rocks off the point. As the Atlantic swell curled over them, they vanished. Just below the surface; dark, vicious and dangerous. Keeping an eye on them, the old man broke into a grin. It better suited his usual easy style. “That’s the reef I told you about. It doesn’t show after the tide starts to rise. You don’t want to find it with the keel. Good spot for a lobster creel though, when you know were they are.”
His face grew serious again, “What’s an island off the tip of Scotland? Back of beyond, handy for training pilots, kill a few birds, neither here nor there. Eggs or chicks, lost when the parents panic. But it all adds up, Hector boy.”
I’d got used to this form of address, it certainly didn’t refer to my age. I took it more as a term of familiarity. He hauled the lugsail sheet and we rounded the headland, giving the reef a good offing. The fighter jets had clearly upset him.
“Pilots, trained by bombing an island. In the cross sights, press a button- it could be a school full of children. That’s happened. A mistake of course. Apologies; what the hell are apologies for a murder? Try replacing your dead child. What goes through a pilot’s tiny mind? Conditioned to kill, trained to protect a fallacy, attempting to continue the folly of believing we can maintain this form of civilisation. My father’s brother went over the top at the Somme, a bullet through his brain. That was kind compared to some poor devils. And still we haven’t learned, only getting more efficient at the job of killing our fellow man. No, Hector, I’ve seen the good times, producing food out here. My own boss”
The breeze shifted. I admired Eachan’s deft response. For a moment the tiller took care of itself. He hauled over the sail until it filled on the port side and we were heading our way across the Sound. “I’ll tell you this, boy,” For the first time I heard true anger in his tone. “My old brain has studied all that goes on around me, whether it’s the climate, or the croft, or what’s left of the bird life, or for that matter the effects I’ve noticed on the sea, even the beaches of Halasay. New types of seaweed are creeping in, taking over, the birds don’t get peace in the nest. Halasay’s turned into a playground. It used to produce food, wholesome food. Now it’s new houses are the main crop, and big ones too; wait you until they’re putting sandbags at the front door when the tide’s in.”
Obviously he handled the tiller instinctively for the outburst continued, “Climate change, they call it. Well, the oceans hold the trump card. The more carbon dioxide they dissolve from the atmospheric increases we’re busy making, the more acid they become and the less their ability to absorb this greenhouse gas. And once you warm the oceans a degree or two, they don’t cool down fast like the land does. There’s probably enough heat brewing in the sea right now to keep global warming on track supposing you dumped every damned car tomorrow.”
The foresight of his comments impressed me and from the look on his face the theme had still a bit to run. The flow of Eachan’s derisive observations I took as a mark of despair for the future of all he had known and not least for the desecration of the planet by human folly. “Make no mistake boy, the environment is shifting below our feet faster than many species can keep pace. The more spokes you knock out of a bicycle wheel, the greater the wobble. We’re racing down hill on a fixed wheel without brakes and they don’t realise just how fast. Talking jargon at a meeting, flown round the world to a conference in an air-conditioned hotel. Scientists,” he snorted, “they’d hear more common sense in an hour at the counter of the Castleton bar.”
It wasn’t the conversation I’d expected. Spanned by islands, the whole width of the Atlantic at my back, the vigour of salt air on my cheek, his words struck a hammer blow. Far from being incongruous, they twisted at my guts. How could we be such criminal perpetrators, helping to destroy the beauty about us, careless of the myriads of species involved; the utter ignorance. Through the passion of Eachan’s outburst, I recognised the love of a man for his natural world.
“You see those vapour trails?” Eachan indicated with a nod. I squinted against the light. The flight paths of two trans-Atlantic jets criss-crossed, tiny dots pouring fleecy streams onto a sky burnished by radiant sunlight. “One’s just crossed the North Pole, heading for Heathrow no doubt. Who knows where the other’s going?” And, looking to the horizon, “I’ll tell you boy, neither of them knows where they’re heading.”
The rumble of their engines floated down to us as he continued unabated, “And the rate of change we’re helping to creating is beyond many species’ ability to adapt, maybe ours too. Organic life, in some form, has knocked about this planet two or three billion years. It’s nearly run out of steam on half a dozen occasions, mass extinctions, cosmic tricks, volcanoes or whatever. Our few thousand years from cave painting to space shuttle, in the time span of this planet’s arrival in the solar system’s existence,” his voice fell away, “it’s just a flick of fag ash,” He glanced up. “No more than one puff of those jet fumes.”
Above us, vapour trails melted into the brilliance of the stratosphere. Down at sea level its same brilliance reflected on wavelets whose glitter vanished under Sandray’s headland cliff and into the gloom of storm burrowed caves. Rock falls, cut and carved into statues, were scattered at random. Some smooth, worn fangs, others with jagged, freshly broken edges had their strata exposed, as the purple veins of an old body. In a jet- roaring twenty-first century, the earth felt very ancient. I looked about for reassurance. The terns had gone.
‘Hilda’ rippled along to the bubbling sounds of a wake which made tiny eddies on the slack waters that come before the turn of the tide. A happy boat, in tune with her element, she restored Eachan’s good humour. He held a course for the west side of Sandray, balancing sail and tiller to the least shift of the breeze.
Admiring his skill, I realised that a deep bond existed between the man and his boat. In Eachan’s hands she became animate. I saw he treated his boat with the same affection and trust as one of the family. Man and boat complimented each other, the one varnished and trim, the other, bronzed faced and steady, a blending of will powers and both at home on the sea.
The cliff of Sandray’s north west headland fell shear to the sea. Eachan ran in close, a couple of boat lengths clear. It loomed over our masthead, a mighty promontory breasting the Atlantic’s fury in the tussle between the bastion of the land and the greed of an ocean. Dark gashes drove deep into its bare rock face, the wave riven throat of a storm. Spindly pillars reared, ledge after ledge, climbing into salt green turf. The ocean’s tranquility swilled over their boulder strewn feet with barely a murmur.
From ledges streaked by a season’s nesting, fulmar peered down, squawking and complaining. Others rode the air on motionless wings. Cormorant flapped off the lowest shelf, swimming, diving, up and over. They popped up ahead of us like corks and took off, beating the surface with hefty splashes. A tight formation of puffins shot from b
ehind the headland, red feet trailing, stubby wings burring like a windup toy.
The intimacy of this self-contained domain, locked in the basics of survival, astonished me. Easy to understand, they had not the means by which to offset the mass intrusion of that exploitive species, the human being. Several smallish birds, black plumaged and dainty, swam a little way off from us. One surfaced with tiny silver fish hanging either side in its sharp pointed bill. I pointed as it flew past us. “That’s the guillemot, hardy wee birds. They nest further round the headland. Always lay two eggs. The island folk used to take one and leave one, good for baking scones they said. It’s sand eels that one’s carrying. It’ll be feeding a chick. Guillemots are scarce now and the razorbill too- it’s a similar bird.”
So far I hadn’t heard Eachan even suggest he might be old. “In my young days, this point would be alive with them but these many years the fishing boats have been clearing the waters of their feed stock. Sand eels hoovered up by the thousand tons, ground into protein for these damned salmon farms. One species valueless to us puts smoked salmon on your party menu and in between their fish cages and your dining fork, not a word about the coastal pollution and who in a fancy restaurant cares a damn about that bird’s supper?” Contempt rang in Eachan’s voice.
I’d made no reply, for in spite of the day’s brilliance, studying the cliff tower above our masthead provoked a somber feeling. It hung on the air, infecting the atmosphere with a chilling dankness. Although each rock platform was home to so many young chicks, the place had a gloomy bleakness, a profound sense of dejection. Was it the cries of the bird life? The piteous note of their incessant wailing that rose above the hiss of a swell which rolled slowly over the dark slab of rock at its foot and just as deliberately fell away into the sunless shadow? Grey pillars rose above the ledge, I saw them as melancholy portals to some abiding tragedy. A feeling of grief surrounded me and I turned to Eachan, “There’s something inconsolably sad about this place.”
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