David returned five minutes later and ran straight for the cluster of men watching as Noak hurriedly unfastened the ropes from his sturdy craft and made ready to cast off. Even in the harbor it was bobbing about like a cork with the other boats. What Noak had decided during David’s brief absence told clearly enough by the smell of diesel smoke coming from the stack of his idling engine.
“You all heard by now that Hardy’s in trouble,” David called as he ran toward the others. “I need one or two men to go with us.”
“Tae do what, David?” asked one.
“To find him!”
The small crowd shuffled uneasily. No one spoke.
“If it was anybody but Hardy, ye see, Chief,” said Farlan Campbell at length. “Ye ken weel enough that he wouldna lift a finger tae help any one o’ us.”
“More’s likely that he’d keep from helpin’ us so he could git his clutches on another o’ oor boats,” added Stewart Scrymgour in a sour tone.
“He’s right, Chief,” added Les Balfour. “We got oor own families tae think o’. I’m no aboot tae risk my own neck for the likes o’ him.”
“Let Hardy’s own men gae oot for him.”
“Maist o’ them’s on Shetland,” said Balfour. “He only went oot wi’ half his crew.”
“What Hardy would do is beside the point,” said David. “It’s what we are bound to do. It’s time to be men and do what’s right! Farlan, I know you’re a shepherd like me. But you know your way around a boat as well as I do. Gordon, Iver, Gunder, Stewart, Douglas . . . Noak and I can’t possibly make it out and back alone. I know the danger. We may all drown in the attempt. I realize I’m asking you to risk your lives. I’ll think none the less of you for staying. Noak and I will go alone if we have to.”
Ten minutes later, with a scant crew of five, the Bonnie Muir rocked out of the harbor. The three who joined Noak and David had also been there on that fateful day when the Bountiful was lost. They too had their own private reasons for heeding the chief’s summons to courage.
Watching from shore, the rest of the men observed their sailing in silence. More than one felt guilty. Others wondered if they had seen the last of their foolhardy young chief and their friends. None, however, relished the idea of being aboard themselves.
Word had quickly spread through the village about the attempt. By the time of their departure, the harbor was lined with their friends and neighbors. Dire forebodings clutched at their hearts as they watched the brave little craft creep seaward.
Passing the outer harbor wall, they were soon being tossed about like a toy. Noak increased his speed. Bobbing up and down, the Bonnie Muir shrunk smaller and smaller, climbing one wave, then disappearing into the trough of the next. Half an hour later it was lost to the sight of the onlookers on a course bound for the last known coordinates from Hardy’s distress call.
That signal was now more than fifteen hours old. By now he might be anywhere. All the men aboard knew the most likely possibility was that the Hardy Fire lay at the bottom. Still, if there was any chance the crew had made it safely onto a life raft, they might survive several days.
An hour out from Whales Reef, Noak was at the wheel doing his best to keep his boat from capsizing. David, Fergus Gunn, Gunder Knut, and Douglas Camden all stood on the dangerously swaying deck with binoculars to their eyes.
“We’re comin’ up on that GPS readin’, David!” shouted Noak from the wheelhouse. “Ye see anythin’?”
“Not yet!” David yelled back.
“What do ye want me tae do? I canna cut the engine. We’d capsize in these troughs. I’ve got tae stay movin’.”
“Keep to a wide circle pattern within a mile or two of his last reading.”
Struggling to keep their feet beneath them as waves pounded the hull and splashed high over the side, Noak’s four crewmen were soaked to the skin. The slippery deck heightened the danger.
“We could be a quarter mile from them an’ ne’er see them!” shouted Fergus.
“Sound your horn, Noak!”
He did so, but the blast was lost in the wind.
“’Tis nae use, David!” shouted Noak. “Even if they were near enough tae hear it, what good would it do? If they’re on a raft, hoo would they signal us? An’ we’d ne’er get sight o’ them in these swells.”
“Keep at the horn, Noak,” shouted David. “If there’s any chance the boat is still afloat, they might be able to signal us!”
With supreme effort, Noak manhandled his wheel to angle into each swell as close to forty-five degrees as possible, keeping his hull from being smashed to splinters by a direct hit. He also had to avoid the peril of getting caught in a trough parallel to two giant waves and capsizing straight over onto the side.
It was a treacherous game these hearty fishermen played every day with angry seas. A moment’s lapse in concentration was enough to lose a boat and its crew. A wheel spinning out of control, a broken rudder, one mighty twenty foot wave . . . it could be over in seconds. Every time they set to sea they took their lives in their hands.
They struggled bravely for another two hours, sounding the horn, scanning the violent seas, and measuring a distance some two miles in every direction from the previous night’s GPS signal. They knew well enough that Hardy and his men, whether aboard the Hardy Fire or a raft, could be halfway to Fair Isle by now, or run aground in the other direction on the shoals of Out Skerries . . . if they weren’t already on the bottom.
“’Tis nae use, David!” called Noak at last through the open door of the wheelhouse. “We’ll ne’er find them in sich a tumult! I’m afeart the wind’s pickin’ up again. We must think o’ oor ain necks, man! ’Tis time tae turn back!”
“A few minutes more, Noak!” yelled David through the wind.
Again he pressed the binoculars to his eyes. The Bonnie Muir rose high, then crashed down violently. David lost his balance, sprawled to his back and across the slippery planking.
“Watch yersel’, David!” cried Fergus.
But David was helpless to stop himself. Arms and legs flailing, he slid over the reeling deck toward the side. His feet shot beneath the lower guardrail. Grabbing wildly as he flew toward the sea, he managed with one hand to lay hold of the metal bar above him. He slung an elbow over the rail, then clutched the cable above it.
On treacherously unsteady legs, Fergus stumbled toward him.
“Hang on, man!” he called.
Steadying himself on the lurching deck with one arm around the top railing, Fergus bent down and stretched out his arm.
“Take a grip o’ my hand, David!”
David released the cable and flailed at Fergus’s hand.
With David’s legs dangling over the side, suddenly the Bonnie Muir rocketed skyward. At the moment the hull reached its apex, Fergus pulled with all his might. Had the lurch of the boat gone against them, David and his uncle would have been lost.
But Noak’s skill at the wheel averted disaster. He angled the rudder to lift the deck against the direction of the sea. Both men sprawled across the deck into a mass of rigging and nets. The instant they were away from the side, Noak spun the wheel back into the swell.
“Thank you, Fergus!” said David as they untangled arms and legs and got their feet beneath them. “You saved my life.”
“We canna weel be losin’ a second chief tae the squawls o’ nature. I’d sooner hae gang ower the side mysel’!”
55
The Hardy Fire
After his brush with disaster, and knowing he had nearly cost his uncle his life, David was at last ready to admit defeat.
“Noak is right,” he yelled into the wind. “It’s too dangerous. It will do Hardy no good for us to follow him to the bottom.”
“Haud on a minute—I think I saw somethin’, David!” shouted Fergus
“Show me, Fergus! We’ll ride the next wave up . . . point to where you saw it.”
The two struggled across the heaving deck to the bow. The Bonnie Muir bottomed, t
hen rose again on the swell.
“There, David . . . see ye off tae port!” cried Fergus.
Already they were diving again. Awaiting their next opportunity, Fergus stood with binoculars in place. David’s pair of binoculars had long since gone overboard, but he squinted intently into the squall.
“I see’t!” cried Fergus as they crested. “’Tis the Hardy Fire! I’d ken it anywhere!”
“You’re right! Noak!” called David, turning and scrambling for the wheelhouse. “We’ve spotted Hardy’s boat! Set a course ten o’clock to port.”
“That’s direct intil the teeth o’ the swell, David.”
“You’ll have to tack!”
David hurried back onto the deck. Within ten minutes no doubt remained. They had miraculously found the Hardy Fire.
By slow degrees the vessel came into view. Clearly floundering, it had yet somehow managed to keep afloat through the long night’s storm.
It took forty more minutes before they were close enough to see Hardy’s men on board waving frantically.
David, Fergus, Gunder, and Douglas clustered with Noak in the wheelhouse. Not exactly keeping dry—it was too late for that—but at least they enjoyed a brief respite from the wind. Everyone’s fate was in Noak’s hands now as he guided his rescue craft steadily closer to the distressed vessel.
“What do ye want me tae do, David?” asked Noak. “I canna weel git too close in this swell—the two boats would crash intil kindlin’.”
“Can you draw close enough to throw a rope between the two? We’ll have to tow her back.”
“I’ll swing wide an’ try tae come at her facin’ the direction o’ her prow.”
“The wind’s too strong for a rope,” said Douglas.
“We cud try one o’ my auld harpoon guns,” suggested Noak. “Shoot high an’ send a rope ower tae’t.”
“Jist so long as none o’ the men git in the way!” laughed Gunder.
“They’ll be nimble-footed enough, I’m thinkin’. I hanna used the thing in years. ’Tis naethin’ but a spring—nae reason it wouldna work. Gunder, ye see it there?” said Noak, pointing outside across the desk. “See if the rope’s still aroun’ the tail o’ the harpoon an’ make sure the coil o’ it’s clear. When we’re in place, I’ll gae oot an cock the bonnie thing.”
Gunder hurried outside while Noak continued to negotiate the waves and troughs in a circle around the Hardy Fire. Eventually the two vessels were pointing nearly in the same direction. No smoke came from the Hardy Fire’s stack. It had clearly lost power.
Coming as close as he dared, Noak turned the wheel over to Douglas and left the wheelhouse. Cranking the nose of the harpoon up to thirty degrees, he cocked the lever and then released the spring. The ancient mechanism snapped forward and launched the harpoon into the air. All eyes watched it fall into the water well short of its mark.
Noak rapidly reeled in the rope and recoiled it for another try. The second was no more successful than the first. He reeled it in again, then ran for the wheelhouse.
“We’ll hae tae git in line wi’ the wind,” he said. “An’ git closer. Gie me the wheel.”
Again Noak maneuvered his boat through the treacherous waves, this time coming alongside from the opposite direction and closing the gap to within a dangerous fifty feet.
Once more he turned the wheel over to Gunder, then ran onto the deck. He adjusted the harpoon to a steeper angle and aimed straight in the direction of the wind. Again he fired. The wind carried harpoon and rope high and straight. It flew over the deck of the Hardy Fire, clanking onto its far railing.
Great cheers rose from both vessels. Hardy scrambled to detach the rope from the harpoon’s tail while Noak quickly let out all remaining slack so no sudden shift of either boat would snap the line.
Working hurriedly, Hardy tied the slender harpoon cord securely around the hook of a thick stout cable. At the same time, Noak resumed his own wheel and powered forward. He increased the gap to a safe distance and moved in line with Hardy’s bow. At the rear of the Bonnie Muir, David, Fergus, Douglas, and Gunder wound in the harpoon line, considerably heavier now. Slowly they lugged the cable toward them. Ten minutes later, Hardy’s cable was safely attached to a hook at the stern of the Bonnie Muir.
With a wave and a shout to Hardy, David ran inside.
“We’re secure, Noak,” he said. “Set a course for Whales Reef!”
Though the swell was as fierce as before, with the wind behind them and stabilized somewhat by the taut cable between the two vessels, the danger of capsizing was diminished. As the smaller Bonnie Muir chugged ahead with the Hardy Fire—more than double its displacement and tonnage—dragging heavily in its wake, progress was slow yet steady. No communication had been established between the boats. Whatever else had befallen the Hardy Fire, its radio was also out.
All day back on Whales Reef, the villagers had been coming and going. As dusk approached, they all knew if night fell upon the island they would never see their chief or his uncle or Noak Muir or Hardy Tulloch or any of the others again.
Shortly after three, with the gray skies beginning to darken, the tiny outline of two boats in the distance came into view. By then the harbor walls were lined with every man, woman, and child of the island. Great cheering and shouts rose into the blustery wind.
Inch by inch the Bonnie Muir came toward them, with the great Hardy Fire in tow.
Thirty or forty minutes later, the puffing rescue vessel rocked between the narrow cement walls of the harbor channel. The moment it was safely within the harbor’s walls, every able-bodied man bolted across the quay. Fergus unhooked the trailing cable and dumped its iron hook overboard. One of Hardy’s men cranked it in. Hardy and two others heaved ropes ashore. Dozens of eager hands leaned and grabbed to help pull the crippled craft the final few feet of its perilous journey. More joined in to secure it to the quay.
By the time David, Fergus, and the others stepped onto the cement a minute or two later, the Bonnie Muir was securely tied off and at rest. Another great cheer rose as Noak Muir emerged from the wheelhouse. He smiled sheepishly and followed the others ashore.
The harbor was filled with the sounds of backslapping and handshakes and congratulations from the men, and with tears and relieved laughter from wives, sisters, and mothers of those thought to be lost.
It would have been difficult for an observer to know which one was the day’s greater hero, Noak Muir or Hardy Tulloch. Never one to shun the spotlight, Hardy made the most of the opportunity. The whole affair had suddenly become a great adventure. He denied absolutely that they had really been in any danger. They were simply riding out the weather.
“It’ll take a mightier blow than a wee storm the likes o’ that tae sink the Hardy Fire!” he laughed. “If we hadna lost oor rudder, we’d hae been in weel afore dark last night. Jist a bit o’ ill-timed luck was a’. But she’s a stout craft an’ we would hae been up an’ runnin’ soon’s the wind died awa’.”
Along with the rest of the crowd, however, Hardy knew it had been a close one. Though he never would admit it to a soul, he had never been more frightened in his life, and he was man enough to set aside his pride and offer his hand to the one who had risked his life and his boat to find him in the storm.
As soon as his vessel was safely put to bed, he walked around the harbor wall. With obvious fanfare, and followed by a dozen or more of his fellow fishermen, young Ian Hay chattering away beside him, Hardy strode toward the Bonnie Muir.
A crowd was clustered about, peppering Noak and David and Fergus with questions. Seeing Hardy approach, they parted. Hardy walked into their midst.
“Gie me a grip o’ yer hand, Noak,” said Hardy, walking straight toward him. “Ye got my sincere thanks for what ye done, man. A real brave thing it was, in that wee craft o’ yers. An’ a right fine bit o’ navigatin’ it was as weel!”
“It was David that took charge o’ the affair,” said Noak. “He was captain o’ the Bonnie Muir this day,
no me.”
“Then, David,” said Hardy, turning toward his cousin, “I’m indebted tae ye as weel.”
“Thank you, Hardy,” replied David. The two shook hands.
“An’ noo,” Hardy added, turning to the crowd, “for as long as Keith’s supply holds oot, the ale an’ whiskey’s on me!”
Another cheer went up. Hardy led the way from the harbor, followed by much of the village, to the Whales Fin Inn. After David and Noak and their crew, as well as most of Hardy’s men, hurried home briefly for dry clothes, the celebrating went on most of the evening.
David was not a partying man. He preferred a small discussion between friends to a rollicking evening at the pub. Given the circumstances, however, he knew the importance of participating in the celebration. He hoped the day’s events and the gaiety of the evening would have a calming effect on the islanders’ uncertainty about the future.
He therefore remained at the inn longer than would have been his custom.
56
A Difference
The storm subsided and blew away to the east. Those attempting to listen to whatever words of wisdom he had to impart found Reverend Yates’s sermon the following morning punctuated by hammer blows from the harbor. Hardy had his rudder repaired by that afternoon. The Hardy Fire was on its way to Lerwick at dawn on Monday morning.
Hardy walked into the pub several days later, as was his custom when not at sea, about 5:15 in the afternoon. The room was full of the afternoon crowd. He saw Noak Muir at a table with several others. “Noak, my friend!” he called, stretching a burly forearm around Noak’s shoulders. “Hey, lads,” he announced, “this is the man who saved my life!”
“A’body kens aboot it weel enouch by noo!” rejoined one of them.
“Mind if I hae a word wi’ ye, Noak?” said Hardy.
Noak glanced up at him, then slowly nodded and stood.
“What are ye drinkin’, Noak?” said Hardy. “Bring yer glass wi’ ye.”
The Inheritance Page 25