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CHAPTER 10

THE CALF LAY ON THE STARBOARD BOW AS THE YAWL SURGED forward with the ebbing tide into the choppy waters east of Calf Sound. They were into open water now, leaving the cliffs of Spanish Head astern. Since they’d left Port St Mary the little yawl had opened up one inhospitable bay to starboard, and then another. The cliffs were shattered by wind and weather, or some earlier convulsion of nature which a man could only begin to guess at. The rocks looked like grey slate for the most part, streaked here and there with shining quartz, but slate broken and fractured into huge blocks. Mr Lyell, in his revolutionary book, argued that aeons of unending change had created the rock formations one saw today, but in Archie’s experience the sea cliffs often looked deceptively like the results of a sudden, unimaginable cataclysm, and perhaps nowhere so much as here. God knew how this Island – or any island, come to that – had actually been created. Mr Watterson had been telling Ben some tale about Finn McCuill hurling stones at a marauding giant from the Scottish hills: curious how even the most unenlightened folk required an explanation of some sort. It must be part of the human condition. And the plain fact was that Archie, and possibly even Mr Lyell, didn’t know the whole truth any more than this simple Manx fisherman.

But Mr Watterson knew a lot of things that were useful, and it was Archie’s job to get as much information from him as he could. Mr Watterson was the only man who did this run regularly. He’d brought his son Juan along as crew, a sulky boy who wouldn’t meet the eyes of the two strangers, and who’d barely grunted a greeting when they met. Today they’d also brought along a sack of oatmeal wrapped in oilskin, a heavy wooden box from the grocer in Port St Mary, and Ben was sitting forward on a crate containing two piglets. There were occasional squeals and scufflings from within the crate, and each time Ben addressed the piglets beneath him with soothing blandishments, which, as far as Archie could tell, were having no effect at all.

This young fellow Buchanan wasn’t yet realising how lucky he was, Finn Watterson was thinking. Usually there was hardly a single day in the month that you were getting out to Ellan Bride and back again. The tide was right just now to be going out there on the ebb and back on the flood in full daylight, and although there hadn’t been a breath of wind for days, with this drought-like weather, just last night this easterly breeze had sprung up. They could hardly have wished for better. It was the best time of year, of course, but this Master Buchanan would soon be finding out what sort of undertaking it was to get a new lighthouse built on Ellan Bride. They’d need Finn Watterson, that was for sure. No one else landed regularly on the island, and Finn was aiming to be there once a month or so all through the summer. But these young fellows from Scotland – they’d not seen what it could be like getting the barrels of oil ashore on a difficult day. The sacks of coal could be heaved over the side and fetched by the keepers at low tide, but you couldn’t be doing that with the precious oil. No, when they were building this new light they’d be needing him for sure. It would be just a question of naming his price. No doubt but his family could be using the money, with half a dozen places at least to put every penny.

It was no loss to him to tell these lighthouse surveyors as much as he could. They certainly couldn’t be using the knowledge without him. Master Buchanan had been asking him about a bigger boat, but they’d never be working with anything as big as a smack going into Ellan Bride. No, they’d be coming back to him, and his yawl, that would be able to make a landing if anything could at all. In any case a smack, he’d explained to Archie patiently, would be stuck fast ashore in Port St Mary until the tide was covering the rocks at Gansey. They’d be losing too many hours that way, even with the long summer days ahead, for a smack to do the journey in a day. Finn had shown them the shore marks that gave them the only safe route out of Port St Mary harbour. And there was the Carrick – another treacherous outcrop right in the middle of the bay. When the Carrick is covered, he’d explained to them, that’s when the bay goes slack. But once you could see white water over the top of the Carrick you’d have water enough to get into harbour again, but none to spare. And if there was too big a sea breaking over the Carrick, you’d not be putting to put to sea for Ellan Bride, because you wouldn’t be able to land when you got there.

‘What sort of rock is it on Ellan Bride?’ asked Archie suddenly.

‘The same thing as the Calf. Same as Spanish Head that you were looking on to starboard just now, that’s the truth. The cliffs you’re looking on now – Ellan Bride is made out of the very same stuff.’

Hard slate, thought Archie. On the Calf they’d built the lighthouses with stone quarried from the future lighthouse cellars. Ellan Bride was only sixteen acres to the Calf’s six hundred and fifty, but if it had the same high quality slate as the Calf they’d be able to do the same thing. Unlike a rock lighthouse, the tower on Ellan Bride only had to stand up to the weather, not to the sea itself.

Yet on the drive from Castletown Archie and Ben had passed great pavements of limestone, exposed by the sea. Where did the limestone give way to slate, deep under the seabed? And what had caused the change? Mr Lyell said in his book that some rocks had been formed by the endless drift of matter down to the sea bed, others by great convulsions in the earth’s crust aeons ago. What had set the whole process in motion? How had it happened? And to what end? Ah, if one knew that, perhaps one would know all.

‘If the wind was fair,’ said Archie aloud, ‘you could sail from the Calf to Ellan Bride in an hour or so, couldn’t you?’

‘It’s all of half a league, I’m thinking. That’s far enough in bad weather. Many a day you wouldn’t be sailing from one to the other at all. In fact most days, I’d say, if you wanted to be landing anything. Now, to starboard: that’s the Calf Sound opening up.’

A piece of the Island detached itself and formed a separate entity. In between a thin strip of water gleamed. ‘We are putting the name Baie ny Breechyn on that bay there – breechyn is breeches, indeed – if you’ll look on it from the Ligghers – that cliff up there – the water will be looking the same shape as a pair of breeks.’

Finn smiled at Ben, sitting up there in the bows, and getting a bit wet too, by the look of it. Ben grinned back. Finn’s boy Juan stared resolutely out to sea.

‘There’s a landing place at the Island there. We are putting the name Cabbyl Giau on it – that means Horse Inlet – the giau is what you’d be calling an inlet, I’m thinking.’

‘Ay. We have the same word too, where I come from,’ said Ben.

A pleasant fellow, this Benjamin Groat, Finn was thinking, and a good man in a boat too. The other one didn’t do much to help us get off – maybe he was thinking himself too much the gentleman – but this fellow Groat wasn’t above giving a hand when it was needed. Maybe I’ll be working with Groat again, thought Finn – we’ll see. He’s a big strong fellow too, and I’d be trusting him in a hard place – more than the other. The other’s a bit uncertain, I’d say. Tough enough, but you couldn’t be sure what he’d be doing. I’d be taking the one without the nerves, Finn decided. The piglets were kicking against the side of their crate. ‘There, there, boy,’ Ben was saying through the slats in the crate. ‘It’ll no be long now. And ye’ll no be dinner for a long time yet. And in the meantime, ye’ll be living in clover!’

‘What’s Cow Harbour like?’ Archie asked abruptly, still staring into the Calf Sound. ‘On the north side of the Calf? How easy is it to land there?’

‘Ah, there’s a place or two you can be landing in fair weather. But the Sound’s no place for what you’re wanting. No place at all. Why, at full flood or ebb you’ll be getting the water coming through there at seven – eight – nine knots even. And when wind meets tide – ah, you’d not want to be anywhere near the place. Now – look – just where we’re at now – this is where the ebb is splitting – see how we’re coming into the choppy water, even on a day as fair as this. A bit further to starboard, and we’d be swept into the Sound. And if the sea gets up at all – where we are now – well, it’ll be getting a lot rougher than you’ll be wanting to see.’

Sure enough there was a surge of darker water just a few feet from them, with spiralling whirlpools along its edge. The yawl seemed to hesitate, then was swept forward with the tide.

‘I see. You’d not want to be working against that.’

‘You would not, sir. This is bad water. Even on a day like this – you’ll be keeping an eye on things. You’ll never be at ease – or you oughtn’t to be – not in these waters. These seas are powerful awful any day in the year. You know what they say: “Those who live by the sea sometimes die by it.” You’re not seeing what it can be today, sir. Not at all.’

They watched the currents swirl, and the water breaking on the distant rocks that guarded the Sound. They all knew what the sea could do. Danger was less than a hand’s breadth away, even on a day like this: just one small change and everything could alter, all in a moment. There was no space for mistakes. The bright sun, the sparkling waters, the helpful breeze – these were precious gifts, but all the more chancy because of that. You never forgot the other face of the sea. You dared not. It wasn’t fear you felt exactly: it was a fine tension that you’d let go of at your peril. You just didn’t forget that all time out here was borrowed. A good day was a glorious gift, but you never trusted the giver, not for a moment. You took what you could get, and you always kept your eyes open.

They were leaving the Sound behind, and the wild east coast of the Calf was sweeping by them. ‘I can see why you’d not want to work against the tide, whatever airt the wind was in,’ remarked Archie.

‘You would not. So where the tide is splitting, you see now how we’re needing it to be taking us south of the Calf. So when you’re coming down on the ebb, like we’re doing, you want to be standing well out to sea once Spanish Head is lying astern.’

‘And at the flood it’ll be running through the other way?’

‘That’ll be right. The ebb is taking you out and the flood is taking you back. The ebb starts about an hour and a half before high water in the Sound. That’s how you need to be planning it. But sometimes that’s hard to get right with the daylight – no one would be doing the trip in winter anyhow, I’m thinking.’

‘So the lightkeepers have to be supplied for a whole winter?’

‘Yes indeed, sir. And there’s many a day at any time of year you’d not be wanting to be out here.’

‘Well, at least it’ll be better than the Bell Rock,’ called Ben cheerfully from the bows.

‘At least at the Bell Rock they had a decent port to go back to.’

‘I wouldna ken, sir. I only drink ale myself.’

Mr Watterson grinned, and the boy Juan stifled a snort which might have been the beginnings of a laugh.

‘Now you have to be watching the cletts off the Burroo. See ahead there?’ – Finn pointed out a great stone stack at the southern tip of the Calf – ‘We’re steering well clear of her just now. You see that arch opening up just now? That’s the Eye. You can see that from just by Castletown. The Burroo’s a dangerous place, dangerous awful. If you’re ever bringing a ship into these waters, you’ll be wanting to keep full clear of the Burroo, if you’re valuing your lives, especially at the spring tides. And if there’s any southerly wind you get the waves coming very steep. There’s seven or eight cletts – you’ll know what cletts are, Master Benjamin, seeing you’re an Orkney man – so you’ll be keeping well clear. With a flood tide taking you the other way, you could be finding yourselves on the rocks before you’re knowing it, and that’s the end of you. Oh, it’s a fiendish place. Some of the trickiest waters in the world, off the Calf here, indeed.’

In his leather case with his notebooks, Archie had a tracing of the 1815 map of the Calf made by his predecessors when they’d surveyed that island in preparation for the new lights. The Burroo and the cletts around it had been named and marked with great emphasis. Archie would have liked to look at the map again now, but he could see choppy water ahead: this wasn’t the place to unfold a plan. He knew the map of the Calf by heart now anyway. No one had ever surveyed Ellan Bride before. He’d be the first.

‘Ay well. Some say that about Orkney too,’ said Ben.

‘Ah, but this is a trickier sea. Waves thirty feet high, and the current going about ten knots, when the sea gets up, in no time at all. And no distance at all between the crests: they’ll be coming in so close together a ship will be having no time to make a recover. And once you’re driven close to these islands, and you’re finding yourselves on a lee shore … well, Master Benjamin, you just don’t want to be there.’

‘Ay well, they say the Irish Sea is a tricky spot. We were working at the Mull of Galloway. I saw some big seas there.’

‘Ay. It’s the whole of the Atlantic you’re getting, pouring into the Manx Sea twice every day, and nowhere to be putting itself. So it’s tricky water. The keepers on the Calf, now – Scotch, like yourselves – they’re saying they’ve never seen such desperate seas as they’re seeing here, in these waters.’

‘And for better for worse, we’ve got to work in them,’ said Ben cheerfully.

It was choppy off the Burroo. Ben pulled his boat cloak tightly round him as gouts of water came flying over the bows. The boy beside him turned his back to the bows and hunched his shoulders. With the wind on the port beam they were making good time. They steered well clear of the stacks, and the wicked cletts, which showed long trails of white where the tide parted around them. Ben had seen what the Irish Sea could do from the Mull of Galloway. Finn was right, he thought: this was indeed a fearsome place.

They rounded the Burroo at a respectful distance. A new stretch of water opened up ahead.

‘I can see the lighthouse on Ellan Bride, sir,’ called Ben.

About ten points to starboard, Archie saw an obstinately vertical mark in the distance, as if someone had jabbed a lead pencil against the horizon.

‘Those rocks yonder,’ Finn was saying, ‘we’re putting the name Chickens on them. That’s because you’ll be seeing the stormy petrels flying about here – what they call Mother Carey’s chickens. Now the Chickens’ll be the most desperate rocks in the Island. The ships are thinking they’re well clear of the Calf, and they’re running straight onto the Chickens. There’s no mercy for them then. It was because of the Chickens they were building the Calf lights. You’ll see, if you’ll line up the two towers yonder, on the Calf: from the Chickens the one light is straight above the other – you keep them well apart and you’ll not be in any danger. Before them lights this was a terrible place for wrecks, dangerous awful. I was going out there with my father after the Sally was lost – twenty years that’ll be now – smashed to bits she was. And she was a Whitehaven ship that was knowing these waters as well as anyone. She was headed for Ireland, but the Chickens out there was as far as ever she was getting. Now if anyone could be building a lighthouse there …’

White water was breaking over the Chickens rocks. Archie thought of Dulsic, off Cape Wrath, which had the same configuration: a wicked skerry, right in the path of any unsuspecting ship that thought itself well clear of the headland. Like the Chickens, many a ship had been wrecked there for the lack of a light. Hard to imagine a wreck on a day like this: the noise, the terror, the chaos, the sheer power of the sea when it was roused. On rocks like these, no man or ship could withstand a big sea for more than a moment once they were caught.

The first time Archie had seen the Dulsic skerries was from the Cape Wrath headland. He’d stood with Mr Ritson – Archie had only been the under-surveyor then – looking down on a furious sea. Huge plumes of spray broke over them, nearly three hundred feet up. When he’d come back to Cape Wrath by sea a week later, Mr Ritson had gone ashore at Sandwood Bay, and sent Archie ahead in the ship to take sightings from the sea.

Archie had found the Cape transformed. They’d sailed out of Loch Laxford and edged their way north. When dawn came the sea was calm and milky. The sun slowly rose and tinged everything pink. All day he’d stood in the bows, watching that wild coastline unfold. At the Cape there was only an easy swell. The skipper said he’d never seen it as calm as this. A little crown of breaking waves, barely tinged with white, marked the fearful skerries. On a sudden impulse he’d strolled aft and told the skipper what he wanted to do. Perhaps the man was too surprised to say no; in any case he’d had the boat lowered, and sent three of the crew along with Archie.

Down in the boat the swell seemed a lot bigger. They’d come close in to the skerry. McGill was at the tiller. He couldn’t time it right; a wave caught them, threw them forward, then pulled them back, a yard short of the rock. Then Angus took over. If Angus couldn’t do it, no one could.

‘Now!’ They came in on the top of the wave. Water churned in the two-inch gap between boat and rock. ‘Now, sir, now!’ Archie scrambled over the gunwale. He was standing on the biggest Dulsic skerry. It was just a rock, flat and wet, ringed with seaweed. Only a sailor, or a lighthouse surveyor, could have any idea what it meant to stand here. He’d stood for fully two minutes, half-scared that Angus wouldn’t be able to get him off. When the boat came in with the next wave, he’d launched himself clumsily headfirst over the gunwale, and had had to scramble up through the legs of the oarsmen. But he’d done it. He’d stood on the notorious Dulsic. He’d been a young fellow then. The skipper had not reported him to Mr Stevenson. It was all of five years ago.

Finn Watterson altered course, so that the Ellan Bride lighthouse was directly on the bow, leaving the Chickens half a mile to starboard. He watched this Master Buchanan thoughtfully. There was something he was needing to say, but he hadn’t quite got the man’s measure yet. Master Buchanan looked pleasant enough, dark-haired and dark-eyed – the girls would be wild after a well set-up young fellow like that – but Finn was guessing at an austerity in Archie that might be stopping him taking full advantage. So much the better for him, if that were so! But the lad had an absentmindedness about him. He’d be asking the right questions, showing a fair bit of sense, in fact, and then he’d be going off in a dream again, like he was doing now. Something on his mind, seemingly. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing for the question Finn had in mind, he wasn’t sure. Master Buchanan was a bit stand-offish, not easy in his ways, but maybe it was just shyness. Finn’s own father had once met Robert Stevenson, when that gentleman had been coming to look at the Calf thirty years ago. Nothing stand-offish about him – a very easy gentleman to work with. Finn was wishing it were Mr Stevenson here himself, so he could be speaking to him about the matter that was troubling him. Mr Stevenson would be able to do something about it too; Finn wasn’t sure this young fellow Buchanan had the power. Finn had been hearing yesterday how Master Buchanan had been seeing Master Quirk at Castletown yesterday, and seemingly Master Quirk had been saying afterwards this Master Buchanan was just a sprat, and it was the bigger fish he was after – waste of time talking to him in fact. But that was surely not fair. The lad was just the surveyor, doing his job: he’d not be coming here to be dealing in the politics.

Slowly Ellan Bride took on a third dimension. There was very little of it. It lay low and green, the lighthouse standing in the centre like an unlit candle. The sun winked on the lighthouse lantern. The island was hardly more than a rock with a strip of green, surrounded by the silvery sea. Archie and Ben had seen hundreds of islands like it, but there was still something about a new island, a sense of possible discovery. Archie felt his impatience draining away. The east wind that had brought them here might not take them back so easily, but after all, what did it matter? He had no urgent appointment until September. If he were forced to spend the halcyon days of May becalmed on Ellan Bride, wasn’t that simply a foretaste of all the unknown islands yet to come?

He’d spent too many years trying to hurry along and achieve things. There had been so much work to be done, and what greater work could there be – so it had seemed, at least until last year – than the immense task of lighting up the seas? What could be more humane, more advantageous, more audacious, and more conducive to the greater good of all, than illuminating the coasts of Scotland for all the shipping that had to pass, now and in the future?

He’d only worked with Robert Stevenson a week when the old man had taken him out to the Isle of May. That was ten years ago. Archie had never been to sea before in his life. They’d had a wild crossing, the little boat ploughing doggedly through turbulent seas before a rising wind. They weren’t even sure that they were going to be able to land when they got there. Somehow the boat had managed to slip through the rocks into the east landing, and then they’d struggled up to the lighthouse, which stood right at the summit of the island, against gusts of icy rain. Indoors the lighthouse was quiet and spacious, the workrooms and keepers’ quarters a model of naval orderliness. Archie had been deeply impressed. The sheer elegance of the new lighthouse, the opulent restraint of the Council Chamber where the Commissioners had their annual meeting, the clean lines of the tower itself, the scale and precision of the new lighting system … all that had been such a contrast, not only to the wild weather, but also to the squat little tower that stood in the lee of Robert Stevenson’s light. This was the ruin of the old coal-burning light, out of date and unregretted, preserved merely because of a passing poet’s whimsical desire for the picturesque. For it was Walter Scott himself who’d asked for it to be kept, back in 1814 when he’d been on the May with Mr Stevenson.

Ten years ago Archie had stood on the flat roof of the new Isle of May lighthouse, leaning into the wind, while the sea crashed on the rocks below. Though he hadn’t said a word, he’d been drunk with sheer happiness. Mr Stevenson’s new lighthouse was not only functionally perfect, but also an outpost of civilisation, a little piece of Edinburgh illuminating the chaos and the wilderness. It seemed like the embodiment of an ideal; this, it had seemed, was what his new job was all to be about.

Even now, Ellan Bride might hold its atom of discovery. It was always like this: as soon as he got away from Edinburgh Archie began to wake up. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the world he lived in; it was just that he preferred to be on the very edges of it, and yet somehow bring with him everything that was good about the civilised world. In his experience that was how new ideas were most likely to happen.

‘No one bides on the island but the lighthouse people?’ Ben was asking. Archie brought his attention back with a start. He should be making the most of every minute with Mr Watterson, finding out as much as he could. Where had his wits gone a-begging?

‘Not now.’

‘So there were others?’

‘There were one time. But that was a long time ago.’

‘And the lightkeepers? They telt us in Edinburgh that the keeper was a woman.’

‘That’s right. The sister to the last keeper, him that was getting drowned. And a little family with her.’

‘Have they got a boat?’

‘A fourteen-foot yawl. Nothing much. But they’re not going offshore but for a bit of fishing usually. I’m bringing in the oil for the light, and the coals for winter, and anything else they’re asking.’

‘What about mail?’

‘Mail? They’re not getting none of that. A few times a year, maybe. If there’s a letter and I’m passing, I’ll take it. I’ll be calling by sometimes when I’m at the fishing. Sometimes I’ll be taking a bit of extra fish.’

‘Otherwise they do their own fishing?’

‘They do,’ said Finn, and added presently. ‘They’ll be putting out baulks – long lines, that is – when it’s fair weather. Plenty of cod offshore – callig – ling – they’ll be getting that.’

The island drew nearer. The lines of rock were tilted at an angle of thirty degrees or so, as if the island was a layered cake slowly sliding off a tilted plate. Archie wondered if the layers below extended right across the sea bed. If only one could look down into the sea as through a glass … but the waters kept their secrets, and it was hard to see how it could ever be otherwise.

A cloud of birds hung over the island, and as they got closer they could see that they were ceaselessly circling round it.

‘Puffins,’ said Ben.

‘Tommy Noddies – Ellan Bride puffins,’ corrected Finn. ‘It was always the Tommy Noddies on Ellan Bride, and Manx puffins on the Calf. But back when my father was a boy, there were long-tails got ashore from a wreck on the Calf, and there’s not hardly no puffins to be found on the Calf these days at all, for all they would be getting a good living out of them for many a year before that.’ Finn glanced at the surf breaking over the Chickens. ‘Wind’s freshening. I’m hoping we’ll be making a landing, for all.’

‘You think we might not?’ Archie broke in sharply.

‘We mightn’t be getting into Giau y Vaatey. Or if we are getting in, I mightn’t be getting out again. I was hoping the wind wouldn’t be freshening. It’s too late with the tide now to be putting you ashore on the slabs.’

Archie bit his lip. But there was no point saying anything. The very wind that had brought them here so easily might now be their undoing. Having got so far, it would be maddening to have to go all the way back, beating into the wind. Nothing he could do about it. Nothing anyone could do about it, but wait and see.

There were puffins in the water, and puffins flying past the boat, some with beaks full of little fish. If it wasn’t for the tower at the top of the hill the island could have been primeval; the rocks and the birds belonged to … what? … the third day of Creation? The fourth? But now it was the sixth at least, because when Archie looked up he could see the lighthouse tower.

A crack appeared in the northern cliffs. They passed a stack with a pinpoint of light in its heart that gradually grew until the stack turned into an arch, and they could see the sea shining on the other side. Beyond the stack was a fissure full of tumbled boulders, and the dark mouth of a cave. Sea and sky were suddenly full of birds. A wild clamour rose from the crack, and a plume of kittiwakes, far more graceful than the puffins, soared above the headland, riding the air currents. A thin ribbon of white fringed the rocks ahead. A scatter of rounded boulders suddenly turned into seals, which humped their way down to the water and dived in a series of neat splashes. A minute later half a dozen heads surfaced close to the boat, watching the new arrivals with dark, dog-like eyes.

‘If you’ll be taking the second pair of oars, Master Benjamin. Juan, stand by the sail!’

The boat rounded the point, and immediately a gentler coastline opened up before them. A colony of shags watched the boat uneasily as it slipped past their skerry, then one by one the birds shambled into flight, or flopped into the sea to emerge yards away.

Now they could see the long green back of the land. The light tower wasn’t built on the very highest point: a little rocky knoll rose before it, but the fifteen-foot tower out-topped the summit. A line of low cliffs ran, parallel to the shore, from the highest point of the island down to the northern promontory. Below the cliffs green turf sloped to the sea. They saw the line of a turf-covered dyke above first a small sandy beach, and then a bigger one. A rowing boat lay on the beach. ‘That’s good enough, they’ll be getting her pulled up right now,’ said Finn. ‘The two of them, just – they couldn’t always be managing it. But there’s the boy now. That’ll be helping.’ Finn Watterson glanced up and looked Archie straight in the eye for the first time. ‘The boy’s been brought up to it, sir. His Granddad it was, was the first keeper. The family’s been brought up to it, is what I’m wanting to say. Everyone wouldn’t be wanting that life, but they’ve been brought up to it, you see. All of them.’

Abruptly Finn shifted his gaze as they passed the beach. ‘Ready, boy. Now!’ The sail came down in a series of jerks. Ben and Juan unshipped the oars. ‘Keep her going as she is.’ Finn was standing at the tiller, scanning the rocks. ‘That’s the landing place, you see? All right, we’ll be taking a look.’

White water was breaking on the rocks at the entrance to a narrow giau. The water in the inlet looked smooth and green, but there were sharp waves breaking on the shingle. The yawl rocked in the swell where the sea began to funnel in. The oars dipped. ‘As she is! Keep her as she is. Let’s be taking a look … Ay, we’ll be getting in all right … it’s whether we’ll be getting out again …’

Archie stopped himself biting his knuckles. No point worrying, or willing them to go in. It was Finn’s decision, and Archie’s job to abide by it. It might be days before they got so near again. Finn was looking out to sea again, testing the wind.

‘Right, we’re going in! Soon as we’re alongside, you two get ashore. I’ll be offloading the things – fast! All right! Hard a-starboard! Master Ben, take the painter. Juan, don’t be shipping your oars. We’ll need to be rowing out fast. All right, Master Buchanan: you’re seeing that black rock up above there? And the streak of white across the cliff below it? We’re lining ’em up, right? Ready then! Now!’

Seaweed-covered rocks guarded the dark giau. Shags nested on the rocky sides; they jabbed the air menacingly as the yawl slid in on the top of a wave. The tide was at its lowest, and the rocks were thick with seaweed. Between the fronds there were patches of barnacles and baby mussels where boots could get a grip. A yard to go – Ben stood ready on the gunwale. He glanced up, and saw three figures above him on the rock, silhouetted black shapes with the sun behind them. All female – the solid outlines of their dresses made them look as if they’d grown out of the shadowed rocks – but each one a different size. Just for a second they seemed tall and menacing, dark shadows between him and the sun.

The next wave rose. Ben threw the painter ashore, and the tallest woman caught it and tied it to a rusty iron ring in the rock. The boat fell back and rose again. Ben leapt ashore with the next wave. Then Archie jumped too, and landed on the rock beside him.