Tales From The Dark Past Collection

Chapter 10

He that will not sail until all dangers are over will never put to sea

He that will not sail until all dangers are over will never put to seaTHOMAS FULLER

As Thoms had predicted, Captain Milne snarled at us for the time we had taken, and for loading sacks rather than just shovelling the shingle directly into the boat. "b****y longshore amateurs," he spat over the side and thrust his cap forward over his eyes before jerking his thumb at Learmonth the bosun. "Leerie, take two men and the whaler; bring me another load."

"Aye, sir," Learmonth nodded to Donaldson and Mackie, two men so inseparable they could almost have been brothers. "You two are with me."

"We shouldn"t have taken it," Pratt was still unhappy as he dragged the first sack on board Lady Balgay. When he released it the shingle slithered onto the deck and lay damp and glistening under the cold sun. "Not from there."

"Will you keep your mouth shut?" Captain Milne snarled at him. "You"ll unsettle the men with your nonsense. Now, give a hand here."

"They deserve to know," Pratt backed off from the next sack, his hands held in front of him, palm upward, "and I"m not touching that. Not ever. It should not be on the ship." He faced the captain. "It"s still not too late, Captain. But we can"t just throw the damned stuff overboard. We"ll have to replace it exactly where we got it."

"Why?" I had wanted to ask that question ever since I first heard Pratt complain, but now I could not contain myself. "What is the story of Gass Skerry, Mr Pratt?" and Pratt"s eyes brightened at the chance to unburden himself.

"It"s old…" he began, but Captain Milne stepped in front of him, rocking back on his heels so he was within an inch of the taller man and with his stare stabbing into Pratt"s eyes.

"You"re a superstitious old bugger, Pratt, and I warn you to keep your nonsense to yourself."

"The lads ought to know," Pratt insisted, until Captain Milne leaned closer, forcing Pratt to retreat until his back was hard against the mainmast. The captain dropped his voice to a menacing hiss.

"If you repeat one word of your fairy tales, Pratt, I"ll personally gut you, and throw the remains to the fish. You know that I mean exactly what I say, don"t you?"

There was a moment"s silence as Pratt licked his lips. He looked from me to Captain Milne and back.

"Don"t you, Pratt?" Captain Milne balled his fists. His eyes were cloudy green.

"Yes, Captain." Pratt nodded, his head moving in a succession of rapid, uncoordinated jerks. Sweat was running from his forehead.

"All right. Here"s to help you remember." Without any seeming effort, Milne landed a succession of swinging punches into Pratt"s stomach, so the older seamen doubled up, gasping with pain. As he slid down the mast, Milne stepped back, aimed and landed a vicious kick into his ribs, following up by pressing the sole of his boot on Pratt"s throat.

"You won"t forget, will you, Pratt?"

"For God"s sake…" I stepped forward to stop the violence, but Learmonth grabbed my shoulder.

"Best not interfere, Mr Cosgrove."

"He"ll kill him…" I began.

"No." Learmonth shook his head. "Think where we are, Mr Cosgrove, and what our situation is. There"s no King"s Regulations here, and no policeman at the corner of the street if things go wrong. There"s only the captain"s authority, or anarchy. Duty or mutiny, remember? Is there any other way Captain Milne can exercise his will?"

I restrained myself, looking around; this was not the hushed halls of Edinburgh University, nor even the policed streets of Dundee. Bleak grey waves rose on three sides, hissing as the wind whipped off the tops, tumbling in on themselves and gathering strength for a renewed assault on Lady Balgay. On the fourth side, Gass Skerry brooded under its booming surf, a trap to mariners and a vicious full stop to hundreds of miles of ocean. Anarchy out here would mean a horrible death of broken men and splintered wood. If the captain"s authority was overturned, there was nothing to replace it. However brutal Learmonth"s advice was, he was probably correct; primitive places required primitive action.

Lady BalgayCaptain Milne stepped back, breathing easily. "Are there any questions, Pratt?"

"No, sir." Pratt looked up, his eyes wild and both hands at his throat.

"Good. That"s settled then. Now, empty the damned sacks into the holds, and carefully, in case the stuff tears a hole in my ship!"

"Yes, Captain." Pratt nodded weakly. I lent him my arm to help him struggle upright.

"Get it done now!" Captain Milne"s sudden bellow echoed around the ship.

Knocking back the battens that secured the hatch cover, Thoms and Pratt stared into the hollow blackness of the hold as the wafting air brought a stench of dampness. Dragging the first sack across the deck, Thom upended it so the shingle roared onto the bare planks ten feet below, spreading out in a grey and white mass, half seen in the dark. The second sack load followed, and the third, each one over a hundredweight, each one helping the trim of Lady Balgay, but each one adding to Pratt"s patent misery.

Lady Balgay"Speed that up, damn you!" Captain Milne"s roar shook the halliards. "Here"s the bosun nearly finished and you"re still emptying sacks! I want to catch this wind while we can!"

It took the rest of that day to load the ballast, and I was utterly exhausted when at last I withdrew to my bunk. I waited for a few moments for Pratt to come to have his injuries attended, but he seemed to accept them as part of shipboard life and did not complain.

"He"ll be all right," Learmonth told me, unconcerned. "He"s been at sea a long time. Let it pass now."

About to protest, I realised that nobody else had even mentioned the incident and gave a reluctant nod. It was obvious that I had a lot to learn about working with seamen.

In such a small craft, living accommodation was scarce, so I shared a cabin with Learmonth the bosun, who also doubled as mate. Little more than a cubbyhole, six feet long by five broad, the cabin had less than five feet of headroom except under the deck light, which allowed an extra four inches. I am a whisper less than five feet ten so I had to move in a half crouch at all times or risk concussion from frequent collision with the deck beams above. As the bunk and the desk occupied nearly all the room, Learmonth and I took it in turns to sleep, sharing the watch keeping duties. Already after only a week at sea, the bedding was damp and the cabin stank of wet clothes, wet boots and wet socks.

To be honest, I was relieved that Pratt had not turned up, for I was in no fit state to attend a patient. I groaned, massaging my aching muscles, and collapsed on to the bunk without removing my boots or clothes. This was not how I had imagined life as a surgeon aboard a sealing vessel, but all the same, I knew I was lucky, for the rest of the crew crowded into the forecastle, or foc"sle as they pronounced it. This was a cabin that was only twice the size of mine but which held eight men. I tried not to imagine the squalor in which the crew lived as I closed my eyes. Instead I saw shovels hacking into piles of shingle, a grey sea that stretched forever and, shadowy at the periphery of my vision, the shape of an approaching woman. I knew I was not yet dreaming, but the figure was neither real nor unreal, an ephemeral creature whose origins I could not fathom.

The fear was immediate and unreasonable, yet tinged with some sensual fascination that was nearly as powerful. I knew without question that she was the woman from the skerry, and I tried to shout out even as I watched those wide hips swaying tantalisingly and her head held quizzically to one side.

"Who are you?" My voice was little more than a whisper in the void as she approached, walking with a well-defined roll. "What do you want?"

Although she came closer I could not make out her face. It was if she was veiled, hiding her identity from me even as she offered me the pleasures of her body. I called out again.

"Jennifer? Is that you?" I reached out for her yearningly, but then somebody took hold of my shoulder and shook savagely.

"Your watch!" Captain Milne stood over me, smiling sourly as water dripped slowly from his cap to form a small puddle on the single blanket. "Just keep the same course and call me if anything untoward happens." He nodded, eyes grave. "Don"t try anything on your own, Mr Cosgrove."

The woman had vanished and chill reality blasted in from the open door of the cabin. "Is that the time already?" I staggered up and swore loudly as I banged my head on the solid deck beams above.

"That"s the time."

Captain Milne stepped aside as the bosun took my place on the bunk, folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. "I"ll see you at dawn, Mr Surgeon."

The sea seemed to be particularly malicious that night, tossing Lady Balgay in a series of lumbering jolts that sent me staggering from the cabin to the stern. Momentarily hunching in the imaginary shelter of the smokestack, I wished fervently that I was home in Dundee with my wife. That glimpse of the veiled woman in my dream had brought everything hauntingly back, and if I inhaled deeply I could imagine Jennifer"s perfume, rather than the tar, soot and damp canvas smell of the ketch.

Lady BalgayGod but I missed her; her touch, her voice, her scent, her presence, her humour and that low, throaty chuckle the meaning of which I was just beginning to understand.

I listened to the moan of the wind through the rigging and the constant slap of waves against the hull, fought the churning sickness in my stomach and waited in passive misery for my watch to pass. I had expected that life at sea would be hard work, but had hoped for a tinge of romance, instead there was nothing but the constant tedium of paperwork combined with sheer muscle ripping labour. At best I was a petty clerk; at worst an itinerant, undervalued labourer.

Why in God"s name had I ever come out here?

As a rogue wave baptised my watch with a cold bathful of the North Atlantic, I lurched and swore, using words that would never have entered my head a few days before. At that time I did not realise how much I was changing, but now, looking back, I can see how Lady Balgay was altering me in subtle, ugly steps so I was descending the long ladder from gentleman to what I am today. She was the catalyst, that terrible, tantalising, terrifying siren from the skerry. God help us all.

Lady BalgayI approached the helmsman as he stood watching the stars above and the compass in the binnacle.

"Your watch, Dr Cosgrove?"

"It is;" I recognised Soutar, one of the steadiest men aboard.

"Aye," Soutar nodded. "You"ll be all right." There was a moment"s pause as he made a minute adjustment to his course. "I don"t think it"s right for a doctor to be doing the manual tasks." He hesitated for a second and shrugged, shifting a quid of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other. "Still, I expect the captain knows best." He allowed me to place a hand on the spokes of the wheel. "Can you feel the way she handles now? She"s deeper in the water, so she"s got more of a bite. That"s what this new ballast has done for her."

"She was too light before," I reminded, still half asleep.

"That"s for certain sure," Soutar nodded his head but did not meet my eye as he repeated, "I expect the captain knows best. That"s why he"s the captain."

I could tell he was unhappy and decided to probe a little. "What do you think of that affair with Pratt?" I could trust Soutar to steer a straight course even while he spoke.

He shrugged. "Pratt shouldn"t have argued with the captain. Everybody knows that you don"t disagree with Captain Milne." He checked the stars again and spat a long stream of brown tobacco juice into the wind.

"Is the captain that dangerous?" I asked.

"He"s not a man you want to cross." Soutar said solemnly. "He"s a fine seaman though; none better. If anybody can find seals, Captain Milne can. That"s why he"s the last surviving sealing captain in Dundee. He always brings the ship home, and he always finds the seal fish."

When Soutar ducked his head to the binnacle, a gust of chill wind sent stinging spindrift across the taffrail to splash on to my back. I shivered, very aware of the huge expanse of sea all around.

"I am glad about that," I tried to smile, which is not easy when one is wet and cold. "I made a promise to my wife that I would come home safe."

The wind had increased even since I had come on deck, and now a squall struck us, howling through the rigging like a tormented soul. Soutar placed his feet even more firmly on the deck and tightened his grip on the wheel. His knuckles shone white against the varnished wood.

"Well, you"re in good hands, Mr Cosgrove, as long as you do what you"re told." He looked upward and all around. "I wouldn"t like to be John Pratt though. Not now."

"Why is that?" I waited until Soutar relaxed a little, although his eyes were never still as they checked the stars, the rigging and the compass in a ceaseless circle of movement. However calm he appeared, Soutar was aware of everything that was happening in the ship and within the radius of his vision. "Why would you not like to be Mr Pratt?"

Soutar shook his head, frowning. "Captain Milne won"t forget John stood up to him, that"s why. He"s not finished with old John yet. Not ever on this voyage." He glanced at me again. "Don"t argue with Captain Milne, Mr Cosgrove," he repeated once more. "Not if you value your health."

I nodded, reliving again the sudden violence of Milne"s attack on Pratt, and the manner in which the old seaman had accepted the blows without retaliating. It was more surprising because Pratt was taller by at least four inches and must have accumulated a vast amount of brawling experience throughout his life. "I"ll remember that," I said.

Soutar shifted his tobacco and squirted another stream over the side. "Best to, Mr Cosgrove." He was silent for a long moment but when he spoke, his voice was low, as if he was scared of being overheard on that wind-tormented deck in the wastes of the northern Atlantic.

"We should be glad that Captain Milne is in charge, Mr Cosgrove, for some of the boys are unhappy to sail on a ship with nothing to drink; and there was that crow on the deckhouse just before we sailed…" he shook his head again. "And then that nonsense over the ballast. I only hope that this is a short voyage."

I looked at him, shaking my head. I knew that seamen used to be superstitious, but surely not in this twentieth century? Perhaps there were still some old salts such as John Pratt, but he was a product of an earlier age, a nineteenth century seaman nearing the end of his time at sea. "I am sure that we"ll be all right."

Soutar adjusted the wheel slightly as the wind altered. "I"ve been at sea for upwards of twenty years, Mister Cosgrove, and I"ve seen many bad things, but I"ve never been on a dry ship and…" he looked astern, where our wake was white and straight across the dark sea. "I"ll be glad to get back to the Tay, Doctor, and that"s all that I"m saying."

In the overcast, gusty night there was no need to hide my smile, but I was a surgeon, trained to obey the laws of science, and then I had no place for fantasy, superstition or luck, good or bad. "Well, Mr Soutar, let"s hope that you are wrong and we enjoy an uneventful voyage."

Soutar eyed me for only a second before transferring his attention to the ship. "Aye, Mr Cosgrove, we can only hope." He was silent for a while, and then glanced to starboard. "Sweet God in heaven, Mr Cosgrove! Look at that!"

A subtle shaft of moonlight had penetrated the clouds to gleam on the white sails of another ship.

"Where the hell did she come from? And she"s making straight for us!"