Unable to swim himself, he had learned to his amazement that many of these coastal sailors could not swim at all, and they considered a spill from a boat a justified death for such grievous clumsiness, like a poor parry to a sword blow from a skilled combatant.

  He became confused in these jumbled rememberings. For instance, the crossing over from what he called ‘the continent’ – by which he meant the mainland of Scotland – to the islands was, in legend, said to be in violent tempest, breaking the bowsprit. But that was not how he recalled it – all his life he remembered it as ominously calm, while he lay undone by seasickness. He recalled another, far more storm-lashed crossing. Strange how time fragments experience into splinters, passed between us all in words alone, in boasts, alarms and propagandas, until the truth itself is mere dispute.

  With Donald MacLeod in considerable doubt about the weather, they had cast off northward for Lewis in their familiar boat, the oarsmen of the previous voyage in their places, and the pace seemed promising, the prospects deceptively fair. The Prince took up position near the bow, O’Sullivan at his side – and there they both stood, silhouetted against the fast-failing light, to take advantage of every moment of brief northern darkness, faces to the fore, the ominous breeze bothering their neckerchiefs, the lapels of their jackets, a supportive hand each onto the bare mast while they drove deeper, as the men lunged at the eight oars behind them. Father Macdonald, having adopted his assumed title, rested on the bottom of the boat towards the stern – uncommonly dry for now – splayed, as casual as if he were throwing dice on a drawing-room carpet. Behind him was the polished crossbench from where Donald operated the tiller. All of them besuited in what they considered ready appropriateness for the probable incursion of government raiding parties or search sorties. To be able to maintain they were not who they really were, under false names and purpose, beneath these tousy, alien skies – perhaps as all pass through this world, in delusion and deluding.

  Like phantoms, then, these rash adventurers crossed between the islets in the new dark unknown, and longing to be unknown in their fugitive form, their continuance and survival was a matter of mystery given the odds, as if it really were God’s will. If they were grabbed by this night on the waters, beneath the opaque surfaces of the depths, if all their eyes closed for that final time, who would ever have learned the final fate of these brigands, as each of their bodies were pulled to the base of the sea, as if on lines of firm cord, to be the food of crabs and crawling beasties without name? If the boat was capsized, and its heavy wood outweighed its fragile buoyancy, rather than be swept shoreward cleaned of its men, it too would have been slow-turned in the huge mixes of water towards the sandy bottom, where it would rest inverted like a slumped tent, soon silted over and rotted by the chemistries of decay always enacted upon things of the upper world now descended into the lightless places. Swords, dirks, the metal pot, pistols, muskets and coin would descend most swiftly – almost vertically. Perhaps only a single oar unjammed from its thole-pin would float and lap on the surface for many days, eventually berthing on a distant, lonely shore, to be bleached and harried by seasons until a wandering crofter collecting sea kelp in his rope-woven net bucket found that lance of wood, lodged by several winter storms between rocks; it would be carried on a shoulder to the sheiling, used to prop an outhouse corner, the unknown monument to their gloomy fate.

  ‘On the raft again, my dear father Sinclair? Is it not fine sailing weather to be on our way this night?’ the Prince yelled from the bow, so the whole boat could hear – or at least the constituency of English speakers.

  O’Sullivan smiled, called back to the jesting: ‘Why, my good son John Sinclair, your kinship and company make it so. Is it not in our very bones to sail? For sailor folk like us, the ways are in our blood, being of fine Orkni Isles stock, born and bred to oar and sail.’

  ‘Aye, my good father. It is your sturdy tutoring in seafaring ways from youth upward made me the bawdy salt fellow I am tonight. When in youthful disgrace as a child, you would ever slap my bared arse hard with a fish. Why, it is on the land alone I feel queasinesses galore. Here now is my born element. I take this air with joy; this sea is my sought-after paradise in all its form.’ The Prince acted out a huge inhalation to his lungs so that he shook his head, then lifted a clenched fist skyward. ‘I feel my loins invigorated moment by moment.’

  ‘Yes, true son. It is in the blood of coastal traders such as we bear. And if I might caution you, does this invigoration account for your shoreside carousals with lassies high- and low-born, in notorious taverns and sites of infamy? Oh, John Sinclair, is it not true you are the terror of the lovers found in all ports? What is that toast you make so often to dark-eyed Frenchy princesses? You don’t find such temptations in the teeming ports of Boulogne and Leith alone?’

  The Prince grinned. ‘Not in these waters. Oh no, my father. Don’t scold in that manner so common to strict scions. The dark-eyed princess I toast comes from a nobility and a right of kings beyond your rank to question, Mr Sinclair.’

  O’Sullivan looked a little chastened – yet risked his mocking jest more. ‘But what of the lassies of Mull island, where once we were all bound from fair France? Is it not true that there you broke hearts aplenty, were pursued by fathers across valley-glens, far from your own chosen waters and boats? And then there was that wanton barmaid, a brown-haired lass of Oban, whom I learn you and the poets all celebrate – another set of dashing eyes on her, I believe?’

  ‘More than eyes, dear father, more than dashing eyes.’

  ‘Aye. I heard tell that you put a ton of dry wheat on the shore there, but more your true intention was fresh oats to put in, son of mine.’

  ‘True. She was the dashing sort, Father. I confess, she could serve tavern whisky while sat upon your knee, and it was a shock when I calculated why she could not move from her place there in my lap, so firmly lodged upon me, as sure as this mast here in its fitting place . . . It is another strong defence of why we should wear the kilt at all times and not the affected trouser of the south, such a practical garment is the kilt in all ways.’

  O’Sullivan guffawed. ‘How your mother would lament, son. Another hungry bairn’s mouth claiming your support.’ He turned and cast an eye into the gloom of the boat. ‘Attention there, Mr Graham. Mr Graham, do you hear this about my only son, John Sinclair – did you accompany my boy on this voyage of pleasures? I am only glad there is no man of the church aboard our vessel this eve to over-hear, only Mr Graham back there, another honest tradesman plying the portals of commerce, who would pass as a steady counter of coin . . .’

  ‘What is that you say, Father? A cunter of coin, was it? Are you talking of the tavern maid again?’

  O’Sullivan snorted with delight. ‘Mr Graham would pass as a counter of coin – or such – to any naval officer of the withered Crown on these waters. Of it, I am sure.’

  ‘Jest on, Mr Sinclair,’ Father Macdonald shouted. ‘Jest on with your terrible talk and, with my other true self, I will pray you are right when another John – John Bull of the Navy – stands before you.’

  ‘Hear that, son of mine! We have a tender to prayer on board this eve – why, I thought he was a man of commerce, but he tends to the pampering of your soul, as well as rattles among those shoreside lassies.’

  ‘Mr Graham is pure, but he would need a mighty prayer to cover all my straying, I fear, Father.’

  ‘Well said, my only child.’

  Ned laughed delightedly at his oar, and Father Macdonald shook his head. ‘Don’t join them in their daft play, Ned, my boy.’

  ‘No, no. You are my boy. You are my boy.’ O’Sullivan chuckled at the Prince, giving hearty slaps upon his shoulder.

  ‘It’s true, dear Papa, I am your boy, so defend me now from his judgements. For it was true love. Until she stood up and her skirts fell into place.’

  The bow dipped into a swell and the boat lifted more.

  Donald MacLeod shouted, ‘All our judgements may be coming sooner than your reckonings, gentlemen. And if the two Mr Sinclairs to fore there might shout out in more useful voice when they see any big toasters rearing before us, I will have the boys lifting oars in good time. Row up the sides, and lift to go down any monster, lads, for pity’s sake, please.’

  O’Sullivan changed his tone of voice. ‘Are we far out now, MacLeod? Is this the rolling of open seas?’

  ‘It’s the rolling of what I cannae see. I needs steer her straight up the slopes and go across the tops clean, never splayed. Put your eyes ahead of us, please, and shout if it seems we top a riser with the far side drop. Keep heaving, lads, we should have upped sail a while back; the wind is not aligned the ways I had reckoned. As I protested so onshore.’

  The Prince and O’Sullivan fell silent in their games, glaring ahead onto the increasingly swelling surface, squinting, looking for that worst sign: a swell that begins to dissent and boil froth on the very summit of an unstable water mound. They both kneeled, fists on the foretop by the broken bowsprit stub, while the boat entered more of a sideways roll than formerly.

  The Prince shouted out a rally: ‘We shall manage all, my fine fellows, we shall manage, I assure you now. Chance is on our side. Heave, young Calum. See, men, he pulls to make me proud, as you all do. Young Murdoch MacLeod here stood with us by the Culloden House, out of school with five years and ten. There’s Ned Burke heaving oar. You MacDonalds. Though I cannot quite see you. Never braver men – like the Greeks of ancient days, always at oar, I know you and your names. Tell those ones the same in Gaelic.’

  The wind increased upon their faces within the swift hour, pushing their eyes into furrows of flesh. A vapour smoke blew off the razor ridges of the biggest tumblers that appeared out of the dark before them. The boat smacked down over the tops of these glens and spilled along the far sides, which became spoiled with frothing as the sea grew more demented by the wind. With an outright, grasping agitation, their craft shivered up further sides of water and every plank vibrated, drumming out the white caulking from between the curved boards. The Prince and O’Sullivan would turn from their pilot work – such as it was – ‘A big one comes, a big one comes, row, row!’ they screamed, and to keep up spirits even laughed together at their repeated dousings.

  The fellows leaned to oars, desperate to power up the towers, and then they lifted oars in unison to drop into the repeating abysses below. MacLeod heaved at the tiller, often rising onto his feet to push with both arms at full deflection, keeping that bow straight for topping the ascent – as if they were on some fairground ride of the far future, into the billows and out of the troughs as they came.

  Back waves terrorised them most, a glut spilling over the transom, so Father Macdonald was on his knees in the lapping basin of salt water, scraping frantically, cupping out handfuls across the sides until his fingers were lacerated and bleeding from the speed of his scooping and gouging at the boards.

  The ocean pulled grimly at them. ‘Should we haul sail-up, to speed from this?’ Ned screamed.

  MacLeod spat water from his face. ‘Nay, nay. In rollers as these, you shorten any sail – any inch sail will coup us, for sure.’

  ‘Is it doom, MacLeod? Is this to be our end? Give me knowledge of the end, so I can prepare myself. This is a cursed boat: it was the son of Borrodale’s, who fell among us at Culloden House.’

  Macleod spat again. ‘Quiet yourself, Ned, it does nae good. Keep at the task. Captain O’Sullivan, please not to drop that pot over the side, or my wife will have me worse than any ending here.’

  O’Sullivan had fallen to the bailing, angling the pot mouth into the accumulations and trying to tip it overboard without falling, or adding to the imbalances of the craft which so worried them.

  The weather grew worse, the waters sizzling round about. Surely once they felt their low keel strike the bottom, or was it the shells and stones of the profundity, cast up in violence, hitting their undersides? What of the beasts of the sea – seals, whales and fish in all their forms – why wouldn’t they circle this vessel and scream to be taken aboard, into a temporary sanctuary? How were they not smashed together and killed? The birds of the upper places in this turbulent air had ceased to fly, but the swimming things were helpless in choice of element. Maybe the sea was bloodied red in this darkness, with the massacres of eels and cod bashed together, their lippy mouths gasping up for air in an instant before they were sucked below?

  Most of the rowers prayed aloud in Gaelic, an ululation to accompany the trickles of water down the inner sides of their hull, the crashing of the prow, the spills and torrents of peril about them.

  Then, at last, they sensed a sudden change in the nature of the great floor beneath them. The swells lengthened in timing between each crisis. To gauge the coast, MacLeod lowered his chin strangely onto the gunwale, though each rocking placed his mouth almost level to the water’s surface. He hauled the tiller and shouted in Gaelic. The rowing ceased, and two men rose – the sail man took the halyard, and the sail cloth ascended, cracked full, as the boat accelerated crazily ahead.

  ‘We’ve cleared the head, sirs, but for God’s sake watch to fore for the white of breakers and listen, listen with all your ears what we are coming in on. Silence those prayers, men. It is listening out for the breaking of waves ahead will save us, no praying – if we come in on rugged shore or cliff, we are undone, and will have to drop that sail and row to fight back out, try to come in leagues north. This we will only manage by luck as the wind is set. Pray for the light of dawn – but pray silently.’ He repeated these instructions in hoarse voice, using Gaelic.

  Nothing seemed to lie ahead of them, and the swell diminished, so MacLeod abandoned his haste, dropped sail and headed further north by oar alone, letting an hour pass as the elements calmed and the fear of inundation seemed less, until, with an infinite gentleness, the uprising of first light lifted a roiling roof of metallic cloud shapes above, then, shortly after, a long, low daub of higher ground showed to the west. They made directly inward to a thread of flat shoreline, born of that dawn with no knowledge of where the place was.

  Chapter 5

  On Corradale, young Neil MacEachain the schoolmaster had taken to spending all his time with the Prince. They had been hunting together since the darkness depleted, the Prince having commandeered one shortened gun. He had come from his cottage, and MacEachain from his sleeping place on a dried heather bed in the rough pantry.

  In that frail light, which to weary eyes seemed to tremble, they walked some time without talking, stepping towards the Minch in that astonishing waste. By their sodden footwear, tall dew-soaked grass tufts tipped suddenly in soft breeze; the sightlines about them were immense. Over a lash of rippled water which moved, despite its illusory stillness, was a further fretted coast – or a universe of low coasts, placed one ahint another, as receding and jutting lochs confused the logic of the gaze. They had learned that what you saw among this mishmash of islands and flow lands was never apparent until you were just upon it; that the way ahead could resist passage due to a water channel, or that the risings hid coastal inlets; that seemingly horizontal land was a maze of small black baths reflecting the sky; that drops steepened and firmness underfoot became sucking bog with a single stride. Shortly, the two men were to be trapped on an island after being landed, leading to a hysterical fit of the Prince’s, thinking himself marooned. Gradually, the tide was to recede, revealing an isthmus walkway to the main body of land, which they could walk across without even immersing their feet. They were used to this country, these Fata Morgana: all was mirage until you were upon it, as if continually moving into a new world of surprising immediacy, inventing itself in relation to your own arrival.

  The inedible early birds, peewits or wagtails, shot up like sprung traps from their ground nests, and they hovered and screamed above; the two men lifted what eggs they found and selfishly ate them raw, immediately spitting shell shards from their lips, dapple-flecked convex, pearled inner concave. Herring gulls passed over low, curiously silent like possible informers, then tipped away. As if they had emerged from a cave, the western light was now translucent to them, and the brightening air was midge-free.

  The Prince had shot two times at birds in flight, looking around himself and giggling – the flat phut of each powder discharge eaten by the dolorous spaces about, forging no echo from those green heights of Hecla or Beinn Mhòr, to their rear on this long island.

  They were walking parallel to the shore and, with a near-vertical musket discharge that dislodged his bonnet, a gull had fallen like a stone bound in a handkerchief, but to the sea, too far out to retrieve as the currents tapped its broken white crescent wing further offshore.

  The Prince shook his head, let out a groan. ‘Heed, Neil, all flying fowl and winged things. What gift it must be to take to the wing at will and away.’

  ‘You have had to take to the wing, sire – in an earthly way.’

  ‘All too earthly.’ He nodded. ‘When we reach dry parlours, I will tip my head to the left and to the right for a month, and water shall leak from this ear on the carpets.’ He mimicked tipping his ear to the left, tugging at the lobe and shaking his head with vigour. ‘Oh, for a carpet.’

  MacEachain laughed. ‘Our clothes are overdue a drying fire.’

  ‘Have you thought, Neil, how the fowl govern their unusual movements through the skies above us? Why go here, why there? Is it God’s work in their dainty heads? Given wings, but despite having these abilities, some of these birds have chosen never to have departed this isle since they came from their oeufs? Yet sailors tell how some have crossed continents. Has a bird passed over our heads from a land a man has yet to walk upon?’ He looked out at the water and frowned. ‘I have fancy we are the first men to walk in many of these places.’ He used his thumb to rub at the flintlock cap. ‘When I was in the ducal states, the birds were a different affair. Many small things with no eating meat, what we called uccellinos. The diamante de Gould, the pecking faisan and that one . . . the name . . . but in French: pintade.’

 

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