Алистер Маклин - The Lonely Sea

‘You saw her?’

‘I saw her. Shouted to her to get as far up the cliff as she could. Then I ran all the way here.’

The wind was booming outside now, rising up to gale force. How long, I thought frantically, could a little girl hang on in that. Men, ropes, but no, that overhang of the Sunda cliff…

I started and turned as a sudden blast of wind blew papers all over the office floor. Michael Tallon had the door open, his father just behind him, crutches already under his arms. It was John Tallon who spoke.

‘We’ll be back in the half-hour,’ he said quietly. ‘You can come if you like – but it’s a wild night.’

And, my heaven, it was a wild night. The Jeannie rolled and pitched her way across the bar as if every shuddering plunge into the troughs was going to be her last, but she was a tough old craft with a Gleniffer diesel and John knew how every single combing wave was setting towards us even although it was as black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat. He handled that boat as if he had been born with a tiller under his arm.

We had to quarter our way round Sunda Point – if we had gone broadside into any of these steepwalled troughs we’d have broached to and foundered in a matter of moments – and, by Jove, it’s a trip I don’t want ever to do again. What with the howling of the wind, the thunder beginning to rumble, the rain and the spray tearing at our faces and the wild staggering of the Jeannie – well, as I say, once in a lifetime was once too many.

But we made it, and in a few minutes we were running into Sunda Bay, into the comparative quiet of the water behind the point.

We were maybe 40 yards off the cliff – the sand was already deep under water – when John shoved the Gleniffer into reverse and shouted on Michael to let go the anchor. Surefooted as a cat in the darkness, picking his way with uncanny precision through the boxes, lines and ropes that lay always in the same tidy positions on deck, Michael Tallon moved to the bows and 30 seconds later the Jeannie was anchored head-on to the mouth of the bay, the Gleniffer just ticking over to take part of the strain, the counter swinging wildly only two or three feet from the face of the cliff.

It wasn’t really a cliff at the bottom – but it wasn’t far off it. Halfway up the rock bulged out a wicked overhang, and it was just below this that we saw Mairi right away, her white blouse plain against the darkness of the rock. She was hanging on to a spur for dear life, and in the sudden lulls between the gusts of wind we could hear the wee soul crying.

We all waited for Michael to fetch her – it wasn’t a difficult jump ashore, nor the climb too dangerous for an active young man like himself. Old John couldn’t go – not with only one leg. I suppose Glass or myself could have gone, but don’t forget neither of us would ever see 65 again.

I don’t think I was ever more dumbfounded in my life than when I saw Michael hesitating, making no move at all to go – and I’ll never forget the anguished expression on his father’s face – I was by his shoulder – as he sat there, just watching him.

‘You despicable young coward!’ Duncan Glass, now that he saw his granddaughter still safe, was back on balance again and his voice was the lash of a whip. ‘You’re a damned good man – when you’re sitting with a child’s sketchbook in your hand. But if I ever see you again within a mile…’

He choked in anger, made to push past Michael, then sat down with a gasp on a coil of rope as an iron arm caught him by the lapels and forced him off his feet. Michael Tallon paused only to say a few soft words to his father, bent his ear to the reply, then leapt ashore.

Not quite three feet, yet he almost missed it. His ankle seem to give under him, he tottered back wildly on his heels, his arms flailing, then recovered his balance at the last moment, caught hold of a projecting rock and started climbing.

I didn’t see all of the climb – it was too dark for that – but what I did see I wouldn’t have believed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so clumsy on a rock face. Cat-footed as a tightrope walker on a rolling deck, he was quite lost on a cliff-face. He fumbled and pawed and slipped his way up to where the little girl lay crying, and my heart was never out of my mouth. But reach her he did, caught her in one arm – the poor wee girl was near exhaustion by this time – and made his way slowly, awkwardly, down again. He was so engrossed in what he was doing that I’ll swear he’d have stepped into the sea if old John hadn’t shouted a warning.

The rain had almost stopped now, and the wind changed – changed so that the stern of the Jeannie had moved out seven or eight feet. Duncan it was who caught up a heaving line and threw an end to Michael so that he could pull the stern close in. The line hit Michael on the chest, and fell into the water before he could clutch it.

Duncan Glass pulled in the line, coiled it and flung it once more. Michael lifted his hand to catch it as it whistled towards him, but again he missed it – it seemed to strike the back of his wrist and glanced off into the sea.

‘For God’s sake man, are you blind?’ Glass shouted in exasperation. He hauled in the rope, but I took it from him, and threw it carefully so that it fell over Michael’s shoulders. My mouth was dry, I felt as cold as the tomb.

‘He is blind, Duncan,’ I said, and my voice was only a trembling whisper. ‘He’s completely stone blind.’

And he was. The rest we learned later that night, sitting before a great fire in Glass’s library, stiff tots of whisky in our hands.

‘We were both in the same train smash, Lord Glass,’ old John was saying. He seemed to be glad to be talking, glad that the secrecy and concealment were all over. ‘That’s how I got my leg – well, shortened a bit. And Michael – he got hurt at the same time. He – well, you’ve seen, he doesn’t see too well.’

Doesn’t see too well, I thought – the boy moved in a world of utter dark! The longer I sat there, the clearer things became – and the more I writhed in shame, for myself and my people. No wonder the boy had never left his father’s side. No wonder everything on the deck of the Jeannie had always been in exactly the same place. No wonder, now, that he moved so surefootedly aboard in the dark – day and night were all the same to Michael Tallon. And no wonder that he had had little Mairi describe everything so minutely to him – not only had he wanted to ‘see’ the new world he was living in, but he himself, we found, was an artist, just finishing his final year in the School of Art and she had represented for him the one place where his real interest in life lay – or had lain.

‘But good God, man,’ – it was Glass speaking – ‘Why did you never tell us?’

‘Because there is – or was – hope for him yet.’ Old John sounded suddenly tired. ‘They told us in Glasgow that there’s a man in Baltimore, in Johns Hopkins Hospital, who’s a genius in the particular eye surgery Michael needs. So – well, we were trying to save a little money to go there and pay for the operation.’

The simplicity of it all, the magnificence of it all, left Glass and myself with nothing to say. A onelegged man, a blind boy, the bitter toil from the dawn till long beyond the sunset – no, this lay beyond tears…After a while, Glass said weakly: ‘But you could still have told us.’

‘And lost my fishing licence? A blind crew? Where would the money have come from then?’

‘I don’t know, I don’t know at all.’ Glass drained his whisky tumbler, sat still for a moment, then smiled, a long slow smile. ‘But, by God, I know where it’s coming from now.’