Red or Green
Menacing. That is the word that springs to mind when you first meet him. Of average height, Davie has the sort of build that makes you immediately think “rugby”. His features, while neither handsome nor ugly, possess an underlying quality of aggression. This impression is enhanced by the scars. One runs from the inside of his right eye, up and into his close cropped hair. The other, horizontally across his right cheek. As I said, menacing.
It all goes to prove how wrong first impressions can be. He is not a man who thinks that care for others is something to be aspired to. He thinks that it should happen without thought, and especially without thought of reward.
Coming from a “fisher family”, he has spent most of his working life at sea. He had hoped to follow his father as skipper of his own boat but this turned out to be impossible. Passing a skipper’s, or even a mate’s ticket was out of the question due to colour blindness. In another man, having to work as a deckhand on a boat which you partially own would rankle, but he accepted the situation and showed no bitterness over having to take orders from someone who, when on shore, was his employee.
No matter what the authorities might say about his colour blindness, no one in their right mind would keep a man of his experience off the crew of the local lifeboat. Especially after the Fruitful Bough incident.
The shout had come just after midnight to say that the Fruitful Bough was drifting, without power, towards the reef known as the Scares of Hummel. The lifeboat was launched and ploughed through the rising seas towards the stricken vessel. When contact was made, the floodlights revealed that the trawler had passed through a narrow gap in the Scares and had grounded on the rocks at the base of the cliff. With the rising tide and the imminent storm, it was imperative that the crew were taken off.
The Cox’n eyed the gap with, if not exactly fear, at least trepidation.
“Get Davie up here” he shouted.
“What do you think Davie?”
“She’ll go through, and it’s deep in there, so we can get the bow right up to her quarter and get the lads off directly.”
The Cox’n’s next words went against all the rules.
“You’ve got the helm then.”
The rescue was a classic piece of pilotage. The lifeboat went through the gap with inches to spare and nudged up against the Fruitful Bough. One at a time, as the decks came level, the crew stepped across until all had been evacuated. Davie then used the thrusters in the stern and bow to turn the lifeboat on the spot until she lined up with the gap.
At the enquiry, the Cox’n was asked why he had allowed an unqualified crewman to take command of the lifeboat.
“Local knowledge, and anyway, there’s no fuckin’ lights in there; red or green.”
blackrig 