The Lighthouse Stevensons - Bella Bathurst [44]
One example of this was the rations permitted to each man. The list Robert drew up was based on naval diets at the time, which had often been criticised for their parsimony and lack of nourishment. Even so, sailors on His Majesty’s warships were allowed a full daily allowance of bread, pork and cheese, plus a gallon of beer each evening. At the Bell Rock, by contrast, each man was to be allowed a meagre ration of ship’s biscuit, beef, oatmeal, barley, and a few vegetables; once a week, they were allowed a little beer. Similarly, work on the reef began at 5 a.m. in mid-summer, and would often end after 8 or 9 p.m. if the weather was fine. Even Robert’s stern belief that the Sabbath should be kept sacred was subsumed to the pressure of work. Sundays were to be working days, he dictated, the same as any other. ‘Surely,’ as Robert remarked later by way of justification, ‘if under any circumstances it is allowable to go about the ordinary labours of mankind on Sundays, that of the erection of a lighthouse upon the Bell Rock seems to be one of the most pressing calls which could…occur, and carries along with it the imperious language of necessity.’ Robert’s tolerance of the builders’ occasional fits of superstition or protest was naturally limited.
The first full day of work, 16 August 1807, was marked with a modest celebratory ceremony. ‘The piers, though at a late hour, were perfectly crowded,’ wrote Robert in his journal, ‘and just as the Smeaton cleared the harbour, all on board united in giving three hearty cheers…The writer felt much satisfaction at the manner of this parting scene; though he must own that the present rejoicing was, on his part, mingled with occasional reflections upon the responsibility of his situation.’ The first task was to prepare the rock for the foundations of both the workmen’s barracks and the tower. In addition to the dense scribbles of seaweed, the men discovered ‘a great variety of articles on the rock, [and] some silver and copper coins. On Tuesday they found a ship’s marking iron lettered JAMES.’ Once uncluttered, the rock became, if anything, more dangerous, its surface so slippery that even the mildest fall meant injury.
The sea was also troublesome; the workmen became used to seeing a morning’s work swept away by a single wave, and to debilitating binges of seasickness. Until the barrack was completed, the workers were forced to stay on the Smeaton, which heaved like a funfair ride in bad weather. Having endured twenty-seven hours of one gale-force storm, during which he was hurled to the floor ‘in an undressed state’ several times, Robert suggested sailing for the shore. The captain informed him cheerily that they would very likely end up suffering the same fate as any other sailor round the Firth of Forth, and either dash themselves to pieces on the Bell Rock itself or on the Isle of May. The gale lost them ten days of work in all, and when Robert finally returned to the rock, he discovered that six vast blocks of granite and the smith’s anvil had been dislodged from their places and hurled to opposite ends of the reef. Robert’s scepticism about grandiose claims of the sea’s power was being replaced with a lively respect.
Even when on the rock, the workmen were not always safe. In one particularly alarming incident, the Smeaton came adrift from her moorings while thirty-two of the men were working on the foundations. Robert, who was standing on a ledge a little further off, noticed the boat bobbing away from the rock and realised instantly that, without her, the workmen would almost certainly be drowned as the tide rose. He stood speechless, torn, as he wrote later, ‘between hope and despair’. If he warned the men, he knew, they would only panic