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By Root 763 0

and try something foolhardy. So the oblivious builders hammered on, and the boat drifted further and further away. Finally, when the tide had risen so far that work became impossible, the men gathered by the moorings for the two smaller boats,, normally used only to transport provisions. As they did so, they realised what had happened. ‘Not a word was uttered by anyone, but all appeared to be silently calculating their numbers…the workmen looked steadfastly upon the writer and turned occasionally towards the vessel, still far to leeward. All this passed in the most perfect silence, and the melancholy solemnity of the group made an impression never to be effaced from the mind.’ Robert was about to shout instructions to the men – to remove all ballast from the remaining boats, to cling to the gunwales – but found himself mute with fear. As he stooped down to moisten his lips with water, ‘someone called out “a boat, a boat!” and, on looking around, at no great distance a large boat was seen through the haze making towards the rock.’ It was, in fact, the supply boat, which had arrived purely by chance with a consignment of letters. The men piled in, unhappily aware that most, if not all of them, would have been left to drown if they had stayed much longer. Robert remained haunted for the rest of his life by the experience. Though he passed it off calmly enough at the time, it made him doubly aware of his responsibilities and of his powers. James Spink, captain of the supply boat, was rewarded afterwards with a lifelong pension and a full lighthouse uniform. The men, meanwhile, had to be persuaded with some force ever to set foot on the rock again.

For the first month, the men began constructing the temporary beacon and the iron pillars for the workmen’s barrack. Once the beacon was lit, work began on the foundations for the tower itself. While the diggers and borers picked away at the unyielding surface of the reef, Robert busied himself with logistics. Landing the stone blocks, he discovered, was often troublesome – in a pitching sea, transferring one-ton lumps of granite from the cargo boat to the rock was both fiddly and dangerous. And, since each block had been individually cut and shaped to slot into its dovetailed groove, any damage was fatal. Robert tried various solutions, including floating the blocks on cork at high tide in the hope that they would settle on the reef at low tide, and sinking a couple of stone-filled containers onto the rock. Neither method was satisfactory, so eventually Robert suggested the construction of a cast-iron railway to ferry blocks from the landing-place to the foundation pit. It was a costly but useful solution, influenced by Robert’s fascination with railways. More conventionally, Robert used a horse and cart to draw stones or deliver provisions at the Arbroath workyard. As a result, Robert developed a great soft spot for Bassey the horse and considered his contribution to the works as valuable as any of the men’s.

By the time work was abandoned in early October 1807 for the winter, Robert was satisfied by progress. The temporary floating light was now ready and working, the workmen’s barracks was nearing completion and work was progressing well on the foundations for the tower. The day before Robert left, John Rennie appeared for a tour of inspection. ‘I propose myself much pleasure in the viewing of your operations,’ he wrote to Robert shortly before his visit. ‘This will be heightened if in the interim you can bargain with old Neptune to favour us with a quiet sea while I am on board the floating light. I hate your Rolling Seas…however, my good Sir, we are so tossed and tumbled about in the good Theatre Of Life that it must be taken rough and smooth as it comes our way.’ He added a brief, awkward postscript, commending Robert and the Bell Rock to their ghostly mentor, Smeaton: ‘Poor old fellow, I hope he will now and then take a peep of us and inspire you with fortitude and courage to brave all difficulties and dangers, to accomplish a work which will, if successful, immortalise you