The Lighthouse Stevensons - Bella Bathurst [88]
After all the mines were bored and charged and the tide had risen, and every one had retired from the spot, the whole were fired at the same instant, by means of the galvanic battery, to the great amazement and even terror of some of the native boatmen, who were obviously much puzzled to trace the mysterious links which connected the drawing of a string at the distance of about 11 yards, with a low murmur, like distant thunder, and a sudden commotion of the waters in the landing-place, which boiled up, and then belched forth a dense cloud of smoke; nor was their surprise lessened when they saw that it had been followed by a large rent in the rock, for so effectually had the simultaneous firing of the mine done its work, that a flat face for a quay had been cleared in a moment.
A gale followed soon afterwards, stripping the rock of several timbers, the smith’s bellows and all the moorings, including a ladder and several wooden fenders. It was the second set of moorings that the sea had stolen. Alan took it as a further sour omen that Skerryvore did not mean to give in easily.
On 3 September, Alan left the reef and returned to Edinburgh. Despite his preoccupation with the works, he had still maintained a regular correspondence with his father, and was expected to give a full account of all his operations to the Commissioners. Robert and the Board expected Alan to justify everything from the cost of chisels to the workmen’s diet. Every penny was counted up, counted round and counted back over and over again. He also managed to arbitrate in a railway dispute, draw up plans for riverworks in Preston and contribute a sizeable entry on sea lights to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In his absence, David had moved shrewdly into position within the family business, finding the office ‘greatly in want of someone to devote to it his undivided and constant attention’. Robert had made him a full partner, and entrusted him with much of the work for the Convention of Scottish Burghs. Tom, meanwhile, was in Cardiff, learning how to be an obedient engineer. The winter, though a respite from the working season, was no rest for Alan. The long nights moored on the tender or in the workyard at Hynish had at least offered a brief solitude; Baxter’s Place, under his father’s fretful attention, did not.
Work on Skerryvore began again in April 1841, and for the first time the men were able to abandon the lighthouse tender for the barracks. It had lasted the seven months of winter largely unscathed, though Alan noticed that five tons of rock had been cleared by the sea from the foundation pit. Once stores were landed, the men moved in. They rapidly discovered that they suffered just as much in the barracks as on the boat. It had been fitted out with hammocks, a small cooking stove, fresh-water tanks and a few provisions, but the space was so cramped that there was nowhere to store anything but essentials. When it rained the men stayed wet as the barracks was too small to store spare dry clothes, and during heavy rains, the rooms were often flooded with water. When a storm started, Alan and the men endured a comfortless few days trapped in the barracks, waiting and watching. Since the rooms couldn’t be heated, they spent most of their time in bed,
listening to the howling of the winds and the beating of the waves, which occasionally made the house tremble in a startling manner. Such a scene, with the ruins of the former barrack not 20 yards from us, was calculated only to inspire the most desponding anticipations; and I well remember the undefined sense of dread that flashed across my mind, on being awakened one night by a heavy sea which struck the Barrack, and made my cot or hammock swing inwards from the wall, and was immediately followed by a cry of terror from the men in the apartment above me, most of whom, startled by the sound and tremor, immediately sprang from their berths to the floor, impressed with the idea that the whole fabric had been washed into the