8 Knots

After dosing himself well and good, Masterson wobbled gaily up the deck ladder to watch the new world float by with the others.  On first view, the place looked just like home – except the sun was being considerably kinder.  He thought there would be no sun this far north but it was blasting down now on the island of Suðuroy, making its hillocks plump and full-blooded, and the sugar-cube cottages that lay cozily in the valleys sparkled sherbet white.  But as beautiful as the scenery was, he seemed to have missed most of it, as it appeared Dolores had come to the island’s northwestern edges and would soon lift out in search of Streymoy, and their destination, the town of Torshavn.    

‘Well, what do you think of the Faroes?’ Stinson asked when he spotted the surfacing enigma.

‘Not at all bad,’ Masterson replied.  ‘They’re not short of winged pests, are they?’

‘Pests?  Come on, don’t be a spoilsport.  Look at those wonderful creatures.  How great are his works, Masterson, how great are his works!’

They were nearly clear of Suðuroy but there was still an untold wealth of birds to be seen on the northernmost side of the island, gobbling and hooting.   

‘Masterson here is speaking ill of the lord’s creatures, Teddy,’ Stinson informed the third priest, who was standing close by, gobbling and hooting back like an idiot.

‘Now, hold on there, young fellow,’ cried Masterson.  ‘I like that one’, pointing at a tall charcoal cormorant standing imperially on the last visible basalt column while a syndicate of gulls bumped chests underneath; the cormorant was sovereign-black like the old crow he’d met in Killybegs – Masterson suddenly felt a kind of harmony between himself and these high-falutin’ feathered ones.

‘Imagine the creatures we have waiting for us in Greenland,’ said Stinson.  ‘The wolves, the polar bears – lion-headed penguins and the like.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Geissel.  ‘You don’t get penguins in the Arctic.  You’ll only see them in the Antarctic.’

‘Lion-headed penguins,’ scoffed Masterson.  ‘You complete gowl, ya!  Where’d you get that tidbit?  Don’t tell me.  Our learned friend from the University of Ramsgate?’

‘No, my father, as it happens.’

Aidan Stinson was no fool, but he had an extraordinary talent for belief, a talent which his parents had noticed early on and chosen to nourish above other things.  He grew up with no limitations on his imagination, or trust, or even what many might have described as prudence.  His openness to the world’s curiosities and possibilities had very likely been one of the reasons he entered priesthood in the first place; it was a tried and tested faith he had in all things seen and unseen – and it arrived at the church doors unquestioned.  If he’d known that his overprotective (and well-meaning, it has to be said) father had conjured up such mythical animals simply to undermine the existence of real beasts in the world – lion-headed penguins for example were ‘ferocious but too soft on their flippers to catch you and eat you’) – would he have followed up that appointment with God at all?   

The three clergymen found themselves standing together, for the first time since they set sail, watching the first paradise of birds roll back into the clouds.  The next paradise was a few hours away, but like blissful fugitives surveying the first spot of land, they saw only this paradise for now, and that would do.

An auspicious start, thought Littlewood to himself, knowing as he did the strong Atlantic winds that were of a mind to catch you coming in west of the Faroes.  They were cruising in now at only 8 knots but Dolores could have picked her speed up easily as there was not the smell of a breath in the air.  First port would serve up no heartache perhaps; his only concern now was would Grimur Passer know who the bloody hell he was.