The climax came when we ourselves, though making at least seven knots, were actually pooped. I then deserted the engine and with a small fender in one hand and an open clasp knife in the other, kept my eye on the dinghy ready to cut the painter the moment she filled. There was a good edge on the blade, for that morning, anticipating this particular emergency, I had surreptitiously sharpened it on a smooth granite slab in the Bull Hole.

I was now facing back on our course and, my eye lifting to the sky, was suddenly dismayed at the sight of clouds massing in darkness beyond the Torranan Rocks, that deep blue-darkness of a thunderstorm. I called the Mate’s attention to it. He chuckled. ‘If that gets us, we’ll know about it!’ Such a storm on top of the seas that were running—better perhaps to cut the painter at once and so get the extra speed to make the head and whatever grace if shelter might be beyond. I watched the sky anxiously. The wind was not directly astern, and the storm-centre seemed to be making its way towards Colonsay.

We had set our minds, days before, on going to Colonsay, then down the Sound of Islay between Islay and Jura, possibly staying a day or so on Jura to climb the Paps and see this new southern world, before proceeding up the coast of Jura and through the notorious dreaded Gulf of Coirebhreacain, for I had heard many tales about it from seamen in this part of the world—quite as hair-raising as its ancient legends. But my regrets were eased as the thunderstorm set in that direction, and at last we saw we should make Ardalanish Point before we got what would be no more than its outer edge. In our anxiety, we did not give it a wide enough berth and ran into a real nasty jabble of short slapping seas. I was learning that a headland can be something like a bottleneck for a wide bay, particularly with wind and tide behind, though along the Mull coast here the Admiralty chart had a note that some two or three miles off shore the tide rarely makes more than one knot, a note we had taken into consideration when we had first thought of starting at six in the morning. We now realised that a tide running at one knot against wind and sea (as it would have been, had we left at six) would have made a mighty difference to us at that moment, compared with this luck of having it running with us.

We rounded Ardalanish Point before the black edge of the storm touched us, and when it passed, we were heading for the Firth of Lorn with the dinghy still in tow and with the wind slackening behind. As if conscious of the blade that so recently had hesitated under the rope, that small craft began to modify her yawing tactics in a shamefaced way, and I got up from my wet, cramped position and had a look round the old engine, which was slogging away in fine form.