The farmer and mechanic appeared from the croft house coming leisurely towards us, their hands in their pockets. We smiled ruefully. Presently they stopped—and waved to us. We went across. Lying at their feet in the grass were lengths of piping sufficient for the needs of a small village—and with threaded ends. We measured a diameter. It was inches. Not quite believing this, I sent for the pump. The threaded end of a pipe screwed well and truly home.

While two short ends were being cut off by the hacksaw—for we always went prepared for such a miracle—I asked the price and got back the inevitable reply:

‘Whatever you say yourself.’

‘But I have no idea of the price,’ I answered.

‘Oh—well. Whatever you say.’

‘But I simply do not know,’ I protested, and suggested he must know because he had bought it.

‘Whatever you say,’ he laughed.

So in desperation I named a price. He did not laugh. I doubled it, and we shook hands. Whereupon we set off in triumph with our treasure.

And then our real mechanical difficulties began, for this rusty piping had to be bent into the shape of the boat’s hull beneath the stern-seat, and, above, turned at right-angles through the planking. An expert blacksmith might do the job. No one else could. Someone suggested road contractors who were busy in the neighbourhood. We got in touch with the chief mechanic, an invincible man from Nairn, who went to no end of trouble in his off hours to help. The blacksmith joined in and worked on the wire plan I had carefully made, heating and fusing and hammering and bending like an artist. He treated my wire plan seriously and we were both completely justified in the results obtained. That pump, which never required priming or any further attention and which threw out the gallons in solid continuity, proved as great a comfort as the inflated beds.

Meantime, however, the engine was still needing a bolt, and in fact it appeared that water had been seeping into the works. Late on Saturday night that invaluable mechanic made and threaded a bolt for me which fitted, and I dragged weary bones to bed, wondering what next, but vowing in my own mind that before that next happened we should be at sea. For a fatalistic feeling was growing in me that we might never get to sea, and that all our reckless doings might peter out in miserable fiasco. If we even got one day at sea and fetched a quiet anchorage, I should be happy and feel justified and would lie at that anchorage until some sort of peace was got hold of. After that—we should see.

The twenty-gallon petrol tank was full and the water tank nearly full. I had a spare tin with about four gallons of lubricating oil. I fixed seven o’clock on Monday morning as the hour for getting the boat finally ready. Everything now depended on the weather.