The Old Men and the Sea

The moon was one day on the wane and the old iron bell clanked out across the bay. The nimble breeze carried in a fresh, crisp spray that began to clean the streets of the wispy tendrils of night that still remained. Fires shook out the static, lazy air of the awakening houses and blew a rich perfume of sardines and coffee into bedrooms. While some small heads were still hiding beneath the sheets, resisting their mothers usual threats, twelve men pulled on their boots and made their way to Old Maclaurin's statue on the cliff top. They each placed a fish at its feet.

Rory McKillock quickly taught the ceremonial poem to Angus Laidlaw's son, Craig, who had taken his dead father's place in the twelve. He nodded when he had it, smiling a little, enjoying the feeling of being a novice at 67. They followed the path down the tapered side of the east cliff wall, marching down to the stony beach of the cove. Each man unravelled the thin brown rope he'd brought wrapped diagonally across his torso. They tied themselves together with a 25m spacing and slowly spread out to form a curve of twelve straight lines, around the incoming sea.

This was a local annual tradition, probably the only that was older than any of the current participants. It would survive them. Time and the tides, two things man can never stop. In the thousand years since King Canute had tried the one, both had kept on coming. The day itself bobbed like a ship at anchor, not fixed exactly to the calendar but never straying too far. They took the full or new moon closest to the Spring equinox, some time around the end of March. Here, the sun and moon locked arms as part of the endless celestial hoe-down and spun the seas in a merry dance.

Each man's job was to stand where the wave broke and move back to mark the new highpoint if a wave passed him. They covered the full curve of the beach. The cove itself was mostly made up of the soft rock cliffs, brown and craggy and full of nesting birds and loose footholds. The winds and the seas and the oh-so-subtle movement of the land would cause whole sections to tumble into the sea. The sound would echo up to the village a few times a month and everyone would hold their breath, waiting for the noise to settle. Castles made of sand, and all that.

The rope enabled them to watch how the water was shaped that day, a battling army steadily advancing its borders. With half an hour left till high-tide, they could see that it was coming furthest up just to the right of the middle of the beach's curve so the old men detached the ropes and drew tighter around the tongue tip of the longest lapping wave. They would take it in turns to place a thin cane on the highest stone that the sea kissed, allowing them enough room stand out of water's way, not wanting to interfere with its sloshing path. When the cane remained on a stone for over fifteen minutes, after the time for high-tide had passed, it was accepted as the tide-stone and the man holding the cane picked it up and dried it with a handkerchief and then placed it carefully in his pocket.

They went back up the cliff path and at the top were met by the whole village, many of whom had been watching the whole process from the beginning, smoking pipes and discussing the past and the future. Next to the statue, the caster was waiting. It was a young lad called Steven. The headmaster of the school picked a boy each year, balancing a hefty build with a character deserving of the honour. They placed the stone in his hand and then, together, recited the old poem. Then Rory nodded to Steven and he took a short run up before hurling the stone in a shallow arc, straight out into the hungry sea. A cheer went up, breaking the reverent silence, and chatter broke out as everyone bumbled back to the village. Pubs filled up and dusty bottles were pulled up from the cellars, kept aside for this day.

The stone sank in the grey water and settled on the bed. The currents dragged and fish swum by. The water rolled in a myriad of eddies and whirls, some conflicting and some combining. The stone began to creep its way back to shore.