Scotland Street Volume 18, Chapter 46: A miraculous draught?

By Alexander McCall Smith

Published 7th Apr 2025, 07:00 BST

Mollie had explained to Irene about the sounder, on the screen of which the eyes of both of them were firmly fixed. At the outset of the voyage, the sea below them had been represented by an empty blue, but now, when they were not much more that a nautical mile offshore, a large, irregular ball of white, ragged at the edge, appeared on the screen, midway between the surface and the seabed some twenty metres below.

“Fish,” said Irene, authoritatively.

Mollie agreed. “Aye,” she said, “those are fish right enough.”

The shoal was immediately below them, and Irene throttled back the engine to bring the trawler to a halt.

“You can get the girls to lower the nets,” Irene said.

Mollie went outside, where she spoke to Annie and Katie, the two deckhands who had been charged with the task of catching the fish. They began to lift the net off the deck while Irene and Mollie watched.

Annie raised a hand. “A wee problem,” she said. “Look – a muckle great hole.”

Katie stared in dismay at the large hole that was revealed in the middle of the net. “We’ll catch no fish with that,” she shouted.

Irene came out of the wheelhouse. With Annie and Katie at her side, she examined the gaping void in the middle of the net.

“We might as well go right back home,” said Annie.

Irene’s jaw set in a look of pure determination. To return to the harbour would be an admission of defeat. They had barely been out for an hour, and already they were staring defeat in the face. The men would love it, she thought; their return would merely confirm what they had thought all along – that the women were incapable of catching fish by themselves.

She looked about her, and saw two rolls of strong blue twine used for securing odds and ends on the deck. Then the next thing she took in were a couple of brooms used for sweeping the deck. In a moment of blinding insight, she saw the solution to their problem.

“Mollie,” she said, turning to her fellow helmswoman. “You’re an expert knitter, aren’t you?”

Mollie accepted the compliment modestly. “Some fowk say that, aye,” she said. “I’m nae better than many others though.”

Irene explained what she had in mind. Using the two broomsticks as giant needles, could Mollie knit the blue twine into a large patch which could then, in turn, be knitted to the edge of the hole and thus repair the net? Was that possible, did she think?

Mollie frowned as she considered the proposition, but then her frown broke into a broad smile. “It’ll be nae different from mending my man’s breeks,” she said.

“Precisamente,” said Irene.

The knitting task was soon begun. As Mollie knitted, the great ersatz needles sending a loud clicking noise over the calm waters of the sea, on the shore the men trained their binoculars on the trawler, puzzled as to what was going on.

“It looks as if somebody’s knitting,” said Wallie.

The others laughed. “The lasses must have given up on fishing,” said Billy Mackie. “Awfie funny, isn’t it, Wallie?”

“No surprise there,” said Graham.

The repair did not take long. As Mollie worked, the whole crew enjoyed a mug of tea brewed up by Annie and a piece of Dundee cake that Katie had baked only that morning. Then, when the net was ready, it was lowered into the water, down to the depth at which the sounder had revealed the presence of fish. After a few minutes during which the trawler drifted gently in the current, all hands hauled on the ropes that brought up the net. It was a hard task, as the net was bulging with a glistening silver mass of fish.

“Mackerel,” exclaimed Annie.

“Aye,” said Mollie. “There they are. Simple.”

They landed the fish, tipping them into long, wooden fish boxes.

“We might as well go home now,” said Irene. “This is a good enough catch to keep the men busy for a while.”

The whole crew laughed. They relished the thought of the men having to roll up their sleeves and begin the dirty, slippery work of gutting the fish.

“We should go off to the pub,” suggested Annie.

This met with general approval.

And when they nosed their way back into the harbour, lining the trawler up neatly and not even needing to employ her thrusters, Graham and his friends watched in astonishment. They could see the fish boxes with their glistening catches; they could see the look of quiet satisfaction on the faces of the various members of the crew.

Irene handed the keys of the trawler back to Graham, who received them in a state of mute astonishment.

“We could have caught more,” she said, nodding in the direction of the fish boxes. “But it’s important to know where to stop.”

Graham opened his mouth. For a few moments it seemed as if he was about to say something, but he did not. He stared down at the ground, a defeated man.

Irene said, “I hope you’ve learned a lesson, Graham,” she said.

He opened his mouth again, but a discouraging look from Irene made him shut it again. Irene smiled. “You should take more care of your nets,” she said.

Graham nodded meekly.

Irene looked at her hands. She felt strangely alive. She was leading an authentic life – there could be no doubt about that. She was here amongst these people who needed only a little bit of leadership to free themselves of the whole, stultifying edifice of small-town Scottish attitudes. This was just a beginning – a hint of what could lie ahead, as she brought about a transformation that would sweep the Highlands before making its way back to Edinburgh and Glasgow. This was just a beginning. Fishing was nothing – a procedure so simple that even a man could do it. Talk about the miraculous draught of fishes … No, it was skill.

She looked up at the sky. Soon she would go back to Edinburgh, where she could continue with the work that she was doing here. There was so much to be done in Edinburgh, but she had a missionary’s zeal and would tackle whatever work was given to her cheerfully and without complaint. Irene was not one to give up.