Tinteán

by Maurice Brick

I learned many lessons from the sea. I learned much about people and myself. I weathered some storms and saw the ocean’s raw power unleashed. I remember one storm in particular for the simple reason that we just barely made it.

It started calm enough, but God it turned, and suddenly we were being tossed here and there and everywhere. Ger said he never saw anything like it, but we bent the oars and headed in. This time, we didn’t venture into the gap between the Fiach and Sybil Head. Ó no. Ger was too much of a seaman for that or we’d surely end up as fresh fodder for their jagged rocks.

We were pulling and straining at the oars, and it seemed that we weren’t making any headway at all. There was heavy rain, mountainous waves, and ferocious winds all battling to curtail our efforts to make headway.

The three of us were pulling fiercely, and after a while Ger delegated me to start scooping the water from the bottom of the boat. The lashing waves and the spray from the waves were getting the upper hand, and the water level was creeping up the boat. Séamus Eoinín, the ever cool, was silent. But his very strength was evident with every stroke of his oars.

Well, I’ll tell you I was scooping out that water as fast as I could, but it was difficult to discern it from the rain and the angry waves. Ger leaned over a few times and held his ear to the gun whale, and he’d announce ‘Cloisim na toinn ar ghaineamh na trá, ní fada uainn anois.’ (I can hear the sound of the waves on the sand of the shore, we’re not far now) Well, I went faster then, and at one time a wayward spray coupled with the wind knocked me on my arse to the bottom of the boat. The boat heaved a bit out of kilter, and as I lay there flat on my back fear gripped me and I peed in my pants.

Ger yelled to keep scooping, as this was not a time to rest, and up I got and scooped that water out, and the fear dissipated for I knew that I was needed to get through. I fell neither pain nor fear thereafter. Foot by foot we rowed, each of us drenched and spent, and finally I caught a fleeting glimpse of shore.

As we approached the shore in the darkness, I could see the silhouettes of a group and determined quickly, judging by the height, that my father was there. He helped us beach the boat. I remember stretched out on the sand for a long while before I could even move, and then I accompanied Dad home through the fields to Mam.

Mam sprinkled Holy Water on me at the door, and the relief on her face gave truth to answered prayers. As I headed to the stairs for bed, Dad asked if I’d had enough of the sea, and I emphatically responded that I had. Mam sighed and echoed his relief.

On the following day, Ger approached the house, rather hesitantly I’d say. He said the storm had scattered the lobster pots, and as the weather had turned to mild, he was going to try and retrieve some. Would I come? I looked at Mam and Dad and told them I had to go, and neither of them said a word. Off I went.

Years after, while home from America and chatting with that best friend Ger, I asked him if he had really heard the waves on the shore when he held his ear to the gun whale of the boat that night. And he turned a bit from me and began to whistle, that very peculiar whistle that he was noted for that had a yodel in it. And I knew him well enough to know that he hadn’t.

Maurice Brick (Muiris Ó’Bric) lives in Chicago having left West Kerry for London in 1960 at age 18. He lived in London 7 years and in New York 52 years and left for Chicago when his wife Mary Ellen died several years ago. Though a born and raised New Yorker she chose to be laid to rest in West Kerry.