Where The World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean

Where The World Ends is a fictional account of a real life event that occurred in the St. Kilda archipelago, located in the Atlantic Ocean, northwest of Scotland.

The island of Hirta which is the home for the twelve characters in the novel,  is the main island in the archipelago. Hirta was populated by very small number of inhabitants until 1930, when the remaining population was evacuated to mainland Scotland.

In 1727, a group of nine boys and men were set on Stac an Armin also known as Warrior Stac to hunt the birds and eggs, the main staple in their diet. They became stranded on the stac for nine months when a smallpox epidemic on Hirta devastated the community there. Very little is known about this event which was recorded in the diary of a Christian missionary. This provided McCaughrean with the opportunity to imagine what being marooned on a rugged stac in the stormy Atlantic for nine months without any hope of rescue might be like.

The story is told from the point of view of Quilliam who is part of the fowling party that includes Domhnall Don, Mr. Farriss, Mr. Cane, Murdo, Kenneth, Calum, Lachlan, John, Euan, Niall and Davie. To get ashore, everyone has to  jump from the boat onto the craggy stac. It was Calum's father who brought them to the stac and it will be up to him to return in three weeks time to bring them back.

Their first stop is Lower Bothy, a dark, dank, stinking cave where they temporarily stow their gear of ropes, fowling nets, cooking pot, egg baskets, bundles and boots. The next task is to kill the King Gannet, the lookout bird, who guards the Overhand and warns the other gannets of danger. Whoever kills that first lookout bird earns the title of King Gannet for their time on the stac. Quill succeeds in this task and earns himself the title. The fowlers then move from the Lower Bothy to Midway Bothy. This cave is no more comfortable then the lower cave but it allows them to descend on ropes and harvest the birds in this area.

They harvest storm petrels for their oil and meat, gugas (gannet chicks) for their meat, as well as puffins and other birds. The feathers are plucked by the younger boys and stuffed into sacks. Eighty cleits, "little towers built of rocks" are used to store the dead birds, acting like smokehouses to dry out the carcasses.

Two months before the fowlers left for Warrior Stac, the boat arrived from Harris, carrying Murdina Galloway, the niece of Mr. Fariss, the school master. With Murdina and the boat that brought her, came a bundle of clothes belonging to Old Iain who had died, tossed onto the shore by the skipper, Mr. Gilmour. That bundle of clothing was stored in the schoolroom to be shared out amongst the islanders. Murdina brought sentences, songs and laughter to Hirta. And Quilliam was entranced by her and her mainland ways. On Warrior Stac she occupies Quilliam's thoughts frequently.

Shortly after the fowling party left for the stac, the Reverend Buchan, a missionary on Hirta was slated to return to the mainland, along with Murdina. Quilliam believes it unlikely he will ever see Murdina again.

Stac an Armin

The next three weeks are spent gathering birds' eggs, wicking petrels (the oily birds are used like candles, burning down to their feet) and hunting birds. Four weeks pass, then three more. Finally Callum asks the question everyone is thinking, "Why do they not come?" Every possible reason is discussed; the weather, the tides, a problem with the boat. Euan, one of the younger boys faints and then prophesies that all on Hirta have gone up to heaven. Because of this,  many in the band of fowlers believe that God has decided to end the world and that they have been left behind on the island. However, Mr. Fariss and Mr. Don believe that they should try to build a raft and cross to Boreray so as to make a signal to Hirta for help. Quilliam, overwhelmed by the conversation, leaves the Bothy and to distract the younger boys who are also upset, helps them set afire one of the cleits containing gugas and puffins. Although they burn,  the signal goes out and there is no rescue.

As the weeks pass, Quilliam and the other fowlers must now face the prospect of a long winter, possible starvation and death. As tension mounts between Col Cane who has set himself up as a minister of God and the rest of the party, the struggle to stay alive grows more desperate with each passing week. Has the world truly ended? How will they survive the winter?

Discussion

Told from the point of view of protagonist Quilliam McKinnon, Where The World Ends is a story of extreme survival. Eleven inhabitants of Hirta are set on a rocky outcrop in the middle of the sea to harvest birds for their community over a period of three weeks. But when the boat does not return for them, they must find a way to survive through the harsh winter. Every aspect of their being will be tested; physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual. It is a tale of inner strength, resiliency, and courage.

McGaughrean immediately creates the setting and atmosphere for her story through her descriptive narrative. The stac is described in imposing terms. "Warrior Stac grows bigger the closer you get. You would swear it was pushing its way upwards -- a rock whale pitching its whole bulk into the sky, covered in barnacles, aiming to swallow the moon...Warrior Stac is so big and so dark that all the fowl of the air since Creation haven't been able to stain it. It looms there, as black and fearful as one horn of the Devil himself. And it teems with birds." Quill doesn't want to think ill of the stac. "It was not a living thing, only a slab of rock in a big, cold ocean at the edge of the world." It is evident from the beginning, that even in the warm summer months, survival on the stac will be a formidable challenge.

Map of St. Kilda showing the location of Stac an Armin

When the boat fails to return for them, it soon becomes evident to the group that they are marooned, likely for the winter and possibly permanently. The incredible challenge of staying alive through the winter is ably portrayed by McGaughrean. They have plenty of food in the form of birds and eggs, although they must deal with the rain and cold. So initially, the most significant challenge the men and boys face is psychological; the realization that for some unknown reason, no one is coming to take them back to Hirta. Each character deals with this realization in their own way. Murdo wants to partition off areas of the island so each can have his own area to hunt and store birds. Mr. Fariss contemplates suicide but is talked out of it by Quilliam. Mr. Don makes a practical plan to build a raft out of driftwood so they can sail to Boreray where they will have a much better chance of surviving the winter. Col Cane takes refuge in rigid religious belief.

From the beginning, Col Cane appoints himself as a "Minister", controlling the group by playing on their fears. Quilliam does his best to counter these fears but is largely unsuccessful. For example, when Quilliam tells the younger boys a story that draws on mythology to distract them from their dark thoughts, Cane decides he is a pagan who is to be shunned. Cane dictates Sundays as days of prayer and ordering the fowlers to "confess" not only their own sins but the sins of others too! As winter approaches, Cane's beliefs and demands become more extreme as he orders the group to stop fowling and stay in the Bothy to pray and sing hymns. Quilliam sees the folly in this; they will run out of food if they stop harvesting birds. "It was insane. The birds would be gone soon. The party must keep fowling for as long as possible. Their were cleits needed mending." Eventually Quilliam is banished by the increasingly unstable Col Cane. This sets Cane up as the main source of conflict in the novel.

Although not much is known about the people living on Hirta before the 1800s, online research indicates that the islanders did not take much to Christianity in the 1700's and that Alexander Buchan, the missionary mentioned in the novel, was largely unsuccessful in his efforts to evangelize them. They still clung to their Druid beliefs as much as to the new religion of Christianity. McCaughrean captures the mixture of Christian and pagan beliefs that these men might have had in the 1700's. Col Cane seems able to use his distorted views of God and death to gain considerable control over the marooned fowlers. Although the fowlers would have been practical men, focused entirely on staying alive into the spring when they could hope for rescue by a passing ship, they would have also searched for omens. They young boys, often Euan remind them to do so.

McCaughrean has crafted a dark tale that might be more appropriate for older readers. Quilliam and Murdo talk about never having the chance to be with a woman, one character attempts suicide but is saved by Quilliam, another dies a gruesome death and various characters suffer serious injuries. There is also the situation of John who turns out to be a girl of fourteen, whom the older boys determine should be married off to one of them. McCaughrean's descriptions of the state of the fowlers as winter ends leave little to her readers' imaginations. "They sneezed incessantly and their skin crawled with parasites. Itchy, scabby and sore, their flesh cracked open at the least cause, like crabs whose backs split as they outgrow them." And there is the matter of Kenneth's toes....

Despite the harrowing, gloomy storyline, the novel has a surprisingly sweet ending for the main character, Quilliam, who survives by frequently imagining his love, Murdina by his side. After their rescue, that dream becomes a reality in a chapter narrated by Murdina.

Overall, Where The World Ends is an interesting but dark fictional account of a real life event that happened almost three hundred years ago. This is a remarkable survival story with many themes to be explored. McCaughrean includes a map of the setting, an Afterword, and a set of drawings of the various birds the fowlers would have found on the stac.

Readers can get a good sense of the novel's setting from this article on the BBC about the isolated island of Hirta and its unique people.

Stac an Armin image: Bob Jones [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)] from geograph.org.uk

Map credit: Eric Gaba (Sting - fr:Sting) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]


Book Details:

Where The World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean
London: Usborne Publishing    2018
330 pp.