The Island Nurse

by Mary J. Macleod

  Some visitors, however, found it impossible to understand some aspects of local customs.

  By June of each year, great mounds of dried peat appeared beside the road on the high, boggy plateau in the centre of the island where the peat hags are located. The cutting takes place in May, weather permitting, when the crofter wields the peat iron – a specially shaped spade – and cuts the neat shapes, while his wife, or other helper, throws the brown rectangles onto the dry grass, where they look like tidy rows of chocolate brownies. There they stay for weeks, or even months, depending on the rainfall, and when dry are gathered into heaps near the road or track to await collection.

  Strangely, many visitors appeared to think that the stacks of dried peat beside the roads got there by magic, and that trees somehow managed to cut themselves into logs, ready for collection. None of these discoveries was deemed to belong to anyone and so were there for the taking. As the district nurse and therefore in uniform, I was in a slightly protected position and was able to right a few of these wrongs. I have to confess that I took a fiendish delight in doing so!

  On one occasion, while returning from duty, I saw a smart new car draw up beside a peat stack. Few island people own new cars, so I knew before I drew near that this car would belong to a visitor. Two occupants alighted and examined the peats. So far, so good – they were interested in something new to them. But then they picked up two peats each, found a plastic bag and, wrapping up their ill-gotten gains, popped them into the boot. I pulled up in front of the car, got out and wished them good afternoon.

  I said, ‘Forgive me, but have you had the owner’s permission to take some of his peats?’

  They could not have looked more surprised had I asked if they had the Queen’s permission to wear the crown jewels!

  After a moment the woman said, ‘Owner? Is there one? They were just lying here.’

  I explained that they were most certainly not ‘just lying here’ but were the result of a great deal of hard work and were destined to keep a family warm in the coming winter. Blank faces gradually gave way to a certain sheepishness, but even after my little homily they were not entirely repentant.

  ‘Oh, but we only had a few. That won’t make much difference.’

  ‘And when the next car takes three or four and the next and the next?’ In spite of its bad roads and its distance from the mainland, Papavray attracted several hundred visitors every summer. Peat stacks would soon be decimated if every passer-by took a few peats and this could cause real hardship for some families during the winter. Finally, my victims for the afternoon took the peats from their car and returned them to the stack, but with a very poor grace. I’m sure they thought I was fussing over nothing.

  On another occasion, I was driving through our only wood when I saw another smart little car with the boot open and a middle-aged lady leaning over a wall to receive, from someone on the pebbles below, a huge round log. She staggered to the car and dumped it in the boot then returned, in answer to a shout, as another log was pushed onto the wall by the hidden accomplice. I drew up just as she picked it up. She hesitated as I got out, again in uniform. As with the peat-stealers, I asked if they had obtained the owner’s permission to take the logs.

  She stood clasping the log, stuttering, ‘Why no. I didn’t know there was one.’

  I peered over the wall. There on the pebbles were several neat towers of cut circular logs looking, with their green lichen, like sliced cucumbers standing vertically on the kitchen table of some precise cook. The crofters often buy a felled or fallen tree, or part of a tree, from the estate, cut it up when they can find the time, or borrow a chainsaw, and gradually take the logs home. This can take months.

  In a serious tone, I asked, ‘Ah. So the tree felled itself and then cut itself into handy-sized logs just the right size for you to get into the boot of your car?’

  Husband had poked his head over the wall by then. ‘Oh. I didn’t think. They were just lying there.’

  Once more, I explained the hard work involved and the system of buying the tree. They were amazed that people could leave logs for months, sometimes years, to await collection.

  Then, before he thought, he said, ‘But aren’t they afraid that they will be stolen?’

  I stared at his discomfited face and then at the boot of the car. ‘You mean by people like yourselves? But I’m sure these particular thieves are going to put them back.’

  They didn’t reply. Too shocked at being called ‘thieves’, perhaps? But they began the laborious task of carrying the logs back over the wall and stacking them with the rest. I didn’t entirely trust these two to return all of them, so I unashamedly sat in my car and watched before continuing my rounds.

  Are people really so stupid? Probably not. Just entrenched in conditioned thinking: so totally unused to the honesty of island culture that they assume no one would dare to leave anything lying about and that such objects are bound to have been abandoned and so are there for the taking.

  I am not pretending that there is no crime among the indigenous population. There certainly is! A very young person may take a jug of milk from a doorstep. There are fights among crofters as a result of too much drink, and we had a persistent arsonist for about two years.

  There is also poaching, of course. This is almost a game. Rather like Cornwall’s historic attitude towards smuggling, the Hebrides has trouble viewing poaching as a crime. I don’t think there was a soul on Papavray who did not have a feast of venison at some time. Even the laird, whose deer they were, knew exactly what was going on within the crofting population. He had a fair idea of which crofters indulged in their ‘hobby’ but also knew that only a handful of deer would be taken in a year. However, if it seemed that an outside gang of poachers was operating on his land, he would be angry, inform the police and do his best to have the poachers caught and punished. He was not often successful, as it was all too easy to land in the bays, plunder the hillsides and be off under cover of darkness before anyone was aware of the presence of poachers at all.

  We were too small an island to have gamekeepers as such. The factor and the estate farm manager were as vigilant as possible but the coastline and terrain were rugged and hiding places abundant: even the wind tended to muffle the sound of a rifle shot. Our own island poachers were also vigilant and raised the alarm on at least one occasion. They would not tangle with poaching gangs, however: these people were known to be dangerous and were obviously in possession of guns. But our ‘bad boys’ did not want ‘their’ deer taken by outsiders.

  I think Duncan was very shrewd. So long as he turned the blind eye, he was in a good position to ask for crofters’ help with repairing a boat, catching a horse, doing odd jobs around the castle, dragging a piece of farming equipment out of a burn and so on. It seemed to be an unspoken gentleman’s agreement.

  So we island dwellers were no saints. But somehow the assumption on the part of some tourists that they can help themselves to whatever takes their eye implies an arrogance that is harder to bear than the ‘in-house’ peccadilloes.

  However, the tourists brought with them a breath of the outside world: new fashions (we only had catalogues), current affairs gossip and much-needed cash. Many were charming and complimentary, and we tried to make them welcome.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Just another day

  One blustery Friday, the two dogs were outside as usual when I heard a frightening amount of barking and snarling, interspersed with yelps of pain. Rushing out of the door, I almost fell over Squeak, who was rushing in with his tail between his legs, while old Bob, Roddy’s dog, stood nearby with bloodshot eyes and teeth bared. There was blood dripping from his mouth.

  Back inside, it became obvious that this blood belonged to Squeak. He was lying on the kitchen floor with blood pouring from an L-shaped gash on his shoulder. He also had cuts about his face and neck. I was just trying to staunch the flow with a towel when Dr Mac popped his head round the door.

  ‘We were co
ming to see you. I heard the noise. What have we here?’

  He stood looking down at the pathetic dog. There was a sturdy young man by the door whom I knew to be the new locum. Dr Mac was going on one of his rare holidays.

  He introduced him as ‘Dr Spencer’.

  ‘How do you do’s were exchanged, and the young man said, ‘Call me “Chas”.’

  There was no time for pleasantries, however. Squeak needed attention. Both doctors took a look at the gash in his shoulder and decided that it needed stitching immediately.

  ‘Vet won’t be here until midnight at least,’ prophesied Dr Mac. ‘He’s working on the mainland.’

  A look passed between them, and Chas went back to the car and reappeared with a bag.

  Dr Mac administered a local anaesthetic, and I sat on the floor holding Squeak very tightly to prevent escape, while Chas did some neat sewing. Dr Mac sat nearby and watched.

  ‘Well,’ said Chas, as he finished, ‘I knew that it would be very different from my Birmingham job, but I didn’t realise that the first of my duties would be stitching a dog!’

  Squeak healed very quickly and within a month there was no sign of the day’s drama, but he gave Bob a very wide berth from then on.

  I made the two doctors some tea, cleaned up the kitchen floor and prepared to talk about the patients and their needs. Chas seemed to be more interested in the climbing opportunities than in healing the sick; I think he wanted to climb a hill or two before dark. But he later proved to be most efficient in spite of his easy-going manner.

  After they left, I took a cup of tea into the little porch at the front of the house. We had added this when the house was renovated, to take advantage of the view of the mountains. There was only room for two small armchairs, and I sat in one of these sipping my tea and watching the glow of the sinking sun on the craggy rocks, while the restless waves in the bay tossed the borrowed light back to the sky. Gradually, the colours changed as the sun dipped into the sea, leaving a halo of orange clouds and turquoise sky. The hard-edged shadows softened as the twilight – the long twilight of the north – settled on the glen and the darkened mountains composed themselves for sleep. All was still and peaceful.

  But not for long! As I rose to start preparing a meal for my returning and doubtless hungry fisher boys and tired husband, a knock came on the back door.

  A neighbour, Ally Beag, stood there, looking uncomfortable. He was not a man that I knew very well, so I was surprised to see him on my doorstep. I asked him in, and he perched on the edge of a kitchen chair. There was a pause, and I sensed that he had something of importance to say, but, of course, we had to go through the usual discussion about the weather, the price of sheep at the last sale and the fishing before he would broach the reason for his visit. Eventually, he offhandedly brought ‘Donny the Hill’ into the conversation. Donny was an old retired seaman who lived just outside Dhubaig, not far from our home.

  ‘Yon mannie is gettin gie weird, do you not think, Nurse?’

  I knew that Donny was becoming senile and had developed an uncertain temper.

  ‘He’s no in his right mind, y’know, Nurse. He was on his chimney with the heather in the dark by himself last week, I’m hearin.’

  ‘On the chimney with the heather’ meant that he was sweeping his chimney. Usually, with an accomplice below at the hearth, a crofter would ascend the roof, clutching a bundle of heather tied into the middle of a 30-foot length of rope. Holding one end, he would throw the other down the chimney to the person below, who would tug at it, while the crofter on the roof eased the bundle of heather into the flue. Successive energetic tugs would bring the bundle down to the hearth together with vast quantities of brown, sticky soot that would cover the unfortunate helper and everything nearby in a choking cloud of evil-smelling dust. The process of pulling the heather up and tugging it down again would be repeated until one or other was satisfied that the chimney was clean or announced that they would ‘surely die of the soot’ if they did not stop. The result would be a very clean chimney and two excessively dirty people.

  As I listened to Ally Beag, I realised that old Donny was a danger to himself, as this was hardly a job for an arthritic old man at any time of the day, and certainly not alone and in the darkness.

  Reading my thoughts, Ally Beag said, ‘He ran up and down yon ladder, pullin up and down by himself. He must be 80 if he’s a day.’ There was a worried frown on his face, and I was beginning to think that the old man might be hurt. I asked Ally.

  ‘Ach. No yet he isna! But that’s not all. His dog’s no there the now. Nor his cow. I’m thinkin he’s made away with them. And . . . ay . . . um . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, Nurse, it’s like this. He’s been followin Ida Mackay.’

  Ida was a nervous little woman, recently widowed, living in Coiravaig. If Donny were to make a nuisance of himself, she would be terrified. But there was worse to come.

  ‘He has a gun, y’know.’

  So here it was, at last! The reason for the visit.

  ‘Aye, well. I must be on ma way.’

  And having finally delivered his message, he was off! Half an hour of chit-chat and the real reason left until a second before departing.

  I rang John, but I did not want to discuss this on the phone, as the island telephone exchange was a great clearing house for all manner of gossip and this was a decidedly delicate matter.

  ‘I have a little information that I think you should hear,’ said I, feeling like a character from a James Bond film. ‘It could be urgent. Can you pop over?’

  John arrived as soon as the local version of ‘popping over’ could be accomplished in the deepening darkness, and I repeated Ally’s surprising revelation.

  ‘I think I can deal with this fairly easily,’ John said, after some thought. ‘I doubt if he has a licence for the gun, so I could insist on removing it. If he has a licence, it will be on record, and I’ll claim that all guns are being collected for inspection. And then perhaps I can . . . ahh . . . um . . . lose it. If you follow.’

  I nodded. ‘He is clearly unfit to own a gun. Who knows what he might do with it? That is probably what has happened to the dog and the cow. Obviously, Ally Beag must think so.’

  ‘I’m on my way now, Nurse. Wish me luck!’

  And off he went. I did not envy him, but I was so thankful that we had a resourceful policeman who was not bothered about ‘following procedures’, which might have involved all manner of forms and permissions and delays. Protection of the public ‘Papavray style’ suited me.

  Months later, I was present when we had to section Donny. As far as I know, that firearm is still in John’s gun cupboard.

  THIRTY

  Silent stones and a sad spirit

  All over the Highlands and Western Isles can be seen the remains of abandoned villages with their ruined cottages, roofless byres and broken walls. They stand as a monument to one of the most heartless and short-sighted acts of vandalism the British Isles has ever known.

  I had read about the ‘Clearances’, but now that I lived on one of the islands so badly affected I was hearing by word of mouth the stories passed down the generations and I felt the atavistic resentment that still lies smouldering in the hearts of so many. No longer were the people who were driven from their homes merely figures in the history books; suddenly, they became someone’s great-grandfather. Now I was meeting big American Scots who were roaming round Papavray looking for ‘the old homestead’.

  There were several abandoned and derelict villages within a few miles of Dhubaig and we passed one almost daily, but only in winter, when the heather and bracken die away, could one just make out the shapes of the houses and byres. The touring summer visitors never saw such villages: they were long back to their central heating before these old stones made their yearly appearance.

  From time to time, I visited another old village by dinghy. Peace now pervaded the remains of this once-thriving township that nestled in a wid
e, steep-sided valley, running down to the wild sea between heather-clad hills. It was typically placed on sheltered ground, where people could rear their animals, grow their meagre crops and land their fish on nearby beaches. The sea was their only roadway – no tracks ever linked these remote communities. This is Kilcraigie.

  One glorious summer day, I pulled my dinghy up the beach and secured it against the rising tide. I tramped over the pebbles and climbed up beside the waterfall. It was a soft, warm day, and I could hear the skylarks rejoicing overhead as I wandered among the old walls, some scarcely visible. The remains of a perimeter wall enclosed the entire village to keep the animals out in the summer, when there was plenty of grazing on the hills, so that the people could grow their precious crops inside. Much later, each croft was separately fenced, but by that time this village was already dying.

  I entered the doorway of one house and stood in the room that was now open to the sky. The fireplace, washed clean by years of rain, stared blindly across the tussocky grass, where children once played on the beaten-earth floor. Outside, the byre stood gaunt and useless. No steamy breath of cattle or munching of hay now disturbed this place. The screech of a startled blackbird broke the silence. He soared into the sky and disappeared among the cotton-wool clouds, and the silence surged softly back.

  Once this house rang with the shouts of children and the whirr of the spinning wheel. On such a day as this, the men would have been tending their potatoes or turnips. If the summer had been a dry one, they may have been gathering in the hay or the oats. On the beach, all would have been bustle as the one and only fishing boat, manned by the menfolk of several households, came in to land its catch. The burn would have been alive with activity as small children played or paddled, while their mothers washed clothes and blankets, banging the coarse material on the stones and draping them on the bushes to dry. I wonder where they all went? And who among their descendants comes to gaze at the reproachful stones and think of the suffering of those innocent people, on that fateful night, nearly two centuries ago?