As I paddled west, it was obvious why May and June were agreed to be the best time of the year in the Highlands – they were the driest months, and the midges had not yet arrived. The animals were birthing and the hills were turning green with new grass. In the old days it was when food became more plentiful after the long, hungry winter, and you no longer lay at night shivering in your damp bed.
I felt my spirits rise as I neared the beach at Peanmeanach. My mother rushed down from the house and engulfed me in an enormous hug as I clambered out of the canoe. I looked up to see my grandparents and Aunt Mairi waving from outside their houses.
‘You’re home,’ Mother kept repeating, ‘you’re home, my brave boy. We’ve missed you so much.’
My impressive haul of fish was welcomed for dinner and my grandfather opened a bottle of Long John that he had been saving for just this sort of occasion.
‘Just as well we don’t get any passing visitors. I’d have been tempted to open it before now,’ he said, proudly showing me the bottle.
After dinner, when I’d listened with great interest to how the lambing had gone, we had the obligatory discussion about the weather and what a cold winter it had been, how Owen was, what news there was of Father Angus, who was ailing, and who had died in the area. It was as though the whole community was there in the room.
Later, after the plates had been tidied away, the whisky came out. The opening was a ritual: the cork pulled, a sniff to savour it, then a thumbful carefully poured into Grandfather’s treasured glasses with the Long John trade-mark on them. We each added our favoured quantity of peaty water, and raised our glasses for the toast. ‘Sláinte.’
‘There must be a million men in Scotland who would kill to be drinking this tonight,’ said Grandfather happily, thumping the cork back in. We’d be stringing our measure out for a couple of hours yet.
Because of our family connections, the ebbs and flows of the success of Long John Whisky were keenly watched. At their peak, the distilleries in Fort William had employed a workforce of two hundred men, working in the maltings, the cooperage, bottling, distribution and every other aspect of the trade. Prohibition had been a hard blow in the previous decade. Now, no whisky could be bought in Britain; war measures meant almost all of it had to be sold to America because Britain needed their money. Besides, the barley was needed for food, we were told.
When Colonel Willie died at the outbreak of the war, the MacDonald family sold the distillery to a man called Hobbs. Colonel Willie’s son had told me ruefully that it was making very good money indeed for the new owner. Grandfather mused that Long John himself would turn in his grave if he knew the distilleries had been sold.
As we sat happily together before the smouldering peat fire Mother began to press me for stories about what I’d been up to. So I told them what I could about my missions, trying to be truthful while protecting them from the horrors of the reality of my situation. Grandfather was all ears and loved to hear details of the weapons and explosives. Mother and Grandmother soaked in all the information about the way of life in the Alps, how the people were managing for food, how they stayed in contact with their loved ones, what the main dangers were.
There was a moment of silence.
‘I was at Gaick doing a route march last summer. And heard the story of the Gaick catastrophe, do you know of it?’ I said. A precious measure of Long John sat by my side and I had just waved away my mother’s offer of a third piece of cake.
‘Tell us, son,’ she encouraged. There was nothing the family liked more than a good story, especially if it was one they hadn’t heard.
‘It’s the tale of the Black Officer,’ I began, though I was immediately interrupted by my grandfather.
‘The what? Have I not heard this story?’ he boomed.
‘At the beginning of the last century, some men from along the Spey went off on a hunting party, beginning above Kingussie, then on to the pass over towards Blair Atholl. They were to be based at the deerwatcher’s house at Gaick at the top of the glen, where they could take shelter. It was just after Christmas. They were led by Captain John Macpherson, a retired recruitment officer in the Black Watch, a man who was disliked and feared in the area. He always had problems getting men to come hunting; they would pretend to be ill or cite a sudden, pressing need to visit family. Anyway, four men were finally persuaded to go.
‘Several days passed with tremendous blizzards, even on the low grounds. They didn’t return when they were supposed to and their relatives were sick with worry. Now, as we all know, in times of fear or worry in those days, superstition would take over in the absence of information.
‘The families were gathered together at night, all sick with worry about their men. A rescue party had been formed and was due to head into the hills as soon as the weather allowed. The fire and candles were flickering in the draught, and shawls were pulled up as the wind howled outside and snow built up against the window. Sheena Macpherson, the captain’s wife, proposed they talk to their forebears, long since dead. So, sitting around the table the youngest child of one of the missing men was sat on a wooden spoon called a gogan and questioned.
“Will they return tonight?” he was asked.
“No.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No.”
“When?”
“Never!” ’
Mother, Grandmother and Mairi gasped.
‘So, fearing the worst, the rescue party was sent out into the atrocious conditions. Later, they were found at the deerwatcher’s house where they had been sheltering. The building was completely destroyed, the heavy stone lintel lay a hundred and fifty yards away, and the bodies of the men were scattered far and wide.’
‘My goodness,’ said Grandfather, grudgingly impressed, ‘is that a fact?’
I nodded gravely. ‘They believe it happened exactly on the first of January in 1800. Captain Macpherson, the leader, was a soldier fighting for the English army. He was called the Black Officer; not because of his hair or complexion, but because he had a black heart. People in the area believed the Devil had come to claim his own.’
Grandmother sat forwards. ‘What happened?’
I was keen to spin out the suspense. ‘Well, it was very steep ground and there had been a major snow storm . . . What do you think had happened?’
Mother, Mairi and my grandparents set to with much heated discussion but came to no conclusion. I completed the riddle. ‘It seems that they had been sheltering in the house for two or three days in the blizzard. Anyway, at night, the temperature seems to have risen and there was heavy rain, which caused an enormous avalanche. It swept away the bothy, killed the men, and spread the bodies widely. By the time the rescue party arrived the snow had melted – hence the mystery.’
A contented silence and much nodding ensued.
‘It has been written that travellers through the pass on occasion hear screams and yells, entreaties for mercy, and the deep baying of dogs. To this day, none pass willingly through Gaick alone.’
‘You missed the golden age of storytelling, young Donald Angus,’ said Grandfather. ‘Before the Great War there were storytellers, men and women, who were renowned for their collections of sgeulachdan. For example, before you were born, Angus Peter Gillies used to come and visit from Skye. There wouldn’t have been room to stand in here so many people came, and when he was in fine form his tales could last two hours.’
‘Sometimes you would hear him tell the same story five years later and it would be a little embellished,’ my grandmother chimed in. ‘We’d say, “Angus Peter, you know fine well you made that last bit up,” and he would say, “And that’s the way it was.” It’s how he always finished his stories.’
‘He had quite a life, going from place to place, always welcome, drinking and eating the very best.’ Grandfather chuckled, and we raised our glasses to his memory.
I had been brought up like this to some extent. On a November night when it was dark at four and rain was h
ammering down outside, my grandfather would be busy repairing a fishing net or carving a stick, Mother would be spinning her wheel making tweed to sell to the estate, and Grandmother would be busy about the house, and while they worked they would talk. It would be a titbit of news, then a story, as likely as not about our family. I could recount tales about my family going back two hundred years, in some detail. What would Françoise make of my family’s escapades, I wondered. And would I ever learn of hers?
‘You know the story of the grey dog from Meoble?’ Grandfather asked.
‘Of course we do!’ we chorused, such was the tale’s renown. ‘But tell us again!’
Grandfather needed no further encouragement. ‘Well, Dugald MacDonald, a Meoble man, left his family and his adored deerhound Elasaid and went off to fight in the Peninsular Wars. After several years away he returned home and heard from his mother that Elasaid had fully grown puppies and was with them on a wee island on Lochan Tain Mhic Dhughaill just to the north of Loch Beoraid. He was warned that the dogs had had no contact with people and barked ferociously if anyone was in sight. But Dugald decided to swim out to the island where he was torn to shreds by the young dogs. When Elasaid spied her master’s body, her howls of anguish were heard in the village and people went over to the island and killed the beasts. Elasaid was said to roam the area howling until one day her body was found dead, stretched out beside Dugald’s grave.’
We all knew the story well but loved hearing Grandfather’s rendition of it.
‘And,’ he continued, ‘there’s a second part to the story. It’s said that members of that same MacDonald of Clanranald branch see the grey dog before they die. There was an old lady who lived in a Glasgow tenement and she had told her friends she knew she was about to die because she had looked out of the window and seen a huge grey deerhound looking up at her. Sure enough, the next day she was dead. And Sheena was telling me a nun at St Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, also a Meoble MacDonald, saw a large grey dog just before she died.’
‘These stories are precious,’ I murmured.
Grandfather agreed. ‘My friends, John Lorne Campbell and his American wife Margaret Fay Shaw, have been recording stories and songs from the islands for many years, and they have been out to Canada to collect material, too. They met in the Lochboisdale Hotel in 1934, and have compiled a grand collection, which they maintain at their home on Canna. These stories need to be kept alive, or else no one will remember them in a hundred years.’
Grandfather raised his glass to his lips. ‘Just need to catch this last drop of uisge beatha, then it’s bed for me,’ he announced, putting out his hands so that I could pull him up.
The next day was spent with Grandmother, fixing broken gates, rounding up the tups to trim their feet (they hobbled painfully unless you did), and planting the garden with the seedlings for summer vegetables. My mother and I went out in her new boat. They wanted me to catch some fish for Grandfather to salt and smoke while the herring were in. It was a balmy evening. We rowed around Goat Island, past Priest Rock and then back in. ‘Two hours and no pain in my back,’ marvelled Mother. ‘I do love that boat.’ With a heavy load of herring, saithe and gurnard it had been a successful trip all round.
It was a good time to talk on the boat, with no one else around. She had recently received a letter from her mother, Bronwyn, who was in failing health. Reading between the lines, Mother didn’t think she would survive the month. She wondered if she should go to see her again; she’d feel guilty if she didn’t.
I could see she was becoming upset and didn’t object when she changed the subject to my life. ‘You need to have a girlfriend, Angus. You’re almost twenty-seven. Don’t tell me there haven’t been any pretty young women turning your head when you’ve been away?’
Mother had been trying to marry me off for at least ten years now. Every girl on her horizon had been considered. At times it was embarrassing; once we went to a wedding in Arisaig and she had a little too much to drink. The evening was spent trying to persuade the mother of a girl called Mairi Macmaster that her daughter would be the perfect wife for me – ‘for a fine young stirk I’ve got in the byre’.
I braced myself. ‘Well, actually, there is a girl I have my eye on.’
She was delighted. ‘Go on,’ she said, her eyes shining.
‘That’s the good bit,’ I admitted. ‘I’m not sure if she has any interest in me, she may well be dead, and she’s French-Canadian . . . not one of our own.’
Mother kept her features admirably composed in the face of the painful reality and urged me to tell her more. I told her how we had got on well and had great repartee. I described how intelligent, capable and attractive she was, with a pretty mouth that turned up at the edges, always on the verge of smiling. But of course I couldn’t tell her that the last time Françoise had been seen she was being bundled into a car by the Gestapo.
‘She was working in France but hasn’t been heard of for weeks now,’ I said. ‘Neither the army nor the Red Cross can find her. And even if they did find her, I’m not entirely sure what her feelings are.’
My mother’s face fell. But she leant over to hug me, nearly upsetting the boat. ‘You obviously don’t know girls, Donald Angus,’ she said. ‘I’ll bet she loves you, and I’m sure she’ll be all right. Don’t worry too much.’
I needed to leave at lunchtime on the Sunday, so we agreed that we’d go to Mass at Polnish so that I could proceed directly to Arisaig. My heart was full of emotion as Grandfather and I got out our pipes first thing. We stood outside the house, playing a few tunes together. There was nothing more exhilarating than playing with him – my grandfather, friend and mentor. I was a bit rusty and his fingers were stiffening, but we were pretty chuffed with ourselves. Grandfather’s eyes were glistening with pleasure and he could barely stop smiling as we played. We took it in turns to play the venerable Clanranald pipes. The drones were pitch-perfect; she always tuned beautifully. I knew with a stab of pride that if I never saw him again, this memory of us – facing across the loch, with the skirl being echoed by the hills and the sun shining over Roshven hill – would stay with me for ever. Later, I paddled down the loch to Arisaig, with my heart bursting with contentment.
The next day eight commandos and I passed the same church on the puffer train that was taking us towards Skye where we embarked on the most intensive training regime I had ever undergone. We went from amateur climbers to skilled mountaineers, capable of tackling extreme pitches within a week. The weather turned from glorious at the start to a downpour on the final day when we tackled the Inaccessible Pinnacle on rocks as slippery as greased glass and with visibility as far as the end of my nose. We did sea-cliff assault training from canoes, and learned how to wrap up our clothing, place our rifles on top and swim across a loch, pushing the bundle ahead of us so that the kit remained dry.
The highlight was undoubtedly submarine training, where we practised loading and unloading canoes and launching sea raids. We undertook a two-day diving course during which we learned how to attach limpet mines with timers to sea vessels and escape unseen. One day we were dropped off opposite Dunvegan Castle. We proceeded to scale the walls with grappling irons and scared the wits out of poor Flora MacLeod who lived there.
The last two weeks were spent in Glencoe: ice-climbing on the Rannoch Wall of Buachaille Etive Mòr and abseiling down Crowberry Tower in darkness. We would often repair to the Clachaig Inn at the end of the day. Over a pint of beer I told Sandy Wedderburn about my night ski across the glacier and the abseil above Courmayeur. There wasn’t much he hadn’t done himself, but I could tell he was pretty impressed and I enjoyed sharing my experiences with him.
By the end of the month, from a climbing perspective, I reckoned I could manage most of what the Alps could throw at me. I would now be able to hold my own climbing with Françoise, and fantasised about climbing in the Rockies with her after the war was over – God willing. Wedderburn was a Lovat Scout, and he marked my repor
t card in such a way that I would be recognised as an expert in mountain warfare. I longed to tell Françoise.
I returned to Arisaig after the course, and was called in to see Colonel Balden.
‘I have a letter for you, Sergeant Gillies,’ he said, passing it over. ‘You have been selected to go to Mons on the officers’ course.’ He reached across, smiling, and shook my hand. ‘Congratulations, I believe strongly you will make an excellent officer. You leave tomorrow night on the sleeper.’
I was completely astonished and didn’t utter a word. Afterwards I wondered whether Brigadier Gubbins had had a hand in my promotion. It was highly likely. His wife had told me, one evening in London, how he felt I was every bit as capable as their Michael, who was now a captain.
I knew my mother would be thrilled; my grandparents, too. I couldn’t resist telling them, so I promised my superiors that I would be back at camp before nightfall even though it was a three-hour run each way.
As I ran across the rough terrain, I thought proudly of how such a big step up would surely balance things in Françoise’s parents’ eyes – going from being an uneducated tenant farmer to receiving a King’s commission! But then a stumble on a hidden rock brought me to my senses. Why was I even considering this scenario? It was futile.
I picked myself up and ran on.
Chapter 9
Fra nçoise
I lay on my left side, my face against the wall, in excruciating pain. I hadn’t been dragged out by the guards for several days now. Maybe they had finally accepted my story? I had come so close to admitting everything. I had wanted to die. All that kept me from blurting out the truth was letting down the others, and knowing that Angus, Claude and his people would be hunted down. I thought of all the doubts expressed about women being agents; how they lacked the courage. I was the first woman in Camp X and I just could not let the side down.
My right arm had borne the brunt of the blast. I had put the grenade between Kaufmann and myself in the bed as he was dozing, then counted. I knew I had seven seconds, and I planned to throw myself to the side, but the grenade went off prematurely. The blast was horrendous. When I came to, I forced myself to look down at my arm. The skin was hanging off, and I could see bits of metal embedded in the flesh. I knew immediately that the humerus was shattered – a horrific sight – yet I felt no pain. I was numb. In shock.
We Fought for Ardnish Page 12