Mother left me to sleep. I could hear the murmur of the women’s voices next door.
‘When you and I move to Arisaig, he’ll be all alone, Morag.’ My mother sounded distraught. ‘How can we do that to him? How will he ever find a wife?’
I could hear scraping noises. Someone was riddling the fire for the night.
‘We’ll just have to stay here for a bit longer so we can help him out, won’t we, Louise?’
I felt incredibly touched at my family’s support as I turned, smiling, with my face to the wall. I knew I needed to keep the farm and live here on Ardnish. It wasn’t just me that had to make a success of the place, Mother, Grandmother and Mairi needed me to. I could feel my father and grandfather willing me on. Hundreds of years of family history depended on me for its continuity.
The next morning, I tucked my bagpipes under my arm and went down to the beach. The sea sparkled in the sunshine and a lone seagull banked on the light breeze. I turned to face my home, Peanmeanach.
Raising the mouthpiece to my lips, I blew into the bag. Despite the awkward crutches, my fingers instinctively flew to their place on the chanter and, closing my eyes, I began to play my father’s favourite air: ‘Pibroch of Donald Dhu’. I really was on the mend.
Chapter 21
Sophie
It had been five months since I’d said goodbye to Donald Angus. I knew my part-time teaching job at Chéticamp wasn’t what I truly wanted to do. Although I still had occasional nightmares, my mobility was much improved. My mind constantly turned to my Scottish soldier. Where was he? What was he doing? What was he thinking?
I had been astounded when my father told me about the call. Brigadier Gubbins had telephoned my father and told him that Angus was home on extended leave in Ardnish after a terrible leg injury. I knew at that moment I had to be with him.
My parents were aghast for a while at the prospect of my travelling across the Atlantic – they felt I was not yet strong enough, physically or mentally – but they conceded that I fared so much better when I was in Angus’s company.
And so, when the brigadier spoke to me the following day it was not a matter of if I would go; it was a matter of when. There was a boat, the brigadier had said, leaving in a few days from Halifax, travelling via Boston, and I could get on it if I wished.
I had no doubt in my mind: I would be on that boat.
My parents drove me to Inverness to get the train. Sheena and Morag were at the station, very excited, to wave farewell and give me a package to carry to Ardnish. There was such a lot of kissing, hugging and waving out of the window as the train moved off. My tears were a bitter-sweet mixture of joy and trepidation.
My father had booked me on the ship, steerage. My fellow passengers seemed to be men keen to see what business could be done in Britain now that the war was coming to an end. I had little to say to them, and simply revelled in the comfort and in my own company.
Mrs Gubbins was waiting for me as the liner disembarked, and that night she and the brigadier took me to supper in Soho before waving me off on the sleeper headed to Fort William.
‘I hope the shock of your arrival doesn’t kill him!’ the brigadier quipped, kissing my cheek. ‘He’s one lucky man.’
‘My dear,’ said Mrs Gubbins, ‘if you find that things aren’t right, and I know you know what I mean – it’s fine to say so, to come away. Relationships comprise two people and you have no responsibility towards a man you don’t truly love – or who doesn’t truly love you. But having said that, I wish you all the luck and love in the world. Godspeed.’
I woke after a comfortable night on the sleeper and had breakfast in the lounge car, rather enjoying the crisp white tablecloth and terrible food. The train was chugging at walking pace, it seemed, across a bleak, wild landscape that the guard informed me was Rannoch Moor. However, the early morning sun shone on the mountains and glistened tantalisingly off the lochs. I spied two shaggy ponies, saddled, waiting to be led across the line, and deer galloping away from the track as we passed.
I changed trains in Fort William and got talking to a lady who pointed out the sights as we made our way to my final stop at Lochailort. Her incessant chatter calmed my growing nerves.
‘Go first to the inn,’ she advised. ‘They’ll keep your suitcases and show you the path to Peanmeanach. It’s a breath-taking walk.’
I did as she said. As I walked I could hear Angus’s voice saying to me, ‘On the right is our beautiful church but it’s no longer in use. And remember to look out for the eagles that nest on the cliffs to the north.’ Sure enough, I saw two eagles soaring high above the most beautiful loch, which must be the one that he had promised me was full of fat brown trout. I vowed I would be back soon to cast a line.
Birds were flitting ahead of me in the heather as I stepped carefully along the roughly paved path. A hot autumn sun blazed overhead and there wasn’t a sound apart from my footsteps, the murmur of waves, and birdsong.
The path took me along to a knoll and there, below, was a big field and a crescent of houses along the beach, over-looked by the mountains beyond. I had to sit on a rock and compose myself. My heart was pounding. It was just as I had dreamed it would be.
Two figures in the distance saw me and waved. A woman. And a man – Angus? Was it? I caught my breath and waved back, then headed down to Ardnish and home.
We Fought for Ardnish is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. While some of the names are those of real people who lived at the time the novel is set, what they did and said has been fabricated.
Also available by Angus MacDonald
Ardnish Was Home
Gallipoli, 1915. Donald Peter (‘DP’) Gillies, a young Lovat Scout soldier, lies in a field hospital, blinded by the Turks. There he falls in love with his Queen Alexandra Corps nurse, Louise, and she with him. As they talk in the quiet hours he tells her of life in the west Highlands of Scotland, where he grew up, and she in turn tells her own story of a harsh and unforgiving upbringing in the Welsh valleys.
Cut off from Allied troops Donald and Louise decide to make a perilous escape to freedom through Turkey, Greece and on to Malta – the first stage on their journey to a new life together in Donald’s beloved Ardnish.
ISBN 978 1 78027 426 3
£8.99
We Fought for Ardnish Page 22