‘My God, what way did he survive?’ a wildly staring Matthew muttered before he rushed behind a bush to vomit.
Chapter Seven
Babbie, rising soon after Shona’s departure, had taken herself off on a walk to Portcull to fetch some groceries for Kirsteen, and when she entered Merry Mary’s shop the atmosphere was charged with excitement.
Little Merry Mary was an Englishwoman who had for many years been labelled as an ‘old incomer’ which she regarded as an honour. But now, after more than forty years she was regarded as a native, and with her quaint tongue and equally whimsical ways she might indeed have sprung from Hebridean soil. Limp ginger hair hung over a bright, inquisitive face from which protruded a square nose, dubiously decorated with a large brown wart. Unknown to its host it had been an object of great interest to the island children over the years: the first child to notice its demise being promised a monetary reward from every other youngster on the island. Like everywhere else Rhanna suffered from inflation and likewise did the value of Merry Mary’s wart. Happily she was as unaware of her wart as she was to the mischievous attentions paid to it, and in her delightfully jumbled shop that morning her tongue was wagging busily, entirely oblivious to all but the latest events on the island.
The tiny shop was crowded, tongues clicked, heads nodded, and curious looks were directed frequently towards the Post Office. The news about the ludicrous situation that had arisen on the island because of Behag’s misleading message had reached every corner of Rhanna and it was a near-certainty that the subject was being analysed with thorough enjoyment over dinner-tables everywhere.
Soon Erchy the Post came strolling out of the Post Office, a nonchalant whistle on his lips. He walked very casually over to Merry Mary’s but his composure failed him at the last moment and he almost fell in the door.
‘Well! And what is she saying for herself?’ came the inevitable cry of unconcealed curiosity. Under normal circumstances the islanders gave the impression of being uninterested in gossip even while they listened avidly. If a stranger was in their midst a gently malicious tale would cease and the interest would quietly be transferred to something mundane. But as events that morning were of a great magnitude and kettles had been singing over peat fires all night, no one paid the slightest attention to Babbie, who was gazing at the array of glass sweet jars with what seemed to be undivided curiosity. During her childhood in the Argyllshire orphanage Babbie had picked up a fair Gaelic vocabulary from an ancient gardener and, although it was a vastly different Gaelic to that of the Hebrides, she nevertheless got the gist of the conversation. Furthermore, one or two of the younger islanders lapsed frequently from Gaelic to English, which was a great advantage.
Erchy ran a hand through his sparse sandy hair and looked faintly bemused. ‘She is not saying a word! Not a single word. It is like the shock has taken her tongue. Poor auld Robbie is begging her to speak but the bitch is just standin’ at the counter with her lips tighter than the backside of a day-old chick. ’Tis lucky she is human enough to have calls o’ nature like the rest of us, giving Robbie a chance to tell me the news . . .’ He paused importantly while sounds of encouragement echoed round him then went on. ‘Well, Robbie was thinkin’ there were three German airy-planes over the island last night. Righ said it was a Heinkel three and Robbie thought he said three Heinkels and told Behag so. Well, you see, she reported that parachutes were droppin’ everywhere and help was to be sent urgently. It was Totie Little saw men landing over at Aosdana Bay before dawn this morning and she told that writer, Dugie Donaldson, who told the Home Guard. For a whily everyone was running round in circles dodgin’ the lads from the boat till they found out they were Commandos come to rescue the island. A lot o’ them have gone away again but a few have stayed to help wi’ the Jerries. Just as well, too, I’m thinkin’, for Robbie was after tellin’ me that one o’ the Jerries has escaped from the Manse . . . that big bull-headed one wi’ the bulging eyes. He ate a slap-up breakfast given him by Mrs Gray then just buggered off. He knows he won’t get off the island but being the type he is just wants to make things more difficult for the soldiers. Time is precious to these lads and there’s goin’ to be a fine stramash over the whole affair.’
There was a gasp of surprise over this last piece of news and everyone looked at each other rather fearfully.
‘They will take the contraption away from Behag!’ said someone in awe.
‘Totie will be gettin’ it in her Post Office,’ put in Morag Ruadh, the nimble-fingered spinner who also played the ancient church organ which Totie had itched to play for years. ‘Totie always has her eye on other people’s occupations,’ she finished with a toss of her red hair.
‘Ach well, she is having a clever head on her shoulders,’ hazarded Mairi McKinnon, Morag’s cousin.
Morag’s eyes blazed. ‘And what are you insinuating, Mairi? There is some brains in the family!’ Morag had a spiteful tongue, more pronounced since her dithering, simple younger cousin had, by means more innocent than calculating, got herself pregnant which in turn had got her swiftly to the altar, a fact not easily borne by Morag, who was at a loss to understand why she had never arrived at that revered spot herself.
Tears sprang to Mairi’s guileless brown eyes. Her happy life had been shattered since her adored William had gone marching away to join the navy and she was more easily hurt than she had ever been. Kate McKinnon, fresh-faced and full of her usual energy despite her nocturnal activities, rushed to defend her daughter-in-law to whom she had grown close after an initial spell of resentment. ‘Ach, leave her be!’ she scolded Morag Ruadh. ‘Can the cratur no’ make a simple remark without you jumpin’ down her throat?’
‘Simple right enough,’ Morag muttered, but Kate’s boisterous voice drowned out all else as she addressed Mairi earnestly.
‘And how is your poor father, mo ghaoil? It was a bad state he was in when I was last seein’ him.’
‘Ay, well, he’s right enough now,’ Mairi faltered, recalling to mind the picture of Todd being trundled past her window in a wheelbarrow before midnight. She had merely thought he was being delivered home by his crapulous friends and no one had told her otherwise till the operation was over because she was useless in an emergency. ‘The doctor made a fine job of him but we were thinkin’ that someone would be over to see was he better this morning but neither the doctor or Biddy has come.’
At that moment, Elspeth Morrison, the gaunt, sharp-tongued housekeeper of Slochmhor, pushed into the shop. Her life had been embittered by her childless marriage to a fisherman who had met his end through drink. Her saving grace was her dour devotion to the doctor and his family and she jealously guarded her position in the household.
‘The poor doctor is exhausted being up all night,’ she imparted haughtily. ‘He is in no fit state to be gallivanting after people who bring illness upon themselves! A fine thing indeed to be operating on a man pickled in drink and the stuff so scarce it is a mystery how he managed to get so much of it inside himself!’ Here she looked meaningfully at Kate who was looking at bobbins of thread with great interest. ‘Biddy is the one should be seeing to Todd,’ Elspeth went on. ‘Knowing her she will have had her fill o’ sleep. The doctor was sayin’ she must have decided to bide the night at Todd’s because she was feart to go back over the glen with the Germans about, but she should have checked in at Slochmhor to see was she needed this morning . . .’ She snorted disdainfully. ‘The doctor wanted her to call in at the Manse to see how was the Germans. I wouldny blame Biddy if that was maybe why she is makin’ herself scarce!’
Mairi, looking uncertain of her facts, murmured, ‘Ay well, she was not near the place this early morning and Father worrying a bit about his stitches too tight.’
Elspeth put her sharp nose in the air. ‘And tight they would have to be to keep all that liquid from oozing out . . . he will be uncomfortable for quite a whily,’ she ended unsympathetically.
The subject of Todd’s health having been exhaust
ed the shop then turned eagerly to fresh speculation over the fate of Behag Beag and the two Germans who were still wandering loose on the island.
Babbie, having made her purchases, hurried back to Laigmhor, and mischievously imparted all the gossip she had heard. To Fergus, who had been at dinner with Bob when Grant burst into the kitchen with the garbled message, it only confirmed what he already suspected, for by the time he had heard his son’s tales of ‘monsters and ghosts’ on Sliach he was in no mood to believe in further ridiculous rumours. Nevertheless there was still the question of the two missing Germans and, though they would soon be found by the efficient Commandos, he felt he couldn’t take any risks till the whole affair was sorted out.
As Fergus pushed away his half-eaten food and began to struggle into his jacket, Bob wiped his mouth with a horny hand and said gruffly, ‘The bairns are havering, man! We have no time to be chasing fairy tales!’ Old Bob was annoyed at the disruption the German bomber had wreaked in his normal working routine. At sixty-eight he was gnarled and tough from a lifetime of working in every kind of weather the winds brought to Rhanna. He revelled in the hard work his job as shepherd brought him, but it was a time-consuming task which left little room for interruption.
Fergus looked at his black-eyed son and solemn-faced Donald standing with his hands folded behind his back, but before Fergus could speak Kirsteen intervened.
‘I know when Grant is lying,’ she said quietly. ‘And I don’t think Shona would have sent him to tell a fairy tale.’
Grant looked up at his father. ‘Shona said the monster was a parachute . . .’
‘And the kelpie on the wee island was likely a German,’ Donald added breathlessly.
It was enough for Fergus. ‘You get on with your work, Bob, I’ll go over to Sliach and see what all the fuss is about!’
But Bob suddenly felt ashamed. He knew Fergus wouldn’t ask help of any man unwilling to give it and if it wasn’t for Kirsteen’s kindness his midday meal would be nothing more than bread and cheese washed down with milk. He scraped his chair back and strode to the door to push his feet into muddy wellingtons. ‘I’ll get along with him, lass,’ he told Kirsteen. ‘Thankin’ you for my dinner.’
She gripped his knotted brown hand briefly. ‘Thank you, Bob,’ she said simply, but he knew what she meant. He made to follow Fergus but she stopped him by calling in rather awed tones, ‘Shouldn’t you take a gun? It – might be dangerous.’
‘Ach, no, Matthew will have his! If the German has come down on Sliach it’s more likely prayers he’ll be needin’.’
‘Can I come with you, Bob?’ Grant asked anxiously, the idea of chasing Germans far more appealing to him than an afternoon with school books. ‘I have a fine gun I made myself.’
Seeing Kirsteen’s rather harassed look Babbie put down the dish cloth and began to peel off her apron. ‘I’ll take you to school . . . the pair of you,’ she said firmly. ‘But we’ll go to the harbour for a wee while first and chase the seagulls.’
Grant snorted, feeling himself far too manly for the pastimes he had revelled in only recently, but Bob was already hurrying away, calling on Dot, his sheepdog, who had rounded up a dismayed squadron of hens.
When Bob saw the young German airman he knew it was well that he had come because Fergus with his one arm and a visibly shaken Matthew would never have managed Anton into the boat.
But at first Fergus had no intention of doing such a thing. His dark eyes had snapped and the muscle of his jaw had tightened. It was one thing for the men of the island to deal with the Enemy, but it was entirely another to see his daughter tenderly ministering to one of them. And as he watched her frantically tearing strips from the hem of her white petticoat to make them into bandages, he was consumed with rage. A German lay on Rhanna soil and his daughter was behaving as if his life was a precious thing that had to be preserved.
His hand flashed out to grip her roughly by the shoulders and haul her to her feet. ‘Get away from him!’ he ordered harshly. ‘Bob and myself will see to him!’
Tears of anger glinted in her eyes. ‘Will you, Father – will you see – to this?’ She pulled back the blood-saturated cloak to reveal the terrible wounds.
‘Dear God, help him!’ Bob muttered, swallowing hard.
‘God – and Lachlan!’ she cried passionately. ‘He needs attention quickly or he’ll die . . . if he doesn’t anyway,’ she added so sadly that Fergus put his arm round her and whispered huskily, ‘I’m – sorry, mo ghaoil – it was just – things that bother me sometimes.’
He raised his voice. ‘Matthew, row like the devil then get along over for Lachlan! Tell him to bring his trap as far as your house!’
Matthew, glad of something to do, almost fell into the boat and splashed away hurriedly.
Fergus looked down at Anton. ‘Is . . . there anything you can do for him, Shona?’
Wordlessly she laid a broad strip of petticoat over the gaping viscera. Bob and Fergus gently lifted Anton’s body till a thick wad of material was fixed in place. It was immediately soaked in blood and Shona stepped out of what remained of her petticoat and bound it over the bloodstained pad.
‘My, but you’re a bright lass,’ Bob said admiringly. ‘There’s more in your head than was put there by a spoon.’
‘But I can’t do any more.’ Her voice was filled with frustration. Her experience of nursing was of a limited nature though her few months’ training had equipped her with an efficiency that was at times even a surprise to herself. Her legs were shaking and she felt sick with reaction. Silently she sent up a prayer that the doctor hadn’t been called to another part of the island. She looked at Anton’s face. It was drained of colour and the congealed blood on his forehead leapt out from the whiteness in a vicious riot of purple and red.
It was very quiet. The cold green water lapped the little island. A lone Red-throated Diver paddled hurriedly by, uttering its melancholy mewing wail, annoyed that its chosen nesting territory had been violated by humans. Over the crags of Ben Machrie a great bird soared majestically.
Bob’s hand rasped over the stubble on his chin, his eyes raking the misted azure of the sky. ‘Damt eagle,’ he muttered uneasily. ‘It’s roamin’ up there like it’s waitin’ for the lambs comin’.’ But his unease wasn’t incurred by the sight of the eagle whose home lay in the remote mountain ledges. His eyes kept straying to Anton lying like one already dead and his grip tightened on the bone handle of his shepherd’s crook.
Fergus leaned against the bole of a tree and lit his pipe with a show of calm but his mind was racing. He tried to keep from looking at Anton but couldn’t, the anger in his heart now replaced by a pathos he could barely understand. It wasn’t right to feel like this about a German. He struggled with his thoughts. What was right? To hate because it was the proper thing to do in war? The night before he had looked at Jon Jodl and had felt only pity. They were all the victims of circumstance. This dying youngster was just another victim in a world created by the greed of his so-called leaders; another pawn in the deadly, intricate game of war. There was something else, too, that leapt into Fergus’s mind, that reared up from the depths of the past: his terrible battle with the deadly waters round the Sgor Creags. The frail speck of his life had struggled with a sea that had wanted to crush his body to pulp and that had mangled his left arm beyond repair. Lachlan had amputated it while he lay in a world of hellish delirium; when he’d been without his senses he’d had to depend on the help of the people who loved him most. And now the wounded German was unconscious and dependent. But if he wakened at that moment who would be familiar and beloved enough for him to ask, ‘Will you help me?’
Fergus blew a mouthful of smoke into the hazy blue air. For a moment it hung suspended, and when it gradually dispersed all the prejudices that had swathed his thinking went with it. Shona twisted round in a gesture of impatience and caught the look of tenderness in his black eyes. ‘You’re a fine nurse,’ he told her quietly. ‘You did a grand job. I’m s
ure he’ll be grateful to you.’
‘I don’t want his thanks, Father, just a chance of life for him, that’s all. I wish Lachlan would hurry.’
Dot was barking impatiently from the shore. She had followed Matthew through the woods but realizing that her master wasn’t coming behind she had come back to look for him. The sound of her yelps echoed into the corries of the Ben, then rebounded back over the loch to be lost over the shaggy moors.
‘I’ll kill that damt dog!’ Bob cursed as the eerie ghost bark bounced again and again off the face of the mountain. In normal circumstances he would have roared at Dot to be quiet but hard and tough as he was he felt himself to be in the very presence of Death and his watery eyes gazed broodingly at the unrestrained antics of the lively dog.
Time is an eternity when filled with urgency, but barely thirty minutes had passed when the tall, slim figure of Lachlan finally burst through the thicket of pines on the opposite shore and jumped quickly into the waiting boat. As he pushed it off and came gliding through the calm green water, the men let out sighs of relief and Shona gave a welcoming cry, for the sight of his black bag and the air of reassurance that seemed to enshroud him brought both peace and hope to everyone there. As everyone on Rhanna knew just to look at Lachlan McLachlan was to know love: his tanned face was finely drawn, his mouth firm and sensitive. But it was in his eyes that anxious souls found peace, where they beheld the compassion of his heart. It was the last thing that many of his patients saw before letting go of life.
Rhanna at War Page 9