Rhanna at War

by Christine Marion Fraser

  ‘Hey, I thought I was now a member of this mad clan,’ Kirsteen said, rubbing her nose with a floury hand.

  Shona giggled. ‘You both look members of a ghost clan . . . and I’m sorry to the pair of you for this afternoon . . . Now . . .’ she rolled up her sleeves to wash her hands then went merrily into the fray.

  ‘I thought you were getting ready for this mad Manse ceilidh that’s the talk of the place,’ Fergus objected. ‘You and Niall . . .’

  ‘He’s taking Babbie. She hasn’t been to an island ceilidh yet. They know each other, you know – Niall and Babbie – met in Glasgow. I’m going over later to sit with Anton.’

  ‘But . . .’ Kirsteen began, but Shona held up a floury hand. ‘No more talk about me. I’m sure you’re both heartily sick of me and my bothers.’

  Fergus was about to reply when Shona interrupted with a shriek.

  ‘I can smell burning! I think your bread is on fire, Father!’

  ‘Bugger it!’ He rushed to the oven. Kirsteen glanced at Shona and they both collapsed into helpless laughter as Fergus glowered at his burnt loaves and the three of them spent a light-hearted hour together before Shona went upstairs to tidy herself.

  When she arrived at Slochmhor, Phebie was hauling a protesting Fiona from Anton’s room. ‘The little devil simply won’t leave poor Anton alone!’ Phebie panted. ‘A grass snake this time – that after a frog, a newt and—’

  ‘But he wanted to see them!’ Fiona wailed petulantly.

  ‘Well, it’s bed for you now, Madam, and no nonsense or I’ll give you a skelpit leathering!’ She looked at Shona enquiringly. ‘I thought you would be at this praise meeting-cum-ceilidh. I told Niall I would stay with Anton, though I fancy he would prefer you to an auld wife like me.’ She put her hand on Shona’s arm. ‘Isn’t it grand our Niall’s come home to us, mo ghaoil? I feel ten years younger already!’ She looked ten years younger with her bonny round face flushed and her eyes shining.

  ‘Ay, it’s wonderful, Phebie,’ Shona agreed while her heart turned over. ‘I told him to take Babbie out tonight. She’s worked so hard here and she – the two of them – deserve a break. I don’t mind keeping Anton company for a while.’

  ‘You’re a good lassie,’ Phebie said while inwardly she wondered what had gone wrong between her son and his sweetheart. ‘I’ll go down and make Lachy some supper to come home to. He went away over to see Todd and Biddy – evidently she is not very happy with this unfortunate spare nurse the authorities have sent.’

  Fiona popped her head out of her door. ‘I think tomorrow I’ll put a lump of frog spawn into Elspeth’s sago pudding. We always have sago on a Monday and . . .’

  ‘Bed!!’ Phebe cried and made a lunge at Fiona who evaded her and went running round her room shrieking with glee.

  Anton smiled at the sounds of merriment. ‘That little Fiona, she is heaven and hell all rolled into one. I see frogs till I am green! But, what are you doing here, Fräulein Shona? You should be enjoying yourself. I don’t need anyone to hold my hand – and I have no wish to make things worse between you and Niall.’

  Shona sat down by the bed. ‘Ach, don’t worry about us. I came over to cheer you up. I thought you would be pleased to see my bonny face.’

  ‘Bonny?’

  ‘A saying – it means – well – nice-looking, though not in that way exactly.’

  ‘No, I would say more like – beautiful? Niall is a very lucky fellow – and also a very angry young man.’

  She flushed. ‘Ay, he is that, but not at you really, you just happened to be handy, that’s all.’

  ‘Because I’m a German. It’s all right, I understand.’

  ‘But – you shouldn’t understand! How can you understand! To be hated because you are a German!’

  He took her hand gently. ‘It is natural, Fräulein Shona. When first I knew my family had been killed by the British I hated them. Before that they were just people to fight because fighting them was the right thing to do in war. But when the killing involves you personally it becomes a private war. Niall saw people he loved killed just a few days ago. The hate is strong within him – also he hates because he doesn’t understand what has gone wrong between you and him, neither of you can. It is the baby he says you lost, while he was in France. You cannot yet bring yourselves to speak about it – really bring it into the open and talk it out of your hearts. It will go on poisoning you both till you do, the mixing up of your feelings will just go on and on . . .’ His blue eyes flashed and he smiled. ‘And I will go on talking too much. My mother, she used to say to me, “Anton, you are like an old gramophone, wind you up and you never stop”.’

  Shona saw the quickening of the pulse in his neck at the mentioning of his mother and a sadness stole into her heart. ‘You are a very nice person, Anton Büttger, and even yet you cry inside for the family you have lost – and – and I think you are also very brave because not once have you bemoaned the fact that some of your fingers had to come off yesterday.’

  He held up his bandaged hand and looked at it. Lachlan had removed two of the fingers, hoping that the third, which hadn’t been too badly frostbitten, might heal with time. ‘I am not brave, Fräulein, I have lain in this bed and felt very sorry for myself indeed, but I could have been worse off. You tell me your father lost an arm in an accident . . .’ he said smiling ruefully. ‘I am lucky I still have an arm with at least some of my fingers attached.’

  There were a few moments of silence between them. Shona got up and went to look from the window. The mist had rolled in from the sea and the moors shimmered in a thick blanket that seemed to stretch to eternity. It was an odd feeling. Rhanna was just a tiny island, isolated far out in the Atlantic, yet certain weather conditions made the great undulating shaggy blanket of the Muir of Rhanna reach out to drape over the world. During the long sparkling days of the Hebridean summers the illusion was heightened even further. The deep blue of the ocean, glimpsed between distant outcrops of perpendicular cliffs, was the cradle on which the heather-covered mattress lay, with the heads of the mountains rearing up into shrouds of gossamer mist. Then the land and the sea became as one with nothing between them and eternity.

  As Shona watched a meek little puff of wind occasionally blew the mist into swirling wisps, revealing the blurred face of the moon peering in sullen anonymity through the hazy curtain.

  ‘You look at the moon and you think of Niall and Babbie at this ceil – ceil . . .’

  ‘Ceilidh,’ Shona supplied. ‘It means a sing-song and perhaps a dance and a story. I hope you will experience one before you leave Rhanna. Ay, you are right, Anton, I was thinking, but I’ve had a lot of experience of that.’

  ‘Has Babbie been your friend long?’ he asked tactfully.

  She shook her head and Anton could not help thinking how beautiful she looked standing against the moonlit window. ‘No, not long at all. In fact I know very little about her, but enough – well, I thought it was enough – to feel as though I’d want to have her for a friend for the rest of my life.’

  ‘She is another one who does not like Germans.’ Anton said the words in a matter-of-fact way but with such assurance that Shona choked back the protest that had risen to her lips. She was remembering Babbie in the surgery, trembling, looking at the unconscious Anton with a strange, indefinable look.

  ‘It is true, Fräulein Shona,’ he continued rather wearily. ‘I feel the things that people feel. I look at Fräulein Babbie’s sweet and honest face and sense the battles that go on inside her head all the time. She appears calm but inside she fights many emotions. It is against her nature to dislike anyone but she dislikes Germans – and I am a German. Oh, she attends every one of my needs with devotion, but it is training – not trust or fondness – that makes her do so.’

  His was such a frank assessment that Shona could find nothing to say to contradict him because she knew he would know she was putting on an act. He was watching her face with those perspicacious blue eyes of his and she fou
nd herself reddening.

  ‘Babbie is a very mysterious sort of girl,’ she said finally. ‘As I say, I know very little about her so I can’t tell you much about her feelings on certain matters.’

  ‘You are kind, Fräulein Shona,’ he smiled. ‘You do not wish to hurt me, and while we are on the subject of people and the things they do, I believe it is you I have to thank for saving my life.’

  Embarrassment made her suddenly brisk. ‘Och, that is just a lot of blethers from a lot of old women. Donald and my wee brother, Grant, found you. They thought you were a monster, or a ghost,’ she laughed. ‘And looking at your white face now I’m beginning to think they were right. It’s high time I went and let you get some sleep.’

  He had sunk into his pillows, hollow-cheeked and strained with exhaustion and as she tucked in his blankets Lachlan popped his head round the door and in a whisper beckoned her out into the hall.

  ‘Shona, mo ghaoil,’ Lachlan said as he put his hand on her arm, ‘Niall hasn’t said anything but I know all is not what it should be between you.’ His deep compassionate brown eyes seemed to look right into her troubled heart. ‘You must stop torturing one another, mo ghaoil, or one day you will waken up and find it is too late for either of you. You are like my own lassie and my dearest wish is to see the pair of you settled. Take heed of what I say. It’s you who should be up at the Manse with him this very minute and fine the two of you know it. Sometimes I wish you were bairns again then I would have an excuse to take you over my knee and give you a good leathering!’

  ‘Ach, you were aye too soft-hearted even to beat a doormat,’ she said and they both laughed.

  When Shona reached Laigmhor it was warm and quiet. Although Fergus and Kirsteen were still up in the kitchen, Shona managed to avoid them and crept wearily into bed. But she couldn’t sleep. She was thinking of Niall and Babbie at the ceilidh. It would be a merry affair. The Rev. John Gray might start off with psalms and hymns but the islanders would see to it that it turned into a proper ceilidh. Niall and Babbie would dance together . . . he would hold her close . . . and then they would go back to Slochmhor together because Babbie was still staying there, though she had moved out of Anton’s room. She was in the little box room – which was on the other side of Niall’s room!

  ‘Oh God,’ she whispered, ‘please help me to be less suspicious – and – jealous. I can’t help it, I love Niall so much yet every time we meet we seem to fight all the time . . .’ She snuggled into her pillows and wept. Her arms ached to hold something. Tot, her faithful old spaniel, had shared her bed for years, but Tot was dead now and she felt terribly alone.

  Mirabelle’s rag dolls sat in a floppy row on the shelves. Whenever she looked at them she thought of the plump, homely old housekeeper who had been mother to her during the vulnerable years of her childhood. The old lady had lovingly stitched every one of the dolls and now they were all somewhat dusty and bedraggled, but on the whole they had stood the test of time. On top of the dresser was the splendid ‘town’ doll given to her by Fergus’s brother, Alick, on one of his summer visits to the island. The extravagant beauty of the doll had taken her breath away and for a time Mirabelle’s rag dolls had been cast aside. But the ‘town’ doll was cold and hard with none of the cuddly qualities of the others. She had never taken it to bed. Eventually it had become an ornament, a pleasant reminder of the uncle whose affection she had always appreciated though she knew he had caused so much trouble in the past. She hadn’t seen Alick since last autumn. He had joined the army, surprising a lot of people except those who knew him best. He was still trying to prove himself, making up for the years of self-indulgence of his early manhood.

  Shona looked at the ‘town’ doll with its prettily painted face. ‘Poor Uncle Alick,’ she said softly and, getting up, she retrieved it from the dresser, picked out her most favoured rag doll, and then padding back to bed she cuddled the toys to her like a lost child.

  Chapter Twelve

  When the Commandos had come to the island, expecting to round up a whole flock of German invaders, and had discovered that the whole thing was a false alarm, Dunn had quickly dispatched a message back to base to the effect that the mission would be accomplished much sooner than expected. He had used Behag’s ‘contraption’ to send out the reports and at first she had received him into her Report Centre with utmost tight-lipped suspicion. But he was a young man possessed of fine tact, and in a few words he had dispelled Behag’s guilt and made her feel an important ally in the war game.

  ‘I need your help, Mistress Beag,’ he had told her courteously. ‘To be truthful, I am not acquainted enough with the machine to get the best from it. It is not exactly the most up-to-date transmitter but I am sure that is no deterrent to a woman like you . . . you are in a very important position you know, Mistress Beag . . . you and the Coastguard are probably the two best assets on the island.’

  Behag had blossomed then like a wilted plant revived by water. Her jowls, which lay in several wizened layers on her neck, had unfolded one by one into taut furrows as she slowly tilted her head heavenwards and in a silent flurry of gratitude had thanked the Lord for allowing her to keep her dignity despite all the gossip she had endured since the arrival of the bomber. Later, when she could justifiably lift up her head again, the population of Rhanna was destined to hear repeatedly the story of the gallant Dunn, ‘an officer and a gentleman, just’, who, when her very own kith and kin had forsaken her, gave her the strength to carry on.

  At first the Commandos had been disconcerted by their plight, but after a few days in the peaceful environment of Rhanna their initial irritation at the situation had evaporated quickly. Without being able to help themselves, each man had felt a reprieve from the serious and dangerous duties of the war. Despite a lack of military skill the islanders had somehow managed to net three Germans. Only one remained to be taken, and on a small island like Rhanna that seemed an easy enough task. But they soon discovered how wrong they were.

  Earlier in the day Dunn had told the Commandos on guard duty at the Manse that the capture of the fourth German would almost certainly be accomplished before nightfall, but night had fallen hours ago and there was still no sign of the other Commandos and the members of the Home Guard who formed the search party. In the hours of daylight the interest of the Home Guard had been sharp enough, with each man feeling a throat-catching excitement at the idea of being the first to capture the elusive German. But the twilight had brought strange looming shapes to play on the whispering amber grasses. And when night fell, and the mist draped itself over the island like a shroud, cloud patterns danced on the aloof ruddy face of the winter moon and shadows loomed over the moor. At such time, the imaginative mind, fed from the breast on myths and folklore, saw the flapping cloaks of spooks and peat hags gliding over lost lonely places, and heard the thin voice of the sea, riding in on the wind, breathing the life of the past into the eerie shadows. These were the nights of the witching moon when fancy ran free and the crofters left the comfort of their homes only to see to their beasts or to walk a short distance to ceilidh in another warm house.

  The Commandos had had a long and tiring day, but that they were able to take in their stride. The usual hazards of wide open spaces had presented no problems: they knew about peat hags and peat bogs; they were familiar with the ebb and flow of the tides and, with the added advice gladly given by Righ, had already explored many of the deep dank caverns that yawned into the cliffs surrounding the greater part of the coastline. But what they weren’t so prepared for was a people so incurably addicted to the mythical legends of the moors that certain parts of it were taboo unless absolutely essential. The search for the German had been considered necessary and, on the whole, had been undertaken with curiosity. But the nearer the search got to the Abbey ruins the more the Home Guard’s enthusiasm began to wane. Lusty cries of merry banter became more subdued till eventually everyone spoke in whispers and took frequent peeps over their shoulders. Much of it was exaggerate
d but the effect was such that even the Commandos had now lowered their voices to eerie whispers.

  ‘Is it the German you’re afraid of?’ Anderson mouthed to Torquil.

  Torquil didn’t answer for a moment. He drew a big strong hand over his shaggy thatch and his blue eyes contemplated the craggy grey stones of the Abbey hunched together like old men sharing secrets. ‘Na, na . . . tis no’ the German,’ he said finally without a hint of discomfort. ‘Thon’s the place o’ the ghosts and they don’t like being disturbed.’

  ‘But it’s only an old ruin,’ Anderson persisted.

  Torquil looked at him with pity and said heavily, ‘And all you know, eh? Thon’s the place o’ the tomb, man. Underneath these hillocks is caves full of coffins. Walk on the turf above and waken the dead beneath!’

  ‘And you all know where the openings of these caves . . . or tombs – are?’

  ‘Some, ay, some no,’ was the general agreement.

  ‘But they’re all grown over and mustny be disturbed,’ old Andrew, who was one of the best Seanachaidhs on the island, and who was possessed of an imagination that turned the most mundane event into a thing of magic, whispered. He looked hastily over his shoulder and added, ‘The mist is gathering. Look now! It’s creeping in from the sea and the Uisga Hags will be hidin’ on the rocks near the shore. Sometimes they come right ashore in a mist and before you know where you are they are lurin’ you out to sea where you will be after drownin’.’

  ‘The – Uisga Hags?’ came the Commandos’ query.

  ‘Ay, ay, the green water witches,’ old Andrew explained patiently. Thoughtfully, he gathered a gob of spit into his cheeks which he inflated several times before spitting to the ground with an expertise that left no traces on his lips. Staring at the frothy strings dangling on a grassy tussock he went on in deliberately dramatic tones. ‘They’re the spirits o’ witches cast out o’ the island hundreds of years afore, an’ they have just hung aboot haunting us ever since. Beautiful mermaids they be one minute but if you are out at your lobster pots an’ dare to take your thoughts away from your work, one look into the wicked green eyes o’ a mermaid witch an’ you’re done for. There she changes into a wizened crone wi’ whiskers an’ warts an’ she carries you off to the bottom of the sea to show you off to the other hags.’ His rheumy blue eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘Hard up for men they are down there on the bed o’ the ocean, an’ the first thing they do is take your trousers off. It’s the surest sign a man has been taken by the hags when his trousers float all limp and empty to the surface o’ the sea!’