Air Ambulance

by Jean S. MacLeod

  “I haven’t the vaguest idea,” Evelyne Burnside told her dryly. “It’s hardly my business to go into the reasons for an uncle's visit to a child in hospital, even if he has a profile that might be carved out of granite and the manner of the remotest consultant. He arrived during the regulation visiting hour, so that was all I was really concerned about.”

  “Yes—yes, I’m sure.”

  Alison had spoken vaguely, but as she walked away she felt happier than she had done for the past two days. Even if his father hadn’t come, perhaps Blair of Heimra had passed on the request to Andrew’s visitor, and that made her think of Fergus Blair in a slightly kinder light.

  A week later she was on the plane that took Andrew home. He had been in the hospital for ten days and had spoken to her shyly once or twice about his uncle, showing her the present of books which he had brought with him, but his unexpected visitor had not returned. After a day or two, she had deemed it wise to let the uncle’s name drop from their conversation altogether, trying not to feel as disappointed to him as she was in Blair of Heimra himself.

  “You’re going home, Andrew,” she smiled, when she walked into the children’s ward on the morning of their departure. “We’re going on the aeroplane again.”

  The blue eyes lit up.

  “You too?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m going with you.”

  “And Captain Gowrie?”

  “I’m not sure, I hope he will be.” She really hoped that Ronald Gowrie would be taking them back. “He says he gets on much better when he has someone to help him!”

  Ronald Gowrie was walking out over the apron when the road ambulance arrived, and he saluted them smartly.

  “So you go off with another guy all the way to Benbecula as soon as my back’s turned!” he joked. “I heard you had a pretty rough trip.”

  “We didn’t see anything, if that’s what you mean,” Alison returned. “It makes the journey seem longer when there’s rain.”

  “If you had been with me I would have taken you away out above the clouds,” he grinned. “Cairns doesn’t have any imagination! Hullo, laddie!” he greeted Andrew. “All set for another trip?”

  “Yes, please!” Andrew said eagerly.

  This morning the airport was very busy. A V.I.P. was due to leave in half an hour on a south-bound charter, and Apron Control wanted to get the Heron away as quickly as possible so they were soon airborne.

  Andrew stood close up behind Ronald Gowrie as soon as they were able to unbuckle their seat-belts, eager to be allowed to touch the controls, forgetting to be sick now, although Alison had prepared for that small emergency.

  “There it is! There it is!” he cried a dozen times before Heimra eventually came into view, rising out of the sea like the goddess of all beauty herself, and Alison knew that her own excitement was reaching out to match the child’s.

  If Andrew was glad to come back, she was more than eager to see Heimra again.

  Then, suddenly, she was feeling sorry for the man who had flown them here. Ronald Gowrie had taken over from his First Officer to bring them down on to the landing strip, and he sat rigidly at the controls, his face devoid of colour, his jaw hard and his mouth compressed and grim. Heimra was no longer a dream island to him. It was the home of tragedy and regret, the island where he had lost his love.

  As they circled and glided down towards the pale strip of the machar, she picked out the tiny speck of a launch making a white arrowhead on its journey towards the shore. It had come from Heimra Beag, from the smaller island where Blair of Heimra refused them a landing place.

  Andrew had seen the launch, and he clenched his hands in excitement, his blue eyes growing larger than ever with pleasurable anticipation.

  “He’s coming for me! He’s coming for me! Soon I shall be back at Garrisdale,” he breathed.

  Something stuck in Alison’s throat so that she could not answer him, but she took his hand as the plane came down. He had not quite conquered that stomach-emptying sensation of descent, and he clutched at her mutely.

  “All right,” she soothed, “we’re levelling up now. Soon we will feel the landing wheels bumping on the sand.”

  When she looked out of her starboard porthole the launch was already moored at a small stone jetty a short distance along the shore, and Fergus Blair was striding towards the landing strip.

  With a sense of shock for which she could not account in that first moment of contact, she saw that he was attired in a well-worn tweed jacket, with a comfortable, equally well-worn kilt swinging at his knees. He wore a Balmoral bonnet, and carried an ancient shepherd’s crook—a cromag, Andrew said it was—and he looked exactly what he was—the laird of an island, the rather autocratic monarch of all he surveyed.

  She thought, for a moment, that he had a hard face, because she wanted to think it, and then Andrew had disengaged his ham from hers and had thrown himself with amazing force right into his arms.

  Blair of Heimra lifted him bodily into the air, examining him critically under cover of a smile.

  “Let me have a look at you!” he commanded. “Have they made good job of these tonsils? The wretched things were no use to anyone.”

  The child hugged him again and again without saying a word. He was so near to tears, Alison realized, so near to the sort of weakness he had been taught to guard against.

  By this man? Suddenly she was meeting Fergus Blair’s eyes above Andrew’s tousled head and condemning him.

  “It was good of you to return him,” he mentioned conventionally as he set the child on his feet again. “Did he travel well this time?”

  “Very well.” The words were more frigid than she had intended them to be, but the fact that he appeared to have made enquiries, at a distance, about their former flight goaded her to a cold sort of anger which she could not control. “I think he was too excited about coming home to be sick,” she added briefly.

  “Yes, he must have missed the island.” The grey eyes remained fully upon her. “You weren’t on duty when I visited the hospital last week,” he remarked. “I wanted to say ‘thank you’ for taking care of Andrew on the way over.”

  “Oh!—” The word fled from her lips on her utter surprise. “So you did come? But I was told that only his uncle had visited him...”

  Something stirred in the grey eyes and the firm mouth relaxed a little.

  “What relationship did you think I bore to Andrew?” he asked. “I thought you understood that he was my nephew.”

  Alison stood rigid gazing at him across the sand with the little wind of the island blowing the stray tendrils of her hair across her cheek, gazing at him incredulously for a moment before she understood.

  “I thought he was your son,” she confessed almost inaudibly. “I blamed you for sending him away alone.”

  For a split second he did not answer her, and she saw his mouth tighten again into the old, hard line.

  “I am a doctor, nurse. I knew he was in excellent hands,” he said at last. “I could do nothing at the hospital, and a woman’s touch is softer than a man’s. I thought someone would be found to stand proxy for his mother.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m sorry. I should never have judged anyone so harshly, but it seemed terribly unkind and heartless at the time—”

  “I couldn’t leave the island when Andrew was due to go across,” he told her briefly. “We had an outbreak of influenza on Heimra Beag, and I was the only one who could deal with it effectively.”

  “If you had needed extra help,” she said, “we could probably have sent someone from the hospital.”

  “I was able to manage,” he informed her somewhat dryly, as Andrew hurried awkwardly towards the waiting launch where a large, red-bearded man was sitting on the gunwale smoking an ancient pipe. “And now I have to thank you for taking care of Andrew in the hospital, too. He was loud in his praise of you when I visited him that afternoon, but you were not to be found.”

  “I was on the Benbecula run,
” Alison explained. “We’re going off there now,” she added, looking back towards the Heron.

  The engines were still running, ticking over impatiently, and Ronald Gowrie was still in the pilot’s seat. A moment of confusion swept over her as she met Fergus Blair’s clear grey eyes.

  “I thought I might have asked you to have something to eat with us,” he said, “but you appear to be pressed for time. I’m sure Andrew would have liked to entertain you to lunch at the local inn.”

  “I should have loved that,” she said, adding swiftly, “For Andrew’s sake.”

  “Perhaps, when you come again,” he murmured politely as the usual small group of spectators began to gather round the plane, which remained poised as a bird ready for flight. “We’re not a regular port of call, but we do need the plane occasionally.” Suddenly the Heron’s engines cut out.

  The lack of sound seemed to transform the island, bringing its magic close, and it was minutes before she realized that something had gone wrong. Ginger MacLean, who had been smoking a cigarette and chattering to a small, dark man on the fringe of the group of spectators, hurried back to confer with the captain, and after several minutes Ronald Gowrie came down from the plane. He did not look up as Blair walked towards him.

  “Can I do anything to help?” Blair asked.

  “We can manage, thanks all the same.”

  The reply was just short of being surly, but Alison felt that she could excuse Ronald. This unexpected contact with Blair of Heimra, which he had been trying so assiduously to avoid, must have brought him close to the tragedy of his former love with all its attendant heartache, and she wondered if Blair knew.

  Then, as Andrew came up with the red-bearded man in tow, she suddenly realized that the child could be Margot’s son.

  The small, limping figure dragging his foot behind him blurred before her eyes for an instant. Was it possible? Ronald Gowrie had said that Margot and Gavin had only been married for three short months, but the child could have been born after his father’s death. And there had been an accident. Gavin Blair had died as the result of an accident.

  “Will she no’ go?” the red-bearded man asked when Ronald appeared at the cabin door for a second time. “I never did think much o’ puttin’ a lump o’ metal into the sky an’ expectin’ it to stay up,” he reflected, sucking at his pipe as he surveyed the stationary Heron from a safe distance. “You’d be far better with a boat and a sail, I’m thinking.” He peered shortsightedly at Ronald as the Heron’s exasperated Captain turned to look at him. “But I know you!” he exclaimed. “You’re Margot Gowrie’s son. Her second son. What brings you back to Heimra in a contraption like this?” He nodded towards the Heron.

  “An emergency,” Ronald said. “Nothing more. It won’t take long to sort this out,” he added, turning to Alison. “If you’ll give me half an hour, Sandy,” he promised his critic, “I’ll let you see it fly.”

  “So you know what’s wrong with it?” the old sailor mused. “Ay, we’re livin’ in great times, they say! Flyin’ boats an’ atom bombs an’ all the rest o’ it but men aren’t a lot different when you get down to the bottom o’ it all. They still kill and destroy, an’ hate an’ love, I’m thinking—just as they always did an’ always will do! Ye can’t change human nature, even if you think you’ve changed the world!”

  Andrew tugged at Fergus Blair’s hand.

  “Please, if the plane won’t go, could we take Alison to Heimra Beag?” he asked.

  Blair made a brief gesture of dissent.

  “There wouldn’t be time, Andy,” he pointed out. “The plane is going off again in half an hour. But we could ask her to have a cup of coffee with us at the inn, seeing that we can’t do very much to help with the Heron.”

  Alison supposed that it would be the kindest thing for her to accept. Ronald Gowrie would not join them. He would work on the plane as swiftly as he could, hoping that he and Ginger could put right the small defect as quickly as possible, and he would work best without them there.

  “Is it far to the inn?” she asked.

  “Only across the mackar.”

  She saw Blair glance at the state of the tide as they walked away.

  “You’ll no’ be too long?” Sandy asked uneasily. “It’ll be slack water in half an hour.”

  “I won’t keep you waiting, Sandy,” Blair promised.

  “If you’d rather get away at once,” Alison offered, “I shall understand. I know the tides are difficult between the islands.”

  Fergus Blair raised questioning eyebrows.

  “You’ve been on Heimra before—apart from the ambulance run?” he asked.

  “No.” She shook her head. “The pilot told me about Coirestruan.”

  “I remember him vaguely,” Blair said. “He’s changed a lot. There were two Gowrie boys. My brother knew them better than I did. He was, by right, Blair of Heimra. The name is only a courtesy as far as I am concerned. Andrew is his son.”

  Then she had been right, Alison thought. Poor, crippled little Andrew was the real Blair of Heimra. She looked up at the proud, aloof face of Fergus Blair, wondering what he really thought about it all. Even if he had a family of his own—a son to inherit his name—he did not seem the type of man who would harbour any sort of grudge, yet he could easily have been excused for showing resentment and bitterness.

  “Here we are,” he announced when they came to the door of the inn. “I’ll see what Mrs. MacIver can do about some coffee to warm us up. Will you have milk, Andrew?”

  “Could I have coffee, too?” the child asked, clinging to Alison’s hand. “Just this once, please?”

  “Coffee made with milk!” Fergus Blair conceded with a smile which utterly transformed his face. “Just this once!”

  He was fond of the child, although he would not treat him as an invalid, Alison mused. He was bringing Andrew up to discount his crippled state, teaching him to live his life fully on Heimra Beag, to do most of the things that a boy in his position would do in the normal way, to fish and swim, perhaps, and learn some sort of craft which would make the long days pass more swiftly for him in the future. Then, when he was old enough, perhaps he would be able to administer the estate with a certain amount of confidence and success. He would be handicapped, but he would still be Blair of Heimra. At least he could take a pride in his name.

  A lump rose in her throat as she watched Andrew struggling with the storm doors of the inn. Blair had gone round to the back of the house in search of the proprietress, but Andrew seemed to know his way into the parlour, and thought that Alison, as their guest, should be ushered in that way.

  She did not help him with the door, and soon he had pulled it open and was leading the way through a small, dark hall to a room whose oriel window overlooked the sea. For a moment she stood in silence, looking across the narrow neck of water which separated them from Heimra Beag.

  “You’re happy here, Andrew?” she asked involuntarily.

  “Oh, yes,” the child said simply. “It is my home. Everyone is happy except my mother.”

  Alison’s hand went to her throat. It was the first time, to her knowledge, that he had spoken about Margot Blair, and she could not think what to say.

  “She does not like people to come to the island—strange people,” Andrew went on carefully, as if he were repeating a lesson. “Sometimes she does not see anyone but my Uncle Fergus for a very long time.”

  Alison stood quite still, staring out at Coirestruan between the long lace curtains which framed the window, seeing the narrow stretch of sunlit water as the absolute barrier to the other island, the boundary which Fergus Blair had marked as the dividing line between his home and the outside world.

  In spite of herself, she could not help wondering what lay beyond Coirestruan, and when Fergus came back to join them she turned round to face him almost guiltily.

  Was he immured over there by an old tragedy, she wondered, and then she knew that he was too vigorous for that. Whatever sadness and r
egret Heimra Beag held for him, he had not cut himself off completely. He was very much the active laird of both islands.

  Heimra Mhor was the larger community, and he seemed to administer all sorts of justice on the island.

  “I wish I could have a word with you about this new extension to my kitchen,” Mrs. MacIver said diffidently when she brought in their coffee. “Malcolm Murdoch is wanting to charge me double what you said it should cost.”

  “That won’t do,” Blair decided. “I’ll have a look at what he’s done for you so far, Mrs. MacIver, and get him to give you a definite estimate for the remainder of the work.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t mind me asking,” Janet MacIver said as she laid down the tray. “Being a widow woman seems to make you fair prey for some folk!” she added indignantly as she withdrew.

  “You’re going to get good weather for the remainder of your trip,” he observed. “How long will you remain with the air ambulance?”

  “I think I’m going to like the work,” Alison said eagerly, “so it will be up to Matron to decide. A good many of our nurses are eager to be on the rota, of course. It’s amazing how much enthusiasm there is for the work.”

  “I don’t know what the islanders would do without you people,” he said with a smile. “A good many lives must have been sacrificed to their isolation before these desperately ill folk could be brought safely to the big hospitals. I miss the life,” he added abruptly, “although I suppose I have found compensation enough on Heimra.”

  She had not expected him to make such a confession quite so openly, and she ventured to say:

  “I remember you at the Victoria.”

  His smile deepened.

  “I was a very junior houseman then,” he recalled. “I remember you, too. You were the probationer who never seemed to be able to keep her hair out of her eyes!”