Return To Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  Lachlan relented. ‘That’s good of you, Behag, you certainly do take your job seriously. We must try to think of some way of showing our appreciation for when you retire.’

  Behag’s beady eyes lit up and she sprachled away with a spring in her step, only at the bottom of the hill slope experiencing a slight pang of guilt because she had forgotten to ask the doctor ‘how was Morag Ruadh keeping?’

  Chapter Eleven

  Ellie was singing a sea shanty as she peeled potatoes at the neat sink in The Sea Urchin’s saloon. It had been a wonderful trip, first to Hanaay where they had stayed with Mac’s sister, Nellie, in her neat croft beside the sea. There had been ceilidhs almost every other night and during the day her father had taken her on his calls. It had been great fun being a pillion passenger on his old motor bike, her arms round his waist, the wind whistling through her hair as they traversed the length and breadth of the island, visiting farm and croft. She had been enthralled watching his skilful ministrations to the working beasts, but best of all she liked the small animals, the litters of kittens snuggling in haylofts, the gangling sheepdog puppies, even a big black Mynah bird with an orange beak who, with a range of human voices at its command and a vast vocabulary of oaths, had made her shriek with merriment.

  But nothing could beat the baby sea otter she had heard crying one night on the beach outside Nellie’s Croft. On going to investigate she had found it to be injured and helpless. She had taken it back to the croft and her father had worked with it patiently, putting salve on its wounds, showing her how to feed and care for it. After that it had gone with her everywhere in a wickerwork cat basket, its endearing, babylike presence making up for not having her beloved Woody beside her. It had even gone to the ceilidhs at all the different houses and now it was aboard The Sea Urchin, her father having given her permission to keep it though he had raised his eyes and called upon God to help him. She giggled at the remembrance and went to peep at Tubby reclining in his basket, his small prehensile feet clasped round a baby’s feeding bottle, his long luxuriant whiskers dripping with milk. He was perfectly at ease lying on his back, displaying the round furry stomach that had earned him his name, his eyes screwed tight shut in beatific concentration on his bottle. When he had finished the contents he gave a small chirrup of satisfaction before falling asleep with the teat still in his mouth, a most contented expression on his furry baby face.

  Ellie could have stayed watching the fascinating and lovable little creature for hours but after a while she went back to slicing potatoes into chips, her eyes straying every so often to the window above the sink which afforded a view of the tiny uninhabited island of Breac Beag with its grassy plateau, white beaches and awesome overhanging cliffs. Here the gannets and fulmars made a fearsome din as they plummeted to the sea or perched on their nesting sites among the cliffs. But out here on The Sea Urchin, anchored in the bay some distance from the shore, the noise was softened and drifted quite pleasantly over the glassy waves. It was a hot calm day with the sea’s surface visible for miles and not even the mutterings of thunder in the atmosphere could detract from the tranquillity.

  This was the part of the trip she had most looked forward to and it had been everything she could have wished for. The weather had been perfect, blue skies and hot sun. She, her father and Captain Mac had swum in the sheltered bay and fished for hours in the dinghy catching dozens of saithe and mackerel. They had tramped the length and breadth of the island, seeing the bulk of Breac Mor slumbering in a blue haze a mile over the sea, finding the nests of lapwings, peewits and golden plover, discovering and exploring the numerous caves which pitted the cliffs along the coastline, spending a night in the old shepherd’s cottage where they’d ceilidhed till the small hours.

  Yet, delighted as she was with everything, she couldn’t stop her thoughts straying to her mother, wishing she was here to enjoy it all with them. She knew her father wished so too. Often she caught him with a distant look in his eyes and when she challenged him once he had laughed in a discomfited way and said it felt strange not to have her mother’s voice dinning away in his lugs.

  ‘But – you’re always away,’ she had said, puzzled. ‘So why are you missing her this week more than any other?’

  ‘I’m not,’ he had said seriously. ‘I’m always like this when I’m away from her, you’ve just never been here to see it, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s the only thing I don’t like about coming to Rhanna,’ she had said wistfully. ‘You have to be away a lot and I can only come home for holidays. If we had stayed on Kintyre I could have gone to high school in Campbeltown and then I would have been home every night.’

  ‘Ay, but there you used to moan because you didny see enough of your grandparents. Now you can have them every holiday and not just the odd one.’

  She had brightened. ‘Ay, that’s true, I love living on Rhanna for that and for so many other things I can’t count—’ She had paused to study him quizzically. ‘Why are you such a wise old father? I think I’ll stop calling you father and call you Methuselah instead.’

  He had taken her across his knee then and pretended to spank her, making her shout so heartily for mercy that Captain Mac had come running to see who was being killed.

  She took the chip pan from the table and placed it on the neat little calor gas cooker. Until today her father wouldn’t let her do any of the cooking, he and Mac producing the meals between them, which, though wholesome enough, lacked imagination, and after a few days all their palates had become jaded.

  ‘Och, c’mon, Father,’ she had wheedled earlier that day. ‘I’m sick of tinned beans and corned beef – you and Captain Mac can trust me. I’m a big girl now and more capable than you think – and I’ll be sick if I taste one more burnt baked bean!’

  With a laugh he had acceded, his brown eyes resigned as always when he had capitulated to her. He and Captain Mac had gone off in the dinghy to the island leaving her to raid the cupboard, finally deciding to make fish and chips.

  Tubby was making contented little chirping sounds from his basket and she twisted round to watch him, giggling as he opened wide his whiskery jaws in an enormous yawn. The table in the saloon was set, the crisply battered fried fish keeping hot in the oven. All she had to do now was wait for the chips to crisp to a nice golden brown, the way her mother made them and which never failed to draw a favourable comment from her father. She had never made chips before, and hoped anxiously that she would make a good job of them.

  She glanced at the clock. The hands were at five-thirty and she wondered what her mother was doing at that exact moment. Having her tea most likely. At Slochmhor her grandparents would be having their usual tea and scones before the start of evening surgery. Grandpa McKenzie would be coming in from the fields about now, stripping to the waist to wash himself at the sink, his big brown body glistening with soap bubbles. Leaving the cooker for a minute she went to kiss the top of Tubby’s silken head, wondering how Woody would react to a baby otter about the place – never mind Woody – how would her mother react? She rushed back to the cooker, saw that the chips were nearly ready and Mac and her father had still to wash before she could serve up tea. A peal of thunder directly overhead made her jump in fright and she glanced out of the window to see that the water was no longer calm but rolling into the bay in big, glassy troughs. The sky was dark and ominous looking, with a cap of thick grey cloud circling the top of Dun Ree on Breac Beag. Big drops of rain were starting to fall, in a few short moments growing into a torrential downpour which pocked the shallow water near the shore. The boat was rocking from side to side, swinging round on its mooring so that her view was now of the open sea. She left the cooker and went quickly to look from the opposite window, a small sigh of relief escaping her as she saw the dinghy casting into the water. In a short time her father and Mac would be aboard and the chips wouldn’t be wasted after all – the chips . . . Even before she swung round an ominous swooshing sound reached her ears. She turned sharply and w
hat she saw made her eyes widen in terror, and she knew, she knew she should never have left the cooker unattended. It was the one thing her father had instilled into her before leaving her on her own.

  Tubby had left his basket and in a playful mood had sought out the chewed rubber ball which was his favourite toy. Always he took it in his mouth and jumped with it to an elevated position so that he could drop it down and watch it bouncing. But this time he must have gone too near the cooker and his rump had caught the chip pan, knocking it over. It was on fire, boiling fat splashing onto the walls, the flames spreading rapidly, igniting the paintwork, blistering the wood. The breeze from the open hatch cover was fanning the flames, making them whoosh outwards so that a tongue of fire licked the door frame.

  Ellie stared petrified at the scene, her limbs locked with fear, her eyes huge in her drained face. In a dream she was aware that her knees were so weak they would hardly hold her up but she forced herself to move – to get Tubby. Snuggling the baby otter to her breast she bounded to the door, but it was too late. A ring of fire blocked her way, clouds of red hot smoke seared her lungs, making her cough violently. She heard whimpers of terror beating inside her head, like a puppy dog crying. For a moment she thought it was Tubby but he was cringing against her, making no attempt to break away, and she knew the sounds were coming from her own scorched throat.

  The otter’s eyes were rolling to white and he was chittering and whimpering in the same heartbroken voice she had heard him use on the shore before she had rescued him. Terror, livid and raw, enveloped her and she stood, not knowing which way to turn.

  ‘Father, Father,’ she whispered, ‘please help me.’ She opened her mouth wider to scream his name but the only sounds that came out were weak and husky, the heat in the saloon so intense it was biting into her lungs.

  Her eyes were smarting so much she could barely see the inferno that was closing in on her but through a red hot misty blur she spotted the assortment of towels lying near the sink. With a terrified sob she grabbed two, throwing them into the sink to pump water over them. Into one she bundled Tubby, wrapping it round his dear plump little body till hardly a whisker showed, the other she wound round her head like a turban, covering her hair, her face, leaving only a chink to see through. Hoisting Tubby up she carried him up the steps to the top where she held him at arm’s length so that she could thrust him through the wall of flame, and then she tossed him with all her strength, onto the deck, away from immediate danger. Flames engulfed her, red hot pain seared her flesh. She felt herself spinning through a vortex of living flame, her father’s name was a mere breath on her lips. She fell back to the floor of the saloon, hearing a dull thud deep inside her head before she slipped swiftly into merciful unconsciousness.

  Niall looked at his watch and saw that it was five-thirty. Ellie had ordered him to be back for six and he smiled as he thought of how she had instilled authority into her voice, of the way her chin had jutted – like Shona when she was putting over a point. Ellie was growing more and more like her mother every day and just before he had left The Sea Urchin that afternoon he had reminded her of this, telling her his life was going to be a hell with two shrewish women in the house.

  ‘Ach, men are like babies,’ she had answered ably, ‘they need to be told what to do. How Mother managed you all these years I’ll never know. It’s a good job I’m getting old enough to give her a bit of support.’

  ‘Come on, Mac,’ he called to the old sea dog who was putting the finishing touches to the bonfire they had built on the shore round the point. It was to be a surprise for Ellie and they planned to come back later in the evening to cook sausages on it. Captain Mac drew a sleeve over his big nose and scrambled over the rocks to catch up with Niall, looking back with satisfaction at their afternoon’s work.

  ‘She’ll make a bonny blaze,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘We’ll have a fine ceilidh to ourselves and the smoke will keep the damt midgies away. I can have a dram or two behind the smokescreen, safe from prying eyes. That wee madam o’ yours has been keeping an eye on me this trip and here was me thinkin’ I was done wi’ all that nagging wi’ my cailleach out the road.’

  ‘Ach, you love being told what to do,’ laughed Niall. ‘I watched you with Ellie and saw that tough old face of yours going as soft as butter.’

  ‘She has a way wi’ her I must admit,’ grinned Mac. ‘I told her if I could find some way o’ shuttin’ her up I might consider keepin’ her on as the ship’s mascot.’

  Clambering over great outcrops of rock festooned with masses of sea pinks they came to the turf edging the bay, the green almost hidden by blue speedwell and the bright yellow of bird’s-foot trefoil. The larks were singing, a swelling volume of sound that exploded melodiously into the reaches of the sky, on and on, never stopping. Along the shore the oyster catchers were probing orange beaks into the rock pools. The colouring of the sea round Breac Beag was a delight to the eye, the tangle and sand in deep water giving alternating rainbows of mauve and green merging to blues and purples. They got into the dinghy, Captain Mac at the stern, Niall taking the oars, his strong arms taking them easily but surely out into Valsaal Bay, his eyes on the lowering clouds over Dun Ree, his bad ear crackling as an enormous clap of thunder sounded directly overhead followed by a torrential downpour that soaked them in seconds. The dinghy was like a cork in water that had suddenly turned rough and Niall bent his head into the rain as he struggled to make some headway. Mac’s eyebrows were dripping rain all over his face and down his neck and he drew them close together so that they formed a hairy canopy over his eyes. He glanced up, screwing his face against the downpour, his mind on the meal that Ellie had said would be ready and waiting for their return. His eyes widened and he stared disbelievingly through the curtains of rain. His face blanched, his voice came out in a hoarse croak, ‘Christ Almighty, man, the bloody boat’s on fire!’

  Niall’s head jerked up and he twisted round. Smoke was billowing from The Sea Urchin, drifting across the green swelling troughs of the bay.

  ‘The fuel tanks!’ Captain Mac yelled. ‘We’ll have to get to her before she’s blown out the bloody sea!’

  ‘Oh, God, no!’ Niall whispered, barely believing the evidence of his own eyes, his shocked mind only able to register a few details at a time.

  ‘Ellie!’ He screamed the name, in his horror hardly able to make his limbs work, though seconds later he was rowing like one demented, his breath harsh in his throat as he hauled viciously at the oars, rowing as he had never rowed before, heart pounding, mouth agape. Once aboard they took in the situation rapidly. The cabin was so full of smoke they could see nothing through the dense clouds except tongues of flame licking through the perspex windows, curling over the rim of the door.

  ‘Ellie!’ Niall screamed the name again as he wrenched the fire extinguisher from its stay and charged with it towards the door. Captain Mac, hanging over the side soaking a rug with water, raised a sweating face. ‘Niall!’ he yelled imperatively. ‘Put something over your head!’

  But Niall was beyond hearing. With tears blinding him he played the foam along the rim of the door and in the temporary respite plunged through to stumble down the steps to drench the flames inside the saloon. The skin on his hands shrivelled, his hair and eyelashes were singed but in his anguish he felt nothing.

  Ellie! Ellie! Ellie! The name swirled round inside his head. He was vaguely aware of Captain Mac coming in with a blanket in his hands. He dropped it over the stove before rushing outside for an extinguisher. Acrid smoke filled his throat, his arm brushed the red hot metal of the sink and he gave a cry of pain. With his arm over his face he fell to his knees and began crawling forward, his head cocked, listening for a sign of life, hearing only Mac’s laboured breathing as he battled round the saloon, beating the flames out.

  The smoke was receding slightly, allowing him to see the huddled form of his daughter on the floor.

  ‘Ellie, Ellie,’ he babbled the name then swung her into his
arms to stagger up the steps to the deck. Captain Mac had picked up the foam extinguisher and was putting out the remainder of the flames, his red streaming eyes gaping wide. He saw the charred remnants of the chip pan on the cooker and went over to examine it, noting that it had tilted on the ring, splashing hot fat everywhere. That was what had happened, Ellie must have left the cooker for a few moments but that was all the time that was needed to start a fire like this . . . His shoulders sagged, he felt suddenly old.

  He went on deck with a pile of soft sheets and blankets which he had retrieved from the cabins. Niall grabbed the sheets and gently wrapped Ellie in them then he knelt beside her to stroke the strands of hair from her brow. Because of the towel, her face had escaped the ravages of the fire, beyond that he hardly dared look, his mind already shocked by what he had glimpsed before he had enclosed her in the sheets.

  ‘I’ll get through to the coastguard at Oban.’ Mac turned away, nausea seizing him. Hard and tough as he was his face screwed up and tears spilled onto his blackened cheeks. The radio equipment was at the far end of the saloon. Though covered in a sooty deposit it appeared undamaged and Mac sent up a prayer of thanks as he worked the switches. A bolt of thunder crashed almost directly above followed by a flash of lightning. The voice on the radio was faint, distorted by so much crackling it was difficult for Mac to assess how much of his message had been understood. He had decided to head for Rhanna, the island nearest Breac Beag with a resident doctor and he emphasized this fact together with everything else that was relevant to the situation. The voice on the other end was asking him to speak up then it grew fainter till there was nothing but crackling. Mac suddenly felt lost and helpless. Damn the buggering storm! It had to happen at a time like this! The only good thing about it was that the torrential rain had kept the deck of the boat cool and so had reduced the risk of the fuel tanks igniting.