The body of the aircraft reared into the air, turned right over and with a deafening crash landed again upside down. The doorway through which we had just escaped was now buried beneath several tons of twisted metal. The wing was ripped away and landed bent and jagged among the remains of the bulldozer, and we could now see that the other one was a hundred yards or so away at the tide’s edge.
‘Bit too close for comfort, that!’ said John.
An understatement, I thought. I was beginning to feel that nothing was quite real any more.
Nick and Andy ran towards me. ‘What was this about “the other one”?’ I asked.
It appeared that on his way back down the lane Andy had come across this dusty figure weaving about in a dazed fashion. He wisely (for a seven year old) made him sit with him beside the road.
The man was concussed with a few bruises but otherwise had had a lucky escape when he had been thrown out of the plane on its impact with the bulldozer. He could so easily have been killed. I heard later that the pilot, Roger, also made a complete recovery.
News of the crash quickly spread, and islanders flocked to the scene to stare at the remains of the first plane to ‘land’ at the island’s airport.
SEVENTEEN
A fragile Fergie and a shopping spree
One morning I was in the garden when I heard a shout and, looking up, I saw Mary rushing over the croft towards me.
‘Mary-J! Mary-J! Fergie’s fallen from his ladder.’
I ran inside for my first-aid bag and set off across the village with Mary.
‘How bad is he? You might have to come back and phone the doctor for me.’
‘He’s swearing that bad I canna get him to tell me where it hurts,’ said Mary, trying to keep up with my longer strides. Although always scurrying round the village, she was not really built for sprinting over crofts.
We hurried round the corner of the old croft house, whence came some colourful language. There, lying on the coal heap, was a very angry and very black Fergie. This was no time for the normal protocol such as ‘reassuring the patient’.
‘Did you hit your head on anything, Fergie?’
‘No. Just my bloody foot, leg, I don’t know! But my bloody wrists hurt like hell.’
‘Can you sit up?’
‘What? On this bloody coal heap?’
‘For the moment, yes. Mary, will you go into the caravan and put the kettle on?’
‘I don’t want a damn cup of bloody tea!’
‘It’s not for a cup of tea. We have to wash your face, hands, arms, everything, to see all the cuts and bruises.’
‘I could do with a bloody dram!’
I was getting tired of this. ‘Fergie,’ I said severely, ‘will you please stop swearing!’
He looked at me aghast and for the first time seemed to take in who I was and what I was attempting to do for him. ‘Oh! Indeed! Oh dear, dear. I’m so sorry! Oh my. I’m so sorry . . . Oh dear, dear!’
‘Are you absolutely sure that you didn’t hit your head?’ These fulsome apologies were almost as worrying as the uninhibited swearing.
‘No, no. I know I didn’t. This coal arrived this morning. I ordered it a bit prematurely as I have no fireplace yet, but the coal boat was early and I put the ladder on top of the heap to get some extra height. I was going to step onto the roof of the caravan to mend the leak.’
‘Can you stand?’
‘Aye.’
I helped him into his caravan, where Mary and I washed off the worst of the coal dust. Now I could see that both wrists were swollen and obviously very painful, and his ankle, too, looked angry.
‘Can I have that dram now, please?’ asked a very subdued Fergie.
‘Just a small one. We’ll have to get some X-rays.’
Fergie looked alarmed. ‘You don’t think I’ve broken anything, do you?’
‘I don’t think so, but it’s possible.’
He groaned. ‘I wanted to paint the caravan and start clearing the croft whilst I’m waiting for Callum the Yard to come.’
Callum was a builder from Dalhavaig who had been retained to rebuild Fergie’s croft house. We were only too well aware of how long it took to persuade any builder to undertake restoration jobs. They all preferred new-build projects: fewer technical difficulties and more money. Callum had a small business and a builder’s yard, hence ‘Callum the Yard’. Similarly, we had ‘Donny the School’ – he was the school caretaker, ‘Lachlan by the Shore’ – he lived by the shore, ‘Rhuari the Pier’ – he worked at the pier, ‘Roddy the Boat’, ‘Tormod the Hill’, ‘Big Craig the Road’ and so on. Surnames as well as Christian names were so often duplicated that this method of identification was essential.
The X-rays revealed that he had not broken anything but severely strained and bruised both wrists by landing on them in the coal heap. He had twisted his ankle quite badly too. He was strapped up and decided to go to stay with Mary and Archie for a few days to be looked after and fussed over. Mary would be in her element! Archie, however, put the whole thing in a nutshell, reminding me of Grumpy, one of the Seven Dwarfs: ‘Ladders on coal heaps? Bah!’
But Fergie was irrepressible. ‘Mary-J, can you add this to your shopping list for tomorrow?’ He glanced sideways at Archie and with a wicked grin he added, ‘Then I’ll not need to put my wee ladder on the coal heap.’
I took the scrawled note from him with suspicion. I couldn’t believe my eyes!
‘A 30-foot ladder? Fergie!’
An innocent face gazed back at me. ‘I’m sure George won’t mind. You have a roof rack on your Land Rover, have you not?’
I gulped, trying to imagine George’s reaction.
Our shopping expeditions took place only about three or four times a year, as they involved two sea crossings and one hundred road miles once on the mainland. We had come to the conclusion that these shopping trips were turning into an ongoing nightmare. The fact that we had a long-wheel-based Land Rover had not escaped the notice of crofters and patients alike, and everyone made it their business to find out when we intended to make our next foray into the world of commerce. This wasn’t difficult, for I always informed the more elderly or infirm patients of our intentions as they had great difficulty in getting even essentials. But the jungle telegraph swung into rapid action and we were soon inundated with shopping lists. We usually had longer lists for other people than for ourselves! Ordinary groceries and simple household requirements could be obtained in Papavray’s small, damp shops, but shoes, clothes, furniture, furnishings, electrical goods, wallpaper, tools and so on all had to be obtained during the infrequent visits to the mainland.
The gentle plea for ‘a ball of red wool for the bonnet I’m knitting for Hamish’ or the plaintive request for the transportation of ‘Annie’s teaset that’s in the shop but they’ll no deliver it’ or even ‘get Grannie a blue nightie’ were taken in our stride. But to these were added such things as a roll of chicken wire, a couple of shovels, a new peat iron, a carpet and so on. Even a big Land Rover had its limits! This time we were also to pick up ‘a few little things’ from Angus’s (another of Mary’s cousins) store to bring back for some friends of his.
At 4 a.m., the alarm went off. A quick cup of tea and away! It was a spring day and being so far north it was already light when we set off. Nick and Andy were soon asleep again. I revelled in the clear morning air. The sea, for once calm, glistened and the little wavelets were silver in the morning light. The road across the mainland passed between craggy hills already donning their mantle of green and through woods of birch and rowan. Smoke was already rising from cottage chimneys and folk were beginning to let chickens out, rev tractors and drive cows out onto the hill after milking.
We arrived in Inverness at about 8.45. George and I had divided the lists according to our separate areas of expertise. For instance, I would not like to see George buying knitting wool or nighties. As always, we were among the first people waiting on shop doorsteps at 9 a.m., when they
opened. Later, we would be the last to be virtually ejected at five-thirty, when they closed.
George was tying Fergie’s ladder to the roof rack when I returned to the car with a bucket, a washing-up bowl, a bundle of dishcloths (on offer) and a lavatory brush. None of these purchases was for us.
He was looking very cross and breathing heavily. ‘You’d never guess,’ he said. ‘I rang Angus at his store and he only wants us to take two refrigerators and a dishwasher back with us!’
I stared at him. No wonder he was angry! ‘He has sold these, hasn’t he, and doesn’t want to pay carriage? The wily old bird!’
George’s silence spoke volumes. He tied the last rope and off he went. Not a happy man! I was waiting with the boys when he came back with the groaning Land Rover. As we climbed in to set off, we could see a cardboard box wedged between the refrigerators and from it was coming some strange whimpering.
I looked at George. ‘Mary’s new puppy,’ he said grimly.
‘And I suppose Mary knew all about this?’ I said.
‘I suppose so,’ said George. He sounded resigned. He shrugged. ‘Could be worse, I suppose. Might have been a new cow!’
We got home at 1 a.m. and George gleefully roused Mary to give her the puppy. The rest of the purchases were delivered at intervals between work schedules the next day. Everyone professed to be delighted with the goods and the only thing that we seemed not to have done was complete our own shopping!
The next time we went to Inverness, once again Angus had been told and rang to say would we pick something up for him. He didn’t say what it was. When we arrived at his store, we were confronted by a Rayburn! He was quite upset when we refused to subject our backs and our elderly Land Rover to this monster. I was sure that it would have gone straight through the floor.
The gentle pace and intimate atmosphere of the little island shops could not have been more at odds with those on the mainland. Dhubaig boasted one tiny shop measuring about 16 ft by 10 ft. It had one long counter, several wooden shelves, a lot of cardboard boxes and a couple of chairs for the old folk who might have walked two or three miles. The shop was known, rather grandly, as the ‘post office’, because one could buy stamps, post letters and collect various government pensions there. In addition there was stale bread, jam, canned goods, one or two lines in frozen foods (if the freezer was working) and hen food.
Old Roderick owned the shop and, although approaching his 80th birthday, had no thoughts of retirement. We happily squelched our way to and fro over muddy crofts and came to accept Old Roderick and his ponderous ways as one of the permanencies of Dhubaig. I was used to having to allow about thirty minutes for a three-minute walk and the purchase of a simple item. Old Roderick spurned pre-packed food, insisting on weighing and packing the customer’s required amount of flour, sugar, oatmeal and so on. This was time consuming, but we were content to stand and chat while he plodded to and fro to the old-fashioned scales with a tiny brass shovel. There was an added hazard if one was buying hen food, because he kept that in the byre. He would excuse himself with the utmost courtesy, leave the open cash box fully exposed on the counter and disappear in the direction of the byre. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes would go by and no Old Roderick. On his return there was always a plausible reason for the delay. He would explain with beguiling candidness that as he was in the byre anyway he felt that he might as well let the cows out. Or perhaps his wife had called that she was baking and needed some eggs, so he would potter off to the hen house, and when he took them to the kitchen for her, she might have a cup of tea waiting. He would drain this in a gulp and finally return to his near fossilised customer.
EIGHTEEN
Something on the shore
I was hoeing my weed-choked potato patch one afternoon, when the phone rang.
‘Nurse.’ It was John, the policeman. ‘Can you get to Struakin? I’m there now with a young girl who has fallen from some rocks on the shore.’
‘How bad is this and who is it?’ By this time, I knew nearly everyone.
‘On holiday at Tin Cottage. She’s ten. Just bumps and bruises, I think, but there is a biggish gash on her leg and maybe a sprained ankle.’ John was used to reporting signs and symptoms to Dr Mac or myself and had become quite an expert on initial diagnosis.
‘Did she hit her head?’
There were muttered enquiries at the other end of the crackly line.
‘Her mother says not. She saw the fall.’
‘Will you stay until I get there, John? It will take me a while, as you know. Keep her quiet. Pressure on the cut if it is bleeding, but you know all this anyway.’ He was probably more up to date on basic first aid than I was!
It was only after I had put the phone down that I began to wonder why John was there at all.
Struakin, at the eastern end of the island, was now a village of only four houses. Two of these were holiday homes owned by absentees. The road went only so far and then there was a two-mile tramp over rough ground, but once at the end of the promontory the situation of the hamlet was idyllic. There were the remains of a tiny harbour, a ruined pier and a crumbling sea wall. The houses nestled against the hill and a tiny beach with a sheltered bay made this an ideal spot for a holiday.
It had once been a thriving village with an economy built on fishing, but when the herring shoals gradually failed, first one boat and then another was sold ‘away’, and the villagers also left to make a living elsewhere. Tin Cottage had once been a corrugated-iron structure that had done duty as the post office, but had been altered to make a small but cosy house, so that the only clue to its humble beginnings was its name. Electricity was absent but oil lamps and open fires had a rustic appeal that drew holiday people to experience a different lifestyle for a week or two. The Johansson family occupied the fourth house. How they supported themselves was the subject of much pleasurable speculation among the island dwellers and some bizarre theories had been put forward.
Packing all that I considered that I would need, I drove to the end of the road and set off on foot to tackle the two-mile walk.
John came out to meet me. ‘She’s all right, I think. I’ve had to call in the army . . .’ He broke off as he saw my incredulous look. He grinned. ‘There’s a shell or a bomb or something equally sinister on the beach among the rocks and quite near to the houses. Mr Carter, Caroline’s father, saw it when they were carrying Caroline off the shore and back to the cottage. They rang me to report it, but when I arrived I decided to call you to look at her injuries.’
As we walked towards the cottage, John continued, ‘The bomb-disposal unit will probably come in by sea. They might want to evacuate the people here.’
I was ushered into the cottage while John stayed outside to watch for the army unit. Caroline was lying on the settee with cold cloths on her ankle and a white handkerchief tied round her knee. Her facial cuts had been cleaned up and were not serious. In answer to my queries, she said, ‘Danny and I were shrimping and Mum was sitting on the rocks, and I slipped and my leg went down between some big boulders. I’ve lost my shoe!’ This seemed to worry her more than her injuries.
She seemed fine, so I just dealt with the knee and we continued with the cold compresses to her ankle, which was swollen and painful. I went outside to talk to John.
‘How long do you think they’ll be?’ I asked, referring to the army unit.
‘They should be here any time now.’
‘I think I’ll stay in case they want to evacuate, in which case I’ll strap her ankle to keep it stable. Where will they send us, do you think?’
‘Just behind the hills, I imagine.’
‘Hmm.’ ‘Just’ behind the hills involved a fair trek over uneven ground. But there were plenty of people to carry the invalid.
We became aware of the throbbing of powerful engines and a rubber boat rather like an inshore lifeboat approached at speed. It slowed and nosed its way through the rocks into shallow water. Two men leaped out and pulled the craft up the be
ach, while two more busied themselves with mountains of equipment that had been stowed in the bottom of the boat.
The one who seemed to be in charge (captain, perhaps? I didn’t notice) obviously knew John, who then took them all off to see this bomb or whatever it was. In no time they were back, looking serious. Giving the device some complicated name, the captain regretted that they could not defuse it but would have to ‘effect’ a controlled explosion.
‘We will need to evacuate the inhabitants to a safe place as a precaution, but there is really no danger.’
Having just heard the word ‘explosion’, we were not convinced about the ‘no danger’ bit. I explained that I would have to strap an ankle first and that the owner thereof would need to be carried to the ‘safe place’.
Danny, Caroline’s eight-year-old brother, was ecstatic at being in the middle of such a drama.
‘Cor! Wait till I tell the guys at school!’ And to one of the soldiers, ‘Hey, Mister, can I ’ave a souvenir after?’
Caroline, too, was excited at being the centre of attention and delighted to be carried to the ‘safe place’, which turned out to be a hollow behind some rocks on the landward side, away from the blast to come.
We sat in an uncomfortable semi-circle on the damp ground and waited and waited and waited. I’m not sure what I expected, never having been involved in an explosion before (controlled or otherwise), but eventually, when we were tired and hungry, there was a very disappointing ‘whoomph’ and the patter of some falling debris.
John cautiously poked his head round the rocks. Just at that moment there was a tremendous ‘boom’ that reverberated around the hills, and John hastily ducked down again. A shower of sand, pebbles and bits of twisted metal could be seen falling to earth some distance away. Nothing touched us in our little hollow. The men had known exactly where to put us for safety.
Two dusty figures came round the rocks and informed us that the device had now ‘been exploded’ (as if we had not heard!) and we could ‘return to our homes’. They must have given these instructions and assurances so many times that they sounded like lines from a film.
The Island Nurse Page 11
