‘I’ll meet you there with the horsebox in about three hours to bring her back.’ I promised.
‘Will it take me that long?’ At last George seemed to realise how far he was intending to ride.
‘Yes, it is very uneven terrain with bogs to avoid – so I would think you had better start now or you will miss the farrier altogether.’
Off they went at a very gentle pace. They would have to follow the road to the top of Loch Annan hill and then there were tracks cross-country towards Cill Donnan and the farm.
I busied myself at home in the house and the so-called garden in which I was persuading a few flowers to bloom. Mimulas were about the only plants that enjoyed the boggy conditions but they were pretty and the bees loved them, so not all my efforts were in vain.
After the required three hours, I rumbled over to the farm with the horsebox. I entered the warm smithy to see Sunshine patiently standing for her hooves to be pared. She was very muddy and looked tired. I looked at George. If Sunshine looked tired, what on earth could I think George looked like? Covered almost to his waist in wet, smelly mud, he was slumped in an old basket chair, his head sagging, his arms hanging and his eyes closed in an attitude of complete exhaustion. I hid a smile but could not resist greeting him brightly.
‘Hi! I see you have had a jolly good ride. Nice day for it! Good views from the top, I should think.’
A distinctly unappreciative grunt was all that emerged from among George’s beard.
I relented and asked if he was alright. Angus, the farrier spoke up.
‘He’s about as dead as a living man can be, I’m thinking.’
He grinned at me in such a way that I could not contain myself any longer and burst into uncontrolled laughter. George looked such a sight! My merriment was not entirely appreciated but he did say that Sunshine had been very good and he’d tell me all later. He staggered off to the car and slopped his way into what had been a clean passenger seat.
I concluded the business with the farrier, boxed Sunshine who was remarkably biddable, and drove to her field. Leaving George asleep in the car, I rubbed the filthy pony down, fed her and then drove home. As I suspected, when George tried to get out of the car, he found stiff muscles that he didn’t even know he had.
But after groaning his way into a hot bath and a rest in front of the fire, he was prepared to regale Andy and me with the tale of the long, harrowing ride.
All had gone well on the road to the top of Loch Annan hill, where he had stopped for a while but had not dismounted. It had not occurred to either of us that George had never mounted Sunshine from ground level. He had always had an old box that we kept in her shelter. Suddenly, out there on the open hill, he realised that once off the horse, he would probably have to walk the remaining four miles or so, because he would be unable to get on again. She was not very good at standing still whilst one mounted, and with no-one to hold her head and no box, he would be in trouble.
I had the greatest trouble containing my mirth through all this, but then he was telling us that he set off cross-country and, although he could see the outline of the farm buildings in the far distance, Sunshine seemed determined to veer off to the higher ground to the right. He tried to steer her back but she would not respond and plodded determinedly on in her chosen direction. He was getting very worried but then she started to swing round to the left again, bringing them back on course.
‘I couldn’t understand it for a bit,’ said George. ‘Then I looked back at the vast open space over which I had wanted her to walk and suddenly realised what the pretty white, fluffy plants were. Bog cotton!’
I had guessed, being country born and bred, that this was the case. Horses generally, and Highland ponies in particular, are able to recognise the signs of spongy, boggy ground that they know will not support their weight. So Sunshine had done a great job by calmly ignoring George’s demands and plodding confidently along on solid ground and getting them safely to the smithy.
George recovered the use of his legs and ceased to walk as though he still had the horse between them but he did not offer to ride to the smithy again!
13
Father Peter’s Quest
JOHN, OUR TRUSTY policeman, was on the phone.
‘Nurse, get you up to Loch Annan. I’ll ring Doctor. A visitor has just come and told me that Father somebody or other – a priest anyway – is in the ditch up yon. You are nearer – I’ll get Doc and I’ll come, too.’
‘Is he badly hurt, do you know?’
‘They didn’t say how badly – but he’s in pain.’
‘I’m on my way. John, get Archie – his tractor might be needed if the Father is trapped.’
Long experience told me that frequently we had to drag a car out of the way before we could treat a crash victim who might be under it.
‘What about Ramsey?’ (The ambulance.)
‘On the mainland, taking wee Alice to the maternity hospital.’
‘Ahh.’
I gathered my first aid stuff and all the usual paraphernalia – blankets, small oxygen cylinder, a piece of carpet (often needed to crawl on in wet ditches) and other unlikely things which I had found useful on past occasions.
Speeding up the steep hill, I could see a group of people gathered around a large, black car, nose down in a fairly deep ditch beside a ‘passing place’. On the opposite side of the track, squashed up against a rocky outcrop, was a battered truck belonging to Jacko from Dhubaig. He was standing beside it, looking sheepish. It was fairly obvious that the two vehicles had collided.
I called from the car window, ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No, no not at all, Nurse. ’Tis the Rev. who’s poorly.’
As I got out (still in uniform from the day’s duties) I was hailed with relief and a babble of voices.
‘We didn’t move him, Nurse. But we think he’s in a lot of pain.’
‘Thank you. Please stay around. Our policeman will be here soon and you can tell him how it happened.’ I was used to people fading away before the cause of an accident could be established. I added, ‘I might be glad of help, too.’
I stepped down into the ditch and peered into the car.
‘Why! Father Peter! We meet again.’ We had met last summer, when he had been on Papavray, walking for charity.
‘I thought it might be you,’ said the priest. ‘How are you?’
I smiled, ‘I am supposed to be the one asking you that.’
There was a red lump gradually appearing on his forehead and his right arm seemed to be stuck behind him somehow. His long legs were bent beneath the driver’s seat, which had slid forward.
‘Where is the pain?’
‘Seems to be in my arm… or perhaps my shoulder. It’s stuck somehow.’
And stuck it was! Jammed between the back of his seat and the door, the arm was bent in an unnatural position. Collar bone? Humerus?
‘Doctor will be here very soon and will be able to give you something for the pain. You have a bump on your head. Were you knocked out?’
‘Nn-oo. I don’t think so.’
A tourist spoke up. ‘He was conscious all the time, Nurse. We saw it happen, and he was asking how that young fellow was – not worrying about himself at all.’
‘Can two of you gentlemen come with me round to the other side and we will see if we can open the door. That might release this arm.’
Two men began to shuffle their way into the blessedly dry ditch and round to the driver’s side of the crumpled car. Father Peter tried to smile his thanks as they wrestled with the twisted door. But it was wedged firmly.
‘Can we, perhaps, move the seat and release the arm that way?’ asked a small, slim bespectacled man. ‘I could just about get into the back, I think.’
But try as we might, we could not budge anything: everywhere was so bent!
‘Doctor will be here in a minute – he’ll give the Father something for the pain and then we might be able to prise the arm out, but it would be too pai
nful to try just now. Father Peter, Archie will be here with his tractor very soon and he might be able to lift the weight of the car,’ I went on, trying to sound practical and positive, all the time wondering why the good doctor had not arrived.
Then, both he and Archie appeared at the same time from opposite directions, one gliding quietly towards us, the other rattling and groaning up the steep hill in a cloud of black smoke.
Although disguising it well, the doctor was angry. He had been held up by a selfish and very foolish tourist, who would not pull in to a passing place to allow him to overtake. We often had this problem. Some tourists seemed to think that such passing places were only for oncoming traffic, forgetting the need sometimes for overtaking, particularly if there was an emergency of some sort – as now.
‘Right! What have we here?’
I explained and gave a brief report of what we had already tried.
‘Father, you are in a lot of pain, I can see. This will help, and then we will see what we can do.’
An injection was quickly given, by which time Archie was plodding to and fro assessing the possibilities for lifting the car out of the ditch.
‘Can we be doin’ anything yet, Doc?’
‘A moment, Archie, to let the pain killer act. Then I think you could pull the car up a bit to release that door.’
‘Aye. I’ll be gettin’ the ropes ready, then.’
There were many willing hands to help heave a heavy rope off the tractor and wind it round parts of the car.
‘I think we could go ahead now,’ said Doctor Mac. ‘Father, this will be bumpy, I fear.’
I had managed to get into the passenger seat to hold the Father so that the motion of the lifting car would not be too sudden. We still did not know if there were any broken bones, of course.
The old tractor chugged its slow way up the track until the ropes took the strain then, little by little, the car began to grind its jerky, protesting way up and over the edge of the ditch and onto the passing place. Father Peter was amazingly brave, but every jerk obviously caused great pain.
Two of the tourists pulled the mangled door open so that Doctor could see if the trapped arm could be released.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘At least it’s free and now we can get to it, but I fear that the clavicle is broken and the whole arm in a pretty bad state.’ I could see huge gashes and strips of skin just hanging off.
Between us, Doctor Mac and I cleaned the wounds, cutting away his clothing (just a dog collar on a black shirt). Even with the pain-killing drug, all this must have been agony.
‘That’s enough, Nurse. If you can support his arm and shoulder, we can get him into my car.’ Turning to the Father, he added, ‘X-ray and theatre for you, I fear; and a spell in the hospital.’
‘Not quite what I had planned, but thank you all.’ Father Peter’s smile encompassed all the helpers.
‘Don’t worry about the car, Father,’ said Archie, as he wound the rope back on the tractor. ‘I’ll go back for Murdoch and we’ll tow it to the garage.’
John had now arrived to talk to the witnesses.
Suddenly, Archie shouted, ‘Doc! Doc! Nurse! Look at Jacko! He’s no right!’
Jacko had said he was unhurt and so we had ignored him. Now he was slumped against the rock, unconscious and deathly white!
Doctor felt his pulse – very weak – and listened to his breathing – shallow and fast. He did not respond when shaken slightly.
‘Internal injuries, I suspect,’ was the doctor’s opinion. ‘Jacko is now our main priority.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Jacko into my car – John, come too, to give CPR. Nurse, we’ll have to get the Father into your little car and you follow us.’
‘No!’ shouted John. ‘My car for Jacko. I have a siren.’
With many willing hands and the utmost speed, Jacko was installed in the police car, doctor jumped in and John took off, siren blaring. Meantime, willing hands had lifted the Father gently into the doctor’s car instead of mine (everyone was confused at the changing plans) but it was a much bigger car and better for a long-legged, injured man. The only trouble was that I had never driven the doctor’s huge, ancient – but still splendid – Humber.
Archie saw my concern. ‘Ach, ’tis a big brute, foreby, but you’ll do it, Nurse, no bother. I’ll see to all here – Father’s car and his stuff, your…’
But I was already starting the powerful engine, thumping the clutch and spinning the wheels as I inexpertly drove off at considerable speed.
I wanted to follow John in convoy, or as near as possible, to take advantage of the blaring siren. I didn’t want to be held up by another selfish tourist.
In this highly dramatic way we all reached our little island hospital in record time. Having had no way of warning the staff, there was a degree of surprised bustle as we drove up to the only door. But soon Jacko was on his way to the emergency unit with Doctor Mac in attendance. More staff emerged and stretchered Father Peter into a cubicle. I waited with him, telling him that Archie would see to his car and its contents, my abandoned car and Jacko’s old truck, too. What a blessing Archie and his cohorts were at such times!
Doctor Mac was right. Jacko had internal injuries and was brought back from the brink. This young tearaway had been so concerned for Father Peter that he had ignored his own ‘belly ache’ – as he later called the pain. John eventually established that the accident had been entirely Jacko’s fault, as he was lighting a cigarette and not watching the road. But Father Peter refused to press charges and even persuaded John to ‘forget’ Jacko’s lack of licence and insurance, as he realised that the lad had almost lost his life in his concern for ‘the Rev.’. Jacko had to be transferred to the mainland hospital and spent four weeks – boring weeks, he said – before returning home. Some sages said, ‘That will teach him,’ but, of course, it didn’t. When he saw his truck, he scarcely recognised it as Father Peter had had it mended, old dents (and there were many) knocked out, cleaned, fitted with new tyres, taxed and insured.
Father Peter himself was never in any real danger, but badly shocked and in a lot of pain. The lacerations took a long time to heal as did the fractured collar bone, but after a while in the island hospital, I collected him and installed him in our spare room for a night or two, until his car had been mended and another young priest arrived to drive him home.
George was rather anti-Roman Catholic at the time and the two had some lively arguments, but more interesting to me was Father Peter’s reason for his visit to Papavray.
One day, he said, ‘You knew Angela Robertson, I’m told.’
Surprised, I asked how he knew her.
It seemed that Father Peter had been moved from the Dublin parish, where he had been working when we had met him last year, to a parish on the west coast of Scotland. Angela was working in the hospital there and became one of his parishioners. She had sought his guidance on several occasions when her estranged husband had made his occasional drunken appearances.
‘But this charge of murder is ridiculous,’ said Father Peter, confirming our own belief. ‘And, as for the change of plea to Guilty… well! But I wondered if you had any opinions about her in general which might help me to understand and to portray her quiet nature to the authorities. You see, I think she might be protecting her daughter. She is married to a rather shady character and there is a rumour in the church that he was involved in some way with Angela’s husband.’
‘Doctor Mac and I can confirm that she is a gentle, rather frightened person and that her husband’s temper is highly volatile.’ I told him about Mr Robertson’s attack on Angela here on Papavray and his subsequent arrest.
‘All that might be helpful and I shall try to get to the bottom of the plea change. I visit her in jail quite often to give her communion.’
George asked, ‘She hasn’t confessed anything?’
‘No. If she had, I could not divulge the content but I am at liberty to tell you that there has been no confession.’
Then, one Friday, the headline was there. ‘Nurse Found Not Guilty’.
‘Good,’ we all said. ‘Justice at last!’
‘Well,’ said Doctor Mac, ‘anyone of us could have told them that and saved the country a lot of money.’
The article went on to say that the son-in-law had been arrested for the murder. Angela’s husband had been blackmailing him. He had tried (with some success) to frame Angela and had bullied her into that confession by threatening her daughter. We were reading that Angela was ill and suffering from the frightful and lengthy ordeal.
Again, the weeks went by and the whole matter faded from our minds. Then, I received a letter from Father Peter.
Angela and her daughter had decided to emigrate to New Zealand to forget all the horrors with which they had lived for so long.
‘Best thing they could do,’ declared Doctor Mac with satisfaction.
14
Bowler Hats
IN SPITE OF THE cold, windy weather outside, the room was warm and cosy: the fire crackled in the grate while the iconic smell of peat smoke wafted across to where I sat at the table, attempting to write up my patient notes. With a Rayburn at the opposite end of the open plan ground floor, and comfortable furniture, the renovated croft house was the epitome of a snug home.
Such a modernised croft house might be almost anywhere until you looked out of the window. Enlarged to take advantage of the view, the window looked out over the crofts and houses of the village dipping away to the front, encompassed by jagged outcrops and high hills on two sides with the pounding sea on the third. Another hill rose steeply behind the house – so steep, in fact, that the sun failed to surmount its summit for some four to six weeks during our northern winter, leaving us in shadow and envying the houses on the opposite side of the glen, which were bathed in weak but welcome sunlight. We relied on artificial light for much of this time, but had purposely installed lights resembling oil lamps so that they added to the general feeling of cosiness.
More Tales From the Island Nurse Page 10
