And now the evenings were darker and the days were colder. Everything was dying back or closing down ready for the long winter ahead. Crofters and incomers alike began to resume their rather cloistered island life, as the summer demands of people, animals and croft work slowed.
And so in the shadowy evenings the ceilidhs began again and here we were, on a wet, blustery night, making our way once more to Fergie’s house. Inside, a merry fire was burning and an equally merry group was already sitting before it, and as usual we were afforded the best seats; Andy sharing an armchair with me, while George was ushered to an ancient ottoman, which was unfortunately so low that his knees were beside his ears. Present were Mary, Archie, Roddy, Douggy, Hamish, Behag and old Hughie with his formidable wife, Dolleena.
‘Behag! We’ve no seen you for a wee whiley. Are you well?’ asked Fergie hospitably.
Behag grinned and blushed. I had long been of the opinion that she was sweet on Fergie. They were both in their sixties and single. Fergie had lost his wife some ten years ago and Behag had never married, having been ‘in service’ on the mainland all her life. To be ‘in service’ was an old-fashioned concept in the South by the seventies, but still very much a way of life in the north of Scotland.
Drinks were passed round and Douggy produced his fiddle. Soon, we were all tapping our feet on the lino-clad floor and ‘singing along’. Andy was prevailed upon to recite a poem, learnt at school, and Murdoch improvised on his mouth organ as Hamish’ who had a superb voice, sang a Gaelic lament.
Gradually, we came to the part of the evening that I enjoyed the most. The storytelling! Fergie again embarrassed Behag (did he realise?) by asking her to recount a favourite story that her father, Johnny, had told on other occasions.
‘Ach, I’m no able – not like m’ father could.’
A chorus of protest rose from everyone, although they had probably heard it many times before.
‘Ach, well.’ Behag had been quietly clearing her throat and I wondered if her reluctance had been entirely genuine.
‘It was like this, y’see,’ she began. ‘’Twas in the war – the first one, y’understand, when Father was in France. His platoon was marching through some mountains ’n it was snowin’ and blowin’ that bad they couldna see where they were going. Well, ’twas rough ground – a lot of boulders and the like, and Father and a couple of others got left behind. The rest went on, not realising that they weren’t with them. Ach, they floundered about for a bit and then Father said, “We’re lost!” Aye,’ Behag nodded and continued, ‘Angus agreed with him, but Jake said to carry on – they’d find the others.
‘Well, they got into deeper and deeper snow; and the mist was comin’ down and it was getting dark. Angus thought they should stay where they were until morning and this time even Jake agreed. They were cold and tired and hungry.’
‘Aye, they would be indeed, indeed,’ murmured Morag, nodding.
‘Well, I just said so,’ bridled Behag. Mary handed her a cup of tea to placate her. She continued. ‘Aye, well! They found a spot behind a rock and out of the wind and tried to get a bitty warmer, but they were near freezin’.’ Here Behag gave Morag a look designed to quell any further remarks. A chastened Morag stayed quiet!
Behag resumed, ‘They had something called emergency rations…’
‘Iron,’ said Mary.
‘What?’ said Behag with a scowl.
‘Iron rations. I’ve heard of it,’ replied Mary with pride.
‘Ach, woman, hold your wheisht. You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ ordered Archie.
‘Oh, yes, she does!’ Surprisingly, Fergie spoke up. We all looked at him in amazement, as he was usually the first to pour contumely on his cousin. ‘She’s quite right.’
Mary, however, accepted everyone’s admiration with the same placid murmur she used when folk laughed at her many mistakes.
‘Ay, well. Where was I?’ Behag sounded irritable. ‘Ah yes, they were trying to get out of the wind and get a bit warmer. After a whiley they fell asleep. I’m thinking that they were lucky to wake up again, as I’ve heard that folk, caught in snow, should stay awake or they might die. But they did wake, foreby, stiff and near frozen they were.’
Behag paused and Morag handed her some dumpling. She continued, her voice a little muffled.
‘Angus went to the edge of the cliff they were on and looked around. The snow had stopped, the mist had lifted and the sun was trying to come through. As he peered out over the big lumpy hills, he suddenly shouted, “Come you here!”
‘In front and below them, there was a deep glen with a village at the bottom. Father said it was only a huddle of houses. They don’t call them “glens” in France y’understand.’ Behag was proud to share this knowledge and looked round the rapt circle for approbation.
After a reviving gulp of tea, she continued, ‘Jake said it was too dangerous to try to climb down the steep hills but Father said it would be better than freezing to death. Angus said that they ought to get going before the mist closed in again; though Jake worried that there might be Germans in the village. But Father said, “Let’s go!” That was Father for you. So they went!
‘It took them hours and hours to get to this village because of the snow, and by the time they did get there, they were fit to collapse. But there were no Germans there and it hadna been blown up, like most of villages that they had marched through. There wasn’t any snow down in the glen either.
‘The village was very tiny, Father said: only a few wee houses and some old fashioned looking people busy working in the fields. No-one seemed to notice them, but they saw a church so they made for that.
There was a priest standing in front of the altar. It’s all Roman over there, y’see, so the priest was called “Father”. They couldn’t speak the language much, o’course, but the priest took them to his house. They were that tired, they collapsed onto a seat inside. The Father shouted something and in came a woman in funny long clothes, with some bowls of soup and hunks of homemade bread. Were they thankful for that! Then he fetched some blankets or rugs, or something and they had a good sleep.
‘When they woke, there was more food and then the priest told them that his name was “Father Armand” – funny name, that! French, o’course. And the village was called Perrene. Then they were taken outside to a sort o’ yard behind the house and there were four donkeys standing there. Father said they were puzzled when the priest got on one and told them to get on the others and follow him. Well, off they went! Up and up and up the hill. It took hours and hours, but eventually they came to the path they had been looking for in the mist the night afore. And they couldn’t believe it when there, comin’ towards them, were some of their platoon come looking for them. Were they pleased to see them! They jumped off the donkeys and ran to meet them. But then Father thought that they should show a bit of gratitude to the priest and got a couple o’ coins out of his pocket. He turned round to offer them to him but he’d gone! Donkeys and all. Not a sign. They were amazed, I’m tellin’ you.’
She paused to sneak a look at us, the Macleod family, to observe our reaction. We must have looked impressed, because she continued with a satisfied grunt.
‘Their mates looked at them a bit oddly when they started to walk back and peer around the rocks and the like. Jake told them about the priest who’d helped them and that they were wondering where he and the donkeys had gone. Their mates thought they were crazy because they hadn’t seen any priest or any donkeys, they said.
‘Well, they had to get on to the camp and go before the major or whoever and explain themselves. He said they were a disgrace to the regiment and I don’t know what. They told him about the mist and the village and the priest and so on, but he wouldn’t believe them. He sent for the lot who had gone looking for them and they had to say that they hadna seen the village or this priest or the donkeys. Oh my! What a do Father said that was! The major got out the map of the area and told them to show him where this village
was. Well they looked and peered and pointed, but they couldn’t find any village at all. The Major thought they had made it all up and they got into awful trouble. They couldn’t understand it themselves.
‘But they were soon fighting again; so villages and priests and such were a long way from their minds.
‘Jake was killed; but Father and Angus went on for another year or more. Then Father lost his leg and was sent home. Angus came home, too, but he died. Father was very upset.’ She sighed and shook her head.
She continued, ‘Well, there was no work here for a one-legged man and we didna have the croft then, y’see. So he did all sorts of jobs all over the place. Mother used to say that she never knew where he was off to next.
‘He’d picked up a bit of the French lingo in the war so he got a job down in England for a while, as a driver’s mate in a lorry delivering stuff to France. They didn’t have much of anything in France after the war, o’ course.’
Behag shifted a little on her seat and we waited for her to start again.
‘Father always worried and wondered about that village and the priest and was aye hopin’ he might get back there sometime. Aye, well! It turned out that the town he visited most often was “Ay – mens” – not far from the hills where they had been lost. Well, one time when they were there, he decided to try to find the village and thank the priest for helping them that time, back in ’16. He’d always been bothered because they had never said thank you, y’see.
‘They couldna take the lorry up into the hills; the roads were too steep and narrow. A bit like ours, I suppose. Well, Father got a French taxi driver to take him to find this “Perrene”. Well, Frenchie didn’t seem to have heard of it, so they drove around for a whiley, with Father trying to remember where it was they got lost. Somehow they found the hill and went down into that deep glen. There was a fairly good road been built by then, y’see.
‘The village was there all right but it was all in ruins! And not wartime ruins, if y’understand me, but old ruins; where it had just gradually fallen down. Father couldn’t understand it. He could see the church but that was in ruins too! And the priest’s house! That had fallen down altogether. No roof – nothing! Then Father looked around and could see that there were no neat fields or tidy walls like before – just heaps of stones and weeds and scrubby trees. And no people! Everywhere was empty’.
Behag looked around to make sure that we believed her.
‘Father asked Frenchie what had happened in the village. Frenchie said nothing had happened: it was just that the village hadn’t been occupied for about a hundred years. ‘Not true,’ said Father, and tried to tell him about his adventures and the kind priest.
‘Frenchie obviously thought he was mad but, after a moment’s thought, he beckoned him to the graveyard. There, they looked at every stone, and the latest burial had been in 1810! And Father Armand’s was there too. 1805!’ Behag’s voice had taken on a sepulchral tone to achieve the sense of drama that the story warranted.
‘ ‘‘But he was alive and helped us in 1916”, said Father. Frenchie just shrugged the way they do – the French, y’know.
Well, they went into the nearest town and Father bought a map. He brought it home and I remember him sitting by our lum of an evening with this map on his knee, porin’ over it and jabbin’ his finger into it. It said very clearly “Perrene – abandoned in 1820 and now derelict”. In French, o’ course. Then he’d burst out, “But we were there in 1916!” None of us ever understood it at all.’
Behag finished triumphantly, but there was a wary look about her challenging gaze as she eyed us all.
‘Aye. ’Twas a weird business indeed,’ said Archie, from behind his cigarette.
Murdoch nodded, ‘Aye, but ’tisn’t for us to disbelieve Johnny.’
Behag sat up. ‘Indeed, no! Whatever else Father got up to – he was no’ a liar.’
Murdoch hastened to smooth ruffled feathers. ‘Indeed, he wasna. We canna explain it, was all I meant!’
We all sat in silence for a while, staring unseeingly at the fire. I thought about the weird story. There was no explanation! Not in our known world, anyway.
27
Elizabeth, Ina and a Lot of Snow
DRIVING HOME ONE autumn evening after a late afternoon call, I reached the summit of a hill on the side of Ben Criel. I pulled up and could only stare in wonder.
The sun, now low in the sky, was peeping from behind the cotton wool clouds to rim them in liquid gold while distant mist enshrouded islands; mere specks in the endless sea, were pink in the approaching darkness as it fluttered in.
Nearer, the heather-soaked breeze was whispering in the reeds as the shadows of gulls, massing together for the night, crept across the snow that was already softening the stark shoulders of the Ben. A solitary croft house was beacon white against the shadows in the glen and a window winked cheekily in the last rays of the October sun. The scene was so beautiful; timeless but fragile as, in a little while, it would all be hidden: to slumber in the dense darkness of a moonless night.
Reluctantly, I let in the clutch as I remembered two hungry sons and a husband (for once at home) waiting for their supper.
On the steep descent by Loch Annan, I spied the stalwart figure of Big Craig, the roadman, plodding steadfastly homeward with spade and shovel over his shoulder.
I stopped. ‘In you get, Craig.’
‘Ah, thank you, thank you, Nurse. Aye, ’tis a long trek home.’
Throwing his spade and shovel into the nearby ditch, he clambered in. I often wondered how he remembered which particular ditch he had used on these occasions – they all looked the same to me.
‘And the teacher has seen you, then?’ This was more in the nature of a statement than a question. What was he talking about?
I looked at him enquiringly.
‘You’ve no seen her, then?’
‘No. I’ve been at old Christina’s house.’ What was Craig getting at?
‘Ach. That Christina woman. She is a right besom, just.’
‘What about Mrs Campbell, Craig?’
‘Ach, she’ll be at your home, I’m thinkin’. Waiting to see you.’
‘Right,’ I said, as mystified as before.
‘She and that nice husband of hers passed me just a whiley back. I’m of the opinion that there is no other body in Dhubaig that she’d be going to see.’
So he had worked it all out and was now wanting to know why. Many of the crofters were wily in their curiosity but Craig was so genuine that I knew he would be worried that there was something amiss with the very popular teacher.
‘Very quiet man, he is. Yes indeed. Clever too.’ He rambled amiably on about this and that until I stopped at the top of his lane.
‘Aye then, Nurse. ’Tis going to be a bad morning. Look at yon sky. I’ll be about for the hill.’ And off he lumbered.
The sky had changed dramatically and now the mist had solidified into low, grey clouds full of waiting menace. Craig thought it would snow in the night – he was often right. He would wait for me to set off in the morning, his cheery bulk beside me in the car giving me confidence on the slippery slopes.
At home, a happy group sat around the fire. I was relieved to see that George had made Elizabeth and Arthur some tea and the boys were now recounting a fishing tale.
I poured myself a cup and joined them, wondering what this was all about. Elizabeth looked slightly on edge and kept glancing directly at me. I got the impression that she wanted to speak to me alone. After a while, I suggested that George should take Arthur into the back room to see if he could get a better picture on our television: he was known to be clever at such things. They all looked a little surprised when I insisted that the boys should ‘help’ but Elizabeth was quietly smiling, fully understanding my tactics.
‘Right. That’s got rid of them for a while. Now, Elizabeth, I wonder if you have something to tell me.’ I had been watching her. There was a little secret glow about her.
/> ‘Mary J. You’ve guessed!’
I smiled. ‘Tell me.’
‘After all these years, I think I’m pregnant. But I’m worried in case I am wrong and it is the beginning of the menopause.’
‘How old are you, Elizabeth?’
‘Thirty-eight.’
‘I think it is very unlikely that it is the menopause at such an early age but I understand that you have always thought that you could not have children. On what was that opinion based?’
‘Nothing, really. Just that we were married when I was twenty and for years we tried for a baby. When nothing happened, we just became resigned and thought that it was just not to be. Over the last few years, we have not… so much…’ she looked down, ‘everything is alright,’ she added hastily, ‘but it doesn’t matter quite so much as when we were young. So, we can hardly believe it.’
‘How many weeks do you think you are?’
‘About twelve, I think. I waited and waited to be sure before saying anything to Arthur and now he’s in a lather of worry.’ She smiled. ‘A very quiet lather, knowing him.’
‘Does he want to be present at the birth? It will be in the mainland hospital, of course.’
‘Yes, I understand and, yes, he says that he wants to be present for the birth. I don’t think he has any idea what it all entails and I’m afraid they will be treating him as well as me.’
More Tales From the Island Nurse Page 21
