‘I went to see him this morning and he seemed slightly better. He was having some of your herring for his dinner,’ I replied.
Johnny was a wrinkled, one-legged man: the only person I had ever seen in the Western world with an old-fashioned wooden ‘peg-leg’. He had been given countless opportunities to have a modern, state-of -the-art limb fitted but he stubbornly refused, whittling himself a new leg whenever his old one showed signs of wear. He was very tall, thin, and loose-limbed: he looked as though he would come to pieces at any moment. At 89, and the oldest inhabitant on the island, he was now causing concern, being seriously ill for the first time that anyone could remember.
‘He was coughin’ that bad yesterday that I thought he had the pulmoney,’ declared Mary knowledgably.
No one corrected her. We were used to her unique vocabulary.
Archie appeared to be deep in thought as he helped himself to another dram of Fergie’s whisky.
‘O course, he’s no rightly a Papavray man at all,’ he averred.
We all looked at him in surprise, because a good half of Johnny’s claim to local fame was that he was the oldest Papavrian on the island.
‘No, indeed,’ continued Archie, much gratified at our reaction. ‘He was born on Rhuna and came here when he was a wee boy.’
‘How are you knowin’ that?’ Mary was intrigued. Here was something about a neighbour that she hadn’t known!
Archie leaned forward. ‘ ’Twas Ally told Kirsty back in ’53, when we was all in Donny and Marie’s house for the weddin’, y’mind.’ He turned to us, ‘Ally is Johnny’s nephew. Big man, strong. Built like a horse.’ As an afterthought, he added, ‘He’s dead now.’
‘Aye,’ said Fergie. ‘I remember now. We were told that Johnny came over with his parents when they were “cleared” off Rhuna.’
‘But that must have been in about . . .’ I did some quick calculation. ‘It’s ’72 now, so it must have been 1880-something. I thought the Clearances were all over by then.’
Archie looked at me vaguely. ‘Oh, maybe, maybe.’ It was too good a story to be disproved by mere logic! Gaels preferred to stick to a good story, true or otherwise. If it were true, however, I realised that I actually knew someone who had been a subject of those infamous Clearances. Suddenly, past and present came together for me.
Fergie stirred. ‘Aye, Johnny was lucky. Many of the folk on Rhuna had to emigrate.’
‘Johnny was lucky again later, y’mind. Indeed, he was. ’Twas in the war,’ said Archie.
‘Which war?’ asked Nick. At 14, he was becoming very interested in military history, a fascination that remains with him to this day.
‘Bound to be the first,’ said George. ‘If you think about it, Nick, we’re talking about an octogenarian.’
‘Oh no,’ piped Mary. ‘Johnny was always Free Kirk.’
George was suddenly afflicted by a fit of coughing!
‘Aye, ’twas the first, all right. Some place in France.’
‘What happened?’ George had recovered. And finally Archie began his tale.
‘Well, he was out on patrol in some foreign part, lookin’ for Germans. “Mopping up” they called it, after the Germans had retreated. They found this gun emplacement and went inside, carefully enough, y’understand, to make sure all the Jerries had gone. They had begun to collect up food and ammunition and such, when there was an almighty explosion and they were all blown to glory! It was booby-trapped, y’see. Well, Johnny, he was blown up with all his mates. They were all killed. Johnny was wounded and near dead, too. Dear, dear, he was bad indeed. All night he was there, but in the morning the British came and found him and they got him to the field hospital. It seems his leg was that bad he got gangrene and they had to cut it off. The one he hasn’t got, y’understand.’ Archie liked to make things clear.
He continued, ‘Apparently, they had run out of anaesthetic, so they had to do it without, because they didn’t dare wait for new supplies. He would have died, y’see.’ Archie paused, nodding. ‘Aye, he was lucky, indeed.’
‘Lucky’ was not a word that I would readily have used to describe the fate of one suffering an amputation without anaesthetic!
‘In the long term, it does not seem to have done him much harm in himself. After all, he has made 89 and he manages very well on his peg-leg,’ I observed.
‘I’d like to talk to him about the war and so on,’ said Nick, much intrigued.
But he never did. Old Johnny went to meet his Maker that night.
At 3 a.m., the phone rang. It was Behag, Johnny’s longsuffering daughter, herself in her late 60s, who had been looking after the irascible old man for many weeks now in his cottage by the harbour in Dalhavaig.
‘Nurse! ’Tis Father. He’s gone and died on me, just when I thought he was getting better.’ She sounded aggrieved, but continued, ‘He had even started to shout at me again. Last evening, I got him right for the night and then something made me go back in at midnight and there he was. Gone!’
‘Behag, I’m so sorry. Have you told Dr Mac?’
‘Aye, I have, but he says that it wasn’t unexpected so he’ll do the stificate on the morrow and that I was to ring you.’
‘Where are you phoning from?’ I knew that, in common with most of the crofters, she did not have a phone. Most of them professed to hate ‘those contraptions’.
‘From the post office in Dalhavaig.’
‘Behag, why did you leave it for three hours before ringing me?’
‘Well, Maggie gave me a wee cuppie and we got chattin . . .’
I couldn’t believe my ears! They had sat chatting while Behag’s father quietly slipped towards rigor mortis.
I dressed quickly, collected what I would need and departed into the night to fulfil my last obligation to Johnny.
*
The day of Johnny’s funeral dawned cold, wet and windy, with menacing clouds racing across an angry sky. His burial service was to take place in his little croft house, and this was not unusual as that was where the ‘corpus’ would be lying. There was no such thing as a funeral parlour on Papavray, so funerals had to be arranged to take place within a few days of the death, as the croft houses were tiny and often occupied by a whole family. So distant relatives were telegraphed, the local women started baking, and the men looked out fusty funeral suits.
Hailstones pattered on the windows of Johnny’s little house during the service, while the howling gale and roaring sea accompanied the monotonous drone of the minister’s voice. The squat house seemed to hunch its shoulders as gust after pugnacious gust raced in from the sea, whirled along the stone pier and thundered against the two-foot-thick walls. The wind found its way down the old chimney, covering the mourners in peaty smoke until our faces almost matched our sombre clothes. The Reverend McDuff coughed and spluttered his way through the devotions in the packed little room.
Johnny had been well known and a sizeable crowd had gathered, so that many of the men had to stand outside in the wind and the rain. As soon as the last ‘amen’ had been mumbled, the women started to brew gallons of tea and set out the clootie dumpling, cakes, and oat biscuits, while the men, bearing the earthly remains of the old man, accompanied the minister to a little cemetery on the hill. In no time, they were back to crowd into the house once more, to eat and drink, chat and laugh whilst recalling Johnny’s exploits. It was a very merry funeral indeed.
Suddenly, the door was flung open and a windswept figure bellowed at us, ‘Can ye no hear the maroons? The coal boat’s in bother! She’s wallowin’ just outside the harbour.’
Everyone rushed for the door, jostling their way outside, and sure enough there was the familiar old tub flopping about on the turbulent waves. The wind was so strong that I had to hold on to the railings in order to stand up.
‘She’s lost her steerin’,’ asserted Fergie, fortissimo. ‘She’ll no get into the harbour. She’s more likely to break up.’
I could see two crew members frantically clinging t
o the wheelhouse while the huge waves pounded against the harbour wall and bounced back to thunder over the deck. We could hear the crash of the hull as it was thrown against the wall time and time again.
‘Where is her lifeboat?’ I asked, with my mouth an inch or so from Fergie’s ear. He looked at me as though I were mad.
‘Ach, she has none. It would take up too much space. There’d be no room for the coal.’
On the pier, about 20 men set about throwing ropes to those on the boat. We held our breath as one of the crew let go of the wheelhouse in order to grab one as the wind whipped it about over his head. He was knocked flat by a huge wave and was sliding towards the edge. The other man grabbed his legs and hauled him back to safety. He had nearly been washed over the side and would probably have been smashed to pieces between the hull and the harbour wall.
The rope was thrown again and this time the men on board the boat caught it and secured it round the capstan. All was now ready for the men on the quay to begin heaving and straining to try to steady the crazy pitching and rolling and turn the bows into the harbour entrance. A moment or two later, a shout went up as a higher than usual wave carried her into the gap. The heaving men tumbled over each other in the rush to reposition themselves and realign the ropes to bring her round and alongside.
About 30 minutes later, with tremendous effort and much shouting, she was being tied up in the comparative safety of the harbour. Many of the men were exhausted and sat on the wall, chests heaving. But even then their sense of humour surfaced and jokes about ‘yon daft crew’ were bandied about.
The ‘daft crew’ was amazingly unhurt and came ashore to partake of the remains of the funeral meal, which the women had brought to the wooden hut on the pier. I was busy for a long time in the confines of a dark, malodorous shack, treating blisters and cuts on the men’s hands and arms. Being crofters and fishermen, they had rough, calloused skin already, but the ropes had been cold, wet, and salty, and the amount of grip and pull that had been necessary to move the laden old craft had been phenomenal. There would be some sore muscles tomorrow!
After a while, I went back to Johnny’s house and helped to clear up. Everyone was talking of the day’s adventures.
‘Aye. We’ll remember Johnny’s funeral all right.’
‘Indeed. And the coal boat. My, it’s a good thing we was all here. If Johnny hadn’t upped and died when he did, that boat would be at the bottom of the sea. And the crew with her, I wouldn’t wonder. Aye. ’Twas lucky, foreby!’
So, even after he had ‘passed over’, Johnny was still spreading his luck.
FORTY-TWO
Fire!
Christmas was nearly upon us again! The need for one of our now-famous shopping expeditions became pressing, but at this time of the year it was virtually impossible to do it in one day as it was dark until about 10 a.m. and the light failed again by 3.30 p.m. So we were to stay with Angus and Maggie. Angus of the bottomless store! I wondered what monstrosity he might have for us to transport this time.
For several days before the intended trip, we watched the weather with anxiety. If it snowed heavily, Glen Knochiel would be impassable and our plans (and perhaps our Christmas) would be spoilt.
On the appointed day, armed with the usual enormously long shopping list (again as many things for others as for ourselves), we set off well before daylight. The weather was bitterly cold and snow was forecast. Mary was coming with us to stay with her cousins and have a ‘good crack’ (a gossip).
The shopping round followed the usual pattern, but with more time to spare it was much more enjoyable and we even visited the one and only theatre to see a performance of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. On the third day, as we prepared for our return, Mary announced that she had decided to stay for another few days.
‘I’ll come back with the Commission or the school inspector,’ she said.
I was puzzled. She explained.
‘I could get a lift with the school inspector, but I’m thinkin’ he’s that clever he’s no fun at all! No. I’ll likely catch the Commission instead.’
‘The Commission?’ I repeated.
‘Aye. He comes from the Crofters’ Commission to inspect the land.’
‘Do you know that he will take you?’
‘Ach, he’ll take me all right!’ She nodded knowingly. ‘Yon mannie will be after some venison from Archie.’
So all was clear! With grateful thanks to our hosts, and the Land Rover packed to the roof with everything from Christmas trimmings to a back boiler for hot water, we set off.
Mary had been scathing when she saw the back boiler. ‘Can they no just boil a wee kettle full like other folk?’
I forbore to remind her that many folk, including ourselves, had baths and therefore needed rather more than a ‘wee kettle full’!
Once away from the town, the snowy landscape opened up before us. The white hills, the dark green of the pine forests, and the grey waters of the loch, ice-covered in places, were a perfect backdrop to the shaggy Highland cattle at the water’s edge. Their thick coats were catching the huge snowflakes as they fell and when they raised their heads to inspect us they seemed to be wearing fluffy white hats.
The Highlands of Scotland are at their most spectacular in the snow. View after beautiful view opened up before us as we drove deeper and deeper into the wild landscape. Regal mountains, clothed in white, stood out against a leaden sky, but occasionally the clouds would part and silvery sunlight slanted across the shimmering slopes. The lonely scene glowed in the eerie light, while steely lochs reflected the sombre sky, the water appearing even darker at the edges where its gloom contrasted with the white banks. Vast pine forests shivered starkly under their white mantles, looking like so many thousands of Christmas trees. Craggy rocks beside the road were softened by the blanket of snow and young birch trees bowed their heads under the weight of the clinging flakes.
By the time we reached Papavray, the dim light of the winter day had dawdled imperceptibly into darkness and it was getting rapidly colder. I hoped we were not going to have a repeat of the intensely cold weather that we had experienced a few weeks ago.
With thoughts of home and a meal, and glad of the fourwheel-drive capability of the Land Rover, we climbed the dark, slippery side of Ben Criel.
‘What’s that smell?’ asked Andy.
‘It smells like a bonfire,’ said Nick. ‘There’s red in the sky too. Look!’
We looked. An angry pink and red glow was spreading across the sky, interspersed with billowing black clouds. Clouds? No. This was smoke!
We came over the top of the hill, looking down on Loch Annan. George braked and we stared in amazement. We were among the high hills on the side of Ben Criel; hills that were now ablaze with roaring, crackling flames of orange and red shooting high into the air. They left a trail of sparks to be borne away on the fresh breeze and to alight on any nearby hill, possibly starting another fire.
We were speechless. There was an almost primeval magnificence about the awe-inspiring scene which left one feeling diminished, insignificant in the face of this exhibition of the power of nature’s forces.
‘It’s the heather,’ I said, in a sort of trance. ‘It’s so dry and brittle. We haven’t had rain for weeks.’
The crofters lit controlled heather fires every three or four years, usually in February, normally a ‘dry’ month. If left undisturbed, the heather on the hills would become huge and woody, taking over the grazing intended for sheep and deer. With great skill, born of years of experience, 20 or so men with fire beaters would select an area of hillside—a different area each year—and set light to the heather in a long line, having determined the direction and strength of the wind. It was an organised and well-disciplined exercise.
But this was quite different. Magnificent to look at, maybe, but dangerous to the people fighting the fire and lethal to sheep caught in corries with flames all around them. And for much of the island’s grazing to be destroyed could have
serious economic effects.
For a few moments, we were mesmerised by the spectacle, viewed from our lofty perch, but speedily realised that we should be over there helping. Luckily, we always kept wellies in the vehicle, so we changed from our town shoes, pulling on extra sweaters, and were just setting off on foot when we were startled by the blast of a klaxon. The island’s elderly fire engine lumbered past, travelling at a protesting 20 miles an hour. Long ago, the islanders had realised that they could not rely on a swift response to a 999 call and were apt to tackle any fire without recourse to the fire service at all. But this was a major conflagration that needed all the help available. The monstrous vehicle, which might once have been red, descended the hill with its brakes squealing and grinding. I could see six men packed into the cab.
As we followed on foot, I became aware of the rare sight of a shining, frozen Loch Annan surrounded by flames. The icy surface reflected the pink and grey clouds of smoke and the glowing hills, while the contrast between the silver loch and the brilliant colours of the roaring flames was spectacular.
The firemen were wrestling with hoses and pumps. Loch Annan would provide plenty of water now that the surface ice had been broken: some of the crofters had been wielding pickaxes. Then, to our utter amazement, we saw the factor’s Land Rover crossing the loch towards the opposite hills—on the ice! I held my breath. How did Richard know that the ice was thick enough to take the weight of a Land Rover? Much later, when I asked him, he shrugged and said nonchalantly, ‘I just hoped!’ Crazy man! But he had a small generator and was trailing a hose to the inaccessible side of the loch so that a fireman, already in position, could direct the flow to the more remote areas of the fire.
As soon as we approached, we were given fire beaters—big floppy rubber flaps on stout poles—to whack the smouldering peaty ground. It had not really occurred to me that, just as peat burns in fireplaces so, after a dry, windy spell of weather, when the peaty ground is tinder dry, it would readily burn where it lay. The thought of the ground burning beneath your feet was horrific!
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