The Night Before Morning

by Alistair Moffat

  Where I think I did meet with his approval was on the rugby field. Probably the only innate, natural gift I was given was the ability to play this game very well. At fourteen, I was six foot one, the same height I am now, with a big frame, the ability to sprint, kick goals, and I had what our house master called ‘adhesive hands’ because I never dropped the ball. When I was older and came home during the Christmas and Easter holidays, I was immediately drafted into the Melrose 1st XV. But even though I knew he enjoyed rugby and came to watch me, my father never uttered an encouraging word.

  At St Andrews University, I rather gave up the game, preferring to spend as much time with Katie as possible. One Easter, Melrose had selected me to play in a home game against Kelso and my father was told that a Scotland selector was coming to watch me. But he chose not to tell me – why, I don’t understand. I had a slightly stiff shoulder, decided not to play and went up to St Andrews to be with Katie. Since I gave up playing, several people have said to me that I was international class, but my father never did.

  Why he was so closed off, I do not know. His upbringing was severe, I believe, but that is a poor excuse. The cycle should be broken. But one thing did cheer me. My mother’s love was completely unconditional, and she encouraged and supported me until the awful day when she crashed her car avoiding a child who ran into the road. The little girl survived but my mother did not. I know that my father loved her very much and he never found a way to accept his loss. A friend once told me that when he was waiting for me in the drawing room at Abbey House, he overheard a very flirtatious conversation between my parents. Unaware of his presence, they embraced and kissed passionately in the hallway. I was glad that, after some pressure, my friend had told me what he had inadvertently witnessed. At least that was a fulfilment for my father: real happiness. He was a hard man to love and would, in any case, have recoiled if I had expressed any emotions like that. But he was my father, and no doubt I played a part in the sterility of our exchanges. Although what that part was, I cannot be sure.

  ‘Bleaklaw Moss,’ said Katie’s father, apropos of nothing anyone else had said, probably a link to a conversation conducted in his head until that moment. ‘No one will ever find you, even if they know you’re there.’

  After the first hot meal any of us could remember, Wilson, Campbell and I sat by a crackling fire with Katie while her father poured generous tumblers of whisky, something we were going to miss.

  ‘So far as I understand things, it seems to me that you have no option but to disappear, at least until something else catches the attention of those thugs at Berwick.’ He went on to explain that Bleaklaw Moss was a wide plateau of dangerous bog-land, much of it covered by willow scrub and colonised by self-seeded sitka spruce blown from a vast plantation on its eastern flank. ‘I know an old shepherd, Sandy Ormiston, who can show you the safe paths. I think there’s a bothy there. I’m pretty sure there is, but I’ve no idea what state it’s in.’

  ‘Where is it?’ I asked, never having heard the placename, wondering just how bleak it might be in winter.

  ‘About twenty miles south of here, in the foothills of the Cheviots.’

  Christmas Eve, 1944

  As a farrier in a former life, Angus Wilson knew a great deal about horses but, to my total amazement, he had never sat on one.

  ‘Sit up!’ barked Katie. ‘You look like a sack of potatoes.’ She walked around the placid Highland pony Angus had managed to mount after more than a few grumbles, tightened the girth, placed the big man’s feet in the correct place in the stirrup irons and showed him how to thread the reins through his fingers, between his pinkie and ring finger and then index finger and thumb. ‘Their mouths are sensitive and you won’t need to haul this old chap around. He knows his job and plenty worse than you have sat on him.’ And last of all, she buckled on a neck strap, explaining to Wilson that ‘the technical term for this is the holy crap strap. When those words come into your head, grab it.’

  Quite how Katie had persuaded her neighbour to lend us four of her shaggy Highland ponies, I was not sure. Perhaps her riding school was not busy, perhaps she needed a break from feeding them through the hungry months of the winter. But with twenty miles to cover in a day, we needed transport, and to move fast in daylight. Walking through the night was much slower, more dangerous and it would be very easy to get lost on our way to a place none of us knew.

  When Alan Grant suggested we take refuge in Bleaklaw Moss, he had better reasons than inaccessibility for choosing it. He knew how to get from his farm to the foothills of the Cheviots without much risk of us being seen. Very well read, and a farmer who saw the land itself as a text, as more than simply a place where crops grew and stock grazed, Katie’s father had spread a map on his kitchen table. ‘The Germans will use the roads. There aren’t yet enough of them to do anything else and they’ll see only what they see from their vehicles. But there is one long road that’s invisible to them, a ghost road, one that will make you disappear.’

  Smiling, knowing that he had our full attention, Alan traced his finger across the old Ordnance Survey map. ‘Do you see this straight line? It’s not just a lot of field ends. It’s a Roman road, built by the legions almost two thousand years ago, and it’ll take you very nearly all the way to where you need to go.’ Because the Romans had hammered down the hard standing of gravel and fringed it with kerbstones, no farmer could ever get a plough through it. Almost impassable in summer, choked by hawthorn and blackthorn, it opens up in winter. ‘You can see where it runs,’ said Alan, ‘but the die-back is high, nothing flattens it and in lots of places there are big trees on either side. All of that will give you cover.’

  An overnight blanket of cloud had caused much of the snow to melt, only white fringes remaining in the lee of dykes and in ditches. As the grey dawn edged from the east, our band of four riders clopped down the Grants’ farm track in the shadow of a shelter-belt of Scots pines.

  Katie rode in front, leading us west to join the ghost road where the legions had once marched. Teasing us as we were tacking up the ponies, she had said that real Border Reivers would not have been so weedy. They would not have hesitated to ride their surefooted little ponies by night. ‘Ill met by moonlight’ was the phrase she used.

  Breasting a rise, we could see below us a long line of hardwood trees, their naked, leafless limbs gaunt against the morning sky. There was no wind, nothing moved, and no sound except the crunch of the ponies’ hooves on the frosted ground.

  ‘That’s it over there’ – Katie pointed – ‘and about half a mile beyond is the main road.’

  The night before, we had agreed that in the unlikely event that we saw any traffic on Christmas Eve, we should stop, dismount and stay as still as possible. The placid Highlands would immediately drop their heads to look for a bite of something. But we could make out no engine noise carrying in the clear air as we joined the line of the old Roman road.

  Spear-straight, it made for the shoulder of a distant hill that was topped with a monument that can be seen all over the Border country. More resembling a land-locked lighthouse, it had been built at the end of another war by French prisoners to honour the Duke of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo. As our ponies plodded quietly between the avenue of trees, the path winding uphill around bushes and fallen branches, it occurred to me how history shifts. In 1815, the Germans were our allies against the French and Napoleon’s vaulting ambition to dominate Europe. In fact, the arrival of Field Marshal Blücher’s Prussians at Waterloo had turned defeat into victory. Perhaps the lighthouse should have been dedicated to him.

  Alan Grant was right about the road. Between the lines of trees and bushes, most of them thorns, nothing but shallow rooted weeds and tall grass grew. Almost two thousand winters had done little damage to the road-bed laid down by the Romans.

  Katie turned in the saddle. ‘We’ll have to dismount when we reach that wood up ahead. There’s no gate and we’ll need to move quickly down a tarmacked back road to get
out of sight again.’ She smiled. ‘You manage a trot, Angus?’

  I could not see his face, only imagine the horror on it.

  Just as we turned down the road, I fancied I could hear engine noise. Bouncing around in the saddle, slewing from side to side, Wilson was hanging on grimly as his pony trotted, grabbing for the holy crap strap. And was only saved from a heavy fall on tarmac by Katie doubling back to grab his reins. ‘Stand up in the stirrups and keep your backside out of the saddle!’ In a sudden dip in the road by a little bridge, there was a gap in the fence and a dense wood behind it. Moments after we were all through it, a very stately car glided past. Was it a Rolls Royce or a Bentley? There were several grand houses in the vicinity and perhaps a chauffeur had been sent out on an errand.

  Below the wood flowed our first real obstacle. Thankfully, there was no winter spate speeding the River Teviot towards its junction with the Tweed at Kelso, but it still would not be easy to cross. We could have diverted by a road bridge about a mile to the west, but that would have been a very last resort. There were clearly people about. Katie reckoned that the easiest way across was below an old cauld. Where the low dam diverted part of the flow of the river into a mill lade, there were some islets and she felt the ponies would be happiest crossing where they could see some slivers of land rising up out of the water.

  ‘Kick! Kick!’ Katie shouted at Wilson. ‘If he thinks you won’t, he won’t go.’ After more refusals, she splashed back, took the reins and led the reluctant Highland and its sorry rider to the far bank. For some doubtless suspect reason, perhaps memories of boarding school, I liked severe, bossy Katie.

  But it was at that moment I first felt we were being watched.

  There were no buildings nearby, not even any field shelters or barns, only a strip of dense and dark woodland on the ridge above the southern bank of the river, in the direction we were going. Was there a flicker of movement in the woods? Or was it just birds fluttering amongst the debris?

  When we crossed another stream, the land began to climb noticeably. This stretch of the road was open, not clogged by the winter die-back of weeds and thorns, clearly maintained and used as a farm track to reach out-bye fields. Its unnatural, geometric straightness impressed me. Without machines or the internal combustion engine, with only picks, shovels and baskets, the Romans had been able to write their story indelibly and enduringly on this landscape.

  Looking sideways at Angus Wilson, Katie suggested we trot where the going was good. It was mid-morning and only three days after the winter solstice, the shortest day, so we needed to make better time. There were perhaps only four or five hours left for us to reach Bleaklaw Moss before the light faded. With Katie riding alongside, Wilson managed to stay on as we moved into the upcountry.

  Passing through woodland on either side, much of it evergreen, we were well hidden. But when we came to a crossroads, where a tarmacked C-road cut across, it was much more open. And it would be like that for about a mile. Too risky. We dismounted, led the ponies across a stripy ploughed field with snow-filled furrows and found cover behind a long shelter-belt of pines and spruces. With no time to stop and rest, we ate what the Grants had put in our saddlebags as we walked south towards the Cheviot Hills. We had agreed to meet Sandy Ormiston at Five Stane Rig. An old shepherd whom Alan Grant knew well, and trusted completely, he would show us the lie of the land, open the bothy and then take Katie home in his car.

  Where the Roman road spurred away south off the tarmac surface, the views behind us to the north and east opened dramatically. A watery sun blinked between the clouds. Remembered sights like that had been a salve for my soul on the hardest days of the hunger march and after bullets had flown around us on Queen Beach. I gazed for a few moments at the three Eildon Hills that rise above the Tweed at Melrose, over the fertile fields of Berwickshire and east to the flat horizon of the North Sea coast. This was my home place, and I was damned if it was going to be taken from me and all the people who made it. I was damned if I was to be nothing more than a fugitive, a casualty of a lost war.

  Katie pulled up her pony beside me. It was as though, without knowing it, both of us shared the same prayer at that moment and, for both of us, it was answered at the same time.

  She turned to look at me, fixing me steadily, not smiling, and I said, ‘We will fight. I don’t yet know how, but we will fight.’

  Sunk down between two parallel dykes, the old road seemed pristine, unchanged, the course of its metalling clearly visible, dropping slightly on either side so that the frequent rains could run off. Only the curlews could see us passing through the landscape as they wheeled in the updraughts and we trotted on in the hoofprints of history. On the hills on either side of this raised valley, sheep were moving slowly across their flanks, searching for a bite of bitter winter grass amongst the gorse.

  With perhaps two hours of light left, Katie encouraged us to kick on for Five Stanes Rig, only a mile or two further. But when we came to the shoulder of a hill and could see the course of the Roman road run a long way to the south, well past the place where Sandy Ormiston’s car should have been visible, we could see no sign of it or him. Perhaps he was late, or had been stopped, or had hidden his vehicle somehow. The five stones of the little circle are not monumental, more like something you might sit on than be in awe of, but their location is clear. It was also clear that the old shepherd was nowhere to be seen.

  Katie pointed to a plantation some distance off the road, over to the west. With my binoculars, I thought I could make out the shape of a small, low building half hidden in the fringes of the trees.

  ‘Perhaps that’s the bothy my dad meant?’ she said. ‘Even if it’s not, you should use it. I need to start back very soon.’

  We headed over the tussocky grass, looking for a sheepwalk that might make for easier going through the dips and sudden hollows. And when we reached what looked to me to have been a shieling, little more than a rudimentary shelter used by shepherds summering out on the high pasture with their flocks, we were sure this must be the place that Alan meant. In the wide and open landscape around the road, there was nothing else to be seen.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Katie said, kissing me, ‘this old pony has plenty of gas left in the tank and we can canter on the good stretches. I’ll be home before the night closes in. It’s Christmas Eve! I had better be.’

  As we dismounted, and Wilson and Campbell unlatched the door of the bothy, I watched Katie ride away, turning in the saddle and waving.

  And then, in a moment, she disappeared. The pony reared. They both fell. And were gone.

  VI

  Having leapt into the saddle and dug my heels in as hard as I could, the Highland almost threw me as it took off over the tussocky grass, into the gallop after only a few strides. In the gathering gloaming, I found it difficult to judge distance and could see nothing of Katie and her pony. A rising panic was fought down by the certain knowledge that they could not possibly have disappeared. The ground could not have simply swallowed them. But it seemed that it had.

  Then I almost rode right over them. In a deep and sudden dip, both horse and rider lay side by side. Neither was moving but I could see that the pony’s flanks were heaving as it breathed. Racing across to Katie, I felt for a pulse. Thank God. And she too began panting. Perhaps it was shock. For both of them. Then she let out a faint groan and her forehead furrowed. Coming round after being knocked out, she turned on her side.

  ‘Don’t move, darling,’ I whispered. ‘You might have broken something.’

  Ignoring me, she grunted, opened her eyes, and sat up. And then pointed her finger past my shoulder. ‘Look, David. Look!’

  Turning slowly around, I saw what I first took to be a child, a young lad. Clothed from head to foot in various shades of brown and green and with a hat stuck with feathers, he was aiming an arrow straight at me. Standing at point-blank range, with his bowstring fully drawn back to his shoulder, he was utterly still and made no sound. Having no weapon with
me, not even a knife, I raised my arms slowly.

  ‘No, no,’ Katie said to the boy, ‘it was an accident. I know that. We didn’t see you.’

  Still silent, and still pulling back the full draw-weight of his bow, the lad slowly edged around us so that he had both of us and the pony in view.

  Watching him closely, wondering if he would shoot, I could see that he was no boy, but a small, very spare man with a heavily lined and weathered face.

  The pony snorted and began to rock back and forth where it had fallen. Katie got to her feet, still unsteady and woozy.

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘I’m not armed. I have nothing. I won’t harm you.’

  At that moment, Wilson and Campbell appeared on the edge of the hollow. This disconcerted the strange little man very much. I realised that he realised he could not fire arrows fast enough to cover all of us, and more than that, the two soldiers carried shotguns. When the pony whinnied once more, the little man slowly lowered his bow, darted over to the pony, took hold of both its forelegs, made a low clicking sound and with tremendous, unsuspected strength, pulled it round onto more level ground.

  Open-mouthed at this, we watched the old Highland roll onto its belly, tuck in its hind legs, get up and shake itself. As we watched the miraculous resurrection of the horse, none of us noticed the little man disappear.

  *

  ‘Now look, Sandy, there’s nothing I can do about this.’

  In the only cell in St Boswells police station, Sergeant Bell explained that he was bound to file a report. Even though it was Christmas Eve. After a phone call from a neighbour, someone the policeman refused to name, his only patrol car had stopped Sandy on the road to Jedburgh. After searching the car, the constable asked him to come back to the station to answer a few questions.