Highland Interlude

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘They’ll need a lot?’

  ‘Stretchers, first-aid kits, blankets, tools, ropes, spot lamps, and the heavy batteries and gas cylinders to supply the lamps. Like I said, lass. A big job.’

  ‘They’ll carry all that up Ben Gairlie?’

  ‘Oh, aye. On their backs.’ She looked at me, but I didn’t feel she saw me. ‘The stretchers alone weigh fifty pounds each. In good weather it can take between three and four hours to get up to their rest-hut. This snow and the weights will slow ’em down.’

  I had never known her so talkative. I said I hoped she did not mind my questions.

  ‘No. What else do you want to know?’

  ‘How many searchers?’

  ‘Around twenty-five between the first, and second teams. More if the reserves have been called. I reckon they will as they’ll be needed to search round the rest-hut, or some to stay at base camp to get the victims away fast. As it takes about four hours to carry an injured man down the Ben,’ she said drily, ‘happen they’ll have a long wait.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose the first team has the best men?’

  ‘The best climbers,’ she corrected. ‘They’re all good men. Obviously, it takes experience and skill to be capable of, and willing to, climb anything, anytime, in any weather. The pick are in the first. They’ll be first up, last down. If necessary, they go up again and again. My husband’s in that lot. Aye.’ She answered my unspoken question. ‘And Professor Grant.’

  I found I could not comment on that. ‘The lost are always found?’

  ‘They’ll not return, and never have, empty-handed. They’ll stick on the job until they’ve found the lot. They’ll bring ’em down to us here, alive or dead. Till then there’s nowt for it but to wait and hope.’ A spasm of anxiety flickered over her set face. ‘That’ll not be easy. Happen it never is.’

  It was not easy. All that long afternoon every face, sick and well, was haunted by the thought of the lost Englishmen. As the afternoon wore on items of news trickled in. Nearly all the lost were university students, and the whole party was from the West of England. We learned that the students had been saving for their week-end for the past year. Most were paying their first visit to the Highlands, some to climb, a few to ski. On their journey up their official party leader had developed a violent food poisoning and been carried off the train at Carlisle. His son was one of the lost. The deputy leader, a Mr Morgan, was a twenty-six-year-old reader in ancient history, an experienced rock-climber who had gained his experience in Wales and the Lake District. He had never climbed in Scotland before.

  I was having tea in Matron’s office with Matron, Sister Kilsyth, and Dr MacAlistair when Matron’s telephone rang. It made me jump. The others sat very still. Then Matron reached, almost casually, for the receiver. ‘Yes, Sergeant? Yes. I’ll tell him, as he’s here with me. Thank you.’ She put it down. ‘They’ve left the rest-hut. Soon we may have real news.’

  Sister asked to be excused to help Staff Nurse Craig get ahead with the routine. Officially Sister was off duty till six. She had only stopped working ten minutes ago.

  ‘A good plan, Sister.’ Matron waited for the door to close. ‘Poor Sister! She’ll be on edge until she hears her husband is safely back, but never once on these occasions have I heard her utter one word of complaint.’

  ‘Andrew Kilsyth is a good man. His wife wouldn’t wish to change him. He loves the hills.’ Dr MacAlistair glanced at me. ‘Take that from him and he’d be another man.’

  I didn’t mind his guessing. I merely wondered when he had. Probably long before I knew myself. It was that first fear that had cracked it wide open. I was still so frightened for Dougal that there was room for little else in my mind. Maury, Dougal’s reaction when he found I was still in Gairlie, my expected arrival at Martha’s, never even occurred to me.

  Matron and MacAlistair were discussing Mr Morgan. Matron said, ‘It will help Mr Urquhart to know the lost are being led by an experienced rock-climber, even though now injured. Surely he’d not have taken wholly inexperienced laddies up the north face?’ Then she answered herself. ‘If he has it’ll not be the first time we’ve known that happen.’

  Dr MacAlistair nodded grimly. ‘He’s young to lead so large a party, and being a rock-climber’ll be ambitious to tackle the stiffest route. We’ve to remember it’s his first time in charge ‒ as Charlie’ll not overlook.’ He went on to explain to me why it was so vital for the searchers to learn as much as possible about the characters, as well as the actual climbing experience, of those lost. There are never enough men to cover a mountain like the Ben, so the searchers have to try and think themselves into the minds of those they’re searching. Naturally, the more they know of those minds, the better they can do that. Then, as time is all-essential and as much ground as possible must be covered before dark, they make first for the places they would have chosen for shelter for themselves, had they been the lost. If in vain they report back and start again.’

  ‘How do they report? Short-wave radio?’

  ‘Unfortunately when that’s most required the mountains render it useless. They do have a short-wave set at the rest hut, another at base, a third back here at the police station.’ He looked at the window. The snow had changed to driving rain.

  ‘This’ll freeze solid directly it hits the Ben. Ach, the poor, thoughtless laddies! Little did they think when they set out to climb their mountain how their day might end! But when did any normal laddie on holiday give a thought to danger?’ He sighed. ‘Lets hope they’re dressed for this.’

  ‘They might not be? People’ll climb Ben Gairlie without proper climbing clothes?’ I demanded.

  My companions exchanged resigned glances. ‘My dear,’ said Matron, ‘we’ve had them carried down from the Ben without proper climbing boots, with clothing only suitable for a country walk, with often not one wind or waterproof garment. They’ve come up here on holiday and regarded the Ben as no more than a high hill. We’ve had students who’ve never climbed anything starting straight off on the north face, as I said earlier.’

  ‘You look as if you find it hard to credit that, Miss Wade,’ added Dr MacAlistair, ‘but it’s the truth. We’ve had victims of the Ben who’ve tackled her not only in the wrong clothes, but without maps, compasses, or even a whistle or a torch in their pockets. Those last two alone have often made the difference between life and death to the lost. No climber should set foot on a mountain without them. Do you know what every expert’ll tell you is the greatest single danger to any climber?’ I shook my head. ‘His or her own inexperience.’

  ‘I’m beginning to understand that.’ Then, as I had to be reassured; I had to ask, ‘Do the searchers ever get lost?’

  Again they looked at each other. Dr MacAlistair took his time. ‘They’re not irresponsible laddies, lassie. They’re all local men who know and have trained on their mountain and understand their weather and have their eyes wide open to all the risks involved. As most are married men, they’ll have personal as well as professional responsibilities to steady their foot- and hand-holds. Though they come from assorted backgrounds, they’re accustomed to working as a team under Charlie Urquhart.’

  He had not answered my question, and we all knew it. ‘What kind of backgrounds?’

  ‘Ach ‒ doctors ‒ there’s another besides Dougal Grant ‒ artisans, council officials, railwaymen, crofters, fishermen ‒ and maybe others. Can you call them to mind, Matron?’

  ‘Not off-hand, Doctor.’

  They were being kind. It was no help. So I was blunt. ‘I’ve read of rescuers being killed. Has it happened here?’

  ‘From time to time.’ Dr MacAlistair stopped avoiding my eyes. ‘I’ve known more than one Gairlie man fall to his death searching for a stranger he’d never seen and whose name he never learnt. But that’s never stopped the searchers from continuing, and there’s never any shortage of volunteers to fill the empty place. Naturally, they’re all volunteers.’

  ‘Naturally,’ echoed Matron
.

  Naturally, I thought, and remembered my original impression that the twentieth century had not yet reached Gairlie. It hadn’t.

  I thought of London. I thought of Easter Monday last year. For the third year running, with one of my nursing friends, I had marched the last fourteen miles and sat in Trafalgar Square and sung ‘We shall not be moved’ and chanted ‘Hands off Vietnam’. I thought of hippies and junkies and pop maniacs and rave-ups and freak-outs and love-ins. We were a dead trendy lot. We were going to show the world how to make love, not war. We were going to find out all the answers. Up here in Gairlie they were so antiquated, they didn’t even bother with the questions. They thought the Act of Union had been passed the day before yesterday; Culloden was yesterday; the words first uttered nearly two thousand years ago were new enough to condition men’s actions. Naturally one man should be willing to lay down his life for another.

  No one, throughout that afternoon and evening, mentioned the word ‘love’ to me. No one asked me, ‘Why must our men risk their lives for your idiotically, if not downright criminally, careless fellow-countrymen?’

  They all said, ‘Those poor English laddies! They must be brought down safely.’

  I learnt a lot about Scottish Highlanders and about love that long afternoon in Gairlie. I learnt even more about myself. It was an afternoon to remember, and not only because that was the afternoon I grew up.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A ‘ROUTINE’ MOUNTAIN RESCUE

  The telephone in the MacAlistairs’ front hall rang again. Mrs MacAlistair went to answer it, leaving me by her sitting-room fire. We had spent the last two hours and had our supper on trays by that fire. We were alone in the house, as the three boys had gone back to their boarding-school yesterday. Mrs MacAlistair said she invariably flapped round like a frustrated old hen for the first few days of every school term, and if anyone was doing anyone a kindness it was me. ‘Normally Hamish is very good and comes over as much as possible, but how could I expect him to leave his beloved hospital, even for five minutes, tonight? You’ll take coffee? Or would you prefer tea? Or hot chocolate?’

  She was a tall, handsome, gay woman, and, being even more of an extrovert than her husband, she seldom stopped talking. She said her children talked as much, having long learnt that their only hope of getting a word in was to shout both parents down. ‘Perforated eardrums all round when the MacAlistairs get together.’

  In her house I felt neither an outsider nor an honoured guest. I just felt she was glad of my company, that she did not object to my jumping like a scalded cat whenever the ’phone rang, and considered my staying on perfectly normal in these circumstances. ‘If they only let you hand round tea; someone has to do the job, and being trained you’ll not produce it at the wrong time, or give it to the wrong person.’

  Her caller that time was another anxious wife unwilling to disturb police or hospital. ‘Helen Innes. Bob’s in the second team ‒ oh, again!’

  She was away several minutes and returned looking ready to spit. ‘Some women never learn! Do you know what I’ve just been asked? If you and I would now care to join Maury Valentine and some English friends she’s just discovered are staying in the hotel. She’s just heard you’re still here, and thinks a wee party will do us all good. Tonight! With Gairlie holding its breath! Of all the feckless, insensitive creatures! Hamish may say it’s not her fault she was ruined by doting parents and then a besotted husband old enough to be her father ‒ but I’ve never had any time for her. I’m sure you’ll forgive my refusing for us both without bothering to consult you first.’

  I heard her husband’s voice behind that last remark, and wondered, without any embarrassment, how much he had told her. Embarrassment was a superficial emotion. I was now dealing in the basics. ‘Thanks a lot for doing that. A party! I don’t get it ‒ or do I? Is this her antidote for anxiety? She was off to some house-party in Glasgow. I suppose she could’ve gone with Davie MacDonald. She’s scrapped that for the search.’

  ‘Maury Valentine let that come between her and her precious social life? Are we talking of the same woman? The search has occasioned her no anxiety! All that’s now bothering her ‒ and I quote ‒ is the tedious blight these little escapades cast on the local atmosphere.’

  ‘She said that? But ‒ she’s crazy about Dougal Grant! She must realize’ ‒ I had to be careful for Dougal’s sake, if not my own ‒ ‘it’s dodgy on the Ben right now.’

  ‘There’s but one person that woman’s crazy about, dearie, and that’s herself. As for scrapping any week-end plans ‒ she said nothing to me of that, and she’s not the type to hide a sacrifice, or, come to that, make one! I was very short with her. I’ve not my husband’s endless patience and I’m not forced to act gently towards her like Dougal Grant, since she never saved my twin sister’s life. And has she taken full advantage of that debt! I doubt there’ll be a man more relieved than Dougal when she shortly removes to this new house she’s buying in the other side of Inverness. I expect you’ve heard she’s selling up here?’

  ‘Yes, but’ ‒ I swallowed ‒ ‘she’s moving out?’

  ‘You’re surprised? Of course, having been hospitalized, you’ll not know how much time she’s spent away recently. I gather the new attraction is some film man who used to work with her husband. He’s been in Inverness this last month making preparations for some picture he plans to make there this summer. It’s common Gairlie knowledge she now has her eye on him.’ She smiled wickedly. ‘She’s a fine-looking woman, so if he’s no hard-headed Scotsman maybe she’ll have a hope!’

  I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m lost.’

  ‘Now, why, Elizabeth?’

  I told her all I knew and had been given to understand, by Maury.

  ‘And being a stranger you took her word for it? Elizabeth! How could you be so daft? Have you met no possessive wee bitches in London? Couldn’t you’ve guessed by trying to get rid of you so plainly she was indirectly paying you a great compliment?’

  ‘There was more to it than that. She always seemed around Achnagairl House. Part of the family.’

  ‘As she once saved the life of one of his family, knowing Dougal, does that really surprise you?’

  ‘No. Not now. But, Mrs Pringle ‒’

  ‘Told you Maury Valentine was setting her cap at her beloved Professor? Well, for once, dear old Rose Pringle was right. Not that Maury ever had any hope in that quarter. Dougal may fall over backwards to repay a debt, but he’s far too canny to allow himself to be entangled into marriage by a feckless creature who continues to behave like a spoilt bairn even though well turned thirty! But dear old Rosie’d not think of that. She’s always been convinced any girl who so much as exchanges the time of day with a man is after his name. Didn’t she even suspect you of that?’

  ‘Yes. I thought it was just me. She was so scared I’d seduce him she got in a tiz every time she’d to leave us alone together during my first week.’

  Mrs MacAlistair laughed. ‘Without disrespect to your charms, dearie, you’d have a job! Life changes slowly in the Highlands, and though you might occasionally find the Highland gentleman who’d allow himself to be seduced by, or to seduce, a guest under his own roof, you’d not find him under the roof of Achnagairl House! Poor old Rose! No wonder she made such an unhappy marriage since she knows so little about men, even now. Does she seriously believe there’s a match in the making between those two?’

  ‘Yes.’ I didn’t hesitate. ‘So did I.’

  She was a heavy smoker. She lit another cigarette and inhaled thoughtfully. ‘Maybe it’s something in the Gairlie air. Would you like to know why you really got that invitation tonight?’ I nodded. ‘Maury Valentine is now of the opinion there’s a match in the making between you and Archie MacDonald. The future Mrs Archie is worth knowing.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Obviously, dearie.’ She smiled very pleasantly. ‘So I’ll tell you something I certainly shouldn’t. It occurred your first night in hospital
. Dougal was with you when Maury rang him and he took the call in Hamish’s office. Hamish had no wish to overhear, but he was waiting in the corridor and he did. Maury had asked in friends and wanted Dougal to join the party. Hamish said the roof nearly came off Gairlie Hospital!’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘I wish I’d been a fly on the wall! Hamish said he’d never heard a man so angry ‒ and after that it was no surprise to us when we heard she was selling up and moving on. Not that that stopped her demanding or getting further assistance from Dougal, since he’d never let his personal feelings intrude on an old debt ‒ oh, ’phone!’ She vanished, and was back before I had properly taken any of this in. ‘The first is down. Matron says you may go over now.’

  ‘God bless her!’ I jumped up. ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘I just wish I could join you, but doctors’ wives disturb the staff, and I’m so out of date I’d probably even make the tea wrong. Away with you ‒ and good luck!’

  The student strapped to the canvas and metal stretcher was semi-conscious. He was suffering from exposure, a broken ankle, and multiple grazes. Two other young men came in with him. They had not been in the climbing party, as they had come up to ski. They were about twenty but looked younger as they were scared. Their anoraks were strung round with ropes, climbing irons, and ice-axes, all new and unused. They told me they had grabbed everything they thought might be useful in their main camp and gone with the eight other skiers to offer their services to the leader of the rescue-party. ‘Some little fair chap called Charlie. Decent little chap, but he said his lot could cope and told us all to wait at base. The others are still here with Dick Evans, our ski-ing boss, but as John, Tom, and me are the only three from Taunton, as John was down we thought we’d better stick with him. He looks dead dodgy. He’s going to be all right, isn’t he, Nurse?’ The speaker looked at the white physiotherapist’s overall Matron had lent me. ‘Or are you a doctor?’