21

A FALLEN MAN

I think Daddy was still a wee bit under the weather and didn’t feel much like work, so he decided to spend a quiet time recuperating in gentle Glen Etive before heading to Oban.

This incident that happened at that time has a special place in my heart because I am a Munro walker, and have many times since then gone back to wander through this beautiful glen, to sit on the rocks and remember.

Daddy should have been given some kind of award for manoeuvring the bus into its position opposite big Ben Starav. The one-track road was bad enough, but even worse was meeting a bearded, grumpy ploughman driving a Fergy and bogey filled with steamy, stinky dung. A packet of Capstan Full Strength and an hour of blue air followed before the bearded one unhitched the bogey, leaving it plonked in the ditch, and allowed my father space to drive past. Not the best start for a recuperation week.

Mammy and I had lots in common, but more than anything else it was our love of walking. I think it was from her I forged my lifetime bond with the track roads and high hills. Daddy, on the other hand, had no liking for such a pastime. He used to say that tramping during his young life behind the horse and cart did that to him. ‘On a wet day,’ he would remind me, ‘a brown trail of gutters hardened all the way from my nose to my toes as the cart wheels and horses’ hooves threw up a constant stream of muck.’ No, not one to put a foot in front of the other was my Dad. So how Mammy managed to persuade him to come out for a walk on that warmer than usual May Day, beats me. Perhaps cuddling each other the previous night had something to do with it, who knows but he was in a lovely mood. So here we were then, me and the folks strolling along an old hill road, towering mountains on either side.

Mammy and I were discussing our May Day wash in the dawn dew while Daddy was lighting up his fourth fag. About a mile had been walked when Daddy stopped to sit yet again on a rock cluster. ‘We’ll never see a drop tea this morning, Charlie, if you don’t put a feather in it.’

‘Shhh, Jeannie. I thought I heard a stirring down there in the heather,’ he said pointing down a steep slope strewn with large loose boulders. We both joined him and stared over the ledge.

‘Help, is there somebody there?’ called a voice from among the rocks and heather.

‘God help and save us, it’s a poor man fell down the side of the hill,’ exclaimed Mammy. ‘Are you hurt bad, chavie?’ she called to him.

‘It’s my leg, I think it’s a goner!’ was the call from deep within the rocky terrain.

Daddy went quite pale. He reminded us he’d witnessed severed limbs during the war, and knew that if the lad didn’t get help soon he’d die with blood loss. ‘No telling how long he’s been there already. We had best get help,’ he told us, adding, ‘Jeannie, you go down. Do what you can for the poor soul, but careful as you go, lassie. Jessie, we’ll fetch the help.’

Mammy cannily lowered herself over the precarious edge, calling reassuringly to the man, not knowing what manner of injuries he’d incurred. We waited until she called back that she’d reached him before we set off. ‘Come on, pet, there’s not a moment to lose,’ said Dad, removing his woolly jersey and tying it round his waist. He did well running at my pace, but the recent flu and years of smoking began to slow him down. I tried to coax him on: ‘Daddy, think what Mam will do if the stranger conks on her. Please try a bitty harder, surely we’ll come upon a cotter house soon,’ I said.

I knew, though, by the skull-grey jowls on my father, that he’d run clean out of lung air. ‘God curse thon stupid man for falling into the crevice in the first place, what fool thing is that to do?’

I asked him to stay where he was and let me go on ahead to get help.

‘No, I’m all right. Let’s go,’ was his surprised answer.

So away we went running, walking fast and stopping every so often for a breather.

It seemed like ages, and still no sign of a house, cotter or otherwise, before at long last a figure could be seen on the horizon. We both shouted—well, I did, Dad had no air to make a sound, but I never had a problem being heard (important, when living among eight females). We ran on to meet the person coming towards us on the old hill road. It was the bearded one with the smelly bogey. He took us further down to his little cottage, where we clambered onto his Fergy tractor and rumbled back to the scene of the accident. Mammy shouted up that she had things under control, and not to worry, he wasn’t as bad as first thought.

Lowering ourselves down, the beardy man and I joined the pair. Daddy, unable to find the energy, stayed at the top.

Now, it’s a good thing he did, because when I went back up and told him we needed a screwdriver, he found that the air came back to his lungs alright. ‘What! I’ll kill the stupid idiot!’

Now, why a screwdriver? And had my father not run himself to near collapse to save the man’s life? Well, let me enlighten you, dear reader.

If you remember, the victim called out that he feared his leg was lost. Indeed it was! It had unscrewed from its leather socket and became stuck between two boulders while he was bird-watching. A futile attempt to retrieve his wooden leg led to his predicament. I ran back to the cottage for a screwdriver while my mother and the beardy man helped Woody onto terra firma.

Of course, Daddy didn’t kick the leg from the poor lad. In fact he screwed it back in for him, after giving him a good old talking-to about hill dangers. My mother, though, because of the amount of time they had spent together, had found a friend. He came home with us and shared our supper. His name was Fred Plumley, a Yorkshire man. I wonder if he continued as a ‘twitcher’ in the mountains after his incident in Glen Etive? If time has been kind to you and you’re still out there, then know this, Freddie boy: you almost killed my father!

We stayed in the Glen not for a week but a month. June was fast approaching when at last Daddy drove the forty miles to beautiful, idyllic Oban.

So there we were, then, heading on towards Oban, singing and giggling. Weather absolutely roasting. Every window of the bus wound down. A chorus of ‘Bonnie Dundee’ had the tartan-and- shortbread tourists picnicking by the roadside shaking heads, obviously thinking we were a busload of cuckoos out for the day.

I’m brought to smiles when I think on our loud rendition of ‘Haste ye back we lo’e ye dearly’ as we stretched our torsos half out the windows. This removed any doubt in their minds that their first thoughts were probably right. We fell back into our seats in fits of giggles.

‘You lot will be needing me to pull off the road shortly—all that carrying on will be hastening the emptying o’ bladders.’ Daddy reminded us of the last time he had to pull over while the older girls followed the call of nature. It was a sight to turn faces red, no doubt! Will I tell you? Oh, all right then.

Now it’s one thing young women singing in a moving bus, but peeing in a rock cluster is something uncouth, I can tell you. It was unfortunate that no one saw the lorry load of soldiers cruising round the bend in the old Glen Affrick road. The driver slowed to a snail’s pace so the lads had full view of my extremely embarrassed sisters.

‘Hello, lassies, needing a hand?’ was the call from the khaki-clad laddies, followed by wolf-whistles and the usual ape sounds. This turned my sisters a brighter red as they fumbled with belts and buttons. Not Shirley, though. She just stood up, slowly peeled on the tightest blue jeans one could wear and said with the toss of the head: ‘Get to f---, morons, can you not see we’re on relief duty?’

Daddy heard her, but said nothing at his daughter’s cursing, except that she was lucky there were no elderly folks in the vicinity. A girl swearing like that in those days was not proper at all!

The incident put the girls into a sombre mood, until a certain hitchhiker brought them smiling again. Six gorgeous feet of open-necked shirt, gleaming white teeth, shiny slicked back hair and Elvis eyes.

‘Look at the bronzed biceps on him,’ whispered Mona.

‘He’s mine,’ said Shirley, slithering up to Daddy, begging him to stop and give the lad a lift. Daddy never drove past a hitcher, and soon Elvis the second was surrounded by drooling females. ‘Hi,’ he said, in the hunkiest American drawl. A chorus of ‘his’ followed. Daddy asked him where he was going. He said he’d be happy to get to wherever. So for the remainder of our journey that day the girls were in heaven.

During his conversation we soon found out that although he had everything in the handsome department, the grey matter could have done with a wee bit help.

This was a conversation he had with Daddy.

‘I asked this guy at the Mackinlay Distillery when the haggis-shooting begins,’ said the hunk.

‘Oh, now you did, and what did he tell you?’ asked our father, biting his lip as he stifled a laugh.

‘Sometimes this month,’ was the innocent reply.

‘Aye, and did he further tell you where the shoots took place?’

‘As a matter of fact he said the nearest one was in the Nae Glen.’

‘Och aye, that’s up by thon Bonny Braes!’ Daddy was near splitting his sides trying not to laugh. The girls were trying hard to stifle the same.

‘Now, lad, that distillery hand was pulling your leg, because the haggis-shooting doesn’t begin until late September, after the clootie shoots.’ By now the girls had knuckles bitten trying not to give the game away, while the young hunk was seriously taking in every word Daddy said.

‘That’s a pity, because I’m heading home after August and will miss the clootie shooting.’

‘Well, as it happens,’ said our terrible liar of a father, ‘my wife, Jeannie, just happens to have a cooked clootie in a tin ready for tonight’s tea. Will you stay and share some with us?’ The hunk was more than pleased, and that night sat as our guest by our campfire and ate the wee brown clootie, saying, when he had his fill, ‘Is there a wish bone?’ Yes, you’ve guessed it, we all burst sides laughing. The poor laddie thought us a happy bunch—though I’ve a sneaking suspicion he likened us to what they call in America, ‘hillbillies’.

That night, as my sisters waved farewell to the big handsome hunk, they were less than pleased that he chose to give Mammy a big smacker of a kiss. Well, she was the one who cooked the delicious clootie, now wasn’t she?