WAR
Up at dawn. It is very quiet outside. The shelling in the distance has stopped. Hopefully, this means our lads have got off the beaches and are safely on the ships and heading home. John had told us that General Stopford, the overall commander, had been sacked and replaced. One of the worst campaigns in military history, he said. Certainly tens of thousands of dead men – and no ground won.
As we drink our coffee we discuss John; we all agree what a charming man he is.
‘If I wasn’t going to live in the Highlands I’d go to South Island,’ I say. ‘God’s country, I hear. You can get good farm land for buttons, and Scots are welcomed with open arms.’
Prissie packs for each of us: a blanket twisted around some clothing, and as much food as we can carry. Louise conceals the pistol in her clothing. We are dressed in the drab peasant clothing of our absent hosts. Louise and Prissie wear shawls over their heads, trying to look like the old grandmothers from home. I am as strong as I have been for a month, but can only really move at half the pace of a normal man. How am I going to make it?
We say emotional farewells to Father Joseph, silently willing him to slip away before the Turks come. He is gracious, holding our hands and whispering a prayer to St Christopher, the patron saint of travellers.
‘Thank you,’ I whisper.
God, we will need it.
*
The plan is to head away from the battle lines and stick to the coastline. We reckon we have about twenty miles to go before we come to any towns or proper roads. Hopefully, our route won’t be on the Turkish troops’ supply lines. Talk is of the clear skies and sunshine. Hard crisp snow lies underfoot, perfect for making progress but bad for making our dark bodies distinct against the glaring white. It isn’t too bad at first, but as I begin to tire, I catch a foot and fall awkwardly several times. And despite the bitter cold, I am in a terrible sweat which chills me to the bone whenever we stop moving.
We stick to the bottom of the glen, on a goat path through thick brush, which at least gives us some cover, though every twig that snaps under our feet makes us pause and listen.
After what seems an age, probably only an hour or so, Louise spots a hut and we rest. My legs are shaking violently, and I feel feverish. I sense Louise is worried about me. But we have to get some real distance between us and the front line; if the battle has really finished, there might be troops withdrawing our way.
We stay in the hut until late afternoon. I try to sleep a little. Then we are off again, to try and cover more ground. After a while the moon comes out, and it is a great help to me, as I stumble along, desperately hoping for another building to give us shelter for the night.
I start to experience vivid flashbacks: Sandy dying, my childhood. I cling to the recollection of Sandy. He is always in my thoughts. At times like this, he would have been the reassuring one, my rock of stability. I so much wanted him to meet Louise; his opinion of her would have meant the world to me. I am certain he would have loved her.
Louise and Prissie hold my hand in turns, and I do my best to keep moving at a steady pace. We end up lying against a wall, huddled against each other for warmth. But the night is awful. Our clothes are soaked with sweat which has frozen, and we are hungry. Every inch of my body hurts.
The next morning, Louise tells me I was crying out all night.
We can’t light a fire, as we are still too close to possible troops, and farmers in the area would spot us. I feel hellish stiff from the night’s cold. We shiver and shake until the sun rises.
And then, I hear Louise exclaim, ‘A donkey! Over there by that barn.’
‘Sssh,’ Prissie warns, ‘the farmer could be anywhere.’
We lie on the snow and wait. After a while, Prissie creeps forward and, seeing no footprints in the snow, urges Louise to join her. The donkey is apparently very hungry and is following Prissie around, hoping for food.
Louise has the halter that we made a couple of days ago. ‘It’s perfect,’ she says, delighted at the change in our fortunes. The girls fuss around the animal, stroking its ears and patting him.
‘He’s so small and you’re so tall, DP,’ says Prissie. ‘Your feet will be dragging along the ground, but you’re all skin and bones, as light as a feather!’
I clamber on. Very uncomfortable it is, too, but we can move much more quickly now. Louise takes my cromach in one hand and the halter in the other. With her shawl over her head, I think how biblical the scene must look.
The donkey makes a huge difference to our speed, though its noisy hee-hawing is a concern.
Late afternoon, we reach the base of a cliff. It looms above us; according to Prissie, it must be about five hundred feet high. She scrambles a way up, to see if she can observe anything.
‘Just goats and hares,’ she says on her return. We plod on.
After an uncomfortable hour or so, Louise spots a building and goes to investigate. To our delight, it turns out to be a derelict farm, hidden from the main track which skirts the mountain, nestling in a hollow.
‘Even a fire would be invisible here,’ Prissie beams, as we make our way towards it.
We lead the donkey inside, and feed it hay from an outbuilding. Already, this was promising to be a much better night than the one before.
The fire is wonderful. We chew contentedly at our dried goat meat and stare into the flames.
‘What shall we call your donkey?’ says Prissie. ‘I know. What’s the word for donkey in Gaelic?’
I explain that we don’t have a word for donkey as we don’t have any donkeys, just as we don’t have a word for camels . . . They giggle.
‘If he was a horse we’d call him marc-shluagh. Marc means warhorse.’
‘Perfect! Marc it is,’ declares Louise.
As we huddle around the fire, Louise nudges me gently. ‘It’s going to be a long night, DP. I think we need another story. Tell us about your sister . . .’
HOME
Sheena emigrated to Mabou, Cape Breton, in Canada about four years ago. When her Angus was drowned off Smirisary she had a terrible year. Her carefully planned life was destroyed, and she had begun to feel as though she didn’t really fit in, that her life had no purpose. Mother was great with her, keeping her busy, but at tea-time Sheena would just sit quietly. She had always been such a lot of fun, collecting gunpowder from father’s gun to make bangers that made everyone jump at ceilidhs, or, famously, putting a goat in the room of a drunken man who’d made advances to her. It was sad to see her spark gone.
Emigration had been a big thing at home. From about 1840 there had been a steady trickle of people leaving, mainly due to the land not being able to support the population, with the potato crop failing and a cholera outbreak. Father Rankin had set up berths for ships to Australia, and over 500 had gone from Moidart alone.
My father always said it was the kelp boom that created the problem: the population had doubled on the west coast. Then that collapsed and there was a huge demand for sheep’s wool, so the lairds wanted the cattle off and sheep on. That was all very well, but sheep need far fewer people to handle them. So, you had people with no kelp money and no cattle of their own, and the laird employing just the odd one or two shepherds, rather than the many men who had been required before. Then the price of wool and mutton fell, too, and the estates became deer forests, often for English industrialists.
Years ago, Ardnish had four real settlements, and 200 folk lived on the peninsula. It’s now down to about thirty, scattered here and there. Of these, only two have regular jobs: John MacEachan, the postman, and John Macdonald, a shepherd at Laggan. A bit of fishing and shellfish collecting, a bit of money from gathering and clipping the sheep, and other piecemeal work done for the laird, a hind or two taken when the factor wasn’t looking, and, of course, money sent back from the family who had left for Glasgow or further afield – that was how we managed. The old and the sick died of starvation, really. Every house had rent to pay, and finding actual money wasn’t easy, but luckily our laird would allow us to build walls or do other casual work in lieu of rent.
The people from Ardnish tended to go to the east coast of Canada – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island. It was often the priests who organised the boats. It was a voluntary thing in our part of the Highlands, though once news started coming back of the free land given to settlers, the moose to eat, furs to trap and sell to the Hudson Bay Company, good housing and plentiful wood, there was a rush, even though the winters were harder than ours. And one thing the people there really knew about was how to endure a long hard winter.
Macdonald of Glenaladale went from Glenfinnan, and sent news back inviting people to join him. And almost all of them did. He came back once, and it rained for every second of his stay. He was heard later to say, ‘I can see why my people left.’
*
Sheena left one spring day. She heard a boat was due to go, and travelled to Fort William to buy a one-way ticket.
Our parents were desperately sad but they knew she needed a change. Glasgow was rough with the dirt and the fighting, not to mention the cramped slums and danger of disease. Besides, we were never going to be city people. We had family in Cape Breton who would have her to stay. They spoke our language, they played the fiddle and the pipes, and they worked the land. Maybe, my parents hoped, there would be a good man for Sheena to marry.
She knew a few of those going in the boat. There were Campbells from as far as Oban, MacNeils and Macleans from the islands of Barra and Tiree, and a good number of Macdonalds from Brae Roy and areas around Fort William. The boat would stop at South Uist to gather another fifty people.
We went to the Fort to see her off. My God, how distraught people were at the quay. Many were men heading off to see how it was before they sent for their families; their wives would know a thing or two about hunger before things got better. Young families were saying farewell to aged parents who had decided to stay in the glens they were part of. The tickets were expensive, and most passengers had borrowed at an awful cost to buy them.
‘The promised land had better be bountiful,’ my mother said. She was determined to be brave, and we were all given a firm lecture before we headed off on the train.
Sheena has sent letters since, of course, urging us to go out and promising us that she would come back. I couldn’t see either happening myself. She had a job working for a big family of nine children, helping the mother with the children and teaching them to read and write. Mother said she would be good at that. She lived on the shore, where Iain MacNeill, her employer, and a cousin of our grandmother, had a fishing boat. He was a terribly hard worker, she wrote. Away before dawn, and then with two other men he would be offshore for two nights before coming back. The catch was huge, but the prices were low. She liked the family a great deal. She spoke of the lovely hot summers, the glorious colours of the trees in the autumn, and winters so cold that a night outside would kill a man. Sometimes the sea froze so solid you could walk between islands, miles out to sea. She wrote of the ceilidhs in Glencoe Hall and the incredible musical tradition, how Gaelic was the language of everyone and Catholicism the only religion. It sounded just the same as our Lochaber. There were bear and moose, she wrote, and the land was covered in trees as far as you could see in every direction. Everyone was very poor, though, and feeding the family and the animals through the winter was as much as the people could achieve – and that only just.
Mother was dying to hear if she had a man in her life – she always said Sheena would make a great wife to the right man – but to her frustration, we knew the last thing Sheena would do would be to mention this sort of thing in her letters. She had always been like that, discreet and not one to raise expectations.
WAR
We are heading to the town of Kesan and from there towards Greece and the allies. How we get back to Britain is something we’ll worry about later, but with Louise, Prissie and now Marc on my side I feel I have a chance.
Marc is a Godsend. Placid and obliging, he ambles behind the women, snatching at any leafy branch or patch of grass that catches his eye. I can visualise the donkey by the crypt at the Polnish church at Christmas. Marc seems to know how fragile I am; he is undoubtedly my saviour now.
Mr Skinner had told us that just before the war Bulgaria had seized a strip of land from Greece that bordered the Mediterranean, so technically we will be crossing from enemy country to enemy country. We wonder if the people still consider themselves Greek and if they have sided with the enemy Bulgars, but we don’t know. We shall have to tread carefully.
The terrain is one of rolling hills in barren land with brush, like hawthorn, about six feet high. It is excellent cover, but we are aware that the first we might see of soldiers would be if we walk right into them. From time to time we walk through pine trees. The excellent path must be used by villagers moving along the coast, which is a concern, but we have no option. The undergrowth would be impossible to get through.
The biggest physical obstacle is going to be the river Evros – the former boundary of Greece, now Bulgaria, and Turkey – and how to cross it. But before we reach it, and before Kesan, lies a narrow neck of land at the top of Gallipoli. The map shows the road running along the top of the peninsula and a big river. We might need to go along the road at this point. Between us and the border would be many troops, and as we get further from the battle there would be more civilians around, some of whom might be more than happy to turn us in.
Prissie had gone off half an hour ahead of us to check that the way ahead was clear. If she doesn’t reappear soon, we are to turn around and meet back at the farm. She has the pistol so she can fire a warning shot if need be.
At one stage, she came running back and we had to push the donkey into the brush and hide while a farmer with a laden mule passed by. Since then, we have made good progress and we are now well clear of the mountain. We must be twenty miles from the battle line. We know the people around here will have had little to do with the war, which has never really encroached inland, so we hope they will be less hostile towards us should we encounter them.
My right eye is making a great recovery, still very sore in the morning with pus hardening to make a crust, but Louise bathes it and after a few minutes of blinking I can see tolerably well. Not good enough to read a book or discern colours, but I can see shapes and movement, and beautiful Louise. My left eye is a disaster; there seems to be no chance of recovery. We keep it bandaged.
Today is Christmas Day. We agree to do a short day if we can find somewhere safe to hide, and our luck is in. We come upon a shepherd’s hut on the hillside, well protected by trees. Prissie ties the rope around the donkey’s feet to stop him straying. A small fire is lit, and we make ourselves comfortable for the night. We eat the very last of our meagre provisions; it’s not much of a Christmas feast.
‘What would your family be doing today?’ Prissie asks.
‘Go on, tell us,’ urges Louise . . .
HOME
Well, Christmas five years ago would be very special, as in those days Sheena and Angus were there. There would be Mass at the beautiful church of Polnish, so after an early breakfast we would set off on the two-hour walk, Father on his garron, us walking, with everyone from Ardnish going the same way. Maybe fifty in total. The folk from the other communities would appear as we got closer. ‘Mary Anne, how lovely to be seeing you, and, Colin, still alive are you? Is that old mare I gave you still with us?’
Everyone would be dressed in their Sunday best, with frocks for the women and the odd man wearing his old army kilt. The children would be spoilt: ‘Here’s a penny for you, Donald Peter. Go and buy yourself some sweets when you get a chance. And Happy Christmas to you, you’re a fine young man now and no mistake about it.’
Mass was said by Father Allan Campbell, and being Christmas Day and taking pity on the wee ones, it was over and done with in an hour and a half. The way back was a bit of a race; all the young were dying to get back to see what presents had been bought. Even though the adults would take much longer and have to put the dinner in the oven, there was no holding us back. I got a cromach that my father had made for me: a lovely straight shaft and a tup’s horn top, soaked and worked into the shape of an ‘N’, with ‘DP’ carved and blackened on one side and the Macdonald of Clanranald crest carved on the other. I could not have been more proud of it. My father got up very early for a month to work secretly on it. Angus got a bamboo fishing rod and Sheena a beautiful jumper knitted by our mother.
Eilidh, the old lady from next door, came to join us, bringing a bottle of illegal whisky she had been hiding these last fifteen years as a present.
After presents was lunch. Food was normally never plentiful at the house, but compared to those in the city it was bountiful. Baked eggs, followed by a fine haunch of venison that the laird had delivered to all those who had helped over the stalking season. Mother had grown turnips and potatoes, and we had rhubarb and gooseberry fool to finish with. All this was washed down with the whisky, even I as a fifteen-year-old boy was allowed some. A bit of fiddling and piping of Christmas carols, and the neighbours would come around to tell stories as we all sat around the fire. It was lovely.
WAR
Louise is silent.
I look at her. ‘What about you, Louise? Tell me about your Christmas.’
She doesn’t answer, and I can tell she is crying.
Eventually she says, ‘We had nothing like that, DP. We didn’t look forward to Christmas at all.’ She pokes the fire a bit, and nothing more is said.
Prissie doesn’t tell us about her Christmas in Liverpool, and we don’t ask.
*
There is hardly any food left, and nothing to be foraged. The ground is rock hard with frost. We need to find more, or we stand no chance of survival, so Louise and Prissie decide to go out the next day to see if they can beg some scraps from farmers in the area. And if that doesn’t work, Prissie swears she’ll use the pistol. One way or another, they will get something.
They are in luck. Within half an hour’s foray from our base, they come across a farm that is occupied. Hens are scratching around outside, and it looks normal, even though there is a full-scale war on twenty miles or so away. Even with my poor vision, I can discern the red-tiled roofs and once white walls of the farmhouse and the outbuildings.
We move back so Marc doesn’t raise the alarm, and Louise and Prissie leave me leaning against a tree while they creep forward. They are away for what seems a very long time.
Later they tell me that they saw two older women going about their domestic duties, collecting wood for the fire and feeding a large dog that was tied outside.
To avoid surprising the dog, they went back and around to the side of the house and then rushed the place – Prissie to the front and Louise to the back – to stop the old women escaping. I would love to have seen it. By then the dog was barking and straining at its rope. With Prissie waving the pistol at them, the women swiftly surrendered – they obviously had a higher opinion than I did of Prissie’s ability to actually use it. Within minutes, the two captives were trying to win their intruders over by offering tea, though Prissie didn’t drop her guard with her pistol.
Louise came back to fetch me, recounting the adventure as she led me to the farmhouse. The minute the old women saw me with my injured eyes and struggling gait, they understood, though Louise pointing at me and saying ‘bang-bang’ definitely helped.
We put the donkey in a shed with theirs and give it something to eat. Louise and one of the Turkish women make some food for us. I swear the chicken stew is the best food I’ve had since I’ve left my mother’s kitchen. Louise and Prissie take it in turns to hold the pistol at the ready while the other eats. There isn’t a word the two women say that we can understand and vice versa, but they seem to have decided that we won’t hurt them and that if they look after us we will soon be gone. We guess they are sisters. We never learn their names.
*
Almost everything tastes different from what I have grown up with; for instance I had never had coffee before we landed in Gallipoli. There are no chillies or olives at home; even pepper is new to me. Louise thought this was amusing. She loved watching me grimace as I drank my coffee, yet before long I was drinking as much as they can give me. The Turks add a lot of goats’ milk and a couple of spoons of honey; I like mine black and bitter. The bread is more like a hard pancake, which they have with honey in the morning. Olives are served with everything, though I get Louise to take these off my fork – they are not for me. In the stew, there are all sorts of herbs that are very tasty, and the wine is strong and sweet. I drink too much of it and try to explain to the sisters, in Gaelic, about my family and my home. Having been on army rations and having had almost no alcohol since Egypt, we are in a very strange sort of heaven.
I even sing a song to the four of them, while hiccupping violently. I suspect the old women haven’t been entertained like this before.
In our family we always say grace before we eat, and I am pleased that Louise has started saying this with me. Prissie thinks God is a lot of nonsense, but she doesn’t start eating until Louise and I have prayed. Our prayer seems to have an effect upon the cailleachs. Louise tells me they have crucifixes and statues of the Virgin Mary in the house. We wonder if they have heard of the massacres – maybe they have lost their families?
My eyes are dry and itchy, although there is no longer any sign of infection. Louise boils water, washes the dressings and bathes my eyes. I am still very weak and under-weight. There is a lot of discussion about why this could be, and what could be done. I confess I enjoy the attention, fancying maybe that Louise takes longer than she needs to attend to me.
I am shown to the only bedroom. Louise and Prissie take it in turns to sit in the kitchen with the sisters. There are two soft chairs and the sisters sleep fitfully in those, while Louise or Prissie perch uncomfortably on a stool against a wall, trying hard not to fall asleep.
We stay for two days, eat as much food as they give us, and recover our strength. We feel a little guilty, but if anyone is as untouched by war as these two cailleachs in the whole of Europe, they would be hard to find. While one sister goes about the work of the farm, watched by Louise, the other is kept hostage in the kitchen by Prissie.
By lunchtime of the second day we decide we trust them, the gun is put away, and that night everyone sleeps soundly. Snow falls overnight, and there is an inch on the ground when we awake. It is beautiful, with all the trees coated and glistening in the weak sunshine, and complete silence outside.
There are about twenty goats and lots of hens, and there is an olive grove and some vines. Prior to our departure, Louise and Prissie cook up some extra food and, with the help of one of the sisters, make some bread. We pack some dried goat meat to keep us going for another three days. The dogs they use to herd the goats are twice the size of our collies at home, big, hairy and powerful. I can imagine them fighting off predators such as bears in the old days. Louise tells me that the goats are every colour under the sun: pure white, light brown and a combination of black, brown and white.
As Christmases behind enemy lines go, we could scarcely have done better. We worry at first that the cailleachs will immediately rush off to tell the authorities about us and a search party will ensue, but despite our gun and our intrusion we feel they are on our side. They have no reason to be loyal to the Muslims.
We say a strange stilted farewell, with Prissie trying to give them some of the money that Mr Skinner had given us. They refuse to take it. Instead, they take our hands in theirs and say what appears to be a heartfelt goodbye. Nevertheless, we head off in the wrong direction then make a big loop around the farm to take the correct direction. We can’t take any chances at this stage.
Prissie thinks we are nearing the road. Hopefully, we’ll come across a sign telling us where we are and how far we have to go. Any village will do. The temperature is rising, the snow has melted, our donkey is most co-operative, and we are as cheerful as we can be. But, as we travel further from the farm, the brush gets more and more sparse and our anxiety grows. We realise we must be visible for miles around.
We can see the sea in the distance on our left and the hills to the north on our right. The road is a real concern. We watch hundreds of horses pulling wagons and guns, and a stream of soldiers. We retreat into the cover of the brush a couple of miles from the road and head up the peninsula parallel to the road for the rest of the day. Prissie carries her pistol and moves ahead of us at all times.
And then, we get the fright of our lives. Prissie is running back, shouting, ‘Quick, quick, hide!’
Before we can get out of the way, a man appears in front of us with a rifle in his hands, pointing it and shouting at Prissie. They are just feet away from each other. Prissie has her pistol pointed at him, holding it with both hands, yet still he shouts and advances.
Louise and I cower together, expecting him to shoot at any time. I can feel her shaking like a leaf beside me. We stare helplessly at the stranger.
There is a huge bang of gunfire, followed by silence, and then a shriek.
‘Oh my God, my God!’ Prissie cries, the pistol dangling from her hand. ‘It went off by mistake, I was shaking so much. I didn’t mean to kill him!’
We gather to look down at the man lying on his back. Blood is oozing from an open wound in his chest, his face registering the shock of the last moments of his life. Prissie’s accidental shot has hit him right through the heart. Underneath the tangle of his hair is an unlined youthful face.
‘He’s a boy, just a boy!’ sobs Prissie as she clings to me. ‘Oh God, how I hate this war!’
Louise puts an arm around her and strokes her hair. ‘There was nothing else we could do,’ she soothes.
We need to hide him. And so, without another word, we drag the dead man by his feet down the hill and out of sight. Finally, keen to get away, we move off quickly. Nobody talks for a good hour as we try to come to terms with what has just happened. My admiration for Prissie grows. Without her swift action, we would surely all be lying dead by now.
Towards the end of the day we find ourselves on a rise, looking down onto a vast plain, absolutely flat, maybe five miles across: the neck of the Gallipoli peninsula. A large deep river divides it in two with a single bridge for the road. This will be our most dangerous time. We lie on a grassy knoll, watching the Turkish soldiers heading north towards Constantinople.
‘What a shambles they are,’ scoffs Prissie. ‘They look just like armed peasants.’
‘Well, they beat a hundred thousand of our finest men,’ I reply.
I can swim, but neither Prissie nor Louise can, and getting Marc across the river is likely to be impossible. Louise decides to go down to the river and see if there are any crossing points. In the evening light, Prissie watches her, hunched over like an old woman, making her way slowly down to the river and along its bank, two hundred yards away and in full view of a thousand Turkish troops. There are some goats grazing down there; hopefully they’ll assume they belong to her.
I can only sit, tense with fear, and pray for her safe return.
She comes back just as it is growing dark, mud up to her knees, with the news that the road bridge is the only way across.
‘The river is wide and deep, and very muddy along the banks,’ she says. ‘There’s no way we can get across. All the locals must use the road bridge.’
What can we do? We decide to rest up and gather our thoughts. Lying head to head, we talk about Prissie’s shot.
‘My first murder,’ she says, her voice heavy with horror. ‘What if he was just coming to offer us food?’
‘He had a gun, and it was pointed at us. You did the right thing, Prissie. We would be dead now, or worse – handed across to the Turkish army,’ I say, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. ‘People bringing you supper don’t threaten you with guns.’
‘Still, though, I’ll never forget the look on his face when he was hit,’ Prissie whispers.
We chew on our goat meat, and lie shivering in the cold in silence. We would have to cross the bridge at night, and head into the hills beyond where the peninsula ended and the land stretched to the town of Kesan, and then west. We might only be thirty miles from the border now.
Under a full moon, we set off towards the road. It’s a big risk, but what would be the point in delaying? The chaos of the war might mean that there is a gap between the groups of soldiers along the route and we can slip through, unobserved. Will our donkey alert everyone, or will the horses along the road stamp and whinny as we approach?
We wait about three hundred yards from the road while Louise crawls forward to see if there is an opportunity. Prissie and I sit in a hollow, wrapped up in our blankets, shivering. If there are any alert sentries they might challenge us, but with the battle lost and everyone homeward bound we can’t believe local peasants would be of much interest to them.
Louise comes back. She’s had trouble finding us again. ‘Everyone is lying asleep by the road,’ she whispers. ‘They might wake up, but we’ve got a chance of passing through quickly. We must go now, though. I don’t think it’s going to be safer any other time.’
I am helped up onto Marc. My stomach is churning with fear as we approach. We seem to be making a hell of a noise. Marc is snapping every twig underfoot, although luckily he’s not braying. The worst thing is, I can see next to nothing; my wretched eyes are useless in the gloom. How close are we? Is anyone stirring? Is that a soldier lifting his gun? I have to trust to fate.
The donkey lurches up a bank, and I hang on tightly. I can hear Turkish horses snickering at our arrival and there are fires glowing dimly all along the road far into the distance. We go along a hard road for a few minutes, before dropping down the other side. Once again I feel the long grasses against my legs.
We’ve made it.
I have never been so nervous in my life. Sweat is pouring off me. An agonising twenty minutes later, we stop and I am helped off the donkey. For a few moments, we all hold each other for support. Louise starts laughing – sheer relief after all the anxiety. We are all trembling. We must have been only a few feet away from men who were sleeping and we seemed to have made a din like an army charging, but we have got away with it.
‘I could definitely hear men talking, really close by,’ says Prissie. ‘If one near us had woken we would have had a hundred of them all around us in seconds.’
We head closer to the sea and keep moving along the plain, parallel to the road, for a couple of miles. We push through an overgrown path, grasses up to our chest. We are now a good mile away from the Turkish troops.
By mid morning we arrive in the foothills and settle down to rest, camping down by the sea in a little inlet. Offshore are two very striking islands; even with my vision I can see their outline, like two whales, a mother and calf. Listening to the murmuring of the sea and the cries of the seabirds reminds me of home. We feel safe here. We can’t be seen from the hills above or from the road. It is almost warm as Louise and I lie together, almost touching.
I drift off to sleep and wake to see her looking very intently at me. She looks guilty, like a child caught stealing a biscuit. I smile; she smiles.
We risk a fire that evening, collecting dry driftwood along the shore so that there is minimal smoke. As the birds wheel about and call, I talk about the birds at Ardnish . . .
HOME
My mother always talked about wildlife, but it is birds she likes the most. She and Mrs Blackburn sometimes went on bird-spotting trips together; they came to Canna to see puffins when I was working out there. There are eagles at Meoble, and along the shore of Loch Shiel, we once went up and saw an eyrie when Mother was there doing the lambing. They fly over Peanmeanach and get mobbed by the hoodie crows. On the beach, there are flocks of dunlins which run back and forth in time with the waves; they are incredibly endearing. Then we have terns, lots of gulls, some eider duck and even some corncrake that live in the big field behind the village. And there is a cormorant that sits like an old black widow on a rock on the beach. My mother has Mrs Blackburn’s book of bird paintings and she shows us which is which.
WAR
We reckon we are more than halfway to the border. We wake early, untether the donkey and set off, in heavily scented pine woods now. But the weather is deteriorating. Cold, unrelenting rain soaks us through. Our woollen clothes grow heavier, and we are feeling utterly miserable. We all know we will become sick if we spend the night out in this.
We battle on for a few hours, before admitting defeat and taking shelter under a big rock for most of the day. We don’t speak, just watch the water pouring down the flanks of our donkey as it stands with its ears flattened and head down. In the evening, we head off again, Prissie ahead of us. We are not as cautious as before.
Prissie dashes back to tell us she has seen candlelight in a window. We whisper a plan of action. We have to do the same as the last time and hope that the result will be as successful. I am left on the donkey so that if all goes wrong they can come running back and we can escape into the darkness. As it happens, it is just a sweet old man who sits nodding as we set up camp around him. His house is in a dreadful state; I can see through the roof in some places and there is a bare earthen floor with puddles. There is only one room with a raised bed in the corner, a table and stool. Within half an hour, we have our wet clothes steaming by a roaring fire and the girls are cooking some of our chicken. We share it with the old man who is most grateful. He doesn’t seem to have any food in the house at all. He must be ninety years old at least, and he is as deaf as a post.