28

Little Boy Lost

ONE EVENING, AS I drew my curtains against the creeping darkness, I could see bobbing lights in the lane below and as I looked, more and more lights appeared. Something was obviously wrong! The torches of just two or three people bringing in cows, shutting chickens up for the night or wending their way home after a day’s work was quite normal, but there must have been up to twenty or so lights moving around. This indicated an emergency of some sort.

Grabbing my coat and dragging on my damp wellies, (wellies never seemed to dry thoroughly) I picked up my own torch and hurried towards the agitated lights. As I drew near, Fergie hailed me in stentorian tones.

‘You’ll be here to help, Nurse.’

‘What’s it all about, Fergie?’ I asked.

‘Do you not know? ’Tis wee Timmy has gone missin’.’

I was horrified! Timmy McInnes was only three years old. A strong, healthy, lovable child, he was nevertheless, a constant worry to his mother, Shona, as his well-developed taste for adventure led him into all sorts of trouble.

‘How long has he been gone and where was he last seen?’ I puffed as I tried to keep up with Fergie’s long strides.

‘Ach, he gave her the slip while she was milking the cow in the byre. ’Twould be about four of the clock, foreby. He has only a wee jumper on, too – no coat.’

‘Do we have any idea where to look? And where are we going at such a pace, Fergie?’

‘I’ve a mind to look on the shore,’ he paused, ‘before the tide comes in.’

‘Oh my God! The shore!’ We both began to run as the full horror of the situation sank in.

Many others had the same idea and were searching about among the boulders, calling and flashing their torches. Shona was running to and fro, quite frantic with worry. She raced towards me.

‘Oh, Nurse! I’m that glad you’re here. Where is he? What will I do? I only took my eyes from him to milk Dollach. I did, Nurse! That was all.’ She swayed as she wailed, blaming herself. But we all knew what a little monster Timmy could be. I put my arm round her shivering shoulders.

‘Can you think of anywhere or anyone that he might have talked about or shown some sort of interest in recently? Or perhaps somewhere that you have told him not to go?’

‘No, no. I canna think. He’d been playing near the byre when I went to milk the cow, and when I came out he’d gone. I looked in the house, all over the croft – nothing. So I ran to get everybody.’

‘Where is Jacky? Does he know?’

‘He’s away at the fishin’. On yon Klondiker that was here a week gone. He’s not had work for a whiley so he tried would they have him.’

Archie shouted to everyone to say that some of the men were going up ‘the hill’ and we were to carry on searching the shore and nearby rocks. Of course, there were many hills around Dhubaig, but we all knew which one Archie meant: the steep, heather-clad, boulder-strewn area behind Shona’s croft, where the pastureland gave way to the open moor. On this moonless night, the windswept miles of high ground were only slightly less dangerous than the shore to a small child. The uneven surface was littered with deep holes full of peaty water and the wind would be biting.

Mary and I decided to search through the various crofts, looking in byres and chicken runs and anywhere else we could think of. We had been over two crofts, when Mary suddenly stopped.

‘Hush,’ she whispered.

Hardly breathing, we listened. We could hear the voices of the men on the hill and the sigh of the wind, but between these sounds, there was another that was only just this side of silence.

‘Timmy, Timmy. Where are you?’ We yelled again and again. Then we listened. Not a sound!

‘Where did it come from, do you think, Mary?’

‘I’m not knowin’, but I’m thinkin’ he must be in the village somewhere, or we’d no be hearing anything at all.’ She paused. ‘That’s if it was Timmy and not just the call of an animal or the squeak of a byre door… The Lord help us!’ she added somewhere between prayer and despair.

Just then old Dolleena came bustling up.

‘Did you hear yon…?’ She paused for breath: she was not built for rushing about looking for small boys.

‘Did you hear aught?’ she repeated.

‘Aye,’ said Mary, ‘But I don’t know where ’twas comin’ from.’

‘I think it was from the Kirk.’ Dolleena was already puffing her way up the muddy path, which led to a miserable tin hut, which stood on the outskirts of Dhubaig. She was referring to the squalid building which had once been a place of worship for Free Kirk folk, its doors having closed some years ago. Its roof was full of holes and the only visitors now were mice and birds. Could he be in that? What a grim, filthy place for a little boy! But I supposed that it was marginally warmer and safer than the open hillside.

We toiled up the steep lane, calling as we went, but there was no repeat of that faint sound that we had heard. Had we heard anything? I was beginning to think that we had imagined it. As we came out onto the open moor, we could feel that the wind was strengthening. This would make the search more difficult, as voices would be carried away, and a little three- year-old’s cries might be drowned altogether. Drowned! Terrible thought! What was happening on the shore, I wondered?

We approached the ramshackle building. It was in a worse state of repair than I remembered. Sheets of corrugated iron lay about, rattling as the wind caught them, and we could see the skeletal remains of the roof against the mottled sky. The door had gone altogether (it probably adorned someone’s byre now). There were creaking and whistling noises as we flashed our torches into all the wet, filthy corners and under the rotten pews.

‘All I can hear is the wind,’ I murmured. ‘There are so many holes.’

Dolleena suddenly jumped as though shot. ‘Holes! Holes!’ she shouted.

Mary and I looked at her in astonishment.

‘Of course! I know where he’ll be. Yes! Yes, I know.’ She began to run back down the path at a spanking pace for one so plump. Mary and I raced after her, not knowing in the least where we were going, but Dolleena had obviously had some sort of inspiration and I prayed that she really did know where Timmy would be.

Back down in the village, we seemed to be going towards the Pritchard’s croft house.

‘But they aren’t there,’ puffed Mary to Dolleena’s back ‘It will be bolted and barred like I don’t know what.’

‘Aye, I know,’ panted Dolleena, ‘Those folk are gey queer. Always locking doors!’

The Pritchards were absent owners and we had only seen them about twice in three years, so it was perhaps not unreasonable to lock the door during these protracted absences. But it was a habit that was considered very odd.

Over the low croft wall we tumbled and round to the back of the old house. There, low down in the wall, between the granite stones, was a little hole about a foot in diameter. It looked as though something (water perhaps?) had caused the collapse of some of the corner stones.

‘Here!’ shouted Dolleena. She bent down and called through the gap, ‘Timmy? Timmy? Are you in there?’

To our immense relief, a little voice answered, ‘’Es. I’s here. I can’t get out.’ The sound of sobs reached us.

Dolleena straightened up. ‘I’ll stay and talk to him to keep him from gettin’ feart. He must have got in through this hole and now he canna get himself out again. When you said something about “holes”, I suddenly remembered seeing him near that hole in the back wall this afternoon, and I know fine the place is near falling down. Run you both, and tell everyone that we have found him. The men will get him out.’

Mary and I hurried away as Dolleena calmly sat herself down on the wet ground by the hole and began to chat to Timmy.

Very soon Shona arrived, weak and wobbly with relief, and a small army of men marched up to the Pritchard’s house. Fergie had thought to bring a hefty-looking crowbar to prise the heavy old door open. Shona went inside and returned carrying a cold, tearful, but unscathed Timmy. Dolleena stood grinning from ear to ear, rightly pleased with herself.

The next day, there was much activity at the Pritchard’s house, as the men mended the door and the hole in the wall. Dolleena was watching and turned to me as I slowed down in passing. She was indignant.

‘See, Nurse. If yon folk had not locked the door, the wee fellow could have got out no bother. Aye, the Pritchards are a weird lot, indeed!’