‘Jings, look at that!’
‘They shot a deer!’
‘Is that your gun, Mr Gordon?’
‘Can I have a shot of it?’
‘My dad has a gun, too, in the desert in Africa. He’s shooting Germans with it.’
‘I bet you could shoot a German with your gun, couldn’t you, Mr Gordon?’
Iain calmed the clamouring children as they milled about the horse trying to get a better look at the hind’s carcass on its back. ‘Now, now, lads, keep away from the pony’s back legs. She’s liable to kick if you give her a fright. Yes, that gun certainly could kill a man, which is all the more reason to stay away from them at your age.’
Flora smiled at Stuart and Davy who hung back at the edge of the group, a little unsure of the garron’s evident power. ‘Here, look,’ she said, beckoning them forward. ‘You can give her nose a wee pat if you like. She won’t bite.’
Davy hid behind his brother, but Stuart was braver and reached out a tentative hand to stroke the pony’s muzzle. ‘Why is its hair so long?’ he asked, marvelling.
‘It’s called a mane. It’s so she stays warm in the winter and it keeps the flies from her eyes in the summer.’
‘C’mon!’ shouted the ringleader of the gang. ‘Let’s go and look at those balloon things again.’
The children swarmed off towards the jetty, but Davy hung back for a moment. ‘Miss Flora? What are those big balloons for? Stuart says they’re airships and they can go on fire and kill people.’
‘They’re just barrage balloons, Davy. They’re here to keep you safe, in case there’s ever another air raid.’
‘Mrs Carmichael says there’s been air raids in Glasgow. I hope my mammy is safe.’
‘I’m sure she will be. Does she write you letters?’ Flora asked.
Davy looked doubtful. ‘Sometimes. But Stuart says she’s busy at work, making bombs to kill the Germans with, so she can’t always be writing to us.’
‘Here,’ said Flora, taking a piece of apple from her pocket. ‘Do you want to feed the pony? Hold your hand flat, that’s it, like that. There you go, well done, see – there’s nothing to be scared of really, is there?’
Davy beamed at her, shaking his head vigorously, and then, hearing his brother shouting his name from the shore, he turned and ran back to join his friends.
Back at Keeper’s Cottage, Flora left her father, Ruaridh and Alec to deal with the carcass and unsaddle the garron while she hurried inside to stoke the range and get supper on the go. Out on the water, another silver balloon bobbed into the air, joining the others that swam in their strange shining shoal above the anchorage against the backdrop of the purple hills.
Lexie, 1978
I’ve managed to coax a bit of information out of Bridie at last, getting her to talk about what it was like when the war arrived in Aultbea. I resorted to stealth tactics, in the end, inviting her to Keeper’s Cottage for a regular tea date on Wednesday afternoons, shamelessly using Daisy as an enticement. She’s very good company, in fact, and I find myself looking forward to her visits. Offering her tea and a bit of a chat seems the very least I can do when she’s been so kind to me. She’s rapidly taken on the role of a surrogate mother and granny, something I know my mum would have loved.
Her face lights up when she talks about being a Wren, and she brings an album of photos to show me of her and Mum and Mairi in their uniforms. The three of them laugh out from the pictures, looking neat as pins in their tailored skirts and ties. Their double-breasted jackets have shiny brass buttons down the front and the Women’s Royal Naval Service badge stitched to the sleeve, proudly displaying the embroidered emblem of crossed anchors beneath a crown.
‘It must have been extraordinary,’ I muse, offering her a plate of chocolate biscuits. ‘Loch Ewe going from a community of just a few hundred folk to a military base of over three thousand personnel almost overnight.’
She nods, chewing thoughtfully. ‘They certainly were extraordinary times. Exciting, too. All those people suddenly arriving from all over the world. We had Poles and Indians, Americans and Russians around the place. And there was great camaraderie in the WRNS. We had lots of girls posted up from England and Wales, so we made loads of new friends.’
Daisy has crawled over to Bridie and pulled herself up to stand, attempting to climb up beside her on the sofa.
‘Here you go, darlin’， upsy Daisy!’ Bridie scoops her on to her lap and Daisy nestles happily in the crook of her arm. ‘Of course, there were downsides to having the military here as well. We were issued with security passes that we’d to carry with us at all times. The roads beyond the loch were sealed off at Laide, Gairloch and Achnasheen with checkpoints, and no one was allowed in without showing their papers. I kept forgetting mine, but luckily most of the guards knew me from the NAAFI and let me through. And there were the sad times, too. A lot of our local boys were away fighting the war, and every now and then a telegram would arrive with news that someone had been killed. It hit the community hard, every time we lost one of our own.’