Bridie had other ideas, though. They watched as she picked up a plate of the bright yellow sponge cake and marched across to where two officers sat, hunched over their teacups, deep in conversation. They couldn’t hear what was said, as the exchange was muffled by the hiss of the tea urn and the hum of noise in the canteen, which reverberated from the hut’s tin roof. But a few minutes later she returned – minus the plate of cake – with a triumphant grin, and seized Flora’s free hand.
‘It’s all right! The Isla is safe. They think the battle’s over now and the German battleship’s been sunk. The convoy is back on course for Murmansk.’
Ruaridh gazed at her in admiration. ‘Bridie Macdonald, your skills are wasted in the NAAFI. They should be deploying you as a secret agent. If they turned you loose with a few slices of the Yellow Peril, who knows what intelligence you might be able to unearth?’
The four of them were able to breathe again. But their thanksgiving was muted, overshadowed by the image of more lives lost with the sinking of the enemy battleship. For they knew that the graveyard of the ocean deeps was a lonely one, with ice floes in the place of headstones and only blank-eyed sea creatures to watch over the bones of lost sailors from both sides of the divide as they were stirred by restless currents.
Alec reached for Flora’s hand and pulled her the last few yards up the steep path to the old bothy beside the lochan. He’d had a few precious days ashore and this time they’d spent every minute that she had free together. On his return a storm had lashed the loch, obscuring the hills, the squalls sending sheets of rain sweeping in from the sea and keeping them indoors. He’d come down to the cottage each evening to see her, leaving his dripping jacket and boots at the door and stretching his legs towards the warmth of the stove as he asked her father about the day’s stalking, or chatted with Ruaridh about the latest ships to arrive in the harbour. He opened up a little, confirming what Flora had long suspected as he confided to her that he much preferred the welcoming warmth of the Gordons’ home to the chilly formality of Ardtuath House. To her relief, he seemed more like the old Alec again, calmer and more relaxed, in the homely atmosphere of Keeper’s Cottage. He’d also confided that his relations with his father were even more strained. They’d fallen out again over Alec’s refusal to apply for a transfer to a land-based job in the south. His mother had taken his side, and the resulting atmosphere was the worse for both of them. It went without saying that Flora’s presence would be an additional thorn in Sir Charles’s flesh, so she was thankful that Alec never asked her up to the house any more.
Then, at last, the wind and rain had abated and the day had dawned clear and calm.
‘Make the most of it,’ warned Iain. ‘The deer are staying on the lee of the hill. They know when there’s another storm coming in.’
As Flora and Alec climbed the path to the lochan, the wind began to pick up again, filling the sky to the west, stretching it as taut as a blue sail to where it met the horizon. From the heights they could see a pair of ships entering the loch.
‘Is there to be another Arctic convoy so soon?’ asked Flora, surprised.
Alec shook his head. ‘Not yet. Those will have journeyed up from the south to join the muster for the next Atlantic convoy. There’s one due to leave in a few days’ time.’
Flora breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that she had him safe on shore for a while longer. Today was a gift. They fished for a while, but nothing was biting; then they retreated to the shelter of the bothy’s walls, which offered a little protection from the teasing bluster of the wind. It had swung round to the north-east, the Arctic breath slicing through their layers of clothing. There was a small stash of dry sticks and peat in one corner, half-buried beneath some old boards, and Alec managed to coax a fire alight in the grate so they could warm their hands and toast the bannock that they’d brought with them, the butter melting into the oatmeal and dripping on to their fingers.
He pulled her close to his side and wrapped his coat around them both, cocooning them from the world beyond the bothy’s walls, and she breathed in the smell of the peat smoke on his hair.
‘In the summer, let’s come and camp up here,’ he said.
And she nodded, a wave of hope surging through her at the thought that the summer would come and he would be there. And maybe the war would be over by then, and the doubt and fear that cast such long shadows would be gone. They’d be able to plan a life without goodbyes, and the paralysing unspoken anguish that each one of those farewells might be their last. And she would hold Alec in her arms until he was healed.