He glanced across at her and smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry, I’m not very good company again today. Had another almighty row with Pa this morning.’
She didn’t ask what the argument had been about, knowing that it would almost certainly have revolved around his unsuitable attachment to the gamekeeper’s daughter. If Sir Charles had suspected that Alec’s plan to spend a couple of days camping in the hills involved spending time with Flora, too, that would no doubt have reignited his anger. As they walked, she wondered again if they could really ever be together when the war was over. These extraordinary times had allowed barriers to break down, but what would happen when life returned to normal? Would Alec ever be able to heal? Would the old boundaries reassert themselves? Could she ever really be the mistress of Ardtuath House? Or, if forced to choose, would Alec leave his heritage behind to be with her? Which would prove stronger, she pondered, duty or love? And what of her own sense of herself, which had grown through her work and her singing? Would the voice she’d found be silenced again if they were husband and wife?
As the pair climbed higher, Flora’s uncertainties weighed her down more than the basket she carried, and the silence between them was heavy with unspoken thoughts.
To break it, Flora asked, ‘How’s your mother?’， knowing how Sir Charles’s ill humour might well have had wider repercussions.
‘She’s all right, I think. Keeping herself busy now she’s so involved with the Rural these days. It’s a good thing – gets her out of the house.’
In her quiet way, seeing that help was needed, Lady Helen had stepped in to assist Mrs Carmichael, gently insisting that the status quo should be maintained with Moira as chairwoman, but that she was happy to lend a hand behind the scenes to keep the SWRI’s work going. With the multitude of servicemen coming and going and rations stretched more tightly than ever, their contribution to running the canteen and to the organisation of social events had become even more essential.
At the top of the steepest part of the climb, they stopped to catch their breath and turned to look back out over the loch. Alec breathed deep and, to Flora’s relief, when he smiled at her his dark eyes seemed to have regained some of their old warmth. Being out on the hill was doing him good.
Most of the merchant ships had gathered now and lay at anchor beyond the island, American Liberty ships tied up alongside British vessels. Fuel ships ran back and forth between the depot and the fleet, filling their tanks in preparation for the off and servicing a Norwegian oiler, which would accompany the convoy to refuel vessels en route. On the near side of the bay, the Kite rode at anchor alongside the rest of the naval escort.
‘They look awfully wee from up here,’ Flora commented. ‘I hate to think of you so vulnerable out there, on the longer route. And it’s still daylight until almost midnight up there.’
Alec put an arm around her shoulders, giving her a reassuring squeeze. ‘Don’t worry, there’s a pair of aircraft carriers going to be joining us once we get to Scapa Flow, so we’ll have Stringbag support from the Fleet Air Arm too. Those pilots are aces.’
She’d seen one of the carriers once, its immense bulk dwarfing the other naval vessels in the harbour. Ruaridh had explained to her that the Swordfish biplanes – affectionately nicknamed Stringbags – lashed to its deck might look old-fashioned, with their open cockpits and fabric-covered fuselages, but they were efficient hunters of U-boats, dropping depth charges and torpedo bombs from a height on any attackers. He’d described the skill needed by the pilots to launch themselves at full throttle from the pitching deck out over the waves to hunt down enemy submarines, then to return to the carrier and land on that same moving target, with just one chance to catch the arrester wire that would slow the plane in time and prevent it from plunging off the deck into the seething sea. Flora couldn’t imagine what it must be like for those pilots, often flying blind and only emerging from the blanket of Arctic fog just a couple of hundred feet above the deck.
Even with the support of two aircraft carriers, though, she knew how vulnerable that summer convoy would be. ‘Just one more push,’ everyone was saying. ‘It’ll be over by Christmas.’ Again. She hoped that perhaps this convoy would be the last one . . . but then how many times had she sent that particular prayer up already?
They picked up their gear and continued on towards the lochan, turning their backs on the grey flotilla in the loch below.
The weather was fine, so there was no need for cover as they tied flies to their lines and began to fish for their supper. The lochan’s coverlet of green lily pads offered shelter to the brown trout whose burnished scales were the same colour as the peat-infused waters of the lochan, so they cast close to the edge of the lilies, hoping to tempt the fish to the surface. Soon they had a good-sized one, and Alec cleaned it while Flora got the fire going in the hearth of the ruin. She put a dab of butter into a blackened frying pan that they’d brought with them, and set the trout fillets to fry. Before long, the skin was crisped and golden at the edges, and the flesh of the fish, basted with brown butter, turned to succulent flakes. They ate it with a few potatoes, fried in the same pan, and a handful of sweet green peas.