The Restless Sea, page 10
Charlie calls out and points at a round shape like a brown balloon bobbing on the surface of the water. Olivia spots it just as the seal disappears from sight. ‘Oh!’ she says, disappointed.
‘It’ll come up again,’ says Charlie. ‘There!’ It is much closer this time. Close enough to make out the mournful black eyes and mottled head.
‘Sing to it,’ says Charlie. ‘That’s what they say. If you sing to them, they come closer.’
‘I’m not going to sing to it,’ says Olivia self-consciously, then laughing as Charlie starts to sing, ‘God Save Our Gracious King’, and the seal watches them both, bemused, before disappearing again.
‘You’ve scared it away,’ says Olivia.
But Charlie is undaunted and carries on, tunelessly. The next time the creature comes up, it is a bit closer. So Olivia joins in, and they stand there singing as the sun beats down and the sandpipers feel braver and rush closer on their tiny legs, and the minutes stretch and mould into hours, and war and the cold ships that lie on the other side of the island are far from their minds.
Charlie is insistent that he teach Olivia how to shoot. He borrows an old air rifle from the gunroom at the back of Aunt Nancy’s house. Uncle Howard’s shotguns and rifles line the walls neatly, like sentries on duty. The room smells of gun oil and leather.
He hands her the gun. ‘Practise first,’ he says. ‘The principle is the same.’
Olivia holds it awkwardly while Charlie rigs up paper targets outside. The targets seem tiny, but Olivia is beginning to learn that she likes a challenge. Her first few shots are way off the paper, but she quickly gets her eye in and it turns out she’s pretty good. Soon she is just a hair’s breadth off the centre. Charlie nods as he watches her break the rifle and feed another silver pellet into it. She snaps it shut, aims and fires. There is a tiny hole in the bull’s-eye. And again. She hits it four times in a row.
‘I guess you’ve either got it or you haven’t,’ she says, smiling.
‘All right, all right,’ says Charlie, laughing. ‘Let’s try with the proper rifle.’
The sporting rifle is much heavier. Olivia lies next to Charlie on the ground. First he demonstrates how to put the safety catch on. Then how to lock and unlock the bolt, and where to lay the smooth, pointed bullets. She takes one and slides it into its chamber.
Charlie shows her how to steady the gun. ‘Use my arm, if you need to,’ he says. He pulls the rifle up and into her shoulder. The cold stock touches her warm cheek.
‘Feel there?’ he says. ‘Where the stock sits comfortably?’ She nods.
‘Now, when you fire, you squeeze the trigger. Don’t pull it. Just squeeze.’ He holds his hand over hers to demonstrate. ‘This rifle will have more of a kick than the air rifle. So make sure you hold it in.’ She can feel his breath on the tip of her ear.
‘Line up the sight like you usually do,’ he says. She drops her head. Looks along the top of the barrel. Adjusts the position until the marker sits between its dip.
‘Fire when you’re ready. But only if and when you’re a hundred per cent ready, with a clear, true shot.’
She pulls the trigger and there’s a zipping noise and the rifle kicks back against her shoulder. Charlie gets to his knees, squinting at the target: there is a neat hole ripped just on the edge of the bull’s-eye.
‘Looks like you’d give my gunner a run for his money,’ says Charlie. Olivia grins. ‘Seriously, though.’ Charlie’s brow furrows, and he sits back on his heels so he can look at her properly. ‘This could be useful if things get sticky.’
‘I don’t think I could shoot someone, if that’s what you mean,’ she says. ‘Not even a Nazi.’
‘I hope it won’t come to that, but you might get short of food. It sounds ridiculous now it’s summer, but once winter comes again I think rationing will really bite …’
‘We’re stocking up. We’ve been pickling and bottling like mad.’
‘But there are many more people living here at the moment – and you’ll need fresh meat once it’s too cold to fish. Get Mac to show you which deer need taking, and you’ll have fresh venison.’
‘Mac’s given all that up.’
‘He may have to change his mind.’
She sits up too, dusting the soil from her elbows. ‘Do you really think things are going to get that bad?’ she asks.
‘I’m sure they will. The Germans are in the north of France. They’re in the Channel Islands, for God’s sake. It’s only a matter of time before they strike.’
‘Sometimes it’s hard to believe that anything will happen. All we’ve had here are a couple of ineffective mines and some fly-pasts. You know, Mother said she’d heard it called the “phoney war” in London.’
The colour drains from Charlie’s face. ‘Is that what you think?’ he asks.
‘No,’ she says. ‘I suppose I’ve been lucky, that’s all …’ Olivia is startled by the sudden change. His eyes have clouded to a turbulent green. His whole body is tense. He starts to walk away.
‘Charlie …’ she calls out after him. He doesn’t turn to look at her, just carries on walking, his back straight, his hands gripping the rifle, knuckles white. She has to jog to catch up. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she says. ‘I know you’ve had a terrible time …’
‘You don’t know anything,’ he says. ‘You’re just a child.’
‘Then tell me?’ she says. She rests her hand gently in the crook of his elbow. He slows a little, and then sits on a fallen tree. Olivia sits next to him. The bark is old and spongy, crumbling a little beneath their weight.
‘I couldn’t,’ he says. ‘It’s not the kind of thing a girl like you should hear.’
Olivia leans against him, and he puts out his hand and she holds it in hers. ‘I’m here if you want to,’ she says quietly. They sit in silence for a long time, while the branches of the trees creak and rub above them.
A week’s leave is over quickly. Charlie has shown her his favourite spots. He has taught her how to build a small fire on the beach to cook her catch on, finding the driest leaves and hearing them crackle as they catch and burn. He has taken her up to the string of freshwater lochs, and to the places where the golden eagles glide on thermals high above the hills. The osprey nest was not used this year – possibly because of all the commotion around the loch, but it meant they could get a bit closer to examine the great heap of twigs and branches. Sometimes, in the evenings up at Taigh Mor, she catches him staring at nothing and glimpses that darkness or hardness again in his eyes. But she doesn’t pry.
She tries to be cheerful on his last day, but she knows she will miss having him around. His case is packed and he is getting a lift to Inverness with some of the other returning sailors. ‘Thank you,’ he says, taking her hands in his.
‘For what?’
‘I’ve had the best leave ever. Like one of the summers of my childhood. Swimming. Shooting. Fishing. Heaven.’
‘Do you know where you’re going next?’
He shakes his head. ‘But I do know I’ll be back as soon as I can next get leave.’
She kisses him on the cheek. ‘Be careful, won’t you?’ she says.
‘You’ll write?’
She nods. ‘Of course,’ she says.
‘In that case, I can do anything.’ He stands up straight, smoothing his sleeves down, every part the young officer. The light bounces off the stripes on his sleeves, but the cap throws his face into darkness.
With autumn comes terrible news from down south as the Luftwaffe begin to attack London and beyond, night after night. The RAF struggles to keep them at bay. Returning home is out of the question. Mother tries to keep her tone light on the telephone, but Olivia can hear the buzz of exhaustion beneath. Stoke Hall is so close to the coast, there could easily be a stray bomb – or even an intentional one. There was a furore recently when two parachutists were seen landing in the Fir Wood, but the soldiers who are now camped out in the gardens went to investigate and found the two German airmen dead. The thought of those two dead men – German or not – dangling among the dark and spiky conifers, puts her own inconveniences to shame. She stops moaning about the security checkpoints that have sprung up at all the roads coming into or leaving the area – Gairloch, Achnasheen, Inverness. There is even one at Laide, near Mrs Campbell’s shop, where Olivia is sent to stock up on tea for Aunt Nancy, which the shopkeeper marks neatly in their ration books. And now more ships begin to arrive at the loch – this time a hotchpotch of merchant ships, refuelling before setting off on their long and treacherous journeys across the ocean. Sailors and soldiers begin to outnumber locals significantly.
The news from Charlie is intermittent. It seems he does not have time to write, and each long stretch without a letter is accompanied by a fear that there will be never be another one. But Aunt Nancy tells her not to worry, making a passing reference to Fleet Air Arm pilots helping the RAF over London. ‘Charlie will be fine. He’s extremely accomplished. You just keep writing. Give him something to look forward to,’ she says.
As the nights draw in and winter approaches, the fish supplies dwindle. Olivia thinks it is time to take Charlie’s advice. ‘I’m too old to take you up there, lassie,’ says Mac, pointing at his creaking knees and swollen knuckles. But Olivia soon works him around.
Mac is impressed by Olivia’s marksmanship and her quiet respect. They walk and climb and inch for miles up into the hills that turn from purple to gold and russet through the autumn. Olivia learns how to throw a piece of torn heather into the air to determine which way the wind is blowing. She learns how to track, and how to avoid a herd. She learns their habits, where they like to shelter, where to eat. She learns how to use a spyglass without it catching the light. She learns how the fog distorts sound and distance. She knows when a mist will settle and when it will clear. Together they crawl and creep for hours, above the clouds, across peat bogs and through the heather, and over boulders and up glens, only to turn back if the stag is too fine. Mac teaches her to hunt the frail, as well as poor quality and weaker beasts. Thistle, the old stalking pony, is brought back into service. Olivia slowly gains the pony’s trust, and when she shoots her first stag and Mac grallochs it, she learns the fine art of balancing a stag across the pony’s stalking saddle. Mac hangs the beast in the large, cold game larder. He butchers it himself, swift and deft despite his arthritis.
The Macs have a sailor billeted with them, a steward who has never tried venison before, but is keen to sample anything that hasn’t been salted or dried or stewed within an inch of its life. He chews on the meat thoughtfully, nodding his head and licking his lips. ‘I think this would go down well in our messes,’ he says. ‘Could we buy some? Our men are always clamouring for fresh meat.’
The idea snowballs. Word spreads around the ships, and Olivia is soon inundated with orders, from sailors, soldiers, and Wrens. She is worried about what Aunt Nancy will say, but her aunt is thrilled that she is showing initiative. ‘And Clarkson could do with some decent meat to serve to the officers we have billeted here,’ she says. She even takes the time to show Olivia how to write the orders in a ledger and keep a note of the money coming in and going out. It is the longest amount of time she has spent with Olivia since she arrived. ‘Watch those men,’ she says. ‘Don’t think they won’t try for a bargain just because you’re a girl.’ But Olivia is as canny as anyone, and she turns it to her advantage. She finds the men are keen to talk, and even keener for a smile. Many of them have been away at sea for weeks and miss female company.
Mac is delighted: he gets a cut, and Olivia starts to offer his eggs and milk too. They turn more of the garden over to growing vegetables. Other locals offer what they can: last year’s jam; Ben Munro’s apples; Mrs McLellan’s chutney. Mrs Campbell comes in on the business, always happy to receive more supplies for her store – particularly when the roads are blocked with snow and she is running low. Olivia learns how to drive Aunt Nancy’s ancient Austin and, each week, she transports whatever she hasn’t sold directly to the ships to Mrs Campbell’s shop. By late autumn, they even have a buyer from Edinburgh, who bumps along the single track road from the city once a week to collect venison or lobsters for his restaurant.
It is deep winter, and fresh meat stocks are running low again. The stag-hunting season is over, but there are plenty of hinds to be taken. Olivia is up and out of the house before dawn breaks across the loch. There is no need for a torch: the snow that settled overnight has turned the world luminous. Something crackles away into the undergrowth, startled by the crunch of her feet on the path, in turn setting a bird fluttering and flapping through the branches above. Then silence again. A world muffled by snow. Beyond the trees, the loch: grey and silent as the ships packed with sleeping men. She has grown to love this time in the morning, the only time there is true peace and quiet these days. The roads are empty once again and she can slip into the hills unnoticed.
Her pass and gas mask and ID card are gathering dust on the dressing table in her bedroom. She has no need of them; she knows how to get past the checkpoints and guards, crossing between Gairloch and Poolewe undetected by following the low road along the shoreline like the other locals. And there are no checkpoints up in the hills. No one would be foolish enough to cross them without local knowledge.
The hills are where she is headed now. She cannot see them, but she can sense them looming in the darkness ahead, steady and solid, unmoving and unmoved by the world’s turmoil. By the time she gets to the farm, the sky is beginning to glow aquamarine as dawn breaks. The tack room is empty. A faint orange glow of embers breathes among the ash as she opens the door to retrieve Thistle’s saddle. The pony comes straight to her now, letting her slip on his head collar without a fuss. She adjusts the stalking saddle, holds her hands under the pony’s mane, where he is warmest, and presses her face against his shaggy grey fur, breathing in the horsey smell.
She leads him out over the cobbles. The snow is dirty here, trampled with mud and grit. The pony snorts, clearing his nostrils into the chilly air. His bright dark eyes peer out at her from beneath his ragged forelock. She glances down at herself, pleased at how her camouflage has turned out. She has butchered her aunt’s debutante dress, sewing it into a new outfit that covers her clothes so she is white all over. Underneath she has on her woollen jumper and the flannel trousers and knee-length socks that she always wears to keep herself warm. She has used the arm of an old fur coat to make a cosy scarf for her neck. The rifle sits cold and heavy across her back as they trudge away from the farm.
Now it is morning. The loch is a mirror far below. The snowy peaks, jagged and bright, reflected in its surface. Down nearer the shore, the trees stand out against the white, the prickly and black conifers, and the twiggy and twisted leafless winter trees. The shoreline is a smudge of orange, just beginning to show beneath the melting snow. From here, the loch is so large and shining that it is easy to misread the size of the ships that lie on its surface.
The hills sweep up out of the ground ahead of her, their tops still wreathed in cloud. But the sky is blue, the heavy snow clouds have moved on, and it will be a fine day. She follows the burn, a glimmering crack, the water sparkling like a necklace of diamonds among the softer white of the fresh-fallen snow. By the time she reaches the rowan pool, she has worked up quite a warmth. The rowan tree is hung with frosted particles like sugar icing. The only sound is the beat of tiny wings as some snow buntings fly up, white like rising snowflakes, apart from the flash of black on their wings.
She leaves Thistle by the tree, tied to a boulder. He is also well camouflaged: only the tips of his grey tail and his unruly mane – and his knobbly knees – standing out. His neat little black hooves are hidden, sunk into the snow. She sets to work in the silence, her brow furrowed in concentration. She reads the tracks: the delicate Ys of the birds busily criss-crossing all over the place; the long oval shapes of a hare; the solid shuffle of a grouse; the stealthy holes of a fox. The snow is yellow in places where an animal has peed. There are dark holes where rabbit droppings have steamed through to the ground.
She has to be careful. The snow has drifted deeply in places, hiding crevices and cracks in the ground. She comes across the multiple tracks of deer not much further up. They have sheltered in the lee of the hill, where the boulders make a natural cave. The wind seems to have shifted, possibly because of the lie of the peaks above her. There is less snow on the ground, more for the deer to eat. She creeps forward. Peers beyond the next boulder. She cannot see the herd – but she can see a stag. Either the hinds are around the corner, or they have scarpered and this is a lone male. She crouches, inching forward on hands and knees to get a better look. The stag is about four hundred yards away from her, in a dip across a narrow part of the burn. Still no sign of any hinds. Her rock is slippery. She moves carefully, hoping she won’t cause a vibration that dumps the snow above on top of her.
The stag snuffles at the ground. Suddenly it lifts its head. Its nostrils dilate. Olivia stops and drops flat, her cheek scratching against the hard crust of snow. She slowly lifts her head. The stag is staring at something she cannot see, in the opposite direction. He is magnificent: all muscle and searching eyes and flared nostrils. His ears swivel. His neck is thick and shaggy. There is the black scar down his flank. He flicks his tail. The tips of his nostrils move, in and out, twitching, smelling, searching for whatever it is he thinks he’s heard.
As the stag turns and springs away, a loud crack whips out across the snow and Olivia sees the animal stumble awkwardly as if he has been hit, but then his feet find the ground and he is off like the wind across the hillside and down the pass and deep into the crags and contours of endless wilderness.
Olivia’s heart races with him. For a moment her mind is blank, and then she wonders who else could be up here in the snow and the wind? And who would go for a stag at this time of year? Or a stag like that at any time of year?
