We Fought for Ardnish Read online

  Owen’s trial with MacLellan was a success, and everyone at Peanmeanach had mixed emotions when we learned that he was being taken on permanently. But such was the way of the Highlands. Because there is little money to be earned, the young are forced to seek employment else-where, and as likely as not they meet a girl or a boy and stay where the work is – often in Glasgow.

  Owen had been away for a year now, although he would come and stay with us for a night whenever his work brought him close by. Mother loved his visits. She drank in the news of Arisaig and Mallaig as if they were the bright city lights of Glasgow. Last time he came we heard that Iain Mackinnon from Canna had died of influenza, that Aggy Macrae at Tarbert was having a baby and no one knew who the father was, and she wasn’t telling, and his boss had a broken toe from one of the plough horses at Traigh standing on his foot. Mother remarked that the only thing that had happened at Ardnish was that the grass had grown a wee bit longer, and sighed.

  I loved learning, languages in particular, although with one-to-one tuition I was always likely to thrive. The teacher, Mr Campbell, and I became firm friends. Even when I was a young lad, the older folk would sometimes defer to me when it came to questions of the world, the galaxy or, for instance, how electricity worked. I loved the attention. ‘He’ll be off to the university before we know it,’ Aunt Effie would pronounce gloomily, ‘and that’ll be the last we’ll see of him.’

  Grandfather had been involved in the building of the big house at Roshven and had become friendly with the owners, the Blackburns. Often, when their son Peter, his wife Pauline, and Peter’s cousin Margaret (who had been my aunt Sheena’s best friend when they were growing up) were visiting, they would row across from Roshven on the other side of the loch to picnic on the beach and we would join them. Peter’s mother, Jemima, had been a renowned artist and lover of nature and was a great ally of Grandmother’s. Margaret was always keen to hear how Sheena was getting on in Canada.

  The talk was always friendly and wide-ranging. ‘Well,’ said Grandfather, during one such picnic, ‘the people are leaving, whatever way you look at it. Colonel Willie told me that over in Glen Roy, a company of men, that’s about a hundred soldiers, was raised to fight in the Napoleonic war, and now you’d be lucky to find a dozen.’

  Peter nodded his agreement. ‘My father could get twenty men to help build a pier, and now we struggle to get four to get the hay in.’ This led to a conversation about whether the Clearances might ultimately have been a good thing for the people; after all, their life here could be desperate and places like Australia and Canada offered so much opportunity. Everyone had a strong view on the emigrations, citing examples of the persecutions in Sutherland and evictions on Knoydart versus reports of the children of locals who had gone to Australia or South Carolina and become doctors and engineers. Peter mentioned Joseph McCoy, a drover’s son who now lived in Kansas and had moved two million cattle in two years, becoming known as ‘The Real McCoy’.

  ‘It’s not the land of plenty over there,’ Grandmother pointed out quietly. ‘I’ve got a recent letter from Sheena, with Cape Breton press cuttings, too, about the coal mining. Donald Angus, run back and get them, will you? They’re on the sideboard.’

  I did as I was told, glad to escape the conversation which I found dreary compared with the stone-skimming and fishing I might have been doing instead.

  ‘It’s in Gaelic,’ Grandmother began, ‘so I’ll translate it. It’s dated only last month. Here goes . . .

  My dear Mother and Father,

  I enclose a cutting from a newspaper here. I know people in the Highlands sometimes think of Cape Breton as the Promised Land, but these articles show what the children and grandchildren of your friends from the Rough Bounds are suffering.

  Thousands of miners in Sydney are working, part-time at most on an hourly rate, the lowest in Canada. They get coal from the company, the British Empire Steel and Coal Company, as well as water and electricity. The only shops allowed are the company-owned Pluck Me stores. Children are dying on their four cent meals. The company wants the hourly rate to be cut, hours to be reduced and credit withdrawn from their shops. The boss has said the company will hold out, the miners ‘can’t stand the gaff’. So, of course, the miners are determined to stay on strike. The unions have stopped the water pumping from the shafts, and people say the mines will never re-open. Coal, electricity and water have been cut off by the company now, including at the hospital. The company has its own police force, hired from away, and they are being brutal. Last week 3,000 men marched on a company power station and fought with company police and hired men. Men were shot and killed. The miners locked up the company men in the town jail, company stores have been raided and then burned.

  There is a stand-off now. Money is being raised from people in Boston and many other places to help stave off destitution for the miners. There is a lot of pressure for the government to get involved, and there is no doubt they will after this. The problem has been going on for some years now.

  I will write again next week, rushing now to catch the post. Hoping this finds you in good heart,

  Your loving daughter

  Sheena

  Chapter 1

  Courmayeur, the Italian Alps, March 1943

  Françoise and I stared into the darkness. We were leaning against the wall of a filthy cattle shed, our hands bound tightly. We could hear Italian voices outside. They were discussing what they should do with us, waiting for an officer to arrive and make a decision.

  We’d been there all night. We had told them we were a French married couple trying to get away from Vichy France. Françoise wore a wedding ring. She explained that we were hiding from the authorities so that I wouldn’t get drafted into the STO – the Service du Travail Obligatoire – and sent to a German labour camp. As long as they believed this we might stand a chance of being released, or at worst held with other deserters, perhaps with an opportunity to escape. But if they made the connection that we were SOE – Special Operation Executive – operatives and had been responsible for a month’s worth of attacks and destruction all along the Alps we would almost certainly be tortured and killed.

  Exhausted, we had been captured while taking shelter in a hut during heavy snow. It was our misfortune that an Alpini patrol had chosen to do the same. They were armed, and we were not. It was clear that the presence of French people in Italy concerned them greatly, so we were locked up in the cattle shed that adjoined the hut.

  Françoise wore dark-brown trousers, a heavy overcoat and headscarf. I was dressed in slightly worse-for-wear woollens and corduroy trousers, along with stout boots, and had been instructed not to shave or have my hair cut for some time beforehand. They searched us thoroughly; we had backpacks with a couple of blankets and scraps of food but nothing to arouse suspicion that we were anything other than we claimed. My French Army ID card stated that I was Xavier Cret, born September 1915 in nearby Les Contamines and serving in the 21st Bataillon de Chasseurs Alpin d’Antibes. I was confident that it would appear authentic, nonetheless I had been filled with anxiety when they turned it over and over, scrutinising every detail while Françoise explained that I was a deserter from the Vichy army and that we had been hiding out in shepherds’ huts for months.

  I don’t know how much of her French they understood – or whether they believed her. I was terrified that they would expect me to speak, as my French was still fairly basic despite my intensive language training before the mission.

  We huddled close together for warmth. We hadn’t slept a moment throughout the long night, and had tried to keep our spirits up by exchanging childhood stories; mine in the West Highlands of Scotland and hers in Paris. Although she had then moved with her family to Canada, she still spoke with a Parisian accent. She talked of her misery at being plucked from her cosmopolitan life and how, at first, she had hated the loneliness and boredom of rural Canadian life, but that she had grown accustomed to it and ultimately grew to love it.

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bsp; ‘These places take hold of you, don’t they?’ I said wistfully, my mind full of my own Highland home. Françoise nodded, and we were quiet for a while, deep in thought.

  I had been in the Alps for a month, having been parachuted into Les Contamines with a ton of explosives, Morse transmitters, guns, ropes, ice axes and clothing, enough to equip a dozen men for a month or two. I met up with four Resistance fighters as planned, who helped me to sort and repack the kit. Then, laden with rucksacks, we made our way over the mountains to Courmayeur.

  My mission had been outlined a week before the drop-off. The Italian troops in the Alps were not carrying out their job effectively and we knew the Resistance movement could create real disruption, given support and arms. The families of Courmayeur in Italy and Chamonix in France had intermarried for centuries and the Italian Alpini had been relaxed in their role as the occupying force of the French side of the Alps. It was rumoured that the Italians were going to be replaced by German soldiers and, if so, things would be much more difficult. I had been given several tasks. The first was to arrange the destruction of the intricate lace of metal chains, cables and ladders bolted onto the otherwise impassable cliffs, nine thousand feet above sea level, known as the via ferrata, or iron road. The via ferrata allowed the Alpini to move back and forth across the mountaintops with ease and therefore had to be destroyed. Then, I had to block two mountain passes to Switzerland from Italy and France.

  I met first with the Italian Resistance leader, an extremely capable and brave man named Luigi, and after briefing him, felt confident that he could be entrusted with the task of dismantling the via ferrata, allowing me to move on to help the Resistance around Chamonix block the route through to Switzerland.

  Françoise told me that she had been parachuted in a week before. She had been met by one of Luigi’s men down in the valley, but when I tentatively asked what the purpose of her trip was she had become tight-lipped. ‘All in good time, Angus,’ she said, disarming me with her smile. All I knew about her was that I had to take her back to my friend Claude, the leader of the partisans on the other side of the Alps at Les Contamines, in France.

  I accepted her response, but it troubled me. Weren’t we supposed to be allies? I had been open with her about my role; it was unsettling that she had chosen not to divulge any details of hers with me, despite the bond we had struck up through the freezing hours of darkness.

  Fierce winds and snowstorms had been pounding the mountains for days, and we guessed that it might be several days until conditions let up and we might be taken to an officer.

  We knew that we could untie the ropes pretty easily, but decided against doing so until the right time presented itself. Huddling under the two blankets one of the men had given to us, we joked about the intimacy to try to stave off embarrassment, but we were grateful for each other’s warmth as we shivered. As the day wore on we would jog on the spot and do exercises to keep ourselves occupied, always hoping that the Italians might bring us a hot drink or some of their own meagre rations. We knew they wouldn’t have much even for themselves.

  We talked constantly of escape. ‘If they came in during the morning, just two of them,’ I mused, ‘I could wish them a polite “good morning” in Italian, to disarm them, and then we could take one each. They’d have their hands full with breakfast.’ I practised it softly: ‘Buongiorno, buongiorno.’

  ‘What if there are three of them?’ asked Françoise.

  ‘Then I’ll grab the one with the gun and we’ll see how it goes from there.’

  That evening, Françoise lay with her head resting on my shoulder. Entwined under the blankets, I felt her now familiar warmth against me, enjoying the sensation of her slow breathing, her body rising and falling. I could hear the Italian voices through the wall; there must have been be six or seven of them, and from their high-spirited chatter I suspected they had drink with them. We had been captive for over twenty-four hours now, and in the building for twice that. Surely the storm would blow over soon?

  ‘Why did you join the SOE?’ I asked.

  ‘You tell me first, Donald Angus. I’m sleepy.’

  ‘It was my boss in the army who suggested it. He reckoned that our regiment, the Lovat Scouts, would be stationed in the Faroes for a couple of years, and that with my experience I should join the SOE – I would be perfect for it. What’s more, they were based only five miles from my home, and he knew how much that would appeal to me. The larger houses in the area had all been requisitioned and were the centres for all sorts of specialised training: sniping, demolition, unarmed combat. Exciting stuff.’

  I was sure Françoise had fallen asleep, but then I felt her stirring.

  ‘So, when you switched from the Lovat Scouts into the SOE, you trained in the Highlands?’

  ‘Yes and no. I was at what is called the Irregular Warfare School at Inverailort Castle, first as a student then later as an instructor. I had spent some time at Brickendonbury Manor in the middle of England, where specialised weapons were developed. Then, just after the SOE was formed, I was transferred to Arisaig House to be one of their first instructors. I was delighted to be posted so close to home, let me tell you.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘There was a rumour before I came out here that I’d be sent abroad to help the SOE get going in America and Singapore – rather like with your Camp X in Ontario.’

  ‘You’ve done your homework,’ Françoise whispered.

  ‘I’m a sabotage expert, really. You wouldn’t believe the explosives and armaments that are being designed these days and we need to show the agents how to get the best from them. There’s a senior SOE man, Brigadier Gubbins, who looks after me. His son, Michael, was at Arisaig House as a trainer at the same time as me, and we’ve become good friends.’

  Françoise had fallen asleep. We were entwined like lovers and I couldn’t help but think how attractive she was. I wondered what on earth had persuaded her to sign up to the SOE. If agents were captured they were invariably executed. A woman like her could have had any job in Canada. Not knowing the true nature of her mission gnawed at me. In my two years in the SOE, it seemed that the few female agents were always given the most dreadful tasks, often involving intimacy with senior Germans.

  My right arm grew stiff, but I didn’t want to disturb her. With hay beneath us and blankets tucked under our chins, we had become quite comfortable as the wind rattled against the door. I could sense heavy snow piling up outside. I dozed off, feeling strangely content.

  The next thing I was aware of was the sound of the wooden door latch. We were both instantly wide awake. Two men came in. I caught the aroma of acorn coffee. I fingered the ‘L’ pill sewn into the collar of my jacket – standard issue potassium cyanide since the compromising of a Dutch operation a few months ago, after which our agents had been mercilessly tortured.

  One of the men untied our ropes as the other kept his gun pointed at us. We rubbed our aching wrists and clapped our hands to warm them. They spoke to us in Italian, cautiously but friendly enough. Françoise replied in French. The soldiers watched as we ate the stale bread and drank the bitter coffee. They looked to be around eighteen years old, and I suspected they were overawed by Françoise with her dark hair, big smile and pretty features.

  After we had finished eating they retied our ropes. Françoise cried out, gesturing that hers were too tight. The soldiers understood and loosened them a little.

  ‘Grazie, grazie!’ She beamed at them and the men made to leave, pleased with themselves at having made a friend. But Françoise was not their friend. Within a minute, she had both our ropes undone, had grabbed a plank and hidden behind the door.

  Françoise stood at the door and called out, ‘Mi scusi, mi scusi!’ Her tone was light and appealing, and our young guards obligingly returned. Françoise walloped one behind the head with the plank and I broke the neck of the other with a sickening crunch.

  Françoise and I stared at one another; she was wide-eyed with shock. I
took a pistol from one and a rifle from the other, and, listening for sounds of alarm from the rest of the patrol through the wall, we strapped on our snow-shoes, gathered all of their snowshoes from under the eaves, and struck out into the heavy snow. We knew our tracks would be covered in minutes, and without the proper footwear, our pursuers would struggle.

  My mind was racing as we battled through the snow. My God, there would be hell to pay for the remaining four, especially if senior officers managed to make a connection between us and the recent Resistance successes, something they were bound to do given the efficacy of our escape.

  Once we had made some headway we stopped for a breather, jettisoned their snowshoes in a snow hole beside a pine tree, and pressed on for our rendezvous with Claude and his men.

  Françoise hadn’t said a word. ‘Are you all right?’ I panted.

  ‘That’s the first man I’ve killed,’ she replied.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Really?’ Surprise was evident in her voice. ‘I was told you were battle-hardened.’

  There’s more to battle than hand-to-hand killing, I thought, though I said nothing.

  We had a long way to go. The route was obvious, though, despite the poor visibility. The tree line was on our right and on our left, the plateau with its summer pastures, four thousand feet above the villages in the valley. We were making for a pass that would finally take us over to France and down to the village of Les Contamines. The snow provided vital cover for us but made for exhausting going. I knew that unless we bumped into another patrol we would be fine, but the snow was so deep it was heavy going. I knew that Françoise was no slouch but my admiration for her grew stronger and stronger as the day went on; she battled on without a word of complaint about the cold or hunger, or even fatigue.