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A CHEERING FAREWELL

  Animated scenes were seen at Station Square, Inverness, yesterday, in connection with the departure of Lord Lovat and his regiment of the Highlands’ finest men to South Africa. Wives, sweethearts, mothers and children were all there to bid them farewell, but in their goodbyes was a note of absolute confidence, even of lightness. These happy warriors looked remarkably fit; as they boarded, their laughter and good-natured chaff suggested a homecoming party rather than a farewell. As the train pulled out, many of the men were singing a merry song as they waved hats and handkerchiefs out of the window.

  We travelled in different ships out to Cape Town. Two Company set sail from Glasgow on the Tintagel Castle. I was in First Company, and we went off to Southampton where we were billeted in several inns throughout the city. The men grew rowdy with the excitement of it all; on one occasion, I and three others played the pipes in the main street in the middle of the night. The locals weren’t too happy about the noise but the two policemen who came to tell us off were Scottish and let us play on.

  There was a Glasgow man in the inn where I was staying, and I got talking to him over a beer. He owned a business called A. & J. Main and was on his way to South Africa to try to win the army contract for corrugated iron sheeting. There was a plan to build blockhouses, connected by barbed-wire fences, across the country. If he succeeded, he would become very wealthy, he hoped. His business made ready-to-erect corrugated iron churches – known as ‘tin tabernacles’ – which were sold all over the world. He offered me a job if I ever wanted one and I told him that after the war I might well take him up on it.

  Before we set sail on the Glengyle from Great Britain, we heard that there had already been three disastrous battles. At the battle of Magersfontein, the Highland brigade alone had suffered seven hundred casualties, and our garrisons at Ladysmith and Kimberley were under siege. Until then it had been considered, as one newspaper put it, ‘an easy war . . . go out there, trounce the Dutch farmers and home for tea’. All of a sudden it was real. We began to train harder and every practice bayonet thrust felt as if there was a real Boer as the target.

  It was rough at sea for us, bitterly cold for the first week, then later too hot as we passed down the African coast. A lot of our time was spent looking after the horses, mucking them out and feeding them. Several got a bad infection called pink eye, and some perished. Heaving the carcasses up and over the side was a big job. During storms, we’d be with them the whole time. Their tails would be up, their ears laid flat and their eyes wide with fear as they struggled to keep upright. A close affinity grew between us and our horses.

  After initial complaints, the two thousand men on board soon became accustomed to their hammocks, and we especially enjoyed watching shoals of flying fish, some of which flopped onto the decks. We had constant fitness training, target practice using bottles off the stern, and we played cards long into the night. We sharpened our bayonets, were taught hand-to-hand combat and practised crawling long distances on the hard deck.

  Lieutenant Kenny Macdonald was the entertainment officer and he organised inter-regimental competitions between the South Staffords, Hampshire Engineers, Prince Alberts and us. Each of them had about seven hundred men, and although we had only a hundred we acquitted ourselves. There were wheelbarrow races, tugs of war (which we won) plus men balancing on a spar, wielding stuffed canvas sail-bags at their opponents. Those with horse-riding experience were always the best at balancing. It felt like a holiday at times. It was non-stop action and there was not a second to get bored.

  Before we left Glasgow for Southampton, one of the distilleries had donated cases of whisky for the men, and each Friday evening Captain MacDonald would issue a bottle to be shared among eight men – a popular gesture. On those same nights there would be a ceilidh, and the Scouts would lay on a show for the ship’s company. Gaelic songs, a Skye man with the most wonderful voice, four of us pipers doing a sword dance in our kilts, and officers dancing a Regimental foursome.

  As we finally approached land, the decks were packed with men all desperate to see the sights. The navy ratings were begging us all not to stand on one side at the same time, as the ship began to tilt over with the weight. Cape Town harbour was a remarkable sight for us Highland lads. I counted twenty-three ships in the bay, including three hospital ships. There was a tented city as far as the eye could see. Artillery practice was taking place; you could hear the shelling and see a blanket of smoke over towards Table Mountain. A brass band on the pier welcomed the disembarking soldiers, and the horses were led off to their lines. We encountered all sorts of regimental names no one had heard of, such as the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry and Paget’s Horse, as well as many thousands of foreign soldiers: Canadians, Australians, Indian Sikhs. A team of oxen were dragging an enormous gun away from the docks. Our eyes were out on stalks. The entire might of the Imperial Army was massing here to take on only sixty thousand Boer – surely it couldn’t be too difficult?

  I was grateful to have a good friend, a man from Lochielside called Donald Cameron. Known as Cammy, he was one of the older men like myself, and had been in the Cameron Highlanders in his youth. This time, he had signed up as a sergeant in the Scouts. He and I went to look for an old friend of his, Archie Macdonald from the Lord Strathcona’s Horse, the Canadian regiment of rough riders. He had been in the Camerons with Cammy and had emigrated to Canada a decade before. We found him just before they set off to the train station, but they were off that night so there was no time for a blether.

  I had written half a dozen letters to Morag as we didn’t know if we would be able to send or receive post from the Orange Free State, but it was early April before I finally received one from her. Short and to the point it was. She wrote that the weather had been bitter since I’d left but snowdrops were poking up and she was looking forward to the lambing, any day now. Johnny the Bochan had fixed Mairi’s leaking roof and done a couple of other repairs. He liked the craic, and even when there was no whisky on offer he’d stayed talking until she’d had to ease him out with some oatcakes and bramble jam. She was cross with him though, because one of his many collies had had its wicked way with her devoted Sheila, who would now be having puppies in May.

  The Bochan was as randy as his dog and had always had an eye for Morag. He lived by himself over in the west at Sloch, but I knew he’d be over seeking a square meal and more if he was given any encouragement. I was quite sure that Morag had mentioned him in her letter just to keep me on my toes.

  My letters, in contrast, had been pages long, full of as much detail as I could cram in. We had been told our letters would be censored, but I knew Morag and the children would love to hear about the long voyage and later the wildlife – the springboks and gazelles – not to mention the flowering trees, cherry and cacti. I described seeing elephants being used to lift railway sleepers in the port and a chained lion in the street promoting Yellow Lion Brandy. There was so much to convey: the smells, the sights, the weather. Everything was so different from home and I found it impossible to do it justice.

  I knew my letters would be passed around the clachan, read and re-read and so had no place for intimacy. Hers I scanned hopefully for any sign that she was missing me, but there was none. I kissed it nevertheless as I tucked it into my top pocket.

  Chapter 6

  Donald John, Ardnish, 1944

  The door creaks open and in comes Louise, looking crestfallen. ‘Canon MacNeil is away,’ she says, ‘Archbishop MacDonald is at Roybridge, and all the priests from the parish are with him. I was getting on the train at Borrodale and bumped into Aggy, the priest’s housekeeper. She was getting the train to Arisaig but she promised to give John the train driver a message and she said he would make sure it was delivered to Canon MacNeil first thing tomorrow.’ She sits by my bedside, sensing my disappointment. ‘I am really sorry, Donald John. You might have to make do with your son after all.’

  I clasp her hand. ‘Not at all,�
� I say, smiling. ‘You did your best.’

  Angus and Louise smile between themselves; they cannot understand how much this matters to me. Angus hands her a cup of tea. ‘There must be a big army exercise across at Roshven House,’ Louise says, pointing to the window. ‘There are searchlights sweeping across the sky and I heard the sound of aircraft passing overhead. Guns booming, machine guns rattling – did you not hear?’

  Angus goes to the window to peer outside. ‘I thought it was the storm,’ he says. ‘Oh yes, there – I see lights everywhere. There must be half a dozen ships in the bay.’

  ‘Six ships, you say?’ I am astonished.

  ‘Looks like a full-scale war going on over there. You don’t think the Germans are attacking the place?’ Louise ventures nervously.

  ‘Of course not,’ Angus replies soothingly. ‘It will be more training. It will likely be the SOE lot doing a final exercise before a mission.’

  I’m sorry not to be able to go outside and see for myself. Over the last four years Roshven House has had thousands of men training there, and I’ve spent many happy hours on my doorstep sitting in the sun with my telescope trained on the canoes, or the mini submarines. Once there was even a huge battleship in the bay.

  I rest my eyes for a while as Louise prepares the evening meal and am woken by Mairi’s arrival. Father Angus says Mass beforehand as he always does when he is home. They all sit around my bed to eat, though it is just soup for me.

  ‘How is Donald Angus’s love life, Louise? Is he still pining for Françoise?’ This is typical of my son; he likes nothing more than romance and matchmaking.

  ‘Well,’ Louise replies, ‘when we last saw him, he’d been to the Canadian Embassy, the Red Cross, War Office, everywhere, trying to track her down. There’s no record of her being in a prisoner of war camp so he’s trying to stay optimistic. He says that if she’s managed to maintain her cover as being French then no one will have a record of her. But he does think her parents will have had the “missing in action, believed dead” letter from the Canadian military about a year ago now.’

  ‘How distressing for them all,’ Angus says gently. ‘But what is he doing in the Rockies?’

  Louise lays down her plate. ‘All he was able to tell us before he left is that the Lovat Scouts are to do a four-month winter warfare training course in Jasper. The rumour is they may be training to relieve Norway. He was delighted to be going, looking forward to being back with his old friends in the Scouts again after all his time with the SOE.’

  The meal is over and the conversation moves to the subject of replacing the thatch.

  ‘My roof is leaking again,’ Mairi admits. ‘I’ve got buckets and bowls out everywhere.’

  ‘Maybe I could ask the army at Inverailort for some corrugated iron and we could use that instead?’ Angus suggests.

  ‘Oh, please, no,’ Louise cries. ‘Not that stuff. You know the folk up at Morar who swapped their thatch for wriggly tin? They regret it. They told me all the heat goes out through the roof in the winter, the place bakes in the summer, and when it rains or hails there’s such a racket your head hurts and you don’t get a wink of sleep. Even the tin that gets painted with bitumen rusts within a few years. Besides, where would we get new timbers from? The saw at Inverailort Castle must be rusted up from lack of use now, not to mention the fact that there’s no one to do the job anyway.’

  I pull the blankets up to my neck. I am cold, always cold now.

  ‘All you all right, Father?’ Louise asks. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  I shake my head. I won’t sleep much, but I don’t mind. I have my memories.

  ‘Can I give you something to help you sleep?’ Mairi asks.

  ‘Thank you, but no need,’ I reply. I’m feeling my eyelids grow heavy in any case. Mairi is very good with her potions and herbal remedies. She goes up to the lochs in the summer and gathers bogbean after it has flowered, which she then boils in water and bottles. It tastes foul but she insists that a good dose of it keeps you healthy. If you have a burn or sore, she gathers up a lichen called old man’s beard, adds butter and applies it to the wound as a lotion. She has a cure for everything. These days she is feeding me a bitter nettle tea to clear my chest. I pour it away when she isn’t looking. I call her the White Witch of Eriskay to her face.

  Louise on the other hand is a trained nurse. Colonel Willie once told me she was known as ‘the heroine of Sulva’ by the Scouts in Gallipoli during the Great War. She has even won the rare Royal Red Cross Medal. She won’t be having any of Mairi’s magic potion nonsense. They often bicker away happily between themselves.

  But it was Mairi who organised everyone on the peninsula to gather sphagnum moss to help the wounded during the Boer War. She was one of the first to realise its potential, saying they’d been using it on the islands for ever. As cotton was in short supply, the moss proved a great replacement as a blood absorbent. I remember Sheena telling me that the school would have half a day off each Wednesday and the children, plus everyone else around, would go to the bogs and collect the moss. It was laid out to dry, the insects and grass picked out, then it was put into the clean hessian bags we used for the fleeces. It was then sent by puffer to a hospital in Glasgow. By the time of the Great War the Red Cross was organising sphagnum collections all over Scotland, on a huge scale. Even Louise conceded that what she described as ‘all this herbal nonsense’ had been invaluable in Gallipoli.

  Mairi, being an Eriskay native, had ponies in her blood, and as long as she has been at Peanmeanach the people here have been good with them. In the early years she always had a young animal that she would train to behave beautifully and carry all sorts of things: people, deer, panniers and so on. She’d sell the ponies and make good money. Once we had an unruly pony we’d got from some tinkers that kicked out at everyone, but Mairi had it sorted within days. She taught all our children and grandchildren to ride, and the confidence and ability she instilled in them has served them well.

  I open my eyes and see that Angus has my old Mauser rifle in his hands, turning it over and over. He turns to me. ‘Is there ammunition for this, Father?’

  I shake my head. ‘No longer, I’m afraid.’

  Angus seems excited. ‘I reckon I can get some. You never know when a deer might come down to the village. Some venison would come in handy, no doubt.’

  ‘It won’t be me using it, I’m afraid, unless it’s as a crutch,’ I add wryly.

  Colonel Willie brought the gun over after the Boer War when he came to visit me. He thought it might come in useful, and indeed it had been. There had been a steady supply of venison over the years, first with Donald Peter and later his son dragging in a beast at dawn before the stalker, Ewen Fiadhaich, came around.

  I smile at the memory and drift off to sleep.

  Chapter 7

  Donald John, South Africa, 1900

  Training for battle filled the days at the Cape. The Lovat Scouts, just two hundred and thirty-six of us in two companies, were commanded by Major Murray. Our training involved sniping with bolt-action Lee-Metford .303 rifles. We had a telescope per man (known as a ‘glass’ by the stalkers), a slouch hat with one side stitched up and a square of Fraser tartan sewn on it. At Table Mountain, which overlooked the town, some of the more experienced stalkers taught the men how best to move unseen across the hillside, so they could creep up on the enemy position. Lady Lovat had given every man a pocket compass on our last day in Beauly and we practised map reading. Our days ended with a ten-mile run back to camp.

  The view down onto the bay and the military camps was astounding: we could see dozens of ships, miles and miles of canvas tents divided by regiment into distinct encampments or for medical purposes. Those for the Boer prisoners were surrounded by wire and wriggly-tin guard huts. There was a constant wailing from departing trains engulfed in black smoke as they hauled carriages full of fresh recruits to Natal, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, where the war was being fought.

  Our
slow and steady Highland ponies were regrettably taken away from us and quarantined due to the eye infection, and we were instead given Argentinian horses that were fast and a challenge to handle. The men were unhappy about this; many of the Highland ponies had been bred by them and were like beloved family pets. It was chaos for the first few days as the Scouts struggled to master their unbroken Argentinian mounts.

  ‘I think this is my one, och, no, she’s not – mine had a white foot,’ a trooper was heard to say. The men would be dancing in circles with one foot in the stirrup as the horses spun around. The sight of my boss and others charging across the field at great speed, unable to control their horses as the Corporal of Horse bellowed instructions at them was priceless.

  Within a week we were much more adept. I could gallop without being flung around like a sack of potatoes and managed some jumps while holding the reins in one hand and my rifle in the other. At the outset I’d been clinging onto my unfortunate horse’s mane for dear life. Many of the islanders had been brought up doing horse races and they thoroughly enjoyed showing up the rest of us.

  We watched in amazement as the regular cavalry battalions marched or charged in formation, swinging left then right, the officer wielding a sword from his horse, and some even using lances. The Guardsmen had reluctantly been talked out of their red uniforms into khaki like the rest of us and always marched briskly around the camp in step.

  There were almost no women in the whole place apart from a few nurses and those officers’ wives who had followed their husbands out but weren’t allowed north. During the day a mass of black workers moved stores and laboured on the roads and railway, but in the evenings they were forbidden from entering the centre of the city and banished to the outskirts.

  What we didn’t know then was quite how different the South African war would be from any that had gone before.