We Fought for Ardnish Page 5

  ‘It was a man from near Ardnish who made McGill what it is,’ I said impulsively, in an attempt to appear sophisticated.

  ‘Really?’ Françoise sounded sceptical.

  ‘Honestly. A hundred years ago, John MacDonald of Glenaladale emigrated to Prince Edward Island. His grandson William was based in Montreal. He was knighted and became the richest man in Canada. I think McGill had been all about agriculture before he became involved, but he introduced science, mathematics, engineering, that sort of thing. Have you heard of MacDonald tobacco?’

  Françoise nodded.

  ‘Well, that was his company.’

  ‘Oh, you’re such a knowledgeable man, Angus Gillies,’ she teased. Somehow I felt quite the opposite when she said this.

  ‘Actually, my name is Donald Angus Gillies. At home it’s usually Donald Angus but the army dropped the Donald bit.’ I smiled. ‘My father was Donald Peter, my grandfather Donald John – we aren’t very imaginative with names in the Highlands. You can call me Angus, or even Angie, as my grandmother sometimes does, if you want. It’s Donald with everything in my parts. There are even girls called Donaldina.’ I felt a bit embarrassed saying all this, certain that Françoise would think us parochial.

  ‘I did have a field name but one day I blurted out my real name by mistake, so now I’m Angus to everyone.’

  Françoise laughed, delighted at my admission. ‘Well, we French aren’t much better; every family has a Jean-something, a Jean-Pierre or Jean-Charles. So, you see, Donald Angus, I do understand.’

  We’d been going hard for over ten hours and were running on empty, as the army lorry drivers would say, but when we finally caught sight of the kerosene lights through the windows of Claude’s farmhouse we whooped with joy.

  Chapter 3

  We received a warm welcome and then devoured a mountain of chicken stew, washed down with jugs of wine. The room was dark, and my eyes stung from the fug of smoke from cigarettes and the crackling log fire. I struggled to stay awake as Claude and his wife Marie chatted to Françoise in French, talking too fast for me to understand much. I had sent a Morse message to report that we had arrived safely. The Germans had recently adopted direction-finding vehicles to identify the locations of radio transmitters so I kept it as brief as possible.

  Claude was keen to talk about his group and the plan but I had hit a brick wall. ‘Tomorrow, my friend, please, tomorrow,’ I begged him before collapsing on an armchair under a heap of blankets.

  I slept soundly, awoke refreshed, and the next morning got straight down to work. We had been joined by four men from Claude’s team who were sitting around the kitchen table sipping strong black coffee. ‘Thank God for the American coffee,’ Claude declared. ‘It’s their biggest contribution to the war!’

  I had already told the others that the first mission was to close the pass from Sallanches up to Chamonix. We had a week. Claude and I had worked on this plan already and his team had plenty of additional information to share. I would then retrace my steps over the mountain to carry out my next mission, which was to close the Great St Bernard Pass so that the Italians couldn’t use it to bring tanks and supply vehicles into Switzerland in the spring. The War Office was convinced that an invasion of Switzerland was imminent: the Germans saw it as a hiding place not only for those attacking Hitler’s armies but also for Jews and the wealth of the immensely rich – gold that could be used to shore up their rapidly emptying coffers.

  With his round, unshaven face, bronzed by half a century of sun and brandy, and black beret, not to mention the Gauloise that dangled permanently from his mouth, Claude was a veritable vision of Frenchness. His rough, swarthy appearance belied his dry sense of humour and fierce intellect. I liked him from the moment I met him. When he said something, people listened. He was the perfect leader of a Maquis team.

  During a lull in our planning I found myself thinking about my friend Michael Gubbins, who had been their SOE contact before me. He’d been at Claude and Marie’s home twice, weapons training with the men and planning sabotage operations.

  Michael and I had been in Lochailort together and met in the inn there before I left for France, so he could give me a final informal briefing over a pint. We were always happy to get together, and he made me laugh like no one else. Tears would often pour down my face as he told me some ridiculous story or other. He was also, of course, an impressive soldier.

  He told me Claude was a clever man, much respected, but that he was too old and unfit now to get actively involved. His sidekick, Charles, was capable but quiet. He had been in the Chasseurs Alpins – an elite infantry unit who were used to the mountains and all their challenges and had a knowledge of guns and military discipline. Claude’s men were rather scruffy, untrained mountain types – ‘Rather like you, Angus,’ he’d teased me. He told me that when he had gone to France the first time, a year before, there had been only eight Maquis, spread across a wide area, but now many more men were joining. Although these raw recruits had no training or any idea how best to go about their role, every one of them was ‘up for a scrap – just like you Scots’.

  Michael had taken some of them down to the valley where they’d blown up a small power station and a railway track. Suddenly, they became like boys with new toys. It was all Michael could do to stop them blowing up everything they came across. Getting them to turn up on time, with the right equipment, and to listen to instructions had been a challenge, because if they had a sickly child, or a cow that needed milking, that always took priority. But he assured me that they were good men, and loyal. He ended his briefing by raising his glass to me – ‘Sláinte’ – and wishing me all the luck in the world.

  After our arrival at Les Contamines, the snow fell for two solid days. There must have been three feet of it outside as Françoise and I sat chatting over morning coffee and hunks of delicious fresh bread, warm from the oven. Claude and Marie were out in the yard attending to the livestock, and his men were still asleep. We’d spent the last two days in intensive discussion about strategy, and everyone was exhausted.

  It felt good to be alone with Françoise for a while.

  ‘So, you’ve always known where your family comes from?’ she asked.

  ‘Just about. I could tell you the story if you like?’

  ‘Go on then,’ she replied.

  ‘Very well, and then I want you to tell me about your mission.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘You know I can’t do that, Angus. It’s safer for everyone. I can’t compromise the mission – it’s too important.’

  She was right, of course, though I longed to know what she was up to. But Françoise was a woman who would not yield on anything.

  I held my hands up in surrender, and began my story. ‘Well, the men in my family are the hereditary bagpipers for the MacDonalds of Clanranald and were there in 1715 when the chief burned down Castle Tioram to stop the English capturing it . . .’

  ‘I’m lost already!’ Françoise exclaimed. ‘Clanranald? What chief?’

  ‘The chief, centuries ago, was seen as the father of the clan, of the extended family. He would provide protection and a livelihood for his people, and in return they would work and fight for him. Clanranald was our chief. My great-great-grandfather Ronald was born in the 1770s, not many years after Bonnie Prince Charlie landed at Loch na Uamh, to the back of Ardnish. His father had gone with his bagpipes to meet the prince and had travelled with him to Kinloch Moidart, then up Loch Shiel to Glenfinnan, where he stood at the front of the boat and piped as it was rowed up the loch to meet the Camerons and the MacDonalds, who had mustered to try to defeat the Hanoverians and drive them from Scotland.

  ‘Ronald was known as “the bard”, which means poet or storyteller, and he wrote two books that are held in university collections in Edinburgh. He was well known throughout the whole country and used to travel the Highlands giving renditions, as they’re now called. He loved the craic.’

  I noticed her blank expression. ‘He loved a g
ood story.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Once a professor came to visit us, looking for a copy of these books. In fact, we had one of each, which my grandmother had given us, with stern words never to part with them. I remember my grandfather saying to this professor that he was welcome to read the books but he would have to do so in the house. That’s how precious they were to us. They were kept on a shelf beside the issue of the Oban Times that described my grandmother’s rescue of the people of St Kilda – but that’s a story for another time! You should see them, Françoise – well thumbed from handling over the years and discoloured from the damp. Ronald’s first is a book of songs about the people and way of life around Arisaig, and the second is a collection of poems along the same theme – both in Gaelic.’

  ‘Did he make a living from his writing?’ Françoise asked.

  ‘He was a fisherman first, and after that a drover, taking cattle across country to the auctions in Stirling. I remember a family friend who had spent her youth in the West Highlands saying, “There, every man is a hunter, a fisher and a steersman, there is a musician in every house and a poet in every hamlet.” Ronald MacDonald was all of these. When I was little my grandfather would tell me droving tales. On one of the last big cattle droves, there was almost a thousand head of cattle gathered together at Corriechoillie by Spean Bridge, southeast of Ardnish. They were then driven over the hills to the auction house of Falkirk which lay a hundred miles south. “You should have seen the sight of it,” Grandfather said. “Cattle stretched out mile after mile along the glen as the beasts wound their way to the auction, then from there to the pastures of the south and eventually to the tables of those who could afford to eat beef.” According to him, the last of the great drovers was a man called John Cameron. He was known, as people in the Highlands often are, by the name of his property, Corriechoillie. He was a crofter in Brae Roy and he used to drive the laird’s cattle for him, and for others, too, on occasion. Over the years he would expand further and further afield, sending men off to places such as Skye and Badenoch to collect cattle. When he died he could rest the animals on his own land from Glenelg to the Stirling auctions. A truly self-made man.’

  ‘Such beautiful names.’ Françoise smiled.

  ‘But a hard life. My great-great-grandfather worked for Corriechoillie for many years. Wrapped up in his plaid while blizzards blew around him, often spending a week on the drove in hard rain, soaked through day and night. He was said to dunk his plaid in the burn as it was warmer when wet.’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to make sense now but my grandfather assured me it was commonplace a hundred years ago. Drovers often died when the weather got desperately bad. Grandfather had a story about a big avalanche of wet snow on the track through to the head of Loch Treig. There had been heavy snow for two days at the start of the week and the drove had been delayed. They had left the south of Skye two weeks before, swum the beasts across the narrows at Glenelg and had been gathering animals as they went along. The beasts had to be at Stirling within the month or they would miss the sale, and if that happened they would have to stay down, at great expense, until the next auction. After lunch one day the weather cleared and it grew unexpectedly warm for the time of the year. The snow turned to slush and Corriechoillie decided to get the cattle moving as quickly as possible up through the pass of Lairig Leacach, always a slow haul. But just before dark, with only a couple of miles to go before they were through and safely on the flat area towards Rannoch Moor, there was a sudden whoosh and the whole hillside of two-foot-thick snow came tumbling onto the pass. There were at least forty beasts trapped under it and Ewan Kennedy, a man from Loch Lochy. Everyone rushed to help, but what with the dark and all those injured cattle thrashing about, he was long dead when he was found.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘The drove was called off and they left the beasts at the lochside for a few days under the eye of a couple of youngsters while they carried Ewan’s body back to his widow. Corriechoillie was a kind gentleman and we heard he settled a sum on Mrs Kennedy to see her by despite its being Ewan’s first time on the drove.’

  ‘What about Ronald?’ Françoise asked.

  ‘He had been there at the time. My grandfather believes it must have been during these days of the droving that he became the poet and bard. I can imagine it; with a good fire, a long night, a bottle of whisky and plenty of time to practise. Of course, with the good schooling we have now it’s difficult to remember that he couldn’t read and write as a child. He would have been helping with milking or thatching as soon as he could walk. It wasn’t until my grandfather’s days that children got any education. It’s so hard to believe – my grandmother is such a bookworm. But Ronald was thirty before he learned to read and write. He and Corriechoillie were taught together by Father John, the priest in Roybridge. He never learned English, though. He used to say, “What need would I have of it? The cows and my dogs speak the Gaelic in any case.” ’

  While I was relating these stories I once more realised how self-conscious I was becoming. Françoise was from an educated family and I was painfully aware of my shortcomings.

  ‘You know,’ she said, sensing my discomfort, ‘there is a difference between being intelligent and having common sense and being educated. It’s far better being the former. The way I see it, you wouldn’t have been promoted from a private to a sergeant in four years if you didn’t have intelligence. And your ability to pick up French is impressive.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that,’ I replied. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You come from an interesting family,’ she said with a smile. ‘You’re right to be proud of it. Writers and musicians, soldiers and farmers. Do you play the bagpipes yourself?’

  I smiled; it was my favourite subject. ‘I couldn’t not,’ I joked. ‘Grandfather taught me mainly. He still plays the chanter every day, but he complains that he can’t remember the tunes and that his fingers are stiff. I’m told my father was a gifted player, too. It was one of the first things my mother learned about him – that he was a renowned piper. I was a piper in the Lovat Scouts in the Faroe Islands before joining the SOE.’

  ‘My goodness, Angus, what a fascinating man you are!’

  Claude came in, rubbing his hands. He seemed agitated. ‘Angus, my cow is not feeding her calf. Could you come and have a look?’

  ‘Of course.’ I stood up, jolted back to the present. ‘Don’t forget you have a wireless call at five tonight,’ I reminded Françoise. ‘Maybe you’ll get your instructions for your mission.’ The thought filled me with foreboding.

  Later, Françoise was on the transmitter for just two minutes. She came back into the room with an announcement: ‘I’m off the day after next if the roads are clear. Claude, I’ll need four people for two days – it would be helpful if two were women. Can you help? They’ll need to stay here overnight, and we’ll head in the morning before dawn. I can brief everyone fully tomorrow night.’

  ‘It should be possible,’ Claude replied. Later, Claude, Marie, Françoise and I sat in front of the fire after another delicious supper of braised rabbit and root vegetables, with a bottle of brandy doing the rounds.

  ‘Our friend Michael is a good friend of yours, too, isn’t he?’ Marie asked me.

  ‘He is indeed. We trained together at Arisaig and we know each other’s families. He’s on a mission now, not sure where. His father is our boss.’ I indicated Françoise.

  ‘Really? Who?’ asked Françoise, surprised.

  ‘Brigadier Gubbins,’ I replied.

  Françoise nodded. ‘Oh yes. I’ve heard of him.’

  ‘So what made you join the army, Angus?’ Claude asked.

  I took a sip of my brandy, and in my less than perfect French began. ‘My father and the generations before him had no choice except to join the army; it was their only means of earning a living. But I had no plans to take the King’s shilling once I knew I would have the tenancy of
a three-thousand-acre farm that would support me and my family well. I was only seventeen when I got it.

  ‘When I first found out that war looked likely, I was at the auction mart at our local town, Fort William, selling some sheep with my grandparents. We were at the bar, which was where everyone met to celebrate good lamb prices or commiserate on bad ones. My grandfather’s old ally, my godfather Colonel Willie MacDonald was there, too. Now Colonel Willie has always been very good to me and it was he who stood surety for the lease of my farm.

  ‘Anyway, he told my grandfather that they were recruiting again, that we should make sure it would be the Lovat Scouts and not the Camerons. “My goodness,” Grandfather said, “you had my signature for the Boer War, and now you’re wanting me again? Me with only one leg and over my seventies?” ’

  Everyone laughed as I mimicked my grandfather’s voice. ‘Of course Willie roared with laughter and said, “Away with yourself! It’s young Donald Angus I’ll be having.” My grandmother protested that farming would be vital for food production and I ought to be exempt from conscription, but this was brushed off. In truth I didn’t wish to argue with the colonel. I was keen to get out and see the world. Ardnish is a quiet place for a young man, and I was content knowing that I would have the rest of my life ahead of me there.

  ‘The colonel told us I’d be with his son, Andrew. He was at Mons doing cavalry training and would join the regiment shortly. He said we could look after each other, just like my grandfather had done for him in South Africa.’

  ‘Your poor mother,’ Marie said.

  ‘Indeed. The journey back to Ardnish was tense as I knew my mother would be very upset. There were tears at dinner, and I remember my grandmother wailing to my grandfather that war had taken his son, his leg and the best years of his life, and now it was taking me. I tried to reassure her, but it was a sad evening . . . very sad.’