The Skylark's Secret(17)

Flora smiled at the words, clearly repeated verbatim. ‘Well, it’s a good day for it. How would you like to give me a hand getting the last of these tatties out of the ground? And then we can find you a glass of milk and maybe a bit of bannock indoors?’

Two heads nodded and they came up the path to where she stood.

‘Can you manage the fork, Stuart? Dig like this, see? If you just turn the ground over, David and I can gather the tatties into the pail.’

She smiled at their amazement as the first forkful unearthed a heap of potatoes. ‘Get them all up, that’s it. Don’t bother to rub the soil off, it helps them keep.’

With the two extra pairs of hands, the rows were quickly harvested. By the time they’d finished, the boys’ cheeks glowed with their exertions and the sea air.

Flora set aside a handful of potatoes and dug up a couple of neeps to take into the kitchen. Once boiled and mashed, they would accompany the venison stew that she’d prepared earlier, which simmered slowly on the stove so it’d be ready for her father’s supper when he came off the hill.

She ushered the boys into the cottage. ‘We’ll leave our boots at the door, that’s it. And then let’s wash the dirt off our hands.’

Sitting at the kitchen table, the boys seemed to relax a little as she set cups of milk down in front of them. ‘There you go. You’ve earned that.’ She buttered wedges of oatmeal bannock and spread them thickly with bramble jam before passing them across.

Stuart took a bite and washed it down with a gulp from his cup. ‘Mmm, that’s good. Our mam used to make bannock sometimes. But at Mrs Carmichael’s we mostly just get bread and dripping.’

‘So are you settling in all right? It must be a big change for you, coming away from the city.’

‘Davy doesn’t like the dark. The house is awful big and there’s all sorts of noises in the night. School’s nice here, though. We’re all in the one room, so I can look out for him and make sure the other boys don’t bother him.’

‘Do they bother you?’ Flora asked.

‘No, not really. It was worse in my old school. But it was easier to bunk off there, ’cause no one really paid any notice. We tried bunking off here one day, but Mr Carmichael was putting up notices about what to do if the air-raid sirens go and he saw us fishing off the jetty and gave us a skelping. We’d to go straight back to school and apologise to Miss Anderson.’

Trying to keep a straight face, Flora said, ‘Well, you do need to go to school. My brother always wanted to be out fishing, too, but he knew to do it at the weekends and in the holidays.’

‘Where’s your brother now, miss?’

‘He’s in the navy. Off on one of those ships out there.’ She had no idea where Ruaridh was at the moment. She hoped he was moored up safely, and she tried not to think of him patrolling the hostile northerly waters where U-boats lurked unseen in the depths.

‘I want to join the navy when I’m grown,’ Stuart said. ‘Davy can come, too, and we’ll be on a ship together. Maybe we can be on the same ship as your brother.’

‘Well, maybe. As long as you stick at your studies. You’ll need to know all sorts of things if you’re to join up.’

She cut them each another slice of bannock and refilled their cups, recalling how Ruaridh and Alec had sat at the table just like this at the same age, wolfing down their food before running back outside to continue whatever adventure they’d embarked upon that day. She was just reaching again for the pot of jam when a muffled boom made them all turn towards the window.

‘What was that?’ Davy asked, startled into finding his voice at last.

‘Was it a bomb, miss? Are the Germans invading?’

Flora peered out across the loch, but couldn’t see any obvious signs of an explosion at first. As she watched, though, a plume of dark smoke appeared out beyond the island, and several ships were changing course, heading in the direction of the mouth of the loch.

‘I don’t think so. But something’s going on. Don’t worry,’ she said, catching sight of the fear on Davy’s face. ‘We’re better protected here than pretty much anywhere else in the country. The navy will look after us. Let’s put our boots on and go and see what’s happened. Here, you can take this with you to eat on the way. Don’t let it spoil your lunch, though, or Mrs Carmichael will be after me!’

There was a buzz of activity around the loch, but it was impossible to make out exactly what was going on. The main focus seemed to be on a point out beyond the mouth of the loch, obscured by the island. They walked towards the jetty, overtaken by a series of military vehicles that sped past them in the same direction.

A small crowd had gathered near the pier. Flora caught sight of Bridie and Mairi in the throng. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘They say it’s the Nelson. She’s hit a mine.’

A jolt of panic flooded Flora’s veins. Alec’s ship. ‘How bad is it? Has she sunk?’

‘Don’t think so.’ Bridie shrugged. ‘But the ship’s holed. It’s going to take them a while to bring her in.’

Flora blanched at the sight of a fleet of ambulances driving fast along the road from the camp. They pulled up at the end of the jetty and several uniformed men jumped out, hurrying to throw medical supplies and equipment into a waiting launch. They clambered down the ladder on the harbour wall and the boat sped out into the loch as soon as the last of them had taken his seat.