The Skylark's Secret(42)
One of the planes took a hit, lurching and then wheeling off to the north-west, and then another shell exploded close to a second plane that also swerved off towards the Minch, a pall of black smoke obscuring its tail.
It looked as if the gun batteries had managed to disperse the attack but then, to Flora’s horror, a fifth plane appeared, its engines silenced, coming in on a flight path that was straight and low while the ack-ack guns were trained on the decoys elsewhere. It let loose its bombs over the ships out in the bay. The explosions made the walls of the cottage shudder and sent a plume of smoke and water high into the air above the loch. Then all the remaining planes banked and turned, climbing rapidly into the night sky, the sound of their engines fading as they fled. She peered into the darkness, straining her eyes for any glimpse of flames.
As the guns fell silent, she padded to the front door, opening it a crack and peering out. Her father and brother appeared in the hallway behind her in their pyjamas.
‘What’s the damage?’ Ruaridh asked.
‘It’s too dark, I can’t see clearly. But thankfully the bombs don’t seem to have made a direct hit. I can’t see anything’s been set on fire, at least.’
‘Best shut that door, lass,’ her father said. ‘You don’t want to be standing there if those planes come back for a second go.’ He turned to Ruaridh. ‘Looks like Jerry has discovered what Loch Ewe’s been hiding. Perhaps we’d better get that Anderson shelter built after all.’
Alec came to find Flora at the base the next day and they walked along the shore a little way. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were all all right,’ he said. ‘No damage done at the cottage? The bomb blast brought down a chunk of the ceiling in the dining room at the house. Ma was quite shaken, but my father is more annoyed about the cost of replacing the plasterwork and where on earth he’s going to find someone who can restore such intricate cornicing these days.’
‘Have you heard what happened?’ Flora asked.
Alec nodded. ‘One of the supply ships had a near miss, which did some damage, although luckily there were no casualties.’ He grinned. ‘Looks like Jerry mistook his target in the dark, because the only thing to take a direct hit were the rocks at the top of the island where the boom net is fixed. Their shape makes them look a bit like a boat.’ His attention was caught by something in the sky towards the far horizon, and his expression grew serious.
Following his gaze, Flora shielded her eyes with her hand, just able to make out a dark speck against the dazzle of sunshine. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘A buzzard? Or an eagle, maybe?’
He shook his head. ‘An eagle doesn’t fly in a dead straight line like that. It could be a reconnaissance plane. I need to go and report it, in case the lookouts haven’t radioed it in already. Tell your dad you’d best take shelter tonight. I reckon last night was just the beginning.’
Sure enough, over the next weeks German planes reappeared sporadically in the summer skies over Loch Ewe. Mostly they came at night and were seen off by the ack-ack guns, whose crews became adept at chasing away the attackers. But one afternoon, when Flora was returning from driving the commander from the base at Aultbea to the officer’s quarters down the loch at Pool House, she had to pull in and take cover beneath the branches of a pine tree when a lone German plane swooped from out of nowhere over the loch.
She pressed a hand to her mouth in horror as it flew low over the schoolhouse where the children were out playing in the yard. But to her astonishment, the pilot seemed to feather back his engines and dip his wings in a cheery salute, leaving the shocked schoolchildren frozen as the headmaster shouted frantically at them to get back inside.
Turning westwards, the plane’s engines roared back to life as the anti-aircraft guns began to fire. As if in slow motion, two bombs fell from the belly of the aircraft, engulfing one of the merchant ships moored beyond the island. As the plane disappeared beyond the hills, Flora leapt into the car and sped back to the base, from where a rescue operation was being launched to pick up the survivors from the stricken vessel, whose back had been broken by the blast.
After that final incident, though, it seemed the Luftwaffe found other, more pressing targets to pursue on the Russian front, and the air raids stopped. Which, as Alec later commented, was extremely ironic, as just a few days after the last raid, Loch Ewe was formally designated as an official naval base to be known as HMS Helicon.
‘What on earth . . . ? Look at that,’ Alec said, pausing to catch his breath.
He, Ruaridh and Flora had hiked into the hills one October afternoon to help her father stalk a hind. The game larder was empty and Sir Charles had no shooting parties organised until December, when friends would come to shoot game birds in time for their Christmas tables. So Iain had asked Ruaridh and Flora to lend a hand with the day’s hunting, with Flora in the role of pony ghillie leading the garron and Ruaridh helping with the guns. Alec, having heard about the outing from Flora, was keen to come too.
Below them, in the field that bordered the loch beside the local telephone exchange, a squadron of RAF technicians were busy inflating a huge silver balloon. As it filled with hydrogen it began to swell and lift away from the grass, turning its nose towards the water as the wind caught its fins. The men battled to keep hold of it until it was full enough with gas to be released skywards, bobbing at the end of the long wires that tethered it to the ground.