Isolation Shepherd (eBook)

BY STORM TO STRATHMORE

A southwesterly gale and heavy showers swept down Loch Monar. It had been blowing and raining since the previous day. Though summer storms are not infrequent in the high hill country of the Highlands, this one was severe. The Spray, a clinker-built 26-foot ex-ship’s lifeboat was to demonstrate her qualities in dealing with rough conditions as we left the shelter of the ‘narrows’ at the east end of the loch. Head on she met the full force of the weather in the wider open waters. Her cargo that particular day, 13 August 1956, was my family, flitting, destined for a new home six and a half miles of stormy loch westwards from Monar. Here, cradled in remoteness and grandeur at the upper reaches of Glen Strathfarrar, lay Strathmore.

We were quickly to learn that the wave action on large fresh water lochs is quite unlike that of the sea. Wave follows wave in quick succession, deep troughs and sharp breaking tops make dangerous conditions especially as a boat lacks the buoyancy it would have in salt water.

Iain MacKay leaned over the tiller. The Spray drove into a press of surging water. Shielding my eyes I stared ahead. White rolling tops stretched to the grey indistinction of storm-swept hills. Astern, the long streaked wave backs heaved powerfully away from us. Capricious gusts, sometimes snatching the crumbling crests, threw spiralling sheets of water to meet the rain. Our world shrank to simple elements: raging and shrieking, warning or welcome. Gone the false world of human progress; I felt the first thrill of wild isolation.

Handling the heavily loaded launch required skill. Occasionally bursting through the crest of a viciously curling wave she would crash into the following trough with a solid thud which shuddered the whole length other timbers. Arched sheets of water shot into the air to be caught and hurled across the huddle of us crouched at the stern.

Sometimes a broader wave would lift the stern until the propeller almost cleared the water allowing the four-cylinder engine to rev and clatter alarmingly. Rising to the next wave, the propeller dug deep, biting much water. The engine dropped to a sickening struggle. With a hint of unspoken concern Iain would give her more throttle. Should the engine stall in such heavy conditions and the Spray turn broadside, well, we preferred not to think.

Violent gusts bore down on us, whipping rain and spume into our screwed eyes. The two MacKay brothers and myself were bent oilskinned figures in the exposed engine cockpit. Green tarpaulins running with water covered our worldly belongings in the centre well of the boat. Across them I glanced at the family. They sat apprehensively under the open-fronted hood which served as a cabin two-thirds of the way forward. I had visited Monar some weeks previously when first engaged as shepherd but this was my family’s initiation to a wind-tossed lonely world and perhaps the more fearsome for Betty as she was unable to swim. To my relief I saw that under a shawl she was quietly feeding Hector our ten day old baby. Alison, his two-year-old sister sat close to her mother, wide-eyed but silent.

The passage west to Strathmore, due to the conditions that day, took about an hour and a half whereas a trip up the loch in fair weather could be done by the Spray in forty minutes. Little was to be seen of the majestic hills, only fleeting glimpses of black and green betokened their massive presence as mist and cloud, swirling low before the westerly blast, clawed across their aristocratic faces.

The loch was in high flood. This added power to the waves as we surged westwards towards a line of breakers stretching across the head of these open waters. I could see the reason for these rough conditions was a sandbank, a natural formation which reached out from the south side of the loch in a sweeping curve to within forty yards of the north shore. A spit of sparkling mica sand, it generally showed well clear of the water level. On normal days a feat of navigation was required to negotiate this narrow channel, or ‘the corran’ as we called it. A dog-legged swing past an iron standard marker veered one’s boat hard towards the north bank before a smart turn avoided apparent disaster and the tricky passage afforded access to the head of the loch.

Young Kenny MacKay took the handkerchief from about his throat, ‘We’ll not be needing to use the corran today,’ he said, wiping his face. ‘The level must be eight feet up and the half of it feels down my neck.’

Trusting their judgement, the boys stood the boat into the heavy breakers. A moment hung tense. Would we strike? Twenty yards, spray and violent motion; I saw the boys relax, we were across the shallows.

Astern of us I spotted the Monar launch making up at speed. She sliced into the waves throwing water aside in fine ‘clipper’ style. A fast, sound boat, again clinker built, but lacking the beam of the Spray she was not so suitable for cargo. Allan Fleming the Monar keeper, Mr. Roderick Stirling my new employer and ‘Big Bob’ Cameron the ghillie were aboard her. Their deerstalker bonnets bobbed above the cabin roof as they too judged the depth of the sandbank before sailing over it.

As Iain slowed the Spray as much as he dared, I looked about me. To our north the few buildings at Strathmore came into view. The usual landing, a wooden pier and zinc-roofed boathouse normally at the water’s edge, stood awash, waves at its rafters. The small, intimate, stone-built shooting lodge, surrounded with birch and pine was reached by a path leading up from the pier. It looked dank and empty. Some few hundred yards further along the pathway, beyond the swaying lodge plantation, stood the tiny shepherd’s house. Benefiting from a few faithful birch trees, it was still rather exposed being built within a croft of a few acres and away from the old homestead. Sheep fanks, barn and byre were nearby, stable and bothy perched on a pine-clad knoll overlooking the croftland. It became our home for the next four years.

Betty looked out uneasily at the sparse scene, glimpsing through still-driving squalls the steep threatening hills that leaned imposingly over Strathmore. Heightened by scudding mists, dark and uninviting, they jeered down a challenge to our intrusion.

The Monar launch drew alongside; bobbing and heaving the boats lay abeam. Conversation crossed in hand-cupped shouts.

‘Not a chance of the pier today, boys, what about trying the lochan below the house?’ young Kenny yelled against the noise of gale and engine. Only catching the odd word, ‘Head up below the house,’ Allan bawled back moving off his launch to feel his way into the channel leading to the ‘wee loch’. Round from the boathouse I saw that the flood stretched through croft and fences almost to the house. In dry conditions a channel did exist but could only be entered with difficulty in a rowing boat. There was no such obvious passage now, just a sheet of tossing water.

Ahead we watched the Monar boat enter the bay without grounding and run her bow hard in on the grassy banks only eighty yards below the cottage. Big Bob leapt ashore with a rope and made secure. In the more heavily laden boat we moved with extreme caution, submerged rocks being Iain’s concern. Edging in with steerage, no more, all well, then a slight lurch and hesitation. We looked sharply at each other: ‘hidden peat hag?’ A few more yards, we waited. Too late, with a sudden heel she grounded.

In the mischievious way of the weather, the gale found fresh vigour. Immediately the Spray began to swing across the channel. Iain spun the engine into reverse. Following Kenny I sprang out of the cockpit. Balancing up the deck we grabbed oar and boathook from the hold. Betty looked alarmed. Poles down into the mud we heaved and strained to help the engine. For minutes nothing happened, a heavier wave passed under us, we swung broadside to the channel, then mercifully, slowly, almost reluctantly, she slid off the bank. Both of us were now to one side pushing the bow back on course. At engine and tiller, Iain set us moving again towards the group now ashore.

Twenty yards out from the water’s edge, and without warning, we struck again. Drawing so much water this would be as close in as we could get. Turning slowly we lay wallowing in each wave. The unrelenting rain hissed on the water. Nothing for it, without word or hesitation, Kenny went over the side. Chest deep he waded out with the bow rope. Taking his example I plunged in with a stem rope and together we secured the boat. My family peered out from the shelter of the hood, doubtful of their fate. Iain laughed, ‘This is the terminus, tickets please.’

Joining the Monar group now almost as wet as Kenny and myself, this was not a day for ‘newsing’. Allan hid a smile as water squirted out of our Wellingtons, ‘Ah well, you’re getting wet, boys,’ he sympathised with a grave tone, going on to explain, ‘Bob’s away for the cartie, not a day for the pony, we’ll just make do with the big chap.’

Big Bob wasted no time and appeared trotting down the croft, his lanky form between the ‘trams’ of a rubber-wheeled horse cart. ‘I’d rather be a pony here than a ghillie,’ he panted, obviously alluding to Dandy, who doubtless, was knowingly snug in the Pait stable, unable to be swum over the sandbank thanks to the flood. Bob, a tall, broad-shouldered man was singularly powerful, nor did he spare himself. Keeping the cart’s back chain over his shoulders he reversed it down into the water towards the side of the Spray. In the last few yards the light contraption began to float. With...