Authors: Iain R. Thomson
A man wearing a safety jacket and yellow helmet confronted me at the door. “You live here, mate?” his question expressed a note of incredulity. I nodded. “Bloody hell, in this ruin?” he attempted to look past me. Eilidh, carrying the boy, appeared at my elbow. Astonishment registered on his face, “Pardon the language lady, but Christ Almighty you don't live with a nipper in this, this?” He considered his words, “Is it not a bit of an outlandish dump of an island?” The coldness in Eilidh's blue eyes seemed lost on the man. He shook his head in apparent amazement.
All day the airlift had continued. Heavy plant arrived, earth moving machinery, dump trucks, all manner of equipment was slung onto the machair. Teams of men landed. What appeared to be construction material was unloaded from the containers before helicopters whisked empty boxes aloft and disappeared back over the shoulder of the hill. We could only watch in disbelief. This was no army exercise. Our work about the croft halted. I'd been down checking the boat in the early morning and had sat awhile contemplating the fish cages and now a village of steel containers.” It's final decision time,” I'd said to Eilidh at breakfast. Equally despondent she'd agreed.
Whatever might be this man's authority in the fast developing scene, he stood on the doorstep as though attempting to come to terms with finding us here. “They gave me to understand the island was unoccupied.” “Well it's certainly not,” I spoke for the first time. The construction foreman, or whatever might be his role in this invasion, dropped his gaze and speaking deliberately, “You have a problem. My instructions are to site our workers camp kitchen right here, and pronto. This house has to go.” “Go, go where?” harshness sharpened Eilidh's voice. The man swung round on his heel and speaking over his shoulder, “Into the ground lady, tomorrow. Sorry, but that's my orders. Please yourselves.” Dumfounded though we were Eilidh reacted, “You'll need brute force to get us out,” she called after him. Stopping at ten paces, he looked back, “We'll see.”
Back in the kitchen I hugged the girl, waltzed them both round the room, desperate as our prospects had become, we laughed. Eilidh's eyes glinted, wild with fight, “They'll need to attack us with a bulldozer.” The visitor's threat served to raise our fighting spirit. We'd sit it out, see what happened. Lunch was eaten to the drone of heavy diesel generators, by four in the afternoon gangs of halogen lights blazed over the machair. Last thing at night I stood on the doorstep. Headlights illuminated the hillside, diggers and earth moving machines were in operation. Talk, talk, and try to sleep, it's either some projected military base or a major wind farm we decided. Men on shifts worked round the clock and darkness pounded with engines.
First light, I came hurrying back indoors, “They've cut through our fences, there's yards of it ripped apart. The machines are starting to drive a road up the hillside, all the sheep are out on the hill.” Eachan was getting his morning feed, her stoic comment surprised me. “There's plenty grazing for them, they'll be happy on the fresh ground and if we don't remove them,” she smiled, “good luck to them, Sandray's their home.”
Another two days passed. By choice we remained virtual prisoners at the house. Our initial cheer began to wane. Disgust was telling. The contents of the containers, to much hoisting and hammering, became accommodation units, squat prefabricated buildings. Vehicles roared about, tearing up centuries of wild flower grassland and nesting homes. Bulldozers skimming the turf pushed it and piled it onto the dunes, we presumed to create a windbreak for what was fast becoming a village of huts. The scale and speed of the operation left us dazed, not least by the loudness of its range of noises. Any sounds of the sea were lost. More astoundingly, by afternoon we could see machinery being landed on the Hill of the Shroud. A beacon of change, that night its plateau blazed under a gantry of ark lights which obliterated the stars.
Eilidh pleaded with me not to climb to the hill, but late the following morning I was determined. We were witnessing no ordinary development, this was something totally different. It demanded that I confirm my strong suspicions. In shepherd style, Muille trotting at heel, I strode off. A massive gouge in the land was already winding its way up the hillside. Ahead of us four machines were grinding and tearing. Steel screeched rock, huge blades flashing in the early sunlight heaved heather and boulder aside. One moment I could smell fresh earth, the next a billow of diesel fumes poured down on me. A dozer driver lifted his hand. I waved back, though chose not to walk on the scar they were creating.
Rounding the shoulder I climbed the last few hundred feet and onto the hill's broad summit. Machines were busy scraping its surface down to bare rock. Vast amounts of spoil had already been bulldozed over the ravens' crag to form a heap about its base. A thin carpet of moss and alpine plants hugging the ground to beat an Atlantic gale were no match for a steel blade and two hundred horsepower. I stood on the edge of a hilltop, torn and bleeding, aghast at the power of machines to destroy in a few hours ten thousand years of nature's moulding.
On the far side of the cleared area a group of men in yellow safety helmets seemed engrossed in conversation around a small fat man waving his arms, minus a helmet, I noticed. At a little distance from them a helicopter sat parked, its blades drooping as a dragon fly might alight on a summer pond, I thought wryly before walking a few steps to look down on our Viking bay of the swimming trips. Beyond where white sand and turquoise turned to the ultramarine of deeper water a large, wide decked freighter lay to her anchor, obviously the source of the containers and much else. Several landing craft driven onto the shelving beach had their ramps down on the sand. A wealth of activity, hurrying men and crawling machines.
I remembered my strange vision on the morning I first gazed upon this bay; the Viking galley who'd brought my forbears was drawn up, and the wading ashore of men, sword and helmet, and the Raven of the crags; all was locked in me, in my blood, my genes and my lips drew tight in sorrow. And all to come to this; another conquest, no bare hands to build and till the land, just biddable levers and their gaping mandibles ripping open the ground; already down on the beach, a huge caterpillar tractor crunching its way over the rock pools left a wide stain on the clear water. I thought of the starfish we'd seen, bright orange on the clean sand, the multitude of tiny creatures that lived by its pureness, and the otters playing.
Hard fingers caught my arm, “How did you get here? This island is totally out of bounds to anybody. You're trespassing. Anyway who the fuck are you?” engrossed in thoughts I'd been unaware of his approach. I shook him off fiercely. The snarling voice fitted the twisted mouth of a bullet headed brute of a fellow, cropped hair and flaring nostrils. We stood unmoving, breathing deeply, eye to eye. One false move, he would attack me. Tight beside me I heard Muille softly growling. Minutes passed. Attack him or defend myself? A fat little man waddled across and appeared at this thug's elbow.
Putty face, black hollow eyes and the squatness of a toad, in a split second I recognised him, “Goldberg!” his name breathed out of me in utter astonishment. A rotweiller awaiting his order to spring, the brute's eyes flicked down to his scientist master. The hooded eyes of this loathsome specimen was busy searching my face. Suddenly he staggered backwards, his pallid face, white and frightened in total shock. So extreme the reaction- was he seeing me as a ghost? His flabby mouth trembled, formed my name, “MacKenzie.” A second later he began screaming, “Damn you, damn you, you bloody meddling scientist, you should be, should, shouldâ¦!” His flow reduced to a stare.
“Should be, dead!” I barked the word, âDead!' It spiked the air, “Is that the word you missed saying, my friend?” Both must have seen my eyes aflame. A panicking Goldberg howled at the brute, “Arrest this man, arrest him!” The thug began reaching inside his jacket. Quick as a gun cleared its armpit holster, my fist was quicker, force and crunch, his jaw sagged, broken.
He lunged at me. Muille flew at his ankle. A moments distraction. I caught the upswing of wrist and gun. Crack, a bullet whistled into space. Twist and throw, the brute hit the ground, dropped his revolver, Goldberg screamed, “Get him, get him you useless bastard!” The man lay groaning, I'd snapped his wrist. Goldberg grovelled for the revolver. Nothing could stop me. One swift dive, I grabbed him. Killing madness, bare hands, I had Goldberg's throat. Grip, squeeze, squeeze, I was throttling him in the insane joy of killing. Shouting men were running across. Snake black eyes were bulging.
“Hector, Hector!” Eilidh's call reached me from far below. I flung Goldberg aside. A quaking heap, he sprawled at my feet, struggling for breath. Utter loathing blazed in his eyes, a furnace of hatred consumed him. In a voice croaking with pain he gasped, “This will finish you.” The fallen revolver lay within reach. Still panting, he made a grab for it. Abruptly I became rational. Kicking the revolver out of his reach, I spoke loudly, the men were almost on me, “Self defence, pure and simple my dear Goldberg, here's my witnesses. Try it,” and I swung back down the ridge. Eilidh carrying the boy climbed towards me.
Careless of the steepness I bounded towards to her. Spats of turf flung into the air at my heels. The sharp crack of a revolver sounded somewhere above. Madness, one of them was shooting. A puff of dust a yard at my back, another shot, splintered rock whined into the hillside. “Keep away, keep away!” I screamed at Eilidh, leaping zig-zag down the slope rock to rock.
Out of range I stopped. Chest and heart pounded. Shading my eyes I could see the squat Goldsmith surrounded by men standing defiantly on the rim of their hilltop operations. Eilidh hurried down by a different route. I ran over to her. Words jerked out, “Eilidh, Eilidh woman, you saved me from strangling someone.” By her gasp of dismay I must have sounded insane.
The cold realisation I'd just committed a brutal assault led to a fit of uncontrollable shaking. My legs almost gave under me. Truly frightened Eilidh took my arm, supporting me, “You're wounded, where, where?” I shook my head, “No, no, I'm OK thanks, they're rotten shots.” I felt far from joking, nor did Eilidh laugh. I straightened and taking her hand, “Eilidh you saved an unholy tragedy, I'll tell you everything in a little. Let's get home.”
Rubbing the boy's head in fatherly affection, I took him on my back. Too much had happened for a conversation until our minds could settle. We retraced the morning's anxious steps. The sheep now were spread across the Hill of the Shroud in twos and threes, Muille eyed them, as collie dogs will, and waited my command. “Not today Muille,” her dark quick eyes met mine and she gave a wag of her tail. What would be the fate of our flock? The first browns of winter tinged the hill, wild fescue had seeded and un-grazed these many years, it rustled at our feet.
As we walked spokes of afternoon sunlight were thrusting from a tiny blue window in a sky of great rolling clouds. Often on the shepherding days when time was as at my heel, I'd watch their moving pools of brightness glide across the sea. That afternoon of all days, above the western horizon, lines of ragged grey crept slowly amongst mighty white towers changing their shape and colour. One by one the streams of light, which had danced their brief moments on the sea, were driven behind the clouds.
Even before we crossed the last ridge the mechanical clanking reached us. The house roof came in sight, a few more steps brought us to a halt. The arm of a digger, pawing the ground at the back wall of our building, had already opened a massive hole. A sizeable bank of earth covered part of what had been my potato and turnip drills. Curling into air I could see a length of black piping. Our water supply was cut.
We tramped past the mound of earth. The machine operator lifted his hand, the hydraulic arm reached into a deepening hole. Here and there the white of a potato showed, cabbage which would have seen us through the winter topped the pile. Apart from the noise, round at the front of the house everything remained as we'd left it, unusual shells on the window ledges and drift wood which had taken our fancy, waiting to be carved, nothing of value, except in pleasure.
Not for the first time I studied the lintel above the doorway, rough dressed stone hand cut from the raven crag, dragged down the hillside. Find a shelter, survive and build a home for your family; that was the way of it. How easy to pull a lever, destroy in one hour's comfort a generation's work of callused hands.
Reluctant to enter the old house for what I knew would be the last time, I sat on the stone at the end of the gable, my thoughts dwelt on the visions it had brought to my folks. The day of my first visit with Eachan I'd noticed the stone. My slight knowledge of geology told me the stone wasn't of the local rock.
Almost as if impelled I studied the stones shape. Although weathered by unknown years of winters' gale and salt the faint marks on its surface suggested it had been cut to fit a purpose. The same prompting seemed to be telling me it had belonged to some ship's ballast. Certainty came me, the stone had arrived aboard the first longboat to beach on Sandray, the raven's boat of my great grandfather's story, a Viking stone.
Eachan stood at my side as I'd seen him at his crofthouse window looking in horror across to the island on the day he died. The remains of a burning sunset were quenched in an undulating sea of molten iron. Beneath it sank a black sun, and the lava like coagulation turned to the green of verdigris. All about me on its rotting surface the white fish floated, belly up.
Eilidh put her hand on my shoulder, “This is it, Hector,” she said simply. The power of the vision had dazed me. Hardly back in our present grim situation, I followed Eilidh into the old house. There seemed little to gather. A few clothes were stuffed into bags, the odd book we'd saved, Hector's crib. My great grandparents' table and dresser, fashioned from shipwreck planks and worn by scrubbing, they were better to stay where they belonged.