Vanessa de Haan - The Restless Sea

The news from Charlie is intermittent. It seems he does not have time to write, and each long stretch without a letter is accompanied by a fear that there will be never be another one. But Aunt Nancy tells her not to worry, making a passing reference to Fleet Air Arm pilots helping the RAF over London. ‘Charlie will be fine. He’s extremely accomplished. You just keep writing. Give him something to look forward to,’ she says.

As the nights draw in and winter approaches, the fish supplies dwindle. Olivia thinks it is time to take Charlie’s advice. ‘I’m too old to take you up there, lassie,’ says Mac, pointing at his creaking knees and swollen knuckles. But Olivia soon works him around.

Mac is impressed by Olivia’s marksmanship and her quiet respect. They walk and climb and inch for miles up into the hills that turn from purple to gold and russet through the autumn. Olivia learns how to throw a piece of torn heather into the air to determine which way the wind is blowing. She learns how to track, and how to avoid a herd. She learns their habits, where they like to shelter, where to eat. She learns how to use a spyglass without it catching the light. She learns how the fog distorts sound and distance. She knows when a mist will settle and when it will clear. Together they crawl and creep for hours, above the clouds, across peat bogs and through the heather, and over boulders and up glens, only to turn back if the stag is too fine. Mac teaches her to hunt the frail, as well as poor quality and weaker beasts. Thistle, the old stalking pony, is brought back into service. Olivia slowly gains the pony’s trust, and when she shoots her first stag and Mac grallochs it, she learns the fine art of balancing a stag across the pony’s stalking saddle. Mac hangs the beast in the large, cold game larder. He butchers it himself, swift and deft despite his arthritis.

The Macs have a sailor billeted with them, a steward who has never tried venison before, but is keen to sample anything that hasn’t been salted or dried or stewed within an inch of its life. He chews on the meat thoughtfully, nodding his head and licking his lips. ‘I think this would go down well in our messes,’ he says. ‘Could we buy some? Our men are always clamouring for fresh meat.’

The idea snowballs. Word spreads around the ships, and Olivia is soon inundated with orders, from sailors, soldiers, and Wrens. She is worried about what Aunt Nancy will say, but her aunt is thrilled that she is showing initiative. ‘And Clarkson could do with some decent meat to serve to the officers we have billeted here,’ she says. She even takes the time to show Olivia how to write the orders in a ledger and keep a note of the money coming in and going out. It is the longest amount of time she has spent with Olivia since she arrived. ‘Watch those men,’ she says. ‘Don’t think they won’t try for a bargain just because you’re a girl.’ But Olivia is as canny as anyone, and she turns it to her advantage. She finds the men are keen to talk, and even keener for a smile. Many of them have been away at sea for weeks and miss female company.

Mac is delighted: he gets a cut, and Olivia starts to offer his eggs and milk too. They turn more of the garden over to growing vegetables. Other locals offer what they can: last year’s jam; Ben Munro’s apples; Mrs McLellan’s chutney. Mrs Campbell comes in on the business, always happy to receive more supplies for her store – particularly when the roads are blocked with snow and she is running low. Olivia learns how to drive Aunt Nancy’s ancient Austin and, each week, she transports whatever she hasn’t sold directly to the ships to Mrs Campbell’s shop. By late autumn, they even have a buyer from Edinburgh, who bumps along the single track road from the city once a week to collect venison or lobsters for his restaurant.

It is deep winter, and fresh meat stocks are running low again. The stag-hunting season is over, but there are plenty of hinds to be taken. Olivia is up and out of the house before dawn breaks across the loch. There is no need for a torch: the snow that settled overnight has turned the world luminous. Something crackles away into the undergrowth, startled by the crunch of her feet on the path, in turn setting a bird fluttering and flapping through the branches above. Then silence again. A world muffled by snow. Beyond the trees, the loch: grey and silent as the ships packed with sleeping men. She has grown to love this time in the morning, the only time there is true peace and quiet these days. The roads are empty once again and she can slip into the hills unnoticed.

Her pass and gas mask and ID card are gathering dust on the dressing table in her bedroom. She has no need of them; she knows how to get past the checkpoints and guards, crossing between Gairloch and Poolewe undetected by following the low road along the shoreline like the other locals. And there are no checkpoints up in the hills. No one would be foolish enough to cross them without local knowledge.

The hills are where she is headed now. She cannot see them, but she can sense them looming in the darkness ahead, steady and solid, unmoving and unmoved by the world’s turmoil. By the time she gets to the farm, the sky is beginning to glow aquamarine as dawn breaks. The tack room is empty. A faint orange glow of embers breathes among the ash as she opens the door to retrieve Thistle’s saddle. The pony comes straight to her now, letting her slip on his head collar without a fuss. She adjusts the stalking saddle, holds her hands under the pony’s mane, where he is warmest, and presses her face against his shaggy grey fur, breathing in the horsey smell.

She leads him out over the cobbles. The snow is dirty here, trampled with mud and grit. The pony snorts, clearing his nostrils into the chilly air. His bright dark eyes peer out at her from beneath his ragged forelock. She glances down at herself, pleased at how her camouflage has turned out. She has butchered her aunt’s debutante dress, sewing it into a new outfit that covers her clothes so she is white all over. Underneath she has on her woollen jumper and the flannel trousers and knee-length socks that she always wears to keep herself warm. She has used the arm of an old fur coat to make a cosy scarf for her neck. The rifle sits cold and heavy across her back as they trudge away from the farm.

Now it is morning. The loch is a mirror far below. The snowy peaks, jagged and bright, reflected in its surface. Down nearer the shore, the trees stand out against the white, the prickly and black conifers, and the twiggy and twisted leafless winter trees. The shoreline is a smudge of orange, just beginning to show beneath the melting snow. From here, the loch is so large and shining that it is easy to misread the size of the ships that lie on its surface.

The hills sweep up out of the ground ahead of her, their tops still wreathed in cloud. But the sky is blue, the heavy snow clouds have moved on, and it will be a fine day. She follows the burn, a glimmering crack, the water sparkling like a necklace of diamonds among the softer white of the fresh-fallen snow. By the time she reaches the rowan pool, she has worked up quite a warmth. The rowan tree is hung with frosted particles like sugar icing. The only sound is the beat of tiny wings as some snow buntings fly up, white like rising snowflakes, apart from the flash of black on their wings.

She leaves Thistle by the tree, tied to a boulder. He is also well camouflaged: only the tips of his grey tail and his unruly mane – and his knobbly knees – standing out. His neat little black hooves are hidden, sunk into the snow. She sets to work in the silence, her brow furrowed in concentration. She reads the tracks: the delicate Ys of the birds busily criss-crossing all over the place; the long oval shapes of a hare; the solid shuffle of a grouse; the stealthy holes of a fox. The snow is yellow in places where an animal has peed. There are dark holes where rabbit droppings have steamed through to the ground.