Rosamunde Pilcher - September

"Your men?"

"I told you, I was Officer Commanding the Administrative company rather than a rifle company. That meant I was in charge of the Signals, the Quartermaster, the Pay Office and the Pipes and Drums."

"Pipes and Drums?" Conrad could scarcely keep the disbelief out of his voice. "You mean you had a band out there?"

"But of course. The Pipes and Drums are an important part of any Highland Regiment. They play Reveille and the Last Post, beat retreat on ceremonial occasions, provide the music for dancing and smoking concerts, and guest nights in the Officers' and Sergeants' Messes. And pipe the lament at funerals. 'The Flowers of the Forest.' The saddest sound on earth. But apart from being an integral part of the Battalion, every Piper and Drummer is, as well, an active service soldier and trained as a machine gunner. It was some of these men who were trapped in that ambush. I knew them all. One of them was a boy called Neil MacDonald, who was twenty-two years old and the son of the head keeper at Ardnamore-that's up at the head of our glen, beyond Tullochard. I first heard him piping at the Strathcroy Games, when he was about fifteen. That year he walked away with all the prizes, and I suggested that when he was old enough, he should join the Regiment. And that day, I listened to those Zap codes coming in, and I knew that he was dead."

Conrad could think of no suitable comment to make, and so sensibly said nothing. A pause fell, not uncompanionable, and after a little, Archie, unprompted, went on.

"To deal with such emergencies there is always an Air Reaction Force at full alert. Two bricks of men…"

"Bricks?"

"You'd call them squads, and a Lynx helicopter ready and waiting for take-off. That day, I told the Sergeant to stand down, and I took his place and went with them. There were eight of us in the helicopter, the pilot and a crewman, five Jocks, and myself. It took less than ten minutes to get to the scene. When we reached the area, we circled to suss out exactly what had happened. The explosive, which had totally destroyed the first Pig, had left a hole in the road the size of a crater, and the second Pig was arse-over-tit in this. All around was littered with scraps of metal, clothing, mess tins, bits of camouflage netting, bodies, clothing, burning tyres. A lot of smoke, flames, the stench of burning rubber and fuel and paint. But no sign of movement. No sign of anything or anybody."

Once more Conrad found himself astonished by what he thought of as an obvious discrepancy.

"You mean no local people, farmers, or ploughmen, hearing the explosion and running to investigate?"

"No. Nothing. In that part of the world no person goes within an arm's length of that sort of trouble, unless of course he wishes to be dead or kneecapped within the week. There was nobody, just the smoke and the carnage.

"There was a patch of grass, like a layby, alongside the road. The helicopter landed and we all piled out. Our immediate task was to stake out the area, and get out the wounded while the helicopter flew back to base to bring in the M.O.-the Medical Officer-and his boys. But the helicopter had scarcely taken off, and before we had time to shake out, we were caught in a hail of machine-gun fire from across the border. They were waiting for us, you see. Watching and waiting. Three of my Jocks were killed instantly, another was wounded in the chest, and I caught it in the leg. Shot to pieces.

"When the helicopter returned with the M.O. on board, myself and the worst of the wounded were flown straight to hospital in Belfast. The Sergeant didn't make it, he died on the way. In the hospital my leg was amputated above the knee. I stayed there a few weeks, and then was flown back to England to begin the long business of rehabilitation. Finally I returned to Croy, pensioned off with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel."

Conrad endeavoured to make a mental tally of the casualties, but lost count and gave up. "So what did that particular incident achieve?" he asked.

"Nothing. A hole in the road. A few more British soldiers dead. The next morning, the IRA officially claimed responsibility."

"Do you feel bitter about it? Angry?"

"Why? Because I've lost my leg? Because I have to hump myself around on this aluminium contraption? No. I was a Regular soldier, Conrad. Being shot to ribbons by an implacable enemy is one of the occupational hazards of being a soldier. But I could just as easily have been an ordinary civilian, a run of the mill guy, trying to get peacefully on with his own life. An old father, perhaps, gone to Enniskillen to mourn his dead son on Armistice Day, and ending up dying beneath a pile of rubble. A young boy, taking his girl-friend to a Belfast pub for a drink, and seeing her blown to kingdom come by a booby-trap bomb. I could have been an off-duty serviceman, in the wrong car, at the wrong place, at the wrong time; dragged by a mob into a patch of waste ground, stripped, clubbed nigh to death, and finally shot."

Conrad shuddered. He chewed his lip, shamed by his own queasiness. He said, "I read about that. It made me want to vomit."

"Mindless, pointless, bloody violence. And there are other outrages that never reach the papers, are never made public. Do you know, one time a man went into a pub for a few beers. Just an ordinary young man, except that he happened to be a member of the IRA. One of the lads he was drinking with suggested it might be a laugh if he shot off somebody's kneecaps. Which was something he had never actually done, but after three beers he was ready to have a go. He was given a gun, and left the pub, and walked up to the local housing estate. He saw a young girl who was walking home from a friend's house. He hid in a passageway, and as the young girl came past, he grabbed hold of her and pushed her to the ground. He then shot off both her knees. That girl will never walk again.

"Just another incident. But it haunts me because it could have been any man's daughter, and more personally, it could have been my Lucilla. So you see I don't feel bitter and I don't feel angry. Just desperately sad for the people of Northern Ireland, the ordinary, decent people who are trying to make a life for themselves, and bring up their children under this terrible, perpetual shadow of blood and revenge and fear. And I feel sad for the whole human race, because if such senseless cruelty is accepted as the norm, then I can see no future for us all. It is frightening. And I am frightened for myself because, like a child, I still get nightmares that terrify me, and leave me screaming. And there is still worse. Guilt and remorse for that young man I told you about. Neil MacDonald. Twenty-two years old and dead as a doornail. Nothing left of his body, nothing to bury. His parents left without even the consolation of a funeral, or a grave to visit. I knew Neil as a soldier, and a good one, too, but I remember him as a boy, standing on the platform at the Strathcroy Games, piping his Pibroch. I remember the day, the sun shining down on the grass, and the river, and hills, and he and his Pibroch part of it all. Just a boy. With all his life before him, and standing there making that marvellous music."

"You can't blame yourself for his death."

"It was because of me that he became a soldier. If I hadn't shoved my oar in, he would still be alive now."

"No way, Archie. If he was meant to join your Regiment, he'd have done it, with no prompting from you."

"You think that? I find it hard to be a fatalist. I wish I could be, because then I might be able to lay his ghost and leave him in peace, and stop asking myself, why? Why should I be here, on the top of Creagan Dubh, seeing, breathing, touching, feeling, when Neil MacDonald is dead?"

"It is always worst for the one who is left to carry on."

Archie turned his head and looked at Conrad. Across the small space which divided them, the eyes of the two men met. Then Archie said, "Your wife died."