Graeme Burnet - His Bloody Project

I replied that it was and that I had come to deliver him from this world in repayment for the suffering he had caused my father. He did not say anything further. He took a step forward and lunged towards me. Without thinking, I planted my right foot behind me and thrust forward my flaughter. The blade caught Lachlan Broad in the ribs, but his weight carried him forward and we both crashed to the floor. I kept hold of my tools and, swinging my croman with my right hand, caught him on the temple with the flat of the blade. He raised his hand to where I had struck him, then stood up and let out a great roar. I feared that I had done no more than enrage him and would not have the strength to overpower him. I scrambled backwards across the floor and got to my feet. Lachlan Broad looked about him, perhaps hoping to find some weapon to hand. I ran at him, swinging my flaughter. This time, however, he anticipated my blow and raised his arm to parry it. He grabbed the shaft below the blade and wrenched it from my grip. He stared at me wildly for a few moments. A thin stream of blood seeped from the wound on his temple. He held the flaughter in his two meaty fists, the blade pointing towards me, then sprang forward. I stepped to the side and his momentum carried him past me. He turned clumsily, perhaps dazed by the blow I had earlier struck. I now had my back to the door and was aware that I could flee, but if I did not do so, it was because I did not wish to depart without achieving my objective.

Lachlan Broad made a second charge towards me. I recalled the day when I was a small boy that Kenny Smoke’s bullock had run amok in the village and it had taken six men to subdue it. As Broad swung the flaughter, I stepped inside its trajectory and, reaching my left hand onto his shoulder, landed a blow with my croman on the back of his head. The blade did not penetrate the skull, but the impact was enough to bring him to his knees. He dropped the tool and remained, stunned, on all fours. I stepped behind him and stood astride his body, as if straddling a garron. I raised my croman and, keen to conclude the business without further delay, brought it down with both hands. The blow knocked him flat to the floor, but it did not penetrate the bone, and I was struck by the resilience of the human body. He lay face down on the earth, his eyes wide, chest pumping like a landed fish. I now had time to properly measure my stroke and when I next brought down my weapon, the blade properly entered his skull with an unpleasant sound like a boot being sucked into a peat-bog. It was with some effort that I extracted the blade from his head. His hands were twitching by the side of his body, but whether he still had a breath in him I could not say. Nevertheless, I administered a final blow with the heel of the croman, this time entirely destroying the integrity of his cranium.

I then stood away from the body and surveyed my handiwork. The blood was pumping in my temples and I was quite dazed, but I felt some satisfaction in the successful execution of my project. To an outside observer, the scene in the house must have looked quite dreadful, and I confess that I had to avert my eyes from the sight of the dead infant.

It was then that I noticed old Mrs Mackenzie, seated in an upholstered chair in the murk at the back of the chamber. She was perfectly still and I wondered if she too had taken her leave of the world. Her face wore no particular expression and I wondered if she was gone in the head or not cognisant of her surroundings. I had heard many tales of old folk who habitually cried out for people long dead, or became lost a few yards from their own door. I approached her, the croman still in my right hand. Her eyes were watery and flitted rapidly to and fro, perhaps distressed by the scene which she had just then witnessed. I held my left hand in front of her face and moved it from side to side, but she made no reaction. There was no reason to do her any harm. Aside from bringing Lachlan Broad into this world, she had caused me no injury. She was no more responsible for the actions of her son than my father was for mine. I had accomplished what I set out to do and, as I had no intention of denying responsibility for any of it, her killing would have served no purpose. In any case, to do to death a helpless old woman would be a pitiless thing, and I had not the stomach for it.

asheta large serving dish

bannockan oatcake

the black monthswinter

byrea cowshed

camana shinty stick

Càrn nan Uaigheantranslates as ‘heap of tombstones’

cas chroma long-handled foot plough

ceilidha gathering with singing and story-telling

cromana hand-tool for breaking ground, like a single-sided pickaxe or mattock

dwama stupor

ErseIrish

fetcha double or doppelgänger

flaughtera spade with a pointed triangular blade

garrona Highland pony

ghilliea man who leads shooting and fishing expeditions

gimcracka cheap ornament or knick-knack

hurliea hand-cart

lairdlord

quaicha traditional shallow drinking vessel

querna stone hand-mill for grinding corn or other grains

quointhe external corner of a building

reeksmoke

riga strip of land

roof-treea beam

sea-wareseaweed

shielingpasture land

shintya violent form of hockey still played in the Scottish Highlands

sowensa kind of gruel, made from husks of grain

stirka heifer

stoordust or dirt

strupacha pot of tea, a brew

sweea chain from which a pot is suspended over a fire

unchancysupernatural

winding sheeta shroud

the yellow monthssummer

re. the victims, carried out by Charles MacLennan, M.D., resident of Jeantown, and J.D. Gilchrist, surgeon, of Kyle of Lochalsh

Applecross, August 12th 1869

At the request of William Shaw esq., sheriff, and John Adam esq., Procurator Fiscal, we this day examined the body of Lachlan Mackenzie, crofter and village constable of Culduie, Ross-shire, aged forty-one years. The body was shewn to us in the outbuilding of a neighbour, Mr Kenneth Murchison, to which, on the evidence of Mr Murchison, it had been removed shortly after its discovery. The body was laid out on a table and covered with sackcloth.

The face of the victim was greatly discoloured and covered with much blood in a hardened state. The right side of the face, from the cheekbone to the temple, was entirely collapsed and the nose broken. The back of the skull was entirely collapsed and incomplete and much of the cerebral matter was missing. We were informed by Mr Murchison that fragments of the skull and cerebral matter had been retrieved from the floor of the house in which death had occurred and placed in a bowl. This bowl we examined and found to contain fragments of bone consistent with those missing from the skull. The external ear on the right side was almost entirely torn off. On the remaining parts of the skull, fragments of shattered bone had been forced into the cerebral tissue. It is our opinion that these injuries must have been caused by blows from a heavy blunt object or tool wielded with great force.

There was much bruising to the chest, in particular to the left side of the sternum. A wound six inches across had penetrated the skin between the lower ribs and of these we found two to be broken. The internal organs were intact. This wound we judged to have been caused by a wide, blunt blade, consistent with the flaughter which had been retrieved from the scene, and which was shewn to us.