Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

Angus Og’s information had been that MacDougall was using the Isle of Gigha as headquarters and base. On Gigha, therefore, the King’s flotilla bore down.

As they approached the green, rock-bound and fairly lowlying isle, a mere five miles long and a quarter of that wide, all aboard the royal squadron, who were not working the sweeps, stood to arms. There was only the one effective landing-place of Gigha, the small shallow bay of Ardminish two-thirds of the way down the east side, and it could be seen that it was packed with shipping. But experienced eyes quickly discerned in the level beams of the setting sun, that these were not fighting ships, galleys, galleasses, car racks sloops, but rather supply vessels, transports, shallops, and the like.

As might be expected, the fighting force would be at sea, somewhere to the south, facing the threat of Angus Og’s fleet.

“We leave this for later, Sire?” Gilbert Hay asked.

“Go seek Lame John, while there is yet light?”

“I think not, Gibbie. It will be a clear night, never truly dark.

John MacDougall can wait a little yet. I told Angus to give me until dawn tomorrow. Then to do as he would, lacking us. We will take this island, behind MacDougall. Give our force a taste of fight, to rouse and inspirit them. And these ships anchored there-we might put some of them to use. Aye-we will assault Gigha.”

It was eloquent of the sense of complete security of whoever commanded on the island that no alarm was taken at their approach, no postures of defence made. Bruce had ordered his own galleys’ sails to be furled, so that the black device painted thereon would not be visible from land, and they drove on under oars only.

No doubt they would seem to be no more than a detachment of

MacDougall’s fleet returning to port for some reason. At any rate, as

they beat round the little headland of Arminish Point, wary of the skerries, the twelve galleys encountered no sort of opposition.

The newcomers were drawing in alongside the craft already ranked there, and armed men in their hundreds pouring over the side, before anybody on Gigha realised that there was an emergency.

As an armed assault the occupation of Gigha was laughable; but as a strategic exercise it could hardly have been more successful, or more speedy. There was a little fighting, but of so sporadic and minor a nature as scarcely to be worth the title. A few men were slain and some seriously injured, admittedly-but such casualties were mainly the work of angry islanders themselves, MacDonalds -for this was of course one more of Angus’s many territories-who had suffered much at the hands of the invaders and were not slow to take this opportunity for revenge. Bruce had to clamp down swift and stern discipline, to prevent a general massacre.

Nearly all the prisoners were English sailors and their Irish women camp-followers. He left a small garrison under Sir Donald Campbell, Sir Neil’s brother, and sailed away before the islanders or his own people could organise the inevitable celebration. As it was, a lot of strong liquor came aboard the squadron with the returning warriors.

They were not quite so cramped for space now, for Bruce ordered the

addition of a number of the captured ships to their strength

temporarily. There were murmurs at this, for these were slow

non-fighting vessels, which could only be a weakening influence. But the King was adamant.

It was nearly midnight, and they drove southwards over a smooth, quiet translucent sea which looked like beaten pewter.

Visibility was good for that hour, but provided little definition

beyond a mile or so.

Bruce had few doubts as to where to look for John MacDougall.

Just a few miles ahead, beyond the islet of Cara, the coast of Islay, to the west, became much littered with a host of outlying reefs, rocks and skerries, south of Ardmore Point; and thereafter swung away westwards towards the Oa, vastly widening the mouth of the funnel-shaped inland sea. The line for MacDougall’s fleet to hold was obviously one stretched between these Islay skerries and Glencardoch Point on Kintyre. Patrolling a ten-mile belt, his vessels could act as an almost impassable barrier, giving each other mutual cover and support. Angus Og was bold, and probably had slightly the larger fleet; but he would be rash indeed to try to break through such a barrier head-on. He might succeed, but hardly without heavy losses; and even so would be apt to find not a few of his craft trapped thereafter in the Sounds of Gigha and Jura, facing unknown odds. Hence Bruce’s manoeuvre.

Sure enough, look-outs from two or three leading vessels shouted almost simultaneously their sighting of ships ahead. The long low craft did not stand out very clearly against an uncertain horizon, and they were probably not more than two miles off.

“Many of them, Sir King,” the MacDonald shipmaster of Bruce’s galley reported, from some way up the mast-stay.

“A great host of ships. Sails furled, mostly. Beating to and fro.

But, if we can see them, they can see us better. The light is behind us.”

That was true. Sunset in these latitudes is almost due north at midsummer, and it is the northern sky which remains lightest until sunrise. Bruce’s squadron would probably have been visible to MacDougall for some time, and would inevitably be causing major astonishment and speculation.

“Aye. Then let us give them something to fret over. Trumpets to sound the signals for line abreast. And for the torches to be lit.”

And so the trumpets neighed shrilly out over the summer sea, and their martial notes could not fail to be heard by the patrolling fleet. As the King’s vessels moved up into a long line, red flame blossomed aboard each, as the pine-branch torches, contrived from selected material from the tree-trimming operations at East Loch Tarbert, were set alight.

Quickly the entire scene was transformed. The night, from being one of quiet luminous peace, became angry with the crimson murky flame of smoking pitch-pine. Hundreds of the torches flared, and stained sea and sky.

Bruce’s reason for bringing along nearly a score of the anchored vessels from Ardminish Bay was now clear. He had almost trebled the size of his fleet, and this would be all too evident from the enemy’s standpoint. Yet the half-light would prevent it from being apparent that these were not righting ships. John MacDougall could not be other than a very alarmed man.

Bruce kept the trumpets blaring, a martial challenging din, as they drove down upon the patrolling squadrons on a two-mile wide front.

Then the pinpoints of red light began to break out far to the south. One or two, wide-scattered, quickly multiplied into scores, winking, flickering, growing. Cheers rose from the King’s ships.

Angus Og was there, and responding.

MacDougall of Lorn was no craven; but nor had he the rash, headlong

gallantry of, say, Edward Bruce. And his role here, anyway, was to

harry the Scots’ flanks, to seek to prevent major operations against

England, not to fight pitched battles against odds. He could not know whose was this northern fleet; but clearly it was in league with Angus of the Isles. He had to accept that his present position was untenable, and took steps to alter it.

He had not much room for manoeuvre. The very strength of his former situation, in the narrows, was now its weakness. He had three choices. Either he sought to break through to the south, or to the north; or else tried to escape to the west, into the open Hebridean Sea.

That he chose the third was hardly to be wondered at. Angus’s power he knew, and feared. What threatened from the north was a mystery-and therefore the more alarming. An escape round the west of Islay would give him the freedom of wide waters, and the possibility of communicating with his base of Gigha,from the north.