Island on the Edge Page 13

  Thundering hooves

  Tex still had his two Highland ponies. One was called Blondie, a golden long-maned beauty of a creature, gentle and co-operative. The other was Rowan, dark, graceful and glossy-coated with a mind of her own.

  In theory they were working animals and Tex even had a small pony cart built to navigate the rough and narrow track between Soay House and the south end of the island. The path was too steep and uneven to risk taking the cart as far as the harbour. However, Tex and Biddy spent months trying to level and widen the more accessible part of the track. I tended to think it was more for fun than any real practical purpose – there was only half a mile of safely usable track anyway. Still, it was rather lovely to see the cart trundling along even though it had to be unwedged from some obstacle or other every few hundred yards.

  Originally, Rowan had been earmarked for the role of draught animal. She was the bigger and stronger pony, but she turned out to be too self-willed and flighty to train so little Blondie got the job instead. She performed admirably and with good will. In fact, Blondie was so willing that Tex made panniers for her so she could pick up deliveries from the harbour or wood for the fire in the Ceilidh Hall.

  On the whole they were both spoilt rotten and enjoyed a status higher than mere human islanders. Many a time there was a line of commandeered residents carrying bales of hay and bags of feed up the beach while a pair of curious ponies idly looked on. However, two ponies were not enough. Tex dreamed of having his own pedigree herd.

  I went with him and Biddy in Petros to Rum where Tex not only persuaded the head ranger to have Rowan served by their resident stallion but also to sell him one of their mares too. Rowan duly made the journey in Petros to be served and went on to produce her first foal. Sadly, despite the best care and attention – Tex and Biddy sat with her all night – there was something very wrong with the little foal. I went down early that morning, itching to find out if the birth had been a success. I had never seen a newborn foal before, but there was clearly something dreadfully amiss with this little colt. His head seemed far too large for his fragile body. He stumbled about as if he were blind and would not take Rowan’s teat. In desperation Tex milked Rowan and tried to feed the foal himself, but by the end of the day the poor thing had died. Rowan seemed to sense that something was wrong with her foal and although she appeared depressed for a day or two she soon recovered.

  Tex was very upset by the loss of his first foal but this sad failure only seemed to make him more determined. We soon had a new young mare from Rum to join Blondie and Rowan. I think she was called Kay – there were so many pony names to remember it became confusing. Anyway, Kay arrived and now all that was wanting was a stallion. Tex knew there was an excellent pedigree herd of Highland ponies owned by the breeder Cameron Ormiston from Kingussie. By sheer force of personality, Tex persuaded Mr Ormiston to part with one of his best young stallions, Strathmashie Seumas Mhor.

  Seumas, aged around two years, duly arrived in the hold of Petros during the summer of 1992. All available able-bodied persons were roped in to help, holidaymakers included. Everything went well as Petros came alongside the stone jetty at the head of the harbour at high tide. Seumas, looking completely unfazed by his trip, stood quietly in the hold. The ramp was lowered into the boat and Biddy got a grip of his halter to lead him onto the jetty. Unfortunately, the day Seumas arrived all three mares happened to be in season. They were on the far side of the island about a mile away. But he could smell them. One whiff and he became a rearing, foaming maniac. He pushed Biddy off the jetty and into the sea as he lumbered out of the hold and plunged in himself, swimming the last few yards to the beach and galloping off into the trees. DJ was staying with me at the time and we were sent in pursuit while Tex and Biddy got sorted out. Seumas was trapped in the glen that was part of Oliver’s croft, trying to find a way out. The ground literally shook as he careered about. DJ and I managed to open the gate while Seumas was on the furthest point of his circuit and as he came around again, he saw his exit route and galloped off up the hill and onto the track, heading purposefully toward the bay.

  The next few days were pretty sleepless for the ponies (and the rest of us) while Seumas chased the indignant, surprised and confused mares up and down the south part of the island, seemingly without rest. A faint thundering of hooves and neighing interrupted the night and continued through the day as well. One evening I attempted to pop down the track for something and was ambling along with my dim torch (as usual) when a slight sound caught my attention. I stopped to listen trying to identify it, then realised it was getting louder and rapidly heading my way. I had reached the back of one of the holiday cottages when I suddenly understood what I was hearing. By some instinct of self-preservation, I turned back and slipped behind the gable-end of the cottage just as a stampede of manic ponies hurtled by, close-packed on the narrow track, thundering off into the distance. The sound of pounding feet and neighing diminished rapidly in a kind of Doppler wave. I abandoned my trip and went home where it was safer.

  The first foals were due around the dates of the Black Isle Show in Easter Ross. Tex liked to attend this agricultural event every year and decided to go even though the ponies were near their time. In his defence, he had written down the approximate due dates and it did look as if he would have a week’s grace. By now Biddy had left, so I offered to keep an eye on them while he was away. Tex had been off Soay for perhaps four days when one morning I went to check on the ponies as usual. They each had their favourite haunts and I could usually find them. However on this occasion I could only find Rowan and Kay; Blondie was nowhere to be seen, neither was Seumas. Not knowing where to start, I decided to head for the middle of the island and then climb to the top of one of the bigger hills for a better all round view. Down in a dip between two low hills, I saw Blondie and Seumas. Blondie was up to her chest in a bog and Seumas was prowling and snorting around her, churning the ground into a dangerous mess. Then I noticed a small duncoloured speck not far from Blondie at the edge of the marshy ground. It was a tiny foal. When I reached the edge of the bog it was impossible to get near Blondie or her foal. Seumas was new to birth and foals. The smell was confusing him and he thought Blondie was in season. It seemed to me that after she had given birth he must have harried her so much that she had run into the bog to escape and got stuck. Seumas obviously did not want me to come too close and for the first time since he had arrived on Soay he was making me nervous. Normally he was a mild and placid chap

  I needed help so I went to find Jill and we both rushed over to the schoolhouse where we told Gordon what had happened. Luckily, it was a weekend and he was not teaching. We got some ropes and I found a halter for Seumas. Gordon had the forethought to bring a spade.

  The scene was exactly as I had left it. Seumas was still scraping the ground and throwing his head about. Somehow, and I can’t remember how, we managed to get a halter on him. I couldn’t hold him on my own and I think Jill and I eventually managed to keep him away by waving sticks and shouting while Gordon carefully dug Blondie out. She was really amazing. She understood what Gordon was trying to do and didn’t move a muscle until he had managed to free her forelegs. Blondie could then heave herself up by brute strength and finally got herself out of the bog, black up to her chest in peaty mud. We had then a problem with both Seumas and Blondie’s tiny foal. As soon as Blondie was clear, Seumas became even more agitated. Gordon offered to try to hold him off while Jill and I coaxed Blondie back to the bay and safely into a shed with her foal. Miraculously, somehow Gordon did manage to keep Seumas away and slowly we walked Blondie home. The little foal could hardly walk on her thin legs on the rough terrain, so Jill heroically shifted her up onto her own shoulders and we laboriously trudged home. Every now and then I looked back to see Gordon being nearly lifted off his feet, but on the whole he seemed to be winning.

  We put mother and foal into an old barn. I found Blondie some hay and concentrates and gave her plenty of water. Then we
secured the door to leave her to bond in peace with her foal. A few hours later they were doing well and, to my relief, the little foal was drinking from her mother. By next morning she was strong and perky and very beautiful. She looked like a perfect little rocking horse. Seumas had calmed down. In fact he gave no trouble to the other mares when they had their foals. He seemed to have worked it out by then.

  Luckily, I had a good idea where Tex was staying and managed to get a hold of him that evening to tell him the news. You would have thought he had given birth himself. I was anxious that he might want to stay and celebrate but fortunately he returned fairly punctually and was around for the birth of the other two foals. They were all female.

  Tex had joined the Highland Pony Society so that he could register Seumas’ progeny and they could be classed as a pedigree herd. It was a trial to find suitable names for the new foals. He wanted Gaelic names so I helped him scour through his Gaelic dictionary, starting at A for the first season of foals. Blondie’s foal was called Aileidh, the second was Ashleidh, and the third name I used to forget even back then. Second only to Blondie, Aileidh was my favourite pony.

  In the beginning, the ponies thrived on good care. They were regularly wormed, groomed and a local blacksmith came annually to trim their hooves. In the spring of 1993 a second batch of foals was born. All females again, their names, starting with B, were duly registered with the Highland Pony Club.

  A few years later when yet another batch of foals was due, I was helping Tex with worming. We had the ponies corralled in a small enclosure with a big shed which was then used as a hay barn and winter-feeding area. It was a convenient place to isolate animals needing medication. Everything was going well. I was outside grooming one of the ponies while Tex was inside working out the dosage for each animal. He came to the door for a moment and when I glanced up I noticed his face was pouring with sweat.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, concerned. He made one of his familiar irritated gestures and went back inside. We got on with worming and afterwards I went to make us some tea on a little gas ring. We were sitting on high stools inside the shed when Tex went to take a sip of tea and dropped the cup on the floor. He started to splutter and at first I thought he was making some jokey comment on my tea-making skills, particularly as he fell off the stool like a lump of wood. A few seconds later I realised this was no joke. He could not speak coherently. He’d had a stroke.

  I dashed off to the nearest neighbour to find a telephone. In very little time Tex was surrounded by people supplying him with cushions, blankets and advice while we waited for a helicopter to take him to hospital. Somehow Tex communicated that he needed clothes and money and I fetched them. A small helicopter arrived from Plockton on the mainland in remarkably quick time and Oliver and Gordon got him inside. It was away in moments. For most people that might have been the end. However, by the following evening my telephone rang and it was Tex on the line sounding fully himself. He told me that as the helicopter pulled away from the island he was convinced he would never see Soay again. He spent the rest of that day and all of the following night in Raigmore, our nearest hospital in Inverness, exercising every limb and forcing his legs to walk about the corridors. By next afternoon nearly all the symptoms of his stroke had vanished. Two days later he was back home again.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Fire at Burnside

  By the autumn of 1992 I had taken on the job of Jeanne’s carer at her request. She wanted to stay on Soay as long as she could despite invitations to live with family on Orkney, closer to medical care.

  Tex adapted the house. He had a steel safety rail made by Mallaig boatyard and fixed it to the two steps leading to the front door. He fashioned homemade wooden handrails for the stairwell to help Jeanne climb the stairs. The Motor Neurone Association (MNA) sent more aids: a wheelchair, hoist for the bath and an electronic keyboard so Jeanne could type her requests. By now her speech was almost unintelligible and the machine could speak her requests giving her the mournful electronic voice of Stephen Hawkins, dipping into a minor key at the end of each sentence. The only item of real worth was the hoist. Tex adapted it, bolting the base through the wooden bathroom floor using a sandwich of two steel plates. It could have supported the weight of an elephant. Jeanne was able to have her nightly bath until the stairs became too much for her.

  Without any means of recharging the batteries, the keyboard lasted less than three weeks. If Jeanne had something important to say she wrote it down using a homemade, modified pencil designed to help her grip. The wheelchair enabled her to scoot about the ground floor but it was useless outside where the wheels simply dug into the shingle. However, it gave Jeanne somewhere to sit on a sunny day.

  I came to Soay House twice a day. In the morning to milk goats, feed hens and help Jeanne dress and have breakfast and again for the evening meal and to help her into bed. Through the MNA, Jeanne was able to pay me for her care. Jeanne received hardly any regular medical attention living in such a remote area. We simply managed the best way we knew how. To be honest, none of us knew what to expect, we knew nothing about motor neurone disease. With hindsight, ignorance possibly helped as we simply adapted to problems as they arose, looking no further than the next hurdle.

  One February morning, while I was helping Jeanne with breakfast, a letter was delivered by one of the Davies boys on their way to school. It was a friendly message from the couple who had bought Burnside House to let Tex and Jeanne know their nephews would be arriving on the February mailboat with two friends. They would be staying for the month to make improvements to the house. It was thoughtful but they obviously did not realise that at this time of year the Sheerwater was taken out of service for yearly maintenance and the mail was sub-contracted to any other available vessel. The post was always more erratic in winter.

  The letter had been delayed by bad weather. According to the dates on the letter, nephews plus friends would have already left their home in Leeds and could be in Arisaig or Mallaig by now. There was no use trying to write back. Weather forecasts for the next week or so were bad. It seemed unlikely that the mailboat would be making the trip to Soay for at least another week. We wrongly imagined that the folk must have given up and gone home.

  One windy, wet and dark night, I saw from my kitchen window a bright searchlight, then the rain-blurred navigation lights of a large trawler battling her way into Soay bay. It was blowing a full gale that night and soon she was out of sight. Curious to know why a boat was out in such terrible weather, I got my coat. Just as I came out the front door, I heard the trawler sound a couple of blasts on her horn. Thinking she must be in difficulties I hurried towards the sound. As I got closer I could see a figure standing at the trawler’s prow, heaving up the holding chain on the mooring for Gordon’s fishing boat, Sea Witch. Rough waves were throwing the trawler about heavily putting a tremendous strain on the mooring. The anchors were meant for a boat a fraction of the size of this big trawler and it was not long before the weight of the boat dragged at the anchors and she began to shift out to sea taking the mooring with her. As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness I saw Gordon rowing out hard in his dinghy to come alongside the madly rolling trawler. By then, the boat’s working lights had been switched on and her decks were flooded in white light. Apart from a figure that looked like the skipper in yellow oilskins, there were four others and two large dogs on board. After some delay, Gordon helped people into his boat and rowed them ashore. He had to make several trips with people, dogs and luggage. Finally I saw Gordon pull away with the last load and the trawler turned about into the rough, wild night.

  Next morning on my way to milk the goats, I saw signs of life in Burnside and my suspicions of the night before were confirmed. The nephews and their friends had found a way to get to Soay after all. But what right-thinking fisherman would bring them from either Mallaig or Arisaig on such a night? Mallaig was about twenty miles away, Arisaig even further.

  Over breakfast with J
eanne there was a lot of discussion about these new visitors. I wasn’t alone in my curiosity, and Tex was particularly suspicious.

  Later Tex and I went to feed the ewes. They would be lambing soon and feeding helped to improve their milk yield. The first thing we noticed was a complete absence of sheep. Usually, they would come running off the hill or be waiting at the troughs. We saw the first dead sheep inside the compound. Beyond the gate we found another. We were standing there stunned when over the hill came two young men and two bounding dogs. They were looking very pleased, one of them carrying two dead rabbits. Before we had a chance to say anything, they started telling us what a fantastic morning they had just had rabbit hunting. The island was full of ways to ‘live off the land’.

  For once Tex was speechless. When he regained his voice he asked the boys to account for the two dead sheep. They admitted they had been running their dogs to flush out rabbits. The dogs were two large lurchers with gentle eyes and quiet manners and actually very obedient. However, sheep on Soay were not used to dogs chasing amongst them. The flock panicked and ran for the hill. The two ewes simply died of shock.

  It took a little while for the implications to hit Tex. He went home to smoke a pipe, his brows knitted in a black scowl. Then he fetched one of his two rifles from his den. One worked, the other didn’t. He selected the rusted one that did not work and marched purposely with it to Burnside. The four young people and their dogs happened to be in the garden when he got there.

  ‘If I ever see either of those dogs of yours outside that fence and not on a lead, by hell, I’ll shoot them both,’ he growled. ‘I will have this gun with me everyday from now on.’

  They stared at him as if he were mad, but they believed him, which was all he wanted.

  They were not bad people, as I discovered after chatting to them. The younger nephew had come with his Italian girlfriend (I’ll call her Sophia), the elder with his buddy who was simply known as ‘Dutch’. They were all under twenty-seven years of age, only a few years younger than me, but in lots of ways they seemed curiously childish and naïve. They knew nothing of rural life and, much like those hippies of the 1960s, saw the Scottish Highlands as some sort of communal land; pioneer country free for all.