Below them, in the field that bordered the loch beside the local telephone exchange, a squadron of RAF technicians were busy inflating a huge silver balloon. As it filled with hydrogen it began to swell and lift away from the grass, turning its nose towards the water as the wind caught its fins. The men battled to keep hold of it until it was full enough with gas to be released skywards, bobbing at the end of the long wires that tethered it to the ground.
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Ruaridh said. ‘We haven’t had an air raid for months. It’s a bit late to start putting up barrage balloons.’
‘But there are so many ships now. Even more to protect if those Jerry pilots decide to come back for another go,’ countered Alec.
The airmen began to work on another balloon, spreading out yards of silver material and attaching cables.
Iain shook his head. ‘Ach, it’s a bit of nonsense, if you ask me. How long do they expect yon monstrosity to last when the first gale starts to blow?’ The Highland pony, who’d taken the opportunity of a brief pause to snatch a few mouthfuls of grass from among the heather, pawed at the ground and tossed her long white mane, jerking at the leading rein in Flora’s hand. ‘Come on now, see, the garron’s getting impatient and we’ve still a way to climb to reach the hinds.’
An hour’s walk later, as they approached the higher ground, her father held a finger to his lips and gestured to them to cut around to the south, so that the westerly wind wouldn’t carry their scent to the finely tuned nostrils of the red deer hinds. He knew the hills like the back of his hand, his own father having kept the game here before him. They’d seen nothing so far, but were now skirting round beneath a rise that concealed a hollow where the female deer often gathered. He nodded to Flora, the sign for her to stop with the pony. She led the garron into the shelter of a bluff and tethered the leading rein around a jutting rock. She knew this place, having assisted her father and brother on occasion in the past, and sat on a tuffet of dry heather watching the men climb higher as the pony cropped the mossy grass at her feet.
As they reached the ridgeline they dropped to crouch beneath the rise, flattening themselves on to their stomachs. She knew the deer must be in the hollow when she saw Iain gesture to Ruaridh, who passed over the rifle.
Her father waited, taking his time, looking for a clean shot. He would be searching out one of the older hinds, mindful of the balance of the herd. He was always careful to cull in accordance with the traditional ways, once incurring the wrath of Sir Charles when he’d refused to let a guest shoot a stag just one day out of the season.
The gun cracked, making the pony flinch, and Flora heard the sound of hoofbeats drumming away into the distance. As she watched, her father reset the safety catch on the rifle and passed it across to Ruaridh, then stood up and beckoned to her to bring up the garron: he’d made his kill with a single shot.
Once Iain had deftly gralloched the carcass, leaving the innards on a flat rock where the hoodie crows would make short work of them, he resheathed his knife. Then the men loaded the hind on to the deer saddle and buckled the straps to ensure that the weight would be evenly distributed over the pony’s back while it made its sure-footed descent to the road.
As they came down from the hill, they were taken by surprise at the first glimpse of the loch. A dozen barrage balloons now flew from ships in the bay, gleaming like a shoal of huge silver herrings swimming in the skies above Loch Ewe. There was even one bobbing from the roof of the telephone exchange. Beneath them, the airmen continued to inflate more of the balloons, suspended at the end of their long cables that would clip a plane’s wings if it came in low over a target, bringing it crashing back to earth.
‘Whoa there, lass, you’re all right.’ Flora calmed the garron as it shied at the strange sight.
‘They’ve certainly been busy,’ her father grunted, his eyebrows disappearing beneath the brim of his deerstalker.