and wide. It wasn’t uncommon now to see a shed with a silver roof, or a haystack cover that gleamed in the watery sunshine, where enterprising crofters had put the remnants to good use.
‘Well, it’s time you were home now. No matter how upset she is, Mrs Carmichael will be worrying about you. Here, we’ll take you back.’
Reluctantly, the boys wound up their catapults and stuck them into their coat pockets as Flora shepherded them back to the roadside, where Bridie and Mairi waited. Catching her friends’ eyes, Flora pressed her lips together and shook her head, that single gesture telling them all they needed to know. Bridie’s breath caught in a sob and Mairi took her arm to steady her as they walked along the road, a ragged cluster of figures who dragged their feet, their sorrow a heavy load to bear.
Flora knocked on the Carmichaels’ front door. The blackout had already been closed, giving the windows the appearance of unseeing eyes that had turned inwards on a house frozen with grief. It was Archie Carmichael who opened the door. He seemed to have aged in a day; his cheeks were sunken and his normally brisk and capable manner was gone.
‘Ah, there you are, boys,’ he said, his voice wavering. ‘Come away in out of the cold. And you, too, Mairi, Flora, Bridie. How good of you to have brought them home.’
‘Thank you, but we won’t stop,’ said Mairi. ‘We just wanted to chum Stuart and Davy back safely and to say how very sorry we are for your loss.’
‘Och well, that’s very kind of you, lassies . . .’ His words petered out as his eyes glazed over. With an effort, he pulled himself together. ‘I’ll tell Moira you came by. She’ll be pleased that you did. I’m afraid she’s not herself just at the minute . . . Doctor Greig has been and he’s given her something to make her sleep.’
‘Of course. If there’s anything we can do, please just say.’ Mairi laid a gentle hand on his arm.
‘So very kind of you,’ he repeated, his words automatic. ‘Your mother’s been round and has been a great comfort to Moira, I’m sure.’
Flora cast an anxious glance at the boys who stood in the doorway, reluctant to enter the house. ‘Can we bring you something for your supper, maybe?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure you’ll be needing something to eat.’
‘Don’t you worry. We’ve some soup that Mrs Macleod brought with her. We’ll be grand now, won’t we, boys?’ He made an attempt to sound reassuring. ‘Will you come away in out of the cold?’ he asked, repeating himself again, his eyes far away.
It broke the girls’ hearts to turn away and walk down the path, the door closing quietly behind them on a house to which one of the young men who’d called it home would never return.
From the kitchen window at Keeper’s Cottage, Flora watched as day by day the merchant ships began to gather on the far side of the island. Some had sailed up from the south, hugging the safer shores of the east coast and then facing the unforgiving seas of the Pentland Firth to reach the haven of Loch Ewe. Others had braved the Atlantic, bringing supplies and equipment from America. These ships travelled in convoy and had already risked being hunted by the packs of U-Boats that roamed the ocean, looking for prey. At least out there the predators had had thousands of miles of water to cover and so the convoys had a better chance of slipping past undetected. But some of those ships would now join the Arctic convoys, running the gauntlet through a relatively narrow corridor of sea, hemmed in on one side by ice and on the other by German attack planes and battleships stationed on the northern cape of Norway. And Alec would be out there, too, as part of the small escort sent with a convoy to defend the merchant ships.
He’d told her about the destroyer he’d been assigned to, reassuring her that its defences were impressive even if its open bridge left the ship’s crew exposed to the bitter Arctic weather. But Flora had overheard two of the officers she’d been driving just the other day discussing how vulnerable the convoys would be without air cover.
‘Sitting ducks,’ one of the men had said.
‘I hear they’re putting guns on some of the merchantmen,’ replied the other. ‘Although that’s a bit like giving a child a popgun and