waiting for the water to reboil so that she could top up the teapot, Flora watched the group gathered in her kitchen, filling the room with their easy words and ready laughter that warmed the soul. Today had indeed been a good day, one to treasure. Because tomorrow Ruaridh would climb the hill to his post at the signal station and Alec, Roy and Hal would be back on board their ships. And then, when the time came, the tugs would draw back the boom nets and the signal would be given. The ships would slowly get underway and the convoy would begin its perilous journey, slipping from the safe embrace of Loch Ewe and plunging into the ice-grey grip of the Arctic sea.
Alec stayed on when the others had gone. It was already dark outside when Ruaridh went to help Iain check on the garron. Flora gathered up the teacups and carried them to the sink. As she began to wash them, Alec came and stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. He buried his face in her hair for a moment before picking up a dish towel and beginning to dry the cups. When they’d finished, she took the towel from him and wiped her wet hands on it before clasping them around his neck and kissing him.
His dark eyes shone with love as he gazed at her, taking in every inch of her face. ‘This is the image I’ll carry with me when we leave tomorrow,’ he told her, gently brushing back a tendril of copper-gold hair from her cheek. ‘Your smile will get me through the roughest seas and home again.’
He relinquished his hold on her for a moment and reached into the pocket of his tweed jacket. ‘I have something for you.’
The silver sweetheart brooch with the anchor and crown lay in the palm of his hand. ‘Ma wanted you to have it. She said it’s only right that you should wear it now.’ Carefully he pinned it to her jumper, above her heart.
Flora couldn’t speak for a minute or two as her emotions overwhelmed her. She knew how much the brooch meant to Lady Helen, and that this was a sign that she approved of Flora’s relationship with her son even if Sir Charles did not.
‘I’ll wear it every day,’ she said at last, ‘and treasure it as your mother has done. As we both treasure you.’
‘You’re my girl, Flora. The only one for me. Let’s not say goodbye. We’ll just say, “I’ll be seeing you.”’
She stood in the doorway as he walked slowly away up the path towards Ardtuath House. As she watched, she ran her fingertips over the brooch, which sat like a shield over her heart, tracing the outline of the anchor and the crown above it.
‘Come back safe to me,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be seeing you.’ And her words followed him into the darkness of the winter night.
The three girls watched from the pier at Mellon Charles as the convoy sailed. Flora’s expression was outwardly composed, but she had wrapped her arms around herself, pulling the sides of her dark blue uniform jacket tightly across each other as though by doing so they might physically hold her together.
Mairi’s face was tense and pale as the merchantmen began to move slowly into their allotted positions, as if they were playing a sinister, slow-motion game of follow-the-leader. ‘Wheesht, you’re crying, Bridie,’ she said gently. ‘It won’t be doing him any good now, will it?’
‘Oh, how on earth can you both stay so calm?’ Bridie wailed, fumbling in her pocket for her handkerchief and blowing her nose long and loud.
As she replied, Flora’s eyes never left the Isla, the destroyer leading the string of merchant ships from the loch, knowing that Alec was on the bridge and would surely know she was there. ‘We have to stay calm, Bridie, to help them be strong enough to leave. And, let’s hope, to help them be strong enough to face the journey ahead of them and come back safely, too.’
Lexie, 1978
Mairi is at the same time a stranger and so familiar that the tears spring to my eyes as we embrace. I remember her, of course, from my childhood. Even though she’d left the family farm for a new life in America at the end of the war, she returned to Aultbea now and then and always came to see us in Keeper’s Cottage, bringing with her toys and huge boxes of excitingly