As if sensing her uneasiness, Braan pushed his nose into the palm of her hand, reassuring her. And then she turned away from the window and dished the porridge into the waiting bowls.
The post office was so busy that the queue doubled back on itself in the crowded space of the little shop. It seemed that half of the village either had a letter to post that morning or a sudden need to buy an envelope and a stamp or two. Flora joined the line, but no one was in any great hurry to reach the counter to be served by Miss Cameron, the postmistress. Instead, there was a hum of conversation that revolved entirely around the arrival of the Home Fleet on their doorsteps.
‘That big ship in the middle is HMS Nelson and they have Mr Churchill on board.’ Mrs Carmichael was a fount of knowledge on most matters, not only restricted to those directly relating to her pivotal role as chairwoman of the local branch of the Scottish Women’s Rural Institute. With all three of her sons off to the war with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, it was generally acknowledged that she was entitled to hold forth on military matters, too. And now that her husband, Archibald Carmichael, had assumed the role of air-raid warden, her source of local information was second to none.
‘What is it they’re doing here in Loch Ewe?’ asked Bridie Macdonald, who had reached the front of the queue and was busy licking stamps. She handed her letters back to Miss Cameron for the postbag. ‘A quarter of pan drops, too, please.’
The postmistress reached the tall jar of sweets down from the shelves behind her and weighed them out, tipping the mints from the scales into a white paper bag and twisting the corners to seal it. ‘There you go.’ She sorted the coins Bridie handed over into the till.
‘It’s top secret, Archie says,’ Mrs Carmichael replied.
‘They’re probably scouting out places to base the Fleet, ready to defend us if there’s an invasion of U-boats from the north.’
‘Wheesht, Bridie, you know what they say . . . careless talk costs lives.’
Bridie was about to point out indignantly that Mrs Carmichael had just announced to any German agents who happened to be waiting in the queue for stamps and sweets that the First Lord of the Admiralty himself was on one of the ships out there on the loch, but she thought better of it and popped a mint into her mouth instead. Mrs Carmichael was, in build and in temperament, not unlike one of those battleships and Bridie was neither brave enough nor foolish enough to give her any cheek.
‘Instead of standing about gossiping, you can come along to the hall this afternoon and lend a hand. The Rural is knitting scarves for our boys at the front and we need all the help we can get. Can I count you in? You too, Flora?’
It was impossible to say no to Moira Carmichael. Both girls nodded obediently. ‘Very good. Three o’clock sharp. Bring your own needles. Wool will be provided.’ She picked up her basket as the door pinged. ‘Ah, Mairi, I hope we can count you in as well?’
Flora turned to greet her best friend with a smile.
Mairi Macleod shrugged cheerfully. ‘Count me in for what?’
‘We’re knitting scarves for soldiers,’ Bridie chipped in, the pan drop in her mouth clicking against her teeth. ‘Three o’clock sharp, in the hall.’
‘I’ll expect all three of you girls to be there then,’ said Mrs Carmichael, sweeping regally out of the door.
The queue shuffled forward, filling the not inconsiderable gap.
‘Any word from Ruaridh?’ Mairi asked.
Flora shook her head. ‘Not since last week.’ She held up the envelope she was carrying. ‘I’m just sending him a letter now.’
Glancing out of the window toward the hulks moored in the bay, Mairi said, ‘I wonder how long they’re going to stay?’
One of them had a plume of dark smoke rising from its funnel and from another, small launches were being lowered into the leaden water. There were signs of activity on the decks of the others as well, figures hurrying purposefully to and fro.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Flora replied. ‘Maybe they’re just passing through on their way to somewhere else.’ But Bridie’s words still rang in her ears. Could they be scouting for places to harbour ships? Was this something more permanent? Only time – and perhaps Mrs Carmichael – would tell.
Flora and Mairi sat by the range, chatting companionably as their knitting needles flew. The balls of grey wool that had been handed out at the meeting of the Rural two days before were rapidly being transformed into scarves, made to Mrs Carmichael’s exact specifications.
‘This grey is a bit drab,’ sighed Flora, setting her knitting aside to put the kettle on.
‘I know,’ agreed Mairi. ‘But I suppose it’s regulation issue.’
‘Ach, surely a little bit of colour can’t hurt. Look, I have this remnant of red. I’m going to add a wee stripe of colour, just at one end. That way, whichever soldier ends up wearing it will know we wanted to cheer him up.’
Mairi laughed and dug into her workbasket, holding up a skein of daffodil-yellow wool. ‘Good idea. Even just a row or two will make it a bit more personal.’
From the loch, the blast of a ship’s siren caused a flurry of sandpipers to rise from the shore, taking fright. Over the past couple of days, more ships had arrived, including one that was said to be laying anti-submarine nets across the mouth of Loch Ewe.
‘What’s going on now?’ Mairi raised her head from her work, craning her neck to see out of the kitchen window.
‘More ships coming in,’ said Flora, absent-mindedly tucking a strand of her russet-gold hair back into the braid that hung down her back. ‘Maybe Bridie’s guess was right the other day. There do seem to be an awful lot of them now.’ The stretch of water between the shore and the island teemed with vessels of all sizes, from the great battleships with their vertical prows and towering turrets to smaller and faster destroyers and cruisers. The launches that buzzed back and forth between the gathering fleet appeared tiny alongside the imposing grey hulks.
Slower and more cumbersome than the launches, two fat tugs chugged back and forth in the distance, out towards the mouth of the loch. They were rumoured by Bridie, who’d heard it from Mrs Carmichael, to be laying a boom that stretched from the end of the island across to the rocks on each of the opposite shores in order to protect the harbour, keeping out any U-boats that might manage to slip past the nets fixed across the mouth of the loch.
Flora set the tea to steep and picked up her knitting again, splicing in a strand of the red wool and deftly working another row of neat stitches. When the front door opened she barely glanced up, expecting Braan to come bouncing in ahead of her father, the pair of them just down from the hill. But the next moment she had jumped to her feet, knitting thrown aside, and flung her arms around the young man in his blue and white naval uniform who stood in the kitchen doorway.
‘Ruaridh!’ she cried. ‘Oh, we hoped you’d be on one of those ships. Dad will be so pleased.’
Her brother grinned, picking her up and swinging her around until she couldn’t tell whether she was giddy with the whirling or with the joy of seeing him. Setting her back on her feet, he reached to give Mairi a hug, too. ‘Glad to see you’re keeping yourselves busy. Any chance of a cup of tea?’ he said matter-of-factly, as if he’d just popped out that very morning instead of it being nearly three months since his last leave.