Air Ambulance

CHAPTER ONE

HIGH above the islands the plane journeyed, a small, scarcely discernible speck in the eternal blue. On and up, with a sureness in its steady drone and a sense of purpose in the arrow-straight flight which headed beyond the purple ridges of Argyll and Lorne and Benderloch over the dark hills of Morven to the open sea.

“The Ambulance!” the crofters said, looking up from their sparse fields.
“
Dkia gleidh sinn!
Who will be going back to the mainland tonight?”

Looking down from the cockpit, Captain Ronald Gowrie saw only the islands and the vast expanse of sea which surrounded them, but the girl sitting in the cabin behind him in the nursing sister’s cloak saw the mystery and the grandeur and the excitement of it all. This was her first flight, and beneath her lay the lovely, haunting islands of the west—the Hebrides—the country of her dreams.

Six months ago she had put down her name
on the voluntary list at the hospital for service with the air ambulance unit, impelled with a desire to help with this vital link between those remote outposts surrounded by the swelling Atlantic tide and the mainland hospital where she had received her training. The urge in her had been stronger than anything she had ever experienced before, an upsurging of the old pioneer spirit which had sent remote ancestors of hers to the far corners of the earth from these same islands, but always to return.

She stood up, moving forward to the open cockpit door to gaze ahead at the blue, untroubled sky.

“There’s a saying that once you’ve landed on one of these Hebridean islands it will claim you for ever. You’ll always come back!” the First Officer remarked, easing the earphones on his head. “I wonder how true it is.”

“It depends on the sort of person you are.”

Captain Gowrie had spoken without turning from the controls. His tone had been dry, his handsome mouth curved in a faintly cynical smile.

For a moment Alison Lang remained silent. Eyes as green as the sea where it lapped in the shallow places between the rocks were focused on the islands just ahead, eyes that held a dream and a hope.

“One day I shall land there,” she said.

The captain looked round at her at last.

“On any particular island?” he queried.

She shook her head.

“I think all the smaller islands must be alike—full of magic and peace.”

He laughed outright at the fanciful thought.

“They’re certainly peaceful enough,” he agreed. “Nothing ever happens. People are born and die, of course. That’s why we’re here.”

The cynical reminder seemed to distress her. Her small neat hands fastened on the edges of her gab
a
rdine cloak, drawing it more securely about her slim figure, as if she might close herself into some inner sanctuary with her dreams.

“This is a wonderful experience for me,” she told him after a little silence. “It gives me a feeling of—added responsibility for the patients we’re going to bring back to the mainland. If I nurse them afterwards, on the wards, I shall feel that they are really my patients in the fullest sense of the word.” Her eyes came back to focus on the slim, upright figure in the immaculate uniform, on the sure, steady, gloved hands on the controls which exuded confidence from long experience. “You feel it too,” she added quickly. “You know how essential you are in an emergency, only—you won’t show it.”

The hard mouth relaxed a little and the captain’s blue eyes softened.

“This isn’t my first flight,” he reminded her, “but I think I know what you mean. We’ve got a job to do on these trips that’s worth doing.”

“You’re not always on the ambulance plane, then?” she asked, looking down to the sea again.

“Good heavens, no. We’ve got a rota—just as you have at the hospital. We take it in turns and do the ordinary routine jobs in between. Mostly passengers and freight to the Outer Hebrides. I suppose,” he added lightly, “that you could call it a fairly tedious ferry-service, except that, at times, it can be exciting—and tough.”

And you like it tough, she thought, looking at him again. You don’t mind the danger, and you would be calm and cool-headed in an emergency. You’d get on with the job.

That was probably what made him such a good pilot. She had been told that he was good, back on the wards when it had been discovered that she was going on her first flight. They had said that Ronald Gowrie was the most reliable man to go with, if not exactly the most romantic.

“Hold on!” Gowrie advised her. “We’re going down.”

“Are we there?” she asked in some surprise.

He shook his head.

“I’m going to show you an island,” he said. “One I think you’d like.”

He nodded to his co-pilot to take over, and “Ginger” MacLean dipped the plane’s nose to skim through a thin layer of cloud which had drifted in from the Atlantic to meet them.

“There you are!” Gowrie said, as Ginger obligingly described a half circle and came back on to their course again. “Heimra and her satellite island—twin jewels in an emerald sea!”

“You really mean that,” Alison said, “in spite of the cynicism! Are they ‘your islands’?”

A shadow crossed his face, leaving it dark.

“No,” he said, “not now. It’s years since we left Heimra Mhor.
My mother always dreamed of going back, of course, but she never did. She died in Edinburgh, still dreaming of a white-sanded shore and hearing the waves breaking over Coirestruan.”

Ginger turned the plane again, banking sharply.

“That’s Coirestruan down there,” Ronald Gowrie explained. “That strip of water between the two islands. Its Gaelic name means ‘the hollow of the running water’, but running is a misnomer. It leaps and boils when the tide is full in, with all the fury of the Atlantic behind it at times, a vast mass of water pouring through a narrow neck—the most treacherous type of passage in the world.”

“Yet,” she suggested, “you think it beautiful.”

He considered the word.

“ ‘Awful’ would be a better description,” he said. “That narrow strip can cut off one island from the other as effectively as any barrier reef in rough weather.”

Alison was immediately interested.

“Do we service Heimra?” she asked.

“Not a lot. There’s an airstrip of sorts—the usual stretch of hard sand at the edge of the
machar,
but it’s useless in a southwest wind. The best landing strip is on the smaller of the two islands, but that’s forbidden to us for ordinary commercial purposes. We could only use it in an emergency.”

“You mean that the island is private? That the owner won’t allow anyone to land there?” she asked incredulously.

“It isn’t all that strange,” he said, although she fancied that there was a slightly bitter edge to his voice. “There are several islands dotted about this delectable sea where the common herd is not permitted to land. Seclusion is necessary to some people, and Blair of Heimra guards his assiduously.”

“Blair of Heimra!” Alison repeated the name as if it held an instant fascination for her. “Does he live there all the time?”

“I believe so.” He shrugged as if the subject was a matter of indifference to him. “It’s years since I’ve been on the island.”

“Is he an old man?” Alison questioned idly, still thinking about Blair as the Heron glided gracefully seawards beyond the norther
n
most tip of the twin islands.

"Blair? Good heavens, no! It’s not very long since he became the laird. He had an older brother who died—in a car smash.” She was sure now that his former indifference had been feigned. The Blairs of Heimra were more to him than just a name.

“I see,” she said, unwilling to probe any further because, for all she knew, her idle curiosity might have the power to hurt him. “From here the islands look the remotest things on earth—and the loveliest!”

He did not answer her, but he motioned Ginger to sweep in closer, giving her a full view of Heimra Mhor with its rocky coastline fringed by the white lace of the Atlantic breakers and its twin peaks and the long, gentle slope of its eastern shore.

Far beneath them she could see the rough landing strip where a plane might put down, and automatically her eyes moved swiftly to Heimra Beag lying beyond the narrow strait of Coirestruan. Here was the prohibited island whose long sweep of fine white sand lay securely sheltered behind a ridge of guardian rocks.

Anger stirred in her as she considered the selfishness of one man who had forbidden the island to his fellows, yet she realized that he had every right to reserve it for his own use if he wished to do so. Heimra and Heimra Beag were both his.

The smaller island looked completely unoccupied.

“There is a house on Heimra Beag, I suppose?” she asked, breaking what had been a long silence. “You did say Mr. Blair lived on the island.”

“The Blairs have lived on Heimra for three hundred years,” he told her. “It’s quite a thought. And I suppose it accounts for the present laird’s intolerance.”

It was ridiculous to feel disappointment in someone she had never met, Alison thought as they sped away from the islands. Someone she was never likely to meet, yet the thought of Blair of Heimra remained with her until they had reached Barra in the Outer Hebrides and taken on the casualty which was the reason for their flight.

Even before they had touched down on the long strip of hard sand, guided in by the sturdy figure of a girl with a walkie-talkie radio, she could see the small knot of people waiting for the plane.

They stood in a group at the far end of the beach with a car drawn up beside them which gave the scene a deeper, more personal meaning for her. The ambulance was already there, and the doctor would be waiting with his instructions, but when the Heron rose again into the clear blue of the bright March sky hers would be the sole responsibility.

As always, she felt her heartbeats quicken to the challenge which overmastered fear. She knew her job, and she had a gentle way with people. Over and over again she had been told that she was a born nurse, and no prouder title could have been afforded her. As far back as she could remember she had known what she had wanted to do with her life, and her decision had never faltered. Left alone in the world now by the death of her mother less than a year after a beloved father’s passing, she was aware that her profession meant more to her than ever. It was all she had; it had taken the place of her family, and in it she had found her friends.

“Don’t you want anything else?” someone had once asked her. “Love, for instance?”

Alison had smiled at that.

“Of course,” she had admitted, “I want to live a full life, but I’d like to marry someone who understood about my career.” That had been several years ago and, somehow, love had seemed to pass her by since then. Or was it just that she had been too difficult to please?

She asked herself the question with a smile as Ginger opened the plane door for her and hooked on the little metal ladder to let her get down on to the firm white sand. The soft, cool wind of the Hebrides caressed her cheeks as she looked about her, lifting her hair beneath the nurse’s cap with a playful movement to toss it in a skittish curl across her placid brow. It seemed to make nonsense of her dignity and her former rejection of love. Love came unbidden. Didn’t she know that? It came in the most unexpected places and at the oddest of times.

A sturdy, thick-set man came towards them.

“Hullo, Angus!” Ronald Gowrie greeted him. “Are you going to give us time for a cigarette?”

“Two, if you feel that you need them!” The island doctor had come up to the plane door. He was looking at Alison, measuring her with a keen, professional glance because she was a newcomer on the job. “Ever done this sort of thing before?” he asked almost gruffly.

“I have the necessary experience to be in full charge, doctor,” she told him, half nervously.

“Know all about altitude and that sort of thing?” he asked. “I’m taking a risk here,” he confessed, nodding in the direction of the ambulance. “The woman’s eighty years of age, and she has a heart condition, but the operation is absolutely imperative to save her life. She’s a splendid old type,” he went on, with the faintest suspicion of moisture in his sea-blue eyes. “Never been off the island in her life till now, and doesn’t like the idea very much.”

“I understand,” Alison said quietly, moving with him to the back of the ambulance. “I’ll do all I can to reassure her.”

The light of a new purpose shone on her face as she helped the doctor with the stretcher, laying a cool and gentle hand for a moment on the gnarled, arthritic ones clasped above the blanket on her patient’s chest. Eyes as blue and far-seeing as the doctor’s searched her face for a moment and were reassured. The old woman sighed and took one last long look at the island which she loved.

“She has very little English,” the doctor said, “but I’m coming back with you part of the way.” He turned to where the captain and First Officer MacLean stood smoking the longed-for cigarettes. “Could you put me down on Heimra, Ronald, do you think?” he asked. “I’ve a call to make on Heimra Beag.”

Ronald Gowrie looked as surprised as any man could look. “A social call?” he enquired with thinly-veiled sarcasm.

“In a way—yes,” the doctor replied. His tone had been almost guarded. “We hop around the islands these days, you know, more than ever. Have you been back, on Heimra, Rory, since your mother died?” he enquired kindly.

“No reason to go back.” The young pilot’s reply was laconic. “All the family have drifted away now. Heimra’s a forgotten place as far as I’m concerned.”

“But never entirely replaced in your heart,” the older man suggested with a smile. “It never could be, Rory. You were born there.”

“I’ve lived away from it for years.” Ronald Gowrie ground out the stub of his cigarette with an impatient heel. “It’s a good part of my lifetime.”

The doctor smiled.

“You talk like an old man,” he remonstrated. “But you can't be disillusioned. Not when you were brought up in the Isles!”

“Do you want me to drop you on Heimra Mhor or Heimra Beag?” Gowrie asked, drawing on his gloves. “One would be just as easy as the other.”

“I think I’ll stick to the regulation landing strip, all the same,” the doctor decided, his eyes twinkling. “There will be a launch waiting to take me across Coirestruan.”

“So Blair doesn’t even allow his friends to land on Heimra Beag?” Ronald mused. “I thought the old order might have changed when he took his brother’s place, but once a Blair always a Blair, I guess.”

“You misjudge the man,” the little doctor chided as they climbed into the plane. “It’s because of the children.”

Captain Gowrie made no reply to that. He sat grimly behind the controls, waiting for the stretcher to be placed on board, and Alison got on behind it and sat down by her patient’s side while it was strapped into place.

“I’ve given her a sedative,” the doctor advised her. “She should be all right, and you know what to do in an emergency.” He glanced round at the oxygen containers. “I’ve sent on all the other details to the hospital,” he added. “They’ll be waiting for her there.”

Looking down at the brown, lined face where time had laid its indelible mark and anguish and happiness had pencilled finer, more personal lines bout the mouth and eyes, Alison found herself wondering again about a full life. What had she meant when she had said that? Had she been looking only for happiness, a life immune from sorrow? This old woman had known happiness in her time, and sorrow. These two combined. She had lived her life, and the thick gold band on the third finger of her left hand meant that she had married and no doubt had raised a family on a tiny croft. She had done her duty, and she was content.

Somehow, Alison was sure of that. Content to die, perhaps, coming to the end of her time. All these years she had lived closely with her faith in God, and she had no fear of this journey. No real fear. What she wanted to be assured about was that she would be brought back to her island home.

Alison sat with the thin brown hand in hers as the Heron droned its way across the blue sky, listening not so much to the sound of the engines for her reassurance as to the gentle cadences of the doctor’s voice as he spoke to his patient in the Gaelic tongue.

“We will bring you back to Barra safe and well. You will see Morag’s bairn before the month is out, and nurse your first great-grandchild on your knee. I am promising you that!”

The wrinkled lids drooped over the searching blue eyes, and the old woman slept.

After a while the doctor made his way along the plane to stand beside the cockpit door, motioning Alison with him.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

Alison smiled.

“Glasgow, I suppose. I was born there, but my mother’s people came from Islay.”

“Ah, well, then you’re one of us!” He gave her a warm sm
il
e. “Don’t let Gowrie here put you off about the Islands. He’s secretly chained to them, like the rest of us.”

The pilot made a small, deprecating movement with his shoulders, but did not reply. Perhaps he found it difficult to deny, in actual words, his fondness for the Isles even after
“
a good part of a lifetime” away from them. It might even be the reason that had brought him back to fly over them, to touch down on them for a brief moment with the knowledge that he could rise again at will and fly away. He did not want to be bound by any tie, even of home or place.

Alison could see that. There was a restlessness in him that he would not challenge, a fear of meeting life face to face for a second time.

What was his story? There had been so many rumours. There always were in a big hospital, and she had never taken much notice of them before. She had not known him, but now, after just this one flight, she seemed to have known him for a very long time.

Perhaps that was generally the case when someone took your life and your whole future into their steady hands and guided you through the air to safety. The wonder of flight was still with her. She could not accept it as an everyday thing and it was Ronald Gowrie who had given her the confidence she needed.

He put the Heron down on the inadequate little airstrip on Heimra Mhor with faultless precision, the landing wheels touching the firm white sand with the lightest of jolts.

“I’ll say
au revoir,
because we’re sure to meet again.” The doctor held out his hand. “Perhaps one day you may take a holiday and come and see the islands properly.”

“I’d love that,” Alison assured him. “But holidays are few and far between. I’ve no time due till late on in the summer.”

Yet she was to come to the islands again sooner than she thought.

He stood in the doorway, blocking up most of it, yet behind him Alison was aware of a tall, powerfully-built man in thick tweeds standing waiting with a small child by the hand. He was someone she had seen before, and as she wrestled with a fleeting memory, the doctor turned and recognized him.

“Blair, my dear fellow! This is a surprise. A grand surprise!” he added heartily, as he jumped down and extended a hand.

Blair? Blair! Of course! Alison was remembering now quite clearly, but the man she remembered had worn a white coat, with a doctor’s stethoscope dangling about his neck—a younger man than this. A houseman in those days, with all the marks of brilliance on him. A young man with a shining goal in view.

And now he was Blair of Heimra, because his brother had died and he had taken on the responsibility of a name.

Watching him through one of the portholes as he shook the elderly doctor by the hand, welcoming him like an old friend, she wondered if he regretted the loss of his profession, as any man in his profession might, and then she remembered what Ronald Gowrie had said about him—about his pride and arrogance—and would not look at him any more.

Turning back to the stretcher, she stood waiting beside her patient, and in that moment she became aware of the pilot’s brooding face. He was looking at Blair of Heimra as if he hated him, as if there was something far more personal than just the use of the airstrip on Heimra Beag between them.

Did they know one another? It was not improbable, Alison decided. They had been brought up for many years on neighboring islands—one island, really, with only a narrow strait between—yet Ronald Gowrie sat on at the controls, making no movements to get out, even to smoke the cigarette which he enjoyed so much.

He acknowledged the doctor’s departure with a quick salute, but almost immediately Blair of Heimra held up a detaining hand.

The little doctor walked back towards the plane, and Alison moved to the door. Standing above the two men on the windy stretch of sand, her hands resting on the metal framework of the door, as if for support, she met Blair of Heimra’s cold grey eyes above the doctor’s head. They were eyes which summoned her up unwaveringly, assessing her worth in one swift glance, it seemed, before he would place his trust in her.

Compared with the squat little figure of the Highland doctor, he looked abnormally tall and dominating, a man fully aware of his own power, yet the child clinging to his hand looked up at him in absolute confidence and trust.

With a sense of shock Alison saw that the boy was hopelessly crippled, although the small, twisted body held a suggestion of assurance which appeared to have defeated the physical handicap. While he stood with Blair of Heimra, the child, too, had a sense of power. It was only when Blair loosened the clinging fingers from his own and urged him towards the plane that some of the brightness died out of the boy’s finely-boned face, and the blue eyes clouded over with dismay.

Alison moved slowly towards them.

“Can I help?” she asked uncertainly. “Perhaps he’s afraid of the plane.”

Blair looked down at her in the full sunlight, and something akin to recognition flickered in his eyes.

She felt nonplussed because she had been so sure that he would not remember.

“I’m sending the boy back to Glasgow with you,” he said before she could answer the more personal reference. It seemed that it did not require an answer. He had remembered her, and his assessment was complete. She was the efficient unit he needed in this present emergency. “I’ve phoned all the necessary particulars to the hospital,” he added in a brisk, professional tone which suggested that the doctor had not been left behind when the laird had come to Heimra. “He is to see Professor Brackenridge, and come back with the next available plane. You won’t find him any trouble,” he continued when the boy turned away for a moment. “He has a horror of the sea. The air journey was the only way.”

Alison looked at the boy and smiled.

“I’ll take care of him,” she promised. “Is there anything he has to have?”

“Not necessarily.” He was looking directly at her again, seeing her primarily as the nurse, of course. “I think you can give him the confidence he needs. He’s a spastic, but I think you’ve already recognized that,” he added.

She nodded, conscious of a choking sensation at the back of her throat which defeated speech. Was the child his own, the son a man in his position must surely long for? The boy was about five years old and badly lame, but he had all the marks of good breeding about him. The finely-boned face and large blue eyes gave him a gentle look, so that there was little about his appearance to connect him with Blair of Heimra. Yet Blair himself had brought him to the plane and had made the necessary arrangements for his flight.

Alison looked down at the child.

“You haven’t told me your name,” she said.

“Andrew.” He gazed back at her almost suspiciously at first. “I’m not going with you,” he intimated with a decisiveness of purpose which associated him immediately with the tall man by his side.

“But wouldn’t you like to see how the plane works—how we make it fly?” she asked. “You might even be able to sit near the pilot and help to make it go. I could ask him for you,” she suggested brightly.