Lord of the Isles (Coronet Books) (7 page)

Penetrating the denser smoke, he pushed on above the lochan, choking, blinking, seeking for some thinning of the pall where he might observe. But the screen he had conjured up was all too effective.

When at length he gained some hazy visibility, it was to discover that the foremost of the enemy was almost up with the woodland near the loch-foot. Admittedly many others seemed to be much scattered and strung out, plowtering and stumbling and making deviations in the bog. But it would not be long before these reassembled, to become a menace. It was time for a diversion.

Hurrying back, he found his way, with some difficulty, to where he had left the group of local men, herders, fishers and the like, standing in alarm behind the line of fire and listening to the sounds of battle.

“You men,” he called hoarsely, “show your worth! Aid us to defeat these pirates who oppress you. I do not ask you to fight. But run you down to the edge of the lochan, there, shouting your loudest. A company of Norse are making for here, across the bog. Give them pause. No need for blows. Just show yourselves, in all the smoke, with much noise—then back here into the trees. No danger—but it will give us more time.”

The men looked doubtful but could scarcely refuse. He left them to it.

Back in the area of the main battle, he blew on the bull’s horn which hung at his side. Long and loud he blew, the signal to break off this struggle and rally for the next.

It was not so easy, of course, to break off at a summons when one was fighting for one’s life. That was why Somerled, aware of it, needed time. He had to blow two or three times before he got any large proportion of his warriors assembled, a reproachful, disgruntled, battered lot, not a few of them wounded, all weary. He told them that he was sorry but this was necessary, one last push and then it should be as good as over. The Norsemen here, he reckoned, would have had enough. They were unlikely to rally and attack again meantime, although they might not be totally defeated. They could be left, for the moment.

Shouting from the other end of the woodland seemed to indicate that the Sallachan men were carrying out instructions, Somerled took his reluctant Irish through the smoke and trees in that direction.

They met the others coming running back, declaring that they were being close followed. This was what Somerled had hoped for. Telling his men to hide themselves as best they could—it was not difficult amongst woodland and smoke—hardly had he flung himself to the ground than the first Norsemen loomed up, in coughing, stumbling pursuit. They let these past, some way, to encourage the others, then set upon their successors as they appeared.

At this stage it was almost too easy, picking off the enemy in twos and threes as they came hurrying. The Irishmen became careless, laughing and joking at the grim business and pushing one another aside in order to get their due share of the killing. But when the oncoming Vikings began to trip over the growing numbers of their fallen, they became more wary, and presently leadership asserted itself and they fell back to regroup.

This Somerled sought not to allow. Shouting, the gallowglasses went over to the assault, hurling themselves after the retiring foe.

Once again forethought and planning gave them much advantage. The Norse had already suffered reverse and losses here, and found themselves on the defensive against unknown and confident numbers. They fought in denser smoke and heat than had the others—and they must have wondered what had happened to their fellows. So, although individuals fought bravely enough, they were not in a winning state and were gradually pressed back towards the lochan-foot and marsh.

Somerled grabbed a pair of gallowglasses. “Back to those villagers,” he ordered. “Find them and bring them. Shouting and yelling again. Round from the right, the east. No need to fight, just noise. A seeming new attack from that side. That should aid us. Off with you.”

The pair must have found the locals not far behind, for, more speedily than Somerled could have expected, there was a great outcry on their right and, armed with sticks and stones and the weapons of fallen Vikings, the Sallachan men came charging in from the east, cheering.

That was sufficient for the disheartened Norsemen. Almost with one accord they turned and sought to bolt back into the bog.

Although Somerled had indicated that this would be the last of his demands on his men meantime, he was not quite finished.

“The ships!” he shouted. “They must not reach their ships. Cut them off. Quickly—east-about. Round the bog. Down to the bay-shore. Follow me!” And he went leaping off.

The fleeing Norse had the shorter distance to cover, but they had gone, as they had come, through the soft marshland. It might give them a sense of security but it slowed them down notably. By skirting round on firmer ground, Somerled’s people were able to run where the others plodded and jumped and circled, to reach the salt-water shore, half-a-mile from the longships. But once on the hard shingle they were able to race directly for the beaching area, with only the shallow outfall of the Water of Gour to splash across.

The enemy could not fail to see it and to recognise who would reach the ships first. They began to swing away northwards, the only direction which offered any escape. And there, ahead of them, were the survivors of their first company, also streaming off from the burning woodland in the same direction. Not unnaturally they headed to join them.

It was a strange situation, with Somerled the clear victor and left in possession of the field, and more than that, the precious ships, yet the enemy still outnumbering them heavily—although they clearly did not know it. To be sure there were the other six ships, somewhere up Loch Linnhe chasing decoys, still to be reckoned with.

Reaching the vessels, Somerled sought to review the position and decide upon priorities. He had been prepared to get the vessels afloat, then board and if necessary defend them, ready to fight the other six when they returned. But it seemed that such a programme was not called for meantime, for the dispirited Norsemen were continuing to hurry off north-westwards into the hills, a straggling horde. So what was best now? The thought of trying to wage a sea-battle at this stage, with his exhausted force in six sorely undermanned ships, was less than appealing. It occurred to him that this might not be advisable now anyway. What would most upset these returning Vikings—a sea-battle against an inferior force, which they might so well win? Or to find their other ships burned and destroyed, their camp wrecked and their comrades gone, obviously defeated? He knew what would impress
himself
most.

So he issued new orders. These ships were to be fired, thoroughly, burned out. Then they would go up to the camp, eat and rest themselves briefly—provisioning would be there—then destroy the place and follow after the retreating foe, to keep them on the run and prevent any junction with the ship-borne group.

So more flame and smoke was added to that Sallachan conflagration and thereafter refreshment, if not much in the way of rest, was the order of the day. Celebration too, for amazingly they had not lost a single man dead, although there were not a few wounded, some seriously. These were roughly aided and then handed over to the Sallachan folk to be cared for—who also were charged with burying the Norse dead.

Before they left the camp—most of them extremely unwillingly—to follow the fleeing enemy into the hills, Somerled consulted the township men as to where the Norsemen would be likely to head in these circumstances. All agreed that they would almost certainly make through these Ardgour mountains, up Glen Gour and over the Sunart watershed for the great sea-loch of Shiel in Moidart, which lay some twenty difficult miles north-westwards and reached another score of miles inland from the ocean. The Vikings were known to have a base on Loch Shiel, from which they dominated Moidart and Sunart. These defeated would almost certainly seek to join their fellow-countrymen there.

Twenty miles. Somerled calculated. These sea-pirates were not likely to be good hillmen and, dejected and with their wounded, they would not cover that distance quickly through rough country. But his own people were desperately tired also and in no state for further fighting meantime. Besides, he had achieved his immediate objectives. There was no need actually to catch up with these fleeing men, so long as they saw them off these Argyll territories and prevented any reunion with their shipping. He would follow on slowly, therefore, and allow the enemy to know that they were being pursued.

He left behind a couple of men, and Murdoch the Achranich fisherman, to keep hidden watch for the returning longships and to bring him word as to what they did. He also warned the Sallachan folk to be ready to retire from their township meantime, with his wounded, for the returning Norse crews might well seek to work off their wrath on the local population, although in the circumstances he thought that they would be more likely to fear further attack and be concerned with leaving the neighbourhood. Somerled assured the people that he and his men would be back before long. Also their four decoy ships, from the Lochaber side, might well turn up in due course and should be instructed to await him here.

This all arranged, the company set off unhurriedly in the wake of the Norsemen, up Glen Gour and into the empty hills. It was nearly noonday.

No need to detail that long tramp across the hills of Ardgour and Sunart. It was not enjoyable for weary men, but on the other hand it was not any ordeal, with no great pressures upon anyone and the tensions of the last days slackened. Now and again they caught glimpses of the Norsemen in the distance—and it was desirable that they themselves should be seen to be following—but in the main, each party was out-of-sight of the other in that wild, upheaved country.

Glen Gour ran for some five miles north-westwards through increasingly high and rugged mountains and then petered out amidst a chaos of soaring peaks which formed the watershed and through which a lofty, steep and narrow pass penetrated. Two or three stony miles of this and Somerled decided that he had asked enough of his Irishmen. It was an inhospitable spot in which to spend the night but he reckoned that his people were sufficiently tired not to care. They had brought beef with them and though there was no woodland here now, there were plenty of whitened bog-pine roots for fires. That the Norsemen ahead might see these fires or their reflections and realise that their pursuers had halted, did not matter; probably they would be relieved and call a halt likewise. He posted sentries, however, well ahead in the defile. For the rest, full bellies and sleep, at last.

There were no alarms. Morning brought reports from the sentries that about a mile further the ground began to drop steadily, and that the lower ground beyond could be seen to be much wooded, with in the distance a large loch, no doubt Shiel. The Vikings could be seen, well down towards the woods, and still moving westwards.

Fairly soon after this the man Murdoch turned up from Sallachan, having been walking since dawn. He brought word that the six enemy ships had indeed returned in mid-afternoon, had not been long in assessing the situation and, without descending upon the township, had hurriedly departed down Loch Linnhe as though making for the Sound of Mull. There was no sign, as yet, of their own four craft.

Somerled was satisfied. The fleeing Norsemen to the west would surely not come back, now, over these harsh mountains, but would proceed on to Loch Shiel to join their fellow-countrymen in Moidart—and that represented a challenge, but for the future, not today. Those in the ships were presumably bound for Mull or Nether Lorne—or even for Kinlochaline, where they would get another shock. The chances of any counter-attack meantime were small. He would get back to Sallachan, then, and hope that their decoys would arrive there fairly speedily. If they did not, there would be nothing for it but to return over these mountains again, making across-country for Oronsay and Carna at the mouth of Loch Sunart, where they had left their original two vessels. It was a pity that they had had to burn those ships at Sallachan . . .

So far as he could tell now master of Morvern, Somerled gave the order to retrace their steps.

Their four decoy-ships they found awaiting them at the township bay.

The din was beyond description and Somerled cupped his ear. “Speak up, man,” he shouted. “I can hear only a word in three!”

“Then quieten your Irish savages!” the other exclaimed. “This is beyond bearing!”

“My Irish savages have bought your freedom and welfare, MacInnes. And you did nothing to earn it. Mind it! They deserve their amusement.”

The older man frowned. “Living under the Vikings is hard . . . I say, living under Vikings is hard, desperate,” MacInnes of Killundine declared. “If you have not been after suffering it you cannot understand. There was nothing that I could do . . .”

“So say all here. Yet if all had united, or most, and taken your courage in your own hands, you could have driven out these Norsemen. For you much outnumber them.”

“It is not so easy . . .”

“
I
did it, in three days. With two hundred Irish. How many men are there able to bear sword, in Morvern? Fifteen hundred? Two thousand?”

“But they are not at one—not at one, I say. MacCormick and MacIan are enemies of MacInnes, see you. The clans do not make common cause, MacFergus. I cannot . . .”

“Then they
will
do so, hereafter, by God! Or I will hang a few MacCormicks and MacIans and MacInneses and see if that will unite them—if only against myself!” Somerled cried, jumping up from his bench, transformed in an instant, as he could be, on occasion. “And call me lord, man. I am Lord of Morvern now and will be Lord of Lorne and of Mull and of Kintyre, aye of all Argyll, one day. So lord me, MacInnes—so that you get used to it!”

“Yes, lord . . .”

They were carrying on this difficult conversation in what had been the courtyard of the ruined hallhouse of Ardtornish, near the mouth of Loch Aline overlooking the Sound of Mull, and which was the ancient
duthus
or capital messuage of the entire lordship of Morvern. Learning from the Norse, they had spread captured Viking sails, erected on poles, as awnings over the yard and against the broken walling, to give some illusion of cover from the elements; and beneath this, celebratory feasting—by no means the first—was proceeding, with the gallowglasses in highest spirits and voice. There were local people there also, but these were considerably less vocal, more restrained in their merrymaking. Music of a sort, produced by bagpipers, added to the uproar, in the interests of dancing—although the dancers in the main seemed to prefer their own bawled and breathless singing, which evidently gave spice to the jigs and reels, the wording to be suitably emphasised to the women and girls present in case they missed the allusions. Captured Norse ale and spirits, and the Scots
uisge beatha
or whisky, flowed freely, and whole bullocks roasting over fires outside provided an ongoing sustenance for those who still had any capacity left to stomach it.