Mountain Article & Photography Competition 2008 Winners
The winners of the competition were to be announced at the EMFF in October 2008, but due to illness, Joe Brown, our volunteer Competition Coordinator had to stand down and we were unable to finalise the competition before the Festival.
We wish Joe and his wife Corri our best wishes for the future and give our thanks for all his work with the competition over the past few years.
MCofS Mountain Article Competition
This year we had twelve prose entries and seven poetry entries. The judges were: Chris Townsend (MCofS President), Stevie Christie (EMFF), John Donohoe (ex-MCofS President), Ingrid Parker (ex-MCofS VP), Nick Hamilton (last year’s winner) and Jayne Glass (Scottish Mountaineer subeditor).
The quality was generally high with only a few points separating the top four in each category. In the prose, Phyllis Anderson’s The Last Bothy split the judges between those who loved the fictional intricacies and novel style and those who “liked the story but it’s too difficult to understand”. It still scored high enough for 3rd place. Eddie Barratt’s Croft on the Flowe wove “brilliant cultural and historical descriptions” with “an effective ghost story and a chilling finish” with believable characters and atmosphere to take 2nd place.
Of the poetry submissions, Roderick Manson described “a poetic map!” in Episodes – East to West with “evocative language” to take 3rd prize, whilst James Turner “captured the feelings of a hill day” in his love poem Brewing Up Ardnamurchan to take 2nd prize.
However, for the first time since the competition started 20yrs ago, the same person won 1st prize for both prose and poetry with consistently high scoring from all judges: Malcolm McMillan wrote of his inspirational journey in Greenland. Described variously as “evocative”, “atmospheric”, “moving”, “emotional” and “lovely writing style”, Malcolm’s Empty Horizons and Greenland Inspired Poem are both reproduced in Scottish Mountaineer Issue 42 (February 2009). Malcolm wins £250 and a weekend pass to 2009 EMFF.
EMFF Photography Competition
The winners in the two categories of competition are reproduced here. They received cash prizes as well as free MCofS membership for 1yr and a BMM Cairngorm Map.
Pushing My Limits by Lukasz Warzecha
For more see: www.lwimages.co.ukA Winter Adventure by Nick Carter
For more see: www.alphamountaineering.co.uk
Empty Horizons
By Malcolm McMillan
I’m lost in a world of silence. A land that stretches into the blue distance forever. A world of no blunt horizons, just gentle mergings of ice and sky
I’ve been cast adrift in a land flooded by oceans of ice, rolling towards me under a gentle swell until the breaking waves crash silently against the coastal mountains, rushing down the glaciers in turbulent, distorted cascades. I’m lost not physically, but mentally. How can a mind that has been conditioned to coping with a modern, urban reality comprehend the vast beautiful and brutal emptiness of Greenland? I’ve realised over the past few weeks that, for me, this is where I really feel content. I hope that these mountains soon forget our brief visit. As the expedition has gone on I have increasingly felt the need to leave no trace of our journey. Our tracks will soon disappear and leave the mountains, for the time being, in splendid ignorance of the damage that man can inflict upon the environment.
For the last time I walk up to a small knoll overlooking the ice-cap. With the sky in my hair and the wind at my feet, I silently sit, staring out over the inland ice, and try to permanently imprint this beautiful panorama on my mind. I take a photo, knowing it will never capture the essence of what it’s like to be here – photos are always pale representations of reality – but hoping that it will act as a prompt to help me remember how I felt inside. It’s the first time in three weeks that we’ve had an afternoon off - no sledge-pulling or load-carrying for the remainder of the day. I’m lost as to how to occupy myself. A nagging sense of guilt at being lazy ticks round inside my head; only four hours’ exercise today.
I let my mind wander back over the past weeks. It’s a lifetime ago that we set off from Iceland, waving goodbye to the luxuries of hotel double-beds and fresh food, eager to start our attempt to make the first unsupported ascent of Shackleton Bjerg, a remote peak in northeast Greenland. Excitement as the great unknown of Greenland revealed itself through the window of our tiny plane. Alpine mountains rising proud out of the sea, ice-bergs stalking the coast. Landing at the barren airstrip at Mesters Vig I remember feeling the cold; the worry about how much worse it would be on the icecap. Now it seems normal – constantly wearing hat and gloves as unremarkable and routine as wearing shoes. I think back to setting off in our rubber dinghy: nomads, with all our worldly possessions crammed around us, heading off to a new world. The 24-hour daylight seemed strange at first; the realisation of how much we’re governed by our watches as we stick to normal meal-times and sleeping patterns for no good reason other than routine. Slowly we made our way through fjord systems. Always the droning engine, the smell of petrol – feeling slightly out of place, wishing for the quiet noises of sailing instead. Always something to marvel at - the iceberg shapes: lions and eagles serenely gliding past; tracing improbable lines up imposing cliffs or mentally picking my way over the knife-edge ridges and summits we pass beneath.
After 3 days of boating we reach the head of Dickson’s Fjord. Feet on solid ground yet still my body rises and falls with the ingrained motion of the waves. We sort out food rations – endless amounts of chocolate and flap-jack, dried milk and silver packets of dehydrated delights. Two days later we are waving goodbye to the fjord and staggering up towards the initial glacier. Bent double under the weights on our back, eager to reach snow so we can shed our loads on to sledges, worrying if our bodies will accept weeks of this abuse. The first days are hard. No time to enjoy the views, yet all the time in the world with head down, eyes fixed on the sledge in front, forever thinking “why?”, but always deep-down knowing. The terrain is much worse than we had envisaged; hundreds of melt-stream ditches cross our path – an intricate defence system devised to prevent our progress. Jump ditch, ease sledge over the lip until its momentum takes it crashing down into the stream, strain at the leashes to haul it up the opposite bank. It’s not just our bodies that are finding it hard, the sledges are also taking a battering. A day of white-out is spent patching up broken sledges and shafts, wondering how much more abuse they’ll take before they’re beyond repair. A growing fear that we may have to turn around and retreat before we’ve made proper inroads into our objective.
Slowly the weather clears, slowly the terrain improves, slowly our spirits rise. By the time we reach the icecap proper and can finally strap on skis we are becoming used to our new 9 ‘til 5 routine. Blue sky days filled with exercise and eating, finding time to enjoy our amazing surroundings and to enjoy feeling fit and strong. Forever dragging our sledge-homes behind us, our snail-like existence is at times monotonous, but mostly it is strangely satisfying. All we need for life contained within our sledges; no room for the unnecessary clutter of our normal materialistic existence. Shackleton Bjerg slowly grows day by day, but it’s hard to judge distances when there’s nothing to judge distances against – everything is so vast. Sometimes we seem to slog all day, only to find that the views are the same as when we set out; as though we’re unknowingly walking the wrong way along a giant travelator. Some days though the invisible travelator speeds us on our way and we shoot along until soon Shackleton Bjerg rises up in front of us. We pick our route – the south-west ridge – a straight-forward climb. The next day we set off promptly, eager to make the most of the current stable weather, which is now showing signs of breaking. Vast expanses spread out around us as we gain height. Mountain upon mountain jostling for position near the sea, but inland; nothing. Vast, empty, stillness. A sudden urge to ski off into the void, to a place where time will slow and then stop; to a place of immutable peace. Looking up, the ridge narrows as it leads onto a summit thinly veiled in cloud. Soon we’re there, the racing wind tearing holes in the cloud and allowing glimpses of the world below; of enticing peaks to climb in the days ahead and of our journey home. The deteriorating weather chases us back down to our tents. In the face of a biting gale we hurriedly build a protective snow wall around the tent – the realisation hitting home of how alone and vulnerable we are here – without our tents we are nothing; we stand no chance of survival.
The next few days dawn clear and bright, although shredded by a searing northerly wind. With our main objective complete, we are free to investigate the surrounding area. I’m a child discovering a huge playground of unknown peaks to explore; an excited dog free from the leash of my sledge. Skiing feels like flying without the constant drag from behind; gliding over the cloud-top surface of the ice-cap. The indescribable excitement of picking an enticing peak, an inviting ridge and then heading off, unaware of what lies above and out of sight. In these wonderful days we climb several of the nearby peaks but soon it is time to leave this place and begin the long journey back to the boats. Days ahead are spent retracing our steps; the uncertainty of our outward journey replaced with a calm assuredness of feeling at home in this environment.
A breath of wind catches me unaware and chases me back to reality. I’m still sat on the knoll but now it’s time to leave. A final look over the icecap; a quiet goodbye to mountains we’ve climbed and others we haven’t. I trace our path back from the edge of the ice-cap to the distant pyramid of Shackleton Bjerg on the horizon: a journey of forgotten footsteps and unforgettable memories. I’ve come to realise that the climb itself was not the real point of the expedition. It was good to reach the summit, to be able to hail the expedition a success. But the real point, as with life as a whole, lies in the journey; the beauty we’ve witnessed, the arguments we’ve resolved, the sledges we’ve held together with duck tape, snow stakes and string, and the chance to push ourselves to see how far we’ll go.
I turn my back and head down towards camp, sad to leave it all behind but peacefully content.
This article won 1st prize in the 2008 MCofS Mountain Article Competition (in association with the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival).
A poem written beneath Shackleton Bjerg, Northeast Greenland
– An attempt to explain the effect of such a place upon me
By Malcolm MacMillan
Staring beauty;
Me staring at it, helplessly moved,
It staring through me, unmoved.
Fish-scaled sky sliding into quiet, distant ice.
No separation or boundaries –
Just one single spectrum through snow to sky.
Want to step into the spectrum; squeeze under the sky -
Be part of that beauty that rests in my eye.
But I can’t.
So I sit, silently watching
Silently crying
Not understanding
Inside.
This poem won 1st prize in the MCofS Mountain Poetry Competition 2008 (in association with the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival).
The Croft on the Flowe
By Eddie Barratt
If you ever decide to walk amongst the Galloway Hills you will find wild areas as remote as anywhere in Scotland. I’ll not try to describe the land, whoever it was that named those features in the first place was far more capable than I am of evoking their character; The Dungeon Hills, The Rig of the Jarkness, The Range of the Awful Hand.
Generally soggy underfoot, there’s no easy way in. Loch Enoch is a bonny spot; it seems perched amid the mountains, a long walk in or out. The wind rakes up a spray and a constant rain blasts its surface. Water continually oozes from boggy soil into trickles and streams that find their way to feeding the Loch. It’s a lovely spot if you like the wild.
On occasion the wind doesn’t blow, sometimes the rain doesn’t fall. The air can be still, the sky more white than grey, and slowly a river of mist will flow up the valleys from below and meet you. It will be white as snow, as white as the buds of cotton growing in the grass around you. Everything will be silent.
It was my great fortune, some time ago, to find myself walking in the hills a short distance west of Enoch, when the weather calmed and the mist came in. I couldn’t see much more than a few feet, but the scene was enchanting, and I knew the way, so I continued on my way.
Loch Enoch was carved by ancient ice out of the tough Granite that gives this area its barren look. It’s a deep cold loch that hides a more domestic, or at least agricultural secret. Loch Enoch granite sand once had a reputation as the hardest, finest agricultural sharpening sand available. The Rag and Bones men used to walk the lonely trails out to Loch Enoch, fill a sack with this sand, and traipse out again to sell the sand to local farmers.
It’s barren all right, but not holey inhospitable, a few crofters made their livelihoods out in these hills. You can visit, and stay in, one of their old cottages today at Backhill Of Bush, it’s a bothy now but until the beginning of the last century it was a farm croft. The family there lived a hard life off the land, with their small group of animals and their crops. They had a pony that was sent for supplies over the trails to Carsphairn, and could be trusted to make the journey its self. It knew the way to go, and it knew by animal instinct never to cross Silver Flowe. Everyone knew not to cross Silver Flowe.
I walked through the mist that evening. The hills stood above me, but all I could see was mist and cotton topped grass. I stumbled upon a wild goat, which looked up, then cantered away out of sight. I walked on.
Silver Flowe: it rises from the shore of the Black Water of Dee gradually up the valley beside the Dungeon Hills. Its half loch, half bog. It’s over grown by grass and heather and reeds so that the surface looks almost as though it could bear weight, but it can’t. No animals larger than a rabbit venture onto the Flowe, it’s unlikely that any that do ever get back. No one knows if any people have ever fallen through. The occasional hiker does go missing up here, but what could make them head for the Flowe?
Somehow though I’d reached the Flowe. I must have veered off course, not that it mattered, now I knew where I was all I had to do was follow the shore until I reached the Loch, then follow it until I reached the track, it was a longer walk but I was well equipped. Twilight was falling and the silent fog was becoming tinged with a smoky blue.
As I trudged along beside the Flowe, light glistening on its watery surface, the cloud enclosed me. I felt isolated, alone. I was in a twenty meter cocoon, the hillside on my right and the Flowe on my left. The air was damp and cool; it smelt of peat, it was almost silent except for the sweetest whisper of a breeze upon the Flowe.
The light was falling. I thought maybe the wind was picking up; the noise across the Flowe seemed to be rising. The sound was all but imperceptible, a gentle melody, it seemed to dance and jig to a playful tune. I sat down for a moment to savor the sound; it seemed to beckon me out onto the Flowe. I must have sat to listen for a while but I’m a rational man so I got up eventually, I wiped the dew off my face and pressed on.
A halo of light glowed ever stronger out of the mist, it was on my left, so maybe this wasn’t the Flowe I was walking beside. Was I more lost than I thought? I could swear I could hear a flute now. No, it was the Flowe, I know these hills, and it must be a trick of the light and the wind. It was beautiful though. Eerie. Enticing.
Was it a torch? Was someone stuck on the Flowe? Did they need my help? It was so peaceful, why didn’t they call me? The music was so sweet it could melt your heart; it could swallow your soul.
I don’t know how this story will escape this place but I’ll remind you again; I’m a rational man and I know what I saw. There was a light there, and the music was calling me. I didn’t bloody imagine it is what I’m saying. This is real. I couldn’t ignore it. I walked out onto the Flowe.
As I approached the light grew brighter, and the music grew stronger, more distinct. I could hear laughter, talking, singing? I seemed to be on a raised passage of grassland amongst the marsh, it meandered a little but it led to the light.
An elderly man approached me; I don’t think I was surprised, you know like in a dream? He shook my hand and smiled apologetically up at my face. He wiped the mist off his beard and called behind him, “Here’s another one, I think he’ll fit in just nicely.”
The old man wore tinkers clothing from a bygone age. Hobnail boots and a worn jacket. We approached a small stone croft; candlelight glowed from inside its windows. At the door crowded the strangest assembly I could have imagined, they smiled out at me. They looked so pleased to see me! I was very welcome.
“Oh your home now” a pleasant looking lady said with a grin, she came out and hugged me, she was dressed like an old style photograph of the Scottish peasantry, turn of the century style, “it’s so good you made it!”
“Aye, drop yer sack off there” said the old man, then spying my daysack murmured to himself “I could of carried a bit of sand in that canny thing.” The croft was whitewashed stone, it radiated warmth, I was weary and inside looked comfortable, comforting.
Inside the cottage was gathered a small group, they seemed to be from all times; the tinkers from when industry was young, a couple of shepherds, had they been looking for lost members of their flock?
The lady stood by a younger girl, she caught my questioning eye and answered “Morag ran out here the one time, I went to get her back, but well, we found this party and we thought we’d stay a while.” Morag grinned, and her mother gave her a squeeze around the shoulder.
One man was dressed in furs. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, but looked like he’d seen enough to call himself a man. It must have been his bow and quiver of stone tipped arrows I’d seen outside.
A nymph played flute, she was young and lissome, and she was gorgeous! She was pale, almost white but with chestnut hair and freckles on her cheeks. She was dressed in white. Her flute was made from starlight. Trust me I could see it! I can still see it. Her music fluttered around the room, it raised the heart, she danced lightly, playfully, seductively, she looked at me and blushed a greeting. She continued to play; I don’t think she’ll ever stop.
“Have yerself a wee dram” I turned around and took a mug from a man dressed more like myself. I took him as a hiker, from perhaps twenty years ago. “Don’t you worry yourself; we’ll have this party the now and we’ll head on in the morning. Time flies here, it really does”
I looked out the window to where I’d walked in, where was that path? I couldn’t see it now.
“Oh don’t worry no,” said the hunter “We’re all going to leave when the morning comes.” I took a drink and stayed.
The Last Bothy
By Phyllis Anderson
“Sylvie, you’re nearest. Jump out.”
The driver tilts the interior mirror to gain a better view of rear seats. Raven locks skim a cloth bound book which she slips into a jacket pocket then slides the door. Sharp gust, she digs her soles into asphalt eventually reaching a level crossing. Doreen watches from a passenger seat, scarlet lips pursed as Sylvie lifts a handset from its metal base. John manoeuvres the camper van to a four bar gate rolling the window down. Sleet sweeping across tarmac.
“Well? What did they say?”
He tries to wrest an explanation from puzzled features.
“The line died.”
“What did the guy say?”
“Central computer at the rail network has crashed. He couldn’t advise me.”
“Open the gates!”
Diesel engine strikes a salutary chord and silence prevails. Sylvie leafs through vellum pages. Doreen thrusts a straw into hard plastic sucks juice from a carton. Pensive expression trails John’s craggy features his hands tighten their grip. Flakes of snow fall like ghosts resigned to their fate. Doreen idly pushes buttons, searching through interference. She finds radio silence so depresses the off switch seeking explanation beyond a misted window. Wind wipers upgraded to maximum, tachycardic beat on glass, occasional jolt over pot holes - surreal snow shaker dream.
Thoughts cased in granite, fingertips raking her glossy hair, Doreen turns towards the driver.
“What do you see?”
John’s eyes fix ahead.
“I see mountains.”
“How about you, Sylvie?”
Using her thumb as a book mark eyes wander off the page.
“I see spiders webs beaded with crystal raindrops.”
John seeks the questioner’s opinion.
Downward gaze through black rimmed spectacles. “I see my nail polish is chipped.”
The engine stutters then dies. Handbrake ratcheted home.
“This is it. End of the road.”
John notes the date and year: 20:05:2012. Removes his watch, straps it to the
interior mirror. He steps outside. Collar pulled up against glacial chill. Doreen stares into white out nibbling skin around her thumb. Immaculately stacked on hooks and rails the cavernous boot reveals rucksacks, poles, torches, provisions, sleeping bags, mats. They load their share of the supplies. John places a box, white cross emblazoned on green background in the top section of his rucksack. Sylvie, intrigued expression playing across her face surveys black iron gates. She nudges Doreen who stares at a hunting lodge in the style of an Austrian schloss, romantic turrets and spires.
John depresses buttons on a mobile phone. Doreen is distracted by a series of clicks.
“Is it not working, John?”
“Nah. Signal’s dead.”
The trio stare at the fairy tale castle. Sylvie is convinced a princess is slumbering beyond an oval window in the upper floor.
“Is this the bothy, John?”
Suppressing laughter. “Not quite, Sylvie.”
“How long will the walk in take?”
John strokes his pointed chin.
“As long as it takes!”
The group follow a track which passes the lodge. Sylvie pauses to consider the viewpoint across the loch from a bench which is positioned on a plinth inside the grounds. A herd of ornamental deer nuzzle the earth in vain hope of sweet grass. John stops to inspect Land Rover tread marks. He cocks an ear to a path which heads to open country then sifts the sky watching charcoal specks coalesce until blue traces are obliterated. The girls catch up and they agree to increase their pace. Cold rations are eaten en route. Words beaten flat by fierce winds. There is a need to reach shelter before dark, before the leaden sky spills its contents. Turning left onto a rough path, John watches for discarded branches which he can break into manageable pieces over a coal fired stove. Wild ponies canter through the blizzard leaving their pitiful rack of hay. Muzzles hunger for apples so John proffers a pen knife throwing the final slices a few feet. Turns his head so that he won’t see phantom hooves scrambling for remnants. They set off. John hoists a tree branch across his back which Doreen supports at the rear. Sharp turn left of a loch and pine forest lavishly iced with snow. They take turns to carry the branch over undulations snatching glimpses of a roof which is eventually united by yule log walls.
A footbridge.
Sylvie is first to cross. Averting her eyes from missing slats she awaits John and Doreen, calling out. “It’s shoogly!”
Inside the bothy clothing is changed, wet things placed under sleeping bags.
A wooden platform each. They decorate the mantelpiece with a silver hip flask, box of Turkish delight, bottle of fruit soaked in rum, chocolate bars wrapped in foil.
“D’you think we’ll climb Ben Alder tomorrow?”
Doreen’s speech distorted on account of wedging two biscuits lengthways. John stokes the fire. “We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
Lying flat in sleeping bags, they stare at crackling flames arms folded across their chests. Doreen scrabbles through her haversack retrieving a pack of tarot cards. John gropes for his hip flask.
“What about a ghost story, girls?”
“Or a poetry reading?” suggests Sylvie.
John tosses a coin into the air. Dull thud on pine.
Tap Tap. Tap.
“What the ….. ?”
Three pairs of eyes peer through the gloom trying to work out the origin of the sound.
Tap Tappity Tap.
Persistence hardens the rattle. John scrambles out of his sleeping bag quickly locates his rucksack unzipping the top compartment with furious fingers.
“GIRLS. STAY HERE.”
Iron latch is carefully lifted. He wrenches the door back.
“STATE YOUR BUSINESS.”
A tall figure is led into the room clad in a combat poncho, hood concealing his identity. He is forced to halt in front of the fireplace. The girls leap to their feet and John tosses something across the room which Doreen catches. A first aid box freed of a pistol which he uses to push the hood from the man’s head.
“What the …..?”
Laughter rings out. The men embrace, air is rich with mirth.
“Solly my old mate!”
Deadpan response in bass tone.
“Will ye tak that pistol outta ma coupon.”
A traveller’s face hardened by the elements, Solly strokes the straight barrel.
“A Lugar. Where d’ye get it?”
John sips from a hip flask. “My Grandfather procured it in the trenches.” He suppresses a giggle. “The first aid kit was the only container it would fit.”
Reunion of comrades melts tension. Warmth of the fire occasionally broken by one of the party venturing outside. Ghost stories, tarot cards, floor strewn with confectionery wrappers. Elixir of powdered chocolate and coffee ensured no one slumbered. Colourful tales recounting basic training.
“Mind the time you blew up the NAAFI at Lympstone?”
Solly responds in flat tones. “Jest a wee altercation wi’ a chip pan.”
John pokes the fire alive, his intent confirmed by a sombre expression.
“IT’S TIME!”
“Time for what?” Doreen stifles a yawn. Sylvie wriggles into the depths of her sleeping bag. The door creaks open, John steps outside. Gradually the others follow him. Insulated against sub zero chill they stand in silence wondering about the navy blue sky, pin cushioned with sparkling messages. A comet flashes across Ben Alder, ancient logo swoosh then vanishes into endless night. John turns quickly his sentiments absorbed by a handkerchief. Amber glow beckons the group inside.
“Give me a hand Solly”.
The girls look on bemused as a wooden bench is dismantled. An iron ring is unearthed from the centre of a hatch. Torchlight illumines a shaft leading to a metal ladder.
John issues instructions.
“Gather up everything, I mean everything we can use.”
Tentative steps descending into unknown.
Prison cell dimensions, its walls are stacked with food tins, containers of water, bedding, a stove and gas bottles. Medical supplies line an entire wall and white respiratory masks hang from hooks. Sylvie inspects the tins which are grouped according to ingredients. Her index finger traces an illustration of a child knee deep in buttercups. One arm around a wicker basket brimful of strawberries the other
shielding her eyes against sunlight. Sylvie’s legs give way, she topples against a wall and the tin falls from her shaking hands. Glassy eyes implore John, her shoulders heaving with the weight of sobs.
“You knew didn’t you?”
Her voice croaks with emotion.
“It’s why you left your watch back there.”
She forces out the words.
“When-will-we-know-for-sure?”
He points skyward and shrugs.
“When we see the first cockroach coming down the stairs.”
Solly hangs lamps overhead his tall frame engulfing John.
“By the way. Is that pistol loaded?”
John starts towards a cardboard box which he sifts through then loads the pistol placing it in a holster at his side. A knowing glance to the group.
Paper plates on their knees, Solly dishes up baked beans, sausages and powdered mash followed by tinned pears and custard.
Sylvie recites the Lord’s Prayer.
Ninety chalk marks on the wall one for each day. Holster on his hip tightened by three additional notches, John lifts four masks and distributes them to the group. Molasses steps, they follow in single file. The hatch grinds its freedom note. Nose to an inch wide gap John is afraid to inhale.
“Shhhh!”
A scraping sound.
He reaches for his holster signalling to Solly to lift the hatch. A cockroach stares into the eyes of a human, battle weary expression hard as rain pattering tin. Disparate species, allied in their determination to survive. Its proboscis threads enquiry so John drops his gaze, permitting entry. Inside the bunker it traces a singular path, stopping to inspect a Hessian sack. Ignoring Sylvie’s shrieks it weaves through fibres for stray grain.
One by one the group ascend on weakened legs. All that remains of the bothy is a hatch set in concrete. Ash grazing their ankles they walk in languorous circles, blinking across a ravaged landscape shrouded in mist.
Tremulous voice breaks the silence. “There’s no way back, is there?”
John places a comforting hand on Sylvie’s shoulder. “Weapons of mass destruction. Pah!” He strikes a defiant gesture skyward then leans in close to Sylvie as though confiding a secret.
“You survived Solly’s curried beans. Didn’t you?”
Behind masks their eyes crinkle around the edges.
Solly pores over footbridge bones staring, just staring into a negative print he’s ambled across. They congregate by the burn. Doreen picks up a white stone and skims the surface. They watch it sink. Brittle laughter dry as twig, her thoughts abstracted.
“You know. Humankind found a key, trouble is we left the door open.”
Sylvie’s response is disjointed, a broken streamer hanging in limpid air.
“It wasn’t a door we left open … it was a box.”
John bites his lip. Focussed on a high plateau he watches a veil dissipate over steep corries. Doreen engages the stooped figure.
“What do you see, John?”
His throat twists with emotion.
“Beinn Eallair.”
Grey snow flakes fall soft on charred earth.
Episodes - East ToWest
By Roderick Manson
1. The Dornoch Firth's glutinous mudflats like me,
want to keep me in their naked anticipation of the incoming tide.
I turn my back on their need.
2. The inevitable road is hard and dry -
tarmacadaming the soles,
liquefying the cloth that greases my skin.
Midsummer twilight at the fire of years.
3. Alladale glimmers hospitably;
the bothy denizens, curious like wildcats,
drinking for the dawn's oblivion.
4. Spaghnum sponges cotton dark;
ptarmigan's gravelled greeting grallochs
Carn a' Choin Deirg's monolight sprawl.
5. Maze-like trencheshold the col
before the crescent lunar rampart -
a rigid highway to hidden stars
and Carn Ban's balded pate.
6. Waves ofmillenia on crazy-pavedpeat
guarding the bare flanks of corries
more vertical than height.
7. The vampire mist sinks teeth in Seana Bhraigh.
Bloodless the view from the whisky summit.
Wanton in the distant afterglow,
one coy glance from my own long past.
8.A tottering terminal glide of time
descends by fragile degrees
to the west of silence.
9. Echoes of the shepherd,
Loch Broom's saline recessional
to ancient future twilight.
Brewing up, Ardnamurchan
By James Turner
The stove whispers to itself and a sharp
Smack of meths lingers in the windless air.
Before us a world reels; islands darken
And slowly rip back from the reddening flare
Of the sun which jealous, burns
As we sit still and stare.
The pan roars quietly. Lifting the lid
You watch, willing bubbles to get bigger.
I watch your skin. Fiery light sets your cheeks
Ablaze and tiny shards of rock shimmer,
A silicate glitter caught in sweat,
Suncream and midge repellent smear.
I take the cups and let enamel cool
My palms where hot needles burn. All day black,
Smoky gabbro, petrified lava, rough,
Seamed, cracked has worn a fire of rock
Into my hands. As you pour tea
The blood red sun dies in your cheek.
It’s darker now, clothes flap in an onshore breeze
And through the haze of heather, sweat and heat
The scent of tea clears the senses. You turn,
Say nothing, but gaze ‘til our eyes must meet.
