News of tragedy had reached the Commission men at the firebreak and there was an involuntary pause to all activities. In an atmosphere become grainy with precipitate from a greyness overhead, men shook their heads and talked in sombre tones. The hiatus was brief. Within ten minutes the sound and acrid taste of the coming inferno had them once again bent to their task.
Little more than a kilometre from the smoking shell of farmhouse, forest fire was lapping at a gradual slope that rose towards the roadside above and the fauna of the area was retreating en masse before it. Men who had restarted their work in heat and smoke at the firebreak soon paid no heed to red and roe deer bounding across the road, nor did they cease toiling at the rare sight of a viper slithering past. Squirrels, badgers, field mice and contingents of other small creatures were constantly to be seen and when perspiring men recognised fleeing pine marten and wildcat, they fingered sweat from their eyes and continued to work.
Mackinnon received instructions from Rattray on his field telephone. He was preparing to redeploy all remaining men in the Kingussie contingent, when a request came to reinforce those at the plantation, if men could be spared. The fire around the farmhouse, gorged on tangled woodland, was losing energy. There was an overwhelming desire to be re-united with the lost men, to bring their bodies out.
Kingussie men gathered together at the firebreak and were transported in an angry silence to the field outside the burning plantation. A grim faced Rattray spoke to them before they joined the others beginning to dampen smouldering larch hanging over the track. Behind this group, men stood amongst flashing blue lights of vehicles, waiting to enter the boscage.
A bulldozer tracked along the minor road and detoured around stationary ambulances and Commission vehicles. It took a menacing stance closely behind men clearing charred and smoking timber.
The fire continued its advance through dense forest and smoke drifted over fields. A brassy sun shone and emasculated rotating blue lights on top of ambulances and police vehicles.