The ganger turned towards the men, waving one arm to bring them near. “Listen, all of you. Try to take a turn round No1 and No2 but don’t go in. Put out anything burning close to the houses.” He noticed that Ruairidh, George and Blue continued to carry small rucksacks on their backs.
Through the noise of the fire the ganger briefly recognised the growl of a motor cycle heading to a safer location. He turned his head to the sound and realised that his eyes were streaming freely. The wetness dried on his cheeks and he felt his lips crack in the heat. He cursed a lack of foresight in not bringing a scarf.
Through the roaring of fire, someone was screaming in agony, the sound seeming to come from the vicinity of the water tanks. ‘It’s not one of my lot’ was his instinctive reaction. He remained detached, plodding around No1 and No2 with his face set against the heat, able to maintain his focus on the group at these two foremost bothies.
From an office window, Iain stared rigidly at the area of housing several hundred metres distant where he caught glimpses of men swept by black smoke, the forest beyond a sheet of red flame. Behind him, the logistics ganger spoke calmly into a telephone; “…the fire is already established in the wood here. Three hours ago Euan Mackinnon calculated it had a front of two kilometres, over a mile, and widening. It started some time in the early hours, near Polloch, at Loch Shiel.
Nobody would have seen it. There isn’t an inhabited house for miles on either side of the loch…no, that’s a holiday house…nobody at home yet. One of our boys reported the fire. He had difficulty driving past. The fire was already beginning to block the road that runs beside the loch. That was in the early hours of the morning…”
He continued to describe the situation to the chief forester at Oban. “The fire has reached the wood beside the houses. Mackinnon is with the men just now, trying to stop the bothies from going up. It looks hellish there.”
Iain said tightly, “Somebody is hurt. I can see a man being carried down the road.”
“We have a casualty. I’ll need to go.” The ganger cut the call and dialled a number from a list on the desk in front of him.
“Doctor Wilson? This is Polloch. You know about the fire?…We have a casualty, they’re bringing him in. Can’t give you any details yet, but can you come in a hurry? It’s bad here, might be more people hurt. They are trying to save the bothies.”
The ganger replaced the phone with a “That’s okay, Doctor Wilson, I’ll phone Belford for an ambulance.” The doctor, constantly railing against the Commission because of delays in their adoption of safety techniques, was popular with their employees. “Testosterone rules in the wood. The men even talk balls,” Wilson had once said at a local meeting.
The ganger read the hospital number from his emergencies list next the telephone. The ambulance would leave immediately; its journey would take approximately one hour. There was a noise of someone stumbling outside. The ganger rushed to hold open the door.
One of the woodsmen, a towering figure, backed clumsily into the office supporting the upper torso of a slumped body whose hair and once blue cotton shirtfront both smoked. A second woodsman followed holding the casualty’s feet. Panting with exertion, they lowered the unconscious man. A sour smell of burning cloth arose.
“Must have got caught in a flare up at the water tank,” the massive man gasped, bending forward, hands on hips, “young Archie pulled him out.” Sweat ran down his scarlet face and dripped on the floor.
The ganger filled a jug with tap water and knelt to empty it carefully over the supine figure, saturating the charred shirt. He handed up the plastic beaker to Iain who refilled it. Further jugfuls were slowly poured on the burnt head, like a baptism.
“Doctor Wilson is coming,” the kneeling ganger said over one shoulder. The woodsmen looked at each other then went outside and began to walk steadily back towards the row of bothies, the furthest now only glimpsed through sweeps of smoke.
At the bothies, Robbie distinguished Silas among a group advancing with beaters into the thickening shroud at the two furthest houses. He shouted to them but whether unhearing or unheeding they disappeared from view. Cursing, the ganger followed them into darkness.
As Roland tried to enter the last bothy, melted bitumen began to drip then spouted from the guttering. Only the swift reaction of Silas in wrenching Roland backwards saved him from being doused. Both men abandoned No1 and retreated to No2 where Ruairidh and George had already found downstairs quarters to be alight. Still gripping their useless beaters, they recoiled from the buildings and fell back to the road. Robbie shouted to the men, waving at them all to withdraw.
The intensity of heat had driven the men off. The bothies were now only intermittently visible in drifting smoke, and a cracking of window glass could be heard through the roaring of fire.