That Monday saw the continued clearing of thick vegetation around the periphery of Strontian to discourage intrusions of fire at the gardens and outhouses of scattered cottages, once individual hamlets but now on the boundary of the expanded village. These were seen to be at some risk in the event, albeit unlikely, of strong winds accompanying the fire.
The day had a brassy quality with little balls of cloud white in blue sky. Sunshine flashed on the waters of Loch Sunart and brightened the wild landscape beyond its shores. North and east of north, the prospect was overshadowed by a familiar darkness and the atmosphere held a biting tang of woodsmoke.
Groups of men were building the firebreak which when completed would run for two kilometres along the forest edge to the northeast of Strontian. A buzzing whine of chainsaws rose and fell. Caterpillar tracked vehicles crawled over rough terrain. Personnel carriers in dark Commission green bounced noisily along country lanes. There was much bustle and urgency, reassuring a few of the local inhabitants and puzzling the remainder who did not consider the threat from forest fire sufficiently acute to justify this level of muscle flexing.
A significant difference to the previous controlled burn at a firebreak was created by the arrival of two water tankers with attached hoses. A broad track, able to be negotiated by the tankers, was being advanced along the entire length of the firebreak. Revetments were being constructed along its length using felled spruce. When the fire arrived, this track would be constantly foot-patrolled by both professional firemen and auxiliaries to ensure that the blaze died at the forest fringe.
The sun beat down upon a squad working in typical labouring pairs; Noel and Alex, Guy and Roland, Ruairidh and Blue, Silas and George. Young Iain, who accompanied Robbie as the ganger’s aide-de-camp, continued to be the only squad member unaware of Silas’ confession of fire raising. His withdrawal to the ganger’s side served to confirm his solitary status as a local amongst outsiders.
The weekend had given them time. Experiences of the fire had fortified them, and they wore the dogged assurance of men who have been tried, tested, and found in themselves a bedrock. They were further bound by secrecy over Silas, the arsonist in their midst. Death was an outcome of corporate greed, from careless filming. So entrenched in society had the profit motive become that such deaths were legalised as ‘misadventure’.
So each of the eight thought, quite independently of his fellows. Having diverged from career paths, here was a unifying of their apostasy. Aware that they were ‘outsiders’, and therefore vulnerable, they kept their own council. In the quiet, an unspoken covenant joined them closer.
Each squad member rationalised his silence. They were of an educated middle class, convinced of double standards in the conduct of society’s interweave of politics and business. Corporate enterprise would always turn a ‘holier than thou’ fury on individuals whose transgressions were exposed, the unforgiving righteousness of the Right being trumpeted in the guise of ‘public opinion’. So they shielded Silas, and Silas, grateful for a comradeship he had never before experienced, agonised over their complicity.
As they awkwardly edged towards a trailer to load a heavy length of cut timber, Silas broke silence, “George, what do you think? Should I go to the police, or to Euan Mackinnon, maybe?” They released in unison and the timber thudded on flat boards of the trailer.
“You crazy, man? They’ll fucking string you up,” George responded.
Elsewhere, Alex clumsily sought to help his friend. “Noel,” he asked as they loaded cuttings of scrub on a trailer, “what was your take on what happened at the farm? The helicopter involvement, I mean. From your experience with the Queen’s Own Royal Savages or whatever regiment you were in.”
“Not now Alex,” Noel frowned. “I don’t want to talk about all that. What happened, happened. It wasn’t Silas, it was bloody bad luck. A helicopter jockey got too close. He couldn’t have known there were men just below him. Wouldn’t have seen them in the smoke.”
“So it was down to bad luck,” Alex’s scratched his scalp where scorched skin continued to itch.
“Yes, bloody bad luck,” Noel said. “Now for Christ’s sake, Alex, let it go, leave it at that,” and withdrew into the physical effort of pitching broken branches on to a flat rig already piled high with brash. “Just bloody bad luck,” he repeated.
Guy and Roland appeared and deposited armfuls of rubbish in the trailer. They walked back to heaps of sneddings from spruce felled and stripped, ready to take place in the revetment.
“This is a complete waste of time,” Guy said disgustedly. “Why not dump these branches in among the trees and let them burn when the fire arrives, instead of loading them on to that trailer and driving them off to a newly created rubbish heap. What we are doing is senseless.”
“I get the feeling that all of this is a waste of time,” Roland said. “Maybe these macho firemen don’t get much opportunity to show themselves off, the poor dears.” He broke off as a set of biceps crossed the track in front of him. “My God, look at his tattoos,” he put a hand to his mouth with a theatrical flourish, “almost as interesting as yours.”
“Twenty five quids worth down Camden Town. Amateur rubbish,” Guy grunted. “Mine happen to be artistic gems.”
“I wish I had saved my sketches,” Roland said suddenly. “They were the best I had ever done.”
“I hated these damn drawings, the time you spent with them,” Guy said. “I’m ashamed to admit it.”
“Silly old Guy,” Roland looked at him affectionately.
Robbie patrolled the track, young Iain self-consciously ambling behind. Throughout the previous week, the ganger had encouraged and praised while showing no disfavour to Silas, the suspected fire raiser. This had been extraordinarily difficult for the stocky ex-sergeant despite finding no sign of guilt in the reserved man. He watched Silas work a sickle to clear tangles of bramble. The curved blade caught sunlight and flashed. There was a crackling of dry stalks being broken and trampled.
“Bastard,” the ganger said, sure of his man’s guilt and forgetful of young Iain dogging his every footstep.
“Sorry, Robbie?” Iain’s face had suddenly reddened.
“Nothing Iain, it’s nothing at all,” the ganger said quickly, continuing to stare.
The teenager followed the ganger’s gaze and found that he was observing Silas thrash at a mess of prickly growth while George, his hands gloved, carefully dragged cut lengths of hawthorn towards the waiting trailer.